It's the Lord's

Admittedly the competition isn’t too impressive, but all things considered, Jehoshaphat was one of the better kings of Judah during the years of the divided kingdom. When we first meet him in 2 Chronicles 17, he is described with the phrase “he walked in the ways his father David had followed.” (17:3) His relationship with Ahab, king of Israel, created some issues, but by and large Jehoshaphat avoided much of what plagued kings in both Judah and Israel during the divided Kingdom after the death of Solomon. 

One of my favorite quotes from Jehoshaphat, found in 2 Chronicles 19, comes from the time in his reign when he is appointing judges over Judah. Here’s what he said to them, “Consider carefully what you do, because you are not judging for man but for the Lord, who is with you whenever you give a verdict. Now let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Judge carefully, for with the Lord our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery.”  (19:6, 7) I know the United States is not a theocracy – and quite frankly I wouldn’t want it to be – but I can’t help but think how different the judicial system in our country would be if every judge and court official took that statement to heart!

At some point in his reign, the Moabites and Ammonites decided to make war on Jerusalem – and Jehoshaphat. (2 Chronicles 20) He gets word that a vast army is preparing to attack and becomes very alarmed. A fast is announced in Jerusalem and all of Judah. The people assemble and the prayer Jehoshaphat offers is majestic in its language and scope. At the end of that prayer, the chronicler says, “All the men of Judah, with their wives and children and little ones, stood there before the Lord.” (20:13) The phrase “stand before the Lord” is a fairly common Old Testament description of people, and all Judah in this text, presenting themselves before the Lord for worship and instruction.

While waiting, a Levite by the name of Jahaziel speaks on behalf of God. His ancestry is unusually long and goes all the way back to Asaph, from the days of David – perhaps another reminder of the kind of kingdom Jehoshaphat sought to create as he “walked in the ways his father David had followed.” Jahaziel’s prophetic words begin (20:15) and end (20:17) with “do not be afraid.” Think how those words would have sounded in the moment of Judah’s gathering to fast and stand before the Lord because of a vast army about to attack. 

But these words are more than FDR’s famous “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” comment in his first inaugural address in 1933. Here’s why: “For the battle is not yours, but God’s.” Even though the opponents of Judah are vast and powerful, they need not fear for the Lord was fighting for them. This is one of those places where you would expect that perhaps a psalm was read reminding them of the God who rescued them out of Egypt, brought them through the Red Sea, and finally to the promised land. He was on their side. For Jahaziel, the idea of God’s presence was more than some well-crafted theological concept – it was the source of the kind of strength that could overcome Judah’s deepest fears. 

If you read the rest of 2 Chronicles 20, you will discover that by the time the armies of Judah got to the battle field, it was all over and they only saw “dead bodies lying on the ground.” (20:24) It is an amazing story of God’s presence among His people. The army of Judah left the battlefield unharmed and with great spoils. They returned to Jerusalem and the Temple to worship God.

As we approach the annual celebration of the birth of our country, many believers do so with something akin to “great fear” in our hearts. Every survey you see suggests that Christians are losing ground, not gaining ground, in our culture. There is great concern about the decision the Supreme Court made about marriage. What many view as the improper intrusion of government into private life moments is a part of many conversations. Clearly we are yet to figure out how to live in the multi-ethnic culture in which we find ourselves in a Christ-like way.

Those are all internal issues – but there are lots of external realities as well. The whole issue of terror – what should we do about it? How can we do that? How can we pay for it? Or what about the plans Putin has for Russia and its next moves? Is anyone confident that the Middle East is going to quiet down for a while? And the list goes on.

Again, with no sense of thinking the US is “the new Israel” through which God can work, what if Christians decided that the paradigm seen in 2 Chronicles 20 might be worth emulating? What if we “stood before the Lord” – that is, committed ourselves to worship Him and Him alone. What if we finally decided that only in trusting Him can our fears be relieved? What if . . .?”

What if the real issue for the church is not to decide with political candidate will be the closest to what we think is “just,” and simply decided that we would be the people God has called us to be? 

If you read the first scene in Acts – 1:1 – 6:7 – you see a picture of a thriving, “multiplying” body of Christ that seems to be modeling precisely what the kingdom of God is intended to do. Despite some external issues – persecution by Jewish leaders who continue to oppose the idea of Jesus as Messiah – the church seems to be invigorated for greater, not lessor, witness.

Only when there is an internal problem – Acts 5:1-12 and the Ananias and Sapphira story – do we see a bit of a glitch in the progress the body of Christ is making in carrying out the continued mission of Jesus. They want the blessing of a “changed name” (see 4:36) but aren’t interested in the kind of spiritual commitment that requires. If they were alive now, it would be easy for them to point a finger at the Supreme Court’s potential ruling about marriage without ever looking internally about the poor example of marriage so many people who call themselves Christians set. 

Here’s the bottom line: if we are “standing before the Lord,” and willing to listen to His Word, then we have no need to fear – the victory is the Lord’s.

Rachel Weeps Again

The news out of Charleston late Wednesday night has served to once again remind us of what a fragile world in which we live. The horror of knowing that this happened inside a church building where brothers and sisters in Christ were studying Scripture and praying only adds to that realization. Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston is the second oldest AME church in the United States and occupies an important place in the history of Charleston and on the historic tours you can take while visiting this great city. Growing up near Charleston and having a mother who grew up there, I knew Charleston as “The Holy City” – a name it claims because of its many beautiful, historic, and influential churches. Emmanuel AME Church is one of those churches.

When Matthew tells the story of Herod’s wickedness in killing the baby boys in Bethlehem in hopes of getting rid of this pretender to being King of the Jews, he reminds his readers of words from Jeremiah – “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:16-18, Jeremiah 31:15) For Jeremiah, it was the bitter grief of exile for the people of God. For Matthew, the bitter grief of innocent babies being killed in the name of evil. For you and me – the bitter grief of knowing that nine followers of Jesus no longer walk among us because of the vicious evil that seems to raise its ugly head in our culture all too often.

If we read but a few more verses in Jeremiah, we are reminded that despite the awful grief such moments bring, we serve and worship a God who has promised “there is hope for your future . . . your children will return to their own land.” (Jeremiah 31:17) And for the family, friends, and loved ones of those killed in Charleston’s Emmanuel AME Church, we know that in Christ there is great hope for tomorrow.

Would you join with me in praying for these families, for the members of Emmanuel AME Church, for the City of Charleston and its residents, and for our country. These events are great reminders to us of just how important what we are doing at Point University in educating students for Christ-centered service and leadership throughout the world really is. Would you also pray for Point’s influence to grow so that these events can become less and less as the kingdom of God advances.

Many Parts . . . One Body

What if your body were nothing but one giant eyeball? Have you ever thought about that? Think of how trying it would be to live during pollen season – especially if you had to wear contact lens to see well? And what kind of chairs would need to be manufactured in order for you to sit down! In fact, exactly on what body part would you sit if you were this giant eyeball?

Or what if you decided that your ears were so beautiful, you would like to be a giant ear. I’ve never actually met a person who thought their ears were that beautiful, but what if God had decided to make humans giant ears!

No doubt none of us would willingly get rid of our eyeballs or ears – equally of no doubt is that none of us want to be only an eyeball or ear.

In 1 Corinthians 12, it appears that Paul is making precisely that very point. Our bodies have “many parts,” but when all is said and done, those “many parts” make up but “one body.” By the time he gets to 12:20 -   “But now there are many parts, but one body” -  he has long since left the analogy  about our human bodies and is meddling a bit in our understanding of the church – the one body of Christ. He seems to think it more than merely odd that while we understand the “many parts” nature of our one human body, we struggle with the “many parts” of the one body of Christ.

One of the things I like best teaching at Point University is that I never walk into a classroom that looks like all the students could be my own children. There are some Caucasians, some African-Americans, some Latinos, some Asians, some – seemingly from every ethnic background imaginable. The classroom looks so much like “many parts . . . one body” that I can’t help but think it’s an amazing opportunity to be included.

In our current cultural context two troubling things stand out in this area – and I think they aren’t unrelated.  One is that in most Christian contexts, we tend to worship with, study with, work with “parts” that are almost always just like us. MLK was right when he described Sunday morning as the most segregated moment of each week! It is as though we want to be “all eyeballs” or “all ears.” The other thing is that it seems reasonable to suggest that our greatest cultural challenge right now is rooted in a kind of latent racism that separates us in to groups in more ways that we imagine.

But in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul won’t back down on his insistence that there is but one body – no matter how many “parts” it takes to make up the one body. The paragraphs 12:14-20 begins and ends with “one body” – and that idea is the subject of the whole paragraph – and entire section for that matter – of this chapter.

Where is the prophetic voice of Bible-believing Christians who have the courage not only to say that the only solution to our cultural challenges is for the church - the one body of Christ – to begin living up to its calling? Of course the real issue isn’t just ethnicities – it could be economics, it could be class, it could be gender, it could be – it could be almost anything.

The bottom line has to be that we have no right to be overly critical of divisive issues in our culture if we aren’t leading the church to model what it means to live out the Jesus story in a way that makes it clear that matters of group identity, gender identification, or geographical origin don’t matter anymore. Jesus came to redeem humankind and creation from the curse that fully expressed itself at the Tower of Babel. Pentecost undid that.

May we learn to model better what we believe!