Pilgrim Notes

Reflections along the way.

Category: commandments (page 2 of 4)

Meditation as Song

August 22, 2008 / / 1 Comment

I’ve been chanting the Psalms in the mornings, and it occurred to me today that singing is meditation. In the past I’ve thought of music and chanting as a means to focus the mind on a singular idea. So music was a way to meditation. But I considered the actual meditation pure thought.

Now I realize that the Psalmist is not stripping the outer world away to think in a purely rationalized or abstracted level. Rather singing is meditation. Just as eating the bread and drinking the wine is remembering the Lord’s death.

While thinking draws on a rationality, true meditation is so much more. It brings together imagination, rationality, the physical body and emotions. Meditation is training me to be a whole/wise person (a home sapien) and not simply a homo logicus.

Law and Love and Grace Part 3

August 15, 2008 / / 1 Comment

Overcoming Evil with Good

God created a world of glory and wonder. He created a man and woman in the center of this world and taught them the rules of this world that governed how they relate to God, to one another and to all creation. While their violation seems almost innocent to us, it is a tragic violation the breaks the laws of relating to God, to other people and to all creation.

The first few chapters of Genesis records the impact of such a violation. Broken relationship leads to self-preservation to jealousy and eventually to murder, which leads to destructive civilizations and eventually to a world of chaos.

Into this world of evil God sends a flood to wash away almost everything. While the flood is judgment, it is also a gift of restoration where evil and chaos infiltrated almost everything and everyone on the planet.

Genesis reveals the end result of the kingdoms of this world. The football teams, glee clubs, restaurants, businesses, cities and families are kingdoms infected with sin and evil. This is not a light innocuous infection. Without intervention, it leads to chaos, destruction, death and disaster. Given time and space, sin and evil continue unraveling, corrupting, and destroying everything.

This is hard for us to grasp because we see the seed of sin. The beginning looks minor. A stolen fruit. An angry thought. A little self pity. But left unchecked, the seed keeps growing. Death keeps overtaking the person. Tolkien captures this corrupting aspect of evil in Lord of the Rings with Gollum. He starts out as a Hobbit, but over time evil corrupts and corrupts and corrupts him eventually into a monster.

Even more disturbing is the recent image of the Joker in the movie, The Dark Knight. We see evil given full reign. Total chaos. The Joker acts for the sake of destruction and chaos. No desire for revenge or greed or power, but absolute chaos and destruction.

Think of the most horrid crimes and evils that plague our world, and you see the fruit of the works of man. No matter how creative, how industrious, how disciplined and even how religious humans are, given time, sin will blossom into horrid evils that destroy our worlds and destroy our souls. In one sense, hell is the unchecked, unstopped, uninterrupted place and time for evil to completely corrupt, completely destroy, and completely ruin.

So the question is, “How do we confront evil?” Whether a person believes in God or not, they still face the challenge of evil all around them. Every day the newspaper brings fresh evidence of evil and corruption. Scandals and abuses are not limited to one political party, one religious or non-religious group, one social class.

Look over the headlines from one year of news and you’ll find images of slavery, physical and sexual abuses, murder, stealing, and more in people from all sectors of society. From church group leaders to politicians to outspoken liberal and conservative commentators, we see evil and corruption abound. Just this year a wealthy couple from Rhode Island were indicted for slavery.

Somehow we are shocked by such heinous stories. Somehow we wonder, “what caused this?” “How could they be so bad?” Some of the best educated have given in to dark actions as much as the poorest and least educated. This should somehow be a clue that evil is not “out there” but “in here.” If we but think about our own imaginations, we may realize all of us are capable of unthinkable evil.

The Bible is not prudish but honest about this evil. While we like to debate the origins of evil, the Bible spends little time answering our metaphysical questions. Instead, it reveals God responding to evil.

The Bible reveals a world crying out for the sons of God to vanquish evil and restore the earth. With that context, we can see the law as God’s response to that cry. The law revealed to Moses is but the beginning of God’s fulfillment of His promise to Abraham.

The gracious gift of blessing the whole earth through Abraham’s seed is the great and wondrous blessing of recreating a world corrupted by sin and evil. Instead of flooding it again, God works through Abraham’s seed to overcome evil with good. The kingdoms of this world are coming under subjection to our God.

The law is given to the children of Israel as God redeems them from Egypt. In His love and grace, He chooses a specific family at a specific time in history to freshly reveal His kingdom, His rule, His order. Within the seed of Abraham, the seed of the law is planted and it will grow to reach all nations.

Paul reveals that the particularities of the law in relation to the Jewish people were just for a season. As John Frame explains, those particularities of a specific family, a specific priesthood, , a specific temple, and  a specific piece of land would flourish through Jesus into a  new nation of Jew and Gentile, a priesthood of all believers, a temple made of believers, a kingdom stretching outward to every tribe and nation around the world.

Through Jesus the law comes into fullness by the power of the Spirit. While the tablets of stone were glorious, the law written on the heart by the Spirit is even more glorious. For now, we are all through Jesus growing up into the image of our God.

Think back of the image of a family. Through Jesus we are becoming human. We are learning to walk, to talk, to eat, to live for the glory of God. The law is revealed in and through us by the Word and Spirit. As children of God, we are immersed into the kingdom of God.

We are immersed into the rule of God. In and among the people of God, we see the Spirit outworking the law in His people. Just as the child grows and learns and develops in relationship, we grow and learn and are shaped in relationship with God and God’s people.

With this in mind, think of Moses’ command to the people about studying the law:
And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deut 6:6-9)

If we apply Moses’ command to the picture of a child learning and practicing to walk and to talk and to eat, we begin to understand that the law is shaped and formed in a family relationship. As children of God, we are learning in relationship. We are learning by practicing. We are playing at being human.

We don’t go to school to become human. We become human (in Christ’s image), by the grace of God working through us as we learn His word and act on His word. In other words, we are learning by living in the midst of decaying kingdoms all around us.

Outwardly, the kingdoms of this world are wasting away. But He is renewing us inwardly. He teaches us. We are growing in grace and truth. We are learning through failure, through suffering, through conflict and even through success.

A parent does not give a child a rule for how to respond to every particular situation in life. Rather, the child learns from the parent how to think and act and move within a framework. The Spirit of God is teaching His framework through which we think and act and move.

This framework is not simply ideas but is ideas rooted in relationship. As we meditate on God’s Word through study, prayer, and fellowship we grow in knowledge of the law. As we act upon the Word through speaking and acting, we grow in understanding.

This growth prepares us to rule. We rule in the various kingdoms. We rule in the bowling clubs, the businesses, the Boys and Girls Scouts, the local community, and in the churches. We speak and act upon the wisdom of God in the midst of kingdoms of this world.

Every day of our lives, we will be working out His kingdom in the midst of the kingdoms of this world. We are participating, but it is His Spirit that truly establishes the kingdom in and through us.

And His glory is being revealed. And the slaves are being set free. And the fatherless are being fathered. And it’s happening in offices, restaurants, car dealers, day care centers, car washes, prisons, coffee shops, and even churches. And the most-quoted Psalm in the New Testament is being fulfilled:

“The LORD said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”
Psalm 110:1

Love and Law and Grace part 2

August 8, 2008 / / 2 Comments

As I’ve tried to summarize my thoughts in a second installment, I’ve realized it may take a little more space. So I plan to divide it into a few more posts. What I am writing is not innovative (at least I hope not). I hope that I am simply restating classic Christian ideas in ways that may give us a fresh perspective. These ideas are me trying to express what I believe I’ve learned in fellowship with the people of God through both conversations and reading.

Kingdom and Kingdoms
by Doug Floyd
8/8/08

So how do we live in this kingdom of God while still existing in the midst of other kingdoms that are at war with God? How does the rule and law of God function in our lives?

During the summer before my freshman year in high school, I met up with other soon-to-be freshman guys as we trained to play on the football team. Each morning we started the day completing a series of exercises prescribed by our coaches.

My size and speed (or lack thereof) helped determine my position: a lineman. All summer long, we played games, we ran exercises, we listened to the coach, and we learned how to play the game.

In order for me to play effectively as a lineman, I needed to know the rules. The application of rules transformed the field from a group of guys just fighting and wrestling into a football team. In other words, the rules or the laws of football created or established the foundation for a football team.

I didn’t spend the summer reading books about the laws of football. But I did hear some lectures by the coaches, and I may have even been quizzed. The coaches taught us the rules of the game bit by bit. Each practice focused on repeating what we had already learned and learning new plays in the game.

I call it a practice because the coaches not only told us the rules, but then demonstrated the rules and invited us to practice the rules: again and again and again. We learned the rules of the game in relationship with our coaches and with one another. Teaching and practice went hand in hand.

While all the rules were important to establish game play, certain rules were more directly applicable to my position as a lineman. I needed to know what physical contact was legal and what was not, the proper and improper use of my hands, and when to go into action.

While all the rules applied to me, my role in the game brought certain rules into greater focus. The receivers focused on other rules and the backs focused on yet other rules.

All of us players looked at the rules as guides for how to play. But the coach had another perspective. Working within the rules, he had to develop strategies for competition against other team. In other words, the rules created the world or arena where competition could take place. And this is what made the game fun to play and fun to watch.

When we got to the game, the referees enforced the rules. While players, coaches and fans might complain about certain calls, the referee was the law. His word carried the authority. If he called a play “out of bounds,” it was out of bounds. He was the physical embodiment of the rules.

As I think about my freshman year of football in light of the kingdom of God, I realize that the game of football is a kingdom. It is a world with rules and time and characters. It has a beginning and an end. And all those within the world of football will view and apply the exact same rules in different ways. While some people may actually study the rules in a classroom, the rules are primarily learned through relationship and through practice.

As I continue to reflect, I realize that there are many kingdoms in this world. Every business is a world with a specific space (a building or buildings) and specific time (work day and work week). Specific rules govern each business and each business is subject to higher rules that govern the whole “universe” of businesses. And just as the creation story speaks of a world filled plants and animals and eventually people. Each business is filled with things and people. It is a world.

Soon it should become obvious that I am surrounded by many worlds or kingdoms: restaurants, schools, cities, clubs, sports, and more. Each of these kingdoms or worlds is built on the word or law or rule. The word or law or rule defines all the elements that make up the world. Consider the following questions.

What is the world? A ball team. A chess club. A family. An Italian restaurant. A farm. A country. A planet. And so on.

Where is the world? In an office. In a home. On a field. In a car. In the city. In the country. And so on.

Who populates the world? Football players. Dad and mom and children. Horses and cows and chickens. A chef and waiters. And so on.

The rules or law defines everything about each world. All through our lives we move through various groups, jobs, activities that are defined by rules or laws or something that brings order.

Now let me focus on the most fundamental world of all: the family.

Like the first man and woman, a child is born into a world that already exists. In the beginning, the child is completely dependent on the parent to care for it. Certain rules or laws govern this world. In order to function and grow within this world, the child will have to learn how to sit, stand, and walk; how to eat; how to use the restroom; how to communicate; and much more. The child must learn to be human.

Certain laws or rules govern all the areas mentioned above. The child will learn to sit, stand and walk in a world governed by gravity. This means the child will also learn how to recover from falling – again and again. Certain laws or rules will govern how and when they eat, how they use the restroom, and how they communicate.

Think about one of the most complex human actions of all: communication. The child must learn words, phrases, and even vocal inflections. The way I say “stop” communicates as much as the word “stop.” The child learns words, phrases, sounds, and even the time to increase or decrease volume.

How does a child learn all these rules? While reading will play a role in the child’s later development, reading is not the initial way the child will learn. They learn the laws or the rules by relationship and by practice. The parent models the rules. They repeat the rules in something like a ritual.

When feeding the child, the parent may feed on a schedule, may repeat certain phrases, and may use certain plates and spoons and cups. They repeat the schedule over and over and over. The parent may or may not be aware of teaching the child, but every moment of every day they are modeling the rules of this world. The parent embodies the law. The parent is the law: from talking to walking to eating and drinking. The child is immersed into rule or law of the family.

Gradually, they begin to act and move and imitate the parent. As they learn the rules of walking, we cheer. They practice and fail. And practice and fail. And continue practicing.

They play at being human. From having baby dolls to little trucks, they re-enact patterns in a miniaturized way. They may fail. They may have accidents. They may speak the wrong thing at the wrong time, but they learn through practice. Gradually, they become like their parent. They grow into the image of their parent.

And this is how the law shapes them into being human. Eventually, they travel beyond the kingdom of their family and enter other kingdoms. They enter into a world of kingdoms that includes schools and friends and clubs and jobs and cities.

Ideally, all these vast kingdoms that cover the earth would live and move in harmony, forming one great and glorious kingdom. But it’s not ideal. And no family is ideal. No family lives up to the ideal. All kingdoms, all families and all people are infected by sin and evil.

Law and Love and Grace

August 1, 2008 / / 2 Comments

As a Special Agent for the FBI, my father spent his days enforcing the law of the land. With the weight of the Federal Government behind him, he arrested bank robbers, diffused hostage situations, and even followed Russian spies. I grew up under the shadow of the law.

This law provided a sense of security to a child with an overactive imagination. My world of fantasy seemed as real of the physical world, and so I always sensed aliens, monsters and ghosts were just around the corner waiting to reach out and grab me. My dad, as the physical presence of the law, represented a protection from this impending chaos.

Oddly enough, the law meant something entirely different in the context of church. It was repressive, controlling, announcing impending judgment and always holding before me the terror of either being “left behind” to live in a land with a cruel and evil antichrist, or being cast into hell for torment and repression.

So I carried within me two very different images of law: one of protection and safety, and one of doom and terror. In my childlike mind, I never tried to reconcile them. Once the idea of God’s grace penetrated my mind, I discovered such joy and freedom in faith that I assumed law and grace were opposites.

So my first venture into grace meant abandoning and running in terror from anything that hinted of law. Love was the only law that commanded my allegiance. And yet, this didn’t work out as clearly as I would hope. I watched people use the words love and then act in ways that seem to betray the very idea of love.

I served in a church where people freely embraced and cried together and reaffirmed their love for one another. Yet all the while the same people were betraying each other, lying to each other, stealing from each other. Sadly, I watched this behavior repeated in multiple churches where I served or participated.

I reached a point where I was prepared to abandon church altogether. I often said, “I love sinners but I can’t stand Christians.” While this is not really possible according to a Biblical understanding of love, it reflected my anger and frustration at what seemed to be a disconnect between words of love and actions that violated love.

At that time (and for many years later), I failed to realize that I was just as guilty as anyone around me in my failure to love. I knew nothing of the painful calling and challenge of love. What seems so simple often requires many slow and painful deaths.

This failure of love in the church and in my own life brings me back to the law. When Jesus commands the disciples to love, he puts it in the context of keeping his commandments. He links law and love together.

If I pay attention to the pattern of law and love throughout Scripture, I found out that they are often linked together. When Moses reviews the commandments in Deuteronomy, he reiterates the call to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength. And even more strangely, the psalmist will link the giving of the law with God’s grace.

So law and love as well as law and grace are not the opposites I would have imagined. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that I’m not the only one that has struggled with the relation between these words. In fact, many theologians continue to wrestle with the connection of law and grace in relation to the gospel.

In this short essay, I cannot begin to explore all the nuances of such a question, but let me suggest that I am coming to realize the Scripture does not pose these ideas as opposites in the way we might tend to do. In order for me to begin to even grasp how this might play out, I must return to the idea of law in my childhood.

The law my father represented in some small way begins to help me reframe how I think about law in the Biblical sense. So I want to offer a few images that are helping me to reframe my image of law. These images are drawn from Scripture and help me begin to think about how law is both a gift and a judgment in Scripture, and why we should spend more time considering God’s law in our lives.

First, I want to think about Hurricane Katrina. A catastrophic storm blew into New Orleans. The power of wind and rain sent the city into chaos. Homes flooded. People drowned. The city fell apart. Even as natural order seemed to break down, the social order broke apart. The world watched in terror as a whole city descended into chaos.

This terrifying image of a chaos-inducing storm reaches a global terror in the story of the flood. Think about Katrina repeated on a national, international and global level. After a few days, cities break apart in chaos. All social order is gone.

In the fight for survival, people lose all restraint and every imaginable evil explodes within the cities. Yet the storm continues. The chaos of natural disaster mixes with the chaos of social disaster. All order disappears. An ocean of chaos consumes everything until nothing survives but the chaos.

This terrifying image grips the imagination of the psalmist who pens psalm 46. He writes,

“God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
Even though the earth be removed,
And thought the mountains be carried
Into the midst of the sea:
Though its waters roar and be troubled,
Though the mountains shake with its swelling.”

In this image of the sea swallowing the earth, we see an image of chaos encompassing order. Our ability to function and live in the world is dependent on the regular order of the world. The sun rises each day. The stars don’t fall from the sky. The oceans may swell but they don’t overwhelm the earth. And when a furious storm brews and the ocean does overlap the land, we are overawed by the terrible power of the chaotic waters.

This sense of order, of regularity is sometimes referred to as law or the laws of nature. In this sense, law is not viewed as a bad thing but as the order in our world that allows us to have some predictability over life. We expect winters to be cooler than summers. We expect the sun to shine and rely on the energy it provides. We expect to remain fixed to the planet and for all the spheres to remain in the heavens.

The psalmist considers what happens when this expectancy disappears and the seas surge over the land. In this moment, the psalmist realizes that expectancy and security are really found in God. While the natural world may have something like law, the real law is found only in God. True order and absolute reliability is found in God alone.

God is the ruler because the rule proceeds from God. All order, all law, all security proceeds from God. He is the rule and the rule proceeds from Him. One way for me to understand this is to think back to my father. He embodied the law to me, therefore I found security in him. In our home, he was the law, he embodied the law and the law proceeded from him.

Think of Robin Hood. In this story, roles are reversed, and the bandit is actually good because he represents true justice. He is standing against the oppression of the false law that oppresses the people—the rule of the Sheriff of Nottingham. The great hope in Robin Hood is for the return of Richard the Lionhearted.

In this story, Richard represents the true law. When Richard returns, Robin Hood will be vindicated. The false law of the Sheriff will be exposed as lawlessness and true justice will be restored to the land.

In one sense, this was the hope of the Jews. They were waiting for the true law to come in the person of the Messiah. When Messiah comes, he’ll overthrow the oppressor and restore true justice in the land. It will be a day of vindication for the people of God.

While many don’t recognize him, the Messiah has come. Jesus comes as the true law. He says that the kingdom of God has come. What is the kingdom of God? The rule of God or the law of God. He appears as the embodied word. He embodies the fullness of the law. He is the law and the law proceeds from him.

And in an unexpected turn of events, he also bears the judgment for breaking the law. In Robin Hood, the Sheriff of Nottingham is imprisoned for breaking the law. But in the gospel, Jesus the lawgiver and law-fulfiller also bears the weight for the transgressions against the law. And in so doing, he frees us from the curse of the law.

He doesn’t bring this gift to do away with law and order, allowing chaos to descend upon the earth. Like King Arthur, he does this to establish a land, a world of true justice. For me, Camelot embodies the hope of justice. In Camelot, true peace is brought to the land.

The glimmering and fading glimpse of Camelot is but a picture of the kingdom that Jesus establishes by His Spirit. He fulfills the law that is first revealed to Adam. This law that establishes proper order between God and humans, humans and other humans, and humans and the land is fully revealed and perfected in Jesus.

This kingdom is now growing and emerging in the midst of another kingdom. In the midst of a sinful world at war with God and with the law of God, the kingdom of God is firmly established and set in place. The kingdoms of the world must and will eventually fade and fall away completely.

The triumph of kingdom of God will ultimately be revealed, and all people will confess Jesus as the Lord of this permanent kingdom.

So how do we live in this kingdom of God while still existing in the midst of other kingdoms that are at war with God? How does the rule and law of God function in our lives?

I’ll offer some thoughts in part two.

Thou Shall Not Take the Name of the Lord in Vain

May 15, 2008 / / 4 Comments

Israel is under attack yet again from the daring and fierce Philistines. Crushed by terrorizing force of this battle ready tribe, the Israelites decide that it’s time to use the awesome force of YHWH against these invaders. They call upon Eli’s sons, the ungodly guardians of the doorway, to extract YHWH from the tabernacle and bring His presence onto the battlefield.

As the Philistines spy the ark entering the camp and hear the shouts and frenzied joy of the Israelites, they feel a terror deep in the bowels. Should we proceed or run from this god who struck down the mighty Egypt? Choosing to be strong and courageous (much like Joshua’s army of old), the Philistines mount attack on the camp of YHWH and are victorious.

There is no victory shout among God’s people. There’s is not terror like the terror of God’s warriors overcoming Jericho. Instead, the wicked priests fall dead and the fallen people shrink in absolute defeat. Eli dies hearing the news and Eli’s daughter-in-law names the desolate birth of her dying womb Ichabod: the glory has been taken away.

God’s glory falls into captivity and is made to serve before the great god Dagon. Or is He? The God who brought an end to Eli’s rule; the God who killed Hophni and Phineas for their mockery of His holy name strikes out at the breathless image, breaking the head and hands and forcing obeisances even to the image of this false god.

Soon the captive YHWH reigns plagues upon these oppressors, and the Philistines fall before the terror of a holy God. Just like the soon to be destroyed Pharaoh sent Israel out from the land, the Philistines send out the ark with gold and treasure upon an ox cart.

YHWH is not captive to the rule of the wicked or the false worship of the chosen. He is not captive to the wisdom of the men whether among the counsels of the wicked or the courts of the godly. All fall down before his glory, his word, his holy reign.

Forgetting their high and holy calling, the Levites of Kirjath Jearim assume they have a right to handle the holy. And terror destroys the people. Instead of crying out for mercy, they send YHWH on his way.

In the midst of YHWH’s travel, Samuel calls upon the people of God to humble themselves before Him, to forsake their false gods and to return to His covenantal rule. Israel falls before the holy call and responds in the only proper way to the Holy God: “Lord, we have sinned against you. Have mercy!”

As the people humble themselves, the holy power of God arises. Not limited to a mere box, God rests upon his servant Samuel and the enemies of the people of God are crushed. The Philistines fall before the Lord who remembers His people.

As we plan and plot our crusades, our towering temples, and glorious growth plans, may we fall down before the holy God. His name will be Holy among His people. And those who are not broken before our covenantal King, will be crushed. Lord have mercy on your people. Forgive the mockery of your commandments, the sin that runs rampant at the gate of the house of the Lord and the presumption that you must do our bidding. Lord have mercy. May your glory be raised high as a banner before your people.

A Messy Epistemology

May 12, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Today I spent an extra free thought time to consider knowing as I prepared to lead a discussion on ideas tonight. I was thinking through some ideas from NT Wright’s Surprised by Hope where he lightly introduces an epistemology of faith, an epistemology of hope, and an epistemology of love. (I say lightly because NT drops several thought-provoking bombshells and then continues.)

At lunch I tried to immerse myself in an overview of Bernard Lonergan’s ideas on insight (via Tad Dunne). Then after I skimmed a wiki article on Michael Polanyi’s ideas on tacit knowledge.

And oddly enough (and completely unplanned), I drove to and from work listening to a couple Mars Hill interviews that focused on knowing. One interview featured Norman Klassen and  Jens Zimmerman discussing their book The Passionate Intellect. One of them used the phrase a “messy knowing.”

I liked that and in some ways that gave me a highlight for the evening. Knowledge is messy (thus requires humility). While we may still use words like “objectivity,” we must let go of notions of disinterested observation and accept that we bring a personal context to knowing. We still can apply a form of critique to our knowing, but we acknowledge our weakness.

NT’s ideas on knowing in relation to faith, hope and love got me to thinking abut the Hebrew understanding and wisdom rooted in meditation and observance of the 10 Commandments. But more on that later. I need some sleep.

Meditating on the 10

April 26, 2008 / / 0 Comments

My friend David Legg has been meditating upon the 10 Words as well. He spends most of his time as a hermit in a small house (that he built) on Top of the World.

No Other Gods!

April 19, 2008 / / 0 Comments

The first word shatters the illusion of strength and freedom, revealing the slavery our idolatry has produced. In Deuteronomy, Moses repeatedly warns against worshiping other gods. Finally, in his prophetic song to the people (Deuteronomy 32), Moses reveals that these “other gods” are not gods at all. They are “foolish idols.” Developing Moses’ revelation, the prophets will mock the idols that people worship as God.

In order to prepare his people to bless the whole world (Genesis 12), God must free them from the enslaving results of worshiping the creature instead of the Creator. Paul picks up on this theme in Romans 1, revealing that worshiping the creature distorts our desires, our thoughts and our actions. We are no longer free to bless freely but we become enslaved to the idol that now controls us.

God sends Israel to Egypt to become a nation (Deut. 26:5), but this land of plenty becomes a land of oppression. At some point, a new Pharaoh forgets the covenant with Joseph and begins to oppress and control the Israelites. We also learn that at some point, the Hebrews begin to trust in the gods of Egypt instead of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Joshua 24.14).

In the land of provision, they lost site of the God of provision. Egypt is the place where God chose to bless and test Israel, but Egypt is only a place of provision not the person of provision. As I meditate upon the ancient Hebrews failing to trust God in the land of plenty, I become ever aware of my own idolatry.

Often I’ve confused the place of provision with the person of provision. Forgetting that God is blessing and meeting my physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, I’ve looked to the place as the true provider. I’ve done it in the workplace, and I’ve done it in relationships.

Both in the workplace and in the ministry, I sometimes sought for provision that God was bringing from other places. For instance, we all need encouragement and affirmation (this is clear throughout several of Paul’s letters). There have been times I’ve struggled with discouragement in work and ministry because I didn’t receive the affirmation in the specific place. He was bringing it in other places like in my relationship with my wife Kelly, but not in the ministry or in the workplace.

One night I couldn’t even sleep because I was discouraged about my job. As I sat up and began to reflect upon Scripture, He immediately convicted me of trusting other gods. Just as Israel was prone to trust in the power of the horse (Egypt), I find myself not trusting that God will provide all my needs–in the places that He chooses. Sometimes that provision looks like manna (what is it?) and other times it looks more like field waiting to be plowed.

As long as we are trusting other gods to provide our emotional needs, our physical/financial needs, or even our spiritual needs, we will be subject to oppression and slavery. And worse, the image of God in us will be distorted. If we are ever to rule as kings and priests, bringing the blessing of Abraham to the whole world, we must be freed to the control of other gods.

We must be free to trust on YHWH (the Covenant God) alone. Then we are free to move as He pleases. Then we are free to have or to have not, to prosper or to suffer, we are free to rejoice and be source of blessing regardless of any circumstance.

Have mercy Lord and free me from the rule of other gods.

Note: I tried writing a variation this again as a meditation over at Floydville.

Meditation, Martin Luther and the 10 Commandments

April 17, 2008 / / 1 Comment

Martin Luther, the great Doctor of Grace, gave the 10 Commandments a place of prominence in the oral instruction of Christian truth alongside the ancients standards for training: the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed. As Luther’s heirs many of us have lost connection with his emphasis upon the commandments. We may fight to place them in public places, but we rarely pause to meditate upon the convicting wisdom of God revealed in these words.

Without the unchanging foundation of the 10 Commandments, many words in the Christian faith like love and fear of God are reduced to an undefined subjective experience. As a result, we struggle to understand what is means to love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. Or worse, we pit the fear of God against the love of God, because we cannot grasp how the two are at work in our lives (with limiting them to some personal feeling toward God). The Word of God links the fear of God and the love of God to the 10 Commandments, and as we meditate upon them, the Holy Spirit changes us by this holy reflection of God’s truth upon our lives.

Luther’s simple advice for praying through the 10 Commandments might be helpful for all of us as we seek to learn how to meditate upon the commands. He recommends four ways to approach each command:

1. Instruction – We ask the Holy Spirit to teach us what the command is intended to be and how does God require me to act in response.

2. Thanksgiving – We thank the Lord for the grace and blessings of the command, and His power that is at work in me to fulfill and embody the command fully.

3. Confession – We confess our own failure to obey the command and our sins related to that command.

4. Prayer – We pray for His guidance and strength in obeying the command.

Luther suggests that we pray through each command in the above manner. We may not always pray through all the commands because the Spirit may choose to bring one particular command into focus for our prayers and meditations. I believe that as we take time to meditate and pray through the commands, the Spirit can reveal how these commands unfold throughout the Old and New Testaments.

You may find great benefit from read Luther’s Simple Way to Pray online.

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10 Commandments in Stone

April 16, 2008 / / 2 Comments

God impresses 10 words in stone. 10 words, 10 commands revealing His heart of blessing for the world. The words are not meant to stay in stone but to become enfleshed. They’re not simply rules about what to do and what not to do, they are revelations of life.

The 10 words in stone were glorious, but a greater glory was coming. Jesus embodies the 10 words fully. He fulfills the law. Jesus comes as YHWH in our midst to reveal the heart of God flowing out from the 10 words. He  calls for an obedience not rooted in will but in relationship. Jesus bears both the death that comes from violating the words and the life that comes from fulfilling the words.

In Him, we enter into the words. Or rather, they enter into us. The Spirit writes the law upon our hearts, so that we, as the body of Christ, might also enflesh the words. By the Spirit, we reveal His life, His blessings, His kingdom to the world.

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