Psalm 11 – Flee Like a Bird?

Where else, the psalmist asks, can I place my trust? “In the Lord I take refuge.” (v1a) So many of the entries in the psalter echo this same theme. Though life may be an uphill struggle in which we are pursued by our enemies. Though it may seem that evil has free run in our world and that the wicked are victorious. Although our calling may be one of persecution and even death, in who else can we trust? No one but the Lord.

The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord is on his heavenly throne.

He observes the sons of men; his eyes examine them.

The Lord examines the righteous, but the wicked and those who love violence his soul hates. (vv 4-5)

The promise that we rest in is not in the ease and comfort of our lives, the promise is in knowing that through eternity we will be the recipients of the Lord’s unfailing justice. His grace has given us the path to redemption and removes our fear.

For the Lord is righteous, he loves justice; upright men will see his face. (v7)

Life With God 5

The reader of Foster’s Life With God might be surprised when they turn the page to chapter five and find the topic, ‘Reading with the Mind.’ This seems at first contrary to the theme of reading with the heart for spiritual formation but a little exploration leads us to discover that reading with the mind is not simply reading for the acquisition and collection of information. It is reading for understanding so that you and I can discover our place in great span of God’s redemptive story. As we engage the messy, complicated, roller coaster story in the scriptures, we find pieces of information that help us to understand who God is, how He interacts with His people, and our individual and corporate purposes in His plan.

We do not want our reading efforts to lead to the amassing of spiritually dead information that leads to pride but no transformation. This was one of the major critiques that Jesus voiced of the religious professionals of his day. They were intellectually deep, knowing the text inside out in all of its nuances but the Spirit was missing. The words were dead without the life giving Spirit of God and lead no one to a transformative experience. In our lives, we read the words under the supervision of Holy Spirit who brings the text to life showing us how to apply and understand the words.

We encounter several genres and a huge historical span of time as we immerse ourselves in the scriptures and find not a systematic and ordered presentation but instead, a messy, complex story of humanity in the presence of God. Recalling the Immanuel Principle is a lens that can focus the hundreds and thousands of lives that we encounter. God says “I am with you” and we read of the lives lived in response to the question, “Will you be with me?” The answers that we see are the struggles that each of us faces in life and the different ways that people have responded to God’s graceful invitation.

How does your Bible reading fit into this idea? Do you memorize bits and pieces of scripture that might pull the verse(s) out of their context? The Old Testament in particular can be a violent story. Does this make you avoid this part of book thinking that it has little application for modern life? I’d love to hear what everyone thinks.

Psalms 9 & 10 – The Lord is Known by His Justice

This pair of psalms form a carefully constructed prayer of praise for both the glory of the Lord and David’s trust in the righteous justice by which the universe is ruled. He begins with anticipatory praise, lifting Yahweh high as he looks forward to what will be visited on his enemies:

I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders.

I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

My enemies turn back; they stumble and perish before you. For you have upheld my right and my cause; you have sat on your throne, judging righteously. (vv 9:1 – 4)

The combined message of nine and ten is threefold; humility, limitation, and responsibility. From a human standpoint, not three of our favorite topics. To realize our humility is to recognize how little is truly under our control. No matter how high our position, when we set our own throne before that of the King we are yet again aware of how insignificant it is. When our humility fails us, we rebel against this King thinking ourselves higher than the Host. The warning is clear:

The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug; their feet are caught in the net they have hidden. The Lord is known by his justice; the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands. (vv 9:15- 16)

If our perspective remains on the earthly plain, we can easily convince ourselves of how powerful we are. The humility engendered by an encounter with the Almighty leads us clearly to realize our limitations. David sees clearly that the authority granted him by the Lord can be used in terribly destructive ways:

In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises. He boasts of the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord. (vv 10:2-3)

Does the evil man filled with hubris get away with this arrogant behavior? Perhaps, for a time, but as we soak in the words of both of the psalms we return to the glorification that filled the first few verses. We trust and know, based on the ultimate goodness of our God, that righteousness will prevail.

Finally, the rapaciousness of the ‘enemies’ that lurk in the second of the two psalms is in direct contrast to the responsibility for creation that was assigned to the men and women who are to populate it. It is provided for our use but not to be plundered without concern. To do so is as much rebellion as denying the Creator His place and authority. Circling back to humility forces us to answer; are we enemies to any degree?

Blue Parakeet 2

Scot McKnight’s excellent book The Blue Parakeet next addresses the question of what the Bible is. His point is that the way in which we approach the Bible deeply affects the truth that we draw from it. This section on The Bible as Story begins with a reminder from scripture as to the way that God speaks to His people in different ages:

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. (Heb 1:1-2)

Chapter 3 opens with a deliciously applicable illustration. The image below is an autostereogram. When you first look at the picture you see the obvious repetitive abstract pattern. Kind of fall-like, maybe some maple leaves at the bottom.

 

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Now, press your nose against your monitor and slowly let your eyes adjust to the picture. As you slowly move away from the image, the picture in the picture begins to emerge. Do you see it? The bird, the donut? It’s easier for some than others but if you scan the web you can find dozens of these kinds of images.

What does this have to do with the Bible? In order for God’s word to take its full three-dimensional presence in our lives, we need to adjust our reading methods so that the picture in the picture reveals itself to us. Just the like the bird in the image seems to become a part of our plane of existence, so God wants to have his words move into our immediate experience.

Reading the Bible as story is what will allows the Spirit to move in this way in our lives. The challenge to us is that we must put away our shortcuts as they tend to obscure the story in favor of deriving other kinds of information. Do any of these hit home with you?

Morsels of Law

We read the Bible strictly as a huge collection of laws. God is portrayed as the impatient and irritable giver of laws and we are judged by how many of these laws we follow and how closely. Our relationship is then defined by how good as citizens we are.

Morsels of Blessing and Promise

If this is our shortcut we read the Bible as a collection of blessings and promise. The tendency here is to pull promising verses out of their context while ignoring the others. The sense of the Christian life that develops from this practice is that it is all good with no troubles clouding the horizon.

Mirrors and Inkblots

We’ve all seen the inkblot cards used in psychological tests. Splat! What do you see? Spronk! Now what do you see? The point is that you will see what you want to see. When you encounter Jesus in the Bible your mind sees someone a lot like you. He thinks and acts the way that you would. It’s amazing…until I talk to you and find out Jesus is more like you! How can this be.

Puzzling Together the Pieces to Map God’s Mind

The Bible is a puzzle that we are challenged to put together. The trouble we run into is that, unlike the boxed puzzle, we don’t have the picture on the lid to help us assemble the thousands of pieces. Without that picture, we have to rely on our imagination and anything that doesn’t fit goes back into the box.

Maestros

Reading to find the maestro answers the question, What Would Jesus Do? If he is the master, all we have to do is to imitate this model of perfection and all will be well.

These are all snapshots that give us an incomplete view of the Bible and the story that God wants to envelope us in. Do you agree with these shortcut descriptions. Is there another that was missed?

Psalm 8 – What is Man

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (v1)

This statement of effusive praise brackets both ends of the psalm. The verses sandwiched between offer some of the most overlooked words of encouragement. The psalmist poses and answers the question that elicits the praise:

what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. (vv 4 – 5)

Humankind is not some kind of nuisance creation, destined to corruption and rebellion against their creator. No! Humankind was created specifically to be close to God, dependent on His presence for their security, perseverance, and satisfaction. Men and women were created with purpose, not to merely live out their days in empty pursuit of experience. David looks to the immeasurable complexity and glory of the heavens and compares the insignificant speck that is humankind. The Lord reveals to him that as much care went into the creation of man as in the laying out of the stars. The heavens look in on humans with envy because the people are much, much closer to God than the sky.

The joy of God’s eyes, the creatures that he will one day sacrifice His Son for, cry out,

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (v9)

Life With God 3g – I AM The True Vine

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In the last allegory that we will examine in this series, we find ourselves once again meditating on one of the fundamental truths of our lives; the primary and most important relationship that we must maintain as disciples is with Jesus Christ.

I am the the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

The image of the vine is sufficiently vivid as to fire our imagination. We receive the life giving nourishment only as we remain connected to that vine. To be separated is to die. It is the vine that has roots deep into the earth, drawing everything it needs from the creation. Some of the branches will make the most effective use of their junction with the vine and bear glorious fruit. Other will only see the connection in the most cursory terms, not drawing on it and simply surviving.

Dead wood is ruthlessly culled by the gardener. It harbors rot and danger to the healthy plant. Pruning of the live branches is nothing to be feared. Without this practice, energy can go into developing the branch’s wood rather than into bearing fruit. Cutting back the branch reorients its growth into the important task of bearing fruit, painful at first but beneficial in the end. Sometimes the branch that appears to have received the harshest cutback can produce the greatest fruit.

Life With God 4

It was this…intention that made the primitive Christians such eminent instances of piety, that made the goodly fellowship of the Saints and all the glorious army of martyrs and confessors. And if you will here stop and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it. ~ William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

Intent rather than method. A bracing thought for the modern Christian who finds themselves enmeshed in the current intellectual culture of the Church. Spiritual formation is reduced to a set of to-do’s and application. Richard Foster leads us now to develop the proper mindset needed to read the Bible for spiritual formation rather simply information. Life With God locates the next chapter in helping us to draw the distinction between reading the surface of the text and encountering God. The greatest cultural challenge that we face is that we encounter daily the idea that the Bible exists to serve our needs. We are tempted to pick and choose verses that serve our needs while setting aside the context that might challenge our perceptions. When read this way, the Bible becomes a manual for moralism, a behavioral set of scales that substitutes for true relationship with God.

The approach that we can take to engaging the bible to participate in God’s transformation of our souls is called Lectio Divina. Our reading changes focus from breadth to depth. It is a way of encouraging our mind to descend to our hearts so that we are drawn into the love and goodness of God as it is spoken to us through the living Word. Our goal is total immersion in the text so that we a drawn into the story, becoming a part of the words.

There are four elements to Lectio Divina:

  • Lectio – this is the practice of reading with a listening spirit
  • Meditatio – we reflect on what the voice of God speaks to us
  • Oratio – in response to the elation of hearing from God, we pray the scripture in response
  • Contemplatio – most importantly, we contemplate deeply on what changes we will make in our lives in obedience to the Word

Engaging the Bible in this fashion is a challenge to much of what we may have learned. It is not compatible with a daily reading plan which schedules a number of verses so that the book can be completed in a year. We skim over the words that God has for us in our pursuit of the goal. Lectio is a much slower process, immersing us in a single passage, perhaps even a few words or a phrase so that the voice of God can get through to us. It seeps into our heart as we camp on this verse or passage and as our hearts turn, we act in obedience to demonstrate to the world the way of the disciple.

Have you practiced these methods with success? Has there been some culturally or in the Church that works against this method of engaging the text? Let’s talk about this.