WARNING

The edification value of this blog cannot be guaranteed. Spiritual vigour may go down as well as up and you may not receive back as much as you put in.


I expect you may disagree with at least of some of what I say. I pray that I don’t cause you too much offence and that somehow the gracious and dynamic Spirit of God will use these words to increase faith, inspire hope and impart love.


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Saturday, 5 March 2011

Saturday 5 March

Leviticus 13:1-59
Generally fairly dull and, if I’m honest, something I mostly skim-read but there is within this passage a truly heart-breaking picture of life outside of the grace of Jesus.  Chapter 13:45-46 condemns all people with infectious skin diseases to an awful fate.  These people were brothers and daughters, shepherds and priests, worshippers and doubters but when they contracted an infectious skin disease they had every aspect of their identity stripped away from them.  Wrenched away from all support networks (they lived alone) and divested of any personality (their clothing style was enforced upon them) it’s like these poor wretched souls were transferred into a separate race - the walking dead - whose new vocabulary had just a single word - “Unclean!”, “Unclean!”.  Taken on its own this instruction could cause you to doubt the goodness and the compassion of God.  How could He possibly prescribe this as a way to treat people, let alone the victims of a disease?  I take consolation from two facts. Firstly, we know that this was not God’s plan for the world but is a direct product of the sin of Adam.  As we have seen before in the bible, the Fall and the curse are not just theological concepts - they were tragic events with real consequences - they really do bite and they really do hurt.  Secondly, we know that it was precisely these people, these lepers, that Jesus so actively sought out.  Any perception of injustice we might have had about God’s treatment of these people is put through the mincer by the God-in-flesh’s outlandish provision for them.
Mark 12:28-44
A demonstration of loving your enemies.  We’ve seen on either side of 12:28-34 Jesus’ uncompromising assault on the teachers of the law.  He has called them hypocrites, murderers and arrogant despots and yet, when one of them approaches him Jesus is willing to engage.  A few of things that I noted about how Jesus did this: 
  1. Jesus listens to his enemy - He hasn’t let cynicism towards teachers of the law monopolise his opinion and he pays sufficient attention to discern that this question is genuine. 
  2. Jesus doesn’t cede ground to his enemy - He doesn’t just accept the terms of the argument set by the teacher of the law (ie which ONE commandment is most important) but he provides an answer that fits with his own understanding of the issue (ie there are TWO most important commandments).
  3. Jesus affirms his enemy - Jesus probably could have taken exception to the slightly arrogant tone of the teacher of the law but instead he decides to encourage the good that he is seeing in him.
  4. Jesus challenges his enemy - Jesus’ statement that the teacher of the law is not far from the kingdom of God carries with it a clear challenge; will the teacher of the law choose to step into the kingdom that he is approaching or will he remain on its fringes?
Proverbs 6:20-29
Another example of the Jewish obsession with passing clear and robust instruction from one generation to the next.  Don’t be a loaf of bread!
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