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There are a couple events in the life of Jesus Christ (and how they are connected) that are very intriguing to me.
The first is Jesus' Baptism. Of course Jesus' immersion and arising out of the waters mimic and foreshadow his death, burial and resurrection.
Immediately after this figurative resurrection Jesus goes into the wilderness for forty days of fasting and temptation.
The second is Jesus’ actual death, burial and resurrection. In which he, immediately upon his resurrection, spends another (but different) 40 days demonstrating his power over death. Hooray!
Of course all of this is an example for us. Nothing happens by accident in the scriptures. Let me take a swing at this.
When Christians figuratively die and enter the waters of baptism it symbolizes our death to sin and our old way of life. We arise out of the waters brand new people… squeaky clean.
Immediately we become Satan’s number one enemy but as we learned from Jesus (during the 40 days in the wilderness) Satan has no power over us. We equip ourselves with the armor of God and go out to rescue as many people as we can from our great enemy... Satan. Also, we no longer rely on physical food but hunger for that true spiritual food that only God can provide.
When Christians literally die and are resurrected… like Christ... we are no longer tempted by Satan… he is out of our lives for eternity. Our fight is over. We gather with all the others of humanity who have conquered death and clothed with immortality we witness to “principalities and the powers in Heaven” the marvelous wisdom of God.
Here’s the thing… we can’t experience the good things associated with our literal death until we experience our figurative death… baptism. Don’t neglect or trivialize baptism.
“A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.” Deut. 22:5
Here’s an interesting Old Testament verse. It says that we shouldn’t wear clothing of the opposite sex. I don’t think that means women shouldn’t wear pants or that Scot’s shouldn’t wear kilts. What I do think it means is that a woman shouldn’t try to look like a man and a man shouldn’t try to look like a woman.
But wait a minute… some might say… that’s the Old Covenant and that verse doesn’t apply to us because we live under the New Covenant. Hmmm…
Consider 1 Corinthians 6:9…
“Nay, but ye yourselves do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren. Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men (homosexuals)…”
This verse says men should not be “effeminate”… defined as “having or showing characteristics regarded as typical of a woman; unmanly”
Okay so now we see God wants men to look like men and women should look like women in both Covenants.
In my office we see all kinds of people and more and more frequently I see people who I don’t know what their gender is… not a clue. That kind of behavior is often associated with homosexuality.
Since God “detests” that type of behavior then my advice is to not get caught up in being transgender at any level including your dress and how you present yourselves to others.
If you see young scripturally naïve Christians trying to be “cool” like some of their friends. Please, please, please share with them God’s word on this matter. Who knows you might help them save their souls.
Luke 10:25-37.
In this text a Jewish religious Lawyer asks Jesus what he must do to be saved. Jesus, in part, tells him to “love his neighbor”
The lawyer, of course being a lawyer, tried to justify himself and asked “who is my neighbor”?
Then Jesus tells him the famous parable about the “Good Samaritan”. First let’s identify the characters…
The Priest and the Levite were probably of the Pharisee class. As such they were doctrinally correct. They correctly believed in the afterlife and taught correctly about things like “tithing”.
The Samaritan was doctrinally incorrect… he didn’t worship in the correct place, he only believed in the first five books of the Old Testament, etc.
In this parable the doctrinally correct Priest and Levite ignore the plight on the hapless individual who had been beaten by robbers and was “half dead”. However the doctrinally incorrect Samaritan showed “love to his neighbor” and helped him.
Then Jesus asked the loaded and poignant question to the religious Lawyer… “which one proved to be the neighbor?” The Lawyer correctly answered… the one who showed mercy (the Samaritan).
Keep in mind the question has to do with salvation and Jesus elevates the doctrinally incorrect Samaritan over the doctrinally correct Priest and Levite.
Here’s another story. I know of a congregation who had a member who happened to be the son of the Preacher. This young man got hooked on drugs and while on drugs made several mistakes including evil mistakes and ended up in jail.
To my knowledge no one from his congregation went to visit him in jail. However, a denomination in the same town had a little jail ministry going on and visited this young man in jail and with their help he got clean and repented and had a much greater appreciation for the grace of God.
Here’s my question… which congregation proved to “love his neighbor”?...the one where he grew up or the one he met in jail?
Those are hard questions but here’s a learning point… we need to be correct doctrinally but at some point the rubber has to hit the road and we have to “love our neighbors” no matter what our neighbors have done
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The Pharisees and religious Lawyers had become spiritually elite and spiritually arrogant as if their religious correctness was enough. Well guess what… it wasn’t.
Thank God there are religious people out there who may not have everything figured out (scripturally)… like the Samaritan… but whose hearts are in the right place.
I’ve always wondered when reading the Old Testament how Baal worshippers could sacrifice their own children in their worship of Baal… unless somehow they got something out of it? Like for example they petitioned Baal for rain… sacrificed a child and then it rained.
Paul states (1 Cor. 10:20) that those sacrificing to idols are actually sacrificing to “Demons” or “Devils”.
A-Ha! Baal is really Satan or a minion of Satan.
That begs the question… can Satan do anything beneficial for mankind? If a Baal/Satan worshipper sacrificed a child could Baal/Satan reward that behavior by sending rain or whatever else was requested for the purpose of gaining followers?
During Jesus temptation in the wilderness (Mt. 2:8-9) the Devil offered to give Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world” if Jesus would fall down and worship him. Presumably Satan could deliver on that promise.
In the Book of Job we find that Satan has great supernatural powers… the power to manipulate the weather, the power to strike with disease, the power to send other people to pillage, etc.
This concept is something very important to realize about Satan… he may do a form of good for people… but at what price?
So before we start getting envious of people who seem to have great lives and seem to have everything going for them… conside this... they might have “sacrificed their babies to Baal” and in so doing… sold their souls to Satan.
When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left.
Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel. Deut. 17:18-20
This is found in a section concerning the duties of a king over Israel. Note that he is to read the Law “all the days of his life.” Not some of the days. Nor is he to read it and put it up and think to himself… I’ve read it… I don’t need to read it again.
As a leader in the congregation I can see the wisdom in that. I read my Bible every day and have developed the habit of writing notes in the margin. As I cycle back through the Bible I sometimes run across some notes that I don’t remember and think… hmmm that’s very interesting.
So as humans we’re forgetful and as leaders we can never forget so we have to read… read…read.
This text also reveals a benefit of reading… we learn (by reading) to “revere the Lord our God”. So important. The moment we stop revering God and substitute that with revering ourselves we’re in huge trouble and so is the congregation.
Note the last sentence in the text… “not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites…”
You see sometimes when you have a lot of success and people are complimenting you all the time you might start buying into that and might think… I am special… I am great… I’m the greatest! and in doing so neglect God who put you in that position.
So we have to keep reading to know how to lead and how to be humble giving the true credit to God.
In that way the congregation will have the kind of leadership she needs and will prosper.
“‘Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt” Leviticus 19:17.
This is an interesting verse because it calls on us to do something a lot of us are uncomfortable doing… rebuking or getting in someone else’s business.
It also qualifies the type of rebuke… rebuke frankly. Sometimes we can get to that business of rebuking and are so timid in doing so that the message is watered down and loses its true impact.
I’ve listened to that kind of weak rebuking before and walked away and wondered… what just happened?
I know people who if something can be said in 10 words will use 1000 words and after I’ve heard about 20 of those words I mentally check out and start looking for a way to escape. It doesn’t take a lot of words to rebuke.
It’s kind of like rebuking a child for not minding and telling the little rascal that if he doesn’t mind he’s going to get a whipping, or wait ‘til your daddy gets home or I’m going to count to 100 and if you’re not minding by then you will be in gigantic trouble. Most parents know that “frank rebuke” is telling the little miscreant one time and if he doesn’t mind then snatch him up and paddle his rear end.
Same thing with rebuking a fellow Christian… get a serious look on your face, identify the problem and let him know the consequences in as few words as possible and then wait for a response.
Of course I know of folks who believe and teach this but as soon as it happens to them or one of theirs they get their feathers all ruffled and start squawking all about it.
But remember we’re supposed to love our fellow Christians right? Well this text says if you don’t rebuke a bad behavior that in fact you HATE them.
Not only do you HATE them but you share in their guilt. It’s like being condemned to Hell twice.
It’s also like standing at the judgment seat, maybe next to the Apostle Peter, and feeling pretty good about yourself and the Lord God Almighty condemns you for getting drunk and you tell Jehovah God… that’s just not true… I’ve never had a drink in all my life!!!
Then God says… you saw one of your fellow Christians boozing it up and never said a word. Guilty as charged… who’s next?
Love your fellow Christian. If you see him doing wrong go tell him. He might change his ways or he might get really mad at you. If he gets mad at you he’s really getting mad at Jesus Christ because Jesus would have said the exact same thing and you’re just speaking for him.
There was a Priest in Israel named Eli who had two adult sons who also served as Priests named Hophni and Phineas. Hophni and Phineas were doing some very bad things and their father Eli said this to them…
“No, my sons; the report I hear spreading among the Lord’s people is not good. If one person sins against another, God may mediate for the offender; but if anyone sins against the Lord, who will intercede for them?”
So just what were they doing that was bad? For one thing they were having sex with some of the women who also served before the “Tent of Meeting”, i.e. the sin of fornication.
The other thing they were doing was taking God’s portion of meat that was sacrificed by the people of Israel.
So which sin was worse? They were both bad but the sin of fornication could have been repented of and sacrifices offered and forgiveness given, but for the sin of stealing from God there was no intercessor and it could be punished by death.
In fact isn’t that the exact same thing that happened with Ananias and Sapphira? They made a verbal commitment to give a certain amount to God but they stole part of it back for themselves and died for that great sin.
So which sin was worse? Let me suggest that the sin with the greatest punishment is worse. Sinning directly against God is worse than sinning against another human being.
Which brings up the “unforgivable sin” that we read about... just what is that sin? Maybe it’s sinning directly against God… the sin of Blasphemy.
Can we steal what is God’s today and duplicate the sin of Hophni, Phineas, Ananias and Sapphira?... probably. The bottom line is this… don’t sin!
Don’t sin against other people and certainly don’t sin directly against God.
Both could have disastrous consequences and one is worse than the other.
