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In 2 Samuel we read of the Thirty Mighty men of King David of Israel. They were great warriors and had shed much blood in the defense of Israel. They are listed by name and therefore were memorialized forever.
In the New Testament we read of the Twelve disciples of Jesus Christ who might also be considered to be mighty men. They weren’t involved in physical warfare brandishing swords and shields and accompanied by the sounds of trumpets and battle cries vanquishing their enemies.
Rather they were spiritual heroes fighting a spiritual war against the enemies of Jesus Christ. They didn’t slaughter their enemies with the sword but rather allowed their own selves to be killed, tortured and slaughtered in the spreading of the good news of salvation offered by Jesus Christ.
Like the Thirty their names have been memorialized for eternity.
Who hasn’t heard the names of Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew the tax collector, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon the zealot and Matthias who replaced Judas.
The Thirty’s mission was to kill and conquer their enemies… the twelve’s mission was to convert and build their enemies into fellow spiritual soldiers.
The Thirty were memorialized for their mighty deeds of war and accrued great honor and glory but their honor and glory paled in comparison to the honor and glory of the Twelve mighty men of Jesus Christ.
Who could have predicted that?
During this time of the year (Christmas) I see TV commercials where the message to humanity is if you say the following prayer you will be saved…
“Dear God, I’m a sinner. I’m sorry for my sins. Forgive me. I believe that Jesus Christ is your Son. I believe that He took my sins to the cross, that He died in my place, and I believe that You raised Him to life, and I’d like to trust Him now as my Savior, and I want to follow Him as my Lord from this day forward forever. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen".(Human reasoning)
I mean… it sounds good and it contains several valid biblical concepts. The only problem with it is that it is not biblical as far as leading to salvation. You might even say it is anti-biblical.
For comparisons sake please consider what the Apostle Peter had to say when he was asked what to do to be saved…
“Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38)
That’s a huge difference right? Why would a keen student of the Bible substitute “human reasoning” for “Acts 2:38”?
Here’s why… because proponents of the sinner’s prayer want to eliminate Baptism from any kind of role for salvation and they have to massage any scripture that couples baptism and salvation to make it mean something it doesn’t plainly mean.
Please, please, please search the scriptures and follow after God and not man. After all it could affect you eternally.
We’re introduced to Job in the same book that carries his name… Job. We find that he was “blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from all evil”.
He had been blessed with many children, livestock and servants and he was called “the greatest of all men in the east”.
Even Satan had heard of Job and accused God of “building a hedge (of protection) around him and blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land”.
Let me point out that nothing is said about the righteousness of Job’s sons and daughters or even of his wife and yet they shared in Jobs blessings by being of his household. Let me suggest a concept here… it’s possible to piggyback on the righteousness of others and share in their blessings with out any effort on our own part.
Also notice this God gave Satan permission to do anything he wanted to except for the taking of Job’s life. So, Satan didn’t waste any time killing Job’s 10 children and only spared Job and his wife. I wonder why Mrs. Job wasn’t killed too? It might be because Job was “one flesh” with his wife and killing her would be as close as you could get to killing Job. My guess is that even though her righteousness is not mentioned she was bound to be a righteous person as well by virtue of her oneness with Job.
So what does this mean for all of us? We might look at our own blessings and assume those blessings are based on our own righteousness when they may not be at all… we may just be kind of tagging along spiritually. Maybe a little spiritually lazy… always content to live in the shadow of others.
Job was a mountain of a man spiritually and cast a huge spiritual shadow and many were blessed living in his shadow. That’s great… bully for Job, but let’s step out from whosever shadow we may be standing in and let the sun shine in our faces and make our own shadows.
Most will recognize that 1 Corinthians 13 is the (so called) chapter on love. In fact you don’t even have to be a casual reader of the Bible to recognize the sentiments recorded there because these verses are often read at weddings and popularized in music.
I’m okay with reading these verses at weddings but when done so they are a secondary application of these verses and I’m not okay if our primary knowledge of Bible passages is based on a secondary application/understanding of said verses.
Note chapter 13 is found squarely in the middle of chapters 12 and 14.
Chapter 12 is about jealousy and envy among Christians in the Corinthian church about which gifts they had been given. Imagine that… God gives you something and you are envious of what God gave someone else. Sometimes someone will complement me on some attribute or the other that I might have and I’ll respond… it’s a gift and I can’t take credit for a gift. Nor can you accept a gift from God and wish it were a better gift.
Chapter 14 is about the misuse of these gifts during the assembly of the church. Their assembly had become a chaotic assembly characterized by people interrupting and demanding attention for themselves.
So Paul didn’t take a break from talking about spiritual gifts to have a dialogue on love so that we could have nice weddings surrounded by the release of butterflies and white dove and a reading of 1 Corinthians 13.
Note in chapter 13 that Paul personalizes what he says… “If I (Paul) speak with the gift of the languages of foreigners and angels and have not love…” etc. etc. etc.
Things that love doesn’t do… does not envy, does not elevate itself above others… etc. etc. etc.
Things that love does… bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things… etc. etc. etc.
Paul is contrasting his behavior with their behavior especially as it is found in chapters 12 and 14 but really in the whole letter to the Corinthians. The Corinthians were childish, envious, jealous, tolerated sin, judged improperly and some of them charged Paul with not being a true Apostle and therefore not worthy of monetary support.
Paul was striving for spiritual perfection and if he suffered all that he suffered and responded to their mistreatment of him in an unloving manner then all was for naught.
Paul records the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians to illustrate the stark contrast between his behavior which was characterized by actionable love and their behavior which was in many ways worse than the behavior of the pagans whom they lived among and which bordered on Blasphemy.
So in summary I don’t mind at all the secondary applications that are based on 1 Corinthians but as Bible students we’re not worth our spiritual salt if we neglect or fail to understand the primary application of what we read.
Let’s be salty.
We were studying the qualifications for Elders in Bible class one Sunday morning and someone asked me a question that was kind of a trick question… does an Elder have to maintain the qualifications as found in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 to continue to serve as an Elder?
The natural answer would be… yes… of course he does but let’s hold our horses for a few minutes.
Let’s say you have an Elder and he’s everything you would expect an Elder to be… he has keen leadership abilities, he manages spiritual problems as they arise and he’s a gifted teacher. He has a wife and three adult children who are as faithful as the day is long and then tragically his three children are killed in a car accident. He no longer has three “believing children” and cannot maintain that qualification.
Most folks would say of course he could continue as an Elder. It’s not his fault his children died and he is at the top of his game spiritually. Why harm the congregation un-necessarily?
Okay, if we can see that point then how about this one? Let’s say his wife is tragically killed in the car accident as well. He is no longer the “husband of one wife” and therefore cannot maintain that qualification.
Must an Elder “maintain his qualifications”? That depends on the qualification in my opinion. Of course he must be… above reproach, temperate, no brawler, etc. But those are qualities he can control. There are other qualities he cannot control like losing a wife and children for instance.
Thanks for thinking with me.
Tonight during Bible class Marc asked us if anyone thought they had grown spiritually today and I raised my hand.
This morning there was about 10 minutes left in Bible class and our security guy tapped me on the shoulder and said someone was in the foyer who wanted to talk to me. I didn’t figure it was an emergency so I told him I would talk to the fellow after class.
When I went back to the foyer I saw about what I expected to see… a young man who was about 30 years old, tatted up pretty good and who looked homeless. When I sat next to him he didn’t smell very pleasant either. As I talked to him I discovered he was a little different than most… he started sobbing and telling me what a bad life he had lived and how he didn’t know what to do. He had spent some time in jail and had been living on the streets for about 8 months.
He lived by walking up and down streets asking if people needed any help and made a few dollars. He also said some would hire him for a whole day and then at the end of the day laugh at him and refuse to pay him.
I talked a while with him and then Larry talked to him for a while. When services started he came and sat on the back pew with us and started sobbing. Larry brought a box of tissues to him. Then Noe got up from his seat and sat next to him and consoled him. I made closing announcements and mentioned a few things about the young man and the congregation showed an outpouring of love towards him.
I had been wondering what to do with him after services and thought about taking him to lunch with our family but was uncomfortable with him being in our car sitting behind us. So I decided to offer him some money. I looked in my wallet and there were five one dollar bills and a fifty dollar bill. I really didn’t want to give him the fifty but the ones were not enough so I crumpled the 50 in my hand and told him I wanted to help him. Guess what… he refused to take any money. He said he couldn’t take any money he hadn’t earned. Dude… that is really different… like unheard of. So I asked him if him if he would like to go eat lunch with us. He gladly accepted.
We went to a hamburger place and he only took about two bites out of his hamburger and said his stomach was upset. Later I found out he hadn’t eaten in two days.
So… I had been thinking about what to do with him after lunch. I didn’t really want to invite him into our home because I still had a notion in the back of my head that this might be some kind of set up. I asked him what he was going to do? He said, walk around and try to make some money and figure out where he was going to sleep tonight.
My conscience whipped up on me again and I said… would you like to spend the day with me? … yes, he would.
He talked to us about his mom who lives in Fairfield, Texas and I asked him if he would like to use my phone to call her. I heard him tell her that he had been to church and how nice everyone had been to him. She told him that maybe if he came home they both could go to church.
During the day he told me he had never been in a church building… that when he was in jail some inmates had shared a Bible with him and he read the Book of Job. He said he was walking down Weber road and something told him to turn down a side street and he saw our building and he walked in. He said everyone in the congregation was so friendly to him and as he sat on the pew and thought about the horrible life he lived and the unexpected friendliness the congregation had for him that he just started crying.
He said Marc’s lesson had a lot of meaning for him. As we were out driving he had mentioned that he would like to go back home to his mother. I told him that I could find him some odd jobs and if he demonstrated responsibility I could probably find him a better job or… if he wanted I would loan him the money to get a bus ticket back to Fairfield. Note… I said loan him because he had previously rejected free money.
He thought for a minute and said… I would like to go home. Julie got on line and bought him a bus ticket for Fairfield, Texas. He leaves at 11:45 tomorrow morning and has a 14 hour bus trip ahead of him. He said with the ticket the bus company would let him spend the night in the station. Julie, bless her righteous heart, wanted to get him a hotel room but I told her he was plenty happy with what we had done already.
We went to services with him Sunday night and I was talking to Noe about him and Noe said… we need to talk to him about being baptized! So we did.
We baptized Juan right then and right there. When he came out I was the first one to hug him. He was shaking and sobbing and held me for a long time and I cried too. We exchanged contact information and he said he would like to come to Corpus Christi to visit and talk every once in a while.
So when Marc asked during class if anyone had grown spiritually… yes… definitely me. The Lord took away all my second thoughts and doubts and a soul was saved today.
We have a lot of members with a lot of talents but thank you Lord for sending Noe to us… he has a great heart!
There’s a video of the baptism that I’ll put up on our public FB page.
Uncle Rob
We had a client who brought their beloved dog in every year who was just obese… morbidly obese. Of course obesity in dogs can lead to early onset osteoarthritis, cancers and just poor quality of life and the owner knew this and was concerned about it. So we did all the lab work including testing for hypothyroidism and we used all the prescription diets designed to manage weight and still this poor canine was obese.
Actually I think our associates were the ones who had been seeing this dog and finally as fate would have it I happened to examine the dog. Finally I looked the owner square in the eye and told him I had an all-natural diet that I guaranteed would cause weight loss. It was a high protein, high fiber, low fat and low carbohydrate diet. The owner was very excited and said I’ll do it! So I told him to let his dog eat one Jack Rabbit every day and make his dog catch it.
There’s lots of applications we could make with that story…how to save a failing marriage, the challenges of parenting, etc. But let’s talk about the fellow who wants to be a better Christian… whatever that looks like. Maybe he wants to know his Bible backwards and forwards. Maybe he wants to preach or lead moving prayers. Maybe he wants to be the best Bible class teacher around, etc. But somehow he can’t seem to get past ground zero.
He knows his goal and wants to end up there but can’t seem to find the right path… the path he’s been on always ends up in the same place. He’s like that client who is looking for some exotic diagnosis and some magical medication that will affect a great cure and neglects to see the obvious.
It takes 12 months to get a year’s experience. There are no shortcuts to success.
If you don’t want to be spiritually obese maybe it’s time to start catching a few Jack Rabbits.
