Tag Christian

Avoiding Beehive Morality

Todd R Leave a comment

Anyone who has watched very young kids play soccer, or especially anyone who has coached youth soccer, knows what I mean by “Beehive Soccer”:  Two lonely and bored goalkeepers stand by their goals at each end of the field, while both teams of players closely swarm around one ball.  Some of the players on each team have an idea which direction to kick the ball, but others just want to kick it.  Often a kicked ball ricochets around inside the swarm, unable to escape the vortex of kids.  The goalkeepers might as well play with some blades of grass, or bugs if they’re lucky.

At Beehive Soccer games, parents on the sideline cheer at any progress at all, and grimace whenever some kid (perhaps theirs) nearly takes a soccer ball to the face.  Coaches yell “spread out!”, then shake their heads, put their hands on their hips, then yell “spread out!” again a moment later.  Coaches must let the parents know they are doing something, and it’s all in good fun – they (the kids) will grow out of it.

Often morality is pursued in the same way.  In Beehive Morality, masses of people crowd around one problem, kicking aimlessly, organized by vague goals, or even just some anger and some hashtags on social media, but doomed to reach a less-than-ideal solution because their activities are not organized.  Maybe they attempt to swarm around multiple goals at the same time.

In Beehive Soccer, young kids have not had time to be coached and learn coordination based on individual positions, nor are many of them mature enough to pay attention to coaching when all of the other kids are playing Beehive Soccer.  It’s no fun being the only kid playing by the rules.  In society, too many behave the same way, thinking the objective is just to show enthusiasm for whatever game is being played that day, but making no real progress.  Many play along and keep “kicking” because it’s no fun being the only person left out of the crowd.

In economics, this is called a Coordination Problem, where multiple people aren’t aligned and cooperating toward a common goal.  Unfortunately, Beehive Morality can cause a Coordination Problem in the church, but in 1 Corinthians 9:24-26, the apostle Paul encourages the church in Corinth (and every church today than can read Paul’s letter) to focus on a goal, and put every effort toward it: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.  Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.”  This “beating the air” reminds me of the Beehive Soccer kids, or Beehive Morality adults – there’s a lot of activity, but not a lot of coordinated work toward a real, helpful, objective.

But what are the objectives for God’s people?  The two most important commandments – the instructions of our Coach – are: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”, and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[1]

Elsewhere, Paul has advice as the young Timothy’s “coach,” sharing these words of encouragement in 2 Timothy 2:3-6 – “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.  No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.  An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.  It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.”[2]  The soldier and athlete look forward to victory, and the farmer looks forward to harvest, but until then must work diligently, enduring sacrifice in patience, knowing the reward is worth the temporary problems, even if sometimes it’s no fun not kicking along with the crowd and playing Beehive Soccer.

The video below is a funny illustration of Beehive Soccer (or Morality), versus coordination among well-coached players toward a common goal.  The Beehive may think its winning because they having fun and doing the “popular” thing, but they’re really just “beating the air.” Remember, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”, and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Swarming around the ball labelled with the current hot hashtag topic – or many topics – is not the objective.

Organized vs. Beehive Soccer

[1] From Matthew 22:37 and 39
[2] 2 Timothy 2:3-6

Disappointed by God?

Todd R 2 Comments

Do you ever feel disappointed by God?  Does your experience of Him sometimes not match your expectations?  We might wonder where God is in our everyday lives.  We may wonder whether we can really trust Him, and we’re probably more likely to feel this way when bad things happen.  The Bible tells us in Romans 8:28 –

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Paul (author of Romans) says he knows this, but do we always?  Do we trust that good comes from “all things”?  And when we don’t see good come, how do we react?

We might think good things are not happening to us because we don’t “love God” enough, so we might blame ourselves.  Maybe we think that some things “just happen” and have no purpose.  Maybe over time we learn to think most things are like that?  We might think Paul didn’t really mean what he wrote about God.

It’s natural to want “good” things.  We may want more money, a better job, better relationships, more possessions, and think that when bad things happen, it’s just a matter of time before some corresponding blessing comes along, because God is supposed to work through “all things” for our good. But when it seems like He doesn’t we might feel disappointed.  What are we missing?

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

Could it be that the problem is with our expectations of God, not with God Himself?  For example, do we misunderstand what “good” “things work together for”?  Is our definition of “good” the same as His?

Think about what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:26 “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.”

It is not necessarily God’s intention to make us “good” by “worldly standards.”  His standards are different, and He doesn’t want us to value the worldly wisdom, which tells us it is “good” to be “powerful” or to be “noble” or even “wise” in the world’s eyes.  God has more important things in mind.

So, what is the “good” that everything works towards?  Paul wrote in Romans 8:29, which comes right after the earlier verse about how “all things work together for good”:

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” – Romans 8:29

The “good” that God works for is our conformity to the image of Christ.  Not our pre-conceived definition of “good” based on our values, or the world’s.    He won’t use “all things” to give us more of what the world thinks is important.

What does it mean to be conformed to the image of Jesus?  In Jesus we see the perfect image of the love of God, described in 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 like this:

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful”

So, God, through “all things,” works to make us more patient and kinder.  Less envious, boastful, arrogant and rude.  He makes us less insistent on our own way, and therefore less irritable and resentful.

Therefore, we might have to change what we value.  We must modify our priorities.  Anything that happens to us, whether we consider it “good” or not, God can use to make us more like Christ.  More like the person we will be in heaven.  More like the person we should want to be.  Then God will not disappoint us.

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

What’s in Your Temple?

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When describing His holiness, God provided pictures like the one in Isaiah 6:1 – “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.”  Because “the train of his robe filled the temple,” there is no room in the temple for anything that isn’t holy.  Or in Revelation 15:8, which says: “and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.”  Until God’s judgment was complete – both on the unrepentant and on the cross for His people – there would continue to be no room in the sanctuary for anyone but the Lord.

How do these pictures apply to us?  Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?  If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”  Therefore, we ask ourselves: does the train of the Lord’s robe fill our temples?

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

A transformative moment came in my Christian life when I understood sin in contrast to holiness, rather than as a list of “don’ts.”  It’s possible (perhaps even easy) to convince ourselves we are not sinners in need of grace by defining sin as things we don’t do.  However, much of the time, the word “sin” in the New Testament is a translation of the Greek word hamartia, which means “to miss the mark.”[1]  The word has athletic connotations, such as if an archer couldn’t hit the bullseye, they wouldn’t win the competition and the prize.  As we all know, archers are supposed to be accurate, and if they aren’t, they’ve “missed the mark.”

Therefore, when Paul writes in Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” he is not saying everybody failed to follow a list of dos and don’ts, but that we have not fully lived the life God intended us to live.  Romans 3:23 declares that while we wouldn’t set up idols in our church building, all of us tolerate some idols in our soul, which is where the Holy Spirit of God chooses to dwell.  The train of His robe does not fill our inner temple, and we too often trod on it with dirty feet.  We’ve “missed the mark” any time there’s other stuff in our temple, directing our thoughts and actions.  However, by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we have both a hope of living with God and a future where His metaphorical robe does fill us.

In Paradise, God’s people will – individually and collectively – “hit the mark” perfectly for eternity.  His perfect temple will be completed in Paradise, with the living stones of all His people.

Paul returns to holiness again in 2 Corinthians 6:16 to 7:1, quoting several Old Testament passages, since holiness of His people has been the plan from the beginning –

“What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
             ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
                        and I will be their God,
                        and they shall be my people.
            Therefore go out from their midst,
                        and be separate from them, says the Lord,
            and touch no unclean thing;
                        then I will welcome you,
            and I will be a father to you,
                        and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
            says the Lord Almighty.’

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”

Amen

[1] Greek Strong’s Dictionary

Bible in a Year: Week of August 19 – 25

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Fellow travelers:

Below are the chapters to read this week if you’re following along in my Bible in a year schedule, divided into morning and evening readings.  Follow along any way you want: you can just do the evening reading, flip the morning and evening, or read it all.  Whatever works for you and your schedule!  It doesn’t have to be Bible in a Year for everyone.

This week we move from 1 to 2 Corinthians, and from Judges to Ruth to Esther.

Monday, August 19
Morning: 1 Corinthians 4-5
Evening: Judges 21

Tuesday, August 20
Morning: 1 Corinthians 6-7
Evening: Ruth 1

Wednesday, August 21
Morning: 1 Corinthians 8-9
Evening: Ruth 2

Thursday, August 22
Morning: 1 Corinthians 10-11
Evening: Ruth 3

Friday, August 23
Morning: 1 Corinthians 12-13
Evening: Ruth 4

Saturday, August 24
Morning: 1 Corinthians 14-16
Evening: Esther 1

Sunday, August 25
Morning: 2 Corinthians 1-3
Evening: Esther 2

The Depths of David’s Emotion

Todd R 2 Comments

One of my favorite things about the Psalms is the honesty and outpouring of emotions from the authors.  Even King David is very transparent in the many Psalms he wrote as prayers to God, making him more relatable to us.  We can see he’s not perfect, we can empathize with his pain, and we can often see ourselves mirrored in David’s experiences.

Since David is known as a man after God’s own heart, we often see the depth of his concern for others.  One such passage is Psalm 35:13-14, where David cries out:

“But I, when they were sick—
            I wore sackcloth;
            I afflicted myself with fasting;
I prayed with head bowed on my chest.
I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother;
             as one who laments his mother,
            I bowed down in mourning.”

How often do any of us put this much effort into crying out to God for someone else’s well-being?  But who are the “they” at the beginning of the verses?  Who is David so concerned about?  We can see that it is someone who was sick, but it wasn’t a brother or his mother, so probably not a family member.

David. Photo by Jack Hunter on Unsplash

The depth of David’s pleading to God for the “they” in Psalm 35 is even more striking because the “they”…are his enemies!  The Psalm begins with:

“Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me;
            fight against those who fight against me!”

The rest of the Psalm suggests there are many people making false accusations about David, “malicious witnesses” out to destroy him.  David cries out to God in verse 8:

“Let destruction come upon him when he does not know it!
And let the net that he hid ensnare him;
            let him fall into it—to his destruction!”

David vents a lot of negative emotions before getting to verses 13 and 14, but he does get to the point of concern for these enemies.  He lets off a lot of steam begging God for justice, but never writes about taking justice into his own hands.  This is the honesty I love about the Psalms – if you’re angry, it’s ok to vent to God!  But it’s not ok to pray to God so you can take vengeance on your enemies yourself.

It’s only natural to be angry at our enemies, but in Christ we are more than natural, so we don’t have to do what comes naturally.  Here is what Christ expects of His people, as written in Matthew 5:43-46:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?”

David’s venting in Psalm 35 is the part that anyone can do, but what really stands out is the depth of David’s love for his enemies!  As I wrote earlier, how often do we put this much effort into crying out to God for someone else’s well-being?  Even if they are our friends?

Jesus enables us to be supernatural, which is sometimes what we need to love unconditionally and pray as David did.

“But I, when they were sick—
            I wore sackcloth;
            I afflicted myself with fasting;
I prayed with head bowed on my chest.
I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother;
             as one who laments his mother,
            I bowed down in mourning.”