while today

The Burden and the Blessing

February 17, 2009

Blaming others for our own sins goes back to the very first sin. Adam blamed his wife (and possibly God for giving her to him), and Eve blamed the serpent (Genesis 3:12-13). By the way, their excuses didn’t work on God, which may be cautionary to us as well. Both were responsible for their own sins.

Sophisticated blaming today may include pop psychology: if I have unconscious motives for my behavior, I must not be responsible for it. (Of course, we will take the credit for praiseworthy behavior, even if it does have unconscious motives.) Theodore Dalrymple, a British prison doctor and psychiatrist, provides an insightful dialogue.

Another burglar demanded to know from me why he repeatedly broke into houses and stole VCRs. He asked the question aggressively, as if “the system” had so far let him down in not supplying him with the answer; as if it were my duty as a doctor to provide him with the buried psychological secret that, once revealed, would in and of itself lead him unfailingly on the path of virtue. Until then he would continue to break into houses and steal VCRs (when at liberty to do so), and the blame would be mine.

When I refused to examine his past, he exclaimed, “But something must make me do it!”

“How about greed, laziness, and a thirst for excitement?” I suggested. “What about my childhood?” he asked.

“Nothing to do with it,” I replied firmly.

He looked at me as if I had assaulted him. Actually, I thought the matter more complex than I was admitting, but I did not want him to misunderstand my main message: that he was the author of his own deeds.*

Accepting moral responsibility is a burden. We easily shy away from it. It’s difficult to say, “I have sinned. I am guilty. I am responsible.” We seem to have an almost infinite capacity of finding excuses for ourselves. Yet excuses only lock us into our patterns of destructive behavior and the painful consequences that attend them. Will Dalrymple’s prisoner make progress if he continues to view his behavior as governed by unknown motives beyond his control? Or, could change occur once responsibility is acknowledged? If he once acknowledges the bad choices, can he begin to see the good choices that need to be made?

I am grateful for God’s forgiveness and the Holy Spirit’s sanctification. I can’t transform my life without His help. But no progress is made until I accept moral responsibility. Confession and repentance liberate us from patterns of bad behavior. Accepting moral responsibility is a burden, but it also a blessing. It leads to change.

*Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom, pp. 7-8

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Posted by Russell Holden

Off to a Boring Start?

February 13, 2009

A genealogy seems like a boring way to start a book. At least that was my first impression reading the Gospel of Matthew many years ago. When we take a second look attempting to understand the original audience’s point of view, we can detect reasons for beginning with a genealogy (Matthew 1:1-17).

Mathew names Jesus as Jesus Christ. The expression is so familiar that we begin to treat Christ as a last name. It is a title. It means the Anointed One. It is a claim for Jesus to be a king in David’s dynasty. David was the second king of Israel and important because of a promise made to him by God. Suddenly a genealogy begins to make sense. In order to have a dynastic king, he must have the right pedigree. If he doesn’t have that quality, there is no point listening to all his other characteristics. For Jesus to be the Christ, he had to be the son of Abraham and the son of David. These two received significant promises that involved their “seed” or descendents (see Genesis 12:1-3 and 2 Samuel 7:12-16).

The first section of the genealogy takes us from Abraham to King David. Note the emphasis in the genealogy. Matthew is not content just to say David, but King David. The second section moves from David to Jechoniah and the Babylonian Captivity. This list is a list of kings. The third list begins with Jechoniah because it must continue with his son. (Jewish genealogies could include gaps with significant ancestors being mentioned and some minor figures dropped out of the summary list. The arrangement of 14, 14, and 14 is artificial and possibly helpful for memory.)

The Babylonian Captivity serves an important transition from the second to the third sections of this genealogy. The significance is the captivity brought an end to David’s dynasty or at least a hiatus to the dynasty. Psalm 89 captures the emotion of one wondering where was the promise made to David.

Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David? Psalm 89:49 ESV

Isaiah used a powerful word picture for the coming loss of dynasty. The dynasty was like a tree that had been cut down – the stump of Jesse (linking this to David by mentioning David’s father). But Isaiah looked forward to a new shoot or branch coming out of the stump – the Messiah, the Christ.

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. Isaiah 11:1 ESV

If we understand the pain of the captivity and the loss of David’s dynasty, we can grasp the significance of the Jesus’ genealogy. Matthew is telling his readers here’s the one who fulfills the promises made to David and to Abraham.

So what? David lived about 3000 years ago. Why should I care about his dynasty? Abraham lived about 4000 years go. Why should a promise to Abraham matter to me? This requires patience on our part. These are pieces of a larger whole. The big picture is God reconciling the world to himself. The pieces do in fact help make sense of our own life and the world with live in. If we give Matthew a chance to explain his good news, it’s suddenly not so boring. It brings life and hope.

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Posted by Russell Holden

Recognizing Blessings

February 10, 2009

Counting our blessings is important so that we have an attitude of thankfulness. But it is easy to overlook blessings because we take certain things for granted.

My wife has some Guardian Service Cookware that belonged to her grandmother and mother. Guardian Service Cookware was manufactured from the mid 1930s to 1956. For Christmas, our daughter gave her a Guardian Service cookbook that was purchased used on the Internet.

The beginning of the cookbook is striking because it tells how to set the burners for the correct heat. It gives instructions for gas, electric, wood, coal, kerosene, and gasoline. Yikes! What’s the MPG (meals per gallon) for a gasoline stove? And would I really want to be the one to light it? If you are interested in how to set medium heat on a wood stove, use one section from the fire box or a fairly hot fire.

Do you suddenly see a few more blessings in your life? My coffee is getting cold, I think I need to visit the microwave and ponder this.

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Posted by Russell Holden

Food for Thought

February 8, 2009

Simeon stood at the entrance of his tent gazing at the barren wilderness. “Rocks, nothing but rocks!” he thought. His mind wandered into a day-dream about wheat fields as if the barren wilderness had vanished. He could see the golden stalks of grain ripe for harvest. But the grumbling of his stomach brought him back to the present. “Ah, Egypt!” he lamented.

Outside the tent were voices-some strident, others just the low rumbling of complaint. “Why did you bring us to this desert to starve!” “In Egypt we had pots of meat and food!” “We’d be better off if the LORD had killed us off in Egypt!” Simeon joined the crowd waiting for answers.

The answers came, but how strange they were. “God is going to rain down bread from heaven!” They were told to gather only enough for one day, and then on the sixth day to gather twice as much, because the Sabbath was a day of rest.

But the strangeness of the answers was overtaken by the joy of finding food. It lay on the ground like frost, and tasted like wafers of honey. By the end of the day, Simeon still had some left. As he considered the instructions, he thought, “Why should the God of our fathers and creator of the heavens and earth care if I have leftovers?” But the next morning his jar was full of maggots and stank.

By the Sabbath, it seemed almost automatic for Simeon to go out and gather manna. He and few others went out and were stunned to find none. He almost dreaded going back to his tent. He remembered the maggots from the last time he tried to save some, but today was different. His manna was good to eat.

Simeon is imaginary, but the experiences reflect the narrative of Exodus 16. Concerning the manna, the Lord said, “I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions” (Exodus 16:4b, NIV). Later Moses would say of the manna, “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 8:3, NIV). Every word? Obedience, how hard it is to learn! Manna it seems was not only their daily bread, but food for thought.

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Posted by Russell Holden

Eyes to See

February 6, 2009

Does everyone have the same moral sensitivity? Raising the question is to answer it. Disagreements over morality exist. What one person may find acceptable is reprehensible to another. The question isn’t whether I do things that I think are wrong. All of us experience that. The question is actually over defining right and wrong. In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis observed:

When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right.*

Isaiah represents a good test case. When confronted with the Holy One of Israel, he cried out, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5, ESV)! When God explains his purpose as a prophet, He turns the tables and actually uses result language:

And he said, “Go, and say to this people: ” ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Isaiah 6:9-10, ESV

God really did want His people to repent, and Isaiah’s task was a call to repentance (see Jeremiah 18:7-10). The switching of purpose for result was cautionary for Isaiah. It was going to be no easy task. He was living among a people who were calling evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20). Although Isaiah was morally sensitive, many of his listeners were not.

Conscience is the faculty of moral sensitivity, so guard your conscience. A healthy conscience helps us to choose good and avoid evil. A working conscience may even lead us to the Good—God. But wrong choices can silence the conscience’s alarm. Hit this snooze button enough times, and the alarm may no longer work. If you allow your conscience to become insensitive, dull, and hardened, then in the moral realm, you will no longer have eyes to see.

*C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 93

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Posted by Russell Holden

While Today

February 5, 2009

The rhythm of life in the United States is fast paced. We hurtle down the Interstate at 70 M.P.H., and we often approach the rest of life with the same breakneck speed. The noise of modern life often drowns out reflection. Television, radio, the Internet, cell phones, iPods, and a host of other electronic gadgets can keep us amused. But is there something more to life than amusement? Is the bumper sticker philosophy, “He who dies with the most toys wins”, correct?

A biblical world view would answer with a resounding NO. Material things as wonderful as they are can never satisfy the human soul for long. Remove God from the picture, and life is like a maze with no opening on the other side, no destination, and no point. Without God, human achievements are fleeting. As Ecclesiastes observed, “I reflected on everything that is accomplished by man on earth, and I concluded: Everything he has accomplished is futile –like chasing the wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14, NET)!

God exists. God has created our universe. God has revealed Himself through the Bible. The illusive meaning of life is to be found in God. We were created for relationship with God.

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 ESV
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33 ESV

A couple of observations follow. If the meaning of life is to be in a relationship with God, I need to make certain that it is my true priority. A Barna poll listed being healthy as people’s number one goal. Relationship with God only came in as number six. We have to check our priorities.

If the meaning of life is to be in a relationship with God, then this life is but the testing ground for the next. This life is for making the decision for God. I have this moment in time, and I’m not guaranteed the next. I need to be responsive to God “while it is still called today.”

P.S. The photo in the header is sunrise taken from Jabel Musa, the traditional site identified with Mt. Sinai – not a bad place to ponder “Today.” The blog will be my place to reflect on faith, culture, and daily life.

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Posted by Russell Holden