Admonish the Idle

Admonish the Idle.  True emergencies always run the real risk of casualties. Triage during an emergency certainly saves lives, but at a cost. To say Yes to one emergency requires the difficult decision of saying No or Wait to another. Grim, but technically accurate, not every patient survives. Physical life is an unavoidably fatal condition. Applying a cool-headed, emotionally detached, and predetermined method for making important decisions about life-threatening situations is a skill that few have but all need at least a few times in their lives. The combat medic on the battlefield, the triage nurse or attending physician in the emergency department, the EMT at the fire or police department make crucial decisions daily; decisions which do not correspond to the strict code of first-come-first-served.

Some patients are genuine emergencies, who “skip in line” past those who are acutely though marginally less ill or injured. Other patients in the ER may have serious pain, but whose pain is more chronic. They must wait behind the full-blown emergencies and quickly escalating crises that rush past them in the waiting room. Understandably every patient internally feels like the priority, however, external factors ultimately determine the kind of patient care given and its timing in extreme conditions. Sorting which one is which is very delicate, often thankless, highly criticized, and heavily scrutinized work. Triage (from French, trier, meaning “to sort”) requires specialized training and a certain untaught ability to handle and even harness stress into heightened effectiveness. The bleeding-heart type of person, who is overly empathetic to every sad case, simply won’t last long in triage.

Paul hints at a kind of applicational triage in the church. Everyone needs care at some point, but spiritual care is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Sorting must happen. “And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all” (1 Thess. 5:14). Paul specifically addresses the church collectively (“brothers”), which does not single out the elders or pastors. Of course, the elders and pastors are also church folks, so they are included, but spiritual care is not reserved for only the church’s leadership. All the saints are qualified by God and deputized by Paul to engage as spiritual caregivers.

Triage must accompany spiritual care. We must assess and then adapt to three aspects of scalable degrees in need: the individual, the urgency, and the underlying conditions. (1) Admonish the idle: warn, alert, instruct the undisciplined person in the congregation whose passivity has become a true problem. (2) Encourage the fainthearted: console, alleviate, befriend the despondent person in the congregation whose despair is debilitating. (3) Help the weak: cling to, hold, support the powerless person in your congregation who is ill, injured, or immature. But the constant for spiritual caregiving is always appropriate: (4) Be patient with them all.

Who Is Sufficient For These Things?

Who Is Sufficient For These Things?  In some ways, the Apostle Paul is like Moses. In other ways, he is an antithesis to Moses. Moses, of course, was Israel’s leader and law-giver during the Exodus and wandering years. Paul was a church leader and doctrine-explainer during the expansion years of the church’s first missionary journeys. Moses was rules-oriented, necessarily so. Paul was grace-oriented, emphatically so. Moses was zealous for the Lord, well educated, and yet murderous. Paul was zealous for the Lord, well educated, and murderous, too. Moses met God in a theophany in the burning bush and learned God’s name—“I Am Who I Am” (Exo. 3:14). Paul met God in a theophany on the road to Damascus and learned God’s name—“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5). Moses was sent on a mission by God to deliver the Hebrews. Paul was sent on a mission by God to evangelize the Gentiles.

Still one more link at least connects Paul and Moses, which squeezes into a single word: sufficient. Moses, balked in God’s presence at the task God gave to him. “But Moses said the Lord, ‘Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue’” (Exo. 4:10).

When the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew into Greek, eloquent was rendered by the same word that Paul used when he considered the task God gave him to do, sufficient. “Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:16). Paul repeated the word three more times in the next paragraph, too. “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:4-6).

Just as God validated and yet overruled the tension that Moses felt between his capacity and God’s calling, Christ also validated and yet overruled the same tension that Paul felt. “Then the Lord said to [Moses], ‘Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now, therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak’” (Exo. 4:11-12). “But he said to [Paul], ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’” (2 Cor. 12:9).

God does not eliminate the weakness but enters it. We know God’s power in a perfected, mature, and fully balanced sense when his grace meets our weakness at faith.

Ahaziah

Ahaziah.  The Hundred Years’ War between France and England (1337-1453) and the subsequent War of the Roses, which involved the squabbles of royal succession in England (1455-1487), can claim no bragging rights for complicated storylines. The knot of kings and queens in Israel and Judah in the mid-9^th Century B.C., tangled by name duplications, assassinations, usurpations, and a curious mixture of the Greek way to count years versus the Jewish way, unilaterally seizes the prize for complicated storylines! Yet, it seems that the more one studies it, the more one gags upon its bile.

The ancient nation of Israel was intractably divided following its Civil War (931 B.C.) during the abysmal reign of Rehoboam (931-915 B.C.). The ten tribes in the north separated from Jerusalem to become Israel. The two tribes in the south reduced to Judah. Israel and Judah, despite their historic brotherhood, hated each other. Neither kingdom was good, but the northern kingdom of Israel was noticeably worse in terms of their kings. The low tide line of morality in Israel seemed to coalesce around the reign of Ahab and Jezebel, who flaunted their worship of Baal and Asherah. God promised to judge them (1 Kings 21:23-24).

Jezebel died a horrible death for her sins (1 Kings 21:23). Ahab died an unlikely death, too, for his sins (1 Kings 22:34). But the rot of Ahab and Jezebel continued for many years to infect Israel and contaminate Judah. Ahaziah, son of Ahab and Jezebel, was crowned in 854 B.C. A weak and inconsequential ruler, Ahaziah reigned only two years, because, like his parents, he died a supernaturally unnatural death associated with his worship of Baal (853 B.C.). But Ahaziah’s sister, Athaliah, married the king of Judah, Jehoram—which was also the name of the next king of Israel after Ahaziah (sometimes shortened to Joram). Indicative of his lawlessness, Jehoram (of Judah) killed six of his younger brothers (2 Chr. 21:4). Athaliah apparently already had a son, Ahaziah (named for her brother, the short-lived king of Israel), from before marrying Jehoram (of Judah), who was now the heir-apparent in Judah. When Jehoram (of Judah) was also assassinated, Athaliah placed Ahaziah (of Judah) on the throne (2 Kings 8:26). He was twenty-two years old and only reigned one year (841 B.C.). Yet, she advised Ahaziah (of Judah) “in doing wickedly” (2 Chr. 22:3), which is to say, she trained her son in his grandmother’s (Jezebel) idolatry. When Ahaziah (of Judah) was killed by Jehu (of Israel) while visiting his uncle Jehoram (of Israel), Athaliah killed everyone left in the royal family at Jerusalem who might have had a claim to the vacated throne of Ahaziah—her grandchildren!—so that she could usurp the throne of Judah herself (2 Chr. 22:10) in 846 B.C.

But Jehosheba, the daughter of Jehoram (of Judah) and stepdaughter of Athaliah, who had married the high priest, Jehoiada, secretly rescued her infant nephew (Jehoash, shortened to Joash) from Athaliah’s assassination attempt (2 Chr. 22:11). When Joash was old enough to be crowned king, the priests who guarded Joash killed Athaliah (2 Chr. 23:15). Thus, all of Ahab and Jezebel’s allies were judged; the wound closed, somewhat.

The complicated storylines of the kings and queens of Israel and Judah are difficult to follow but easy to summarize: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

What Is This That You Have Done?

What Is This That You Have Done?  The Scriptures exclusively have the answers to questions that humans all over the world, all throughout history have been asking: (1) Who is God? (2) Who am I? (3) What went wrong? (4) How can it be fixed? (5) What comes next? Each of those universal questions drives the ones who “ask, seek, and knock” (Matt. 7:7) to Jesus Christ.

But the Scriptures also have an all-star list of stand-alone questions, too. A running list of the Bible’s questions yanks a gut-wrenching thread through the book of Genesis. The first question in Genesis is layered in nuance and thick in deception, but clearly draws a perimeter for every subsequent answer between what God says and what God does not say. “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” (Gen. 3:1). The second, third, fourth, and fifth questions in Genesis, asked by God, betray the first humans’ dreadful answer given to the first question asked by the serpent: “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9), “Who told you that you were naked?” (Gen. 3:10), “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (Gen. 3:11), and “What is this that you have done?” (Gen. 3:13).

Questions, sometimes more than our meager and masquerading answers, are the real windows into our souls, especially when our answers have departed from or added to the words of God. To Cain at the jealousy which he showed against his brother Abel, God asked, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?” (Gen. 4:6-7). Instead of answering God’s probing questions, which were very similar to God’s pursuant questions of Cain’s parents, “Cain spoke to Abel his brother” (Gen. 4:8), which was a ruse for premeditated murder. Again, God’s question cuts to the quick: “Where is Abel your brother?” (Gen. 4:9). However, Cain’s sly retort to God cannot cover his deceptive heart or treacherous deed: “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9). “And the Lord said, ‘What have you done?’” (Gen. 4:10), which was the exact question he asked in Genesis 3:13.

The next recorded question in Genesis, again echoing the Fall, waits until the life of Abram when he sojourned in Egypt. He coached his wife, Sarai, to deceive Pharaoh by saying that she was his sister. “So, Pharaoh called Abram and said, ‘What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?’” (Gen. 12:18). While the excuses might be obvious—fear, self-preservation, disbelief—there is no suitable answer that solves Adam’s sinful pattern and practices from spreading even to the righteous life of Abraham.

Isaac, Abraham’s son, faces the same question in Genesis 26:10 when he also conceals the identity of his wife, Rebekah, from the king of Philistia. “Ahimelech said, ‘What is this you have done to us?’” Jacob, Isaac’s son, asks the same question of his uncle, Laban, when Laban deceitfully switches Leah for Rachel on Jacob’s wedding night. “What is this thing that you have done to me” (Gen. 29:25). Joseph, Jacob’s son, asks the same question of his brothers when he pretends not to know them from his unexpected position as the prime minister of Egypt. “What deed is this that you have done?” (Gen. 44:15). The excuses we give cannot satisfy the question since “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). God doesn’t accept our excuses but offers us his answer—his sinless Son offered for our sins

Another Glory for the Moon

Another Glory of the Moon.  The Native American practice of naming the full moons—always twelve, but every two or three years thirteen per year—is fun. As their legend goes, the thirteen scales (e.g., scutes) on a turtle’s shell (e.g., carapace) form a lunar calendar. Each moon is named for an observable characteristic in the loop of seasons that the mythic turtle carries slowly in his march through the year. This morning the Sturgeon Moon presented its orange-yellow face in the wee hours before dawn. In four weeks from today, a thirteenth moon for 2023 will appear, or Blue Moon. Harvest Moon (September), Hunter Moon (October), Snow Moon (November), Cold Moon (December) finish out the year. Wolf Moon (January), Ice Moon (February), Worm Moon (March), Pink Moon (April), Flower Moon (May), Strawberry Moon (June), and Buck Moon (July) bring us back to Sturgeon Moon (August).

The take-away is not the myth, which is somewhat understandable whenever special revelation from God is absent from a culture still waiting for the gospel to reach its creative center, but the relative glory that belongs to the moon. Paul harnesses the pattern that is observable in the natural world in his explanation of resurrection. “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory” (1 Cor. 15:41). His point is that we can’t guess at the final form by merely observing its beginning. The way that the moon moves and shines is different from the way that the sun moves and shines, which is different from the ways that the stars move and shine. As with so many other issues, the Corinthians were backward; importing their culture into their understanding of doctrine instead of using doctrine to understand their culture. (Such is not merely a Corinthian malady since we all do the same unless the Spirit halts and inverts the natural process of understanding.) They assumed that the physical world was only evil and therefore had no part to play in God’s ultimate resurrection. Paul, however, argued that our resurrection must be physical, too, merged with the spiritual—that we can’t import the way things look now into our understanding of the way things will be then. But rather, “God gives [each] a body as he has chosen” (1 Cor. 15:38). What is most important is not the beginning but the ending. God breaks observable patterns. It is his prerogative and his glory to do so.

The moon’s glory is not intrinsic; it does not “shine” from within itself. The moon’s glory is extrinsic; it “shines” only by reflecting the light from another source, the sun. Yet within its own designed purpose as a reflector, the moon has a glorious role to fill. It governs the night (Gen. 1:16). The larger the angle relative to the sun, and the closer the orbit, the brighter the moon becomes, waxing gibbous until it is finally, fully aligned. When it is at its zenith, it grabs the attention of every person in the night. The moon, though not the light, becomes a light in a dark place. The moon enlightens the night of the presence and the approach of the Day.