Tag Archives: Idolatry

Psalms 5: Vampiric Culture: 71/365

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You know you’ve been watching too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer when every time you read the Bible you think of a vampire simile to back it up. However, on this occasion, I think it works appropriately.

In this song David is imploring God to fortify him against the temptations of the world, to

lead me in Your righteousness because of my adversaries.

What is it that his adversaries are doing that is causing David such distress? It appears that they are making promises of some description, maybe even scheming:

For there is nothing reliable in what they say; destruction is within them; their throat is an open grave; the flatter their tongues. Punish them, God; let them fall by their own schemes.

Now I have little other than an educated guess to back this up, but having recently completed reading Joshua and concurrently reading Hosea it doesn’t seem like a large tangental link to suggest that David is struggling with the geo-political power-plays in the region. Indeed this seems to be an ongoing thorn for Israel, trusting in the might of God as opposed to the might of neighboring nations.

Unlike the leaders in Hosea’s time, who God likens to unfaithful wives fleeing to another’s bed, David is yearning to remain stoic in God’s provision. He is begging to be surrounded “with favour like a shield”. The two driving reasons are clear: he sees the corruption of the world for what it is and, he recognises and hopes for the shelter God can provide his people.

This is where the Buffy analogy comes in!

I’ve been trying to think of a good way to describe culture, to explore its attractive veneer and dangerous underbelly. To this extent I think culture is a vampire. It once was a man, it once was alive and walking according to God’s approval. However, upon death, it arose.

From the outside it looks the same, it has the same face and defined features. However this exterior is a shell. For it no longer desires and serves God’s ways, what is good. Rather it rebels against God and desires “bloodshed and treachery”.

The targets to support this theory are varied and interesting. Having just watched Margin Call it’d be altogether to easy to run the “blood-sucking” theme into the culture of self-interested finance. However there are more pervasive cultural forces at play. Consider consumerism, the maxim that suggests that ‘stuff’ will make us happy. We watch ad after ad espousing the social benefits of their product. Case in point: have you ever seen a coke ad that doesn’t focus on the relationship building aspect of its product. There are either Arctic bears sharing a family moment, young adults jumping into the ocean whilst ‘opening a little bit of happiness today’, or names on bottles to remind us precisely whom we should be sharing our coke with!

Yet, how many of us actually feel that sense of social inclusion whilst downing the bubbly? I don’t know about you, my drinking an extra coke actually makes me feel less inclined to take off my shirt and strut around in boardies. Perhaps that’s because my personal 6-pack seems more like a keg…

Herein lies a perfect example of:

their throat is an open grave

The resolution of our desire for community is not sought in God but in a bottle of liquid.

If this example hasn’t proven illustrative then try the following little test: What was the main present that you got for Christmas last year? Can you remember it? Great, now how about the year before? What about the present you got 4 years ago? Or when you were 21?

Why is it that products that we were sooo excited about yesteryear are probably gathering dust or landfill this year? Could it be that they “flatter with their tongues” and after time we realise that we don’t feel the way they promise?

Just like David, we too are surrounded by potential allies in this world who offer everything.  Yet we need to remember that “there is nothing reliable in what they say”. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t easy pressing the mute button on the world’s screams. However, I think we get a strong role-model in David’s prayer right here.

Hosea 1-2: Desperate Housewives: 67/365

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It is crazy to dwell on how much we mean to God. His love and care for us is so deep that the closest representation our language can conjure is family. His is our father, our husband, our lover and our confidant. Each of these phrases inadequate on their own, each relying on the other to create a more full picture of the love God has for us.

Reading the beginning of Hosea, I was a little shocked by God’s forthrightness:

Go and marry a promiscuous wife and have children of promiscuity, for the land is committing blatant acts of promiscuity by abandoning the Lord.

God’s instruction to Hosea, coupled with his name preferences for Hosea’s children (Jezreel, No Compassion & Not My People) smacks of anger and bitterness. What has brought on this outcry? Why is God so upset?

I’m glad I read through to the end of Chapter 2 because I was lost after Chapter 1 alone. Herein, God’s reasons become clear:

Their mother is promiscuous; she conceived them and acted shamefully. For she thought, “I will go after my lovers, the men who gave me food and drink.”

What has happened here? God’s bride has turned away from him. She no longer seeks his comfort or love but has turned to other men. The beginning of Hosea is an outpouring of God’s anger at being cuckolded. It is an expression of his hurt at his bridge turning away.

What struck me most was that this promiscuous bridge was the personification of God’s chosen people. He was mourning and raging at how his people had turned away from him. God makes this clear when he plans to restore his relationship to the joy of earlier years when:

she will respond as she did in the days of her youth, as in the  day she came out of the land of Egypt.

It is quite sobering to see God longing for the restitution of his relationship with his people. Just as it is a little shocking to see him openly venting his frustrations about her wayward choices. In anger and hurt God considers removing his provision:

Therefore, I will take back my grain in its time and my new wine in season; I will take away my wool and linen, which were to cover her nakedness. Now I will expose her to shame in the sight of her lovers.

Yet it is his love and forgiveness that holds sway as he promises restitution:

I will sow her in the land for myself, and I will have compassion on No Compassion; I will say to Not My People: You are my people and he will say, “You are my God”.

I think it is altogether too easy to be swept away by this Hollywood-eque moment of reconciliation. It is the conclusion of the romantic comedy when the two people who “were made for each other” finally find their perfect fit. To do so, though, would run the risk of missing the implications in our lives.

It is not only Israel who is God’s bride/people, it is also us. Equally, it is not only historical Israel whose promiscuity enrages God, it too is us. We have been offered God’s full provision and chosen to run elsewhere. To embrace the love, security and lavish lifestyle that money, family, careers, or anything else offers.

There is little point in apologising to God’s face only to sneak out at night pursuant of our old lives. To do so is to comprehensively disregard God’s love for us, and to grossly underestimate his power. Indeed, I find it interesting that Hosea 2 concludes with the son returning to, and openly acknowledging God. I need to do this more with my life. I need to ignore the ‘girls next door’ and focus on restoring my relationship with God.

Joshua 24: I brought, I gave, I loved: 65/365

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The Old Testament is brilliant for clear reminders of God’s character. I remember noticing in Isaiah the repetition of ‘I’ statements as a reminded that it is God who brings, who gives, who loves and we have it again here. Throughout Joshua’s recount of Israel’s history one thing is truly evident: it all occurred because of God.

Following on from this history lesson Joshua gives the people of Israel a choice:

If it doesn’t please you to worship Yahweh, choose for yourselves today the one you will worship: the gods your fathers worshipped beyond the Euphrates River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. As for me and my family, we will worship Yahweh.

The word I find most interesting in this entire passage is the word “today”. When Joshua states “choose for yourselves today” he is suggesting that there is an inevitability in worshipping a god. The question is not to worship or not to worship. No, the question is which god will you worship. I find this interesting reading from a society that is dripping in indecision. By virtue of the prevalence of gnosticism, those who believe there is a God but are unsure which one, we see that we often don’t like to have to nail our colours to the mast. Yet here there is a sense of immediacy and urgency.

The other thing that I have noticed is Joshua’s call to renew his people’s covenant with God comes after a reminder of God’s ample and unfailing provision. The method employed for this reminder is a historical recount. I wonder if, in our modern church context, we have become devoid of such a historical culture. I remember, when I first heard that Church History was a subject at Moore, puzzling over the purpose of such a subject. Surely the Bible is all we need to focus on, not the development of the church. I’m beginning to see this differently.

Church history is an ongoing reminder of God’s agency in the world. It operates as a focus pull to draw our attention away from worldly worries and onto issues of spiritual significance. I love the certainty that the tribes of Israel have in God’s provision when they reply to Joshua saying:

We will certainly not abandon the Lord to worship other gods! For the Lord our God brought us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery… He protected us all along the way

Their response is jubilant from a strong cultural memory. They recall God’s provision and protection clearly, even if it happened to their fathers instead of them.

How often do I reflect on God’s agency in my life when trying to garner the courage to trust him again? How regularly do I reassure myself of his past provision? I’ve been tempted to tattoo these lessons on me as a permanent reminder, I’m being convicted of these values again.

I fear in our modern world we can get wrapped up in the value of doctrine and arguments to the detriment of story and memory. God is more than an abstract concept, he’s the head of our family. He has shown on innumerable occasions his direct agency in our lives, we need to remember these things. Just like Joshua’s final words we need to recall:

You see this stone – it will be a witness against us for it has heard all the words the Lord said to us, and it will be a witness against you, so that you will not deny your God

True that!

Joshua 23: Death-bed Dating Directions: 65/365

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This scene in Joshua 23 is so commonplace in our contemporary culture that it has almost become a cliche. I’ve seen it happen in war movies, The Lord of the Rings, fantasy novels and even Southpark. Namely, the delivery of death-bed directions by a dying leader. We all know the drill, they beckon their successor forward so they may whisper in their ear the last wisdom that they shall convey. Consequently, as the cliche goes, this advice is often sworn to be upheld. A last, fatal, promise both to assuage the fears of the leader and uphold their legacy.

So to, Joshua 23 begins with a final edict. Joshua is no longer the sprightly young lamb whose faith in God and strengthened arm won military victories. Rather, he “was old, getting on in years”. So what were these final words? What legacy and promises did Joshua want Israel to uphold:

You have seen for yourselves everything that the Lord your God did to all these nations on your account, because it was the Lord your God who was fighting for you… Be very strong and continue obeying all that is written in the book of the law of Moses so that you do not turn from the left or the right and so that you do not associate with these nations  remaining among you.

Great – the anachronistically PC Israeli’s must’ve thought – old Joshua is a closet racist!

I know that I’ve heard many people use this passage as justification for the separation of race and creed. Having read it carefully this morning, though, I believe that argument can only be made by taking verses out of context.

Consider first the structure of the text. There is actually a simple sandwich structure that has been employed: verses 1-5 explore God’s faithfulness in keeping his promises to Israel; verses 6-13 then instruct Israel to remain faithful to God and keep his instruction; verses 14-16 then return to God’s faithfulness and fulfillment of his word. This suggests that the overall theme of this passage is centered on our relationship with God and how we live for him.

This thesis is further reinforced by the way that Joshua sequences his argument. He doesn’t outright denounce other nations based on their own intrinsic evil. Rather, it is part of a sequence of logical clauses that combine in a substantial argument. Consider the verse following his instruction not to “associate with these nations”:

Do not call on the names of their gods or make an oath to them; do not worship or bow down to them.

This is a specific reason why the Israeli’s are being warned against affiliating with other nations and it is not based on ethnicity, it is based on idolatry. There are founded concerns that there would be temptations to follow other gods. I don’t think this concern is unreasonable either, we’ve already seen that it only took Moses a trip up to the mountain for the people to elevate some scrap metal into a cow-god. How more hastily would they turn to established deities? Further, Joshua sets up a dichotomy to ensure we’re consider his statement through his intended lens:

Instead, remain faithful to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day

It is kind of funny to realise how quickly we make God’s instruction a people thing. We get hastily inflamed of his judgement of other people whereas, to my mind, this looks like a spiritual warning for a spiritual battle.

I find Joshua’s next argument extension quite telling too:

The Lord has driven out great and powerful nations before you, and no one is able to stand against you to this day. One of you routed a thousand because the Lord your God was fighting for you, as He promised. So be very diligent to love the Lord your God for your own well-being.

That is a fascinating warning, “be very diligent to love the Lord your God for your own well-being”. The fact that it comes straight after another reminder of God’s provision tends to suggest that Joshua is aware of how myopic our cultural memories can be. He is imploring us to hold faith to God’s provision and not to look elsewhere for our comfort; our provision; our satisfaction. Indeed he takes strenuous effort to continually reinforce the Lord as “your God”.

It is in this context that we receive the final extension of Joshua’s argument, the soundbite that is sometimes too hastily removed:

For if you turn away and cling to the rest of these nations remaining among you, and if you intermarry or associate with them and they you, know for certain that… they will become a snare and a trap for you, a scourge for your sides and thorns in your eyes.

Joshua should’ve written cards for Hallmark!

In seriousness though, this is an impressively stern warning. It is worth noting that it is prefaced by “For if you turn away” which reminds us that there is an ongoing dichotomy in the tug-of-war for our faith and security: God v others. Thus if we look to other nation’s wisdom and culture then in doing so we are equally walking away from God’s wisdom and culture. Ultimately what is suggested here is that you are inviting temptation and challenges into your spiritual walk with God.

It is interesting to think that in the middle of Joshua’s last edict he decided to allocate time to relational advice like the above. He must’ve valued Israel’s uniqueness highly to want to instruct so specifically on preserving its purity. He had no illusions about the faithfulness of God, our whimsical ability to trust God, and the need to rectify this via a clear warning.

Applying this verse in a contemporary, multi-cultural society is a little more challenging. I think the key to this chapter’s application lies in remembering that this instruction has been given through the lens of a spiritual battle. It wasn’t the other nations that were intrinsically problematic but their spiritual beliefs, their idols, their gods. In this context I think it is quite easy to see where the doctrine of non-christian dating has developed.

As mentioned in Isaiah 44, I believe that gods come in all shapes and sizes, many of which are derived by our own hands. This means that even if someone calls themselves atheist they still have gods whom they devote their attentions, time, and passion to. Perhaps it is money, or fun, or rationalism? Regardless, a close romantic affiliation with them could prove just as problematic to our spiritual walk with God as any nation referred to in Joshua’s time.

How tempting must it be, when having money issues, to “bow down” to another’s god of worrying about money when we know the truth that:

Every good thing the Lord your God has promised has come about.

Whilst it may seem prudent to worry about money through a worldly lens. Through a spiritual lens it is enacting the opposite of faith. We are taking the issue into our own hands and not trusting God (who has come through for us on innumerable occasions in the past). We are gaining our comfort from money and not our Father. No wonder Joshua warns of “snares”, “a scourge” and “thorns in your eyes”. Due to these thorns we are no longer seeing spiritually but worldly. We have bowed down to another god.

Perhaps we’d take Christian dating advice more seriously if we knew a leader of men chose to make this very topic his last words. Perhaps it’d also help if we remember our scope of analysis: it is a case of holding dearly the relationship you have developed with the Lord. Moreso, the Lord your God.

Acts 19: They took our Jobs!: 60/365

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Sometimes Southpark really does it for me.

I know, I know… before anyone takes out pitchforks  to demonise me for liking Southpark, I’d like an opportunity to explain why. I’ll admit, as a teenage I loved the crassness of it – hey, I was immature like almost any other teenage boy you’ll ever meet. Then it went of the boil for me. There were several seasons where I wasn’t interest at all in Cartman’s selfish exploits. I guess I was growing up. Or perhaps Southpark just took a while longer than me to mature.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to start preaching on the virtues of Southpark as a cultural artifice or anything like that. However, I do think that Southpark has improved immeasurably since Trey Parker and Matt Stone turned their attentions moreso towards satire than crass. A couple of their episodes really stand out for me: their snide critiques on logic structures within almost every major religion (especially Scientology); their double episode on Stan dealing with depression; their wonderfully irreverential exploration of the global financial crisis as told by Stan trying to return a Margarita Maker; and, finally, their exploration of mass hysteria and intolerance towards ‘others’ coined in the beautiful phrase “They took our jobs”.

Acts 19 feels a little similar to this last episode. To recap, the Southpark episode starts with people from the future returning to 2008 via a portal. They are welcomed, at first. After all they come from such a dreadful place that they are happy to do menial low-paid jobs like flipping burgers and cleaning. After all, they are happy to be paid next to nothing as it is better than where they came from. The problem (for the original inhabitants of Southpark) happens when they start to undercut workers for mainstream jobs. People from the future continue to flood in and become white-collar professionals. This is when the refrain “They took our jobs” starts, and never seems to recede.

It is interesting that, when Paul spends time preaching in Ephesus, it is also financial self-interest that causes people to revolt. Specifically, we are introduced to Demetrius a silversmith whose livelihood relies on the production of metal idols. He quickly realises that:

our prosperity is derived from this business. You both see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this man Paul has persuaded and misled a considerable number of people by saying that gods made by hand are not gods! So not only do we run the risk that our business may be discredited, but also that the very temple of the great goddess Artemis may be despised and her magnificence to the verge of ruin.

There are many things that are interesting in this statement. The first is that self-interested denial wasn’t invented with the GFC or even recent Goldman Sachs Op-Eds. The second, and by far more important, is to look at the way that Demetrius interacted with Paul’s arguments. He uses emotive language stating that Paul not only “persuaded” but also “misled” hordes of people. No worries, how does he intend to prove this misleading? This is where the problem lies. He doesn’t. Demetrius doesn’t engage with the content of what Paul is preaching, rather he goes on to explore the consequences of Paul’s lessons to show its fault. Foremost, it is going to hurt his business. Subsequently, it will effect the prestige of the goddess whom he makes.

I think this is telling and a valuable reminder for Christians who are interested in apologetics. I can’t remember where I found this, but I remember being mortified at the power that confirmation bias holds in our capacity to reason. Specifically, our emotions are actually intrinsically linked in our capacity to recall. Consequently, the way we feel about information affects the way we catalogue and apply it. I used to think that logic was pure and devoid of emotion. Since having issues losing my memory and learning that it is plausibly related to my emotional duress at various stages of my life, I have come to value emotions with a new respect.

We need to be aware of this in apologetics and prepared to respond to this.

Further, here in Acts we see just how powerful the will of the masses can be. Buoyed by little more than a chant, “Great is Atremis of the Ephesians!” A crowd was whipped into confusion, a malleable frenzy that served the purpose of Demetrius perfectly. As the author of Acts commented:

Meanwhile, some were shouting one thing and some another, because the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together

Again, this is not just an ancient phenomena. Indeed, in our contemporary society we have this form of control fine-tuned to an art. It is well known how fear manipulates and motivates and, without causing too much controversy, I could easily direct you to how it is being used in our news media on a daily basis.

What is important is not the conspiracy-esque theory that this could be mistaken for. Rather, what is important is to observe how masses can react without unifying leadership. The Senior Chaplain at the school I teach at has a saying that is quite appropriate here, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”. This is exactly what we see here in Acts 19.

I really like the above saying, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”. Only last post I wrote about how I want to be deeply rooted in faith. I want to stand for God like a might oak as opposed to blowing away like chaff. I think there is good warning in this phrase too. We live in a pluralist society that believes that anything stands so long as it works for you. The problem with this worldview is that it infers that the ultimate arbiter on life is… yourself. Yet how often do we see people, ourselves included, just getting it wrong. Even earlier in this chapter of Acts, Paul comes across disciples who have good intentions but have gotten it wrong.

We haven’t even heard there is a Holy Spirit,

They replied to Paul’s simple question. They needed guidance. They needed correction.

Our choice is simple, we can fall into the confusion of the mob. We can be swayed by rhetorical chants and the influences of others (whilst all the while ironically pretending that we are still the ultimate arbiter). Or, we can acknowledge that there is a right way that is given from a perfect authority. Do the humble thing of submitting to it. And see the woods from the trees.

There it is. We can bemoan those who “took our jobs” because money is the only tangible evaluator we can find in this world. Or we can focus on the truth.