“We must hang together, or we’ll hang separately.”
“. . . ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
These statements identify (and in some cases, define) those who spoke them. But no one has ever uttered more impacting words than Jesus Christ, and no statement of Jesus’ more defines His life and what it means to be His disciple than the Sermon on the Mount. It may be the most familiar of Jesus’ teachings, though arguably the least understood and obeyed.
The sermon has been called Christ’s Manifesto – His platform speech outlining the character of those under His kingdom rule. The events that led up to it — His rabbinic training, baptism, wrestling match with Satan, and selection of a cabinet (twelve disciples) — give it the feel of an inaugural address. We speak of a person’s seat in Congress and of a professor’s chair at college, so Matthew’s note that Jesus “sat down” for this sermon is quite significant. This is no small talk. Here Jesus reinterprets the law, redefines spirituality, and calls His followers to a radically different lifestyle in which we love our enemies, turn the other cheek, and offer our coat to the one who steals our cloak.
Before we get too far into the body of the sermon, let’s linger at the introduction: the Beatitudes. There are eight of them, each beginning with the word blessed, commonly rendered “happy.” Yes, these two words are related, but Jesus has more in mind than merely feeling good. The Beatitudes were crafted for their shock effect. The kingdom belongs to the poor; the truly joyous are those who mourn; the meek, not the rich and affluent, are the true owners of the earth’s real estate.
This isn’t a treatise on social ethics, nor the random sayings of a preacher who’s run out of steam. The Beatitudes are the description of a true disciple. If you’d heard of Christian disciples but never met one, here’s the profile. These qualities aren’t optional; every believer will possess each of them in some measure.
The Beatitudes’ sequence is important; each one lays the foundation for the next. Like climbing a mountain with God at the top, our journey toward Him begins with poverty of spirit, declaring spiritual bankruptcy – recognizing that we bring nothing to the table except our sin. Humbled, we weep tears of repentance (mourning). Then we quit calling the shots in our own lives and for others (meekness). Contrary to popular opinion, meekness isn’t weakness but a total surrender to God, illustrated by the two people Scripture calls meek: Moses and Jesus. Humbled, repentant, and surrendered, we hunger and thirst for God Himself and His righteousness.
We’re now at the mountain peak where disciples like to camp, but we can’t stay here. We must go back to the valley where life is lived and our discipleship is tested. So the first four beatitudes move us toward God; the last four point us to others. The descent begins with mercy and compassion for those in need. Purity of motive, protecting and preserving our relationships (peacemaking), and rejoicing when persecuted: These are where the rubber meets the road.
Matthew (7:28, 29) notes that those who first heard the sermon were amazed. May those who hear it now be radically transformed, becoming a nearer copy of the One whose disciples we are.
*Used with permission from the Bible Advocate, Jan-Feb 2010
We are amazingly reluctant to realize that our heroes have faults. When it becomes glaringly obvious, we toss them aside, capes torn, shields tarnished, heroes no longer.
This must be why we find it so hard to realize that good people in the Bible do inexplicably bad things. The really tough ones are the ones we never see say I’m sorry. I wrote about Lot recently (Jerk or Just) and the story has remained close to my heart since. We never see him building an altar, weeping over wrongs done, or even read any justification except what I call God’s “gobstopping” grace. God called him righteous.
I just reread the story of Samson. He’s another hero with a severely torn cape. Read Judges 13-16. On the surface, Samson was an arrogant womanizer with major co-dependency problems. You know the good-looking jock in the movies who is led around by a gorgeous, manipulative harpy? That’s him.
The story starts beautifully with an appearance by God to Samson’s parents with a promise of his birth and instructions as to his rearing. (Kind of nice to have God Himself show up to deliver your What to Expect book!) The last two verses in chapter 13 say, “So the woman bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. And the Spirit of the Lord began to move upon him at Mahaneh Dan between Zorah and Eshatol.” That is a pretty auspicious beginning.
Then the first thing we see Samson do as an adult is to let his parents know that there’s a hot Philistine chick that he wants them to get for his bride. “Sammy, isn’t there a nice Jewish girl you’d rather bring home?” They weren’t being prejudiced. The Philistines were in power over Israel at the time and they were ungodly idol-worshipping oppressors out for pure destruction.
“…But his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord – that He was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines. For at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.” (Judges 14:4)
Here’s where I think some of the denial comes in. To me, it is rather clear that Samson’s parents were doing their job as godly people, trying to steer their son in the right direction. They were simply unaware that God, in His sovereign plan, was going to work Samson’s willfulness into the greater good.
As I read commentaries, people seem to struggle with this, certain that, since God’s spirit often moved mightily on Samson, he prophetically wanted the Philistine woman for his wife so that God could move against Israel’s enemies.
I think Samson just wanted the girl. We can’t be afraid to see good guys without a cape. Our God of grace is often beyond our understanding. He uses flawed people who do stupid things. There are some unbelievable doozies of Samson stories I’d love to share but even a brief synopsis gets a bit lengthy.
Read through Judges 14-16. You will notice that Samson’s deeds are not always accompanied by “the Spirit of the Lord came upon him.” Sometimes, as when he ate honey from the lion carcass, he was completely breaking Jewish law (Leviticus 11:27). His marriage was clearly an ungodly one with horrible results for his wife. (The foxes didn’t fare so well either.) Some of his actions appear to be purely out of anger or revenge.
Still, God had a plan to move against the Philistines and, more than once, He used a strong man with weak principles to do so. The Spirit of the Lord did fall upon Samson in chapter 15 and he killed 1,000 men with a donkey’s jawbone. Gruesome? Yes. But these were enemies of God. There is no way one person could kill 1,000 people in a day with anything but an explosive. Or the Spirit of God and a jawbone. He followed that God-filled victory with a visit to a prostitute, then pulled up the city gate by the gateposts and carried it up the hill. Flawed hero. Torn cape.
All of this leads up to the story of Samson and Delilah, one of the most infamous relationships in the Bible. I won’t lend much space to that here. You know the story. This seductive worshiper of Ashtoreth, Dagon and Baal-Zebub manipulated him into telling her, not the Source of his strength, but how he could be robbed of it. He paid a dear price for that dalliance. Blindness, bondage, humiliation and shame.
He eventually was able to push down the main pillars of the temple of Dagon, killing more enemies of the Lord in his death than he ever did in his life. God gave him an amazing victory. And here’s the lesson:
While there are incredible stories in the Bible about Samson, he judged Israel for 20 years. Several times we see him destroying the enemy through the Spirit of God. Several others, we see him acting badly or questionably.
But we don’t know anything else that happened during those 20 years. We don’t know how many ways God used him. For some reason, God chooses to show us Samson’s frailties. We see him succumb to seduction and give in to desires.
But God placed him in Hebrews 11:32 in the same verse as David, Samuel and Gideon.
Whaaat??? And what about me? Yep, you darlin’. All those failures. All that shame. Past is past. He can use you too. God exposes all that weakness, all that rawness, to teach us something. Good people really mess up. God uses really messy people.
Stay in the middle of your mess and the temple you are dallying in will come down on your head. But He is willing to pull you out and He can still use you.
There are no chains so strong that the power of God cannot break them.
There is no blindness so dark that the light of God cannot pierce through.
There are no idols in your life on a pedestal so high that you cannot cast them at the feet of Jesus.
Samson went into the arms of the wrong person, but God gave him a glorious victory at the end of his life. And God gave him, in all of his messiness, gobstopping grace.
*This article is an adaptation of Angela Martin’s website post with the same title – you can see the original post here. Reproduced with the author’s permission.
World War II Memorial on Omaha Beach, Normandy, France
Militarily, a beachhead (so named because it is often a literal area of beach on a sea coast) is an area that an army secures as the initial foothold in enemy territory.
Once the beachhead is established and reinforcements arrive, the invading army can then begin to extend its position and radiate out into the territory it seeks to capture. But it is vital that the beachhead be firmly established and controlled for expansion to occur.
One of the most famous operations of this type in modern history was the Normandy beachhead established on the French coast by Allied troops in World War II – allowing the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe and the eventual overthrow of that dark regime in the countries it had conquered. That beachhead cost the lives of thousands of brave soldiers, but their sacrifice made possible the invasion that brought freedom to multiple millions.
Earlier in history, at the beginning of our present era, we find something similar occurred in the establishment of Christianity in Jerusalem and its eventual expansion from there. It’s an analogous situation that helps us to understand a number of scriptures in the New Testament.
Early in his ministry, when Jesus first sent out his disciples, we find that he commanded them: “… Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel” (Matthew 10:5-6). Later, after his resurrection, his command changed: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15). Was this a contradiction, as is sometimes claimed? Why the change? The answer is simply because the spiritual “beachhead” of Jerusalem and Judah had to be first secured through the teaching of Jesus and his disciples. Then the preaching of the Kingdom of God could progressively radiate out from Jerusalem. We see this expansion in Christ’s own words: “… you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
In the invasion of Normandy, the allied troops were not simply spread out across the whole French coastline where they would have had no effect; rather the invading forces established a specific beachhead on “Omaha” and its adjoining beaches. The establishment of Christianity was no different. Jesus himself said “… I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” (Matthew 15:24), and that is exactly where he concentrated his disciples’ efforts at first.
This fact explains two more scriptures that are sometimes thought to show contradicting accounts. Early in his ministry, Jesus sent out his disciples, telling them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt” (Luke 9:3). But later in his ministry Jesus specified “… the one with a purse should take it, and likewise a bag; and the one without a sword should sell his cloak and buy one” (Luke 22:36). In the first instruction Jesus made sure the disciples would not have the necessary supplies to go beyond the borders of Judea, where he was sending them. At the end of his ministry, once the “beachhead” was established, Jesus instructed them to take the things they would need for longer journeys into more distant territory. In fact, the “bag” (NIV) they were told to take means a “backpack” or “travelling bag” and is so translated in many versions of the Bible (ESV, Holman, etc.).
But if this analogy helps us to better understand several scriptures regarding the original establishment and expansion of Christianity, it should also remind us that like the beachhead of Normandy, Christianity’s beachhead cost many lives to make freedom from the powers of darkness, and ultimately salvation, possible. Principally, of course, it cost the life of the “captain of our salvation” (Hebrews 2:10 KJV), but we should remember that the Book of Acts shows that many others also gave up their lives on that original beachhead as they followed Christ. Today we are called to lay down our lives, too – even if only metaphorically – for the sake of others. The message of the Kingdom of God has spread out into the world, but not all the world has been reached. Wherever missionary activity is occurring, beachheads exist. Some are in distant lands, others are in our own communities. But if we are following the command given to the followers of Christ, we can give and serve to help establish those beachheads whether in person or in prayer. On which beachhead are you fighting today?
“… Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! …” (Matthew 14:27)
The Bible contains many stories of courage. Some, such as the account of the young David fighting the giant Goliath, come quickly to mind. But there are dozens more examples throughout the pages of Scripture where individuals stepped forward and fought against huge odds or difficult situations – often alone and without the support of others. There are lessons we should not miss in these stories; here are three that we should take to heart:
Courage Is Commanded
“Take courage” is not just a biblical suggestion; it is a biblical command. We may be well aware of the many inspiring Old Testament verses such as “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified … for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6) and the multiple times God commanded his leaders such as Joshua to be courageous (Joshua 1:6, 7, 9, etc.), but we don’t always notice examples in the New Testament that apply directly to us.
If we look carefully, we find Jesus not only commanded courage of his disciples when they feared: “… Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage!” (Matthew 14:27; Mark 6:50), but we also find him reminding his servants to have courage relative to the work he gave them to do: “The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome” (Acts 23:11).
The apostle Paul clearly obeyed that command (Philippians 1:20, etc.) and passed the command along to the Christians he taught: “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13). There is no question that courage is commanded of the followers of Christ as much as it was of God’s servants in Old Testament times.
Courage Is Contagious
It helps us to understand the importance of courage when we realize that there is not a single instance among the dozens of accounts of physical and spiritual bravery found in the Bible where one person’s courage did not have an emboldening effect on others.
Again, we may be more familiar with Old Testament examples such as Saul’s son Jonathan demonstrating courage that inspired his armor bearer to join him in fighting heavy odds (1 Samuel 14:1-13). Numerous examples in the Hebrew Scriptures show people being inspired by a courageous action, even if only after someone else was successful. Such was the case with the disheartened Israelites after David slew Goliath (1 Samuel 17:52).
But there are also fascinating examples of the contagious nature of courage in the New Testament. Take the case of Joseph of Arimathea who bravely asked Pilate for the body of Jesus in order to give him a proper burial. The Gospel of Mark tells us that “Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus” (Mark 15:43 ESV). This was no small act of bravery, as Jesus had just been executed as a rebel instigating sedition against the Roman Empire – and Joseph was no natural hero. John’s Gospel tells us: “… Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away” (John 19:38).
But Joseph’s act of courage had immediate ripple effects. John’s Gospel also tells us that “He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds [to embalm the body of Jesus]” (John 19:39). When Joseph “took courage,” he inspired Nicodemus – who had been too afraid of the Jews to talk with Jesus except under the cover of darkness – to likewise act with courage.
Courage is not just for heroes. Biblical examples like these show courage always has an effect – even when others are afraid to act until they see the success of someone who does demonstrate courageous behavior.
Courage Is Confirming
Not only is courage contagious when it is demonstrated, but acting courageously – even if we do not feel courageous – confirms our faith to God, to others and even to ourselves. God commands us to live courageously so he is obviously well pleased when we do so.
But acts of courage can have an effect on others that we may not even guess at the time. The Book of Acts tells us specifically that the Jewish priestly authorities questioned the apostles Peter and John in a threatening manner regarding their teaching, but: “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). It was the courage of the two apostles, not their learning or eloquence, that was a witness to the Jewish priests and religious leaders. It is doubtless not a coincidence that shortly after that we are told: “So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).
Acting with courage even helps confirm our own dedication to God and his calling. We need faith to have courage and courage to express our faith. The apostle Paul showed this when he wrote: “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death” (Philippians 1:20).
So the words of Christ and the disciples he taught show the unending need for courage in our personal lives and in doing the work we are given to do. Courage is needed to withstand evil and wrongdoing – to resist what is wrong in our own lives and in society, especially if we feel we are alone in carrying on the fight. But courage is contagious, and our actions invariably will inspire others.
Finally, courageous living demonstrates our faith in right and proper ways. Put simply, we need to take courage because courage is faith in action. Courage and our beliefs work hand in hand. We should never forget that the effect of courage on Christianity can be considerable, and the effect of Christianity on courage can be enormous. Take courage!
Recent statistics suggest that as many as 40% to 50% of marriages in some developed countries end in divorce. The divorce statistics for second and third marriages are even higher (practice evidently does not improve performance), and these sad statistics underline the even more unfortunate truth that many of these divorces were undoubtedly preventable.
While some marriage splits are, of course, the result of adultery, drugs, alcohol, spousal abuse and other problems, the great majority of divorces claim “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for dissolution of the marriage bond. This is where the aspect of preventability enters into the picture. “Irreconcilable differences” is really just an expensive way of saying “incompatibility,” and at the heart of many divorces – and of problem marriages which somehow stay together – it is incompatibility that is so often cited as the underlying problem.
Now in most all cases where incompatibility is cited as an issue, it was not present at the beginning of the relationship (we doubt many couples who always considered themselves incompatible get married) – it is something the marriage partners feel “happened” as time progressed. But the truth is, incompatibility between a man and a woman usually never just “happens” – it is present, under the surface, all the time. It is simply that marriages begin to falter when couples begin to focus on their incompatibility. A century ago, in his book What’s Wrong with the World, G.K. Chesterton put it this way:
“I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as such, are incompatible.”
These may be among the wisest words ever written on marriage problems. They are based on the undeniable fact that most marriages occur because “opposites attract.” But when marriage begins we are focusing on the “attract.” As marriages progress, if we are not careful, the focus switches to looking at, and dwelling on, the “opposites.” Our point of view shifts and we begin to see our relationship differently – and as we do, the problems develop.
Simple as it may sound, the quality of every marriage, and every day within every marriage, depends on how we look at our partner. We must remember it is not that beneath the attraction there are differences we must somehow try to suppress, but that the differences between us are so often the root and cause of the attraction itself – and we mean not just the sexual aspect, but the full range of psychological, spiritual and physical attraction.
A happy marriage is, then, always one of managed incompatibility. We can certainly do what we can to make it easier for our mates to deal with our differences where they are problematic (Romans 14:19 – “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.”), but each mate must concentrate on how he or she sees the other – we must continue to look at the attractive things about him or her. There is perhaps no more helpful scripture on this fact than the words of the apostle Paul:
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things” (Philippians 4:8).
We render this wonderful advice useless by consigning it to nice thoughts about pleasant ethereal things. But this approach is a potent marriage problem solver. If we apply these words in the sphere of our relationship with our mate – in constantly looking for, affirming, complimenting the good things we appreciate about each other on every level – the matter of incompatibility usually becomes increasingly a non-issue.
Incompatibility is not the destroyer of marriage; it is the healthy tension that forms the basis of meaningful marriage relationships. The more we begin to see each other in a positive way and keep our focus there, the more we see attraction and the less we see opposites. In fact, we become more and more able to celebrate our incompatibility – and good things happen when we do. In the words of Genesis: “He created them male and female and blessed them….” (Genesis 5:2). We see God blessed the marriage relationships not generically as unisex, unithought, uniform pairs of mankind, but blessed us as male and female – blessed us in our differences.
When it comes to forgiving others as we know we should (Matthew 6:12), we sometimes need to remind ourselves of advice the apostle Paul gave to the Corinthian Christians. The church at Corinth apparently included an individual who had caused some problems for the brethren in that city. We don’t know exactly what the problems were, but we do know that once the matter was sorted out, Paul reminded the other believers of an extra step in the process of forgiveness that we often overlook. When we forgive someone who has done something against us, we often jump from the act of forgiving in our own mind (which is difficult enough) to trying to “forget” the incident as well as we can (which can be just as hard). But this jump overlooks a part of the process that Paul chose to stress. Notice what he told the Corinthian church regarding the one from whom they had become alienated:
“If anyone has caused grief…The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him” (2 Corinthians 2:5-8).
Notice that Paul immediately follows the admonition to forgive the individual with one to “comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.” This clearly indicates that the individual was already sorry for whatever it was he had done and Paul seeks to limit or to end the ongoing sorrow But Paul doubly stresses this admonition to accept the forgiven individual by telling them that in this circumstance they should “reaffirm your love for him” (a principle we find in Isaiah 12:1 which shows that God follows necessary punishment with comfort and love).
Forgiving someone a serious hurt can be difficult enough, and we sometimes are tempted to feel satisfied if we do reach a point of sincere forgiveness. But Paul shows we must resist the temptation to then continue in a kind of hurt distancing of ourselves from the individual forgiven. The apostle shows that if the person does respond to our forgiveness, it is then our responsibility to reestablish an accepting relationship.
We can also see that Paul meant this important principle as a firm admonition for us rather than just something he was offering as “good advice” by what he says in his following words: “For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything” (2 Corinthians 2:9 ESV). Paul clearly equated his readers’ acceptance of this principle of reconciliation after forgiveness with spiritual obedience.
Being as conscious as he was of his own need for God’s forgiveness and acceptance (Acts 9:4, 1 Timothy 1:15-16), Paul probably understood as well as anyone that the second step of forgiveness is just as important as the first. Having himself been fully accepted by Christ after his persecution of the Church, Paul reminds us that forgiveness without acceptance is meaningless and hollow. Only as forgiveness is followed by acceptance is it truly full forgiveness, and that acceptance in turn makes the final step of forgetting the incident, where possible, that much easier.
For more information on this topic, download our free e-book How to Forgive –here.
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