War and Peace

 “I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war” (Psalm 120:7). 

“I don’t agree with those who plunge headlong into the middle of a [fight], accepting a turbulent life… The wise person will endure that, but he won’t choose it—choosing to make peace, rather than war” (Seneca, Moral Letters). 

 

Some folks love a good fight, but peacemaking, Seneca’s bottom line, is, or should be, the hallmark of God’s children: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they (and they alone) shall be called the sons of God” (Matthew 5:9).

 

That’s an attitude that’s sadly lacking in political discourse these days, even among the sons of God: Acrimony is often the rule. Certainly, there are good reasons to be morally outraged at the actions of evil men and women, but our part is to let God deal with evildoers and look for ways to make peace.

 

Peacemaking begins with small stuff—reminding ourselves of our Lord’s command to love and pray for those who oppose us; resisting the temptation “to take up a reproach (an insulting remark) against a neighbor” (Psalm 15:3); responding to fear and fear-mongering with quiet assurance; listening, listening, listening; asking questions; refusing to talk over one another; returning soft answers to wrath. These are the savory reactions of grace, sprinklings of salt, if you will (Colossians 4:6), the missing element in most political conversation these days.

 

This is not a call to moralize, but to listen prayerfully to others in order to understand the discomfort and frustration they feel. And then to pray or speak a word “in season”—when it’s appropriate to do so (Isaiah 50:4). Sometimes, it’s best to be silent.  

 

Peacemaking, like almost everything else in the world, begins in our hearts and rests fully on our Lord’s becalming word: “Be still (at peace) and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

 

David Roper

2.7.21

 

 

Total Control

 

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never-failing skill

[God] treasures up His bright designs,

And works His sovereign will. —William Cowper

 

The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD;

It is like an irrigation canal:

He turns it wherever He will (Proverbs 21:1).

 

We often see farmers trudging through their fields with ditching tools on their shoulders. The farmer’s work is to turn the flow of water into the field “wherever he will.” The farmer’s will is sovereign. That's the point of the proverb above. 

 

An ancient Midrash (Jewish commentary) on this verse states the premise: "God gives to the world good or bad kings, according as He seeks to bless it or to visit it with punishment; all decisions that go forth from the king's mouth… come from the Holy One."

 

The proverb is a reminder that no matter what earth’s rulers determine to do, God always has the upper hand. When our Lord bends a king’s (or a president’s) will to do his will, he cannot be resisted. 

 

The Bible is replete with examples: Tiglath-pileser, the Assyrian monarch (Isaiah 10:6, 7), the Persian emperors, Cyrus (Isaiah 41:2–4) and Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:21), and Rareness the Great, the Pharaoh of Egypt (Romans 9:17) to name a few. All were autocrats of the first order and were powerful enough to direct all aspects of government and society. Yet, in pursuing their own agendas, they were directed by God as He chose. All the biblical writers make the same point: human authority has its source in God’s will. 

 

Does this mean that our rulers will necessarily make wise decisions? No, God may “cause” our rulers to make foolish decisions that he may “visit [our nation] with punishment” (Cf., 2 Chronicles 18:1-22) and, more's the pity, his children may be collateral damage. Nevertheless, we can know at all times that our rulers are not running amuck; God is in control.

 

Perhaps the best example of this principle is the well-known and oft-quoted exchange between Jesus and Pilate when Jesus was on trial: Pilate blustered, "Do you not know that I have power to release you and power to crucify you?” Jesus calmly replied, “You have no power over me unless it has been given you from above” (John 19:10–11).

 

Did the biblical writers see the logical contradiction in this equation? Of course they did; they were not fools. Nevertheless they stated the truth as it is without amelioration. Reality is full of mystery and paradox; we can know and find comfort in things that we cannot understand. 

 

David Roper

2.6.21

Gates

"I've opened a door before you that no one can close. You don't have much strength, I know that... " (Revelation 3:8).

 

A dear friend of mine sent that text to me at a time when I most needed it. That's the way our Father works, you know—acting and speaking incognito through our friends. 

 

The verse reminded me of my days as a youngster when I was working alongside my father and we would drive from field to field. It was my job to jump out of the truck to open and close all the gates. 

 

Most of them were barbed wire gates, secured by wire loops and often strung so tight it was difficult for me as a youngster to get them open. My father usually let me struggle for a while and then he would get out of the truck to give me a hand. (I learned later to reach around the end of the gate, put my shoulder against it, pull from the standing gatepost and leverage what little strength I had.)

 

I’m so glad our Father is with me these days to open the gates that obstruct my way. Many of them are strung tight and I don’t have much strength. Some of them won't open at all. 

 

Sometimes God lets me struggle for a while for that's part of the growing-up process. Other times he gives me a hand. I know he does what he thinks is best for me. 

 

There's one gate, however, that won’t give me trouble. It’s the last gate at the end of the day. It will be standing open when I get there and I can step straight through. For Jesus opened that gate long ago and passed right through it. And left it wide open for you and me.

 

David Roper

2.4.21

The Right Sort of Man

 “Men will always disappoint you. Try Jesus.”— Carolyn

 

“Many are asking, ‘Who can show us any good?’ Let the light of your face shine upon us, 0 LORD” —Psalm 4:6

 

There’s a cosmic lack of confidence in our leaders these days, the tragic aftermath of a season of bad behavior by those we elected to serve. Is there someone among the new-comers “who can show us any good”?

 

David  provides the inspired answer:  "Let the light of your face shine upon us, 0 LORD." The LORD—Father, Son and Spirit—is the only source of absolute goodness in the world. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning" (James 1:17).

 

Jesus, on one occasion, was addressed as “Good Teacher,” a title he quickly discounted: “Why do you call me good?” He said. “There is no one good but God” (John 18:16).

Jesus was not denying that he was good; he was rather questioning this man’s concept of the word “good” for he, like many of us, had used the word loosely. We speak of a man whose behavior is mostly good as “a good old boy,” but we’ve never yet met a truly good man. 

 

There’s only One who will always do the right thing. Just wait till He comes on the scene! 

 

David Roper

2.2.21

 

A Man In Full

Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle?

Who may dwell in Your holy mountain?

He who walks blamelessly and does what is right

and speaks truth in his heart... —Psalm 15:1

 

David's question has to do with process rather than means. Put another way, this isn't what we bring to the table (or to the mountain), but what God is  bringing to us, so that we, by His grace, may become "fit for the Kingdom of God," and dwell with him on his holy hill forever. 

 

And what is God bringing to us? Integrity—integration, wholesome attitudes and actions existing in complete concert with one another. He's turning us into men and women that ring true, that are truthful, trustworthy, loving, honest, honorable, friendly, faithful, generous, gentle, tranquil and strong, through and through (15:2-5). 

 

That's one reason I follow Jesus. Not because I'm deeply religious, but because God is determined to make me into the kind of man I've always wanted to be—a man in full.

 

I to myself have neither power nor worth,

Patience nor love, nor anything right good;

My soul is a poor land, plenteous in dearth—

Here blades of grass, there a small herb for food—

A nothing that would be something if it could;

But if obedience, Lord, in me do grow,

I shall one day be better than I know. —George MacDonald 

 

David Roper

2.1.21

The Forerunners

Memory, reason, and judgment forsake us as we age. George Herbert makes that point in a hard-to-decipher poem entitled “The Forerunners.” Here is one stanza:

 

The harbingers are come. See, see their mark; 

white is their colour, and behold my head.

but must they have my brain? must they dispark,

Those sparkling notions, which therein were bred? 

Must dullness turn me to a clod? 

Yet have they left me, Thou art still my God.

 

Herbert found that age had addled his brain, clever thoughts eluded him and compromised his ability to think and to write. He laments: “Must they dispark (divest of the character of a lovely park), those sparkling notions, which therein (in his brain) were bred?” The “harbingers” had marked him and turned him into a clod. 

 

In Herbert’s day travelers often sent forerunners ahead to find lodging. When the harbingers found a suitable inn or house they would mark the door with white chalk. Age now has marked Herbert’s hair white. Must aging and dullness strip him of his ability to write?

 

It’s a comforting thought to realize that no matter how much of my mind I lose, age cannot take God’s love and affection from me. Wisdom and artistry reside in one thought: “Thou art still my God.”  

 

That’s all I need to remember.

 

David Roper

The Village Parson

“We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work.” 

—1 Thessalonians 5:12,13

 

Carolyn and I have been watching a series of murder mysteries on BBC featuring a stolid, plodding chief inspector and his long-suffering partner. Each segment takes place in a different village in his district.  Since we’ve began watching the series there have been been 214 murders; eleven accidents, ten suicides and six deaths from natural causes. 

 

The series is well done, but it carries with it an unsettling sub-plot: In each segment in which the Church of England appears, the clergy are depicted as either corrupt or crazy and sometimes both. Those who are not church–goers are the only sane and just people in town. It’s become painfully obvious to us that the writers have a burr in their britches.  

 

I can’t speak for the village pastors in England, though I know a few there that belie that theme. They are good shepherds who are standing against the tide of secularism and spiritual antipathy that has engulfed Great Britain in the last 100 years. 

 

And I can speak for the village pastors that Carolyn and I know in Idaho, many of whom are laboring in small communities where the spiritual environment is as hard and as cold as the physical environment in which they serve. Most of them are overworked, under-paid, and unappreciated, yet they labor on year after year. They’ll never make the big time; hardly anyone knows they’re there. But they are our heroes.

 

As I think about these men and women this morning I’m struck by the fact that most of them don’t shimmer and shine, or float six inches off the ground. They’re plain, ordinary, down-home people, filled with the Spirit of the living God. 

 

Jesus made it clear that the best work is done by simple, humble folks who love Him and his people, live the truth, proclaim it plainly and pray. This, and not bells and whistles, is the power that touches the addled, the addicted, and the afflicted that gather around them. 

 

A recent survey suggests that most people are disgruntled with their pastors because they don’t like their style. Commenting on the survey David Hubbard, former president of Fuller Theological Seminary, wrote, “I suppose they mean by this that they don’t think their pastor has a powerful personality. But Paul puts emphasis on his work, not his personality.”

 

The question is not, “Does my pastor light up the sky?” but, “Is he or she doing the work”? Is he a visible expression of the invisible Christ, expounding and explaining God’s Word to us, and devoted to prayer? Does he lovingly care for his flock? Is he leading us into deeper love for our Lord? 

 

The fact that our pastor isn’t scintilating in the pulpit and rarely shines his shoes has nothing to do with his work. So he isn’t polished and articulate, the most artful guy in town. Those traits have no bearing on the worth of his ministry. Esteem him very highly in love because of the work he has been called to do.

 

David Roper

1.21.21