Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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He sat down to teach – Sermon on the Mount Series #2

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The beginning of the Sermon on the Mount:

 1 When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. 2 He opened His mouth and began to teach them . . .” (Matthew 5:1-2 NASB)

Sermon on the MountAt the end of chapter 4, Matthew informs us that “large crowds” followed Jesus. The crowds followed him because of his ability to heal their diseases, pains and birth defects. They needed physical help and Jesus was able to provide it.

What does Jesus do in response to the large crowds? He looked for a place to sit down and begin teaching them. Why would he do this?

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) we find Jesus expanding our understanding of God and his view of righteousness and godly living. We are encouraged to move beyond physical obedience to spiritual conformity to a higher calling. We moved past doing to being and Jesus shows us that who and what we are determines what we do.

It is not enough to refrain from murder, we are called to live without hatred. It is not enough to refrain from adultery, we are called to live without lust. What we do on the outside is supposed to match what we are on the inside.

Why does Jesus take the time to tell us this? It is not so that we can be proud of our spiritual accomplishments. Apart from the work of God in my life, I cannot even begin to live up to the standards that Jesus presents in this sermon.

I believe that Jesus takes the time to preach this sermon because the crowds then and now need to know that not only do they need physical healing, they also need a spiritual one. This sermon calls me to the understanding that left to myself, my situation is hopeless. On my own, I can manufacture a pseudo spirituality that may perhaps look good on the outside, but I cannot fix the core problem of my sin.

In this sermon, Jesus provides a glimpse as to what true Godly living looks like and invites us to join him in living it out. Paul tells us in Romans:

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:16–17 NASB)

It is by the power of the Gospel that I can begin to live up to the standards that are presented in this sermon. So as we read these beautiful chapters of the Bible, we will be alternately scared to death and encouraged. We will be scared to the death of our self-will and encouraged as we yield control to God who promises to bring his work in us to completion (Philippians 1:6).

Jesus teaches us these things so that we look beyond our own abilities and look to Him. We need to quit the self-help movement and embrace the God-help movement. It is then, and only then, that we can begin to experience ultimate healing, healing the part of us that no doctor or pill can fix.

They asked for healing and Jesus gave it to them, though perhaps not in the form they thought they needed.

Where the wild things are . . . worshipping

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I noticed a reference to wild beasts in Mark 1:13:

And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him. (NKJV)

Wild IbexesWhile in the wilderness, Jesus was with the wild animals. Do you suppose that the animals recognized Jesus as their creator and acted on that recognition? What would that have looked like?

During his entry into Jerusalem, when the people were hailing Jesus as king, the Pharisees demanded that Jesus rebuke his disciples for their pronouncement. Jesus replied in Luke 19:40 by telling them that if the disciples did not hail Jesus, the stones would.

If in animate objects such as stones have the potential to praise Jesus as Messiah, I can imagine that the animals could put on quite a show in deference to their Creator. I’ve seen ibexes in En Gedi, chasing each other, jumping from rock to rock in playful abandon. Would they have come to put on a jumping exhibition for Jesus? Would the other animals in the desert have come to greet him?

It seems to me that the God who enjoyed creating such a diverse animal kingdom would enjoy such interaction with his creation. Remember God’s reaction following the creation of animals? In Genesis 1:25, we have record of God proclaiming his handiwork with regard to animals as good work. God liked what he created. That very same God experienced 40 days in the wilderness as a man who could interact with the animals and derive pleasure from that interaction.

I never heard anyone ever speak or write about this, perhaps it is a stretch, but as the Pennsylvania Dutchman says, “this wonders me some.” How cool would it be to be able to pet a mountain lion or a wild ibex whenever you want to?

Book Review: The Sky Is Not Falling by Charles Colson

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Book CoverReview

I must say that I’ve had a difficult time writing a review for this book. Not because I didn’t like it (I did like it), not because it isn’t worth reading (it is), but because there are many facets to the critique of 21st Century American and how the Church responds to it.

Mr. Colson makes a good case that if the church would do a better job of living out what we claim to believe, many of the problems facing our society today could be impacted for the better.

The church today faces the challenge of living out and defending the Biblical World on which western culture was founded. Throughout the book, Mr. Colson provides insight as to how we can go about this.

Under the heading Restoring Moral Sanity, Mr. Colson outlines three things that can be done to bring positive change to America. They are:

  1. “Address the urgent need for our lawmakers and judges to pass and interpret state and national laws in conformance with natural law.” Colson makes the case that law “separated from its moral moorings becomes tyranny.”
  2. “Christians must contend for the Biblical worldview in the economic marketplace.” “Scripture endorses concepts like private property, contract rights, rule of law, and the discharge of debts – all essential to free markets.
  3. “Christian must find a new way of communicating the vital necessity of adhering to absolute moral and ethical standards.”

The last chapter in the book describes some examples of individuals and communities of believers who have take seriously the call to live out their faith in radical ways.

This book provides food for thought for anyone who takes seriously the call to live out our faith in a world that is increasingly hostile to belief. Mr. Colson presents what is at stake and provides ideas on how to respond. This book would be good at stimulating discussion in a Sunday School class or book study group.

Tozer: the truth about exposition –

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I received an email containing the quote from A. W. Tozer and thought it worth sharing:

Sound Bible exposition is an imperative must in the Church of the Living God. Without it no church can be a New Testament church in any strict meaning of that term. But exposition may be carried on in such way as to leave the hearers devoid of any true spiritual nourishment whatever. For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.

via CQOD—Tozer: the truth about exposition.

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