2 Kings 9-19
Since the prophet Samuel, anointing the next king of Israel has been a regular part of the prophetic work. Elisha is about to anoint Jehu, the next king of Israel. This time, instead of sending a prophet with only a command to find the next king, God actually gives Elisha the name of the man to anoint. God tells Elisha to do the anointing and to get out. This is because of Jehu’s top priority as king: to erase the memory of Ahab and Jezebel from Israel. To start with, Jehu must take out Joram, a key military leader. As he approaches the palace where Jezebel is staying, he calls out for some help from below. Some eunuchs, who would have been charged with attending to Jezebel, heard Jehu. They were also at their wit’s end with the wicked queen, so they throw her out of the window to the ground. The nearby horses trample her to death to the point where no one recognizes her. All that’s left is her skull, her feet, and just the palms of her hands. This is a fulfillment of Elijah’s prophecy concerning Jezebel all the way back from 1 Kings 21. God will not withstand evil for very long. God is patient, but that patience has a termination date. This included the slaughter of Ahab’s seventy sons. They were wicked rulers, as well. Jehu sent word to those serving under those sons to do this difficult task. He also, either personally or through his followers, took out the servants and priests who had aligned themselves with Ahab. Besides that, Jehu is also faithful to eradicate Baal worship from the land. He essentially tricks the followers and priests of Baal into coming to one place, saying that he’s going to worship Baal even more than Ahab, and will make a sacrifice. Once everyone is there, Jehu orders his men to slaughter all those inside the temple of Baal. And as icing on the cake, the turned the temple of Baal into a public bathroom. That is the appropriate way to deal with the place where idols are worshiped. But Jehu is not perfect. He continues to permit worshiping of the golden calves throughout the land. Because he was faithful in a little, God granted that his sons would reign after him. The promised land, though, was only promised as long as faithfulness continued. Since Abraham, and throughout the Psalms and prophets, there were calls for the nations to come to the mountain of God and worship him there. Canaan was always intended to be just the beginning. But when the people are faithless, the land doesn’t grow, but shrinks. It will not be until Jesus Christ, the true Israelite, comes in the flesh and establishes the kingdom on the earth, that the growth of the kingdom to include the nations begins to take place. And by the time you get to the end of the book of Revelation, you see how all the nations are flooding to Jerusalem to worship God there. The eternal state does not seem to be the end of national identity, but the right ordering of it. The focus moves back to Judah for a time. Athaliah, the queen mum, is upset that her sons will no longer be ruling in Judah. Naturally, she begins to slaughter the king’s family. However, Joash, the king’s son, is spared. He will reign in his father’s place. Jehoiada the priest hatches a scheme to protect Joash and install him as king. He knows that Athaliah has to go. So he orders the temple guards to bring Joash out of hiding, encircle him, and to slaughter anyone who comes near him. Athaliah now knows that Joash survived and comes to harm him, likely along with troops. But she and all those who follow her are defeated and killed. Joash is installed as king, and Judah’s Baal temple is destroyed. How are we to take all the bloodshed we’ve seen in the chapters up until now? There are a few comments that help make sense of it. First, Israel was a nation with its own set of laws, and breaking some of them involved the death of the perpetrator. We don’t often hear about the lessers violations, which makes the capital punishments much more common to the story. And notice that the ones carrying out the capital punishments are officials such as the king and his army, not a bunch of vigilantes. And when it comes to the church, we must remember we are a nation of priests, not an earthly nation. We do not carry out capital punishments by our own authority. In this age, God has charged civil authority with the power of the sword (cf. Romans 13). Second, it’s common today to have a much more accommodating stance toward things God clearly calls sin. Most punishments seem too harsh to our sophisticated minds. Church discipline is two-fold: formative and corrective. Formative discipline is worship, Bible study, prayer and fellowship groups, and the like. It’s what forms us as Christians day-to-day. If we didn’t call it discipline, we’d never think of it like that. Corrective discipline is how we address specific, unrepentant sins in a person’s life who professes to be a Christian. Most of the time, this is not a public event. It’s a closed-door, private meeting between parties. And most of the time, it doesn’t even get to the level of church leadership involvement (cf. Mathew 18). If it does, biblical commands, respect for the individuals, and decorum prevents us from announcing such tragic outcomes in public worship when, Lord willing, many guests/non-believers are with us. But Joash is not perfect, either (Note: some Bibles have the name here spelled differently, often as “Jehoash”. But it’s simply an alternate spelling of Joash.). He does not tear down the high places, or altars away from the temple. But he does seek to repair the temple in Jerusalem. It had a rough beginning, but after several years, Joash had got the priests on board with the repairs. It’s a good reminder that destruction can happen quickly, but change in the right direction takes time. Joash’s story is also one of tragedy at the end of his life. When the king of Syria makes his way to Jerusalem, Joash hopes to fend him off by pilfering the temple treasury and giving it to Hazael. His servants turn on him (for an unknown reason) and kill him. His son Amaziah becomes king. One of the reasons dating of the reign of individual kings can be difficult is because they’re dated based off of each other. We’ve read repeatedly that the new king of Israel/Judah began reigning in the xxth year of the king of Judah/Israel. We can learn more exact dates by comparing the numbers of years reigned with extra-biblical sources. Back in Judah, Jehoahaz begins to reign as king. He’s a wicked king, and God allows Syria to invade. As the king goes, so goes the nation. While Jehoahaz seeks the Lord, the people continue to rebel. At this point, neither the northern nor the southern kingdom has a righteous king. As Elisha is about to die, King Joash approaches him one last time. Elisha wants to confirm with Joash that they will defeat Syria by the Lord’s power. As an illustration of that promise, Elisha has Joash shoot an arrow out of an eastern window, since that’s the direction of Syria. To confirm the promise, Elisha tells Joash to strike the ground with the arrows. Joash is timid and only taps the ground three times. Elisha tells him that he should have struck the ground more than that, as the promise comes from God. So now, Israel will only defeat Syria three times. In an interesting aside, after Elisha dies, another dead man, who died in battle with the Moabites, falls into his grave. Because he touched Elisha’s body, he is resuscitated. We’re told that this takes place in the spring, so this takes place roughly a year after the preceding verses. This is not rightly called a resurrection, because resurrection is an event that takes place at the end of the age. Only Christ has rightly been resurrected as a foretaste of the final resurrection of the righteous. But was Elisha’s body magic? Not quite. Elisha had been given a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. It’s also telling that this note is passed over quite quickly. Right before this story, we’re told that Joash will only defeat the Syrians three times. Immediately after this story, we’re told that that’s exactly what happened. So most likely, the resuscitation of this dead man is to both remind and prove to Joash that the final words of Elisha were true. Propehcy > reminder > fulfillment. I could sit here and summarize all of the kings for you, but that’s all it’d be—a summary. All of those wicked kings are simply to show God’s patience with his people. Fast-forwarding to 2 Kings 17, we finally arrive at the fall of Israel by Assyria. From this point, the Israelites of the northern kingdom are taken into exile. The Assyrian practice of exile looked like moving people around from their empire. Once they captured a new place, they would remove some of the natural inhabitants and move people from other places in their empire to the newly acquired land. It was a way of assimilating their kingdom and removing a national identity. People without a national identity are easy to control. One easy way to remember this is “Assyrians practiced assimilation.” In contrast, the Jews down south were not mixed when Babylon captured and exiled them. King Nebuchadnezzar left the poorest Jews to farm the land in Judah and took the fittest and wealthiest to Babylon with him (think of Daniel, Shaddrach, Meshach, and Abednego). After less than seventy years, the Jews were permitted to return, which is barely two generations. Not much of the Jewish/southern identity was lost. Once the other nations were planted in Israel, they began to start worshiping the false gods that they had before. Some Israelites did not assimilate with the pagans, but many did. This is the reason that there was such tension between the Jews (those who were left in southern Judah) and Samaritans (those who were left in northern Israel) in Christ’s day. Jews viewed Samaritans as mutts and traitors. We are now introduced to the prophet Isaiah. He does of course have his own prophetic book, but he will prophecy with King Hezekiah before Babylon takes over. Judah will have their own run-ins with Assyria, but they will prevail. There will be a remnant, but Judah will not favor much better than their northern brothers and sisters. Acts 6-9 Acts 6 is famous for revealing the role of the deacon, or more accurately, the proto-deacon. The apostles understand that their primary task is preaching, teaching, and prayer. And yet, that does not mean the physical needs of the congregation are of no concern. Instead of selecting seven men themselves, they tell the congregation to do that. It says something that the apostles, who were charged with writing Scripture, did not choose the deacons themselves. That authority rested in the congregation. The apostles would confirm the selections, but the selections themselves would come from the congregation. The qualifications for the proto-deacon were a man “full of the Spirit and of wisdom”, so it wasn’t just the good ol’ boy system. The diaconate may not the be teaching and leadership office of the church, but they must still be men of noble character. Eventually, the role of the deacon will become one of modeling servanthood for the congregation. The result of a robust teaching ministry coupled with servant-ministry was the increase of the gospel. Stephen, one of the first deacons, would become the first Christian martyr. Some Jews were arguing with Stephen, because he was performing miraculous signs to accompany his ministry. And here we see the necessity of wisdom being a key quality of a deacon. Because he knew the Scripture and could debate his detractors, no one was able to win an argument against him. As they did with the Lord, they finally accuse him of blasphemy that he may be put to death. Jews did not so much concern themselves with theology as Christians do. They were far more concerned about keeping the law and the best way to do it. The Talmud, an ancient Jewish collection of texts from the 400s, is a commentary on the Jewish law and how it should be kept. It was an oral tradition Jews claimed originated in the time of Moses. But it is not a systematic theology of God, salvation, etc. Theology proper was really introduced when Christians moved into the Gentile world and had to communicate the gospel to a wide variety of cultures. This is the scenario in which the first Christian martyrs found themselves. This is the reason Paul sought to kill so many Christians. It was not primarily about a deficient view of God; it wasn’t even about a redefinition of the law. The problem was that Christians said they were not bound to keep the Mosaic law as a condition of the new covenant. Stephen defends the status of the new covenant in Christ’s blood as superior to the covenant made on Mt. Sinai. He recounts major sections of Jewish history to bolster his argument. Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of the old covenant and the author of the new covenant. Jews should see that in the fulfillment of the old covenant, the new covenant is not bound by the regulations of the old. Theologian Gerald Bray notes that if Jesus was just introducing a new sect within Judaism, he might have very well been eventually approved by the Jews. After all, the Jews killed the prophets but eventually canonized their writings. But Jesus was not about new interpretations; he was about fulfillment. We are introduced to Saul at Stephen’s stoning. He has apparently been active in his attempts at eradicating the Christian faith for some time. He is both imprisoning and murdering Christians. Saul “approving” of Stephen’s execution may be more than just him being glad that it took place; he may have officially approved of his execution as a Jewish religious leader—a Pharisee. Philip, another deacon, is traveling and preaching. He even goes to Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom (pre-exile). They had an Israelite heritage, but they had intermingled and intermarried with pagans. Many Jews hated the Samaritans because of it. But the gospel is now spreading out from the Jewish center from which it originated. Philip will also be sent to Gaza. He famously meets an Ethiopian along the road who is reading from the prophet Isaiah. Like Philip, he seems to be leaving Jerusalem. He’s not a Jew, but he was in Jerusalem to worship. Gentiles were permitted to worship in a particular section of the temple as a foreshadowing of the nations coming to God on his holy mountain in the age to come. Now Philip will have the opportunity to preach the good news of how Jesus Christ has fulfilled the very passage from Isaiah the Ethiopian is reading. Immediately, the Ethiopian asks to be baptized, so that must have been a component of Philip’s message. Here we see a consistent pattern: preaching, followed by belief, followed by baptism. Baptists see this as the pattern to follow in the church to this day. Others, primarily those who baptize infants, see this pattern as particular only to the first generation of Christians. Because every Christian was a new convert, the argument goes, everyone would out of necessity be baptized after a confession of faith. Subsequent generations of children from Christian families would be baptized in the same manner that every generation of children in Israel was circumcised. Instead of baptism being a response to the proclamation of the gospel as it was with the Ethiopian, baptism is an “administrative change” from circumcision. Since Abraham’s whole household was circumcised as the first generation of the covenant, the first generation of Christians were also all baptized. The issue arises when we equate circumcision with baptism. Circumcision was the sign of the old covenant. In Romans 4:11, Paul clearly says that circumcision was the seal of the old covenant. He then says in Ephesians 1:13 and 4:30 that the Holy Spirit is the seal of the new covenant. It is a fallacious argument to equate circumcision with baptism, as if we traded in a Camry for a Civic—just a different version of the same thing. The indwelling presence of the Spirit of God is what has replaced circumcision, not baptism. In fact, circumcision for the Christian is a circumcision of the heart. There are a great many arguments against the baptism of the offspring of Christian parents, but that’s enough of a Baptist tirade for now. Back to Acts. The same Saul who officially approved of the death of many Christians is about to be called to strengthen many Christians. On his way to carry out more murderous threats with the full authority of the high priest, he is met by the risen Lord. Saul learns that in persecuting the church, he is persecuting Christ. Christ is the head of the church, and the church is the body of Christ. To wound one is to wound the other. There is a spiritual tie between the head in the heavens and the body on the earth. One of Saul’s greatest difficulties will be convincing Christians that he’s actually coming to strengthen the churches that he originally intended to persecute. But he essentially trades one enemy for another. Instead of the Christians fearing him, the Jews will now try to kill him on several occasions. He flees to Jerusalem and meets with the other apostles to recount his conversion. Barnabas has befriended Saul, and he affirms Saul’s conversion in front of the apostles. The apostle Peter returns to the story for a brief time. He heals a man named Aeneas and a woman named Dorcas. After meeting with Cornelius in chapter 10, he essentially takes a back seat to the ministry of Saul/Paul to the Gentiles. As an aside, God did not change Saul’s name to Paul. Saul is a Jewish name, and Paul is a Greek name. As both a Jew and a Roman citizen, he would be recognized by both cultures. Psalms 126-130 Psalm 126: The Lord has been good before, and he will be good in the future. Psalm 127: Whether it’s a city or a family, the Lord is the builder. Psalm 128: The fear of the Lord is a guard against your life. Psalm 129: The wicked seem free, but God has a plan for them as well. Psalm 130: My sins are innumerable, but God’s mercy is greater.
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1 Kings 20-22
Ben-hadad of Syria is trying to make Samaria a principality or a “vassal state”. When he says that he will take away all the gold and children from Ahab, that’s his point. Everything will be subject to his rule. Ahab is probably willing to accommodate a stronger military leader. But as Ahab will find out, Ben-hadad’s military is far less organized than he expects it to be. He wins a couple of battles again Syria quite easily. The “sons of the prophets” were a group of men who were active prophets in Israel. They were not necessarily the offspring of a former prophet. Later, the prophet Amos will say, “I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet,” even while he is a prophet. He simply means that he doesn’t have a lifetime, ongoing appointment as a prophet and does not belong to the college of prophets. Prophets were rarely a respected breed, so they often stayed together. Earlier, in 19:10, Elijah had mourned that he was the only prophet left in Israel. But that clearly was exaggeration. Naboth’s vineyard is an interesting story because it is relying on Old Testament land laws. Selling land for perpetuity was not allowed. There was a year of jubilee every seven years where any land that was sold to pay off debts was given back to the original families and tribes allotted by Moses and Joshua. What Ahab demands from Naboth is illegal. Naboth is an honorable man in that he will not break the law, even for the king. Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, sees an opportunity to show her strength. In plotting Naboth’s murder, she seals her own fate. Ahab knows full well what Jezebel has done, and God sends Elijah to confront him and call him to repentance. Jezebel was certainly a wicked woman, but Ahab showed no opposition to her wickedness. Ahab lives a few more years and continues to fight Syria. The imagery of dogs licking up his blood and prostitutes bathing in it is picked up later in Revelation. His son Ahaziah becomes king. First Kings has focused heavily on the northern kingdom of Israel up to this point, but it ends by noting that Jehoshaphat is now king in the southern kingdom of Judah. He stands in contrast to Ahaziah, a wicked man who worshiped Baal. 2 Kings 1-8 Ahaziah’s life is a mess. He is an idol worshiper, and now he’s been hurt by a fall. He has no power over his own nation, nevertheless foreign nations. God sends Elijah to him to pronounce his fate. There is no recourse for Ahaziah. Though he tries to find out more from Elijah by sending a few groups of sun-scorched soldiers, God’s word will stand. Ahaziah dies. 2 Kings 2 begins Elisha’s ministry apart from Elijah after his death. The Old Testament did present the idea that the righteous were with God after death, but the most common metaphor for describing the location of the deceased was in the depths of Sheol. So we should see Elijah’s being taken up into heaven as extremely significant. God’s chariots come to receive Elijah. All of the individual pieces of this experience speak to God’s majesty. Horses are powerful creatures, and God is all-powerful. The chariots were weapons of war, and God commands his armies against his enemies. Fire is almost always a symbol of God’s presence and glory. And since Elisha receiving a double portion of Elijah’s spirit depended on him being Elijah being taken to heaven, there was no way he could have missed such a spectacle. Elisha tears and removes his clothes to wear Elijah’s cloak, symbolizing that he is lamenting Elijah's absence but also picking up where Elijah left off. In the same way Elisha witnessed Elijah’s ascent into heaven, so too did the apostles witness Christ’s bodily ascension into the clouds. And the water parting for Elisha to cross over safely clearly calls back to God parting the Red Sea for the safety and salvation of the Hebrews leaving Egypt. Elisha’s first solo flight as a prophet comes when the kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom join together to go against Moab. Elisha has no patience for the wickedness of Israel and Edom, but for Judah’s sake, he will prophesy. The main problem is a lack of food and water, and that’s what draws the kings to Elisha. Music is often associated with prophecy, but not in a mystic/pentecostal/new age sense. When the pagans included music in their “prophecies”, the purpose was to put the prophet in a trance and speak nonsense, something akin to speaking in tongues today. They would also often harm themselves as part of the process, usually by cutting or whipping themselves. Any music involved in biblical prophecy completely avoids hypnotic ecstasy. While the exact reason for combining music and prophecy is not made explicit, it shouldn’t surprise us that worship is still to this day considered a mix of prayers, music, and preaching (which the New Testament considers prophecy if seen as primarily speaking God’s words after him). Elisha’s next miracle is that of multiplying oil to save the life of a widow and her children. She has no means to pay her debts (which are probably her dead husband’s debts). She is also the widow of one of Elisha’s fellow prophets, so he likely knows her quite well. Oil is multiplied miraculously, and she is able to sell it to get out of debt. God provides. In contrast to the widow’s poverty, Elisha then meets a wealthy woman who offers him a place to stay. It’s a generous proposal that Elisha gladly accepts, who is likely quite poor himself since he is itinerant. She also provides a place for his servant, Gehazi. As a way of showing his appreciation, he wants to do something for her in return. Another common divine action is that of forming life in the womb of a barren woman. We can’t help but think of women like Sarah and Hannah, godly women who he helped in their time of distress. The child is born, and as a young man is helping his father in the fields. He complains of a headache and is taken to his mother, where he dies. She places him on Elisha’s bed as she calls for him. She sets out to find him, and when she does, she does what any mother wounded by the death of a child would do, and she lashes out at Elisha. He sends Gehazi back to the woman’s house with his staff. Elisha travels more slowly with the woman back to her house. Elisha laying on the child might seem bizarre, but it’s ripe with meaning. Through Elisha, God gives the young man his sight, breath, and strength back (eyes, mouth, and hands). Elisha’s ministry, like Christ’s, was full of miraculous healings. Also like Christ, his healings were not only to his own people. From the very beginning, there was a call for the nations to come to Jerusalem and worship God on the holy mountain. While that will only be seen in its fullness in the age to come, now in the church age we see it in its beginning stage. The harvest comes after the sowing. In healing Naaman the Syrian, another Gentile receives God’s goodness. And it very well seems that he believes in the one, true God (2 Kings 5:15). But Naaman faces the same spiritual struggle every regenerate person does (and let’s assume for a moment that he is regenerate). He is going to go home and be confronted with the idols of his hometown. He will have to interact with people who still worship those idols. He will even have to enter those temples. What is he to do? He no longer wants to participate in idol worship. Even the purpose of taking the two mule loads of earth was likely to construct an altar with lightweight material from Israel so that he might worship God in Syria. In Naaman, we see a man whose heart has been turned from stone to flesh. He now desires to worship God rightly. And instead of telling him to resign his high position, Elisha simply tells Naaman, “Go in peace.” God places his people in all kinds of positions, from low to high, so that he might be glorified. Why shouldn’t God rule through his own people in every social and cultural position of authority and power? Yes, most of us will live quiet lives of regular piety. But God rules over all, so we should hope and pray that God will position devout believers in all social, cultural, and governmental positions. As things between Israel and Syria continue to get worse, Elisha receives visions of Syria’s military moves. He is then able to warn the Israelite army of the threats. Another of Elisha’s servants is concerned about an impending Syrian attack, but Elisha is calm. He prays that God would give this young servant spiritual sight for a moment to see the spiritual army that human eyes cannot see. Suddenly, he is able to see the horses and chariots of fire that fill the mountainside. Since this is the same imagery we were told about when Elijah was taken to heaven (and are only a few chapters apart), we should assume they’re connected. Most likely, only Elisha saw Elijah being taken up since no one else can see the horses and chariots here. More importantly, we see that God is not absent or simply barking orders from heaven. His own armies are fighting alongside the Israelites. In contrast to the clear spiritual sight of Elisha and his servant, the Syrians are blinded. Spiritual warfare is quite literally going on all around us, and we do not see it. It is not a quaint platitude that God’s angels are fighting all-too-real spiritual battles right now. The book of Daniel even speaks of the arch angel Michael being busy fighting a battle during Daniel’s day. In their blindness, whether physical blindness or mental confusion, they are taken and fed a feast. They wanted to come as victors, but they were instead guests at a feast. They are then sent back to Syria. This episode could perhaps be a foretaste of all Gentiles being welcomed into the mountain of God and given a feast, such as is imaged in the marriage supper of the lamb. That is the purpose of all Old Testament imagery and types, to ultimately turn our attention to the real thing. Acts 2-5 Pentecost was an annual festival fifty days after the Passover, which means this takes place fifty days after the crucifixion. The Holy Spirit is often compared to the wind. We cannot see it, and we cannot control it. Neither can we see or control the Spirit of God. This is what Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3. Fire is also an important biblical image, which often signifies the presence of God. Think of the pillar of fire that guided the Israelites in the wilderness and filled the tabernacle. Fire is also to be seen as purifying. So, God is present in this upper room, and what they are about to say is the pure word of God. The issue of “tongues” was generally not a divisive issue until the Pentecostal revivals of the early 1900s. The revivalists believed that speaking in angelic languages was a sign of conversion and told their congregants that they needed to do so. But here in Acts 2, the word for tongues quite literally means languages. And in context, it’s clearly human languages, because the people from all over the empire can’t believe they are hearing people talk in their own languages. What God confused at Babel, he has clarified at Pentecost. When the apostle Paul is making an argument for why the Corinthian Christians should receive him as an apostle, he roots his argument in the sign-gifts, which includes tongues, or spontaneously being able to speak in foreign languages for the benefit of another. And he calls them the signs of the apostles when he says, “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works” (2 Corinthians 12:12). The sign gifts were not for everyone, but they marked those who met Jesus, were planting churches, strengthening believers, and writing Scripture. Peter preaches the first sermon of the post-exaltation-of-Christ New Testament. He draws together several Old Testament passages that specifically identify Jesus as the promised Messiah. Preaching Christ from the Old Testament resulted in thousands being given faith. The church committed to the word of the apostles, supporting other believers, and right worship. Again, as 2:43 tells us, the signs were done through the apostles. As Jesus had them doing during his earthly ministry, the apostles are physically healing people, in this instance a man unable to walk. The result is that “all the people saw him walking and praising God […] and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him” (3:9-10). It speaks to the Christ’s power over nature. Healings were signs that pointed the people to the source of true spiritual power, Jesus Christ. Do healings continue today? Of course, but they are not signs done by apostles. God still is happy to miraculously heal anyone he so desires. But he does the work immediately, meaning without a mediator. There are no more apostles performing signs; anyone who argues otherwise is usually drawing attention to themselves and is likely a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Peter takes the opportunity that this miracle has afforded him to preach to the crowd. The healing was just a jumping-off point for the gospel. Peter again points to the prophets who pointed to Christ. From Abraham, to Moses, to Samuel and forward, all of Scripture is a Christian witness. What frustrates the religious leaders, who had hoped that the "myth" of Jesus’s divinity had since passed on, is that the people are believing in Jesus and the resurrection of the dead. The number of believers, in a matter of days, has grown from 3000 to 5000+. So naturally, the leaders have Peter and gang arrested. And in good Peter-fashion, he begins to preach to the leaders during his arrest. The issue is still the man who was just healed. The leaders need to know in whose name Peter healed this man. It harkens back to Luke 11 when the crowds insult Jesus by asking if he casts out demons in Satan’s name. Now, the leaders demand that the apostles stop preaching in Jesus’s name. The apostles tell the other Christians (though they’re not yet called this) about this interaction. Instead of capitulating or accommodating, they pray the Psalms boldly. When these believers prayed, the place was shaken. We may not start an earthquake with our praying, but we can still have the same result: we will be filled with the Spirit and we will speak boldly about Christ. Christians of every age have two options: let the world dictate what you’re allowed to say, or grow a spine and take the slings and arrows. The first believers were also extremely generous in their care for others. But not everyone does so with integrity. A husband and wife, Ananias and Sapphira, want the recognition of being sacrificial without the burden of being sacrificial. There were no laws about how much property Christians could own or what they had to do with it. That’s why their lie was so egregious. They were under no compulsion to do anything except care for their fellow believers. However, they are all too happy to glorify themselves in how much they give. God cares deeply about the purity of the church. The church is not made up of regenerate and unregenerate people; every true church member knows the Lord for him-/herself (Jeremiah 31). We would rather have a small church that seeks to live righteously than a big church that lives under the pretense of reaching the lost while looking like the lost. What happened to the church when God struck down Ananias and Sapphira? The people were scared of the church (5:11)! Nobody wanted to join them (5:13)! And yet, because God is in control of salvation, multitudes were added to the church because of it (5:14). We must not shrink back from a faithful witness, and we must not pit righteous living against earthly results. What if the best church growth strategy is the quiet piety of its members? Psalms 121-125 Psalm 121: The Lord is our helper at every turn. Psalm 122: The house of the Lord is our safe place. Psalm 123: The Lord has mercy on those who seek him. Psalm 124: The Lord is the only reason we are secure. Psalm 125: The Lord protects the upright and leads away evildoers. 2 Samuel 24
How could it possibly be that a census, performed by the king, be something sinful and required a rebuke from God? The answer comes in Joab’s response to David’s command to conduct a census. Joab knows that God provides for all of our needs, including soldiers. Instead of having the Lord supply the needs of his own people's army, David decides that he will supply an army with his own soldiers. He has a severe moment of pride. The other concern is that this incident is recorded twice, here in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21. Samuel says that the LORD incited David, while Chronicles says that Satan incited David. How do we reconcile two different accounts? We often have a “yin-yang” understanding of God and Satan. They are polarities, or opposites. However, that is not a biblical understanding. God is sovereign, and Satan is created. Satan means “adversary” or “accuser”. While Scriptural details are sparse concerning Satan’s origin, he is by no means an evil version of God. He is no god at all. Satan will not rule in hell. He is under God’s sovereign rule, just like everyone and everything else. So it is best to see that one author emphasizes God as the primary cause and another emphasizes Satan as the secondary cause. David still has a conscience, a sure sign of the Spirit’s presence. Through the prophet Gad, God speaks to David. Upon being offered three choices for Israel’s punishment (because remember, God is angry against Israel, not just David [24:1]), David chooses to fall into the hands of God instead of men. It may a horror to fall into the hands of God for those who are against him, but for those who love him, it is the safest place to be, despite the circumstances. But because David also loves the people, he pleads for God to spare them and to strike him. David purchases some land to build an altar where he can sacrifice to God. The man who owns it wants to simply give it to David, but David demands to buy it. Sacrifices are not to be cheap, otherwise, what about it is a sacrifice? David presents us with a strong reminder of what God is due. 1 Kings 1-8 The books of 1-2 Kings were originally one book. Because they simply continue the history of 1-2 Samuel, at one point all four books were titled 1-4 Kings. Jews and early Christians traditionally believed that Jeremiah wrote the books of 1-2 Kings. This is possible since the books end with exile in Jeremiah’s time. There are many near-quotes or allusions to the book of Deuteronomy, which implies that the author, regardless of the name, was interpreting the contemporary experience of God’s people in his own day through the lens of ancient Scripture. This is a wonderful model for the contemporary church. David is an old man by this time. As is common at the end of a monarch’s life, there are attempts to take the throne. One of David’s many sons, Adonijah, is trying to do just that. David’s closest confidants sided with Adonijah, but the priests did not. Nathan goes to David to see if he’s missed something. Is Adonijah now king? To get ahead of any more nonsense from Adonijah, David, Bathsheba, and Nathan hurry to anoint Solomon as king. Nathan has been loyal to David from the start, but that did not preclude severe honesty. He called David out in his sin with Bathsheba. But that also means saying many hard things to David, including that one of your sons is against you. Before Adonijah can gather much steam, Solomon is anointed. In the face of opposition, sometimes the best thing you can do is act quickly. David had already been promised that Solomon would be king, so all he’s doing is being faithful. As David is about to dye, he calls Solomon to faithfulness to God. This consistently means being faithful to the law. The king is the primary covenant-keeper in Israel. As the king goes, so goes the nation. Rarely does a king fall because of the nation. But how often do we see a nation fall because of its king. David dies, and Solomon is officially coronated and received as king. Adonijah is still sour from not becoming king. He calls Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, and complains about how everyone in Israel wanted him to be king, but Solomon was shoved into it. Whenever anyone says “everyone is saying…”, you know they’re lying. Adonijah had a small following at best. When Adonijah’s friends and guests heard about Solomon becoming king, they showed their true colors. They got afraid of being associated with Adonijah and fled. Opposition is no reason not to act. Unless your closest confidants agree with your opposition, leadership requires grit and thick skin to deal with a variety of opinions. Solomon famously prayed for wisdom instead of riches. God appears to him in a vision and offers him anything. Opposition, which Solomon has faced from day one, has a way of making you feel insufficient for the task ahead. Solomon knew that kings will be wealthy, but not every king has wisdom. Wisdom is always what sets you apart from the masses. Under Solomon’s reign, Israel has success by every metric. “Judah and Israel were as many as the sand by the sea. They ate and drank and were happy” (1 Kings 4:20). The promise to David was his heir would build the temple. Solomon spends some significant time gathering together the greatest craftsmen and the best material in the world. After four years, construction began. Solomon is in the process of turning a relatively small city into a major metropolis. The royal palace that he would build would be close to the temple. In both projects, no expense was spared. Only quality and rare materials were used. Nothing common or cheap was used. Finally, the ark of the covenant is placed in the temple. The ark is God’s special presence among his people. By placing the ark in the temple, the people know that God is among them and is in his holy house. It is the final act of building the temple. God has entered. Solomon then dedicates the temple through prayer. He reminds the people of God’s faithfulness to them throughout their short time as a nation. During the dedication, Solomon repeatedly calls the people to faithfulness. But even in their times of faithlessness, God will call them back to himself as an act of mercy. Now all of the sacrificial system has been centrally located. No more will people sacrifice in the high places. The temple will be the center of all Israelite religious life. One of the great sins of future kings will be their unwillingness to take down the various sacrificial sites throughout the land. God has ordained his own means of worshiping him, and any addition, even those well-intentioned, have no place. John 15-17 Jesus is the vine. The world hates Jesus and his disciples. Jesus will send the Spirit. Sorrow turned to joy. Jesus has overcome the world. Jesus prays the high priestly prayer. Jesus calling himself the vine is the last of the seven “I am” statements throughout John. The idea in this statement is that life is found in relationship to Jesus. Some who follow Jesus only do so for a time and fall away. This not a loss of salvation, but it is in keeping with the other words of Jesus, such as the various kinds of soils. Some participate for a time but eventually abandon Jesus. Those who do not persevere were never truly participating in the first place (1 John 2:19). Perseverance is the surest external marker of a true believer. This is what is meant by Jesus calling his disciples to “abide” in him. Jesus transitions masterfully from a command to abide in him (to persevere) to a command to love one another. The two are not disconnected. Those who abide in him are not servants but are as close as friends. And a true friend lays his life down for another. That is how we love like Jesus. In contrast, the world will hate his disciples. For many, persecution will hinder perseverance. But we are assured that the world only hates us because they hate our Lord. And the believer should not fear; we do not persevere in our own power. The helper, the Spirit of truth, will come to continually bear witness to the truth to us. The church will receive the Spirit at Pentecost. Surely the Spirit is not necessary because Jesus can only be in one place at one time; he promises the same disciples that he will be with them until the end of the age. Both the Father and the Son send the Spirit (15:26). There is no reason to fear some mystery in the faith. After all, our God is trinitarian; each of the three persons has a role to play in our redemption. The Father ordains salvation. The Son purchases salvation. The Spirit’s role is to comfort and convict (16:8-11). And because we have the Spirit, our sorrow will not stay sorrow. It will become joy! They will be scattered because of persecution. When a baby is born, the labor pains are a memory. Perhaps a vivid memory, but nevertheless, the joy of childbirth overtakes the memory of such pain. In the same way, when all things reach their consummation in Christ, all previous sorrow will be overtaken by the joy of eternal life. Perhaps Jesus’s most famous prayer is his high priestly prayer of John 17. This is the final act before his arrest. Immediately after comforting his disciples with the fact of his overcoming the world, he begins to pray. He prays on behalf of his disciples, asking God to give them eternal life. The Father will receive the Son after all that is necessary for salvation has been accomplished, and for that, Jesus has great joy. Jesus has shown God’s people exactly who the Father is. And it becomes clear that not all humans are to be considered God’s people. Jesus explicitly says that he is not praying on behalf of everyone but only those “whom you have given me” (17:9). In our salvation, Christ is most glorified. Jesus Christ guards, like a shepherd, those whom the Father has entrusted to him. Even Judas, the son of destruction, was lost according to the Scriptures, according to the foreknowledge and plan of God. The Christian life is one of great joy. In seeing the glory of Christ, the sinner is made new. Man’s greatest need is not social, emotional, or physical. It is spiritual. That is not to become fatalistic, as if we should not care about the social, emotional, or physical well-being of individual believers. But we do them even greater harm when we place their spiritual state anywhere else but first. It is only through the words of Christ that all people learn the truth of their spiritual state. Only in Scripture do we learn that we are enemies, or at enmity, with God. But while we were yet sinners, God sent his Son to receive his wrath instead of his people. Jesus not only prays for his current disciples but for those yet to come, as well. That’s you and me! Jesus prays for unity among God’s people across space and time. Unity is found in a shared love of God and obedience to his word. If those things are sacrificed in the name of unity, call it whatever you want, but it’s not unity. Psalm 111-115 Psalm 111: Everything God has done is awe-inspiring. Psalm: 112: Those God has made righteous will withstand whatever comes their way. Psalm 113: God is to praised at all times for all things. Psalm 114: The earth trembles before God, and we are wise to do the same. Psalm 115: Idols are useless, but the Lord cares for his people. |