Scripture Notes: That One Sheep (Luke 15)

We know Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep so well that perhaps we fail to sit with it as we should, to reflect on it deeply, to enter into it, to make it our own. Think, for instance, about that one sheep. How did it get lost? Did it simply wander off, its attention caught by something in the distance that looked good? If so, perhaps the sheep did not even realize it was lost until it looked up and saw nothing familiar, no other sheep, no shepherd, nothing. Imagine the sheep’s fear. How would it get home? Would it ever get home? Would a wolf come and eat it? Why did it ever wander away? How stupid! But what to do next?

Or maybe the sheep did not wander. What if it wanted to go its own way because it thought the shepherd’s rules were too restricting or because the other sheep were getting on its nerves? Maybe it was fed up with the whole situation and wanted its freedom, the opportunity to strike out on its own. Of course, that defiant “freedom” would have quickly turned to terror for this sheep, too. A sheep alone in the wilderness is in great danger. Predators, hunger, thirst, all these soon threaten. A simple wrong turn would take it into a patch of briers where its wool would get caught. A sheep held fast in a thicket is about as vulnerable as one can get. 

Of course, we are attributing human characteristics to this sheep, but that is the whole point. We humans can be as stupid as sheep sometimes when we wander away from our Lord, lured by the things of this world, or when we deliberately leave because we think we can do better on our own. Either way, we end up in grave danger. But our Lord did not abandon that one sheep, and He does not abandon us. He pursues us, tracks us down, and when we are willing, brings us home on His shoulders with great love. 

Scripture Notes: Places, Please (Luke 14)

Jesus is dining at the house of a Pharisee, and He notices something. Everyone is jockeying for the highest place at the table. Everyone wants to get noticed. Everyone wants to receive honor. Everyone is ready to push everyone else out of the way in the process.

So Jesus, as He so often does, tells a little story as both a warning and an instruction. It is a tale of humiliation set at a wedding feast. A person goes to the highest place, the place of honor at the table. He clearly thinks himself worthy of it. He is proud to have it. He is showing off his prominence. But then someone who is actually higher in rank than he is comes in, and the host orders the guest sitting in the highest place to move out of the way, to surrender the coveted seat to the other man.

What shame! There are no other places left at the table except the lowest seat. The seat usually occupied by some nobody. Now the proud guest must sit there. He probably feels like crawling right under the table. But really it is all his fault for exalting himself. His pride has brought him very low.

So what should a person do instead? Jesus tells us. Go and sit in that lowest seat. Claim from the outset to be a nobody. Recognize and resist the power of pride. Embrace humility, which is really just an acceptance of reality. When we are humble, we know ourselves for who and what we are, no more, no less. 

And other people notice. The host, Jesus continues, will then come and invite the humble guest to move up higher and receive true honor. “For everyone who exalts himself,” Jesus concludes, “will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11).

Scripture Notes: Noah (Genesis 6)

Imagine Noah. He is living in the midst of a corrupt, wicked world, but he is still walking with God, still living in intimacy with Him, still following His will. Then one day God gives Noah a message: build an ark. Get ready. Many waters will descend upon the earth. Noah will take his family and a representative number of each animal onto the ark and shut the door. 

This must have seemed incredible to Noah, such a strange message. Is it real? Is there really going to be a flood? Will everyone except Noah and his family and those animals die? Could it be true? In spite of these inevitable questions, Noah gets right to work on the ark. His neighbors must think him insane. Building a huge boat? Gathering animals? Talking about a flood that will destroy everything? Old Noah has really gone around the bend this time.

The pressure must be immense as Noah works. Even his own family probably cannot completely grasp what he is doing and why. Yet they must help because this project requires more than one man to come to completion. So Noah endures…the laughter, the ridicule, the questions about his sanity, his own fears. He keeps going. He keeps building. He trusts God, not himself, not other people, God. 

We know what happens. Noah finishes the ark, gathers his family and the animals, and closes the door. The rain begins. The waters rise. But Noah is safe. Why? Because he believed God and trusted Him rather than giving in to the world.

Scripture Notes: The Trouble with Cain (Genesis 4)

Humanity is still very young when Abel and Cain bring their sacrifices to God, but already sin has crept into worship and distorted it. Abel brings the very best of his flock, the firstlings and their fat. He does not hold back. He places the highest before the Highest and at the same time offers himself. But Cain brings some of the fruits of the ground. We are not told what those fruits are, but apparently they are not the best or the highest. Cain is holding back.

Not surprisingly, God accepts Abel’s offering but not Cain’s, and Cain is angry, not with himself for skimping on God’s worship but with God and with his brother. He pouts. He sulks. He complains. God tells him that if he does well, then he will be accepted. In other words, shape up, Cain. But He also warns Cain that sin is lurking at his door, and Cain must master it.

Cain does not. Instead, he opens the door wide and lets sin walk right in. He allows his anger to take hold of him and his envy to flare up. If he cannot have God’s favor, then he does not want anyone else to have it either. So he invites his brother out into the field and strikes him down in cold blood. Here is envy taken to its extreme and in only the second generation of humanity. 

Cain never shows any sign of repentance. He tries to cover up his crime, thinking he can pull a fast one on God. But he ends up in exile, separated from the earth and from his family, sent to wander far from home, marked with a sign of his crime. Indeed, Cain has brought sin to a new level, and his self-centered violence passes to his descendants and spreads to the whole human race.

Scripture Notes: Do Not Covet (Exodus 20)

God makes it very clear in His covenant commandments to His people: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Ex 20:17). But what does it mean to covet? 

We all look at things that other people have and say, “Wow! That’s great! I would sure like to have that, too.” That is not coveting. That is merely appreciating the goods of this world, which are truly good. 

But when we start thinking things like, “I want that, and I don’t want that person to have it, too,” then we enter into the realm of coveting. Essentially to covet something (or someone) is to have a disordered desire for it (or him or her). It is to turn that thing or person into an idol, to put it first in the order of longings, to want it so badly that it becomes an obsession, and to want it exclusively for oneself. This is the kind of attitude that breaks God’s commandment. 

What is so wrong with coveting? First, it disobeys God’s will for us. We must put Him first in our lives, far before any worldly good. Second, it disrespects other people by wanting to deny them the goods they rightfully have. Third, when we covet, we put ourselves and our longings front and center and end up thinking and behaving like small children who want what they want when they want it and throw tantrums when they do not get it. 

So we should all take some time to examine our consciences in this area and make sure we are not falling into patterns that violate God’s very reasonable command of “Do not covet.”

Scripture Notes: God Was Grieved (Genesis 6)

Not all that many generations had passed since the time of creation and the time of the first human sin, but the world had steadily grown worse and worse. People were consumed by hatred and lust and greed. Their sin expanded exponentially, and wickedness reigned over the whole world. 

Genesis 6 tells us that for each human being “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5). In other words, people had drifted (perhaps run?) far away from God. They had allowed evil to get into their hearts and minds and control them from the inside out. They stopped listening to God, stopped obeying Him, stopped even trying to know His will. Instead, they focused on what they wanted, whether it was good for them or not, and it was not good.

All of this grieved God “to His heart,” and He “was sorry that He had made man on the earth” (Gen 6:6). We have to be careful, of course, when we attribute human emotions like this to God, for He is not subject to them as we are. But God allows this kind of description as an accommodation to help us understand Him just a little bit in a way we can grasp. 

So what does it mean that God was grieved and sorry? The verb translated here as “was sorry” can indeed mean exactly that, but it also carries nuances of being moved to pity and having compassion and suffering grief. God, of course, does not regret having made the world or human beings because He made everything out of His great love, and that great love does not change. But He wants us to know that human wickedness and sin sadden Him as well as offend Him. Human beings have fallen from the state of grace and innocence, and this grieves God all the way to His heart. 

After all, God wants only the very best for us. That is love. We humans have a knack for choosing exactly what is worst for us. But God has a plan, right from the very beginning, to redeem the human race. Our job is to enter into that plan and do our part to ease the grief in God’s heart.

Scripture Notes: Where Are You? (Genesis 3)

Adam and Eve have sinned. They directly and deliberately ate from the tree from which God had forbidden them to eat. There was no mistake, no misunderstanding. They knew God’s will, but they chose to follow their own wills instead. They thought they knew better then God. They wanted “freedom” over their own choices. So they chose to believe the serpent and turn their backs on God and eat.

And they died. Not physically. At least not right away. But spiritually. They lost the grace of God. They lost many of the gifts God had given them when they were pure and innocent. They lost their friendship with God and His divine presence within their souls. This is truly a death. 

So after that first sin, Adam and Eve hide from God. They are no longer intimate with Him. They realize they are naked, and they feel shame. So they cover up. They hide. 

But God calls to Adam and Eve and asks, “Where are you?” He knows exactly where they are, of course, both physically and spiritually. But they don’t. They have lost their bearings. They have drifted off into a new realm, a realm of fallen sinfulness, and they need to realize it because acknowledging the loss is the first step to regaining what has been lost. So God asks, “Where are you?” He wants Adam and Eve to understand their new position, a position they have chosen for themselves. It will not be a pleasant discovery, but it is necessary.

God asks us the same thing: “Where are you?” He knows, but we need to come to terms with our own fallen nature, our own sinfulness, our own precarious position. Then we can move out of hiding and come before God in humility, saying “Here I am” and opening ourselves up to His healing mercy and love.