Welcome to the Fallout

“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.’” So begins the story of David, possibly Israel’s greatest king, in 1 Samuel 16:1.

David’s beginnings weren’t auspicious. He wasn’t the top draft pick for the next king of Israel. In fact, when Samuel arrives to meet Jesse’s sons, no one even thinks to call David in from tending the sheep (16:11). But God’s choice was clear. “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (16:7). The best leader isn’t always the one we think would make the best leader. God’s leaders aren’t culled from the ranks of the secular elite, or the most talented, or the most popular. The temptation for today’s church is to compromise intellectually and ethically with the secular systems around us, just as Israel clamored for Samuel to “appoint us a king to judge us like all the nations” (8:5).

Not only did David’s road to kingship begin humbly, but it didn’t accelerate quickly, either. Samuel anoints the young king in chapter 16, but David doesn’t inherit a unified Israel until the book of 2 Samuel. The intervening chapters/years are filled with trials, temptations, struggles, hopes, fears, triumphs, and blood.

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Saul, the first king of Israel, was People magazine’s choice for “King of the Year.” Well, not exactly. But he was the people’s choice. He was “a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people” (9:2). Apart from his Matt-Damonesque looks, Saul apparently had spirituality and humility. He prophesied (10:10) and at first shied away from the honor of kingship (10:22).

Saul was also a valiant warrior; his rule was marked by incredible military success. First he came to the rescue of one of Israel’s cities and whipped the Ammonites (ch. 11). Then he and his sturdy son Jonathan fought successfully against the Philistines (ch. 13-14). To sum up, “When Saul had taken the kingship over Israel, he fought against all his enemies on every side, against Moab, against the Ammonites, against Edom, against the kings of Zobah, and against the Philistines. Wherever he turned he routed them. And he did valiantly and struck the Amalekites and delivered Israel out of the hands of those who plundered them” (14:47-48).

So far, so good. A mighty and patriotic leader. The headquarters of modern-day Israel’s intelligence service is even located on a boulevard in Tel Aviv named for King Saul. But something was wrong. Maybe it was present all along; maybe it began to grow in Saul only after he became king. Maybe it was pride; mabye it was rebellion; maybe emotional problems were involved. Whatever it was, Saul failed to do what had made Samuel great: He failed to listen to God.

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The life of Samuel, one of Israel’s greatest prophets, begings with a unique story. We start with an average Jewish man and his two wives (we won’t go there right now). One wife, Peninnah, has children, and the other wife, Hannah, is childless but beloved by her husband.

Now, Peninnah is a little jealous. Even though she bore her husband children (the ultimate goal or status symbol of a woman in that particular culture), she’s upset that childless Hannah gets a double portion of the ritual meal during the yearly sacrifice. A bitter Peninnah routinely taunts and provokes Hannah. This goes on for years.

Hannah can only bear so much; she weeps and can’t eat. Her husband Elkanah asks, “Hannah, why do you weep? … And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1:8). Now it’s a little unclear how to take Elkanah’s question here. Elkanah probably means well, even if he spits a somewhat lofty view of his own game. But Hannah is unconsoled. “She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly” (1:10).

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Eli the priest appears in the first chapter of 1 Samuel when he blesses Hannah, soon to be the mother of Samuel, for her faith. But it’s not really until the next chapter that we learn what kind of a leader Eli was. 2:12 tells us something important: “Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord….” The passage goes on to describe how Eli’s two sons “treated the offering of the Lord with contempt” because they used it as a means to make gain for themselves. They threatened force against their fellow Israelites if they didn’t comply with their demands, and slept with the women who served at the entrance to the tabernacle.

Eli knew what his sons were doing. “Now Eli was very old, and he kept hearing all that his sons were doing to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who were serving at the entrance to the tent of meeting. And he said to them, ‘Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all the people. No, my sons; it is no good report that I hear the people of the Lord spreading abroad’” (2:22-24).

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1 Samuel may be a history book, but it’s a history book with a key emphasis: leadership. And since the stories in this book are historical, the style isn’t that of a preachy New York Times bestseller. Rather, the book is incarnational, giving us flesh-and-blood examples of four leaders who were smart, lazy, wicked, good, brave, cowardly, cruel, and–above all–human. Throughout the book God is present, either in the story or what we might call “editorially,” providing the divine perspective on these human leaders.

So why should you care? Because you either are or will be in a position of (1) leadership; or (2) someone under leadership. Groundbreaking revelation, right? Either way, we’ll need to know what biblical leadership looks like, especially young people like me who need God’s wisdom to take leadership and initiative in our own lives.

In the next few posts we’ll look at four flesh-and-blood leaders: Eli, Samuel, Saul, and David. We’ll see the good and the bad, the wise and the foolish, the greatness and the flaws. And hopefully we’ll take it to heart.

I had a chance to see The Bravery in concert in Philly last night. A good show overall, and one I hope to see again. Sam Endicott’s vocals weren’t quite on par with the studio version–few singers can manage to sound the same live–but he was a great frontman, throwing his entire body into his performance.  Michael Zakarin was also high-energy, especially while providing lead vocals on a previously unrealeased number. Though it would have been nice if bassist “Dirt” Hindert had picked up some of the energy.

 The band kicked off the set with “Split Me Wide Open” and worked through old and new favorites from the self-titled debut and The Sun and the Moon. “Believe” was great, and the guys completely electrified the room with “Time Won’t Let Me Go.” They also introduced three songs from the upcoming album The Sun and the Moon Complete, which Sam called “the Moon Album”–all of the songs from The Sun and the Moon re-recorded as never before. The three they rolled out were “This is Not the End,” “Tragedy Bound,” and “The Ocean,” all of which had an edgier, more urgent sound. The album comes out in March.

“The reason I want nothing to do with postmodernism (in all its current forms) is because they are pretending to be at odds with modernity. They are pretending to run away from home. They are pretending that having a spat with a fellow priest of Baal is the same thing as razing the temple.

“You want something to describe a full-throated rejection of modernity and all its idols? Do you want to reject modernity, and its cheap knock-offs, like postmodernity? Tired of rejecting the idol of Britney Spears in the name of Christin[a] Aguilera? Tired of casting out the demons of Mammon with the devils of Money? Tired of rejecting this kind of secular neutrality for that kind of secular neutrality? Tired of banishing Howdy on the authority of Doody?

“Then you don’t want postmodernism; you want Christendom. And if you want Christendom, you should pray for Christendom, as the Lord taught us to pray, saying — ‘Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’”

- Doug Wilson, “Pray for Christendom”

I once heard a story. A man driving through a bad part of town was carjacked by a local gang. They beat him within inches of his life and stripped him of his cash and credit cards. The man lay there, unable to move, as his blood darkened the pavement. After some time, a noted Reformed scholar happened down the road. Seeing the wounded man, the Reformed man thought about helping, but, realizing that the man could have been a heretic in need of divine judgment, passed by on the other side. More time elapsed. A Southern Baptist preacher came upon the robbery victim. He too would have helped the man, only he was late for an important meeting. The preacher looked down the street, glancing between the horizon and his watch, and finally drove off, giving the wounded man a wide berth. Surely someone would come in time. 

Finally, someone did come by. This man was a homosexual who attended a liberal mainline church. Seeing the injured man, the homosexual stopped the car and checked the man’s pulse. He was alive–barely. The driver put the man in his own car and drove him to the nearest hospital. Since the man’s wallet was gone, the hospital had no idea as to his identity or insurance coverage, so the gay man arranged to be billed himself for the man’s care.  “Now,” said the man who told me the story, “which one of these was the victim’s neighbor?”

I heard another story. This story takes place in a quiet church, and two men are praying inside. One, a conservative Christian, begins by thanking God. He thanks God that he is not like the world around him; he protests abortion, tithes weekly, and is faithful to his wife. He casts a quick glance at the other man and thanks God that he is not a Clinton Democrat, robbing the people through taxation. The Clinton Democrat is afraid to even raise his voice or eyes to God. He only murmurs, “God, be merciful to a sinner like me.”  “I ask you,” said the storyteller, “which of these two men went away right with God?”

*                      *                       *

Perhaps these parables are a little incendiary. It’s intentional. They have to be, because we so easily distort the truth. Even our reading of Scripture is tainted by our fallen nature, and unless the Holy Spirit enlightens us as we read–comparing spiritual things with spiritual–we’ll remain blind and deaf to the text. 

We always want to tacitly separate ourselves from Scripture’s rough criticism. The ancient Israelites, for instance, were a stiff-necked people–a silly, faithless mob. I’m glad we’re not like them. See how it works? Even Jesus’ parables are victims of this coloring or misinterpretation. We know the “right” answer, and we subconsciously identify ourselves with the person in the parable that we want to be. But what if we allow ourselves to complacently become the exact target Jesus meant to spear? We then miss His whole point and rob His parables of their razor edge. We create a de-clawed Jesus. 

Take, for instance, the parable of the Good Samaritan. That’s us, right? We’re the good Samaritan, not the arrogant scribes and Pharisees. But “Good Samaritan” is now such a cliche that we’ve forgotten what it would have meant to Jesus’ audience. Samaria was a half-Jewish, half-pagan nation resulting from the repopulation of the Northern kingdom after the war with Assyria. The Samaritan religion was a heretical mixture of God’s Word and pagan ideas. No respectable evangelical minister would have had anything to do with it. And yet in Christ’s story, the orthodox preachers pass by on the other side, and the heretic does what God requires. “The Good Samaritan” wasn’t a heartwarming tale; it was a slap in the face to the religious establishment of Jesus’ day. It would be like saying that a homosexual did the right thing, and two straight Christians failed. 

Or consider the two men in the temple. We automatically recoil from the Pharisee; we’re the humble publican. But if we as evangelical, Reformed people become puffed up at our “savedness,” distance ourselves from “them” on the “outside,” and equate politics with the Gospel, we become the Pharisees. We’re not any better because we’re saved; it’s simply a testament to God’s mercy that He saves and preserves us in spite of our thick heads.

Calvinists have a special temptation: We believe that God chose us by free grace before the foundation of the world. So that makes us better than the rest, right?  How do we fight our own Pharisaical tendencies, instead of just pointing out the problems of others? For instance, finding Christians who look down on gays is easy. Finding one who treats them as human beings and neighbors who need to be loved and given the Gospel is harder. According to Jesus, we’re all sexual sinners (Matthew 5), so we need salvation just as desperately. Also, getting caught up in left-wing/right-wing politics is easy. Keeping Christ central is harder. Being saved by all five solas of the Reformation doesn’t mean jack squat if we’re proud of ourselves for knowing them. 

But one more temptation is ready to seduce those of us who get the message and strive to root out the Pharisee inside us. Are we better than other conservative evangelical Christians or fundamentalists who don’t get it? Are we a better, more humble, more relevant breed of Christian?

Two men were praying in the temple. . . .

I can’t believe that, in my final post on Ephesians, I forgot one of the Reformation’s greatest quotes on spiritual warfare.

Did we in our own strength confide,
Our strivings would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side–
The Man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He.
Lord Sabaoth His name;
From age to age the same–
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God has willed
His truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim,
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure–
For lo: his doom is sure.
One little word can fell him.

 - Martin Luther, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”

“The postmodernists, falsely so-called, think they are going west because they have walked a few feet west down the center aisle of an airplane flying east.”

- Douglas Wilson, “Postdrunkenness” 

Just as Paul’s opening comments are pregnant with theological life, his conclusion can’t help but carry deep truths. This last section, a kind of addendum to the earlier three-part structure, offers Paul’s closing words to the Ephesian church. Finally, says the apostle, be strong in the Lord, and in His might. Why? Because the Christian life is a war.  It might be best here to break Paul’s conclusion into two parts. First, Paul pinpoints our enemy (6:10-12). Second, he tells us how to fight (6:13-20).

In the first place, then, whom do we fight? The picture is intimidating. Paul describes terrible, powerful enemies: “principalities, powers,” “rulers of the darkness of this age,” “hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” The ESV is particularly descriptive: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”   Read the rest of this entry »

Paul ended the last portion of his letter with a doxology (a brief exclamation of praise to God) and an amen. It’s as though he’s pausing for breath for the first time since he began. Chapters 1-3 could almost be considered as one long, rambling introduction–and it’s humbling that Paul’s intro contains more theological meat than many evangelical books and sermons today.

Paul begins this new segment with a “therefore,” drawing our attention momentarily to the previous pages. “I, therefore, the prisoner of God, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.” If all this is true; if everything I’ve been praying about you is right, then please, please, walk and live as though it’s true.

What Paul is getting at is that God doesn’t just save people (though we rejoice at that) or a church (though His church will be glorious). He redeems the totality of our lives and culture, and expects us to do everything we do as if we were doing it to God (Paul will get to this in 6:6), to His glory (1 Corinthians 10:31), even to the point of bringing our thoughts and reasoning under Christ’s authority (2 Corinthians 10:5). Read the rest of this entry »

In the last post we looked at how God saves individual sinners. Paul next explores how God saves His church (2:11-3:20). The apostle isn’t satisfied with just “How do I get to heaven when I die?” He wants his readers to understand that they’re now part of something. If you want to take a literary image, we are now characters in a great play or story; if you prefer engineering metaphors, Paul is saying that we’re key elements in a structure that God is building.  

In fact, keep that construction image, because Paul is talking about both demolition and rebuilding. In the first place, Christ’s work is to break down walls (2:11-2:22). In the timeframe of the Old Testament, the Gospel was only foreshadowed; God was hinting at what was coming, and He set up prophetic pictures or symbols of what He would do when His Son appeared. Some of these shadows, for example, involved sacrifices; the laws of Moses hinted at the one perfect sacrifice of Christ by commanding the Jewish people to offer lambs or bulls. The idea was that sin required a penalty, and the sacrifice of the animals was a picture of what Christ would eventually do for his people once and for all to gain their salvation.  Read the rest of this entry »

What is St. Paul getting at in his letter to the Ephesians? What are the main ideas he wants to get across? The book can be complex, talking about theological concepts like predestination and salvation and ranging to practical advice for those dealing with the slavery that Roman law still permitted. At the same time, Ephesians offers us a richness of familiar and encouraging passages about God’s grace, Christian unity, and spiritual warfare.  

In the next few posts I’d like to take a brief look at Ephesians–a sort of bird’s eye view that will follow Paul’s flow of thought and mark his main points. I suggest the following three-part outline of Paul’s focus: First, God saves people (Paul covers this from the first verse roughly to 2:10). Second, God saves His church (Paul takes this line from 2:11 to 3:20). Third, God saves cultures (we can see this from 4:1 through 6:9, followed by Paul’s closing thoughts).  

Paul’s first point, if you will, explores how God saves everyday sinners like you and me. Gratitude overwhelms his whole discussion; the first chapter is a long prayer filled with run-on sentences about how glad Paul is for the salvation of the Ephesians. Yet even Paul’s rambling introduction carries massive theological weight.  

He first covers how salvation is planned (1:1-1:6). In theological terms, we would call this the doctrine of predestination or the sovereignty of God. God, says Paul, “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” The result is “the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted” in Christ.  

Some shy away from the strong emphasis on God’s sovereignty; they look for something in us–such as our choice of Christ–for the reason that God chose us for salvation. God, in other words, being the great psychic that He is, looked into His crystal ball, saw who would eventually chose Jesus anyway, and then predestined them to salvation. Paul’s reasoning is much different. God, according to Paul, made this decision “according to the good pleasure of his will” (v. 3). Verse 11 will later say that we are “predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.” God needs no reference point outside Himself; He makes His choices based solely on His own will, so that no one will boast, but rather give praise to “the glory of His grace” (v. 6). 

Paul continues, explaining how salvation takes place (1:7-2:10). Unpacking the rich theology of this passage could take a whole book, but if we hit only the major highlights, we see two key themes: redemption through Christ’s blood, and the overpowering grace of God. “In Him,” Paul goes on, “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence…” (1:7-8). Paul can never separate the good news of the Gospel from the bad news of sin; the bad news is the necessary prerequisite. We are saved from something, and Paul doesn’t shy away from this.  

But not only are we saved from something; we are saved by something. Salvation isn’t just a free pass or a Monopoly pardon card. Salvation cost the blood of God the Son. Paul here uses the term blood as a summary of what we now call the doctrine of Christ’s “substitutionary atonement.” That is, Christ stood in my place, bearing my sin legally before God, and took upon himself the punishment that a just God required. In the article linked above, I’ve tried to collect the biblical passages that support and develop this idea further.  

Second, Paul wants us to focus on God’s amazing grace. The word grace itself is packed with meaning; it tells us that even though we’re at fault, God shows us undeserved favor because of the work of His Son. Have you ever heard some “positive” or “prosperity” preacher on TV say that we should just focus on grace and not worry about sin? The concept makes no sense; grace and sin go hand in hand. And Paul certainly has no desire to BS us when it comes to the severity of man’s condition apart from God: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked…and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others [no sense of self-righteous superiority here]. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)… (2:1-5).  

Paul then gets to some famous verses: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (2:8-9). Paul leaves no room for bragging rights; not only are we saved “by grace through faith,” but even this faith is “not of [our]selves.” It’s “the gift of God.”  

There’s a powerful line about this in the recent movie Amazing Grace. Named after John Newton’s famous hymn, the film explores the work of Englishman William Wilberforce to abolish the slave trade. In the movie, Albert Finney plays Newton, who was Wilberforce’s mentor. Newton had captained a slave ship; he’d committed unspeakable acts of barbarity against fellow members of the human race. But grace was powerful, and Newton was able to say, “I know two things: I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior.”

With election year underway, we’re sure to see our culture worshipping at the shrine of our political gods. The political process, we’ve been told, is our savior, and everyone seems to have his favorite apostle. Some hail change-embracing Democrats; some idolize law-and-order Republicans; others insist that only unknown third-party candidates can save us.

But, as Doug Wilson points out, all these saviors are false, despite the religious zeal with which they’re embraced. This critique applies equally to socialistic leftists (some of whom profess Christ) and libertarian conservatives (some of whom profess Christ). Statism is an idol no matter which side of the aisle it sits on.

Wilson also points out how the modern political system, like a priesthood, uses threatenings and impending crises to build up its own messianic image:

The looming “crises” vary, and the contending saviors vary accordingly. This is not to deny the reality of genuine threats in the world, for they are out there, and we do need competent leadership to deal with them. But in modern political campaigns, the momentum that carries them forward is an emotional investment in the candidate as a person (which by itself is fine and healthy), but when this is combined with the crisis/savior approach it leads directly to a weird civic idolatry. People get attached to their candidate with a religious fervor (and even Christians do this), and when it comes out that you are not voting for that guy, they respond as if you had just heaved a dead cat into the Holy of Holies.