July 18th, 2010
Anne H. Judson, prudent wife.
Proverbs 19:14.
When Adoniram Judson became a Christian, his father, a minister, immediately had visions of him becoming a notable pastor in the United States. Adoniram grievously disappointed him. He told his father he was leaving it all to go to India.
Shortly before sailing in 1812, Adoniram married Anne Hasseltine, a young woman who had been a socialite before her conversion. They wound up in Burma, where Adoniram was imprisoned and tortured. Although a new mother, Anne exhausted herself to preserve his life and succor him. She died soon after his release.
Adoniram could have taken the course his father wanted. Instead he took a harder path, on which he was accompanied by a wife from the Lord. The pair became household names in America.
Everything of the Father belongs to Christ. He also is preparing himself a bride without spot or wrinkle, a prudent wife.
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July 4th, 2010
Jonathan and Sarah Edwards, happy couple.
In the house of the righteous is much treasure, but in the revenues of the wicked is trouble. Proverbs 15:6.
When worldly church-goers hear the word “treasure,” they immediately assume the gold and silver kind are meant; but the person who knows Christ understands that something else is intended—treasures of love, joy, justice, wisdom, and peace. Christian homes, armies, societies and nations are distinguished by such treasures. Often physical treasures follow, too, because people who live well-regulated and honest lives tend to husband natural resources wisely and increase them.
For an example of a home filled with spiritual treasure, one can look to Jonathan and Sarah Edwards. The beauty of their affections and their godly oversight of their children were recorded by contemporaries. Evangelist George Whitefield was so impressed with the love he saw between the pair that he promptly determined to marry himself. His ill-advised union was not so happy.
One of the chief treasures of the Christian is contentment. The revenues that the wicked extract (often by unjust methods) do not bring them much happiness, not least because they constantly crave more and are never satisfied.
Christians enjoy spiritual treasures others can only crave. This is possible because of Jesus, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3) and who “became poor so that we might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).” The deposit he has left us is the Holy Spirit, who resides in us, whom Paul likens to those clay pots in which the people of the Middle East stored documents and gems they wished to preserve.
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June 27th, 2010
The glory is departing.
Proverbs 18:3.
Although it is doubtful more than 5 or 10% of Americans have ever been heart-Christians, there have been times when the Judeo-Christian ethic exerted considerable control over the United States. Other nations admired and looked up to us then and sought to imitate our ways.
This is much less true today, for we have become a people that chases every kind of sin, excess and folly. Where once we strove for political and spiritual freedom, today the urge of the masses is for sexual pleasure, degenerate music, vampirism and the occult. We pile excess upon excess and spend money we do not have as though there will never be a reckoning. The Muslims call us the Great Satan and much of the world holds us in contempt.
We have rejected Christ as king, and have lost all restraint. Jesus still calls us to take up our cross daily, warning that anyone who wants to save his life will lose it, but those who lose it for his sake save it. A wicked nation plugs its ears and pursues another round of self-indulgence. How can these once noble states escape reproach when such is the face we turn to the world?
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June 20th, 2010
Stephen Hawking in a NASA photo.
Proverbs 8:27.
I hope I never forget the thrill of insight I experienced as I read Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time. Hawking was one of the great physicists of our age. In Brief History he showed that just a tiny bit of matter less and our universe would have blown apart at creation. A tiny bit more, and it would have collapsed on itself. The amount is so tiny that Christian astronomer Hugh Ross holds up a dime to demonstrate how much we are talking about. Imagine—one dime’s worth of matter is all that stands between a habitable and inhabitable universe. My thrill was because I recognized God at work.
Likewise, science is showing us that many, many things must be just right for the earth to support human life. It has to be the right size, with the right orbit around the right kind of star, in the right region of the right kind of galaxy, with exactly right proportions of carbon and water, metals and gases. Two hundred or more factors are now known which have to be right for a planet to support carbon-based life (the only possible kind in our universe). The discovery of over three hundred planets around other stars in the last decade has shown us just how difficult it is to find those “just right” conditions together in one place at one time. Truly we see God’s wisdom at work in fashioning our world.
This is Jesus’ doing. Scripture is unequivocal that everything we see was made through Christ and for him. Indeed, it is he who is speaking as wisdom personified in Proverbs 8:22-36. The lesson of this is that if anyone of us is not living for him, we are out of synch with the purpose of the universe we live in.
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June 13th, 2010
Charles Simeon trembled to take the Lord's Supper without repentance.
Proverbs 1:7
Many of the people we admire as great historical Christians went through severe distress before their conversions, fearing God and his judgment. Perhaps best known of these was Martin Luther, whose agonies have been well documented. But David Brainerd, George Whitefield, John Wesley, Charles Simeon, John Bunyan, Charles Spurgeon and dozens of others might also be cited as examples. Perhaps God permitted them such anguish of soul that he might awaken in them a desire to rescue others from spiritual danger.
Charles Simeon’s dread fell upon him when he learned he was absolutely required to take communion at Cambridge. He knew that anyone who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself. Many of the godless students did so without regard to their spiritual danger. Simeon quaked at the thought. “Conscience told me that, if I must go, I must repent and turn to God.” That act of repentance was the beginning of a walk with the Lord that led him by degrees to become a zealous college chaplain who captured the souls of many of England’s upper class students.
Jesus exemplified the fear of the Lord more than any person who has ever lived. Absolutely determined to obey God with his whole heart, he refused to cut a single corner or escape a single detail God had planned for him. He accepted hunger, thirst, rejection, cold, and even a cruel death rather than defy God by so much as a thoughtless word.
Among his notable sayings was this, “Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: fear Him who, after the killing of the body has power to throw you into Hell. Yes, I say, fear Him.”
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June 6th, 2010
Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy. Proverbs 31:8,9.
King Louis IX dispensing justice.
King Louis IX of France was named a saint just twenty-seven years after his death in part because he pled the cause of the little guy. He appointed just men to hear grievances throughout his kingdom. There are instances in which he punished powerful lords for contempt of the laws, compelling them to pay compensation to those they had trampled upon. If they were acting on an order from a previous king, he paid the compensation himself. As a consequence of his even-handedness, he was even asked to arbitrate the quarrels of other nations.
No one, however, embodied this dictum more faithfully than Christ, who not only spoke up for all of us, poor and needy in our sin, but died for us and remains our advocate to this hour in heaven.
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May 23rd, 2010
Oxen wagon train in South Africa.
Proverbs 14:4.
Anyone who has had to muck out a barn knows what a nasty chore it is. When you maintain farm animals, you can expect to clean up manure, shovel feed, and other undesirable tasks. In the old days, when people needed animals to plow and to grind, there was no choice. The effort was amply repaid, however. The labor of the oxen and horses greatly multiplied productivity. The point of this proverb is that to get results we often have to put up with inconveniences.
The story of our salvation is a story of Christ putting up with inconveniences. There was the inconvenience of leaving his throne in heaven. There were the inconveniences of poverty, cold, hunger, overwork, tiredness, misunderstanding, vilification, and crucifixion. He endured all these things to demonstrate what it means to have absolute obedience to God the Father. His inconvenience resulted in our salvation and much multiplication of fruit.
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May 9th, 2010
Enron complex.
—Proverbs 21:6
The collapse of Enron Corporation revealed a great scandal. Through systematic fraud, it had presented a prosperous front before its bankruptcy in 2001. CEO Kenneth Lay died of a heart attack while awaiting sentencing.
Fraudulent schemes such as Enron’s are all too common. Some, in fact, are quite politically correct, such as the vast fraud at Fannie and Freddie which, under guise of concern for the poor, helped bring about the housing collapse of 2008. Carbon credits, a current favorite, is promoted by certain environmentalists supposedly to reduce carbon emissions, but actually to transfer wealth, especially to its high profile political promoters.
All such schemes are driven by greed. Inevitably little people get hurt by them. And what, in the end, do the chiselers at the top reap from their plunder? At most they will enjoy their gains a hundred years and afterwards cannot take a penny with them as they slide into eternal death.
The character of Christ is so different. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). We cannot imagine the wealth and glory that Christ left behind him in heaven to descend to earth, live as a pauper, speak truth fearlessly, and die the death of a criminal. For that self-sacrifice God has given him the name that is above all names.
The Enron image is from Eflon on Flickr.
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May 2nd, 2010
Raoul Wallenberg, blessed for trying to save Jews.
—Proverbs 10:7
In Israel there is a memorial to “righteous gentiles,” whose names include such figures as Corrie Ten Boom and Raoul Wallenberg. Books and movies perpetuate the memory of these brave individuals who attempted to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis. The memory of the righteous is blessed. By contrast, even authors who claim there is no absolute right or wrong, concede that Hitler was evil and find grounds to deplore him. Indeed, so great is the abhorrence of this ruthless man, that political opponents label each other as Nazis or Fascists, so as to daub each other with something of Hitler’s opprobrium.
This brings us to the most righteous of men. The memory of Christ is revered by billions, so that the highest compliment you can pay a person is to call him or her “christlike.” A complement is a form of blessing. The memory of Judas his betrayer, Caiphas his accuser, and Pontius Pilate his judge resound with infamy to this day.
Tags: blessing, Jews, Raoul Wallenberg
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April 25th, 2010
Bishop Stephen Gardiner of Winchester who condemned Taylor.
—Proverbs 10:6
During the reign of Queen Mary Tudor, many Protestant churchmen were put to death for their faith. Bishops Bonner and Gardiner were her main agents. Gardiner, who had sworn an oath to serve the Reformation, and then switched sides, was especially notorious for his insults, jeers, and sarcasm toward the men he examined. One of these was Rowland Taylor, a pastor of godly character from a village fifty miles from London.
Gardiner greeted the holy man with his usual barrage of disparaging words (violence covering his lips), and soon enough contrived to do real violence, having Taylor condemned to death for views which differed from those of Rome. To make an example of him, the bishop had him burned to death in the town where he had preached.
The sheriff and his men who took Taylor home to die were amazed at the joy with which he approached death, and at the love and reverence his people showed him. Along the route people called blessings on their good pastor, thanking him aloud for kindnesses he had done to them. One old lady knelt beside him as he made his final prayer, and would not be driven away.
Taylor died patiently. In this he was like his Lord and master, Jesus Christ. Blessings cover Christ’s head and always will, especially the blessing of God who said, “This is my beloved Son.” But violence, jeers, mocking and curses covered the mouth of our Lord’s opponents, who wagged their heads at him while he was on the cross, and taunted him with the words, “He saved others, let him save himself.”
Tags: martyrs, Queen Mary Tudor, Rowland Taylor
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April 22nd, 2010
Charles Spurgeon found hope.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes it is a tree of life.
Again and again we read similar stories. Charles Spurgeon tells how miserable he was as a young man longing for salvation from his sins, and what relief he experienced when he learned to look to Jesus. George Whitefield prayed under hedgerows in the rain seeking God and when at last he found hope in Christ, became a messenger of revival.
David Brainerd cried out in desperation for some medication to allay his sin sick heart and finally saw the crucified Christ. In each case these men had grown desperate to the point of despair. When Christ became their hope, he was a tree of life not just to them but to countless multitudes whom they led to Christ.
Little wonder then that Paul described Jesus as the “Hope of Israel” (Acts 28:20). He is that and, in the words of an Old Testament prophet, “the desire of nations” (Haggai 2:7). Jesus, this desire of nations, was only stating the bare truth when he declared himself “the life.”
Tags: Brainerd, Christ Jesus, hope, Spurgeon, Whitefield
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April 4th, 2010
Abraham Lincoln, whose Gettysburg Address is a masterpiece of brevity.
The more we talk or write, the more likely we are to say something stupid, false, or harmful. Josephus is an example. His lengthy histories, which were written to ingratiate the Romans, reveal him as a schemer, boaster, and a traitor to his own nation. As his biographer Bentwich says, “Hard circumstances compelled him to choose between a noble and an ignoble part, between heroic action and weak submission. He was a mediocre man, and chose the way that was not heroic and glorious. Posterity gained something by his choice; his own reputation was fatally marred by it.”
Short speeches and writings often have power completely out of proportion to their length. Consider Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. He spoke so briefly that the professional photographer did not have time to complete the adjustment of his old-fashioned equipment. The other lengthy orations of that historic occasion have not been remembered, but what an inspiration the president’s few words became to the United States!
Jesus also couched almost all of his most memorable teachings in just a few, well-chosen words and images. Such were the Lord’s Prayer, the Beatitudes, all of the parables, and most of his answers to questions. Only the Sermon on the Mount, the Olivet Discourse, and his final instructions to his disciples before his crucifixion approach lengthiness. He knew the power of succinctness and showed an absolute mastery of his tongue that we would do well to emulate.
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March 28th, 2010
Reconstructed neanderthal man.
When I see truth buried and lies ascendent, the words of this proverb are a solace. Although a lie may hold sway a long time, history shows that lies eventually succumb to facts. The difficulty is to know which example to present.
Should we select an example from biology? There we were taught that humans descended from Neanderthals. This has recently been refuted by DNA comparisons. The Bible position was that the humans were uniquely created. Or what of those who claimed different origins for the races? Mitochondria testing recently demonstrated that all humans sprang from a common female ancestor less than 100,000 years ago, which also tallies with Scripture which has all mankind springing from a common progenitor.
Perhaps our example should be from taken from history. Anti-christian scholars who seemed impressive in the 19th-century are largely ignored now. Research has overtaken them. For instance, although one still hears claims that Christianity borrowed its “mythology” from the pagans, those at the center of research know that this position has been refuted, so much so that opponents of Christian faith now resort to even more absurd attempts to derive Christianity from Gnosticism.
In astronomy, efforts to show a completely natural explanation for the origin of the universe have instead led to an understanding that it began out of nothing visible a finite time ago, and has stretched out since—the position the Bible took all along.
Such examples could be multiplied. False theories are impressive at their inception, but ultimately doomed by the facts. Where people persist in error, their self-deceit tends to entrap them and bring them down; but that is a theme for another blog.
The words of Christ’s opponents, like their names, are mostly forgotten. His words fill the earth. They prevailed with lies to crucify him. His truths triumphed when God raised him from the dead.
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March 14th, 2010
Roentgen, discoverer of X-rays.
Since the seventeenth century, discovery after discovery has peeled open the universe to the eyes of men. The result has been a revelation of the miniscule and the distant, the hidden and the ancient. It began with scientists such as Galileo and Leeuwenhoek using clumsy telescopes and microscopes, and advanced as old tools were improved and new tools added. Herschell discovered the infrared. Maxwell predicted radio waves and Hertz detected them. Roentgen stumbled on x-rays. Knoll and Ruska invented the first electron microscope.
A host of other pioneers gave us radio telescopes, ultrasound equipment, ultraviolet detectors, DNA testing, magnetic resonance imaging, carbon dating and other techniques. We now can see inside cells and back to a split second after creation—things our forefathers had no idea would ever be seen. Is it any wonder then, that the Bible declares that God, the maker of all things, is able to peer into what he has made? His knowledge is infinitely advanced beyond ours. Through a spiritual back door poorly understood by us, he can even “see” what is going on in our minds and wills.
Humans are also groping toward the ability to see into others’ minds. This goes beyond what shrewd readers of body-language do when they analyze a subject’s psychological state. New techniques allow us to study brain states. Under laboratory conditions scientific teams can even determine with a fair degree of accuracy which of several pre-arranged objects a thinker is focusing on. This is all very primitive.
Jesus, too, had a deep understanding of human nature and sometimes knew just what was on a person’s mind. We have an instance in which he described Nathanael reading under the fig tree and again, before Peter had said a word, put him on the spot about the temple tax which Peter had just been discussing with religious leaders. John sums up Christ’s clear perception of humans with these words, “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did; but Jesus did not trust himself to them, because he knew all men and needed no one to bear witness of man; for he himself knew what was in man” (John 2:23-25).
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February 28th, 2010
Space Invaders
Years ago, I banned video games from my home and pulled my computer games into the trash, too. Too often they had held me captive longer than they should. I knew first-hand just how addictive they could be and saw how pernicious they were for some young men who lived with us. When they should have been finding work and taking their first steps to success they were instead battling imaginary enemies. Unable to conquer their sins and worthless desires, they fancied themselves conquerors of empires.
We are never shown Jesus indulging in an act of personal amusement. He came to do a job and did it. When his enemies took up stones to kill him he said, “Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me?” (John 10:32).
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February 14th, 2010
Christ before Ciaphas.
One of my favorite scenes in the movie Radio (based on a true story) has Coach Harold Jones (well-played by Ed Harris) criticized in the barber shop for brefriending Radio, a young man with a disability. Rather than defend himself with many words, he asks, “Is that what you think Radio is? A Distraction?” Setting down his coffee cup he adds in a calm voice, “Think I’m going to do us all a big favor and let you all finish this one on your own.”
Whether or not that was the real character of Jones (he loses his temper with a referee once), he comes across as terse, wise and self-controlled in this scene and several others. It aptly illustrates Solomon’s proverb.
Jesus illustrates it even better. His teachings were terse and memorable. His responses to heckling and to honest questions were brief, well-considered, and to the point. On several occasions (most notably with the woman taken in adultery, and at his trials), the Gospels comment on his silence. In all these things, he showed true knowledge and understanding.
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February 7th, 2010
Robert Boyle, a Christian maker of modern science, struggled with doubts early in his Christian life.
After Robert Boyle committed his life to God at the age of sixteen, he struggled against thoughts of suicide. The reason? Much of the “science” of the seventeenth century went so contrary to the Word of God that he was torn in his mind. Both could not be true.
In the end he opted for the Word of God but determined to study the sciences to see if he could sort out the truth for himself. The results were peace of mind and new light on the sciences. He exposed the errors of alchemy, moved the world toward a more accurate understanding of chemistry, and became a charter member of the Royal Society. He proved in his own person that true science and reasonable faith are not at odds.
The legacy of his faith was of great value to national culture and to science. As his confidence grew, he shared his thoughts with contemporaries. They made bestsellers of his science object lessons. More importantly (as far as the present age is concerned) it was in refuting certain skeptical propositions of Thomas Hobbes that Boyle promulgated his law of gases which still stands. He created the scientific paper as we know it, which describes the hypothesis, tools, and conditions of an experiment.
Moving from the example of Boyle to that of Christ, it is evident that our Savior committed his ways to the Father. He did so with such fullness that he could say “I and the Father are one” (John 10). As a result his thoughts were recorded by his followers and are established as scripture throughout the entire world. So certain was Christ of the validity of his words and his unity with the Father that he could call everyone to take his yoke upon them and learn from him (Matthew 11:28-30). Now that is the ultimate example of having one’s thoughts established.
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January 31st, 2010
Peter Cartwright, fearless evangelist.
Than he who flatters with the tongue.
Peter Cartwright, a frontier evangelist in 19th-century America, was noted for his boldness. He spoke fearlessly of the things of Christ to high and low. In one notable instance, he warned “Old Hickory,” General Andrew Jackson, future president of the United States, that unless he repented, he would be damned to hell just as surely as the lowliest slave who rejected Christ.
Another preacher apologized for Cartwright’s blunt words. Jackson retorted that Christ’s ministers ought to love everyone and fear no mortal man. He added that he wished he had thousands of officers with the courage of Cartwright.
Jesus, too, did not flatter with the tongue. When Peter tried to tell him he did not have to go to the cross, Jesus replied, “Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the things of God.” That retort taught Peter—and us—a more memorable lesson than a thousand soft words would have done.
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January 24th, 2010
Inside McCormick's blacksmith shop in Virginia.
There was a time in the United States (and much of the rest of the world) when every able-bodied person was needed to get in the harvest. It made no sense to increase acreage in wheat, because the window for reaping was so narrow and the number of hands required to get the crop in was so great. Had any able-bodied farm-boy slept over-late at harvest, he would have been the butt of scorn. As it was, despite the best efforts of farmers, hogs had to be turned into the fields to fatten when the grain became overripe.
Cyrus McCormick changed that by inventing the first machine with the seven essential parts of a true reaper. He was jeered at first and his efforts considered folly because his reaper did not work well on the uneven, hilly ground of his native Virginia. But he persisted, and the US became the breadbasket of the world.
Jesus placed this whole concept on a spiritual level. There are fields of souls waiting for harvest. He commanded his disciples to reap them now and set the example as God’s only begotten son. Will we not be rebuked in the judgment if we have idled our hours and allowed our neighbors to perish without the word of truth?
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January 17th, 2010
Seal of the University of Paris.
As an older adult returning to school to pick up some skills, I notice that many of the youngsters seem serious about education. But there is a large subgroup attending for other reasons. Some have come to play. Others to find a mate. Still others seek reinforcement for ideas they have already picked up, or the chance to organize others around an ideal. Returning students, as a whole, seem more determined to get their money’s worth.
This generation is no different in that respect than others. I noted the same tendencies when I was in college as a teenager. Perhaps a rich father was footing the bill of the wastrel—or the government. That is why I like the New Living Translation for this verse. “It is senseless to pay tuition to educate a fool, since he has no heart for learning.”
Wasted educational opportunities are not a problem limited to our time. Accounts of roistering, rioting, and recklessness crop up with fair frequency in the histories of great educational institutions. For example, the St. Scholastica Day riot at Oxford in 1355 began with a dispute over beer. It left 63 scholars and half as many townsfolk dead. A Shrove Tuesday strike in Paris in 1229 also began over drink—a tavern bill. Angry students smashed businesses with wooden clubs. In retaliation, city guards cornered and killed a group of students.
We have no record that Christ attended school. However, he had clearly set himself to learn what God the Father desired even while young, as his tough questions to the religious leaders in the temple at twelve years of age showed. At thirty, he became a rabbi (teacher).
His hearers formed a cross-section similar to modern students. Some scoffed. Some listened but went away, forgetting immediately what he said. Others “followed from afar.” A few took his words to heart and became the first Christians, who transformed the world through their master’s power.
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