Tag: Hard passages

The Way to Life

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In Psalm 139, David celebrates the detailed and intimate knowledge God has of him; that He has of all of us. In the second part of the psalm, he continues to celebrate that knowledge with some of the most important pro-life themes in the Scriptures. But then he makes a turn to expressing his passion for God in a way that is deeply uncomfortable for modern readers. What are we supposed to do with all of this? That’s what we are talking about today as we wrap up our series, Fully Known. Read on to find out.

The Way to Life

Little kids can get excited. Like, really excited. If you have little ones at home or still remember when yours were little, you perhaps know what I’m talking about. Little kids can get so excited they can’t hold it in, and they’ll start to do silly things to let it out. They’ll run in place, run all over the place, yell and scream, just kind of vibrate where they are standing, and so on and so forth. It can be pretty entertaining to watch. The nice thing about little kids and their excitement, though, is that they don’t tend to get destructive with it. Older kids and adults, on the other hand, can’t say that quite as consistently. 

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 9:22-29

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“And what if God, wanting to display his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction? And what if he did this to make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory—on us, the ones he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As it also says in Hosea, ‘I will call Not My People, My People, and she who is Unloved, Beloved. And it will be in the place where they were told, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.’ But Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, ‘Though the number of Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved; since the Lord will execute his sentence completely and decisively on the earth.’ And just as Isaiah predicted: ‘If the Lord of Armies had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)

So, yesterday we started a really uncomfortable conversation about God’s sovereignty and our subjection to that sovereignty. We like to think of ourselves as truly and completely free individuals. We are autonomous beings. And then Paul asks something like, “On the contrary, who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?'” That hits hard. And the more you think about it, the harder it hits. In fact, it hits hard enough that whereas I was originally going to treat these verses in the same post as yesterday’s passage, there was enough here when I started writing that I had to break it up into two posts. Without further ado, then, let’s keep working through Paul’s exaltation of God’s sovereignty and what that means for us.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 9:19-21

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“You will say to me, therefore, ‘Why then does he still find fault? For who resists his will?’ On the contrary, who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor?” (CSB – Read the chapter)

You may have noticed I didn’t post anything at all last week. Then again, you may not have as well. Either way, my bride and I were able to get away for a week to celebrate our upcoming 20th anniversary. It was a wonderful trip in every way, but we are glad to be back home safe and sound and in our own bed again. Let’s get down to business.

Have you ever seen someone do something with their own stuff that you didn’t understand? Maybe you got all judgmental toward them about it. If you had sufficient self-control, you kept all those thoughts to yourself. If not…well…then you probably had some other issues to deal with. Here’s the thing, though: It wasn’t your stuff. You really didn’t have any place to register an opinion on what she did with her stuff. Your opinion doesn’t make a bit of difference. Again: it’s not your stuff. Well, when it comes to creation, that’s all God’s stuff. What He does with it is not something on which we get a vote. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 23:23-28

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“For my angel will go before you and bring you to the land of the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. Do not bow in worship to their gods, and do not serve them. Do not imitate their practices. Instead, demolish them and smash their sacred pillars to pieces. Serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water. I will remove illnesses from you. No woman will miscarry or be childless in your land. I will give you the full number of your days. I will clauses the people ahead of you to feel terror and will throw into confusion all the nations you come to. I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you in retreat. I will send hornets in front of you, and they will drive the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hethites away from you.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the books on the shelves in my office wrestles with the question of God’s character. The title makes the question pretty plain: Is God a Moral Monster? It tackles several of the most challenging stories in the Old Testament that are often presented as evidence for God’s being just that. One of the subjects the author, Paul Copan, spends a lot of time on is the Israelite entrance into the land of Canaan which came at the expense of the peoples already living there. The Exodus narrative doesn’t cover that particular journey, but God does give the people a bit of a preview of coming attractions. So, let’s wrestle a bit with it.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 21:7-11

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“When a man sells his daughter as a concubine, she is not to leave as the male slaves do. If she is displeasing to her master, who chose her for himself, then he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners because he has acted treacherously toward her. Or if he chooses her for his son, he must deal with her according to the customary treatment of daughters. If he takes an additional wife, he must not reduce the food, clothing, or marital rights of the first wife. And if he does not do these three things for her, she may leave free of charge, without any payment.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There’s a memorable scene from the series, West Wing, when President Bartlett publicly embarrassed one of his critics. Bartlett is a Democrat (being the protagonist of a show developed by Aaron Sorkin, of course he is). The critic is a religious conservative who has a popular call in radio show where she has been critical of the President and his policies and has taken a conservative stance on a handful of social issues including homosexuality. In front of a roomful of reporters and supporters, Bartlett asks the critic what kind of price his daughter would fetch if he sold her into slavery. This is followed by a series of other questions whose purpose is to show that this critic’s traditional understanding of the Old Testament is silly, and thus so are conservatives. Well, this next law starts with the verse Bartlett cities about selling a daughter into slavery. Let’s talk about what this means, what it doesn’t, and why this doesn’t take away from our image of God’s character in the Old Testament.

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