Looking Up

 "Poor little bird, you can't fly!"   "No, but I can look up!" —George MacDonald

My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD;In the morning I will direct it to You,And I will look up. —Psalm 5:3

For years my morning routine was the same: I completed my morning ablutions, snatched a cup of coffee and my iPad and got my news brief for the day. Then I settled in to meet the Lord.

No longer. I'm learning—first thing—to "look up.”

Looking out and about is unnerving: our world is circling down the drain. Pundits and prophets report the end of civilization as we know it and the scene on the ground confirms it. The world’s in a hand basket, as old folks say, and we have a pretty good idea where it's going.

Given the spin we're in, it's better to "look up," to lift up our voices first thing in the morning and "direct" our thoughts to the LORD; to take the worries off our minds, where they have no business being, and put them into his hands where they belong. 

And then, with hearts at rest we can sally forth to meet the day, or shelter safely at home.

There's an old saying: “To make a beginning is the whole," and worship is the best way to begin. Perhaps I can do no more this year—my sphere of influence is small—but I can certainly do no better. 

David Roper

1.19.20

Nativity I

 An ad hominem reaction is an argument directed against a person rather than the position he or she is maintaining. It’s a logical fallacy.

It was an argument that, on one occasion, was used against Jesus by the Pharisees, who, bested in a debate with him, turned and attacked his reputation: “Well at least we’re not born of fornication,” they sneered, with the implication: “As you were!” (John 8:41).

Jesus’ contemporaries never understood his miraculous conception, nor, to be honest, do we.

John Donne tried very hard to express the mystery and the wonder of it: 

Ere by the spheres time was created thou [Mary]Wast in his mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;Whom thou conceivest, conceived; yea, thou art nowThy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother,Thou wast light in dark and shut’st in little roomImmensity, cloister'd in thy dear womb. 

No, we’ll never understand Jesus’ unique conception. All we can say is that once for a very specific purpose, Immensity was cloistered in a young woman’s womb.

We can only hallow the day when, nine months later, ”the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward us appeared" (Titus 3:4).

David Roper
12.12.21

Global Warming

“And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.” —Revelation 16:8-9

I decided last summer to put an end to some of my questions about global warming and read a number of books and articles on both sides of the debate. Like that fabled poet, I "frequented doctor and saint, and heard great argument..."

First off, it does seem that the earth is warming though it’s impossible to know if this is a cycle, or a trend leading to an extinction event. Only time will tell. (It was somewhat comforting to learn that 2020 was a bit cooler than 2014.)

Second, though we're putting more hydrocarbons into the atmosphere than in previous centuries, there's no evidence that these "greenhouse gasses" are necessarily the cause of global warming. That's a conclusion beyond science and the scientific method. 

So, like that poet, I, unconvinced either way, "came out by the same door as in I went." 

But, though I'm agnostic about global warming, I have one certainty: God makes earth's weather. Global warming, if it exists, is not anthropogenic (man-created), as they say. God controls earth's environment and uses it to get our attention. 

Whenever we're tempted to play God, he shows us we're not quite ready yet. Typhoons, tsunamis, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, drought, catastrophic floods, and out of control forest fires make it obvious who's running the show. 

David Roper

11.19.21

The Vine

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away…” (John 15:1).

Jesus and his disciples were making their way through the Kidron Valley on their way to the Mount of Olives, passing through vineyards along the way. A simile sprang to Jesus’ mind: I am like a vine; my disciples are my branches; God, my Father, is the vigneron.

Jesus introduces the analogy with what appears to be a stern warning: “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he (the Father) takes away…” This, at least, is the way most  versions render this verse.

I would suggest an alternate and more hopeful translation: “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he lifts up from the ground.” 

  

The words translated  “he takes away,” is one Greek verb that, in its fundamental sense, means “to lift (something) up.” (The early Latin versions of this verse translate the phrase with tollet, “he raises up.”)

In that culture vinedressers often found live branches that were firmly attached to the vine, but, having fallen off the treillage, were trailing in the dirt. First they took each leaf in hand and washed it down, wiping away the mud, mold and infestation. Then they “lifted it up” and attached the branch once again to the trellis, in fresh air and sunlight, away from vermin and grime.

So, Jesus assures us: Your Father will not “take you away” when you fall, even though you fall again and again. He is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. He will “lift you up” that you may bear fruit—indeed much fruit—once again (15:2,3).

Mine is hope in my Redeemer

Though I fall, his love is sure

Christ has paid for every failing

I am His forevermore —CityAlight

 

David Roper

11.17.21

Augustine and His Kin

“What do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf”  (1 Corinthians 15:29).

“I have no idea what this text means., Augustine wrote in a commentary on 1 Corinthians 15,and in reference to Paul’s phrase, “baptized on behalf of the dead."

To be Augustinian is to approach the scriptures with full awareness that we “know in part,” to never allow our certitude (how sure we are) to outstrip our certainty (how sure a thing is).

John Calvin, said, “Let this be our sacred rule: to seek to know nothing except what scripture teaches us; when the Lord closes his holy mouth, let us go no further.” Or, as Paul would say, let's not “go beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6).

I’m told that one evening after dinner at one of the Oxford colleges, a porter handed an English Lord his hat. “How did you know it was mine?” the Lord asked. “I didn’t,” the porter responded, “I just knew it was the one you came in with.”

Bully for him: A steady refusal to go beyond the facts.

David Roper
11.16.21

Working Together With God

 

"God reconciled us to himself throughChrist, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation…  In this way, we are working together with God" (2Corinthians 5:18, 6:1).  Imagine that you've been apprenticed to Michelangelo, the creative genius and celebrated Renaissance artist. You're a novice, but he has invited you to participate with him in painting "The  Creation of  Adam" on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Your assignment is to fill in a tiny portion of a fold in the drapery behind the form of the Creator.  So you work for hours, lying on your back on a rickety, wooden scaffold, 65 feet off the chapel floor, wet lime plaster falling on your face and irritating your eyes, knowing that no one on earth will acknowledge your contribution.  But you will have added to the beauty of the whole. The painting would be incomplete without you.   Paul makes a remarkable statement in the text above, one easily lost in the misplaced chapter heading: "So then, we are working together with God."  God alone has reconciled the world to himself in the Cross. Now he stands with arms wide open to receive all who will come. Yet, though he has done all to bring salvation to us, he has given you "the ministry of reconciliation," to those who come your way. The picture will be incomplete without you.  "But, I'm old," you say—or a house-bound invalid, a hard-pressed mother, a weary care-giver, a retired pastor with time on his, or her hands. “I'm out of the picture. What part can I play?" You can love and you can pray—mighty works as it happens, when you're working together with God. David Roper 11.10.22

Feed My Lambs

“Simon, son of John, do you love me? Feed my lambs…” (John 21:13)

In 1627, Samuel Rutherford penned a letter to Marion M'Naught, wife of William Fullerton, minister of a small Presbyterian church in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. Things were not going well for William, and he had few to "speak a good word" for him. He wanted God to "transplant" him to another place, perhaps a larger place where his gifts would be acknowledged and better utilized.

Rutherford wrote, "All God's plants, set by His own hand, thrive well. Ask of God a submissive heart. Continue for the love of the Prince of your salvation, who is standing at the end of your way, holding up in His hand the prize and the garland to the race-runners. Your reward shall be with the Lord, although the people be not gathered (as the prophet speaks); and suppose the work do not prosper...you shall not lose your reward.”

Though the people be not gathered, "continue for the love of the Prince of your salvation.” Shepherd His lambs. Teach, pray, listen to their bleating and love them. Do it because you love Jesus “who is standing at the end of your way, holding up in His hand the prize and the garland to the race-runners.” 

Though “the work do not prosper...you shall not lose your reward.”

David Roper
11.8.21

A Righteous Tree

Ancient Canaanite literature referred to evergreen trees as "righteous trees." (There's a reflection of that nomenclature in Isaiah 61:3 where the Servant of the Lord refers to the believing remnant of Judah as “trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD,") 

Evergreens don't drop their leaves and lose their shape in the winter, and they keep their verdure and foliage all year long. Thus in ancient times they were considered "righteous" because they always looked like trees—trees as trees are supposed to be.   

Righteousness these days is associated with fusty, finger-wagging prudes who are “good” in the worst sort of way, but ancient etymology belies that meaning: Personal righteous is "being what a man or women is supposed to be."

We all have vestigial memories of what we’re supposed to be. It’s that idea—it exists in the worst of us—that makes us want to be better.

C.S. Lewis (I think it was) once said that you can slap an alligator on the back and say "Be an alligator" and he will be unmoved by your entreaty. But clap a man on the back and say "Be a man"and he will know exactly what mean. (This was written before the age of gender sensitivity.) 

This is the righteousness that Jesus has promised to all who seek it and ask it of hm: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6). 

David Roper
11.4.21

Hope Floats

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1Corinthians 13:7).

No human being is hopeless. Only demons are hopeless, for their character is fixed for all eternity. Everyone else deserves the benefit of doubt.

Love is a refusal to give up on others; to take failure as final. It sees promise and looks for progress, no matter how slight. It prays and hopes and waits for ultimate triumph through the grace of God. 

A friend of mine once mused that he'd rather have it said that he loved too many than that he loved too few. Indeed, we may love too many, be fooled by pretense and our hearts may be broken, but, it's better to be less like Lucy, and more like Charlie Brown.

David Roper
11.3.21

Lessons from the Lord of the Flies

 One day Ahaziah fell through the balcony railing on the rooftop of his house in Samaria and was injured. He sent messengers off to consult Baal-Zebub, (the Lord of the Flies) the god of Ekron, "Am I going to recover from this accident?" GOD's angel spoke to Elijah the Tishbite: "Up on your feet! Go out and meet the messengers of the king of Samaria with this word, 'Is it because there's no God in Israel that you're running off to consult Baal-Zebub god of Ekron?” (2 Kings 1:2,3).

---

I wonder why we in the Church so often “run off to consult" those who know nothing of "the wisdom from above" (James 3:17), who do not know that "the fear of (reverence for) the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"? (Psalm 111:10).

We're too often dazzled by credentials and technical jargon and the certainty with which earth-bound mavens express their convictions, and we uncritically accept their counsel without laying it alongside God's word for analysis. We do not "test the spirits"—look into the hidden presuppositions and philosophical underpinnings of every system to see if they are of God (1 John 4:1-6). Only too late do we realize that we've embraced a "wisdom that has not come down from above," but is "earthly, unspiritual, and demonic" (James 3:15).

Paul writes, "We have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you…but it’s not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so. God’s wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don’t find it lying around on the surface. It’s not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene. The experts of our day haven’t a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn’t have killed the Master of Life on a cross. That’s why we have this Scripture text: 'No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it— What God has arranged for those who love him.' But you’ve seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you. The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along. Who ever knows what you’re thinking and planning except you yourself? The same with God—except that he not only knows what he’s thinking, but he lets us in on it. God offers a full report on the gifts of life and salvation that he is giving us. We don’t have to rely on the world’s guesses and opinions. We didn’t learn this by reading books or going to school; we learned it from God, who taught us person-to-person through Jesus, and we’re passing it on to you in the same firsthand, personal way" (2 Corinthians 2:13-17, The Message).

Is it because there's no God in the Church that we inquire elsewhere? Elijah’s last words to Ahaziah should cause us to pause: “Because you consulted Baal-Zebub, Ahaziah, you shall surely die” (2 Kings 1:6). 

David Roper
10.21.21

When God Gives In

They only cared about pleasing themselves…
And provoked God with their insistent demands.
So He gave them exactly what they asked for—
but with it they got an empty heart.  —Psalm 106:14-15 (The Message)

Psalm 106 is a catalogue of moral failure, summed up in a laconic confession: "We sinned a lot” (106:6).

 Out of this litany of bad behavior, one verse caught my eye: “(God) gave them (Israel) exactly what they asked for, but with it they got an empty heart” (106:15).

The incident the poet had in mind is described in the book of Numbers: “The riff-raff among the people had a craving and soon they had the People of Israel whining, ‘Why can't we have meat? We ate fish in Egypt—and got it free!—to say nothing of the cucumbers and melons, the leeks and onions and garlic. But nothing tastes good out here; all we get is manna, manna, manna’” (11:4-5). 

"Where's the meat?" the people of GOD cried. “Why can’t we go back to Egypt and have the good life we enjoyed there?” (How soon we forget.)

Moses replied, “You want meat do you? Well, God’s going to give you meat. You're going to eat meat, not for a day or two days, or five or ten or twenty days but for a whole month. You're going to eat meat until its coming out of your nose. You're going to be so sick of meat that you'll gag and throw up at the mere sight of it”— which is exactly what happened. (You can read the story for yourself in Numbers 11.)

What's the point? Well, if I want something my Father in Heaven does not want for me—because in His infinite wisdom He knows it would be ruinous—and I want it bad enough, and keep asking for it, He may give it to me, but the result will be emptiness and self-loathing.

 So then, I must be careful about what I want because, in the end, I may not want what I wanted at all. 

God's "giving in" is always redemptive, however, designed to turn us around and give us the truly good life. It was the pig pen, you know, that turned the Prodigal toward home.

 David Roper
10.17.21

Disordered Love

 

“Living a just and holy life requires one…. to love things in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, I.27-28) 

 

The Apostle Paul, wrote similarly…

 

“Know this, that in the last days perilous times will come:  For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving,[1] unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…” (2 Timothy 3:1-4).

 

The “last days,” in which Paul places this scenario, are not some far-off eschatological epoch, but the period between the first and second comings of Christ, the days in which we now live (Cf., Hebrews 1:1.). Paul describes these days as “perilous,” a word used in the Gospels to describe the Gerasene maniac, a man so dangerous that no one could pass through his neighborhood unscathed. 

 

These days are perilous, Paul insists, because love has become disordered. Five times in this catalogue of vices, he refers to expressions of love that are not rightly ordered. And then he brackets the list with the essential disorder: “Men will be lovers of themselves…rather than lovers of God…”

 

The world needs love—though it may not be the only thing there’s too little of, Dionne Warwick notwithstanding. But the fundamental problem with the human heart is that we don’t love God and therefore we cannot imagine what authentic love looks like. He has to show us. 

 

The answer to misdirected love, then, is not to insist that we start loving one another—a thoroughly secular notion—because love, apart from God, will always be disordered. We will “love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally.” 

 

No, the answer to misdirected love is to know God. He is the truth about love and the source of all the love in the world. In his presence and by his word we are taught the meaning of love. “By this, love is brought to perfection in us” (1 John 4:17). 

 

David Roper

3.10.21

[1] “Unloving”— the Greek term is a rare word astorge, which is the inability to love cute and cuddly things like small animals and baby human beings. 

Growing Slowly Wise

 

I’m pleased to announce that my book on the Epistle of James has been reprinted in both e-book and paperback formats. It can be found on Amazon, Apple Books and other online sites.  I’m especially pleased to use one of our son Josh’s Idaho photographs for the cover. That’s long been my desire.

I pray that God will use this book to enrich the lives of those who read it and that God’s Spirit will produce in them that quality of life that can best be described as beautiful. 

Here’s a portion of my Introduction to the book:

 

“If the Epistle is ‘of straw’ then there is within that straw a very hearty firm, nourishing, but as yet uninterpreted and unthreshed grain.”—Johann Gottfried Herder

 

Martin Luther had a hard time with James’ book. He thought it utterly bereft of God’s grace, a throwback to the law and order days of the Old Covenant. He could see no indication that James understood Paul’s great themes of justification and sanctification by faith that had so powerfully influenced his conversion. And so he gave the book scant attention, calling it, “an epistle of straw.” “James,” he wrote, “is a very dangerous and bad book…I feel like throwing Jimmy into the stove.”

Later, I’m happy to say, Luther, whose great mind was always growing, revised his opinion of James’ book, perhaps as a result of discussions with his colleague Philip Melanchthon and after reading John Calvin’s commentary on James, and surely as a result of the prompting of the Holy Spirit. “I think highly of James (now),” he wrote, “and regard it as valuable….”

I too have a hard time with James’ book, but for a different reason. I too think highly of it and regard it as valuable, but it’s a hard read, not because it’s hard to understand—indeed, I understand it too well—but because it is full of what Jesus’ early disciples would have called “hard sayings,” precepts that are hard to hear. Indeed, James steps all over my toes; I can’t read his book without flinching.

He looks into my heart and sees bottomless evil—pride, prejudice, self–righteousness, hypocrisy and deceit. He targets my cold, deliberate sins of the spirit and delivers his message with lethal accuracy.  As Professor Howard Hendricks used to say, “James doesn’t strafe the deck; he drops the bomb down the funnel.” 

James segues rapidly from one searching concept to another in what we would call today “a stream of consciousness,” touching on a subject, illuminating it, expanding it, applying it and then moving to another thought, triggered by an idea that associates itself in his mind. His arguments are not always easy to follow since he gives us few grammatical markers to show us how his mind is working. 

Despite James somewhat distracting tendency to shuttle readily from one topic to another, however, there is one clear theme that warps its way through the woof of his writing. It is that good, old­–fashioned word, holiness. James would have us “holy as God is holy.”

Holiness is a dull word these days, conjuring up images of fusty, finger–wagging prigs, who are good in the worst sense of the word, men and women with sullen, morose faces, full of rectitude and rigid duty, “on hold for the next life,” as a Washington Post writer once put it. 

True holiness, however, is anything but dull. It is startling and arresting. It is more than being decent, good, ethical and upright. It has that aspect the Bible calls “the beauty of holiness.” It is what Paul has in mind when he calls on us to “adorn the gospel” (Titus 2:10). 

Likewise Peter, writes, “Live such good lives among unbelievers that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:12). The word, here twice–translated “good,” means “something beautiful to see.” 

This is the picture of holiness James draws for us, a portrayal that fascinates us, and awakens us to the hope that we can be more than we ever hoped to be; that we too can live lives of uncommon beauty and grace. It can happen as we humbly receive it. “The Lord…will beautify the humble,” Israel’s poet assures us (Psalms 149:4). 

David Roper

10.9.21

Light Dawns

 

 “Light dawns for the righteous" (Psalm 97:11).

 

Truth and moral order are imbedded in the universe: “The heavens proclaim (God's) righteousness and all people see his glory” (97:6). We know truth when we “see” it. Even pagan idol worshippers know that their idols are "worthless" (97:7). 

 

When we turn away from the truth we descend into intellectual darkness. Our thoughts become fuddled and absurd. Claiming to be wise, we become great fools. On the other hand, "light dawns for the righteous" (97:11). The more we obey the truth, the more of it we know. 

So, if you want to be sure of a thing, just do it.

 

Truth eludes the proud and the clever, but the simple, the honest, the humble understand: They “have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14). There is a direct correlation between spiritual desire and one's grasp of reality. The latter is not a matter of the intellect but of the will.

 

So, if you’re having trouble with truth these days just read the Bible and decide, with the help of God's Holy Spirit, to do the very next thing He asks you to do. (You'll know what that is.) And you will know: "Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will know whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own."

"Good people see good things,“ George MacDonald said. Bad people see nothing at all, for “even that which they have is taken from them” (Matthew 25:29), all of which explains why common-sense realities—the difference between boys and girls, for example—elude men and women today.

 

David Roper

10.11.21

Lingering

"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all…" (Philippians 1:21-26).

 

Perhaps you’re wondering why God has allowed you to linger. You’ve lived your allotted three-score and ten, or four-score and more, and you, like the great Apostle, "desire to depart and to be with Christ" for that would, indeed, be better.

 

You should know this: Your tenure here on earth is not determined by the age of your parents, actuarial tables, the exercise you’ve taken, or the supplements you’ve ingested over the years, but by the providence of God. If you “remain and continue“ it is because your Father is not done with you yet. Your  presence on earth is essential to complete his plan to bring salvation to the world.

 

The old Mennonites taught us by word and deed that God leaves the elderly so others can learn compassion. Perhaps you’ve been left here on earth to teach your family and friends to care.

 

Or maybe, you’ve been left for a season to show the next generation how to grow old successfully. That’s not an easy task and can only be done as we grow old with God. In truth, a cheerful old-timer is one of the crowning works of our Father in Heaven, a visible sign of his ever-renewing presence and power (2 Corinthians 4:16).

 

Finally, there may be things to be done in you that can only be done through time. The Spirit yearns to ripen his fruit within you and endow you with the beauty that holiness supplies. He’s working to complete you and get you ready to live in God’s holy presence forever (2 Thessalonians 1:5).

 

So, while you live out what remains of your days here on earth, may God be your strength and your hope. Very soon, now, you’ll "depart and be with Christ” forever and ever and ever. Then everything will be better by far.

 

“Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow” is the mantra for me as I linger. Again I say, who could ask for anything more?

 

David Roper

10.7.21

 

Outcome

(God) knows the way he takes;
when he has tried me, 
I shall come out as gold (Job 23:10)].

"(God) knows the way I take," the traditional translation of the first line of this text, has been an encouragement to many, and is patently true (John 2: 24). 

 

It's likely however, that Job had another thought in mind. The text reads literally, "He knows the way with me," i.e., the way he takes with me. Put another way, God knows what he’s doing. 

 

Previously, Job had wondered if God did know what he was doing (7:18). Now he rests in the assurance that his suffering is purposeful.  His trials are the means by which God is refining his soul, turning it into 24 karat gold. 

 

So I, with Job, can accept my small adversities cheerfully, secure in the knowledge that God’s outcome will be the best of all outcomes for me.

 

F.B. Meyer wrote, "There is no clue to the understanding of the mysteries of our mortal life, save the hypothesis, that we are being prepared for the position which has been prepared for us in the eternal world." Or, as Paul has said. “Our light affliction, which is for the moment, is working for us an eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

 

You can count on it: God knows what he's doing.

 

David Roper

10.6.21

Hello Darkness

"Darkness has become my friend" (Psalm 88:18). 

This is the saddest song in the psalter, a mournful dirge with no praise, no thanksgiving, no celebration, no eulogy. The poet’s soul was “full of trouble"; his dark mood all-engulfing.

 

There are days like that.

 

Some tell us we should never have bad days, but they wrong us when they do. “God has not promised skies always blue, flower-strewn pathways, all our lives through; God hath not promised sun without rain, Joy without sorrow, peace without pain” (Anne Johnson Flint). There will be days when we’re "in regions dark and deep" (88:6).

 

There's is one thing we can do in the darkness: Like Israel's poet, we can reach out for God: "As for me, O LORD, I cry to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you" (88:13)—in which case, the darkness will have pushed us a little closer to our Father and his faithful love and the darkness will have become, in that way, our  dearest friend (88:18).

 

"Hello darkness, my old friend..."

 

David Roper

10.4.21

 

The Limits of Our Liberty

 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” —The Declaration of Independence

 

"For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them" —the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:19

 

"We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." Among these rights is the incontrovertible right to liberty. The Declaration of Independence affirms that entitlement, as does Natural Law and Holy Scripture.

 

But liberty is not the highest good. There is one higher: the right to set aside our rights for the sake of others.

 

Paul was a free man and had rights as a human being and as a Roman citizen—rights he enumerates in 1 Corinthians 9—and, on  occasion, he expected others to honor those rights (Acts 22:25-29). 

 

Yet he was willing to set aside his rights when, by insisting on them, he put the cause of Christ in jeopardy. "I do it (set aside my own freedom) for the sake of the gospel," he insists, "that I may share with others in its blessings" (9:23). It's in this context that Paul compares authentic Christians to Olympian athletes:

 

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified (9:24-27). 

 

Track athletes shouldn’t train on beer and pretzels and expect to compete successfully. They exercise self-restraint,  setting aside their personanal freedom in order to run well. This should be our discipline as well, for our race, unlike a Roman foot race and its fading laurel wreath, has eternal consequences: the ultimate salvation of men and women, boys and girls. In a mixed metaphor taken from the sport of boxing, Paul speaks of giving himself a "knock-out punch"[1] in order to obtain that prize.

 

We should then be willing to set aside our personal liberty for the sake of that higher goal. Jesus himself is our example: He voluntarily gave up his right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in order to save us (Philippians  2:4-8). Paul goes so far as to insist that our Lord in his incarnation, “emptied himself" of his right to the independent use of his attributes as God to bring eternal salvation to the world.[2]

 

I should be wary, then, lest I, by insisting on my own liberty, become an also-ran.

 

David Roper

10.2.21

[1] Paul's Greek word here translated "discipline my body" ("buffet my body" in earlier translations) is a technical boxing term for an uppercut that puts an opponent on the canvass—something akin to Mammy Yoakum’s fabled “Goodnight Irene” punch.

[2] Paul is very careful in his choice of  words. He does not say that Jesus set aside his deity but that he, in the incarnation, “emptied himself” of the independent use of his deity and always acted as a man solely dependent on his Father (John 5:30). 

___

The Rock

 

 

“Secure whatever ill betide…”

 

The Rock: His works are perfect,

and the way he works is fair and just—

a God you can depend upon, no exceptions…  (Deuteronomy 32:4 The Message)

 

Our yard is strewn with rocks. Huge rocks. Boulders.

 

No, they weren’t left behind when the glaciers receded. We put them there.

 

On one occasion, when we couldn’t get a rock delivered, I had the quarry load it on the tailgate of my jeep, which I then drove home and backed into place. Grandmother, Carolyn and I rolled the boulder off the tailgate into a hole we’d prepared. It landed in the exactly right place with a resounding “thud” that may have registered on the seismographs at Boise State University. It remains there to this day—steadfast, unmovable.

 

Rocks are like that, you know: mute witnesses to immutability. They never change.

 

The world does, however: Disorder is the order of the day. “Restless nations in commotion.” Raging chaos and confusion, wild perturbation. Alarming flux and change.

 

Not so with God. He’s a rock.

 

The Lord’s our rock, in Him we hide,

A shelter in the time of storm

Secure whatever ill betide

A shelter in the time of storm.

 

David Roper

9.27.21

 

Speak No Evil

 

“Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one,to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people” (Titus 3:1,2)

 

Seneca, the Stoic philosopher and contemporary of Jesus wrote, "You know what wine and liqueur taste like. It makes no difference whether a hundred or a thousand bottles pass through you, you are nothing more than a filter” (Moral Letters, 77.16).

 

Wine and strong drink are pleasurable for the moment, but are wasting assets, or so Seneca believed. They pass through us and on. (It's alimentary, my dear Watson.)

 

Jesus used the same logic to make another point: "Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person" (Matthew 15:18-20a).

 

I often chuckle at Jesus' perspicacity: His listeners would have expected "covetousness" as the final vice in the list for it was next in line and last in the Ten Commandments, seven of which he enumerated. Jesus surprised the crowd with “slander,” a peccadillo in their eyes. (Slander is “speaking evil” of others.)

 

Slander proceeds from the heart. Accordingly, it’s not what goes into my mouth that defiles and defines me, but what comes out of it. My words reveal the true condition of my soul. 

 

Is it any wonder that Jesus' listeners were mortified (Matthew 15:12).

 

Here’s another thought…

 

Paul’s wrote: “Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse” (Philippians 4:8 The Message).

 

It’s generally thought that Paul had abstract thought in mind (right thinking) and that may have been his intention. I wonder, however, given the context of the book, if Paul is not encouraging us to think about the “things” (behaviors) that we observe in others.

 

Rather than fixing our minds on the flaws we see in our brothers should we not think about their best actions—those that are “true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse?” Should we not think and speak of these things?

 

David Roper

9.20.21

Contrarities

WHat is this strange and uncouth thing?

To make me sigh, and seek, and faint, and die,

Untill I had some place, where I might sing,

And serve thee; and not onely I,

But all my wealth and familie might combine

To set thy honour up, as our designe.

 

And then when after much delay,

Much wrastling, many a combate, this deare end,

So much desir’d, is giv’n, to take away

My power to serve thee; to unbend

All my abilities, my designes confound,

And lay my threatnings bleeding on the ground.

 

One ague dwelleth in my bones,

Another in my soul (the memorie

What I would do for thee, if once my grones

Could be allow’d for harmonie):

I am in all a weak disabled thing,

Save in the sight thereof, where strength doth sting.

 

Besides, things sort not to my will,

Ev’n when my will doth studie thy renown:

Thou turnest th’ edge of all things on me still,

Taking me up to throw me down:

So that, ev’n when my hopes seem to be sped,

I am to grief alive, to them as dead.

 

Ah my deare Father, ease my smart!

These contrarieties crush me: these crosse actions

Doe winde a rope about, and cut my heart:

And yet since these thy contradictions

Are properly a crosse felt by the Sonne,

With but foure words, my words, Thy will be done.

 

—George Herbert

 

Herbert was unwell most of his life—"a weak, disabled thing”—and died at age 39. In this poem he reflects on the illness he calls a "contrariety." Why, when he prepared so long to preach (“study thy renown"), and when he was willing to give all to that task, did God "throw him down" contrary to his wishes?

 

The"contrarieties”  crushed him: the "cross actions" cut into his heart, a fair description of the way prolonged illness makes us wonder if God knows, or cares, or knows what he’s doing.

 

But in the end Herbert saw, as we must see, that illness is a cross to be taken up and borne as Jesus bore his cross, “with but four words.”

 

His words become our words: "Thy will be done."

 

David Roper

9.30.21

Holding and Held

I hold on to you;
Your right hand holds on to me—Psalm 63:8

David was in the Judean Wilderness, “a dry and weary land where there was no water.” His physical surroundings were but an echo of his deeper thirst and weariness: "I thirst for you, O God” (63:1).

 

Indeed, our deepest desires are for God himself and His steadfast love, a love that will endure forever. Thus, when caught up in that love, we can say with David, "I’m satisfied” (63:5). 

 

So, David concludes, "I will hold on to you” (63:8)

 

Me too, though my grip is not as strong as it used to be. Not to worry, God is holding on to me! People get tired of me and my imperfections and readily give up on me, but not God. He has me in his grip and will never let go. He will hold on to me forever (63:8; John 10:28,29).

Well, the Rock got ahold of me,

Yes, the Rock got ahold of me.

I used to think I had ahold of the Rock,

But the Rock had ahold of me!

 

David Roper

9.15.21

Mad in Pursuit

"We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first."—Charles Mackay, in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841)

 

I find it remarkable that we in the Church, year after year, run lickety-split after every new-born fad the world conceives—mad in pursuit. We readily embrace each system; but seldom do we "test the spirits" to see if these ideologies fully embrace and reflect the mind of God (1 John 4:1).

 

For that reason, I often caution young pastors against running after new theologies. There’s something about youth that loves new and unusual, experimental, progressive ideas, but the gospel is not avant-garde. We go back to “that which was from the beginning,” to the old orthodoxies, to the clear teaching of Jesus and his apostles (1 John 1:1). 

 

Inevitably, progressive concepts fade away as the world finds them wanting and moves on to "another folly more captivating than the first." Yet the Church clings to these ideas tenaciously, long after they have been found wanting and have been jettisoned by the world. Indeed, as Jesus said, the sons of this world are more shrewd than the sons of light (Luke 16:8). 

 

Peter, instead, writes of “the living and enduring word of God… This word is the good news (the gospel) that was preached to you" (1 Peter 1:23-25).This is the gospel that was “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). 

 

In contrast, "the world and its passions are passing away" (1 John 2:17); its systems soon become passé. What will become of us, then, if we have staked our lives and ministries upon them?

 

Pity the gods,

no longer divine.

Pity the night

the stars lose their shine. —Dana Gioia

 

David Roper

11.13.21

Tears

 

You have kept count of my tossings;

You put my tears in your bottle.

Are they not in your book? (Psalm 56:8). 

 

God sees our tears, even those that fall inside. He keeps them and remembers them forever. 

 

How did David know that God is so inclined? The way you and I know. By looking at his face as it’s mirrored in his Word:  

 

I trust in God (Elohim), thanks to his Word; 

I trust in the LORD (Yahweh), thanks to his Word (56:11). 

 

How do I know God cares? By "his Word."

 

It’s striking that the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, with remarkable prescience, anticipated the New Testament revelation and translated the second “Word” as “Logos,” the Apostle John’s word for Jesus. Thus we see what God is like in both his written and incarnate Word![1]

 

How do I know God cares? By the tears in my Savior’s eyes (John 11:35).

 

George MacDonald wrote,

 

“If ever we get hungry to see God, we must look at his picture.”

“Where is that, sir?”

“Ah, Davie, don’t you know that besides being himself, and just because he is himself, Jesus is the living picture of God?”

 

David Roper

9.12.21

[1] “ἐπὶ τῷ θεῷ αἰνέσω ῥῆμα ἐπὶ τῷ κυρίῳ αἰνέσω λόγον” (Psalms 57 [56]:11).

 

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