Valentine's Day and Hindsight and Foresight and Grace

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. And that fact takes me back to one of the first blog posts I ever wrote—almost exactly 4 years ago. The link is here: Valentine's Day 2012 (click those words J), and it would add to this post’s meaning if you perused it before continuing. It proves the statement by KJ-52 in his song, “Can I Be Honest” where he says, “Hindsight is 20/20 so I'm like whatever,” except that in my case I would change the “whatever” to “what’s next?”.

You see, yesterday was a very good day, despite it being the first Sunday in more than three years that I’ve had to work during church. It was the first Valentine's Day in which I have actually spent time with my valentine. The closest I’ve come prior to yesterday was a long-distance “relationship” that maybe included a phone call on Valentine's Day, or the year prior when I might have talked to a girl through text or phone call on Valentine's Day. But yesterday—because past years don’t matter; the question is: what will my future look like?—was so different on so many levels. I’ve been very quick in the past to throw out the phrase, “I love you,” to girls I’m interested in (none of which have lasted more than 3 months from meeting to breaking up) and yesterday marked more than six months when I finally verbalized it. (Maybe the crazy spicy Indian food I ate at dinner made me crazy, but I doubt it.) The thing is, my past translated “I love you” into “I love what I can get from you,” but Jesus defines love on the cross and John explains in 1 John 3:16, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us; in the same way we also ought to love one another.” If I’m going to love anyone rightly (and I tried to explain this to her, but might have done a bad job in the moment) I need to remove myself from the picture. (Which I almost literally did while driving after saying those words; thank You Jesus for warning bumps on roads!)

But that’s all as far as that is concerned. Worrying about relationships four years ago this week and stressing about them for the three and a half years that followed, has been turned into a lesson in hindsight being 20/20. The girl God has graciously placed in my life is a gem of an individual in so many ways. I don’t know if she even has a clue how much she means to me. (And as she reminded me yesterday,) God would still be perfectly good if He took her out of my life, because God is infinitely worth more than any human being, even though it’s often hard to see it in that light. I do pray that yesterday was the first of many Valentine's Days that we will spend with each other.

But that’s not all. Four years ago today I was in the place of trying to figure out the rest of my life—not just who my future wife would be. And now, four years later, I have a much clearer picture of a lot of things in my future. Four years ago I was wondering what to do about school after junior college: I went to Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri and got a Bachelor’s of Arts in Biblical Studies. Then, because of the girl I speak so much about, I decided to move to Bolivar, MO and look for a job. Seminary is hopefully in the future, along with church planting, but I found a job—a really good job—much sooner than I ever expected at the Walgreens directly across from SBU. With this job, I have the potential to be transferred just about anywhere in the United States, which I can use to my benefit to plant a church somewhere that needs it and fulfill my ultimate desire to be a pastor someday.

I remember four years ago sitting in Starbucks and writing that post. I remember how unsure I was about the future. I remember how depressed I was at the lack of “romance” in my life. And I know where I am today: dating a fabulous, godly woman; working and making more money than I’ve ever made before; in the process of joining a church; serving guys that I know who are still at SBU; and worried about the future not looking like I want it to look. However, reflecting back on my post from four years ago reminds me that God has the whole world in His hands, which does not exclude my life, and if He can prove faithful over the past four years, even though I struggle daily with walking in His will and trusting that where I am walking actually is His will, then He will prove Himself faithful over the next 2, 4, 6, 8, 20, etc. years.

To go back to the KJ-52 song I mentioned earlier:

I'm not perfect I serve a God who is

I serve a God who lives who says that I'm His kid

When I shoot for the mark but I shoot and miss

I serve a God who gives a new start and He forgives

And takes every thing I ever did

Then He throws it in the sea of forgetfulness

See I'm just being honest I hope your getting this

Cuz He's my promise the reason that I live

The apostle Paul concludes Romans 11 well, and they are words that I must daily remember:

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of [Yahweh], or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

The Three Tiers of Temptation

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. God is faithful, and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape so that you are able to bear it.” This is an amazing comfort to us as humans, but it is also incredibly convicting, because normally—at least in my experience—we look back (post-fall) and say, “There was a way out there, and there, and there, but I still fell. I’m an idiot!” Jesus clearly shows us the way out in Matthew 4:1-11.

The setting is laid out clearly in 4:1-2. Here it says that Jesus had just been baptized by John, where a voice had come down from heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son. I take delight in Him!” (3:17). The very next verse says, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil” (4:1). If anybody had a reason to ever make the claim, “I’ve been rejected by God; sin won’t matter,” it was Jesus at this moment. The very same Spirit that had just comforted Him (3:16) was now driving Him into the wilderness for a period of temptation. And Matthew concludes in verse 2 by saying Jesus was fasting for forty days and forty nights. As if that itself wasn’t enough, the setting ends with the words, “He was hungry.”

The Devil comes in verse 3. His first tactic is to get Jesus to doubt His position before God. “If You are the Son of God,” he says, “tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus, of course, was the Son of God, but the point is that the Devil is hitting on a very basic need Jesus has at the time. He is hungry; the Devil says, “Eat!” Our temptations normally first arise because of some physical stimulus. There’s nothing wrong with desiring food; it’s clear Jesus did, but it is wrong to get it in a way that is not appropriate at the time. Jesus’ response sums this up perfectly. He quotes Scripture, saying, “Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (4:4; cf. Deuteronomy 8:3). Jesus knows that the true cure for hunger is God. Eating bread will leave anyone hungry again; feasting on God truly satisfies. When a physical temptation strikes, we must look to God as the superior pleasure and all-satisfying One.

But the Devil doesn’t stop there. Verse 5 has him standing in Jerusalem, atop the temple, and verse 6 has him repeating the question, “If You are the Son of God,” and then adding the conclusion,  “Throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will give His angels orders concerning you, and they will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone’.” The Devil knows Jesus is going to fight him with Scripture, so he tries to turn Scripture against Jesus. He basically claims, “The Bible says it’s okay. Even if You do, God will still save You.” Or, as it gets spoken to us normally, “The more you sin, the more grace there is. Just do it and ask forgiveness later.” And then Jesus, in verse 7, replies back again with Scripture, “It is also written: ‘Do not test the Lord your God’ ” (cf. Deuteronomy 6:16). The Devil had completely ripped the verse (cf. Psalm 91:11-12) out of its context and said, “Jump! He’ll save You.” Jesus knows that there is an element of human responsibility in our living and our choices, so He says, “I won’t. I can’t test God. I must persevere through this thing.” When a verse pops into our head in a moment of temptation that seems to ease the consequences of our intended actions, it’s the Devil tempting us to test God! We can’t give in to these!

Then the Devil takes Jesus to a mountain where he shows Him all the cities of the world (4:8). He tells Jesus, “I will give You all these things if You will fall down and worship me” (4:9). The Devil knew why Jesus had come. He knew He was the Son of God. His goal had simply been to get Jesus to question it and to test it, thus sinning and ruining His standing before God. When all that failed, He told Jesus to worship Him in order to get what He came to earth to get: the nations. Jesus again responds with Scripture, “Go away, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him’ ” (4:10; cf. Deuteronomy 6:13). Jesus recognized this temptation for what all temptations ultimately are when given into: Devil worship. In one sense it was the easiest temptation to avoid because the Devil told Jesus to worship him, and all good Jews know to only worship God. But in another sense it was the hardest temptation to abstain from: the Devil promised Jesus His life’s mission-goal apart from the cross.

If our temptations came to us with the label, “Do this and worship me, signed: Satan,” of course we’d stay miles away from them. However, this is why even if we make it through both of the first two rounds, we still end up failing in the third. The Devil promises that which we think we most need at the time we think we most need it, however, the hook is always hiding.

Let’s say Jesus gave in to this temptation; and let’s also say the Devil gave Him what he promised. Jesus would have all the nations, but sinning and worshipping the Devil ruins His claim to perfection as a perfect sacrifice, so He can’t die for the sins of the world or rise again. He would “possess” all the nations of the world, but they would really still be in Satan’s power and under God’s wrath.

Praise God that Jesus stood strong in temptation. And let’s pray that we can stand strong as well. The first test is often a physical stimulus; the second is a twisted promise from Scripture; and the third is a promise to get exactly what we want, even though the deadly hook is hidden. Trust God, know God, and love God. Pray to Him in time of need! There’s always a way out!

Soli Deo Gloria

Fulfilled Completely

Have you ever read something a lot of times, never seen something awesome about it until much later, and then kicked yourself for repeatedly missing it for so long? I’m there right now, but it’s slightly different, because I’m kicking myself out of joy. Allow me to explain...

The book of Leviticus often gets a bad rap for being the thru-the-Bible-in-a-year killer. Genesis—great stories. Exodus—God is powerful. Leviticus—chop this this way, this smells good, blood poured out here and there, cleansing, laws, laws, laws. It’s no wonder most people stop reading their Bibles straight through in the midst of this book.

However, there is something that is greatly missed when we do this, because Leviticus is just as much from God as Genesis and Psalms and John and Romans. And the point of the book is the same as all of the other 65 books in our canon: the supremacy, beauty, and worth of Jesus Christ. Jesus said Himself in Luke 24:44, “These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Leviticus speaks about Christ. For this reason we are burdened to spend time in it. The fact that it begins with the phrase, “Then the LORD summoned Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting,” tells us that it is God’s words that are meant to be listened to.

I’ve been in Leviticus for the last month, and I’ve been seeking and praying that I would learn about Jesus through it. I’ve also been reading Allan Moseley’s commentary in the Christ Centered Exposition series on the book as I go through Leviticus. You can find it by clicking here: Leviticus; and I highly recommend it. A whole lot of things finally clicked for me today as I read and reflected on the section 5:14-6:7, speaking of guilt offerings.

I read Moseley after I finish the section he takes for a chapter, so since his first chapter is on 1:1-17, I read chapter one after I had moved on to 2:1. Since I haven’t yet finished reflecting on portions of 5:14-6:7, I haven’t read his comments yet, but he has been very good at pointing out different aspects of the sacrifices in Leviticus 1-7 and showing how they are fulfilled in Christ. He posits that the burnt offering of chapter 1 is representative of Jesus’ atonement for our sin (which is the conclusion I’m least sure of given Leviticus 16’s point). He posits that the grain offering of chapter 2 is representative of our response to Jesus’ sacrifice; we thankfully sacrifice our firstfruits back to Jesus.  He posits that the fellowship offering of chapter 3 is representative of Jesus’ death for our renewed fellowship with Jesus and other believers. He posits that the sin offering in chapter 4 is for purification from daily sinning, also fully realized in Jesus.

And I haven’t read it yet, but I’m going to make the claim that the sacrifice in Leviticus 5 is also fully realized in Jesus, because He takes away our guilt. All of these sacrifices that had to be offered repeatedly all the time, for all different reasons—atonement, thanksgiving, fellowship, sin, guilt—are all fully realized in Jesus in His one sacrifice on the cross. His offering tells me that I’ve been atoned for. His offering should lead to my grateful response. His offering gives me unhindered fellowship with God and should lead to improve my fellowship with other people. His offering covers my daily sin, purifying me for continued standing as being “atoned for” and continued fellowship with God and others. And His offering takes away my guilt. Hebrews 10:14 says, “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified.”

This is the crazy part, and where I’m about to start a preachy ramble, so bear with me. Jesus’ one offering has perfected already those who are being sanctified. Because of all the offerings in Leviticus, I know what Jesus’ sacrifice covers. It doesn’t just cover my initial standing as depraved, wretched, and deserving of wrath. It also doesn’t just cover a limited number of failures into sin. It also doesn’t just cover the first 490 times I feel guilty about a certain sin.

God is love (1 John 4:8, 16) and love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5), so God as the perfect embodiment of love doesn’t count up my sins and say, “Nope, that makes 491 times. That’s one more than 70 times 7. We’re done!” This is good news. Christ’s sacrifice is still sufficient for me. Christ’s sacrifice puts the Levitical sacrifices to shame. Too often I put myself in a place where I say, “I need to do something to make amends for this sin. I need to do penance, offer a sacrifice, assuage my guilt.” I know in my heart that Jesus has purified and atoned for my sin, but I feel like I need to do something about the guilt.

This is why Leviticus 5:14-6:7 hit me so hard today. I finally realized after some foolish decisions in the last week or so that Jesus still loved me regardless, but I was having a hard time getting past the guilt that I was feeling. God’s holy Word, in Leviticus, smacked me up the face and said, “Hey Mr. Mopey, rejoice! When I died on the cross, my sacrifice covered your guilt too. You don’t need to be bogged down under that anymore. Walk in freedom from sin, but also in freedom from guilt! They go together! You can’t do one without the other, which is why My sacrifice is so much greater than the things in this book that you’re studying.”

So my exhortation to you today, is rejoice! Look to the cross. Know that Jesus covered your sin and your guilt when He died on the cross and walk in that truth. Don’t listen to the lies that Satan whispers about past guilt, present guilt, or even potential future guilt. If you know Jesus, you are forgiven and covered. Seek Him!

Soli Deo Gloria

P. S. I would also encourage you to read Leviticus, but as you do, look for ways in which it points to Jesus and screams, "He is better!"

“Meeting” – Some thoughts for you

So, I’ve decided to start writing a short story each month. I was really struggling with trusting God and trusting others on December 27^th and 28^th, so I wrote the following sentences down, intending it to be me: “The snow fell around him, causing him to shiver in the early evening as he trudged through the powder. Every now and then he slipped, the ice on the sidewalk making his journey treacherous.”

Thus began my story “Meeting,” which quickly took a much different route than I had originally planned. The link to it is http://lilwritr.blogspot.com/2016/01/meeting.html. I wrote a good portion of it at Starbucks on the 29^th, the day I ran into the Jehovah’s Witness, so after chatting with him, I was totally decided on the route the story would take. A guy who doesn’t know the Lord, who’s really down on his luck, runs into a believer. What would his response look like? What should the believer’s response look like?

So, what resulted was an eight page character sketch, a thirteen page conversation, and a two page conclusion. My focus was trying to invent a character out of my brain, someone I’d never met before, whose situation is very opposite of mine. I kept our genders the same, but otherwise he is very different from me: Bobby Jones. I made the believer character, Jay, modeled on how I would like to see myself interacting with a non-believer, something that I would love to make more of a regular part of my own life.

I fall far short of the “Jay” I invented, but his progression is currently being worked out in my novel Stranded, and the two sequels that follow in the Awakening series. If this story was to become part of that series, it would end up in book three. The story takes place approximately a year from today.

Before moving on, the fact that Jay orders a beer is not promoting that industry. Everyone makes mistakes, and Jay is not perfect; in a moment of weakness he made a decision that could have cost a potential convert.

So what are we to learn from this story? I think there are at least two lessons.

First, we need to meet unbelievers where they are. Jay didn’t start in on biblical themes. He got to know Bobby. He also shared his own life with Bobby. There’s no better way to find common ground with an unbeliever than to just be honest with them. If we act holier-than-thou we will never impact them, but if we tell them about ourselves, and if we seek to understand them, then our attempts could very well be rewarded with a good response. However, at the same time, another place the Bobby character really was, was suspended over hell. We have to meet unbelievers even here and beg them to trust Christ, warning them of their plight. And given all the direct thoughts of Bobby, given in italics, I tried to show that the Spirit is at work on his mind, impressing things on him that Jay didn’t even explicitly say. Our job is to meet them where they are and be totally honest with them, both about our lives and their plight, and trust the Holy Spirit to do His convicting and regenerating work. God is very good at being God.

Finally, a reason this story took the route it did was because I’ve long wanted to explore the phrase, “Christianity is a relationship, not a religion.” This story gives some insight into my thoughts on that topic. Allow me to preach briefly on it here. That phrase is normally used, I feel at least, to get people off the hook about their apathy towards spiritual disciplines and other such things. This is not at all the case. Religion is dead ritual. Relationship is vibrant, changing, struggle to maintain, desire to maintain, mutual give-and-take that produces all sorts of emotion. If a relationship is set aside, it dies. To say that Christianity is a relationship and not a religion, is to raise the bar for how we act in Christianity.

John 13:34-35 says, “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another.  By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (HCSB). This is further defined in Matthew 22:37-39: “He said to him, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and most important command.  The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself’ ” (HCSB). We are to love Jesus with everything we are, and we do this by loving other humans, both the saved and the non-saved.

Let’s seek to meet people where they are, tell them the truth, and thus prove that we love God with everything that we are!

Soli Deo Gloria.

An Unexpected Gospel Analogy

As a pastor-/preacher-in-training, I really enjoy taking random things and turning them into a way to proclaim the gospel. Whether it’s an eraser of a pencil: we write our sins, God flips it and erases them; or a cup of coffee: when it’s internalized, it awakes you to your situation; or a napkin: they’re typically white (Jesus is pure) and they clean up our messes (Jesus sure does for us). Regardless of the item, there is usually some way to tie it to Christ and the gospel. They will all ultimately fall short, but since Christ wants to be found, He doesn’t make it hard to find Him. I would like to demonstrate this in some depth through the song “How to Love” by lil Wayne, off his album Tha Carter IV . The lyrics have been copied below, and bold type represents the hook (chorus, refrain, whatever) to differentiate it from the other sections. Also, any profanity has been replaced with a weaker word within [brackets].

You had a lot of crooks try'na steal your heart

Never really had luck, couldn't never figure out

How to love (how to love)

How to love (how to love)

Mm you had a lot of moments that didn't last forever

Now you in the corner try'na put it together

How to love (how to love)

How to love (how to love)

Mm for a second you were here, now you over there

It's hard not to stare, the way you moving your body

Like you never had a love (had a love)

Never had love (had a love)

When you was just a youngin', your looks were so precious

But now your grown up, so fly it's like a blessing

But you, can't have a man look at you for five seconds

Without you being insecure

You never credit yourself so when you got older

It's seems like you came back ten times over

Now you're sitting here in this [dang] corner

Looking through all your thoughts and looking over your shoulder

Hook

Mm for a second you were here, now you over there

It's hard not to stare, the way you moving your body

Like you never had a love (had a love)

How to love (how to love)

Ooh, you had a lot of dreams that transform to visions

The fact that you saw the world affected all your decisions

But it wasn't your fault, wasn't in your intentions

To be the one here talking to me, be the one listening

But I admire your poppin' bottles and dippin'

Just as much as you admire bartending and strippin'

Baby, so don't be mad, nobody else trippin'

You see a lot of crooks and the crooks still crook

Hook

Ooh, see I just want you to know (You to know)

That you deserve the best

You're beautiful, you're beautiful

Yeah, and I want you to know

You're far from the usual, far from the usual

Hook 2x

In order to properly dissect this song to see the gospel beneath it, we need to look at three different portions: first, the hook; second, the verses; and third, the bridge.

The hook reads as follows:

You had a lot of crooks try'na steal your heart

Never really had luck, couldn't never figure out

How to love (how to love)

How to love (how to love)

Mm you had a lot of moments that didn't last forever

Now you in the corner try'na put it together

How to love (how to love)

How to love (how to love)

The first thing to recognize, is that to get the most out of this song, we have to get past our fears and concede that for the allegory being shared Wayne is speaking as if he played a character who is God (I know it’s a hard bridge to cross, but it makes this song mean a whole lot more if we can do this). With this understanding, the meaning is relatively clear in the hook.

We are seduced by everything in this world. Nothing is not trying to earn our time and affections. However, none of those things satisfy in the end. We think they contain love, fulfillment, happiness, but we are sadly disappointed every time. The things we think will satisfy us for eternity are fleeting, and leave us with more questions and hurts than we really want to admit. It seems our whole lives are a search for love.

This leads to the verses. The first verse reads as follows:

When you was just a youngin', your looks were so precious

But now your grown up, so fly it's like a blessing

But you, can't have a man look at you for five seconds

Without you being insecure

You never credit yourself so when you got older

It's seems like you came back ten times over

Now you're sitting here in this [dang] corner

Looking through all your thoughts and looking over your shoulder

The first line could easily be—especially if it was a Christian writing—a reference to Ezekiel 16:6-14 which is itself a parable of Israel’s apostasy from God toward lesser things. This is what we are too prone to do. We take the gifts that God has given us and turn them into ways to spurn His glory and grace. The girl in the song that Wayne is talking about has flirted around with many different men—using her looks for whatever she can—and now she only finds worth around another man; they’ve made her insecure, because she finds her worth in them. She knows the cycle, but she doesn’t know how to escape. She questions her thoughts and she questions those around her.

The second verse continues the story. It says:

Ooh, you had a lot of dreams that transform to visions

The fact that you saw the world affected all your decisions

But it wasn't your fault, wasn't in your intentions

To be the one here talking to me, be the one listening

But I admire your poppin' bottles and dippin'

Just as much as you admire bartending and strippin'

Baby, so don't be mad, nobody else trippin'

You see a lot of crooks and the crooks still crook

This girl haad big plans for her life. We all do. Childhood is where we dream big. “I want to be an astronaut,” “I want to be a baseball player,” “I want to be a movie star;” all of these are typical dreams that children have for their life. It was never part of our original plan to be in the places we end up. (Example: tell me even three years ago that I’d move to Missouri in two and a half years and I would have laughed in your face.) So when Wayne says that she never planned on talking to him, it is analogous to Romans 3:11 in that no one seeks for God.

Maybe this is a stretch, but I’m interpreting the next two lines, “But I admire your poppin' bottles and dippin' / Just as much as you admire bartending and strippin'” to mean that he doesn’t admire it and neither does she in reality. He tells her not to be mad about that statement, because crooks will stay crooks, but he is different.

The bridge is where I got the idea for this post. It states:

Ooh, see I just want you to know (You to know)

That you deserve the best

You're beautiful, you're beautiful

Yeah, and I want you to know

You're far from the usual, far from the usual

To me, this sounds an awful lot like Song of Songs 2:2, where the man says to the woman, “Like a lily among thorns, so is my darling among the young women” (HCSB). Wayne is letting her know that she deserves a lot better, and he is claiming to be able to offer it. He says that she is far from a typical girl. He says that she makes other girls look like thorns in comparison.

Jesus says the same to each one of us. We have pursued other things. We are trapped in a cycle of looking for love in all the wrong ways. The sinful things we do (cf. “the way you moving your body”) prove that we are not finding love in the right place. Jesus ultimately wants us to know that He is the best and if we heed His offer He will give it to us. For those of us that are His, we deserve the best, and He will give it to us. We need not ever go back to poppin’ bottles and strippin’ (drunkenness and sexual sin) or any habitual sin for that matter. Jesus doesn't admire it!

So, hopefully I’ve made a good case that the gospel can be preached even from something as out there as a lil Wayne song. What will you use today to share Christ with those you know?

Soli Deo Gloria

Perseverance in Interceding

In my daily Bible reading this year I already stumbled across something I’ve read many times before, but never really thought much about. Genesis 18-19 tells of God’s plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and the carrying out of that plan. However, before anyone starts pointing fingers at their assumptions about what I’m going to be writing about, I would like to say that I think we might have missed the point of the story. Genesis 18:17-33 begins the story; the cities aren’t destroyed until 19:24. That’s 40 verses between God revealing His plan and actually carrying it out.

What Abraham does in 18:22-33 is part of the main point of the story; a part that is normally missed for the sake of overemphasis on 19:5 leading to 19:24. And while it is true that God refers to 19:5 as the cause for 19:24 all the way back in 18:20-21, Abraham’s actions following this revelation are mandatory to grasp.

God tells him that He is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah in 18:20-21. Abraham immediately starts pleading for the city with God in 18:22 and following. He asks that if God can find 50 righteous people there, that He would then relent from the promised destruction. God says He will. Abraham then requests 45, perhaps because he doubts there are 50 righteous people. God again promises to relent. Abraham drops it to 40; God promises to relent. This goes all the way down to 10; God says, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it” (Genesis 18:32, NIV).

If there was ever a passage that screams, “Love those who struggle with disgusting sins like homosexuality,” this is one! Abraham did not want to see all those people destroyed, so he pleaded for their lives. Sure, he knew his nephew Lot and his family lived in Sodom, but as the next chapter shows, Lot was the only righteous person in the city: his wife turned back (19:26), his sons-in-law laughed at him (19:14), and his daughters later used him to produce offspring for themselves (19:30-38). Lot was the only redeeming quality in the city. Perhaps if Abraham had gone down to “one righteous person,” God would have spared the whole city for Lot’s sake.

However, in 18:32, Abraham does what we too often do while praying: we think God doesn’t want to hear our prayers go on too long. He said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” (NIV).

While Abraham may be excused for not persevering in intercession, as believers in Christ, we have the hope of Christ at God’s right hand, hearing us and interceding for us to His Father. “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16, NIV, emphasis added). Because of Christ, we can know that God will never be angry with us; sure, He will be disappointed when we sin, but He will never be angry. We need never pray like Abraham, “Don’t be angry,” because Christ bore His wrath for us. We should petition for ourselves to God, and intercede for others to God with complete confidence, and when we think we’ve covered the need, we should keep praying more.

This helps explain why 19:27-28 are in the story. “Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace” (NIV). Abraham realized his prayer wasn’t answered the way he expected. It is also interesting that Genesis 19 is the last time we hear about Lot. As far as Abraham knew, Lot perished when Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed. So, a lesson to learn is also that God answers our prayers the way we need them answered, even if not in the way we expect. Abraham wanted the whole city spared; God saved the righteous one and some non-righteous ones.

So, the ultimate lesson in this section of Scripture is: pray! Never stop! Pray until you’re tired, and then keep praying! Plead for the souls of sinful people! Apart from Christ, you’re no different than any other sinner. Pray for your city; you never know when it could be destroyed, and prayer has power! Trust that God will answer your prayer, because He always will. Even if He doesn’t answer it in the way you expect, trust that He knows what is best, but also reflect on whether or not you could have prayed more seriously about that situation—whatever it was.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Am I Really Supposed to Praise HER?

Paul wrote the following in 1 Corinthians 7:32-35:

I want you to be without concerns. An unmarried man is concerned about the things of the Lord—how he may please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the things of the world—how he may please his wife— and ⌊his interests⌋ are divided. . . . Now I am saying this for your own benefit, not to put a restraint on you, but because of what is proper and so that you may be devoted to the Lord without distraction.[1]

Okay, Paul. You were totally devoted to the Lord. You worshiped Him alone. You served Him wholeheartedly. You wanted others to be just as equally dedicated to Him so that the world could be evangelized quickly and usher in the second coming of Christ.

I get it. And believe me, I long for those things too. But I am a foolish young man who wants wisdom. I want to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord and that elevates Him above all things. But in the above passage, the phrase “not to put a restraint on you” looks very good, and I am extremely interested in a certain young lady. In fact, she knows I’m interested in her, and we have been in an “official” dating relationship for the past two months.

So here’s my conundrum: I want to keep God first, but too often I find myself extolling her too much in my mind. Paul was certainly right when he said I’ll have troubles in this life (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:28), and I’m not even married yet. So, in my search for wisdom regarding relationships I turned to the book of Proverbs. Chapter 31 describes the type of woman I pray that I will end up with, and the girl I’m dating definitely showcases many of the traits found in that awesome poem, but then the phrase at the end strikes me weirdly: “a woman who fears the Lord will be praised.”^[2]

This made me curious, so I check to see what Hebrew word is translated “praise,” hoping the writer differentiated this type of praise from the praise due to God alone (our English “hallelujah” is really a Hebrew compound word meaning “praise Yahweh”). And sure enough, my hopes are dashed. The Hebrew root describing the praise due to a Yahweh-fearing woman is הלל (halal).

This throws a monkey wrench into my thinking. I don’t want the word commanding me to praise God and praise a godly woman to be the same. I was hoping it would be a case of praise vs. respect or praise vs. honor or worship vs. praise. So, I decide to turn to the earliest translation of the Hebrew text: the Greek Septuagint (LXX). It does no better for me; αινεω (aineō) is also used throughout to refer to praising God.

God doesn’t want me to praise a godly woman the same way I praise Him, does He? I don’t at all want to be guilty of idolatry in a relationship. I don’t want my interests to be divided; I want to be completely dedicated to Jesus Christ. My heart is much too fickle as it is; I really wish that God would have helped me out a little here. How am I ever supposed to follow Paul’s advice in 1 Corinthians 7 if after I get married I am to praise my wife the same way I praise Yahweh? There has to be a divinely inspired reason for making the words the same. One scholar describes the meaning of the word as follows: “This root connotes being sincerely and deeply thankful for and/or satisfied in lauding a superior quality(ies) or great, great act(s) of the object.”^[3]

So thankfulness and satisfaction are to be found because of a Yahweh-fearing woman? I thought thankfulness and satisfaction were ultimately to be found in Yahweh alone. And then it gets even stickier. One word study explains that the root for the Hebrew “praise” comes from the Arabic language and means “sing joyfully to someone.”[4] So the best way to show praise is to sing to the object. I guess that explains why “hallelujah” occurs so often in the book of Psalms—the hymnbook of Israel. It also explains why “love songs” are so popular these days.

However, there is an important line to draw at this point. For the man or woman who fears Yahweh, Proverbs 31:30 describes the material that should be present in such “love songs.” That verse reads, “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD will be praised.” Worldly “love songs” are all about external beauty, sexuality, and the like; the Christian husband (of whom I am not yet one, but hopefully someday) should praise his wife for something more permanent, namely the fact that she fears God. One commentator explains, “A beautiful woman may enjoy admiration and compliments for the moment, but the one who will really be praised is she who fears the Lord.”[5] Not to say that the fear of the Lord in her is what is to be praised,[6] but rather that if a woman really fears Yahweh, there will be no end of things in her person, character, and appearance for which her husband can praise her.

The fear of Yahweh is key in the discussion, because in the book of Proverbs fear of Yahweh is the litmus test for everything. Proverbs 1:7 makes the fear of Yahweh the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 8:13 makes the fear of Yahweh the hatred of evil. Proverbs 19:23 makes the fear of Yahweh what grants a peaceful life (which can be understood in light of the Gospel of John’s eternal life theology). In Proverbs 8, wisdom speaks as if she was a woman, and explains that she is more valuable than precious metals (8:10-11) which is coincidentally parallel to the phrase in 31:10. I’ve joked (though I’m not sure how much of a joke it is) that the book of Proverbs is a “how to find a wife manual,” but at the very least it gives evidence to the fact that a godly wife is invaluable in life for the Christian man. If she fears Yahweh, she has at least a seed of wisdom (that can and should be nurtured and grown), she has a hatred of evil (at least minimal that can and should grow), and she is living her life in the light of the fact that she has eternal life through Christ. These are all reasons for a believing husband to praise his wife. “All that she does for her household affords her husband the financial stability and social status that a responsible husband desires for himself, his children—and his wife.”[7] This basically means that if she has the qualities resulting from the fear of Yahweh, her husband should possess them too, and together they can sharpen each other in them (cf. Proverbs 27:17).

But with all that information, I’m still officially single as far as Proverbs 31 is concerned. How much am I able to praise the godly woman that God has placed in my life during this chapter of our relationship? It is very interesting that the word in verse 10 translated “wife” is the same word in verse 30 translated “woman,” so I could try to make a case that verse 10 is translated wrong, and that any Yahweh-fearing woman deserves to be praised, which isn’t necessarily a bad view to hold (all Yahweh-fearing people need to be encouraged in their faith [cf. Hebrews 10:24-25]). However, by verse 30, the context has made it clear that it is speaking of a wife, and since the Hebrew there is identical to that in verse 10, it should be translated “a wife who fears the Lord will be praised.” So I can’t yet do this.

But then I look into how this passage has been understood historically and try to find a way out, a way to apply Proverbs 31:30 in a dating relationship (I mean, if all Scripture is useful for different things like Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:16, then this passage should be no different). Fox explains that most “[c]ommentators agree that, at least on the surface, an actual human woman is being described,” (which doesn’t help my case right now, but he goes on). “Some, however, add a further, allegorical, level of meaning and consider that as conveying the poem’s most significant message.”[8] Maybe I can apply this passage to my relationship allegorically. I learn that Jewish scholars allegorized this text to be able to refer to men as well as women, which probably paved the way for Augustine to understand it in its most influential allegorical understanding: the church.[9] This is helpful for me. If she belongs to the church, just like I belong to the church, then I can praise her as my sister-in-Christ all the time. I can drive her crazy with my praise for her. But then the following two thoughts strike: 1) Are you going to praise all your sisters-in-Christ that way? and 2) if it’s allegorical, then God is the husband who is praising His church. Bang goes that theory!

So I’m back to square one. I think the world of a certain girl, but how do I show that to her in an appropriate way at this stage of our relationship? From all that I can see right now, I can’t do this. And then I see this: “The Woman of Strength [literal translation of ‘capable wife’ in 31:10] has her negative counterpart in the Strange Woman, also a type figure.”[10] And elsewhere, I find this:

The young man has no choice but to follow one woman or the other. He will either pursue Woman Wisdom or Woman Folly, and with them he will take their counterparts, the good wife or the prostitute/quarrelsome wife. He cannot attain wisdom without the good wife because she creates the environment in which he can flourish. If he chooses an evil woman, he has little hope of transcending the context she will make for him.[11]

It’s the italicized section that gave me my application. The greatest way I can praise a godly woman who I’m dating is by not being lured away by another. If I get lured away by the Strange Woman in a dating relationship, what’s to assure me either 1) that I won’t be lured away in a married relationship? or 2) that I will even end up married to a wise woman? The answer for both of these is NOTHING. As such, I can praise the woman God has given me right now by building her up in Christ as I remind her of His promises, by pointing out qualities in her that I admire, by telling her she is beautiful on occasion (because every girl needs to hear it sometimes), and by fighting all sin patterns in me that would lead her to conclude that I am not worthy of a Proverbs 31 woman (which if she was still with me would necessarily lead her to doubt her own status as a Proverbs 31 woman).

But then I feel like it’s too late. I feel like I’ve done too much wrong to ever deserve the virtuous wife described in Proverbs 31. I feel like I deserve more of the type of woman described in Proverbs 7 and warned against throughout the book. And then God reminds me, “Look at the girl I’ve placed in your life right now. She’s nowhere near the Proverbs 7 type; she’s well on her way to emulating the Proverbs 31 type. Be grateful. Stand up and be a man for her. Stop moping! Christ died for you! I’ve forgiven you. You’re loved.” I know it’s true, and if you ever feel the same way that I find myself feeling on occasion, it can be true for you too (and maybe already is). As soon as you turn to Christ in faith, He will turn your life around, and the statements there will be true of you too. Forgiven. Loved. Until you know the love of Christ, you can never love another human properly.

I conclude with a quote aimed at married men, but the additional understanding I add in [brackets] are to explain it and apply to us dating guys as well.

[H]ere is a basic principle for us men: If we don't get radical, nothing will ever change. Christ got radical for you at the cross, and it changed everything forever. And he put you with your wife [girlfriend] because he loves her. He put you with her as a mighty blessing to her. So get radical, start changing, begin a new tradition in your home [relationship][12], starting today. If you step out in new obedience, the Lord will help you. And your family [future family] will rejoice over you.[13]

How will you get radical for your wife / future wife? Christ has the grace to help you. All you have to do is ask Him to help you accomplish whatever it is He is calling you to do. For your wife—for your future wife—: praise her! I certainly plan on doing it by reminding her of the Gospel, by pointing out her good traits, by telling her she is beautiful, and by fighting sin in myself. How will you praise the one God has placed in your life?

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[1] Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible, © 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission.

[2] Emphasis added.

[3] R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Bruce K. Waltke, ed., “500: ‏הָלַל‎,” in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 217.

[4] H. Cazelles, “llh,” In Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 3, edited by G. Johannes Botterweck & Helmer Ringgren (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997), 404.

[5] Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31, Anchor Bible Commentary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 898. Emphasis in original.

[6] Contra Roland E. Murphy, Proverbs, Word Biblical Commentary (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 244.

[7] Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31, Anchor Bible Commentary, 917

[8] Ibid., 905

[9] Ibid., 906-907.

[10] Ibid., 911.

[11] Duane A. Garrett, Proverbs, New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1993), 252. Emphasis mine.

[12] This can be done according to the bolded statements two paragraphs prior.

[13] Raymond C. Ortlund Jr., Preaching the Word – Proverbs: Wisdom that Works, ed. R. Kent Hughes, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2012), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 152.