Rend Your Heart

Rend Your Heart

The prophet Joel called the people of Judah to repentance. He pleaded with them saying, “Now, therefore,” says the LORD, “Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm” (Joel 2:12–13). In much the same way when John the Baptist saw the Sadducees and the Pharisees coming to be baptized he calls for them to not just make a display of their remorse but to have a true change of heart.  He said to them, “Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance” (Matthew 3:7–8).

rend heart

God will mend your heart if you choose to change it.

Many times, even today, men say they are sorry, one may come forward during an invitation song and ask for forgiveness and prayers, but then no real change is made. It may be that one is just sorry they got caught or is seeking to be released from the guilt and consequences of his or her actions. But God wants a true change of heart and life. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness.

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Back to School: Peer Pressure

Back to School: Peer Pressure

Actions are often the result of influence. We may be influenced by our parents not to pass notes during worship. Or, we may be influenced by our friends to wear particular clothing brands or styles. Likewise, we may be influenced by God — and our promise to be faithful to Him — to do certain things. But, the bottom line is still the same: actions are often a result of influence.  Many individuals call this “peer pressure,” a phrase that I’ve never fully understood because we can certainly be influenced by individuals not in our “peer” group. While it may not be technically correct, the concept is still a good one.

When we hear the words ‘peer pressure’, we almost automatically think of teenagers. In fact, teens hear the phrase and often cringe, rolling their eyes at the very sound of it, thinking: “Not another lesson on drugs or sex.” Most do not realize that peer pressure can be a good thing or a bad thing.

peer pressure

Peer Pressure is Real.

Without a doubt, peer pressure has found its way into the church. It often dictates fashion, songs, worship traditions, church programs, and even Bible class material. Sometimes this can result in good things —like spiritual or numerical growth. Other times, it can drive congregations away from their focus on God and spiritual matters.

Here is what I intend to teach my children about peer pressure.

Consider the following scenario: A solid Christian young person is asked to leave a gymnasium filled with his classmates. While he is out in the hallway a teacher instructs the rest of the students to answer a question incorrectly — on purpose — by standing up. The young man is invited back into the gym and the teacher begins teaching. Several minutes later she asks the class a question — to which the young man
obviously knows the correct answer.

But, he watches as the entire room stands up, supporting the wrong answer. After a few milliseconds of his mind wrestling with himself, and realizing that everyone else is standing, his muscles finally win over and the young man stands up. He does this even though he knows it is the incorrect answer! This, my children, is peer pressure. Scientifically speaking, it is very real and you will be wrestling with it much of your life.

It takes a strong individual to always stand up for what is right. There will be times in the future that you are negatively “pressured” to drink alcohol, participate in sexual activity, or watch immoral movies. I encourage you to decide right now exactly what you deem right in the sight of God, and determine how you will respond.

As Paul is encouraging the Christians in Ephesus, he urges them, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” (Ephesians 6:11). He then continues, “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore…” (vs. 13ff). Do you notice how often he says “stand”? Does this sound like someone who would give in to negative peer pressure? Standing up for right is an important aspect of our Christian lives.

Think back to some of the Bible accounts we have studied. How often did we read about strong men and women who were willing to stand for that in which they believed?

For instance, David could have given into peer pressure on the battlefield against Goliath (1 Samuel 17). Queen Esther went before the King on behalf of the Jews knowing that she could lose her life (Esther 4-5). Or how about Moses, who “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:24-25)?

Likewise, we have strong pictures in the Bible of individuals who allowed peer pressure to lead them down the wrong path. Aaron was pressured into making a golden calf by the Israelites who had become impatient waiting for Moses (Exodus 32). Remember, peer pressure is real. Decide now how you will react.

I pray that you learn to stand. Your mom and I are doing our best to help you grow in wisdom and helping you learn how to discern good from bad. But ultimately, the choice will fall to you.

Consider what happened when God rehearsed the sins of Jerusalem in Ezekiel 22. After recounting all of the evil that was transpiring, He said, “So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land that I should not destroy it; but I found no one” (Ezekiel 22:30).

My prayer is that you will always be ready and willing to stand in the gap!

This article is an excerpt from Dr. Brad Harrub’s new book “Heart of the Matter 2: A Second Helping of Letters to my Children”. You can pre-order the book here.

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Strainer of Gnats?

Strainer of Gnats?

“Straining at gnats,” is a figure of speech which denotes being overly picky and concerned about details. Most often, when people use the figure, they are wanting the other person to stop “straining at gnats,” and let the details slide. It’s an odd sort of phrase, with something of a Biblical origin, and one wonders how many people actually stop and think about what they are saying when they use the expression.

strainers of gnats

Are you a strainer of gnats?

The origin of the phrase is found in Matthew 23:24, where Jesus, in the middle of a fierce and lengthy rebuke of the Pharisees and the Scribes, says, “Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!”

Both gnats (small flies) and camels were unclean under the Law of Moses, and the Pharisees, in their desire to be pure under the Law, went to some lengths to make sure there were no flies in their food.

Jesus, it should be pointed out, was not advocating eating flies.

Indeed, most of us are quite appreciative of those cooks that keep the flies out of our food. Can you imagine going to a restaurant and finding a bunch of dead flies in your soup? Can you imagine bringing this to the attention of the waiter and being told that you should be thankful that at least it wasn’t a dead camel? One suspects that most people, upon discovering a dining establishment which didn’t care how many dead bugs were in the food, would promptly vow never to eat there again.

Moreover, in the original context of Jesus’ quote, as we have already said, both camels and flies were equally unclean. It would have been a sin for a Jew to eat a camel; but it was equally sinful to eat flies. The size of the animal did not affect the moral obligation of the Jew to avoid eating that animal, under the law. God had given rules about both.

What Jesus was doing was using absurdity to illustrate a point about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. It is absurd to imagine a person meticulous about the flies in their food, but then somehow missing the huge, dead camel on their dish. In the same way, the Pharisees, Jesus pointed out, were doing great work in tithing mint leaves, counting every leaf on their plants and giving to God His due, but, somehow, they had missed out on that obvious part of God’s law where He had told them, “love your neighbor.”

The full quote is thus: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” (Matthew 23:23-24; NKJV)

Notice that Jesus was not advocating ignoring the small details. Rather, He says of the details, “these you ought to have done.” It was good and right to pay attention to the “jots and tittles” of God’s Law (cf. Matthew 5:18), and concerning those little details, Jesus likewise taught, “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:19; NKJV)

Yet it makes no sense to spend all our time on the fine points of God’s Word, when we can’t even get the first principles correct. When there is a beam in one’s own eye, that beam must be removed before we can deal with the specks. We might point out, in like fashion to flies in the food, nobody enjoys small pieces of dirt in their eyes. Jesus was all in favor of lovingly removing specks out of your brother’s eye. But while specks are nice to get out, beams take priority. (cf. Matthew 7:2-5)

So, what is our point?

First, you shouldn’t go around cheerfully swallowing flies. This is true, culinarily speaking, but it is also true theologically and morally. Every word of God is pure, and He gives us those fine details for a reason. (cf. Proverbs 30:5-6; 2 Timothy 3:15-17) Men should pay attention to them. It matters how we worship, how God established the church to be run, and whether or not we are striving to do our best to be obedient to God and Christ in all things (cf. Colossians 3:17)

At the same time, camel swallowing is equally foolish. Jesus pointed to Righteousness, Mercy, and Faith, as some of the weightier matters men should deal with first. If you are shacking up with your girlfriend (or boyfriend), stealing from your boss, constantly losing your temper with others, and focusing your life on getting ahead materially, then you have some obvious and immediate issues that need dealt with in your life, and until those things are dealt with, the rest is almost immaterial. Get the camel out of your soup, and then you will be able to see better whether there are any flies you should also deal with.

 

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A Rose By Any Other Name

A Rose By Any Other Name

We are often not aware of the origin of many phrases and sayings we use. Do you remember hearing the saying, “A rose by any other name is still a rose”? It has many variations, but it appears that Shakespeare used it first in Romeo and Juliet. In the balcony scene, Juliet unknowingly said to Romeo that the fact his last name was Montague did not matter to her. “A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.” Read the rest of this article, and you will understand why I entitled it the way I did.

molech choice

Molech didn’t care if it was called pro-choice or murder.

Many have little knowledge of the horrendous way men in ancient times abused children. The phrase “children passed through the fire” is found 12 times in the Old Testament. It describes the practice of the nation of Israel and its kings taking infants and burning them alive at the altar of Molech. Such practices show how far God’s people had moved away from Him.

It was not only the Jews who did this. The Egyptians threw their infants into the Nile River believing that this sacrifice would ensure greater crops when they were harvested. Their prosperity was more important than their offspring.

The practice of the Greeks and Romans was even more gruesome. If the child which was born was unwanted, they would leave them outside their homes to suffer whatever fate came. Some who were left naked froze to death. Others died of starvation or were eaten by wild animals. Those not left outside their homes were taken to an appointed rubbish heap, where they were left lying on the manure that was there.

There is evidence that the disposal of unwanted infants was so widespread. It was done in Syria, Carthage, Phoenicia, Moab, Canaan, among Germanic tribes, Australia (the aborigines), Arabia, Britain, China, Finland, Iceland, India, Japan, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia, Sweden, Bolivia, Brazil, Columbia, Peru, Paraguay and in America by the Incas and the Aztecs. This list is not complete, but it shows just how far the world through the ages has almost no regard for some children. Such is the nature of paganism.

Aren’t you so thankful that you were not born in a world which had so little regard for helpless infants?  Isn’t it wonderful that we live in such a civilized society? It is so easy to read what was practiced in ancient times and think that it is only part of the ancient past.

The state of New York made abortion legal at any time. One advocate of the law affirmed it was legal even if dilation had begun. A rose by any other name is still a rose, and pagan slaughter of unwanted infants is still murder even if called pro-choice. Our practices are identical to those of the ancient pagans!

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The Nature of Biblical Edification

The Nature of Biblical Edification

First Thessalonians 5:11 says, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.” What does it mean to be edified? Without doing a scientific survey, my guess is that most people would say that being edified means to be encouraged, to make to feel better, or to have a more positive attitude. So, I did some searching on the Internet to see if my guess was accurate or not. I found that the majority of the time, the word is used in the sense of encourage or be made to feel better. However, when I looked into an English dictionary, I found the following definition. “Edify: enlighten, to improve the morals or knowledge of somebody.” Another dictionary said this. “Edify: to instruct or improve spiritually.” Does this surprise you? Do you think of being instructed as edification? Do you think of gaining new knowledge when you are edified?

edification

Are you up for it?

In going back to the Greek language and looking at the word, we find that it comes from a word that means to build, erect, or set up one thing or another. The word was originally used to describe the founding and construction of a house. So, it literally meant to build a place of dwelling out of construction materials. The original sense of the word can still be found in our language today in the word edifice, a building. However, in the New Testament, the word is often used metaphorically of imparting wisdom to another person, that is, instructing another person with words that can be understood and applied to life. While today the word may be used in the sense of encourage or make someone to feel good (that is, from a purely emotional point of view), that is generally not the way that it was used within the New Testament.

There is no doubt that the Bible clearly teaches us to follow after things that edify. Romans 14:19 states, “Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.”  1 Thessalonians 5:11 states, “Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.” And in 2 Corinthians 12:19, Paul says “…we do all things for your edifying.”  However, we also read that not everything that is lawful is something that edifies. Paul writes in 1 Cor.10:23, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.” This leads us to ask the question: what are the kinds of things that truly do edify?

In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul deals with the problem of the Christians at Corinth speaking in unknown tongues without the presence of an interpreter.  In contrast to the one who speaks in an unknown tongue, Paul states in verse 3, “But he that prophesiethspeaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort.” In essence Paul is saying that the unknown tongue does not edify, but prophesy does edify. He states, “For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other is not edified.” For something to edify, it must have meaning. Not in the sense of emotion or feeling, but in the sense of the understanding. That is, if something is not intelligible or comprehendible by the intellect, then it cannot edify. True edification can only come through a situation where knowledge and instruction is imparted with the attitude of love.

Let us note Ephesians 4:11-16.  These verses speak concerning the subject of edification of the body of Christ. Verse 12 tells us that one reason God gave the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers was for the edifying of the body of Christ.  Each of these offices are special in that God uses them to instruct and teach.  Verse 13 tells us that this instruction and teaching has as its object, imparting the knowledge of Christ. Verse 15 says it is about speaking the truth in love. One cannot be edified without love (1 Corinthians 8:1). Verse 16 reiterates that instruction and teaching are for edifying. Truth, knowledge, instruction, and love are all things that are associated with edifying. We learn then, that edification comes through the avenue of words when conjoined with the motivation of love on the part of the one edifying. Biblical edification inherently involves communication. Wordless expressions of emotion, feeling, or any other element which produces an incomprehensible sound cannot edify.  Speaking the truth in love, however results in godly edifying (1 Timothy 1:4).

Playing an instrument of music is something that is aesthetically beautiful, stirring, and uplifting, but it cannot edify; it cannot impart knowledge; it cannot instruct. Only the use of verbal communication when combined with spiritual words and an attitude of love can accomplish this task. Knowledge alone does not accomplish this task. Knowledge separated from love does not edify, it merely puffs up (1 Corinthians 8:1). However, biblical edification is the loving impartation of spiritual instruction designed to build up the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of the student to the motivation of accomplishing the work of the kingdom.

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