(Following on from yesterday…)

It was Peter who wrote “Honour the emperor” in 1 Peter 2:17, but how could Peter write such a thing when his emperor was Nero?  

Nero had Christians covered in tar, fastened to crosses and burned as torches to light up his garden parties; he dragged them behind his chariot through Rome until they were dead, had them killed by wild beasts in arenas, and dressed them in animal skins to be torn to death by dogs. 

But Peter included this perverted madman with the rest of verse 17, which began with, “Show proper respect for everyone.” You mean, show proper respect for a loathsome man like Nero? How on earth could God ask that of Christians? The man was evil, depraved, and he was murdering Christians in horrible ways. 

So what was God’s purpose in requiring Christians to respect their government leaders, and even horrible ones too? 

It would be nice to know the answer to that, because the idea of showing respect to some of the loathsome people in leadership positions today puts my entire mental make-up in resistance mode. But 1 Peter 2:17 brought me up short. God wants me to show proper respect for such people. But how? And why?

I admit to being out of my depth on this one. But what came to mind was Hebrews 5:7, because when Jesus was up against a situation that was humanly impossible for him to handle, and it was causing excruciating mental pain for him too, he expressed his agony “With loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death,” and “he was heard because of his reverent submission.” 

So the Father heard and helped him out because of Jesus’ deep respect for his will. That’s the starting point: God’s will, impossible and agonizing though it is to obey. So that had to be the starting point for me too. But what exactly did God have in mind for us respecting even loathsome leaders? What possible good thing could be accomplished by showing respect for Nero?  

But then I have to ask what possible good thing was accomplished by Jesus obeying his Father’s will, when it too caused him considerable mental pain? And again I was stuck for an answer. Unless there was something back there in Hebrews 5 again…. 

(More on this tomorrow…)

In many parts of the world of late, especially in our western nations, government has run roughshod over people’s wishes. And for some odd reason we, the public, allow it, even if legislation enacted is not what we want, it’s not in our best interests, and it severely limits our freedoms.

So how do we Christians react to this? Are we stuck with Romans 13:1 which mandates that “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established”? So, whatever government says we’d better go along with it, or be “rebelling against what God has instituted,” right?

But Romans 13 also mandates what governments do too. In verse 4, for instance, the government “is God’s servant to do you good.” To qualify as “government” in biblical terms, then, its central goal and reason for existence is being a servant of God, which it fulfills by being a servant of the people “to do them good.” If a government is not meeting that double mandate from God, is a Christian still required to do whatever the government says? Should Christians have obeyed Stalin, for instance, who starved millions of his people to death, or submitted to the Nazi euthanasia program? 

Well, many Christians didn’t submit, and widespread Christian protest during World War 2 got the euthanasia program halted. But were the people right in holding the government’s feet to the flames, or were they disobeying God by not conforming to the government edicts? In other words, where do we Christians stand when our government is either blatantly breaking its God-given mandate, or it isn’t consulting us, the citizens, before enacting legislation? 

Take Canada, for instance. Canada is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy, founded on the rule of law and respect for rights and freedoms. The government acts in the name of the Crown but derives its authority from the Canadian people. It is the people who have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation, and the people who choose whom they wish to enact it. Our role as citizens in our government, then, is huge. We have power vested in us legally to decide what legislation we feel is in our best interests. 

Unfortunately, we’ve handed over our constitutional birthright to government for so long that the government now feels free to enact legislation without consulting its citizens, even when a majority of citizens heartily disagree with it. 

So where do we as Christians stand if a constitution gives its citizens rights? Does that clash with Romans 13, or can we Christians claim the rights allowed by our constitution? And can we stand by our rights – and even protest too – if our government is not doing what either God or the constitution mandated it to do?…

(More on this tomorrow…)

I’m so glad someone put me onto Psalm 2, because it tells us God’s reaction to those who get snooty at the mention of Scripture being a good place to go for advice. Or that Jesus is the one who decides what’s right and wrong. 

Any hint of God, Jesus or Scripture can get people very angry. It can cause irreparable rifts in families, and in several countries around the world it can get you killed, jailed, and tortured. And several people – in what used to be “democratic” countries – have been fired from their jobs for simply being Christians.

There’s something in the air, then, that like a virus is getting into people’s systems and causing an inflammatory reaction. And it soon became apparent in the book of Acts where this virus originated. It came from those in positions of power who didn’t like anyone challenging their authority, or their view of themselves as the only “go to” place for correct information. To propose any alternative was branded with what we would call today, “misinformation,” or worse still, “disinformation,” meaning deliberately intended to deceive.  

Such was the situation in Acts 4:1-3, when the priests and their goons, “the temple guard,” along with the moralist Sadducee elite, got “greatly disturbed” about the apostles saying Jesus had come back to life again. Without hesitation they rounded the apostles up and herded them off to jail. They wanted the apostles silenced and punished (verses 17, 21). 

But public support for the apostles got them released, so they shot back to their own people, reported the anger and threats of the officials, which brought Psalm 2:1-2 to mind: “Why are the nations so angry?  Why do they waste their time with futile plans? The kings of the earth prepare for battle; the rulers plot together against the Lord and against his anointed one” (NLT). They could have added verse 3 too, “Let’s free ourselves from slavery to God.” 

So this was what Jesus’ followers were up against: officials out to eradicate all mention of Jesus. Worrying? Not on your life, God says in verse 4, because “the one who rules in heaven laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.” He snorts in derision at those who believe they can suppress truth. To God they are cartoon characters. If only they knew. 

It seems to me that society is in desperate need of Christians preserving what Jesus taught. And what makes me think that is what’s happening as society rejects Christian values and tries to come up with a better alternative. 

The “better alternative” so far is setting oneself up, or one’s group up, as “progressive,” meaning moving away from God being the one who dictates how we behave, to doing and thinking whatever one pleases on a personal level, or doing whatever the government tells us to do on a State level. On the one hand, then, we’ve got individuals (and their tribes) trying to force their lifestyles on us, and on the other hand, the State angling to get control over everything in our lives. 

In the middle of all this pressure on us to comply are Christians whose doing and thinking – and existence as groups – is to preserve and live by the teachings of Jesus. It’s why we’re called Christians – followers and disciples of Christ – because our love of life is learning, living by and teaching what he taught, believing that since it was he who created us, then he must know a thing or two about what’s best for us too.  

Unfortunately, cultural pressure can suck in Christians to either rejecting or twisting what Jesus taught. And this is when things get touchy, because as Christians wilt under cultural pressure there’s a notable correlation between that and the disintegration of decency, honesty, kindness, humility, morality, hope and peace in society. Which is sad, because when Christians seek to obey Jesus – because of his love for us and our love for him – we are given superb promises, like “wisdom and revelation” (Ephesians 1:17), “power, love and a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7), and the ability to “escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (2 Peter 1:4). We can see through, and live above, the nonsense. 

Which is why society is in desperate need of such people, and why Christians stand by Jesus’ teachings, even if we’re hated and hounded for it, because we can see how weird, clownish and morally bankrupt society can become. And who suffers the most? Those least able to do anything about the things affecting them. It’s horrible, especially when it’s children who are being targeted.  

But Christians living by Jesus’ teachings have power on their side, to be witnesses to what he taught being so obviously right and good, and especially in a world like ours where the contrast becomes more obvious by the day. 

But that’s our goal, “that his life may be revealed in our mortal body,” 2 Corinthians 4:11, believing it to be the best thing there is for a world floundering around without a guide or anchor.      

Part 6, King Ahaz (Part 5, Feb 3)

God sent three boys to king Ahaz, whose names were meant to aid the young king’s faith and trust in God’s power and care – with a warning attached too, though, that “If you do not stand in your faith, Ahaz, you will not stand at all,” Isaiah 7:9. 

But there’s no indication in the story that Ahaz saw any significance in the names of these three boys. Instead, 2 Chronicles 28:22, “In his time of trouble King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the Lord.” And rather than put his trust in God, Ahaz “sent messengers to the king of Assyria” in 2 Kings 16:7, asking him to “Come up and save me” from those “who are attacking me.” 

And to win the king’s favour Ahaz stripped the temple and the royal palace of all their silver and gold and sent the whole lot to the king as a gift (verse 8). Sounds like the major drug companies today, lobbying those in power and influence for favourable treatment and open support for their products by massive bribes of money. It worked a treat during the pandemic. It did for Ahaz too, because “The king of Assyria complied by attacking Damascus (the capital of one of Ahaz’s attackers) and capturing it” (verse 9). 

Ahaz then visited Damascus himself and while there he was deeply impressed by the design of an altar (to a god), and so much so he “sent a sketch of it to Uriah the priest (back home) with detailed plans for its construction” (verse 10). And when it was finished, Ahaz not only offered all the usual burnt, grain and drink offerings on it, he also pushed the bronze altar at the temple out of the way and placed his altar in the prominent position instead (verse 12-14). 

And in 2 Chronicles 28:24 -25, he “shut the doors of the Lord’s temple and set up altars at every street corner in Jerusalem. In every town in Judah he built high places to burn sacrifices to other gods and provoked the Lord to anger,” believing these fake gods would help them instead (verse 23). 

During the rest of his miserable 16 year reign in Jerusalem, he not only “sacrificed his son in the fire” (2 Kings 16:3), he “offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on hilltops and under every spreading tree” (verse 4) – all of which were pagan practices. 

So why would God go to all that trouble of sending three children as signs to boost Ahaz’s trust in him, if none of them meant anything to him, and Ahaz trusted in fake gods instead?…(part 7, Feb 17)  

The Holy Spirit’s job is to keep us on track with everything Jesus taught (John 14:26, 16:13-15), and install everything that Jesus is in us, so that we become more and more like him (2 Corinthians 3:18). 

But what if there are things that conflict with what we’ve always thought was God’s will – that we’ve made sacrifices sticking to as well – and now we’re being asked to change our thinking and maybe accept something different? 

It happened to Peter in Acts 10. He got this vision where he “saw the skies open up. Something that looked like a huge blanket lowered by ropes at its four corners settled on the ground. Every kind of animal and reptile and bird you could think of was on it. Then a voice came: ‘Go to it, Peter – kill and eat,’” verses 11-13.

Peter was shocked: “Oh, no, Lord. I’ve never so much as tasted food that wasn’t kosher.” But the “voice came a second time: ‘If God says it’s OK, it’s OK,’” verses 14-15. But it went totally against what Peter had grown up with, on two counts: he’d never eaten any of the foods defined as “unclean” in Leviticus 11; plus he’d grown up believing Gentiles were unclean. But now he was being told to eat unclean foods as a lesson “that I should not call any man impure and unclean,” verse 28. 

So the Holy Spirit was teaching Peter something that conflicted with Peter’s conscience. And it really rocked Peter back on his heels. He “was still thinking about it” three verses later, but he couldn’t come up with any satisfactory answer. Peter simply didn’t get it.    

But it wasn’t his job to get it. It was the Spirit’s job, because the Spirit was now Peter’s guide, not his conscience – just as Jesus said back in John 16:13, that “when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” So it was the Spirit’s responsibility to sort Peter’s mind out, and enable him to override his conscience. Peter couldn’t do that, but the Spirit could.

And this is the realm we’re now living in, where the Holy Spirit is tuning our minds to understand the truth of Scripture, as in the case of Lydia, a faithful conscience driven Jew in Acts 16 who, when faced with Paul’s radically different teaching, the “Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message,” verse 14. 

So when conscience conflicts with Spirit, the Spirit can sort us out. 

 The Greek word for “church” in the New Testament is ekklesia (pronounced ek-lay-see-ah), as in Acts 11:26, when “for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church (ekklesia).” 

Ekklesia was in use, however, long before the Christian church came into existence. It described the citizens of a city being called together by the local council to a public place to deliberate legal, political and business matters relevant to their city. In other words, an ekklesia was a wide open communal discussion on very practical matters. It was not a religious word at all, and yet this word was used for (and by) the church. 

Why? Well, the two root words of ekklesia – ek meaning “out of,” and the verb kaleo meaning “to call” – nicely fit the description of Christians being called out of the world. And being called out to meet together in a public place also fitted in nicely with meeting together as Christians. 

But there was more to ekklesia than that, because in its original and familiar Greek meaning it described people in a community being summoned from their homes to assemble in a public place for – note – open discussion and debate on important and relevant issues. 

And it wasn’t just discussion and debate among the leaders either; it included everyone in the community. Which is what we find the church doing in Acts 15. A “sharp dispute and debate” had arisen over whether Gentiles should be circumcised” (verses 2-3), so the church assembled together, heard the evidence, after which “the whole church” (verse 22) agreed on what to do.

This was ekklesia in its full Greek sense in action. It includes lots of open discussion on relevant issues covering a wide range of different opinions and perspectives, and coming to conclusions that satisfy all involved. 

Compare that to churches today, where denominational tradition and denominational hierarchy rather heavily decide what’s what, with little to no input asked for from the members. I doubt the Bereans in Acts 17, however, would have put up with that. When Paul and Silas arrived in Berea with their interpretation of the Old Testament scriptures, the Bereans “with great eagerness examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (verse 11). They were all for open discussion and debate to get to the truth of Scripture they could all happily agree with. 

In ekklesia, then, the early Christians found a word that reflected what we as Christians are called out of the world for. It’s to meet together to learn, discuss and debate what Scripture says and how it applies to us personally in the world we find ourselves in.

The way things are going lately it’s like watching a chess game being played out by those obsessed with power. 

And like chess pieces they each have their strategic strengths. Some of the players, for instance, are like the queen in chess, the most powerful piece on the board, because they believe it’s by overwhelming military might and scary weapons that the game will be won.    

Others believe it’s not by might that you win, but by cunning. They’re the tricky knights on the board, because their ability to jump over other pieces on the board can catch even the most powerful by surprise. Globally, they can get the jump on the powerful, for instance, by promoting themselves as “saviours” of the people, so millions of people follow them willingly, rather than being forced to.   

For others, it’s not by might or cunning that you win, but by coming across as righteous. They’re the bishops on the board, who knock down the other players by virtue signalling all their faults. Castigate the powerful for their greed until they wilt in shame.  

But then there are the castles, or rooks, on the board, that build their castles in the air, their fantasy new world order that captures the imagination of leaders who then impose this ludicrous ideology on their people by dismantling their nations’ history, culture and tradition piece by piece, and bringing in their fantasy utopian reset instead. 

And whether they’re doing this consciously or unconsciously, or with a conscience or without, is not for me to judge, but in their obsession for power all the players in the game make their tactics obvious, so that even the lowly among us can recognize them. And so we should, because we’re the little pawns on the chess board who have to bear the brunt of these people’s egos as they sacrifice and discard us in their play for power. 

But their obsession to win has also made them blind to one rather simple fact, that God “raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come,” Ephesians 1:20-21. 

Hey, fellas, we’ve already got a “king of the world” – and a king forever too – so it’s a rather pointless game you’re playing, isn’t it? 

Proverbs 25:2 says it’s “the glory of God to hide things, but the glory of kings to investigate them (or search them out).” So God set up his creation like a treasure map, with all sorts of things to be discovered, and he gave us the abilities to find them.  

The sciences are the proof of it, because science is really just the discovery of all the things God inserted in his creation from the beginning, and scientists are the ones with the curiosity and the skills to search them out. God created the laboratory, and scientists are his lab technicians bringing his creation to light – to their glory as well as his.

It puts science on a hugely high pedestal, because if it wasn’t for men and women spending thousands of hours educating themselves on the intricacies and workings of the physical world, where would we be now? What if electricity had never been discovered, for instance? So the good parts of our history are very much the “glory” of those who set their minds to learn.  

Like those who set their minds to learning about the human immune system, and how it operates when hit by viruses. Because they knew when the Covid virus hit what it would do, and what treatments would be effective against it. These were the true scientists who based everything on evidence, observation, proper testing, trial and error, consultation with peers, and consensus – and not rushing to any conclusions or treatments unless all those steps had been taken. That, as Proverbs 25:2 says, is the glory of kings, or experts in their field; it is to investigate, search, and experiment to tease out what God put into his creation for our benefit.  

During the pandemic, then, we looked to our scientists to lead the way. Unfortunately, those with the purse strings and political agendas peddled a poorly based “science,” that has since proved to be disastrous for millions of trusting people. But it highlights a huge lesson, that those in power can easily pull the wool over our eyes if we aren’t educated. 

It’s our glory to investigate and search things out, because that’s what God designed us to do, and there were hundreds of voices during the pandemic who were making predictions about the future of the virus and the effects of poor science in treating it – that have since proved to be extremely accurate. It is to their glory that they shared their expertise, despite censorship and loss of job, because they spared thousands of people from making uneducated decisions.

This Psalm is for those like me who find it hard to believe how the most callous and cruel leaders are able to stay in power, even when caught out in lies, scandals, blatant profiteering, hate speech, and bullying their people into submission. 

Because Psalm 73 echoes the same thoughts. Asaph, who authored this Psalm and twelve more in what is considered the darkest part of Psalms, shared the same view of those in power, or “at the top,” verse 3 (The Message). He envied “the wicked who have it made, who have nothing to worry about, not a care in the whole wide world,” verses 3-4. Just like those today who fly all over the world in their private jets, pontificating about saving the planet while abusing the environment themselves. But somehow they get away with it, and carry on without a care in (or for) the world. The same callous hypocrisy Asaph witnessed.    

Fortunately, the Holy Spirit had Asaph write this Psalm, exposing these people for who and what they are. They are “pretentious with arrogance,” they’re “pampered and overfed, decked out in the silk bows of silliness (lunacy). They jeer (scoff at us underlings),” and “bully their way with words,” and yet, verse 10, “People actually listen to them – can you believe it?” Same as today, when tyrants are treated like gods and saviours. 

Asaph’s reaction was to ask in verses 11-12: “What’s going on here? Is God out to lunch? The wicked get by with everything; they have it made, piling up riches.” Ring any bells about drug companies of late? But “when I tried to figure it out” – as to why God was letting it happen – “all I got was a splitting headache.” Probably a lot of lost sleep too, wondering just how lunatic things would yet become (verse 16).  

“UNTIL…” 

Oh, you mean there’s a way of handling this? A way of not curling up in a corner and giving up? Well, according to Asaph in verse 17, it was when “I entered the sanctuary of God, then I saw the whole picture: the slippery road you’ve put them on, with a final crash in a ditch of delusions. In the blink of an eye, disaster! We wake up and rub our eyes….and there’s nothing to them, and there never was,” verses 18-20. 

God blew away the fog of despair, by opening Asaph’s eyes to his world, the real world where no one gets away with anything. God became real to Asaph, because Asaph was real with him.       

(Next ‘Psalm Sunday’ – Psalm 2)