One of my favorite parts of Bible Study, is just that, Bible Study. For years, I was what I would refer to as a surface reader, I was familiar with the books of the Bible where to find them and I had read things from them, but I never really paused to go beyond the word.  I hope today’s blog will be able to take us past the surface reading, and take us beyond the word so to speak that we might understand the very, very rich history of our Christian heritage. God used Elijah during an important time in Israel’s history. He chose Elijah to oppose a wicked king and bring revival to the land. Elijah’s ministry brought an end to the Baal worship in Israel. There is no doubt that Elijah’s life was filled with turmoil and it’s been written of him that at times he was bold and decisive but then again he could be fearful and tentative. He moves from victory and defeat followed by recovery. He never allowed depression to pull him down. He never lost faith in the power of God, we also note here the fact that the name of Elijah, a prophet of God means “my God is the Lord.” Elijah was understandably focused on the situation of life in this world he was living in and we do the same and it’s easy for us to take our eyes off the Lord and become discouraged. God does display his presence in power and judgment, wind, fire, earthquakes, but he also relates to us intimately and personally, which is a quiet whisper. God encourages us to examine our own thoughts and behaviors. He has given us free will, and he instruct us how to proceed and assures us that we are not alone. Elijah had many human frailties and even in times of failures and disappointments God used him mightily to strengthen the kingdom. God can use us even in our disheveled shape to bring us powerfully forward that we might defend the faith and the kingdom.

I also want today in this blog to introduce you, some of you already know and know it well, but to those who have never known or have never really heard it I would like to introduce you to the worship song Days of Elijah. It is unapologetically Christian. It was written by Robin Mark in 1995 and it’s an anthem of Hope and endurance that connects biblical prophecy to the modern church. In the mid 1990s when Robin Mark wrote this hymn they were a great number of global crisis that were capturing the attention of people everywhere. He was also inspired after hearing a sermon on the value of dry bones from the book of Ezekiel. The song Days of Elijah reminds us that God is in control during difficult or dark times, it inspires Christians to stand firm with integrity, justice, just as biblical figures did. What are the things about Elijah that stood out… that he stood boldly for God against cultural pressures and false profits during a time of moral decline… sound familiar. Some points taken from the song. The days of Moses and righteousness, that alludes to Moses and the restoration of God’s law holiness and right living. It acknowledges that there will be trials, famine and darkness and a time of war. World suffering, tribulation and hardships are all present while emphasizing that believers are a voice in a desert preparing the way for God. The Chorus of the song anticipates the second coming of Jesus Christ(“riding on the clouds”), a trumpet call, the year of jubilee, which was a biblical time of debt release, freedom, and restoration, and the salvation coming from Zion. As we move on through the chorus there is a reference to Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones coming to life which symbolize spiritual renewal, resurrection, hope, and the restoration of God’s people. There is a reference to King David rebuilding the temple of praise, representing continuous worship, and devotion to God. Days of the harvest as a spiritual harvest, or Christians acting as laborers in the Vineyard to spread the gospel message…Or better put more plainly declaring the word of the Lord. It is at this point that the writer of the song gives us a bridge the connects and brings it all together. A direct declaration of there is only one God and supreme allegiance to God above all powers or idols the song states it as there is “No God like Jehovah.”

So we’ll wrap up this week’s blog with this reminder. The song that Robin Mark wrote is poetic, it’s inspirational. It’s a call for Christians to stand firm with moral integrity during the cultural and global trials that we’re facing right now. Thanks for joining us in The Pew this week. I hope you will be able to take the time to Google the song “The Days of Elijah.” I highly encourage you to do so… you will be inspired.

Life is Good

jk

Thanks for joining us in the Pew today. The focus of our blog today is a little bit different. There’s a lot of old sayings that have been passed down over the years, one that you don’t hear a whole lot today in our time is the common idiom “got his just deserts”. If you look closely, you’ll see that the word used here is  spelled with only one S. Deserts, when spelled in this manner, having only one S does not refer to some after dinner sweets…when spelled in this manner, it’s meaning having received punishment or a bad consequence for something that we’ve done that was wrong. The word “deserts” comes from an old noun meaning “what is deserved” which is related to the verb deserve. So I’ll write it one more time. It doesn’t refer to a sweet dessert of some kind.

A comedian whose name I don’t remember once said that the world’s not really messed up it’s just the people in it. I guess that’s a lot more accurate than what we’d like to admit, all of us at one time or another have feelings of resentment against others either because it’s something they’ve done to us or something they’ve done. So this old idiom we’re looking at today was the way that the old folks used to control their anger and still have a means of passing some kind of judgment. But the Bible or the biblical view is simply receiving what you truly deserve and the Bible balance is strict, divine justice with ultimate grace and mercy. Scripture teaches us that actions have moral consequences and there are some things that we as humans do   that that deserve a penalty. In Romans 6:23 the simple way to put it is that the “wages of sin is death.” The spiritual separation and judgment are the natural and fair outcome of turning away from God. I think we run across the universal accountability from passages like Obadiah 1:15 and Galatians 6:7 “whatever one sows that will he also reap.” this universal accountability, reminds us that God will hold nations and individuals accountable for what they do and they will face retribution or consequences matching their treatment of others. We must also keep in mind, however, that the Bible repeatedly emphasizes that God does not always give people the full punishment they deserve. And that’s illustrated in psalm 103:10 which states “he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us, according to our iniquities.” the hard fast truth that there is and always will be redemption through Christ. We will not be left to suffer “our just desert.” It is important that we understand that sin separates us from God and that Christ voluntarily bore that intensity of suffering on the cross, offering grace, forgiveness and eternal life as a gift rather than a earned wage.

I think I’ll turn the keyboard off at this point and simply hope that for each of you find that mercy, grace and justice through your relationship with God and you will receive your…..Just DESSERT. A sweet reward for a job well done.

Life is Good

jk

For many of us when we talk about the book of Exodus what comes to mind of course are the burning bush, God, Moses, and God’s instructions to Moses concerning the people held as slaves in Egypt. Join us here in the Pew today as we take a little bit different perspective about the book of Exodus.  At the time of the 10 Commandments, the Israelites existed as a freed tribal society, transitioning into a holy and covenantal theocracy. The first thing that takes place of note is that these  slaves become a covenant people. They’re free now from their bondage in Egypt. They had become a large travel collective of former slaves, newly organized around a shared lineage from Abraham and a direct religious identity. They have no king or centralized government of any kind, their supreme ruler and law giver was viewed as God himself, it’s a theocracy on the move. Now if we follow this, according to biblical tradition, the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai served as a formal constitution. We must remember that this was just a mass of people with a common interest, that being they had just been freed from slavery and the 10 Commandments given at Mount Sinai served as a formal constitution. It bound the different tribes together into a unified religious nation with mutual moral and legal obligations. They were basically a nomadic group of stateless souls. They did not possess a permanent territory, capital, or sovereign land. They were a nomadic community traveling through the wilderness before entering Canaan. God gave them purpose and goal.

You know it’s hard for us to imagine that the God we serve, the God who created us and all could have been possibly a nation builder. So I’m going to go out on the limb here in this blog and say that that’s one of the thoughts that crossed my mind while doing research for this week. There are two things in our society today that almost always create instant division. Politics and religion, and I think we all agree they don’t go well together. I was quite surprised when the pastor at the church I now attend, announced his new sermon series…Faith, and Politics. I think I can make this statement and be fairly confident of its accuracy. If you were to ask me, what’s the top two subjects that Pastor’s really don’t like to talk about…I would have to say politics and tithing, I will repeat again, I was rather surprised. A group I am involved with right now is pursuing a study in the book of Exodus and I wanted to share something from that book with you that brought this subject that I am writing about today to mind. Was God really involved in nation building? I’m going to focus on chapter 21 from the book of exodus which is sometimes known as the book of the Covenant. I wrote earlier about these people who Moses had freed from slavery in Egypt as being basically a group of nomadic, stateless souls. They didn’t have any permanent territory, no capital or sovereign land. They were just simply a nomadic community traveling through the wilderness before entering Canaan. That’s why I’ve come to the conclusion that this mass of undisciplined, unruly and wandering people, who now at this point have become God’s chosen people and become the subject of nation building. Let that sink in just a little bit and consider that the content of this chapter details rules about property, restitution, theft, social justice, and care for the vulnerable and religious offerings. These are God’s people, people who God has chosen and will build into a nation that will last to the very end of time. Chapter 21 deals with the outlines of the foundational civil and social set of laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai applying the 10 Commandments to daily Israeli life. If we really look at it honestly, this was as I’ve written before a massive group of people with no purpose, and totally leaderless. God had appointed Moses to lead them out of Egypt and to take them to the promised land and it’s at this point that God begins to form a covenant that will create a nation.

Now, haveing written all of this let’s do keep in mind that this is simply a theory on my part. But the pastors sermons the past few weeks at my church, directed towards Faith in Politics, rises to the level of a questionable task. I believe that it’s important that we emphasize that when we get into Exodus 22 it is God who is speaking, communicating his laws and commands to Moses on Mount Sinai. So the speaker is the Lord God/YHWH who’s delivering the civic, moral and religious laws. The recipient is Moses, who receives these instructions on the mountain to relay now to the soon to be Nation of Israel. I keep trying to think how I might write this that would resonate with my readers and in my simple mind, I simply look at this as God taking a massive number of people and using Moses to sort out that mess. Choosing them to be his people bringing them out of danger into the danger of the wilderness and then preparing them and bringing them together as a nation that they might serve him and glorify His will here on earth. Now there are a lot of things here in these chapters of 20, 21 and 22 but one of the things I did find extremely interested and wanted to show you or bring to your attention to the fact that even in that day and time in the Bible, we have mention of Sanctuary Cities, in biblical reference, they were referred to as Cities of Refuge. I’m using this as an example to impress upon you, the influence of the Bible and the influence of God’s word upon his people over all of this time. The sanctuary cities that we have now today, protect undocumented immigrants from federal deportation, biblical cities of refuse were part of an official legal and judicial system that was designed to halt blood fuels and guarantee due process for accidental occurrences. So think about all of this carefully. Moses chosen by God to bring his people out of slavery into the promised land led them into the desert and for a period of time God begin to build a nation that had laws, had certain ways of how things were to be done and certain expectations. They were no longer without a purpose and a leader. The God we serve is one of order and purpose. The God we serve is not one of condemnation, but one of raising the expectations of his people and allowing them to flourish in a manner that brings glory to Him. This has been a rather strange post, but in a day and time when we are so divided within our nation, I don’t think we can escape the fact that God was in the Nation Building business, and He built a nation… Israel, in some of the most trying circumstances, and it endures to this very day.

Life is Good 

jk

The famous phrase that were using as today’s title for this blog is actually credited to former US president Theodore Roosevelt but when we look to scripture, the underlying concept of this phrase fills the pages of the Old and New Testaments. So what does the Bible say about comparison… it warns us against measuring our worth, success or spiritual standing against other people? We might also look at the following scripture to magnify the thought just a little bit..

Galatians 6:4-5 NIV

4 Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else…5 for each one should carry their own load.

Scripture encourages us to focus on our own path. We’re instructed as believers to our own actions and take pride in the work we have done rather than comparing ourselves to someone else. We can look to proverbs 14:30. When we look at what others have or achieve and feel slighted, we move from healthy reflection into just plain old destructive jealousy. So we have to answer the questions. How does comparison destroy joy? Well for one thing it distracts us from our purpose looking sideways are looking to another persons calling blinds us to the unique mission that God has called us to do measuring what we’re doing against someone else’s mission, self-doubt, and can even bring us despair. One of the biggest things that it can do and often does is is cause us to misjudge God’s goodness. Comparison itself turns toxic when we are tricked into evaluating God’s goodness based on what he gave to someone else instead of recognizing the blessings in our own lives.

Instead of comparison, the Bible direct towards gratitude, contentment, and the joy that’s rooted in our faith and belief in Jesus Christ. In Philippians 4:11–12 Paul shares the fact that he has learned the secret of being content in every situation with welfare or hunger or living in plenty or want. God made us all and everything within us he handcrafted our very being, which simply means that our lives, talents and limits are wonderfully made for his purpose. Rather than envy or competing with neighbors we are reminded in Romans 12:15 to assume posture of love…we need to learn to “rejoice with those who rejoice; and mourn with those who mourn.”

Not really a whole lot more that we can write here without being repetitive. Comparison does destroy the joy of what God has given us to do and who we are. There may come a time in our life when we just really don’t realize what it is that God has given us to do, but discovering that through prayer and direction of our faith, we will experience a joy for greater than anything we’ve ever known. Have a good week….

Life is Good

jk

When I make decisions or formulate opinions about people and things I always try to look at the intent of the action or the person involved. Have you ever had good intentions but for some reason or other, you were unable to act on them. That’s what our time in The Pew today is about. John Mark was an early Christian figure  mentioned in the New Testament and traditionally he’s identified as Mark the evangelist, the author of the gospel of Mark. Who was John Mark? Well, he was an assistant and a companion to Paul and Barnabas on their early missionary journeys, kind of a traveling helper who had left an earlier trip which later caused a sharp disagreement between Paul and Barnabas… he was also a very close associate of the Apostle Peter, who often and affectionately referred to him as “my son”. I’ll just kind of throw this in here… It’s also widely believed by church tradition that he was to have written the gospel of Mark based on Peters firsthand accounts. His mother was a prominent Christian woman named Mary, whose home was in Jerusalem and served as a gathering place and refuge for early believers. Now the question is, was he a cousin or a nephew of Barnabas, who was a major leader in the early church. He took John Mark under his wing after the dispute with Paul.

“During Paul and Barnabas’s first missionary journey, John Mark accompanied them as their assistant . However, when the group sailed from Paphos and arrived at Perga in the region of Pamphylia , Mark abruptly left the team and returned home to Jerusalem (Acts 13:13) .”

John Mark’s departure caused a major disagreement later on between Paul and Barnabas as they worked to plan their second missionary journey. Barnabas wanted to give Mark a second chance, this was strongly refused by Paul because Mark had deserted them. In the book of Acts chapter 15:36–41. The split between Paul and Barnabas is recorded. Interesting to know that despite this early setback Mark eventually matured and somehow mended his relationship with Paul. It’s interesting to know that years later while imprisoned in Rome, Paul wrote to Timothy and specifically requested Mark’s presence. And as we have noted earlier Mark is also widely recognized as the author of the Gospel of Mark.

There is always the core question. Why did Mark leave? What was the reason for his departure? There’s a list of reasons that are given. I’ll just touch on a few. It had been suggested maybe there was a home sickness of youth, which isn’t all that unusual, he was a young helper and he was far from his mother’s home in Jerusalem, he may have missed the comfort of family. This was a hard journey, and there was lots of danger, hard terrain, physical exhaustion, and intense opposition to what they were doing. Paul emerged as the main leader of the mission instead of Barnabas, which may have caused some friction. There was another factor that occasionally is mentioned and that is perhaps Mark was uncomfortable with the shifting missionaries strategies towards the Gentiles. No need for us at this time to worry about the details. I like the old Jewish gentlemen’s explanation…it is what it is.

I guess we need to find some kind of a proper ending to all this, but the lessons to be learned here aren’t always right on the surface. When we make a commitment to serve God, we should not do it lightly. We should understand the responsibility that we have accepted and do our best to carry that through. I think another thing we can learn here is that we should not be so quick to judge another person’s actions. John Mark was raised in a Christian home and had spent, I would suppose a great deal of his time in fellowship with those his mother welcomed into her home. So the main point I take away from all this is that God’s call can be and sometimes is interrupted by circumstances that we don’t truly understand, but we can never truly lay aside God’s call on our life.

Life is Good

jk