BibleScribbler

Saul the Sorcerer

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1 Samuel 15:18-21

18 And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’
19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?”
20 And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction.
21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”

Saul has a horrible case of “Hear-what-I-want-itis” when he talks to Samuel here.

What Samuel Says What Saul Says
Kill everything We killed only the diseased and worthless
Leave nothing alive We brought the best animals back alive
God doesn't need your sacrifices Won't God love these sacrifices?

And of course God doesn’t like it at all when people do their own thing and say that is what “God” wanted them to do.

22 And Samuel said,
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has also rejected you from being king.”

Do you see what he said there? Rebellion, in this case religiousness is like being a witch or a sorcerer. How is that? Well, the main problem with sorcery is that the wizard is putting himself in a position to control supernatural powers. When a person does a religious act to force God’s hand, that’s just like trying to be a wizard.

Saul is trying to make God like him, or to earn something from God. What God wants is to be who He is, ruler of the galaxy. He doesn’t need the religious activities nor is He swayed by them.

v. 24-25
Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
25 Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord.”

Oh man! Do you see what he did there?! I’m sorry for being overly religious, now forgive me so I can keep being religious! Look at how pious I am as I seek forgiveness for my piety!

This whole idea of doing what we want to do and saying that it’s what God wants us to do is really striking to me. I wonder if we have become so trained to do our own thing, to follow our own will, that we don’t even know what it feels like to be led by God. I’ve experienced several things this summer where somebody was making a horrible decision, but they said that God was leading them to make it.

I think I would have believed it if they hadn’t hidden those decisions behind so much piety!

May we be thankful for the works that Jesus’ death freed us from, and may we take hold of the simple, submissive life He has given us! No magicians here, just servants!

Verge13 Notes via Evernote

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Here are my notes from the Verge13 conference. I took copious hand-written notes and then captured them with the notebook feature on Evernote for the iPad. If you scroll to the end, you can save them to your own Evernote account.

Some of it is more detailed than other parts, so fire away if you have any questions.

[Edit: Evernote is secure only, so even though this used to be an iframe, it is now a link to the Evernote bits.]

Commandments to Fear

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Isaiah 29:13-14

And the Lord said:
"Because this people draw near with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me,
and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
therefore, behold, I will again
do wonderful things with this people,
with wonder upon wonder;
and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden."

"Their fear of me is a commandment taught by men" really gets to me because that has been the point of religious teaching for so long.

"Fear The Lord, repent!" Was something Jesus preached sometimes, but not with as much emphasis on fear as much as He emphasized a salvation. I’m thinking of Jonathan Edwards through to modern college campus street preachers. I’m thinking of the holiness movement and legalism and people that don’t cuss around preachers.

Wisdom and discernment will leave us if we are not sincere on the inside about what we profess and teach on the outside. If our relationship with God is done by rules, He Himself will lead us away from that so that we’ll hopefully meet the real God. If our reverence, honor, piety, etc. are activities that are measurable, calculated, and choreographed, He will confound us to abandon that and follow Him. We can trust in that.

Obedience in Mediocrity vs. Sacrifice in Action

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Hosea 6:6 NET

6 For I delight in faithfulness, not simply in sacrifice;
I delight in acknowledging God, not simply in whole burnt offerings.

I’ve been learning this in an unhappily repetitive way lately. It’s come in the form of eager children and eager adults. People tend to really like to please you or really get your approval when it comes to doing things that they enjoy.

The bummer is when we have to do something for others that we don’t really enjoy, we aren’t so eager to serve them!

Take me and my timecard at work, for instance. (I’m throwing myself under the bus here, because the more I think of other people teaching me this, I realize I need to see how I am doing this myself!) It’s easy for me to come up with all kinds of cool new ways of doing stuff, of innovating new processes and thinking about how we can improve our systems.

But I can’t fill out my timecard.

It’s simple! It’s easy! It’s something I need to do FAITHFULLY!

But day in and day out, it’s easier for me to sacrifice and do all kinds of things that are above and beyond the call of duty than it is to be faithful in the little things that my work needs me to do and just fill out my ^&%#@! timecard.

This is where Hosea was. The Jewish people went out of their way to improve their burnt offerings and their festivals and their sacrifices. They probably had banners that said, “Torah 2.0: Commitment, Caring, and Charisma” or some such thing.

But they sucked at the tiny tasks that required daily faithfulness.

It’s just not exciting to do the small and simple things.
It’s just not exciting to go after a mediocre calling of being close to God in secret.
It’s just not exciting to walk in simple obedience to God without having an amazing sacrifice to show for it.

The thing is, God loves ME more than any sacrifice I bring. He knows me inside and out, with my twisted motives, my lazy-butt motivations and my desire for attention and glamour. I might as well come clean and not try to impress Him with any fancy sacrifices but just do the simple & mediocre things He calls me to do.

Because God’s mediocrity is greater than man’s excitement.

You Say That To All The Deities

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Hosea 2:11

 I will put an end to all her celebration:
her annual religious festivals,
monthly new moon celebrations,
and weekly Sabbath festivities –
all her appointed festivals.

Look at what is on this list–It’s all of the religious things that Israel was doing!

Somebody might say, “Wait, didn’t God ask them to do all of these religious things?” Yep, He did, but they were all for the reason of drawing closer to the one true God and they were doing these things for every deity on their list! They went all over looking for spiritual beings and the sacrifices or activities that would please them!

God is Jealous

There are a lot of people that don’t like the idea that God is a jealous God. The idea of being jealous or selfish seems controlling, limiting.

Honestly, I think people don’t like the idea of being controlled because they haven’t had somebody stick up for them. If you’ve been oppressed–and I mean really oppressed–and then you’ve had somebody step in and stick up for you, you appreciate jealousy.

Nobody likes to be the damsel in distress, but that’s what we are. Even our Christian books teach us how to be the manly-man hero and save our families/communities/churches that are the ones in distress. We are the ones that need to be saved, not the saviors. We are the ones that need spiritual acts done to us by our Lord, not the ones that need to do spiritual acts for our Lord.

May we end our religious hobbies and let our savior do what He is mighty to do–Save!

Judaism at the time of Paul

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Yesterday I bought Paul by Bornkamm at the library book sale.

I got 5 books and the funniest part was that 3 of them were about the apostle Paul. I guess they have served their time at the public library! Here is an interesting quote from the opening pages:

“Temples were still erected for the old gods, priest continued to serve and sacrifice to be offered, but these were obsolete; and the myths about the gods were a spent force, no longer capable of satisfying the individual’s longing fr protection and blessing, salvation and redemption, in this world and the next. Everywhere a process was afoot of syncretizing the old religions with new ones streaming in especially from the east, and the odder and vaguer these were, the greater their attraction. A whole host of mystery cults and doctrines of salvation poised eternal salvation and deliverance from the powers of fate and death. But this was also te time when there was a radical rationalistic criticism of the various religions, which, in the shape of diverse philosophies reaching even the man in the street, strove fora spiritualization of religion and therefore looked down on the rival miracle-workers and alleged purveyors of salvations bustling about in the market place.

“This is the background against which we have to view Judaism with all its differences and strangeness, its belief in the one, invisible God, Lord of heaven and earth, the rigor of its law, its ethical and ritual commandments (observance of the Sabbath, the dietary laws, etc.), its uniform way of life throughout the whole world, the venerable antiquity of its history, its call to turn away from all idolatry and moral confusion, and its proclamation of the judgment about to overtake the impenitent and of the peace and righteousness which the Messiah, soon to come, would bring in his train.” – p.7

It kind of boggles my mind to realize that people were attracted to the rule of law and the moral standards of Judaism. On the other hand, when I think of the spiritual anarchy that would come from being MUCH more diverse and multi-cultural, I can see the draw of moral standards. We are pretty mono-cultural in the United States, as much as we like to think we are a melting pot. Imagine if every state were a sovereign nation with its own language, laws, customs, and religions? That is more like the world around 20 A.D. Traders would pass through from all different nations because they could all travel by land from one nation to another. You put a 10,000 mile-wide moat around a nation and you really close it off. Considering that the god of the Jews is the one true god who wrote His name on the heart & soul of all mankind, it makes sense that people would be drawn to Him wherever the message went.

The other part that surprised me is that Judaism had been made portable. I didn’t realize this either, but I can’t help but have a little conservative/fundamentalist sadness that Judaism had made this turn:

“To all intents and purposes, the temple had been superseded by the synagogue, sacrifice by the exposition of the Torah, and the priests by the scribes and lawyers.” – p.8

Easter Vigil at St. Ben's

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Saturday night my 2 oldest sons and I went to St. Benedict’s Cathedral for the Easter Vigil. In spite of showing up late we had a few very good experiences. (Rant I could not find any place on their website a posting of the service times for ANY of Holy Week. This seems like it would be a big deal for welcoming outsiders that want to join you on Easter! EndRant)

A Lot of Reading

We walked in during the first reading, which was a reading from Genesis. Then there was some singing, and then a second reading from Exodus. After some singing we knew they were getting ready for a third reading. I leaned over to my oldest son, who was already getting sleepy (it was about 8:45 at this point) and I said, “The first reading was Genesis, the second was Exodus…” and his eyes got as big as stained-glass windows.

“Are they going to read from every book of the Bible!” he blurted at me. The choir was still singing so I don’t think anybody heard. I laughed and told him no. According to our booklet, Baruch the prophet was next.

Welcoming Outsiders

The next reading wasn’t from the prophet Baruch, however. They skipped him. We caught up though by looking through the guidebook. I must say that without the guidebook we would have been utterly lost. As a disclaimer, I was raised Catholic and love a lot of things that the Catholic church does. I am also most likely to punch somebody in the nose for taking their anti-catholicism to racist levels and making ignorant prejudice statements about people of the Catholic faith. With that said, I never realized how closed to outsiders Mass really is.

I knew that the guidebook had our script in it and I knew that we were at the Easter Vigil. That got me to page 121 in the guidebook. I handed each of my sons a book opened to the right page and they were able to follow along. They were able to keep up through each of the readings, which was great, but whenever something was chanted or sung, I could watch their fingers get lost in the script. They couldn’t understand what was being said or sung or chanted, but when it got back to talking, they regained their bearings.

Architecture Speaks

During the reading from Exodus, they talked about the Hebrews being delivered to safety by walking through the Red Sea. The Bible says that

“the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.” Exodus 14:29

As they were reading that, my sons and I looked up and were amazed at the architecture of the building. I’m not sure we ever go into a place that is so tall and narrow. We whispered to each other about the Hebrews walking through the Red Sea on dry ground with the water standing like walls on their sides…just like the high walls at St. Ben’s! How terrifying! How wonderful! How dangerous and fantastic!

Sprinkler

After people are baptized at the front, the Bishop (or priest if that’s all you get at your church) walks around and flicks Holy Water on you. Since we were about 8 rows from the back we got to watch this process almost all of the way down the church. I couldn’t help but wonder if that sprinkler ever flung out of anybody’s hand and clobbered somebody. The Bishop flung water like he meant it and managed to get even the people sitting on the outer edges. I could see women politely wince, wait for him to get a few pews past, and then dab at themselves to dry up a bit after he moved on.

In true manner, my 2nd son got a drop right in his eye. I’m not sure what he was expecting but he started like he wasn’t expecting to get wet. He wiped his eye and after the Bishop walked on by my son said, “Why did that guy just fling water in my eye!?”

I told him, “It’s to help you remember your baptism last summer in the lake at CFC.” He got real happy about that. My oldest son on my right had a confused look and I told him the same thing. He got really happy too.

Epilogue

After the special Easter Vigil parts they began to get back into the normal Mass and we stepped out. It was 10:00 and I thought the boys had experienced the main parts I wanted them to experience. We had come to St. Ben’s for Midnight Mass at Christmas and left early because both boys were falling asleep. “These people at St. Ben’s must be nocturnal.” my oldest boy said as we walked to the car. “Every time we come here they are having church super late, and we leave early and they are still going!”

They Did It All Wrong and God Loved It

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2 Chronicles 30:18-20

The majority of the many people from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun were ceremonially unclean, yet they ate the Passover in violation of what is prescribed in the law. For Hezekiah prayed for them, saying: “May the Lord, who is good, forgive everyone who has determined to follow God, the Lord God of his ancestors, even if he is not ceremonially clean according to the standards of the temple.”
The Lord responded favorably to Hezekiah and forgave the people.

Here is a great spot in the Old Testament showing people getting close to God–not by following the Law but by being sincere and turning to Him with all of their hearts.

Hezekiah called the whole nation to celebrate the Passover. The priests weren’t properly prepared, the people weren’t properly prepared, but since it hadn’t been done in so long, they had to start somewhere.

God accepted them and they were so delighted in the Passover they continued it for another 7 days beyond the amount of time the Law required. The chapter ends with God listening and being pleased with all they had to offer Him.

This makes me think about all of the pickiness we bring when we go to church on Sunday. Here is God, overlooking some blatant screw-ups during one of His most important holy days:

  • Celebrated in the wrong month
  • Celebrated by unprepared priests & Levites (should have only been priests that were clean)
  • Celebrated by people that were unclean
  • Celebrated by many people that weren’t even Jewish!
  • Celebrated longer than God ever ordered it to be
  • Celebrated in ways God never intended (with sacrifices from the king in addition to being from the people)

Next time you are at church (if you know me, you know I’m the “you” in this sentence) and you want to gripe or be critical about the way things are being done, look at this hot mess in 2 Chronicles 30. Very little went according to God’s plan, and look what happened:

The Lord responded favorably to them as their prayers reached his holy dwelling place in heaven. 2 Chronicles 30:27

2 Chronicles 30:1 New English Translation (NET)

Unrelenting Wisdom Supplier

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If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. (James 1:5 NIV)

Yesterday my 9 year old son and I were talking about this verse. I said, “Isn’t it amazing that God says to ask for wisdom and He’ll give it without judgment or discretion?! It’s like He doesn’t even care if you’re a good guy or a bad guy, if you want wisdom, He will give it to you!”

And my son says, “That’s because He knows that all wisdom will help people get closer to Him.”

How great is that!? It’s true. Anyone that wants wisdom in any situation on any topic can ask God for it and He’ll deliver. He doesn’t want anybody to be a fool and perish. He wants everyone to be wise and know that He Himself is the ultimate and true source of all wisdom.