It Costs To Care!

Listen to this and ask if you’ve heard anything like it on CNN or FOX News or from either candidate in the presidential campaign this past week –  “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” Beautiful! It smells sweet to God when people live that way, like sweet incense or a nose-pleasing fragrance filling a room! God (metaphorically speaking) has a nose, and it smells good to God when people love and forgive and are kind and caring with each other! Those words are ancient words, now 2,000 years old. And those words are inspired words, written by a holy man (the apostle Paul) who, like the other “holy men of God, wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 4:30-5:2 and 2 Peter 1:21b).

Who can read those words, after yet another week’s headlines of killing and war and unrest in the world, and not realize they are relevant? And it’s not just nations (rattling their sabers and spending huge chunks of revenue on making war machines) that need Paul’s inspired guidelines for life. Nor is it just groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda who spend their time and spin their brains trying to think of ways to blow up people they don’t like. No, closer to home, national news headlines reveal continuous foment and tension between people of different races and faces and spaces and places. And in practically every community, from huge cities to tiny towns, many husbands and wives and families and neighbors build walls and grow cold and do emotional and psychological damage to each other. And sadly, far too often, physical abuse. And then, even down at church, some of the toxic “bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking” Paul spoke of in the passage quoted above walks into the building and plops down on a pew and sings songs and hears prayers and sermons on love and joy and peace and how we ought to be “kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.” And then gets up and walks out the same as it came in, still bitter, still angry, still unwilling to forgive.

So, we all almost instinctively know we ought to care. Why don’t more people imitate God and walk in love and show tenderness and forgiveness?  Why won’t people lay down their weapons of war? Why don’t husbands and wives forgive? Why don’t estranged family members and friends and brothers and sisters in Christ show forgiveness and tenderness and kindness to each other? In short, why don’t more people care more? The real answer is embedded in the text quoted. God the Father and Christ cared enough to be tender and kind and forgiving. Caring that much cost them, greatly. God in Christ forgave us. Christ loved us, the Bible says, and gave Himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God. I find it difficult to believe that felt good to Him, but it smelled good to God and pleased Him.

The depth of His care and concern for us took Him to and held Him on the cross. Are you imitating that? It costs to care.

 Dan Gulley

Proverbs 26:7 The legs of the lame are not equal: so is a parable in the mouth of fools.

Solomon likens the words of a fool to a man who has one leg shorter than the other. Do you trust a lame to run or dance in a competition? You won’t! You will get someone who is fitter and who really knows how to run or dance. Yet, why would you want to listen to the words of a fool? Why would you pay to listen to a fool? Solomon wrote: “Like a lame man's legs, which hang useless, is a proverb in the mouth of fools” (Pro 26:7, ESV).

Fools should be taught and not teach. They should not try to be teachers. A fool using parables or proverbs to teach wisdom is absurd, distorted, contradictory, and unprofitable; it is like a lame person trying to run or dance.

There are two ways of dealing with a fool:

1. Pro 26:4  Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.

“Do not lower yourself to the fool’s level by answering his silly questions or arguing with him as if he were a sensible man.” (Pulpit Comm).  Paul concurred: ““But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes” (2 Tim.2:23).

Because a fool despises wisdom and correction, the fool will not listen to wise reasoning. He will become angry and abusive. You end up in heated argument with him. When others see the two of you arguing nonsensically, they will say: “Why is this silly fellow arguing with a fool?” What have you done? You are answering a fool according to his folly. It means you are becoming like him; you are behaving like him too.

2. Pro 26:5  Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

The other way to cope with a fool is to answer him the way he spoke to you. The phrase “according to his folly” in verse 5, tells us that there are times when a fool has to be addressed so that his foolishness will not go unchallenged. In this sense “answering him according to his folly” means to expose the foolishness of his words, rebuking him on the basis of his folly so he will see the idiocy of his words and reasoning. Our “answer” in this case is to be one of reproof, showing him the truth so he might see the foolishness of his words in the light of reason.

Ever tried to reason the truth with a fool? How did you feel? You get irritated trying to convince a fool of his foolishness. His forms of reasoning are often irrational, illogical, slanted, and contradictory. He would not be able to understand the truth. He would lean to one side or the other like a lame man.

Proverbs has much to say about fools. They despise wisdom (Pro 1:7; 10:21, 23:9); they are right in their own eyes (Pro 12:15); they are deceitful (Pro 14:8) and scornful (Pro 10:23, 14:9). The wise are also given instruction on how to deal with fools in Proverbs. Instructing a fool is pointless because his speech is full of foolishness (Pro 15:2, 14) and he does not want wisdom and understanding (Pro 18:2).

Have you tried reasoning with one who believed a false doctrine about the truth? How did you feel? You felt tired and you might even say you are wasting your time. Still, even though he will most likely despise and reject the wisdom (truth) offered to him, we are to make the attempt, both for the sake of the truth which is always to be declared, and for the sake of those listening, that they may see the difference between truth and error and be instructed. We are not to answer him “according to his folly” but according to the truth.

Therefore, as it is best for a lame man to keep his seat, so it is best for a fool to keep his tongue. Their words and reasoning are as unequal as the legs of a lame person. Do not give him an audience; why should you listen to the words of a fool? Why would you want to listen to the preaching of a false teacher?

Let us be wise and understand what the truth is so that we do not fall into the trap of a fool and follow in his error. “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11).

Jimmy Lau

Psa 119:97  Oh how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day.

The “mystery of the Gospel” (Eph. 6:19)

In many ways I like “mysteries.”  I like mystery movies and books as I’m sure that a lot of you do also.  We like to solve the “who-dun-its.”  However, a few “mysteries” came to life recently that, in my mind at least, will remain unsolved because I see them as unsolvable.  Allow me to elucidate my thoughts here.

What kicked off this subject today is the “mystery” of a lost book that I know that I possess but can’t find.  Plus, I see this word mentioned several times in the New Testament.  It’s interesting (to me anyway) that the word isn’t used in the Old Testament.  I wonder why?  By the way, the definition of the Greek word translated as “mystery” means: “what is known only to the initiated.”  I also find that interesting.

Okay, let’s press on, shall we?  My problem with some “mysteries,” because they seemingly defy solvability, is that they bring about frustration and I don’t like being frustrated.  Matter of fact, I don’t personally know anyone that does.  I’ve already mentioned the lost (missing) book, but let me give you a couple more examples of my frustrating “mysteries.”

First thing, missing socks.  Where do they go?  Somewhere between my bedroom, the washing machine/dryer and the return to the bedroom, they disappear.  Apparently from the face of the earth.  Perhaps socks are like the legendary elephant burial ground, someone probably knows where it’s at, but it sure isn’t me.

Because of time and space limitations I’ll only mention two of my frustrating “mysteries” here today.  My second “mystery” involves “plastic wrap.”  I’ll state right up front that this is no “mystery” to my wife, but it certainly is to me.  How does one tear off a piece of it without it becoming hopelessly tangled?  No matter how hard I try, it just folds over, wraps itself up and defies unpeeling to make it usable.  This stuff is diabolical (Webster = qualities of a devil).  I hate it.

Well, enough about my “mysteries,” let’s look at the scriptural uses of the word and I’m going to start with borrowing some words of Paul from his writing in Rom 11:25.  The phrase I’m borrowing is the one that reads: “that ye should be ignorant of this mystery.”  The reason I’m borrowing it is just to say that, in regards to my “mysteries,” I will probably continue on in my “ignorance” of them.

Now I grant you that my “mysteries” do not equal those we read about in the scriptures, such as the one mentioned by Paul in Eph. 5:32 where he’s talking about the “mystery” of the marriage union between a husband and wife.  Two individuals becoming as one entity and he uses this as an illustration of the relationship between Christ and His Church.

But, in regards to the “mystery of the Gospel” (Eph. 6:19) we’re going to solve it today.  You will become “initiated.”  In Mark 4:11 Christ referred to it as the “mystery of the kingdom of God.”  It was spoken there to explain to His disciples that He used parables in teaching about the coming kingdom, the church.  And, He went on to say that, for those who desire to know what this kingdom, this church, is all about, it would not remain a “mystery.”

But, as far as those who would scoff, who have no desire to know, who would not use their “eyes and ears” they will remain ignorant.  To further see evidence of what Christ was saying there in Mark, let’s turn to Rom. 16:25-26 and read what Paul says there.  In a nutshell, he says that this “mystery” has been “revealed” by the scriptures.  That we can read the prophesies of the prophets and see the fulfillment of them in the form and teaching of Jesus Christ.

Then, in Eph. 3:3-5 Paul again enlarges on what he said in Romans 16.  Basically he repeats that the “mystery” has been “revealed” by the scriptures and then in verses 9-11 we see that it is now the Church’s responsibility to “make known the manifold wisdom of God” to the world.  In other words, to remove the “mystery” of it because we have the revelation of it.

And, not only do we have it, we are to share it with everyone else (Mt. 28:19-20).  For further evidence of the Church’s mission in revealing the “mystery of the gospel” open your Bible to Col. 1:26-28 and take note of the words there.

Yes, the Church’s mission in this world is to preach and teach the “manifold wisdom of God” and by doing so, remove any “mystery” to it.  We, the Church, the body, the bride of Christ, are “the initiated” and it’s been left in our “hands,” we “earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7) to “initiate” everyone that we can.  And when we fulfill our mission we remove any “mystery” to the gospel of Christ.

In wrapping up this lesson (and not with plastic wrap) let me end it this way.  As to the missing socks and the proper way of using plastic wrap, let me just opine that they will remain a “mystery” until, as we read in 1 Cor. 4:5, that the Lord will  come back and when He does, He will “bring to light the hidden things...”  I’m hoping that will include my missing socks and books and how to successfully use plastic wrap.

And our closing admonition; all we have to do is use our “eyes and ears” and study the Gospel of Christ and the “mystery” will no longer be one.

Respectfully submitted,

Ron Covey