Gospel of Health

This is one post in a series on The Book of Proverbs: The Gospel of Legalism.

By legalism, I mean ordering one's life according to wise rules/principles/laws. The focus here is on human action, human responsibility.

The Gospel of Health

According to Proverbs, God wants you to be healthy, happy, wealthy, holy, and the way to this boon is through wise action.

My son, do not forget my teaching, . . .
for they will prolong your life many years
and bring you prosperity. . . .

Wisdom’s ways are pleasant ways,
all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to those who embrace her.
Proverbs 3:1-18

So how does this “gospel” work? How do I get the wealth, health, happiness and holiness God offers?

Take one step. Just one.

Don’t pray. Don’t dream. Don’t wish. Don’t regret. Don’t fantasize. Don’t plan. Don’t ponder. Don’t theorize. Don’t theologize.

Take one step.

In future posts, I’ll talk about finance and spirituality. Here, I’ll address health.

If you’re like most Americans, you’d like to be slimmer. And, because he is interested in your health and well-being, God would like you to be slimmer. So what to do about this? Take one step.

When I listen to friends who are experienced in weight loss, the details of their stories vary. The one common element is they took one step. Some started weighing themselves every day. Others never looked at the scales but eliminated snacks. Others just ate more fresh fruits and vegetables crowding out of their diet more calorie dense foods. Others exercised religiously. Some even had surgery (I’m not sure what to think about this).

The one element common to all of these strategies is they began with one step. One choice to align one’s life with the desire God has planted in all of us to be healthy.

It’s the same rule if you want to be stronger or more flexible, if you want to run farther or faster, have more stamina, reduce your risks of cancer or heart attack, enjoy your food more, have a better sex life, experience less pain, save your teeth. You take one step.

Sometimes, we do need more information. We may be unaware that juice is not the best way to enjoy fruit. We may need guidance on exercise, nutrition, caring for our teeth. Sometimes, gathering information is the first step. But beware, it is easy to use information-gathering as a deadly substitute for taking a step.

Even praying can be a deleterious substitute for taking the first step.

Proverbs cautions: “If someone turns a deaf to the law, even his prayers are detestable.” 28:9. Prayer is not an acceptable substitute for do.

So take a step. Any step is better than no step.

Now it's time to recall the “real gospel.” God loves you and takes great delight in your well-being. He already dealt with your moral debt at the cross, so when you fail to take the right step, his plans for you are forward-looking. He's thinking about the next step, not the last one.

What do to when you’ve blown it? What if you slept in instead of getting up for your morning walk? What if you binged–on alcohol, ice cream, cigarettes, Fettucine Alfredo, potato chips or hours in front of the TV?

Take a step. Any positive step you take is an improvement and heaven will celebrate. Instead of berating yourself or wallowing in self-flagellating guilt and shame, accept God’s forgiveness and take a step. Perhaps literally. Walk around the block. Do some sit ups. Call your AA sponsor. Drink a glass of water. Eat a raw carrot. Take a step. A single step.

That single step moves you toward health. It immediately brings you into perfect compliance with God’s will–which is moving from where you are (where ever that is) toward a better place.

The gospel of here-and-now health is no substitute for the full gospel of Jesus' redeeming work. On the other hand, for many of us, the best way to honor the "grand truth" that God so loved the world, is to take one small step in the direction of health and wholeness.

So take a step.

A Lying Spirit from God

Does God Give Bad Advice?

1 Kings 22 is one of the most curious stories in the entire Bible. King Ahab is planning a war to regain control of the city of Ramoth Gilead. He asks King Jehoshaphat to partner with him in this venture. After the kings have rendezvoused but before they have actually launched their campaign they seek advice from the prophets. The prophets advise the kings to move forward with their plans.

Jehoshaphat is not satisfied. He wants a prophet who is identified with Yahweh, the Hebrew God. Ahab says there is on more prophet he can call, Micaiah. But, says Ahab, he never prophesies anything good.

“Call him anyway.” Jehoshaphat insists.

So Micaiah is called. When asked for his advice about the planned campaign to retake Ramoth Gilead, he immediately agrees with the other prophets. March on. Be victorious!

Ahab can see the prophet is being facetious and orders him, on oath, to speak the truth. Micaiah then predicts disaster. After giving his prediction the prophet explains why all the other prophets have been inspired to advise the kings to proceed with the campaign.

There was a council in heaven. God asked the gathered spirits, "Who will lure Ahab into launching an attack on Ramoth Gilead?"

One said this and another said that. Finally, a spirit came forward and said, "I will go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets."

"That’s a great idea," God said. "Go and do it.”


What’s this about? Given our cultural background, we are scandalized by the writer’s statement that God sent a lying spirit. But in our sophisticated concern to protect God’s reputation we miss the writer's point: Ahab received the advice he was looking for. He had spent the 22 years of his reign constantly insisting the world bend his direction. On this final occasion he asked for advice from prophets he could count on to tell him what he wanted to hear. (Like a certain president consulting his lawyers so they could confirm his judgment.) Ahab only called Micaiah because King Jehoshaphat insisted.

Both the prophets who counseled “forward march” and Micaiah who warned of disaster said exactly what Ahab expected. He was free to “follow” whichever advice he preferred.

So does God give bad advice? Yes, in a sense. If God responds in any way to a narcissistic person like Ahab, the person will twist the response into approval. A masochistic person will twist every communication from God into condemnation. In either case, “God’s word” will be used by the person as an occasion of evil. In the hands of evil people, “the truth” becomes a weapon not a tool.

There is an important truth here for all of us. The difference advice makes in our lives is not primarily the quality or specific content of the advice that is given. It is the attitude we have toward advice that matters most.

If we are looking for wisdom, for help in cultivating holiness, for skill in loving, we will find the advice we need for life and growth. If we are looking for justification of laziness, the status quo, self-aggrandizement, we will find advice that makes self-destruction and selfishness seem wise. It is the attitude of the advisee not the wisdom of the adviser that matters most. Jesus taught similarly in his parable of the sower and the soils.

The world of religion and “spirituality” is full of advice. Advice on how to live and pray, what to eat and how to express our sexuality, how to manage our money and how to understand the Bible. As we make ourselves at home in the world of church, it’s easy to become an expert on advice–especially on how to give it. However, giving advice is highly ineffective.

The only really effective way to use advice is to receive it, to seek it, to put it to work in our own lives. My prayer is that as I preach, God will send a truthful spirit to be in my mouth. Even more, I pray God will help me heed my own sermon.

God, the Dumpster Diver

Preached at North Hills, September 12, 1998

Jesus in Matthew 1.



My first job after graduating from seminary was in The New York Center, an evangelistic
center in Times Square. In addition to offices and meeting facilities the Center had two floors of
apartments. So I rented a couple of rooms and moved in.
I transported everything I owned to New York in a Volkswagen beetle, so, as you might
imagine I was a little skimpy on furnishings. And being fresh out of seminary, I didn't have a lot
of money to spend. So I ate off boxes. Used a sleeping bag for bedding. Made do. I was young
and single. It was not a hardship.
But just a couple of weeks after my arrival there was a fire in the hotel restaurant next
door. Within days a huge dumpster was parked in the street and workers began filling it with
debris from the restaurant. My apartment faced the street, and from my sixth-floor window I
could see right into the dumpster. It looked like they were throwing valuable stuff away.
I was tempted to head downstairs immediately and see what I could find. But then I
wondered what all the people going by on the street would think if they saw a grown man
rummaging around in a dumpster. (After all, I wasn’t just a kid anymore.) Now if this had been
Memphis, Tennessee, the town I had grown up in, that would have been an easy problem. You
just wait until six thirty. All the workers would have gone home. The sidewalks would be
empty. Traffic on the street would be light and you could rummage to your heart’s content and
no one would notice.
But this wasn’t Memphis. Or Edgewood. This was Times Square. And the sidewalks
were never empty. Even after midnight people were still on the street.
But I couldn't stand to think of all that useful stuff being hauled to the dump. Finally,
after another day of hesitating, I headed downstairs about 6:30 in the evening. Stepped out onto
the sidewalk, looked both ways at the crowds of people streaming by, saw no one who seemed to
be paying me any attention, and climbed over the side into the dumpster.
Sure enough, I found treasure. Pewter pitchers, silverware, plates, bowls and cups. I had
been in the dumpster for only a few minutes, carefully stashing my treasures to one side when I
heard a vehicle pull behind the dumpster and stop.
I froze. Was combing through dumpsters illegal? Had someone called the police? I
heard a door slam. A minute later a head appeared over the back of the dumpster. It was an
orthodox Jewish fellow with yamulkah and the characteristic curly cues of sideburns.
“Whatcha after?” he asked.
“I’m looking for kitchen stuff.” I said. “Plates, bowls, silverware . . .”
“Oh,” he said. “I’m after scrap metal.”
And he climbed in the dumpster and pulling out metal conduit and copper wire.


I furnished most of my apartment from the garbage on the sidewalks of New York.


The reason I tell you this story? because God is a garbage picker. Or as this activity has
come to be called more recently: God is a dumpster diver.
God finds treasure where others see only trash.

One of the greatest examples of God’s dumpster diving is in the first chapter of the
Gospel of Matthew.
To understand the significance of the first twenty verses or so of Matthew, you have to
keep in mind who Jesus was before he was Jesus the Son of Joseph and Mary.
The Bible plainly declares Jesus was and is fully divine. Before he appeared here on
earth he enjoyed all the prerogatives and privileges of God. The billions of angels worshiped
him. He was present at the creation of the world. He was, in fact, the Creator. Nothing exists
that did not originally pass through his mind, through his hands, so to speak.
Which means he had that most unusual of privileges: Jesus chose his own ancestors!
Can you imagine that? Ancestors are pretty important. Stats on American genealogy
activity. I have a brother who got into tracing our family tree. He digs around in old census
records and county courthouse records. He even published a newsletter for people researching
the Mclarty clan.
My dad, a retired physician, has often remarked to me, if you want to live to a ripe old
age, the first thing to do is to very carefully pick your parents. You can do a lot about your health
and longevity by practicing wholesome health habits. Non-smokers do better than smokers.
Vegetarians do about ten years better than carnivores. Those who exercise do better than couch
potatoes.
But what about those old cogers your read about every now and then who live to be a
hundred years old? You ask them their secret and they tell you the secret to long life is a stiff
drink and a pack of cigarettes every day?
You check it out and you find they have heredity on their side. They come from a family
where nearly everybody lives long. The fact is that heredity makes a huge difference in how
healthy you’ll be and how long you’ll live. It probaby makes more difference than all the health
habits put together. So it would be kind of nice to be able to choose your parents?
Heredity can even affect things like temper, susceptibility to alcoholism, aggressive
behavior and shyness. You know the old saying, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
So here’s Jesus up in heaven before he comes to earth. He chooses this man Abraham,
and says. “You are going to be one of my ancestors. We’re going to start a blood line with you
that will carry all the way down to the birth of the Messiah, the Savior of the world.
Notice the genealogy in Matthew 1.

A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac was the father of Jacob,
Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers,
Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, . . .
Salmon was the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz was the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed was the father of Jesse,
and Jesse was the Father of King David.

The genealogy continues on, listing all the kings of Israel, then through list of mostly
unknown figures all the way down to Joseph, the stepdad of Jesus.

These are the ancestors, these are the family members Jesus chose for himself. If you
examine the list closely you’ll notice that it does not follow the rule of primogeniture. That is the
line is not traced through the eldest son.
It’s not as though Jesus chose Abraham was then just kind of stuck with whoever came
along. In every generation Jesus was making a fresh choice as he directed the preparation of
Israel for the birth of a Savior. Isaac was Abraham’s second born. Jacob was Isaac’s second
born. Judah was the fourth born son of Jacob’s least favored wife. And Perez . . . Well there’s a
real story there.

Take a close look at the people Jesus chose as his family. Talk about garabage picking.
Talk about dumpster diving!

We honor Abraham for his courage in leaving his native city of Ur, where everhthing was
so civilized and advanced. But it’s easy to forget that in Palestine where he was supposed to be
setting an example of faith and devotion, he twice lied about his wife Sarah, allowing other men
to take her as their wife. Why? To save his own skin.
Isaac did the same thing. Lied about his wife Rachel, saying she was his sister--to save
his own skin.
Jacob’s very name meant schemer or trickster. And he lived down to his name.
And then we come to Judah. Now there’s a scoundrel if there ever was one.

Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar. I can’t believe Jesus
would choose a man like this as one of his ancestors? Perhaps you don’t know Judah’s story.
Let me tell you, it’s pretty sordid. How did he get on this list? Jesus had other options. He had
eleven brothers. Jesus could have chosen one them. But no, he chose Judah.
And Matthew wants to make sure you remember Judah’s scandalous activity. Judah is
not just another name in a long list of ancestors. No, Matthew underlines and bold faces Judah’s
name to make sure you get his point.
He does this by mentioning the mother of Judah’s boys.
Jewish genealogies do not include the names of women. Sorry about that, but that’s just
the way it was. If you go back and read the genealogies in Genesis or 1 Chronicles, you’ll find
pages and pages of names, but it’s all men. When Matthew writes that Judah was the father of
Perez and Zerah, WHOSE MOTHER WAS TAMAR it’s like marking their names with a
flourescent highlighter.
Matthew wants you to notice this story.

So let me share it with you. It’s found in Genesis 38

Tamar was a Canaanite who married the oldest son of a man named Judah. Her husband
died before they had any children, so following the practice of the time her late husband's next
younger brother, Onan, married her to provide her with children. Onan used Tamar sexually, but
he deliberately avoided getting her pregnant.
(A note for my teenage readers: Don't try Onan's approach to birth control. It is highly
unreliable. The only one hundred percent sure form of birth control is virginity. Which also
happens to be the best protection against STDs and the best preparation for a life of sexual and
marital satisfaction.)
Back to the story. Because of Onan's callous exploitation of his wife, God caused him to
die.
Tamar's father-in-law, Judah, then promised she could marry the youngest brother, when
he was old enough. Tamar went home to live with her parents. Years passed. Judah’s youngest
son reached marriageable age, and nothing happened. Tamar began to doubt Judah would ever
keep his promise. And she was desperate for a child.
Time passed. Judah’s wife died. Some time later, Tamar learned he and a friend, Hirah
the Adullamite, were going to travel to a distant town to check on a sheep shearing operation.
Sheep shearing was a festive occasion in the farm cycle. Judah would be in a good mood. But
he would also be lonely. His wife was gone, and he was trying to put his life back together. And
he would be on the road, away from people who knew him.
Carefully disguising herself, she dressed as a prostitute, then stationed herself at a
strategic spot along the road Judah and Hirah would travel.
Sure enough, she was right. Judah fell for her plot. He didn’t see through her disguise
even when he slept with her. Since he didn’t have any cash on him, he gave her his staff and
signet ring as collateral, and promised to send her a young goat as payment for her services.
When he got to the sheep shearing operation, he sent his friend Hirah back to the
prostitute with a goat, but Hirah couldn’t find her anywhere. And when he questioned the ment
in the place they didn’t know anything about any prostitue in business around there.
Judah shrugged it off. What could he do. He tried to pay.
Several months later, Judah found out his daughter-in-law was pregnant and no one knew
who the father was. He was outraged. He couldn’t believe it! His daughter-in-law had shamed
the good name of the whole family! He demanded she be put to death for prostitution. As
strange as it may seem apparently he had the legal right to do it. (The double standard is not
right, but it’s nothing new.)
So they planned an execution. But as Tamar was being led out to her execution, she
stopped the procession and held up the staff and signet ring and declared, “Listen, I just want you
all to know that the babies I am carrying are not just anybody’s kids. Their father left these with
me when we were together.”
Confronted with the evidence Judah confessed his responsibility and then declared the
obvious, "She is more righteous than I."

Now if you were God, what would you do with these two? What could you do? A
hypocritical, lying man. An abused, desperate woman. Would you write them off as hopeless
reprobates? As moral garbage? Would you look the other way and pretend it didn't happen?
What did God do? God bypassed Judah's three older brothers and chose him as an
ancestor of the Messiah. And as if that weren’t enough, God chose one of the twins born from
Judah’s illicit relationship with Tamar as the one to carry on the blood line of the Messiah.
It’s important to note that Jesus wasn’t stuck at this point. Judah’s other son, Shelah, the
one who was supposed to marry Tamar - - He did get married and have children. Jesus wasn’t
trapped. He had other options. But Jesus gave Judah and Tamar the honor of being his
ancestors.
Jesus made Tamar, a member of the pagan Canaanites, a woman who got herself pregnant
by her father-in-law—Jesus made this woman a distant grandmother.
God is not very careful about who he brings into his family.
And if he made room in his family for Judah and Tamar, it’s not too difficult to believe
he has made room in his family for you, too.

Personally, I find it easy to be sympathetic toward Tamar. The tragedy of the death of her
first husband, the cruelty of her second husband, and her father-in-law's refusal to carry out his
promises to her—she really had it hard. What she did was wrong, but I can almost understand it.
Judah, on the other hand, is disgusting. I would run him out of town. Amazingly, Jesus claims
even him as one of his ancestors, as part of the family.

My wife is afflicted with a strange psychological condition. It’s called zoophilia. That
means a love of animals. And all my kids have been affected by this syndrome as well. It’s
characterized by an unreasonable love for all kinds of critters. They love dogs that run. Cats that
scratch. Birds that screech and make all kinds of noise in the morning. Horses that are blind and
decrepit.
I’m the only normal one in the family. I like well-behaved, obedient dogs as long as
someone else is around to feed, clean and otherwise care for the beast.
We have one good dog. A mutt named Toby. This dog is smart. He’s fun to take
backpacking or on trips to the desert. You never have to worry about him. He won’t run off. He
can take care of himself.
I’d like another one just like him. The problem is we have no idea what kind of dog he is.
So I’ve come up with the perfect solution: We’ll have him cloned.
Which is not so far fetched nowadays. I just read in Newsweek that a couple has given
2.3 million dollars to Texas A&M university to clone their dog Missy. Missy’s getting old (84 in
dog years acording to the article). Her owners want another dog just like her.
Heredity matters.
If you want another dog like Toby. Or like Missy. At the very minimum you have to
start with similar heredity. If you want a smart smart puppy, you don’t breed dumb dogs. Right?
If you want smart kids, you don’t start with dumb parents. If you were going to pick
ancestors for yourself, you’d pick talented, noble, upright men and women who were beautiful,
musical, and smart.
Instead Jesus chose Judah and Tamar.

And if he was willing to pick them as ancestors. He’ll accept you as one of his children.


What kinds of mistakes have you made? Stopped your education too soon? Gotten into a
bad marriage? Gotten laid off from a great job? Had an abortion?
Maybe your mistakes were set up by the wrong doing of others. Your parents were
abusive or simply never there.
You are not a prisoner of your past. God still has plan for you. God is still willing to
claim you as his own. You are still his son. You are still his daughter.
And once we understand that God does, in fact, gladly claim even us as part of his family,
we will find it easier maintain our own family relationships. Is your wife perfect? I doubt it.
And if you’re a typical American, you’ve been at least tempted to dump your current wife and
look for someone better, more interesting, prettier, skinnier, nicer, richer. But as we learn to take
after God, we’ll claim our family connection with our less than perfect spouses. If God is willing
to claim you as his child, then who are you to separate from your annoying spouse?
(I’m not talking about cases of abuse. I’m not suggesting that people who are getting beat
up, or whose children are getting beat up, should stay and take it. But most American middle
class divorces are not these kinds of extreme cases. Most of our divorces come from chronic
petty annoyances, arguments over money and kids and in-laws and who does the most work.)
If God is willing to claim Judah and Tamar as members of his family, maybe we should
be a bit less picky about the people in our family.
What about your children? Have they messed up their lives? God is still has a plan for
their lives. God has something significant for them to do in his work to accomplish salvation!

This is our job as a church. To give the world the message: God has a plan for you, a
plan to give you a bright future. No matter if your parents divorced. No matter if you were
abused or molested, neglected.
No matter if you’re smart or not.
Pretty or not.
God has a plan for you. AND we have a place for you. As the family of God.


A final word: Are you in the dumpster? Thrown there by others or maybe by yourself? God is
dumpster diving. He’s looking for you. And unlike pewter pictures and restaurant silverware,
you have some choice about whether or not you’re found.
Allow him to find you.

The essence of the Gospel is that God is on our side. Jesus' genealogy reveals that even
before he appeared on earth as a baby, Jesus cared for broken people. He has always been a
friend of sinners. He has always loved the unacceptable. He has always seen treasure where
everyone else saw only garbage.
No matter what your past is like, Jesus has a plan for your life. He is eager to do you
good. His grace is truly amazing. He loves you.

An Evil Spirit from God

1 Samuel 16:14, 23; Judges 9:23


Last week, I preached on the story of Jonathan, one of the most admirable characters in all of ancient literature. After church, someone asked what about that verse which said that Saul was tormented by an evil spirit from God? What’s that about?

There are several classic explanations of the texts that speak about an evil spirit from God

According to some commentators, Saul was a rebellious man. He fully deserved whatever torment he received. God did not cause the spirit to be evil, but given the existence of the evil spirit, God was free to use it for his own purposes, quite independent of its own intentions.

Others explain that the Hebrew Scriptures often use the “active voice” when clearly something less direct is intended. So Hebrews would say God “did” something when we say God “allowed” it. The evil spirit was “from God” only in the sense that God no longer protected Saul from the demonic.

Another point scholars mention is that the Hebrew word translated here as “evil” does not necessarily refer to something with wicked personal intention. So it might be translated better “an injurious spirit” or a “damaging spirit”. In this case the spirit in question might actually have been an angel of God sent to torment or punish Saul. (This assumes that Saul deserved such punishment and that God metes out such punishment.)

Still others insist this text is just wrong. People back in that culture thought God actively exercised retribution. We, however, have outgrown such barbaric notions. We “know” about natural cause and effect, about randomness, about mental illness and the etiology of disease. Much of the Old Testament is too primitive to offer us much in the way of spiritual enlightenment.

I think some of the ideas above are useful. No matter how you understand it, the world of the author is profoundly alien to us. Still I have found some rich spiritual help in reflecting on the story. Here’s the way I read it.

The Way I Read It

I link the “evil spirit from God” with other instances in this story of God’s direct involvement.

Samuel, the prophet from God
God called Samuel to leadership. Samuel was a good man. He makes God’s choice look smart. However, his two sons grow into corrupt leaders. Their corruption is so bad the elders demand Samuel fix the problem by giving them a king.

Saul, the king from God
God reluctantly goes along with the people and chooses Saul to be king. Saul is a jerk and makes God’s choice look dumb. But Saul’s son Jonathan is remarkably noble and heroic. Had he taken the throne, God’s choice of Saul would have looked really smart. But before that can happen, God decides to bypass Jonathan.

David, the king from God
God chooses David to be king. At first, at first this looks like a good choice. David is a great man (if you overlook his constant practice of raiding villages, slaughtering every resident then lying to his Philistine allies about it). Later, of course, David jumps into an affair, has the woman’s husband killed and tries to cover it up.

The Evil Spirit from God
After reading about all these divine initiatives, the “evil spirit from God” is just another example of the author’s notion that God is involved in everything.

Most people I know reject the idea that everything, good and bad, comes from God, because it says to them that God is hopelessly enmeshed with evil, pain and catastrophe. If God is in all this stuff, then “bad stuff” becomes evidence of a “dark side” in God. We rightly reject this. “God is light. In him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

However, for the very devout there is another way to understand this concept of everything coming from God. If a person has utter confidence in God, God’s involvement, even in the darkest people and events, means there is some beneficent purpose in everything.

This does not assume the “evil spirits” have any good intentions. Only, that no matter what the actual intention of the evil spirit or person, above, beneath, beyond, through—somewhere in connection with the life and action of this evil spirit—God is working to accomplish his own beneficent purpose.

One way I practice this is to spend some part of my morning meditation time consciously, deliberately asking God to help me receive the difficult people in my life as “evil spirits from God.” Rather than seeing them as random hindrances to life, I ask for grace to regard them as unwitting agents of God.

In this time of meditation and prayer, instead of whining, I invite God to help me receive the good he intends through this miserable company.

Again, let me be clear: I do not assume the “evil spirit” has any conscious good intention (though few humans are ever purely evil). I only assume that somewhere, somehow in connection with this person’s life and actions is a beneficent divine intention.

(Please note: Just because we believe God is involved when someone else is acting like “evil spirit” does not mean we ought to be passive. While Saul was actuated by an “evil spirit from God,” that did not mean David was supposed to sit there and let Saul pin him to the wall. Sometimes, what God teaches us through the activity of the “evil spirit from God” is how to dodge and run. If you are in danger, take action. Do your meditation on where God is in the situation after you have moved to safety!)


Obviously, I am not doing exegesis in the usual sense. Instead of asking, “What does this text mean?” I’m asking, “What spiritual help can I receive?” I am deliberately putting on my “God is love” glasses to look for a meaning that helps me cultivate peace and hope.

When I take this approach, I can find great spiritual help even in the most primitive parts of the Bible. I no longer insist on learning only from those whose prejudices and assumptions mirror my own.

Jesus said, “If your eyes are light, then your whole body is full of light. If your eyes are dark then your whole world is full of darkness.” It is your eyes and not the environment. It is our reading, not the text.

How to Read the Bible

When I preached on the Song of Solomon, I used its portrayal of a randy romance as a model of God’s love. The uncritical, starry-eyed adoration of lovers for each other is an essential model of divine-human love.

When I preached on the story of Abraham and Isaac, I argued God deliberately misled Abraham into thinking he was required to sacrifice Isaac, just so God could contradict him at the last minute, thus creating an emotionally powerful narrative that would check individual’s impulses to harm others in the name of serving God.

When I preached on Revelation, I emphasized God’s involvement (rather than the threats posed by the beasts), the unexpected crowd of the faithful (the 144,000=the Great Uncountable Multitude in contrast to their apparent invisibility through most of the book), and God’s intention to place his people on the throne (rather than our ultimate destiny being on our faces before the throne.)

Some people claim that if we would all just agree to accept the Bible and Bible Only as our only authority (or at the very least our supreme authority), we would come a grand, harmonious understanding of spiritual life and God. Of course, this is on the face of it, false. The fiercest disputes in theology are between people who each support their views by appeals to the Bible and Bible Only.

What is the right way to read the Bible. I compare the Bible to a medicine chest. My medicine chest includes Kaopectate and laxatives, antibiotics and asthma medicine, eye-ointment and athlete’s foot medicine. The purpose of the medicine chest is healing not the veneration of medicine. I cannot facilitate healing by indiscriminately applying athlete’s foot medicine to everything. Or by dosing everyone who coughs with antibiotics. So I pull from Scripture those things I believe will be most conducive to spiritual health and healing. My highest, greatest goal is not “being true to Scripture.” That is an important intention. My highest goal is helpfulness to others in their spiritual life.

So most of the time I skip right over the stories of Judges, the summary execution of Uzzah, and the puzzling symbols of Zechariah. I go through the Bible cherry-picking the best stuff to facilitate hope and healing. That’s how I read the Bible.

A Valentine Vision

The Song of Songs

The poem begins, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.” It’s a wild and randy story. The girl’s lover is a king with sixty wives and eighty concubines. The girl, naturally, is enraptured by the king’s attention. He is equally enthralled with her. Here's how he sees her:

How beautiful you are my treasure
Oh, how beautiful
Your eyes behind your veil are dancing coals.
Your hair cascades in leaping ebony waves.
Your teeth are gleaming white
Your lips are scarlet ribbons
Your neck is elegant beyond words
Your breasts are alive and exquisitely formed
Your mound holds me the night long
All beautiful you are my precious one
There is no flaw in you.
You have stolen my heart
Stolen it with one glance.

A stone-hearted objective commentator standing outside the story could read this list and observe that most men in love would be equally rapturous about their love interest. There’s nothing special here. But once you step into the story, this rapture is breathtaking and “accurate.”

There is some action in the poem, though the plot is far from clear. Mostly, it is a celebration of a starry-eyed, lusty romance. The poem ends with the king inviting her to talk to him. He wants to hear her voice. She responds by inviting him to roam the landscape of her body.

What are the lessons of this gently erotic love poem buried in the heart of the Bible?

The first lesson of this poem is God’s involvement with all of life–including sex. Many religious traditions teach that humans can reach the very highest spiritual development only after transcending sexual desire and enjoyment. However, the Bible pictures married sexual intimacy as the very pinnacle of God’s creative intention. Genesis one ends with Adam and Eve entering Sabbath naked with no obligations for 24 hours. Genesis two ends with Adam and Eve becoming one flesh.

We do not achieve spiritual nobility by scorning our sexuality. Rather we live holy lives by focusing our sexuality in appropriate ways.

Second lesson: Human hunger for God is a mirror of divine hunger for humanity. The Shulamite girl longs for the King’s kisses. He delights in her beauty. It is a story of mutual romance. So God’s story cannot be told without us–without his people. God pictures himself as a lover–actively seeking to win the heart of his beloved. What we do affects God. When we do right, it gladdens his heart. When we worship, it brings him joy.

A third lesson: “I am dark but beautiful.” Song of Songs 1:5.

In the Shulamite’s world, a tan was a mark of poverty and low social standing. She had been forced by her family to work as a shepherd. She spent months outdoors in the intense Palestine sun. She was dark–in her eyes–ugly. Now, in the glow of romance, she sees herself through her lover’s eyes. She's beautiful.

If she persisted in seeing herself as undesirable she would have been casting aspersions on the judgment of her lover. He has a harem full of women. He is not desperate or blind or stupid. He would not choose as his lover an unworthy woman. So whatever the color of her skin or the opinions of her brothers or the women in the market place, now as the darling of the king, she sees herself as beautiful, desirable, worthy.

So with us. Jesus loved us so much he would rather die than live without us. That’s romance. He has utterly romantic plans of placing you on his throne and naming you with his name. (Rev. 22) We denigrate Jesus’ judgment if we hate or berate ourselves.

Don’t spend time putting yourself down. To paraphrase Ellen White: “God wanted you else he would not have sent his son on such an expensive errand to redeem you.” (D.A. 668) There is something special about you that holds Jesus’ attention. Something that happens in the chemistry between you and Jesus that happens ONLY between you and him.

The message of Song of Songs is: God is a lover. And you are his beloved. He filters his vision with the lenses of romance, magnifying your loveliness. He loves you because he sees something irreplaceably special about you. Honor his vision. Look through his eyes.

Adventist Identity and Mission

Recently, I have listened to more than one church leader urge Adventist clergy to preserve the unique identity and mission of the Adventist Church. We are not just another denomination. Our mission is different from historic, classic, apostolic, traditional, ordinary, orthodox Christianity. We are the people of Revelation 14, the remnant church, God’s church for the end time. Our mission flows from this divinely-given identity: the proclamation of the eternal gospel in the context of the three angels.

My interpretation: community service, spiritual formation, nurture of the feeble, healing of the broken are all good things, but we can leave most of this work to other churches and ministries, to non-profits, Buddhists, and humanitarians. Our job is to get people ready for the Second Coming. This readiness is radically different from plain, old, faithful discipleship. It consists of believing the Adventist interpretation of Daniel 7-9 and Revelation 12-20.

I demur.

For four reasons.

1. The central meaning of “remnant” is continuity, not novelty. The first 1800 years of Christianity was not the beta version of Adventism. We are not a “finally perfected” version of Christianity. “The remnant” of Revelation 12 continues the identity and mission of the church. There is no hint in Revelation that the remnant reforms or completes the work of the church.

2. Revelation 14 mentions the “hour of judgment.” This is not a reference to 1844. It is a reference to John 12:27-33. It is an announcement of the Christian era not the century and a half and counting beginning in 1844.

3. The eternal gospel–the other “message element” mentioned in Revelation 14–is not a new message applicable from 1844 forward. It is the eternal gospel.

4. Getting people ready for the Second Coming is not different from getting them ready to go to work next Tuesday or Tuesday five hundred years ago. God does not impose a new standard or announce a new ideal for a brief period immediately prior to the Second Coming. Christians have always been called to be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect. They have always been saved by grace. And so it will remain till the Second Coming.

5. What calls forth the distinctive Adventist accent to Christianity is the shape of the spiritual/ideological world we live in. Truth must be formed so it addresses people where they live. Adventism has unique gifts for making God and the gospel accessible to people living in the third millennium.

The most important elements of Adventist identity and mission are shared with other Christians. We are disciples of Jesus and worshipers of God. The most important elements of our distinctive identity are not endtime scenarios but practices and beliefs that facilitate healthy lives and hopeful theology: God is love, Sabbath, nature of death, nature of hell, judgment, integration of health and holiness.

Daniel and Revelation should not be presented as the soul of Adventism. Rather the distinctive Adventist interpretations of these prophecies should be seen as the special treasure of the Adventist cognoscenti. After you’ve been in the church long enough to become deeply and happily grounded in the eternal gospel, if you demonstrate maturity and stability, then we’ll tell you our secrets–the Mark of the Beast, 1844, the Little Horn, the 1260 days. It is possible to integrate these beliefs into a healthy theology, but like all esoteric theological ideas, they have potential for deranging unstable people–the kind of people often drawn to our evangelistic presentations that major in monsters and plagues and minor in the Savior.

The mission of Jesus–and by extension our mission–is first to preach the gospel to the poor and release to captives. Care for the retarded, those suffering from mental illness or battling addictions, the painfully geriatric is just as central to our mission as is preaching about the Mark of the Beast and the Little Horn. In fact, one easy test of the validity of our prophetic message is its effectiveness in motivating Adventist individuals and institutions to practice “disinterested benevolence.”

It is appropriate for church administrators, in allocating human and financial resources, to make sure the distinctive Adventist identity is not lost in our engagement with broken humanity or in our cooperation with other Christians. Our theology has something to say about God that is not said equally well by anyone else. Our theology, including our prophetic scenarios, is a treasure. But the ultimate test of our faithfulness is not how well we preserve our treasure, but how effectively we put it to work. (Interpret the last clause of the previous sentence in the light of Isaiah 58, Luke 4, 1 Corinthians 13 and Matthew 25).


“I saw that it is in the providence of God that widows and orphans, the blind, the deaf, the lame, and persons afflicted in a variety of ways, have been placed in close Christian relationship to His church; it is to prove His people and develop their true character. Angels of God are watching to see how we treat these persons who need our sympathy, love, and disinterested benevolence. This is God's test of our character.” Ellen G. White, Testimonies to the Church, 3:511.