Tag Jesus

Jesus Overcomes Tribalism

Todd R 2 Comments

The Bible is a book for all people, in all times and places, and its lessons hold eternal value.  Yet the Bible was also written in particular times and places and knowledge of those contexts is sometimes assumed rather than explained.  For instance, in the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, we read the phrase, in parenthesis: “(For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)”. We also read that Jesus and His disciples “had to pass through Samaria.”  Hate is a difficult thing to measure or quantify, but the story assumes we know something about how intense the Jews’ hate for Samaritans was.

According to Warren Wiersbe, “So intense was [the Jews’] dislike of the Samaritans that some of the Pharisees prayed that no Samaritan would be raised in the resurrection!”[1]  This hate was so strong that many Orthodox Jews would travel much longer routes around Samaria to avoid setting foot in it.  They thought the dirt itself would contaminate them.  Why all this hate?

One reason for this hate was genetic.  Anyone who reads the Old Testament knows there are many extensive genealogies.  To the Jew, it was very important to know which of the original 12 tribes you descended from and that your ancestors had not intermarried with people of other religions.  But Samaritans genealogies were not pure enough for them.  Much of Samaria was populated with the descendants of poorer Jews left behind by the Assyrians, many of whom had intermarried with foreigners the Assyrians planted there.  So, Jews in Judah looked down on Samaritans because of their mixed genealogy.  The Samaritans were considered “half-breeds.”

Another reason was religious.  When the Samaritan woman said “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship” in John 4:20, she was referring to an alternative Judaism.  Among other differences, the Samaritans had a center of worship on Mount Gerizim, with its own temple.  They even re-wrote parts of the Pentateuch to justify this.[2]  To Israel, Jerusalem was the only center of worship.  Sacrifices to Yahweh were only to be offered there, and every male was supposed to make a pilgrimage there three times every year.  There was to be no rival temple, and therefore the Samaritans (in the Jewish mind) had cut themselves off from the true worship of Yahweh and should be shunned.

John has to write that Jesus “had to pass through Samaria” because doing that was unusual, especially for a Jewish rabbi like Jesus.  But then Jesus went there, simply being in Samaria was a strong statement that Jesus didn’t care for the hateful tribalism.  But not only did He go there, He interacted with its people, at a time when “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”  Jesus was and would continue to break down these barriers.  In the four gospels, Jesus preached to the Jews first, then to the “half-breed” Samaritans, then to full Gentiles, and the apostles followed the same pattern in Acts.  This sequence progressively illustrated that the gospel is for all tribes of people.

What does this mean for us today?  Hate like what the Jews felt for Samaritans is rampant and if Jesus could overcome that hate, He can overcome any hate.  Any reasons we have for hating, or even disliking people just because of what group or tribe they belong to aren’t good enough reasons. 

But tribal rivalries are everywhere we look: national and regional, political and economic, cultural and ethnic, musical and athletic, and every other dimension we can imagine.  But no tribal loyalty is more important than the obligation to love God and love our neighbor, no matter who they are.

The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3:38-39 –

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Not only does this describe the love God has for us in Jesus, but it also describes the love we should have for others.  Nothing should get in the way, including any religious, racial or other differences.

Jesus overcomes tribalism, and so should His people.

[1] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Alive (John 1-12) (1986).  P.65.
[2] Edersheim, Alfred.  The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (1886).  P. 274-5.

The Narrow Door

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Many people think the God of the Old Testament is a God of judgement, and the God of the New Testament is a God of love, but I’m not sure these people are paying attention.  The whole Bible speaks to us of the same God.  The Old Testament is full of stories about God pursuing His people, calling them to come back to Him because He loves them.  Likewise, the New Testament has many passages like Luke 13:24-27, in which Jesus says:

“Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.  When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’  Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’  But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’”

Not only does Jesus here pass judgement on “workers of evil,” but many other places point forward to a time where Jesus will come again to judge the earth in righteousness and justice.  But that may not be the scariest part of the verses above from Luke.  In these verses, Jesus isn’t talking about just any “workers of evil,” but He’s talking specifically about people who think they’re following Jesus.

Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

These verses are a response to someone asking Jesus: “Lord, will those who are saved be few?”[1]  His response to the question isn’t “yes, they will be few” but more like “yes, because many are trying to get there the wrong way.”  These people say, “We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets”?  In my reading, this phrase is like saying “we go to church.”  In church we “ate and drank” with Jesus in communion.  When we listen to sermons, it was like “you taught in our streets.”  They were around Jesus all the time and doing what other Christians do, but as 20th century evangelist Billy Sunday said, “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.”

We can’t get salvation by our own efforts, even if we do all the “right things” but only through what Christ has already done.  Christ’s work is the “narrow door” and anything else will be a closed door when Jesus returns in judgement.  Part of what we call the visible church is going to be shut out. Jesus says many in the church “will seek to enter and will not be able.”  These are people seeking salvation, who “knock at the door” but don’t get in.

Does this mean we should spend a lot of effort on figuring out who is and who isn’t a true Christian?  It doesn’t, but it does mean we all should examine ourselves, which is what I think Jesus expected from His audience when He said these things.  As James asked “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?”[2] I ask myself, since I call Jesus my Lord, what things do I do only because He wants me to?  Do I do more than hang around Jesus and His people?  Do I do things that earn me nothing in return, but which please God?  This is what I think is meant by Paul when he wrote in Philippians 2:12 “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”  Although our salvation is free, and can only be earned by Jesus Himself, if we believe in Him then He is our Lord.  We should fear Him and do works that please Him.

Therefore, “strive to enter through the narrow door” of Jesus’ righteousness that was opened for us on the cross, but know that we won’t be the same on the other side.  We will be forever changed.

[1] Luke 13:23
[2] James 2:14

All Fall Short

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I’m writing a series about the verses I’ve quoted the most on this blog, and I see some of these verses as foundational to Christianity.  For example, another post in the series was about John 3:16 (“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”)  Today’s post (#5 of the series) covers Romans 3:23, another verse that states a basic truth central to Christianity:

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”

This is so important because without knowing we are sinners, we have no reason to accept Jesus.  It makes John 3:16 and other verses matter more to the hearer.  This is why Romans 3:23 is the first verse in the “Romans Road.”  For those not familiar, the Romans Road[1] is an easy to memorize summary of the Christian gospel using verses from the book of Romans.  It gives a quick outline describing the need for salvation and the way to salvation using these verses:

Romans 3:23 – “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
Romans 6:23(a) – “The wages of sin is death”
Romans 6:23(b) – “The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”
Romans 10:9 – “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”

In the times I’ve quoted Romans 3:23, it has often reinforced the logic of the Romans Road, particularly its first step.  What does it mean that “all have sinned”?

Missing the Mark
In the New Testament, the word “sin” is often a translation of the Greek “hamartia,” which means “to miss the mark.”[2]  I’ve written that Paul in Romans 3:23 “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.”  Sometimes we make a list of what we think are sins and think if we’ve followed the list, we haven’t sinned.  However, a better definition of sin tells us that “all have sinned.”  If the goal is for each person to attain “the glory of God,” none of us have achieved the goal.  We all need Jesus.

“There is Only One Who is Good”[3]
When someone came to Jesus (Matthew 19:16) and said ““Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” part of Jesus’ response was “There is only one who is good.”  He says this because “all have sinned,” except Jesus, who is sinless.  Regardless, often people are obsessed with grouping people into “good” and “bad.”  I’ve written about “religious categories like Catholic versus Protestant, political categories like Republican versus Democrat, or Marxist categories like “oppressed” versus “oppressor.””  We assign people to these groups, then we like our side and hate the other.  Therefore, one of my favorite quotes is by Solzhenitsyn, who said:

“The line separating good and evil passes, not through states, not between political parties either, but right through all human hearts.”

In each person there is good and evil.  There is no way to separate groups of people into a group of good people and a group of bad people, because every person in every group is both.  If we only put more stock in Romans 3:23, which declares: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” we could avoid an awful lot of unnecessary hate and conflict.

God Loves Us Anyway
Now here comes the good news: “Most of the Bible is the story of the failures of people who can’t follow the will of God, but that God loves and accepts them anyway.”  Studying the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, it becomes obvious that God’s people aren’t “good’ people, but it also becomes obvious that God loves them anyway.  Therefore, Romans 3:23 cultivates in us a spirit of humility and gratefulness.  We know because of Romans 3:23 that any blessing from God is an act of grace because only Jesus lived a life of full obedience.  In Deuteronomy when Moses reviewed the blessings and curses that Israel would experience based on their ability to obey God, God knew that every single Israelite would fall short of deserving blessing.  Every single Israelite would sin.  However, because of God’s mercy and grace, we don’t get the judgement we deserve, but we do get the blessing we don’t deserve.  Therefore, we must be thankful for God’s grace, but also we must be aware that it is not at all earned by what we’ve done.

So, while Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” is an important verse, Romans 3:24, right after it says, “and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” and that’s just as important.

[1] This site has some more helpful detail on the Romans Road: https://www.christianity.com/wiki/salvation/what-is-the-romans-road-to-salvation.html
[2] Greek Strong’s Dictionary
[3] Matthew 19:17

Perfecting Faith Through Struggle

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King David wrote many Psalms during the difficult times in his life.  Psalm 18, written “on the day when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul,”[1] is a song David wrote to praise God for His deliverance from difficulties in the past.  David describes the depths of the troubles he faced in verses 4 and 5:

“The cords of death encompassed me;
            the torrents of destruction assailed me;
the cords of Sheol entangled me;
            the snares of death confronted me.”

There were many moments where David faced enemies seeking to kill him, a situation we may never face.  But, like David we all face struggles and, while not literally life-threatening, some of them may feel like what David describes.  Our enemies may be external or internal, physical or spiritual, and Psalm 18 can be applied to them all.  David magnifies the powers that assailed him, which John Calvin wrote, “enhances and magnifies so much the more the glory of his deliverance. As David had been reduced to a condition so desperate that no hope of relief or deliverance from it was apparent, it is certain that he was delivered by the hand of God, and that it was not a thing effected by the power of man.”  David was truly in a desperate situation and sometimes we are too.

So, how can this Psalm help us in our struggles?  I’m going to focus on only a few of the Psalm’s 50 verses, including verses 1 to 3:

“I love you, O LORD, my strength.
The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
            my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
            my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised,
            and I am saved from my enemies.”

Note that these verses come before the ones quoted earlier because before coming to God with his problems, David contemplated who God is and what he has learned about Him from experience.  When we’re struggling, we should also take the time to contemplate the nature of our God so we can get the right perspective.

David uses some military metaphors to tell us about God.  David says God is a rock, a fortress, a shield, a horn, and a stronghold.  These tell us that God:

Photo by Mario La Pergola on Unsplash
  • is a rock, immovable by our enemies and our problems.
  • is a fortress and stronghold, a secure place to flee from our enemies, where they cannot get in.
  • is a shield that protects us from harm.  Our enemies’ weapons can’t pierce God’s protection.
  • is a horn, with all the power we need to defeat our enemies.  A horn was a symbol of might in the Bible.

God is all these things for us too!

In verse 7, David added that when God answered his call for help, “the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because he was angry.”  God’s power, His “horn”, is so powerful that even the earth fears it, but we need to learn to trust in it, and it alone.

There is no sure way to learn to trust a fortress or shield, other than to test them in battle.  C.S. Lewis wrote that “God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.”  When we’re fighting an external battle against an enemy or against painful circumstances.  When we’re fighting an internal battle against temptation, a bad habit, an addiction, or maybe an unattractive character trait, God can teach us about who He is through the pain of those battles, and we can learn to trust Him more.

Although we will not defeat all of our enemies while we live in this world, and we may be frustrated knowing God is powerful enough to win, but we still fail anyway, we know that:

“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
            his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
            great is your faithfulness.”[2]

He is faithfully by our side in every struggle, and eager to restore us when we fall, even if it’s every day (or more!).  But most importantly, we know that He is working in all things – even our fiercest battles – to perfect us and that He will not fail.  Even if we are unfaithful at times, He remains faithful always, and it’s His faithfulness that makes the difference.

If you’re fighting something today, remember that God is your rock, fortress, shield, horn, and stronghold, and you can trust Him.

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”  – Philippians 1:6

[1] Psalm 18:0 (title)
[2] Lamentations 3:22-23

Avoiding Beehive Morality

Todd R 1 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.

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.

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