Bible Trivia?

Many years ago, I was in the midst of some earnest prayer. I don’t remember what the cause of my serious prayer time was, but I remember getting a revelation as a result. I am not known for my great memory of past events, so it is significant that I can remember this. I was driving an empty school bus at the time, and my attention was drawn to the gravel on the shoulder. It was impressed upon me that the sovereign God who made all things knew the position of every stone in that gravel. The Word says He knows the number of hairs on our heads, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. What I took away from that moment and I remember to this day is that nothing is without significance. Nothing. Not hair. Not gravel. Nothing.

I’m reading through the books of Moses in my daily devotions just now. I have asked myself repeatedly why God had so many very specific rules and regulations for His people. Many Christians consider Leviticus and Numbers boring if not insignificant. But if nothing is without significance, the minutiae of Levitical law has meaning. At the very least we can see that it was God’s way of demonstrating His holiness – His separateness – and requiring the same thing from His people. The detailed instructions for slaughtering sacrificial animals, the precise architectural design of the tabernacle, their clothing, the ritual cleansings all add up to a ton of trivia. Or does it?

The Scripture declares numerous times that the Word of God is true. Every word is God-breathed to use Paul’s explanation. Jesus said that God’s Word is truth. So, if there is truth in every word, nothing is without significance. The thing is that some of the truth seems incidental. Consider Balaam, a prophet of God (so Scripture says) who lived during Moses’ time and was called on to prophesy against Israel. It’s an interesting story in itself with angelic appearances and talking donkeys, but I find something else interesting. God had a prophet on the border of Canaan. In Moses’ day. Curious.

That was not the only time a spokesman for God shows up. Abraham met a mysterious character after he defeated the alliance that had attacked his nephew, Lot. He was returning home in the land that was to become Israel when the king of the city of Salem (later called Jerusalem) met him. This king, also identified as a priest of the one true God, was called Melchizedek. His name means king of righteousness. His city name, Salem, means peace, so he was also the king of peace. King of righteousness and king of peace. We learn from the writer of Hebrews that Jesus’ priestly ministry was after the order of Melchizedek. Curious.

Then there is Moses’ father-in-law. He was called the priest of Midian. Remember that at this time, there was no temple. The tabernacle with its altar had not been built. Yet God had priests ministering to various people who were not among His chosen. We do know that sacrifices to God were being offered as early as Cain and Abel. Cain’s murderous anger was because his sacrifice was not accepted while Abel’s was. This presupposes some instruction from God as to what would be acceptable. It also opens the door to the need for priests to explain and perhaps perform the sacrifices. They were out there, but we know little or nothing about them. And curiouser.

Here is another piece of trivia that hides a larger purpose of God. In Numbers 25 when the Israelites started mixing with the Midianites and worshipping their god, Phineas, the son of the high priest, speared an Israelite named Zimri and his Midianite wife, Cozbi, to stop the plague God had inflicted killing 24,000 of His people. You might wonder why those two were named specifically. We learn a couple verses after the incident that Cozbi was the daughter of the Midianite king. More than likely, Zimri was making an alliance through marriage – a common practice – and tripling his violation of God’s command: don’t marry their women, make no alliances, and do not worship their gods.

There are other examples of trivia that is not at all trivial. My point is that in God’s Word, nothing is without significance. Like most believers, I struggle to read through Old Testament passages that are not exciting stories like crossing the Red Sea or David sling-shotting Goliath. But Paul’s statement to Timothy proves true if we read with purpose and the Holy Spirit’s guidance: “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” (Italics mine.) So, get into the Scripture; make a plan to read every day with Holy Spirit illumination. You never know where a piece of “trivia” will open a new insight into God’s Word.

What’s Your Ministry?

The speaker at my church this week encouraged us to read the Bible and do what it says. That is not a revolutionary message by any means. We were also told that if we consider ourselves to be Christians, it is not enough to simply go to church. Nothing new there either. What strikes me is that this man who has been doing revival ministry for twenty years believes this is a message the church needs to hear. I assume the man seeks God’s wisdom on what to preach, so this is God’s message to our church: read the Bible and do what it says.

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I have repeatedly lamented the fact that statistics show that most Christians are not reading their Bibles regularly. It comes as no surprise then that neither are Christians living much differently than their non-believing neighbors. Not reading and not doing; that’s the state of the church in America today. It’s no wonder that the country is going to hell in a hand cart as the saying goes.

What are Christians supposed to be doing based on their reading of the Bible? Simply put, they are to be doing ministry. Paul often refers to himself as a slave or bond servant of Christ. To be a servant or slave means there is a master to be served. Our Master has given us pretty clear instructions about what it means to serve Him. Our ministry to Him is to minister to others: love thy neighbor. What it means to love a neighbor was famously detailed in Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan. In essence what He said was to do for your neighbor what he or she needs done, especially if they can’t do it for themselves.

I think most Christians think of ministry as a vocation that only a few people get into. The term “minister” usually refers to a pastor or preacher who works for a church. That view is too narrow for the term as it is used in the Bible. Paul explained to the Ephesians that those who are called to a vocational ministry are there to equip believers for “the work of the ministry.” In other words, it is the people in the pews who are the ministers, not the one behind the pulpit.

If I look at my life, I think of the years I spent teaching in Christian schools as ministry. I burned out and took what I thought of as a sabbatical, leaving “ministry” behind. The years I spent driving a truck for a living had me feeling like Moses tending sheep on the back side of the desert for forty years before he was called to his “ministry” of delivering God’s people from Egyptian slavery. I haven’t had a burning bush type call back to what some call “full-time ministry.” That phrase emphasizes the misunderstanding of what ministry means. Like all my fellow Christians, I am called to full-time ministry. I am to live my life in service to my Lord every minute of every day. Full time.

What is my ministry now? This blog is one part of my ministry. Thousands of people from around the world have read these scratchings of mine. I won’t know until I step into eternity how many people have been encouraged or enlightened by my writing. But that is not my only ministry. I regularly help people in the RV park where we live with projects and repairs. I have done something for every widow or single woman living here. I sometimes receive a modest wage for my efforts, but often the labor and materials are a gift in the name of Jesus. I also minister when I go to my part-time job at Home Depot and do my work “as working for the Lord.” When possible, I sneak in a word or two that comes from my faith perspective, although I am prohibited from outright evangelism by company policy. I think they are afraid I might “offend” someone if I presented the gospel openly, so I just live the gospel quietly in the aisles – full time.

I have not been describing my “ministry” as a boast—far from it. I am simply using my life as an example of how one does what the Bible says: serve Christ with your whole life. You don’t have to get a paycheck from a church to be a minister; you just have to live the Word. You may be the only Jesus some will ever see; you will likely be the only Bible some will ever read. Live intentionally for God as one of my former pastors used to say. Make it your business to be a witness to the goodness of God; that is the essence of what Paul meant when he said, “Do all things for the glory of God.” That’s your ministry.

Related posts: Make Time for Timeless Truth; Merely Christian; Christianity: Religion or Philosophy

 

Examining Christian Charity

Phillip Yancey recently wrote about a church near the Mexican border that is making an effort to serve the hundreds of people who cross into the United States without permission. The article is written in such a way as to elicit sympathy and compassion for the plight of the immigrants. It also applauds the work of the church. I get that. As Yancey encourages these emotions, he makes a statement that is either naïve or ignorant. He says, “We did not find, out there on our side of the wall, terrorists or drug dealers carting in loads of fentanyl with the intent to kill off America’s young. We didn’t find communists or thieves or rapists. We met ordinary human beings from distant lands who had sacrificed everything for an impossible journey, driven by an instinct for survival and the promise of a better life in the Promised Land—America.”

First, America is not “the Promised Land.” It is disingenuous to imply that God’s promise of land for Abraham is being fulfilled in America. Yancey is a capable theologian, so I know he doesn’t believe that. America is a place where two hundred years of Judeo-Christian principles of morality and industry have forged a better place than almost anywhere else in the world. For most of those years, immigrants came to America legally through the front door. We are a nation built by immigrants who were seeking a better life. They made one. The scene has changed, however. Today’s immigrants want the benefits American success has made available without doing the hard work to earn them; worse, they refuse to enter the country right way.

The second thing Yancey says that is misleading is that he didn’t see any “terrorists… drug dealers… communists or thieves or rapists.” Unless he has supernatural powers, he can’t know what was in the minds and hearts of those he saw. I know he was using a literary device to make a point: even terrorists are people. What his comment implies is that we should close our eyes to the flood of those who do wish us harm for the sake of Christian charity. That attitude is precisely what has put us in the horrible situation we are in at the border. The current administration in Washington has not only put on blinders; they have put out the welcome mat.

Forget Christian charity for a moment; common sense says we cannot continue to welcome millions of people into our country when they are going to immediately fall into our generous welfare safety net. Our multi-trillion-dollar debt should be enough evidence that our system is broken. Allowing a few million more people to drain the system can have only one result. I wrote “Man the Lifeboats” several years ago. What I said then is even more poignant now. If we keep rescuing people from the seas of trouble in their homelands, we will sink our own boat. (For an honest look at the current situation on the border, see “An Immigration Crisis Beyond Imagining” in Hillsdale College Imprimis.)

You don’t have to live on the southern border to face this same conundrum. There are people who already live in America who wish to take advantage of American generousity. They seem to prey on Christian charity (the foundation of our welfare system) at every level. COVID revealed a large segment of our population who would gladly stay home from work if the government would support them. There are still those who would rather ask for money from their neighbors than to get a job to earn what they need. I crash head-on to this dilemma when I see a panhandler on the corner or the neighbor kid begging for money. When does Christian charity become enablement?

Paul counselled the Thessalonians that if some people would not work, they should not eat. As far back as Solomon, the Bible encourages work as a necessary part of living. Yes, the Scripture also recommends helping widows and orphans, but the implication there is that they cannot feed themselves. It does not seem that Christian charity will always mean giving physical support. Maybe it can mean denying support so that the intended recipient will be motivated to help himself. It is not loving to keep a person dependent upon others when they are capable of fending for themselves. Nor does it seem incumbent upon Christians to foster behavior that will ultimately collapse our economy. Then we will all be hungry. Who will feed us then?

Related Posts: Pilgrim’s Progression; Conspiracy Theory, Part II