Credit Where It's Due

Deuteronomy 8:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%208&version=NIV

            Reading Deuteronomy 8, I was reminded of two incident sin Jesus’ life.  First, I was reminded of the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16-21); second, I was reminded of the healing of the 10 lepers (Luke 17:11-19).  I was reminded of the parable because Moses warns Israel against taking credit for their own success in the land.  He is clear:  the Lord rescued you from Egypt, preserved you in the wilderness, and gave you a bountiful land.  His conclusion is simple:  don’t forget that and start acting like you accomplished things as your own.

            It’s pretty easy to make that mistake.  We do our research, work hard, weigh our decisions, plan our actions.  We are clearly involved in a lot of our own successes—deeply involved.  This is as it should be.  Sometimes we Christians are so keen on crediting God for our successes that we forget the responsibilities He has given us—responsibilities to faithfully use the gifts He’s given us.  That wheat and barley (v. 8) isn’t going to plant itself, and that iron and copper (v. 9) isn’t going to mine itself.  So, yeah, we’ve got our part to play.  However, we don’t want to go so far down the road of personal responsibility that we forget that there is a God behind us who deserves the credit for the opportunities, resources, and abilities with which we operate.  I like how Paul balances it in 1 Corinthians 3, “I planted; Apollos watered; God gave the growth.”

            So—parable of the rich fool—let’s not get so wrapped up in our accomplishments that we forget Who really made those accomplishments possible.

            And, let’s not be like those lepers.  There need was urgent.  They shouted and clamored for Jesus to have mercy on them.  And we know what that’s like:  nothing empowers prayer quite like acute need.  But with the passing of a crisis, that urgency passes, too.  Moses warns Israel not to forget to thank and praise their God when their circumstances are settled, and we could stand that reminder, too.  Just because we don’t detect ourselves in constant need of prayer, doesn’t mean that our God is not constantly working for our good.  Indeed, He always is working for us, so a thankful spirit is always appropriate.

The Utter Destruction of the Canaanites

Deuteronomy 7:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=deut%207&version=NIV

            I suspect a lot of folks who read Deuteronomy 7 are troubled with thought that will trouble us for a while—at least through the book of Joshua.  Those thoughts regard the complete destruction of the Canaanites.  Isn’t this just the kind of thing that leads people to judge the Old Testament as all full of wrath and unexplainable brutality?  Let me suggest that this is a clear case in which we need to read the text not on 21^st century terms, but on Ancient Near Eastern terms—scratch that, we need to read it in terms of the overall biblical story.

            It seems to me that one of the first things we have to have clearly in mind, if we are to understand the destruction of the Canaanites, is where we stand in the story of God’s redemption of the world.  We are some 600 years after the Lord made Abraham’s family the trustee of that promise and some 1400-1500 years before it will come to fruition in Jesus.  Because we are in a place where the promise has not yet been fulfilled, and because we are dealing with the people through whom it will be fulfilled, we also have to see how important it is that the Lord keep Israel in the right kind of conditions to safeguard the promise that they bear.

            The Lord is fully aware that Israel is not a perfect custodian for His promises.  He’s been paying attention since Genesis 12:  He knows that Abraham, Jacob, and the people in the wilderness are susceptible to temptation.  And He knows that Israel in her new land, surrounded by that land’s idolatrous, and seemingly successful, occupants, will be under constant pressure to ‘succeed’ using the same techniques by which the natives have succeeded, namely, idol worship.  (In the ancient mind idolatry--and religion in general--is not so neatly a separate category of life.  Instead, in the ancient mind idolatry is almost a form of technology:  it’s by these religious practices that they believe have an impact on the fertility of the world around them as I talked about in Bible class a few weeks ago.)  Anyhow, the point is:  the Canaanites with their idols are going to be a temptation to Israel, and God needs Israel focused on Him so that He can bring His promise forth from their midst.  So, the Canaanites have to go.

            A second thing to take account of is the reality of judgment.  We appropriately cling to God’s grace—“The Lord, the Lord! Gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving-kindness” (Ex. 34:6, etc.).  But the fact is that the Lord proclaims both the Law, that is, a word of punishment, and the Gospel, that is, His word of forgiveness.  Like Egypt before them, the Canaanites remind us that not all come to reliance on Israel’s God.  Like Egypt, like Babylon later on, the Canaanites reminds us that God has enemies, enemies who are in collusion with the Enemy.  And he will punish those who are opposed to Him.

            Admittedly, this throws us right into the deep end of the theological pool.  If God desires all to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), how can some then be named His enemies?  Or worse, if God desires all to be saved, and rescues us, who were once numbered among enemies (Col 1:21), why does He not so rescue all His enemies?  Is God not earnest or is God not capable?  No wonder guys in my field call this the crux theologorum, the theologian’s cross!  We’ll never solve the tension between God’s earnest intentions and the recalcitrance of humanity, so the best we can do is take Him at His word about His intentions, declare those gracious intentions to the world, and let Him worry about how it all works out.

            I do know this:  it’s not terribly satisfying to say to the Lord, “I don’t get it, but you’re in charge.”  (I didn’t like saying that to my parents when I was a child, I don’t like it now with my God.)  But I also know that trying to make God fit your theological presuppositions means that you no longer have a God worthy of being called God.  If you domesticate God with your own presuppositions, you have created a false God, which unfortunately puts you closer to the Canaanites than is comfortable.  So, let God be God, take Him at His Word, and work earnestly so that those who are His enemies would come to faith and become His children.
            In summary, when we struggle with the seeming injustice in the case of the Canaanites, let's keep two things in mind.  First, let's keep in mind that God's grace does not negate God's own justice.  He is sincere in His offer of mercy and He is resolved in His threat of punishment.  Both are part of His word.  As a subpoint, let us focus our proclamation on His mercy in Jesus, and let Him worry about the punishments.  Second, let's keep in mind what was at stake in Israel's history.  The presence of the Canaanites threatened His intended mercy, which would come to fruition in Jesus many hundreds of years later, and for that reason the Canaanites had to go.  As one friend recently pointed out, the destruction of the Canaanites is also an aspect of God's mercy--by preparing the way for the ultimate fulfillment of God's plan of salvation.

What a God!

Deuteronomy 4:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%204&version=NIV

            Moses’ exhortation to the Israelites to be faithful needs to be heard with Moses’ main theme in the background:  “Who has a God like ours?”  Answer:  Nobody!  Who has a God who is so close to them?  Answer:  No one!  (Remember how Elijah mocked the prophets of Baal?  “Maybe he’s asleep; maybe he’s traveling; maybe he’s in the bathroom!”  But the Lord answered Elijah in the moment he asked.)  Who has a God who speaks out of fire and snatches one people from another?  You guessed it:  no one!  Furthermore, the God of Israel is the God who created man upon the earth.  Who else claims that?

            Against that backdrop, Moses calls for faithfulness:  don’t get yourself wrapped up in idol worship.  Don’t follow gods who are less than the God who called you.  Don’t abandon the One who is so absolutely unique from gods who aren’t really gods at all.  Perhaps most importantly, don’t abandon the God who has so loved you to place Himself in your midst and to rescue from the hand of the Egyptians.

            In New Testament terms, I reminded of 1 John 3:1, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are (NIV)”!  The NIV’s translation is a little free, but it captures the heart of it.  God hasn’t loved us just a little; He has loved us to the death of His Son.  It’s that free and generous gift that produces the kind of faith and love that honors the God who so loved us.

reposted from 3/3/11

Desiring a Goal, Enjoying a Process

Deuteronomy 3:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deut%203&version=NIV

            There’s a certain poignancy at the end of Deuteronomy 3.  The Lord had told Moses, “No promised land for you,” and that seemed to me to be the end of the story.  But Deuteronomy 3 shows that Moses really wanted to enter the land, pleading with the Lord to let Him see it and walk in it and experience it.  The Lord’s answer was a little harsh, “That’s enough out of you!” (I joked in Bible class recently that maybe it was a relief to Moses not to be responsible for Israel anymore, but his own words indicate that he really wanted to finish what he'd started with the Lord.)

            There are all sorts of  people who give themselves in a cause and don’t quite see it to conclusion:  generals who win the war but not the peace; leaders who muscle through crises but don’t enjoy the success on the other side.

            Here's an examples.  I always kind of liked General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner.  The things I read made him seem like a man who was pushing hard for the kind of changes that needed to be made for the corporation to succeed.  When GM posted a profit for the first time in a long time, you could have argued that that happened because they went through a controversial bankruptcy.  You could also have argued that the products that  brought them back to profitability were in the works because of Wagoner’s leadership.  Unfortunately, he was shown the door before his efforts bore fruit.

            Or, here's a fictional example.  At the end of The Lord of the Rings (the book, not the movie), Frodo, the hero, finds himself so deeply wounded by having carried the burden of the Ring that he can’t enjoy the peaceful resolution in the comfort of his newly freed and restored homeland.  It falls to his friend and companion, Sam, to enjoy the results of their work.

            Now, in Moses’ case, the poignancy is even greater for two reasons.  First, he had been faithfully laboring for the Lord’s purposes for 40 years.  It sure seems that one little mistake is all it took to cost him his shot at happiness.  Second, he prays a prayer that is denied right then and there:  “You will not cross over.”  That’s hard.

            Sometimes the reward has to be in the journey, not the arrival.  Not every prayer is answered like we’d like.  I wish I had the kind of faith that was content to follow the Lord without the longing to accomplish something, to enjoy His presence and His service without wondering when the blessing would come.  It’s tough to be a goal-oriented guy with a process-oriented God.

A Faithful God

Deuteronomy 2:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+2&version=NIV

            Deuteronomy 2 is a lesson in God’s faithfulness.  The Lord pulls no punches:  he was angry with the generation that came out of Egypt because of their refusal to enter the land He had promised, and His hand was against them (v. 15).  On the other hand, the Lord blessed Israel sufficiently in the wilderness that she was able to buy food from Edom and Moab (v. 7), and He gave her victory over King Sihon of Heshbon (v. 36).  I suppose none of that is terribly insightful.  The Lord is supposed to faithfully watch over Israel.  She’s His treasured possession, for pity’s sake!

            What is interesting is that the Lord specifically forbids war against Edom, Moab, and Ammon.  And what is even more interesting is why He forbids it.  The Lord forbids war against Edom because Edom consists of the descendants of Esau (v.5), and He forbids war against Moab and Ammon because they are descendants of Lot (vv.9, 19).  Esau was the son of Isaac who was not the child of promise.  Even apart from the younger son Jacob’s shenanigans to get his hands on the birthright, the Lord had said that the older would serve the younger (Gen. 25:23).  But the Lord recognizes Esau as a part of Abraham’s family and will not let Moses make war against him (even though that incident was more than 450 years in the past.)  Likewise, Lot was Abraham’s nephew.  He came with Abraham to the promised land, but made several bad choices—mostly in regard to living in Sodom.  Still, the Lord recognized him as part of the Abraham’s family (even these 600 years later).

            The Lord’s faithfulness is not just to Israel, as Israel.  His faithfulness is to Israel as the one through whom He would bless the nations.  As we come to stories in the Scriptures in which Israel is told to exterminate the Canaan populations, it is important to keep this larger picture in mind.  God’s purpose is the restoration of all mankind.  In some instances that means protecting Israel from the dangers posed by the false gods of the Canaanites.  In other instances it means demonstrating the length of His memory in regard to those who were or will become (Gal. 3:7) relatives of Abraham.
--reposted from 3/1/2011

Introducing Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 1:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%201&version=NIV

           The word “Deuteronomy” means “second law,” so the title of the book gives us some sense of what we’re in for.  We can expect three things in this book.  First, there will be some repetition of the specific laws that Israel is supposed to follow (especially in the middle of the book).  The second and third things we can expect are related to the fact that Deuteronomy takes the form of an extended pep talk, as Moses prepares to hand leadership over to Joshua and to steel Israel for the coming task of conquest.  So, the second thing we can expect in Deuteronomy is a review of Israel’s recent history, especially in their interactions with the Lord.  (That’s what we see in ch. 1, our reading for today.)  However, the third thing we see is that this retelling of their history is not just for historical knowledge but to motivate them to obedience and faithfulness to the covenant the Lord made with them.  For these reasons, we’ll see that the book of Deuteronomy is a bit more pointed in its presentation than we have seen.  Moses will be very blunt about the fact that Israel has not done a particularly good job up to now and that they have a lot on the line.  So, let's not get too distracted by the title, which would suggest this book is just a repetition of what's come before.  Let's try not to read it with a, "Here we go again," attitude.  Let's try to read more as an encouragement: "Let's get going!"

Settling

Numbers 32-34:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%2032-34&version=NIV

            Reuben and Gad were ready to settle.  They saw the land on the east side of the Jordan, observed that it fit their needs very well, and were ready to stake a claim.  Moses sees it as an act of rebellion:  it’s just this refusal to fight that caused the 40 years in the wilderness!  A compromise is struck, and the fighting men of Gad and Reuben will fight alongside their brothers, but they will take as their inheritance the land across the Jordan.

            Seems to me that there’s a bit of connection to Christians and the Church.   Too often, we have a hard time thinking past our own interests.  You see it in discussions over worship:  I like this style, I like that style, I’ll stake my claim here, and you all do what you want.  You see it in a sort of Sunday only attachment:  “As long as my spiritual needs are met, I guess I don’t have any responsibilities to the Body beyond that.”  You can probably come up with other examples.

            Of course, thinking only of one’s own needs undermines the unity with which the Lord has knit us together in the Body of Christ.  It’s the kind of misalignment that can really damage what the Lord has in mind for His people.  The letter to the Ephesians is a sort of manifesto on Christian unity and in it we are brought to together and called to build each other up in word and deed.  Can’t hardly do that if you’re content to have your own needs served! 

            Israel was called to be a people who all together showed forth the power of the Lord and who all together demonstrated a national life that testified of their oneness in Him.  The Church bears a similar call.  True, we’re stripped of the national aspects, so we don’t have to conquer lands militarily.  Nor are we bound by the Mosaic laws.  But we are called to be a people who through our love and our oneness demonstrate what it means to be made in the image of a loving, forgiving God.

            Do take note of the fact that Moses let Reuben and Gad settle in the Trans-Jordan.  The Lord is sensitive to our needs.  But it would be wrong to be so content that our needs are met that we forgot to take into account the needs of others.
--revised from February, 2011