day no. 16,298: bird brain

Hosea 7:11

Ephraim is like a dove,

silly and without sense

In other words, as Ben Zornes once pointed out, Ephraim is being a bird brain.

I love discovering stuff like this, hidden in plain sight. One of my favorite things about the Bible is how much I still don't know about it. My other favorite thing is all that I have already gleaned from it. It rewards return visits which incentivizes additional investigation.

Reading and re-reading the Bible is like Chesterton's hypothetical traveler who set out to discover a new land and ended up landing on the other side of his home country. That man felt all the thrill of discovery and all the warmth of sentimentality at the same moment. He was on an adventure and coming home in one fell swoop. He was able to enjoy the risk of the foreign with the rewards of the familiar and the excitement of courage with the contentment of comfort. The Bible is warm and familiar and foreign and exotic. It is ancient and applicable, timeless and timely, regal and familial, lofty and practical, ethereal and earthy.

The Bible is my favorite book. It's the kind of book that calls someone a bird brain, but in such a way as to make you work for it. But also the kind of book that teaches you to see by revealing what was previously invisible to you. Much of God's gold is hidden in plain sight because He is eager to give it away.

day no. 16,297: outside in

Luke 11:39-41

And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also?"

Despite what many have come to think, Jesus did not say that the outside of cups and dishes do not matter. What He implied is that everyone understands the value of the outside of the dish. Just ask any engaged couple picking out plates for their registry. They are not so much concerned about the insides of the bowls as they are with the patterns on the outside and what impressions they imagine they will make. Granted, they are looking at brand new, clean cups and dishes and don't have to concern themselves with the insides yet. That comes later, after love and marriage, but before the baby carriage (for those playing at home)

Functionally, the inside of the bowl is far more important than the exterior. When it comes to eating, the outside is less important than the inside. The food goes on the inside and that is what needs to be cleansed from the last food that was eaten in the bowl. But even then, hand me a bowl clean on the inside but still dirty on the outside and I'll still have a hard time finding my appetite.

We are well acquainted with the process of putting lipstick on a pig. We know how to make things look good, which is to say, better than they really are. We come equipped with the ability to put on a favorable face or to telegraph a good impression. We do not need to be trained in this deception. Yet, we do need to be reminded not to throw the outside of the dish out with the dishwater. Yes, the inside counts as Jesus points out and we should never forget or minimize this, but Jesus never meant for us to forget or minimize the outside. His teaching could be summarized as saying: the inside of the dish matters too. Everything matters, inside and out.

In summary, do not neglect what things look like or what they are like under the surface. Hold on to them both. Concern yourself with both. Understand how and when they may be played against each other and from where pressures and temptations may come to prefer one when the other is required or to settle for the other when the one is demanded.

day no. 16,296: what to buy and what to carry

Matthew 25:24-27

He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, "Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours." But his master answered him, "You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest."

Christians are called to put their talents to work and to invest what God has given them for the sake of turning of a profit to His glory and the good of their neighbor.

2 Corinthians 9:6-7

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Christians are called to cheerfully sow the seeds they've been given in order to see them yield a fruit of righteousness.

The Christian life then often comes down to knowing what to bury and what to carry, what to lay down and what to pick up, what to die to and what to live for. We are called in resurrection hope to sow seed so that it may become even more fruitful and we are called in sanctified grace to labor like those who know it's not in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:58

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

This distinction is worth making. We are called to bury seeds and to swing hammers, but if we're not careful and not paying attention, we will end up burying our hammers and hoarding our seeds.

day no. 16,295: the least of their problems

1 Chronicles 12:14

These Gadites were officers of the army; the least was a match for a hundred men and the greatest for a thousand.

The Gadites were billy bad apple. The least of them would give a hundred men a hard time and the greatest of them could be counted on to take out a thousand.

These are the kind of men you want in your local congregation and your personal contacts. They are forces to be reckoned with. If you want to tangle with them, you need to convince at least one hundred other people to come with you if you're to have a shot. And that's assuming you're picking a fight on the least of them. But rest assured, if you mix it up with the least of them it will soon be the least of your problems. Wait until the greatest of them arrive to have his back.

A few verses later, the men of Issachar are described this way:

1 Chronicles 12:32

And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment.

These men knew what was up and how to throw down. They could read the story that they were in and they knew how to end it. They were well-versed in the narrative arc of the day and in the art of end punctuation.

May God again give us men like these of Issachar and Gad and give us the courage and faith to follow in their footsteps.

*Penelope pointed verse 14 out to me after her nightly Bible reading 11/13/21

day no. 16,294: rightly understood and gratefully experienced

"The Christian life, broadly speaking, is but the enjoyment of Christian truth rightly understood and gratefully experienced." - B.B. Warfield

We are commanded to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ in 2 Peter 3:18 and Warfield here points out that these disciplines, in short, embody the whole of the Christian life and livelihood.

As we grow in knowledge, we grow in our enjoyment of His Truth. The more we learn, the more there is to love and what we gain aids us in better loving that which we already knew.

As we grow in grace, we grow in our gratitude. The more we are given, the more we have to be grateful for and what we gain in grace aids us in better appreciating all that we have already been given.

Christianity is deeply and eternally satisfying. Because there is no end to God, there are always new truths to learn and old truths to better appreciate and more grace to be had and grace already given to better actualize.

day no. 16,293: slippery slopes and that damned plus sign (+)

Romans 1:18

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness

The wrath of God is not always fire falling from heaven; sometimes, and seemingly more often, it is God giving people over to their own desires.

Romans 1:28

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper

When people willfully ignore His presence and passionately rebel against every principle He has put in place, there comes a point where He simply let’s go and hands them over.

Slopes don’t get less slippery the further down you slide... and once you get going, it's all downhill from there.

It should not shock us, therefore, to see pornography in classrooms, men in women's locker rooms, pedophilia being promoted, or even human sacrifice suggested. The naysayers assume some sort of secular order will save us from going too far, but their hope is in a basic human decency that doesn't exist. There is no decency where God is dishonored.

The woke will go for broke and that + will grow to include every vile sexual practice imaginable. That damned + can be anything precisely because it is damned and has no brakes.

Some will scoff and say, "Come on, that plus sign cannot be aaaaaneeeeething. Don't be so dramatic. There are things that even they would consider too far.”

We have bought the lie that basic morality exists on its own and can hold a society in place while giving way to immorality at its edges. It's just gay marriage (i.e. mirage). It's just sex reassignment surgery. It's just polygamy. It's just pedophilia. It's just +. That God-awful + just hovers there waiting to grow up into whatever someone is willing to say or do next. There is no reason it could not be anything. There is nothing to limit it or depth to which it will not consider going since God has taken His hands off.

Romans 1:28-30

God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper... inventors of evil.

Our only hope is God getting more hands on. 🙏🏼

day no. 16,292: asking the lost for directions

"It is our practice now, at least in the large cities, to find from our psychiatric priesthood that our sins aren’t really sins at all but accidents that are set in motion by forces beyond our control. There was no such nonsense in this church." -- John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley

It is an error to accommodate your liturgy to the tastes of a hypothetical unbeliever who may happen to visit or to select the songs you will sing based on what you imagine an unbeliever would be interested in singing or to change the words of familiar hymns for the sake of making them less offensive to people unfamiliar with them.

Imagine being invited into a mosque. What would you expect? You might be surprised by a few things for sure, but you would shocked if they rearranged their routine to make you feel less awkward. If you are there, you're there to see it for what it is, not for what they think you want it to be. I would feel sorry for the religion that felt like it had to wipe its own feet at the door of its own house for my sake. Maybe “sorry” is the wrong word, but “respect” certainly wouldn't be the the right word. How could you respect the beliefs of those who accommodate them to what they think you want to hear? You cannot find the lost by asking them what they think they need. They're lost for a reason. Perhaps directions aren't their area of expertise. Unless you want two lost people, maybe don't submit to their sense of direction.

Steinbeck visited what he called a John Knox church (i.e. Presbyterian) and it was everything he expected it to be: straight forward, aggressive, and unapologetic in its worship of the Triune God. If only we had more churches like the little one he visited that morning.

Do not be so eager to invite psychology into your religion. Be more eager to insist that your Christianity get a seat in their psychology. We do not evangelize the lost by appealing to their perceived needs. When you do that, you're only accepting the basic tenets of their faith in order to gain ground for yours, but that is like a virgin venturing into the back seat with a boy in order to teach him the value of chastity. Whatever sway she has with him, it isn't chaste. Whatever she gains, she can't get back; whatever she wins, she loses. It is a Pyrrhic victory at best.