Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • What Would YOU Ask God to Do?

    I want to focus on just one line of text.  In 1 Kings 3:5, God tells Solomon to ask God what God should give Solomon.

    It’s a simple enough question.  Most of us remember the answer.  Solomon wants wisdom.  God decides to give him wisdom and lots of riches as well.

    As I reflect on my own prayer life, however, I don’t think I’m as wise as Solomon was in his request.  I do ask for wisdom, but it’s usually the wisdom to make good decisions in my business, which would result in doing better financially.  Or it’s stuff for my family.  There are a number of things that I really want right now.  There are people I know who need to be healed.  There are financial needs by the dozen amongst people I know personally.

    What should I ask God to do?

    I recall times of praying for people at the altar of a church.  People would come asking for spiritual gifts, often looking at the person behind that altar rail as somehow being capable of delivering those gifts.  Even in spiritual gifts, we have an acquisitive nature.

    In our Psalm for this week, the 111th, verse 10 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  It then describes wisdom in the next line as something on which one takes action.

    I don’t think God minds us asking for stuff, but I think he delights even more if we ask for the fear of the Lord, which is the source of all wisdom.

    Lord, today and always, let me fear you more and let my life grow out of that fear.

    (On why I use “fear” while others would argue for “reverence” see this article).

  • Military Action – Limits of Moderation

    I’m pretty fond of moderation, even calling myself a passionate moderate, but in that very phrase, you might get the idea that I’m even moderate about being moderate. My moderation is not centrist, in the sense of trying to find middle ground on each issue. Rather, I believe in trying to examine all the options in order to find the best. One might say it’s more of a perspective than a conclusion.

    Today Taegan Goddard’s political wire gives the quote of the day from Senator Lindsey Graham:

    We made mistakes in Iraq. Let’s not Rumsfeld Afghanistan. Let’s not do this thing on the cheap.

    War is not something to be pursued moderately. I’m probably opening a can of worms here, but I’m going to suggest two things. First, that war should be pursued by a nation only when it is truly the only workable option, and one should be certain it is workable, else it isn’t actually an option. Second, if one chooses to pursue war, one should pursue it to success.

    I would issue yet another caveat to my second point: You must be certain that success as you define it is actually possible. The greatest problem of the Iraq war, in my view, was that it was charged with a set of goals that simply were not and are not going to happen. (To those who claim victory at this point, let me point out that if Iraq becomes a base of terrorism in the future, or the government is unstable, what we set out to do was not done.)

    The problem is that our response to opposition to a war is often to pursue it more gingerly, in a more limited fashion. When one goes to war, but doesn’t commit the resources to succeed, then one has simply killed lots of people for no purpose.

    Is Afghanistan salvageable? I don’t really know at this point. I think one of the greatest strategic errors of the war on terror was moving into Iraq without truly completing the military goals in Afghanistan. But if we simply stay and fight with less resources than are needed, all we are doing is prolonging the agony.

    War is not something to be pursued moderately. It should be pursued to success, or not at all.

  • Truth and Neighbors (Ephesians 4:25-5:2)

    Ephesians is such a great epistle, but I want to just mention one verse:

     So then put aside what is false and let each one speak the truth to his neighbor, because we are members of one another. — Ephesians 4:25

    The polite lie is a common means of keeping tempers cool.  We do it all the time.  We pretend to like coworkers that we loathe, we don’t tell important people what we really think about their ideas, and we try to pretend that our attitude is good.  At work, we may well be penalized if we don’t put on the right set of attitudes.  Your boss probably doesn’t want to know you have a hangover, your kids drove you nuts this morning, and you can barely see your desk, much less work at it efficiently.  So you say, “Great!”

    But we do it even more in church.  I’m talking about the “faith face.” It seems that many people believe Christians should never be sad or downhearted, and thus to be spiritually great, one must not only deal with hardship, one must always present a cheerful demeanor to the world and to other Christians.  After all, if someone finds out that not everything works out for you, a Christian, they might be put off of the gospel.

    But this approach very often produces the opposite effect.  When a person who is looking honestly at his life notices all these cheerful faces around him, however deceitful those cheerful looks might be, he may become discouraged, because he thinks he’s the only person who lacks the faith to remain cheerful in adversity.

    Now this is not the only case in which speaking the truth is important.  But it is one in which many Christians hurt others while intending to help.  Put away everything that is false, including your faith face.  Be honest and open.  At the same time, be ready for others to be honest and open, and don’t condemn them.

     

  • Those Gritty Physical Metaphors

    The gospel for Proper 14B is John 6:35, 41-51.  This isn’t an exposition of that passage, but something that passage brought back to my mind.

    Jesus starts with the bread metaphor.  Now for many of us, comparing spiritual food to bread comes quite naturally.  We’ve read this in the gospel many times, and we’ve heard it in churches.  Such expressions as “fresh bread for the people” or “break the bread of life” are still quite common.  But at the end of this passage Jesus touches on a theme that will become much more common through this gospel and is harder to take:  his flesh (v. 51).  This metaphor gets quite heavy in verses 52-58, as Jesus tells people they must eat his flesh and drink his blood.

    The metaphorically challenged get some kind of cannibalism out of all of this.  Yet even many Christians are uncomfortable with strong “blood” metaphors these days.  “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb” is a song lyric that is less popular than it used to be.  We want soft metaphors.

    We are also often less anxious to compare the physical and the spiritual.  There’s the saying, “so heavenly he’s of no earthly good.”  The problem with that is that if we read Jesus correctly, being of no earthly good is not, in fact, very heavenly.  Sure, we know what that saying means.  There are many people who are very “spiritual” and don’t really comprehend the things of this earth, or at least so it appears.  But I’m going to suggest that if you don’t comprehend the things of this earth, you’re not going to comprehend the things of heaven.

    I have a friend who has led many mission trips.  He’s all about providing dental care to needy people.  He gives generously of time and resources to make it happen.  But once when I was on a mission trip with him, he told me and others that he didn’t think he was very spiritual.  Now in the sense of soaring off into heavenly places over a hymn or a praise song, I would agree he’s not.  But if Matthew 25:31-46 is to be believed, he may well be the most spiritual person of us all.

    The doctrine of creation tells us that God is the creator.  The greatest thing that heaven has done in relation to us is physical.  Now somebody is sure to point me to salvation as the greatest thing.  But that is another instance of the same sort of thing.  Salvation, recreation, was a restoration of what was supposed to be in the physical universe. No matter how spiritual we make God, if we stick with scripture, he is the creator of the physical universe.  Nobody could be more “heavenly” than God, yet God creates and uses the physical.

    Those who think we should retire “blood language” as out of date and out of tune with the modern age should consider what the idea of eating human flesh and drinking human blood would have sounded like to a Jewish audience in 1st century Judea and Galilee.  It would have been very shocking language then.  And the fact is that sometimes we need shocking language to make us take a subject seriously.

    You see, we are not sort of spiritual beings who need a little elevation; we are fallen beings who need serious intervention to restore the image of God and bring us back to our spiritual place.  Sin isn’t a mild infection; it is a virulent, deadly plague.  Shocking language is needed about our shocking condition and activities.

    And sin occurs here on earth, in the physical universe.  A few shocking physical metaphors are, I believe, good for our souls!

  • Yes! Spend Less on Buildings

    … or use them more effectively.

    From The Assembling of the Church:

    … Instead, the church decided that they wanted to spend more money serving people and less money of a meeting place.

    Go read Alan’s post for the full context. Messiah Baptist Church is to be congratulated, and hopefully their example will be followed elsewhere.

    There are two approaches to buildings that would be better than what happens most often. First is to get lower cost buildings, and the second is to make more efficient use of buildings in service. A dedicated church sanctuary, used for nothing else, doesn’t strike me as a good use of God’s money.

    Buildings filled with Sunday School classrooms that are used only on Sunday doesn’t strike me as a good use of God’s money. Surely something better can be done.

    (HT: Dave Black Online.)

  • Out of the Depths (Psalm 130)

    Out of the Depths is the title of a book on the Psalms by Bernhard W. Anderson, and an excellent little book it is!  it’s title comes from this Psalm.

    There are just two major points I’d like to make about this Psalm.  There is much excellent commentary about it, and the notes are worth reading.  You could do worse than to preach from it or use it in Sunday School.

    First, if you are to cry “out of the depths” that’s means you’re going to be there.  I say that not to discourage, but to encourage.  There are many Christians who either believe, or more commonly imply by the way the talk, that you are never really supposed to be in the depths.  As a Christian you’re supposed to be up, happy, and bouncy all the time.  How do they imply this?  By putting on their “faith face” and denying troubles.  They’ll testify about how God helped them after a problem is successfully handled, but somehow their friends never get to catch them when they’re really down.

    I have this problem even in communicating with my wife.  I don’t want to burden her with the idea that I’m not in control of everything.  But that’s a silly position to be in.  She already knows I’m not in control!

    Odd then, that we should try to put on our faith face even to God.  It’s very discouraging, first because we have to force ourselves to pretend, and second because we make others pretend.  If the “faithful” are always happy and never in the depths, then others who in their own minds are not so faithful must try to keep up or be thought second class citizens.  A little honesty, as exemplified by the Psalmist, would go a long ways!

    Second, however, is  verse 4.  Because there is forgiveness of God, he can be feared. Doesn’t that sound paradoxical!  Now many will try to diminish the impact of the word “fear” by using “respect” or “held in awe” or something similar.  But there is a solid element of fear in respecting God in the Old Testament.

    But the bottom line is that without a recognition of our sin (see verse 3), there would be no way for us to truly respect God.  The person who feels no guilt does not feel fear.  I remember being pulled over by a Michigan state trooper while I was in graduate school.  When the lights flashed behind me and the siren did its thing I was momentarily concerned, but I quickly saw that I was within the speed limit.  I knew I hadn’t blown through any stop signs or been driving erratically, so as she approached the car I was more curious than fearful.  As it turned out, unknown to me my license plate was dangling by one loose screw.  It’s possible someone had started to steal it.  She verified my registration and told me I needed to secure it.  Then on I went.

    With God, we have to recognize who we are and who he is.  But if God was not forgiving, that  recognition would make it impossible to approach for the opposite reason–terror!  Now there is a proper fear of the Lord, a fear that recognizes that there are consequences for our actions and that God knows all.  But there is an improper fear, a different sense of fear.  It’s the difference between fear of just punishment and fear of assault and battery.  The same word may be used, but we all recognize the difference.

    The Psalms are amazingly honest and forthright.  Perhaps we should all try some of that ourselves!

  • Syriac Resources

    What I do with Syriac would only be called “reading” by those who are generous to a serious fault, but I found the resource links James McGrath provided today quite useful.

  • Anothe Mangled Passage – 2 Samuel 18

    I must be sounding like a broken record, but  I really dislike mangled passages.  It is sometimes possible to quote part of a passage and just hit the highlights.  That may be required by time limitations. But when the changes made to the passage change the intent of the story, or make nonsense of it, that is another matter.

    In Proper 14B, the Old Testament passage is 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33. I would divide the story into the following elements, with those in red included in the lection, while those in black are not:

    1. David commands that Absalom be treated gently
    2. The battle occurs and is won by David’s forces
    3. Absalom encounters his father’s troops
    4. Joab is told and rebukes the messenger for not having killed Absalom himself; they debate
    5. Joab goes to where Absalom is hanging from a tree and pierces him with them
    6. Joab’s young men finish the job
    7. The battle ends
    8. A considerable debate about messengers
    9. The Cushite takes word of Absalom’s death
    10. David mourns

    Thus we lose the actual story of Joab’s disobedience which explains much of the later history.  The death appears to be some sort of mob action.  I do agree that in seeking highlights one could leave out the long debate about messengers, though I fail to see why the entire passage cannot be read.

    David’s indulgence is part of the story of David as king.  Note how he is overwhelmed with grief at the death of Absalom while paying little attention to thousands of deaths among the troops who were following Absalom.  One might consider this more or less natural for an ancient near eastern despot, but not for the man after God’s own heart.  And we can see that David’s own followers don’t see it as such a natural thing.  They want thanks for their service and they want to celebrate their victory.

    All of these are elements of the story that call on us to think about the consequences of our attitudes and actions.

    I know that people don’t have much patience for long scripture readings, but learning the Bible story is not well served by cutting out key elements of the narrative.

     

  • Theme Change

    Some readers may not know that I do my blogging in three main locations. Here at Threads, Participatory Bible Study Blog, and The Jevlir Caravansary. I like the three to have a generally similar theme with some graphic differences, and so I have just changed them all to the Atahualpa theme.

    This is a theme that is extremely configurable, but it comes almost precisely like I prefer it to be. All I have to do is create and upload the headers, the logo, and my favicon.

    Those theme guys are due a donation, which they will definitely get.

    I still have some sidebar cleanup done. I am looking to remove things that often take too long to load, so some things will either be going away or will be moved to pages. Go ahead and comment if you have particular sidebar elements that annoy you and slow down your load time. I may not agree, but then again I might!

  • On Inerrancy – a Request for Short Definitions

    Darrell Pursiful at Dr. Platypus is requesting short definitions from those who accept or use the language of inerrancy in describing the Bible. Shorter, definitely, than the Chicago statement. Though I don’t qualify, even though my definition of inspiration has been called inerrancy, I thought I’d pass this on.