Learning from Balaam (and avoiding the easy jokes), part IV

So here we go with Balaam, one more time...

In the first part, I talked about how it is possible to know who God is and still worship him wrong. In Balaam's case, he knew enough about God that God spoke directly to him, and he also knew that he would not be able to do or say anything other than what God told him to say. But just because he knew God, that didn't mean that he worshiped God. Balaam tried - three times - to go directly against the Will of God, even after God specifically told Balaam what His Will was.

In the second part, I talked about how we can fall into a trap sometimes where we focus so much on the Word of God that we neglect the Will of God. A comprehensive knowledge of the Bible is a wonderful thing for a Christian to have, and there are all sorts of benefits to studying the Word with other Christians as well as on your own. The Bible is here for a reason - but that reason is to give us a guide to God, not to be God. The Bible is our primary source for understanding on who God is and what He has to say to us, but it is not our only source, nor the ultimate source, for knowing who God wants us to be. God is the ultimate source for that. The Bible is filled with the wisdom of centuries' worth of people who hungered after God's righteousness. But a lot of that wisdom is very clearly saying that we have the opportunity to develop an intimate, open, personal relationship with God Himself, a relationship through which He speaks TO US through the Holy Spirit. In the drive to understand the Scriptures, it is important that we don't forget what the Scriptures are actually about. The same Holy Spirit that led everyone from Moses to Jeremiah to Matthew to Paul to John to write their portions of what we have now collected as the Holy Bible is the same Holy Spirit that is eagerly hoping to speak to each of us today.

And that's what the third part was all about: how the workings of the Spirit will produce changes in your life beyond those which you can produce in yourself. The circumcision of the heart does not come from knowing the Bible from cover to cover. It comes from opening up to the presence of God's Holy Spirit. That presence is very powerful and very real, but it is still up to us to decide to let that Spirit work in our lives.

There's one last little thing I want to look at from the story of Balaam that ties it all together.

Then Balak said to Balaam, "Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!"

Balaam answered, "Did I not tell you I must do whatever the LORD says?"

Then Balak said to Balaam, "Come, let me take you to another place. Perhaps it will please God to let you curse them for me from there."

And Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, overlooking the wasteland.

Balaam said, "Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me." Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

Now when Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, he did not resort to sorcery as at other times, but turned his face toward the desert.

- Numbers 23:25-24:1 (emphasis added)

What does that sorcery part mean? What was Balaam trying to do?

Balaam offered sacrifices to God - seven rams and seven bulls each of the three times, on seven separate altars - in an effort to receive a favor from God in the form of a curse on Israel, but God instead blessed Israel through Balaam's mouth each time.

So it seems obvious to me that God rejected Balaam's sacrifices. Not because they were improper sacrifices, but because the motivation behind the sacrifice - defying the directly spoken Will of God - was contrary to what God desired.

And that's what I want to talk about.

Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, "This man is the divine power known as the Great Power." They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic. But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw. When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money and said, "Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit."

Peter answered: "May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin."

Then Simon answered, "Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me."

- Acts 8:9-24

Simon knew that God is powerful. He had witnessed Philip working miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit. Simon knew that the Holy Spirit was being given to the Christians in Samaria, and - being one of those Christians - he wanted to be a part of that power. But his understanding of sorcery rubbed off on his understanding of God.

Simon, like Balaam, had fallen into a trap of believing that the power of God was a commodity to be used, something to be controlled, a force that could be turned to his advantage, bringing him wealth, power, and notoriety before men.

Peter sets Simon straight, rebuking him for trying to buy the power of God for his own use. Simon wasn't wrong to want the Holy Spirit. And really, I don't think he was wrong for wanting to spread the Holy Spirit. Notice again that he asks Peter and John to give him the Holy Spirit so that he could also spread the Holy Spirit himself in the same way that they did.

But that's where the flaw comes into his thinking - he wants power, even though it is a good and Holy power, for his own ends.

Balaam's entire existence was centered around using the power of God to further his own ends. And apparently it worked sometimes! In Numbers 22:6, Balak says of Balaam, "I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed." Balaam apparently had some kind of working relationship with God... But it was a relationship based on Balaam's short-sighted desire to use God's power for his own personal gain instead of a desire to let God's power be used in him to further God's own agenda.

At the root of that thinking is the idea that God can be bought off. The idea - common to Balaam and Simon - is that by performing certain rituals, by acting a certain way, by going through certain motions, they could get God to do them a favor. They thought they could put God in their pocket. This flawed view of how God works was shared by Jephthah, as well.

Bad news is... It didn't stop with Balaam, Jephthah, or Simon.

It's actually still around today.

Let's say you're at work (or school or whatever) and the day is over. You head outside, keys in hand, you get to your car, open it up, sit down, and just before you start it up, you realize that there's someone sitting in the passenger seat...

And it's that cranky lady from the DMV.

The one who failed you for your license test.

Twice.

She's already got a scowl on her face. The pencil is sharp and the clipboard is ready to take her incessant abuses as she marks every little failure for your drive home.

You start the car. You hear a slight "Hmph." She furiously scribbles a note and marks a big X somewhere on the top of the form.

That's when you remember to put your seatbelt on. Searching for some vague clue of approval in her face, you realize there is none to be had, and you put the car into gear.

As you come to the four-way stop in the parking lot (it's a big parking lot, OK?), the car to your right stops just a half-second before you do. As you sit there, waiting for the other car to go, you realize that its driver is applying make-up, talking on the phone, flossing, and steering with her knees all at once. After a minute passes, you finally decide to just go ahead and go through the stop sign. This is met with another quiet grunt of disapproval from Ms. Crankietta McCrabbybritches riding shotgun over there, who once again scribbles furiously.

This process continues as you begin your drive home. Reaching down to turn up the stereo? Scribble-grunt-scribble. Driving with one hand on the steering wheel? Grunt-scribble-scribble. Going 47 in a 45? Scribble-scribble-grunt-scribble-grunt-scoff-scribble.

By the time you're actually on the main road back to the house, you're so unnerved, you're so shaken, you're so paranoid about every little thing you do being met with the horrid disapproval of the horrid woman sitting next to you. You're sweating bullets, but you don't DARE take your hands from 10 and 2 to adjust the A/C. You're so fixed on the speedometer that you're distracted from the road, which of course leads to all sorts of sharp turns and slam-on-the-brakes stops at red lights.

It becomes the most miserable driving experience of your entire life, and it takes you twice as long as usual to get home - not because you're being forced to obey the law, but because you're so focused on nothing BUT obeying the law that you actually forget where you're going and how to get there. And when you DO get home, she hands you a list a mile long of all of your infractions, major and minor, moving and parking, down to the last detail - like using your turn signal at 998 feet from the turn instead of the full 1,000. She tells you that it is because - and only because - she's in a good mood that you actually passed and get to keep your license. If she had chosen to actually be fair in judging you, you'd be taking the bus everywhere you went for the rest of your life.

Far too many people view their relationship with God like the relationship with that DMV lady. It's as if God is constantly looking down on us, grunting His disapproval and jotting down notes for every little mistake we make, champing at the bit to tell us how badly we messed up once we finally get Home. They're convinced that God looks at us all and sees how badly we're all messing up, and it's only because of the mysterious force of God's Grace that we're even allowed to keep on living, much less eventually enter Heaven. And that trickles down into how those people see others. They wouldn't dare dream of judging anyone, for as they very well know, the Bible says, "Judge not lest ye be judged." But even in their not-judging, they're still pretty sure that everybody at that liberal church up the road is going to hell, and they know for a FACT that the long-haired guy walking down the road on Sunday morning with a lit cigarette in his lips is going to hell.

That mindset comes from the same stock as Balaam's belief that if he made the right sacrifices, he could get God to go against His own Will. It shares the same root as Jephthah's belief that if he paid God off in lip service and sacrifices, then God owed him one. It's the same fault that Simon had in thinking that if he gave somebody else the right stuff, then God would give him what he wanted.

There's this idea that if we go to the right church and read the right Bible and have the right friends and pray the right prayers and wear the right clothes and have the right haircut and say the right words and do the right whatever it is you want to do, then God will do you a big favor and let you into Heaven. But the only way that'll work is if you go to the EXACT right church and read the EXACT right Bible and have the EXACT right friends and do everything else EXACTLY right.

What that idea misses is that it's still just going through the motions. And when you're focused on the motions instead of the destination, you are bound to get lost.

In our walk with God, we are not meant to be focused on the path itself - we are meant to be focused on God.

And when we are truly focused on God, we realize that Christianity is not something we can do. Christianity is what we have to be.

If I were to put paint to a canvas, I would only produce an unmitigated disaster. I am not an artist.

My sister? People seriously pay solid cash money for her paintings. She is an artist. It's what she does because it's who she is. She can't stop. She doesn't know any other way to live. She didn't take classes to become an artist - she took classes to become a more skilled and refined artist. She didn't decide to be an artist - she decided to focus exclusively on art because it already took up so much of her life to begin with.

I am getting to a point where I don't know how to be anything else but a Christian, and that's because I finally stopped trying to do the right Christian thing and instead focused on being the right Christian man. My nature defines my actions, and my nature is defined by the Holy Spirit that lives in me, by the redemption I have found in Jesus Christ, and by the complete renewal of everything that makes me who I am by God Almighty.

I've learned a lot from Balaam. I've learned that I've got to be sure that I'm not just saying that God leads my life, but that I am actually putting my will aside to allow God to replace my will with His.

I've learned that I've got to let God's Holy Spirit work in me in such a way that when I read God's Word, I actually understand what He's saying to me, not just what I want Him to say to me. God's Will is my ultimate goal - God's Word is another step in getting me there.

I've learned that when I actually do get everything in me out of the way, God can do some pretty amazing stuff through me. I can take NO credit for any of the things He does - I was only tangentially involved at best.

And I've learned that it's not about what I do. It's not about what you do. It's not about what they do.

It's about who we are.

You can't do church.

You have to be church.

Go, then.

Be church.

Learning from Balaam (and avoiding the easy jokes), part III

Beginning in the 22nd chapter of Numbers, we see the story of Balaam. From that story, there are three things that stuck out to me as being true:

1. It is possible to know who God is and worship Him wrong.
2. It is possible to earnestly seek the Word of God and still disobey Him.
3. It is possible for God to speak through you, even when you don't know what to say.

Two weeks ago, I discussed the first point, using the example from my own life experience of the church that was more focused on following the letter of the law than the truth of the Spirit. By focusing on one of the small things that divide us (instrumental worship) instead of the large things that unite us (the love we share for God, the redemption we have in Jesus Christ, and the common workings of the same Holy Spirit in all of our lives), this church missed an opportunity to serve its community in a very real, immediate, and tangible sense. In their efforts to live out the perfect definition of God's Will, their focus became caught up in the smaller concerns that only matter for about three hours out of any given week, instead of focusing on the larger things that would have carried ramifications throughout the rest of this life and all of the next one. In their quest for God, they missed the point of serving Him.

When Jesus, on the Sabbath, healed the man born blind in John 9, the Pharisees called Him a sinner. In Matthew 12, the disciples were hungry on the Sabbath and began to pick grains from a field so they could eat. The Pharisees again accused Jesus and His disciples of sin because they broke the Sabbath - but Jesus rebukes them, telling them that their focus was in the wrong place, quoting scripture to them to prove His point:

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,

and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

- Hosea 6:6

Even David, reeling in the guilt and shame of his sins with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah, knows what God truly wants from us:

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;

You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart,

O God, You will not despise.

- Psalm 51:16-17

Last week, I talked about how that Pharisaical mindset - the view that the Bible itself is the Will of God - should be transformed into an understanding that God's Will transcends anything we can ever know here on Earth, and that the Bible is still just part of God's approach to help us better see Him.

Now, understand me here... It is an enormous, indispensable, undeniable, and absolutely true part of that approach! I firmly believe God has given us the Bible that we have in the form that it is in today for a reason, and that reason is that we may come to better know Him.

But it is important to understand that the Bible alone is not enough to ensure a good relationship with God.

Just like the Ethiopian eunuch was reading Isaiah without understanding what it meant until the Holy Spirit led Philip to step in, it is possible for us to read Scripture all day long without it changing our lives, even if we're open to its message, without some interaction from the Holy Spirit. And just like Isaac Asimov wrote his Guide to the Bible without any faith behind it, it is even possible for us to fully understand the Bible and still not encounter God.

It is only through the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives that we can grow closer to God.

"There are two ways to live your life - one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein

I'm really trying to make moves towards seeing everything in my life as a miracle. I'm doing a pretty decent job of it, too, I think.

And I'm sure you've heard people say, "Well, of course God still works miracles today! Every sunrise is a miracle!" And... yeah... but at the same time... no, not really. That kind of answer is a justification, an attempt to understand the idea that God still works miracles in today's world, despite the apparent lack of "Lazarus, come out!" type miracles.

Don't get me wrong - sunrises are amazing. I have seen some that reduced me to tears, they were so beautiful.

But the really miraculous part of some of those sunrises was the coming of the new day - the marker that told me and whoever I was with that we had survived the night, had made it through the darkness into the new morning, and that the nine-hour discussion we'd just had was worth it, because we were coming through intact on the other side.

And you know what... There are plenty of stories that I've heard - even a few that are directly in my life - about people who, by all scientific and medical reasoning and understanding, should have died, but God chose to intervene in their lives and restore their bodies to a livable health, at least for a little while. And yeah, those miracles are amazing too.

But that's still not quite as amazing to me as the miracles I've heard about, seen, and - above all - experienced in which God chooses to intervene and restore a person's spiritual health.

The body? It will eventually expire. It doesn't matter how many push-ups you can do, it doesn't matter how many push-ups you can't do. Your body is temporary.

Your soul? That's eternal. That's forever. That's important.

The power of God made manifest in the otherwise inexplicable removal of someone's cancer... Yes, that's amazing. Yes, that's powerful. Yes, that's real! But it's a lot like trying to bail water out of a boat with a Coke can when the hole in the bottom is the size of a basketball. Yeah, you might slow the process a bit, but in the end, there's no way that boat ain't goin' down sooner or later.

But the power of God shown in the miraculous transformation of my heart, soul, and mind... That's the good stuff. That's the stuff that really matters. That's what God is after - and it is what we should be after, too.

(At this point I feel that it is important for me to point out that taking care of your body is still a good idea - smoking is bad for you, it's OK to have a vegetarian meal every once in a while, thirty minutes of exercise every day is a really solid idea, and always make sure the door to your microwave is fully sealed while it is in operation.)

The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.

- Deuteronomy 30:6

A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.

- Romans 2:28-29

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.

- Colossians 2:9-12

The circumcision of the heart - much like the original circumcision of the not-heart - can be a painful process. But it is through the workings of the Holy Spirit in our lives that we find our own selves being peeled back, exposing more of Christ in us. When we enter our relationship with God through His Son, we begin a journey that leads us closer and closer to His true nature with - hopefully - every step. I say hopefully because it is still entirely possible for us to thwart the Will of God here by ignoring the works of the Spirit within our lives.

And I don't think that many of us ever necessarily choose to ignore the Spirit, but it's awfully easy to do in today's World. We live in a World that tells us that we can't ever do anything unless we do it ourselves. We are surrounded by a World that wants us to look into ourselves and see who we really are so we can be the best we can be on our own.

And what we've got to remember is that we're not part of this World. We can't do it on our own. No matter how good our own personal best is, it's still not anything worth calling good. Good in our lives only comes from God. We - on our own - are not righteous.

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

- Romans 3:21-24, emphasis added

Our righteousness - all of it - depends entirely upon our faith in Jesus. Without that faith, without that connection to God, we are nothing, and any perceived righteousness on our part is empty, because it is not connected to the source of true righteousness - it does not come into our lives from the Spirit.

So I say all that to say this.

In Numbers 22:38, 23:12, 23:26, and 24:13, Balaam asks Balak, king of Moab, "Didn't I tell you I can only say what God puts in my mouth?"

And it is on that point that I want to be a lot more like Balaam.

I want to be so in tune with the Holy Spirit that when I open my mouth, I do not speak - God speaks through me. I want to know that what I am saying is the truth - I want to know it undeniably comes from God.

I have moments of that. Not many. But they're there.

A few weeks ago, I felt the gentle nudge inside me that said, "You need to send that message." I ignored it, because I didn't want to rock the boat. I didn't want to come on too strong. I didn't want to be seen as a weirder guy than I already am. I didn't want to stick my nose where it didn't belong.

But I still felt that nudge. "You really need to send that message." And I ignored it again. I didn't want to overstep my bounds. I didn't want to risk alienating a friend. I didn't want to take any risks, because risks meant I could lose everything.

But the nudge was getting so strong I couldn't ignore it. "No, Aaron... You really need to send that message." I couldn't distract myself. I couldn't sleep. I just couldn't say no anymore.

So I sent the message. I felt two things once it was out of my hands - fear and relief. I felt fear that I was wrong, that I had been deluding myself, convincing myself that I needed to step in to something that wasn't my place, fear that I was going to mess up a friendship I care about. But I felt relief - relief that I had done what the undeniable voice in me had asked of me. And I fully believe that this voice was, and is, the Holy Spirit, working within my life.

A few days later, I got a reply. The very first thing I saw in that reply was "I needed this Aaron, and I don't know how you knew it." It was at that moment that I was overcome with tears, joy, and an unstoppable desire to sing my humble praise and adoration to God.

That message was not from me. It was from God. It was the Holy Spirit moving in me to send that message. My friend didn't know how I knew to send that message. And here's the thing - I didn't know, either! I had no way of knowing, other than God telling me.

Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.

- I Thessalonians 5:19-22

When I tell you that God speaks to me, what is your reaction? Do you believe it, or do you picture me wearing an aluminum foil hat to keep out the government's rays?

Is it really so crazy to think that God might actually still be active - in a HUGE way - in the world today?

Is it really so crazy to think that God might be active in your life if you'll let Him?

I promise you... I am nothing special. I haven't got much of anything figured out. But I am slowly, slowly, slowly learning more of how to truly listen to God. His voice is sometimes still the gentle whisper after the earthquake and the fire... And sometimes He's the loud, commanding voice telling the storms to be still.

I've not perfected the skill of listening to the Spirit with a completely open heart. I still mess up. I still mess up a lot. But I've started to notice that my slip-ups come when I focus more on myself, on my own desires, on getting MY way instead of patiently, prayerfully, and purposefully listening for the words of the Holy Spirit in my heart, soul, and mind.

But the one truth I've managed to grasp is that the only way you're going to hear the Spirit is if you listen. It is my prayer for you that God opens your ears - your heart, your soul, your mind - and lets you hear what He's really got to say to YOU, because I promise you - it's worth hearing.

I've got one more thing I want to get out of Balaam next week. I'm looking forward to it. Hope you are, too.

Pray for an open spirit.

Learning from Balaam (and avoiding the easy jokes) part II

So last week I started talking about Balaam. From the story of Balaam, I pulled out three ideas that I believe to be true:

1. It is possible to know who God is and worship Him wrong.
2. It is possible to earnestly seek the Word of God and still disobey Him.
3. It is possible for God to speak through you, even when you don't know what to say.

Last week's post was about the first point. Sometimes, in our zeal to please God (which is a righteous thing) we cling so strongly to our own idea of who God is and what He wants that we don't allow Him to change our minds and hearts so that we can actually SEE Him and show Him to those around us. We may know God - but we don't quite understand Him, sometimes. When our desire to be right beats out our desire to be righteous, we start to mess things up.

And that has a lot to do with our attitude towards the means through which God reaches us.

How is it that there are so many people in this world who can quote the Bible, chapter and verse, for hours on end... and yet have no idea what it actually means?

Isaac Asimov was a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant man. My goodness, was that guy smart. He was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University, was vice-president of Mensa, president of the American Humanist Association, and has published works in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System. If that isn't some nerd cred, I don't know what is.

Among his published works are some incredible pieces of science-fiction, as well as non-fiction, history, the three-volume set Understanding Physics, and his world-renowned guides to Shakespeare and the Bible. If you're a serious student of Shakespeare, you can't go without Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare. And if you're a serious student of the Bible... Well, yeah, Asimov's pretty tough to beat there, too.

The interesting thing is that Isaac Asimov was an atheist.

I would dare say that Isaac Asimov knew the Bible better than most people. Certainly better than me! You guys have no idea how much time I spend writing these entries just reading entire books of the Bible, trying to remember where that one verse was... about the thing... where God said something... to someone...

I wouldn't expect Asimov to have the same reaction to the Bible as I do. He didn't believe in it. He didn't believe in it before he wrote his Guide, and he didn't believe in it after he wrote his Guide, either.

But within Christianity... Yeah, OK, I'll admit I kinda expect people to have the at least a similar reaction to the Bible as my own. And that reaction is an understanding that my own understanding is entirely secondary to the wisdom and truth contained within the Word of God.

Let us consider, for a moment, sex. Sex is kind of a big deal. I understand it's pretty fantastic. There is, in fact, an entire book of the Bible that focuses pretty strongly on sex.

But God has made it clear through the Bible that sex is meant for - reserved for - marriage. One man, one woman, one relationship. That's the point.

But I've come in contact with this idea that sex outside of marriage is OK so long as you're not married - because then, well, obviously, you're not cheating on your spouse. How can you cheat on a spouse you don't have? Brilliant!

Except oh wait that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

You remember that verse that says "God cannot be mocked"? This counts as mocking God. God doesn't have loopholes. You're not gonna pull a fast one on ol' God.

God is not a man that He should lie,

nor a son of man, that He should change His mind.

Does He speak and then not act?

Does He promise and not fulfill?

- Numbers 23:19

That little tidbit comes from Balaam's second oracle- the blessing he poured out on Israel in his second attempt to curse them. Earlier - like, 11 verses earlier - God said through Balaam, "How can I curse those whom God has not cursed?" And yet Balaam insists on cursing those whom God has not cursed, whom God has specifically told Balaam not to curse.

And sometimes we insist on our own understanding, as well, even though God is right in front of us, screaming in our ears, telling us that we're missing the picture.

Let's go back to sex (since it's such an interesting topic): how did Jesus deal with people whose sins were of a sexual nature?

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

"No one, sir," she said.

"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

- John 8:1-11

So that's Jesus. And there are other examples worth considering - the Samaritan woman at the well, for starters, plus the "sinful" woman who wiped Jesus' feet with her hair.

But what about us?

How do we deal with people - especially women - when we find out they've made mistakes of a sexual nature?

Do we smile with tears in our eyes and embrace them with the love of Jesus Christ and His church, and tell them that God will forgive their sins, just as He forgave our own sins?

Or do we look down on them? Do we call them names? Do we heap scorn and rejection on them, ostracize them from the family of God, and then have the audacity to tell them that they earned the reputation they now carry?

May God have mercy on you and comfort you if you wind up pregnant outside of marriage in most of the churches I have known in my life, because the people that God has called to be the ones who show you mercy and comfort certainly aren't going to be the ones to do it.

And we don't just do that with sex. Yeah, we blow sexual sins WAY out of proportion (lying is just as much of a sin as anything sexual [Revelation 21:8, look it up], but you don't see radical protest groups at military funerals with signs that read "GOD HATES POLITICIANS," do you?), but they're not the only thing people completely lose their minds over.

Sin is bad. I get it.

But you know what beats sin, every time? Grace. Truth. Mercy. Love.

Yelling does not make sin go away. Changing the Constitution does not make sin go away. Bombing does not make sin go away.

Christ makes sin go away.

And I meet so many people - so, so, so many people! - who say that they "love the sinner, hate the sin..." And I can't say that they don't. But I think I can say that their distinction between sinner/sin might be a little blurry.

And I think that problem comes from a misunderstanding of the Bible on a fundamental level.

Before I go any further... No, I don't have a Bible degree. No, I can't read Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic. No, I can't really tell you a lot about the Elohist/Jahwist sources in the Old Testament or the "Q" source for the New Testament. I realize that all of those are important things, and if I am seeing further, it is only because I am standing on the shoulders of people who had better luck with Machen than I did.

But I don't for a second believe that the Bible is an incomprehensible text that only the highly-educated few can ever hope to even begin to understand, and I very much doubt that any of you reading this believe that, either.

And yet, far too often, we live our lives with this sort of fear of the Bible. There are things we don't understand and questions we don't have answers to that the Bible is painfully silent over. And so, in our attempts to seize righteousness, we do exactly what we've been told not to do - we make the Bible a list of rules. We make the Bible the ultimate truth of the universe. We make the Bible the focus.

Folks - I love the Bible. But I do not follow the Bible. I follow Christ. The Bible is not God. It is about God. It is not the ultimate expression of the Will of God. God's Will is the ultimate expression of itself. The Bible is not the only way God speaks to us in today's world - it's just the only one that all of us can read at the same time.

I want to make sure that this is clearly understood. I do believe, fully, that "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (II Timothy 3:16-17)

But I also believe that there are still plenty of "ignorant and unstable people" who "distort... the Scriptures... to their own destruction." (II Peter 3:16)

It has become painfully obvious to me that a knowledge of the Bible is not enough. After all, Satan, tempting Christ in the wilderness, quoted Scripture. (I fully realize that it's just as possible for me to be Satan quoting Scripture here as anything, but bear with me, I promise I have a point that's actually backed by Scripture.)

Let us consider a few things.

Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head.

- I Corinthians 11:4

So, guys, you take off your hat when you pray, right? When I went to Uplift with the Heritage Place youth group last summer, I saw way, way, waaaaaaaaay too many youth ministers who didn't. Is that just a Southern thing? Or is that a God thing? I mean, it is pretty plainly stated in the Bible, isn't it? And then right after that...

And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head.

- I Corinthians 11:5-6

So, ladies... How many of you still cover your heads when you pray? How many of you are rockin' a short haircut? How do you feel about your relationship with God? Is it tied into the length of your hair, or is it something a bit more internal than that? And then there's...

I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

- I Timothy 2:9-10

So braided hair is sinful? Oh, man. My sister is going to hell. Especially from Kindergarten to 6th grade. Gold? Pearls? Expensive clothes? Apparently Paul's got it out for my Grandmother, too!

Or maybe... Maybe maybe maybe...

Just maybe...

Maybe we should consider that the Bible is not written to us.

It is written for us, but it is not written to us. It is written to people who lived, ate, drank, worked, slept, married, worshiped and died some 18-19 centuries before we were even born. It's a product of a culture that we don't live in - that we can't live in!

Whether we like it or not, the world has changed since the time of Christ. The message written to a church in Corinth in the latter half of the first century is not the message for the church in the United States at the dawn of the 21st century. Can we learn from their message? Absolutely! Does it contain truth? Undoubtedly! Is it the ultimate truth?

No!

God is the ultimate truth!

The Bible is God's letter to us, and it's all about Him. In its pages, God reveals to us portions of His nature so that we can know what we're pursuing. He shares with us select stories of His works in the world so we can look around us now and see His hands in every aspect of our lives. He tells us about His Son so we can encounter holiness. He tells us about His Spirit - the Spirit which now lives in all who accept Christ! The same Spirit that inspired the Scriptures! The same Spirit that healed the sick, raised the dead, and spread the Gospel throughout the Roman world!

He tells us about His Spirit because He gave it to us!

The Bible is what the Bible is. It's probably not going to change any time soon. That doesn't discount a word in it! It just means that we've got to start following the Voice that is dynamic, actively working, and speaks to us in our lives! Speaks to us in our settings! Speaks to us, as individuals, in our own hearts, minds, and souls!

The Holy Spirit is here! It is now! It is forever!

The Bible is a book. It can be destroyed.

The Holy Spirit is the eternal Spirit of God, placed inside every one of us when we take on Christ in baptism. Our souls become intertwined with the very Soul of God, leading us into further understanding of God's Word, yes, but also of God's Will.

The Bible contains God's Will in the grand sweeping arcs. And that's an absolutely indispensable guide for living the life we're called to live.

But when it comes down to the details? When it comes down to the hard decisions that just aren't covered in the Bible? When it comes down to seeing what God has in store for us, here, 2000 years removed from the final Amen of Revelation?

I think God is still talking to me. I've just got to be willing to listen.

And that's where next week's entry comes in (if I still have any readers by then).

Learning from Balaam (and avoiding the easy jokes), part I

In Numbers 22, we are introduced to a very interesting character in the Bible: Balaam.

Yeah, there's the donkey thing. And that's a big deal. But that's hardly the most interesting thing about Balaam.

What's particularly interesting about Balaam is that he apparently knew enough about God, our God, יהוה God of the Israelites, to know that our God reigns supreme, and yet, at every turn in the story we have of him, Balaam tried to defy God's Will.

The whole story of Balaam can be found in Numbers 22-24, with a footnote in Numbers 31:8 (the footnote is that he is killed), but I want to point out some of the important bits here.

In Numbers 22:1-7, Balak, the king of Moab, has sent a message to Balaam, asking him to curse the Israelites, who have been conquering a swath across Canaan at this point. Here's what happens next:

"Spend the night here," Balaam said to them, "and I will bring you back the answer the LORD gives me." So the Moabite princes stayed with him.

God came to Balaam and asked, "Who are these men with you?"

Balaam said to God, "Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, sent me this message: 'A people that has come out of Egypt covers the face of the land. Now come and put a curse on them for me. Perhaps then I will be able to fight them and drive them away.'"

But God said to Balaam, "Do not go with them. You must not put a curse on those people, because they are blessed."

The next morning Balaam got up and said to Balak's princes, "Go back to your own country, for the LORD has refused to let me go with you."

- Numbers 22:8-13

So Balak sends more guys and promises Balaam more money if he will come and curse the Israelites. Balaam's response is found in verse 18:

"Even if Balak gave me his palace filled with silver and gold, I could not do anything great or small to go beyond the command of the LORD my God."

Now, what confuses me about this is that while Balaam's apparently got a pretty good grasp on the idea that he can't do anything that God doesn't want him to do, he's going to try to keep doing exactly those things. A bit thick, Balaam.

And stubborn, too! Numbers 22:21-35 tells the story of Balaam and his donkey encountering with angel of the LORD. Here, three times, Balaam tries to ride off to Balak's call, which was already against the direct order of God (back in v. 12). Each of these three times, his donkey sees an angel of the LORD blocking the way, standing there with a sword. And each of these three times, the donkey turns off the path, avoiding the angel. This infuriates Balaam, because he cannot see the angel, and so he beats the donkey. This is when God allows the donkey to speak. The donkey doesn't say much - just three questions for Balaam.

When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD , she lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat her with his staff. Then the LORD opened the donkey's mouth, and she said to Balaam, "What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?"

Balaam answered the donkey, "You have made a fool of me! If I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now."

The donkey said to Balaam, "Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?"

"No," he said.

Then the LORD opened Balaam's eyes, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.

- Numbers 22:27-31

So the angel lets Balaam pass, telling him to only say what he's told. When Balaam meets up with Balak, he once again says, "I must speak only what God puts in my mouth."

And over the course of the next two chapters, that is exactly what happens. Balaam tries to bring curses against Israel, and each time, God instead puts blessings upon Israel in Balaam's mouth, enraging Balak, king of Moab, who had hired Balaam with the express purpose of having curses put upon Israel. This probably wasn't going to result in a very confident recommendation from Balak to all the other kings for their cursing needs.

Something worth noting happens at the end of Numbers 23 into the beginning of 24. This is after Balaam's first two attempts to curse Israel.

Then Balak said to Balaam, "Come, let me take you to another place. Perhaps it will please God to let you curse them for me from there." And Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, overlooking the wasteland. Balaam said, "Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me." Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

Now when Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, he did not resort to sorcery as at other times, but turned his face toward the desert.

- Numbers 23:27-24:1

So even though Balaam has said, several times now, that he can only do what God commands him to do - and will in fact say it again in 24:13 - he is absolutely set on doing what God has already specifically, explicitly, plainly told him (back in 22:12) not to do. In fact, he has already seen that it is the Will of God - it is to God's pleasing! - that Israel be blessed! He has spoken as much with his own mouth, even if he didn't mean to say it!

I believe there are three important things that we can take from the story of Balaam and apply into our daily lives.

1) I believe that it is possible to know God and worship Him wrong.

2) I believe that it is possible to earnestly seek the Word of God and still disobey Him.

3) I believe that it is possible to for God to speak through you even when you don't know what to say.

So let's get into that, huh?

And I sure didn't put the easy one first...

As most of you probably know already, I'm looking for work as a youth minister within the church of Christ. I'll take a pulpit job if that's what God leads me to, but I'm really, really hoping for youth ministry. In this process of job searching, I've come across a few viewpoints that, quite frankly, upset me.

For instance, I was interviewing with a smaller church of Christ congregation some time ago that asked what my position was on fellowshipping with other denominations. I really didn't understand what that question meant - but I also really didn't like what it implied. When I asked for clarification, one of the men conducting the interview relayed an example to me.

He told me that the First Christian church in that town had organized a Christmas clothing drive for the homeless. (For those of you not familiar with the divisions of the Restoration Movement, let me clarify something real quick - the First Christian church is a church of Christ with a piano. Same movement, same founders, same beliefs, same everything with the one singular exception of instrumental worship.) The leaders of the First Christian church congregation got in contact with the leaders of the church of Christ congregation, asking if they would like to help out with the clothing drive - you know, "clothing the naked" - and the leaders of the church of Christ congregation said no, because they did not approve of the worship style of the First Christian congregation, specifically, the use of musical instruments.

Now... I'm not looking to have the discussion about musical instruments now, or really even to have it later, for that matter. I will say this much: I think if it were that big of a deal, we'd have a couple of verses that specifically say, "And oh yeah, don't use instruments when you worship God or He won't love you anymore."

But instead, we just have verses about, you know, taking care of people who can't care for themselves being defined as "religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless."

So here we have, on one hand (let's just say the left, since that matches up with the goats in Jesus's story), a church trying to do the right thing by focusing on every last little minute detail, tenacious in their desire to meet the exact rules of engagement with God, who, apparently, won't even listen to your heathen prayers unless you and your home congregation worship in pitch-perfect a capella harmony.

And on the right (sheep this time), we have the church trying to reach out to those who need a hand, show them the love of Christ, put clothes on their backs for Christmas, but there's a piano involved.

Look, folks - I am not bashing the church of Christ. I am a member of the church of Christ, and I continue to attend the church of Christ, and I am looking for employment within the church of Christ. I am not even bashing this particular congregation. WONDERFUL group of folks, from what I got to experience. Great kids, kind parents, very loving congregation overall.

I just think the guys in charge at this congregation might have missed something.

I think they might be a little bit too focused on something really, really, really insignificant when compared to the literally life-changing impact that they could have had on countless lives in their area. I think that in their zeal to adhere to a rule that at best can only be backed up with a defense of "Well, we don't really know for sure, so it's best to err on the side of caution," these guys have missed out on what God is really about.

Balaam knew something about God. Apparently, a good bit of something. Balaam knew that God is sovereign, and that to try to go against the will of God is an impossible task. And yet, three times, Balaam tried specifically to do that. He was specifically told, by God, "Don't curse Israel." But he goes with Balak up on the mountain... to curse Israel!

Too many times we fall into traps just like the leaders of that church where we hang on to what we know about God - or about faith, or about Christianity itself, or whatever it is - and we completely ignore another truth that is just as valid, and just may in fact have some very important bearing on our lives.

Didn't Jesus say something to the Pharisees about something like that?

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

- Matthew 23:23-24

Oh, right, yeah. Guess that counts!

(In case you missed the connection I was trying to make here... "Piano" is to "gnat" as "not helping the homeless" is to "camel.")

And that's actually a pretty good segue into my second point... But that's gonna have to wait until next week.