R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 29
October 22, 2015
Legalism
He set out from there and went to the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Then crowds converged on Him again and, as He usually did, He began teaching them once more. Some Pharisees approached Him to test Him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
He replied to them, “What did Moses command you?”
They said, “Moses permitted us to write divorce papers and send her away.”
But Jesus told them, “He wrote this commandment for you because of the hardness of your hearts. But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female.
For this reason a man will leave
his father and mother
and be joined to his wife,
and the two will become one flesh.
So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, man must not separate.” (Mark 10:1-9)
The purpose of legalism is to find a way of doing what you want without getting into trouble when you do it. Many of those who were part of the religious establishment only wanted to know all the rules so they could live their lives without getting into trouble. They didn’t love their neighbor. They didn’t love God.
In Jesus’ day, there were two schools of thought among the Pharisees concerning the issue of divorce. One group believed that divorce could happen for even the most trivial of reasons, such as a wife burning the dinner. The other school of thought believed that divorce was permissible only in the most extreme of circumstances: adultery. The Pharisees wanted to know how they could get out of their marriages.
So Jesus responded to their question with a question. He hoped to jar them from their waywardness: what did God say about divorce? They responded merely with the relevant passage from the Bible, which in their mind they found inadequate, since God hadn’t bothered to explain why they could get divorced. Jesus gave them another biblical passage, explaining that divorce did not exist because God liked it, but because human beings were flawed and needed a way out of their mistakes.
Just because something is legal, Jesus pointed out, didn’t make it a good thing or the right thing. The Pharisees were missing the whole point of the Bible and were asking the wrong question. It’s easy to get so caught up in our own issues that we entirely miss God’s issues.
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October 21, 2015
Undeserved
Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.”
But He answered her not a word.
And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.”
But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”
But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”
And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour. (Matthew 15:21-28)
A modern, native born Israeli is called a sabra. The sabra is the fruit of the prickly pear cactus. Israelis think of themselves as being like that fruit: prickly on the outside but sweet on the inside. One day, Jesus acted like a sabra with a Canaanite mother.
In the time of Joshua, the Canaanites of Palestine were set for extermination by God for their idolatry. Nvertheless, a few repented and joined with the Israelites. Some of those Canaanites living in Tyre and Sidon ended up the friends of David and Solomon. Hiram, the king of Tyre, actually helping Solomon in the building of God’s temple.
But we should notice something intriguing about the story of this Canaanite woman. Jesus went out of his way to go to where she lived. After he talked to her, he went right back to where he had come from. Jesus’ entire purpose in going to the region of Tyre and Sidon was to heal the Canaanite woman’s child.
Jesus responded to her, not out of cruelty, but out of love. Jesus parroted what the disciples believed, that the Messiah only belonged to them. He parroted the disciples’ belief, that gentiles were dogs. And the woman took those words and twisted them around, revealing their fallaciousness. Just as Jesus taught the crowds that their understanding of what they imagined the Bible taught was flawed, likewise Jesus instructed his disciples in the same way.
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October 20, 2015
October 19, 2015
Just Ask
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.”
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!
Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:1-12)
Jesus regularly told people the Bible didn’t say what they thought it did. Much like the prophets of the Old Testament, he revealed what everyone should have already known.
The word “hypocrite” came from the Greek theater. It referred to the large masks actors wore showing either a smile or a frown. The masks displayed the emotion of a character that would otherwise be invisible to a distant audience in a world without close-ups and microphones.
We rarely have a complete picture of the lives of the people around us. Like the audience at the edge of a theater, we can only judge by the surface mask. Most often, we will judge wrong, seeing what we want to see, or projecting our own flaws. Better off to not judge at all, therefore.
Ask yourself, how would you like to be treated? Wouldn’t you like people to give you the benefit of the doubt? The entire Old Testament—the law and the prophets that Jesus is talking about—is summed up by that concept of love, of doing to others as you’d like them to do to you.
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October 18, 2015
October 17, 2015
The Battle-Axe of God
“You are My battle-ax and weapons of war:
For with you I will break the nation in pieces;
With you I will destroy kingdoms;
With you I will break in pieces the horse and its rider;
With you I will break in pieces the chariot and its rider;
With you also I will break in pieces man and woman;
With you I will break in pieces old and young;
With you I will break in pieces the young man and the maiden;
With you also I will break in pieces the shepherd and his flock;
With you I will break in pieces the farmer and his yoke of oxen;
And with you I will break in pieces governors and rulers.
“And I will repay Babylon
And all the inhabitants of Chaldea
For all the evil they have done
In Zion in your sight,” says the LORD.
“Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain,
Who destroys all the earth,” says the LORD.
“And I will stretch out My hand against you,
Roll you down from the rocks,
And make you a burnt mountain.
They shall not take from you a stone for a corner
Nor a stone for a foundation,
But you shall be desolate forever,” says the LORD. (Jeremiah 51:20-26)
God uses tools. Babylon had served its purpose in bringing God’s punishment against his people. The Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem, taken away all the nation’s wealth, and hauled off its leading citizens into captivity, all on account of the continued refusal of his people to listen to God, to worship God, or to treat one another properly.
But, once the discipline had been successful, it was time to return things to the way they had been. The Israelites remained God’s people; God’s treaty with them was still operative. And so the tool he had used against his people now needed to be punished. For this purpose, he chose the Persians, who would act as his battle-axe against the Babylonians. He would repay the Babylonians for their excesses, for going beyond what was necessary to achieve God’s goals with his people. Despite their usefulness, the Babylonians were guilty of mistreating God’s people and for that they had to pay. For that was also part of God’s contract with Israel: those who cursed him, God would curse, just as those who blessed Israel, God would bless.
God is not unbiased when it comes to how he treats those who belong to him. Family gets special privileges, and no matter how mad God gets at his family, woe to those who dare to harm it. God can’t help but take care of us.
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October 16, 2015
Life is Not Absurd
But as for you, have no fear, my servant Jacob, says the LORD,
and do not be dismayed, O Israel;
for I am going to save you from far away,
and your offspring from the land of their captivity.
Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease,
and no one shall make him afraid.
For I am with you, says the LORD, to save you;
I will make an end of all the nations
among which I scattered you,
but of you I will not make an end.
I will chastise you in just measure,
and I will by no means leave you unpunished.
For thus says the LORD:
Your hurt is incurable,
your wound is grievous.
There is no one to uphold your cause,
no medicine for your wound,
no healing for you.
All your lovers have forgotten you;
they care nothing for you;
for I have dealt you the blow of an enemy,
the punishment of a merciless foe,
because your guilt is great,
because your sins are so numerous.
Why do you cry out over your hurt?
Your pain is incurable.
Because your guilt is great,
because your sins are so numerous,
I have done these things to you.
Therefore all who devour you shall be devoured,
and all your foes, everyone of them, shall go into captivity;
those who plunder you shall be plundered,
and all who prey on you I will make a prey. (Jeremiah 30:10—16)
God’s people suffered for a reason. They were guilty. So why cry over the pain? God had made it abundantly clear why the awful things were happening to Judah. There could be no surprise when the nation died, when the capital burned, when the temple went up in flames. They had no choice but simply to take it.
But just when it seemed there was no hope, after God himself had told them that the pain couldn’t be cured, it was just at that moment that God told them not to be dismayed. God promised to restore them: their destruction was not permanent. They’d get to come home some day. They wouldn’t have to stay in Babylon.
And as if that weren’t enough, the Babylonians would suffer the same pain that the Jewish people were experiencing. Those who had plundered Israel would themselves be plundered. Those who had hurt them would themselves be hurt. God’s promise came true seventy years later when the Persians conquered Babylon and sent the people of Israel back to their homeland.
Suffering, for whatever reason, is never an end unto itself. Life is not absurd or meaningless. God has a purpose whether we see it or not.
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October 15, 2015
October 14, 2015
No Way Out
The LORD said to me:
Even if Moses and Samuel were here, praying with you, I wouldn’t change my mind. So send the people of Judah away. And when they ask where they are going, tell them that I, the LORD, have said:
Some of you are going to die
of horrible diseases.
Others are going to die in war
or from starvation.
The rest will be led away
to a foreign country.
I will punish you
in four different ways:
You will be killed in war
and your bodies dragged off
by dogs,
your flesh will be eaten by birds,
and your bones will be chewed on
by wild animals.
This punishment will happen
because of the horrible things
your King Manasseh did.
And you will be disgusting
to all nations on earth.
People of Jerusalem,
who will feel sorry for you?
Will anyone bother
to ask if you are well? (Jeremiah 15:1-5)
Thanks, we needed that. Hezekiah was described as one of the best kings of Judah. In contrast, his son, Manasseh, was considered one of the worst to ever sit upon the throne of David. Despite that, he reigned longer than any other Jewish king: fifty-five years. He rejected the reforms that his father had made and reverted to the worship of Baal and Asherah, building multiple altars and high places for them. He burned his son as an offering, practiced soothsaying and consulted with mediums and wizards. He led the people of Judah far away from Yahweh. God blamed him for the destruction that was coming from the Babylonians.
Josiah’s subsequent reforms were inadequate. The judgment upon the nation had become inevitable. Moses had prayed for the Israelites after they had made the golden calves while he was getting the Ten Commandments. God had wanted to destroy the Israelites and raise up a new nation to replace them, but Moses’ prayer had convinced God to spare them. Samuel had led Israel, gotten them not one but two kings, including David who had established Israel as a powerful kingdom. But even Moses and Samuel would not be able to help Israel now.
God’s point, of course, was simply that nothing but the coming discipline would be able to fix his people. God knew what his people really needed. They didn’t need Moses and Samuel. They needed Jeremiah and the Babylonians. Whatever God does to us is what we needed to happen to us.
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October 13, 2015
Incurable
Pack your bags and prepare to leave;
the siege is about to begin.
For this is what the LORD says:
“Suddenly, I will fling out
all you who live in this land.
I will pour great troubles upon you,
and at last you will feel my anger.”
My wound is severe,
and my grief is great.
My sickness is incurable,
but I must bear it.
My home is gone,
and no one is left to help me rebuild it.
My children have been taken away,
and I will never see them again.
The shepherds of my people have lost their senses.
They no longer seek wisdom from the LORD.
Therefore, they fail completely,
and their flocks are scattered.
Listen! Hear the terrifying roar of great armies
as they roll down from the north.
The towns of Judah will be destroyed
and become a haunt for jackals. (Jeremiah 10:17-22)
According to Mark Twain, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. Jeremiah was the prophet of the end, standing against such lies. He stood on the precipice and pointed at the pit with outstretched hand warning everyone to turn back, even as they closed their eyes and plugged their ears and rushed headlong into it.
God felt agony as he watched his people plunge suffer the horrible consequences of their long disobedience. God was angry at his people’s unfaithfulness, their insistence on chasing non-existent gods every night instead of staying home with him. His heart was broken in anguish. He loved them so much that even as they turned away from him, betrayed him, hated him, he took no pleasure in the discipline that they had forced him to give. As they lost their homes, their families, their loved ones, and as they were dragged into foreign bondage, God’s heart was cut. God mourned the destruction of his beloved Jerusalem and temple more than his people did. Their suffering was his suffering, their burdens became his.
His people had lost their senses: they threw away the truth and scrambled after lies. They exchanged hope for despair. They replaced stone and iron with sand and straw. Forbidden fruit tastes sweet, but in the end, it’s just a lie that will make us sick.
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