Tag God

God is Not a Chemistry Experiment

Todd R 1 Comment

There are some Old Testament stories that seem frightening, or even repulsive.  We might read these and ask, is that the same God that we worship today?  One of these is a brief story of Aaron’s sons, found in Leviticus 10:1-2.

“Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them.  And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.”

These sons of Aaron were priests, with detailed instructions for worshipping God, like those found in Leviticus 16:12 (“And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the LORD, and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small, and he shall bring it inside the veil”) and Exodus 30:9 (“You shall not offer unauthorized incense on it, or a burnt offering, or a grain offering, and you shall not pour a drink offering on it.”).  There are many theories on what they did wrong, including that they took the coals from somewhere other than from the altar, but I think all the theories imply that they were treating worship like a chemistry experiment.

What do I mean by that?  Nadab and Abihu knew what God wanted but probably were curious to see what would happen if they offered something different.  As someone with a chemistry set knows what happens when they mix chemical A and chemical B, they might try to learn something new by mixing chemicals A, B, and C.  Like Adam and Eve in the beginning, and everyone else since then, they thought “what’s the worst that could happen if we try to do this our own way?”  Nadab and Abihu might have been trying to learn something, and they tragically did, because God is not a laboratory where we explore our curiosity.

Living Sacrifices
In the New Testament book of Romans, Paul wrote:

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”[1]

Paul is teaching a similar lesson to that of Aaron’s sons, that God alone gets to determine what worship is acceptable to Him, and we should offer it.  According to Paul, the proper offering to God in worship is our own lives.  This is not just a New Testament idea.  The Old Testament prophet Micah said:

“With what shall I come before the LORD,
         and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
         with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
         with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
         the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good;
         and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
         and to walk humbly with your God?”[2]

God did provide laws for making sacrifices to Him, but the real purpose of those sacrifices was to point toward a future where Christ would be sacrificed so we could “do justice,” “love kindness,” and be humble before God.  Religious people in all places in times have tried to offer the right mix of ritual, the right recipe of doctrine, or the right form of rigid behaviors, but none of it can replace what God has offered for us – His own Son.  None of those other attempts at worship give us a future of being reconciled to our God and to each other.

Nadab and Abihu’s lesson is not just about the wrath of an Old Testament God, but a lesson for all times that there is only one God, and that He determines what is acceptable, in sacrifices and in actions.  He gives us rules and guidance because not every path is good for us, and He knows we only put ourselves in danger by not following Him.  The fate of Aaron’s sons proves it.

Because we cannot live a perfect life as an acceptable living offering, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”[3]  Jesus lived the perfect life to be the only acceptable sacrifice.  To benefit from that sacrifice, we must accept his righteousness as our own by calling him Lord, then He will be our Savior.  We must accept that His righteousness is the righteousness we want.  No other sacrifice will do. God is not a chemistry experiment.

[1] Romans 12:1-2
[2] Micah 6:6-8
[3] Romans 5:8

What is Our Conscience?

Todd R 1 Comment

What do you think of when you think of a conscience?  For some it’s the image from old cartoons of a person with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, each giving competing moral advice.  That image is funny partly because it might not be far from the truth.

For some, a conscience is a “moral compass” – that internal voice that helps us distinguish right from wrong.  While this is another good image for a conscience, we have new technology now.  We use GPS now, and when I think of a conscience, the voice of my GPS comes to mind.  Let me explain.

A compass is too simple a metaphor.  The voice of our conscience is not usually like a clear sign or bright, flashing lights pointing the way (although God can use whatever means He chooses).  In my experience, a conscience is more like a broken GPS system, that has many voices, not just one, like a real GPS.  Not that we’re all “hearing voices,” but since our conscience is giving us directions, a voice seems a good metaphor.  You could call it an influence or something else.  Anyway, some of the voices tell us to go places we shouldn’t and not to go places we should, and some of them lead us the right way.  We find ourselves weighing the pros and cons of these multiple voices.  For every decision we make, there’s a reason we make it, and often we don’t explicitly think about why.  It could be something we learned from our culture, our family, our education, or from anything we’ve experienced.  It might come from something we saw or listened to recently, or many years ago.  It could also be something we just invented ourselves.  But it’s there, trying to influence us.

Now not everyone has the same voices in their conscience.  For someone who isn’t a Christian, their GPS considers all the factors it has, and they make decisions as they see fit by prioritizing among the influences.  But for a Christian, salvation requires realizing our GPS is fundamentally broken, trusting someone who knows how to fix it, and then striving to follow the new instructions.  When this happens, a Christian gets an added feature in their internal GPS – a new voice.  This voice is the Holy Spirit, but it doesn’t become the only voice, it just adds one more competing voice to the cacophony. However, the Spirit is the only voice that can be trusted to guide us to the right destination 100% of the time.

As we make decisions in the world, each of us try to follow the advice of our conscience, but we must remember that our consciences are broken until we reach heaven.  Many voices work hard to influence us, and any voice that we follow into disobedience from God can be considered an idol for us.  Only the Holy Spirit speaks with the wisdom needed for us to fulfill our purpose as individuals made in God’s image.

However you think of what a conscience is, let Him rule it, and “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy” – 1 Peter 3:15a

Then you can have a clean conscience, whatever you do.

Bible in a Year: Week of March 18 – 24

Todd R Leave a comment

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: just do the evening reading, flip the morning and evening, 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 finish 2 Kings and begin 1 Chronicles.  After the 2 Chronicles books, we move to Ezra and Nehemiah, then on to the New Testament, starting with the gospel of Matthew.

Monday, March 18
Morning: Psalm 78, 2 Kings 23
Evening: Exodus 28

Tuesday, March 19
Morning: Psalm 79, 2 Kings 24
Evening: Exodus 29

Wednesday, March 20
Morning: Psalm 80, 2 Kings 25
Evening: Exodus 30

Thursday, March 21
Morning: Psalm 81, 1 Chronicles 1
Evening: Exodus 31

Friday, March 22
Morning: Psalm 82, 1 Chronicles 2
Evening: Exodus 32

Saturday, March 23
Morning: Psalm 83, 1 Chronicles 3-4
Evening: Exodus 33

Sunday, March 24
Morning: Psalm 84, 1 Chronicles 5-6
Evening: Exodus 34

Holiness is Like a Bowl of M&Ms?

Todd R 4 Comments

Rock stars get a bad reputation for big egos and decadent lifestyles, and often for good reason.  But sometimes it’s just a misunderstanding.  Over the years, rock band Van Halen has been criticized over the infamous “brown M&M” clause in their contract with concert promoters.  Listed among many requirements, including how they want the stage set up and safety concerns, was buried a requirement that there should be a bowl of M&Ms backstage.  But not just any bowl: it had to have absolutely no brown-colored M&Ms.  This clause gained the band a bad reputation, because what kind of egomaniac would make someone go through the work of picking out every brown M&M?  Don’t all the colors taste the same anyway?

Photo by Sebastian Gómez on Unsplash

However, the clause had nothing to do with the band’s taste in M&M flavors or colors.  In addition to all the contract terms needed to cover many “important things,” they also needed a quick and easy way to know that the workers at the arena had thoroughly read the contract.  The M&Ms were that way.  Because of the “brown M&M” clause, as soon as the band walked backstage, seeing the bowl of M&Ms would immediately let them know the “important things” would be covered as well.

What’s this story doing on a Christian blog?  In the Bible, God describes His relationship with His people as a covenant, a form of contract, in this case between a King and His subjects.  Some parts of this agreement – consider the long descriptions of the tabernacle and temple in the Old Testament – may seem dull and insignificant.  Much of Exodus 25-27, and most of Exodus 35-40, detail the design of the tabernacle as given by God to Moses.  The collection of the materials, the work of the craftsmen in building the various parts, and finally Moses setting up the completed tabernacle are listed in seemingly repetitive and pointless detail.

However, in addition to God wanting His tabernacle set up correctly, the mere accumulation of detail also makes a point – that God cares about every single detail of His covenant with His people.  Nothing is to be ignored, just like the bowl of M&Ms.  But this concern for detail does not mean that He holds every violation we commit over our head to make us feel guilty.  Instead, it makes two points:

First, anything less than holiness is not good enough for God.  If He accepted less, He would not be just.  As one brown M&M was too much for Van Halen, or one drop of cyanide would be too much to put in our glass of water, one instance of sin is too much for God.  Therefore, only Jesus, by living the perfect life, could be acceptable to God the Father.  Fortunately for all of us, Jesus’ righteousness is offered to us freely.  He met the standard of perfection for us.

Second, the level of detail lets us know that He cares about every detail of our lives.  We can talk to Him about anything because there is nothing He is not concerned about or is not interested in hearing from us, or able to lovingly walk alongside us through.  David wrote in Psalm 23:4 that:

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
            I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
            your rod and your staff,
            they comfort me.”

The rod and staff of our Good Shepherd are not there to punish us, but to guide and lead us through every experience we have in this world, good or bad, and into the next world, where all is holy and good.  His covenant with us – His contractual promise – is to be our God, and we are to be His people.

Our Father in heaven cares about every little thing.  Even brown M&Ms.

Barbs in Our Eyes

Todd R 1 Comment

As Israel was preparing to enter the Promised Land of Canaan after wandering in the wilderness, God gave them many instructions through Moses about how they were to live when they got there.  One of the instructions was to eliminate all of Canaan’s inhabitants.  Part of the warning not to ignore this comes in Numbers 33:55, which says:

“But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.”

What this is communicating is the urgency of getting rid of anything that could influence us to sin, and this applies as much to us as to ancient Israel.  In Israel’s case, the nations they were to remove from Canaan were under God’s judgement for centuries of worship of false gods, which included practices like ritual prostitution and child sacrifice.  God knew that His people would be tempted by these foreign gods and practices unless all trace of them was eliminated.

For us, God also wants to protect us from false gods and harmful practices and habits, and the phrase “barbs in your eyes” is a picture of the urgency for us to get rid of anything that would tempt us.  Think about it: If I had a thorn in my eye, I would drop everything and not be able to do anything else until I got it out.  Until the thorn was gone, it would be my one and only priority.  In modern times, God doesn’t tell His people to attack other nations in judgement, but He does want His people to attack sin with the same zeal.

So when I read “But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell” it leads me to ask the question:

Do we remove sources of sin from our lives as urgently as we would a barb in our eye?