How can God praise King David?

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We don’t expect God to align himself with people who end up defying some of the basic ethical teachings of the Bible. So it can be surprising to hear God reserve unusual praise for King David

In 1 Samuel 13:14 God tells Saul that his kingdom will not endure and that God has found a replacement. The prophet Samuel says, “The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart.” Though David leads with courage and humility for many years, his character is not flawless. Most casual readers of the Bible note that David’s primary failing was in committing adultery with Bathsheba and in orchestrating the murder of her husband in battle in order to mask his crime. So how can such a person be depicted in 1 Samuel and in Acts 13:22 as a man “after God’s own heart”?

The answer to this question lies in understanding what the phrase does not mean. God is speaking about the direction of the political, military, and moral leadership David will give to the nation as king. As the leader of the people, David typically lead God’s people in the direction God wanted them to go. God does not state that David was perfect. It was God himself who revealed to Nathan the prophet the secret sins that David had committed. In the sphere of his national leadership, God found a man whose heart and desires resonated with his own plan.

Since the fall of Adam and Eve, God recruits and uses imperfect people. When God affirms the faith or courage or trust of someone in the Bible, it is not the same as giving a blanket endorsement on all their choices.

God is fully aware of our deficiencies and our numerous sins. Yet in his grace he invites us to participate in his kingdom plan. His affirmation is real, but not a universal endorsement for all that we do. It’s humbling to know that the true God is willing to display that kind of kindness toward fickle and flawed people like ourselves.

The flawed idea that Jesus is created

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The other day I was told that some Mormons in our community held a forum in which they argued that Mormonism is Christian. Had I been there, one of the many questions I would have asked would be, “Was Jesus created or uncreated?” (Mormonism holds that Jesus is a created being. There was a time when he did not exist and therefore he cannot truly be called God.)

One of the so-called evidences of this is the use of the word “firstborn” of Jesus in passages like Colossians 1:15 and Revelation 1:5. Following the misinterpretation of the ancient group called the Arians, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses and others argue that this word teaches Jesus was created. But the Bible uses the word “firstborn” in key passages to indicate “first in rank, preeminence, or esteem.” In Exodus 4:22-23 God declares Israel to be his “firstborn son”. In the context it cannot mean first in chronology or birth order, since Israel (who’s former name was Jacob) was born after Esau. It’s a statement of unequaled rank. This idea carries over in passages like Colossians 1:15, which celebrates the supremacy of Christ. This application to the nation of Israel finds its highest fulfillment in the one who came as messiah, Jesus the Christ.

Overcoming the darkness

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My wife and I prefer sleeping in a room that is as dark as possible—no nightlights, as little ambient light as possible. It makes it easy to sleep, but difficult when you need to get up during the night. The darkness is not friendly when you want to go somewhere! It’s no fun to smash bare feet into something or knock something over or bump into an object because you can’t see it.

Darkness produces confusion and disorientation. Darkness is an invisible obstacle that can stand in the way of progress. The Bible appropriately uses darkness as a metaphor to describe the condition of our fallen world. What we can’t see can be just as deadly as the threats that we can see with our eyes.

The darkness that can block the kind of life we were created for may consist of lies, half-truths, or flawed assumptions that don’t match up with the reality that God created. It shrouds our minds and obscures our thinking so that we make decisions based on faulty thinking. The darkness persuades us that each of us is the center of the universe. It tempts us to believe that our desires are legitimate and ought to be pursued at any cost. It seduces us to justify our selfishness, greed, lying, and mistrust. The darkness that permeates our fallen world makes God seem like the enemy (if he exists). It suggests that surrender to his lordship will only result in a foolish subservience that cannot lead to anything good.

The only way to combat darkness is with light. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much light to expose the reality that the darkness conceals. The light of a cell phone can be enough to navigate in a blackened room. A key fob flashlight can be extremely useful in an emergency situation. There is something in the presence of just a bit of light that helps us see what the darkness would otherwise hide.

The apostle John introduces Jesus as the light. He reminds us that as we understand Christ and his teaching, we come to see the components of reality that we would otherwise miss. The shrouded realities emerge from the shadows in the light of his disclosure. And our growing knowledge of him clarifies our understanding of the world into which we are born and the world beyond the grave.

John writes, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (See John 1:5.) The good news is that no matter how corrupt, unjust, evil, and grotesque any culture can become, there is a truth available in Jesus Christ that eternally stands against it. Evil cannot hide forever. Whenever the message of Christ is brought forth, it unmasks the lies and seductive notions that produce corruption and loss in the human heart. The darkness does not win. The light of Christ brings clarity, understanding, and accountability as it exposes the flawed and failed ideas that have plagued the earth since the time of Adam and Eve.

Those who follow Jesus Christ have the privilege of living in an atmosphere of increasing light. This growing illumination helps us understand the ideas that reside in the dark recesses of our own hearts. It also helps us maneuver in the world around us. And even when evil becomes widespread, it cannot prevail. God providentially empowers the light of Jesus and his message to shine out against dictators, bureaucrats, religious hypocrites, and secular authorities who use flawed ideas to shape culture according to their own blueprints.

Those of us who have tasted God’s mercy have the privilege of bearing this light to others. We don’t make it work. We can’t add to its power. But we can carry it with us and share it through our words and our lives, knowing that it has the capacity to dispel the darkness and disclose true reality to ourselves and those around us. And because darkness does not overcome light, we can do so with hope and optimism.

Salty language

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When we think of the concept of salty language, we commonly assume that we mean language that is seasoned with inappropriate or perhaps off color remarks. It often refers to a selection of words or topics that is not appropriate for young ears. But Paul commands the Christ-followers in Colossae to ‘salt’ their language in a different kind of way. Colossians 4:6 states, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

It’s one thing to discipline our tongue so that we do not include vulgarisms or caustic words in our speech. To manage our words so that such negatives are excluded is something we might do in the name of being polite or talking in a civil way. On a moral scale, such effort might take someone’s language from a negative five to a zero. It has nothing noticeably offensive about it. But this command goes farther than that. It challenges us to move our speech into positive territory. It expects us not to be content with a neutral rating of zero, but to move to a plus five.

To season our conversation with grace requires reliance on the Spirit of God. It demands a wisdom, a discernment, and a sensitivity to the moment that does not come natural for any of us. We can sometimes make our words innocuous on our own effort, but filling our speech with grace requires much more effort. It requires that we be selfless and aware of how our words are heard by others. It forces us to listen rather than preoccupy ourselves with what we are going to contribute to the conversation. It means we must confront in love and encourage with patience.

Grace conversations are not greased with the disingenuousness of a politician’s sound bite. They are not the smooth but hollow declarations of advertisers. They are marked by words that are clear, honest, helpful, and true. They are the kinds of conversations we don’t often have because of our natural preoccupation with ourselves and our personal agendas.

The salt of grace was evident in Jesus’ language. From his rebuke to Peter to his life-restoring words to Tabitha, we see a consistency of attitude and a tone of thoughtfulness that are so easily absent in our words.

Today consider what might happen as you slow down, think beyond yourself, and ask Christ to shape your speech to others. Stop and pray. Ask for a heart to listen well. Jesus can refocus our energies so that our words can be a tool in his hand for ourselves and those we interact with—in person, over the phone, and even in texts or emails. Your ability to communicate is a tool God wants to redeem for his eternal purpose!

 

When divine authority erodes

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The declaration of the American President that same sex marriage ought to be normative in our republic is not novel. A crescendo of voices over the last few decades have been advocating the same view. The prominence of the President only serves to put the issue in a brighter spotlight. But the roots of this viewpoint are not new. And they are not limited to the homosexual agenda.

The idea that we as humans can decree what is morally normative on our own is the legacy of rationalism. It is the consequence of the belief that there is no reliable divine word for us to follow. We must rely on our own reason in order to determine reality. Nothing is as it seems, and we have the right to define life any way we want. This maximizes our freedom to believe and do whatever helps us achieve our goals or whatever is fashionable at the moment. It promises unparalleled opportunities and minimal restrictions.

Our assumption is that our reason will always be informed by the good. But history proves otherwise. There is nothing inherent in our self-directed conclusions that protects excellence or promises perfection. Rationalistic conclusions are totally arbitrary and ungoverned by any external safeguards. For example, rationalism was used by Stalin to justify the murder and imprisonment of millions within the USSR. It once seemed totally reasonable for Aristotle to conclude that human slavery was a good thing. Reason was used to justify warehousing those with mental health issues into deplorable places.

Reason does not always lead to choices that we look back on with regret. But there is nothing in reason itself to guarantee that the arbitrary standards we put into place in society are best—whether the definition of what is “best” is left up to the individual or to the 51%.

If our arbitrary standards are not measured against something outside of themselves, there is no limit to the actions that can be justified on the basis of a persuasive argument or an appeal to a culturally fashionable idea.

The rejection of divine authority comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s someone who claims to be a Christian who refuses to forgive, even though that is commanded in scripture. (See Luke 17:4.) It’s the attitude that justifies accumulating things in an effort to feel fulfilled rather than using our resources to promote God’s kingdom agenda. It’s tolerating bitterness, jealousy, or envy in our hearts. It’s refusing to deal with our selfishness. It’s justifying our fornication, adultery, or homosexual behavior. It’s viewing our pride as a good thing.

The President’s statement is just one facet of a spirit that infects many of us today. It presumes that we can somehow define reality to be what we want it to be. It dangerously assumes that this God-free redefinition of life will be better than following the truth God has disclosed to us in Christ and in the Bible.

Christ-followers must have the courage to advocate for God’s moral values in the public square. But beyond that, we must rediscover how to make God more “weighty” in our own lives. Until we give him a higher priority in how we think and order our lives, our protests will seem hollow to those who hear us. It is difficult to make God’s Word the touchstone of our daily lives. We cherish our independence too much. We subconsciously believe that we can manage well on our own. But we must embrace the struggle to live as subjects of God if we are to become the counter-culture that demonstrates what life in the kingdom looks like.

What if I miss a sin?

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Recently I had a conversation with someone who was worried about what might happen if they died and did not confess every sin they might have committed on the last day of their life. Would they then be condemned to hell?

This is a refreshing question today because our culture entices us to overlook sin rather than be scrupulous about it. It’s more common to encounter a lackadaisical attitude where someone demands that God open heaven to them because they feel they are entitled to it.

Martin Luther faced a similar dilemma in his own life. Roland Bainton, in his biography Here I Stand records how Luther would spend hours in confession, searching his heart for any trace of sin or any thought that was unholy. And he would sometimes think he was finished, only to sense pride in his accomplishment of finishing his sin list. He would then resume confession of this pride. Luther’s sensitivity led him to the desperation of one who realized that no matter how hard he tried, he would continually fall short of God’s standards. It was then that he discovered that his rescue was by faith alone in the work of Christ alone.

I told my inquirer that salvation is not found in the ability to name and confess all our sin. We are commanded to repent before a holy God. (See Acts 3:19.) This includes recognizing our moral bankruptcy before a holy God and accepting the gift of life and pardon through the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross. (See Romans 10:9-10.) But the power is not in the ability to confess. The saving grace comes through that honest admission of our condition before God. But the saving power belongs to Jesus—not to our words. It is his work that is all-sufficient—not our ability to enumerate our failings.

John wrote, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (See 1 John 1:7.) As others have noted, the verb for “cleanses” is a present indicative. It implies an ongoing ability of Christ’s sacrifice to deal with sin as it manifests itself in our lives.

Should we acknowledge new sin as we become aware of it? Certainly. But our status before God is not conditioned on our sensitivity or our recollection. It is based on Christ’s one-time act of sacrifice that is applied to the whole of our lives. It is in Christ alone that we find security before God. His sacrifice is sufficient for us over the course of our lifetime.

The decay of civil language

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Recent news stories highlight the further relaxing of language standards for programs broadcast in the public airwaves. Several words that were deemed inappropriate  since the beginning of public broadcasting are now either accepted or winked at by regulators. Any consumer can track the trend by watching TV for an evening or two. This unfolding erosion of civil language is celebrated by many who argue that free speech should include few or no limitations on what kind of words are appropriate. But what do we really gain?

One of the forgotten realities in the debate is the sad shrinkage of the American vocabulary. It is much easier to reduce feelings and emotions to a few loaded and vulgar words than to express yourself creatively and accurately. Teenagers show their boldness to one another by lacing their vocabulary with loaded words. But at the same time they are able to recognize fewer English words. The richness of language gives way to a coarseness that is a less effective means of communication.

Those who communicate well avoid the overused words and phrases because they realize such words lose their impact. The increased use of a handful of sexually oriented words and phrases will tend to bring diminishing returns. The shock factor becomes less with increased use. And stretching a handful of terms to describe a variety of feelings and thoughts inevitably produces more and more nonsense expressions. It also begs the question, “Where do you go when you run out of nasty words?” How can you be even more expressive when your vocabulary no longer has the impact it once did?

Christ-followers have a better option. They can express themselves with clarity and respect in a way that stands out in our increasingly vulgar public square. Speech that is articulate, thoughtful, and honorable is unique in our culture. Paul’s writings, for example, pulse with passion and clarity.They don’t use vile words in order to express ideas with energy and focus. There is intensity in the declarations of the Bible authors. Some statements bite. But there is an absence of manipulation and intimidation through vulgar language.  The New Testament calls Christians to expunge caustic words and attitudes from their language. Colossians 3:8 states, “But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.”

Civil speech begins in the heart. It flows from the reconciliation we can enjoy with a holy and pure God. It enables us to show grace, respect, and kindness to others while expressing the wide range of emotions that come with being fully human. Civil language may be under assault, but it need not die as long as those who know Jesus joyfully grow in the new mindset that can be theirs in Christ.

A heart without war

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Our age is marked by anxiety, tension, worry, apprehension, friction, conflict, disappointment, and unease. Parents are worried about the impact of a society in moral decay on their children. Workers are nervous about the state of their jobs in the future or about the transition in to the next job. Children and teens are concerned about the stability of their home or about how they will survive now that their parents have split.

Daily challenges and international questions jumble together, creating a feeling that life is almost too big for us to manage. Questions line up in our minds like shoppers on Black Friday. Will I find someone who will really love me? Will affordable energy or healthcare be available in the future? Is my car going to need an expensive repair soon? Will I ever get this weight off? How will I deal with aging parents? How can I meet these deadlines at work? How can we plan a vacation that works for our family? What should I do to prepare for retirement? When am I going to find the time to visit my sister? How do I approach this thorny issue with my friend?

It is no wonder that so much is spent on drugs, alcohol, and different forms of psychotherapy. We’re a culture that is looking for some way to cope with the complex and unanswerable questions of our private lives and our chaotic world. What would it feel like for this inner war to end? Wouldn’t it be great to find some measure of tranquility in this sea of aggressive questions?

Jesus reminds his followers that the biggest war we fight can be over. It’s the battle in our hearts with the living God. The tug of war between our rebellious spirits and a holy God that produces true moral guilt, judgment, and a constant sense of unease can find resolution in him. We win this war not by fighting harder, but by surrender. He calls us to yield to his overwhelming victory, built on an immeasurable love, and designed to purchase us a pardon we can never earn.

His grace and mercy to us in this victory both changes our eternal destiny and improves our perspective on the truckload of worries that bury us. Colossians 3:15 speaks about the differences that tend to isolate Christians from one another. It speaks to the friction and stress that results from living together in a broken world. The verse commands, “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.”

When we start to reflect on the peace God has granted us in Christ, we have a different lens through which to view the stresses and struggles of our lives. When we see that our sin was fully dealt with in the cross of Christ and that we have been reconciled to God, we can embrace a sure and certain hope that can infect the lesser issues of life that we all face. We can face the challenge of our new life like an American soldier who survived combat in World War II and came home to find a job, raise a family, and build a better future.

The Lord who gives us his grace to conquer the biggest war of our lives offers us a ruling peace through which we can deal with the skirmishes of daily life. As we learn to focus with thanksgiving on his amazing gift to us, we can develop that tranquil and confident spirit that will enable us to live our days without the numbing anxiety and angst that mark the lives of many. Jesus came to win the war of our souls and train us how to live in the peace that follows. It’s a daily learning experience, but well worth the effort.

Vocabulary Police

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Kent Conrad, a North Dakota congressman, wants to remove the word lunatic from all federal documents. He believes that the word is offensive and should be purged from the federal vocabulary, both past and present.

Senator Conrad’s idea is both flawed and dangerous.

On the dangerous side, it turns the “feeling of offense” into a ruling principle. If I hear a word and subjectively respond with the emotion of being offended, I do not have the right to order the entire world around me to prevent that feeling from happening in the future. To attempt to do so makes my emotional reactions king. We know people who have a negative reaction to all kinds of words. Some experience discomfort at words such as fat, short, old, or liberal. Teenagers who are hungry to be treated as adults and have all the privileges of adulthood may resent the label teenager. Those in retirement years may cringe at the moniker of senior citizen. Many people do not want to be confined to a liberal or conservative box because of views they may articulate over a single issue.

If we are to seriously labor to make language inoffensive to as many as possible, then we must forbid a massive number of labels or comparisons that we use in ordinary speech.

Behind this thinking is another problem. It’s the assumption that I have the right to be valued and esteemed by other people. Society owes me that affirmation, and I have the right to force others to give it to me. The pride that can drive this demand will never be satisfied. The reason for this is that respect doesn’t come in forbidding certain words. It comes from those who have the virtue of offering it freely to others because they value them or because they have acted in respectable ways. Messing with the vocabulary is a cheap substitute for the real thing. It doesn’t change hearts.

A third issue with this proposal is that scrubbing certain words from federal documents overlooks the change in language. Words change over time. And the connotations we place on them today don’t reflect the way they may have been used in the past. A word may have been appropriate in the past with no pejorative connotations. For example, the word intercourse was once commonly used for interaction between people. Social intercourse could refer to conversations and other casual interactions. Today most assume the word applies to sexual relations.

We should summon one another to swallow our egotism and show respect for others. But that does not come from the practice of policing vocabulary—either in federal documents or in life. Respect comes from a heart that is reconciled to God through Christ and that does not need the affirmation of men or the forced restrictions of society to extend this grace to others.

What we easily miss

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Most of us who drive have had odd moments when we near a destination and can’t remember what the road looked like the last 5-30 miles. We were alert and driving, but it feels as though we just woke up. Our mind was in a state of autopilot, and then it engaged in reality in a sharper way. (The other explanation is that we were asleep at the wheel, but I hope that’s not the accurate picture!)

In that moment when you become aware of your surroundings in a fresh way, you have a hard time recalling the details of your recent past. This odd, but not uncommon occurrence, demonstrates that we can live our lives out of touch with some of the realities that are truly there. We don’t just transport ourselves 20-30 miles down the road like magic.

It is wrong to conclude that some details about reality do not exist because we don’t recall perceiving them.

In a similar way, we can sometimes miss out on non-verbal clues others give us. Or we can overlook details in the scene of a movie because something else has our attention. (How many times have you seen a movie repeated times and noticed elements in scenes that you missed earlier?)

This limited perception also applies to the spiritual world around us. John makes an interesting observation about Jesus in John 1:10. He writes, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.” There’s a bit of irony in this statement. Jesus, who was involved in creation itself, was not recognized when he stepped into creation in his incarnate form.

John’s statement begs the question, “Why?” I suspect the answer is related to our expectations. The Jews were awaiting the promised messiah, but they did not expect God to send his deliverer as he sent Jesus. Their expectations shaped what they could (or would) see.

We sometimes don’t perceive Christ at work in our world because we subconsciously or consciously embrace materialistic assumptions. We expect our lives to be ruled by time and chance or by cause and effect in a closed system. This mechanical view presumes that the vast machine that shapes the world order spins and twists and revolves and hums along under its own steam. It’s independent of any actions on God’s part. He’s not part of our natural perspective.

And so we don’t expect to see Christ in the small things of life. They are just pieces of the immutable system at work. And we don’t expect to see Christ in the big things of life. He wouldn’t tamper with the system. If he exists, he lets it run on its own.

In order to see all of reality, including Christ, we have to change our assumptions. That is not an illogical thing to do. Ancients thought reality was comprised of earth, air, water, and fire. It wasn’t that long ago that scientists had no understanding of microbes and bacterial. Only recently have we discovered the potential of light to transmit information—leading to breakthroughs in fiber optics.

The revelation of the Bible opens our minds to a different set of assumptions. It demonstrates How God moved in real history to change the spiritual realities into which we are born. If we allow its truth to challenge our categories, we can discover a truth (embodied in the person of Christ) that explain much and change everything. But we must not allow the presuppositions of our culture to calcify in our minds and lock us into a view of reality that is smaller than the one in which we live.