Sometimes the Bible is confusing

Take Proverbs 26:4-5 ⁴ Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. ⁵ Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. (NIV) At first read these two verses seem to contradict each other. In verse 4 is says to not answer a fool according to his folly and in verse 5 it says to answer a fool according to his folly. What do you do when you come across something like this? Well, there are several things that you can do. The first thing I would recommend is to pray about it. God has given us the gift of His Holy Spirit living in our hearts. God can and will illuminate the meaning of a passage as we ask Him to do so.

The second thing I would suggest is to read the passage through in a few other versions. www.biblegateway.com allows you to look at many of the versions out there for free. It we applied this to the above passage we see this from the NASB translation.  “⁴Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will also be like him. ⁵ Answer a fool as his folly deserves, that he not be wise in his own eyes.” In this translation verse 5 becomes much clearer. It doesn’t contradict the earlier verse. In fact it tells us to answer a fool as his folly deserves. Don’t answer according to his folly but give him what he deserves which may not be the answer he was looking for at all, but with the goal of making sure he realizes his own foolishness.

Another thing you can do when you have trouble understanding a verse or passage is to do some research. There are many sites on the internet that allow you to look at commentaries that examine the meaning of the passage. Places like net.bible.org or www.biblegateway.com . You can also do an internet search on the passage. I would put a caution here when searching. Not all of the pages you come across will be helpful or correct. You should always go back to a trusted source. One program I use often is called Bible Explorer 4. It allows you to download many commentaries and other study helps to your computer.

The last suggestion I have is to ask others. There are many people in our church who have vast amounts of knowledge of the Bible from years of study. Use them as a resource. Ask your house church leader or pastor. Seek out the answer. Don’t let the hard questions or things you don’t understand stop you from learning more about God. Seek out answers to your questions so that you can better understand God’s grace to you.

Sin's reign is over

Romans 6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

We face many choices each day whether to let sin reign in us and be our master or to present ourselves to God. Each word spoken, each action taken falls into one of these two categories. Either we serve God or we serve sin. There is no in between. There is no grey area. We are to consider ourselves dead to sin. If we are dead to sin then it cannot reign over us and we are no longer subject to it. We don't have to sin anymore. Let me repeat that, you don't have to sin anymore. When we do sin we are choosing to do it whether we admit it or not. If we live like we are truly dead to sin we can then use our members, our bodies, as instruments of righteousness to God. Count yourself dead to sin today and live the life that God has called you to live.

Dead to sin but alive to God

What does is mean for you in Romans 6:11 when Paul says “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. “ When we are baptized we are symbolically dying to sin and raising to new life as Christ did before us. Now, Jesus is living a life unto God. The old way is dead and gone and the new way of living is in its place. Count yourself dead to sin. Sin has a hold on you as long as you are alive. But when you become a follower of Jesus Christ something happens. You are now identified with the death of Christ and also with the new life that Christ brings. You are now dead to sin. Sin does not have a hold of your life. You are dead to it. When it comes to knock at your door you can say, “Who? That person died.” It is like a bill collector who keeps calling and you know they have the wrong house but sometimes you answer and get all caught up. You are dead to sin. I am dead to sin. But do I live like it? And further more do I live my life to God in Christ Jesus? Are all my post death actions ones that are for God and not myself or sin? Sadly, I fall short in this area also. This is part of getting our thinking right about God. We are dead to sin and alive to God. Before we were dead to God and alive to sin. The tables have been reversed. Things don’t have to be the way there always were and in fact aren’t the way they always were. We need to adjust our thinking to the new reality we have in Christ that we are DEAD to sin and ALIVE to God in Christ Jesus. Live like you know this truth today!

Blessed to bless others

I am taking a class for my ordination that covers world missions. In the first class it covered how God had blessed Abraham so that Abraham's descendants would be able to bless all the peoples of the earth. God didn't bless Abraham so that he could have a whole lot of stuff. He bless Abraham so that Abraham could be a blessing to others.

We live in a nation that has been blessed beyond possibly all other nations ever. With that blessing comes the responsibility to bless others who have not been so fortunate. God requires that we don't just use the blessings He has given us for our own enjoyment but to be able to bless others which is something we can enjoy also. God has blessed me in so many ways and I need to be looking for ways to bless others. How has God blessed you and how does He want you to bless others?

Works of the Law

I am currently reading in Romans and I was reminded again about how what we do does not justify us. Our good deeds and works do not make us right in God's eyes. It is by the blood of Jesus Christ that we have forgiveness of sins. We cannot earn it by anything we do with our lives. I think there is a danger that followers of Jesus Christ begin to forget this and we start to depend on what we have done after we have become followers of Jesus Christ to make us right with God. That we need to make sure we spend 30 minutes a day with God or He won't be pleased with us. Maybe we think that we have to be involved with every program to earn our salvation. The worst part is we deceive ourselves. We do this by never examining our motivation for doing the works of God. If we do them out of love for God we are on the right path. If we do them because we think we have to then we are trying to earn something that cannot be earned. Grace is a gift from our loving heavenly Father. So why do you do the things you do? Have you taken time recently to examine your own motivations? Take some time today to think about what you do and how it may point to where your heart is.

Life happens (follow up to paths)

After I wrote the last blog about paths and how God is constantly working on us I ran into a situation that I was able to later identify as God digging some roots out of my life. I got angry over a set of circumstances that I didn’t like. I felt like everything was working against me. As I processed through why I was angry and began to pray a little bit I realized it was all about my own selfishness. I was being selfish. I was thinking only about how I felt and about how things affected me and my plans. I was not looking at it from a viewpoint of how can I most serve God in this situation but how could I get what I wanted. Thankfully I did not get what I wanted and God was able to show me at least this tendril of root. The only problem is that the roots of selfishness are similar to the roots of bamboo. They snake all over the place and continue to grow even when you think you have gotten them all out. I pray that God would open my eyes sooner to my own selfishness in the future so that I can see Him and glorify Him through how I respond. What is God using in your life to open your eyes to how you need to change?

 

 

 

Paths

Over the last 2 weekends I worked on putting a brick paver path from the front door out to the side walk. It was about 28 feet long and 39 inches wide. I had to dig down (with a lot of help) about 7 inches overall to get the foundation set. It was a difficult and tiring process. Once the digging was done I needed to put in the landscape fabric to keep the stones from migrating away from the path. Then I needed to put the layer of stone which needed to be packed down. Then came the sand which needed to be packed down and then leveled to the correct depth. After that was the layer of pavers and then finally the edging to hold it all together. It was a long process and all the steps needed to be followed to get a good looking, long lasting final product.

It reminded me of how God works in our lives. He digs out the unneeded soil where things have taken root in our lives that would disrupt the path He wants us to take. He puts in a firm foundation of His word that everything else rests upon. Then God works to level out the rough and uneven spots in our lives before He can complete the work. But our lives are much longer than a 28 foot path. Time and again we come to a new section and the work starts over. Realize that all that is going on in your life if God's way of doing the work that needs to be done for you to become what He desires. God began a work and He does all things right the first time, so sometimes it seems to take longer than it should. Trust that the Master Builder has a plan and purpose for all that you go through.

Easter is coming!

The next 2 weeks in the yearly calendar of the church are the most important. More important than Christmas even though Christmas seems to get more attention. Easter is when we take time to be reminded once again that Jesus Christ, God in flesh, came to this Earth to lay down His life for each of us and then 3 days later pick it back up again to be glorified at the right hand of God. God sent His only begotten son to die on a cross because of my sin and because of your sin so that we can be made right with Him. Easter is about remembering this and celebrating that we are God's children when we have accepted the sacrifice made on our behalf.

I recently read a survey in which many people in this country didn't know why we celebrate Easter. It seems absurd to me that people don't know what Easter is about but it is true. Even people who attend church regularly are unsure of what Easter is about. Maybe that is because we as followers of Jesus Christ fail to speak about it or focus on it ourselves. This year, make the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ the focus of your Easter and let the egg hunts and parties take a backseat to what is really important.

Judges 13 - Sampson's parents (continued again)

The final thing that I was wondering about in Judges 13 isn't spelled out in the text and is just one of those things as a parent I wonder about. I know how Sampson's life turns out. I know that choices he made, I know how God used the poor decisions that Sampson made. I just wonder what role his parents played in him making poor judgments. Did they coddle him and speak to him about how special he was all the time so that he began to think he was better than others? Did they just do that things the angel said and forget to teach him about God's law? Did they teach him everything they were supposed to teach him and he still choose the path that he did? We may never know this but I would like to think that I am raising my girls to know God and follow His will for their lives. I just have to remember that I need to do what God has called me to do and leave the outcome in His hands. If you look at Sampson's life you see that God used Sampson's sins for His own glory. God can and will use all things for His glory and I need to trust Him with my children.

Judges 13 - Sampson's parents (continued)

Another thing that I never saw before in this story is contained in verses 6-8. The angel of the Lord appeared to the wife of Manoah who was barren. He tells her that she will bear a son and that he is to be a Nazirite from birth. She comes home and tells her husband. In verse 8 we see how Manoah responds. He prays to God for the man to come again to teach them how to raise this child. What I found significant was that he didn't doubt what his wife said to him from what was recorded. He trusted her and went to God with it. And God answers his prayers in verses 9-14 by sending the angel of the Lord to them. I was convicted because sometimes I don't have the level of trust in my own wife that Manoah showed. And the problem isn't that she has done things to lose my trust. I just don't put the trust in her that she deserves. I need to work on this one in my daily life.

to be continued...

Judges 13 - Sampson's parents

I was reading through Judges 13 this morning and I was struck by a few things. The first thing that jumped out to me was that once again the people of Israel turned from God and He put them under the rule of the Philistines for 40 years. That is a long time. If I lived in that day and I was born at the beginning of this time of subjugation to the Philistines there would still be 6 more years left before Israel is delivered. It took that long for the nation to wake up and turn back to God. I hope and pray it doesn't take 40 years for God to get my attention to turn back to Him if I fall into sin. Sometimes the hard things in our lives are the result of sin. We reap the consequences of what we have done wrong. Some choices we make now, will affect us later in life in ways we can't even understand. That is why it is important to stay in God's will since He know what the future holds for us.

I will share the other things that jumped out to me in future posts.

Gideon and his legacy

I have been reading in Judges this past week or so in my quiet time. When I was in Proverbs it was easy to find something to apply to my live and hear God speaking. In the book of Judges I have had to dig deeper into the stories to get at the heart of what is going on. I read through the story of Gideon and it is a great story of how God works with and through people who yield to him. But at the end of chapter 8 in verse 30 that Gideon had seventy sons because he had many wives and he even had a child with a concubine with whom he had a son. Now it is virtually impossible if you have that many children to raise them properly much less remember all their names. Yet Gideon continued to expand his family. The problem is that it leads to the next chapter of Judges where the son of the concubine kills all his brothers except one who escaped. Abimalech (the son of the concubine) then is proclaimed king. His kingship doesn't last long and both the city that initially put him forth as king and Abimelech are killed. I see this as the fault of Gideon for not controlling himself and having more children than he could possibly raise. He did not use wisdom in how he ran his household and out of this came the survival of only one son who escaped. The decisions we make in our lives and how we live will affect our children for good or bad and we need to be aware of this so that all our decisions are guided by God's word.

Patience

I read a really good article on patience yesterday. It was a very comprehensive overview of patience and why we need it so badly in our lives as followers of Jesus Christ. If you would like to read the article is in on Christianity Today's website and it is entitle The Virtue of Patience. Or click on the title and it will lead you to the article. One of the things suggested was practicing patience and how the author had read a book years ago that talked about how you can go about putting the practice of patience to work in your life. I was up last night for a few hours unable to sleep. I was getting impatient with being awake and I remembered one of the things that the article put forth. So I attempted to put it into practice. One suggestion was to take 10 minutes and just slowly count as high as you can without rushing. Sounds easier said than done especially after you have been lying in bed awake for over an hour. Over the next hour or so I did attempt this several times but never for the full 10 minutes. I can't say I failed because I did attempt it. Some things just take practice before you can do them. Read the article if you get a chance and maybe something will jump out at you to put into your life.

Proverbs 10:19

"When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise." This is something to take to heart. If you talk way to much eventually there will be something said that brings conflict. Once you get someone talking they will eventually share something that they probably should not have shared. Time and again we are asked to restrain our lips in scripture and told that even a fool is thought wise if he keeps his mouth shut. What we say matters in this life and we will be called into account for all that has come out of our mouths. Sometimes it is better to bite your tongue and be thought wise than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Proverbs 14:3

"In the mouth of the foolish is a rod for his back, but the lips of the wise will protect them." What the fool speaks will eventually bring a rob to his back. Some sort of discipline will come upon a fool because of what he says to others. It will come back and beat him at some point. But, the lips of the wise will protect them. The wise one uses words as a shield to protect themselves from needing a rod of discipline. Are our mouths the mouths of fools or of the wise?

Proverbs 29:25

"The fear of man brings a snare, but he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted." I don't know about you, but I don't want to be caught in a snare. I have some knowledge of trapping animals and a snare was not about catching an animal alive. It was about killing it. Fearing men can lead you into a trap that could bring about death, maybe not death right now, but eternal death as you decide not to follow Jesus Christ because you fear man. But this proverb doesn't end with a snare. It goes on to show what happens to those who trust in God. They don't fear man, they fear God who is the one who has ultimate control and God will exalt those whose trust is in Him. Maybe not in this life, but throughout all eternity we will experience the riches of His grace. Trust in Him today and everyday and leave the trap that fearing man brings behind.

Proverbs 29:7

"The righteous is concerned for the rights of the poor, the wicked does not understand such concern."
One of the ways we can show God how much we love Him is to be concerned about the things He is concerned about. He looks out for those in need and so should we. We should be aware of how we can help those in need around us and in the global economy we live in around the world. Items we purchase may be used to keep others down and don't pay them enough to live on. Be a well informed shopper who knows what items you purchase only support the large corporation and not the person who actually does the work. If you don't care about the poor, then you need to examine your heart and find out why. Ask God to change you and make you desire the things that He desires.

Blessings

We do need to be reminded from time to time how much God has blessed us. In Sunday's sermon, Dave Mannon shared about how God has blessed us for a reason. He hasn't blessed us just because. He has blessed us so that we can make His salvation known to all the world. We have many opportunities to do this. We can pray for people all over the world to come to know Christ. We can give and support missionary work both local and international. We can go and serve in a mission field or stay home and serve in a mission field. God has blessed you in many ways for a purpose. Make sure you are living your life for His purpose which is to make His salvation known in all the earth.

Interruptions

Have you ever prayed that God would work through you and then all your plans go out the window? How do you respond? This happened to me this week and at first I was really annoyed that what I had planned to do wasn't working out. But God is good and He reminded me that I had asked Him to be in charge of my life and it is about what He wants to do in me and through me that is important. I shouldn't look at interruptions as bad things but as God changing my plans to fit His. How will you look at interruptions in your life? Pray that God would use you and then look to see how He does it. He will use you if you let Him.

Proverbs 26:20-21

"For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, contention quiets down. Like charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife."
I have experienced this many times both inside churches and in the workplace. All it takes is one person sowing the seeds of discontent to fan something in a large fire that is very destructive. But when that contentious person isn't there things move along fine. There may be embers of discontent about but without the fuel to get the fire going the embers die out. We need to be on the lookout in our lives that we are not influenced by someone who is contentious into starting a fire but also that we are not that person who adds fuel to the embers and fans it into flames.