Tag Archives: Faith

October 3, 2024 · 6:35 am

Do you want to be made well?

This is edited from a few years back. I hope it brings some peace and clarity.

5 And a certain man was there, who had been thirty-eight years in his sickness.
6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, “Do you wish to get well?”
7 The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”
8 Jesus said to him, “Arise, take up your pallet, and walk.” (John. 5:5-8 NAS)

I read this account a day or two ago and it has been on my mind since then. I don’t know if you have had that experience, where something that the Lord says grabs you and you mull it through your mind. “Do you wish to get well?”

What a question! He’d been unable to walk his whole life. Why would Jesus ask that question?

“Do you wish to get well?”

The philosophers and theologians discuss “Do you have free will?” I was trained in the Reformed tradition but the pop version of TULIP popularized by celebrity preachers who seek preeminence has erased the nuance and depth of the question. The question of will has to do with our humanity.

On the one hand, apart from regeneration, the human will is in bondage to misery and death and needs to be freed from that bondage. Luther has masterfully written of this in his classic “The Bondage of the Will”.

On the other hand, humans are gloriously and wondrously made and loved by God who sent his son to conquer death and sin and misery on the Cross. Christ the victor has destroyed the bondage of sin by his person and his work on the cross. When the stone rolled away and the life blood started flowing again in his body, death was conquered and the captives were set free.

But this is a different question than “Does a person have the ability to will and to choose, and is that choice free?”

Without free will, a human is not a human. I decide if I want to marry this woman or that woman. I decide to love or to hate and to destroy. I choose to hurt or I choose to heal, choose to smile or choose to frown. No one coerces me.

It is not my nature, nor is it the will of God, that places my will in bondage. It is sin. Luther masterfully discusses this in his classic “The Bondage of the Will” so I will not belabor that point any further.

But it is the devil who hates the image of God in me. Being in God’s image, I have the ability to choose – I am not a horse or a mule that must be led about by bit and bridle. It is the hardness of sin that makes me like that. Regeneration sets me free. (Think about Psalm 32:9).

9 Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, (Ps. 32:9 NAS)

Jesus did not come to make me a horse and a mule, to drag me like a robot and force me to behave. He came to give life and healing. He came to restore and redeem me as a human being, in the image of God.

A man like this one, unable to walk, has been severely limited in choices. He couldn’t even decide to get into the water, for he had no one to help him. He had no strength, no friends, no resources.

Which means that he had very few choices.

Jesus didn’t come to put him in further bondage. He came to set him free. The curse that is on the world took away his voice – who would care about the opinions of a poor crippled beggar? And it took away his choice. He was at the mercy of forces outside of his control.

Jesus came to restore to this man far more than simply the ability to walk. He came to restore the image of God that the curse had taken away. He came to give him back his voice and give him back his will.

“Do you wish to get well?”

“You don’t understand, Jesus. I’ve been here a long time. I don’t have anyone to put me in the pool. I can’t get to the water fast enough. Whether I want to or not, I don’t have the strength.”

“Get up and pick up your bed.” And he was healed.

After he was healed, his will was set free. He picked up his bed and he walked.

Of course, he immediately got into trouble with the Pharisees. Abusers hate when the “sinner” has the gall to speak, or to choose, or to make decisions. Their power is over when the bed is picked up. When Jesus heals, the Pharisee loses control.

And the devil never gives up his kingdom easily.

From this point on, the Jews sought to kill Jesus – because he healed on the Sabbath day – the very day that the prisoner was to be set free, according to the scripture.

“Do you want to be well?” Do you want your voice back? Do you want to be light and salt in the ugly and dark and hateful world? Do you want to know the Sabbath rest and be at peace with God and with the world?

Do you want to be free of rage and free of the ugliness that has been binding you to the ground for so long? Do you want to get up and walk?

Are you ready to fly? Do you want to soar above the petty kingdoms of this world and see where Christ is, at the right hand of God? Do you want to be free from sin? Do you want to be well, to be free of covetousness and the love of money that keeps our heads in the trough so we can’t see the sky.

Jesus didn’t come to make you a horse or a donkey. He came to set you free.

This world and the devil have assaulted your body long enough. You have been denigrated and rejected, hated and mocked and scorned. You have had your choice taken away like the ground under a plow (Psalm 129). That is the curse on this world.

But Jesus’s question is for you: Do you want to be made well?

Speak to him. Tell him how powerless you are. Speak the truth to him. Tell him about how you have tried to overcome, but cannot. The water is too far away, and you are too weak. You have no resources. Your will is bound. Your strength is gone. You are helpless and without hope.

Tell him how long it has been.

He didn’t come for those who think they see. He didn’t come for those who think they walk. He didn’t come for the rich or the powerful or the entitled. He didn’t come for the ones on the top.

He came for the hungry, the oppressed, the afflicted, the widow, the orphan. Those that don’t have the strength to get to the water.

He came for those who have had their choice and their voice taken away. And he wants to hear you. He wants you to be the beautiful, strong, wise, and righteous one that he created you to be.

So here’s the question for you: “Do you want to be made well?”

No one who has come to him for mercy and freedom has ever been turned aside. But as a masterful physician delicately and patiently removes a cancer, so Jesus is patient. Directing, guiding, listening and setting us free.

It isn’t the work of a moment, for then we would be as stumps and stones – programmed robots.

It is the work of a lifetime which will be completed only when we see him face to face. And what a glorious day that will be!

So be patient with yourself and with one another. Practice kindness and generosity. You are not going to cure anyone by telling them what their problems are. They are aware of them far more than you are.

The cancer patient needs an excellent surgeon. And the sinner needs a savior.

Show the compassionate Savior, the Great Physician, in everything you do.

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September 19, 2024 · 5:50 pm

The amazing, astounding, infinite love of God

17…that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Eph 3:17–19.

Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. (Anna Bartlett Warner)

There are two ways of thinking about God.

The first way is “transactional”. This is the way of Cain. The way of Esau. This is the error that Israel fell into over and over.

It is the thinking of the slave: “If I do things right, I’ll get what I deserve. If I mess up, I’ll get beaten.”

God hates it, because it is a denial of who he is. It makes him into a petty pagan god, dishing out favors to the right kind of people.

And we read all of scripture through those lenses.

“If only those people had made better choices”, we say to ourselves, “better things would have happened to them.”

We do this because we are terrified of bad things happening to us. And ultimately we only trust ourselves to make the choices to protect ourselves.

We will shelter our kids.

We will build bigger barns.

We will eat right and exercise.

We will make right choices.

There isn’t anything wrong with those, except this – we don’t really trust that God loves us and will take care of us as he has promised. So we need a backup plan. That would be my own strength and ability.

After all, we say, “The only one I can really trust is me”

But this is not the God we serve.

The second way is the way of love, a God who seeks and saves, a redeemer who loves us so much more than we can possibly imagine. It is the way that we can only see when God finds us wandering and alone and scared.

Look at Israel. God delivered Israel from their bondage – but they refused to embrace that love, because it required trust. So they made gods that they thought they could control.

If they had the control, then they could protect themselves from enemies, from hunger, from thirst, from wild animals.

And God said, “I will never leave you or forsake you. I will lead you to quiet waters. Be still, and see the salvation of YHWH.”

But they would not. “What if God doesn’t come through?”

And that same error is made by so many. 

If I mess up, God will curse me. If our country messes up, God will curse it.

We have to get rid of sinners, aliens, lay-abouts, single welfare moms. immoral people. Paul calls this way of thinking “the flesh”, because it is natural to human nature.

We have to work hard and take hard stances…Because deep down they view God as an angry, harsh, taskmaster waiting for us to step out of line so he can gleefully cast us into hell.

Popular celebrity preachers take great joy in talking about how happy God is to rid the earth of people like us.

But the flesh always has the same result”

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Gal 5:19–21.

It is why we continue to read of the immorality and betrayal of the preachers of the flesh. Do better things, and God will bless you.

But there is no power there. There is no power to change the heart in the law. The power of the flesh always results in tyranny and oppression, as Paul attests.

But scripture says this”

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (Jn 3:16–17).

I was taught to have contempt for this verse. I heard far more sermons on how God can’t mean “everyone in the world” then I heard about the love of God. That is sad.

But Paul’s prayer for his friends in Ephesus was that they might know the amazing, astounding love of God –  so fierce, so powerful, so unyielding, that it has no conditions, for Jesus paid them all already.

So that we can rest. I mean, truly, truly rest.

We no longer have to live in fear and hate. We no longer have to fear that we might pray wrong, and have God zap us.

We no longer have to fear that we might screw up, and God will say, “See. I told you Sam was no good.”

I have spent too much of my time worried that I might get something wrong. So I memorized the answers I was supposed to have.

I parroted the things I was taught, afraid of stepping out of line.

We were afraid that if we raised our kids wrong, or if they read the wrong books or listened to the wrong music, that they would step out of God’s love.

And we forgot the astounding, amazing, infinite love of God.

Read Paul’s letters. Is it actually possible to think too highly of God’s love?

But you can only see it when you reach rock bottom. You can only see it when you are afraid, fleeing, lonely, broken, sinful.

Until then, you think that you deserved God’s love somehow. Unlike those gay fellers. Or those Haitians. Or those women. Or those hippies.

Sure, God can love them too – but only if they cut their hair, learn our ways, learn our language, quit being gay…

And if they don’t, then God will gleefully rid the earth of them so that people like me can  live without being bothered by the likes of them.

If you think this through carefully, you will finally understand the rage of Cain and what caused him to kill Abel. How can God accept that guy?

Or the rage of the Pharisees against Jesus. “How can Messiah eat with those loose women? those tax collectors?”

And then you say, “But Jesus didn’t leave them that way. He changed them… he confronted them”

But the truth is that Jesus loved them before the foundation of the world. His love made them lovers, and he sought his bride and is bringing her home.

It was not the law that made them lovers. It was love. Finally someone who got them, who listened, who loved them as they were, who heard everything about them and still loved them.

“We love him, because he first loved us”.”

And we will always, always, always feel ourselves unworthy of that love. We will always feel that we don’t deserve it. That we didn’t earn it, that we aren’t good enough.

And that is the nature of love. All of that is true.

He didn’t say, “If you do the right things, I will show you my love.”

He says “I came to seek and to save that which was lost.”

That’s you.

That’s me.

And he has found us. And every day he says to his bride (That’s you, if you didn’t get that),

Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the young women. Song of Solomon 2:2

And his bride responds – (again, that is you, if you didn’t get that):

Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. Song of Solomon 2:3

Sit in his shade. He is the God of Manna. He provides all that we need, because he loves us, not because we earned it. He is returning us to Eden, with the trees laden with fruit that line both sides of the river of life!

Stop thinking like a slave, and think like a child.

O the deep, deep love of Jesus!

Every day in eternity you will meditate and know and feel the love of Christ and never exhaust it!

He loves us. He delights in us. He takes joy in us. He sings over us. He makes us beautiful because he clothes us in his garments and washes us by his blood and spirit.

And he crowns us with jewels and gold and precious stones, far greater than anything we can imagine.

But, “The bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegrooms face. I will not gaze at glory, but on my king of grace.”

This is love. This is the vast, unmeasured, boundless, inexhaustible sea of love.

Don’t turn that into a petty pagan god, issuing crumbs from his stingy fingers as long as we perform right.

Instead, rest in his love.

 

 

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April 26, 2024 · 6:20 am

The “Billy Graham Rule” revised

A while back, I wrote a blog to correct the misinterpretation of 1 Thessalonians 5:22. You can find it here. I am certainly aware that in terms of the age of internet news, Mike Pence and the Billy Graham rule are the equivalent of 200 years ago, but I can’t seem to let bad theology go, especially when it harms the sheep.

I also know that most readers skim, so please – before you skim, read this paragraph: I have nothing against Mike Pence and his apparent love for his wife and his desire to protect himself as a famous politician with a great deal of power. It seems like a wise thing to do, given his position in our country. So PLEASE don’t think that this post is about that. Also, I don’t know anything about Billy Graham or his rule, having never read his biography. How Billy Graham does things rarely enters my mind.

What this post is about is the bad theology that has surfaced in the aftermath of the discussion. I find it concerning and harmful.

The whole discussion seems to center around whether or not a pastor should be alone with a woman who is a member of his congregation. Apparently, the only danger is if the woman is attractive, because that seems to be the word attached to “young woman” every time she is spoken of.

I am not at all against acting in wisdom, walking circumspectly and being above reproach.

That being said, there are others who practice the so-called “Billy Graham Rule” but for reasons I reject completely. Here are some of those reasons.

First: “All it takes is one accusation to ruin a ministry.” This might be true, but are not our calling and reputation in the hands of God? It seems to me that our calling is to be faithful stewards and submit ourselves to the sovereign hand of God, doing what we are commanded to do and leaving the rest in His hands. We are simply farmhands in God’s field, workers in God’s vineyard. It isn’t our ministry to begin with.

I also can’t think of one example where someone’s ministry was ruined by one false accusation. Every one of the “destroyed ministries” that I can think of were destroyed because of accusations that were backed up with stacks of evidence, multiple witnesses, over many, many years. When it comes to famous celebrity pastors, one accusation is almost never believed. It usually takes mountains and evidence and years and years of time. Even then, the celebrity pastor generally just goes away for a few months and then starts again. So it is a false objection to begin with.

But suppose it is true, and a reputation is destroyed because a pastor met alone with a woman who was a sinner. Isn’t that exactly what Jesus did?

Jesus “made himself of no reputation” when he saved us from our sins. The Bible tells us that this way of thinking is to be also in us (Phil. 2:5-12). Meditate on these verses for a while. Jesus, in order to save us from our sins, allowed himself to be viewed and treated as a sinner. He despised the shame of the cross, so great was his love for us. He came down from the glory of heaven and sunk right into our filth and mire and corruption in order to save our stinking rotten corpses. He healed our sicknesses and did it on the Sabbath day, knowing that it would “ruin his reputation”. In fact, this is specifically why they hated him.

I honestly cannot fathom why a Christian would not help one in need for fear that someone might ruin the reputation of his ministry. If this is your thinking, then the ministry that you have is truly yours, for it bears no resemblance to the ministry of Christ. Would it not be more pleasing to God to bear joyfully the reproach of Christ while helping those who need you?

This is the point of the account of the Good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite were on their way to Jerusalem when they saw the broken and bloodied man. They had no idea if he were dead or not. If they helped, and he turned out to be dead, they would have been defiled for touching a dead body. If they were defiled, they would have been unable to fulfill their ministry in Jerusalem. So they protected their ministry, and “passed by on the other side.” Their ministry was more important to them than the life of a man.

The Good Samaritan was already ceremonially defiled, being a Samaritan, so he had nothing to lose.

And Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” We are  to consider ourselves already defiled, so that we might love others as Christ loved the church. Take up your cross with him; despise the shame. Make yourself of no reputation. “Let this mind be in you, that was also in Christ Jesus.”

Perhaps it is time that we start thinking about love, rather than reputation.

Second: “You need to be aware of the temptations of the flesh and put no confidence in it. You never know what will happen if you allow yourself to get too close.”

Really? Think about this one for a while. This one is so common it’s frightening. It’s almost as if fornication is like the flu, and you accidently catch it if you happen to be close to a woman. “Here I was, minding my own business, when all of the sudden! BLAM! I caught adultery. I couldn’t help it. Her knees were exposed.”

Sorry, guys. This one is on you. Pastors who commit adultery commit adultery because they want to. They take one step after another because they want to.

They start by complaining about how their wives never understood them. Because they want to.

They let a church member linger in their thoughts, and dance through their fantasies. Because they want to.

They hold hands a little too long, hug just a little extra, and let their imaginations flit. Because they want to.

Then it progresses to trying to find time alone – and here they use the excuse of pastoral counseling. “I’m just ministering to her.”

Now, at this point please use discernment and follow me. Elders and wives, if the pastor is insisting on counseling a particular women alone in a closed study, there’s a reason for it and it usually isn’t a good one. It is perhaps wise at this point to ask some questions. BUT the problem is the HEART, NOT because he was left alone with a woman. We have to get that straight.

The reason that we have to get it straight is because the Bible insists on it. Sanctification does not come because we have hedged ourselves about with extra rules. Sanctification is the work of the Spirit in the heart which comes through the gospel, not the law. You can make a rule about pastors counseling alone in their studies after hours, and maybe you should to protect your sheep, but the rule will never change the man’s heart!

39 “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; (John 5:39 NAS)

The Pharisees searched the scriptures looking for rules that would fix whatever problem they were having, and they missed Christ. When we search for rules to protect us from catching adultery, we also miss Christ.

Adultery begins in the heart: in the will, and the reasoning, and the emotions and the desires. It starts with the idolatry that we were born with and progresses from there. We say in our hearts, “I will be as God and everyone will serve me.” This is what must be put to death. And the only way to deal with it is on your knees in confession, putting to death the old man with the lusts thereof and making alive the new man. And this can only come through the gospel. It only comes through Christ. You must be born again by the Spirit of God.

Finally, and this to me is the biggest problem. If you make the rule about never being alone with a woman because you are afraid of “catching adultery”, then your view of women is devilish and wicked, and you must repent of it. It is the same reason that non-Christian religions try to avoid fornication by covering up a woman from head to toe. It’s wicked, oppressive and wrong.

Let me explain. According to Scripture, a woman is a child of God, a firstborn son (Gal. 3:28-4:7), the image of God (Gen. 1:27), fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), with gifts and abilities and personhood, filled with the Spirit, and thus the Temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).

The devil hates that and seeks to destroy it. One very effective weapon is through sexual assault, domestic abuse, rape and sexual harassment. The effects of sexual assault are that a woman is “reduced” in her mind and in the mind of the assailant, to a body to be despised and used and discarded.

And now she comes to the pastor for help and she is told that she can’t meet alone because the pastor might “catch adultery” from her.

To say that you won’t meet with her because you need to guard the heart is to confirm her worst fears: There is something wrong with her. She’s just a body to be gawked at and used. She has no worth other than sexually. She has to cover herself up and take responsibility for the pastor’s corruption. And this is the message that she is receiving from her pastor. It breaks my heart.

We should be restoring her to the image of God in Christ, giving her back her voice, her dignity, her worth. We should be talking to her as a whole person, in whom dwells the Holy Spirit of God. But instead, we are worrying about “catching adultery.”

25 percent of your congregation has been sexually assaulted. And this is how we respond. We may have a problem in our churches.

Perhaps I overreact. But I don’t know what else to think when I read comments that say, “So you would meet alone with an attractive woman in your study? Isn’t this an appearance of evil?”

I don’t know how else to take it. Let’s break it down. “Attractiveness” is apparently determined by the pastor. The fear is apparently that this woman would arouse so much lust in the pastor against his will that he will be unable to control himself. So really, it would be her fault – and his, by implication, for not hedging himself about with anti-adultery rules. If they get too close for too long, BAM – he catches adultery.

This rule also applies if she is in the car with him, walking down the sidewalk, or wearing a skirt a little too short. The solution, then, is burkas and isolation…wait a minute…

Do you see where this leads?

I believe that the Bible teaches another way. When we cast off the old man and put on the new, we start to learn to love our neighbor – men and women alike. This means that we MUST repent and flee from our fleshly tendency to view others as objects designed to give us what we want. Through the gospel, we are to reach out to humans AS HUMANS, made in God’s image. We must learn to see our sisters in Christ as sisters (1 Tim. 5:2), with thoughts, longings, dreams, hopes, fears. They also long for the marriage supper of the lamb. They also long to be closer to God. They long to be healed, just as we all do.

They long for a name, for significance and worth, for dignity – because they are in God’s image. We as Christians should begin to see one another as fellow-pilgrims, not as objects to be used and discarded. Cross the road and help the one in the ditch. Bear the reproach of Christ with joy.

Adultery starts when we reduce women to objects of possession, a collection of body parts, rather than sisters in Christ. This is where repentance must take place.

Please don’t use Joseph and Potiphar’s wife as an example. Joseph fled from her, not because he was afraid of “catching adultery”, but because he was a slave with no rights and was being sexually assaulted by someone in power.

We will never be effective pastors as long as we are afraid of the women in the congregation. When Paul said to have no confidence in the flesh, he meant that adding rules to protect yourself from sin would do absolutely nothing in the war against sin. Hedging the law with stacks of rules is exactly the “flesh” that Paul had no confidence in. Read all of Philippians 3 in the context to see what I mean. Paul was the expert in all the rules. A Pharisee of the Pharisees. THIS was exactly what he learned to have no confidence in. He counted it all dung, that he might know Christ.

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February 25, 2024 · 2:49 pm

The man’s man, who pisseth against the wall

It’s a curious expression. I was brought up on the King James Version and I remember giggling to myself whenever the old and venerable preacher would read it.

I would have gotten the tar knocked out of me if I said it. But if it is in the King James, it must be godly, right?

As I got older, I realized that there wasn’t any other English translation that uses that phrase.

Then when I studied Hebrew, I realized that the King James literally translates the Hebrew there. The Word of God does indeed say, “Every man that pisses against the wall.”

I started thinking about this a week or so back. Someone shared a clip of a southern preacher bemoaning the “lack of real men”. He said that the problem in America is that men pee sitting down, unlike what the Bible says. The Bible says that real men piss against the wall.

He was serious, by the way, and there are more problems with that exegesis than can be mentioned in this blog.

But it illustrates a serious problem in the way that the modern bearded dude-bro thinks. There is a worship of manly men. An obsession with authority. A lust for manly power. Pulpits mostly focus on men being men, and many careers have been made with the shaming of “effeminate men” who pee sitting down, and manly men who piss against the wall like men are supposed to.

You all know who I am talking about. A sermon shaming effeminate men and extolling manly men will go viral, if done well. And the manly man is equated with godliness, strength, courage, and power.

The horrible sermon about “pissing against the wall” was simply pandering to the spirit of the evangelical age of Trump, I’m afraid.

But here is the problem.

“Pisseth against the wall” is used 6 times in the Old Testament – all of them in the Age of the Kings.

And each time it is used, it is used as a promise of destruction.

David said that if Abigail hadn’t intervened, not one of Nabal’s men would have been left alive. All who pisseth against the wall would have been destroyed.

And then the curse on the house of Ahab – not one of Ahab would be left. Not one who “pisseth against the wall”.

If you think about it, the preacher was right about one thing. The man who “pisseth against the wall” is the manly man. He is outside the city, protecting the perimeter. He is with the soldiers. He isn’t inside on the couches and with the women. He is outside, pissing against the wall of the city, or the fortress, or the tower.

He is Nimrod, the mighty hunter. Esau, the hairy man of the field.
He is the mighty men of David. The soldiers.

And every time they are mentioned in the scripture, the term is used as a mark of contempt. You mighty men who piss against the wall, so proud of your manly strength. Not one of you will be left when the Lord finished his work.

Your armies can’t protect you. Your strength can’t protect you. Your authority and power can’t protect you.

A careful reading of the prophets shows a very important theme: Woe to all who put their trust in armies, strength, weapons, horses – or in the modern age – guns, tanks, politics, police, armies, patriarchs, men who pee standing up.

This is not where the kingdom of God is. Never has been. Never will be.

Where you find the spirit of God is where you find love and joy, peace and longsuffering.

I mourn when I see the established church lust after war and death. I hate seeing the people of God crying out for blood.

That is not what Christianity is. The kingdom is not advanced by armies and death and destruction.

God takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.

Like any other gift, the gift of strength can and has been used for God’s glory. God uses men of war for many different reasons, and many honorable men and women have served in the armed forces. That isn’t what this is about.

What this is about is trust. The problem with the “manly man” theology in the pews is that it drives the soul from Christ.

It makes us think that with strong resolve and will power, with strength and determination, we can overcome any obstacles and defeat any enemy.

And the bible calls this “pride”. We think that sin is something that can be overcome by strength of will. We think that the armies of evil can be destroyed by manliness and courage. We think that the problem in the country are those “other people”. When I was a kid, it was the hippies. Now, apparently, it is people who pee sitting down. How he got that information is beyond my imagination. But it all boils down to pride.  And God hates it.

God resists the proud.

But he gives strength to the humble. The humble one, in Biblical thought, is the one who is afflicted, without any resources, without any strength, without any hope.’ In the ancient Hebrew, the word for “humble” can also be translated, oppressed, afflicted, crushed, poor, or desperate.

It is the opposite of the one receiving a major award and saying “I’m so humbled by this award….”

Rather, it is the one with leprosy, cast out of the city without a cure.

It is the one who is destitute, begging for scraps at the temple.

It is the woman who reaches out to touch the hem of the garment.

It is the child stripped and dragged away as a captive.

It is the old man crushed under the wagon wheels.

It is the blind beggar that is shouting, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 

It is the rich ruler whose dearly loved daughter is about to die. He is destitute and his money and position can do nothing.

In other words, the one that God resists is the one who boastfully pisseth against the wall, spits on the ground, says to himself “At least I don’t pee sitting down”.

That has nothing to do with Christ. He didn’t come for those who have strength. When we were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly.

Those who pee sitting down because their legs don’t work.

The one who is so overcome with his sin and misery that he can only cry out, “Lord have mercy”.

Remember the cry of the desperate? “Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”

This is the gospel. The church was called to give that message. To teach who Jesus is so that the desperate know who to call out to.

Whosoever calls on the name of Jesus will be saved.

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January 19, 2024 · 7:27 am

Jesus came for the desperate

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)

This is a familiar verse. But there tends to be some misunderstandings here that I would like to clarify.

Much of the modern teaching goes something like “You must accept Jesus as your savior, but you also must accept him as Lord…”

The idea is that it isn’t enough to “simply believe”, you also have to do what he says and acknowledge him as your Lord.

Although it is certainly true that if we love Jesus we will seek to do those things which please him, and it is certainly true that he, as our creator and redeemer, is our sovereign king and lord, I don’t believe that is what Paul is getting at in this passage.

Here is the whole thing in context:

Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: “The person who does these things will live by them.” But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Paul compares the message of righteousness by faith to the righteousness which comes by the law. The law is anything that teaches “If you do these things, you will live.”

The law teaches that if you do good things, you will be blessed. If you do bad things, you will be cursed. The law is woven in our being, created in our psyche, unavoidable.

It also leaves us all under the curse, for who can say that they have done enough to earn the blessing of God?

The fact is that if we are aware of our condition, we know we are in trouble. We know that God is just and that we are sinners. Our consciences plague us on our beds late at night. This is the doing of the law, whichever law you believe will give you life.

If you believe that life comes from doing the right thing, you will never rest, never be at peace, and live in fear – either of the judge coming for you, or fear that the others are going to mess up God’s blessing for your community.

So you either live in terror and despair, or you live judging others and calling down fire and brimstone on the sinners.

Paul is not contrasting the “law” with the “law”. The problem is NOT that the Jewish people of Paul’s day got the law wrong. They didn’t just need to substitute the law of Moses for the law of Jesus. Paul’s point is different.

Let’s look at the word “lord”. In the Hebrew Scriptures, we read that God gave his personal name to his people (Exodus 3). That name is unique to the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It didn’t belong to any other gods, it was the true God’s personal name. It was spelled YHWH. But we forgot how it was pronounced, because centuries before Jesus came into the world, God’s people considered the name too holy to be pronounced.

So whenever they came across that name in their readings, they substituted the Hebrew word “my lord” – adonai. Adonai means my lord, my master, my husband, my sir.

A few centuries before Jesus, scholars in Alexandria translated the Hebrew bible into Greek. It was called the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX). They followed the custom of the Jews, and every time they came across the word “YHWH” they translated it “kyrios”, which is Greek for Lord, mister, sir, owner, or master, just like adonai.

But whenever they came across adonai, they also translated it “Lord”.

When the Bible was translated into English, the translators followed the same pattern, but they used small caps for YHWH and lower case for adonai.

Look, for example, at Psalm 110:

The LORD says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

The first word is the personal name of the One True God, creator and redeemer, maker of all things visible and invisible, who redeemed Israel from Egypt.

The second word is a common title for royalty, husbands, owners, slave-masters, bosses.

Remember here that we are speaking only of the OT scriptures. You can easily tell the difference between YHWH and adonai by the way the translators have spelled it.

But when we come to the New Testament, it is a little different. The inspired writers used “kyrios” for both concepts and the only way to tell which was meant was through the context.

In our familiar passage, is Paul’s point that Jesus is our lord and master to be obeyed (as true as that is), or is his point something else?

If he means what is commonly called “lordship salvation”, then one is hard pressed to find a difference between that and the law of “do this and live”.

But look a bit further down, when Paul quotes the Hebrew scriptures. He quotes Isaiah 28 from the Septuagint, about believing in the heart, and then he quotes Joel 2.

“Whoever will call upon the name of YHWH will be saved”. The difference in the Greek text is hard to spot, but if you look up the quote in Joel it is clear. If you call on the name of YHWH you will be saved (Notice the all-caps of LORD). Paul’s point is that confessing with your mouth is the SAME concept as “Calling upon the name of the YHWH.”

The contrast is between those who seek their salvation through “doing” – “do this and live”, and those who understand their desperate need, and call out in the middle of the storm “Save me, Jesus, YHWH God, creator and sustainer of the universe who conquered death and the power of sin.”

Of course, that cry is when we are lucid. In the middle of the locust storm destroying everything (which is the context of Joel), all we can manage is “hosanna” – “Save us, we beg you”.

And now, here is the point of all of this.

If you, like me, have tried over and over again to live a better life, to love more, to cast off your fears and doubts, to flee the lusts of the flesh, and to do better – you know the agony of the spirit. The person that you long to be and the person that you are seem to be forever separated.

The body of death seems to be winning.

The “lordship salvation” purveyors want you to work harder, feel more guilty, exert more will-power, give more money, get up earlier…

But the Good News is this – Call on the name of Jesus, for he is the creator and sustainer of all, he is the giver of life, eternal and true God, who became flesh and took our grief upon himself, so he knows our pain and struggles. Call upon him. No conditions. Just call.

Jew or Greek, bond or free, male or female…just call. And you will be saved, for his name means “YHWH saves.”

(as a side note, this doctrine is continually under attack, for if Jesus is somehow lesser than YHWH, or a different God, then we are back to attempting to earn salvation by submission, which means that we are back in bondage to fear and misery. It is no coincidence that modern patriarchy and their attempt to keep women in bondage is built on “Eternal subordination.” If even the second person of the eternal trinity is subordinate to YHWH, then he is NOT YHWH (their duplicitous protestations notwithstanding), and salvation is again “do this and live”.  Many of my sisters are living this reality every day. ESS is a monstrous evil, and leads only to bondage).

YHWH is not divided. And Jesus is the One True eternal God, who with the Father and the Spirit is to be worshiped. Call upon him, and be delivered. This is the good news. He delights to hear and delights to save, if only we will call.

 

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January 1, 2024 · 7:33 am

Love to be lusted after…?

One of the reasons that I cannot identify as evangelical is their refusal to acknowledge the full image-bearing nature of women.

For the most part, the complementarian portrayal of the “godly woman” is abusive, silencing the voice of women and taking away their will, quenching the work of the Holy Spirit except through the mediation of men.

It’s horrible.

Perhaps you have heard this: “Men love to lust; women love to be lusted after”.

Sigh…where does one begin?

Sometimes a connection is obvious, sometimes it isn’t. This statement takes the beautifully varied and wonderful personalities of  women and crams them all together into a box, defined by men at their worst: lust. To say that a woman’s desires and dreams are shaped by the worst thing that we see in men turns women into “god-made sex toys” to be defined and used by men.

Ugh. We should probably think about our words.

I would even challenge the first part: “Men love to lust”. Christ-like men don’t, ladies. They struggle with it, they repent, they flee from it because they hate it. And they war against it – not by turning their weapons on the fellow image-bearers, but by prayerfully changing the way that they look at their sisters.

“View younger women as sisters, older women as mothers” Paul wrote. This is what we love and what we desire. Lust is a hated enemy.

But I digress – back to “Women love to be lusted after…”

There is a song from many years ago called “Peek a boo” by Siouxie and the Banshees. She describes the brokenness and hopelessness of a sex worker in blunt and brutal terms. There are women who make a living being “lusted after” by men, but is this the same as saying that they “love to be lusted after”?

It worries me when male pastors say things like this. Instead of seeing the pain and hopelessness of women in a situation like this, it seems to me that they are trying to quiet their consciences by convincing themselves that their own lust isn’t harming anyone, because “women love to be lusted after.”

Sin? maybe they would acknowledge that their lust is sin, but really it isn’t hurting anyone.

I think that it would be better to acknowledge the distinction between what we call “lust” and the pursuit of beauty. These two things are not the same.

Lust is exploitative, abusive, cruel, self-absorbed, demanding, devilish.

It turns our God-given desire for beauty into a consuming desire to possess and destroy that which is beautiful. The devil was a murderer and a liar from the beginning, and this is his best work. To take the created desire for union, intimacy and longing for beauty and turn it into ugly, cruel hatred.

And then to hear a pastor refuse to acknowledge the difference between the two simply crushes and destroys the woman who has been a victim of male lust her whole life.

When you strip away everything from that horrible quote, you are simply left with the rapist saying “But you liked it, didn’t you?”

I died a little inside writing that one.

Women, as image bearers of God, desire beauty. It is how we all were created. Before the fall warped and twisted everything, men and women both were created beautiful and with the longing to be seen and known.

After the fall, men and women both still want to be seen and known and acknowledged as valuable.

Unless they are among the small minority of voluntary sex workers who desire to monetize the lust of men, I have never known a woman who desires to be “lusted after”. They dress the way that they dress for all sorts of reasons: To be accepted by their peers; to fit in; to be acknowledged; to hide themselves; to be recognized as desirable…the reasons are as varied as they are for all image-bearers of God suffering from the alienation and brokenness of the fall.

But please quit saying that women love to be lusted after. It is cruel, hateful and abusive – and above all, it isn’t true.

No woman wants to be the starring show of your sick fantasies. Just sayin…

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June 25, 2023 · 4:22 pm

The Prayer of Cain

Lord, I’m disappointed.

You know how hard I’ve worked. That offering didn’t grow itself, you know.

I really wanted to try those apples when they first got ripe, but I gave them to you.

You should have been grateful.

That corn was so good. You know that was a new hybrid. I worked really hard on that. But I didn’t even get to taste it. I gave it to you.

And I didn’t give a little. I gave a lot.

Apples and grapes; olives and barley; wheat and rye.

The pomegranates were fabulous this year. Large and plump. But I didn’t taste them. And you didn’t even notice.

I keep trying to get your attention and you don’t even notice. You aren’t thankful at all.

Don’t you know that I am something? I’m a big deal around here. I lead the family worship. I give the best of my produce. I know my way around the times and seasons and sacrifices. I’m a strong leader. I know my way around winners and losers.

You should be more thankful, Lord.

I don’t like to complain, but sometimes I get the impression that you just don’t even notice me.

Don’t you know that I am something? The man from Jehovah?

Look at that guy. My idiot brother. Talk about a nobody. He’s so whiny.

He just chases those stupid sheep all day. He’s a nothing, a nobody, a loser.

He won’t take charge. He won’t stand up for himself. He won’t even look people in the eye. He just talks about promises and hope and waiting…

Not me, though. I know that if you want change you have to grab it. You have to take control, you have to be strong, manly, in charge – otherwise they’ll walk all over you.

But that Abel. What a loser. Always serving, always quiet, always waiting for something. He doesn’t even get his wife in line. He keeps talking about love. Doesn’t he know that women need a firm hand now and then?…

Really, Lord? You accepted the loser? Don’t you know that he’s nothing? Don’t you know that he has nothing to offer?

He can’t even use a weapon right. He won’t get his women in line. He won’t stand up for himself.

Everybody knows that he is a weirdo. A loser. An outcast. Vanity of vanities. He couldn’t win a fight if the other guy was already dead.

Weak. Stupid. Foolish. A nobody.

He’ll never make a name for himself. He always does the wrong things. He always says the stupidest things.

Lord, you know that I am better than that guy – but you accept HIS sacrifice and not mine?

It really isn’t fair. As hard as I have worked. It really isn’t fair.

I won’t be in heaven if his sort is there. I’ll build my own city. I’ll build my own kingdom.

No losers allowed. Only winners. Only people like me.

And, Lord, you better get on board. You don’t want people to think that you side with the losers..

You and me. We can do better than this, Lord. I’ll explain the plan to you. If you just follow along, we can take care of the losers and set this kingdom on the right path.

But first, you have to do something about Abel. He really can’t be part of the plan. He’ll mess everything up.

We can’t be successful with his kind of people around. You can ask anyone.

But that’s OK. You can fix this. I’ll be waiting for the answer.

Until then,

Amen.

 

For the uninitiated, this is a feeble attempt to expose the thinking of the religious one, without faith. It is the thinking of the Pharisee, the seed of the serpent, the idolatrous, the Tower of Babel, and the spirit of Babylon.

Thank you for visiting. 

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July 11, 2022 · 5:34 pm

You’re doing it wrong

Several months ago, a friend who is very near to me asked me this question, “Why are unbelievers generally so much kinder and friendlier than Christians?”

And I thought about it. I gave her a pretty standard mumbling about “common grace”, and I do believe that is true.

I also believe that all humans are created in God’s image and have an understanding of kindness and friendship and love. We should be thankful for that.

But I thought about it.

I know this friend. I know that he was raised in the church, quite similar to my own circles and so his concerns echoed with me. I also have found that in general the people who treated me with the most contempt, rage, anger, and dismissal have been fellow professors of Christ. I have never had an unbeliever treat me as badly as one who broke bread with me at the Lord’s Table.

Why is that? If we are to be known by our love, why is it that we are mostly known by our contempt and anger against everyone?

And once again, you can deny it. I have had many believers try to prove that they aren’t bullies by threatening me, slandering me and cutting off all contact with me for saying that they were bullies.

You know what I am talking about. If you don’t, then maybe it would help you to learn to listen to those who have left the church. So many souls have been trampled on and abused by conservative evangelicals!

So I thought about it.

I think that there are two things that are deeply engrained in our evangelical culture.

First, fear is deeply engrained.  We were raised firmly in the belief that coming into contact with the “world” would destroy us. We were taught throughout the 70s and 80s and beyond that “secular humanists” were out to take away all of our rights, persecute us, change our way of life, and destroy churches.  “Left Behind”, Youth Camps, Bill Gothard – all of them painted quite the horrifying apocalypse if the unbelievers ever get power. If “these people” get their way, we will lose everything this country stands for! We will lose our place and our nation.

It actually was for this very reason that the leaders of the Jews delivered Jesus to be crucified. They thought that if he continued, the Romans would destroy their way of life and their positions of power (John 11:47-48).

So we react with the world through fear. We are terrified of everything. Rock music, Hollywood, Disney, ABC, Starbuck coffee, Harry Potter, women getting out of control! We need to be continually steadfast and vigilant!

We act as if God is just waiting for us to let our guards down and then punish us for not being vigilant enough.

(On a side note, this is why the teaching that Adam sinned by not guarding the garden from the invasion of the serpent bothers me so much. Not only is that nowhere in the text, but it puts an impossible standard on people that no one can meet. How could Adam have been everywhere at once? Should he have built a wall? Trained his sons to be armed border patrol?)

But I digress.

God has not called us to fear. We are complete in Christ and safe in him. God is not waiting for us to mess up so he can gleefully punish us. He delights in us as dear children and nothing can ever take us out of his hand.

2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

So quit being afraid of everything. If your gay neighbors get married, it won’t damage you or your relationship with God at all. Put the pickets down. Learn to delight in people and stop being afraid of them.

So that’s the first thing.

The second problem is this one – we cannot resist the opportunity to inform someone that they are doing something wrong.

Are you grieving loss? You’re doing it wrong.

Are you trying to come to terms with your childhood? You’re doing it wrong.

Are you living in terror? You’re doing it wrong.

Are you ready to report your sexual assault? You’re doing it wrong.

Are you happy about a promotion? You’re doing it wrong.

Are you having a party to celebrate an accomplishment? You’re doing it wrong.

Are you proud of your family? Raising your children? Pregnant? Breastfeeding? Bottle feeding? educating your children? Disciplining your children?

You’re doing it wrong.

I can’t speak for everyone, but in my circles I know where this tendency comes from.

We have a long, long history of being told that only Christians are knowledgeable on every single subject. Only Christians have the TRUTH and so only Christians can rightly teach history, child-rearing, marriage and family, math, economics, healthcare – and we have found bible verses to prove it all.

We are the experts in trauma, depression, anxiety, discipline, raising children, marriage, ADHD, ADD, gender roles, constitutional law, statute law, common law, race, economics – and it is our sworn duty to explain to the whole world that YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG!

Don’t you know that “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” (Kuyper). And this, of course, gives me the right as a Christian to explain to you again in all Christian love that YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG!!

If we do not explain carefully how everything you are doing is wrong, how on earth can you possibly repent from doing it wrong? And if you don’t repent from doing it wrong, how can you expect God to bless you.

Just quit doing it wrong, do it the other way, and then you will know God’s blessing in your life and all of your problems will disappear.

And then it follows – if you don’t stop doing it wrong, we are going to have to force you somehow.

Whew. And if we miss one opportunity, then the devil gets in the garden, our wife goes out wandering, and next thing you know all hell breaks loose again.

It’s exhausting, isn’t it?

And then we discover that what we thought was right and good wasn’t Christianity at all. In fact, it wasn’t much different than any other autocratic religion.

I wonder what would happen if we just stopped…

What if we just assumed that people who are truly doing it wrong probably already know that and those that don’t are probably just different than you are and that is OK.

Or maybe it’s not OK and they really are doing it wrong.

I’m probably doing it wrong too.

I grieve wrong. I get anxious over things. I forget things. I grumble when I shouldn’t. I don’t love as I ought.

What I am doing is simply trying to make it from one day to the next day the best I can, walking in God’s love and limping along towards the heavenly city.

Or maybe Jesus is carrying me the whole way. Or maybe I’m limping.

What I know for certain is this – he won’t ever let me go, even when I do everything wrong. And he will lead me by his Spirit and gently guide me exactly where I need to go and so I can just stop.

I wonder what would happen if we just sat with the grieving?

I wonder what would happen if we just listened to the one trying to process trauma?

I wonder what would happen if we just rejoiced when our neighbor got married?

I wonder what would happen if we were proud that our friend was proud of their work and cracked a cold one with him in his garage?

I wonder what would happen if we just stopped that impulse to tell everyone that everything that they are doing is wrong?

Maybe then people wouldn’t ask, “Why are unbelievers so much kinder and gentler than believers?”

Maybe we should listen.

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February 20, 2022 · 6:05 pm

the childless woman and the miracle child

by: anonymous – guest post

I am very thankful for this guest post by a brilliant woman, a Mother in Israel, who wishes to remain anonymous.

And it happened, as He spoke these things, that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!”

But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

— Luke 11:27,28

Those tedious bits of the Old Testament, the genealogies, make a final incursion in Matthew and Luke before they disappear from the Bible (Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38). All the difficult-to-say names, often of obscure children born to obscurer parents, culminate here. They are bewildering, breaking up the narratives — but each name represents two hands gripping a promise. A promise to Eve, and later to Abraham, of a child (Genesis 3 & 15). Miraculous births, beginning with the birth of Isaac, whispered of this miraculous baby to come (Galatians 3:16); but I think Israel’s hope in the coming child is especially poignant in the book of Ruth.

Ruth begins in a time of famine — a woman loses her home and country, then her husband and sons, until finally, past childbearing years, she straggles back to Bethlehem. She has no future — no heir, no one to redeem the land heritage that used to belong to her. She has only a bereaved and childless daughter-in-law, for whom she cannot provide. When women from her hometown come out to greet Naomi, she tells them not to call her by her name, but by a name that means “bitter”: “Mara” — “I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty… the Lord has testified against me” (Ruth 1:21).

But somehow a tale that begins with flat tones of famine and a parched life ends in the rhythms of harvest — and in greetings of blessing from the same women to whom Naomi spoke of the Lord’s curse (4:14). What has taken place between the beginning and the end, that transforms the story? The same thing that took place unobtrusively in the first chapter, in the land of Judah, transforming it into a land of plenty: the Lord has “visited his people” (1:6). The form of the Lord’s visitation (as the tale winds up with a genealogy) is a child.

I can almost trace Naomi’s features through the genealogy in Matthew. The people in that list successively sinned away their blessings until they scattered in exile. They lost the Davidic monarchy, and had no one to redeem their heritage. But the lineage straggles back to Bethlehem, and culminates in a miraculous birth.

Matthew and Luke write the last biblical genealogies because the last name they record is the name of the promised child. The Lord “has visited and redeemed his people” (Luke 1:68 ).

The dilemma of the barren or childless woman disappears with the genealogies. It is associated throughout the Old Testament with the theme of the miraculous birth. Surely there were many childless women in Israel in Jesus’ day, but the gospels contain no record of anyone coming to him to lament their childlessness — though he was the place where God tabernacled with men, the place Hannah went to lament her childlessness. Perhaps women did come to him with this trouble: what else should we do with troubles? And God has a special care for the heartache of being childless (Psalm 113:9). But it has no further episode in the Bible, after Jesus comes.

Because the longing for a child in those Old Testament stories is all mixed up with the longing for this child. The joy of the miracle birth is all mixed up with this joy. Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) is like a voice carrying back through time in a hall of echoes (1 Samuel 2:1-10, Psalm 113).

When Jesus comes, we read about him interacting with women without even being told if many of them have children: we presume the singleness of several. Their lack in this area never arises between him and them. It is not something they are recorded as being disturbed with in his presence. It is a point made as unobtrusively as the visitation of the Lord which changes everything, in the opening verses of Ruth.

Jesus never took a wife, nor did he father children. Not in the Old Testament sense. But the creation mandate takes on new aspects in the second Adam, when Jesus speaks of fruitfulness for those who abide in him. This is not the fruitfulness of natural fertility, per se. Motherhood is the image of fruitfulness in that which is female (the church) to Christ; and one of the forms fruitfulness takes in individual women (1 Timothy 5:10). But the fruit of the Spirit is “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22,23).

This may and often does take the arduous and devoted form of bearing and rearing children; and it may and often does take the form of bearing eternal children. So Ann Judson had only two little ones, both of whom died very young; but she helped to share the gospel with unreached people.

Yet the fruitfulness of abiding in Jesus does not necessitate being able to bear children, or traveling to distant lands. It is more immediate and spiritual, more immanently eternal: it is Jesus’ image formed in us. His miraculous life born in us even though we were dead in sins, already erupted into our bodies with a quality of resurrection. The Lord has visited his people.

Childlessness was a reproach because it was a dead end. It was the bitterness of Naomi, cut off from her inheritance in the land; her children buried without issue, without hope of any further part in the promised one. These shadows are swallowed in substance when a child is born to us (Isaiah 9:6), and we inherit God (Psalm 16:5,6).

So even David in the Old Testament can say that the greater blessing than children is to awake in God’s likeness (Psalm 17:14,15). And the reproach in the New Testament is not for the widow who has never given birth, but for the widow who is “dead” while she “lives” — living only for what makes her feel alive in this world (1 Timothy 5:4-6). The true “dead end” is spiritual unfruitfulness: every branch that does not bear fruit is removed (John 15:2).

I have been married a couple decades now, and am unable to have children. It is doubtful if I can adopt, and I won’t credit myself as the agent of anyone’s salvation. Over the years, I have been told in general and even in particular that my childlessness is a reproach in God’s ongoing economy. I’m grateful for my church family: unless I bring it up — my childlessness never arises between them and me. That is one way my brothers and sisters are like Jesus.

After wrestling through some hard years, I have nothing but delight in other women’s joy or in their children that race around me. We all have our fair share of sorrow (it is poignant to think of the sorrow that came to Rachel, Rebekah, to Samson’s mother, to Elisabeth & Mary even after they had children). But the above truths have comforted me. And there is a further wonder, which I would have liked to share with those who told me the childless woman still stands in the church as a symbol of reproach. We no longer overhear her prayers or her praises, but the childless woman doesn’t exactly vanish from the New Testament. She is transfigured. In one of those bewildering reverses of grace, the Old Testament shadow shifts, and she becomes the symbol of a miraculous hope. It is she whose inheritance Jesus redeems. This is the woman Jesus marries (Isaiah 54:5).

—Maybe that’s the thing you stand for in your community, if you are a reader who wonders why God works in other women’s bodies but not in yours; why God hears other women’s prayers, but not yours; why you should stand there year after year overlooked, and whether you will have to die childless (& for many, husbandless). Maybe you are standing there in the midst like a symbol of more staggering hope.

The new creation mandate that Jesus gives to his bride is to go and make disciples of all the nations: it turns out that all along, the childless woman has been Eve, come again. Eve, the mother of all living. The barren one has become the mother of us all (Galatians 4:26,27). She is the church. And all her children are miracle children — born when their mother was desolate, carried to her on the shoulders of kings and queens (Isaiah 49:20-23).

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September 14, 2021 · 4:53 pm

Righteous before God

60. How art thou righteous before God?

Only by true faith in Jesus Christ; that is, although my conscience accuse me, that I have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God, and have never kept any of them, and am still prone always to all evil; yet God without any merit of mine, of mere grace, grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never committed nor had any sin, and had myself accomplished all the obedience which Christ has fulfilled for me; if only I accept such benefit with a believing heart. Heidelberg Catechism #60

The most important question anyone can ask is this one. How are you righteous before God?

If God is coming again to judge the living and the dead, and if all of the wicked will be condemned, and only the righteous can stand before his awesome throne, how can we be considered righteous?

We can’t do it ourselves. We’ve already blown it. In fact, we blew it even before we were born because of Adam’s sin in the garden.

But beyond that – our own sins. We cannot even satisfy our own consciences. How can we satisfy a holy God who sees the thoughts and intents of the heart?

Well I meant well…keep telling yourself that. You didn’t mean well.

Well I had love in my heart…no you didn’t.

The truest expression of who you actually are is what your conscience reminds you of when all the other voices are quiet.

The fact is that you don’t measure up…and you need to finally admit that before it is too late.

The righteousness that can stand before God’s awesome throne must be perfect. It must not have any flaws. No self-serving motives, but complete purity of thought, purity of motive. Perfect love flowing from a perfect heart into perfect actions.

Have you ever done one thing that fits that description?

So how can we be righteous before God.

It is called “imputation.” Every wicked act, every impure thought, every shameful interaction, every hurtful word, is kept on the books by the righteous judge. And he took them all on himself on the cross. He took your record. In the counsels of the Holy Trinity, beyond our understanding, God the Father imputed your sins to his Only Begotten Son, who took them on himself. This is a single act by the single will of God. Our sins were imputed to Jesus Christ. They were put on his record.

When you read the scripture – the gospels, the proverbs, the law – you see a perfect description of what a human being should be. The scripture gives us a glorious painting of beauty in the pinnacle of the possibility of being a good and wise person. The problem is that no one has lived up to it. (seriously. Be honest here…”)

Except for one. Jesus Christ. He had nothing that he could be accused of. His enemies found nothing to charge him with, even though they looked. His heart was laid bare before his Father in heaven, and there was nothing impure or unclean it it. Every action and every deed and every word was perfect throughout. His only thought was love for God and love for his neighbor.

He didn’t do that for himself. He did it for us. He did it so that he would create a perfect record of what a beautiful, good, wise and holy human could be…and then he put that record on our account, so that is what God sees when we stand before him on judgment day.

Our sins – nailed to his cross.

His righteousness and wisdom – put on our account.

It is finished indeed.

You can’t earn it. You can’t prove yourself worthy of it. You can’t buy it. You can’t be sorry enough for your sins to earn it.

You simply accept it with a believing heart…

But wait – the faith that receives it is not the foundation of that righteousness. It is simply the weak and trembling hand that receives it.

We aren’t even accepted because of the quality of our faith. We are accepted because of the beauty of the Savior.

I just thought you might like to know that.

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