We start judging children by their attitudes towards others at a young age. How much more will others judge us by our attitudes towards those around us?
I always struggle with this psalm because I want to write something which doesn’t feel to me like I am just repeating what I heard someone else say. I am going to review what the psalmist’s imagery means to me. Jesus is my shepherd, He guides me and directs me. Sometimes that guidance is gentle and friendly, sometimes it is harsh and scary. However, that guidance leads me to places so that all of my needs are provided. One place I find sustenance, another I find rest. Sometimes that guidance sends me through dangerous territory, but I can travel that path without fear because I know that God is right beside me to protect me. The image that comes to me is a father leading his child through the forest with a weapon in his hand. The child does not fear, even when wild predators come forth because he knows his father will not allow the animal to threaten him. The predator may growl and snarl, but all I need to do is huddle close to God and they will not dare attack.
The image changes for me in the next verse. Here I imagine a person of consequence honoring me in the face of those who have belittled and humiliated me in the past. God will honor us in the presence of those who told us we were worthless. God’s goodness will be with us for all of our lives. We will be surrounded by God’s love for as long as we live, and after that we will be in His Presence for eternity.
Paul writes that we should submit to the governing authorities (it is worth noting that Paul says “submit”, not “obey”. We are to submit to governing authorities, but to obey only God). Those authorities only have that authority because God has given it to them. Rebelling against government authorities is rebelling against God, because God gave them authority in order to punish wrongdoers. When a government stops punishing wrongdoers and begins punishing those who do right it has lost its legitimacy. However, even in that case it is not our job to overthrow that government. God will overthrow a government which has lost its legitimacy in His own time. We should remain in submission to government authorities for as long as they remain in authority. Let us give what we owe to whoever we owe it, taxes to those whom taxes are due, revenue to those whom revenue is due, and respect to those whom respect is due.
For whatever reason, I tend to think that the kings of Judah after Joash were all progressively more evil. However, this is not the case. While Joash’s son, Amaziah, turned to idol worship, the next two kings in line served the Lord. As a result of their faithfulness, they became strong and mighty rulers. Unfortunately, the third king in today’s passage turned from God as well, with the resultant decay in the position of the kingdom of Judah. The lesson we learn from this passage is that when a people and their leaders are faithful to God the wealth and power of the nation increases. When they turn from God they suffer defeat and economic hardship.
Since even children are known, and judged, by the way they act, whether they are good children or troublemakers, we should not be surprised when people do the same thing to us. People will judge us by our actions. If we want people to think well of us than we need to act in a righteous manner.
In some ways this is a difficult psalm to write about because it is such a beautiful psalm which everyone knows. What more is there to say? Well, I will give it a shot.
Let us review what the psalmist tells us here. God will lead us and guide us. He will provide for all of our needs. He will bring us to places where we can rest and have a pleasant time. However, He will also lead us on paths which may be less pleasant, because it brings honour to His name. Yet, no matter how dangerous those paths may seem, God will protect us so that we need never fear. He will always be close beside us, even when our vision is obscured and we cannot see Him. He will honour us and show us abundance in front of those who wish to see us fail. God will pour out more blessings upon us than we are able to make use of. His blessings will spill out from us on to others. Not only will God offer us good things, but He will pursue us with His love and mercy, even when we stray from Him. If we follow where He leads, we will spend eternity in His presence.
Paul tells us to submit to the government because the government’s authority comes from God. In the very statement where he tells us to submit to the government, he tells us the limits of that submission. The government’s authority comes from God, therefore it does not have the authority to demand that we violate God’s commands. However, no matter what the government does, Paul tells us that it is not our place to overthrow the government. Let us pay our taxes and whatever fees we owe. We should not enter into debt to anyone. Let us honour those who are owed honour and respect those who are owed respect.
Paul reminds us that all of our actions towards those around us should be guided by the command to love our neighbors as ourselves. However, this does not mean ignoring self-destructive behavior. If we see our loved ones doing something that will bring them harm, we will warn them of the danger. However, in all we do, let us remember to do it with love. Paul gives us a list of things that may interfere with us showing our love to those around us: drunkenness, wild parties, sexual promiscuity, immoral living (or as the NIV translates it, debauchery), quarreling, and jealousy.
Judah had three kings in a row who followed God. As a result those kings were powerful and not threatened by outside forces. Unfortunately, the people of Judah were not as faithful as their kings. Ahaz, the son of the third of these kings, turned to idolatry, going so far as to sacrifice his own sons. As a result, he was conquered by the king of Aram, and faced other foreign threats. Instead of turning to God, Ahaz asked the king of Assyria for help. Rather than coming to Ahaz’s aid, the king of Assyria attacked Jerusalem and plundered it. Ahaz then closed the Temple, preventing anyone from worshiping there, and set up yet more pagan altars throughout Jerusalem. Rather than learn from his mistakes and return to God, Ahaz compounded them.
I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. In order to make that possible I read the passages and write my thoughts a day, or more. in advance. My work schedule has recently changed, meaning that I may not have time every day to complete these. As a result, I am trying to get several days ahead. I hope this does not negatively impact the quality of these posts (if that is possible). If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
Yesterday, I said that when things “went wrong” with the ministry God had sent Moses and Aaron on they did not give up. This is not quite true. When things did not go as Moses expected He went back to God and complained that he had done everything God had told him to do and, not only didn’t it work, it made things worse. God replied to Moses’ complaint by saying, “Trust me, I’m God.” He told Moses that Pharaoh would see who He was and when he did, Pharaoh would not only allow the people of Israel to leave, he would force them to do so. Moses went back to the people of Israel, but they would not listen to him any longer. God then told him to go back to Pharaoh. Moses resisted, saying that he had made such a hash of it by saying the wrong thing that not even the people of Israel would listen to him anymore.
How often do we feel that way? We feel like we have made a complete mess of things, we said the wrong thing and lost our opportunity. God tells us to keep trying. Except that we need to do it His way, not our way. When things don’t work out, we need to persevere and trust in God. Moses and Aaron had to go back to Pharaoh ten more times before things worked out. If God is calling us to a ministry, we may “fail” again and again, but we need to keep trying. Reading this today it seems to be speaking to me directly. I have felt called to a certain ministry. Yet every time I have started to plan to develop my involvement and become more active in it, something has happened to force me to put it on hold. This passage tells me that I should continue as long as the door to this ministry stays open.
Jesus tells us a parable about forgiveness that sums up the most important point that we need to understand. No matter what someone has done to us, no matter what debt they owe us for the wrong they have done to us, it is insignificant in comparison to the wrong which we have done and of which God has forgiven us. If we will not forgive others for the wrongs they have done us, we will not, can not, be forgiven for the much greater wrongs which we have committed.
Jesus is next confronted about divorce. According to the more popular rabbinical teaching of the day the law of Moses allowed a man to divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever (sort of like today’s “no-fault” divorce, except that only the husband was allowed to “file”…of course this was in a culture where women were economically dependent on men, so a woman was unlikely to file for divorce). Jesus is essentially asked which side of the ongoing debate He was on, did He agree with the interpretation that a man could divorce his wife for any reason he chose, or the side which said that there were a list of reasons which justified divorce. Jesus answered that He was not on either side. He told them that divorce was contrary to God’s will in every case. The only case in which a man could divorce his wife and remarry without committing adultery was if she was already committing adultery against him.
This is perhaps one of the best known passages in the Bible, for good reason. It is such a comforting passage. God will look out for us and we need fear nothing, not even when we pass through the most dangerous places. Nothing can remove us from God’s plan for our life and all that He does will work together for our good if we love and fear Him. The final verse sums it up:
Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I will live in the house of the Lord
forever.
God will not only desire to do good for us and love us all of our lives, His love and goodness will pursue us in His effort to give us good things. And if we allow it, He will bring us into His very house to live throughout eternity. What an amazing, wonderful promise.
The wicked thing they are free, but in truth they are enslaved to the sins they commit. Lack of discipline leads to foolish decisions which in the long-run (and sometimes the not-so-long run) lead to death.
I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
Upon the death of Amaziah, his sixteen year old son, Uzziah, was made king. Uzziah did what was pleasing in God’s sight. The passage tells us that he continued to seek God during the days of Zechariah and that as long as he sought guidance from the Lord, God gave him success. Uzziah became very powerful, conquering the Philistines and collecting tribute from other neighboring peoples. However, at the height of his power, he became proud and entered the Temple in order to burn incense on the incense altar, in violation of the Law of Moses which stated that only priests should do that. When some of the priests confronted Uzziah over this, he became furious. However, while he was raging at the priests, leprosy (the word used here refers to multiple skin disorders, not just the disease we apply the word leprosy to today) broke out on his forehead. The priests who saw this hurried Uzziah out of the Temple because of his leprous outbreak. Uzziah himself hurried out of the Temple because the Lord had struck him with leprosy. Uzziah lived out his life quarantined in a separate house and his son Jotham became regent for him until his death. Jotham became king after the death of Uzziah and followed his father’s example (except for the part about entering the Temple to offer incense). Jotham was careful to live in obedience to God and became a powerful king as a result.
Upon Jotham’s death, his son, Ahaz, succeeded him on the throne. Ahaz did not follow his father’s and his grandfather’s example. Rather he made images for the worship of Baal and burned his own sons in the sacrificial fires. He suffered defeat at the hands of the king of Aram, who took many of the people of Judah captive. A warrior chief from the Northern Tribes raided Judah and took a large number of people captive, intending to make them slaves. However, a prophet confronted the force as it returned from battle and told them that God would judge them harshly for enslaving people of Judah. When other leaders of the Northern Tribes heard the prophet’s words, they insisted that the army release the captives. The army turned the captives and the plunder they had taken with them over to those leaders. The leaders used the plunder to care for and clothe the captives and returned them to their relatives at Jericho.
The Philistines and the people of Edom raided Judah during the reign of Ahaz, but he did not turn to God for help. He took up worship of the gods of Aram and sealed the Temple so that no one could worship there. He attempted to make a treaty with the king of Assyria for assistance against his enemies, but the king of Assyria instead attacked him and took tribute from him. Ahaz worshiped pagan gods and encouraged the people of Judah to do the same.
Paul tells us in today’s passage that we as Christians should submit to the governing authorities because all authority comes from God. Everyone in a position of authority is placed there by God. God has ordained government to punish those who do what is wrong. We are to pay our taxes as part of that submission to government authority. Paul instructs us to pay taxes to those to whom taxes are due, fees to those to whom fees are due, respect to those to whom respect is due, and honor to those to whom honor is due.
***
This is a very difficult passage to reconcile with the evil behavior often exhibited by government officials. However, the governing authorities of Paul’s day were every bit as evil as any that we experience today, so we cannot say that he did not understand the potential for evil among government officials. I look at this passage and consider it in light of when Jesus said, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.” In addition, Paul here tells us that God created government in order to punish those who do wrong. This leads me to conclude that I am to be subject to those instructions from the government which fall into the government’s purview of passing edicts against doing what is wrong, but that I should never obey it when it exceeds that authority and declares as wrong things which God has declared to be right…or demands behavior which God has declared to be wrong.
***
Paul continues on from his discussion of giving what we owe to those to whom we owe it, whether that be money, respect, or honor by telling us that we should owe no one anything. That is we should give everyone what they are due when they are due it. He then says that the only ongoing obligation we should have is the obligation to love one another. Paul echoes what Jesus said when he tells us that all other laws follow from the one which states “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If we love others, we will do no wrong to others. This means that if we truly love others, we will fulfill all of God’s other commands.
Sunset through the trees
Today’s psalm is one of the most familiar passages in the Bible. Even those who have never opened the Bible have at least a passing awareness of it. As a result of that familiarity, I sometimes forget why it is so familiar, because it tells us some great basic truths about God’s love for us. It starts out by telling us:
The Lord is my shepherd;
I have all that I need.
It goes on to tell us that God will guide on us the right paths. So that even when we go through a valley where we cannot see what threats might lurk in the darkness, we need have no fear because God is right beside us to protect us and to comfort us. But God’s love for us goes beyond that. The psalmist tells us that God will honor us with a feast in front of those who wish us harm, who are are enemies. God’s goodness and love will follow us all of the days of our lives. This is a wonderful and beautiful psalm.
Red roses
If we judge even children by their behavior, whether they are good kids or not (and we do), how much more can we who are grown adults be judged by our actions?
