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Peter wasn't done Denying.| | (Xanga was acting weird on my computer the past few days, so I've skipped a few Bible entries here and just put them on my Facebook. I'll backdate them later now that we're running again.)
You know, for not really sleeping at all last night, I'm surprisingly
awake. I've already been up, showered, eaten, and read all of my boring
Saturday Morning RSS feeds (No webcomics on Saturday except for Explosm
and SMBC = sad). I don't know why I can't get a normal sleep schedule
going, and I just can't wake up when I want to...I need to beat this.
Half the time I'm not even all that tired when I hit snooze or reset
the alarm, I just...want sleep, or I'm in the habit of it, or
something, and that's a dangerous place to be.
Anyway, Proverbs 25. We're back to Solomon's writings again, so they're back to the one-liners.
According to verse 1, Hezekiah wrote these down. So I guess this was a
Greatest Hits collection published a long time after his death.
2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.
- Right off the bat, we get this really interesting verse. I have two
possible interpretations I get from this. The first is that it's a
reference to God's desire to forgive and blot out our sins, but that
it's the job of kings and government to discover and punish wrongdoing,
but I don't know if that's really what it could mean, because it
doesn't really line up with where the Covenant was at the time, and
doesn't match up with other themes in the Bible.
The other interpretation is a little more abstract, but I think that
God placed the desire to explore, discover, invent, and create inside
of all of us. People who climb mountains, who go on safaris, who become
scientists, who become inventors, all of them are doing it because of a
desire that God programmed into us. When he told us to have dominion
over the Earth, it meant that we were supposed to explore every facet
of it; make use of every item in it; learn everything we can about it,
because, as a creation of God, He expresses Himself through every
detail of His creation. I think God hid things all over the universe,
even within the laws of physics and mathematics (and other such
abstract fields of study) for us to find, and I think He loves it when
we learn about it and find it.
It's His glory that He's made plants, animals, fish, and bugs that we
haven't discovered yet; that he put water on Mars; that the square of a
hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the square of the other two sides,
and it's our glory when we find it.
Not that it helps "smart Bible people," in an argument, but the Message seems to agree with me:
"2 God delights in concealing things;
scientists delight in discovering things. "
4 Take away the dross from silver,
And it will go to the silversmith for jewelry.
5 Take away the wicked from before the king,
And his throne will be established in righteousness.
- Another one with a few different possible meanings - I'm not sure if
it means take away the wicked from the king himself (which makes sense
as wisdom, but doesn't work with the language), from the presence of
the king in general (which I can kind of see, but it seems weird coming
from Solomon, who judged matters in his throne room), or from his
counsel and staff (Which makes the most sense, but makes the verse
oddly worded).
I dunno. Maybe we should just do all three.
6 Do not exalt yourself in the presence of the king,
And do not stand in the place of the great;
7 For it is better that he say to you,
“ Come up here,”
Than that you should be put lower in the presence of the prince,
Whom your eyes have seen.
- Let your work and life do the talking for you about how great you
are. If you don't try yourself, then you get accepted at face value; if
you publicly declare your greatness, and have to then be publicly
corrected...you look like an idiot.
8 Do not go hastily to court;
For what will you do in the end,
When your neighbor has put you to shame?
9 Debate your case with your neighbor,
And do not disclose the secret to another;
10 Lest he who hears it expose your shame,
And your reputation be ruined.
- Similar advice, different application. Before making a public
spectacle of it, make sure you know what you're talking about. If
you're so quick to go talk to other people and have them decide who's
right and just love disproving people in public, you'll eventually do
it for something in which you're dead wrong, and you'll look like a
[donkey].
12 Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold
Is a wise rebuker to an obedient ear.
- Reach the place where you're so hungry for wisdom, that even rebuke by someone smarter than you is a great experience.
15 By long forbearance a ruler is persuaded,
And a gentle tongue breaks a bone.
- Screaming and yelling and arguing will not get your way. Being
patient and making your case when you get the opportunity and acting
like a civil human being will eventually convince just about anyone.
And break their knees in the process. Good times.
16 Have you found honey?
Eat only as much as you need,
Lest you be filled with it and vomit.
17 Seldom set foot in your neighbor’s house,
Lest he become weary of you and hate you.
- The practical, blunt honesty of some of Proverbs' observation makes
me laugh sometimes. There are a few people who will be allowed "just
walk in" best friend privileges, but, for the majority of people, going
over to people's houses too much, even if they like you, will
eventually make them sick at the sight of you. As Strong Bad once said,
"Too much of a good thing...is an awesome thing. But too much of an
awesome things is...really really dumb...and bad."
Incidentally, these two verses are rarely shown grouped, but I think the effect of them is heightened together.
19 Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble
Is like a bad tooth and a foot out of joint.
- Again, I just love these observations.
20 Like one who takes away a garment in cold weather,
And like vinegar on soda,
Is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.
- Is anyone else getting how awesome these comparisons are? We've all
seen it - we've been upset or down about something, and some
well-meaning person with a heart of gold starts trying to make you feel
better by telling you what a great person you are, and all the great
things God has for you, and all the good things you've done for them,
and everything they say is heartwarming and so sweet....and yet you
just want to punch them in face.
Don't just vomit happy thoughts all over someone who's hurting, because
you'll only cause them more pain and there will probably be an outburst
that hurts even more people.
Also, did anyone catch that they did the vinegar and baking soda thing
in Old Testament times? Never knew that. It probably wasn't baking soda
proper, but...still. Your science fair project is literally ancient.
That's why you don't win.
24 It is better to dwell in a corner of a housetop,
Than in a house shared with a contentious woman.
- I'll end it with another amusing comparison about how horrible it is to have a bad wife.
---
I read Galatians 2 earlier, actually, but didn't commentate. So here's my summary.
Galatians 2
Fourteen years after the visit to Peter previously mentioned, Paul was
compelled by God to visit Jerusalem again, and he took Titus and
Barnabas with him. His belief in the Gospel that salvation came by
faith in Jesus, not the works of the law, was so great that even among
the leaders of the Christian movement, who walked and talked with
Jesus, he and his group (Even Titus, who was a Gentile) were not
circumcised, which is the most basic entry-level act into the Mosaic
law. The only people who tried to convince them to be circumcised were
a few people who weren't really Christians and were just trying to see
who this guy Paul was that was telling people to stop obeying the law.
I find it interesting that, about these people, Paul said "to whom we
did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel
might continue with you." While it's certainly no sin to circumcise,
Paul and his company (More specifically his company; Paul almost
certainly already was, since he was a Pharisee), refused to be
circumcised for the sake of the Gospel. If they had went ahead and
submitted to it just to appease people, the chance of preaching
salvation by faith instead of works would have basically gone kaput.
Bowing to the whims of these legalistic people who were really actively
attacking the Gospel would have killed the very message of Grace they
were preaching.
This is interesting to me because I always wonder how much should be
avoided for sake of reputation and "avoiding the appearance of evil"
(especially as far as clothes, activities, and certain works of fiction
that are considered by some to be penned by Satan), and how much caving
to just promotes a legalistic perversion of the Gospel by making it
conditional according to works and hurting the effectiveness of it to
preach to people in general. I don't know...maybe we'll read more and
find out.
I also find it entertaining that Paul refers to the apostles - the
mighty, amazing, holy apostles that almost everyone holds on a pedestal
and certain denominations pray to and sometimes worship - as basically
"the guys there that looked important, even though I really don't care
because God doesn't see them as any better." Even to me, it takes guts
to so casually refer to the Apostles as those guys who people seemed to
think were important.
Anyway, Paul makes the point that, after laying out the salvation by
Grace message, he got the approval of the Apostles and they
"commissioned" him to go preach to the Gentiles just like they've been
preaching to the Jews. Paul said this to show the Galatian church that
even the Apostles agreed with his Gospel that these false teachers have
been turning the Galatians away from.
In typical Paul-like fashion, he then gets in a fight with Peter.
Apparently Peter was fine with eating with Gentiles, which was
previously forbidden in the law. But when James and some of his people
came, Peter wouldn't eat with Gentiles while they were around, and thus
the majority of the Jewish community, even Barnabas, followed suit.
Paul was none too pleased with this display of cowardly hypocrisy (Poor
Peter...just can't escape that reputation) and told Peter to his face.
Again, we should avoid the appearance of evil and try to live above
reproach, but if it gets to a point where we're making the Gospel
appear to be on the condition of works, we just need to stand up to
these people perpetuating this and lay the Gospel out to them fresh.
Which, coincidentally, is exactly what Paul did to Peter.
The next little paragraph is so full of awesome statements I have to
take it bit at a time. Keep in mind that what's being addressed here is
that Peter would eat with Gentiles when James wasn't around, but
pretended to be a good little Jew when James came.
"But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel..."
- Note that they weren't "preaching" anything; this is all their
actions. By "cleaning up their act" when certain people came around,
they were skewing the message of the Gospel, which was that the Jewish
law was no longer the condition for salvation. What had probably
started as a desire to not start an argument had become a perversion of
the entire meaning of what Jesus did.
"I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live in the
manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to
live as Jews?"
- Paul just completely outed Peter here. In Acts and some other of
Paul's letters, we learn that when Peter preached to the Gentiles, he
tried to tell them to start following Jewish law. While it was most
likely not out of a legitimate attempt to subvert the Gospel, and just
out of what he was culturally conditioned to believe to be right and
wrong, he was still wrong. Paul throws down the Gauntlet and accuses
him of blatant hypocrisy - he'll eat with Gentiles, which is against
the Jewish law, which shows that he believes the law is no longer the
condition for salvation. If Peter is then "living like a Gentile," why
is he telling the Gentiles to live as Jews?
Poor Peter right now is probably shrinking into his chair, wishing the
ground would swallow him up, because I imagine Paul said this in front
of the people that Peter was "shaping up" around. This works
entertainingly well with Proverbs 25:6-7 that I talked about at the top
of the entry.
"We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing
that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in
Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be
justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by
the works of the law no flesh shall be justified."
- Three times in a row Paul says we are justified by faith, not by
works, and that works will justify no one. This is the foundational
statement of the Gospel, that the Apostles (Peter included, presumably)
all agreed on and sent Paul out to preach. Paul is repeating it over
and over to assure everyone around the room that this is what Peter
agreed to, and to dig Peter's grave a little deeper.
"“But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also
are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly
not!"
- If the Gospel we believe enables us to do things that we have to
cover up when "big shot Christians" come around, then has Jesus made us
sin?
This is really heavy wording, because this is in reference to Peter's
activities, which were blatantly against the law of Moses. The law of
Moses, until Jesus, defined what sin was, because the law was the
foundation of the covenant they had with God. Jesus made a new
covenant, and thus the law is no longer the deciding factor of what sin
is. If this is not true, then by Paul preaching that you did not have
to become Jewish to be a Christian, he is preaching that Jesus made
sinners out of all of us, which is not the case.
"For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor."
Falling back on the law as what determines your behavior is rebuilding
that which was destroyed, and breaking the covenant. Why? becuase...
"For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God."
The law kept people from God, because it ensured their sinfulness never
stopped. Jesus, by being the Sacrifice demanded of it, fulfilled all of
the laws requirements, and made it possible for us to die to that
covenant. Since, through what Jesus did in compliance with the law, we
can die to the law, we can live for God, because the sinfulness that
was keeping us from Him is dead.
"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me;"
As useful as this verse is for preaching how much you have to beat
yourself up to be a Christian, that's not what it's talking about.
Saying that you have been crucified with Christ means that the death
the law pronounced over you happened with Jesus on the cross - as far
as the law is concerned, you died that day and your sentence has been
carried out. When Christ resurrected, He began life under a new
covenant, and now you live with Him under that one, not the old one.
"and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
Instead of walking by the law and what our flesh can do that's good
enough, you now live by faith in what Jesus did, because he gave
Himself for you.
"I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”"
In light of that, for you to start acting with false holiness to
appease people that appear to be important (even though to God, they're
no more important than you or me), then you are putting down the grace
of God and rebuilding the old covenant again. If you're ashamed of what
you're doing, you're declaring that Jesus made you a sinner, instead of
setting you free.
Don't pretend that acting right makes you righteous in the sight of God, because if it does, Jesus died for nothing.
YES. | | | Posted 5/23/2009 10:51 AM - 2 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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