Monthly Archives: July 2012

Suffering evil trains you to discern between good and evil

In Hebrews 5.14, we read: “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

Discernment sounds like a valuable ability. So what does it take? How does one get trained?

We are given the answer throughout the book, but the most close connection is made in Hebrews 12.11, which is the only other place in the book that word is used:

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:7-11 ESV).

Hebrews tells us Jesus “learned obedience through what he suffered.” It seems he learned discernment as well.

Spiritual warfare; the basic texts

“If you hear in one of your cities, which the LORD your God is giving you to dwell there, that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it be true and certain that such an abomination has been done among you, you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again. None of the devoted things shall stick to your hand, that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the sight of the LORD your God (Deuteronomy 13:12-18 ESV).

Whole burnt offerings require fire that God himself lit. God’s presence lit the fire on the altar in the Tabernacle. When Aaron’s two oldest sons tried to add new fire, God consumed them (Lev 10). So the most obvious meaning of this passage is that fire from the altar is used to burn the city.

The reference to not allowing anything from the city to stick to one’s hand, and then the city being a heap forever, reminds us of what happened not too long after Moses gave these instructions. Achan took gold and silver and a garment from Jericho. He let it stick to his hand. “And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day” (Joshua 7:26a ESV).

Jericho was put to the sword and then burned as a Canaanite city.  This puts Moses’ instructions in perspective. He is telling them that, once they have eradicated paganism and are living in the land, if a city becomes pagan, it should meet the same fate as the pagan cities. Cities like Jericho were the first ones burnt with fire from the altar.

But consider the details: Before Jericho is conquered, two witnesses go to the city and single out a household to save, protecting them within the doors of a house.

This had happened before. Centuries earlier two angels went to Sodom and saved Lot’s household before devoting the city to destruction by fire from heaven.

So what once was done by angels is now done by people.

And just as Jericho was destroyed by a worship processional, so now our prayers wage war:

And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake (Revelation 8:3-5 ESV).

 

When babies have authority

If you put together everything that Paul says about the characteristics of children and the need to grow up, I think we can glean the following:

  • Children need to be under authority, rather than be given authority.
  • Children who are given freedom/authority are prone to be exploited by bad teachers and leaders.
  • Children who want to stay that way have a tendency to resent and persecute those who are growing up.
  • Adults should grow up but there is a temptation to attempt to remain a child; and many succumb to it.
  • Remaining a child is really not an option; one can only choose between growing up and becoming warped beyond human recognition.

This last is in our fairy tales. Think Pinocchio’s choice to either become a real son or else turn into a donkey.

One might profitably meditate what might happen to an institution–whether a business, a nation, a world order, or a denomination in the Church–that came under the control of people who did not grow up.

Understanding Economic Justice and Logic


Justice

You hire ten people for $10/hour. This means, the average wage is now $10/hour among your employees.

This seems too low to a some people who gain political control. So they make a law that forbids you from hiring anyone for less than $12.50/hour. You do the math and realize that you can probably make do with only eight employees if you are forced to do so, but you simply can’t afford to lose the extra, $25/hour.

So you fire two of your employees. This means that the average pay of your workers is now 25% higher than before. This is trumpeted in the news as a major government success story. When the rise in unemployment is reported, it is presented as a new problem to be solved by a comptent government, not the results of unjust government tyranny.

Injustice

You pay ten employees $10/hour but realize they don’t have time to do all the work. You think about hiring one more person, but then realize that the time is mostly consumed in tasks that don’t require skilled labor. So instead of hiring one person you higher two students who still live at home and didn’t graduate from High School for $5/hour (pretend we don’t have a minimum wage law that makes it illegal to hire people at that rate, forcing them to remain unemployed).

This means you are a harsh and unjust business. You are now paying 12 employees collectively $110/hour. That means the average pay per hour has gone from $10/hour to less than $9.17/hour. This fact is reported in the news media as if you have lowered the pay of all of your employees.

You are evil and are going to go to hell.

(In the meantime, with our present minimum wage laws, those non-graduates never get a job and never learn skills and opportunities that come from being employed. They are stuck at the bottom of the ladder with all the rungs they could reach kicked out from above them.)

Four reasons to memorize Proverbs

Credentials to speak on the subject:

Until recently, I worked as a truck driver. Not really. I was a sanitation engineer. Not really. I was a portapottie guy.

But it involved driving a truck at about forty minutes at a time. And it had a CD player.

Using CD burning tech on my computer, I went into the truck with Proverbs 10, then 11, and 12. I memorized all three chapters so I could say it all in order from start to finish.

I haven’t retained a lot of it. I need to get it loaded on an iPod and spend some time practicing, again, or else start getting disciplined about flash cards or something. If you don’t use it you lose it.

But for awhile I had it and did use it, and these are some of the things I can say from that experience.

1. Proverbs is God’s Catechism; it is meant to be memorized

OK, This is more the reason I began memorizing Proverbs than something I learned… except I can say I am more convinced that Proverbs was meant for this now, than when I started.

Think of the things that we consider to be ideal catechisms for the Church. I don’t doubt that teaching Christian doctrine, and even giving exact words for Christians to use, is a good idea. But we have to admit that God could have had Paul or someone write such a thing. Instead he had Solomon and others give us Proverbs.

2. God tells us to teach our children “when you are going out.”

So here’s the thing. I can’t grab a pocket Bible, or my Kindle, and look up a verse while I am driving. But I have a captive audience and memorizing Proverbs gave me a chance to exploit the situation.

Many times I hid what I was doing. I’d throw one of the kids a Bible and say, “Can you see how I’m doing?” and let them read and make sure I was reciting everything word-perfect…. and often that worked. (Note: in my experience, the younger you start this, the more productive it will be.)

But if you want a chance to discuss with your teen sons the basic alternative between plunder and production, and the habits that are demanded by making the right choice, Solomon will provide plenty of help.

In any case, my 8-year-old got credit for her school’s public speaking competition for reciting Proverbs 10.1-8. (She would have done more, except for the time limit.) One other advantage about memorizing the Proverbs is that, not only can you repeat them to your children, and talk about them, but you can also be their means of memorizing them for themselves.

3. The only way to map some mazes is to meander through them.

There are many books in the Bible in which a scholar is able to know the general story and look at the text on the page and pick out details that help him make an outline or see and order that wasn’t obvious at first.

In most respects, Proverbs is not one of those books. It seems jumbled, too repetitive, and at times given to insultingly-obvious tautologies. You have a hard time convincing yourself that someone was grabbing from a pile of notes and writing sayings down randomly.

But when you start to actually memorize, the “shape” of Proverbs seems a lot more coherent. I would never have seen this chiasm if I hadn’t been memorizing, to name a small example.

(In fact, the majority of what I wrote in this category comes from the time I was memorizing Proverbs.)

I’m not sure how to demonstrate or explain what I want to say here, so I’ll resort to an analogy. Most times you get directions you don’t have to keep track of that much. You learn to look for a couple of intersections and which way you should turn; that is all you need.

Proverbs is more like a thick forest. There doesn’t seem to be any trail through it. But once you actually start exploring, you begin to pick out landmarks. It becomes familiar. Even though you couldn’t give directions or draw a map that would work with a novice, you find you could easily lead them through it.

One way this pays off is with reading the portions of Proverbs I had not yet memorized. It became easier to comprehend. I wasn’t haunted by the vague sense that I had read that same sentence somewhere else in the book; I knew exactly where I had run into it. The entire book began to seem more familiar even though I had only “taken possession” of three chapters.

4. Your “New Testament” will suddenly double in size.

The Gospels and Letters to the Church after Christ are filled with appeals/allusions to the Proverbs. It is amazing. Without Proverbs I’m not sure what ethics would be left. You feel like every single book in the “New Testament” doubles as a commentary on Solomon.

Sometimes the fifth commandment applies only to God.

True story.

Back in the seventies I was an MK. My parents lived at a missionary radio station. Of course, in that African country, a radio station required a power station to produce reliable electricity. And with all those people working there with their families, you needed a school. And it wasn’t too hard to see the need for a Hospital.

It was a little village essentially.

And we had a housekeeper, at least part of the time. This was my first through fourth grades. He seemed as old and wise as my Dad at the time. Now I realize he was probably still a teenager.

But he was not only an employee but a Christian brother in the Lord. And while he was working for us, he broke his leg (I don’t think this happened while he was actually “on the job.”).

He couldn’t have suffered in that way under better conditions in that country. He had access to some great doctors and state-of-the-art treatment, and the bill was paid by all those churches and Christians overseas who were supporting the missionaries. In no time, he sported a cast. I can’t remember this clearly, but I’m pretty sure I got to sign it.

And then his family came, put him in a car, and took him away.

He was under duress but he got in the car of his own free will. They took him up country, as we would say, cut off the cast, and gave him the full ancestral benefits of “country medicine.” If memory serves, that involved invoking and/or placating the right spirits to bring healing. But maybe it wasn’t that bad.

He returned, in more pain and with a guilty conscience. As far as I know he repented, and continued from then on in the faith. I don’t know if he was tested again in that way. I do know the entire country took a tour of Hell after we left and he has suffered more than I can imagine. I hope he is still alive. I hope he has living children and grandchildren. And I hope at some point the yoke got ripped off their necks. Or will soon.

There are, no doubt, ways to obey the Fifth Commandment that apply even to a Christian with pagan parents. But through most of human history, Christians have had to tell their converts and disciples that such honor does not include obeying them.

In fact, salvation means being rescued from your family:

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot (1 Peter 1:14-19 ESV).

Got that? Your family ways were Egypt and you’ve been brought through passover. Don’t go back to Egypt.

If your parents were discipling you in conformity to the Great Commission, then thank God and follow the full scope of the Fifth Commandment. But for many people all over the world Christianity is still the ultimate slap in the face to those who gave them life. If you have Christian friends who happen to be Asian and have to go back home for a funeral, you will see immense struggles over this issue. And that is just one example among many.

Of course, it is an open question whether we are really as well off as we think we are in North America, or if we are simply hiding from ourselves the compromises that we are making.

In the US, for example, we are coming to that time when the Christian churches customarily turn themselves into shrines to go whoring after the founding Fathers. We read books about Nazi Totalitarianism and how the Church succumbed under pressure to State-idol pageantry in the sanctuaries, and then judge those people for doing under pressure what we boastfully delight in.

“Country medicine” comes in many forms. Whatever spirit is pleased with “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” he is not the Holy One.