David's handbrake turn

"Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD"

Psalm 139.21

Psalm 139 is a very popular psalm for good reason - it speaks of God's intimate knowledge of us and his care for us, it also celebrates the wonder of his creation of human beings. It may be that its present popularity is partly down to the way it touches on our modern preoccupation with ourselves. At its worst, this can rob the psalm of its real focus which is the greatness and glory of God.

Howeve, it is used, it is often the case that people stop at v.18, because v.19 breaks into the psalm with a squeal of wheels and a sudden crash. From a beautiful psalm about the wonders of God's creation and knowledge of us, David breaks into "If only you, O God, would slay the wicked!" It seems so out of kilter and tone with the rest of the psalm. Should we just gloss over it (a bit like v.5a of Psalm 23)?

The answer of course is no. All Scripture is God breathed. He didn't hold his breath when David wrote vv.19-22. So how do we make sense of these verses?

What hate and love mean in the Bible

We tend to think of hate and love in very emotional terms, but in the Bible it is sometimes used to demonstrate either implacable opposition (hate) or committed support (love), as I think here, or it could mean absolute priority of one of the other (as when Jesus calls on us to hate our families, compared to loving him).

David is speaking prophetically 

Some commentators argue that David is here speaking in his capacity as the anointed one, the king. At an immediate level, it is important that the king of God's nation should seek to govern in favour of those who worship Yahweh faithfully and against those who do evil. We don't consider a politician to be a bad one if they argue that murderers and thieves should be punished. More than that though, David is also seen as the prototype of the ultimate anointed one/ king/ Messiah, Jesus. When it is Jesus saying these words it gets around some of our difficulties with the idea of one sinful human being (in this case David) denouncing others as evil. If I were to say these words, I would be properly criticised as judgmental, but for Jesus to say this words are for him to fulfil his role as the final judge of all (Acts 17.30-31)

We are too comfortable

One of the reasons we struggle with those texts, is that we do not face serious human enemies, unlike the psalmist and many Christians around the world. As a result, we tend to focus on only some of the New Testament's teaching on love of enemies. In Romans 12, the instruction not to seek revenge on our enemies is tied to the notion of God's judgment of them. We are not to think that what they have done is, somehow, not wrong or serious or in need of judgment. Rather it is that we do not need to judge because God will - this leaves us free, not to try and hurt them, but to seek their blessing. This is important, because only those who have not suffered seriously, will be able to dismiss their suffering at the hands of others as of little importance. If though a believer is hurt by someone else, it is right that they feel a great sense of injustice. 
There is though a caveat to this, which is indicated when Jesus commands us to love our enemies in Matthew. When we hand our enemies over to God's judgment we are handing them over to the one who loves to show mercy and forgiveness.  The sin that has been done against us will be punished, but if our enemy turns to Christ, that judgment will be taken by Jesus, just as our punishment was.

Do we identify with God enough

So far, though, I haven't really dealt with the 'handbrake turn' moment. Why at this point does David talk about his enemies? The reason is that he does not see them primarily as his enemies (although they are clearly out to get him - "Away from me you, you who are thirsty"). David's problem with them is that they are opposed to Yahweh. As he contemplates the glory of Yahweh: his knowledge, wisdom and power, he starts to be entranced by God's beauty. David realises that Yahweh deserves all praise and glory. More than that, he comes to realise that for anything to fail to give him the glory he so obviously deserves, is unspeakably terrible. So his worship leads him to pray that God would only receive worship. He first prays that all in the world that denies or maligns this wondrous, glorious, beautiful God would be dealt with once and for all (he wants nothing to do with them), but he also begs that Yahweh would deal with all that is in him which does not give God glory. The powerful message of this psalm, is that a true worship of God, will give us a passion for holiness. We will want him to be glorified more and more, both in the world around us and in our hearts within. True worship breeds true holiness.

Blessings of Wealth

"Wealth and riches are in their houses..."

Psalm 112.2

On Sunday we were listening to what God was saying to us through Psalm 112. Psalm 112 is a psalm about how the one who fears the Lord receives his blessing. It then sets out those blessings, which include: eternal righteousness, godly descendants and victory over enemies. It also promises wealth and riches. How do we make sense of this? Some teach that, in his word, God promises that he will give material wealth here and now to every one who fears him. Is this correct? Does being a Christian bring wealth and riches? I think that the correct answer to this is, 'sometimes'! 

Why it cannot be taken as an absolute promise to every believer

The New Testament, in particular, has numerous examples of godly Christians who did not receive material wealth and riches in this life. Jesus himself finished his earthly ministry with no possessions whatsoever. Moreover the way of the Christian is most often described as the way of the cross (Matt 16.24) - that hardly fits with the idea of a life of wealth and riches for every believer.

Proverbial wisdom

Proverbial wisdom in the Bible is when the Bible states what is normally true. It is in this sense that the promise in Psalm 112 and elsewhere in the Bible should be understood. The idea of Proverbial wisdom is that, even in a fallen and sinful world, there are still strong echoes of it's good, gracious and just Creator. As a result, living in line with him often brings rewards. In the 19th century for example, when people became Christians their lives would increasingly be set free from sins that were dragging them down - addiction to alcohol, indolence etc. and so their material situation improved.

However, the Psalms and Job are a strong warning that this is not always the case and to make an absolute rule/ promise out of a proverbial wisdom saying is a dangerous mistake (as Job's three friends discovered).

It will ultimately be the case

When Jesus comes out with the shocking news that it was harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, he was laying an axe to the notion that wealth is an indicator of God's approval. Peter then says, "We have left everything to follow you!". Jesus in his reply says that Peter's reward for his 'fear of the Lord' (in the language of Psalm 112), is that he will receive eternal life in the age to come. So we know that in the new heaven and new earth we will be unimaginably rich in every way (2 Corinthians 4.17-18). Fearing the Lord, will absolutely bring the blessing of wealth and riches when he comes again.

It is still true now

Just before Jesus promises this eternal life he says, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – along with persecutions" Mark 10.29-30. In other words, we are blessed in the most incredible way - through being part of the church. That is a challenge to us to make sure that our church increasingly lives out this calling to be a blessing. He also suggests that persecutions are a blessing. That is a blog for another day, but it is born out in Acts 5.41. 

It is only and finally true in Jesus - He is the wealth and riches promised

"Whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss, compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him. Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ. The righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow to attain to the resurrection of the dead." Philippians 3

Impractical Christianity

"Am I God?"

2 Kings 5.7

I recently preached on 2 Kings 5 and experienced the common frustration of having so much more to lay before the congregation than I had time for. One thing in particular was the response of the Israelite king to the king of Aram's request that he should help Naaman (the Aramean commander) get healing from his leprosy.

Aram was the enemy of Israel and was enjoying a period of success in its battles against God people, so when the king of Israel receives the request he becomes very anxious indeed. He is anxious because he thinks that healing someone from leprosy is the equivalent of raising someone from the dead. As a result he thinks that the king of is using the letter as a 'cunning plan' to engineer a pretext for attacking Israel, "See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me" v.7. Perhaps he can imagine the response of the king of Aram, "That terrible king of Israel - he insulted the great nation of Aram, by not healing my commander, so we must attack."

At one level you can understand his fears - even the tearing of the clothes. What is strange though is that he so nearly gets the right answer. His first question, when he receives the request is: "Am I God?" His answer to the question though is despair. So close, yet so far. His real answer should have been, "Am I God? No, but I know the one who is." In fact this is in effect Elisha's point v.8.

So what blinded the king? I think it is because he was so practical. It's a common fault of the Old Testament kings: David counting his army; Jeroboam building a more convenient worship centre, so that his people will not defect to the Southern kingdom; Ahaz seeking alliances with other nations rather than Yahweh. This king, so wrapped up in the geopolitics of the region that he does not lift his eyes to heaven.

Sometimes you see this in the church family. There is a command from God's word, which seems incredibly challenging, so we will say, "Oh, but we need to be practical". Someone will suggest that we give more of our money away, but we will say, "Oh, but we need to be practical". Some new venture will arise that seems too hard for us, so we will say, "Oh, but we need to be practical". After a while we stop needing God at all, because we are so good at being practical. But then something hits us, like a hurricane on a still day, and our practical strength is no good. Then we will find ourselves tearing our clothes out, because it is no longer our habit to do the impractical thing of trusting in the Living God.

Towers and Sacrifices

'Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish'

Luke 13.3+5

As part of the year long discipleship course I run, we are doing the challenge of reading through the New Testament during the time of the course.

Today we hit Luke 13.1-9, which is a really striking passage about suffering, death and fruitfulness. It is a particularly good passage for making clear that there isn't a straightforward link between sin and suffering. Whilst suffering as a whole is a consequence of our fundamental rebellion against God, the link between our individual suffering and sin is much more complex. 

Jesus makes that explicit here. It wasn't that the Galileans who were executed and whose bodies were desecrated, deserved that end because they had committed some heinous sin which the other Galileans hadn't. Jesus explicitly denies this. His point is that the suffering that leads to death is to act as a warning that our days are numbered; we have only so long to be fruitful, before we too will be cut down and it will be too late (the point of the fig tree parable). But what does it mean to be fruitful - it is to repent. That is our challenge - have we repented, are we sharing the gospel with those who lives are a ticking clock?

As a side note, it is interesting that Jesus doesn't then set out an explanation for suffering (how we might wish he had), but he does set out what we should learn from it. It appears that Jesus is not so concerned that we should grow in understanding of why things happen, but that we should learn how to live in the light of those sufferings. This is the difference between understanding and wisdom 

Open Doors

 ‘The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, 

whatever you did for one of the least 

of these brothers and sisters of mine, 

you did for me.”

Matthew 25.40

For me, probably the best part of the building project that my church is undertaking, is the commitment of a part of the money raised to support the work of Open Doors. Read the wonderful account of Deborah here: Deborah Shettima

An Apologetic starting point

Not so great

"Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?"

Isaiah 2.22

We have had a series in our evening service called, "I can't believe because". I have been looking at 3 topics - I can't believe because...

• ...God doesn't make sense
• ...of suffering
• ...you can't prove it

As I have been considering each one, I have been struck by a crucial starting point - namely how significant we are compared to God. In the whole debate about the existence of God and our experience of this world, we must deal with this question and I think that it is a potential point of agreement between the Christian and the sceptic. Namely that, once we entertain the possibility of God's existence, it seems to me that he must be infinitely greater than we are and that we could have no logical expectation that he would take notice or care for us. (I am not saying that he doesn't care for us, but that we wouldn't expect that he would)

The Psalmist says, "What is man that you are mindful of him" - with all of our discoveries about the vast scale of the universe, we should be more aware of this than ever. One illogicality of our present culture and intellectual world is that we seem to be more convinced of our significance than ever - and that causes some problems when it comes to thinking about God and us.

As I was playing around with this idea, it started to have a bigger impact on my understanding of the questions above. It doesn't conclusively deal with them, but it does change their character.

So, God doesn't make sense, but suddenly I realise that it is illogical to think that he would. This is not to say that God would contradict himself, but that complete answers to some (indeed any) questions might simply be beyond my capability. I might be able to apprehend something of the answer without completely comprehending it.

With suffering and a God of love, it struck me that we assume that God should love us, but we don't wonder at the fact that he would even notice us, let alone make it his business to care for us in any way at all. This doesn't solve the problem, because God has chosen to love us and we can analyse that, but I think that it should cause us to pause in our expectations of what that would look like. Once are expectations are realistic, we will marvel more at what he has done.

With proof, one of our stumbling blocks is often that we think that God should prove himself to us and so we get cross when we feel that he isn't giving us the proof we need or require. But this reverses what we have accepted at the beginning, because it puts us in the middle of the universe and God needing to meet our needs.

I think that this expectation that God owes us anything might be illogical, more seriously it is blasphemous.

If you want to hear more of the talks (including a really good one by our Assistant Minister) three of them are available here from this Sunday: I can't believe... talks

42 - the meaning of life

Ecclesiastes

At TimeOut (when our evening service looks at a big topic), we looked at how the book of Ecclesiastes considers the big question of purpose in existence. The Preacher at the centre of the book asks the question - what if this is all that there is? I've loved this book of the Bible as I have studied it - it has been the most intellectually challenging thing I have read in a long time and it is wonderfully encouraging.

If you want to hear more about this the following resources might be useful:

The song by Thrice - Window

The excellent book, "Why everything matters" by Philip Ryken. There is also a series of talks by him downloadable if you click here.

You could listen to the song by Thrice - "Window"

Finally you could listen to my talk here.