Not Matthew, Mark or even Luke...I'd probably had been a Saul. by Tony C

Most people are identified by what they do to make a living. That fact is especially true for men because one of the very first questions someone will ask when meeting a male for the first time is 'What do you do?' People in the Bible were no different. We often closely associated what major figures in the Bible did for a living. This week, your Kingdom Bloggers will share which occupation we feel each of us would have worked back in biblical days.

My first inclination was an association with Matthew the tax collector (or Zacchaeus, I'm a short dude). I love Matthew and his role in Christ's ministry. I'm also a business-minded individual. But if I'm completely honest with the topic, I know in my heart yours truly would have most likely been a Pharisee during the days of Jesus' earthly ministry.

A Pharisee?!

Yes. That's what I said. The middle-classed members of the religious rule often worked their way into position by their dedication to education. Unlike their Sadducee counterparts, most of the Pharisees came to wealth through work...not inheritance. They were politicians and more closely related to common people. Many were in the priesthood, but often at lower levels in the hierarchy than the Sadducee.

Jesus didn't have kind words for either group as it were.

Saul of Tarsus is the most famous of the biblical Pharisees...at least until he met his Maker on the road to Damascus. We often forget that Saul was going about in a very effective way doing what he thought was right and good. Jesus set him straight, and the rest is history...as they say.

My love of politics, business and education all point to my conclusion that I would have, most likely, been a Pharisee (not to mention I dig those Jedi looking outfits). However, I do like to think that when confronted or exposed to the Truth that was/is Jesus Christ...I would have been smart enough to follow Him.

My real history bodes well that's the choice I would have made too.

Signs of the Times

This week at Kingdom Bloggers we have been tasked with writing about “what God is doing.” Because we believe that God is living and active in our lives and in the world, we may see patterns of the unfolding of His plan and purposes for His kingdom.

In the Gospel of Matthew, the teachers of the Law and religious leaders asked Jesus for a sign to prove that he was from God. Jesus retorts that people like them make great weathermen, but terrible current event analysts:

“He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away” (Matthew 16:2-4).

The sign of Jonah (Jonah was a runaway prophet who was in a whale’s belly for three days), refers to Jesus’ death and resurrection over three days, an event predicted in scripture for hundreds of years, and one that would change hearts and history. The very experts in scripture had failed to recognize that their Messiah stood before them. We can be blind to what is happening right in front of us, especially when things aren’t jibing with our assumptions and pre-conceived notions.

The reason Jonah ran away from God’s directive to warn the Ninevites to repent was because he hated those people and believed they did not deserve to be saved! When God does forgive the Ninevites, “To Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the LORD, “Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” (Jonah 4:1-2).

Chad Pecknold, a theologian, states that it seems the way Jesus reads the sign of Jonah is as a clarifying, transformative, directive and predictive sign. Where God is, there is always love and transformation occurring, even though we may not see the results right away.

The reason I write about Jonah is because I see God at work in the hearts and minds of His servants. Jonah’s heart needed to be changed--and yet he was God’s man of the hour! God is at work in the hearts of His people, because we have been called to love people so much that we would die for them, like Jesus did. To be transformed requires change, and change usually comes with a cost. Oswald Chambers once said, “You may often have to watch Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it." This "hard word" does not set well with us.

We see great pain, struggle, wars and rumors of wars all around us: failing marriages, struggles with addiction, adultery, church in-fighting, power struggles, racism, prejudice, hatred of women, disdain toward men--and these occur within the very people who claim to follow God.

Many of us point the finger at others to show how terrible things are in the world and proclaim that is how we know we are in the end times. That’s what Jonah did; that is what the Pharisees and Sadducees did. Next time we are tempted to do that, let’s step in front of a mirror. But then remember the sign of Jonah: God is in the business of transformation, redemption and hope--even in the belly of the whale.

Read the Book of Jonah here.

The image of Jonah is from a website that supports Ethiopian Jews.

My daughter sent me the Jesus face-palm image. Pretty sure He's done that over my foolishness, as well as his disciples, who were also slow learners :) : Matt 16:5-12; Mark 10:25-35.

Confessions of a Former Pharisee

The longer the live, the more I realize that the adage about the only thing constant is change.  If we don’t change, we also don’t grow.  It’s interesting that our blog this week is about changing our mind, not our heart.  That’s good because only God can change the heart but we can change our minds.  And let me tell you from personal experience, that distance from my head to my heart is usually the hardest and longest trip of all.

I had a professor at Trevecca who never gave me a grade.  That was because I bailed out of his classes twice.  He had this reputation.  The guy was brilliant.  I would start a class and then say NOPE, this is going to kill my GPA and I don’t need this and out the door I’d go.  Nonetheless, he actually influenced me a lot.  Several things he said to me during my interactions with him are things that will never leave me.  One of those things was 

education will change you whether you want it to or not

I realize that the term “social justice” is not the most well liked phrases in certain circles of Christianity.  In others, it is their favorite phrase.  I grew up in the camp where saying social justice was akin to saying you were backslidden.  We firmly rejected eternal security, so being backslidden could be an everyday, even hourly event.  Christians were classified as truly saved or not.  Those who spoke of social justice were in the not category.

Before I go further, let me make sure everyone understands me.  I do believe in salvation through the free gift of God through faith in His son Jesus Christ.  I do not believe that there is anything I can do to earn my salvation nor can I work off my sins.  But I have discovered much to my shock that social justice is not a dirty word.

As I plunged into Old Testament classes and as I plunged into the learning of Hebrew, I discovered a recurrent theme.  God cares about justice.  God cares about how we treat each other.  God wants us to take care of widows, orphans, the outcast, etc.  Then as I took the course in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, from an equally hard professor as the one I would bail out on, I saw that Jesus miracles were not for show – they were to meet the needs of real people.  There were people hungry and Jesus fed them.  There were people marginalized, troubled and in pain, and Jesus healed, delivered and fellowshipped with them.  It was about real people, with real needs.  It wasn’t some super spiritualized event.  It was about people… did you get that?  It was about people.  And it was about justice.  I was shocked!

When I was a girl I would go to the Salvation Army for Sunbeams, Girl Guards and Vacation Bible School.   I’ve written about this before, you can read it here.  I preached my first sermon during Girl Guards one Saturday morning.  I preached on John 3:16 and told my peers “you must be born again.”  I had this self-righteous notion in my head that the Salvation Army had become too liberal and was too concerned about social issues rather than preaching the gospel.  How foolish and arrogant I was for such a youngster.  I think I was about 13.  I remember the leader thanking God for reminding us of His salvation.  I felt so justified in my self-righteousness.  

But isn’t that what the Pharisees did as well?  I was a little Pharisee.

Now I know better.  Now I know that the gospel is also about feeding people, making sure kids don’t go hungry nor do adults, giving a coat that you don’t use anymore so a child or an adult can stay warm, it’s about loving people.  If we could just get that love part right, the preaching of the gospel would be heard.  Social justice is part of the gospel.  I never knew.  I’m no longer a Pharisee now that I know better.

What about you?  Are you a Pharisee?