Homosexuality (Sin, Homosexuality, and Love Part 2)

    As I mentioned at the beginning of my last post, this is a topic that I am loathe to address. There are reasons why I haven't talked about this before, mainly that I think the debate in Christianity over the question of homosexuality comes from a misunderstanding of Sin and Love. The former I addressed in the former post and the latter will be addressed in the subsequent post.

    All that said, since the debate around this issue is growing more and more rabid and I have been unable to extricate myself from it, I now feel it is necessary to explain what the Bible says, at least as far as I understand it. Hence this particular post. My goal is to explore two things: first to see what the Bible itself says regarding the morality of homosexuality and secondly to begin to explore how as a church and body of believers to deal with the issue. The latter part of this discussion will be more fully vetted in the following post on love.

    Before we dive in, I feel it necessary to explain two key points first. One is that my word is not the final word. The Bible's word is. This post is about what the Bible says regarding the morality of homosexuality; all discussion should be rooted in the Word of God. If my conclusion is wrong, then show me from the Bible. Don't debate simply because you disagree with my perspective. If you don't believe in the Bible or aren't a Christian that's your choice, but don't whether or not the Bible is right. This discussion is not about that; this discussion is about what the Bible actually says so that we as Bible-believing Christians can know what to do.

    Secondly, I need to point out that I myself am not gay. Neither do I have close friends that are gay (at least to my knowledge). At the same time, to my knowledge I don't have friends that are vehemently anti-gay. Other than people repeatedly asking my opinion and answer on the question, I have no vested interest in the debate one way or the other. While this gives me the advantage of being fairly objective on the issue (I have no particular axe to grind), I am fully aware that I have no inkling as to the struggles that homosexuals, particularly homosexual Christians, go through. I cannot speak to nor understand that pain; neither do I claim to.

    So with that in mind, what does the Bible say regarding homosexuality? As I often do, the first place to start is the beginning with Creation. After all, the Edenic world is the ideal world and it is for the ideal world that we ought to be striving for. And in the Garden of Eden, Yahveh created one man (Adam) and one woman (Eve) literally for each other with the task (among many others) to populate the earth.

    There is a trite and somewhat derogatory saying thrown around by anti-gay activists that "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." While the implications of this statement are demeaning, there is factual truth to it. Yahveh could have created a male companion for Adam. He could have created the first two people women. For that matter, he could have created multiple Eve's or multiple Adam's. But he didn't. He created one man for one woman.

    Secondly, Yahveh specifically commanded Adam and Eve to populate the earth. This was a key part of their responsibility as regents of this world. This is also very difficult to do for homosexuals (read, impossible). Again, Yahveh could have created both sexes with the possibility of bearing children. But he didn't. By his design it takes one of each to create life.

    The Divine ideal is crystal clear: a monogamous, heterosexual, life-long, committed marriage. Now the implications of this go far beyond just homosexuality, especially in other parts of the world; divorce and polygamy particularly spring to mind. These are issues that are not the subject of this post, but have major complications of their own.

    One may point out that we don't live in an ideal world. After all, Yahveh created Adam and Eve heterosexual and there are people who are born gay. This is true. But I have to ask, does that change Yahveh's ideal? Hardly.

    Let's skip ahead a few books to Leviticus 18:22: "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable." We can assume that this rule works both ways; women, don't sleep with women like you would with a man.

    Okay, so this describes homosexuality and calls its practice "detestable." Note that the Bible calls the practice of homosexuality wrong. It does not say that if you are attracted to members of the same sex that that is wrong. A subtle, but important difference.

    Back to the text; the Bible doesn't really leave any gray area here. Here it condemns homosexuality, plain and simple. After all, this is in the middle of a series of commands titled in my Bible "Unlawful Sexual Relations." Among them are adultery (duh), just about any kind of incest (Yahveh is quite thorough in covering all the bases), bestiality, certain times to avoid sex (a woman's period), and even polygamy, then a commonly accepted practice, to an extent. Oh, and Yahveh throws in a "don't sacrifice your kids" command for good measure.

    Now when I use the text, people raise two objections: one, wasn't this just for the Jews and two, aren't we picking and choosing which rules we follow?

    The answer is largely the same for both. In specific regards to the first objection, a study of the context answers that simply enough. Chapter 18 begins with an admonishment to "not do as they do in Egypt where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices." The same chapter ends with "Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things." Clearly Yahveh intended these laws to apply to both Jew and non-Jew alike.

    As to the second objection, there are several points to consider. First, what are people referring to by "picking and choosing"? What I mean is, which rules are we picking to follow and which rules do we disregard? Most people reply with the sacrifices and feasts or with wearing clothes made of two types of fabric.

    First, the context of this passage ought to be considered. Chapters 17-20 of Leviticus make up what is called the Holiness Code, or a series of codes and laws that were to be applied to both Hebrews (ancient Jews) and non-Hebrews alike. Sacrifices and feasts and mildew laws are not part of this code, specifically applying to Hebrews only. It is true that the rather random and obscure law referring to the two types of cloth are part of the Holiness Code. However there is further context to be considered.

    In the early Church of Acts, similar questions were being asked about which rules were to be followed and which were not. In response to this growing (and divisive) debate, the Church held a special council in Jerusalem to resolve this issue, recorded in Acts 15. To summarize the debate, the Church leaders decided that the following items ought to be followed: refrain from eating food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meet of strangled animals (all in reference to Leviticus 17), and from sexual immorality (in reference to Leviticus 18). Two things to note from this: first, nothing past chapter 18 is referenced and second sexual immorality ought to be understood as all forms of sexual immorality discussed in the Old Testament, including homosexuality.

    Finally, exactly which sexual rules do we actually disregard? I mean, do any of us honestly consider incest or adultery or bestiality or polygamy okay? What about taking rival wives? Of course not. The closest we get to an "acceptable" sexual practice is having sex with a woman during her period, which strikes me as a) revolting and b) women, are you really "feeling it" that time of month?

    It is precisely because so many people (in the secular setting) consider homosexuality okay that we do debate the issue. We don't hesitate to condemn any of the others, so why does homosexuality get a pass? Biblically and logically that makes no sense. I mean what if a brother and sister, both adults, realize they are deeply in love with each other and want to get married? Would we condone that relationship? Again, of course not. We would be disgusted. Again I ask, what is difference between the two? Neither are considered acceptable relationships according to the Bible, yet one (homosexuality) is treated with controversy yet the other is outright condemned by everyone, regardless of religious beliefs.

    For Christians, this strikes me as an odd hypocrisy, one that few people acknowledge. Most people complain that gays and lesbians are singled out while adulterers and porn addicts get a free pass. Again, this is definitively not true. Among Christians no one questions that these are wrong whereas Christianity is split on the issue of homosexuality. As a result, homosexuality is merely more visible than these other sexual sins and so gets more attention. But I challenge you to observe what happens if a person walks into a church and openly admits to either being addicted to porn or having an affair and watch the fire and brimstone rain down. This is especially true of affairs, which often shatter and divide churches like little else.

    But I digress into the next post's topic. The point is that biblically, it makes no sense to single out homosexuality as "okay" while assenting to all the others. Such a belief is inconsistent at best and open rebellion by vaunting what we as humans want over Yahveh's commands at worst.

    As noted above, the New Testament church continued to Old Testament belief of condemning the practice of homosexuality. In addition to the Council of Jerusalem, Paul adds a more specific condemnation in his first letter to the Corinthians, "Do not be deceived: the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanders nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

    There are two points to be noted here. Again, the practice of homosexuality is condemned, not being homosexual. This point cannot be stressed enough: while the Bible clearly condemns the homosexual practice, nowhere does it condemn a person who is inherently homosexual.

    The following verse helps us transition to the second part of this long post. "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

    Salvation is no respecter of persons, meaning it is available to all. Adulterers, idolaters, thieves, and yes, homosexuals, all have access to the gift of salvation. It does not matter what you have done, Christ's death still covers you and gives you a new birth in the kingdom of God.

    But salvation is no respecter of persons, meaning it demands the same things from all. Just as adulterers, idolaters, and thieves must submit themselves to the rule of Yahveh. We don't think that it would be okay for someone to keep on worshipping Zeus in addition to Yahveh. Nor would we approve of someone continuing to thieve as if nothing had changed. Can we honestly say that someone is really saved, i.e. someone who has become a member of the kingdom of Yahveh that continues an extramarital affair with no intention of stopping? I doubt it. Again I ask why would we give homosexuality a pass? It does not follow.

    I do not deny this is a hard teaching, just as I readily admit that I cannot fathom the difficulty of this teaching. As I said before, I am not gay and so can't truly understand. Yet none of that changes what the Bible says. Clearly it condemns the homosexual lifestyle, though just as clearly not condemning the person.

    Still it is hard. This dooms the homosexual to a life bereft of the companionship that the rest of us have the opportunity to enjoy. It demands that those who have a partner separate on becoming a Christian. But again, it is what it is.

    Christ has promised us many things, but an easy life is not one of them. Indeed, Christ has promised us, all of us, that the life of the Christian is a hard one. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus informed those who wished to follow him that they would be persecuted. In John 6, Jesus calls himself a bread that everyone should (the exact meaning of this is a topic for another post) and many of his disciples deserted him because his teachings were too hard for him. In several places, Christ describes the cost of discipleship; it is a high price. His disciples grumbled that Jesus rather stringent teaching on divorce a teaching too hard to accept.

    Jesus does not promise an easy life; what he does promise is strength to overcome whatever hardships we will face. In the quoted passage above, Paul writes that the Corinthians were the evildoers that don't inherit the kingdom of Heaven. But Christ had saved them and sanctified them. Now this doesn't mean that they were "cured," that homosexuals were suddenly straight. For some this may happen, for most it will not.

    But Yahveh will give you the strength to bear the hardships of life. At the end of the Great Commission in Matthew 28, Jesus promises to be with us to the end of the world. In his final discourse with his disciples at the Last Supper in John, Jesus repeatedly promised the Holy Spirit to be with us, the same Holy Spirit given to those who truly follow Christ. In 1^st Corinthians, Paul writes that those who no temptation will be sent our way that Yahveh does not provide a way of escape.

    If you have sworn your loyalty to him, he is responsible for you as well. And true to his word, he will help you if you are willing to follow his commands. So the real question is do you really trust Yahveh? Are you willing to live under his rule and trust that he will help you through life? Is Jesus really the Lord of your life?

What is Sin? (Sin, Homosexuality, and Love part 1)

    A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I got into a bit of debate regarding homosexuality. Many of us are familiar with the debate raging across the country. Unless you live under a rock, it's hard not to. For the most part, I have tried to avoid the debate and have intentionally avoided writing on it until now and it will be the subject of the next post.

    A central reason I have avoided the debates is because, like most things, this (homosexuality) is really about that (sin). The real issue is the title question: what is sin?

    I touched on the concept a while back in post where I laid down my model of how salvation works. If you haven't read it, or haven't read it in a while (most likely true), it might be good to refresh yourself on it. Though that model has changed somewhat, many of the central concepts are the same, including the one about Sin. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

    If you haven't already figured it out, the foundation of my theology comes from the Creation story in the first three chapters of Genesis. There are two reasons for this: one, because it answers the most important questions we ask (is there a God? Why am I here? Who am I? etc.) in those three chapters and two, because it describes the world as it should have been. After all, we are aiming for perfection and Genesis 1-3 describes perfection.

    Most of us know the story: Yahveh creates the world culminating with the creation of Adam and Eve (humanity, in other words). He places them in a beautiful garden as their home and tells them to rule the world (literally). Where the story intersects the issue of sin is that after creating the Garden of Eden, Yahveh does something rather interesting: he places at the center of it two special trees.

    One was the Tree of Life. Eating from its fruit would grant a person perpetual life and youth. The other was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eating from its fruit would, as Yahveh warned, bring about death and misery. That tree was Pandora's Box.

    Obviously these trees are about something far more than fruit. They represent the most fundamental choice that we as humans are given: follow Yahveh or follow ourselves. To eat from the Tree of Life was to submit to the continued lordship and sovereignty of Yahveh. To eat from the other was to rebel against that lordship. It was to set ourselves up as "gods."

    This is Sin. Sin is rebellion against the sovereignty of Yahveh. That is what got Satan in trouble to begin with. According to Isaiah 14, he wanted to "be like the Most High." Satan wanted to be his own personal god, accountable to no one but himself. That is how he got Adam and Eve to fall. He told them that if they ate the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would "be like God."

    The question of lordship is a central theme to the entire Great Controversy. The question of who will you follow is repeated over and over and over. At the end of Deuteronomy, Yahveh gives Israel an option: follow me and these blessings will ensue or reject me and these curses will follow. This wasn't a "love me or else" threat; it was a "will you accept or fight my sovereignty?" question.

    At the end of Joshua, the same question is repeated to Israel. "Choose you this day who you will serve." The challenge was "will you accept Yahveh's sovereignty or will you fight it?" Solomon was given the same challenge to begin his reign as king over Israel.

    And lest you think that this is an Old Testament phenomenon, Christ's battle in Gethsemane was a question of lordship. Hence his prayer "not my will, but yours be done." He was submitting to the sovereignty of the Father.

    Salvation itself boils down to the question of lordship. Both Jesus and John the Baptist called people to repentance. Peter, in his Pentecost address (Acts 2) told the crowd to "repent and be baptized." To repent is to change direction, to do an about face. Specifically, they were calling people to change their lives. Another way of looking at it is to say that they were calling people to change sides. Paul most clearly sums it up in Romans 10. "That if you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

    The whole concept of salvation is more fully fleshed out in the previous blog post but to sum it up: not being saved is living in rebellion against Yahveh. This will get us killed. Conversely, to be saved means to be living under the sovereign lordship of Christ. It is like getting a change of citizenship.

    But this means living under Yahveh's rules and this is where we as Americans get in trouble. After having lived in a democracy for so long, we consciously or subconsciously assume that the universe is a democracy. After all, we hear evangelicals preach all the time about righteous America and bringing God and democracy to the downtrodden places in the world.

    The problem is, the universe isn't a democracy; it is, for lack of a better word, a dictatorship (the technical term is actually theocracy, but dictatorship conveys the idea more clearly). Unlike a democracy, in Yahveh's kingdom, we have absolutely zero say in the rules. Yahveh decides the rules and that is the end of the matter.

    Let me give you an example: in the Torah, Yahveh told Moses the rules about how the nation of Israel was going to run. To repeat, he just told Moses the rules. There wasn't any discussion or vote. It was "this is how it is going to be." End of story.

    Same thing in the Garden of Eden. Yahveh didn't sit down with Adam and Eve and have a long discussion about what trees they could and could not eat from. I mean they might have, but it wasn't a "let's decide" conversation. It was a "this is how it is" conversation.

    For that matter, look at nature. I mean, was there a vote about gravity? Was there a long, protracted debate about whether our bodies process oxygen versus, say, boron? No, of course not. These things are the way they are because Yahveh decided to.

    The point of all this is is that Yahveh and Yahveh alone decides right and wrong. Whatever Yahveh says is right, that's right. Whatever he says is wrong, is wrong. Period. End of story.

    Recently I read a blog post that claimed that sin is a very personal thing. If the blogger had meant that sin is a very personal thing to Yahveh, then he would have been dead on. Sin is whatever Yahveh decides is wrong. That standard is universal to the rest of us.

    Unfortunately the blogger meant that sin is very personal to us. But this brings us back to the original point: sin is setting yourself up as your own god. That is what got Satan in trouble; that is what got Adam and Eve in trouble; that is what got Israel in trouble repeatedly; and it is what gets us in trouble today. Sin is trying to live life on your own terms instead of on Yahveh's.

    In the end, it is by Yahveh's standard that we are judged. This is something else that we as Americans do not like to talk about, but whether we like it or not, we are held accountable. The Bible talks again and again about "the judgment" when all humanity must give an accounting for their lives before Yahveh (Daniel 7 and Revelation 20 are a couple of examples). In the end, there are two camps: those who accepted Yahveh's lordship and those who rebelled against. The former are given eternal life and the latter are given eternal death.

    For many of us, this may sound harsh. But that is more because we are used to a democracy where we get to decide than because it is harsh. After all, Yahveh's rules lead to the best life possible. Sin ultimately leads to chaos and death. Following Yahveh is advisable all the way around.

    This is a jumping off point into so many other things, like Salvation, Great Controversy, Origin of Evil, Judgment, and on. But for now, we're just going to define Sin. Sin is rebellion against Yahveh's sovereignty. Right and wrong aren't for us to decide; rather they are already dictated for us by Yahveh. We can either choose to submit ourselves to him or persist in rebellion. It's our choice.

Prayer: A Matter of Perception

    Probably one of the most singularly confusing Christian discipline is prayer. This is an issue that Christians have wrestled with and struggled with throughout time. I know it has been question for me. When it comes to prayer, we ask: why pray? Does it do any good? Does it really matter?

    One thing we do know is that prayer is central to the Christian life. Not only was it a discipline that was central to the lives of the heroes of the Bible like Moses, David, Daniel, and Jesus, but it something that the Bible commands that we do (see 1^st Thessalonians 5:17 and James 5:13, 16). But what is it? How does it work?

    Truth be told, prayer is far too big a subject to tackle all at once. Throughout the next year, I will probably come back to prayer every now and then and touch on it. For this particular post, I am going to focus on one particular aspect of prayer: intercessory and petitionary prayer, which is a fancy way of saying praying to ask stuff.

    This kind of prayer is probably the most confusing. Often Christians use it to essentially turn Yahveh into some sort of divine Santa. But is he not much more than that? What if we are asking for the wrong thing? We say that in the end, we ought to pray "your will be done," but do we really mean that? What if Yahveh's will is different than mine? Does that defeat the point of asking for things? Should we ask for stuff from Yahveh? But then what if he does not grant my request? Does that mean that such a prayer is useless? If Yahveh does what he was going to do anyway, why bother praying? Is pray some sort of guessing game where we hope that what we want is in line with what Yahveh wants? And round and round our minds run when it comes to petitionary prayer.

    A friend of mine recently proposed a theory on prayer that she has been thinking of. She calls prayer a "weapon in the hands of Yahveh." Here is how she explained it (if I am wrong in this explanation, she will surely let us all know): Yahveh has intentionally limited himself by allowing his created beings (that would include us humans) the power of choice. We can chose to follow him or we can chose to do our own thing.

    Now because we have sinned and have, in fact, chosen another way, Yahveh cannot and will not act without our consent. This is why petitionary prayer is so crucial. If Yahveh crosses that line and intervenes without any of our permission, Satan cries foul, and justifiably so. Even if what Yahveh would do is what we would consider good, by his very nature he cannot interfere without our requesting it.

    This should not be taken to deny the sovereignty of Yahveh. It is by his own choice that he has allowed us free choice and it is his choice to allow us sovereignty over ourselves. And as long as we claim to have sovereignty over ourselves, Yahveh will respect that and not interfere with our lives. The flipside of this is that we are now responsible for everything that happens, good or bad, in our lives. As we all know, sooner or later we find ourselves in a situation that is way over our heads.

    It is usually at this point that we pray. Now my friend's contention is that prayer is freeing Yahveh to do what Yahveh does best: come in and fix the problem. True prayer, the kind that Jesus prayed, is suspending our own sovereignty (ideally getting rid of it entirely) and hand over control to Yahveh. This is what she means by prayer is a weapon in the hands of Yahveh. Prayer is what gives him the freedom and permission to act.

    Before I continue, I should like to point out that I believe she is spot on, even more than she may realize. As she said, the implications of this are immense and she is not quite done sorting through them all. Indeed, you could probably write a book on this. Come to think of it, I am pretty sure books have been written on this. But, as usual, I digress.

    When we pray, we grant Yahveh sovereignty at least over the situation (it would be better just to grant him sovereignty over your life, but if you have not done this, we will go in baby steps). Therefore Yahveh is going to do what he (not you) believes is best. This is a very frightening thought because what Yahveh believes to be best may not be (probably is not) what I want.

    My friend maintains that Yahveh's will never involves anything "bad" for us; i.e. he will only do good things when he gets involved. To a point she is certainly correct. Yahveh has no desire for bad things to happen to us. But I would disagree to an extent that what we consider good and bad may not always be what Yahveh considers good and bad. This difference of opinion (it should be stressed that this merely opinion) has more to do with a disagreement over what constitutes Yahveh's will rather than prayer itself, which is another post (one that will hopefully be put up shortly). However, I will work with it as much as it relates to prayer thusly.

    In Acts 12, there are two stories regarding two of Christ's disciples: James the brother of John and Peter. Really it is one story with two parts. Part one is a quick blurb that informs us that James is arrested by Herod and then has his head forcibly removed. Part two is a longer tale of how Peter was also arrested and then miraculously rescued.

    Both were arrested. Assumedly both had people praying that they would be rescued. One was, the other was not. The immediate question we ask is of course why? How do we reconcile a god of love with one that saves one man in response to prayer but not another in the same situation? Can we?

    To look at this issue, let us consider two of Christ's prayers. The first one happened in the Garden of Gethsemane, recorded in Matthew 26:36-46. This is just before Jesus is captured, tried, and then crucified and he is in the Garden with his disciples praying to his Father. Jesus knows exactly what is about to happen and does not want to go through with it. He wants out, which is hardly surprising. I mean, who wouldn't?

    Though in this prayer, he is begging the Father to find an escape clause, he ends it with "not my will, but yours be done." In that, he surrenders his will to the Father's. Whether he likes it or not, it is the Father's will or plan for Christ to suffer and die. Hardly what either of them desired, but that was the plan. In truth, there was no other way for them to accomplish the intended goal.

    The other prayer is the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:9, 10 (actually the prayer is much longer than that, but these are the relevant verses). The second thing that Jesus prays for is to ask for the Father's will to be done. What does this mean, "your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven?"

    We look at Jesus' example in Gethsemane. The Father's "will" for Christ was to die for man. In other words, the Father's will for Christ was his role in the plan of salvation. Whatever role we have in the plan of salvation, then that is his will for us.

    It is this that we are asking for when we pray. We are asking that Yahveh do what he believes (and he is always right) to best, whatever that may be. It may be and likely is different than what we have in mind, but that is what we are asking for. The question is do we trust him?

    So prayer is not some ritual you do to get your way. It is not just asking Yahveh to give us something like he is the mall Santa. It is not putting your coin in the gumball machine. Neither is it a pointless thing we do that makes no difference.

    Prayer is giving Yahveh permission to be who he is. It truly is a weapon in his hands because it frees his hands to work. It lets his plan be worked out in your life and others. It opens our perspective to his and shows us where to go.

    The question is do you trust him? Is Jesus truly your lord? Do you mean it when you say "your will be done?" Are you prepared for Yahveh to act?

Mine

    One of the basis's for our Western culture is the concept of "mine," or ownership. You I am certain know exactly what I am talking about: I own the computer that I am typing on, meaning that it is mine, not yours. If you wish to use it, you must ask me for permission to do so. We would consider it wrong of you to just take my computer and do what you wish with it without my acquiescing to it wrong.

    This is of course not true across cultures. Much of the issues that sparked he Indian Wars that dominated the 19^th century here in America stem from different concepts of ownership. The Native Americans did not believe that anyone could "own" the land whereas Americans did. You can see how this different understanding could spark a major conflict.

    Now this raises the question I wish to address in this post: do we really own anything? Is the concept of private ownership something that the Bible teaches? Or does ownership belong elsewhere?

    Psalms 50 answers this question quite clearly when it says in verse 12, "If I (Yahveh) hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine and everything in it." So Yahveh owns everything, which make sense because he is the one who made it all. But if everything is Yahveh's, then logically nothing is ours.

    Jesus tells parable that echoes this point in Matthew 25:14-30. In this story, there is a wealthy man who goes on a long journey and leaves some of his wealth in the hands of his servants or stewards. One man gets five talents, another two, and the third gets one. The first two servants double the wealth of their master while he is away, whereas the third simply buries it in the ground. When the man returns, he is naturally pleased with the first two stewards and quite displeased with the third.

    There are many points that can be drawn from this story, but there is one question I want to ask: whose money was it? Was it the servants' or the master's? The obvious answer is of course that the money is the master's money. His servants are merely caretakers of his wealth while he is away.

    That is us. We are Yahveh's stewards, his caretakers. Everything, the Bible says, is his. This means that nothing is ours. Not our wealth, not our time, not even our lives. Us being Yahveh's servants is something that the Bible writers talk about a lot. In the Old Testament, the prophets and kings talk to Yahveh saying "your servant." They meant it. Paul writes in Romans 6 that as Christians we are "servants to righteousness." Over one book in 1^st Corinthians, he adds that we are not our own, but are bought with a price. The point is that we are not our own, but servants of Yahveh who have been left to take care of his earth.

    Let us take a look back at Creation. Genesis 1 tells us that Yahveh placed us in this world to "rule over it." Ellen White in Patriarchs and Prophets explains that our role in this was to be caretakers of the world, to bend and shape into something pleasing and beautiful to Yahveh. He has always been the overlord of our earth. It is not ours, but his.

    This understanding forces us to go through a major paradigm shift in how we understand the world we live in. For so many of us we have this attitude of there is Yahveh's and there is mine. Think of how we treat tithe, Sabbath, and even our devotions. We give ten percent to Yahveh and the ninety percent is mine to do with as I wish. One day I give to Yahveh and the other six days I do what I want. I give Yahveh thirty minutes of my time in the morning and the rest of the day is mine to do with as I wish.

    But when we understand that everything is Yahveh's and I am merely his steward, then the concept of mine no longer exists. That ten percent, one day, thirty minutes are reminders of who owns the rest, not taxes that we pay before moving on with our lives.    This paradigm shift changes how we approach life and how we live it. The question is no longer "what do I want?". The question is now "what does Yahveh want?".

    Think about devotions. Most of us approach them as a ten-thirty minute exercise we go through in the morning to get some inspiration for the day. After that, the rest of my time is my own. But stop and the think about what devotions mean. Look at the word "devotion." It means "profound dedication" or "earnest attachment to a cause or a person" (dictionary.reference.com). Devotion equals serving, which makes it a way of life, not something we do once a day and are done with it.

    Look at some of the heroes from the Bible. Elijah and Moses, the two greatest prophets of the Old Testament, lived lives devoted to Yahveh. Oddly you do not hear of them spending any time in what we consider "devotions." What you do hear is them constantly asking "What do you want me to do Yahveh?" It was never about them, it was always about Yahveh.

    Enoch is said to have walked with Yahveh right into heaven. The Apostles were constantly being direct by the Spirit. Many of them gave everything they had away because that is what they were directed to do. Others cheerfully died because that is what Yahveh needed them to do. They were not their own, but his.

    Then there is Jesus himself. He claimed ownership over nothing, not even a place to lay his head. Jesus went even so far as to say that his will was not his own. Jesus was completely devoted to Yahveh and his plan (John 8:28,29).

    So there is no such thing as mine because everything is Yahveh's. I am just his steward. This means everything, my wealth, my time, my energy, my very life are his to be used for his glory and benefit and not my own. Therefore, live your life as it ought to be lived: not yours, but devoted completely to the one who truly owns it, Yahveh.

Sabbath Part 3: A day of re’s

    I must start this with a sincere apology. I meant to write this post a week or so after the previous. Now, four months later, I am actually doing so. Though I doubt there are too many of you who have been waiting on the edge of your seats for this, I am sorry for the delay. I have had my reasons, but as to the why, well that would be violating my anti-personal information stance. Besides, for those of you who have been keeping up with this, you probably just want me to get on with it.

    To give a quick recap of the previous two Sabbath posts: the first one dealt with what Sabbath is. In other words, what is the meaning and purpose of Sabbath; what makes it special. The second post spoke about what not to do on Sabbath. We discussed what the Bible means when it says "Do no work on the Sabbath day." This post is about the opposite: what to do on the Sabbath.

    One of the things that immediately jumps out at us when we read about the Sabbath, especially in the most commonly thought of passages (Creation and the Commandments), is the concept of rest. We read in Genesis that Yahveh rested on the Sabbath day. Now we know that of course Yahveh was not resting because he was tired, for he does not get tired, but really celebrating Creation and what he had done. However, it was also a cessation of activity on the part of Yahveh. When the seventh day came, he just stopped working and took a break from it. In doing so, he set a pattern and example for us.

    Skip over a few books to Deuteronomy 5. We have been here before when discussing the Commandments, especially noting the difference between the Sabbath commandments in Exodus 20 and here. One unique difference is a specification that is made in verse 14. Yahveh talks about how the Sabbath is for the maidservant and manservant as well as the owner so that they "may rest, as you do." Rest is central to the Sabbath.

    Let us be honest: life is exhausting. So with that in mind, Yahveh has given us a day to come away from the business of life; a day to recharge. Sabbath is a day for rest.

    So what does this have to do with what to do on the Sabbath? Whatever is restful is something to do on the Sabbath. That is what it is there for. An example would be just yesterday. I have been painting my parent's house, which is a large house and it is quite exhausting. So yesterday, I was totally drained. What did I do? I took a nap and it recharged and refreshed me. That is an example of what to do on the Sabbath; just rest.

    Rest ties directly into the next point, which is restoration. Leviticus 25 is a chapter that is devoted to discussing laws about something called "Sabbath years." The gist of the Sabbath year was that every seven years, the Israelites were to not plant their fields. Just let them lie and live of the previous year's crop. The purpose of these years was to give the land a rest, so that it could restore itself.

    But Yahveh did not leave it at that; he took a step further. Every seven Sabbath years, or essentially 50 years, there was the year of Jubilee. This was a special year, a second consecutive Sabbath year that was a resetting of things. Debts were cancelled, slaves were freed, and lands were returned to their ancestral owners. It was a year of celebration, but also a year of restoration.

    Let us look at Jesus life. There are about a half dozen miracles that Jesus performed on Sabbath that are specifically mentioned as happening on Sabbath. In fact, general when we here about something that Jesus did on Sabbath, he was healing people. Specifically, he was restoring people. For Jesus, restoration was an essential part of the Sabbath.

    So what restores you? What resets and refocuses your life? Is it taking a hike in the woods? Or maybe it is spending special time with friends and/or family. Perhaps it is just being alone fore once. Whatever it is for you that restores your body and soul, do it. That is what the Sabbath is for.

    Sabbath is also for reconnection with each other. It is for meeting with each other and being a blessing for one another. Think of what Jesus did on the Sabbath. In the above paragraphs, we see that Jesus would heal people on the Sabbath. Not only was he restoring them, he was reconnecting with them.

    Also the gospel of Luke records that Jesus had a habit of going to the synagogue on Sabbath. Remember that Jesus was a Jew and the Jewish form of church was the synagogue. Jesus essentially had a habit of going to church on the Sabbath. Why? To meet with and reconnect with fellow believers.

     The apostles in the New Testament Church did the same. Luke writes in Acts that the believers continued to meet together. Wherever Paul went, he sought out synagogues and met with the Jews on Sabbath (until he got kicked out). If there was not a synagogue, like at Philippi, he would find a place where Jews or Christians were meeting on Sabbath (Acts 16:11-15). The author of Hebrews exhorted his readers to not give up meeting with each other. Meeting together, especially on Sabbath, was important to the early church.

    This is why we go to church on Sabbath. At church, we reconnect with each other to encourage and strength and support each other. Life is stressful, especially for the Christian. Church becomes a time and place to get away from it all and just hang out with each other. We do it on Sabbath because this is what Yahveh made the Sabbath for.

    Ultimately, however, the Sabbath is all about Yahveh. In Hebrews 4, the author likens rest in Christ like a Sabbath rest. Matthew records Jesus saying that we should come to him and he will give us rest. The rest of Sabbath is resting in him.

    We find our true restoration in Christ as well. When talking with Nicodemus in John 3, Jesus tells the rabbi that in order to enter the kingdom of Heaven, we must be born again. This is like having our lives restarted, reset, or restored. Paul takes this a step further in 2 Corinthians 5:17 when he says that in Christ, we are "new creations." Through Jesus, we are restored. Sabbath is a celebration of this restoration.

    At the center of the Sabbath is reconnecting with Yahveh. The day is for us to meet with him. It was Adam and Eve did in the Garden. It is what we are to do now. After all, it is his day. Time and time again the Bible refers to the Sabbath as "his" day or the Lord's day. The Commandments call it his Sabbath. In Isaiah, Yahveh says "my hold day." It is not about us, but him. It is, as we have talked about before, the day we celebrate him.

    So you want to keep the Sabbath holy? You want to do, as Jesus said, "good" on the Sabbath? What gives you rest, what gives you restoration, what reconnects with others and with Yahveh? Ultimately, what do you do to celebrate Yahveh. Whatever that is for you, do it. For that is what it means to keep the Sabbath day holy.

Sabbath Work (Sabbath part 2)

    My previous post discussed what the Sabbath is. The Sabbath is Yahveh's special holiday, the day set aside especially for him. The Sabbath is all about celebrating Yahveh for who he is and what he has done.

    For those of you who either know me personally or have been following this blog know exactly what is coming next: a question. My particular question is what does it mean to celebrate the Sabbath? How does one go about doing that?

    Think about it. There are specific ways of celebrating other holidays. At Southern Adventist University, where I am currently a student, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day we celebrate by using that day for community service. In America, we celebrate Independence Day (July 4 for the internationally inclined) with fireworks and barbeques and such. New Year's is celebrated with a midnight kiss and a giant ball falling on New York's Time Square. Christmas with presents. Easter with egg hunts and passion plays. Halloween with candy and costumes. Thanksgiving with football and, to be honest, gluttony. The Super Bowl with just plain awesomeness.

    I think you get the idea. We celebrate holidays in their own unique way. This of course leads me back to my question about the Sabbath. What does it mean to celebrate the Sabbath? How should we celebrate the Sabbath?

    As mentioned in the previous post, at the heart of the 10 Commandments is that the Sabbath commandment. It goes something like this: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." (Exodus 20:8-11).

    What it means by Yahveh "rested" on the Sabbath has already been discussed. Also already discussed is the fact that the key word in the commandment is "remember." What I want to focus on here is the point of this commandment, "on it you shall do no work." This is the point of the command, in that prohibiting work is in fact the command.

    But what does this mean, do not work? What is meant by "work"? Is this meant in the physics sense, work is a transfer of energy? Or is the meant in the sense that anything I consider "work" (like say, dishes) is not allowed on the Sabbath? In English, the word work has an incredibly broad and vague meaning.

    Thankfully, Exodus was not written in English, at least not originally. What has been translated "work" was originally the Hebrew word melakah, which literally means "occupation", "business", or "employment." Essentially, it specifically refers to our moneymaking jobs. So basically, the commandment is saying to not go about making money on the Sabbath.

    In some ways, that is still just as confusing. But let us think about this for a moment. Why do we make money? To provide for ourselves, of course. Money may not buy happiness, but it does buy survival. Things required for life, like food, shelter, clothes, and such all cost money. So to provide for our needs, we work. And there is nothing wrong with this; indeed the commandment orders us to work for six days. But when we work to make money, where is the focus? The focus is on ourselves.

    So this is the point that the fourth commandment is getting at: Sabbath is not about you. Given the context of the previous blog post where we discussed how the Sabbath is really Yahveh's special holiday where we are to celebrate him and who he does, this makes perfect sense. The Sabbath is not about us; it is about Yahveh. The command of not working means that we take our focus off of ourselves and put it on Yahveh.

    Does keeping the Sabbath mean that we simply do not do our job that gets us money on the Sabbath? Is that all there is? Of course not because this concept of work goes far deeper. In Isaiah 58:13-14 the Bible says, "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." The mouth of the LORD has spoken." Now as a kid, this verse drove me nuts. I mean, how is it possible for me to call the Sabbath a delight when I cannot do what I want on the Sabbath? Those concepts are contradictory, right?

    In English, we think of the words of "pleasure" and "delight" as largely synonymous. But in Hebrew, two different words are used here for "pleasure" and "delight." When the Bible says "do as you please", the word is haphetz, which literally means "joy", "longing", "wish", or even "business." Attached to the end of the word is the second person possessive marker, meaning your wish, your joy, your business. In other words, the pleasure is all about you.

    But when Isaiah talks about "delight", he uses the word oneg, which literally means "delight" or "exquisite pleasure." It is related to the word "spoiled" or "pampered." But this is in the context of Yahveh's holy day, so who's delight are we talking about? Ours or Yahveh's? The answer is obvious.

    The text goes on to tell us that we honor the Sabbath by not going our own way, but rather finding our joy in Yahveh. What is the point here? Breaking the Sabbath means focusing on ourselves, instead of Yahveh. We put our own joys, our own pleasures, our own affairs above those of Yahveh. But this is what the other six days of the week are for. So work is whatever takes our focus off of Yahveh and puts it on ourselves.

    This can be anything. For some it is a job, for others it is doing yard work around the house, and for others it could even be ministry, if that ministry takes their focus off of Yahveh and puts it on themselves. Indeed the Bible is deliberately vague on being specific on what exactly work is. In the Bible, there is no list of 39 prohibitions telling us what we can and cannot do. This is because "work" is a deeply personal thing between us and Yahveh.

    In Numbers 15, there was a case where a man was found collecting sticks on the Sabbath, which seemed fishy to the Israelites, so they arrested him. Now the penalty for Sabbath breaking was death, but instead he was arrested. Why? Because the Israelites were not sure what to do with him, whether he was guilty or not (it turned out that he was and then they stoned him, but that is somewhat beside the point). Sabbath keeping is a personal problem.

    This was the issue that Jesus had with the Jews when it came to the Sabbath. It was only about keeping the rules for them that they completely missed the Lord of the Sabbath who was standing in front of them (Mark 2:28). In fact because Jesus took the time to care enough about a man to heal his hand, they went out on the Sabbath to plot how to kill Jesus (Mark 3:6). For them, Sabbath keeping became Sabbath breaking.

    For many of us, this is an issue we have today. We try to define exactly what is and is not okay for the Sabbath and we end up missing the point. Work is what gets between us and Yahveh on the Sabbath, not a list or rules. That is something that no one can legislate, but only something you can know for yourself. So that is the question that you must answer. What is work? What gets between you and Yahveh? And are you willing to put it aside for one day a week?

Crazy Couple

    A quick break from our Sabbath series (I swear I am working on part 2 and it is almost done) to talk about something I thought of reading this morning: how nuts Mary and Joseph were.

    I mean, have you ever thought about how crazy what they did was? Take Mary to begin with. The Bible does not say much about her except for what is recorded around the time of Jesus birth. Often we assume that she was a very virtuous woman, however the Bible does not say so. Gabriel in Luke tells Mary that she is highly favored of God, but this says little about who she was as a person. In all likelihood, she was probably little different than other girls her age (between 12-18).

    Yet suddenly she gets this angel who visits her and tells that she is going to have a baby via the Holy Spirit. This baby is the long prophesied and looked-for Messiah, the hope of Israel and Desire of Ages. This is the greatest honor that could be given to anyone, ever. Why Yahveh chose Mary will probably always remain a mystery. He chose her because he did, like he chose Abraham in Genesis. With Abraham, nothing is recorded about him before Yahveh calls him. No reason for Yahveh's call to Abraham is given, just that he did. The same is true of Mary. Yahveh chooses people simply because he does.

    In this call to be the mother of God, Mary is given a choice. She can accept the awesome responsibility or reject. Now normally, this would be the proverbial no-brainer. However, Mary is an unmarried virgin who is already engaged to a man named Joseph. This provides for starters a mechanical difficulty with getting her pregnant, though Gabriel assures her that Yahveh will work the biology out. The real issue is what to do with Joseph. At some point, she is going to have to tell him and she is going to have to tell him the truth.

    Can you imagine that conversation? "Hi honey, I'm pregnant, even though we aren't married yet, but don't worry. This angel told me that this baby is from the Holy Spirit and is going to be the Messiah, so it's okay." Right, that is believable.

    Something that we have remember is that in this culture, virginity and purity from a woman was everything. Men, not so much, but that is a different topic. If a woman lost her virginity before she was married, she was considered damaged goods and therefore no one would marry her. Given that Mary was pregnant, the loss of virginity was basically a given, which means that Joseph had every right and reason to toss her aside. To make things worse, he could have her publically executed. If Joseph chose to reject her, the best life she could look forward to was one where she was on the same social level as a prostitute.

    According to my sources, it would take about five weeks to three months for a woman sans a pregnancy test to know she is pregnant, depending on how well she understood her biology. Given that Mary was in her early to mid teens, I would assume she did not know that much. If I were in her shoes, I would wait to make absolutely sure that I was pregnant and not hallucinating before I told my betrothed the news. What this means is that even if Joseph believed her, which was unlikely (would you?) and married her, the local finger counters would realize that something was not adding up. Explaining the situation would merely add lunatic to the charge of whore, so no help there. She would be subjecting herself to a lifetime of social scorn.

    All this undoubtedly ran through her mind while considering the off Yahveh was giving her. My logic and reason say that answering "yes" would be absolutely nuts. I might have said come back after I am married or recommended a married couple I knew. This would have probably defeated the whole point, but that would be my answer. Instead Mary says, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be as you have said." Despite all the struggle and heartache that would undoubtedly follow, she said yes.

    What about Joseph? In a sense, he almost has it worse than Mary. This was done without his consent or choice and then he is told to be the step father to God. Not an easy job, to say the least. I mean, imagine him working away in his carpenters shop when his fiancée shows up and tells him this cock and bull story of being pregnant by the Holy Spirit and said child is going to be the Messiah. Points for creativity, but not much else.

    Initially, he plans to divorce her quietly as to keep her public humiliation to a minimum, though that was completely unavoidable. But then he gets a visit from Gabriel telling him that Mary is not a) crazy, b) lying, and c) unfaithful. That must have been a shock to the system to realize that his job was to help raise the son of God, a son that was not his own. Of course, this also meant marrying Mary immediately.

    Of course that itself had its own problems. Again, the finger counters would have noticed that Joseph married his bride a little prematurely and quickly. They also would have noticed that the time does not quite add up right. The logic thus follows that Joseph and Mary had "tested the waters" at the wrong time and were now trying to cover up their mistake. If he went through with what the angel was telling him to do would be to identify with Mary's humiliation. Risky to say the least.

    Yet Matthew records that he did. Indeed, it is implied from the text that it was almost immediately after his dream. No hesitation, no looking back. He took Yahveh's command and followed it.

    We know even less of Joseph than we do of Mary. Indeed, all we know of the carpenter that help raise our savior is that he was someone who did what Yahveh commanded without hesitation or question. He did not argue or complain like so many others throughout life, despite the fact he was given the toughest job any man has ever been given: raise a son that is not yours and the son that is the ruler of the Universe.

    So what is the point of all of this? From a limited human perspective, what Mary and Joseph did was crazy. They essentially doomed the rest of their days to ridicule and scorn. They were to be social pariahs that might even be prosecuted. But they did it. Why? Because Yahveh said so.

    What about you and me? How often have we been commanded by Yahveh to do things that are either crazy or at best quite unpleasant? I know it has happened to me more than once. What do we do? We complain, we question, we look for loopholes out. How often do we just say, as Mary, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be as you said."?

    So what will you do? Will you do what Yahveh commands, no matter how nuts or unpleasant it looks? Will you be like Mary and Joseph?