Prophesy

Reading my Bible, I’ve been stuck for 6 months in 1 Samuel, mostly because I haven’t been reading it. But I was struck by this passage today:

The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” And Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.” And the LORD said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’ And invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do. And you shall anoint for me him whom I declare to you.” Samuel did what the LORD commanded and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling and said, “Do you come peaceably?” And he said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the LORD. Consecrate yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed is before him.” But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, “Neither has the LORD chosen this one.” Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the LORD chosen this one.” And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, “The LORD has not chosen these.” Then Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?”

1 Sam 16:1-11a ESV

There are so many things to look into here that my gut wants to look right past: Why were the people afraid of Samuel, when Samuel was afraid of Saul? How is it that God was concerned about Samuel’s dejection over Saul? How is it that Samuel was dejected, when so recently he was stony toward Saul? How could God tell Samuel to use misdirection to get to Bethlehem without arousing suspicion? Wasn’t that a little bit like lying?

I’m stuck on something a little more fundamental: what was it like for Samuel to speak with God like He was a man? How did he know it was the voice of God? Was it audible? Apparently it was enough like an audible voice, that he thought Eli was calling him from another room when he was a child, but not so audible that the people around him could hear it.

I picture Jesse standing there before Samuel, sweat dripping down his face, a little bit nervous and a bit concerned. There’s no indication from the text that Jesse knew why Samuel was there. Samuel says he’s here at Bethlehem to offer a sacrifice, though Bethlehem is not an official place for sacrifice. Then he picks out Jesse and has him consecrate himself and his family. No one knows what Samuel is doing. Again, when Jesse introduces his family, Samuel walks down the line like a judge at a beauty contest, saying nothing, having some kind of personal dialogue inside his head. His eyes light, and then he frowns, and frowning walks his way down the line, staring at each son like he’s weighing their souls. When he comes to the end of the line, he turns to Jesse: “The LORD has not chosen these.” he says, “Are all your sons here?”

What is anyone supposed to make of this? Ah, but Samuel is a prophet, and prophets do strange things. People, in turn, have strange ideas about prophets and what to do with them. Can you use a prophet as your personal tracking device – trade him a little produce and he’ll tell you where your goats have gone? Maybe. In a sense, it worked that way for Saul. At least, Samuel knew where the goats were, though for God, the goats were just an excuse. Can you ply them with gold to pronounce blessings and curses, to change the fate of history? Balak tried, and Balaam was plied, but with stunningly unintended results. How different was a Jewish seer, really, from the voice that moaned at Delphi?

The answer, is “very different.” But not because the prophets are a different kind of men. No, but God is a very different God. He is very hard to manipulate. “Our God is in heaven. He does whatever He pleases.”

But how did it happen, that Samuel heard the voice of God? Oh, don’t hide behind that mysticism. You’re only mystical when the lights are off. Yes, Samuel was God’s own prophet. He heard a voice that was somehow not quite inside his head, and knew that voice was God’s own word and not the frenzy of his own mind. Not a word of his fell to the ground. But how did he know?

It’s an urgent question precisely because it’s 3000 years later. Jesus Christ has come and brought God’s spirit with him. Peter preached at Pentecost that the very thing folks were laughing at – people proclaiming God’s grace, wildly, in every language they didn’t know, was the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy:

And in the last days it shall be, God declares,that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.

Suddenly, in some way, and in some sense, what applies to Samuel applies to me. I can grant all kinds of exceptions – Samuel was called to a national stage for a specific purpose, and so on. But it remains that Samuel was a prophet of God, and as a Christian I must believe that God’s spirit has been poured out “on all flesh.” Is Samuel a prophet? Why am I not one?

I can hear the charismatics and Pentecostals cheering. But let me ask you, do you mock the word of God? Not one of Samuel’s words fell to the ground. If you prophesy, do you prophesy nonsense? Do you hear words in your head that sound godly, or even just amazing, and assume they came from God? How can you tell?

On the one hand, I’m constrained to believe that, if Joel is true, then it must not be true, because prophecy now would supersede the personal work of Jesus Christ (See Hebrews 1). On the other hand, I’m compelled to believe that I should be frivolous with the very oracles of God.

But Samuel walked with God, and not one word of his fell to the ground. He mourned for Saul, challenged God like a friend, calmed the people, and appointed kings. If God has sent his spirit, there should be more men like him. How could it be that the coming of the Spirit would usher us from a golden age to bronze?

A few thoughts on loyalty

  • Loyalty is a fixed preference for the advantage of someone else.
  • Loyalty is not directly related to how you feel about a person. An officer may have soldiers he doesn’t like, whose behavior he doesn’t approve of, and who cause him no end of trouble. Nevertheless, he can and should be loyal to them. Because God is.
  • Loyalty has a reciprocal flow: it flows down from a position of authority and back up again. You have no right to expect loyalty from someone below you, if you haven’t demonstrated loyalty to them first. However, you have every right to expect loyalty from your superiors. Because God is.
  • The combination of God’s personal affection and enduring faithfulness indicated in the Hebrew word “chesed” (חסד) is best translated “Loyalty.”

Grousing

Carl Clauswitz, in his military classic “On War,”describes and experience that is all too familiar to soldiers, but hard to even imagine for civilians. For some reason, everything, even the simplest little task, is excruciatingly difficult, and takes massive amounts of effort to accomplish. Clauswitz, in an effort to make things clear to the newly scientifically minded 19th century, called it “friction.” Soldiers today just call it “Murphy.” Murphy happens. It has to do with the fact that, separated far from home, in the face of enemy opposition, spread thin, and with an array of unusual tasks to accomplish, the number of factors in the situation grows exponentially. There are simply too many variables to control, and each one pulls and slows you down.

Clauswitz’ solution is simple to the point that it seems obvious: to counter Murphy, you need to reduce the number of variables. You can do this by by making as many things as possible as routine as possible. Hence the need for Army discipline; custom and courtesy; drill and ceremony.

But sometimes it seems like there’s something more than friction at work. Sometimes it seems like deliberate malfeasance, or at least poor planning. Why is it that my office is a full half-mile from my barracks? How is it that the dining facility is somewhere between the two, but still a half-mile in another direction? Both the DiFac and the PX (the company store) do not allow bags of any kind. They could have any number of reasons for this, but the effect is that I’m not allowed to load up a bunch of supplies from one place and carry them to the other by way of a meal. Why is it a two minute walk in any direction from my room to any one of three latrines?

Which brings me to this morning. There are three different kinds of latrine in my camp. Some are filled with just toilets and sinks. Some have only showers and sinks. And some have all three. The ones that have all three have less of each in the same amount of space, but at the same time, they’re more popular. Because most people tend toward the combination latrine in the morning, those are always a little more crowded, a little messier, and a little more… run down. On the other hand, if you find that, having already walked a good 200 yards, it’s not much more effort to hit one latrine for your morning toilette, and then switch buildings somewhere between teeth brushing and a shave, so that you can take your shower, you’ll find that you have access to much nicer, cleaner, clearer facilities. So that’s what I’ve been doing.

The last few days, it’s actually been quite chilly. Somewhere in the 40s, with nice gusts of wind. It gets cold like that here in the desert, especially after a hard night’s rain. So this morning, I got up, put a jacket on and shivered my way to latrine #1. After taking care of business, I pushed the button to flush and nothing happened. This made me suspicious. So I turned on a faucet or two. Nothing but dribbles. The water was out.

I’d already heard a platoon sergeant talking about how, with the draw down, there was a reduction in services, so we had better learn to be more conservative with our water use. I had ignored him. I still have a hard time believing that the army would move all the people out of Iraq into Kuwait, and then turn the water off in Kuwait. But there the water was, off. So I developed on the spot some alternative theories: More people means more water consumption, even through the trucks come to fill the tanks on the same schedule. Maybe the water hadn’t been turned off, but it we were still out of it. The other option was that the pump was broken.

No problem (other than an unflushed toilet). I was leaving anyway. So I go to latrine number #2, only to discover that it’s on the same water line as latrine #1. Maybe even on the same pump. So no shower. No teeth. No shave. Fortunately, 50 yards away in two different directions were other lines of latrines. I met a guy in the middle somewhere who was in the same predicament as me, and we agreed to march in different directions. Whichever one of us didn’t find water would come back looking for the other. If we didn’t find each other in the middle, we would know there was water somewhere.

So I crossed the great divide and visited the strange latrines. None of them were as nice as the one I left, where I had my own favorite shower, with one of the nice shower heads. The first one I visited had running water, but it was muggy. Then, when I turned the water on, it was positively tepid. So I thought I’d try again. The second shower had hot water, but there was no heater. In fact there was an air conditioner. Did I mention that it was already chilly outside? I brushed, shaved, and shivered in the shower, and headed back to my room. My morning routine had just taken an hour.

Since I was now running late, and since the DiFac was so not on the way to work, I skipped breakfast.

Godly irony

Jollyblogger has a new post up. I really love to watch this man think, and I think it’s a great pity that he’s able write so rarely.

It also strikes me as odd how a man can be so important while chastising himself for thinking he might be important. Particularly when the thing that makes him important is how profoundly he realizes his pride in thinking he might be important. Similarly with courage: It is sad, but bright to see someone die so well.

A Key to Spiritual Growth

I count three experiences that had the biggest impact on my understanding of revival and spiritual growth.

The first one was a revival (or maybe a series of revivals) that came through my church and school when I was in high school and into college. If you’re familiar with the Toronto Blessing, there was a connection to that. But it was a tradition of revival that can be traced back at least as far as the Azusa Street and Welsh revivals at the beginning of the 20th century: The Holy Spirit moves on a people, and people respond with extra church services and prayer meetings. These meetings are characterized by profound spiritual experiences and a huge emotional impact. These experiences result in changed lives. People pray for this kind of revival. We acknowledge the value of quiet seasons in our spiritual lives. But the ideal state for the church is revival, and if it’s been too long since the last revival, that’s a sign that something may be seriously wrong – which again is a cause for prayer for revival.

Under this mindset, the most unaccountable thing is when people in the leadership decide to stop the meetings, curtail emotional outbursts, and turn people’s attention back to daily life. Every time that happened, we were perplexed, and sought answers why anybody would ever want to do that. Is the pastor afraid of people who don’t want the revival? Doesn’t he understand God’s work?

Just as often, we took the revival underground. Nobody can stop private prayer meetings, can they? So my friends and I – high school students – held meetings in each others homes, where we prayed for revival and prayed for each other. We crashed youth group prayer meetings of other churches. And eventually, our church would have another set of extra meetings.

When I went to college, I took the revival with me. My roommate and I hosted meetings around the Prayer Tower at ORU. We prophesied over each other. We expected our little revival to overwhelm the chapel schedule and even take precidence over classes. And to a certain extent, it did. Meetings, ours and others’, grew and multiplied. Meetings of 50-100 students around the prayer tower were common. Worship services broke out in the dining hall.

And then it waned. People went back to classes, went apostate as they gave priority to study over prayer. Mandatory chapel services were not allowed to lapse into a free-for-all. And we, the local revivalists, were scandalized. Why would anybody ever want to do that? Don’t they understand God’s work?

I have to confess that there was a personal advantage to these revivalistic meetings: they made me normal, maybe even cool. It would take a long pile of introspection to analyse why that was, but it should suffice to say that, the more revivals there are, the more friends I have, and the more impressive I appear. So not only did my worldview push me toward these kinds of meetings, so did the part of me that likes to be flattered.

The second experience came right on the heels of the first: I dropped out of school and moved across the country to go to a school at a church where the revival never stops. Okay, there were other factors involved. But for the purposes of this essay, I went there, and one of the deciding factors was to learn about ministry at a place where they do it right, with “right” being defined as “the revival never stops.” A place where the leadership doesn’t get distracted from what really matters.

There was a lot of other stuff going on in my life, but eventually one thing started to really stand out was that the revival didn’t accomplish anything. We had the music and the meetings and the powerful spiritual experiences. We had conferences and guest speakers. We had numerical church growth. But we didn’t have much in the way of conversions, or discernable spiritual growth. We had kids who became teenagers and then adults, but life was life. Even with all the meetings, everything was fundamentally the same.

Around my second year at MorningStar School of Ministry, I overheard a conversation. A lady was telling her friend that she had dropped out of the school because she was seeing negative spiritual development in her life. The implication was that, somehow, pursuing the things of the Spirit in this way had caused her to decline spiritually. I was scandalized. And I think I was scandalized because I could see similar effects in my own life.

Another conversation that stands out to me was a phone call I made to my old roommate back at ORU. He was still eagerly expecting the coming revival that was going to sweep through the town. They had had many false starts, but it was coming soon. My gut reaction was: so what? What will you do then? Because my church is pretty much vived, and it doesn’t seem to make any difference. It was exciting, but so is Six Flags. Some people, however, have to live there, and it doesn’t mean so much for them.

There were other things at that church that weren’t working out for me, indirectly related to revivalism as well. Many, many assumptions I had about who God is and how he works were either undermined there, or obstructed, until ultimately I fell flat. All I had left was “Jesus died on the cross for my sins” and “the Bible is true.” It was a long process putting everything back together again. Probably that was a good thing, but the experience itself was awful. I couldn’t hardly walk straight for fear that I was inconsistent with my own philosophy. Give me fear, famine, plague, and sword; take away every comfort from me; but Father, please don’t ever leave me without a cohesive worldview again.

The last experience comes much later in my life. I’d been married, had a child, gone to grad school, dropped out, been unemployed, and we were living with my in-laws. And this church we joined ! It was nothing. It was everything. In all respects, it was a normal contemporary church, slightly on the larger side. There were nice people. We made friends with them.

The best way I can put it is this: I have a short list o things I’m actually good at. Church is one of them. I can sing, and I can talk. I’m “inclined to teach,” as the scriptures say. I’m used to jumping into a church feet first. They’re always short on leaders, and I usually have something I can contribute. It wasn’t that way at Cornerstone Church of Knoxville. Within a few weeks, I knew that my place would be to sit down and keep silent. There were new converts at that church with more spiritual maturity than me. I wasn’t qualified to be an assistant home group leader. I may not be yet. Over the year and a half that I was there before joining the Army, and through my wife’s experience, longer still. I saw significant spiritual growth all around me, and an impressive array of simple maturity.

I would say that I’ve never seen anything like it, but that’s not entirely true. I’ve seen hints at this church and that, but without being a member it would be hard to say. But at this church, I was a member.

I was the slightest in the House—
I took the smallest Room—
At night, my little Lamp, and Book—
And one Geranium—

So stationed I could catch the Mint
That never ceased to fall—
And just my Basket—
Let me think—I’m sure—
That this was all—

I sat and watched, and caught the mint, and it was very subtle, but this is what I think made the difference: expositional preaching. Every Sunday, a pastor would preach a sermon from a preselected text, methodically working our way thorugh the entirety of a larger passage. Every Sunday, that pastor preached the gospel. I don’t mean that he found a way to slip in the fact that Jesus died for our sins, nor do I mean that he managed to end every sermon with a rousing appeal for conversion, though those elements were present here and there. I mean that the gospel was intrensic to the topic of the text. Somehow, every Sunday, the pastor made it plain what this psalm, or that paragraph in I Corinthians had to do with Jesus. Every Sunday it became a little clearer that everything, everything, everything was summed up in Jesus: hardship and happiness, education and healing, roles of men and women, providing for your family – everything. Every passage in scripture, either tacit or explicit, is talking about Jesus. He is the one through whom the world was made, and he is the one in whom all things will be compiled, so how could it be otherwise?

And by this thorough, detailed, explication of this gospel, like running a powerful microscope over every cell in the body, we grew. I saw my wife mature, endure hardship, and change the focus of her life, in accordance with the gospel. I saw it in my friends. I trust they saw similar growth in me.

Everything I had been hoping for in the powerful experiences of revivalism were being accrued quietly through by means of the regular expositional preaching of the gospel.

Now, I want to keep my charismatic credentials clear: I still believe in the Holy Spirit. I still believe He does things from time to time that are… less that subtle. Miracles, prophecy, all of that. But still more powerful is the regular preaching of God’s word. People have to be carefully, carefully taught. And things that you think are too obvious to mention are the things that must be eplicitly stated, or they will be abandoned shortly. Most importantly, we cannot hope to skip steps. The window into the spiritual world, against the expectations of so many, is usually through the mind. We must take down every vain imagination, one at a time.

Morning Musings

So I’ve begun facilitating a Bible study with other ladies who are a part of the Protestant Women of the Chapel. We’re working through Pricilla Shirer’s “Discerning the Voice of God” and this morning I was reminded about the difference between being led by your conscience and being led by God’s Spirit. First a quote and then some thoughts: Continue reading “Morning Musings”

It likely gets you into trouble, too

An Orthodox priest critiques protestants for not being Protestant enough. Kind of. At least, it almost sounds like the first line of Martin Luther’s famous 95 Theses:

  1. # When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said “Repent”, He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

The difference seems to be that the Orthodox church teaches that the way to maintaining a life of repentance is to maintain some level of doubt about your final state. Not repenting much today? It’s because you’re turning a little less toward heaven, a little more toward hell.

He contrasts this with a typical Protestant concept of salvation of something that was accomplished with a little act, or a little ascent. I signed that card 35 years ago, and so I am a Christian. Of course, that isn’t a Protestant teaching at all, but a lot of Protestants don’t know it.

Friend, if you are a Christian, your final state is sure:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Rom 8:31-39)

It’s hardly fair to say that none of those things can derail me from salvation, but that I can derail myself! “My capacity for sin is greater than His ability to save.” It just doesn’t stand. He is the one who saves, among other things by putting repentance in my heart.

I will agree with Fr. Stephen in this: it’s a lot easier to confess to general sin, than to specific sins, no matter what the setting. And a life that isn’t marked by perpetual repentance is a life heading away from heaven. But my confidence is in Christ, and not in my repentance meter:

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,

And whisper to their souls to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say,

“Now his breath goes,” and some say, “No.”

Like a bad dad watching his baby’s birth through the contraction monitor, it misses the whole point.

Appendicitis

This is why every mom should be trained as a nurse. Also: note the clinical style. 🙂

Update: Continued in Parts 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Part 7 is an interview with the patient.

Speaking as literature analyst, I must tell you that the terse style is excellent for bringing out the emotional pull of the experience. As a friend I can say, That’s a good mommy! I’m also left with the distinct sense that Tom is a better husband than I.

I also love the chatterbox questionaire. I’d love to see Jocelyn answer some classic theology questions.