David’s Unusual Request; Uriah’s Unusual Choice

^{NIV.2 Sam.11.2} One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, ³ and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” ⁴ Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. ⁵ The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

⁶ So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. ⁷ When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. ⁸ Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. ⁹ But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.

¹⁰ David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”

¹¹ Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents,^[a] and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”

¹² Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. ¹³ At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.

Biblical scholar Christopher Smith is a former pastor, former staff worker with InterVarsity, and the author of numerous Bible study and reference books. On his blog, Good Question he has answered over 500 questions people submitted, until  last summer when, exhausted, he stepped back. The collection remains online a great source of clarity on Bible passages like the one we’re looking at today.

Clicking the header which follows allows you to read this at source.

Shouldn’t Uriah have gone home to be with his wife?

Q. I have a question about 2 Samuel 11, but not about the behavior of David or Bathsheba. My question is about the behavior of Uriah. He is often seen as heroic, manly, virtuous because he does not spend the night at home with his wife but sleeps with the servants as a show of solidarity with the troops who are still on the front. Certainly as a soldier he has a commitment to the troops. But as a husband, he also has a commitment to his wife. I think his behavior is not all that commendable. We all face competing competing commitments, obligations, etc. when they all seem worthy. How do we sort out the correct choice?

I will address your question about sorting out competing commitments, but I would like to observe first that one possibility we do need to consider in this passage is that Uriah knew about David’s crime against his wife Bathsheba, or that he at least suspected it. If that is true, then he would also have recognized that by arranging for his return to Jerusalem, David was trying to make it appear that he (Uriah, not David), was the father of the child Bathsheba was expecting. We can then understand all of Uriah’s behavior as something he pursued in order to prevent that false appearance. He was not neglecting his wife, he was preventing a coverup.

Bathsheba could have sent word to Uriah, just as she did to David, that she was pregnant with David’s child. Or one of the many servants in the palace who knew what happened could have told Uriah when he arrived. Or Uriah might just have found the circumstances of his recall to Jerusalem a bit too suspicious. I am not an expert on ancient military practices, but it seems to me from what I read in the Bible that a warrior champion such as Uriah (he was one of “The Thirty,” David’s mighty warriors) would not ordinarily have been sent from the front just to provide a report on how a campaign was going. That was the work of messengers. Fighting in those days centered around these warrior champions, so it seems to me that it would have been unusual to send one of them away from the front during an active campaign. I may be wrong about that, but in any event I think there are grounds to believe that Uriah knew or suspected what David had done to Bathsheba, and so by staying away from home, he was preventing David from creating the impression that the child Bathsheba was expecting was his.

However, your question also deserves an answer on the premise that Uriah did not know or suspect anything about what had happened. Could we still commend his behavior under those circumstances? I think we could.

Each one of us needs to strike a balance between our competing commitments. For example, we should not neglect our families for our work, but at the same time we need to meet the reasonable obligations of our work and not fail to meet those because we are spending time with family and friends when we really should be working. And the balance that we strike needs to be sustainable. That is, it needs to be something that ordinarily holds for the long term.

However, from time to time there will also be extraordinary circumstances that call for us to make an exception to the usual arrangements. For example, to honor his responsibilities both to his family and to his church, a man might commit to arranging his work schedule so that he is, as a rule, free every Wednesday evening to participate in a home group that his church sponsors. But what if, one week, there is a project at work that requires his participation, is vital to the company’s success, and has a deadline that can only be met if he works late into the evening that Wednesday? Under those circumstances, he could miss the group that week, and that in itself would not throw his competing commitments out of balance. If that happened every week, it would be a problem. But if he were back in the group the next week and the weeks that followed, this would be seen as a genuine and legitimate exception.

I think we could understand Uriah’s actions in this light. For all he knew, he was being sent back to Jerusalem on an overnight mission to give a quick report on the campaign and then return to the front. (It was David who extended the visit to two nights in an effort to make Uriah look like the father of the baby.) Under those circumstances, it seems, Uriah felt that his commitment was to his fellow troops and that he needed to show solidarity with them. If he never went home to his wife, even when the army was not in the field, that would be a different matter. But I think that under these exceptional circumstances (and I believe they certainly would have seemed exceptional to Uriah), we can give him the benefit of the doubt for honoring the commitment that he felt needed to take priority at the time.

Stewardship as Leadership

In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy. – I Cor. 4:2 NASB

This week I attended a church’s annual business meeting. I’ve been to many of these in several churches, and as these things go, this one was relatively non-eventful. After hearing different ministry reports, the focus (and the bulk of questions) at these types of meetings lands on the financial statements. I know of one church which had to spread their annual meeting over two nights; the second just to deal with capital and fiscal issues.

The passage above in I Corinthians clearly indicates that those in church management (the term the CSB uses in this verse) possess spiritual qualities. These are the same qualities related to the trust involved with those who provide spiritual guidance, whether we call them pastors or shepherds or elders or deacons.

Often the church’s treasurer is not someone who we typically think of as a “leader” in the church. They have no high-profile role beyond that seen in the annual meeting. (Although getting that person to read a scripture or offer a prayer might not be a bad idea.) They would appear to be relegated to number-crunching and management of the church’s physical assets.

But in the case of Stephen in the book of Acts, we see the disciples seemingly off-loading administrative duties (the feeding of widows) to a second tier of leadership, but the requirements for leadership in that department are apparently also spiritual (see Acts 6:5 below), and Stephen takes the ball and runs with it, preaching with eloquence a sermon so convicting that he his killed afterwards, becoming the first Christian martyr.

In Paul’s second letter to Timothy he writes,

“…the things that you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” (II Tim 2:2)

A leader must be reliable and qualified. What kind of qualifications did Paul have in mind? Perhaps he was thinking back to Stephen, a man whose job description in the early Church seems to involve assisting in some rather mundane administrative duties. (See Acts 6:1-10).  Today we would say that “Pastor Steve” was in charge of our “inner city outreach” or “helping hand program” or “operation good will.” His job would involve making sure that food baskets reached shut-ins, senior citizens, and people on welfare. In many of our churches, Steve would be on the staff part-time, probably working at Wal-Mart the rest of the week.  But to be chosen for this role, the text notes that he was

“…a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5)

Note that they didn’t hire a social psychologist with a masters degree in social work.  The qualifications were spiritual, not academic, and God used Stephen (6:8) to such an extent that he was martyred for his faith (see 7:54-58), something that Paul witnessed firsthand.

But whether we’re talking about church treasurers or the administrator of the church food pantry, there are always those who will ask, yes, but who is supervising the supervisors? It is a fair question. Several months ago we learned about a church secretary who embezzled $173,000 (US) from a church.

Do you think you could attend a church where you could simply say to the leadership, “That’s okay, we don’t need an annual meeting; we trust all of you” or does it seem unlikely?

The website BibleHub.com provides two comparison passages in 2 Kings — set 10 chapters apart — which offer an interesting wording.

The first is in chapter 12 (click here to read the full chapter) where I direct your attention especially to verse 15

^{NIV.2Kings.12.13} The money brought into the temple was not spent for making silver basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, trumpets or any other articles of gold or silver for the temple of the Lord; ¹⁴ it was paid to the workers, who used it to repair the temple. ¹⁵ They did not require an accounting from those to whom they gave the money to pay the workers, because they acted with complete honesty.

This wording repeats in chapter 22 (click here to read in full, though it’s not exactly a happy passage.)

^{NIV.2Kings.22.4} “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him get ready the money that has been brought into the temple of the Lord, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. ⁵ Have them entrust it to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. And have these men pay the workers who repair the temple of the Lord— ⁶ the carpenters, the builders and the masons. Also have them purchase timber and dressed stone to repair the temple. ⁷ But they need not account for the money entrusted to them, because they are honest in their dealings.”

While separated by a number of other chapters, these statements are part of a larger story of the rebuilding of the temple, and it’s interesting the level of trust indicated by that recurring statement.

I remember one time when a pastor said to someone who was questioning my own personal integrity in a matter not related to finances, “I know his heart and I trust him.” It gave me a vote of confidence which was badly needed at the time.

Let’s end where we started, in I Corinthians 4:2, but widen out to include a fuller context. Paul is speaking:

^CEB.1Cor.4.2 So a person should think about us this way—as servants of Christ and managers of God’s secrets. ² In this kind of situation, what is expected of a manager is that they prove to be faithful. ³ I couldn’t care less if I’m judged by you or by any human court; I don’t even judge myself. ⁴ I’m not aware of anything against me, but that doesn’t make me innocent, because the Lord is the one who judges me. ⁵ So don’t judge anything before the right time—wait until the Lord comes. He will bring things that are hidden in the dark to light, and he will make people’s motivations public. Then there will be recognition for each person from God.

 

 

 

 

Reaping Where You Did Not Sow

Titus 1:7

Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless–not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain.
(NIV)

Not wanting to overstate this, but in the past year we’ve watched as people who were stewards of ministry organizations, including those responsible for the finances of those same organizations, have proved themselves to be less than good stewards of what well-meaning donors had entrusted to them. Some have shown themselves, in their other endeavors to be “pursuing dishonest gain.”

This should not be. The ESV version of today’s verse says, “For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain.”

In a world of capitalism, there is a sense in which person “A” is exploiting person “B” by way of their possession of a scarce resource or a unique talent. My plumber or electrician (both Christians who have been very fair with us over the years) have skills and abilities that I do not have and the KJV scripture reminds us that “the workman is worthy of his hire.” (NIV/NLT: deserves his/their wages/pay.)

When found out, we sometimes expect God will just step in and seize control of the situation, but sometimes he allows things to go unchecked. One of the more interesting articles here at C201 is a 2014 one called “Why Did Jesus Allow Judas to Manage the Petty Cash?” Matt Perman wrote,

Why did Jesus let Judas carry the money bag during his ministry, knowing in his omniscience that he was stealing from it (John 12:6)? One blogger humorously points out “one is tempted to offer the Lord some consulting on good stewardship.”

But then goes further,

…If it’s surprising that Jesus would have let Judas carry the money bag, it should be even more shocking that he let Judas be an apostle at all. For the task of going out and preaching the gospel, which Judas participated in, is even more significant than carrying the moneybag.

(Now you want to read the whole article, right?)

While we’re reminiscing about previous articles, a 2013 article from (re)Versing Verses which we called “Two Different Measures” looked at this verse:

You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. Deuteronomy 25:15 NIV

and noted:

The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him [Proverbs 11:1]. This is a matter of integrity, and often it’s so easy to gain a little here and there that we tend to do it naturally and think of it as harmless. It isn’t harmless though. It harms your integrity. The Lord frowns on it. It incurs the Lord’s wrath – For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly [Deu 25:16]. Let us learn to be honest and have integrity in small things and big things alike.

How do I know if my “gain” is “unjust”? A page at Knowing Jesus provides some scriptures to help us make the call. (They have 12 key verses, I added #3 and #7)

1. It has come about through violence. “So are the ways of everyone who gains by violence; It takes away the life of its possessors.” Prov. 1.19
2. It is achieved through misrepresentation and lies. “The acquisition of treasures by a lying tongue Is a fleeting vapor, the pursuit of death.” Prov 21.6
3. It is accomplished through trickery and deception. “The LORD detests the use of dishonest scales, but he delights in accurate weights.” Prov 11.1
4. It exploits the poor. “He who oppresses the poor to make more for himself Or who gives to the rich, will only come to poverty.” Prov 22.16
5. It exploits done by others. “As a partridge that hatches eggs which it has not laid, So is he who makes a fortune, but unjustly; In the midst of his days it will forsake him, And in the end he will be a fool.” Jeremiah 17.11
6. It involves not properly paying staff or contractors. “Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness and his upper rooms without justice, Who uses his neighbor’s services without pay and does not give him his wages” Jeremiah 22.13 also “Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, and which has been withheld by you, cries out against you; and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord” James 5.4
7. There are underlying, unjust motives. “All a person’s ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the LORD.” Prov. 16.2

I think the word “pursues” is not to be overlooked in this phrase as well. See resources on this at OpenBible.info.

1. It exhausts you. “Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich. Be wise enough to know when to quit.“ Prov. 23.4
2. There is never contentment. “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5
3. It can cost you your soul. “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” Mark 8.36 also Luke 18.25 “For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.“
4. It may cause you to neglect the poor. “Whoever gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse.” Prov. 28.27
5. It will divide your loyalties. “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” Prov 16.13
6. Achieving it may be elusive or temporary. “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” Luke 12 18-20
7. It can leave you miserable. “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” Rev. 3:17

Growing up in the church founded by Dr. Oswald J. Smith, people were encouraged to invest their money, time and talents in world missions with this motto,

You can’t take it with you, but you can send it on ahead.

In other words, you can invest it in the Kingdom of God (“where moth and rust do not corrupt“) and where it lasts.

Someone else also shared with me that

The main thing that Bible teaching has against money is that it perishes with use.

A 2015 C201 post, “Proverbs on Poverty…and Riches” contained a number of scriptures on this (unfortunately without references) and ended with this one:

Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.

So while we may have determined we have not pursued dishonest gain, we need to be careful we haven’t become caught up in pursuing gain itself.

Easy Steps to Being an Unloving Person in the New Year

Nobody sets out to be an unloving person, but if you know how it’s done, then you know what to avoid, right?

I want to take a different look at I Corinthians 13, aka ‘The Love Chapter.’

I know what you’re thinking. Can’t we do something a little deeper? Or look at a passage we haven’t heard hundreds of times? Well, hear me out.

But first a diversion. Did you know the word love doesn’t appear in this chapter in the KJV? I found this out the hard way trying to demonstrate to a pastor how a Bible concordance works. (The fact that I was not a pastor and he was, yet he had never seen a concordance speaks volumes to the type of Biblical education he received; but alas, time doesn’t permit me to share that story.) Anyway, I randomly selected “Love is patient” as my demonstration point but Strong didn’t include that because the KJV uses the word charity instead. So if “love is patient, love is kind” sounds old to you, remember it’s not that old.

The chapter begins,

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

So you’re thinking, if we want to know what it means to be unloving, we just take each descriptor and frame it in the negative. So, “love is patient, love is kind” becomes ‘un-love is impatient, un-love is unkind.’ (And it would get easier, since many of the traits are stated in the negative, so you would just drop the “not.”)

That would make for a simple exercise, and I was in a church study where we did that as an exercise; but keeping the above verse in mind, let’s go adjective-by-adjective but drill down deeper.

STEP ONE: The person without love would need to crave instant gratification, in other words, no room for delayed gratification. In the tech revolution of the 1950s (don’t look it up, there really wasn’t one) the talk was that in the future, everything would be yours at the push of a button; at the flick of a switch. As a more congested transport system leaves us waiting for what seems (but isn’t) forever to board a train, or for a traffic light to change; and as we desire faster download times for internet content, we reflect our hunger for getting everything NOW. Paul taught the Romans that “…endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” (Romans 5:4)

STEP TWO: The person without love would need to have a lack of empathy. You never know kindness until you’ve been shown kindness; and you never know the absence of kindness until you’ve had to experience it, but without empathy, you can’t connect the dots between what you’ve felt and what you’re doing or saying feels like to someone else. Jesus said, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 7:12)

STEP THREE: This one is central. To not be the person of love Paul is describing to the Corinthians you have to be guilty of constant comparison. Some Bible expositors go so far as to speak of “the sin of comparison.” And I don’t need to give you the reference to remind us all that the 10th commandment is “do not covet“ which is applied equally to your neighbor’s (marital, in this case) situation, as well as your neighbor’s possessions.

STEP FOUR: Not being boastful begins by not being self promoting. This is critical in our present times, because social media somewhat implores us to put our best face forward on social media. (And tools like Photoshop allow us to edit how that face looks!) We are now even able to quantify our popularity by counting likes or followers.  Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches.” (Jeremiah 9:23)

STEP FIVE: I’ll keep this one really brief since I’ve written about passages such as Philippians 2 so many times here. You would need to have a complete absence of humility. Pride isn’t the issue here, pride is more of a manifestation (or symptom) of a larger problem. Rather, the overarching need for humility is part of a lifestyle that needs to cultivated. Jesus did not see his equality with God as something to be leveraged but chose the path of humility and the role of a servant. (My own take on Phil. 2) “The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.” (Proverbs 22:4)

Let’s look at the next verse:

It [love] does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

STEP SIX: The unloving person would have no problem committing defamation of character. You could be absolutely right about someone, but still dishonor them by not keeping silent. Or you could be exacting revenge against someone and seek to destroy their character for that reason. Or you may just have a callous disregard for others. Romans 12:10 reads, “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” The setup for the often quoted Philippians 2 passage begins “in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” (The CEB offers a gender-neutral expression for brotherly love: “Love each other like the members of your family.”)

STEP SEVEN: Because the previous already covered not boasting and not being proud, when we reach not self-seeking it may seem almost redundant. Could we say the unloving person is status-seeking? Or are they all about building their own empire? I would argue that with some it’s actually lacking transparency. We could also say they have a hidden agenda. They are perceived to be outwardly doing something altruistic, but like a skillful chess player, what outwardly appears a seemingly sacrificial move is coldly calculated to be of personal benefit. “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19)

STEP EIGHT: The unloving person would undoubtedly be prone to knee-jerk reactions. And when have we ever seen this more than in the political climate of 2020? “Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.” James 1:19

STEP NINE: An unloving acquaintance hangs on to hurts. They’re making a list and checking it twice, and going to remember how many times you’ve stepped on their toes or damaged their feelings. Being forgetful can be a human failing. But it’s also a divine attribute. If we want to be God-like we need to learn how to forget! “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.” – Jeremiah 31:34b

The final verse of this micro-passage ends

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

STEP TEN: I wanted to combine these into a single step to bring the list to ten items. Ten items to avoid. The final one, in being an unloving person, you’d probably be seen a troublemaker. The person who delights in evil has their values turned upside-down and is glorifying wickedness instead of righteousness. Isaiah 5:20 nails this possibility: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” This verse wouldn’t be in our scriptures unless people had done this in Isaiah’s time; unless it were possible for us to be equally value-shifted.

None of these things are outside the realm of possibility. It’s easy to think of people we have known who were self-aggrandizing, deceitful, over-reactive, or just plain troublemakers. But it’s also not impossible to remember times in our own lives where we entered into those categories, or at least skated dangerously close.

In the new year, we want to be loving not unloving.

With God’s help, we can do this.

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■ This isn’t the first time we’ve had a backwards approach to I Corinthians 13. Check out, from March, 2016, A Personal Character Checklist.

■ Paul does as much himself — telling us what not love looks like — in the setup to the verses we examined. From January, 2014 check out Religious Activity versus Abiding in Christ.

Remembering that the whole Love Chapter is sandwiched between two chapters discussing spiritual gifts; from the 2nd of those articles:

In certain Christian quarters, we tend to treat supernatural gifts as the gold standard of faith, but without humility or love, we come up empty; and all our co-workers, neighbors, or extended family see is a preoccupation with religious things that really don’t appeal…

When You Are Falsely Accused

And now, my lord, as surely as the LORD your God lives and as you live, since the LORD has kept you from bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hands, may your enemies and all who are intent on harming my lord be like Nabal. I Samuel 25:26

But David thought to himself, “One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand.” I Samuel 27:1

A year ago we introduced you to Jim Grant and his blog, Preach Between the Lines where he was working his way through the poetic/wisdom books. Now he’s moved on to I Samuel. There is no specific reference in the devotional today; if you have the time you might want to read all five chapters indicated below. Also, if you can, I urge you to read the devotional which preceded this one; the story of King Saul and David characterized as The Hunter and The Hunted.

Click the title which follows to read at source.

Through it All

1 Samuel 24-29

The greatest struggles in life have to be when we are attacked or accused falsely. We can think of Job and his trials or even Joseph and his jail times. When thinking of David, many times we overlook the character he displayed during those hunted years by King Saul. I know, and so do you the encouragement to endure hardship, to count it all joy when trials and tribulations come – but that is so much easier said than done. The “why” always seems to dominate our thinking. It fact we are so stressed out and emotionally charged it prevents us from understanding and rationally responding to all that is happening.

David has been anointed as the heir apparent for the throne, there are some 13 years before that happens. King Saul is no longer anointed with the “Spirit upon him” so he can only react in a fleshly out of control, paranoid person. Saul repeated tries to kill David, in the process he is filled with guile and cause his son, Jonathan to be severed in their relationship. Jonathan, what a blessing to have for David. The covenant he and David make has been the text of countless sermons. Everyone needs a “Barnabas or Jonathan” surrounding them during severe trials. This is a problem for Pastors especially, why because they are fearful to take people into their confidence – afraid that anything they say will be used against them.

Something else happens in our readings: Samuel dies. The grand and glorious old man is no longer able to run interference for David. I found it appalling that David was hunted by over 3,000 man army under the skewed leadership of Saul. Scripture tells us to pray for our enemies and do good to those who hurt us. It sounds good, but going through great vexing of our spirit, it is difficult to do. But even through the most difficult times of life, there comes a ray of hope: The Abigail and Nabal story finds its way into our hearts. Here is a woman/wife who is under the tyranny of an abusive and egocentric husband. Nabal by all estimation is not a God-fearing man. Abigail, is an intelligent and beautiful woman, God uses the story to deliver both David and Abigail. It’s a unique love story for sure. Sometimes we have to look beyond ourselves to find the good that God is doing. Of course we know that Nabal is killed and David and Abigail marry later.

There are times when an opportunity avails itself for us to take matters into our own hands. David gets an opportunity to kill Saul, even his men compel David to reach out and kill Saul, but cuts a piece of his robe off and shows Saul how that David could have taken advantage of the situation. Again, with Abner supposedly watching Saul, David is able to sneak into camp and take Saul’s spear and a jug of water. Again, David calls to Saul and shows him how he had opportunity but would not “touch the LORD’s anointed.” How we go through trials and tribulations is just as important as getting through them. Our character is on display for others to see if Jesus Christ really makes a difference in ALL of LIFE.

Of course King Saul repents and weeps over his actions, yet it is not a repentance unto godliness. Saul had been exposed, or better yet his heart. Saul doesn’t get it – God is done with Him. Saul’s final act of going to a witch/soothsayers/medium for advice is the last straw. Calling up Samuel through a séance King Saul gets an answer he didn’t want. Samuel tells Saul the reality that Saul would not admit to; the Lord has left you and has become your adversary. A person without the SPIRIT of God in him cannot be pleasing to God – it could have been so different, but Saul would not acknowledge the work of God in David. It all the attempts and attacks on David – Saul lost.

We will be vexed in our spirits, but let the HOLY SPIRIT do the choosing for you. When we think we should take matters into our own hands, know that we are rebelling against God and what He has brought us to. Trust in the LORD – let HIM finish the work he started in you!

Phil 1:6. …being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Daniel: A Trajectory of Consistency and Faithfulness Towards God

Today we’re introducing you to “a freelance writer, wife, and mom,” whose blog is titled My Way Home. I read several different articles before choosing this one to feature here at C201. Click the title below to read at source.

The Man Who Walked the Line

Daniel in the lions’ den is perhaps one of the most beloved Bible stories of all time, especially by children. I’ve taught it a number of times through the years, and Daniel’s great courage and the miracle of the lions’ closed mouths never fails to thrill.

But another aspect of Daniel’s life came to mind today when I was considering what to highlight in the life of this faithful man.

In Daniel 6, Darius the king formed a group of one hundred twenty princes, and over those, three presidents, of whom Daniel was chief. Daniel was so revered by Darius that the other leaders grew jealous of him and concocted a plan to get rid of him.

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Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.

Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God. – Daniel 6:4, 5

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Daniel was a man of such integrity that his only apparent “weakness” was his faith.

So, the princes and presidents tricked Darius into signing a law requiring everyone in the kingdom to pray only to the king for thirty days.

Those who petitioned “any God or man” (Daniel 6:7) would be lion fodder.

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Plot a graph of Daniel’s deeds throughout his life, and you’ll find a straight line connecting each point. Though his life was punctuated with the miraculous and the dramatic, Daniel himself was a steady, straightforward sort, solid as a rock in his faith. He never showed fear, never seemed to consider any alternative other than the right one, even when facing death.

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Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. – Daniel 6:10

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Daniel just kept doing the same thing he had always done.

He had always prayed three times each day in front of his open window, and he continued to do so immediately following the new decree. His habits and character were so reliable that the men who plotted his demise were certain of their success.

And they were right. As we know, Daniel was caught, convicted, and cast among lions. But God saved his life, and his adversaries were tossed to the lions in his stead.

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I will certainly strive, as Daniel did, to maintain godly habits, come what may. Sometimes, the habits of prayer, Bible reading, church attendance, Christian fellowship, and even blogging are what will keep us heading onward and upward in the valleys of our Christian lives.

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Do you have a teenager in the house who would benefit from something like C201, only written by a teen for a teen? Today’s writer’s 13-year-old daughter, who calls herself Bible Blogger Girl has just launched Teen, Meet God.

A Day Devoted to Lies

For much of the morning, in some parts of the world, people made outrageous, preposterous or untrue statements; waited a few seconds; and then said, “April Fools!” I’m writing this ahead of time, but no doubt online there were false news stories, manipulated photos, and skillfully edited videos. In most cases, nobody gets hurt and everyone has enjoys having their gullibility quotient tested.

I don’t want to go so far as to say that Christians should never enjoy a good prank — I am, after all, writing this to appear late in the day of April 1st — but it’s important that this never defines us.

In Matthew 5:37 we read,

All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

The context is about swearing oaths, but in The Message Bible, the definition is widened:

“And don’t say anything you don’t mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and never doing it, or saying, ‘God be with you,’ and not meaning it. You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.

The entire passage is paralleled in James 5:12

Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear–not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be condemned.

Wikipedia notes how these verses impacted one Christian sect:

Quakers place importance on being truthful at all times, so the testimony opposing oaths springs from a view that “taking legal oaths implies a double standard of truthfulness” suggesting that truthfulness in legal contexts is somehow more important than truthfulness in non-legal contexts and that truthfulness in those other contexts is therefore somehow less important.

But by refusing to take an oath, many were imprisoned.  The article also noted some of the variances we encounter today:

• I swear on my mother’s life
• I swear on my grandmother’s grave

The idea is that we are promising something that is precious to us to demonstrate sincerity. I didn’t grow up around people who use these expressions, but to be honest (pun intended) I often wonder that people who feel the need to add this might be the ones most likely not telling the truth.

This passage also means more than just whether or not we can be trusted when we make a statement, it’s also about whether or not we can be trusted when we make a promise. My wife and I often joke that we’ve spent a measurable percentage of our lives waiting for people who said they would arrive somewhere at a certain time. Before we even got married, I noticed that my wife was extremely punctual, and I’ve always hated being late and keeping people waiting. But often others find it easy to say they will be somewhere at a certain time and then think nothing of arriving a half hour later (and we’re not talking about being fashionably late to a large party or gathering.)

For the Christian, decision-making can be extra-complicated, as we desire to submit everything, big and small, to God’s will. But if commit to something, if we agree to do something or be somewhere, then we need to honor our commitments and agreements.

Freelance writer Fiona Soltes writes,

There’s much to be said for being a person of integrity and doing what you say you’re going to do. There’s even more to be said, however, for being a person who carefully considers decisions with God’s input and sticks to those decisions once they’re made. God is, after all, the same yesterday, today and forever. If we are to be like Him, we must show ourselves faithful and dependable, as well.

Jered Bridges commented on this passage in the context of living in a world filled with hidden cameras. He noted our ultimate accountability is not to the people we make promises to, but rather…

Proverbs 5:21 warns that, “…a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths.” (ESV)  Ultimately it matters not if there’s a hidden camera watching you —- the eyes of the Lord penetrate far further than a grainy twenty-frames-per-second camera could ever go.  It is in the healthy fear of those eyes that we should accordingly adjust our conduct.

Go Deeper: Check out a detailed study on this passage at Bible.org

 

 

 

Two Different Measures

As we begin a new month, before we start today, I just want to say how absolutely amazed I am at the people who are blogging Bible study and devotional material on a regular basis. We’ve featured at least a couple of hundred by now, though we probably only see a very small tip of the iceberg; but clearly God is working in the lives of many people in many ways. Though the readership of some may be very small, there is no way — and I say this from personal experience — you can accurately measure what it’s doing for them to be posting material like this each day.

Today’s feature comes from a blog with a creative name re-Ver(sing) Verses; and appeared under the title Deuteronomy 25:15. Click the link to read at source, and again, you’re encouraged to explore the rest of the blog. Also, I need to add that when we feature the writing of others, we usually leave it to you to click through and see any related graphics or pictures, but I had to include this one.  Zec, the author, follows this format each day with a brief, analysis, conclusion and sometimes other sections.

You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.Deuteronomy 25:15 | NIV | Other Versions | Context

Brief

Deuteronomy 25 continues a long string of laws that have been put in place for this new people after they had escaped from captive in Egypt. In particular, Deuteronomy 25 looks into laws dealing with criminals [Deu 25:1-3], a law on animals/tools of labor [Deu 25:4], laws on family [Deu 25:5-12], and laws on justice [Deu 25:13-19]. Zoning in onto the laws on justice, there were two laws stated in this chapter – one on general justice [Deu 25:13-16]; and the other a promise of justice against the Amalekites [Deu 25:17-19]. Focusing on the law on general justice, we shall examine some common tools of the trade – weights and measures as we look into how important it is for us to lead our lives with integrity so that we can enjoy our lives to the fullest in God.

Analysis

accurate and honest weights – Back in those times they use scales and weights to weigh a lot of things – Leviticus tells us about ephahs and hins [Lev 19:36], ephahs a measure of all things dry [Exo 16:36], like corn; hin a measure of all things liquid, like oil or wine [Exo 30:24]. When you do business with somebody else, and you’re selling corn, it is easy for you to cheat a few grams off every buyer for per 100g that you sell. Your hands move so fast to weigh it and sweep them into a bag that your buyers will never find out. Or your weighs and your scales could be weighted, and your buyers would never know – they won’t usually have any means to measure it at home, and even if they do, they usually won’t bother measuring what they bought.

accurate and honest measures – And there are some things that are sold not by weight but by length, like cloth. Recently I had to buy some cloth for an exhibition, and I was trying very hard to keep my eyes on the ruler, but the seller measured it so fast that I wouldn’t be able to tell if he did give me exactly 5 yards, or if I only got a length closer to four-and-a-half yards at the end of it. I’m sure they sold cloth back in the old days, but even till today these inaccurate measures and dishonest weights still exist.

What does the Bible say about them? The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him [Proverbs 11:1]. This is a matter of integrity, and often it’s so easy to gain a little here and there that we tend to do it naturally and think of it as harmless. It isn’t harmless though. It harms your integrity. The Lord frowns on it. It incurs the Lord’s wrath – For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly [Deu 25:16]. Let us learn to be honest and have integrity in small things and big things alike.

Symbolically

Bias and deviation – we often hold some kind of prejudice against certain people, and some kind of bias for others. It is easy to be quick to judge somebody just by his race, his size, his face – it is easy for us to have double standards – we often have two different measures in our house [Deu 25:14]. But no – honest weights and accurate measures – let us measure a man for his own worth, and let us weigh a character not with a prefixed weight. Let us not judge, for who are we to judge? Let us accept those of low positions. A man who has integrity has no space in his heart for bias and deviation.

so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you – This is a promise. A promise from God, a promise to be fulfilled by God. Who says we cannot enjoy our lives in the grace of the Lord? In the context of this verse this promise is a huge one – to live long in the promised land – land of milk and honey, a great and fruitful land. Back in those days, people had longer lifespans that we do today, and the promise of a lengthy lifespan is a great one to enjoy. Compare the blessing of longevity for honest people to the curse for the dishonest people – the bloodthirsty and deceitful will not live out half their days

[Psalm 55:23]. When we talk about blessings of longevity, one other instance comes into mind – Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you [Exo 20:12,Deu 5:16|Article]. This is a great blessing that comes after we’ve fulfilled important duties of what God expects of us.

Conclusion

I had to step aside from myself as I studied this verse, for, who am I kidding? I am certainly by far not the most upright person, especially when it comes to little things. I often find my integrity lacking when it comes to little, little things. It is hard to always be gracious and magnanimous all the time – traits which are often demanded by integrity – especially so when you’re short on money or you’re in a hurry. It’s hard to be rooted to the ground, it’s hard not to jump at a fantastic opportunity, albeit a dubious one. It’s hard to call a wrong as a wrong and a right as a right, especially when you might have much to lose.

We must, though. We must. The Bible didn’t say, ‘you should’ or ‘you ought to’. We must – because if we do not, we will incur God’s wrath knowingly. Sometimes what constitutes as right is a blurry picture. Let us steer clear of the grey areas that we so often pounce at, and instead, build our characters based on integrity. If it is right, let us call it as right. If it is wrong, let us call it as wrong and seek to better ourselves next time. It’s hard, but certainly possible.

With God’s grace, let us have honest and accurate weights and measures.

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Here’s another post from the same blog, where Zec tackles a tough passage, Matthew 15: 27.