Peter is one of the most fascinating characters in the New Testament. His struggles and flaws are written for all to see, but so is the patience and love Jesus had for him. In Peter’s two letters, we get to see examples of his growth and maturity. One of Peter’s struggles was how Jews who had become Christian should treat Gentiles. In Galatians 2:11-21 is a story of Paul rebuking Peter for his hypocrisy toward Gentiles, and in Acts 10 and 11 is a story of Peter receiving a vision from heaven telling him not to treat Gentiles as unclean, because God can make anyone clean.
Peter ponders whether the key is for letting people in or keeping them out.
In 1 Peter 2:9-10, he shares this lesson with his readers:
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (emphasis mine)
The bolded words clearly call back to the story of the Old Testament prophet Hosea, who God told to marry a prostitute named Gomer to teach a lesson about idolatry. Hosea’s children by Gomer are named in Hosea 1:6-9 –
“She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the LORD said to him, ‘Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.’ When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. And the LORD said, ‘Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.’” (emphasis mine)
As Peter grew in Christ, he learned the same lesson Hosea learned: that all of God’s people are like Gomer and her children. Both Jews and Gentiles were once estranged from God in spiritual prostitution and adultery, but are now a beloved people, betrothed to one faithful God. Jesus, our Holy High Priest, made the necessary sacrifice for the salvation of anyone and everyone who will come to Him. Those He saves join His “royal priesthood”, proclaiming His excellent work to all people who have not received mercy, but who His blood covers.
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” – Matthew 7:1-2
An old friend used to encourage me to read the Bible every day, and his reasoning was: “The Bible is 66 love letters from God. If you got a love letter from any other person, would you put off reading it?” It took many years before I really took this to heart, but I always remembered it.
Dear fellow travelers,
I pass along that story, but I’ll also add more to it. The best times are not when we just read these letters. Devotions aren’t just lessons, memorization exercises, a disciplinary action, or a time to pay your dues so you can get on with your day. They are time spent with Someone who loves you more than anything, and who wants you to love and trust Him more than anything. Treat Him as you would treat an honored guest, because He is really there with you.
Think of it this way – How often do you get to spend time with someone who fulfills 1 Cor 13:4-7 perfectly?
Someone who is patient and kind; who does not envy or boast; is not arrogant or rude. Who does not insist on His own way; is not irritable or resentful; does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. He bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. [1]
Nobody else we see today will be nearly as good to us.
We all miss days, even weeks or longer, but He is patient and kind. We can try again tomorrow or later today, and He will be there.
[1] This paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 was suggested in a devotional: “August 30.” James Montgomery Boice and Marion Clark. Come to the Waters: Daily Bible Devotions for Spiritual Refreshment. (2017). It was also the basis of a prior post, Jesus is Patient and Kind Even When I am Not
Journalism, particularly newspaper journalism, is sometimes referred to as “the first rough draft of history.” This phrase is usually attributed to Philip Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post. It’s a useful phrase because it is flattering to journalists to know that their work is important and meaningful, but also a reminder that their work is inherently imperfect and in need of later revision. Particularly under deadline pressure, it is impossible to know all the relevant facts and potential angles of any story. Unavoidable and expedient choices and compromises must be made. The saying came to mind when I recently read Psalm 33:10-11, which says:
“The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.”
As I’ve written before, total objectivity is “theoretically impossible for anyone but God Himself.” The best any news reporting can do is cover a tiny piece of what happens in the world, screening it using whatever judgment they decide to use, and applying imperfect ethical standards. As I’ve also written, “The dots of the pointillistic narrative are never the full picture and sometimes aren’t the right color.” Thus is the “counsel of the nations” – incomplete by necessity, biased by choice, and morally imperfect by nature.
In contrast, what God says is true is always true, unlike the 24/7 news cycle where truth is constantly under revision. The “counsel of the LORD” contains everything we need to know about His plans, is designed by His choice to benefit those He loves, and morally perfect because His nature is holy. If better counsel existed, He would know about it. His counsel reliably informs us about how He wants us to view the events of the world, rather than the other way around. His plans frustrate and overcome the “plans of the peoples”, rather than the other way around.
When Jesus said on the cross that “it is finished,”[1] His payment for our sins was complete. He lived a perfect life in our place, so that He could be a perfect sacrifice and atone for all the sins of His people in all times and all places. This was not a rough first draft, but the flawless consummation of God’s plan for salvation “to all generations.” Jesus made no flawed choices for the sake of expedience, and His work can be trusted at all times. Whatever you see in the news today, the Good News of the kingdom of heaven is more important, more trustworthy, and provides comfort for your soul.
His Story is the first draft, but it is also the only draft because none other is needed. His Story needs no revision.
Therefore: “Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us, even as we hope in you.” – Psalm 33:20-22
Until we get to heaven, none of us can fully understand what God is telling us in the Bible, but I believe one particularly tricky passage is this one: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” – Matthew 7:3-5
For some, the lesson is about how to identify a hypocrite. For others, the lesson may be that people should mind their own business. Some might think it has applications for the church’s role toward the sinners of the world.
While there might be good points to be made about those lessons, here I want to focus on what Jesus told those listening to actually do: 1) “take the log out of your own eye,” and 2) “take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Jesus is definitely not saying His people should always ignore every speck and log. His mission is to make His church holy, and we participate in that work. Christians are supposed to help each other move closer to God. However, there are right ways, and very wrong ways, to remove specks and logs. He says do (1), then only do (2) afterward.
When saying “first take the log out of your own eye,” I think Jesus is offering two bits of advice. First, be more concerned about your own sin first before dealing with the sin of others. Second, take what you learn about overcoming your own logs of sin and apply it to ministering to others with their specks. The cure for hypocrisy here is not to do nothing about the brother’s speck. It is to remove our own log first, so we “will see clearly.”
This is a huge topic, but today’s post will briefly cover the first point, and tomorrows will cover the second point. There’s definitely a lot more that has been, and can be, said.
Me First By focusing on our own problems first, we might avoid three problems, the first being putting ourselves through endless anxiety about the sins of the world. Psalm 37:1 advises “Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers!” When God chose to love the world, He did so knowing that the world contained nothing but evildoers, and therefore advises not to fret about evil. He has a plan, and that plan is not that we need to address or fix every problem.
Later in the same Psalm, verse 8 advises: “Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.” This means that fretting over the sins of others leads us to wrong emotions and motives, particularly envy and wrath. Referring back to verse 1, “be not envious of wrongdoers”, because we may be tempted to participate in their wrongdoing. If we think they’ve done well by sinning, and that there was no negative consequence, we might persuade ourselves to join in out of envy for their “success”. So, we add the speck in their eye to the log in our own, and everyone is worse off.
Third, if we see that wrongdoers are not punished, and are frustrated by it, we can be tempted to take it into our own hands to “correct” their situation by removing their speck. In this case, we’re motivated by wrath, instead of a loving desire to do the best for our brother. Also, others might see that we did this, got away with it, and be tempted to join in (envy again?), and so these 2nd and 3rd points can become a vicious cultural cycle within a community of believers.
In another post, The Desires He Delights to Give, I wrote about verses 4-6 of Psalm 37 and it would a good read for context here, but the summary is that when we seek to please God, we will learn to be less anxious about evildoers, and also feel less envy and wrath.
So, Jesus’ first advice before removing a speck from someone else’s eye seems to be to make sure we have the right motive – love. Tomorrow, part 2 will briefly talk about how hard it is to remove the real logs in our own eyes.
I recently had a very strange dream, which occurred (kind of) in the church I went to as a kid. This church, in Washington, D.C., has been around for over 130 years and meets in a stone building and has an amazing pipe organ in the main sanctuary. The appearance and structure of the church communicates permanence and tradition.
In this dream, I was roughly a teenager on one end of the church building but had to meet up with my family at the other end of the building. I started out in a place that seemed like the church I knew, but as I travelled to the other end, things got really bizarre. First, the size of the building seemed to keep expanding and the number of people in it kept multiplying. Soon I noticed that there was a gift shop selling all sorts of kitsch that had nothing to do with religion. I kept going in the same direction, trying to find my family, but the building just kept growing as I went, eventually having many levels, with huge moving walkways and escalators. The dream ended with me still in the church, but this end of it had become a very upscale, very massive, shopping mall. I remember wondering “how did the church turn into this?”
What to make of this? Consider what a shopping mall is. Yes, it’s a large collection of stores in one place, but not a random collection. Those stores were chosen to be as diverse as possible. The more of our desires and wants the mall can meet by having different types of stores, the more economically successful the mall will be, and that’s what matters to the mall operator. People want fancy clothes, jewelry, entertainment, snacks and candy, toys, and many other things. So, a mall can represent our “do whatever you want” culture.
I wonder if the seed of the dream was something I saw on Twitter a few days before: “There are infinite ways to be non-binary.” What they were saying is that not only are there not just two genders, but that we can endlessly create new ones with no limit at all. It’s like a sexual version of the shopping mall, and also a denial that there’s any real right or wrong or that there’s any such thing as an inappropriate desire. But can we really make ourselves into anything we want to be without consequences?
Consider this: no competent computer engineer would tell us that we can just arrange a diverse group of components any way we want and end up with a working computer. The engineer isn’t being intolerant or mean, they just know what it takes to make a computer do what it’s supposed to.
Likewise, when Jesus says “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few,”[1] He is not being intolerant or mean by saying we can’t do whatever we want to, He just knows that we were designed, what we were designed to do, and also what will ultimately satisfy us.
Christian churches are supposed to teach us how to follow Christ, not tell us to do whatever we want to, but now many churches, just like in my dream, have turned into proverbial shopping malls. In many cases, we’ve forgotten that people are not accidents of random circumstances in nature, and we’ve forgotten that our Creator knows what’s best for us. We’ve decided to pursue “the way that is easy” forgetting that it “leads to destruction.” Too many churches, now including the one I went to in DC, say that Jesus will meet whatever needs we think we have, rather than saying that Jesus knows what we need better than we do; that it’s our idea of need that must be changed.
It’s our idea of need that must be changed
When Jesus said, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” the “world” He loves is the one where we’ve come up with infinite ways to reject Him. Where we’ve come up with infinite ways to deny that He made us and knows better than us what’s right and wrong, what “leads to life” and what “leads to destruction.”
When God gave His Son, His sacrifice was sufficient for all sin and can cover all the infinite ways we decide to ignore what’s good for us. Because God loved this world, it’s also true that His people should communicate His love and grace at all times to all people, by word and action. Yet it’s also true that church is not a shopping mall regardless of what people can imagine in their dreams that it should be. The church is called to a higher standard of living, a holy standard informed by our Creator’s knowledge of what works.
So, in these troubling times, pray that people will continue to find Jesus, both within and outside the church and what much of it has become. That God’s people will love holiness, but also love sinners. Pray that we find the way that is hard but leads to life and that God’s church is a beacon calling people to it.
