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Bible Study Cross-Centered Life

Luke 14-15 Calling the prodigal son to cross-bearing discipleship

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27)

“Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” (Luke 15:7)

Often when we read the parables of Luke 15, we understand them from the perspective of the one looking for the lost sheep, or for the lost coin, or desiring that more prodigal sons would return to the Father.  We put ourselves in the place of the man looking for the lost sheep, or the woman sweeping and looking for the coin.

Today I read these parables immediately after reading the very demanding words of Jesus in Luke 14 regarding the cost of discipleship (and these include not just Luke 14:25-35, but the whole chapter, since in Luke 14:7-11, he is challenging us to humble ourselves, and in Luke 14:12-24, he is challenging us to heed the invitiation to the banquet and come).

When we see the parables of Luke 15:3-32 in the light of Luke 14, we understand that they form the other side of the coin of Jesus’ “hard” call to discipleship.  Jesus is saying that when we heed his call to put him first and deny everyone and everything to follow him alone, then the angels in heaven rejoice over our repentance, and the Father rejoices in our return.

God calls us to Christ not just with the “hard” words of Jesus’ challenge to deny ourselves, but also with “soft” words that show us the joy of heaven when we deny ourselves and follow Christ.  If we only had the hard words, we might be tempted to think that when we forsake everything to follow Christ, the Father thinks, “Good, it’s about time you came to your senses and obeyed me.”  But the “soft” words (and I’m not sure I like that term, but it’s the best I can do to make the contrast) remind us that Jesus loves us and is only calling us to “hate father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes even our own life” because he wants us to know the joy of the Father’s welcoming embrace.

“Renouncing all that we have” (Luke 14:33) is actually giving up “pig food” (Luke 15:16) so that we can enjoy the “fattened calf” (Luke 15:23) that our Father prepares for those who come in repentance.  Don’t think that Jesus calls you to a cross because he enjoys seeing you suffer.  He calls you to a cross because that is the way back into the fold.  The cross of discipleship is none other than the cross of union with Christ which brings us back into the loving arms of the Father.

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Theology

Mark 14:12 Where would you have us go?

Mark 14:12 (ESV)

And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” (Mark 14:12 ESV)

The disciples’ question to Jesus points to an important principle of how we should serve the Lord.  They could have come to Jesus and said, “Lord, we know how important the Passover is to you, and that you would want to eat it, and so we have served you by going and finding a place where we can all gather and eat it.  Everything has been prepared, Lord.  Aren’t you pleased that we did this for you?”

Instead, they say, “Where would you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”  They are ready to serve their Lord.  They are ready to do the hard work of preparation themselves, but rather than doing what seems best to them, they ask their Lord for instruction.

We should serve Christ in the same way.  How easily we jump into all kinds of good activities, without first asking the Lord, “Where will you  have us go…?”  The foundation of all our service should be obedience to the Master who will guide us into his service according to his wisdom and eternal plan.

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Theology

Unlocking the book of Job

After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. (Job 42:7)

This verse for many years was like a key that locked the meaning of this book to me, rather than unlocked it.  As a young man reading through the Bible, I remember thinking, “OK, if Job’s friends didn’t speak what is right, then I can just skip over 30 some chapters of this long book.  Why does God record all their babble if it isn’t right?”

After having read through this book many, many times throught the years, I’ve come to see it quite differently.  Everything that the friends say about God and about his dealings with men is true and can be defended from other scriptures.  Rather than dismissing their words as untrue, in this verse God is rebuking them for the same reason as he rebuked Job.  To understand God’s rebuke of the friends, it is necessary to look closely at Job’s words in Job 42:1-6 because God himself says, “you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”   The “right” that Job has spoken of God is what he has just said in verses 1-6, it is not a contrast of what the three friends spoke throughout the book and what Job spoke throughout the book.

Although throughout the book both Job and his friends say much that is wise and true about God and his dealings with the righteous and the unrighteous, what they say is still incomplete.  At the end of all the truth that they have stated, they still have no answers.  This is why God at the end of the book challenges Job.  He brings Job to a place of  “laying his hand on his mouth” (Job 40:3-5).  Job’s words, therefore in Job 42:1-6 are a humble repentance for thinking that he could explain the actions of God.

God’s anger burns against the three friends because they do not with Job speak this same word of humiliation and acknowledgement that God’s wisdom and purposes and actions are beyond their explanations.  Job acknowledges that he has “uttered what he did not understand”.  There is no mention that what he has said throughout the book is incorrect.  To the contrary, he says that he has spoken things “too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”  So the fault seems to be not in saying incorrect things, but in saying them in the wrong way, without a humbling experience of the presence of God whose wisdom and greatness and dealings with men go beyond comprehension and explanation.

What Job says at the beginning of verse 3 and in verse 4 is a quote of what God had said to him in Job 38:2-3, and Job 40:7  He is responding to God’s words to him by recognizing that his understanding of God previously had been without the deeper experience and manifestation of God’s majesty and glory that his suffering and God’s response to it had brought him.

Notice also in Job 42:7 that God does not say that what the three friends have said is wrong, but that they have NOT spoken what is right, and what that is, is clearly defined as that which “Job has” spoken in verses 1-6, “as my servant Job has”

Application:  Wisdom recognizes that in understanding our own suffering and helping others deal with their suffering, there is a place (a comforting place) in recognizing that we are not going to be able to explain everything that God does in our lives.  Certain experiences are opportunities for us to bow before God, recognize his greatness and trust him, as the one who orders everything for our good.

This is the purpose of the end of Job’s story.  To understand Job’s restoration as a “health and wealth” promise is to miss the point.  It is showing that God’s ultimate purpose for his children is one of blessing.  It is an “under the sun” Old Testament way of saying what Romans 8:28 makes explicit, God works everything for our good and we can trust him, even when we don’t understand what he is doing.