Blog Archives
Slaves and Election
“He sent Moses, his servant;
And Aaron, whom He had chosen, with him.”
(Psalm 105:26)
There are several aspects of this verse that ought to be noted. First, the term עבד (‘ebed), which is commonly translated in our Bibles as “servant,” can also be very naturally translated as “slave.” The Greek word δουλος (doulos — servant, slave, bond-servant) is used in the LXX when translating this word. It is a reminder that our position before God is not as peers but as humble servants/slaves before Him (Matthew 25:21). It is also a reminder that the Apostle Paul, who regularly used the term δουλος (doulos) to describe his relationship to God (and by extension, ours) as similar to that of the relationship Moses had with God (e.g. Romans 1:1; 2 Corinthians 4:5; Galatians 1:10).
The second point of note is that God chose Aaron to accompany Moses (whom God also clearly chose). The Greek equivalent of בחר (bachar), again found in the LXX, is εκλεγομαι (eklegomai), which literally means “to elect.” Once again, we see a picture of God’s divine election to bring about His purposes. In this case, it is the deliverance of Israel from the oppression of Egypt.
What is the practical outworking of this? To deliver Israel from their slavery in Egypt, the strongest nation in the known world at the time, God elected to send a shepherd and his brother. Two men to stand against armies. Indeed, it was two humble men to stand against the proud forces of Pharaoh. This is God’s way. He confounds the worldly-wise for the explicit purpose of demonstrating His power through the weak things of this world (1 Corinthians 1:27). In God’s judgment against Egypt given through the prophet Isaiah, we see God utter these words:
Nevertheless, fools are the princes of Zoar,
The wise counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
‘I am the son of wise men, I am son to kings of old?’”
(Isaiah 19:11)
Will you have wisdom or be stupid? If you want the former, it begins by becoming a servant of the Living God. If you rise up in the power of men, you will grow stupid and dull and pride will well up within you which will prevent you from submitting yourself to a mighty God. It is one or the other. God will not be shown up by those He counts as slaves, nor does He seek our counsel (Romans 11:34).
The World is Upside Down
“There is an evil that I see under the sun, like an unintentional sin coming from the presence of one who rules: the fool is made high and great and the rich dwell in a lowly state. I have seen slaves on horses and ambassadors walking.”
(Ecclesiastes 10:5-7)
There are two ways in which one can read this text. The first is perhaps the more obvious manner of Solomon’s witnessing how oftentimes the affairs of life reverse the roles that people ought to find themselves playing in culture. And, our temptation might be to think that this is just an illustration of ironic justice, but more often than not, when employed, it becomes a dangerous thing.
One of the dystopian novels that George Orwell is best known for is Animal Farm. This story is meant to illustrate the dangers and changes of fortune that took place during the communist revolution in Russia, but it illustrates Solomon’s point as well. Here there are the pigs, lowly and wallowing in the mud, leading the animal’s rebellion against Farmer Jones. Yet, by the end of the story, it would be the pigs who dressed as men, but this time, abusing the rest of the animals on the farm. Essentially, the slaves were riding horses and making the ambassadors of kings walk beside them.
In my own country, a whole new generation of people are advocating for forms of socialized government due to the problems and corruptions that our own government contains. Now, there is no doubt that our government needs reform, but socialism is not the way to accomplish that aim. Historically, it is the bloodiest and most corrupt form of governmental control that has been known to man…and what is more, it creates contexts like this, where the poor fools are honored and those who have built businesses wisely are torn down and treated as fools. He who shouts the loudest gains and audience with the masses and before long, the pigs are in power, turning the whole farm into a sty.
There is a second way of looking at this that embraces more of a spiritual reading of the text, for if we define the fool and the rich man not in terms of worldly wealth or success, but interpret that in the context of the wisdom that comes from the Scriptures, then once again we see Solomon lamenting how those who are foolish spiritually are often exalted and those who are spiritually wise are often in poor places. And again, we see that this evil is just as prominent today as it was in Solomon’s day.
In our day, it is the rich and famous that we celebrate as a society — actors, musicians, athletes, etc… not those who bring wisdom to the people: pastors, teachers, counselors, etc… The first group is exalted more, is paid better, and is given tremendous grace for the antics they pull. The latter group often is treated as expendable — bring them on board, use them until they are spent, and then replace them with the next guy. This is a more recent phenomenon in our American culture. There was a time in which old pastors and old teachers were valued, honored, and sought after. There was a time when what pastors were expected to do most was to study the scriptures…now that is often the thing that is least valued of the things they do.
And, as a result, the spirituality of our broader culture in America is collapsing. The fools are celebrated and the spiritually wise are largely ignored. The loudest voice continues to attract the attention of the crowd. And with Solomon, I too would pronounce it as evil.
Solomon and Reality TV
“And also along the road, as the fool walks, his heart is lacking — he says to all that he is a fool.”
(Ecclesiastes 10:3)
A fool is not so merely in private things, but in public things as well. As he goes through his life, the actions he takes, the decisions he makes, they way he converses all point to his foolishness and little more. In many cases, the fool revels in the attention that his foolishness brings — if he cannot gain fame through wise things, he will gain fame through folly. And for this, his heart (mind, personality, etc…) is lacking.
Daytime television amazes me. Actually, anymore, television in general amazes me. Whether it happens to be a matter of talk shows or the supposed “reality television” that is popular, people will do almost anything to get on television. I must confess, many years ago, I went through a phase where I would occasionally watch a show like Jerry Springer or Judge Judy. And I would sit there amazed, asking myself, “where do they find people like this?” Understand, at this point in my life as a pastor, I have been “around the block a few times” and few things surprise me when it comes to family dynamics. But these folks choose to air all of their “dirty laundry” out for the world to see. That is amazing to me. But, that’s the fool.
Yet, the fool is not just a fool when it comes to earthly things, but with spiritual things as well. The fool lives a life that betrays little or no understanding of the demands of God upon his people nor does he try to live them out. Instead, he acts foolishly and flaunts his spiritual foolishness saying things like, “Yeah, but God will forgive me anyway.” Those who think this way ought to be forewarned of two things. First, that genuine repentance is turning away from the things that you once did and living differently — even thinking differently with respect to those things. Second, God gives a stern warning to those who flaunt their sin thinking God will forgive them anyway. Of this group, God says that he will not be willing to forgive (Deuteronomy 29:19-20).
Friends, pursue wisdom until you live wisely. Along with that, subdue your foolishness and do not flaunt it…that too is a step in the path of growing wise. Pursue God with your whole being and repent of your pursuit of the folly of men.
Idols Do Not Growl (Psalm 115:5-7)
“Mouths are theirs, yet they do not speak;
eyes are theirs, yet they do not see;
ears are theirs, yet they do not hear;
noses are theirs, yet they do not smell.
There are hands, but they do not feel;
there are feet, but they do not walk;
there is no utterance in their throats.”
(Psalm 115:5-7)
The psalmist continues to point out the foolishness of idolatry. Though you carve a mouth onto a piece of gold or silver, such does not impart the ability for such an item to speak. Though you give it eyes, it will never see. It may have ears, a nose, hands and feet, but it is still a cold, inanimate, lifeless hunk of metal created by the hands of men and of no more value than it has in artistic merit. In contrast, we worship a God who does hear our prayers; he speaks from heaven as recorded in his word and he sees even what is done in dark places where no man may see. Our God is a God who moves in this earth and is bound by nothing, and the value of our God is not based on the limited skills of men’s craftmanship, but is infinite and based in His eternal glory and character. What a contrast there is between the gods of men and the One True and Living God!
The last clause in this passage must also be understood in terms of the Hebrew words that the psalmist employs, for it is not meant as a repetition of the first line of this passage, but intensifies it. The passage begins with the idea that these idols have carved mouths, yet cannot speak, but in the case of the last clause, the psalmist uses the term hg”h’ (hagah), which literally means, “to growl.” This is also the term that is often used to describe the faithful man deep in meditation over God’s word (see Psalm 1:2 or 63:6). In the ancient Jewish culture, when one was deep in meditation over the scriptures, one would often quietly mumble the words that one was reading. To an observer, that slow, almost rhythmic, mumbling would sound akin to the low, guarded growl of an animal—much like that of a large dog warning you that it does not wish to be disturbed. There is no such growl in the throat of these created idols because there is no intelligence in them with which to understand the wisdom of God’s word.
This begs the question about intelligence and where the source of intelligence is. The presupposition of the secularist in our culture is that intelligence is nothing more than exchanged electrical and chemical impulses in the grey matter that we call our brain. Yet, if this is so, it is genuinely impossible for us to have rational/creative thought and understanding. In their mindset, ideas, for example, are nothing more than cause and effect and “rationality” is nothing more than a complex set of predictable signals from one part of the brain to another. Yet, when you take this mindset to its rational end, our brains are really no more than complicated computers which are unable to create genuine, rational ideas or to understand—all we do is process. It takes a soul that is able to act independently of cause and effect to be able to rationally interpret data and to understand.
Why is this significant? It is significant because we live in a culture that is working hard to create what they term as “Artificial Intelligence.” Given that they believe human thought is just a mass of chemical-electrical signals, they believe that they can duplicate such within a sufficiently sophisticated computer chip. What are the ramifications of this? If their world-view is right, then when computers reach the point of being able to “think rationally” for themselves, they will be eligible for the same rights as we would give to a human. In addition, they are trying to place themselves in the position of God, having “created” for themselves a new race—a race of intelligent computers.
Certainly, much of this is still kept in the realms of science fiction, but often what is science fiction in one generation becomes science-fact in subsequent ones. In the beginning of the 20th century, the idea of rockets flying into outer space was something dreamed of only by the writers, by the end of the 20th century, rockets in space had become commonplace. When my parents were in college, they used computers that filled an entire room; when I went to college, laptops were becoming commonplace. Today, even young children are computer literate.
Why are we dwelling on this? It gets back to what the psalmist speaks of in the last clause of this passage—there is no meditation or utterance in their throats. A computer cannot “growl” over any information, let alone the scriptures because a computer does not nor can have any understanding. You may program it with sufficiently complex algorithms to mimic some aspects of human thought, but there will never be any genuine understanding or creative thought—it will never be anything more than input and output.
There is a wonderful little analogy given by a man named John Searle in the 20th century that describes why a computer cannot truly have independent thought. The analogy basically says, take a man who knows no Chinese and has never even seen Chinese, and put him in a room with a slot and two books. Through the slot, put in a list of instructions in Chinese. The man’s job is to take that list, look up each instruction in the first book, which will tell him what response to write from the second book. Instructions and responses are always in Chinese, there is never any translation given for him within the books and he never sees what takes place outside of the box when he gives said response.
Certainly, there will be many errors made at first, but over time, the man will get pretty proficient with it. In fact, over time, the man may even begin to recognize the subtle differences between characters and even be able to remember the proper responses to common commands. Yet, when you take the man outside of the box, he will not be able to read or comprehend Chinese. He will not be able to understand it or be able to interact with someone else using Chinese. Why? When there is no translation, there is nothing more than input and output—exactly the way a computer chip works. A computer chip cannot think, reason, or understand because it has no God-given soul—it does not have genuine life. The works of our hands, no mater how complex or lifelike they may seem are unable to understand. This is something that the psalmist understood nearly 3000 years ago—it is a shame that many today still have not learned that lesson.
Beloved, not only ought we not bow down to the works of the hands of men, we ought not be intimidated by them either. Sometimes, when we see this person or that person with their strings of academic degrees, we set our God-given common sense and wisdom to the side and allow them to spout foolishness because we feel inadequate to stand up to them. Beloved, don’t be. The wonderful thing is that the facts and reality of this world—given that God created it—support the Biblical truth. Much of what the secularists espouse is propaganda designed to intimidate. It is like the old preacher who wrote on the side of his sermon notes: “weak point, preach loudly!” Much of their “scientific” theory is anything but scientific and all they are doing is preaching loudly and passionately to try and get you to go along with them. Don’t fall into that trap. God has given you minds with which to think and to reason—it is part of the Imago Dei (the image of God) within you. Don’t let them intimidate you for they are acting on their instincts, like unreasoning animals, but, we are getting ahead of ourselves. Beloved, we worship a living and active God who is infinite in his glory and in his worth—why would you want to settle for anything less?
The Preacher's Study 