Tolerance

Romans 14
14:1 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. 2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. 3 Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. 4 Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master [8] that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. to God.
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I feel that many in the church, including myself, may be guilty of quarreling over opinions rather than having grace and Godly tolerance of eachother - but when should we demand that we have the truth? When should we take the word of God and wield it as a sword? Perhaps the point of discernment here is that the sword is used against our enemy, which is sin, and not against our brother, which is man. The Love of God draws man out of his sin, first through forgiveness and continually through patient exhortation. We are called to live in community following the same pattern, first to forgive eachother, then to patiently exhort eachother to a better life in Love.

Some Went Down to the Sea in Ships

Psalm 107:23 Some went down to the sea in ships,doing business on the great waters;24 they saw the deeds of the Lord,his wondrous works in the deep.25 For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,which lifted up the waves of the sea.26 They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths;their courage melted away in their evil plight;27 they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. [5]28 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,and he delivered them from their distress.29 He made the storm be still,and the waves of the sea were hushed.30 Then they were glad that the waters [6] were quiet,and he brought them to their desired haven.31 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,for his wondrous works to the children of man!32 Let them extol him in the congregation of the people,and praise him in the assembly of the elders.
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43 Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things;let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord.
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How epic and beautiful the voyage of life! How terrifying the implications and dangerous the powers of our free will! Will he allow us to steer the ship awry? What does his love do to us, for us, in us and through us in the storms of life? 'Attending', as a good friend of mine uses the word, means cherishing the truest meaning of conversation between two human beings. If Love is in a conversation with us, then attending to it, in this sense, is like looking it in the eyes. What do love's eyes look like?

Eternal Worship

Psalm 100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! 5 For the Lord is good;his steadfast love endures forever,and his faithfulness to all generations.
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I get this mental image of us crossing the finish line of this life, walking through some kind of mountain pass or mighty fortress gate, a long procession of people spanning all time, culture and variety of human heritage, worshipping with one voice in every style, harmonizing and stretching beyond the natural limits of integration. The praise that we are meant for is both diverse and unified. There is only one gate and His love covers all. Let's worship together - in the name of Love!

Angels, Man and Other

Joshua 5:13 When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” 14 And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” 15 And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.
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I love this. Remember the troops surrounding Elisha or the voice of God to Samuel or Jacob's wrestling partner or the angels in Isaiah's vision or Ezekial's vision or Joseph or John.
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Joshua's spiritual encounter is particularly physical, perhaps a lot like Jacob's experience. This is some kind of spiritual being - the commander of the army of the Lord - standing ready to assist Israel in battle. This being seems to be a human, but is something other - how intriguing and terrifying!

Heritage

Acts 22:3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia"
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Acts:27 So the tribune came and said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” And he said, “Yes.” 28 The tribune answered, “I bought this citizenship for a large sum.” Paul said, “But I am a citizen by birth.”
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Paul was a pious Jew and also a natural born Roman citizen, a unique and strategic background for what he went on to do. The story we find outselves in is equally unique and strategic. I wonder what elements of my background will come into play for God's agenda.

Pantheism and Philosophy

Acts 17:16 ... at Athens, [Paul's] spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. 22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, [7] 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; [8] as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ [9] 29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” 32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
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In college I wrote an imagined dialogue between the apostle Paul and Socrates based largely off of this passage. It was well researched, but I think a bit boring to read and most likely misguided on several of the Socratic elements. On rereading the passage today, several years later, it occurs to me that Paul’s context is complex. Coming just a few hundred years after Socrates, there are a number of philosophic schools well established in the culture, some of which are religious and others of which are less so. Socrates’ philosophical foundation has already worked into the fabric of the culture, trivializing the gods. Pantheism nevertheless prevails among the masses and there is a feeling that one god may have been lost in the shuffle. Paul is moved to address this with the Truth, a concept which the philosophers are dubious about to begin with. But they like to be challenged and to have something provocative to discuss, so Paul gets his chance to make a case. The tone of his argument seems very similar to Plato’s Apology as he intelligently lays out the nature of the true God. He even quotes Athenian poetry as a support of his argument. But what sets Paul apart is his representation of ultimate Truth as a personal deity and the intentional good will of that being. Unlike Socrates, who believes it would be impossible, destructive and even undesirable for all men to emerge from the cave of nonreality, Paul presents all men with a direct imperative to seek the all powerful, personal God and find Him.

Justice - The Beatings will Continue until Morale Improves

Deut 25:1 “If there is a dispute between men and they come into court and the judges decide between them, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty, 2 then if the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with a number of stripes in proportion to his offense. 3 Forty stripes may be given him, but not more, lest, if one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother be degraded in your sight. 4 “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.
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Acts 16:19 ... they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. 20 And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. 21 They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice.” 22 The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. 23 And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. . . . . . . 37 But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out.” 38 The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. 39 So they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city.
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God's instructions for punishment in Deuteronomy imply justice, a measure of punishment which fits the crime. There is a caution against excessive punishment which aims at humiliation. God may humble us, but it is not His character to humiliate us. But God's concept of justice is broader than mere punishment. Through justice God also plans to bring about the complete reconcilliation of creation. This means judging "the living and the dead" but also extending those blessings mentioned in the sermon on the mount - so there is a carrot and a stick to his justice, or perhaps a rod and a staff.
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Jesus and the disciples (and Paul is no exception) encounter a profound perversion of justice on their quest to proclaim God's Kingdom message. First, Jesus is crucified for claiming to be God, ironically, for telling the truth, and also for other things which he certainly did not do. Where else in history is an innocent man "brought to justice" for telling the truth? This is the greatest inversion of justice of all time, that the Son of God, claiming to be exactly who he is, would be held accountable by man as a liar and egomaniac (which is actually man's rudimentary sin and Satan's nature). Not defending himself, Jesus took the humiliation of our perverted justice on himself when His own justice would never have required humiliation. Paul, likewise, is seeking to restore God's nature to creation and culture through the good news of God's Kingdom. He is beaten without just cause and then responds with a posture of worship rather than humiliation. Then, when given the opportunity to leave, he boldly holds the justice system accountable for its own injustice. God's Kingdom Judges our justice system!