Getting Strength Right

Getting Strength Right

by | Mar 31, 2019 | Warriors of the Way

It’s a verse that every Christian knows well: “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong”(1 Corinthians 16:13). But it’s easy to know the verse and not see it in context – and this is the kind of verse where context is everything.  To really understand Paul’s powerful statement, we must notice his very next words, where he writes: “Do everything in love.” This is actually not a separate thought, as it might appear to be in our modern Bibles where thoughts are artificially separated into numbered verses.

Looking at the context in the sixteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, we can clearly see how verses 13 and 14 really belong together – the verses before vs. 13 are about Apollos, and the verses after vs. 14 are about a different subject, the family of Stephanus. The two verses 13-14 are a single thought that Paul has in mind, and when we read the two verses together – as they should be read – we get what Paul wanted to tell us: “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.” 

But when we read the two verses together, they still sound like two separate thoughts – not because they are, but because of our flawed sense of what strength looks like.  What does strength have to do with love?  According to Paul, everything.  Paul’s thought is simply that strength and love have to operate together, because without the one, the other is incomplete. 

That may not sound like a profound concept, but it is one, nonetheless.  In our culture Christians – and especially male Christians – can often be divided into two groups: what we might call the muscular believers and the loving believers. It’s not that those who stress love can’t have muscle tone and those who stress strength can’t be loving – but that most of us simply tend to fit one of those stereotypical groups better than the other.  

Society in general forms along the same fault lines, of course:  the jocks and the nerds, the powerful and the poets, the assertive and the sensitive. But is one of these approaches to life somehow better (or more “manly”) than the other?

Consider the story of Jacob and his brother Esau (Genesis 25, 27).   Esau was an outdoorsman with hair on his chest – a hunter who liked to spend time in the wilderness. Jacob, on the other hand, was a man of the great indoors – he preferred to stay at home, liked to cook, and was clearly closer to his mother, while Esau (as you probably guessed) was his father’s favorite.  The contrast could hardly be stronger – the “rugged” man and the “milder” kind of man.  But you know what? God loved Jacob (Malachi 1:2) and chose him as the one whose name would identify the nation God wanted to build (Psalm 135:4). Clearly, God knew that being an outdoor “manly” man was not the only way to do masculinity. 

But the story doesn’t end there.  We see Jacob having to apply strength as God worked with him. Perhaps in that sense Jacob had to “toughen up,” but he wasn’t changed to a kind of “man’s man” identity – Jacob just developed a side he may have been somewhat lacking in.

When we look at the biblical record, all the “mighty men” of God exhibited or came to exhibit both sides of the strength-divide.  David is the classic example, of course. David was a gentle shepherd as well as a giant slayer, a poet and musician as well as a powerful and mighty man. The same can be said of Jesus himself. The Jesus who forcefully cleared the temple and the Jesus who wept for his friends were one and the same – the loving-tough Jesus who talked about sparrows and flowers in his parables yet was strong enough to endure great hardship (Luke 4:1-2) and to sacrifice himself for others (Hebrews 12:2).   

The balance of strength and love is something that Jesus also taught his followers. There were times when he urged his disciples to “toughen up” (Matthew 26:40), but there were other times when he showed them they needed to roll back the tough stuff – like the occasion some of them wanted to call in an air-strike on a Samaritan village that had refused Jesus hospitality (Luke 9:54).  Jesus made the point that mere insults do not call for munitions – heavenly or otherwise. He showed his followers that strength and love are both necessary: that strength must never prevent us from applying love and love need never prevent us from being strong.

Paul himself exhibited the same balance.  The apostle who suffered hardships with great strength – ranging from being repeatedly beaten to being shipwrecked three times (2 Corinthians 11:25) – was the same apostle who penned the Bible’s greatest chapter on love (1 Corinthians 13). He knew that strength and love are both needed.

And that is Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 16:13-14.  We need to learn a right balance if we do not already have it – we are called to be strong and we are called to love. We are called to let our love be expressed without weakness and our strength to be used continually in love. 

Understanding an Unwise Vow

Understanding an Unwise Vow

by | Mar 10, 2019 | Difficult Scriptures

If you have read it, you doubtless remember the story of Jephthah, the Old Testament leader (Judges 11) who vowed to sacrifice the first thing that walked out of his house when he returned home if God would grant him success in battle.  Sadly, as you know, Jephthah returned to be greeted by his daughter who happened to be the first person to come out of the house to greet him (Judges 11:31).

Reading this story, it is hard not to wonder about the apparent stupidity of Jephthah’s vow.  Why would anyone play “Russian roulette” with their family’s lives in that way? What were the chances that it would not be one of his family members who would walk out of their home?

Actually, there is a fairly simple reason why the man’s vow was perhaps more understandable. Today, many homes in the Middle East are no different from those in the rest of the world, but even now many traditional homes of poorer people living on the land have not changed in thousands of years and are essentially the same as those of the Old Testament period.

In the simple homes of the ancient Near East, the family lived in a large “living room” which was the main, and often only, room of the house. That room frequently had a sunken area at one end that functioned as a stall where the family’s livestock were brought at night to protect them.  With this living arrangement, each morning someone in the house would open the door at the animals’ end of the house – from within, of course –  and drive the animals out to freshen the air in the home while the women prepared the first meal of the day.
 
There is no reason to doubt that Jephthah’s home was any different from this basic house plan. Jephthah was not rich.  As the son of a prostitute he was scorned by his half-brothers and driven from the family home, so his own dwelling was more than likely of the poorer type.

Now, if Jephthah knew he would travel in the cool night hours (as much travel was conducted in that time), he might well have known that he would return home in the early morning about the time the animals would be driven out of the house.  Such a situation would mean, of course, that Jephthah would expect it to be one of his animals that would be the first thing to meet him, in which case his vow was perhaps not as foolish  –  at least in its intent –  as it might seem at first.

Although the conclusion of the story may indicate Jephthah’s unfortunate daughter was sacrificed (Judges 11:38), the matter may have had a better outcome.  If we look closely at Jephthah’s vow, we find that what he said was: “Whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering” (Judges 11:31, emphasis added). Notice the word “and” emphasized in this passage.  The Hebrew connective particle “v” that is translated as “and” can also mean “or.” We see this, for example, in 1 Kings 18:27: “… Perhaps he is deep in thought, OR busy, OR traveling,” where the word translated “or” is the Hebrew “v.”

This means that Jephthah’s vow should perhaps be better translated: “Whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, OR I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”   Thus, many scholars believe that Jephthah’s daughter was  “dedicated” to God in that she was made to live a life of virginity. This would agree with the end of the story which tells us that the young woman requested: “… Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry” (Judges 11:37), and that:  “After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin” (Judges 11:38).  
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But whether his daughter was dedicated or sacrificed, the fact that she was the first out of the house was clearly not a possibility Jephthah expected – as we see in the fact that on seeing her, he tore his clothes and cried out in anguish (Judges 11:35).  So Jephthah’s vow was perhaps not as blatantly foolish as it might seem at first and the result obviously unintentional, but the vow was unwise, nevertheless, and the story can remind us all of the extreme care we should utilize in making promises so that they do not end up hurting us or others.   

Learning to Do Right

Learning to Do Right

by | Feb 24, 2019 | Obedience

“Learn to do right …” (Isaiah 1:17).

Isaiah’s statement “Learn to do right” is simple enough, but it deserves looking at.  In the ancient Hebrew in which the words were written – just as in English – the word “learn” can connote learning a fact as we might do when we listen to a teacher or read a book.  But, again just as in English, “learn” can also mean to become accustomed to something or to practice it – just as we might say we are “learning” to live with a situation or learning to drive a car.

We learn by doing as much as we learn by listening, and it is context that usually tells us whether the word learn means to learn a fact by studying or to learn a skill by doing.   We see this dual usage of the word throughout the Bible, but in verses such as Isaiah 1:17 the word clearly means to learn a skill.  We see this in the words directly following Isaiah’s statement where he gives examples of learning to do right or good: 

“Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:17).

All these examples of “learning to do right” represent not facts to be learned but things that must be done – they must be practiced in order to be learned. Look at a couple of further examples of this same biblical word for “learn” translated in other ways:

“He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze” (2 Samuel 22:35).

“… men ready for military service – able-bodied men who could handle shield and sword, who could use a bow, and who were trained for battle” (1Chronicles 5:18).

In these examples, forms of the same word translated “learn” in Isaiah 1:17 are translated to show the military training people received – obviously through training exercises rather than through book-learning!

This is an important principle to grasp if we are to properly understand much of what is written in the Old Testament.  When scriptures say things such as “learn my laws” or “learn my statutes,” they invariably mean that we must learn facts or principles through study or listening. But when the Old Testament scriptures say we must “learn to do right” or “learn to do good,” it means learning through doing and practice. 

The principle is just as true in the New Testament.  When Jesus commanded his followers: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…” (Matthew 11:29), he meant that we would learn by doing – by wearing the yoke as an ox might do to plow a field or pull a load.  This helps us to better understand the stinging rebuke Jesus gave to the Pharisees when he told them: “…go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (Matthew 9:13).  In telling the hypocritical religionists of his day to learn what a scripture meant, Jesus implied not that they learn its meaning from a book, but that they learn its meaning by doing it.

Although the distinction between learning by studying and learning by doing may seem like a simple one, it is vitally important.  In the modern world we are so used to the concept of learning being an academic one – usually relating to learning facts – that we sometimes forget that is not what the Bible is telling us to do when it comes to learning what is right.  The Bible makes it clear that although we may learn its principles through study – and that is a necessary part of spiritual learning, of course – we truly learn to do right or good by doing it, through practice and continued action.  

That truth underlies much of what is written for our instruction.  It is the basis of what the apostle Paul wrote to Titus: “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, emphasis added).

Learning to do good is a skill, not just a fact. Our response to the command to learn to do right begins in our study of God’s word, but only finds fulfillment in practicing God’s way. 

Reading the Least-Read Book in the Bible

Reading the Least-Read Book in the Bible

by | Feb 17, 2019 | Bible Study

Which is the least-read book in the Bible?  Many people might guess one of the long Old Testament books of Leviticus or Numbers with their detailed technical descriptions and lists, but the least read of all the books in the Bible – at least judging by the number of people who read it on the most-used online Bible site, BibleGateway.com – is the minor prophet Obadiah.

This fact is particularly intriguing because Obadiah happens to be the shortest book in the Old Testament – a brief single chapter of only twenty-one verses – so it is hard to guess why it seems to be so unpopular, or at least so little read.
Perhaps the reason Obadiah stays perennially at the “bottom of the charts” is because it mainly consists of prophecies against the minor ancient nation of Edom located to the southeast of Judah and said to be the prideful descendants of Jacob’s brother Esau (Genesis 25-33; Obadiah vs. 3).  Yet Obadiah is a unique and fascinating book well worth getting to know.

There are actually numerous (at least ten) Obadiahs mentioned  in the Old Testament, but according to the traditions recorded in the Jewish Talmud and in the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church, the author of the book of that name was the individual who was a servant of the evil king Ahab and who hid a hundred prophets of God in caves to protect them from the wrath of Ahab’s pagan wife Jezebel (1 Kings 18:4). Obadiah is said to have been from the nation of Edom that he would eventually prophecy against and is also said to have been a descendant of Eliphaz, the friend of Job.

While this traditional identification is uncertain, its placement of Obadiah around the time of the major prophet Elisha does fit some of the things written in the book of Obadiah itself.  Verses 10-14 speak of Edom’s callous behavior toward its brother nation of Judah in a time when Jerusalem was attacked, and this could be the situation around 850-840 BC when the Philistines (mentioned in vs. 19) and the Arabians invaded Jerusalem. Edom also rebelled against Jerusalem at that time and may have committed the crimes Obadiah describes against those fleeing Jerusalem. 

The opening verses of the book of Obadiah (1–5) are almost the same as those in a prophecy given against Edom by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 49:9, 14–16).  Both prophets accuse the Edomites of unchecked pride which would eventually be punished.  But Obadiah brings another specific charge against the Edomites, that of great callousness in taking advantage of a brother in need:

“On the day you stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem,  you were like one of them. You should not gloat over your brother in the day of his misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast so much  in the day of their trouble.  You should not march through the gates of my people in the day of their disaster, nor gloat over them in their calamity in the day of their disaster, nor seize their wealth in the day of their disaster. You should not wait at the crossroads to cut down their fugitives, nor hand over their survivors in the day of their trouble” (vss. 11-14).

Because of this great callousness toward others – in this case, the Edomites’ own national relatives – God prophesied the destruction of Edom: “Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame; you will be destroyed forever” (vs. 10).  As it is, the nation of Edom did disappear into history, and Obadiah’s message for a nation is a case study for the many biblical passages that command us not to take joy in the downfall of our neighbors – even when they are our enemies (Proverbs 24:17).

Obadiah also stands as a case study of the fact that God judges nations just as he judges individuals; and while “pride goes before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18) for individuals, national pride and rebellion against God also lead to destruction.  As Obadiah writes, poetically but pointedly:

“The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’ Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down” (vss. 3-4).
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But Obadiah’s prophecy was not just one of punishment on the nation of Edom.  The book also stresses the restoration of Judah (vss. 15–20) and the time when, eventually, “Deliverers will go up on Mount Zion to govern the mountains of Esau. And the kingdom will be the Lord’s” (vs. 21). There is much more going on in this tiny book than just prophecies against an ancient nation we may never have heard of, so why not read Obadiah today? You may find much more in it than you expected – and you’ll know that you have read the least-read book in the Bible!

Was David Proud of How Good He Was?

Was David Proud of How Good He Was?

by | Feb 10, 2019 | Difficult Scriptures

​“The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I am not guilty of turning from my God. All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees. I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin. The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight” (Psalm 18:20-24).

At first sight, verses such as these might appear to show a self-righteous attitude and perhaps that the warrior-king David was proud of his own goodness.  If you were to say the same things to your friends, you know how they would react! But there are two factors to consider in looking at verses like these and understanding what David meant:

1) What righteousness means in the Old Testament.   First, we must understand that the concept of righteousness in the Old Testament is somewhat different from what we find today and in the New Testament. In the Hebrew Bible the word sedek which is often translated as “righteousness” literally means “straightness” as opposed to “crookedness,” but it is usually used of the status of relationships rather than as an abstract measure of perfection. Under the Law of Moses one could be righteous by simply maintaining one’s relationship with God and others according to basic legal norms –  the term did not denote some kind of perfect purity or spiritual perfection.

Anyone who did not murder, cheat, lie to, or otherwise harm other individuals maintained a proper relationship with them and was therefore “righteous.” This is different, of course, from the deeper expectations of the New Testament, which more frequently stress the importance of other things such as right motivation and attitude behind the behavior.   As a result of the earlier concept of righteousness seen in most of the books of the Old Testament, when a person fulfilled the basic demands of a relationship he or she could be said to be “righteous,” and many of the times that David uses the term sedek, it is from this perspective.  David was righteous in Hebrew terms simply because he lived within the expectations of the covenant and the community of God’s people. 

2)  What David also says regarding sin and righteousness.  Even though David could see himself as being righteous in terms of how his society used the term, we find plenty of evidence that he was not proudly self-righteous.  We know that David sinned and knew that he sinned (Psalm 51, etc.), so it is clear he did not imagine himself perfect in our modern sense of righteousness.  We also know that David earnestly asked God to help him walk in the way of righteousness, as we see, for example, in Psalm 19: “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression” (Psalm 19:13).

Finally, we know that beyond asking God’s help to walk righteously, David openly gave God the credit when he did do what was right.  In Psalm 18 –  the same psalm we quote above regarding David’s expressions of righteousness –  we also find: “It is God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect” (Psalm 18:32).  This same attitude of humbly crediting God with his righteousness is frequently confirmed in other psalms, as when David says: “You are my Lord, my goodness is nothing apart from You” (Psalm 16:2b)

So, there is no indication in the psalms of David, or elsewhere, that David was self-righteous or proud of his own goodness. While it is clear that David knew that at most times he did walk righteously according to the use of this concept in his own culture, it is equally clear that he asked God’s help to do so and gave God credit when he succeeded.
 
* For further understanding of the psalms of King David, download our free e-book Spotlight on the Psalms here.