Category: Uncategorized

Want to know what the status of the American church is in many places?  Consider this link by brother Jim West.  Absolutely pins the tail where it belongs. Of course, Christians ought to be reminded never to confuse going to church with being a believer.  Nevertheless, commitment to communing in faith is evidence of our commitment to Christ.

http://zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/our-iraqi-brothers-and-sisters/

Lonely.

Isolation.
I have been alone with my thoughts since coming to Connecticut.  I have had a lot of time to think, since no one has yet hired me. Though I am still very happy to have the friends I have, and though I have the Lord, some hole and void is still there.  A gnawing.  I miss those people in Ohio, Missouri, and Florida who mean so much to me, and who I can call, come over to their houses, and hang out and spend an hour or two, picking up where we left off.  


Don’t get me wrong, New England is great, and has been great.  The people are among the nicest in the country, and the landscape is among the most beautiful in the world.  I would not trade that for anything, knowing I am in the center of God’s will.  But it sometimes feels as though the center of God’s will can grow lonely, especially now that I am climbing up to a place that partly meets my calling and the thing in which I will be most fulfilled and satisfied doing:  classical ministry, as it were.  

I am working through some of these issues, and praying, as I keep applying to work and setting my resume out, that the Lord’s door will open in this complicated situation.  

Work would be nice.

dFirst of all, let me reassure those of you who think I might be experiencing marriage problems, which is leading to my FB suspension, let me reassure you that is not the case.  My wife and I are doing quite well, and it really is the marriage conference, in large part, which provoked me to take this hiatus.  I am really enjoying the last few days, and being able to take care of convalescing relatives (two sons and my wife) has really given me a good dose of patience and pleasure in the smaller things in life (namely Isaac and Emmaus). 


Secondly, this blogging is no attempt to circumvent FB to communicate with others.  I am not that smart or desperate (well, okay, maybe that smart, but certainly not that desperate).


Okay, so, back to my post.  I was reading the latter fifth of Genesis, and it just occurred to my on Monday I had a dream about my future as well.  If the dream comes true, I will be back in Missouri at some point.


The latter fifth is about Joseph, the son of Jacob, who was sold into slavery in Egypt and rose from the prison to become the chief Egyptian administrator.  I would say that he was sold into slavery by his envious brothers because he shot off at the mouth rather than humbling himself and keeping the dreams within.  The odd thing, perhaps, is that if he had not shared those dreams, he might not have gotten sold into slavery.  Perhaps he was meant to tell his brothers, and the were meant to get envious, and his destiny was to be sold into slavery in Egypt.  This says something about our circumstances.  No matter how bad they get, God can still use even the worst of them to do a massive amount of good.  Perhaps, sometimes, it is by His permission, these less-than-ideal circumstances are allowed into our life so that His glory can be manifested and made known.  For certain, without Joseph’s running off at the mouth, his family and that entire segment of the known world might have died off.


Moreover, who is to say that there are not times when God finds it necessary, in order to launch us into our ultimate destinies, to permit a lot of adversity, including prison and poverty.

Job, anyone?

I wonder what Calvin would say about this… 

Why is it every time this season comes around, we get to butchering the text of Isaiah 9:6?  For the sake of traditions of men, we continually perpetuate the concept that God’s name is called Wonderful Counselor.  To the contrary, his name is not Wonderful Counselor, but rather Wonderful and, seperately, His name is Counselor.  We like to have this habit of overlooking during the Xmas season, overlooking the concept of giving, overlooking the concept of reading Scripture for all it’s worth, and overlooking the meaning of His names.

In so conjoining Wonderful and Counselor, we forget the meaning of both.

What does it mean to say God is Wonderful?
God is the Wonderful.  For this, consider that God manifested Himself to Moses and delivered Israel’s offspring from the hand of Mizraim (Egypt).  We forget that He, appropriate to the birth of the Messiah, showed Pharaoh His wonders.  This passage and account of Israel’s deliverance is appropriate to the account of the birth of Christ, since God called His son out of Egypt, and during the time of Moses, called His people Israel out of the Egyptian wilderness.  

For He is full of wonders.

He is not some trite part Xmas cantata.  A fixture or decoration of the tree idol we seek to set up in our homes, but rather, He and His wonders are the heart and heartbeat of the Xmas season.  

Moreover, He is the Counselor, the Paraclete, the one who comes alongside and encourages and exhorts.  He is the Baptizer with fire and the near present Immanuel, the God in, with, and among us.

He is the one who gives comfort and counsel to the abandoned, orphan, widow, fatherless, sufferers of neuroses and psychoses, far more effectively than any therapist, psychiatrist, or scrip for antidepressants.  He speaks and influences and, if, by His very words the heavens and earth were formed (Heb 11), then surely His speaking into our individual lives is that much more effective and…wonderful.

Okay, so, I have heard this story a zillion times before and only four years ago did I ever hear someone challenge the traditional interpretation of it (you know, from the perspective of Esau, that Jacob deceived Esau of his birthright).  The challenger was my wife, Kresha, and the comment was “Jacob was not being a deceiver.  He was just being a good businessman.”  Jacob’s name means literally “he who grabs the heel.”  He was named for the incident in which he grabbed Esau’s heel as Esau was coming out of Rebekah’s womb.


Since we in the church seem to so frequently have a socialistic interpretation on Scripture that God be fair, though God never purported or confessed to be fair.  He seems to occasionally behave, from our POV, much like a benevolent dictator, which, since He is God, befits Him.


And then we come to Esau’s assessment in Gen  27:36.

Esau said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? He has deceived me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!” Then he asked, “Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?”

And we mindlessly agree with that perspective and move along, because after all, it’s written in the Bible.  Everything that is said by someone in the Bible is exactly in agreement and in line with God’s thinking, and needs no other interpretation.

However, this time, when I heard the comment, it got me thinking, is there any evidence of Jacob’s being just a good businessman or a deciever?

Let’s look at the passage together recounting the birth of the twins and the birthright issue.  God says the following:


²³ And the LORD said to her:

      “Two nations are in your womb,
      Two peoples shall be separated from your body;
      One people shall be stronger than the other,
      And the older shall serve the younger.”
²⁴ So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb. ²⁵ And the first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over; so they called his name Esau.<sup class="footnote" value="[a]”>[a] ²⁶ Afterward his brother came out, and his hand took hold of Esau’s heel; so his name was called Jacob.<sup class="footnote" value="[b]”>[b] Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.
²⁷ So the boys grew. And Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents. ²⁸ And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
²⁹ Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. ³⁰ And Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.” Therefore his name was called Edom.<sup class="footnote" value="[c]”>[c]
³¹ But Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright as of this day.”
³² And Esau said, “Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?”
³³ Then Jacob said, “Swear to me as of this day.”
So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. ³⁴ And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

So, Esau was a skilled hunter who could have found his own food and roasted it over the fire that Jacob had prepared for his soup or made a fire for himself in the wilderness, if Jacob did not have a fire (we are not told Jacob has a fire, but perhaps we may assume a fire is present for soup to be warmed).  But instead, Esau wants soup.  Jacob wants the birthright, and did not steal it away as by stealth.  Esau SOLD the birthright.  Moreover, for us to say that Esau despised his birthright (v. 34) only to turn around and agree tacitly with Esau that Jacob “deceived” him of his birthright, is contradictory.  Esau, who could have shot that tasty venison that he got two chapters later for his father Isaac, instead was feeling lazy and the soup was smelling nice.  It would be nice to sit on his can and get a bowl of chow without having to work for it.

So, no, church, Jacob did not deceive Esau, unless you consider a broad daylight sale and trade in full knowledge and complete competence and sanity to be deception.  Moreover, when the writer says Esau despised his birthright, that means that Esau did not care about his birthright and was willing to give it in exchange.  

Why should we pitch sound exegesis out the window just because someone pitches a fit in the Bible, the way Esau did?

Now as for the blessing, we know that Jacob did dress himself up, and Isaac was blind, so that can be considered legitimate deception.  However, Rebekah had received a prophecy that the “older [would] serve the younger,” (v. 23) though we are not told that Isaac knew of the prophecy.  Given Rebekah’s favor of Jacob and her help in deceiving of Isaac, it is possible she held this secret and did not tell Isaac, in case it would work to Jacob’s advantage.  However, it was God’s plan to make Jacob greater than Isaac.  So, this deception could have been orchestrated as part of God’s plan to make Jacob into the nation of Israel, since He would have known the heart of Jacob as different from Esau.  Esau, as the lesson with the stew illustrates, could have had a Saul-like quality of arrogance or pride that would have kept God from choosing him.

Moreover, God, in His foreknowledge also says in Malachi that “He loved Jacob and hated Esau.”  It may be because of this incident that revealed Esau’s heart to us, that caused Malachi to pen God’s words about Jacob and Esau.

Consider this well, and know that Jacob’s work in obtaining the birthright and the blessing was permitted by God, and was used to accomplish His ends, which meant Israel was blessed.


Thoughts?

Dr. Mark Hausfeld, a mentor, friend, and former teacher from seminary, wrote and presented the following from Lausanne, a big world evangelization convention that is meeting this year in South Africa.

Dr. Mark Hausfeld on “Missional Greeting”

I struggle with anger.

Not just the kind where I cussed my Father, my dad, and pastors for every four letter word in the book.  But the kind that took those offenses and defended them militantly.

I think I am starting to understand that part from Ephesians 4:26ish that says, “Be angry but do not sin, and do not let the sun go down on your wrath.”  Or as the other translations say “In your anger do not sin.”  I would like to think Paul was saying “do not sin by the way of/the avenue/the means of anger.”  That is, sin done through anger has a murderous dimension that makes it especially vile, and brings the sinner to a place of blindness and enablement to do things he would otherwise not do in his right mind.

I have been there.  IN the place where I was empowered to to the wrong thing.  It’s a pitiful place to be.  It’s nothing but a dead end, or as Paul comments in another place, as fruitful as “boxing the air.” 

Reminds me of “Madea Goes to Jail” and a comment Madea makes during one of the prison meetings.  In that scene we hear that forgiveness is not for the other person.  It’s for you.  It’s for the one who has been offended, so that they can be liberated.  Madea, in this scene says to one of the embittered inmates.  “Your dad is somewhere living his life, and you’re on lockdown.”  That line just struck me between the eyes when I first heard it and it has stayed with me ever since.

I say that to say this.  Anger is the key to liberty or jail.  Anger and offense, that is, are the keys to getting in and out of jail.  In other words, if you let go of your anger and forgive the other person, then you will experience true freedom, and on the converse, if you choose to take up anger (which is always a choice for us, and yes, we can help the way we feel, bonafide chemical imbalances notwithstanding) then you will go into a place of solitude, where everyone you know will desert you.  The only way we can let this go is to give it to the Lord.  Not something else or someone else.  The Lord is the only one who has enough resources and patience to handle the fullness of our anger.

Allow me to illustrate

John and Sarah are some friends of ours from Florida.  One day John called me up to tell me that Sarah had just introduced him to Chuck and Laura, two of her old friends from youth group.  During the conversation, Chuck mentioned that he stayed at home and cleaned.  Sarah related that Chuck should teach John how to clean properly.  This made John angry, because it cast him in a lazy light in front of people he had never met.  Later, Sarah came up to John and apologized to her for saying what she said.  So John asked me what I thought.  I told him it might be best to let patience take the lead on this so that he did not say something out of anger he might regret.  I also suggested that Sarah might apologize to Chuck and Laura for saying hurtful things about him to people he does not know, since that might give them a negative first impression.

I use this illustration to make the following points about handling anger.  If your spouse/friend/parent “throws you under the bus,” you will still need to do the following

1. Forgive them. The Father has forgiven us our sins so we in turn must forgive others.  Not only does the security of our salvation depend on it, but our ability to hear from God with a soft heart hinges on our willingness to forgive others, as well as the personal freedom we experience.

2. Practice patience.  Patience is one of the major facets of love, and it is an antivenom for the poison of anger.  While anger shortens our fuse, patience lengthens our fuse, stops us, forces us to take a breath, and causes us to think over the situation before we speak.  The Proverbs prolifically espouse the benefits to the patient man of being slow to speak.  Patience is the best solution when the emotions of our prideful hearts have charged the atmosphere.

3.  Speaking of emotions, consider the following verses, since emotions flow from the heart (Proverbs label these the issues of life-Proverbs 4:23).  Place a guard over your heart according to Proverbs 4:23, and remember the verse out of Jeremiah 17:9.

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?”  If our hearts, being the seat of our emotions, are deceitful, and thus capable of deceiving us, then it is up to us to lead our hearts according to the Scriptures, and not letting our emotions and hearts lead us, mistaking those emotions for the voice of the Holy Spirit. 

Do not let your heart govern you, not for one second, because it will lead you down an undiscerned path.

ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων·

Before the next blog, I would like to cite a response from Jon Greene to the last 1 Samuel post (1 Samuel 4:1-11).  He says,

“It always amazes me that Israel was able to recognize the God in the box without knowing the God of the Box. It’s a titanic example of missing the point.”


We have all heard the saying don’t put God in a box.  Fascinating that the children of Israel did just that.  They responded to God after He gave them the law and told them to put it in a box just the way the nations around them did.  Every time, up to this event, the ark went into battle, the Israelites were victorious, as it got reduced to the status of their talisman or lucky charm.  They refused to think outside the box.  Well put homoletically kosher analogy, brother Greene!  This is what happens to us and our victory in the Lord when we move from wrapping our identity in the gifts God has given, rather than wrapping the sum of our identity in God himself (and what He did on the cross for us in order for us to have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ).  


I have heard, as I am sure you have, from some well-meaning believers the idea that if we abuse the gifts God gives us that he is going to take them away from us.  The truth of that statement, though, is the one who believes that statement believes the spiritual gift or gift of God is a reward for good behaviour, instead of an actual gift.  How farcical can you get with the grace of God.  These gifts we are given are irrevocable and without repentance whatsoever.  There is no lockdown or holding tank for those of us who misuse or abuse the calling or the gift God gives us.  The gift has been freely given by Him and freely received by us.  Such is one of the tricky aspects of grace.  We are still free to abuse and neglect our gifts and callings, but the real question is, now that we have the free will to do what we will with what He has given us, knowing that He will not take those deposits away, but rather will call us to account for how we have used them, how will we respond to that?


Just because our gifts and callings are irrevocable does not mean that God does not have a way to call us to account for our use and abuse of them.  Scary thought, huh?  


I say this in light of the fact that I sat under a couple of pastors who abused me or someone I knew.  It’s a hard pill to swallow, knowing that all authority is ordained of God, even those who abuse and misuse us, and all authority can be used to serve His ends.  Think of the worst dictators you can imagine, and even in the midst of that man or woman’s rule, God is still present and will still call that person to account, and in His mercy allow them a season to repent, while they yet have a chance to use the gifts given them to glorify Him.  The question is, what does God see when He looks at you and me, and is He pleased with the way we are using that time, gift, or resource?