Five Act Story

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1.4.09

Several of you are going to try to read through the Bible this year
so I wanted to give you two ideas

2 Timothy 3:16

Have you ever heard this one?
“The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.”
In other words: We do what the Bible says.

This sounds very Biblical and faithful.

The fact is every Christian ignores many commandments in the Bible.

Every Christian picks and chooses what he is going to obey.

AJ Jacobs’
The Year of Living Biblically:One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

“As I write this, I have a beard that makes me resemble Moses. Or Abe Lincoln. It’s not a well-manicured, socially-acceptable beard. It’s an untamed mass that creeps up toward my eyeballs and drapes below my neckline. I’ve never allowed my facial hair to grow before, and it’s been an odd and enlightening experience.

But I mean no harm. The facial hair is simply the most noticeable physical manifestation of a spiritual journey I began a year ago.

My quest has been this: To live the ultimate Biblical life. Or more precisely, to follow the Bible as literally as possible. To obey the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love my neighbor. But also to abide by the oft-neglected rules: To avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers. And, naturally, to leave the edges of my beard unshaven (Leviticus 19:27). I am trying to obey the entire Bible, without picking and choosing.”

If you shaved your beard this morning, you broke a commandment.

We all know Leviticus 19:18 “love your neighbor as yourself” but what about other commands from the same chapter?

Leviticus 19: 9, 19, 26, 27, 32
My guess is you all ignore these commands.

Jesus said “do not pray in public”
Do you ignore this?

Jesus also said “whenever you pray, recite this prayer..” and gave us the words to use.
Do you ever pray with other words?

“Wash one another’s feet”
John 13:14
Do you obey this one?

“give up everything you have”
Lk 14:33
“heal the sick and raise the dead”
Mt 10:8
“do not charge interest”
Lev 25.36
What about these?

Sometimes we claim we are keeping a commandment when we are not.

For example, Tithing
How many of us have heard preachers preach that the Bible commands people to give a tithe? They tell youto give 10% of your money to the church and say that is “obeying” God’s commandment to tithe. But those who give 10% to the church are not really obeying the commandments in Deuteronomy to tithe (12, 14, 26)

from Generous Giving website
“The tithe was an offering of one’s agricultural income to the Lord as an expression of thanks and dedication. In the Old Testament agricultural economy, tithes were paid not in cash, gold or goods but in crops or livestock, for only the agricultural fruit of the promised land was to be tithed—not other forms of income. Although today we commonly think of the tithe as “10 percent” , apparently there are three tithes in the Old Testament, two every year and a third every third year, or an average of 23.3 percent of one’s annual produce from the land. Israelites who had become poor and lost their land or those who had moved to cities and engaged in non-agricultural trades almost certainly would have been exempt from tithe under Old Testament law. In the Old Testament and in early Jewish literature, tithe was not applied to all but only to landowners in Israel, who tithed off the increase of the land, i.e., what God’s promised land produced for them. Accordingly, there is no record of tithing from servants and other non-landowners, widows, sojourners and others in the land since these all received from others. (Except the Levites) Nor is there any evidence that tithe applied to all money/income, such as artisans in the cities or those who lost their land and became day laborers. The three tithes in Israel were used for three main purposes: (1) to support the Levites who were not given land of their own, (2) to provide a meal for community celebration and (3) to provide for the needs of the poor.”

one of the 10 commandments is “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy”
which is explained as meaning do no work from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday

None of us do this
some of us ignore this commands
and some of us take Sunday off and go to church and call it Sabbath
but that is not the literal commanment that God gave Israel

We claim to obey the Bible but we don’t really
we claim to obey Jesus but we don’t really

we can either become radical literalists or admit that we pick and choose
We all pick and choose which commands to obey.
That is my point.
None of us doing what the Bible says simply because it says it.

BUT how do you know you are not to obey a certain commandment and you must obey another commandment?

Genesis 17:9-14
Circumcision commanded
Galatians 5:6
“in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value”

Even the Bible disagrees with itself.
but that is because Paul knew he was in a new ACT of the story
He was living in Act 5 and God had commanded Israel to circumcise in Act 2

1. Read the Bible as a Story with Five Acts

creation –Gen 1-2;
fall –Gen 3-11
Israel –Gen 12- Malachi
Jesus –Gospels
Church –Acts & Epistles
(There is another act coming as well sometimes called New Creation)

We live in the fifth Act
and so we are at a different point in the story than Genesis or Moses or the prophets or even Jesus

When you are reading a portion of the Bible
know where you are within the overall drama,
know which act of the story you are in

there are things that are appropriate for one act that are not appropriate for another act

compare to a crime drama
you can’t arrest the man
until you gather some evidence in an earlier act
you can’t gather evidence until the man has actually committed the crime in an earlier act

every word of the Bible is not a “timeless truth” for everyone everywhere
the receivers of these words obey them in their Act

even our Act will end
there will be no reason to pray or read the Bible in the new creation, marriage vows will be finished

we are not being disloyal to parts of the Bible
we are being loyal to them as what they really are — one Act in a larger Story

we must live as those
who know that 4 acts came before
and we are moving toward a 6th act

the NT epistles are the most directly addressed to us

*But even when dealing with the NT epistles we must remember that every command is directed to a certain people in a certain culture

and we must try to understand the spirit of the command,
because the specific letter of the command is often culture-bound

1 Peter 3:3
no gold jewelry, fine clothes, or elaborate hairstyles
1 Thessalonians 5:26
Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss
Colossians 3:22
Slaves obey your earthly masters in everything
1 Cor 11:6
every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head

Another problem in the NT is that many commands are so general that we need spiritual wisdom to know how to obey them in our culture and situation
commands such as “love one another” and “clothe yourselves with compassion”

2. We need discernment from the Spirit to know the expression of a commandment in our culture

Jubilee

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3.9.08

Leviticus 25

This chapter contains commandments given to Israel. They are part of the Torah or the law of Israel.

Leviticus 25:23
The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.

God owned the land and he acted in justice
distributing the land fairly and equitably to all the families of Israel.

Each family had its own inheritance of land.

The families do not “own” the land
but they simply administer it as tenant farmers for God. God is the owner.

God did not want the justice of his distribution ruined.
He wanted every family to always have its fair allotment of land.
This was justice.

If wealthy people bought up all the land and poor people were without land–
This was injustice and a breaking of the law.

For a peasant his land is his life–
If he loses his land, he has lost his source of livelihood, means to provide for his family.

God takes the land off the market.
Land cannot be bought and sold like a goat.

It cannot be bought permanently.
It can only be rented for a certain amount of seasons.

Every fiftieth year land was to be returned to the original family.

Lv 25:10
10 Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan.
13 ” ‘In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to his own property.

14 ” ‘If you sell land to one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of each other. 15 You are to buy from your countryman on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And he is to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. 16 When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what he is really selling you is the number of crops. 17 Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the LORD your God.

In other words he is simply renting the land for a number of years, paying for the years not the land.
No one can lose their land permanently.

If someone has become poor and destitute God allows him to sell his land to another until the next Jubilee as a way out of poverty.

The goal was to redeem it– or buy it back– as soon as possible.
LV 25:25 If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his countryman has sold. 26 If, however, a man has no one to redeem it for him but he himself prospers and acquires sufficient means to redeem it, 27 he is to determine the value for the years since he sold it and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it; he can then go back to his own property. 28 But if he does not acquire the means to repay him, what he sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. It will be returned in the Jubilee, and he can then go back to his property.

God is a God of justice. He had distributed the land making sure everyone had what they needed to live and prosper.

And this was so important that every fifty years he gave all the land back again.

Deuteronomy 19:14; 27:17
14 Do not move your neighbor’s boundary stone set up by your predecessors in the inheritance you receive in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess.
17 “Cursed is the man who moves his neighbor’s boundary stone.”
Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

Moving boundary stones was a great evil because it was stealing from a family what had been their inheritance from God.

1 Kings 21
Some time later there was an incident involving a vineyard belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite. The vineyard was in Jezreel, close to the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. 2 Ahab said to Naboth, “Let me have your vineyard to use for a vegetable garden, since it is close to my palace. In exchange I will give you a better vineyard or, if you prefer, I will pay you whatever it is worth.”
3 But Naboth replied, “The LORD forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.”

Naboth does not want to sell what his family had been given by God.

Isaiah 5:8
8 Woe to you who add house to house
and join field to field
till no space is left
and you live alone in the land.

Isaiah pronounces woe because it is injustice for a man to buy the fields and houses of another and steal his family inheritance.

Lv 25:35-37
35 ‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. 36 Do not take interest of any kind from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you. 37 You must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit. 38 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.

People borrowed money when they were extremely poor and needed it to survive.
Do not lend money with interest to your countrymen.
If they are poor and need to borrow money, help them to get back on their feet.
Don’t take advantage of their situation by charging them interest.

Why? because God gave you the land. It is his gift. Take care of people who fall on hard times.

39 ” ‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave. 40 He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. 41 Then he and his children are to be released, and he will go back to his own clan and to the property of his forefathers. 42 Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. 43 Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God.

When people become very poor
they may reach the point of selling their land and selling themselves as hired workers
but when Jubilee comes–
they are to be released.

Ex 22:25-27
25 “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest. [e] 26 If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, 27 because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.

Dt 24:6
6 Do not take a pair of millstones—not even the upper one—as security for a debt, because that would be taking a man’s livelihood as security.

Do not take as collateral the things that a man needs to live. The blanket he wraps himself in at night or a millstone.

Those who have become poor need justice.

The Seventh Year
Dt 15:1-2, 7-11
1 At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. 2 This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow Israelite. He shall not require payment from his fellow Israelite or brother, because the LORD’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed.

7 If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. 8 Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs. 9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward your needy brother and give him nothing. He may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be found guilty of
sin. 10 Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. 11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.

Every seventh year forgive all debts so the poor can get back on their feet.
Give generously to the poor even when you know you are not going to get it back.

Dt 15:12-15

12 If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let him go free. 13 And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed. 14 Supply him liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you. 15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today.

Deuteronomy 24:17
17 Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. 18 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this.
Jeremiah 7
1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD : 2 “Stand at the gate of the LORD’s house and there proclaim this message:
” ‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD. 3 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. 4 Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!” 5 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever.

In a patriarchal society widows and orphans were without protection and so God commands them to look out for widows and orphans that they do not fall into poverty.
Protect them and help them because God wants everyone to have what they need.

Leviticus 19:9-10
9 ” ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.

They were to leave food in their fields for the needy. This was a command.
Now I know what you are thinking.
This is Torah. The Law of Israel.
We are not under Torah.
We have no obligation to keep all the commandments of Torah–
especially civil commands like these.
And you are right.
These commandments are impossible to keep because we are not Jews in Canaan.
We are not under Torah.

But these commands do help us in one way. They show us what was upon the heart of God in the giving of the Torah to the Jews in certain place for a certain time.

What was on God’s heart in giving these commands?

God wanted everyone to have what they needed.
He distributed land to each and he made laws to protect each one of them.
It is important to remember that justice does not simply mean punishment for the wrongdoers; it means good for everyone in a fair distribution.

and Justice also means concern especially for those who have been overlooked and who were structurally vulnerable in the society (widows, orphans, aliens, etc.).

This does not mean that people who are able to work and do not work should be provided for by others.

It does mean that God acknowledges that people fall on hard times
and some people are susceptible to hard times and have no help.
God wants everyone to have what they need.

Q: Do you share the concern of God that everyone in the society (especially the vulnerable) are getting what they need?
This was on God’s heart when he gave the Torah. Is it on your heart?

Do you focus on your own personal and private morality only– or do you share God’s concern that everyone in your society is getting what they need?
Do you care if there are some in Chattanooga do not have what they need?
Would you do anything about it? Would you help in any way?

Or are you too busy with your personal “walk with Jesus” to be concerned (as God is concerned) with the well being of the other people in your community?

I am not asking you to keep Torah
I am asking Do you have a heart that shares the concerns of God’s heart?

Marriage and Sexuality (II)

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4.22.07

Our topic for this morning is the Adultery
I hope you don’t think this is a topic
not relevant to such a godly group of people

adultery is defined as
sexual relations with another person’s spouse
or sexual relations within anyone other than your spouse

I want to begin by reading you some
old testament passages that show how seriously God takes this.

Genesis 20:1-18
notice the fear of the sin of adultery
the knowledge that death is the punishment

Leviticus 20:10
in the law given to Moses
the punishment for adultery is death
this is not the punishment today
but it shows the gravity of the matter

Proverbs 2:16-19;
5:3-5, 15-23;
6:23-29;
7:6-27
adultery leads to punishment
and destruction

Now let us look at Jesus two teachings on adultery:
Matthew 5:27-29

Looking at another man’s wife or
a woman other than your own wife
in order to lust after her
is adultery
the sin is looking at the woman
what can be wrong with looking?
it is wrong to look
“in order to lust after her”
the word lust means covet
It is wrong to be looking
in order to covet sexually
someone other than your own spouse

verse 29
Jesus does not just say
“don’t look”
he speaks in a poetic way
and in the strongest terms possible
“gouge out your eyes”
this does not refer to a literal gouging out
but it means:
stop looking at the one you look at in order to covet
stop looking
and I would add to this
stop talking to the ones you talk to in order to covet them
stop touching the ones you touch in order to covet them
stop going to the places where the one you covet is
gouge out your eyes

*
this passage has been misunderstood and created false guilt for many people
this does not mean single men and women who have sexual feelings,
strong sexual tension, dreams, images entering their mind
are adulterers
Paul says if you are burning with passion you should get married
he does not say “you are a terrible sinner and committing adultery”
singles should not be coveting women or men who are already married
should not be looking at pornography and coveting the women you see there
but sexual attractions and desires are not sinful for the single,
God often uses them to bring you to marriage

Matthew 19:9
Jesus is speaking to a Jewish context
where only men could divorce their wives
women had no right to divorce their husbands
it is adultery for a man
to see another woman he would prefer
and then divorce the first wife
in order to marry the second woman
Jesus says that such an action is the same as adultery
against your wife

In 1 Cor 7:10
Paul teaches this applies to women as well
He is addressing the Greco-Roman culture
where a woman could divorce a man
he says a woman may not leave her husband

if you want to get out of your marriage
because you want to find someone else
that is adultery

Jesus does mention one exception
you may divorce your wife
if it is not because you are trying to get a new wife
but because it was she who abandoned you
and went with another man and committed adultery
a woman also may divorce her husband if he has committed adultery

1 Cor 7:15
Paul also teaches that if you have an unbelieving spouse
who is leaving and divorcing you, let him/her do so
but a Christian should never seek a divorce
from a spouse simply because he or she is an unbeliever

*
Jesus or Paul never say it is wrong
for the one who was left
or sinned against to remarry

*
but it is adultery for you to initiate divorce and leave your spouse
when he or she was willing to stay with you
and then remarry

*
Are there any exceptions to this absolute statement other than adultery?
Many have argued from Jesus and Paul
that adultery and desertion
are the only permissible grounds for divorce
those 2 and no others
this may be your position
and if it is I would not ask you to go against your conscience
or your attempt to be faithful to Jesus’ teaching
but I think this is wrong
Jesus said only in the case of adultery
and Paul much later adds another situation where divorce is permissible
Paul recognized that Jesus never intended for that to be the exhaustive exploration
of all possible reasons for divorce

If we think those are the only two reasons for divorce it leads to absurdities:
What if a husband is beating his wife near to death repeatedly?
Does the wife have the right to divorce him?
Not if we take Jesus and Paul’s commandment
as giving us the only exceptions.
They never said anything about violence.
But I believe she does have the right.
We must take it on a case by case basis.
In the interest of love the church must allow divorce
when one spouse is victimize, being radically betrayed
and when the marriage has been destroyed by the sin of the other partner.

*
Let me make two last points.
1. Adultery is a sin against the wife or husband
of your marriage covenant
Malachi 2:13-15
2. Adultery is sin against God
Genesis 39:6-12

*
If you have committed adultery in the past or even now,
there is forgiveness from God
but there will likely be much damage in your life created by this act

if you are being tempted by adultery
seek grace from God, seek the Spirit of God
to help you remain faithful and to stay and love your spouse
seek counsel from a pastor or elder