There is that intriguing story of temptation that both Matthew and Luke treat with some detail, and Mark simply acknowledges that it happened. Jesus Himself is facing the wrath of Satan, apparently because Satan understands well that this is the final showdown. If he loses the battle with Jesus (not just this particular incident, but the whole Jesus story) he loses it all.
One of Satan’s efforts with Jesus (third in Matthew’s account, second in Luke’s) is to show Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and say, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:9, NASB) Jesus is quick to reply, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord you God, and serve Him only.’” (4:10)
Embedded in that exchange of course is the reality that at some level, Satan is tempting Jesus to be the kind of Messiah the people of Israel want. It seems that most important in the minds of Israel’s leaders was a Messiah who would not merely run the Romans out of Judea, but that the world would finally be focused on the power that exuded out of Jerusalem. Satan is putting it all in front of Jesus – and it is His for a mere bit of idolatry.
Think about how much “easier” it would have been for Jesus had He given in! I’m guessing that would have eliminated the whole cross event – and He could have the world just for the worshipping, to modify our “just for the asking” routines a bit. Just a little idolatry is all Satan is asking.
But . . . God demands that we worship Him, and serve only Him. Jesus avoids doing what religious people wanted out of Him by reminding the enemy that the exclusive worship of God meant that He couldn’t be that in any way. He took the road of the cross rather than the road of fame – and His sense of what it means to worship God is a key ingredient.
Most of the time when you and I are tempted – well, actually all the time – we aren’t quite faced with the stark realities that are before Jesus. So there is a sense in which if the worship of God was an answer for Jesus, just imagine what it could do for us.
In Small Faith – Great God, N.T. Wright says “idolatry knows no cultural or temporal barriers. We have four-wheeled idols whose worshipers spend all their effort and money polishing them and driving them faster and faster. We have three-bedroom idols, whose devotees have to keep them spotlessly clean in case visitors should come. We have square idols with silver screens. Some of us have well-bound idols with pages and dust jackets. And like all idols, we worship them because we get pride out of them. We put ourselves into them, in fact or in imagination, and then worship what we see.” (page 28)
Jesus was offered “all these things” if only He would worship the wrong thing. Somewhere in all that there seems to be a reminder that we find answers to much of what causes us to struggle by learning what Jesus knew and modeled “you shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.”
So the question for me during this season of Lent, as I’m trying to be clearer and clearer about “how things ought to be” is “What things am I worshiping that might ‘offer the whole world’ but tear me away from God?’”
We are way too sophisticated for little statues made of gold and silver – but that hardly suggests we don’t have some idolatry issues. For me, it’s time to get rid of the idols!
21 March 2012
07 March 2012
Something Has to Happen
There is, inherently present in a life of following Jesus, the stark awareness that none of us quite measure up to the standard. When we think about that reality, we are prone to celebrate God’s grace and the free gift of life eternal. But we can ill afford for that celebration of God’s grace to convince us that God isn’t interested in seeing a difference in our lives because of our faith.
1 John 3:3 is one of the plainest statements of that reality to be found anywhere in Scripture. Here’s what John encourages late first century believers to do: “And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” Apparently God is most willing to welcome us “just as we are” when we come to the Kingdom, but expects us to never again be satisfied with “just as we are” again! There is a kind of holy dissatisfaction to the Christian life that isn’t psychologically disabling, but is an ever present reminder that the standard is the holiness of Christ.
If you read through this short epistle, you discover early on (in chapter 1:5-10) that we move from darkness to light by means of the cleansing of Christ’s blood. But apparently we have some responsibility in our lives to “purify ourselves, just as He (Christ) is pure.” Grace celebrates the gift of cleansing through the blood of Christ; holy dissatisfaction accepts the responsibility of showing God our gratitude through living pure lives.
The motivation for such an approach to life is hope. Hope is one of those difficult- to-describe New Testament words that deserves some attention on our part. We use that word in so many different ways that often its meaning is discounted to almost nothing. I might buy a lottery ticket and hear the cashier say “I hope you win!” But the truth is, my chances of winning are so slim that it is almost always the waste of a dollar to buy a ticket. I may not crack the books all semester, take the final exam, and say to the professor, “I hope I passed!” But chances of that happening are not unlike buying a lottery ticket.
So what is hope? At some level, at least in the context of this portion of 1 John, hope is confident assurance that one day we will see Christ face to face, and among the results of that is that we will have a body like His. While John seems unwilling to try and describe that body – even though an eyewitness – He is confidently assured that one day he will have the same kind of body.
It is that hope – that confident assurance – that makes the challenge of “purifying ourselves as He is pure” more than merely worth the effort. It isn’t that our efforts to purify ourselves somehow earn a status with God, but that our efforts to purify ourselves model our gratitude for the status we already have. “Now we are the children of God . . .” is how John introduces this idea!
The days of Lent are a great time to get back in the habit of purifying ourselves. I hear the critics of Lent remind us all the time that “repentance, prayer, and fasting” should be a part of our lives all the time, not just during Lent. I couldn’t agree more – but am not so sure of my own efforts to “purify myself as He is pure” that I don’t appreciate this forty day reminder every year leading up to Easter.
When all is said and done – whatever we can do that makes “something happen” after becoming a child of God is a good thing and I pray that each of us would let our confident assurance motivate us to model a kind of gratitude that expresses itself in pure lives.
1 John 3:3 is one of the plainest statements of that reality to be found anywhere in Scripture. Here’s what John encourages late first century believers to do: “And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” Apparently God is most willing to welcome us “just as we are” when we come to the Kingdom, but expects us to never again be satisfied with “just as we are” again! There is a kind of holy dissatisfaction to the Christian life that isn’t psychologically disabling, but is an ever present reminder that the standard is the holiness of Christ.
If you read through this short epistle, you discover early on (in chapter 1:5-10) that we move from darkness to light by means of the cleansing of Christ’s blood. But apparently we have some responsibility in our lives to “purify ourselves, just as He (Christ) is pure.” Grace celebrates the gift of cleansing through the blood of Christ; holy dissatisfaction accepts the responsibility of showing God our gratitude through living pure lives.
The motivation for such an approach to life is hope. Hope is one of those difficult- to-describe New Testament words that deserves some attention on our part. We use that word in so many different ways that often its meaning is discounted to almost nothing. I might buy a lottery ticket and hear the cashier say “I hope you win!” But the truth is, my chances of winning are so slim that it is almost always the waste of a dollar to buy a ticket. I may not crack the books all semester, take the final exam, and say to the professor, “I hope I passed!” But chances of that happening are not unlike buying a lottery ticket.
So what is hope? At some level, at least in the context of this portion of 1 John, hope is confident assurance that one day we will see Christ face to face, and among the results of that is that we will have a body like His. While John seems unwilling to try and describe that body – even though an eyewitness – He is confidently assured that one day he will have the same kind of body.
It is that hope – that confident assurance – that makes the challenge of “purifying ourselves as He is pure” more than merely worth the effort. It isn’t that our efforts to purify ourselves somehow earn a status with God, but that our efforts to purify ourselves model our gratitude for the status we already have. “Now we are the children of God . . .” is how John introduces this idea!
The days of Lent are a great time to get back in the habit of purifying ourselves. I hear the critics of Lent remind us all the time that “repentance, prayer, and fasting” should be a part of our lives all the time, not just during Lent. I couldn’t agree more – but am not so sure of my own efforts to “purify myself as He is pure” that I don’t appreciate this forty day reminder every year leading up to Easter.
When all is said and done – whatever we can do that makes “something happen” after becoming a child of God is a good thing and I pray that each of us would let our confident assurance motivate us to model a kind of gratitude that expresses itself in pure lives.
02 March 2012
The Problem is Not Birth Control
The politicians have once again baited the religious among us. The religious among us have swallowed the bait, “hook, line, and sinker” as the southern way of describing the overly gullible might sound. It is amazing to me that this game keeps being played, right now over birth control, but the subject hardly matters, we keep playing the game!
What frustrates me about “the game” is that it inevitably has those who have taken the mantle of speaking for Christians sound as though they expect the federal government to do the job that God gave the church, not government. A reasonable reading of Paul’s comments in Romans 13 would suggest that citizens of the kingdom of God ultimately understand that “Rome is not the answer.” The emperor was quite guilty allowing (and probably participating in) lots of atrocities – slavery, abortion, infanticide, sexual perversions, to name a few – but Paul apparently believes that the gospel is a more effective change agent than marching on the Roman senate.
While I recognize that we live in a different culture with a different kind of government than Paul and the believers in Rome faced, when we play “the game” that is currently being played out on the evening news, we sound as though we have no confidence in the gospel and lots of confidence in “Rome,” that is, government. Do we really think that the federal congress, a state legislature, or local city government is more powerful that “the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation” as Paul describes it in the opening chapter of Romans? How else can the opening of Romans be read other than as a “laying down the gauntlet” to the Emperor Nero, that the gospel, not the emperor, is the power of God?
Of course our government not only allows, but encourages us to be involved in its deliberations. People my age can remember the turbulent 1960s, when leaders of the Civil Rights Movement did just that – and the result was bringing about all sorts of changes in the way Americans should do business. People younger than I find it hard to believe that there was a day when the color of your skin determined which water fountain you could use! Despite that progress, surely no one would argue that the passage of federal law actually stopped anyone from being racist. At their very best, governments can only make behavior legal or illegal – they can never transform individuals into the people God is calling them to be. Governments can “buy time,” but only the gospel can “transcend time.”
The current debate about birth control isn’t even one of those topics where orthodox Christians tend to agree. On one side of the argument, we hear people quoting “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) as a divine and eternal mandate to keep having babies. But if that is an eternal mandate that would make any attempt at birth control sinful, how is one to explain Paul’s word to the Christians at Corinth that it is sometimes best not even to be married – which of course from a biblical perspective would mean no children. Could Paul have said that if God’s expectations are that each person should get married, be fruitful, and populate the earth?
Honestly – neither of those samples from biblical testimony prove one way or the other whether birth control is acceptable or not. That’s why among orthodox believers, you don’t always get the same answer. Could it be that God actually expects us to use the grey matter between our ears and some sanctified common sense? And that having done that, we faithfully practice our own convictions without any expectations that others have to follow our lead?
It is hard for me to grasp how we allow an issue that Scripture itself isn’t all that clear about to become a wall of separation among believers and fodder for politicians pimping for our votes! Truth be known, if I believe that birth control is unacceptable, it is the job of the church, not the government, to teach its members that part of the faith. Even though I think Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 7 make it difficult to think that the “be fruitful and multiply” of Genesis was a divine and eternal mandate, I’m perfectly fine with others thinking that it is. I just don’t want those folks thinking that I’m inferior in some spiritual way because I don’t see the issue the same.
I understand that the political conversation right now is wrapped up in election year bantering and that we can hardly have elections without debating the church/state relationship – but can’t understand why any believer would trade “the power of the gospel unto salvation” for some policy of the federal government. I’m not sure the government is forcing anyone to practice birth control and if my convictions are that birth control is wrong, then I should be working on bringing others to Christ and teaching them that, one at a time.
I also understand the “but they are making the church pay for birth control . . .” part of the conversation. But I would remind you that very similar conversations could have been developed among the Roman Christians about their government. But Paul tells them, “pay your taxes.” Paul seems to think that “government is government” and we ought to seek to live beneath its radar screen and preach Christ. At some level, government is irrelevant for citizens of the Kingdom of God as we eagerly await the reappearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ. (Philippians 3:20, 21)
The problem with “they are making me pay for something I don’t approve of” argument is that once that can of worms is opened, we never get them back in! No doubt more Christians disapprove of all the military interventions we have going on at the moment than disapprove of birth control. What if I don’t approve of how the food stamp program is implemented? Or some medical practices that keep elderly people alive at all cost? Or . . . that list is endless!
That’s just how it is with government – we will never approve of all it does. Paul surely didn’t approve of much of what Rome did, but could still say, “pay your taxes.” How could that be? Government is irrelevant, and when compared to the gospel, rather impotent.
So, let’s quit allowing the politicians to bait us! We have much more important stuff to be doing. We aren’t here just “to buy time,” but “to transcend time.”
What frustrates me about “the game” is that it inevitably has those who have taken the mantle of speaking for Christians sound as though they expect the federal government to do the job that God gave the church, not government. A reasonable reading of Paul’s comments in Romans 13 would suggest that citizens of the kingdom of God ultimately understand that “Rome is not the answer.” The emperor was quite guilty allowing (and probably participating in) lots of atrocities – slavery, abortion, infanticide, sexual perversions, to name a few – but Paul apparently believes that the gospel is a more effective change agent than marching on the Roman senate.
While I recognize that we live in a different culture with a different kind of government than Paul and the believers in Rome faced, when we play “the game” that is currently being played out on the evening news, we sound as though we have no confidence in the gospel and lots of confidence in “Rome,” that is, government. Do we really think that the federal congress, a state legislature, or local city government is more powerful that “the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation” as Paul describes it in the opening chapter of Romans? How else can the opening of Romans be read other than as a “laying down the gauntlet” to the Emperor Nero, that the gospel, not the emperor, is the power of God?
Of course our government not only allows, but encourages us to be involved in its deliberations. People my age can remember the turbulent 1960s, when leaders of the Civil Rights Movement did just that – and the result was bringing about all sorts of changes in the way Americans should do business. People younger than I find it hard to believe that there was a day when the color of your skin determined which water fountain you could use! Despite that progress, surely no one would argue that the passage of federal law actually stopped anyone from being racist. At their very best, governments can only make behavior legal or illegal – they can never transform individuals into the people God is calling them to be. Governments can “buy time,” but only the gospel can “transcend time.”
The current debate about birth control isn’t even one of those topics where orthodox Christians tend to agree. On one side of the argument, we hear people quoting “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) as a divine and eternal mandate to keep having babies. But if that is an eternal mandate that would make any attempt at birth control sinful, how is one to explain Paul’s word to the Christians at Corinth that it is sometimes best not even to be married – which of course from a biblical perspective would mean no children. Could Paul have said that if God’s expectations are that each person should get married, be fruitful, and populate the earth?
Honestly – neither of those samples from biblical testimony prove one way or the other whether birth control is acceptable or not. That’s why among orthodox believers, you don’t always get the same answer. Could it be that God actually expects us to use the grey matter between our ears and some sanctified common sense? And that having done that, we faithfully practice our own convictions without any expectations that others have to follow our lead?
It is hard for me to grasp how we allow an issue that Scripture itself isn’t all that clear about to become a wall of separation among believers and fodder for politicians pimping for our votes! Truth be known, if I believe that birth control is unacceptable, it is the job of the church, not the government, to teach its members that part of the faith. Even though I think Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 7 make it difficult to think that the “be fruitful and multiply” of Genesis was a divine and eternal mandate, I’m perfectly fine with others thinking that it is. I just don’t want those folks thinking that I’m inferior in some spiritual way because I don’t see the issue the same.
I understand that the political conversation right now is wrapped up in election year bantering and that we can hardly have elections without debating the church/state relationship – but can’t understand why any believer would trade “the power of the gospel unto salvation” for some policy of the federal government. I’m not sure the government is forcing anyone to practice birth control and if my convictions are that birth control is wrong, then I should be working on bringing others to Christ and teaching them that, one at a time.
I also understand the “but they are making the church pay for birth control . . .” part of the conversation. But I would remind you that very similar conversations could have been developed among the Roman Christians about their government. But Paul tells them, “pay your taxes.” Paul seems to think that “government is government” and we ought to seek to live beneath its radar screen and preach Christ. At some level, government is irrelevant for citizens of the Kingdom of God as we eagerly await the reappearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ. (Philippians 3:20, 21)
The problem with “they are making me pay for something I don’t approve of” argument is that once that can of worms is opened, we never get them back in! No doubt more Christians disapprove of all the military interventions we have going on at the moment than disapprove of birth control. What if I don’t approve of how the food stamp program is implemented? Or some medical practices that keep elderly people alive at all cost? Or . . . that list is endless!
That’s just how it is with government – we will never approve of all it does. Paul surely didn’t approve of much of what Rome did, but could still say, “pay your taxes.” How could that be? Government is irrelevant, and when compared to the gospel, rather impotent.
So, let’s quit allowing the politicians to bait us! We have much more important stuff to be doing. We aren’t here just “to buy time,” but “to transcend time.”
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