Jesus, The Prince of Preachers: Mark 1:35-38

(This post first appeared on September 10, 2007).

And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. And Simon and they that were with Him followed after Him. And when they had found Him, they said unto Him, ‘All men seek for Thee.’ And He said unto them, ‘Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth.’” — Mark 1:35-38

 

 THE LORD JESUS knew exactly why He had come into the world. Books have been written speculating what our Lord’s sinless life may have been like before He began His earthly ministry at the age of 30. Did His brothers and sisters ever wonder at the fact that He never picked a fight in the yard? Was Mary ever amazed that her Son was never caught in a lie or doing something inappropriate, as most boys did? Did Jesus ever ask for seconds at the dinner table? These and many other questions like them reveal that we are so accustomed to the presence of sin that we really don’t know what life would look like without it. Except for one occasion when He was twelve and His family traveled to Jerusalem, the gospels speak almost nothing about this time in Christ’s life. This is because the Bible acknowledges this point that Jesus is making to His disciples here in this text: Jesus came forth to preach.

 

I.) “…He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” Notice how Jesus prepares Himself for His work. He doesn’t rush into it as many preachers today, confident of the residual knowledge they might have gained at seminary or from their years of experience in the pulpit. If Jesus felt the need to soak His sermons in prayer beforehand, we believe all preachers do. Could it be that many preachers fail just at this beginning point? Perhaps they are so busy doing “the Lord’s work” that they sharply curtail and even neglect prayer in trying to get it all done. Perhaps they are relying on the cleverness of their sermon outline or the effectiveness of certain tricks (altar calls, decision cards, special guest-speakers). The Lord Jesus employed no gimmicks. He leaned upon His Father.

II.) “…when they had found Him, they said unto Him, ‘All men seek for Thee.’” Jesus had gone far enough away from His disciples that they had apparently lost track of Him for a few moments. But having found Him again, they felt the need to inform Him that the people were seeking Him. What a picture this is for us that live in this time of spiritual drought. The Christian Church today is greatly weakened and desperately praying for a revival of the true religion that Christ here preached. It is almost as though we are like these poor disciples that have temporarily lost track of our Lord. In 21st century America, the Lord Jesus has withdrawn Himself and we are seeking a greater manifestation of His presence. So what should we do? Should we try to find ways to make Christianity more palatable to the multitudes? Should we try to adapt to what the people want? No, we should go and find Jesus. The disciples knew that is what they needed. When Christ would appear, all would be well. This is what we are doing when we pray for revival.

Now why exactly does the Church pray for a revival — a pouring out of God’s Spirit? It is for the same reason these disciples did in our text. We are conscious of the lost multitudes that do not know Him. “All men seek for Thee.” Of course, we know later that some of these “seekers” would find Jesus only to reject Him. But Christ’s disciples always recognize that whether they know it or not, men are seeking the Lord Jesus and what He only can do. Millions are seeking purpose for their lives. They are seeking satisfaction in something. They are enslaved by lusts and depraved desires from which Christ’s disciples know only Jesus can deliver them. People are afraid of death. They have broken relationships and broken hearts because of their sins. Christ’s disciples know that only Jesus can heal them. And we see this faith in Jesus demonstrated here in our text.

III.) “Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also…” The Lord Jesus is not oblivious to these concerns about the multitudes. They are His concerns formed in us by God Himself. “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure,” Phil. 2:13. But now having found their Lord, He rises from prayer to urge His disciples to go with Him to speak truth to the people. This is always what Jesus does. When we express our anxiety about the state of our world, He bids us to come with Him and spread Truth about Himself and His Gospel. The message He gives is not an academic set of theological principles that is detached from the present needs of our day. They are exactly what the world needs at every point of human history.

IV.) “…for therefore came I forth.” Preaching is an important reason Christ came into the world. He came to die, He came to live a perfect life in our place — all these things are true. But Jesus also came to preach, saying certain things that we need to know if we are to be saved and persevere in these Last Days. We close with the words of J.C. Ryle, an Anglican bishop in the 19th century:

We ought to observe here, what infinite honour the Lord Jesus puts on the office of the preacher. It is an office which the eternal Son of God Himself undertook. He might have spent His earthly ministry in instituting and keeping up ceremonies, like Aaron. He might have ruled and reigned as a king, like David. But He chose a different calling. Until the time when He died as a sacrifice for our sins, His daily, and almost hourly work was to preach…

Let us leave the passage with a solemn resolution never to ‘despise prophesying.’ (1 Thess. 5:20). The minister we hear may not be highly gifted. The sermons that we listen to may be weak and poor. But after all, preaching is God’s grand ordinance for converting and saving souls. The faithful preacher of the Gospel is handling the very weapon which the Son of God was not ashamed to employ. This is the work of which Christ has said, ‘Therefore came I forth.’

Has the State Overstepped in El Dorado?

 ”For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.” — Romans 13:3, 4

 AS THE EMOTIONAL women from the polygamist sect in El Dorado, Texas continue to hit the airwaves, many may be tempted to ask, “Has the state gone too far in imposing its will in this case? Couldn’t the polygamists and their children have been allowed to continue their way of life without this intrusion?”

We cannot forget that we have here quite possibly the largest polygamist sect in the United States. How this case is decided may largely affect the way the rest of our nation deals with this ungodly form of perversion. Are we moving towards allowing the Lawrence v. Texas case to inflict upon us its ill-conceived conclusions in the matter of polygamy? Will Americans begin to second-guess the presently held view that the First Amendment and its provision for the freedom of religion does not provide for multiple marriage partners? Even Utah has outlawed polygamy. Is that an overreach on the part of the state? 

We cannot speak to those who are easily swayed by mere emotion. For them, any rational argument can be immediately refuted by the tears of a weeping mother. But irrespective of the emotional components, the fact stands unaltered that God is against the practice of polygamy. It is a perversion of the the order established in Eden, that one man and one woman would be united in marriage. Like divorce, we know that polygamy arose soon after the fall as a common manifestation of the lustings and hardness of men’s hearts. But “in the beginning, it was not so,” and the evil of polygamy has been further revealed to us who are now in the new covenant, enjoying as we do our Lord’s further clarification of the larger subject in Matt. 19. Also, it is absolutely unthinkable that an elder or deacon of the church would have multiple wives, as Paul indicates bluntly and without comment in 1 Timothy 3, as well as Titus 1 and 2.

The first polygamist recorded in the Bible was not Jacob or David, or any other godly man in the Old Testament. It was a murderer and a thug named Lamech who took for himself two wives, as recorded in Genesis 4:19. While some in the old covenant of whom God approved did indeed live in cultures that practiced bigamy and even polygamy, it was always due to ignorance that eventually brought them great grief and continual conflict. We never saw the patriarchs attempting to go against the cultural tide to maintain the practice. Furthermore David and Solomon, who were the most prolific polygamists, are hardly monuments demonstrating the virtue of the practice since their warring progeny (in the case of David) and the massive expenses of the harem (in the case of Solomon) threatened to undo their kingdoms on at least two occassions and then finally delivered a severe blow to it in 2 Chronicles 10 from which the house of David never fully recovered.

As if that is not enough proof, Moses expressly forbids the practice of polygamy in Lev. 18:18, as well as in the case of kings in Deu. 17:17: “Neither shall he [that is, a king] multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.” We think that sufficiently answers the matter.

But what bearing does this have upon the state, particularly the government of Texas in this specific case? Rather than rely on any libertarian impulses or upon the modern notion of minority rights that has so often done our generation harm, it seems most instructive to us to go to the text we cited here in the beginning to discover what God’s most basic will for the state is. Romans 13:4 illustrates that the ruler is “God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon them that do evil.”

The Bible asserts the ruler’s most fundamental role to be operative here: “the avenger to execute wrath upon them that do evil.” If the state cannot act here, then pray tell, what exactly should it ever do? Polygamy is evil. It is offensive to Almighty God. And who can tell if God may not be bearing down His judgment on this wicked sect now because of the hardness of their hearts and their long resistance to the light of His Word? In fact, we are quite sure that this is exactly what is happening. 

Those that decry the measures taken with the children decry the dealings of God in providence and impugn His wisdom in declaring in such unmistakable terms that polygamy is in fact a form of perversion. And where such extreme perversion exists, children should be rescued from the chaos that must ensue. It is most certainly not just another religious viewpoint that merits shelter from the First Amendment. It is a vile manifestation of ungodliness that calls the state to action. Opposing the actions of the state of Texas means going to war with Romans 13 and the very purpose of what human governments are called upon by God to do in this world. We think it an utterly foolish and dangerous one to take.          

The Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Therefore since all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” — 2 Peter 3:11-13

FORTY years ago yesterday, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, Tennessee. It was fitting therefore that his legacy would be discussed. In that discussion, there was a great deal of division regarding whether the situation in America has worsened or improved, from a race relations standpoint. Has King’s dream come true? We will leave it to others to answer that question. Yet what is incontrovertible is that our society possesses a total inability to arrive at a consensus on that question along with all the other most basic matters regarding the state of race relations. Civil rights leaders acknowledge the problem and point to residual racial prejudice among whites as the root cause. Critics of the modern civil rights movement point to prejudice as well, except among blacks, not whites. Yet we believe the radically different answers heard yesterday have more to do with the theology of MLK than in racial prejudice.

But before discussing that theology it must be stated that the existence of racial prejudice in 1968 and indications of its persistence in 2008 cannot be denied. However inconsistent King’s theology was with the New Testament, white Christians in the American South greatly erred in a more serious way when they aligned themselves with George Wallace and the others that thought like him. The request of one human being to be treated as another would treat himself should cause embarrassment in any true followers of the Lord Jesus. Rejecting that request on the basis of the manner in which it is made — or worse — because of unmitigated arrogance, i.e. “America is too great a nation to stand guilty of such wrongs,” is repugnant. In the earlier half of the 20th Century, Christians in the southern portions of the United States had endured great trial for boldly standing for biblical truths that were being abandoned by professing Christians in the North. Yet southern white Christians lost the opportunity to capitalize on the stands they had taken in decades past all because they could not endure to drink from the same water fountains as black people or allow their children to attend school with black children. It is impossible to calculate the degree to which the moral and spiritual decline of our nation can be directly attributed to the amount of influence lost by Bible-believing white Christians in the American South.  

It is against that backdrop that MLK enjoys iconic status in our culture. MLK did not simply force the South to reconsider its attitudes towards black people. He exposed the longtime sins of a people that were on their way to becoming the moral compass of Western civilization. Before MLK, church-goers in the northern portions of the United States and in Europe that had jettisioned historic Christian truth in favor of liberalism had to recokon with the guilt of their apostacy. Each time they were reminded of their faithful, orthodox countrymen in the American South, the extent to which they had fallen was painfully conspicuous. But when the ugliness of southern American racial prejudice was fully known, that all changed. Liberals in the North and in Europe continued to abandon God at an accelerated rate while indignantly decrying the very real sins of white southerners. Some crass liberals even went so far as to say that the white southerner’s steadfast adherance to orthodox Christianity itself was perhaps symptomatic of an underlying racial prejudice.  

That brings us to MLK’s theology. All this has been a very sad history of white southern Christians, but it doesn’t mean that their understanding of the Bible (other than areas regarding race) was all wrong and MLK’s was all correct. In fact, MLK’s theology was not even remotely accurate if compared to the New Testatment. MLK’s effectiveness might have been slightly greater among white Christians in the American South if his teachings had called them back to this, and not to a new code of ethics that southerners had rightly learned to identify with liberalism and Marxism. Even down to the present day, civil rights advocates will not tolerate criticism of this kind. It is tragic. But what has become more apparant in the forty years since MLK’s death is that the civil rights movement is tenaciously bound to liberalism and its attendant theological presuppostitions, not the Bible. And it is these unbiblical theological ideas that lead the followers of MLK to utter such sincere statements regarding the present state of race relations that strike many as excessively pessimistic.

To illustrate this, we must discuss one of the specifics of MLK’s beliefs. In two of his most famous speeches, MLK touches on seemingly biblical themes. Yet where the Scriptures refer to heaven and the world to come, MLK applies them to this present world, and even society just in America alone. In his “I Have a Dream” speech, MLK alludes to a dream of perfect social harmony where black children and white children embrace with absolutely no racial tension. This is a scene portrayed in Revelation 5, where a people of “every tribe and tongue and people and nation” are united in singing praises to the Lamb that was slain, who is Christ. But where the Bible makes it plain this is the scene in heaven where no one dies or sins, MLK encourages his audience to apply it to this present fallen world where people still very much sin and die. Again in his last “Promised Land” speech, MLK is even more careless in using an Old Testament passage that the New Testament in Hebrews 11:13 explains represented a world yet to come — the land of Caanan promised to Israel. Yet MLK applies it to life in the here and now. He suggests that death might come for him before he reached the place of perfect racial harmony with all black people, clearing maintaining that such peace is possible in this sin cursed earth.   

The Apostle Peter makes clear in the text we cited in the beginning that this is not the hope of the Christian. The true believer recognizes that this world is perishing and ripe for judgment. Yet because there is a new heavens and a new earth that is to be revealed any moment with Christ’s return, the Christian is to live in light of that imminent reality. ”Therefore since all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? (2 Peter 3:11). Martin Luther King Jr’s theology, on the other hand, encourages people to hope in something that might yet be acheived in this world. There is no acknowledgement in MLK’s theology of how the fall of man might render it impossible for man to live in ultimate racial harmony. Unlike Revelation 5 where God is the focal point and harbinger of peace, MLK points to a kind of humanistic utopia that is manufactured and sustained by mankind alone. If God is involved in MLK’s dream at all, He is there on the periphery, not as the focal point and the reason for the peace.

These distinctions are not trivial. They strike at the very heart of what the Christian hopes for and what the New Testament asserts is possible in this fallen world. Is it any wonder, then, that MLK’s followers are disappointed? Even if greater progress is acheived regarding race relations in America, the theological presupposition of MLK is that we should work for and expect perfect racial harmony in this world. How different is the Apostle Peter’s hope: “Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3:13). Peter knew this is a place where unrighteousness dwells, there is no hope of things getting much better here. Neither did John: “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one,” (1 John 5:19). So that is why the hope MLK held out to his followers was never possible. It is a hope that is totally foreign to the one the New Testament urges followers of the Lord Jesus to embrace. That message is this: the world cannot be saved through activism, but through the death and perfect life of the Lord Jesus Christ, one can be saved out of the world when its assured destruction comes. The Gospel offers no hope to save the world, only that through Christ you can be saved out of it.                            

Obama’s Pastor and False Teachers: Jude 17-19

“But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.” — Jude 17-19

JEREMIAH WRIGHT has evoked almost the universal disgust of political pundits of every ideological stripe. While conservatives are most appalled by his anti-American tirades, liberals wince at his heated rhetoric against the Clintons and his general penchant for far-flung, leftist conspiracy theories. The “Reverend” Wright, from a purely political perspective, is nothing more than a sizeable liability for Mr. Barack Obama. Since the media coverage has mostly covered the affair from that angle, we think the biblical significance of this man’s ministry and the overall phenomenon of “Reverend” Wright has been largely missed. It is unfortunate that the American public has become so biblically illiterate that it can no longer articulate in convincing terms why a Jeremiah Wright is theologically wrong.  

The less than patriotic utterances of Mr. Obama’s longtime pastor and confidant should hardly be the primary impetus for the present outrage. What this whole situation in fact reveals is that, for too many blacks in this nation, this is their concept of authentic Christian teaching. When that is taken into account, it is enlightening as to how many blacks make the transition to Islam with relative ease. Islam, fundamentally, is a religion that is driven by hate and human lust. Our text explains how–and more importantly why–such teachers can turn the doctrine of the meek and mild Jesus into something virtually unrecognizable to us.

I.) “…they [the apostles] told you that there would be mockers in the last time who walk according to their own ungodly lusts.” Lust in the Bible encompasses far more than inappropriate sexual desire. Particularly when the plural form of the word is used, as it is here, the Bible is speaking regarding corrupt or unholy desires that emanate from our sinful, fallen nature.

Most prominently here Jude is referring to “ungodly” lusts–corrupt desires that are especially against and unlike the Being and character of God. So we might conclude that the dominating characteristics of these mockers is that they are wholly unlike God. They are not merely living their lives according to ordinary lusts. These are ungodly lusts. Now in a very real sense all lusts are ungodly. Yet Jude probably adds this description to underscore the fact that the lusts of these mockers are most conspicuous for their being in extreme variance with the One true God.

No lust is more “ungodly” than a malice that is held against another individual human being simply because he is the member of another race. Men are never more unlike the Lord Jesus when they hate an entire segment of people–souls created in the image of God–and to do so in a blanket way for no other reason than that of the color of another’s skin. “In Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile.” In the heart of the Lord Jesus, the multitudes of every race draw out compassion, as He sees only sheep that have no shepherd. And in the purpose of Christ, the final, grand revelation and anticipation of His heart is that a people of every tribe, tongue, and nation would be gathered with Him where He is, (Rev. 5:9, John 17:24). To miss that is to be totally unlike God in a very fundamental way.

So we have in some measure a picture of how truly ungodly–how totally unlike God–one of these mockers like Jeremiah Wright demonstrates himself to be when he can look at all kinds of white people and pray, “God damn America!” It is clear evidence of a heart subsumed in lust of the most carnal nature, the passion of racial bigotry. And when the totality of his ministry is considered, we believe that it is unquestionably manifest that “Reverend” Wright walks according to these ungodly lusts of prejudice and racial hatred. Jude says these lusts so control these mockers that they literally walk according to them. The lusts determine the direction that their feet travel and where they will end up. It is all determined by this malice that is pent up and coming to expression by the words of their mouths.

II.) But as if this is not enough, Jude then says that these false teachers are marked by something else. They are “sensual” or “worldly”. These are not heavenly minded people whose spiritual gaze is set upon another world. Their minds are captivated by the things of earth–the things they can touch, feel, and that stimulates their nerve-endings. The flesh is what motivates them. So what stirs them up is politics, questions regarding societal issues, and conspiracies that relate to the objects of their intense bigotry. The great, eternal matters of how sinful man can be made right with God–the message of the cross that is entrusted to every bonified Gospel minister–these things don’t get them going. They are of secondary importance if they are mentioned at all.

III.) “…who cause divisions…” Division and strife always accompanies lust. The Apostle James teaches this elsewhere, “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?” (James 4:1). We will not here take the time to speculate as to why there is this connection with lust to conflict with other human beings, but the Bible here again affirms that such a connection exists.

IV.) “…not having the Spirit.” What more terrible condemnation could be made regarding a teacher claiming to be sent by God! To not have the Spirit of God means that “the glory has departed.” The Spirit of God–if He ever was present at all–is no longer. And such a ministry by such a teacher is nothing more than a ministry of death. For where the Spirit is absent, there is no life. There is only the flesh remaining with all its corrupt passions and lusts. 

Of course, “Reverend” Wright’s church is very boisterous during its services. We would like to say something at this point to our brethren that have lost the courage or the will to speak critically regarding the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement: are we fearful to say that even Jeremiah Wright’s church lacks the presence of the Spirit? If overt, outward displays of emotion are the best indicators of the presence of the Spirit of God, then certainly it follows that the Spirit is there in that place. But our text is clearly not teaching that. Many charismatics claim they only have the Spirit of God, and that all others that do not practice “the gifts” don’t have Him. We that believe that the gifts of tongues, prophecy, healing via human instruments, etc., have ceased from the Church are frequently accused of pride by charismatics that would divide with us in a blink of an eye over such secondary questions. While we we say they are mistaken in their doctrinal understanding, many of them would simply write us off as spiritually dead or haughty. How do we respond to that kind of spiritual arrogance? 

Like Jude we believe that false teachers that walk according to their lusts and cause division clearly manifest the absence of the Spirit though we readily admit there are spirits among them. ”Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world”(1 John 4:1). Is it unloving to insist the teachings of charismatics be brought to the touchstone of Scripture with the very real possibility that they might be proven false prophets? Is it more loving to disobey Scripture and believe every spirit at first until the fruit of the man’s ministry is so apparently bad that no testing is required?

These are surely questions that must be answered if the Church is to “convict those that contradict” and serve as the “pillar and ground of the Truth.” It is manifest that we have not carried out these duties well in recent decades. May we not fail our generation altogether in this regard because of our spiritual laziness.                       

Truth More Important Than Originality: Exodus 15:1

“Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the LORD, and spoke, saying: ‘I will sing to the LORD, for He has triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea… And Miriam answered them: ‘Sing to the LORD, for He has triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea!’” — Exodus 15:1, 21

WE HAVE NO INTENTION to here repress originality or to encourage mimicry. Like everyone else, we too appreciate when a fresh perspective is given on a topic or when a new arrangement of a piece of music improves upon an older one. Creativity in the mind of man is a blessed thing when it is able to spark in us a fresh appreciation for some old thing or even for an altogether new thing with which we have never been familiarized.

But in today’s culture, there is a high premium placed upon originality that perhaps exceeds the one commonly given to truth. A bizarre cult figure in our society can gain followers simply because what he teaches is fresh and new, even if it bears little relationship to what the Bible teaches. Yet Americans thought a crime was committed when one of its major presidential candidates used the same words from another man’s speech. Americans are accustomed to witnessing a pop song rocket to the top of the charts and mesmerize millions for weeks until it is flung aside in the same manner that a fickle three year-old tires of a new toy. Americans are like the Athenian philosophers that gathered on Mars Hill in the first century: they consider the proliferation of old thinking a bore and a sin. Meanwhile, they will spend a great deal of time grasping new things that they fully know they will become tired of and throw away later (Acts 17:21).

The Scriptures provide a proper balance in this area of truth and originality, and it is somewhere different to where we are as a culture. In our text, Moses and Israel have just witnessed the stunning defeat of their greatest adversary, Ramses, Pharaoh of Egypt. Their expression of thanksgiving and praise are here recorded in this fifteenth chapter. What is striking is the similarity of Moses’ theme versus that of Miriam’s. It is identical in its chief aspects. Miriam unapologetically lifts statements from Moses and makes them her own.

Shouldn’t Miriam have made some attempt to find different words to express the joy she and the women felt on this occasion? Did they not have another perspective that might need to have been expressed apart from the men? If these words were set to music, that still doesn’t answer our question as to why there is no attempt to compose different songs on this occasion. This chapter tells us that Moses and the children of Israel sang these songs, and that then Miriam and the women added instruments and sang the same words. The Spirit could have simply stated the content of Moses’ song and added that all Israel went repeating the song. But no. Instead we have this specific reference to Miriam and the women taking up the same words in their own way.

Certain words are conducive to repetition when they are set to meter. This is acknowledged. This is a very pragmatic explanation that has a degree of merit. Yet we also suggest that Miriam demonstrated real humility by recognizing that she could not have chosen better words on this occasion. Moses had been inspired by the Spirit of God to speak the words of our text, and any deviation from them would have not been an improvement. That reality is acknowledged by Miriam and the women, and it transcends any need for them to be original and “reinvent the wheel.”

Contrast this with the horrible way Miriam behaves in Numbers 12. Miriam and Aaron have had enough of the leadership of Moses. These, his siblings, feel they have leadership abilities to contribute as well. And they advance this thinking in light of the fact that Moses seems to have demonstrated poor judgment in his choosing a wife, or so they think. So the submissive Miriam from the Red Sea triumph gives way to the subversive Miriam of the wilderness. Many today would tell us that Miriam had become a liberated woman, “she had found her voice.” But what does God do?  Where does this get her with Him? Numbers 12:9 tells us that God’s anger was aroused. He struck her with leprosy and Moses had to plead for her healing. We have every reason to believe that God was pleased when Miriam humbly spoke truth that Moses had already spoken minutes earlier, though it may not strike us as being a very creative thing to do. Yet God prefers a self-effacing obedience to a proud attempt to assert individuality through rebellion.  

In a similar way it is unfortunate when people alter or reject altogether Christian teaching for no other reason than the fact that it has been believed before. “Been there, done that” is a miserable attitude to bring to the worship and understanding of a Being that is ”the same today, yesterday, and forever.” We would caution our brethren that are so fond of quoting C.S. Lewis because this spirit was so rife within him. He couldn’t bear accepting the Bible at face-value. In another day, leaders of Princeton seminary opposed this spirit when it was commonly said by them, “Nothing new comes out of Princeton.” Absent from that attitude is this now prevailing arrogance that says, “We are different and special. We must not do it the way it was done before.” This pride has engendered contemporary divisions over music and dress in the church. It turns people away from the unchangeable reality of who God is and distracts them into obsessing over their own navels. And so we say that often a tell-tale sign of this pride is the contempt for what is perceived to be passé.

May God help us to observe the direction of the prophet: “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls,” (Jeremiah 6:16).