R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 84

Finding Out

Then the LORD spoke to Moses saying,

“Send out for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give to the sons of Israel; you shall send a man from each of their fathers’ tribes, every one a leader among them.”

So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the command of the LORD, all of them men who were heads of the sons of Israel.

These then were their names:

from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur;

from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori;

from the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh;

from the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph;

from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea the son of Nun;

from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu;

from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi;

from the tribe of Manasseh (a tribe of Joseph), Gaddi the son of Susi;

from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli;

from the tribe of Asher, Sethur the son of Michael;

from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the son of Vophsi;

from the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.

These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land; but Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun, Joshua. (Numbers 13:1-16)

God believes in freedom. God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt for the express purpose of bringing them back to the land he had promised to Abraham. Then God told Moses to select twelve people to act as spies, so the Israelites could discover what that land was like.

Couldn’t God just have given Moses a briefing? Of course. But he didn’t. Couldn’t he have specified who Moses picked for spies? Yes. But he didn’t. He let Moses pick mostly bad spies who brought back a negative report. When the people of Israel believed their discouraging message they rejected God’s offer of the Promised Land. And God accepted their rejection! God gave that generation its wish not to enter the land. God accepted the will of the majority. God granted his people their freedom, for good or ill.

If we can find out something on our own, God isn’t going to tell it to us. God won’t allow himself to become a shortcut for laziness nor a way to shirk our responsibility. He is willing to let us learn things the hard way.

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Space 2014

Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration.

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God’s Intentions

Now Isaac pleaded with the LORD for his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD granted his plea, and Rebekah his wife conceived. But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If all is well, why am I like this?” So she went to inquire of the LORD.

And the LORD said to her:

“Two nations are in your womb,

Two peoples shall be separated from your body;

One people shall be stronger than the other,

And the older shall serve the younger.”

So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb. And the first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over; so they called his name Esau. Afterward his brother came out, and his hand took hold of Esau’s heel; so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.

So the boys grew. And Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents. And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. (Genesis 25:21-27)

Don’t be careful what you pray for. God’s answers are always for the best. Isaac was past forty when he married Rebekah. When she was unable to get pregnant, Isaac prayed that she would. God answered Isaac’s prayer by giving her twins. The pregnancy was a difficult one, so she asked God what was going on. He told her that the two children she was about to have would become two nations at odds with each other. God also told her that the older son would serve the younger. In that culture, the older always was the one in charge; he received the largest share of the inheritance, along with the blessings of the first born. Rebekah took God’s words to heart and sought to make them come true.

The first born was Esau, whose name meant “hairy.” He was covered with red fur. The second born was Jacob, whose name meant “heel grabber” since he was holding his brother’s heel when he was born. His name was also an idiom that meant “a cheater” or “a con-man.”

Jacob was the child of promise, the child through whom all the blessings first given to Abraham and then to Isaac would pass. God would later change Jacob’s name to Israel. From Israel, the Messiah would come. God’s answer to Isaac’s concern for his wife, that she could get pregnant, not only blessed him, but changed the course of history and blessed the entire world. God’s answer to our prayers may have repercussions far greater than we can imagine.

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Small Press

Besides being a writer and a teacher of biblical languages and theology, the small seminary that I’m associated with also publishes books. Being a small press, we have no money for marketing or promotion. Over the years, we have published over fifty books now, most of them Bible related. For instance, Dr. Jim West, our adjunct professor who handles most of our online courses, has been working on a commentary of the whole Bible for the past decade. Thus far, we’ve published over thirty volumes of his commentaries.

His books have been so well received that the Bible software company Logos has decided to offer them as ebooks for use with their Bible program. Logos Bible Software, headquartered in Bellingham, Washington, is the world’s largest developer of Bible study software and a worldwide leader in multilingual electronic publishing. Logos licenses the electronic rights to more than 27,000 titles related to the Bible from more than 150 publishers, including Baker, Bantam, Catholic University Press, Eerdmans, Harvest House, Merriam Webster, Mood Press, Oxford University Press, Thomas Nelson, Tyndale House, Zondervan—and now, Quartz Hill Publishing House, the publishing arm of the small seminary I teach at.

I am delighted with this development, even though it offers very limited—if any—financial benefit to the school.

Not all the books we publish are Bible related, however. Yesterday at our church I had turned over the preliminary version of a book that an African American woman in our congregation wrote. Eula Youngblood is in her eighties; she wrote the book about her paternal grandfather who was murdered by his brother at an Odd Fellows Lodge in Georgia back in 1911.

Eula used to write for television (for instance, she wrote an episode of the old TV series Bonanza), and she has authored a handful of other books. But now she is nearly blind and must use voice recognition software on her computer write. Although voice recognition has gotten quite good over the years, it still makes mistakes—especially when it comes to punctuation. It also has some difficulty with homonyms. Consequently, as the editor of her latest book, I had to make a number of corrections, on top of the normal rewording and reworking of sentences here and there. Then I had to format the text, do the layout for the interior of the book and create an index.

All together, I spent about two months on the project. Then I had to design the cover. She had a photograph of the Lodge where the murder had occurred so I started with that. I made substantial modifications to it in GIMP, an open source clone of Photoshop: I changed the colors, reduced their number to only three, and transformed it into a poster-like painting. I added the Odd Fellows symbol, the title, author, and a blurb to catch the eye: “One brother murdered. One brother in jail. A family divided.” On the back cover I added a few lines of text from the book:

“You’ve killed me.”

Willie grabbed Ed’s arm to keep him from firing again. They fell to the floor.

Ed yelled, “I’ve ruined myself! Somebody! Take my brother to the doctor. I’ll pay for it.”

Eula was thrilled with the cover design. Then I told her something along the lines of “we made corrections to the text and I think everything is okay now— but I’d like you to go through it and make sure. Then let us know if there’s anything that needs to be changed.”

She looked at me funny and asked, “What do you mean ‘we.’ Did you have any help doing this?”

“Well, no.”

I tend to forget that I alone do all the work of putting the books together and publishing them. Quartz Hill Publishing House is really just a one man operation—though the seminary as a whole was responsible for establishing it. We—and I really do mean more people than just me, myself, and I—had hopes that our publishing venture might generate some income for the seminary. However, as I said at the beginning, we have no distribution or marketing capabilities. The small seminary’s website—which includes pages for the publishing company—gets around 1500 visitors per day. But most of those haven’t come to buy books. Therefore “some” income has turned out to mean “smidgen.”

But making money was not our only reason for publishing books. We hoped that we’d do something that might benefit people. So, I can’t help but be pleased that a large company like Logos has decided to pick up some of our—my—small press’s publications and make them more widely available.

They say that you should do what you love and the money will follow. So far, in my experience, it doesn’t work like that. Money mostly gets distracted by squirrels and gets lost along the way.

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“Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, Against the Man wh...

“Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd,

Against the Man who is My Companion,”

Says the LORD of hosts.

“Strike the Shepherd,

And the sheep will be scattered;

Then I will turn My hand against the little ones.

And it shall come to pass in all the land,”

Says the LORD,

“That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die,

But one-third shall be left in it:

I will bring the one-third through the fire,

Will refine them as silver is refined,

And test them as gold is tested.

They will call on My name,

And I will answer them.

I will say, ‘This is My people’;

And each one will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’ ” (Zechariah 13:7-9)

It will only hurt for a moment. When Jesus was arrested and taken away, convicted of rebellion and executed by the Romans on a cross, his disciples fled for their lives. Their hopes had been shattered. They had thought that Jesus was the Messiah: the one to lead a revolution against the Roman oppressors, who would defeat them and replace them with a revived Davidic monarchy, who would sit on a throne in Jerusalem and reign over all the nations of the world, establishing an empire that would dwarf what the Romans had created. Instead, it all came crashing down and the disciples went into hiding, fearing for their lives.

Matthew quoted God’s words that the people would scatter when the shepherd was struck to describe what happened when Jesus died. But the fear, the scattering, the loss of hope lasted such a short time. The passage through the fire for Jesus’ disciples, their refining like silver, all took barely a weekend—the time from the crucifixion to the resurrection on Sunday morning. Their tears dried up, their perspectives shifted. They came to realize that Jesus was not just the Messiah, but something far more: as Thomas said, “My Lord and my God!” The kingdom Jesus established was far greater than Rome could ever be, far greater than the disciples had imagined: it was not a kingdom of the world, but rather, the kingdom of heaven. Disappointment and pain are only temporary conditions. In the end, all will be well.

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Cosmic Inflation

Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration.

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Unfair

Then the Lord replied:

“Write down the revelation

and make it plain on tablets

so that a herald may run with it.

For the revelation awaits an appointed time;

it speaks of the end

and will not prove false.

Though it linger, wait for it;

it will certainly come and will not delay.


“See, he is puffed up;

his desires are not upright—

but the righteous will live by his faith—

indeed, wine betrays him;

he is arrogant and never at rest.

Because he is as greedy as the grave

and like death is never satisfied,

he gathers to himself all the nations

and takes captive all the peoples. (Habakkuk 2:2-5)

It’s not what you do that makes you a good person. It is what God has done to you. Paul quoted God’s words from Habakkuk, pointing out that the righteous live by faith, not by works.

Habakkuk lived in the time before the Babylonians came to punish Israel for their idolatry. He had wondered why God hadn’t done something about the wickedness of the Israelites; he saw the problems of idolatry—unfaithfulness to God—and oppression—injustice to people—that plagued his nation. Given the nature of God’s covenant with Israel, Habakkuk thought it peculiar that God hadn’t done anything and didn’t look like he was planning on doing anything.

God reassured Habakkuk that he had the situation well in hand: the Babylonians were coming to punish the Israelites. The news did not encourage Habakkuk, who rightly pointed out that the Babylonians were far worse than the Israelites and needed judgment themselves so much more. How could God use people so wicked to judge the more righteous Israelites? It made no sense to him, but he chose to trust God anyway.

Tablets were small, pillow shaped clay slabs that easily fit in the palm of a scribe’s hand. A scribe could write out the words easily and just as easily carry them with him wherever he went.

Just as God’s use of the Babylonians made no sense to Habakkuk, so salvation by grace through faith makes no sense to many of us. Jesus was punished for our crimes and now we get off scot free. There’s nothing we have to do, or even can do, to earn God’s love and salvation. We live by faith. It’s so unfair. But that’s how God is: he punished the righteous in order to save the unrighteous. It was the only way to save them. Just as Babylon had to punish Israel in order for God to save them.

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Warning

People of Israel,

I rescued you from Egypt.

Now listen to my judgment

against you.

Of all nations on earth,

you are the only one

I have chosen.

That’s why I will punish you

because of your sins.

Can two people walk together

without agreeing to meet?

Does a lion roar in the forest

unless it has caught

a victim?

Does it growl in its den

unless it is eating?

How can anyone catch a bird

without using a net?

Does a trap spring shut

unless something is caught?

Isn’t the whole city frightened

when the trumpet

signals an attack?

Isn’t it the LORD who brings

disaster on a city?

Whatever the LORD God

plans to do,

he tells his servants,

the prophets.

Everyone is terrified

when a lion roars—

and ordinary people

become prophets

when the LORD God speaks. (Amos 3:1-8)

God punishes those he loves. God tells his people, whom he loves, that just as two people can’t walk along together unless there is some agreement between them, so the Israelites are going to have to agree with God. Moreover, just as a lion roars only when he has his prey, as trumpets are blown to signal an attack, so God does not act without warning. Ordinary people will become prophets when God speaks. God doesn’t need anyone special to serve as his spokesperson. Amos was not a professional prophet. He was just a shepherd and farmer. He had never planned on speaking upon God’s behalf, but when God came to him, he obeyed, warning Israel, Judah and the surrounding nations of God’s intent and their need to repent.

How was a person to know when what was happening was the hand of God? Prophets announced ahead of time what was going to come upon them. They interpreted the circumstances and explained the reasons for them. They pointed at how God in the past, in the time of Moses, had already warned them. God doesn’t punish without making it clear that it is him. Disaster does not befall from God without him issuing a warning. It isn’t going to be a mystery; people won’t be wondering whether it was God or not. A trumpet blast, a roaring lion, a snare catching a bird are all obvious and easy to recognize. Likewise, the acts of God in our lives are obvious.

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Alone

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”

So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”

Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened. (Genesis 1:26-30)

The greatest commandment is to love God. But the second is equal to it: love your neighbor as yourself. From the beginning, human beings were designed to live together with others: to be involved with one another. The very word for man in the first chapter of Genesis has a collective sense to it. It is also striking that when God created people he referred to himself with plural pronouns, suggesting a plurality within God himself, an Old Testament hint about the nature of the Trinity. Humanity was made male and female, and the two became one. That community of a husband and a wife somehow reflected the image of God. It took more than an individual to make humanity like God. Isolation, doing it all by yourself, is not the way of God. Living a life as a hermit, living without reaching out to your fellow man, being concerned only with yourself, is less than God’s design for people. After all, how can we love people if we’re always alone or only think about what’s best for ourselves, as if we are alone? Love requires an object beyond itself.

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Just Ask

Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;

you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,

with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry

and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

then your light will rise in the darkness,

and your night will become like the noonday.

The LORD will guide you always;

he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land

and will strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

like a spring whose waters never fail.

Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins

and will raise up the age-old foundations;

you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,

Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

“If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath

and from doing as you please on my holy day,

if you call the Sabbath a delight

and the LORD’s holy day honorable,

and if you honor it by not going your own way

and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,

then you will find your joy in the LORD,

and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land

and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”

The mouth of the LORD has spoken. (Isaiah 58:9-14)

Just whistle! All the Israelites had to do was ask and God would respond. But what exactly did God mean by “asking?” Offering warm words to someone who needs a warm meal won’t help him. Sentiment is not the same as accomplishment. Asking was not just about using the right words. It was about doing the right things. God would know that they had asked him for help—and he would hear them—when they started loving one another and when they started loving God: when they gave aid to the poor, and when they kept the Sabbath.

Giving aid to the poor meant not taking advantage of them. Keeping the Sabbath meant taking God seriously. In both cases, rather than thinking only about themselves, they’d be thinking about those outside of themselves, whether human or God. The focus of their attention, the aim of their efforts, would all be on others, rather than on what they could get for themselves, how they could make things work to their advantage.

God cares about us. He’d like us to care about him and everyone he cares about. Caring about others shows just how much we care about God, because we’re paying attention then to what God cares about most.

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