Sanam Doctrinam

You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD.

Leviticus 19:17-18

Have you ever seen something you never noticed in a familiar place? I think that everyone who is a faithful student of God’s Word can understand that experience. Sometimes that thing we notice is just the answer to a question we’ve been wondering about. I have had some questions that have lingered long in my mind about Scripture, and I’ve discovered some answers in recent weeks in a surprising place—the Pentateuch. The five Books of Moses might not be the first place we would turn to discover answers to Bible questions. If you’re like me, the Pentateuch, and especially the latter four books in the collection, often seems to raise more questions than it answers. But I found answers to some nagging Bible questions right there.

I’ve had the privilege of having eight years of formal Bible education, but despite all of that, it took an open Bible to find some gems of self-discovery. Now, it’s quite possible that some of my readers will say, “We’ve known this for years,” but for me, these were fresh insights. So please bear with me as I share with you what I’ve learned in recent weeks over the course of the next few Monday Musings.

Today’s musing focuses on a text in Leviticus that provides rich insight regarding the question of how we are to relate to one another. If you’re like me, you’ve often thought that in order to discover biblical guidelines for interpersonal relationships, the New Testament is the place to go. Then I came to this text in Leviticus. Even though God spoke the words that comprise the text of this Scripture to His people Israel, the principles they contain are timeless. The same sentiments are expressed throughout the New Testament.

The first thing that stands out in today’s passage is that God told His people Israel that they were not to hate their countrymen. That’s a danger for all of us. We may not be part of ethnic Israel, but if we believe in Jesus Christ, we are part of God’s new work He began in Acts 2—the church. Though we may seldom consider the sharp feelings of ill will we have toward others in Christ’s body as hate, that is what they are, regardless. God is not pleased with those types of attitudes among His children.

The text becomes even more direct in its second phrase. It says that we may reprove our neighbor, but ought not incur sin because of him. Jesus said something very similar in Matthew 18 when He instructed His followers to express to one another any grievances they have. The idea is that the way to deal with a wrong done to us, whether real or perceived, is to reprove or confront our brother or sister about it. To instead harbor the negative feelings and bitterness is sin, from God’s standpoint. Heartfelt forgiveness is in view here.

God goes farther. He says that we ought not attempt to take vengeance. When we are done wrong, what’s natural for us is to retaliate. God says that this is exactly what we are not to do (Romans 12:19). What’s more, He even forbids the bearing of a grudge. God takes the relationships between His people very seriously and insists that hard feelings not be retained over real or perceived wrongs.

Finally, although we might have thought Jesus was the first to say it, we read in Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” God is not content for us to live in some sort of relational neutrality. He calls us, as He did Israel of old, to love one another actively and genuinely, from our hearts.

Is living the way Leviticus 19:17-18 lays out always easy? Hardly. But notice the last phrase in the text. God says, “I am Yahweh.” This is the God who forgives wrongdoing. He has given us the example. He calls us to follow suit. Instead of hating, taking vengeance, or bearing a grudge, He tells us to love.

The next time we feel we’ve been wronged, consider turning to Leviticus 19 for a God-ordained response.

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.

Acts 20:28

Sometimes a fresh way of hearing an old truth catches our attention. That’s what happened to me the other day. Someone forwarded to me an article that talked about a clergywoman who had thanked God for the outstanding blessing of abortion on demand. Now I submit to you that this woman’s perspective on the issue was nothing short of perverse. With that having been said (and perhaps not surprisingly) I would hasten to add that elsewhere in the article that quoted her, she said something that questioned the core doctrines of the Christian faith. This, too, was abominable, but the way she put her skepticism caused me to revisit in a fresh way the gospel story.

The article quoted her in these words: “The suffering and death of Jesus, according to the theory of the Atonement, pays for our sins and buys our salvation. It’s an interesting theory, but not one that I find compelling.”

It was the combination of the words “pays” and “buys” that I found strangely refreshing, albeit in the words of a person who rejects the Bible’s testimony about what Christ’s death accomplished as not particularly “compelling.”

I didn’t intend to use a verse I had so recently used for my Monday Musings, but I chose to, if for no other reason than it so poignantly describes what happened on the cross. Please allow me to share with you the crass analogy that sprang to my mind after reading this woman’s words. I visualized the cross in my mind as a sort of purchase counter. The item that was purchased was our very rescue from the wrath of God. The cost that was expended was nothing other than the death of God the Son. It is a staggering thought, to be sure, but is nevertheless the one that Scripture conveys throughout the New Testament, and, by means of prophecy, the Old.

Someone might object to my using the imagery of a department store counter. I understand and agree with their objection. Buying everyday goods from a local merchant is a far cry from the sacred sacrifice that bought our deliverance from sin, death, and hell. Probably a more fitting image would be that of a slave market, where our life hung in the balance. Clearly, that is an image that is present in Scripture. The problem is that it is foreign to me. I’ve never been to a slave market. I’ve never seen people bought and sold (and this is certainly not to say that it doesn’t still go on). But the thought of goods being exchanged from a seller to a buyer over a counter is a familiar one for me. And that is the image that comes to my mind through the words of this woman who rejects the message around which I have build my life.

On the cross, Jesus was buying our salvation. He was paying for our rescue from sin by taking the eternal wrath of God, Himself. Nothing could be so costly. It was a debt that we never would be able to pay.

Thank God, the preacher I referenced earlier is wrong. Jesus bought our salvation.

How can we respond?

Then it happened in the spring, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the sons of Ammon and besieged Rabbah.
But David stayed at Jerusalem.

2 Samuel 11:1

Easy times are dangerous times. I’ve discovered that the most dangerous periods in my life from a spiritual standpoint are not necessarily those times fraught with difficulty and trial. Instead, the most dangerous times are when things are going well. Quiet periods can be the most treacherous.

King David certainly found this to be the case. His enemies had been largely subdued. His kingdom seemed secure. He was comfortable and happy, with all Israel under his skillful rule. This peaceful picture, however, was shattered by the events of 2 Samuel 11. In that well-known text, David committed adultery with Bathsheba. The very act causes us to ask, “Why, David?” We wish we could gain some insight into what was going on in David’s life that he would do such a thing. Present, but rarely noticed, the first verse of 2 Samuel 11 gives us a clue: very little. David had sent Joab off on a military campaign, leaving the king with little to do, back in Jerusalem. And it was in this time of quiet inactivity that David had his greatest failure.

Spiritual disaster awaits periods of inactivity. We must guard our leisure. There is nothing wrong with leisure, but if it is not vigilantly guarded, leisure quickly degenerates into occasion for wickedness. The old saying proves true in this regard: An idle mind is the devil’s playground.

How do we keep from falling into danger during downtime? I’d suggest an important key is that we monitor our thoughts. Sin begins with a thought. By properly focusing our mental energy, even during the easy times, we will guard against spiritual disaster. The way we focus our thoughts is probably two-fold. Two things should occupy our thoughts, thereby protecting us from falling off the cliff in our relationship with God. The first I would suggest is prayer. Prayer creates a protective canopy of sorts, shielding us from the dangers of the world, the flesh, and the devil. If we are absorbed in the process of talking with God, it will make spiritual failure more difficult. It’s hard to sin in the midst of a conversation with the Lord.

A second means of protection from the danger downtime produces is, not surprisingly, God’s Word. The psalmist writes in Psalm 119:11, “Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.” Immunizing ourselves with God’s perspective on life, sin, holiness, and everything else is a powerful deterrent to keep us from getting into dangerous spiritual territory, especially in the easy times.

In his time of ease, had David neglected these means of protection? It’s hard to say. It appears from the text that he had neglected his responsibilities to a degree. Perhaps the Psalmist of Israel had also neglected his relationship with God. Whatever the case, David would have done well to avoid the situation entirely by drawing close to His Shepherd during the easy times.

Today’s verse is a timely warning to all of us. If King David could fall into sin in such a dramatic way, so can we. It may not be adultery for us, but it could be anything in a great host of other possibilities. We don’t want to go there in the easy times, or in the difficult ones. Let’s protect ourselves from such danger with the influences of God’s Word and prayer.

This is, obviously, Memorial Day weekend.  Many will be packing up the family and heading to not-so-far-off destinations, as I did with mine.  Others will betaking part in picnics and meeting up with family or fellow believers to memorialize the fact that we do this every year.  OK, I know it is to remember our fallen war heroes and those who fought bravely for the freedom of our country.  Honestly, how many of us actually remember that on Memorial Day?  I am not saying this to discount it’s importance, but to simply make a point.  I believe we should make mention of this fact on a day, when most people just see it as a day off for celebrating, well a day off.

This anticlimactic response to the day’s supposed meaning is a parallel to the way in which we treat the memorial known as Communion or the Lord’s Table in the Evangelical Church. (For those who want to start in on the Calvinistic vs. the Zwinglian  meaning, you know where I stand by my use of the word memorial, let’s please leave it at that and get to the point.)  Many unknowing people treat this ordinance with the same disinterest as remembering the fallen War Heroes on Memorial Day.

For many Communion or the Lord’s Table was known as Mass for most of their lives.  Others may simply see it as wrote religious practice that must be done every Sunday, once a month or once a quarter.  Does it have significance in the life of the Christian today?  I would say yes and it all depends on two questions…

“What is Communion?” and “Who Instituted It and Why?” (I guess you might categorize that as 3 questions, but I’ve never been that good at math!)

I guess we might have to answer the second (& third, oh never mind you get what I mean) in order to answer the first.  In Matthew 26:26-30 (as well as the accounts in the other Gospels) Jesus inserts new meaning into the tradition of passover.  He takes the bread (the Afikoman), breaks and distributes it to the men and tells them to take it and eat it, and Luke adds, in remembrance of Him.  He took the after dinner wine (the fourth cup Hallel) and in the same manner told them that it was an emblem of His blood and that they should drink in remembrance of Him.  Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 that we are to do this as often as we do in remembrance of Christ, until He returns.  So, there is the Who and the why.  In this we get the answer to the “why” question.

It is not as the Roman Catholics put it, that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ.  In that they eat and drink condemnation unto themselves, supposing that they earn favor with God in the re-sacrificing of Christ (in which the priest commands Christ to come down and be sacrificed again for sin.)  No, we are remembering what Christ did, in the fashion in which He asked us to.

Understanding this remembrance is of utmost importance!  We cannot let it go the way of other ceremony, somehow only giving a nod to it’s intent and purpose, while religiously adhering to its practice.  It is one of the activities that God has called us to and one in which we must obey with not only doing, but thinking as well.

I don’t know why it has taken me so long to finish up this three part series, unless it was providential so I could find this quote from a Time article on tweeting in the worship service, “It’s a huge responsibility of a church to leverage whatever’s going on in the broader culture, to connect people to God and to each other,”  Wait for it…..Wait for it….WHAT IS THIS GUY TALKING ABOUT?!

This is exactly where assimilation/ contamination thinking takes us.  It is our “responsibility to leverage!”  Where is that in the Scriptures?  We have taken this mentality so far that we believe it is our “responsibility to leverage” (the power to influence a person or situation to achieve a particular outcome) the “broader culture to connect people to God and others.”

First of all; How exactly is tweeting during a worship service going to connect me to God?  Really, how is it going to connect me to others?  Isn’t the fact that I am there with the body going to connect me to others?

This is just further evidence that we have abandoned the essentials of community and have made church an event rather than who we are.

I’m not saying that tweeting is evil or that we have no clue what is going on in the culture, but we are becoming contaminated by the culture, rather than being holy!  It’s just that plain and simple.  We have no regard for the sanctity of worship, we have no desire to be in fellowship with God and other believers in the Biblical way, if we allow culture to mandate the terms of worship.  Worship and the Christian lifestyle is not me focused.  It is, indeed, God focused.

Why do we need a five year moratorium on what we believe about homosexuality?  Can’t we clearly read what the Scriptures say?  Why do we need to believe there is a hole in our Gospel, doesn’t 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 clearly state what the Gospel is?  Do we really need to use sexual euphemism  to make our point?  You see, it’s not even assimilation anymore, it is clearly contamination.  Is this legalism?  No.  It is what we threw out, when we threw out legalism.  It’s what the Bible calls, sanctification and it is what the Bible calls us to! (1 Thes 4:3a)