Grains of Sand

Pixabay Submission would be whole lot easier if 1 Peter 5:5b was always true. " All of you, clothe yourselves with humility towards one another… " As Peter ends his letter to the believers of his day, men and women had been forced to scatter throughout their world because of persecution, he addresses for a moment those with spiritual authority. He encourages them to be true shepherds, examples, imitators of the Great Shepherd, Jesus. As he finishes that brief word he tells those younger to submit to their spiritual leaders. Some exult at that instruction; others resent it. Few read, or dwell, on the phrase that follows. " In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. ALL OF YOU, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another… " I wonder if Peter was thinking of a certain discussion that took place just before Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem prior to His death? An ambitious mother came to Jesus to ask Him t...

Pixabay I once corrected a now internationally famous Biblical scholar (he will remain nameless) when he misquoted this verse. It was mean of me—one of those temptations that I should have been able to resist, but chose not to! All that is neither here nor there as they say. The verse from Proverbs 16:18 is well-known: “ Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall .” This is an example of parallelism, where the second phrase is another way of saying the first phrase. In essence, though the verse was misquoted by my eminent friend, what he said was something like a contraction of the original. But aside from my secret (now not so secret) delight is getting “one up” on someone eons smarter than me, this verse reminds us of the very danger I succumbed to in taking pleasure in correcting him—pride. We often don’t recognize pride for what it is. We attach friendly meanings to it, but it is what it is. I found it interesting that my dictionary actually misquoted the ver...

Pixabay One of my reading plans for this year is entitled 365 Popular Bible Quotations for Memorization and Meditation . At first reading of this verse I wasn’t sure why this particular quote would fall into that category, but here it is: “ But I know where you stay and when you come and go and how you rage against me .” (2 Kings 19:27) The context is yet another of those moments in Israel’s history when she is facing overwhelming odds against her. The king of Assyria and his forces are threatening Jerusalem. Hezekiah goes before the Lord to plead his cause and that of his people. Isaiah, the prophet, appears before the king with this message to deliver to Sennacherib, king of Assyria, a message that also serves to reassure Hezekiah that they have not been abandoned by the God of Israel. The message to God’s people in Jerusalem is this: “ Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here. He will not come before...

Google Images It’s a curious statement—until you check out the details behind it. In 2 Kings 15 we have a brief summary of the reign of Azariah (or Uzziah), king of Judah. He became king at the age of sixteen and remained king for fifty-two years. Verse 3 tells us: “ He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father Amaziah had done .” All good, right? But here comes the curious statement. “ The Lord afflicted the king with leprosy until the day he died, and he lived in a separate house. Jotham the kings’s son had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land ” (15:5). Azariah, or Uzziah, was one of the good guys. So what happened that the Lord brought this affliction down upon him? The book of Kings doesn’t give us the details but a parallel account in 2 Chronicles 26 does. Uzziah, as he is called in Chronicles, was a great king. It was recorded that: “ …his fame spread as far as the border of Egypt, because he had become very powerful…he was greatly hel...

Pride personified: from Byron's Curse How soon we forget. Uzziah was sixteen when he became king of Judah (2 Chronicles 26:1). At an age when most people think they know everything, the young king was wise enough to know that such a responsibility needed better prepared heads than his. It is written that: " He sought God during the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God. As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success " (26:5, NIV). And he was successful. He enjoyed a fifty-two year reign. His enemies were defeated. He was wealthy and built up the wealth of the land. He was famous and became powerful. Then these ominous words: " But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God… " (26:16, NIV). He desecrated the temple by assuming the role of a priest and burning incense on the altar. The priests rebuked him. At that point he should have repented. Instead, Uzziah got angry because of ...

“When the cat’s away…” Remember that old adage? Exodus 24 is a short chapter and seemingly not terribly significant considering all the tremendous events that take place around it. Huddled between the giving of the Ten Commandments and the description of how the Tabernacle was to be built and furnished, Exodus 24 feels like one of those comic relief moments that break the tension in a book or movie. Except that it’s not funny. It’s a little sad actually. The chapter begins with God instructing Moses to come up the mountain. He is to take Aaron, seventy of the elders of Israel and two priests, Nadab and Abihu, to the foot of Sinai with him. They must stay at the bottom while Moses goes up to talk to the Lord. The people are to stay back. “When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, ‘Everything the Lord has says we will do.’ ” (24:3, NIV). The next morning Moses offers sacrifices to the Lord and read the record of the covenant...

“ Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall ” —Proverbs 16:18, NIV. I remember a now very famous theologian who misquoted this verse. Mind you, he wasn’t famous then, but he was considered the brightest star in our seminary. I really enjoyed correcting him. Years ago I came within inches of throwing away my career because I thought I was better than my colleagues. I convinced myself that because they were behaving badly God couldn’t possibly want me to be around them. If I worked a little harder at this I am sure I could come up with several more personal examples of just how easy it is for pride to slip in, take root, and grow into something not so beautiful, like a competitive spirit or an attitude of spiritual superiority. “Self-esteem” is a word that can provide rich soil for the root of pride because it highlights “self.” But even in Christian circles, self-esteem has become the “north” to a generation of people who have been crushed by the circumsta...

" His fame spread far and wide, for he was greatly helped until he became powerful " —2 Chronicles 26:15, NIV. What is it about success that plants the seeds of failure? " But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God, and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense " —2 Chronicles 26:16, NIV. Ahhhhh, pride. Uzziah's punishment was a touch of leprosy. That's just as deadly as a touch of cancer. Physical death might take a while, but it's becoming a pariah in the community that really hurts. No one to touch and no one to be touched by. Total isolation except for those who have also been embraced by the disease. Uzziah's son, Jotham learned the lesson. " He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father Uzziah had done, but unlike him he did not enter the temple of the Lord " —2 Chronicles 27:2, NIV. Interestingly it wasn't the ...