26 ¶ Many seek the ruler’s favour; but every man’s judgment cometh from the LORD.
Literally, to the Hebrew, this would have been a wise piece of keen advice. You may seek the ruler’s commendation, his approval, but when all is said and done anything you receive is from the Lord. We, as finite human beings, truly don’t know and realize all of the reasons that the Lord permits things to happen for us.
We attempt to make the best of our lives, to select a school to go to or a trade to learn, a spouse to marry, a car to drive, a home to live in, and on and on but what we don’t realize is that while we seek a certain conclusion to life’s questions and uncertainties in one direction, the answer comes from the Lord.
God’s will is called directed and permissive. It is directed when He purposely does something to you or for you. It is permissive when He allows something to happen to you. You actually get only one choice in life. Who will you follow? Will you follow the Lord? Worship your Self? The world? People can be divided down into those few who know that everything comes from the hand of God ultimately, those who believe that they are the captains of their own fates and the masters of their own destiny, and those who just want what the world system has to offer and hope for a relatively painless existence. But, although we may seek favor from the world, every single one of us receives good or bad from God.
You may stand before a judge and beg his mercy but if you get it then it is the Lord’s mercy because the judge’s mind will be directed, unknown to him, by the Lord. You will apply for a job, having never once asked God to direct you, following your own will, but it is God who will determine whether the employer will offer you the job. How does He have time to do all of these things for all of these people? He has eternity to answer our finite prayers and to direct our finite lives.
Follow the God of the Bible through Jesus Christ. Seek favor from him alone. That is ultimately the source of all judgment.
Exodus 7:13 And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.
For Saul’s disobedience and vanity his heart was troubled by the Lord.
1Samuel 16:14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.
Man does not direct his own steps.
Jeremiah 10:23 O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
Why did God permit you to do evil? Because you are evil. Why did God save you in spite of yourself? Because of His mercy, because He is good. Each day all of your choices can be boiled down to one choice you make repeatedly throughout the day. Whom do you follow? Who is your master?
Outside of that you have very little control. You can prepare yourself with a Harvard education, a lifetime fitness plan, a nutritionist, and the best medical care on the planet. Then you can die of an aneurysm at the age of twenty five.
You can seek every good citizen award, be knighted by the Queen, given a medal by the President, and then have someone plant drugs in your car or porn on your computer and go down in flames before the public. The seeds of your greatest failure are often sown in the ecstasy of your greatest success. God is in control, not you.
Now is the time to follow Christ, to believe in Him, and to trust Him for eternal life. Now is the time to acknowledge God’s hand in everything and seek to obey Him but most of all to be thankful. Now is the time to understand that God has a purpose for your life. Life requires too many miracles of inanimate, dead things to be a random accident. No one has ever seen or performed an experiment where biological life was created from inert matter. Life always comes from life. God created you, He controls your destiny, and even directs your will. You seek whom you will follow, obey, trust, and worship.
When you seek favor from a ruler, a boss, a VIP of any stripe, remember, what you receive will be from the Lord based on His will for you. This is one reason we are told to be constantly in a state of prayer, keeping our minds on God.
Romans 12:12 Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;
1Thessalonians 5:17 Pray without ceasing.
So, today, try this exercise out and let me know what happens. Seek God’s will in everything you do. Do everything for the glory of God. Be thankful for your food committing it to your body and your body to the service of God.
Romans12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And remember, when you ask someone for something or seek their approval, what you get will come from God. Don’t curse your bad luck or blame the Devil who, as we learn from the book of Job can do nothing to you that God hasn’t permitted him to do. There is a purpose.
Remember that Jesus told Pilate that Pilate could do nothing to Him without God’s permission?
John 19:11 Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.
So, choose this day who you will serve and whose favor you will seek. But know that in the end what happens comes from God.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Proverbs 29:25 commentary: safe in the Lord
25 ¶ The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.
This is a tough one for Christians. We are not to fear men but to put our trust in the Lord.
Psalm 118:8 It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.
Psalm 118:9 It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.
But for a thousand years, Christians who refused to baptize their newborns, or as in the command of Charlemagne, up to a month old, were fined, imprisoned, had their land and children taken, and were often murdered. Some historians estimate that the slaughter of Christians by the state churches of Rome and Constantinople as well as even Zurich where the famous “reformer” Zwingli had ordered them tied into sacks and drowned in Lake Zurich, in Germany where they were stripped, beaten, and exiled and if they returned killed to the number of between 5 million and 50 million. Luther hated those Christians who refused to baptize their infants. While the Eastern Roman Empire murdered hundreds of thousands of Paulicians the Church at Rome is estimated to have killed nearly a million dissenting Vaudois Christians whose doctrinal beliefs were established in the valleys of the Alps by missionaries from Antioch, Syria in the second century. Some writers speak of an average of 400 executions per day throughout Europe in that thousand year period with charges of witchcraft being also laid at the dissenters feet and curious, bloodthirsty crowds of tens of thousands enjoying some spectacles. Medieval Catholic and Protestant Europe’s bloodthirsty lust for the blood of Christian martyrs made the Aztecs look wimpy by comparison.
Tens of millions of Christians weren’t safe physically by trusting in the Lord were they?
As Greek philosophy and pagan religion became mingled with the simplicity of the Christian message in the second century and people began worshipping in “church buildings” rather than in simple homes things began to change. When Christianity was coopted by pagan Rome in the fourth century and the Emperor Constantine made it the state religion the Roman concept of massive and beautiful buildings became the ideal. Along with the heresies introduced with “church buildings” in the second century from Greek and Roman religion was the concept that Baptism, rather than being a type of salvation, as the Bible clearly states in the doctrines to the Christian, was the means by which people were saved, that being ‘born again’ wasn’t as much by simple faith in Christ but by ritual observance, raising Baptism to a level of importance that Circumcision had for the infant Jew. Again, taken straight from pagan mystery religions this heresy became dominant in the Greco-Roman Christianity.
Christians who rejected this notion were tortured. Christians who denied this notion were murdered. Christians who refused this notion were put in prison. Tens of millions of Christians weren’t safe physically by trusting in the Lord were they?
In Pagan Rome religion was the bulwark of the state. To deny the Roman observance of religion; the temples where the god’s dwell, the emperor as a living god of the state where even Augustus signed documents as the “son of god”, the gods and goddesses of the field, of the nursing mother, of the hearth and home, and the thousands upon thousands of gods and goddesses of every facet of human life was to be unpatriotic and a hater of humanity.
The Bible believing Christian, whether it be the Old Latin of the Byzantine textual line, the Syriac Peshitta, the Gothic Bible, or any number of old versions of the Bible, had to face a pagan Christianity that said that God resided in a church building, that you came to church to “meet with God”, that you kneeled at an altar to “do business with God”, and that’s where God met with you and nowhere else, that a Pastor was really a priest like in the Hebrew religion, a “man of God” like a prophet of the Old Testament, and that to obey the Pastor was to obey God. The order of worship of the early Christians, singing psalms, praying for each other, reading from the Scriptures, some with the gift of preaching and prophesying offering their understanding of Scriptures, with people freely and joyfully exercising the gifts of teaching, hospitality, and charity toward each other became instead a structured Greco-Roman ritual. Pulpits, chairs as thrones, choirs, stained glass windows depicting important Bible scenes, and eventually pews were added as fitting for a state religion with order and Roman structure. Christians who dissented, who worshipped apart from the state sanctioned church were punished, many hunted down and killed like criminals.
Even today there are those who say there is no Holy Spirit in the believer, that it resides only in the church organization, just as there are some who say that you can’t serve God outside of the church organization. Those Christians who refused to consent to the edifice of the state church were murdered and imprisoned.
Throughout history Christians went against the prevailing laws and copied and wrote and translated the Bible into their own native tongue, sought out the Holy Spirit and a spirit filled Pastor to teach them, and constantly talked about the power of the words of God, experiencing it in their dailiy lives. And for that they were murdered and imprisoned by the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands, and the millions.
Those Christians weren’t safe trusting in the Lord, were they?
But what does it mean to be safe?
Psalm 119:117 Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe: and I will have respect unto thy statutes continually.
Isaiah 26:3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
Were Christians promised a life free from persecution? Were those people who believed the Bible that the temple of God was their body and that He did not reside in dwellings of stone and wood, that the church was the people of God meeting, that the house of God was the family of God, that believers were saved by God’s response to their faith in Christ, that no building, ritual, so called sacrament, or observance had any saving power, who were called atheists and haters of humanity, unpatriotic, and heretics betrayed by a belief in a protecting God? Did those people who believed, as the Bible teaches, that there are no sacred spaces in Christianity outside of the born again heart get fooled by a promise that they would never suffer wrong? As pagan Christianity ruled the western world should these true Chrsitians simply have gone along to get along?
The Bible says that the god of this world keeps men from Christ in 2 Corinthians 4:4. Clearly the god of this world isn’t the God of the Bible. Jesus warned His Jewish followers to expect this from the world.
John 15:18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
John 16:2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.
Paul warned a young Pastor.
2Timothy 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution
The promise to the Christian was a guarantee of persecution in this world but a promise of Christ’s encouragement, love, support, and of His eventual triumph over the world, and most of all to lay hold onto eternal life through Him which was promised to all believers.
Hebrews 13:5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
1Peter 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
The snare that the fear of man brings is unbelief, a lack of trusting in God. It ruins your faith, destroys your testimony, and denies your joy in the Lord. The Christian doesn’t have experience with God through ritual or public displays of piety but through prayer, Bible reading, and fellowship with other Christians in an attitude of charity and nonexploitive love. Faith is simple and trusting with everyone having an opportunity to participate. To focus on the condemnation of the world will keep you from knocking on someone’s door, or handing them a gospel tract at a gas station, or helping someone whom the world hates to get a meal or a warm place to sleep. The snare of the fear of man will keep you from uniting with other Christians in worship, or of proclaiming your faith at all.
But, trusting in the Lord will keep you safe in the Lord. When you learn not to worry about what Mr. Self Righteous or Ms. Busybody at church care about and learn not to be concerned with the civil penalty for refusing to go along with the world or how you are looked at by other Christians who have turned their back on the “Common Bible” of America’s Christian heritage then you will find peace and safety in Christ.
The early Christians met before dawn on the first day of the week to sing hymns and pray together, to hear the Scriptures read and the understanding given. Sunday wasn’t a day off from work until Constantine made it so. Throughout history they refused to burn incense to a pagan emperor’s so called deity, to baptize infants for which there is no warrant in the Bible, to honor a human “god like priest”, to fail to copy and write and translate the Bible into their own tongue and let the Holy Spirit and spirit filled Pastors teach them, and to honor the state’s authority over their spiritual lives and relationship to Christ. And they were safe in the Lord.
This is a tough one for Christians. We are not to fear men but to put our trust in the Lord.
Psalm 118:8 It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.
Psalm 118:9 It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.
But for a thousand years, Christians who refused to baptize their newborns, or as in the command of Charlemagne, up to a month old, were fined, imprisoned, had their land and children taken, and were often murdered. Some historians estimate that the slaughter of Christians by the state churches of Rome and Constantinople as well as even Zurich where the famous “reformer” Zwingli had ordered them tied into sacks and drowned in Lake Zurich, in Germany where they were stripped, beaten, and exiled and if they returned killed to the number of between 5 million and 50 million. Luther hated those Christians who refused to baptize their infants. While the Eastern Roman Empire murdered hundreds of thousands of Paulicians the Church at Rome is estimated to have killed nearly a million dissenting Vaudois Christians whose doctrinal beliefs were established in the valleys of the Alps by missionaries from Antioch, Syria in the second century. Some writers speak of an average of 400 executions per day throughout Europe in that thousand year period with charges of witchcraft being also laid at the dissenters feet and curious, bloodthirsty crowds of tens of thousands enjoying some spectacles. Medieval Catholic and Protestant Europe’s bloodthirsty lust for the blood of Christian martyrs made the Aztecs look wimpy by comparison.
Tens of millions of Christians weren’t safe physically by trusting in the Lord were they?
As Greek philosophy and pagan religion became mingled with the simplicity of the Christian message in the second century and people began worshipping in “church buildings” rather than in simple homes things began to change. When Christianity was coopted by pagan Rome in the fourth century and the Emperor Constantine made it the state religion the Roman concept of massive and beautiful buildings became the ideal. Along with the heresies introduced with “church buildings” in the second century from Greek and Roman religion was the concept that Baptism, rather than being a type of salvation, as the Bible clearly states in the doctrines to the Christian, was the means by which people were saved, that being ‘born again’ wasn’t as much by simple faith in Christ but by ritual observance, raising Baptism to a level of importance that Circumcision had for the infant Jew. Again, taken straight from pagan mystery religions this heresy became dominant in the Greco-Roman Christianity.
Christians who rejected this notion were tortured. Christians who denied this notion were murdered. Christians who refused this notion were put in prison. Tens of millions of Christians weren’t safe physically by trusting in the Lord were they?
In Pagan Rome religion was the bulwark of the state. To deny the Roman observance of religion; the temples where the god’s dwell, the emperor as a living god of the state where even Augustus signed documents as the “son of god”, the gods and goddesses of the field, of the nursing mother, of the hearth and home, and the thousands upon thousands of gods and goddesses of every facet of human life was to be unpatriotic and a hater of humanity.
The Bible believing Christian, whether it be the Old Latin of the Byzantine textual line, the Syriac Peshitta, the Gothic Bible, or any number of old versions of the Bible, had to face a pagan Christianity that said that God resided in a church building, that you came to church to “meet with God”, that you kneeled at an altar to “do business with God”, and that’s where God met with you and nowhere else, that a Pastor was really a priest like in the Hebrew religion, a “man of God” like a prophet of the Old Testament, and that to obey the Pastor was to obey God. The order of worship of the early Christians, singing psalms, praying for each other, reading from the Scriptures, some with the gift of preaching and prophesying offering their understanding of Scriptures, with people freely and joyfully exercising the gifts of teaching, hospitality, and charity toward each other became instead a structured Greco-Roman ritual. Pulpits, chairs as thrones, choirs, stained glass windows depicting important Bible scenes, and eventually pews were added as fitting for a state religion with order and Roman structure. Christians who dissented, who worshipped apart from the state sanctioned church were punished, many hunted down and killed like criminals.
Even today there are those who say there is no Holy Spirit in the believer, that it resides only in the church organization, just as there are some who say that you can’t serve God outside of the church organization. Those Christians who refused to consent to the edifice of the state church were murdered and imprisoned.
Throughout history Christians went against the prevailing laws and copied and wrote and translated the Bible into their own native tongue, sought out the Holy Spirit and a spirit filled Pastor to teach them, and constantly talked about the power of the words of God, experiencing it in their dailiy lives. And for that they were murdered and imprisoned by the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands, and the millions.
Those Christians weren’t safe trusting in the Lord, were they?
But what does it mean to be safe?
Psalm 119:117 Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe: and I will have respect unto thy statutes continually.
Isaiah 26:3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
Were Christians promised a life free from persecution? Were those people who believed the Bible that the temple of God was their body and that He did not reside in dwellings of stone and wood, that the church was the people of God meeting, that the house of God was the family of God, that believers were saved by God’s response to their faith in Christ, that no building, ritual, so called sacrament, or observance had any saving power, who were called atheists and haters of humanity, unpatriotic, and heretics betrayed by a belief in a protecting God? Did those people who believed, as the Bible teaches, that there are no sacred spaces in Christianity outside of the born again heart get fooled by a promise that they would never suffer wrong? As pagan Christianity ruled the western world should these true Chrsitians simply have gone along to get along?
The Bible says that the god of this world keeps men from Christ in 2 Corinthians 4:4. Clearly the god of this world isn’t the God of the Bible. Jesus warned His Jewish followers to expect this from the world.
John 15:18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
John 16:2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.
Paul warned a young Pastor.
2Timothy 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution
The promise to the Christian was a guarantee of persecution in this world but a promise of Christ’s encouragement, love, support, and of His eventual triumph over the world, and most of all to lay hold onto eternal life through Him which was promised to all believers.
Hebrews 13:5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
1Peter 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
The snare that the fear of man brings is unbelief, a lack of trusting in God. It ruins your faith, destroys your testimony, and denies your joy in the Lord. The Christian doesn’t have experience with God through ritual or public displays of piety but through prayer, Bible reading, and fellowship with other Christians in an attitude of charity and nonexploitive love. Faith is simple and trusting with everyone having an opportunity to participate. To focus on the condemnation of the world will keep you from knocking on someone’s door, or handing them a gospel tract at a gas station, or helping someone whom the world hates to get a meal or a warm place to sleep. The snare of the fear of man will keep you from uniting with other Christians in worship, or of proclaiming your faith at all.
But, trusting in the Lord will keep you safe in the Lord. When you learn not to worry about what Mr. Self Righteous or Ms. Busybody at church care about and learn not to be concerned with the civil penalty for refusing to go along with the world or how you are looked at by other Christians who have turned their back on the “Common Bible” of America’s Christian heritage then you will find peace and safety in Christ.
The early Christians met before dawn on the first day of the week to sing hymns and pray together, to hear the Scriptures read and the understanding given. Sunday wasn’t a day off from work until Constantine made it so. Throughout history they refused to burn incense to a pagan emperor’s so called deity, to baptize infants for which there is no warrant in the Bible, to honor a human “god like priest”, to fail to copy and write and translate the Bible into their own tongue and let the Holy Spirit and spirit filled Pastors teach them, and to honor the state’s authority over their spiritual lives and relationship to Christ. And they were safe in the Lord.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Proverbs 29:24 commentary; a partner in crime
24 ¶ Whoso is partner with a thief hateth his own soul: he heareth cursing, and bewrayeth it not.
2 Corinthians 8:23 defines partner as a fellowhelper, in case any of you didn’t know it was, in this context, a partner in crime. Bewrayeth means to give testimony to something that is trying to be concealed, to give something up, as in Psalm 27:16 or Matthew 27:73. In one case it is having the ointment that is on your hand revealed by its smell or Peter’s guilt exposed due to the dialect he speaks. Betray, on the other hand, carries with it the meaning of willfully turning someone in, of giving someone up to the authorities.
The partner to the thief shares in the thief’s sin and doesn’t give up the deed even when he hears the victim cursing the thief. The point here is that the person who is an accomplice to sin is as bad as the person initiating the sin. You can’t run with people intent on committing sin and not be one of them, and not share in their guilt. In fact, you will even go so far as to help conceal their crime.
An important thing to remember from this Proverb is that you are a partner in sin if you hear about it and yet say nothing to the thief, take no action. The Christian, when they are aware of sin in the congregation or they perceive that there has been a sin committed, must speak up, preferably to the sinner first, and not hold their peace, lest they be an accomplice to the sin.
Doctrinally, this is true as well.
2 John 9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. 10 ¶ If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: 11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.
The Christian who sees sin in the congregation or who hears heresy must speak up. Some fundamentalist churches have been accused of harboring sex offenders and abusive people, even malignant psychopaths, because when their evil deeds were discovered a Pastor refused to do anything about it or to even acknowledge the sin. This has harmed the faith of a great many former independent Baptists. There are even Facebook groups dedicated to survivors of abuse in fundamental Baptist churches and in their schools. If you see a wrong being done and you do nothing or say nothing then you are a partner to the sinner.
It is your business. You have no excuse not to help a brother or sister you think is heading the wrong way by speaking to them and you certainly have no excuse keeping your mouth shut when you see blatant sin or hear obvious heresy. To say nothing makes you a partner in crime and, like the sinner, you are showing contempt for your own soul. How many people, usually children and young women, have had their faith in Christ destroyed by an evil person in their own congregation and the so called Christians who stood by knowing something wasn’t right but saying nothing, making them accomplices to the awful crime?
So, take from this Proverb that the person who knows the thief and what he did but says nothing about the theft is as guilty of the theft as the first person, especially if that theft includes the faith of an innocent and helpless child.
2 Corinthians 8:23 defines partner as a fellowhelper, in case any of you didn’t know it was, in this context, a partner in crime. Bewrayeth means to give testimony to something that is trying to be concealed, to give something up, as in Psalm 27:16 or Matthew 27:73. In one case it is having the ointment that is on your hand revealed by its smell or Peter’s guilt exposed due to the dialect he speaks. Betray, on the other hand, carries with it the meaning of willfully turning someone in, of giving someone up to the authorities.
The partner to the thief shares in the thief’s sin and doesn’t give up the deed even when he hears the victim cursing the thief. The point here is that the person who is an accomplice to sin is as bad as the person initiating the sin. You can’t run with people intent on committing sin and not be one of them, and not share in their guilt. In fact, you will even go so far as to help conceal their crime.
An important thing to remember from this Proverb is that you are a partner in sin if you hear about it and yet say nothing to the thief, take no action. The Christian, when they are aware of sin in the congregation or they perceive that there has been a sin committed, must speak up, preferably to the sinner first, and not hold their peace, lest they be an accomplice to the sin.
Doctrinally, this is true as well.
2 John 9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. 10 ¶ If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: 11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.
The Christian who sees sin in the congregation or who hears heresy must speak up. Some fundamentalist churches have been accused of harboring sex offenders and abusive people, even malignant psychopaths, because when their evil deeds were discovered a Pastor refused to do anything about it or to even acknowledge the sin. This has harmed the faith of a great many former independent Baptists. There are even Facebook groups dedicated to survivors of abuse in fundamental Baptist churches and in their schools. If you see a wrong being done and you do nothing or say nothing then you are a partner to the sinner.
It is your business. You have no excuse not to help a brother or sister you think is heading the wrong way by speaking to them and you certainly have no excuse keeping your mouth shut when you see blatant sin or hear obvious heresy. To say nothing makes you a partner in crime and, like the sinner, you are showing contempt for your own soul. How many people, usually children and young women, have had their faith in Christ destroyed by an evil person in their own congregation and the so called Christians who stood by knowing something wasn’t right but saying nothing, making them accomplices to the awful crime?
So, take from this Proverb that the person who knows the thief and what he did but says nothing about the theft is as guilty of the theft as the first person, especially if that theft includes the faith of an innocent and helpless child.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Proverbs 29:23 commentary; your pride is a weakness, not a strength
23 ¶ A man’s pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.
This is a strikingly similar thought to something that Jesus Christ says later.
Matthew 23:8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. 9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. 10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. 11 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
(We know from John 3:2 that ‘rabbi’ means ‘teacher’, if you didn’t know it from somewhere else. We also know that ‘master’ means teacher in many contexts as per Malachi 2:12 and James 3:1 as opposed to the times where a master/servant relationship is expressed as in 1 Peter 2:18. In this passage both contexts are used and both definitions of ‘master’ are given. God is the only true teacher, father, and master. Jesus says that the person who lifts himself up will be abased. In contrast to exalted we can surmise that it means in this context to be put down. Abased can also mean, depending on the context, to be made destitute, to have nothing as in Phillipians 4:12 as the serious Bible student observes how the Bible is self defining. )
In keeping with the thought in this Proverb, James and Peter have said;
James 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
1Peter 5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
Paul, in the doctrine written specifically to Christians gives this admonition;
Romans 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
The Scriptures had said previously,
Proverbs 16:18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
Jesus gives another example of the thought of placing oneself in a lower position and being lifted up from there in Luke 14. So, Christian, when you are feeling particularly pleased about how manly, spiritual, wise, or wonderful you are remember that you can be brought low in a heartbeat and reduced to nothing in an instant. Humble yourself before God and don’t seek to lord it over other men. Those men whose lives are centered around dominating others are simply fools, whose folly will result in their destruction, either in this life or in Hell. Remember, at all times, and in every place its not about you, it’s about Christ. Let Him lift you up. Pride is this huge wart on the nose of any professing Christian. Everyone else sees it even if he doesn’t and it isn’t attractive in the least. No one is fooled but you.
This is a strikingly similar thought to something that Jesus Christ says later.
Matthew 23:8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. 9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. 10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. 11 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
(We know from John 3:2 that ‘rabbi’ means ‘teacher’, if you didn’t know it from somewhere else. We also know that ‘master’ means teacher in many contexts as per Malachi 2:12 and James 3:1 as opposed to the times where a master/servant relationship is expressed as in 1 Peter 2:18. In this passage both contexts are used and both definitions of ‘master’ are given. God is the only true teacher, father, and master. Jesus says that the person who lifts himself up will be abased. In contrast to exalted we can surmise that it means in this context to be put down. Abased can also mean, depending on the context, to be made destitute, to have nothing as in Phillipians 4:12 as the serious Bible student observes how the Bible is self defining. )
In keeping with the thought in this Proverb, James and Peter have said;
James 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
1Peter 5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
Paul, in the doctrine written specifically to Christians gives this admonition;
Romans 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
The Scriptures had said previously,
Proverbs 16:18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
Jesus gives another example of the thought of placing oneself in a lower position and being lifted up from there in Luke 14. So, Christian, when you are feeling particularly pleased about how manly, spiritual, wise, or wonderful you are remember that you can be brought low in a heartbeat and reduced to nothing in an instant. Humble yourself before God and don’t seek to lord it over other men. Those men whose lives are centered around dominating others are simply fools, whose folly will result in their destruction, either in this life or in Hell. Remember, at all times, and in every place its not about you, it’s about Christ. Let Him lift you up. Pride is this huge wart on the nose of any professing Christian. Everyone else sees it even if he doesn’t and it isn’t attractive in the least. No one is fooled but you.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Proverbs 29:22 commentary; angry and furious
22 ¶ An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression.
This is a reference to those persons who have an angry spirit, who are wrathful by nature, and short tempered by habit. Such a man or woman creates trouble and excels at doing wrong and committing sin. No man or woman’s angry nature does anyone around them any good. If you are the kind of person who explodes, turns over furniture, and throws things when angry; who rips people apart with their verbal abuse and possibly lays vengeful hands on someone physically weaker than yourself then you are in bad need of repentance and forgiveness for your wickedness.
The young man is warned not to associate with such persons;
Proverbs 22:24 ¶ Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: 25 Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.
When you meet a person who always seems to have a pot boiling just beneath the surface, ready to explode into fury and rage, avoid that person like the plague. If you know a person like that pray for them and do your best to get away from them. They are not pleasing to God or man. The only god they can worship is their own will and they are the center of their universe. Everyone else around them is a mere prop in their life’s drama, its all about them, and you are really no more important to them than a piece of machinery which can be easily replaced. Anger management therapy? They don’t need “help” like that. They need Christ.
This is a reference to those persons who have an angry spirit, who are wrathful by nature, and short tempered by habit. Such a man or woman creates trouble and excels at doing wrong and committing sin. No man or woman’s angry nature does anyone around them any good. If you are the kind of person who explodes, turns over furniture, and throws things when angry; who rips people apart with their verbal abuse and possibly lays vengeful hands on someone physically weaker than yourself then you are in bad need of repentance and forgiveness for your wickedness.
The young man is warned not to associate with such persons;
Proverbs 22:24 ¶ Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: 25 Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.
When you meet a person who always seems to have a pot boiling just beneath the surface, ready to explode into fury and rage, avoid that person like the plague. If you know a person like that pray for them and do your best to get away from them. They are not pleasing to God or man. The only god they can worship is their own will and they are the center of their universe. Everyone else around them is a mere prop in their life’s drama, its all about them, and you are really no more important to them than a piece of machinery which can be easily replaced. Anger management therapy? They don’t need “help” like that. They need Christ.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Proverbs 29:21 commentary; a servant to a son
21 ¶ He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him become his son at the length.
Matthew Henry and John Gill had this meaning that if you treat a servant too kindly and give him an easy life he will start acting like your child and eventually will not think of himself as a servant. However, there are some interesting verses in the Bible that one could easily link to this one for a slightly different outlook.
Galatians 4:1 ¶ Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; 2 But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. 3 Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: 4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Therefore, under the Law, and to the Pharisees among my fundamentalist brethren, under your strict and unyielding convictions of how one ought to dress and behave, and even vote, we are servants but under grace we become sons, or children. Saved mankind goes from being a servant to being a son as God moves from the harshness of the Law to the nurturing and admonition of grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Even more so, the duties of a man toward His Maker go from being outward in the flesh and human will to being inward in a changed heart, a born again spirit, and being moved by the Holy Ghost. God has delicately brought us up. If we submit to His words in His Bible He will gently change our hearts, our dispositions, our likes and dislikes, and what we think of as our needs. I am not saying that salvation isn’t accomplished all at once when we are born again by faith and trust in Christ, but the process of being set apart for God’s use, sanctification, does take us from a servant to a child.
Do you obey God as a servant or as His child? I believe that you should go to church as often as you are able given the exigencies of health, distance, work, financial ability, and family responsibilities to worship and to spend time with your brothers and sisters in Christ. But, why do you go? Why are you there? Are you there because of duty to a demanding master or because of the affection you feel for a loving father? Do you go because that’s just what Christians do or do you go because you feel drawn to it as a child is drawn to be with those whom he or she loves? Where are you in your Christian life? Still only a servant or more, a child of God?
Matthew Henry and John Gill had this meaning that if you treat a servant too kindly and give him an easy life he will start acting like your child and eventually will not think of himself as a servant. However, there are some interesting verses in the Bible that one could easily link to this one for a slightly different outlook.
Galatians 4:1 ¶ Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; 2 But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. 3 Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: 4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Therefore, under the Law, and to the Pharisees among my fundamentalist brethren, under your strict and unyielding convictions of how one ought to dress and behave, and even vote, we are servants but under grace we become sons, or children. Saved mankind goes from being a servant to being a son as God moves from the harshness of the Law to the nurturing and admonition of grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Even more so, the duties of a man toward His Maker go from being outward in the flesh and human will to being inward in a changed heart, a born again spirit, and being moved by the Holy Ghost. God has delicately brought us up. If we submit to His words in His Bible He will gently change our hearts, our dispositions, our likes and dislikes, and what we think of as our needs. I am not saying that salvation isn’t accomplished all at once when we are born again by faith and trust in Christ, but the process of being set apart for God’s use, sanctification, does take us from a servant to a child.
Do you obey God as a servant or as His child? I believe that you should go to church as often as you are able given the exigencies of health, distance, work, financial ability, and family responsibilities to worship and to spend time with your brothers and sisters in Christ. But, why do you go? Why are you there? Are you there because of duty to a demanding master or because of the affection you feel for a loving father? Do you go because that’s just what Christians do or do you go because you feel drawn to it as a child is drawn to be with those whom he or she loves? Where are you in your Christian life? Still only a servant or more, a child of God?
Monday, January 30, 2012
Proverbs 29:20 commentary; don't be hasty with your words
20 ¶ Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? there is more hope of a fool than of him.
Hasty words have hurt many a friend and spouse. They’ve ended jobs and caused arrests. Words mean something and what you say this morning can have a tremendous effect on the rest of the day, the week, the month, or even the rest of your life.
Ecclesiastes 5:2 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.
James 1:19 ¶ Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
There’s not much hope for someone whose mouth runs before their brain is engaged. There is also the simpleton who simply must have the last word in any discussion or argument. When you talk to them you just know they aren’t even thinking about what you’re saying but waiting to say something that has come to their mind.
We would be wise to be slow to speak according to God’s word and to choose our words carefully. A Christian’s words should have purpose.
Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
We’ve had plenty of examples of celebrity preachers who, when given the national spotlight, have said ill advised things that reflected their own opinions or weaknesses rather than God’s eternal truths designed to bring people closer to Him through Christ. Sometimes, having a pulpit that gets attention from the media, they simply say stupid things. Whether it be Jerry Falwell blaming 9/11 on abortion and homosexuality rather than on the malicious intent of the perpetrators and their leaders and our failed foreign policies or Pat Robertson claiming he could leg press a ton or Jeremiah Wright cursing America from the pulpit these men apparently believed their own press too much.
Often politicians will regret a random statement that came out of their mouth at an inopportune time. Recently, a rash of political leaders have been reported as saying some of the most embarrassing, moronic, and idiotic things like abortion providers, performing a legal act, should be hung as criminals. (Not too smart for a politician too gutless to fight to end and to propose legislation to curtail or limit abortion). Another was reported as saying it’s not good to help the poor because it only encourages them to breed. Some have used gun references implying, perhaps, to the unbalanced that their opponents were worthy targets of violence and this was done by both Democrats and Republicans. These things are bad if spoken without thinking and even worse if part of a planned speech.
Men in positions of responsibility and authority should use their words more wisely. And you and I at home should also be careful about what we say and not speak too hastily. I was terribly guilty of this as a parent and said many things in anger that I can never take back. There was more hope for a fool than for me. In fact, I have been a fool most of my life. I had learned to say what I felt at the time rather than what should be said or what was helpful. I fear I hurt young minds and hearts by my rashness and hot temper.
Ecclesiastes 7:9 Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.
To everyone out there, particularly to Christians, think carefully before you respond to anyone, particularly children. They remember and are affected by rash speech and unkind words. Keep in mind that it’s easier sometimes to forget a beating than it is a verbal battering. Our rash words can bring down a child’s view of his or her own value and that can have devastating effect on their lives. Think before you speak, particularly if you’re angry. Don’t be a fool.
Hasty words have hurt many a friend and spouse. They’ve ended jobs and caused arrests. Words mean something and what you say this morning can have a tremendous effect on the rest of the day, the week, the month, or even the rest of your life.
Ecclesiastes 5:2 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.
James 1:19 ¶ Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
There’s not much hope for someone whose mouth runs before their brain is engaged. There is also the simpleton who simply must have the last word in any discussion or argument. When you talk to them you just know they aren’t even thinking about what you’re saying but waiting to say something that has come to their mind.
We would be wise to be slow to speak according to God’s word and to choose our words carefully. A Christian’s words should have purpose.
Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
We’ve had plenty of examples of celebrity preachers who, when given the national spotlight, have said ill advised things that reflected their own opinions or weaknesses rather than God’s eternal truths designed to bring people closer to Him through Christ. Sometimes, having a pulpit that gets attention from the media, they simply say stupid things. Whether it be Jerry Falwell blaming 9/11 on abortion and homosexuality rather than on the malicious intent of the perpetrators and their leaders and our failed foreign policies or Pat Robertson claiming he could leg press a ton or Jeremiah Wright cursing America from the pulpit these men apparently believed their own press too much.
Often politicians will regret a random statement that came out of their mouth at an inopportune time. Recently, a rash of political leaders have been reported as saying some of the most embarrassing, moronic, and idiotic things like abortion providers, performing a legal act, should be hung as criminals. (Not too smart for a politician too gutless to fight to end and to propose legislation to curtail or limit abortion). Another was reported as saying it’s not good to help the poor because it only encourages them to breed. Some have used gun references implying, perhaps, to the unbalanced that their opponents were worthy targets of violence and this was done by both Democrats and Republicans. These things are bad if spoken without thinking and even worse if part of a planned speech.
Men in positions of responsibility and authority should use their words more wisely. And you and I at home should also be careful about what we say and not speak too hastily. I was terribly guilty of this as a parent and said many things in anger that I can never take back. There was more hope for a fool than for me. In fact, I have been a fool most of my life. I had learned to say what I felt at the time rather than what should be said or what was helpful. I fear I hurt young minds and hearts by my rashness and hot temper.
Ecclesiastes 7:9 Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.
To everyone out there, particularly to Christians, think carefully before you respond to anyone, particularly children. They remember and are affected by rash speech and unkind words. Keep in mind that it’s easier sometimes to forget a beating than it is a verbal battering. Our rash words can bring down a child’s view of his or her own value and that can have devastating effect on their lives. Think before you speak, particularly if you’re angry. Don’t be a fool.
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