For the chastisement of the daughter of my people has been greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and no hands were wrung for her. (Lam 4:6)
            The fourth Lament may be the hardest one to read.  Many of the ladies in our study shuddered involuntarily as the verses piled horror upon horror in their ears and minds.  Even the pagans were astounded at the wrath of God.  The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any of the inhabitants of the world, that foe or enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem. (Lam 4:12)
            Then we turned back to the original covenant.  Read Deut 28:28-57 today for your daily reading, and then find the fulfillment of all these things in the fourth Lament, as well as scattered in the prophets.  But here especially, verse after verse, reminds the people exactly why they are experiencing these horrible things. 
            "But we are the chosen people," they said again and again as they ignored prophet after prophet. …He will do nothing; no disaster will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine (Jer 5:12). "God won't destroy us," which in their minds meant "God can't destroy us because of all His promises."  They forgot one thing.  Precisely because of the covenant, when they broke their end of it, God was forced to keep His end to remain righteous, and His part was administering justice.  He could not remain holy and faithful and not punish them. 
            And so what is the lesson for us?  We have a new covenant with God.  He has told us several times what will happen with those who have "trodden underfoot" the blood of his Son, the blood of that new covenant.  The religious world wants to assuage your fears with the same sort of talk as the false prophets of old, crying, "Peace, peace, when there is no peace" (Jer 6:14).  A loving God would never punish or destroy; He would never send anyone to hell, they say in all their theological sophistication.
            The writer of the fourth Lament would beg to differ.  God did it once.  He will most certainly do it again.
 
See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. (Heb 12:25-29)

Dene Ward

The third Lament begins exactly like the first two—long lists of the terrible things God's people had to endure.  But there is a difference here too.  While the first two are written in third person or as Jerusalem herself, this one is personal and individual:  I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; (Lam 3:1).  He goes on to describe his afflictions in detail, but suddenly, in the middle of all this despair, for the first time, he interjects some hope.
            Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ​“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” (Lam 3:19-24)
            If you have read the entire lament, the first thing you will think is, "Wait a minute!  The writer just said in verse 18 that his hope has perished."  Evidently, according to Evan and Marie Blackmore in Let Us Search Our Ways, this is a type of construction common to Hebrew poetry where a thought is put out for consideration and then discussed.  Eventually the writer dismisses the notion of a lost hope.  And why?  Because of "the steadfast love of the Lord." 
            "Steadfast love," or "lovingkindness" in other versions, is covenant language.  After a while you begin to recognize certain words and phrases that automatically point to the covenant God made with His people.  Despite the people's failure to keep that covenant, God continues to keep his promises to Abraham and David.  He continues to love these feckless, unfaithful children of His because He is righteous, not because they are.
            The ASV on 3:22 makes this most apparent.  It is of Jehovah's lovingkindnesses [steadfast love] that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. (Lam 3:22)
            Even looking at all the horrible things that have happened to the people, the writer says that without God's love, things would be even worse.  The fact that God's care for them can be seen at all—they are still alive!--gives them hope. 
            Later on the writer lists three reasons to hope:
            1) For the Lord will not cast off forever, (v 31).  Even this well-deserved punishment will come to an end. 
            2) But, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love. (Lam 3:32)  After the punishment God will show pity and compassion on His people.  He will once again bless them.
            3) ​For he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men. (Lam 3:33). God did not send this punishment because it pleased him, but to bring about repentance and to repair the broken relationship.
            And so in the midst of our trials today, we can still have hope.   Remember that it will eventually end.  "This too shall pass," we often say, and it will.  Not only that, but God will have pity on us.   His blessings will not cease.  We may just have to look a little harder for them for a while.  And God never sends trials out of spite.  Even if our trials are not for punishment as theirs were, God always has some goal in mind—strength, clarity, wisdom—something that He expects us to glean from our troubles.  They are never pointless.
            And God's compassion never fails.  No matter how bad things are, His goodness is visible in something close by.  Thorns may pierce, but the roses still bloom.  Bees may sting, but they still make honey.  God has not promised that we will never travel through dark valleys, but He has promised to go through them with us.  Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me" Psalm 23:4.
            Add to all that this one constant:  grace.  The worst day we ever have is better than we deserve.  If you cannot see the hope in your trials, you will ultimately fail them. 
 
The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. ​It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. ​It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. (Lam 3:25-27)
 
Dene Ward        

Question 4 on our lesson sheet for the second lament was "What is the focus of this lament?" 
             Almost in unison came the answer:  "The anger of God." 
            You couldn't miss it.  The poet uses three Hebrew nouns 7 times along with two verbal expressions for anger.  Then you have the list of things God did in His anger—and there was no quibbling about it:  God did them, not the Babylonians.  He "laid waste his booth," " laid in ruins his meetingplace," "spurned king and priest," "made Zion forget Sabbath," "scorned his altar," and "disowned his sanctuary."  He destroyed the very worship he had set up for his people and the people seemed to have no trouble recognizing that God had every right to do it.  They broke the Covenant.  It was all their fault.
            Today we all want to focus on the God of love.  I know it when I hear things like, "God wants me to be happy.  He would never be angry about such a little thing.  He would never _______________."
            First of all, what God wants is for us to be holy so we can spend an Eternity with him.  We cannot if we are anything less than pure because we couldn't—wouldn't—give up the pleasures of even the smallest of sins, and that means that sometime we won't be very "happy."  "Sin separates you from God."  If, after all the blessings I have received from Him and after the huge sacrifice He made for me, I am so unspiritual that I cannot make a relatively insignificant sacrifice for Him in order to make myself acceptable, I deserve His anger and whatever punishment goes along with it.  Yes, He will too ____________, and even these stubborn, selfish, prideful, ungrateful, unmerciful, and unfaithful people of His eventually figured it out. 
            For us to picture God as a one-dimensional Being who only forgives and loves is nothing short of arrogant.  God as our Creator has every right to be angry with the created ones who break His laws.  When unbelievers blast God for that anger—"How could a just God allow these things to happen?"--don't think you have to apologize for Him.  He doesn't need us to explain it away in order to make Him more palatable to a shallow, ungodly, and disobedient world now any more than He did then.
 
The Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob; in his wrath he has broken down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought down to the ground in dishonor the kingdom and its rulers. He has cut down in fierce anger all the might of Israel; he has withdrawn from them his right hand in the face of the enemy; he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob, consuming all around. He has bent his bow like an enemy, with his right hand set like a foe; and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes in the tent of the daughter of Zion; he has poured out his fury like fire. The Lord has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all its palaces; he has laid in ruins its strongholds, and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. (Lam 2:2-5)
              
Dene Ward

As we said last time, the first lament is one of overwhelming sadness.  In a mere 22 verses, the writer uses tears, weep, cry, and mourn a total of five times; distress, affliction and misery a total of seven times; sigh and groan a total of four times, and no comfort and desolate a total of seven times.  That is more words describing grief than there are verses in the lament.
            The speaker is Jerusalem herself.  She is no longer a "princess" but a "widow."   She whose streets were once full of people, is now lonely.  Her friends have become her enemies.  Even her roads mourn because they are no longer traversed by happy families traveling to celebrate the Jewish festivals. 
            In verses 8 and 9 she recognizes her sin, but at this point seems more embarrassed at the disgrace than anything else.  The pagans have seen her nakedness so she "groans and turns her face away."  "The Lord is in the right," she says. "I have been very rebellious, BUT…"
            Look at poor little me.  God has been so hard on me.  Everyone is laughing at me.  No one will comfort me.  See my suffering.  Yes, she is suffering badly, far worse than any of us ever have, but something is missing, even in her confession of sin.  She has more to learn about the purpose of punishment and the correct way to view it. 
            However, the grief itself is not wrong.  God has made that plain throughout his Word.  Even righteous men are shown to grieve, Abraham, David, Hezekiah, and Paul among them.  Even Jesus cried.  Paul told the Roman brethren to "Weep with those who weep," not look down on them and rebuke them for crying.  The promise we have ultimately is that God will wipe away all the tears from our eyes—then, not now.
            But our grief is to be different.  "We sorrow not AS those who have no hope" (1 Thes 4:13), not "We sorrow not."  And if on occasion, our grief is caused by our own sin, as with these people, we have an even larger obligation in our grief.  Godly sorrow works repentance (2 Cor 7:10).  These people are still working on that.  Eventually they will get there, but not quite yet.
            God made us to grieve.  It is human nature to miss a loved one, to be frightened by a bad diagnosis, to be overwhelmed by a loss of physical things, and especially by a spiritual loss.  It is even correct to grieve in such a dramatic and lengthy way as these people did.  As sinful as they were, when you read these laments and see what they went through, you still feel compassion and pity for them.
            But as with everything God made, He made grief to serve a purpose.  It can bring repentance, it can bring strength, it can bring clarity, and help us learn priorities.  Use it, not as self-pity, but the way He intended. 
 
Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negeb! ​Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. (Ps 126:4-6)

Dene Ward        

My Tuesday morning class just finished a study of Lamentations, the first study of that book I have ever done.  Which means, of course, that I learned a lot of new things, and despite this being some of the saddest material in the Bible coming as it does immediately after the fall of Jerusalem, I have fallen in love with these little gems.
            That is the first thing I learned.  Lamentations is not one book that we have divided into five chapters.  It is five separate psalms of lament.  Once we figured that out we decided to study each one separately rather than go seamlessly from one to the other and perhaps have to stop in the middle of one if class time ran out and lose the train of thought.
            Another thing we learned:  each lament is an acrostic poem.  The patterns are not always the same, but the use of the Hebrew alphabet is prominent in them all.  In numbers one and two, each stanza has three lines and the first word of each stanza begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, all 22 in order, making 22 verses in our English Bibles.  Number three is a bit more complex.  Each stanza has three lines and each line within the stanza begins with the same letter that is next in the Hebrew alphabet, making a total of 66 verses in our English Bibles.  Number four follows the pattern of numbers one and two except each stanza has only two lines instead of three.  Then you reach number five, which is not an acrostic in the strictest sense, but which still has 22 stanzas in a nod to the Hebrew alphabet.
English poets are prone to look down their noses at acrostic poems as contrived and uncreative.  They served a real purpose in their time.  Those people did not have Bibles lying on their coffee tables.  They were used to listening and memorizing.  Knowing what letter the next stanza began with was a useful tool in that memorization. 
            Acrostics also had literary symbolism.  Using every letter of the alphabet meant a full expression of the emotion under discussion, in this case, grief.  After all this expressiveness, from A to Z we might say, nothing remains to be said.  And a study of these five poems will show you that is so.
            Number one is a poem of overwhelming sadness.  After we went through the verses and the figures of speech, the repeated words and synonyms and the nuances of expression, I read the poem aloud to the class.  They began reading along with me, but one young woman suddenly sat back, closed her eyes a second, then opened them and listened even more intently.  This poem will cut you to the heart.  You will want to weep out loud with this conquered people.
            Number two will shake you to the core.  Anger, fury, indignation, and other synonyms for the wrath of God appear several times both as nouns and verbals.  Enemy, foe, swallowed up, without pity, without mercy leave no question that what has happened is the doing of an angry God.
            Number three dwells on punishment, the reason for all this devastation and ruin, but suddenly turns close to the middle to remind the people that God is faithful.  A good God still punishes sin.  He would not be good if He did not.
            Number four brings home the consequences of breaking the Covenant.  Drawing heavily from Deuteronomy 28, the writer shows them item by item that God had warned them that this would happen, that making a covenant with the Creator involves the personal and corporate responsibility that the people had sworn to so many centuries before.
            Number five rounds out the collection.  Finally a humbled people feels remorse and repents.  They beg God for restoration and renewal, and the writer leaves it with a Hebrew idiom that seems to indicate that God's response will be positive.  After so much pain and terror, there is finally real hope.
            Do you see how the writer covers all the bases with these psalms?  Not only in the acrostics within the poems, but also by changing his focus from one psalm to the other, he has shown every possible emotion the people were feeling after the Babylonians destroyed their nation. 
And that means we can use these words in our own struggles too.  We will all have trials in our lives, but most of us will never experience what these people did.  Surely if their grief can find expression and relief in these words, ours can too. 
 
All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. “Look, O LORD, and see, for I am despised.” “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the LORD inflicted on the day of his fierce anger. (Lam 1:11-12)      
 
Dene Ward

"That's where I draw the line."
            I suppose you are wondering about context.  Context doesn't really matter here.  This was a Christian who, in the course of a class discussion, let everyone know that when it came to serving the Lord—it didn't really matter what area--there was a line she would not cross.
            The problem is that Jesus does not allow his disciples to draw a line.  He expects us to give him a blank check.  We are to choose him over family, over wealth and status, even over our own lives.  Again and again he tells those who won't put him first that they are "not fit for the kingdom."
            ​Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me (Matt 10:37).
            No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money (Matt 6:24).
            As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:57-62).
            And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me " (Luke 9:23).
            Jesus does not want half-hearted disciples.  They had to be fully committed to him.  He expects them to eat and drink him, i.e., live on him, survive on him and him alone—the true meaning of John 6.  And that means there must be no drawing of lines.  Just to be plain about it, if I won't give him that, he doesn't want me.  When everyone left after that difficult sermon, Jesus turned to his disciples and asked, "Are you going, too?"  He wouldn't even cave for his favorites.  They understood that when you commit to Jesus, that's that.
            I have a theory about all of this.  If there is a line I will not cross when it comes to my service to the Lord, sometime or other in my life, he will make sure I come up against it.
 
…But if you remain faithful even when facing death, I will give you the crown of life, Rev 2:10, NLT.

Dene Ward

Now pay attention!  “Irregardless” is not a word; the word is “regardless.”  “Preventative” and “attentative” are not words; the words are “preventive” and “attentive” without the extra “ta” syllable.  You go to an “orientation” session to become “oriented,” not “orientated.” 
            You are not “laying” in bed.  If you were, there would be a pile of eggs there.  Today you “lie” there, yesterday you “lay” there, and in the past you “have lain” there.  However, if you are talking about something you put in the bed, then today you “lay” it there, yesterday you “laid” it there, and in the past you also “have laid” it there. 
            The words are not pronounced “comPARable” and “irrePARable,” they are pronounced “COMparable” and “irREParable.”  And at least until recently when the lexicographers finally gave up and put it in as an allowed pronunciation, the word was correctly pronounced “off-en” without the T, rather than “off-ten” with the T.  At least know that the pronunciation of the word “often” has been corrupted, please. 
            “Hopefully the weather will clear up” is an impossibility.  The weather cannot do anything hopefully, and that is the word being modified in that sentence.  What you mean to say is, “I hope the weather will clear up.”  “Hopefully” used at the beginning of a sentence is almost always wrong.
            You cannot “bring” something to a place you are not at; you TAKE it there.  When you feel ill, you feel “nauseated.”  When you are “nauseous,” you are causing nausea in others, although my dictionary tells me that it has been used wrong for so long that they have created a second definition for it.
            You know what is so aggravating about all of this?  I am not a grammarian.  I did not have a grammar class after ninth grade.  The English classes after that were all literature and writing.  Any real grammar scholar could find fault with me.  I was, in fact, re-reading an old devotional the other day and found a split infinitive in it.  I am just an ordinarily educated person when it comes to grammar.  So if I know all these things, what in the world happened?  I see and hear them in what purports to be professional speech and writing all the time.  It’s one thing for us common folks to be less than careful about how we speak, but shouldn’t the pros have standards?
            Before you start on me for being too picky and fussy, let me remind you that I am in good company.  Paul and Jesus both made arguments based on word choice and grammar.
            In Galatians 3:16 Paul uses the number of the noun “seed” to prove that Jesus was the fulfillment to the promise to Abraham.  Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed.  He said not, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.  In the first major controversy in the new kingdom, when Jewish Christians were attempting to force Judaism on Gentile Christians as necessary to salvation, that was important.  Pretty picky of Paul, wasn’t it?
            Jesus proved to the Sadducees the resurrection of the dead when he quoted God as He spoke to Moses on Mt Sinai from the burning bush, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  At that point, those men had been long dead, yet God spoke of them in the present tense.  Jesus said, But as regarding the resurrection of the dead, haven’t you read that which was spoken to you by God, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?  God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, Matt 22:31,32, an argument based solely on the tense of a verb.  Good thing it had nothing to do with “laying!”
            We have a tendency to think of those people in “Bible times” as primitive, ignorant folks.  Jesus made a claim of Divinity to them using two words, which of necessity were in the present tense.  Before Abraham was, I AM, John 8:58.  Did they catch something so fussy and nitpicky?  I think so.  They took up stones therefore to cast at him.  I wonder if today’s generation would have just shrugged their shoulders and walked on.
            It is permissible to be picky with the Scriptures.  We are in good company when we are.  Be careful however, that your pickiness is not about pettiness.  “Picky” and “petty” are not the same.  Jesus and the apostles were one, but not the other.  Study the difference, study your scriptures.  God did choose words to communicate with us, not subjective feelings.  Aren’t we glad?  There can be no mistake if you have it down in black and white.
           
Truly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no way pass from the law till all things are accomplished.  Whoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.  But whoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven, Matt 5:18,19.
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.
 
Mark Twain described normal life, “A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle for bread…the burden of pain, care, misery grows heavier year by year.”
 
Burdens of making a living, Burdens of anxiety because there is never enough to be secure, Burdens of sickness & death, Burdens of the boredom of the constant search for amusement, Burdens of the futility of it all in the face of death; these and more will obscure and mute the joys of life.
 
“Come unto me;” not, “believe my teaching” or “attend church,” but, “COME UNTO ME.” Many who call themselves Christians and do many good works fail to find the promised rest because they never answered the unreserved commitment, “COME!” One who believes and even teaches the exact truth may yet fail to place himself absolutely and only in Jesus’ hands.
 
Rest does not mean things in life suddenly start working out or health problems respond to prayer.  Rest means there is a relationship so pure and good that these things no longer matter.  We have a goal and a meaning to life while the world has nothing.  We have a hope for something more than life while they have darkness. 
 
If your life seems futile; if it feels like you can barely keep up with all the things and with all the problems, it may mean you should re-commit and, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.”  
 
“Come” is not a “one and done” invitation.  Paul still wrote to long time faithful Christians, "That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that you may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fullness of God." (Eph 4:17-19 sel.)
 
Despite all his accolades, Mark Twain died in the futility he described.  Why should you?
 
The mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations: but now hath it been manifested to his saints, to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of glory: WHOM we proclaim (Col 1:26-27).
 
Keith Ward
 

I have been clipping and redeeming coupons since we got married.  I have a file box and a system.  I search ads faithfully and use them to plan both my shopping trip and my meals.  And I don’t fall into the coupon traps—if I don’t need it or won’t use it, or did not want to try it anyway, I don’t buy it.  We got by for 50% less than most families with teenage boys.
              I seldom have one of those shopping trips you hear about, where the woman buys $100 worth of groceries for $2.98, primarily because I do not buy a lot of processed, prepared foods.  I have a garden; I bake from scratch.  My grocery bill rarely includes anything but staples, meat, paper goods, and the few produce items we do not grow, like onions, potatoes, and garlic.  You don’t find many coupons for those things, but occasionally I make a “coupon coup.”  There was the jar of mustard, regularly $1.29, on sale for 99 cents.  A 50 cent coupon brought it down to 49 cents.  There was the week Publix actually put their bakery’s key lime pie on sale for $4.50.  I had a $2.50 coupon PLUS they gave away a free loaf of French bread with every pie.  So for $2.00 I got a key lime pie (regular $7.49) and a loaf of French bread (regular $1.99).  I couldn’t have made a key lime pie alone for any less than $4.00, and theirs is nearly as good.
            Then I raided the drug store, the popular hang-out for those who are aging.  Keith needed glucosamine chondroitin.  $30.00 a bottle.  It was buy one get one, plus I had a $3.00 coupon.  We needed vitamins, regular $6.00 a bottle.  They were buy one get one, plus I had a $2.00 coupon.  They also had my favorite shampoo on sale, one I hardly ever get to buy because it is usually $4.29 a bottle.  They had it for $3.00, plus I had a coupon for $2.00 off 2, plus, for buying two, they automatically gave me another $1.00 off anything in the store at the check-out, effectively making the price $1.50 a bottle.  Finally we needed some low dose aspirins--$4.69 a bottle.  I had a $4.00 coupon, making that 69 cents.  Are you keeping track?  I bought $86.29 worth of items for $38.19.  Don’t tell me the time I spend clipping and sorting isn’t worth it.      
            Redeeming coupons brings to mind another sort of redemption.  I am always thrilled when I get a high quality item for a low price.  I would never pay full price for a crushed box of crackers or a dented can of tomato paste; nor would I for wilted produce—maybe half price for overripe bananas because they still have some use.  But top dollar?  Forget it.
            I am so glad God was not as stingy as I am!  He redeemed me, paying full price not for dented cans, crushed boxes, or even overripe bananas.  He got the culls, the totally useless, rotten, spoiled produce; he paid top dollar for something no one else would have even considered buying. 
          I think, when you have “been good” all your life, perhaps “raised in the church,” as we are prone to say, it is hard to realize our worthlessness, and really appreciate what has been done for us.  An old song goes, “Alas and did my Savior bleed and did my Sovereign die; would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?”  I noticed that in one of the newer hymnals that last line has been changed to “such a one as I.”  Unh-unh.  We need to get the “worm” back in there, because that is how low we were—totally worthless and disgusting--when Jesus redeemed us, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold…but with precious blood, as a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ, 1 Pet 1:18,19.  Truly the Lord is gracious.  In fact, we got the real bargain—precious grace for irregular, damaged merchandise!
 
For while we were weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, maybe for a good man someone would dare to die.  But God commends his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Rom 5:6-8     
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer, Laurie Moyer

Dear One,
Have you ever noticed the three different kinds of people described in Acts 17 who heard the Gospel message? There were those in Thessalonica, who wanted only traditional ideas. There were the Athenians at the end of the chapter who wanted to hear all new things. Sandwiched in the middle were the Bereans, who were more concerned with whether or not the things preached were true. I know your heart well enough to know that you are a truth-seeker, and I applaud you for it. It is too easy for those in your age group to feel the pull toward the Athenian perspective. I do not say that all open-minded young people are sensationalists, but new ideas and approaches do have a built-in level of excitement. May I caution you not to let those aspects overpower your perception of their core worth.

It has always been the case that younger generations have a certain amount of impatience with, if not downright disdain for, a traditionalist approach to their life. In many ways this is a natural outgrowth of making up your own mind about things, and as such is healthy. It would be naïve to think our parents did not feel a bit of this themselves at this age, and so they will understand our independence. However, if an idea is absolutely new and never thought of before our day, we really should view it with some skepticism. Even the Ecclesiastes writer said there is nothing new under the sun, and that was thousands of years ago. He was right. The older you get you will see more of this. In terms of Biblical interpretation, we know that truly new doctrine will never be the correct view. Fee and Stuart cleverly phrased it as “a text can never mean what it never meant.” The Bible means what it was always intended to mean. Perhaps we rediscover what we had overlooked in what it says, but it would be the height of arrogance to insist no one else has ever seen what we realize today. Truth is truth and stands the test of time. It is not invalidated by the fact that others have taught it for years or that we have not discovered its significance.

Can we take this caution in principle and apply it to modern conventional wisdom? We are in an age of new discoveries of scientific truth, but often the recommendations we see in our digital communities are not so much based in verifiable fact as what seems to make sense to us in some logical way. College students are justly warned against a dependence on internet research in their search for truth because anyone can write anything online and have an audience for it. There is no clinical verification process and all you need is an assertion of fact or an argument that sounds logical to have a following. One example is in the area of medical recommendations. I simply do not have the expertise to speak definitively on the value of one “all natural” cure above another. What makes sense to me could involve a dangerous over-sight of other factors, and I need to recognize my own limitations in this area.

The business of selling snake oil has been popular and lucrative for ages. I am sad to say it is alive today and preys on the desperation we feel to fix our every ailment. I do not advise that young people try to be skeptical of everything they hear, just to be cautious. Even within academically accepted circles we see confident assertions of contradictory information. Not too long ago butter, nuts, meat, and coffee were all considered to be bad for you. Medical research today says the opposite is the case, with certain clarifications.  I believe this illustrates the fact that there are many more factors involved in what makes something better or worse for us than we usually calculate into these decisions. God has made us far more complicated than any of us know and we need to suspend some of our certainty and hubris and give place to the possibility that what we “know” today may not be as certain as we think it.

Children have the upper hand on us. They know they are in the process of learning. They are accustomed to being guided by another who has more information and their quest for those answers can be relentless.  Do not let that go to your head. You are the child. Your Father in Heaven is the one with the answers, but He does not need to say, “I don’t know, daughter.” He may say, “It is too much for you right now. Just trust me.” That is an answer we can be content with and one our children sometimes need to be willing to accept in return.
your loving friend,
Laurie Moyer

“There is a way that seems right to man, but the ends are the ways of death.” Psalm 14:12

Laurie writes for her husband Doy's blog, Searching Daily.  You can fins this and many other great articles there (including Doy's!).