MattRob.com - Part 18

Enough Substance

On a previous post, I talked about the real equality promoted by the Jubliee laws in the Old Covenant, which actually goes against a lot of socialist nonsense that these laws usually get hauled out to defend.

The true meaning is that both the rich and poor in Israel depended on God totally for anything they had. It was a mercy that the poor had little, and it was a mercy that the rich had abundance. Niether deserved anything.

The summation from the previous article:

The real message is that, for goods to be distributed more fairly, everything would go back to God, and our hands would be empty. That is real fairness. That is our real equality. Anything more than destitution is a mercy.

Throughout the Bible, we actually see no evidence that Israel ever observed the Jubilee laws, another mark in the disobedience column. But, not surprisingly, we have David summing up the point that Israel was to learn.

Psalm 62:9:

Those of low estate are but a breath; those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath. (ESV)

Once again, we see what equality actually means. Niether has enough substance to even move the scales, regardless of the pretensions.

Like Kings in Exile

It feels like an extended vacation that will end someday soon. This kind of thing happens to other people. Now we are the other people.

This was our house before Friday, March 23rd.

And this is our house after it decided to star in the Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, it didn’t get to kill any wicked witches.

Our two story house is now a dilapidated, condemned, one story shanty shack. We are told the tornado played a little hopscotch for just a few seconds on the ground before dissipating, a storm the weather service had no chance of predicting. There was no warning, and the sirens went off after the damage was done.

Our house got its 15 minutes of fame. We saw it on the local news in Denver. A friend heard about it on the news in Seattle. And it wasn’t someone else’s house. It was ours.

We lost everything. But no one was home, so really, we still have everything.

Words of Job

“The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.” I mean that when I write it and say it, but I feel like an impostor doing so. A three year old with a plastic hammer banging on plastic nails, pretending to do real work. By using Job’s words, it’s like I’m trying to identify with him, a sycophant trying to bask in reflected glory.

The great wind in Job struck down Job’s children, yet the great wind touched no flesh when it played pick-up sticks with our house. Thank God for that great mercy, because he knows just how much each of us can bear. A little hint: it isn’t anywhere close to Job-levels.

And then after Job really had lost everything, he lost even more. But by the grace of God, my family and I now live like kings in exile rather than as homeless paupers. He cradles us in his hand. We truly lack for nothing.

Family, friends, and church have rallied around us, ready to spring into action in a moment’s notice. We are grateful. We are humbled.

Order of Thoughts

While I would have liked for “Blessed be the name of the LORD” to be the first thought to have gone through my mind, I’m not quite there yet in my sanctification. Here’s the approximate order of my thoughts the moment after we got the call that our house was destroyed.

Are they joking? They better not be joking. But I sure hope they are joking.
I can’t believe Tonya and Adri are with me. They would probably be in the house at this time of day. Thank God for that.
My books are gone.
It gets fuzzy, but I think is where I mentally repeated a dynamic-equivalence transliteration of Job 1:21.

I feel like number three needs a little explanation. Yes, books can be replaced (barring certain first editions, which I didn’t have anyway), but the notes in them cannot. Those thoughts aren’t banging around in my head. That’s why I wrote them down. They also helped mark parts of books I thought were important, or something I could reference later.

Now, some of these were written as much as 6 years ago, so it might be for the best that they are lost. But the world will never know.

Besides, reading 2 Timothy 4:13, I like to believe Paul himself would have had simliar thoughts.

When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. (ESV)

Postal Observation

One thing was confirmed through all of this: the absolute absurdity of the United States Postal Service and the organization’s blindness and willful ignorance to change. They are like a waiter who, after discovering the patron at the table is dead, reaches over the corpose to continue pouring the wine and then asking if it would like any chocolate cake for dessert this evening.

Since we were out of town, we held the mail until the Saturday we got back…the day after the tornado. So, on Saturday afternoon, the postal worker drives up to the mailbox and sees this:

A broken non-house with a tilted mailbox to match it, crisscrossed with yellow borders to warn away the living. I wonder what went through their head when they witnessed the scene. Because we know the end result: they reached out, opened the door of the mailbox, and placed a week’s worth of our mail into it.

So you decide. An example of excellent custom service?

A Pack of Gum from 1997

I don’t know why I am constantly surprised to find Scripture that is relevant today, but it happens all the time, and I nod in appreciation and wonder. It’s my own foolishness, of course. I’m handling a living, breathing, two-edged sword and am surprised to find that it has a sharp, pointy end.

The latest jab I’ve come across, that I know I’ve read before:

Better to be lowly and have a servant, than to play the great man and lack bread. (Proverbs 12:9)(ESV)

In an age of easy credit and institutionalized covetousness, this proverb pulls the red carpet out from under a culture of people who like to play at being the “great man” in more ways than one.

Playing the great man (PGM) applies to so many things. I know many people who struggle to put food on the table for a variety of reasons, and all have to do with some form of PGM. Maxed out credit cards on the latest gadgets, leased an expensive car, signed themselves into slavery with a huge mortgage, and various other ways of trying to live a life beyond one’s means.

But over-extension to keep up with the Joneses is the obvious way people can PGM. What are some other ways?

Micro fame. Doing everything you can get a few more Youtube views or a few more Twitter followers. In most cases, these are mostly good for bragging rights. 1 million youtube views, 25,000 Twitter followers, and 25 cents will buy you a pack of gum from 1997 (thanks inflation!) But oh, you have some bragging rights.
Video games. MMORPGs, especially World of Warcraft, touch something deep within the human psyche: the desire to grow and complete an epic quest. All in the comfort of our pajamas, sitting in front of a computer monitor. Hours and hours spent building an empire of pixels, which is a worth even less than an empire of dirt. You’ll be famous in Azeroth, though, so that’s something. And then there was the craze of Guitar Hero and Rock Band (which I joyfully took part in myself). Are you able to play Dragonforce’s “Through the Fire and Flames” on expert mode? Congratulations. Now put that on your resume or bring it up on a first date. What will the response be? How much time have we spent practicing fake guitar, so we can play at being the rock star…or PGM? For me, it was Starcraft 2, and working to have a winning record so I could impress other people who spent hours playing Starcraft 2.

I’m not knocking these things as casual hobbies, just the desire to gain some sense of worth from them. Each tap into that desire to be “great” somehow, to be known, a person of renown. Each offer an easy counterfeit. Dedication to that type of “renown” just leads to poverty, just like trying to keep up the mere appearances of wealth.

What are some other ways of playing the great man are there, and what other traps can we fall into?

The New Hierarchy of Creation – Why Satan Rebelled

Hebrews 1:13-14 (ESV)

And to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”? Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

Chapter one is a build up to one of the author’s many “therefores,” and the end, just quoted, is a stout one. The kind that makes you want to sit down if you are standing. Let’s follow the logic:

Jesus has become superior to angels (v.4)
Why and how? Jesus is the Son, and no angel has been called that (v.5)
Angels are to worship the Son, and are now servants of wind and fire (v.6,7)
Jesus’s throne is forever. Not only that, but He has laid the foundation of the earth itself (v.8-12)
Jesus sits at God’s right hand, and no angel has been invited to do that (v.13)
Angels are to minister to those who will inherit (v.14)

THEREFORE (going into chapter 2):

We must pay all the more attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away, because what we have heard has come from the Son. The Son! And if the message declared by angels was reliable, how much greater the Son’s word? If we neglect His word, what else is there? He is above every name. There is no testimony that could have more authority or weight.

So that’s the general flow. And while the first THEREFORE could be studied extensively, I want to focus on the final reasoning leading up to it, the final guidepost before the author arrives at his point. His whole argument is telling us what the new hierarchy of creation is, ending by telling us that angels now serve us.

A man now sits on a throne in heaven, ruling with all authority. Even over the angels. This inverts what was before, the old order of creation. And because we are united with the Son and King through baptism and by the Spirit, we are part of his body.

We who were made a little lower than the angels are now above the angels, thanks to the saving work of Christ. This is even corroborated by 1 Cor 6:3a.

Do you not know that we are to judge angels?

Chew on that. We have angels ministering on our behalf, and why? Because we are now adopted into the royal household, and have the full rights of sonship, which includes use of the household servants, who used to be over us as guardians and managers (Gal. 4:1-3). But then Galatians 4:7:

So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Heirs of what? Heirs of the world.

C.S. Lewis, in his Space Trilogy, hints that this is one of the main reasons that Satan rebelled: jealousy over the authority that mankind would eventually wield over him and his like. And I think he has a point.

Satan, an angel, had some semblance of authority over mankind, but he knew that it was not to be forever. Eventually, man would mature and come fully into his kingdom. So while he still had authority, he tempted Adam to grasp for his kingdom early, the same temptation he would eventually try on the last Adam (Matt. 4:8-9).

Satan, one of the guardians or managers set to watch over us, didn’t want us to grow up into our inheritance. So he ensured we would not…at least not without drastic measures that he couldn’t foresee.

Next, I’ll delve a little into the significance of the angels being wind and fire, as that seems to be a hinge of the structure listed above.

From Promised Land to Promised Earth

Jesus doesn’t make up the Beatitudes on the spot. Each one has several Old Testament referents, and have long been part of the Word of God. What he does do, however, is inject more weight into them from a New Covenant/Kingdom of God context, which means greater glory and greater promises. This follows with the general direction of the history of the people of God (and consequently the history of the world): marching on toward ever greater things.

The most obvious example is the one directed toward the meek, which alludes directly to Psalm 37:11.

Psalm: “But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.”

Matthew: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

But notice the key difference. The “land” has now become the “world.” The potential inheritance has grown.

This is consistant with the rest of the New Testament, as we see hints that the entire earth itself is the new promised land.

Paul says that the promise to Abraham, which in the OT was couched in terms of the “land”, was really that he would be the heir of the world. And we, as his children, have the same inheritance. (Rom. 4:13)

Likewise, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:2, that the saints are to judge the world. That is, to perform kingly duties, to discern between good and evil while partaking of Jesus, the Tree of Life. That is to be expected, since Revelation 5:10 says explicitly that God has made us both kings and priests, for the purpose of ruling on the earth, which you would think is so obvious and plain written, that no Christian would deny the fact. But we Christians are experts at discounting obvious parts of the Bible, and when we do, we’re called a “scholar.”

Here’s another one. When Paul quotes the fifth commandment in Ephesians 6:2 as still applicable to children, he calls it the first commandment with a promise: “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” But here, he’s not talking about the old land of Canaan. Why would the Ephesians care about that? Here, as everywhere else in the New Testament, the promise has expanded, and “land” has become “earth.”

It shouldn’t surprise us that God has made some glorious promises for his people. They are so glorious, so gracious, and so world-changing, that its understandable that we find them hard to believe. For some reason, however, we tend to believe that just the opposite is what God has in store for the world.

Which is a just tad ungrateful. It’s like turning down a filet mignon in favor of finding dinner in the dumpster out back, and thinking you’re doing the cook a favor.