October 7

This weekend, I went to a sleepover with some of the ladies in my Christian fellowship at the home of a staff member. We had a Bible study on Matthew 13: 44.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

After discussing the meaning of the passage, we began discussing the things that we were not willing to let go of for God. We talked about things that we wanted and weren’t willing to give up for the kingdom, the greatest treasure of all. After that, we went through the movie collection and chose The Little Mermaid. Listening to Ariel sing “Part of Your World” made me think of the discussion from the Bible study. Here’s a small sample:

“Look at this stuff
Isn’t it neat?
Wouldn’t you think my collection’s complete?
Wouldn’t you think I’m the girl
The girl who has everything?”

Ariel talks about everything she has. She would never be willing to give these things up. She has everything she needs and more, but later in the song, she says this:

“But who cares?
No big deal
I want more”

Ariel is always looking for more things to make her happy. She doesn’t care that she has everything she needs right there under the sea. She is always looking for things from a world in which she doesn’t really belong. Of course my brain would drift to these thoughts about a discussion on materialism and letting go of things. It also reminded me a lot of our discussion in class about Israel wanting a king.

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” 1 Samuel 8:4-5

Israel had the God of the universe for their king, but like Ariel, they were too blind to see what they had. When we talked about this in class, I made a little comic in my notebook. Disclaimer: I was not gifted with skills in art.

Here’s a better look at the conversation, in case you can’t read it.

Israelites: “God, we want a king.”

God: “You don’t need one.”

Israelites: “But all the other nations have one!”

God: “If the other nations worship other gods and are punished by my hand, will you do the same?”

Israelites: “…maybe…”

God: *face-palm*

This is the way I imagine this conversation going. It’s not as if face-palms were a thing in Biblical times, but it must have been about how God was feeling at this point. This was basically the Israelites’ way of saying what Ariel says about everything she has in “Part of Your World”: “But who cares? No big deal. I want more.”

So how does all of this go back into the conversation during Bible study at the sleepover? Ariel wasn’t meant to be on land, but it was a dream she wouldn’t let go of for the sake of her family and the life she was given. She was so absorbed by her thoughts and ideas about the human world, most of which we know are lies, that she collected many pretty things and went in search of something that likely wasn’t worth it. Disney, of course, made it a happy ending for the sake of the small children that watch it. In the end of Hans Christian Anderson’s original version, Ariel jumps into the sea and becomes seafoam, committing suicide because she can’t kill her prince to become a mermaid again after he chooses someone else. She gives up everything for something that was never going to make her happy.

In the same way, we as humans often replace God with other things because we think they will make us happy. We avoid the fact that happiness is a temporary emotion based on circumstances, while joy is a permanent state of being based on God. Simply put, nothing on earth can give us what we’re looking for. Like Ariel, we will always be searching for the next pretty thing. The only other choice is to be willing to give up everything we have for God, the one treasure worth seeking out. After all, He already gave everything for us.

“But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

September 23

Recently, we’ve heard a lot in class that the Ten Commandments could be separated into two parts: the first three, which have to do with our relationship with God, and the last seven, which are about our relationships with other people. This is definitely true, but I also wanted to bring up another pattern I see within the Ten Commandments.

First, let’s take a look at the Ten Commandments as they’re written in Exodus 20: 1-17:

Then God spoke all these words:

 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;  you shall have no other gods before me.

 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

 Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.

 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

If most people made this into a concept map (did I mention that I’m an education major?), they would probably put “The Ten Commandments” as the center oval and place all of the commandments as branches of that topic. I, on the other hand, would say that the first commandment is the topic, and the other nine are branches of that.

As a child going to church, I never really understood why the first and second commandments were distinct. In my mind, having no other gods and creating idols were exactly the same thing. When I thought of idolatry, or having other gods, I thought of the golden calf that the Israelites made in Exodus 32:1-6. That idea entirely changed last year during DiscipleMakers Fall Conference. A staff member gave a message entitled “The Heart of Sin: Loving Like a Whore.” That message changed my view of sin, and with it, my view of the ten commandments. The message was on idolatry, and how an idol isn’t just a golden image that people bow down to. An idol is actually anything that we put before God. I combined that with information from Matthew 5: 21-30.

 “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.  So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

When I heard this passage as a child, I wondered how anger could equal murder, or how lust could be equal to adultery. Now I think I understand. It’s about what’s in your heart. It’s about the fact that something is greater than God to you. It could be sex, anger, yourself, or anything else. The people could certainly make a golden calf, but they only did it because they were already worshiping something other than God in their hearts. They could also express this by wrongful use of His name, which shows a lack of respect. They could also ignore the day God set aside for them to rest and focus on Him. They could cease to honor the parents that God had placed in authority over them so that they could learn submission to Him. They could murder, ignoring the fact that God’s right to vengeance. They could commit adultery, placing sex over God. They could steal or covet, putting possessions over God and ignoring the blessings He’s already given. They could lie about another, rejecting the fact that God is truth. All of these things are manifestation of a lack of love for God. They could all be idols of different types. They are all equal sins in God’s eyes.That’s why we need His grace and mercy.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6: 23, NRSV.

September 9

“So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” Exodus 3:10, NRSV.

Moses was not a great man. He was not respected or famous. He was not eloquent or powerful. In fact, by pharaoh’s orders, Moses should have died as a baby. He should have been killed after he killed an Egyptian. He should have died in the desert, but somehow he managed to survive all of this and God used him for a great purpose.

After Moses married Zipporah, Jethro’s daughter, he tended his father-in-law’s sheep. That’s not exactly a high-status job, but God’s known for using shepherds: Moses, David (1 Samuel 16-1 Kings 2), and the shepherds that worship Jesus sometime after his birth (Luke 2:8-20) are some examples. Jesus even calls himself “the good shepherd” in John 10: 11, and David writes in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Therefore, God loves people who aren’t brilliant, rich, or famous, and He uses them for His purpose.

Anyway, while Moses tended his father-in-law’s sheep, he saw a strange bush on fire, and he had  to go look at the shiny thing that didn’t make sense.  God could have chosen any form, but He comes as a bush on fire because He knows that Moses will be curious enough to need to see what’s happening. To make things more interesting, the bush starts talking to him! I wonder if Moses started to consider the possibility that he was crazy at this point, or if he just took it as a normal thing. Of course, we all know that the voice in the bush was God, but Moses must have been really freaked out.

Even in shock, Moses somehow manages to argue with God. First, he asks what he’ll call God when he speaks to the Israelites. As far as I know, the Israelites didn’t know God’s name before this, so I’m not sure what difference that would make. God answers, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” (Exodus3: 14). Then, he asks what he’ll do if the people don’t believe him. God changes Moses’s staff into a snake (at which point I would have been gone), makes his hand leprous and heals it, and tells him he’ll be able to turn water from the Nile into blood (Exodus 4:4-9).  Even after all of this, Moses has an argument that seems a little insignificant: “But Moses said to the LORD, ‘O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.'” (Exodus 4: 10). At this point, God became angry, but He still gave Moses help in the form of Moses’s brother, Aaron.

Moses gave a lot of reasons why he couldn’t do God’s work, yet he did many great things with God’s help. This man who doubted God’s ability to use him is now one of the most famous men of the Bible. I’ve always had a problem with the idea that I’m not good enough to be used by God. Whenever I feel called to something, I always have an argument. “I’m not good at talking in front of people” is actually the one that I used while praying about my future when I felt called to major in education. Yet God says in Exodus 4:11, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?”

I say I believe this to be true, yet my actions and arguments do not suggest it. I am so focused on myself and my lack of ability that I forget that God makes no mistakes, that He will provide me with what I need. If I were in front of that burning bush, I think I might have been a lot like Moses, except that I would have run away when the snake appeared. He just “drew back from it” (Exodus 4: 3). I would have run. I likely would’ve argued that I couldn’t talk in front of people, that I was unworthy in at least a dozen different ways.  Instead I should remind myself that God has made me able to do anything He calls me to, just as He made Moses able.

” I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13, NRSV.