And now for something completely different....

As I drive around the Dallas Metroplex, I'm shocked at the aggressiveness of people's driving. Of course, one would think that as Christians we might project a kinder, gentler face, but such is not the case. I recently had a conversation with another brother who stood out among his peers by the very fact that he was even questioning the purchase of a radar detector. So, is it wrong for us as Christians to own and use them?

From what I can tell from the scriptures, I believe that the Bible makes it pretty clear that we are to follow the laws of the land (which would definitely fall into the category of "doing good"). It does this in James 4:17 (ESV: So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.).

So one might take it to be a moot point that we should be doing something as simple as driving below the posted speed limits or coming to a complete and full stop at stop signs...if for no other reason than it affects our witness for Christ. Does this sound like I'm going off the deep end? Allow me to elaborate if I may.

Let's start at home. If our sons and daughters in the car see that we have little regard for laws which inconvenience us, or see that we "interpret" the laws in our own ways, our ability to take a stand against moral relativism in other areas is impacted. In fact, such behavior clearly communicates to the world (not just our kids in the back seat) that we Christians, like everyone else, have little to no regard for laws unless they seem important to us...the very definition of moral relativism. By not coming to a full stop at a stop sign, even and especially if no one else is in the intersection, we are in effect saying "It's OK to break a law in certain situations". It is a very short ride from there to "It's OK to steal if they won't miss it", or "It's OK to lie as long as no one gets hurt".

I believe that this translates directly from the physical to the spiritual. If we are so rebellious that we can't drive at or below the posted speed (breaking one of man's laws), will we even hesitate in breaking one of God's laws which do not violate man's laws....especially if we feel that we can justify such behavior to ourselves. That isn't really the stretch it may seem. In 1 John 4:20 the apostle tells us that "If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.". The concept of out-of-sight, out-of-mind all too often plays into our behavioral model.

Purchasing a radar detector goes one step further though. This act blatantly admits that (a) not only do I have no respect for the law (speed limits), but (b) I fully intend to break the law so often that I'm willing to spend some of the money with which God has blessed me so that I can more easily get away with it. Which teaches our children (and other non-believers) that it is perfectly acceptable to take overt steps to avoid the punishment for breaking a law even while that act is only in our hearts.

And we sit in church and wonder why the unbelieving world feels like we preach one way and live another. These things may be small, but small things are often the very things of which the big things are made.

I love to tell the story

Let me tell you the story that I love to tell...perhaps, if it has not already, it will be received by you in a way you have yet to experience.

Long before the world was created, God in his power and wisdom determined to create mankind that they might find their happiness and joy in him. Yet, he could see that once created in the way he intended to do so, that they would reject him and fall into sin. He could simply have chosen to create us differently, or not to create us at all, but that was not in the mind of God. However, he did decide to make a way for mankind to be made right with himself even after man turned his mind away from God.

Man fell into sin after creation, yet God was faithful, and at the right time in history, sent his only son to earth. Born of a virgin in Bethlehem, Jesus was his name. He lived a life of perfect obedience to his heavenly father, and at the age of 30, began his ministry. During the 3 1/2 years of his ministry, he made the lame walk, made the blind see, healed those with leprosy and other diseases, and even raised a young girl, a young man, and an older gentleman from the dead. Everywhere he went, he preached that we as humans are to turn our backs on sin, and to seek him out.

By placing our full faith and trust in him as our Savior and Lord, he promises to cleanse us from our sin debt, and bring us home to be with him in Heaven one day. For those who will abandon all hope in themselves and their ability to save themselves, and place all their hope and trust in him, he will faithfully keep his promise of saving our soul from the judgment of God against our sinful lives. He was tortured and murdered on a Roman cross, bearing the sins of all who would believe in him, paying the price so that they could live forever with him.

We are then to depend upon God and his word in the Bible, turning away from lives of selfishness and sin, and seeking to follow the path that God has laid out of each of us. This path will not often be easy, wealthy, or free from trouble....many times it will be a hard road. But God promises to be with us through these trials, and bring us closer and closer to him as we spend our time on this earth. Ah, but this is time well spent in the service of the true King of all the Universe, the only true God.

We will stumble and fall back into sin now and then after he saves us, but as his children we will not be happy in lives of sin, and will always seek the forgiveness and fellowship of our heavenly father each time we fall. As life progresses, in many ways it will be easier and easier to live our lives in obedience to him, as his Holy Spirit empowers us to live in harmony with his word. Some things will be a struggle all our lives, used as a constant reminder of our weakness and His strength.

To some this will sound like foolishness, and to others it will sound offensive. But to those who will be saved, these are words of welcome into God's family, and represent the very power of God himself. While surrender to God sounds easy, it can be a difficult thing for us to do as prideful human beings, and placing our trust in God can be a very scary thing. The cost in this life can be much, but the rewards to come make our present sufferings of no comparison.

Is Christ both your Savior and your Lord..? My friend, if you feel that still small voice within you convicting you of your sin, and desiring a real relationship with Christ, today is the day to act on that. If you have questions and would like someone to converse with, please don't hesitate to drop me a line at michaelraymorris@gmail.com.

May God bless and reveal Himself to you all...

It's all about trust...

We’ve heard it so many times that just the thought of hearing it again causes a spontaneous eye-roll for most of us. Yet words more true are hard to find… “The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.” (Psalms 9:9-10). I remember being particularly drawn to the first part of verse 10, “…those who know your name put their trust in you…”. We are to trust God in all things.

These are easy words to say, but for many these words do not truly live in their hearts. For some reason, it is much easier to love God, and even obey him, than it is to simply trust Him. I heard it again in church on Sunday that we are to obey even when we can’t understand why God is doing something. And that made me think again about trust. The words spoken had that familiar ring to them. If you just obey, someday it will all make sense to you, your life will be better because of the pain God brought into your life, and you will be grateful. For me, that just seemed more than a little self-centered.

What if God brings a situation into your life that makes your life worse…and it never gets better?

Till you die.

Isn’t part of trusting in God having the settled heart-belief that God’s purposes are being worked out for His glory (and not our own well-being…for now or even later), and that His purposes are higher than ours?

Does something have to eventually turn out for our own good in order for our trust in God to be warranted?

Ah, but what about Romans 8:28 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”. This verse is slung about many times to tell us who call ourselves Christians that everything will turn out for the best. But does it really say that? Paul here states that we (him and those to whom he wrote the letter…and by extension us as well) know that for those who love God (and those are the people who are called according to his purpose), all things work together for good. Not necessarily for the good of those particular people, but for good. Since we have an all-powerful God who is good, it must follow as the night does the day that all His purposes are good.

So, do we trust God even when his good purposes will bring hardship and tribulation on us?

Even if that hardship is never relieved in this life…?

But does God really work that way? Let’s just pick an example out of the Bible. In the first chapter of Ruth, we learn that Elimelech and Naomi had to leave their homeland due to a famine. Now we know from Isaiah 45:7 (“I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.”), that God brought this famine about. Famine was not a joke in that time, but meant the same thing that famines in poor lands mean today. People, potentially a great many people, would slowly starve to death. Men, women, and children of all ages no doubt died during this famine.

Not everyone in the land of Judah at that time had the means that Elimelech and Naomi had to simply pack up their belongings (along with their two sons) and go to live in a different land (Moab). But that doesn’t mean it turned out for the best for those individuals either. While there, Elimelech dies, leaving Naomi a widow with two sons. These sons each take wives from the Moabite people, but both later die also….childless.

So here is Naomi, a widow in a foreign land and both her sons are dead. It is her, and her two daughters-in-law (Orpah and Ruth), both of whom are now also widows. So far this purpose of God’s has not only been bad for the land of Judah, but Elimelech, Mahlon, and Chilion (the sons) all died. Naomi now returns to her homeland since she hears that the famine has abated, and although Orpah returns to her people, Ruth refuses to be parted from Naomi. Naomi feels that God’s hand has gone out against her personally, to the extent that upon her return she asks to no longer be called Naomi, but rather Mara (Naomi means “pleasant” / Mara means “bitter”).

In one of the best love stories in the Bible (in my opinion), Ruth catches the eye of a wealthy older man in Bethlehem named Boaz. They fall in love, he eventually marries Ruth. Together they have a son named Obed. Obed in turn marries and has a son named Jesse, who in turn matures, marries and has eight sons, the youngest of whom is David (who would one day be King of Israel). Through David’s lineage, Christ will be born, and pay for the sins of all who will believe in him. God caused tribulation and death for many, in order to bring about his good purpose for mankind during that time.

And He is still doing so today.

The question that remains for his elect is the same though
.
Will we trust in God regardless of our circumstances…even if they never get better…?

Or are we so spoiled that we won’t trust Him unless it turns out good for us?

And if we don’t really trust him in that way, can we really be counted among those who know his name..?

A Lying Spirit

I've got to be honest, I really don't know where to go with this post. It is just something I read the other day, that continues to stick with me. Let me set the stage a bit for you....

Ahab was not a choir boy...not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, 1 Kings 16:30 tells us that he did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him. He served Baal, and had a rather infamous wife named Jezebel (not something most parents think of naming their little girls to this day). At the bidding of Elijah, he gathers 450 prophets of Baal for a showdown, only to have them lose. Elijah kills every one of them (1 Kings 18:40). Ahab then runs and tells his wife, and she threatens to kill Elijah....not exactly a model of bravery on his part. He later makes a deal with a Syrian king which God tells him to kill (allowing him to live) , which brings a death sentence on him from God (1 Kings 20:42).

For three years there is no further war with Syria, but then he tries to convince the king of Judah (Jehoshaphat) to go to war with him against Syria in order to take a town. He inquires of the Lord via 400 prophets, asking if he should go to war with Jehoshaphat against Syria...and every one of them give him the green light. Even the prophet Micaiah, who nearly always gives Ahab bad news, initially tells him to go up. It is only upon further prodding by the King that Micaiah tells him that he will die there should he go. Then he goes further.

He states that he saw the Lord on his throne, with all the host of Heaven in attendance. The Lord asks for someone to volunteer to entice Ahab into going into battle, and thus to his death. In 1 Kings 22:21-23 we learn that one of the spirits volunteers, and the Lord asks him how he intends to do it. He states that he will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. The Lord tells him to go and do it, and that he will succeed. Verse 23 is clear on this point, that it is the Lord himself who puts the lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets by sending this spirit on its mission.

Now this isn't some fallen angel, but a spirit serving the Lord of Heaven himself. And God approves of this method, and sends that spirit on it's way. By means of this, the king goes into battle, and is killed by the random shot of an arrow into the air, thus fulfilling the will of the Lord concerning this wicked king.

While God will not and can not lie, He apparently can and has sent others to lie in order to achieve his purposes. It is not that he could not have achieved his purposes by simply filling Ahab with pride so that he didn't even consult his prophets, or even to consult them but then ignore them. He could have killed him instantly with a heart attack, or slowly with any number of diseases. Instead, he causes (via a sent spirit) 400 prophets to speak falsely to the king's demise.

Having read a few commentators try to "talk around" this text, I simply find it interesting what the text actually says.

Certainly the 400 sycophant prophets surrounding Ahab were just saying what he wanted to hear, and would be more than willing to believe a lie and retell it.

Certainly God doesn't take advice from spirits and go with the best option presented.

And it causes one to pause to think that God would encourage a lie. However, we do find in 2 Thessalonians 2:11 that God will one day send "a strong delusion" on people, so that they will believe a lie, so the concept is not without biblical warrant.

Ultimately, our theology must bend to the content of scripture itself, without our "helpful warping" of it. So what does this tell us?

I'd like to tell you I've found the answer. I have not. Clearly, some of God's ways are beyond my understanding at this point...and may always be so.

What do you think...?

Who (or what) is the Wisdom of Proverbs 8

The personification of the substance or essential nature of an individual is called "hypostasis", and this segment of scripture does this very thing. Here, Wisdom is, or appears to be, a powerful personification. But of what? Similar personifications are found in Psalms 85:10–13 and Psalms 89:14, and Israel and Judah are personified in Ezekiel 23. It is true that Proverbs 8 is a considerably more developed, extended personification than found in some of the above texts, but that does not mean that Proverbs 8 is fundamentally different.

In the beginning of this chapter, Wisdom is personified as a woman, but what does she personify? Does she represent an attribute of God, as is sometimes argued? To this the answer must be an emphatic no. While wisdom is certainly an attribute of God, this text does not deal with it in that sense. To the contrary, since Proverbs 8 is an invitation to the reader to partake of wisdom, it cannot mean that access to a divine attribute is open to humans when they desire to acquire it, but rather it is a gift given by God (James 1:5).

In the same way, Wisdom is not the Second Person of the Trinity (Jesus). Perhaps the strongest argument for taking Proverbs 8 to be an Old Testament portrait of Christ is 1 Corinthians 1:24, where Paul calls Christ “the wisdom of God.”. Closer examination of the text, however, reveals that Paul’s description of Christ is not an allusion to Proverbs 8 and that it provides no basis for interpreting Proverbs in this way.

First, Paul’s purpose in 1 Corinthians 1:24 is not to point to Old Testament texts that relate to Christ but to address the scandal of the cross. In particular he faces the issue of the offense created when he proclaims that the crucified Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of the world. To the Greeks this is sheer folly. When he says that Christ is the wisdom of God, he means it functionally, in the sense that the crucified Christ is God’s profound way of salvation despite whatever human reason may think of the idea. He also calls Christ the power of God in the same verse in response to Jews who expect the Messiah to come in overwhelming power.

It is also worth noting from a Greek grammar perspective, that the conjunction of δύναμις, (dunamis) ‘power,’ and σοφία, (sophia) ‘wisdom,’ shows that here ‘wisdom’ is not a hypostasis but rather a conceptual term.

Second, it is not appropriate to take Paul’s comment and make it the interpretive grid for an Old Testament text to which Paul made no allusion whatsoever. Similarly, one should not take a text that describes the power of God (e.g., Psalms 78:4) and claim that it is really a description of Christ on the basis of 1 Corinthians 1:24. It would be as if one were to take 1 John 4:8 (“God is love”) and on that basis claim that 1 Corinthians 13 is really intended to be read as a description of God.

Finally, the Wisdom of Proverbs 8 does not personify an attribute of God but rather personifies an attribute of creation. Here, Wisdom is the personification of the structure, plan, or rationality that God built into the world. She is created by God and fundamentally an attribute of God’s universe.

Perhaps the most compelling reason in my estimation that Proverbs 8 (specifically verses 12-34) is not a reference to Christ, even though it may seem on the surface to be so, and many (but not all) commentators tend to tie this to Christ, is the fact that within this segment of scripture Wisdom is seen as existent with God, but passive in the creation of the heavens and the earth. We know both from Hebrews 1:2 and more specifically Colossians 1:15-16, that Christ was anything but passive during the creative act.

As we read through the scriptures, we must be careful to rightly divide the word of truth, and to ensure that we do not read more into the scriptures than are present. By misinterpreting scriptures such as Proverbs 8, one can then be lead down many paths of error, so care must be taken.

May we all read God's word with humility and a teachable heart, and may His Holy Spirit direct our understanding.

Some thoughts on the crucifixion

As I was sitting in Bible Fellowship the other day (that's Sunday School for anyone older than 30), I was impressed with a couple of passages of scripture which just seemed to speak to me. Both Mark and Matthew make mention of something offered to Christ immediately prior to being nailed to the cross, while on the hill called Golgotha. Mark 15:23 reads "and they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.", and Matthew 27:34 reads "they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it."....and I wondered why.

After a bit of research, I learned that this mixture was used a sort of pain relief or sedative. The concept being that this at least for a short time eased the pain of the one who was to be crucified, and probably made it a bit easier for the soldiers to nail the person to the cross since they would be drugged. So Christ turned down this (albeit temporary) pain relief, which could have made the sacrifice a bit easier. So why?

There may well be several reasons, but I tend to believe that he had set his face towards the sacrifice to be made, and the fulfillment of the scriptures. Taking the pain relief would have meant more time on the cross so that the full cup of God's wrath against those for whom Christ died could be consumed by Christ. This would have had Christ on the cross and alive much closer to sundown, which would have increased the likelihood that they would have broken his legs (which would have violated the prophecy against none of his bones being broken (Psalms 34:20)).

Another facet of this was that he did not go to the cross to be saved from pain and suffering for our sins, but rather to pay for those sins through his suffering. He boldly faced each and every searing, throbbing pain for us. During one of those moments of pain, one of those agonies (if not more), was for my sins....the sins of Michael Morris. If the concept of substitutionary atonement were to be carried to its logical conclusion, the totality of the sins that I have and will commit throughout my life established the price he paid for me personally...as it did for every person who has or will believe on him.

Since all four gospels say that Christ died at the moment of his choosing by simply breathing his last and dying (Matthew 27:50, Mark 15:37, Luke 23:46, and John 19:30) in support of John 10:18, and even Pilate is surprised that he is dead already(Mark 15:44) (which no doubt means that most victims treated in this manner lasted longer in his experience), we know that Christ suffered only as long as was necessary to pay the substitutionary price for the sins of all those who had and would believe on him.

His willingness to suffer and die without relief so that I could be free to spend eternity with God is a debt I will forever owe to my Lord and Savior, a debt of love that no service of mine however great will ever repay. I am continually humbled and amazed at his sacrifice for his sheep, of which I am one. Thank you Jesus....I love you so much...

Is ALL always everyone single one..?

Certainly, entire books have been written on the wider topic from a biblical perspective, especially those books that choose to take on the task of reminding us of God’s sovereignty in salvation…but this isn’t about to be another one. This is simply one of those times where I ran across something that I simply never questioned before, yet the Holy Spirit brought it to my attention. Many times we read things at a surface level without a great deal of thought, especially as it relates to stories that we know so very well.

Take the plagues visited upon Egypt during the Exodus for example. In the fifth plague we read the following (in part) “For if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, behold, the hand of the Lord will fall with a very severe plague upon your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks. But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing of all that belongs to the people of Israel shall die.”’” And the Lord set a time, saying, “Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land.” And the next day the Lord did this thing. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one of the livestock of the people of Israel died.” (Exodus 9:2-6 ESV). Note that it says that all the livestock of the Egyptians died.

Now the entire time period between Moses and Aaron first speaking with Pharaoh and the culmination of the tenth plague is less than a year, so these plagues all occurred within that time period…many scholars believe it happened over an eight to nine month period. We know this because the Bible tells us that Moses was 80 when he first spoke with Pharaoh (Exodus 7:7), and that he died after spending 40 years in the wilderness at the age of 120 (Deuteronomy 34:7).

In the same chapter of Exodus, the seventh plague is a horrific hail. One particular verse in this section reads: “Now therefore send, get your livestock and all that you have in the field into safe shelter, for every man and beast that is in the field and is not brought home will die when the hail falls on them.” (Exodus 9:19 ESV). The land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived, was not affected by this hail.

This caught my attention. Why did Moses tell Pharaoh that he would need to get his livestock out of the fields into safe shelter…? Furthermore, we learn in verse 21 that there were some of the Egyptians that still didn’t fear the Lord, and left their livestock outside (and they were then killed by the hail). If every single one of the livestock the Egyptians had was killed by the fifth plague, there wouldn’t be any livestock for the hail to hit.

Now it is possible but unlikely that they simply took the livestock of the Israelites, since we later learn that they left with their livestock on the Exodus journey (Exodus 12:38). It could it be that the Egyptians had replenished (at least to an extent) their livestock from outside sources, but I think it more likely that this is a case in which the word “all” is much more likely to mean “all kinds” or “all types” of livestock, and not every single one of them.

One actually sees the same concept spelled out more directly in the sixth plague, which was boils. In Exodus 9:9 it states “It shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and become boils breaking out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt.”, yet we learn in verse 11 that “And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians.”. In other words, the boils didn’t break out on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt without exception…it only affected the Egyptians themselves. Israelites in the same city were not affected apparently.

So why bring this up at all? Perhaps, just as a reminder that we must be careful when interpreting the scriptures, and not read our own ideas into the text.

Sometimes, all means every single one without exception.

Sometimes, all means some of each kind.

If we can identify exceptions that are either explicit or highly likely, we must lean in the directions scripture points, not depending too heavily upon our own traditions.

And sometimes, we can only determine the greater meaning of this simple word through much study and prayer.

Solo Gloria Deo