Why did God give Solomon Riches?

By on August 12, 2009

See 1 Kings 3:3-14 (Proper 15B)

Why does God choose to give Solomon riches and make him great after Solomon asks for wisdom?

God is pleased with Solomon’s request and grants it, yet he also grants him everything else he might desire.  The result, as we read further into the story, is that Solomon turns away from God and really becomes a not-so-good ruler.

Would Solomon have also turned from God if he had been given very little?  We really don’t know. What we do know is that he did not use his wealth and the power he was given as wisely as he might have, given all that wisdom.

I don’t have any certain answer to this question.  Scripture simply doesn’t tell us.  But by thinking about the question and this story, I think we can get some idea about God’s gifts.  Many in the church today are returning to the view tha many in Israel had, that rices indicates God’s blessing and approval while poverty indicates God’s disapproval.  (Prosperity theology implies this, I believe.)

But in Solomon’s case, while he is blessed with riches, he remains rich as he turns further and further from God.  God’s gifts carry with them a responsibility.  One could say the same thing about the gift of wisdom.  Solomon clearly had both knowledge and wisdom, but in the end he did not rule wisely, as events showed.

 

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Jesus Responds to Offense and Resistance

By on August 11, 2009

For Proper 15B the gospel reading is John 6:51-58, which continues from the previous reading.  In that reading, Jesus barely got started with the gritty physical metaphors, and the people were offended and resistant.  This theme of offense will surface many times in portion of John in which Jesus is addressing the crowd in general.

I am not one to promote offending people.  I have even written an article titled Witness Without Being a Pest. But there is a dividing line between two major types of offense, and it applies to the gospel.  The first type of offense is given when people say needlessly hurtful things or behave rudely.  This is you, the speaker, offending people.  The second type of offense is the offense many people take when the truth is spoken to them.  This can apply in the real world.  Point out to a reckless driver just what about his driving is reckless, and he may take offense even if you do your very best to do so appropriately, and you are one responsible for point it out to him.  You may be a parent or a police officer.

Obviously, both parents and police officers have to suffer through times when people are offended, not by their behavior but by the message they must bring.  This offense will come no matter what the person does to try to stop it.  Yet both parents and police officers generally know that there are ways in which you present a message that creates a different offense of its own.

So here Jesus offends his audience and meets there resistance.  They’re unhappy with this “bread eating” metaphor and what it implies, connecting Jesus with the miracle of the Manna in the wilderness.  So what does Jesus do?  He turns up the heat!

He moves from bread to flesh and blood and from implications to pretty broad and open statements.  When the truth offends, sometimes the truth has to offend even more in order to generate a right response.

It’s hard to give advice on the situation in which each is needed.  Sometimes one just needs to plant the seed and then let it grow, backing off before more offense is given.  At other times one needs to keep wielding the hammer at the hard rock.

Proverbs gives us this dilemna and some advice:

Don’t answer a fool according to his folly,
Lest you become like him yourself.

Answer a fool according to his folly,
Lest he become wise in his own eyes.  — Proverbs 26:4-5

May God give us the wisdom to know which advice applies in each case!

 

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What Would YOU Ask God to Do?

By admin on August 10, 2009

I want to focus on just one line of text.  In 1 Kings 3:5, God tells Solomon to ask God what God should give Solomon.

It’s a simple enough question.  Most of us remember the answer.  Solomon wants wisdom.  God decides to give him wisdom and lots of riches as well.

As I reflect on my own prayer life, however, I don’t think I’m as wise as Solomon was in his request.  I do ask for wisdom, but it’s usually the wisdom to make good decisions in my business, which would result in doing better financially.  Or it’s stuff for my family.  There are a number of things that I really want right now.  There are people I know who need to be healed.  There are financial needs by the dozen amongst people I know personally.

What should I ask God to do?

I recall times of praying for people at the altar of a church.  People would come asking for spiritual gifts, often looking at the person behind that altar rail as somehow being capable of delivering those gifts.  Even in spiritual gifts, we have an acquisitive nature.

In our Psalm for this week, the 111th, verse 10 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  It then describes wisdom in the next line as something on which one takes action.

I don’t think God minds us asking for stuff, but I think he delights even more if we ask for the fear of the Lord, which is the source of all wisdom.

Lord, today and always, let me fear you more and let my life grow out of that fear.

(On why I use “fear” while others would argue for “reverence” see this article).

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Truth and Neighbors (Ephesians 4:25-5:2)

By on August 8, 2009

Ephesians is such a great epistle, but I want to just mention one verse:

 So then put aside what is false and let each one speak the truth to his neighbor, because we are members of one another. — Ephesians 4:25

The polite lie is a common means of keeping tempers cool.  We do it all the time.  We pretend to like coworkers that we loathe, we don’t tell important people what we really think about their ideas, and we try to pretend that our attitude is good.  At work, we may well be penalized if we don’t put on the right set of attitudes.  Your boss probably doesn’t want to know you have a hangover, your kids drove you nuts this morning, and you can barely see your desk, much less work at it efficiently.  So you say, “Great!”

But we do it even more in church.  I’m talking about the “faith face.” It seems that many people believe Christians should never be sad or downhearted, and thus to be spiritually great, one must not only deal with hardship, one must always present a cheerful demeanor to the world and to other Christians.  After all, if someone finds out that not everything works out for you, a Christian, they might be put off of the gospel.

But this approach very often produces the opposite effect.  When a person who is looking honestly at his life notices all these cheerful faces around him, however deceitful those cheerful looks might be, he may become discouraged, because he thinks he’s the only person who lacks the faith to remain cheerful in adversity.

Now this is not the only case in which speaking the truth is important.  But it is one in which many Christians hurt others while intending to help.  Put away everything that is false, including your faith face.  Be honest and open.  At the same time, be ready for others to be honest and open, and don’t condemn them.

 

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Those Gritty Physical Metaphors

By on August 8, 2009

The gospel for Proper 14B is John 6:35, 41-51.  This isn’t an exposition of that passage, but something that passage brought back to my mind.

Jesus starts with the bread metaphor.  Now for many of us, comparing spiritual food to bread comes quite naturally.  We’ve read this in the gospel many times, and we’ve heard it in churches.  Such expressions as “fresh bread for the people” or “break the bread of life” are still quite common.  But at the end of this passage Jesus touches on a theme that will become much more common through this gospel and is harder to take:  his flesh (v. 51).  This metaphor gets quite heavy in verses 52-58, as Jesus tells people they must eat his flesh and drink his blood.

The metaphorically challenged get some kind of cannibalism out of all of this.  Yet even many Christians are uncomfortable with strong “blood” metaphors these days.  “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb” is a song lyric that is less popular than it used to be.  We want soft metaphors.

We are also often less anxious to compare the physical and the spiritual.  There’s the saying, “so heavenly he’s of no earthly good.”  The problem with that is that if we read Jesus correctly, being of no earthly good is not, in fact, very heavenly.  Sure, we know what that saying means.  There are many people who are very “spiritual” and don’t really comprehend the things of this earth, or at least so it appears.  But I’m going to suggest that if you don’t comprehend the things of this earth, you’re not going to comprehend the things of heaven.

I have a friend who has led many mission trips.  He’s all about providing dental care to needy people.  He gives generously of time and resources to make it happen.  But once when I was on a mission trip with him, he told me and others that he didn’t think he was very spiritual.  Now in the sense of soaring off into heavenly places over a hymn or a praise song, I would agree he’s not.  But if Matthew 25:31-46 is to be believed, he may well be the most spiritual person of us all.

The doctrine of creation tells us that God is the creator.  The greatest thing that heaven has done in relation to us is physical.  Now somebody is sure to point me to salvation as the greatest thing.  But that is another instance of the same sort of thing.  Salvation, recreation, was a restoration of what was supposed to be in the physical universe. No matter how spiritual we make God, if we stick with scripture, he is the creator of the physical universe.  Nobody could be more “heavenly” than God, yet God creates and uses the physical.

Those who think we should retire “blood language” as out of date and out of tune with the modern age should consider what the idea of eating human flesh and drinking human blood would have sounded like to a Jewish audience in 1st century Judea and Galilee.  It would have been very shocking language then.  And the fact is that sometimes we need shocking language to make us take a subject seriously.

You see, we are not sort of spiritual beings who need a little elevation; we are fallen beings who need serious intervention to restore the image of God and bring us back to our spiritual place.  Sin isn’t a mild infection; it is a virulent, deadly plague.  Shocking language is needed about our shocking condition and activities.

And sin occurs here on earth, in the physical universe.  A few shocking physical metaphors are, I believe, good for our souls!

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Out of the Depths (Psalm 130)

By on August 7, 2009

Out of the Depths is the title of a book on the Psalms by Bernhard W. Anderson, and an excellent little book it is!  it’s title comes from this Psalm.

There are just two major points I’d like to make about this Psalm.  There is much excellent commentary about it, and the notes are worth reading.  You could do worse than to preach from it or use it in Sunday School.

First, if you are to cry “out of the depths” that’s means you’re going to be there.  I say that not to discourage, but to encourage.  There are many Christians who either believe, or more commonly imply by the way the talk, that you are never really supposed to be in the depths.  As a Christian you’re supposed to be up, happy, and bouncy all the time.  How do they imply this?  By putting on their “faith face” and denying troubles.  They’ll testify about how God helped them after a problem is successfully handled, but somehow their friends never get to catch them when they’re really down.

I have this problem even in communicating with my wife.  I don’t want to burden her with the idea that I’m not in control of everything.  But that’s a silly position to be in.  She already knows I’m not in control!

Odd then, that we should try to put on our faith face even to God.  It’s very discouraging, first because we have to force ourselves to pretend, and second because we make others pretend.  If the “faithful” are always happy and never in the depths, then others who in their own minds are not so faithful must try to keep up or be thought second class citizens.  A little honesty, as exemplified by the Psalmist, would go a long ways!

Second, however, is  verse 4.  Because there is forgiveness of God, he can be feared. Doesn’t that sound paradoxical!  Now many will try to diminish the impact of the word “fear” by using “respect” or “held in awe” or something similar.  But there is a solid element of fear in respecting God in the Old Testament.

But the bottom line is that without a recognition of our sin (see verse 3), there would be no way for us to truly respect God.  The person who feels no guilt does not feel fear.  I remember being pulled over by a Michigan state trooper while I was in graduate school.  When the lights flashed behind me and the siren did its thing I was momentarily concerned, but I quickly saw that I was within the speed limit.  I knew I hadn’t blown through any stop signs or been driving erratically, so as she approached the car I was more curious than fearful.  As it turned out, unknown to me my license plate was dangling by one loose screw.  It’s possible someone had started to steal it.  She verified my registration and told me I needed to secure it.  Then on I went.

With God, we have to recognize who we are and who he is.  But if God was not forgiving, that  recognition would make it impossible to approach for the opposite reason–terror!  Now there is a proper fear of the Lord, a fear that recognizes that there are consequences for our actions and that God knows all.  But there is an improper fear, a different sense of fear.  It’s the difference between fear of just punishment and fear of assault and battery.  The same word may be used, but we all recognize the difference.

The Psalms are amazingly honest and forthright.  Perhaps we should all try some of that ourselves!

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Anothe Mangled Passage – 2 Samuel 18

By on August 6, 2009

I must be sounding like a broken record, but  I really dislike mangled passages.  It is sometimes possible to quote part of a passage and just hit the highlights.  That may be required by time limitations. But when the changes made to the passage change the intent of the story, or make nonsense of it, that is another matter.

In Proper 14B, the Old Testament passage is 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33. I would divide the story into the following elements, with those in red included in the lection, while those in black are not:

  1. David commands that Absalom be treated gently
  2. The battle occurs and is won by David’s forces
  3. Absalom encounters his father’s troops
  4. Joab is told and rebukes the messenger for not having killed Absalom himself; they debate
  5. Joab goes to where Absalom is hanging from a tree and pierces him with them
  6. Joab’s young men finish the job
  7. The battle ends
  8. A considerable debate about messengers
  9. The Cushite takes word of Absalom’s death
  10. David mourns

Thus we lose the actual story of Joab’s disobedience which explains much of the later history.  The death appears to be some sort of mob action.  I do agree that in seeking highlights one could leave out the long debate about messengers, though I fail to see why the entire passage cannot be read.

David’s indulgence is part of the story of David as king.  Note how he is overwhelmed with grief at the death of Absalom while paying little attention to thousands of deaths among the troops who were following Absalom.  One might consider this more or less natural for an ancient near eastern despot, but not for the man after God’s own heart.  And we can see that David’s own followers don’t see it as such a natural thing.  They want thanks for their service and they want to celebrate their victory.

All of these are elements of the story that call on us to think about the consequences of our attitudes and actions.

I know that people don’t have much patience for long scripture readings, but learning the Bible story is not well served by cutting out key elements of the narrative.

 

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How to Accomplish God’s Will

By on July 31, 2009

This is my second thought today from John 6:24-35, the gospel passage from Proper 13B.  It’s a tightly packed passage!

In verses 28-29 Jesus says:

28They said to him, “What do we need to do to perform God’s works?” 29Jesus answered, “This is God’s work:  That you put your trust [or believe] in the one who sent him.

My company just released The Jesus Paradigm by Dr. David Alan Black.  This is a book about discipleship and the ministry we need to do as Christians.  One of the questions I have heard most frequently about it is that with so much about doing, how is it that Christians are supposed to do.  What happened to faith?

Well, one very Biblical answer is that faith is working.  Perhaps if people studied John more, it would help mediate between the positions of Paul and James.  Paul is talking about the uselessness of works apart from faith.  James talks about the uselessness of faith without works.  Jesus here tells us that faith is works.

Now this may sound heretical to many, but the fact is that we’ve departed from the teaching of Jesus on this.  There is no sense in reading what Jesus has to say that Christians are going to sit around believing stuff.  The sense is that belief is a profoundly life-altering thing.  Putting one’s trust in Jesus is not easy or trivial.  If you put your trust in Jesus, then he will change everything about you.

This is the answer to how we can do the work of disciples–we put our trust in Jesus and he works in us.  At the risk of sounding too commercial, let me mention the title of another book that I publish–Disciples:  Jesus With Us.  Discipleship is you following Jesus in one sense, but in another it’s Jesus in you, following Jesus.

 

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Eating the Bread – Missing the Sign

By on July 31, 2009

Our gospel passage (John 6:24-35) for Proper 13B is pretty tightly packed, so I’m going to write a couple of short articles about it this morning.  I’ve thought about many things as I was reading this passage, but I won’t have time to write about them all.

First of all, as I read this morning, I’m using the Greek and Hebrew Reader’s Bible, which presents the text along with lexical information, including morphology.  I will have some comments on this resource as a tool later today on my Participatory Bible Study Blog.  (I’ll correct that link to point to the specific post as soon as I get the notes written.)

In verse 26 Jesus tells the people that they believed not because they saw the sign but because they ate the bread.  I believe many people would regard those as the same thing, and this results in a continuing misunderstanding of the role of miracles in the church and in the world.  There’s a tendency to believe that seeing something that appears to be a miracle is simply a way to make people believe that God exists.  If you’ve seen the miraculous event, you’ve seen the “sign.”

But Jesus here points to a different reality.  Jesus didn’t produce bread for people to eat simply because he wanted some bread.  He had another purpose, a deeper purpose.  It was quite possible to witness what we would call a miracle, and at the same time miss the point entirely.

In modern times, particularly in charismatic or pentecostal churches, we expect God to work miracles on a constant basis to alter the physical reality of our lives.  (Note that I use “we” here because I tend charismatic.)  Then we complain when God doesn’t do what we think he should.  But God doesn’t perform miracles for the sole purpose of altering physical reality.  We’re living in the big miracle, the very universe, and then we complain when God allows (or causes) his universe to function consistently.

When a miracle comes, we are thankful for the physical result, but do we see the sign?  Do we see the work that God is wanting to perform in our lives?  Do we even use the results of God’s actions to build God’s kingdom?

The people who ate the bread began to think of Jesus as a good source of physical bread.  And God is the source of physical bread.  But the way God normally wants you to get physical bread is by following the patterns he has laid out in the universe and growing it.  This bread was to point people to Jesus himself, as the bread of life.

Thought question:  In what ways can we “eat the bread” but fail to see the sign in our lives today?

 

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Steve Hill on 1 Samuel 12 (Pr 13B)

By on July 30, 2009

This is Steve Hill on David and Bathsheba, challenging us all …

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