Tag Sin

Minding Our Own Business

Todd R 3 Comments

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.

“Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love,
            but a faithful man who can find?” – Proverbs 20:6

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

Do We Have It Upside Down?

Todd R 1 Comment

Fellow travelers,

With other people, we can often decide what they know and don’t know about us.  We can guard our reputation by doing things out of the view of others or behind their backs.  We believe we can avoid any negative consequences of our actions and choices if others don’t know about them, especially people in authority.  Sometimes we may even think this applies to God.  Isaiah recognized this when he said the words of Isaiah 29:15 –

“Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel,
            whose deeds are in the dark,
            and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?””

The verse is directed at people who assume God has limited knowledge of us.  People who think they can avoid being seen and avoid consequences.  But things that apply to other people do not apply to God.  He knows all of our “counsel” – our thoughts – and all of our “deeds” – our actions – even if we think we’re doing them in secret.  He, as our maker, knows us better than we know ourselves.  He knows all, and Isaiah points out the foolishness of thinking He doesn’t in the next verse:

Photo by David Tomaseti on Unsplash

“You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
that the thing made should say of its maker,
            “He did not make me”;
or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
            “He has no understanding”?”

It’s upside down and backwards to apply what we know about people (“the clay”) to our “maker” and “him who formed it.”  He sees and understands things we don’t see or understand, not the other way around.  Pretending we can keep secrets from Him only deepens our sense of separation.  It darkens our “counsel” and ultimately our “deeds” as well.  God can’t get us back on the right path if we build up walls against Him.  In the case of Isaiah’s audience, since they were not willing to trust God, they end up allying with Egypt[1], something God had told them never to do.  In the spiritual metaphor, Egypt represents our slavery to sin, since Israel were once the slaves of Egypt, and they/we should never want to go back.  But we so often do, and often because we think He doesn’t know about it or care.

Like Paul in Romans 7:15 (“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”), we are people who don’t even understand ourselves.  But God knows how we’re broken, why we’re broken, and what can be done to fix us, because He is our “maker.”  So, what should we do?

First, we need to recognize that God does see and He does care.  Every thought we have and every deed we do matters to Him, because He wants us to be holy, for His glory and for our good.  He knows better than us and He expects us to act like we believe that.

Second, regular prayer of confession for purpose of self-examination and re-alignment with God is necessary, otherwise we will continue down the wrong path.  I find many of the Psalms to useful guides when it comes to these prayers, but the prayers can come from anywhere as long as they’re sincere.

Third, we must constantly seek to know Him and what He wants, and doing so means spending time with Him in His Word, the Bible.  Hebrews 4:12-13 says:

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

His word can reach all of our “thoughts and intentions.”  It can remind us that nothing is hidden from Him, but it can also teach us what “thoughts and intentions” we ought to have.

Lastly, we must walk according to the Spirit, acting on the right “thoughts and intentions” and live with a clear conscience before God and man.  However, if we keep Him out because we are ashamed of our inner desires and rebelliousness, or because we think we can hide it, we are refusing the only solution He has provided for our deepest problems.

Can we do any of these things perfectly?  No, but we can and must try.  Pretending God is like other people who don’t know or care isn’t an option.  He died so we might know Him, and to know Him is to become like Him.

Amen.

[1] Isaiah 30:1-2

Sodom and Gomorrah’s Selfishness

Todd R 1 Comment

Fellow travelers,

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah from the book of Genesis is well-known even to many who aren’t religious.  Genesis 18 and 19 describe the two cities as extremely wicked, specifically mentioning homosexuality and rape.  The English term “sodomy” even comes from the name of the city of Sodom.  In the Genesis story, Lot and some of his family escape based on Abraham pleading with God for them, “Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven.  And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.”  (Genesis 19:24-25).  This is the most well-known part of the story, and some explanations of why the cities were destroyed found on the internet and elsewhere say Genesis has the “full account” of the story.  Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for their excessive sexual sins.

However, there is more.

Ezekiel, a prophet to Jews captive in Babylon centuries after Sodom was destroyed, said: “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.  They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.”  (Ezekiel 16:49-50). Ezekiel was describing the sins of Judah to explain why they had been sent into exile from their Promised Land and said they don’t compare favorably even to Sodom.  Surprisingly, Ezekiel doesn’t even mention any sexual sins in this description.  Not that these sins were irrelevant, but in Ezekiel’s view, Sodom would have been destroyed even without them.  Sodom’s other sins were also abominations.

What’s the point?  I can’t say it any better than the Life Application Study Bible, which notes on Ezekiel 16:49: “Sodom was destroyed because of its pride, laziness, gluttony, and unconcern for the poor and needy. It is easy to be selective in what we consider gross sin. If we do not commit such horrible sins as adultery, homosexuality, stealing, and murder, we may think we are living good enough lives.”

We can’t pick and choose which sins are more or less deserving of God’s judgement, because in His holiness and justice, He must and will judge all sin.  While “lifestyle” sins without repentance may be more dangerous to a church or congregation, even sins we may not consider extreme are dangerous as well.  Ezekiel’s point is that selfishness and a disregard for those in need should be repented of as much as any other sin.  Ezekiel wrote, “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.  They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it,” but he also wrote that Judah would be restored by a coming Messiah, the Christ.

That restoration comes through Christ’s sacrifice for all sins, and anyone can have salvation through faith, which drives us to confession and repentance.  As John wrote in 1 John 1:8-10, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

At the end of our journey, all of God’s people will be cleansed of all of their sins, not just the most noticeable ones, because “he is faithful.”  Not because any of us are less sinful than others.

Bride of the High Priest

Todd R Leave a comment

Being an Old Testament priest was a demanding profession, full of rules and restrictions about what you must do and what you couldn’t do.  For the one high priest, it was even more challenging.  Within the first 5 books of our Bible (also called the Pentateuch, or the books of Moses) there are long lists of rules for these people to follow that didn’t apply to anyone else.  And sometimes with these rules we find interesting pictures of Jesus, our High Priest.  Today I’m writing about one example of that.

In Leviticus 21:13-15, God tells Moses, and then to the people through Moses, about who a high priest may marry:

“And he shall take a wife in her virginity.  A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry. But he shall take as his wife a virgin of his own people, that he may not profane his offspring among his people, for I am the LORD who sanctifies him.”

These verses would be good advice for most people, but for high priests these things are required[1].  The point is to keep the high priest, and those closest to him, as holy and dedicated to God as possible.  Because the high priesthood was an inherited role, “he may not profane his offspring among his people.”  There was to be no question that this man’s children were not defiled in any way.

Today, we no longer have a high priest serving in the temple in Jerusalem for us, but what we do have is Jesus as our High Priest[2].  If He is our High Priest, do regulations about marriage have anything to do with Him?  How do these Levitical rules apply to who Jesus chooses to marry, since He didn’t marry while He was on earth?  These rules matter because in the New Testament, most notably in Revelation, the Christian church is the bride of Jesus Christ.  The church is who He decided to marry.

But, in light of Leviticus 21, how does our High Priest Jesus “marry” his church without being defiled?  None of us are spiritual “virgins.”  Instead, we are a church full of sinners who wed themselves to dead gods, separating ourselves from the true God, and defiling ourselves in worship of other gods.  Spiritually, we are prostitutes committing spiritual adultery with all the things we choose to worship that are not God.

So, how does Jesus follow the Levitical regulation to “take as his wife a virgin of his own people”?

The answer is that He sanctifies His people by His blood.  In the Old Testament we are shown pictures of this concept.  In David’s famous penitential prayer of Psalm 51, he asks God to “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” (verse 7).  In Isaiah, God says to His people:

“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD:
             though your sins are like scarlet,
                        they shall be as white as snow;
             though they are red like crimson,
                        they shall become like wool.” (verse 18)

Back in verse 15 of Leviticus 21, God said: “I am the Lord who sanctifies him.”  Through the shedding of His blood, His death, and His resurrection, we are made as clean from our sin and idolatrous, adulterous worship as we could ever be.  We are made “white as snow”.  We are made to be acceptable in the eyes of a holy and just God.  We are made to be a suitable bride for Jesus Christ, we become “a virgin of his own people,” with no trace of the times we rebelled against our one, true God.  He is the one who sanctifies us.

In this rule that is seemingly irrelevant to modern Christians, there is a picture of the sacrifice of our Lord, and of the way He views His people.  If we were not sanctified, He could not “marry” us.  Do you believe that Jesus sees you as “white as snow”?  The Bible says that His people are, otherwise, they would not be acceptable to Him.  But we are sanctified if we accept Christ’s work on our behalf.

Pray for God to reassure us of this truth today!  Pray for Him to wash away all of our guilt and shame.  Pray that we would know that we, in spite of ourselves, are accepted because of what He’s done for us.

Amen.

[1] Because the Aaronic priesthood was hereditary, celibacy was not required, or even recommended. Marriage and procreation were encouraged, or the line would not continue.
[2] Hebrews 3:1, 4:14, 6:20

The Rebellion at Babel

Todd R 1 Comment

The story of the Tower of Babel, recorded in just 9 verses in Genesis 11, has a lot more to say than its length might suggest.  It’s not just the story of a tower being built, or a story about the origin of different languages.  It is also a story of why the tower was built and what it meant about the builders’ relationship with God.

The Tower of Babel was mankind’s best effort at achieving salvation, a path to heaven, based on their own works.  In the tower we see man declaring his independence from God, his lack of need for the God, or any god.  This act of rebellion was similar to Adam and Eve’s sinful desire to know good and evil for themselves in the garden of Eden, because the builders of the tower were saying that they know better than God.  “We’ll get to perfection on our own,” they thought.  They were the progressives of their day, believing in the infinite potential of mankind.

Also, verse 4 tells us that part of the motivation for building the tower was to prevent man from being “dispersed over the face of the whole earth,” but God had told His people to “fill the earth,”[1] not to settle down in one spot.  In the next chapter God would tell Abraham that he would become a nation, and that through that nation, “all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”[2]  God’s people are not meant to hide in their own dwellings, but to bless the world by telling it of God’s love and by living out that love to “all the families of the earth.”  Babel’s builders had the wrong priorities.

Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash. The Tower of Babel may have been a ziggurat or a pyramid.

The story of the Tower also tells us that our best efforts will always fall short.  In the story, note that “the LORD came down to see the city and the tower.”  Mankind intended for this tower to reach heaven, but God had to “come down” to see it.  Our best efforts fall way below God’s standards and intention for us.  While we might achieve a lot and take pride in it, it’s never as good as what God can do for us, and we know that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”[3]  Later in history, He would show us that only He, in Christ Jesus, could be the path that gets us to heaven.  There is no other way no matter how hard we try.

Another subtle point from the story is that the materials we decide to work with are never better than what God has already given us.  Babel’s builders “had brick for stone,” meaning the tower was built with manmade bricks, not stones.  We might think of stones as “natural” but really, they’re what God created in the form He created it, and they’re much stronger than bricks.  In the same way, if we follow God’s intention for our lives rather than inventing our own ways, we will find that His ways are better and stronger than anything else available.

Lastly, the tower’s very name, Babel, is a form of “Babylon,” which is a literal city, but also in Revelation 17-18 Babylon represents any society where man attempts to live independently of God.  To seek perfection without Him and by His righteousness.  Revelation also tells us that Babylon will be destroyed, and everything that Babylon represents.

God has given us everything we need to live and to glorify Him today.  Will we use it, or try to go our own way?

[1] Genesis 1:28, Genesis 9:1
[2] Genesis 12:3
[3] James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5