The Big Finish

Proverbs is wisdom literature. As such, we expect it to deal with mostly with practicalities and real-world concerns, and this is exactly what we find: relationship advice, sound strategies for home and workplace, political savvy and oodles of good old common sense.

What we might not expect to find in Proverbs is a plethora of references to God. In fact, the generic “God” [elohim] and the specific, personal “Lord” [YHWH] appear in Proverbs a combined total of 96 times across 31 chapters, the vast majority being the personal name of the Lord.

On reflection, that too makes sense. There is no real wisdom apart from God. He is the source of all genuine understanding about life.

Anonymous Asks (406)

“To what extent are friendships transactional?”

If you peruse secular media and believe what you read, your answer is probably a quick and hearty yes. Perhaps you have come across the expression “toxic friendship”. The line of thinking currently in vogue is that your friends exist to benefit you. When they stop being satisfying and become more trouble than they are worth, it’s time to give your old pals the boot right out of your life. In the words of Marie Kondo, “The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past. Keep only those things that speak to your heart.” By “things” she means people.

Hmm. Let’s see what the Bible says about that.

The Last Adam and the Second Man

I don’t believe in evolution. One reason is that I can do math. Another is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. A third is that evolution requires more faith than Christianity does, based on far less evidence. I have plenty more reasons besides those. Evolution is not my subject today, but its lack of substance is always worth mentioning when the younger generation may be lurking around.

Yet another reason I don’t believe in evolution is that my theology excludes it. You cannot reconcile the teaching of Christ and his apostles with the teaching of Darwin and his acolytes. Not coherently.

Somebody Else’s Mail (5)

We were looking last week at the future, earthly opposition to God and his Messiah described for us in Psalm 2. David tells us that the rulers of the nations in those days will take their stand against both, craving freedom from the moral restraints Christ’s righteous government of our world will impose upon them. The psalmist cautions them from resisting the Lord’s Anointed. But as Isaiah would later write, “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.”

A fallen world will not want that, even if it comes packaged with all manner of millennial blessings.

Too Hot to Handle: Faith in the Crosshairs

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

The website GodIsImaginary is an interesting study.

As you might guess from the title, it’s the work of evangelical atheists attempting to lure gullible Christians into the spiritual equivalent of a Venus flytrap. The bait is a little bit of flattery: “I’m going to assume you are an educated Christian”, “You are a smart person. You know how the world works, and you know how to think critically.”

It’s quite a clever move actually. For once, they’ve dialed back the mockery and abuse atheists can rarely resist in the interest of catching more flies with honey.

Wheat and Weeds

I was talking to a close friend last week. He’s serving as an elder in a local congregation of believers. A man of their gathering has raised an issue; he feels very strongly that certain forms of worship are simply out of court for Christians. But the form he most particularly dislikes is one that scripture never even really talks about one way or the other. In fact, if I told you what it was, you’d likely be very surprised; it’s something that Christians have done routinely for a long time now.

My pal was struggling with how to handle this guy.

The objector is pretty strong on his beliefs, and he’s not at all happy that the elders are not jumping to his side instantly. But my friend is more thoughtful and scriptural in his convictions; and I think he senses that the objection is more a matter of personal preference than of principle.

Secrets and Lies

An unsaved friend and former co-worker passed away unexpectedly this week, to my great regret. You always assume you’ll have more time … until you don’t. I will forever appreciate her for the compassion she showed a sister in Christ with mental issues whom she helped find (and we both helped move into) a new home after her husband of forty years abandoned hope for his marriage and left her late in life. My friend was a profane and improbable angel of mercy to that poor lady, and I pray she found some of that mercy when she met the Lord. The judge of all the earth will do right.

That’s not why I’m writing about her, but I’m still having trouble processing the sudden death of an exuberant woman not quite into her fifties and in glowing health. You simply never know.

An Iron-Clad Guarantee

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Children are largely a product of the parenting they receive. The New Testament writers presumed the basic truth of this statement in instructing the early churches. If they had not, Paul’s repeated directions concerning eldership qualifications would make no sense. (“His children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.”) The apostle takes for granted that good parenting produces predictable results, and that bad parenting too produces its evidence in time.

If we care about what the apostles taught, we will disqualify any candidate for church leadership who has been unsuccessful in convincing his own children to follow his ways.

Anonymous Asks (405)

“How should the church deal with gossip?”

Words can be a deadly poison. The gossip presents himself in public as a friend, then stabs you in the back when you’re not expecting it. He betrays confidences, reveals secrets and causes endless unnecessary heartache. Jeremiah said that tale-bearing is characteristic of the “stubbornly rebellious”. That’s not a inscription I’d want on my tombstone.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Gossip happens among Christians too.

Causes and Effects

“When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord.”

When the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers eliminated the Pittsburgh Penguins from Stanley Cup contention in six games last week, fans of the Penguins complained online about an NHL rule that prevented their team from changing the color of its home jerseys mid-series. The thought was, apparently, that if only the Pens had been wearing their cool black jerseys instead of the repulsive yellow gear in which they took to the ice to start the series, their luck might have changed.

People are superstitious. I know that’s not exactly news. My own take was that scoring a few more goals might have been more effective for Pittsburgh than any mid-series jersey swap.

Somebody Else’s Mail (4)

Some day soon a Jew is going to rule this world, and he’s going to do it from the throne of David, making beleaguered Jerusalem the capital city of our planet.

There may be notions more offensive to modern sensibilities, but I can’t think of any at the moment. Let’s just say the nation of Israel is not currently in vogue. But that’s what the Bible teaches. It’s called the Second Coming of Christ, the hope of Israel, and the literal fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant. It’s an idea so audacious that it even riles up a significant segment of Christendom.

Guess what? The Gentile nations of that coming day will not be thrilled about it either.

Too Hot to Handle: Bucking or Buckling?

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

I promised quite a while back now that we’d talk about this subject some Friday in the future, and there’s no time like the present.

Tom: IC, we opened a can of worms on the subject of authority and just how the Christian ought to respond to it. That’s not something evangelicals have had to worry about too much in the West for many years, but it’s a topic that’s becoming increasingly relevant as governments begin to encroach on the freedoms we currently enjoy in the interest of a “just society”.

So how about it? Got any grenades to lob on this subject?

Choking On Our Empathy

“I know exactly how you feel.”

How many times have your heard that line, or a line like it, when you were expressing some personal sorrow or woe to another?

And was there ever a doubt in your mind that when the person said it to you, they were wrong?

They had never been you. They had not faced your situation. If they meant well, they were imagining themselves in your place, maybe; more likely, they were transferring some experience of their own and placing it upon you, pushing your real experiences aside in favor of remembering their own. They were feeling empathetic with themselves, not with you.

And in some cases, they were not meaning well at all.

Towers and Cities

Most Hebrew proverbs take the form of stand-alone couplets. The second line amplifies, compares, contrasts with or restates the first line in order to provide additional insight. Then it’s on to the next subject. Some chapters of Proverbs must cover fifteen or twenty different areas of life in thirty verses or fewer.

Then there are proverbs that sit side by side for good reason.