I don’t see like you do.  I don’t even see like those of you who have less than perfect vision.  Normal vision has never been a part of my life.  I suppose that’s natural when you have a congenital eye disorder. 

When I was a child, no one ever told my parents exactly what was wrong with me, just, “She has really bad vision.”  As a teenager I began to figure out that it was worse than I thought when my doctor allowed all the student doctors to examine me and give their opinions, then sat back and told them why they were wrong.  Then after I married and we moved out of state, I actually had a doctor tell me he wished I had never walked into his office.  I never did again.

So how do I see?  That groundbreaking surgery on June 13, 2005, which has saved my vision for six extra years now, has left some interesting effects. Depending upon the day, the light, the internal pressure at any particular moment, I have double vision, tunnel vision, blurry vision, foggy vision, white reflections that block most of the view, ghost images, black specks, pale yellow splotches, starbursts, gold concentric circles, a fish-eye lens effect, spinning black and silver pinwheels on the periphery that move toward the front—and shaky equilibrium!    .

But I think that makes me understand Jesus’ statement in Matt 6:22 better than most:  The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore, your eye is single, your whole body shall be full of light.

Jesus is talking about focus.  What do I focus on, this physical life or the spiritual?  The immediate context is the contrast between spiritual treasures and earthly treasure (v 19,20), God and mammon (v 24), the concern for physical needs versus righteousness and the kingdom (v 31-33). 

I often become distracted by things that get in the way of my vision.  I am down to one eye I am still legal to drive with now, and concentration on the road is important.  I have to consciously make an effort to ignore the specks, the splotches, the circles, the starbursts, the reflections, and on days when the blur is too much, I simply cannot drive if I want to avoid a mishap. 

In the same way it is easy for our spiritual “eye” to become distracted by all the things in front of us, by a concern for wealth, acceptance, and security, but also by necessities like food, clothing, and shelter--things which certainly are not wrong in themselves.  But when that is the thing we focus on, our eye is no longer single but, as Jesus plainly says in verse 23, “evil.”  Sooner or later we will have a spiritual “wreck.”

That is probably where Satan gets the majority of us—we have to provide for our families.  Worrying about that can actually make us do more than we need to, perhaps even push us over into a covetous attitude of always wanting more, not relying on God, and putting Him and his kingdom so far down on the list that we never even get to it any more.  And that means that our “eye” is no longer light but darkness, making us see things in ways that deceive us—we can serve God while we serve this world and its treasures, can’t we?   

Jesus appeals to our common sense.  Two different things cannot be the “most” important.  We have to make a choice—which one comes first?  Which one do we focus on?  Whom do we serve, God or mammon?  

Take it from someone who knows—double vision doesn’t work.

Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon the earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves do not break through and steal, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.  The lamp of the body is the eye; if your eye is single, your whole body shall be full of light.  But if your eye is evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness.  If therefore, the light that is in you becomes darkness, how great is the darkness!  No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon.  Matt 6:19-24

Dene Ward

I knew a woman once, a faithful Christian, who believed that crying over the death of a loved one was sinful.  She bravely, some would say, faced the loss of a child to a dread disease with a smile.  No one ever saw a tear leave her eyes.  I know a lot of people who agree with her, a lot of people who would applaud her as “strong and full of faith.”  I don’t.  In fact, that erroneous belief of hers affected both her physical and mental health for the rest of her life.  It also made her unsympathetic to others she should have been best able to comfort. 

God created us and He made within us the impulse to cry, just as He made other appetites and needs.  He never expected us not to cry, not to mourn, and not to grieve.  Do you want some examples?  Abraham cried when Sarah died, Gen 23:2.  Jonathan and David cried when they realized they would not be together again in this lifetime, 1 Sam 20:41, and David cried again when he heard that Jonathan, and even Saul, were dead, 2 Sam 3:32.  Hezekiah “wept bitterly” when he heard that he had a terminal illness, 2 Kgs 20:3.  Paul wept real tears when he suffered for the Lord, Acts 20:19, and he wept for those who had fallen from the way, Phil 3:19.  Where do we get this notion that righteous, faithful people never cry?

1 Thes 4:13 does not say we sorrow not over the death of loved ones.  It says we sorrow not as others do who have no hope.  “As” means in the same manner.  Yes we sorrow, but not in the same way.  We know something more awaits us.  Our sorrow is tempered with the knowledge that we will one day be together again, but that does not mean the sorrow ceases to exist—it simply changes. 

I cried often after my Daddy died, usually when I saw something he had made for me, or given me, or repaired that I thought was a goner.  He was handy that way, and I miss the care he showed for me in those small gestures.  Even now, writing these things makes my eyes burn and water just a bit, over a year after his passing.  But I do not, and I have never, let grief consume me and keep me from my service to God and to others.  I have not let it destroy my faith—my hope—that I will see him again and be with him forever.

Anyone who thinks that crying is faithless sits with Job’s cold, merciless friends.  Job did cry.  Job did ask God why.  Job did complain with all his might about the things he was experiencing, yet “in all this Job sinned not with his lips” Job 2:10.  What did he get from his friends?  Nothing but accusation and rebuke.  “Have pity upon me, oh you my friends,” he finally wails in 19:21.  Paul says we are to “weep with those who weep,” Rom 12:15.  If weeping were sinful, shouldn’t he have told us to, as Job’s friends did, rebuke them instead?  No, God plainly says at the end of the book that Job’s friends were the ones who were wrong.

And, of course, Jesus cried.  I have heard Bible classes tie themselves into knots trying to make it okay for Jesus to cry at the tomb of Lazarus.  How about this?  He was sad!  To try to take that sadness away from Him strips Him of the first sacrifice He made for us when He carefully and deliberately put on humanity.  Hebrews says He was “tempted in all points like us yet without sin.”  That means He experienced sad, and people who are sad cry.

Do you think He can’t understand our specific problems because He never lost a child? 

And when he drew near he saw the city and wept over it…O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you would not, Luke 19:41; Matt 23:37.

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them... How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender, Hos 11:1-4,11.

Anyone who cannot hear the tears in those words is probably not a parent yet.  God knows what it is like to lose a child in the worst way possible--spiritually.  Don’t tell the Lord it’s a sin to cry.

I have seen too many people nearly ruin themselves trying to do the impossible.  I have seen others drive the sorrowful away with a cold lack of compassion.  Grieving is normal.  Grieving is even good for you, and God knows that better than anyone since He made our minds and bodies to do just that.  How much of a promise would it be to “wipe away all tears from their eyes” if He expected us to do it now?  In fact, David asks God in a poignant psalm to collect his tears in His bottle—don’t forget that I am sad, Lord.  Don’t let my tears simply fall to the ground and dry up, keep count of them—“keep them in your book” Psa 56:8.  Do you think He would have preserved that psalm for us if crying were a sin?

If you have lost someone near and dear, if you have received a bad diagnosis, if you have been afflicted in any way, go ahead and cry.  This isn’t Heaven after all.  But don’t lose your faith.  Sorrow as one who has hope, as the father of the faithful did, as the “man after God’s own heart did,” as one of the most righteous kings Judah ever had did, as perhaps the greatest apostle did, even as the Lord did.  Let it out so you can heal, and then go on serving your Lord.  His hand will be on you, and one day—not now, but one day--He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Revelation 21:4

Dene Ward

We have shared our lives with a lot of animals over the years.  Two who grew up with our boys were Bart and Abby.  Bart was a big, friendly, yellow lab, who trotted up to anyone who would pet him, and wagged his tail so hard his whole rear end swayed.  Even in his senior years, he got as excited as a puppy every time any of us called him.  If you stopped petting him, he would carefully place his head under your dangling hand to remind you he was still there.

I remember one morning when Abby, the black and white “cow” cat, walked up to him.  They had already established a friendly, if cautious, relationship, even rubbing noses upon occasion, but Bart knew to stand still with his muscles bunched until he discovered what mood Abby was in.  Sure enough, Abby nuzzled sweetly, stroking Bart’s huge leg with a tiny white paw.   As soon as Bart relaxed, Abby walked around behind him, lifted a paw, and whapped his rear end hard enough to send him running.

Abby had been fooling us since we first got him at the age of six weeks.  We named him Abigail, and by the time we discovered there was more hiding beneath his fur than we had first thought, he knew his name, and we were stuck trying to find a male version of Abby.  Abigail became Abner, at least on the vet’s records.  He learned early how to get what he wanted.  If we were walking outside and he decided he needed to be held, he would throw himself bodily in front of us on the ground.  If we stepped around him, he would follow along and do it again and again until he finally wore us down and we picked him up. 

Those two pets always reminded me of Jesus’ admonition to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”  The Lord expects us to have no malice toward anyone, always willing to help those who need it, whether they deserve it or not.  On the other hand he also expects us to be on guard.  It is hard to strike an even balance.  Some lean toward naiveté and others toward cynicism, each one rationalizing himself and criticizing the other, when possibly what they both need is moderation—it isn’t that you choose only one side of this coin; it’s that you flip it as the occasion requires..  Jesus never let himself be caught in the traps of the scribes and Pharisees, but he was willingly led to the cross “as a lamb to the slaughter.” 

Sometimes I hear prudence castigated as a lack of faith.  Jacob prayed that God deliver him from the hand of Esau, then the next morning, sent gifts to appease his brother, Gen 32:11ff.  Many impugn his faith because of that.  But tell me, as my son Nathan likes to point out, if you saw a known murderer in your front yard, wouldn’t you go inside and lock the door before you prayed?  In fact, might you not call 911 as well?  How easily we judge when it is someone else’s neck on the chopping block.  Was Paul faithless when he escaped his enemies in Damascus over the wall in a basket?  Why didn’t he stay if he had faith that God would care for him?  In fact, he went on to Jerusalem after Agabus told him he would be imprisoned there.  What was the difference?  It may be difficult to know, but as long as we take the time to consider all of our decisions, putting our service to God at the top of the list instead of such things as financial success, as long as we live our lives by a faith that trusts no matter what, He will be pleased.

Jehovah is on my side; I will not fear: What can man do unto me? It is better to take refuge in Jehovah than to put confidence in man, Psalm 118:6,8.

Dene Ward

Today’s post is by guest author Keith Ward.

I grew up in the country, hiking alone in the woods before my age reached double digits.  So when we honeymooned in the Pocono Mountains it was natural for me to suggest a hike in the woods behind the resort.  There were no established trails but that did not deter this intrepid wilderness scout.

We were soon lost.  It had seemed so simple that I had observed none of the precautions that I had learned in the Marines.  I climbed a tree to look for landmarks.  My bride hid her terror and made a fist to keep her too-loose new rings from slipping off her fingers.  As we hiked along, she was not as close behind as I thought and a branch I’d held a moment for her, slapped her in the face when I let go.  It also knocked her off balance and she plopped down unceremoniously in a large mud puddle.  Finally, through no skills of my own, we stumbled out to a road and walked back to the resort.  Embarrassing—and very humbling—to be lost less than a mile from safety.

Spiritually, I have never felt that hopelessness of being lost and without direction.  My parents raised me with God and the Bible as my compass.  I’ve wandered away a few times and misunderstood the directions on occasion, but I always knew where the road home was.

But I think I know how it feels to be lost.  A person grows up today without much teaching concerning the direction of life.  If evolution is true, God isn’t.  If God is not, there is no reward for good behavior; no punishment for bad.  One can go through life getting the degree, the job, the promotion and suddenly realize he has no value, no worth in a world of billions.

More than embarrassing, this “lost” is terrifying, destroying all self-worth and leaving one without hope, destined to be forgotten with Ozymandius in a grave where no marker will withstand the passing centuries.

God is.  God loves you.  God created you and wrote an owner’s manual to lead you in the joyful life and onward to eternal life.  The pleasures of sin are as enticing as a walk in the woods.  They always hurt you and hurt others, and leave you empty and alone in the dark woods.  You will never stumble out of the woods on your own.

God sent a light.  Jesus is the way.  Righteousness is the good life.

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:5-6

   Keith Ward

If there is one thing I have never understood about grudge-holders, it is how they can think they have a monopoly on being hurt or injured.  These are the folks that, though they profess forgiveness, and years later are acting kindly toward their victims—at least in public--can at a moment’s notice give a laundry list of every bad deed that person has done to them.  And they will, any time you want to hear it.  In fact, they will happily do so before you even ask. 

But somehow they think they are perfect.  They have never done anything hurtful to anyone, and would be horrified if you started making your own laundry list against them!  They must think that, or surely they would be more merciful, wouldn’t they?

You see, grudge-holding is the worst kind of self-centeredness.  It says, “My hurts count more than yours.”  It infers, “I have never done anything as bad as this to you.”  And then it rationalizes, “What you did to me is so bad, it does not have to be forgiven.”

If you said that to a grudge-holder, he would be horrified, especially if he claimed to be a Christian.  Unfortunately, that is another aspect of this sin—it keeps you from seeing yourself as you really are.  We become so blinded by our “injured innocence” that we cannot see the truth--no one is innocent; we all mess up once in awhile.  It is bad when this sort of selfishness causes animosity between neighbors, sad when it causes rifts in families, and tragic when it causes a lack of unity in the family of God. 

Jesus said I cannot be forgiven if I don’t forgive.  Forgiveness means I don’t spread it around, I don’t let fester in my mind, I don’t bring it up again at any opportunity, ever.  Forgiveness means I understand that I have done my fair share of hurts to others, whether intentional or not, and since I hope they will not hold them against me, I certainly won’t hold things against them.  That is exactly what Peter meant when he said, Love covers a multitude of sins, 1 Peter 4:8.  I think Peter uses that word “sin” in an ironic way.  We cannot cover real sins against God, and are not supposed to, but in our self-centeredness, we place what amounts to minimal slights in the same category as real sin.  And Peter also makes it plain that no matter what I say about the matter, if I do not forgive and I show that lack of mercy by my constant grudge-holding, I do not love.

Forgiveness means having enough humility to recognize that no one has done to me anything remotely similar to what I have done to the Lord.  Holding grudges means the opposite—I have made my feelings just as important as Christ’s, therefore I am just as important as He is—just as important as God. 

Didn’t they used to stone people for that?

(The money figures in the following passage come from Lenski’s commentary on Matthew.  Any math errors are mine.)

Therefore is the kingdom of heaven like a certain king who made a reckoning of his servants…One was brought to him that owed him [about 60,000,000 days’ pay]....The servant therefore fell down and said, Lord have patience with me and I will pay all.  And the lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him and forgave him the debt.  But the servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him [about 100 days’ pay]...and said, Pay what you owe…Then the Lord called unto him and said, You wicked servant, I forgave you all your debt…Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?  And the lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors…So shall also my heavenly Father do unto you if you forgive not your brother from the heart.  Matt 18:21-35

Dene Ward

Here’s a short one for you.
    These articles are never posted off the cuff.  I keep about 20 on hand, especially for those weeks that are busy with appointments or company or special events.  In the past two months I have written seventeen about faith, and yes, they are all different, coming at the subject from several different ways.
    What is my secret?  I studied.  Last summer I wrote our women’s Bible class material on the subject of faith and in the process looked up every passage in the Bible that contained the word.  Now here is another fact for you—I wrote those 17 articles after teaching only five of the eighteen lessons, so I imagine many more will follow.
    If you are going to write about something, you have to know something to write about.  I am not special.  I studied for hours.  Now, before I teach these lessons, I study even more hours, and learn yet more.  It isn’t fast and it isn’t easy, but it does work.
    How can you have knowledge of the Word of God?  The same way.  It doesn’t come from sitting in a pew listening.  It comes from your own direct contact with the scriptures, day after day, hour after hour.  It comes from reading on a daily basis, in some sort of organized fashion, not just hit or miss, and it comes from meditating on what you have read—really thinking about it and what it means in light of what you read yesterday or studied last week—not from memory, but from the notes you made at the time.  
    Why should you want that knowledge?
    Desire for knowledge is a sign of faith, Psa 119:66.
    Desire for knowledge is a sign of wisdom, Prov 1:22,29; 15:14; 18:15.
    Knowledge is power, Prov 24:5.
    Knowledge is more valuable than wealth, Prov 8:10.
    A lack of knowledge will destroy you, Hos 4:6.
    I found all those passages in just five minutes.  You could too.  Why is it we don’t have this knowledge?  I could list passage after passage in the proverbs about laziness, but I don’t really think that’s it.  I think it has more to do with misplaced priorities and complacency.  
    But look at that list again.  Think about the opposites:  a lack of knowledge is foolish, faithless, and weak.  Does that describe you?  It does if you don’t study.
    This post is a short one on knowledge.  Are you short on knowledge too?  Then do something about it.

And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 2 Peter 1:19

Dene Ward

Some responsibilities are tougher than others.  Some responsibilities deserve the word “onus,” a responsibility that is so big it is almost terrifying.

I imagine the first time you really understood that word was when they put that tiny, squirming baby in your arms.  Suddenly you understood that it was your responsibility to care for another human being, one who was completely helpless and dependent.  It wasn’t like a friend who was having a problem so you spent some time with him and then went home to your own life again.  This was a responsibility that completely changed your life—your schedule, your budget, your chores, even your habits. 

I bet you said, “I have to stop (blank)ing now.”  You didn’t want your child to develop those same bad habits you were always fighting and suddenly you had the motivation to deal with them.

I bet you sacrificed a lot of things.  Suddenly spending an hour to put on makeup wasn’t quite so important.  Suddenly you forgot to watch a few ball games on Saturday.  Suddenly you didn’t need to eat out quite so often, or see so many movies, or go shopping as much.

I bet you suddenly felt a love you never even knew existed before then, something nearly overpowering in its strength.  While the word onus means a “burden” of responsibility, I bet you never thought of it that way once.  You were happy to do those things for that precious child. 

I was studying a few weeks ago and came upon something that put another onus on me.  Once I really understood what I was reading, I actually shivered a little and felt a peculiar sensation in the pit of my stomach.

…That they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me, Acts 26:18.

We are “sanctified” by faith.  Okay, so we are “set apart,” (yawn).  What of it?

Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, Matt 6:9. 

The Greek word for “sanctified” is the same Greek word translated “hallowed.”  We are “sanctified” just like God’s name is “hallowed.”  Do you realize the burden that places on us in our behavior?  Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, Paul says in Phil 1:27.

Suddenly our lives should have changed.  We should have been anxious to rid ourselves of the bad habit of sin.  Worldly affairs should have found their correct place on the bottom of our priority list.  Sacrificing for a Lord who sacrificed Himself for us should have come naturally, and an overpowering love and gratitude should have overwhelmed us.

That’s what should have happened.  Did it?  Maybe this little reminder will help.  God expects you to be as hallowed, as sanctified, as His name is.  We always told our boys, “Remember who you are.” 

All of us need that reminder.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 1 Peter 1:14-19.

Now read all those underlined phrases one after the other.  That is the onus that is placed upon you.

Dene Ward

Bible study is one of my favorite pastimes.  We are blessed to live in an era when all sorts of tools are available that make research fairly easy, and much less tedious than ever before.  They also make it much more dangerous.  It is easy for me to read a commentary, lexicon, or Bible dictionary and suddenly think I have become a great scholar, when the truth is, not only am I not instantly a Hebrew or Greek scholar, I am not even a good English scholar!

Some of us studied Latin in high school and learned why it is called a “dead” language—it is no longer spoken and therefore no longer changes.  A living language changes every day.  Take the word “silly.”  We know it means “absurd, foolish or stupid.”  Did you know that it originally meant “happy and blessed?”  How about “lewd?”  It now means “sexually unchaste;” originally it meant “a common person as opposed to clergy.”  “Idiot” now has the specific meaning of “someone whose mental age does not exceed three,” and a colloquial meaning of “a foolish or stupid person.”  Originally it meant “someone in private station as opposed to someone holding public office.”  So five hundred years ago, most of us could have been described as silly, lewd idiots and we would not have taken offense!

The same changes are true of every language, including Greek and Hebrew.  When you search for meanings in a lexicon, be sure you find out what meaning the word had when it was written in the scriptures.  In fact, that is why I usually limit my studies to the various ways a word was translated into English.  Psallo once meant “to pull out one’s hair,” but by the time Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 were written it had gone through several changes and simply meant “to sing praises.”  That is why we sing to God instead of standing before Him pulling out our hair!

Another thing to be careful of is root words.  A lot of arguments have been made based on the root of a Greek word.  Let me just give you a quick example in English to show you how dangerous this can be.  Do you know what the root word for “nice” is?  The Latin nescius.  Nescius means “ignorant!”  Think about that the next time someone tells you how nice you look on Sunday morning.

We do all sorts of other things that we think are so smart and really are not.  We talk about compound words as if just knowing the two parts to one will instantly enlighten us to the real meaning of a Greek word.  Not necessarily.  How about “pineapple?”  The bush certainly does not look like a pine, and the fruit neither looks, tastes, nor smells like an apple!  Truly, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Then there are those simplistic definitions we often use.  “Faithful means full of faith.”  Really?  Ask someone whose spouse has been “unfaithful” what that word means and you are much more likely to get an accurate and useful definition.

And what does all this have to do with anything?  God chose to use His written word to communicate His will to us.  I need to be very careful how I use it.  Translations are fine.  Jesus used one—the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, completed about 200 BC.  However, I must be careful in my study lest I think that learning a few things makes me an authority.  I know it is a cliché, but it is so true—the more I learn, the more I realize I do not know.  But God has made sure I know what I need to know.

We have in our hands the Words of Life.  Be careful with them. 

…many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.  Jesus said therefore unto the twelve, Would you also go away?  Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  John 6:66-68

Dene Ward

I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I remember the light bulb that went off in my head.  I have taught women’s Bible studies for well over thirty-five years now.  We never have the hen parties or gossip fests that many are accused of.  We study. We learn.  We grow.  I am so proud of my women I could burst.

One of the biggest blessings of sitting in a good women’s class is finding out that many marriages are like yours, and so are many husbands, at least in some ways.  That is the light bulb moment I spoke of. 

We were studying Hannah and shaking our heads at Elkanah, who was the typical oblivious man.  Despite the fact that the scriptures call Hannah and Peninnah “rivals,” the same word used in Num 10:9, “when you go to war against an enemy,” he either didn’t notice the obvious tension in the household or he thought it trivial. 

“Why are you so upset?” he asked Hannah.  “Aren’t I better to you than ten sons?”  That was supposed to not only assuage a bitter conflict in his home, but overcome a cultural stigma that weighed on Hannah every hour of every day.  Really?

My first inclination was to call him an egomaniac (“aren’t I better…?”), then unfeeling, or at best clueless.  But another woman pointed out that he obviously loved Hannah.  Look at the special way he treated her, and the point he made of doing it before others when the family offered sacrifices at the tabernacle.  A real jerk wouldn’t have done that.  He was simply being a man.

So, over the years, we have learned to point out “man things.”  We say to our younger women, “He didn’t mean anything by it, honey.  It’s a man thing.”  The point isn’t that men do not necessarily need to learn to do better, but that women need to stop judging them unfairly, as if every time they do one of those things, they are deliberately setting out to hurt them.  Nonsense!  They have no idea they are hurting you.  They love you and if they did think it might hurt you, they wouldn’t do it.  That little bit of wisdom has brought a lot of us through some tricky moments in our marriages.

Unfortunately, we do that to one another in the church too.  It can’t be that nothing was meant about us specifically when a comment was made—it simply must have been meant as an insult or a hurtful barb.  It escapes us that we are talking about people who love one another, and even though we are supposed to be loving them too, we automatically assume the worst.  It is the worst kind of egotism to imagine that every time anyone speaks or acts they have me in mind.

I tried to look this attitude up in a topical Bible and do you know where I found it?  Under “uncharitable” and “judgmental.”  Isaiah talks about people “who by a word make a man out to be an offender” (29:20,21).  Isn’t that what we are doing when we behave in such a paranoid fashion?  It isn’t anything new.  People have been making false judgments, jumping to the worst conclusions possible, for as long as there have been people.

What did the Israelites say to Moses?  “You brought us out here to die” (Ex 14:11,12).  Really?  He certainly put himself to a lot of unnecessary grief if that was his purpose.  He could have just left them in Egypt and they certainly would have died as oppressed slaves.

Eli watched Hannah pray at the tabernacle where she and her family had come to worship and accused her of being drunk (1 Sam 1:14-17).   Talk about being uncharitable.

Actions like those do not come from a heart of love.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, 1 Cor 13:7, which means I put the best construction on every word or action of another, not the worst.  It means I am concerned about how I treat them in my judgment of them, rather than being concerned with how they are treating me.  If I am not careful, I may be the one with the ulterior motives.

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses, Prov 10:12.

Dene Ward

I bet if I were to ask you which king set the standard for evil in Israel, without hesitation you would answer, “Ahab,” along with his Sidonian wife, Jezebel.  Certainly the two of them accomplished a heap of wickedness in their rule of the northern kingdom, everything from idolatry and murder to all sorts of immorality; but you might be surprised at the one who is mentioned most often as a comparison of evil in the scriptures.

Jeroboam was the first king of the northern half of the divided nation.  He feared that he would lose the support of the people and they would turn back to the Davidic dynasty in the south, regardless of the fact that God promised him, if you will hearken to all that I command you, and walk in my ways, and do that which is right in my eyes, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did, that I will be with you, and will build you a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel to you, 1 Kgs 11:38.  Because he did not have faith in that promise, he changed the pattern of worship as set forth in the Law, 1 Kgs 12:25-33. 

He made a new feast day, v 32-33, so the people would not be traveling to Jerusalem with all the southerners to worship together, v 27.  He began making priests of other tribes than Levi, v 31.  He made two new places of worship, Dan and Bethel, conveniently located at both ends of the country, so the people would not feel compelled to travel to Jerusalem—anything to keep them at home and happy.  It is important to note, too, that the calves he built were not idols to be worshipped, but graven images by which the people were to worship Jehovah—something Amos and Hosea make more apparent than 1 Kings.  This was not rampant idolatry; it was just a change in the pattern of worshipping Jehovah.

So what is the problem?  They still worship Jehovah.  They still keep feasts to Jehovah, and make sacrifices under the leadership of a priesthood.  Yet these were things devised of his own heart, v 33, not things that God had ordained.  This is the difference:  God said through the prophet Ahijah in 14:14-16, Jehovah will raise up a king who will cut off the house of Jeroboam…For Jehovah will smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and he will root up Israel out of this good land which he gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River…and he will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he has sinned, and in which he made Israel to sin.  From the point of the northern kingdom’s first king, God had decided their fate—they would not stand for the Law, so he would not stand for them.

Now take a few minutes and read these passages:  1 Kgs 15:3, 29, 30; 16:25,26, 31; 22:51,52; 2 Kgs 3:1-3; 10:29-31; 13:1-3, 10, 11; 14:23,24; 15:8,9,17,18,23,24; 17:20-23.  What do they have in common?  A phrase similar to this: and he walked in the ways of Jeroboam the son of Nebat in which he made Israel to sin.  Five times a king is said to have done evil “like Ahab,” but sixteen times the honor goes to Jeroboam.  Jeroboam single-handedly caused the destruction of the northern kingdom, and set the standard for evil among all her kings.  How?  By disrespecting the Law of God.  That is the legacy of Jeroboam.

Whether we like it or not, we are all leaving a legacy.  It may not affect a kingdom, but it will affect our children, and theirs, and theirs, till before you know it, we have affected hundreds.  The greatest legacy we can leave is to follow God’s pattern for marriage, raising children, worship, and social conduct.  If your children are small, now is the time to become conscious of the legacy you are leaving, before it’s too late.  The frightening thing about legacies is, they cannot be undone!

But when that generation was gathered to their fathers, there arose a generation that knew not God…Judges 2:10.  

Don’t let it be your children’s generation.

Dene Ward