The story of Rahab the “harlot” in Joshua 2 is an interesting one that raises questions about honesty, lying and God’s perspective on this. Surely Rahab was doing right by protecting the spies thus aligning herself with God’s plan and God’s people. But she blatantly lied to do so. How is that commendable?
In our “safe” world it is difficult to understand such challenges, the same ones faced by those who hid Jews from the Nazis. I really don’t have a full understanding of it but I do see a beautiful truth in this story. Continue reading →
Mark 4:11, 12
When Jesus’ disciples asked why He spoke in parables to the people instead of clearly telling them His message, He said, “so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'”
_________________________
Jesus quoted Isaiah 6:9, 10 here and at first I find His answer a bit troubling. I think I would have asked, “Jesus, didn’t you come to reveal God, to turn men from their sins so they could be forgiven?” If we read on, some light is shed on this mystery. Here is what He says in the rest of the chapter and an explanation of what He was saying. Continue reading →
Colossians 3:23, 24
And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.
___________________
So whatever I do, in my marriage, in my work, in my relationships, gassing up the car, taking out the garbage, changing a diaper, mowing the lawn – whatsoever I do I am to do it for the Lord. I am to do it enthusiastically, with a joyful heart because I am working for Jesus. If I do this I can be assured I will receive the “reward of the inheritance.”
Do you ever wonder why Biblical writers use so many words? “The reward of the inheritance”? Which is it, a reward or an inheritance? I work for a reward but an inheritance comes my way because of a relationship. Continue reading →
1 Peter 3:7
Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
____________________
Men, when Paul speaks of a wife being “weaker” he is not referring to the fact that you can (probably) beat her at arm wrestling nor saying that she is somehow flawed. “Weaker” speaks of more finely tuned, more intricate in her workings and, therefore, in need of extra attention.
When finished using your hammer you can toss it in the tool box but you wouldn’t do that with a guitar. It gets carefully placed into a padded case. The guitar is not faulty or second rate but it gets treated with “respect as the weaker” item. The hammer is built to take the abuse but your wife, like a finely tuned instrument, is not. She is easily “knocked out of tune” and, therefore, needs extra care. Continue reading →
This is the confidence we have…if we ask …he hears us. – 1 John 5:14
____________________
To Christians it is not surprising that God hears and answers our prayers but I was recently thinking about this passage from the perspective of an unbeliever, the average Joe who thinks there may be a “big guy upstairs” or the intellectual who “knows” religion is just for the ignorant masses. Imagine how our belief in prayer appears to them.
“So you actually believe that when you, this little speck of carbon and water on a small planet in an immense universe, when you speak, all heaven stops and listens?!”
Sounds preposterous doesn’t it? We don’t just hope He will hear us. We are confident of it – no doubt about it. Why? Because we are His children.
“So, now you not only think this far off immeasurable Force takes an interest in your puny life but that somehow you are related to Him – His child no less?”
Sounds crazy, insane, delusions of grandeur and it would be if it were something we made up. But it was His idea to listen to us. It was His idea to encourage us to approach Him with our concerns. It was His idea to adopt us. It was His idea to reach out to us. We could never have known about Him or communicated with Him if He had not made it possible. It was all His idea.
So we must be pretty special, right? No, and this is what makes it all sane and sensible. This is true not because we are so wonderful but because He is so marvelous. His wondrous love reached out to His creation when there was nothing worthy in us. It is all because of Who He is. What a marvelous God! What a glorious grace! What an incomparable Savior!
We can know Him! We can speak with Him! He is concerned about our lives, our successes, our hurts and losses. He cares. We are confident of it.
_____________________________ Ephesians 3:12
In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
Hebrews 4:16
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
1 Peter 5:7 (NLT)
Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.
I was asked this question via a FaceBook chat. I anticipated after my answer they would sign-off with a quick “thanks” or try to justify why my answer did not apply. I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out they were sincerely desiring to know what God had to say about the issue and were willing to follow His instructions. Here is what I told them.
The Bible is very clear on that issue. In fact, it is probably one of the most clearly answered questions in all of Scripture. Typically “fornication” is the term used to refer to sex before marriage whereas “adultery” refers to sex after marriage with anyone other than your spouse. The Greek word the King James Version translates “fornication” actually includes many forms of sexual immorality (incest, prostitution, harlotry, etc) and so is often simply translated “sexual immorality”, so as not to limit its meaning to fornication. The Bible is clear that sex before marriage, and all sexual immorality, is a sin and warns of harsh penalties for those involved in it.
The Bible teaches self-control and complete abstinence before marriage and a one-man, one-woman relationship after marriage both physically and in the area of the thought life.
1 John 4:20
Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
_________________
A statement that irks me like few others is, “I like Jesus. It is Christians I can’t stand.” That statement seems all cool, clever, above the fray, non-judgmental (unlike judgmental Christians) but actually it is a declaration of pitiful ignorance. Why?
If it is a believer saying it, 1 John 4:20 makes it clear it is impossible to say God is OK in my book but I don’t like His people. The Holy Spirit clearly says if you don’t love God’s kids, your brothers and sisters, you don’t truly love God (cannot love God), either.
When unbelievers say they like Jesus but can’t stand Christians they explain it is because Christians are narrrow-minded, judgmental, unloving, intolerant, holier than thou, etc, etc, etc ad nauseam. Jesus, on the other hand, was none of these things. He always walked around with a strange glow encircling His head, flashing the two finger peace sign and kissing babies.
Unlike the ultimate good ole boy that Jesus is, Christians say narrow-minded things like, “you can’t get to heaven unless you follow Jesus.” Where do they come up with these nutty ideas? They say unloving things like “there is a future of eternal torment that awaits those who reject Jesus.” They even say good people like Gandhi or Elvis didn’t go to heaven unless they trusted in Jesus instead of their good works. Get real! Elvis not in heaven?
Why do Christians get such a bum rap when everybody loves Jesus? Because those who say they like “Jesus” but think the church is too judgmental, narrow-minded, unloving, etc, are in love with a “Jesus” that they created in their image. You see, it is (narrow-minded) Jesus who said no one can come to God except through Him. (John 14:6) It is (intolerant) Jesus who warned an eternity of torment awaits those who reject Him. (Matthew 25:46) Judgmental Christians who say Gandhi or Elvis (or you and I) can’t get to heaven based upon our own efforts are simply stating what God’s Word says. (Ephesians 2:8, 9) It is even (holier than thou) Jesus who, when he forgave the woman caught in adultery, told her to go and change her lifestyle – “sin no more”. (John 8:11)
Granted, there are people who claim to be Christians but do not live like Jesus. They give Christianity a bad “image”. But, those followers who truly echo the words and the attitudes of Christ are not very popular either. And it is certainly true that some Christians can be a bit harder to love than others (my guess is they were also “love challengers” before they began to follow Jesus). But it exposes blatant ignorance to say we love God but not His kids – ignorance of Scripture but, even more critically, it usually also betrays ignorance of who God truly is – His nature and character as He has revealed Himself in His Word.
It is a package deal. You want Jesus? He comes with His still flawed, still imperfect, still in process family – the family of God. Gotta love ’em.
______________________________
To live above with the Saints we love,
Ah, that is the purest glory.
To live below with the Saints we know,
Ah, that is another story!
He prayed long, hard and sincerely. He gave faithfully to the work of God. He fasted regularly and was at church every time the doors opened (probably even had a key to get in when it wasn’t open). He had a profound, unshakable belief in God that drove him onward and impacted his daily living. He studied and memorized Scripture and even believed Jesus was sent from God. Sounds like a guy you would want to welcome into your church.
But without pleasantries or pats on the back for all his religious zeal, the first thing Jesus told Nicodemus is that he couldn’t even see the kingdom of God if there was not a radical change in his life. He had to be “born again”.
All these activities are good disciplines to weave into the fabric of our daily lives but we must never let them be the basis for our relationship with God. Nor can we make mere outward change a primary goal in the lives of our children or those we minister to. We can abandon an immoral lifestyle, begin to live a “good life” and still be lost. We can begin to pray, read the Bible, give, even live at the church and still be lost.
Our relationship with God starts with an inward change that then manifests outward fruit. To change the outside without first changing the inside is like putting a beautiful coat of paint on a mausoleum. It may look nicer but it is still full of death and decay.
Sample Prayer: Father in all my efforts to live a godly life please remind me my relationship with You is not determined by my performance. Let that fact keep me encouraged when I am performing poorly and humbled when I am doing well.
__________ Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 4:26, 27
“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
________________
Early in my marriage I was told this passage means my wife and I should never go to bed angry with each other. Doing so would allow the anger to “ferment” into bitterness (and give the devil a foothold in our lives). We sure didn’t want to do that so we stayed up many nights fussing and squabbling till we were both exhausted and couldn’t even remember what we were so mad about – but we were still mad and the sun had gone down (and sometimes was ready to come up again).
Eventually I decided that couldn’t possibly be what that passage was saying – mainly because staying up till we resolved the problem was turning out to be stupid advice. We usually didn’t come to any resolution, it got worse as the night dragged on and now we were going to be tired and cranky the next day also. I didn’t know what that passage meant but I knew it couldn’t mean “fight the night away”.
I am embarrassed to say we were thirty years into our marriage before I realized the simple truth this passage was conveying. I can’t stop the sun from going down and I discovered I couldn’t always resolve the differences with my wife before it did go down but I could do one thing – I could forgive, forget it and move on before the sun went down.
After all, forgiveness, like love, is a decision, not a feeling. I could decide to forgive, drop the matter and move on. I didn’t have to find the magical, mysterious solution to our disagreement. I didn’t have to help my wife realize how right I was and how far off base she was. I didn’t have to restore any “warm fuzzy” feelings. I just had to decide I was not going to carry this anger with me into the night. If need be, we could return to the issue the next day, after some sleep and perhaps with a fresh perspective and insight. As a wise eight year old girl put it when she was asked the secret to happiness, “Sometimes you just need to take a nap and get over it.”
So don’t let the sun go down while you are still fuming. Forgive, take a nap and get over it. Tomorrow will be a new day.
__________________ James 1:19, 20 (NIV)
My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
Ephesians 6:5
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
____________
There are more people trapped in slavery today than during the height of the Afro-American slave trade industry. Slavery is definitely not a thing of the past. Pro-slavery forces used to point to the Bible to justify this horrific practice but does the Bible promote Slavery?
This passage in Ephesians might appear to endorse slavery, but it is simply acknowledging the fact that throughout history, today included, there will be people caught in this evil. This passage addresses that person telling them how to conduct themselves. There is a vast difference between acknowledging something exists and helping someone do right when in the situation and endorsing the situation. The Bible just recognizes that man’s heart is filled with sin and slavery will be a result of his selfishness and cruelty. The Bible also tells Christians how to respond when persecuted or attacked but no one would say it is endorsing persecution of Christians.
Furthermore, the type of slavery practiced in early America where Africans were kidnapped and sold as slaves to slave traders was clearly forbidden and punished by death. “Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death.” (Exodus 21:16) In 1 Timothy 1:9-10 the New Testament also condemns those who would traffic in the lives of human beings comparing them to adulterers and perverts. Clearly the Bible does, and always has, even before society at large did, condemn the evil of slavery.
———– Hebrews 3:10
Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. Matthew 22:29
Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
The story of Rahab the “harlot” in Joshua 2 is an interesting one that raises questions about honesty, lying and God’s perspective on this. Surely Rahab was doing right by protecting the spies thus aligning herself with God’s plan and God’s people. But she blatantly lied to do so. How is that commendable?
I was asked this question via a FaceBook chat. I anticipated after my answer they would sign-off with a quick “thanks” or try to justify why my answer did not apply. I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out they were sincerely desiring to know what God had to say about the issue and were willing to follow His instructions. Here is what I told them.
