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Mercy for Mephibosheth

Todd R 1 Comment

The English writer Samuel Johnson noted that “the true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”  There is a great example of this in the story of King David and Mephibosheth in the book of 2 Samuel.

Before becoming king, David had a deep friendship with Jonathan, the son of King Saul who despised David and persistently tried to kill him.  In response, David did not try to kill Saul, but relied on God to keep his promise that David would become king and eventually Saul was killed in battle against the Philistines.  Soon after, David was anointed king and surprisingly asked: “Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”[1]  Mephibosheth, a lame son of Jonathan, was found, given Saul’s land and servants to work it, and also given a place at David’s table.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

There are at least 3 ways David’s treatment of Mephibosheth did David no good from a worldly perspective:

  • It was typical for kings to wipe out the entire family of political rivals to remove any threats from claims to the crown.  David, showing mercy to Mephibosheth instead, took a risk by keeping a descendant of Saul alive.
  • Mephibosheth, lame in both feet, was limited in what service he could offer to David.  He was not a great warrior and otherwise had little to offer David.  However, David had mercy on him because of his love for Mephibosheth’s father Jonathan, not because of what he could get in return.
  • David restored Saul’s land to Mephibosheth, land that David could have kept for himself.  Instead, David fed Mephibosheth from his own possessions for the rest of his life.  Mercy for Mephibosheth had an economic cost to David.

While from this worldly perspective David might seem foolish, from an eternal perspective he was wise, foreshadowing the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 5:43-45 –

“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.”

Are there Mephibosheths in our lives who could be shown mercy, regardless of the worldly impact on us?

[1] 2 Samuel 9:1

Minding Our Own Business

Todd R 1 Comment

Have you heard the term “virtue signaling”?  The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “the act or practice of conspicuously displaying one’s awareness of and attentiveness to political issues, matters of social and racial justice, etc., especially instead of taking effective action.”  The phrase seems like it’s been around a long time, but the first use of it may have been as recent as 2013.[1]

Maybe the words “virtue signaling” are new, but the idea is at least as old as the Bible.  In chapter 26, verses 6-13 of Matthew’s gospel, he tells the story of a woman who came to Jesus with “an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment” which she poured on Jesus’ head in front of the disciples.  In Jesus’ view “she has done a beautiful thing to me…to prepare me for burial.”  But the disciples didn’t see it the same way Jesus did.  They indignantly said “Why this waste?  For this [ointment] could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.”

Jesus responded how it was “a beautiful thing”, but also made another comment that made it clear the disciples were virtue signaling.  He told them not to “trouble the woman.”  “For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”  I think Jesus had at least 3 points in this phrase, related to virtue signaling.

The first is that knowing what to do isn’t enough.  In fact, it just increases our responsibility.  James 4:17 says: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”  Although the disciples knew that giving to the poor was good, in this case were more concerned about sharing that knowledge than about using it.  Today, we might call such people virtue signalers, but the Bible calls them “busybodies” and “meddlers”[2]  People who go from person to person evaluating and criticizing their work instead of minding their own responsibilities.  These people are common on social media.

Second, that there is always an opportunity to help the poor – they always will exist and aren’t hard to find – and each disciple surely missed opportunities every day.  On what basis could they pick on someone else’s failure to help the poor?  By criticizing the woman, they revealed that virtue signaling was more important to them than actually being virtuous.

Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash

The last point is that service flows from worship, not the other way around.  When we worship Jesus, the ultimate servant, our own ability to sincerely serve others increases as a result.  The woman with the ointment knew this may be the only opportunity to anoint Jesus for burial, and knew she shouldn’t miss it.  On the other hand, the disciples wanted Jesus to punish the woman when they should have been minding their own business.  An internal posture of worship may be the best antidote to hypocrisy and the temptation to merely signal virtue.

The phrase “mind your own business” usually is said to someone we want to leave us alone, but the words actually mean that we should consider our own activities and motives more important than the policing of other people’s activities and motives.  We “always have the poor” with us and fall far short of the standard we need to meet to judge other people’s use of resources.

When we all stand before God in judgment, Jesus will tell the blessed: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’”  In other words, the blessed minded their own business instead of just criticizing others (virtue signaling).  Jesus notices when we take effective action and doesn’t care much about our opinions of others’ effectiveness.

Therefore, pray that we can all mind our own business, in worshipful service, “for you always have the poor with you,” and thank God for His forgiveness, because I know I don’t mind my own business nearly as often as I should.  Sometimes I just blog about it.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virtue signaling
[2] 1 Timothy 5:13; 1 Peter 4:15

The Priorities of the Good Samaritan

Todd R 1 Comment

The parable of the Good Samaritan is well-known, even by those who aren’t Christian.  Briefly, it goes like this: a man is robbed, beaten, and left for dead on the side of a road.  First a priest, and then a Levite, passed him by, offering no help at all.  But a Samaritan, a member of a group despised by many Jews, stopped and helped the man, even bringing him to further help and paying the necessary expenses.

There is a lesson in the story about priorities – what this Good Samaritan put first, and what he didn’t.  But before covering his #1 priority, here are some things he did not prioritize, even though these aren’t necessarily bad things:

His first priority was not to fight for stricter laws against robbers.  What the robbers did was probably already illegal, and definitely not morally right.  We don’t know the fate of the robbers in the story, but they might have gotten away with this near murder.  In modern times, if criminals are getting away with bad behavior, a movement sometimes grows to make something that is already illegal “more illegal.”  If robbing is against the law, some might lobby to make the punishment harsher, or to focus laws on particular victims or perpetrators, but if they’re getting away with it now, how will these changes help?  The Good Samaritan couldn’t do much about this immediately, so it wasn’t his first priority.

His first priority also was not to raise public awareness of violence along the highways.  He didn’t create posters and social media hashtags (I write as if those things existed then).  Such a campaign can have benefits.  It could help people be more careful when traveling, it might encourage the government to allocate more of its limited resources toward highway safety, but it will never completely solve the problem. The Good Samaritan couldn’t do much about this immediately, so it wasn’t his first priority either.

Photo by youssef naddam on Unsplash

So, what was the Good Samaritan’s priority?  He focused on what he could control, and any other concerns came later.  He focused on the problem right in front of him – a man beat up and near death on the side of the road.  Sometimes we can focus so much on advocating, that we lose sight of doing.  (I worry about that for myself as someone who spends so much time blogging.)  But the Good Samaritan “proved to be a neighbor”[1] by taking care of the neighbor right in front of him.

We can also be deluded into thinking that our government and other institutions should be able to solve all of our problems if only we fight hard enough for it.  However, they never will be enough, because any and all institutions are made up of people who too often deny their own responsibility for the problems of the world. Especially on social media, we often get the illusion that we can offload our responsibility for the world to others, and that what’s happening somewhere else is more important than what’s right in front of us.

While advocacy can be a good and necessary thing, God wants us to prioritize doing, which is what everyone in heaven will do!  In heaven, everyone will be like the Good Samaritan (and like Jesus), and therefore we won’t need better laws, awareness campaigns powered by advertising and hashtags, or stricter enforcement of laws.  The bloody victim by the roadside won’t exist.  And that is something to look forward to!

In the meantime:
“I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know. God may call any one of us to respond to some far away problem or support those who have been so called. But we are finite and he will not call us everywhere or to support every worthy cause. And real needs are not far from us.” – C.S. Lewis

[1] Luke 10:36

Loveless Words

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“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” – 1 Corinthians 13:1

The church in 1st-century Corinth was divided over spiritual gifts, particularly the gift of speaking in tongues.  The apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 13 as a gentle rebuke to the misuse of gifts and the arrogance that came from competing over them.  The first verse above could be paraphrased as “you can be speaking the most impressive-sounding things, but if you’re not saying it to benefit those who hear, you’re just making noise.”

Photo by Jeremy Horvatin on Unsplash

But not just any noise – Paul purposefully chose two specific instruments.  In a symphony, an appropriately timed cymbal or gong has a glorious impact that perhaps no other instrument can match.  However, although you might not catch one bad note from a clarinet, you won’t miss a gong or cymbal played at the wrong time, even once!  To God, the only one with a truly perfect ear, that’s what loveless words sound like.

“If even lifeless instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played?” – 1 Corinthians 14:7

Work, Labor, and Steadfastness

Todd R 3 Comments

Many are familiar with the Biblical triad of faith, hope and love from 1 Corinthians 13:13, which says: “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”  In this verse, Paul is calling these 3 characteristics the most important, with love above the other 2.

In another of Paul’s letters he joins this triad with another one.  1 Thessalonians 1:2-3 says, “We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”  He’s saying that faith and works go together, that love and labor go together and that hope and steadfastness go together.  But how do they fit together and do the 3 relationships have anything in common?

When I think of these verses, I see faith, hope and love as the causes of the other 3 characteristics.  Faith motivates works.  Love motivates labor.  Hope motivates steadfastness.  Without the first thing in each pair, it’s hard to consistently have the second thing.  Let’s look at them in order.

The interaction between faith and work is a tricky one, but paraphrasing John Calvin, we are saved by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.  In the New Testament book of James, he wrote “someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”[1]  Our Savior spent His life on this earth ministering to others, and if we believe in Him as who He actually is (our God), our faith in Him will naturally result in us ministering to others as He did.  Thus, faith motivates us to work as Jesus worked.  Otherwise, it is a dead faith.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Paul also noted the Thessalonians’ “labor of love.”  The “love” here is more than an emotion or feeling.  It’s the love (agape in Greek) that is a self-sacrificing concern for others.  Any others.  G.K. Chesterton said, “the Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”  True love is hard, like labor.  Strong’s Greek dictionary describes the word translated “labor” as toil that wears us out or even causes us pain.  A labor of love is when we serve people so much in love that it wears us out.    Agape love motivates us to labor for others.

The last pair is the “steadfastness of hope.”  In my experience, hope is only useful when it is steadfast.  If we lose hope when things go wrong, we lose the ability to see beyond our current circumstances to our future in Christ.  Its only when we are able to keep our focus on Christ even in tough times that our hope is steadfast and shows its true value.  In the 2 letters he wrote to the Thessalonians, Paul referred to the second coming of Jesus at least 6 times, which would remind them that their hope is sure and won’t fail them.  Just like the Thessalonians, we need to be reminded again and again of where our hope lies in order to keep living for God.  Hope motivates steadfastness.

Today, if Paul were to write a letter to your church, would he note their “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ”?  I pray that for my church, including me, he could.  Pray the same for you and yours.

“We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

[1] James 2:18