Tag Matthew

God Overcomes the Green-Eyed Monster

Todd R Leave a comment

In Shakespeare’s play Othello, the evil Iago says the line: “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on.”[1]

Jealousy can be a monster that takes control of us if we aren’t careful, so since at least 1603, people have been describing this powerful emotion as being taken over by the “green-eyed monster.”  What is this emotion?  Merriam-Webster says we are jealous when we feel “hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage.”[2]  Even though jealousy is a hostile emotion, “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,”[3] so He must be able to work through the green-eyed monster.

The first use of the word jealousy in the ESV Bible comes from Genesis 37:11, which begins with: “And [Joseph’s] brothers were jealous of him.”   This jealousy came from the favoritism Joseph’s father Jacob showed toward Joseph over his 11 brothers, but also the dreams Joseph shared where his family was bowing to him.  So, in Genesis 37:19-20, the brothers “said to one another, ‘Here comes this dreamer.  Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.’”  But Joseph was rescued and ended up in charge of Egypt’s food supply during a famine, enabling him, through God’s providence, to feed and save the rest of his family.  Therefore, what started as jealousy resulted in Israel’s deliverance from famine.  Joseph tells his brothers: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”  (Genesis 50:20)

Later, in the New Testament, jealousy was a cause of the persecution of the early Christian church.  Acts 13:44-45 says “The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.  But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him” and Acts 17:4-5 says “And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.  But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd.” (Emphases added)

The apostle Paul was quite aware of this fierce jealousy, but instead of getting upset and annoyed about it, he knew that God would use it for the good of His people.  In fact, while Paul knew his ministry to the Gentiles provoked jealous feelings among Jews, he also hoped jealousy would bring some Jews to faith in Christ: “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.” (Romans 11:13-14)

But the biggest example of God working through jealousy and its relative, envy, can be found at the cross.  Pharisees and other religious leaders of Jesus’ day were jealous of the crowds that followed Him, of the authority He wielded, and of the miracles He performed.  Therefore, they plotted against Jesus to silence Him, and when they finally seized Him and turned Him over to Pilate, the Roman governor of the region, Matthew 27:18 records that Pilate “knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up.”  What began as jealousy led to the cross and the only way our sins could be paid for was fulfilled!

Jealousy remains a harmful emotion, and God never creates evil in us, but jealous feelings not only resulted in the temporal salvation of Israel from famine and eternal salvation for some Jews in the New Testament, but jealousy also contributed to the crucifixion of Jesus, which made all salvation possible. When Paul wrote “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,” it included God overcoming “all things.”  Even jealousy, the green-eyed monster.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/top-10-phrases-from-shakespeare
[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jealous
[3] Romans 8:28

Jesus’ Missing 30 Years

Todd R 2 Comments

The four Gospels are not biographies of Jesus, written to tell us all about His life, but they are summaries of His life designed to make the case that Jesus was truly the Son of God who died for our sins and rose again.  Unlike a biography, the Gospels skip over most of Jesus’ life, most notably the 30 years or so between Matthew 2:23 and 3:13.  In one verse He’s a toddler and in the next He’s an adult beginning His public ministry.

What happened in the meantime?  We don’t know much because the Bible doesn’t say much.  Jesus most likely worked as a carpenter[1] in Nazareth most of that time.  But, while we don’t know what He did, we get a sense of how He did it.

At the end of Matthew 3, Jesus goes to John the Baptist to be baptized, and when He comes up from the water, “the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’”[2]  In this revelation of the Trinity, the Father says He is “well pleased” with the Son, Jesus, and the Spirit confirms.

Note that the Father said He was “well pleased” before Jesus had done anything in His public ministry.  Since God knows the future, He may have been saying He was “well pleased” with Jesus’ whole life, but those there would take it to mean His life to that point.  The period of Jesus’ life that we know so little about.  What Jesus did in those 30 or so years was pleasing to God the Father.

Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

What does this mean for us?  Most of us don’t have a full-time ministry, but spend most of our time doing other, sometimes mundane, things.  Most, or all, of our lives are more like the 30 years missing from the Gospels than they are like Jesus’ 3 or so years of ministry.  But since the Father was pleased with the first 30 years of Jesus’ life, we also can fully please God without dedicating ourselves to a full-time ministry.  Lay people aren’t second-class citizens in the kingdom of heaven.

But also, if Jesus pleased God at all times, including His work as a carpenter, to be like Jesus we need to please the Father in not just our acts of ministry, but in all of life.  In how we do our jobs, in how we treat our family and neighbors, in how we do everything.

If we want our Lord to say to us “Well done, good and faithful servant,”[3] we must follow Colossians 3:23 – “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.”  All of our activities can please the Father, even the most mundane things.

[1] Mark 6:3
[2] Matthew 3:16b-17
[3] Matthew 25:21

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 Commission to Disciple

Todd R 2 Comments

Many of you are familiar with the Great Commission, given to followers of Jesus at the end of the gospel of Matthew.  Its place at the end of the book suggests this Commission represents Jesus’ final instructions to His followers:

“Go therefore and share the gospel with all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”

However, that’s not the Great Commission.  I changed some words.  “Share the gospel with” isn’t in the ESV translation of this verse.  Matthew 28:19 actually says:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”

This illustrates a common idea that the Great Commission is mostly, or even all, about evangelism (sharing the good news of Jesus with people, in order to convert them to Christianity).  The verse appears so often in the context of evangelism that, even though it says “make disciples,” it is often thought of the first way I wrote it.

Making disciples is a much bigger subject than evangelism and takes place in a much broader context, suggested by adding verse 20 to the quote:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Photo by Florian Weichert on Unsplash

Yes, evangelism is crucially important in the mission of the church (you can’t disciple if you don’t have Christians to disciple), but the Commission covers so much more that the church needs to do.  It’s not just about accumulating converts, but about making disciples who follow Jesus.  It covers anything involved with “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you,” and God equips each member of His church to contribute.  As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:4-7:

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

And in verses 8-10 he lists some of the gifts:

“For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.”

These gifts are for “the common good”, and Paul says in chapters 13 and 14 that these gifts are useless unless used in love to build up the church, to make it (both as a total body, and as individual members) more like Christ.  In other words, to disciple all nations since the church includes people from everywhere!

“So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.” – 1 Corinthians 14:12

Paul also makes a point to warn about emphasizing or exalting some gifts above others:

“The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”  On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable”[1]

Limiting the Great Commission to evangelistic efforts also risks raising evangelists above those with other gifts.  Maybe the teachers, helpers, and others will feel like the foot, which in Paul’s illustration, said:

“Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body”[2]

Every time Paul wrote about the spiritual gifts, in 1 Corinthians 12-14, in Romans 12, and in Ephesians 4, he stresses the unity of the church, founded on love among its members.  All gifts are part of the Great Commission when we know we are not making converts but making disciples.  Every Christian has a part to play, specific to their own gifts, passions, and opportunities, and no Christian should feel like a second-class citizen of the church.  Paul’s teaching on gifts is an encouragement to embrace diversity in the church – of gifts, of ministries, and of personalities – but not diversity of motive.  The only good motive is self-sacrificial agape love, and each gift is only effective to the degree that the one using it uses it in service to the growth of the church.

Perhaps the Great Commission should be renamed as the Commission to Disciple? What a difference a couple of words make.

[1] 1 Corinthians 12:21-22
[2] From 1 Corinthians 12:15

Weeds are Good for You

Todd R 2 Comments

Are there people in the church, either in your own church, another local church, or somewhere in the global church, that seem a bit un-Christian?  Perhaps their doctrine is different than yours, or perhaps they behave differently.  Maybe they dress differently or have different standards in music.  They could have different political beliefs.  It could be anything.

Within a parable Jesus told in Matthew 13:24-30 is some wisdom about “those people.”  The parable is:

“He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.  And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’  He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’  But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

For this post, the key phrase in the parable is “No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.”  The wheat in the parable represents God’s people, and the weeds represent unbelievers in the midst of them.  The servants ask the master whether they should pull up all the weeds immediately, which seems like a sensible thing to do.  Weeds are bad for crops, right?

The surprising response is that the servants should “Let both grow together until the harvest.”  Why?  Because in the master’s judgment it is better for the wheat if the weeds are allowed to grow.  In other words, removing the weeds before the harvest – when God will separate the wheat from the weeds – would be bad for the wheat harvest.  Until the harvest, the master warns that we could “root up the wheat along with them.”

In Matthew 25 where Jesus tells of the final judgment in verses 31-46, it’s strongly implied that some of the “wheat” will be surprised about being wheat and some “weeds” will be surprised about being weeds.  In verses 37-39 Christians say: “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?  And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?  And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?”  In verse 44, unbelievers say: “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?”

Therefore, if the wheat and the weeds themselves can be unsure which they are, how can anyone else definitively decide who doesn’t belong, especially to risk damaging those who do belong.  There will always be true and false believers in churches until Christ returns, so remember: According to the Master, the wheat is better off with the weeds than without.  Especially if sometimes what we think are weeds actually aren’t.