Category: Miscellany

“Top” is relative. To what, you ask? Whatever strikes me. Here’s what did this week:

BEN LADEN’S DEAD (unless you insist on seeing the photos and DNA results), and his now leaderless cohorts are vowing to “avenge” his death. Yet it is difficult to find a discernable difference between the simple terrorist killing of the Great Satan’s minions and terrorist killing of the Great Satan’s minions in revenge for Ben Laden. One suicide bomber resembles the next, as it were.

THE NATIONAL DEBT LIMIT has not been raised, and lo, the world is still rotating on its axis, contrary to the doomsday predictions of Treasury Secretary Tim Geitner and others. Such prognositications are akin to telling your lender that your credit limit must go up, or you will default on payments because continuing to ride your 4-wheeler, eat at fancy restaurants, and drive expensive cars are too important to give up.

GASOLINE IS $3.72 TODAY, and I paid $3.83 for a gallon of store-brand 2% milk. Despite protestations to the contrary, the government refuses to allow offshore drilling through its moratorium in the wake of the Gulf spill whose oil we can’t seem to find (perhaps the Coelacanth ate it), food prices are rising, and we are burning corn in our gas tanks. “Hungry, kid? Here, eat this crude oil.”

RADICAL TOGETHER by David Platt hit my bookshelf. I’m sure it will be patently superfluous, but a review will be forthcoming.

I FEEL SAFER ALREADY knowing that the TSA has prevented a toddler from boarding a commercial flight with any sort of “diaper bomb.”

In Mark 1:1-13, the gospel writer introduces us to the “gospel of Jesus Christ.”

His first step is to recall Old Testament prophecy regarding God’s promise to send a messenger to prepare the way before the Lord/LORD (the Old Testament passages use both terms). So we have both a promise from God that he will send the Lord, and also a promise from Him to the Lord that he will prepare the way.

In comes the vivid imagery of John the Baptizer, dressed in camel fur and eating bugs in the desert. Obviously, from the text, he is the messenger preparing the way. But how? And why would the Lord come from God into the desert?

John prepares the way by baptizing people and preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins. These are radical departures from the norm for Israel: baptism was for Gentiles and Israel secured forgiveness (atonement) through the sacrifice of animals. John’s preaching included the admonition that there was ‘one greater’ who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.

Then appears Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee: a nobody from nowhereville. He comes to the desert and gets baptized by John in the Jordan, just like everyone else. Could this be the ‘one greater’? Certainly not. But Mark confirms Jesus’ status by recording what he saw: the heavens opening, the Spirit descending, heaven talking. Then a curious thing happens: Jesus is expelled to the desert.

If everyone was in the desert already listening to John, how bad must it be if you are expelled from there to the desert?

Mark doesn’t leave us wondering at Jesus’ status, though. Even while he is in the wilderness being tempted, angels are tending to him.

So in Mark’s introduction we have Old Testament prophecy regarding the messenger and the Lord; John’s appearance and prophecy that ‘one greater’ was coming; the ‘one greater’ would baptize with the Holy Spirit; Jesus of Nazareth is baptized by John and baptized (to a degree) by the Holy Spirit; Jesus’ baptism is attended by eschatalogically significant events of heavens opening and heaven (God) speaking; Jesus is personally attended by angels.

Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah (Christ), but not only is he flesh and blood — nobody from nowhereville — he is the Son of God, a kinship confirmed by miraculous and prophetic signs

Paul says in Ephesians 3:16-17 that he prays for God to strengthen believers, with power, through the Spirit, in the inner man. The goal of this strengthening is so that Christ may dwell in the believers’ hearts, not in a literal sense, but in a spiritual sense, “though faith.” In other words, believers’ hearts must be fortified by God in order for Christ to dwell there in his absence, much like the breech of a rifle or cannon must be stronger than the muzzle in order not to rupture at the explosion that takes place inside it.

When the typical Christian sees the poor conditions endured by those in ‘missions areas’ — usually parts of the world less wealthy than his — he speaks of how seeing the desperate conditions should make us ‘thankful’ that we don’t have the same need.

Instead, seeing the needs of others, and how much many of our fellow men live without, should make us realize how little we actually need.

In speaking of the Lord’s Prayer and hallowing God’s name, R.C. Sproul says

“God’s kingdom will never come where His name is not hallowed. … It is foolish to look for the kingdom anywhere God is not revered.

Additionally,

“The Bible never says that God is love, love, love, or mercy, mercy, mercy, or wrath, wrath, wrath, or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is full of His glory.” (Sproul, The Holiness of God, pp. 25, 40).

Sometimes we focus on the horizontal dimension of faith, to demonstrate love, mercy, or even wrath and justice to other men. But proper inter-personal relations depend upon proper vertical perspective.

That is, we can’t properly love, display mercy to, or exercise justice about our neighbor until we grasp the need to consider God’s holiness.

Kudos to the LA Times for encouraging Americans to celebrate the Fourth with a reading of the Declaration of Independence, complete with a great rendition of the National Anthem (here).

At the same time, kudos to Justin Nale for a good recognition that for followers of Christ, steering between the ditches of excessive patriotism and thankless detachment is a constant exercise (here).

‘The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

‘And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted period and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God…’ (Acts 17:24-27).

In Deuteronomy 8:3 Moses explained that God sent manna to the Israelites in the desert so that they would know that man doesn’t live by bread alone. But, shouldn’t the lesson that man doesn’t live by bread alone be accompanied by hunger, not relief of hunger?

After all, didn’t Jesus experience hunger in his desert fasting, to which he responded to Satan’s temptation by quoting Moses? If Moses were right, then God would have provided Jesus with manna, right?

John Piper addresses this, too. “How does the giving of miraculous manna teach that? Because manna is one of the incredible ways God can, with a mere word, meet your needs when all looks hopeless.” (A Hunger for God, p59).