I Want That Mountain!

I Want That Mountain!

by | Sep 8, 2014 | Warriors of the Way

PictureMt. Everest from Base Camp


Today, Chomolungma, known around the world as Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world,  is regularly climbed due to the availability of modern equipment and our cumulative knowledge regarding  its possible climbing routes.   But throughout most of human history, the  29,029 ft.  (8,848 m.) giant – along with several huge neighboring peaks – remained unconquered. 

It was only after attempts by many others  that the dedicated, unrelenting attack of New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and his Tibetan guide, Tenzing Norgay, resulted in the mountain finally being summited in 1953. A humble and unassuming man, Hillary’s name lives on – and always will – among slayers of giant mountains.


Thousands of years ago another climber and giant slayer, an old man of 85, exhibited the same  kind of unquenchable desire to conquer a mountain region that had proven unconquerable well after ancient Israel entered the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua.   Notice the story:

Then the people of Judah came to Joshua… And Caleb the son of Jephunneh …said to him … “I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart … And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.’ And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses … I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country [“give me this mountain” KJV] of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said” (Joshua 14:6-12).

Not only had Caleb served fearlessly as a spy in his youth, but now after many years – at age 85 – he still remained fearless and full of desire to accomplish the goal he could see set before him.  And it was a daunting goal – not only to take over the rugged hill country area, but also to displace the giant Anakim who lived there. Although he insisted he was still physically able to do the job in his old age, he exhibited humility in stressing that “It may be that the Lord will be with me” (vs. 12) and that it would be by God’s help that he would triumph.  Seeing Caleb’s determination, Joshua blessed him, and he gave him permission to take the mountain area for which he asked. And we learn that  Caleb was, in fact, successful in his attempt to claim the unconquered mountain (Joshua 14:14).

Our goals may not always seem as tangible as climbing the world’s highest mountain or conquering Caleb’s mountain of giants, yet God has given us an even higher  goal – a greater height to climb.  What matters is that we go after our goal with the same determination that won those great heights of history.  We, like Caleb, will be empowered to reach the goal if we stick with it, but – again like Caleb – no matter how long we live,  we must never forget that we want that mountain.
Which Side Are You On?

Which Side Are You On?

by | Sep 4, 2014 | Bible Study

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“We see so much more when we are willing to change our point of view.”

Reading an email,  letter or other message is psychologically simple – we know that someone is addressing us and we “hear” the words of the message as though the person were speaking directly to us. But there is an interesting psychological phenomenon that occurs when we read anything written in the “third person.”  Whether it is a novel,  a story, a news report or even much of the Bible itself, our minds change gear and we look at the story from a different perspective. 

Just as ancient Greek plays had a protagonist (the hero) and one or more “antagonists” – those with whom the hero interacts or struggles – third person writing engages the mind in such a way that, without thinking about it, we automatically “identify with the hero.”  In reading this type of writing it is not that we see ourselves as the hero so much as we accept the hero’s cause, we see things from his or her perspective and what the hero says to others usually carries our approval – we are thoroughly on the hero’s side.

What does this have to do with Bible reading and study?  When we read a biblical story – for example, a description of one of the prophets delivering a message to ancient Israel – it’s easy to identify ourselves with the speaker and agree with his message,  but do we identify with those to whom the message was sent? Ultimately, the depth of our understanding of much of the Bible – and our ability to be moved by it – lies in putting ourselves in the place of the original hearers, not the speakers.  Does Paul write to the Corinthians? Put yourself in the place of the Corinthians – how does what Paul says apply to you personally?  It’s as we think over and  meditate on what the message of the Bible says to its recipients that it can have an impact on us. 

Naturally, when we read the psalms of David or other prayers and hymns in the Bible we can identify with the speaker and it is often helpful to do so, but in those cases it is not “third person” literature – it is more like when we pray or write to someone. But in the case of biblical stories and narratives we need to remember which side of the events we should picture ourselves on, otherwise we are just reading a story.

It’s the simplest principle to apply, but in most cases we shouldn’t identify with our biblical heroes nearly so much as we should strive to identify with those to whom our heroes spoke.
Beyond Elysium

Beyond Elysium

by | Aug 31, 2014 | Popular Culture

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The 2013 American science fiction film Elysium, starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, creates the world of 2154 in which Earth has become ravaged and slum-like, and the rich go off-planet to live in Elysium, a space station-like perfect environment named after the blissful afterlife region of the ancient Greeks.  Separated from Earth, Elysium is a paradise of pleasures and, through scientific advances, its wealthy inhabitants are healed of all sickness and disease and are essentially able to live forever.

It’s sad that for many who do not understand Christianity, the popular Christian idea of going to heaven is very much like the fictional Elysium – a place or time where the privileged go and live blissfully while everyone else gets to live and die in misery.  An unfortunate corollary of this understanding is the feeling some have that Christians are mainly in it “for the perks” –  specifically the desire for eternal life.

Now the Bible does make it clear that Christian life leads to eventual blissful eternity, but even we ourselves can lose sight of the bigger picture if our focus is on being saved and living forever – we can come across to those who do not understand as “Elysium types.” The apostle Paul left us a clear summary of what our understanding should be in this regard.  Notice what he told his assistant, Titus, about our life in Christ: “Remind the people … he saved us … so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:3-7). 

So eternal life certainly is the Christian’s hope –  but Paul continues by showing it doesn’t stop there:   “… And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good” (Titus 3: 8).  Paul tells us here that we who trust in an outcome of life that is even better than any “Elysium” need to devote ourselves to doing good – and “doing good” means to others, not to ourselves.  Paul continues to stress this fact a few verses later:  “Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order to provide for urgent needs and not live unproductive lives” (Titus 3:14). In fact, the New International Version of the Bible titles the whole chapter of Titus 3  “Saved in order to Do Good” 

It’s a basic truth found throughout the Bible. We see it everywhere and perhaps nowhere better summarized than in the Book of Psalms: “Turn away from evil and do good; so shall you dwell forever” (Psalm 37:27 ESV).  We are called to much more than a life that turns from sin – we are called to doing good – and that’s not just the prologue, but also the purpose in this life and the next. Christianity does offer a wonderful afterlife; but we should be clear in our own minds, and in sharing the truth, that true religion involves not just “getting saved,” but also doing good wherever we can. “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27).  True religion is turning from sin and actively doing good. Real religion isn’t just an entrance requirement for Elysium – it goes far beyond that.

* For more on this subject, see also the blog post “Why Were You Called?” here on our sister site, LivingWithFaith.org.
What Forgiving and Forgetting Really Means

What Forgiving and Forgetting Really Means

by | Aug 28, 2014 | Forgiveness, Strategic Notes

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We all know the wisdom of the old saying that we should “forgive and forget” and although that exact phrase does not appear in the Bible, it does summarize Biblical principles of forgiveness. 

There are, of course, many scriptures telling us that we should forgive others when they harm us in some way (see, for example, Matthew 6:14, and Ephesians 4:32), but what about the “forget” part of the equation?

There is also clear biblical evidence that we should forget as well as forgive if we are to imitate God. Notice both aspects of forgiveness in this scripture which appears in both the Old and the New Testaments:  “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34 and Hebrews 8:12).

How do we apply this? It is hard enough to forgive others, but how are we to possibly forget – especially in those  situations where it seems humanly impossible to forget things done to us, perhaps truly evil things?   We should realize that psychologically, and spiritually, not forgetting  keeps old wounds open and means we may suffer endlessly from the actions of others, so we should certainly make every effort to forget – and we can ask God’s help with this, just as we might ask His help to forgive. But I have known people who have been hurt by others so badly that despite their best efforts and sincere prayer, forgetting seems impossible. Such people may say “I have forgiven them, but I just can’t forget what they did.”

The answer to these situations where it seems impossible to “forget” –  despite our full desire to forgive – is that we must understand what the Bible means by “remember their sins no more.”   In Biblical Hebrew, the word zakhar  which we translate “remember” has a broader meaning  than just “remember” in the sense of “not forgetting.”  Zakhar also includes the results of remembering – the actions we do as a result of remembering.  It is in this sense that the Bible tells us God “remembered” Noah after the Flood (Genesis 8:1) or God “remembered” Abraham (Genesis 19:29). In cases like these examples the Bible tells us not that God suddenly thought about His servants whom He had forgotten for a while – it tells us that in “remembering” them God did something about them – causing the flood to recede on the one hand, or rescuing Lot as Abraham had asked on the other.

So God doesn’t expect or require us to do the psychologically impossible.  He just requires that we don’t remember the sins of others against us in the sense of not acting on the memory – not holding the sin against them or punishing them in any way for it – just as he does not punish us when He does not remember our sins (Jeremiah 31:34).

God does require that we forgive those that sin against us, and He does require that we do not actively “remember” those sins. But in the same way, He doesn’t want us to act on “remembering” our own sins by painfully reliving them or being “haunted” by them in discouragement. God knows that it is psychologically and spiritually healthier for us to forget our own sins and the sins of others, once forgiven; but even when the memories linger despite our best efforts, He simply requires us not to act negatively on those memories.

Diversifying Investments in Life – and the Word

Diversifying Investments in Life – and the Word

by | Aug 24, 2014 | Bible Study

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The Book of Ecclesiastes is profound at many points, but it’s not exactly my first choice as an upbeat inspirational book. Solomon (presuming he was the author) tends to look at the “vanity” and meaningless aspects of life quite a bit in order to make his very valid points.

But my perception of Ecclesiastes was adjusted recently while studying the book in the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) version. I usually use the ESV or NIV in my personal study, but in this case I was reading Ecclesiastes 11 in the HCSB on the BibleGateway site which provides free access to dozens of translations. 

What particularly tweaked my interest was the title that the Holman Bible gave to this chapter.  While chapter titles are not part of the inspired word, of course, they can sometimes help summarize what the text is saying. In this case, the HCSB titles Ecclesiastes 11 “Invest in Life” and I was almost surprised, when I thought about it, at the very positive theme of the chapter.  I realized that my perceptions of  Ecclesiastes itself had led me not to expect such a positive theme to run throughout a whole chapter of the book, but the HCSB translators are correct.  Take a look at these verses from the chapter:

Ecclesiastes 11 -  Invest in Life

“Send your bread on the surface of the waters,
for after many days you may find it.
Give a portion to seven or even to eight …
In the morning sow your seed,
and at evening do not let your hand rest,
because you don’t know which will succeed,
whether one or the other,
or if both of them will be equally good.
Light is sweet, and it is pleasing for the eyes to see the sun.
Indeed, if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all …”

Certainly the chapter concludes with a sober assessment, as does the whole book of Ecclesiastes, but looking at it from the perspective of the title “Invest in Life,” I could not fail to see the “carpe diem” aspect of the chapter and its stress on using life’s opportunities. It’s a physical principle, but it applies spiritually, of course. How are we investing in spiritual life? (See the “Parable of the Ten Minas” in Luke 19:11-27.)

For example, seeing something in Ecclesiastes that I had not expected to find there made me think how often we can find  “investment returns” in unexpected places in God’s word.  Often in our personal study we tend to gravitate to those books and chapters where we know we will find encouragement or a positive message.  Ecclesiastes 11 reminded me that I need to diversify my investment in my study of God’s word  - just as the chapter reminds us we should diversify our investments in life.

(For more information on Bible translations, see our articles: “Choosing a Bible Translation” and “Try a New Translation.“)