Contemplative Bible Reading

Proverbs 25:21-22 (New International Version 2011)

²¹ If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat;
if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.
²² In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head,
and the LORD will reward you.

This proverb is quoted in the New Testament in Romans 12. That chapter in Romans is about change – changing my mind and my life as a response to Christ. I believe that these verses are telling us how to respond to an angry person.

Try this theory:

Angry people are angry because they are hurting in some way.

A young Christian woman once told me about an experience she had while entering a church building for a worship service. An older woman scowled at the young woman and spit the words, “women should wear dresses to church, not pants.”

The young woman was frightened and shrunk away into a corner of the worship center. That is a “normal” response to an attack – flight. Another normal response to an attack is to return the attack – fight.

How about the water-like-burning-coals response:

The older woman was frightened by a young woman dressing in a way that was unusual. The unusual is often uncomfortable, and the uncomfortable often brings hurt, which often brings anger and the spiteful words the older woman used.

A water-to-drink response would have been for the young woman to step close to the older woman, draw near, appear vulnerable, smile, and say something like, “I love the clothes you are wearing today. They fit you so well and the colors match your complexion.”

Meet anger with kindness; meet the enemy with a drink of water.

2 Kings 19:27 (New International Version 2011)

But I know where you are
and when you come and go
and how you rage against me.

In the above verse, the prophet Isaiah is relaying a message from the LORD to King Hezekiah about the attacking King of Assyria. These words are a warning to the King of Assyria.

In today’s slang, God is saying

I know where you live.

Aha, yet another part of western culture that was plagiarized from the Bible. Sometimes I wonder if I will find any “new” idea today that is not just like this one – taken from the Bible and changed a bit to obfuscate the source. And some people say there is no God as they go about their lives quoting God’s word all day.

Isaiah 10:8 (New International Version 2011)

‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ he (God) says.

The prophet Isaiah is relaying words from God. He has been writing about how God employs earthly kings and kingdoms to accomplish His intentions. The verses preceding the one above speak of Assyria. God used Assyria to punish His own rebellious people. The Assyrians, however, went too far. They assumed that their military victories were their own and did not acknowledge God’s role.

Then comes the verse given above.

We don’t have many “kings” in the 21st century. We have lots of presidents and prime ministers and just plain old fashioned dictators (president for life, you know – one man, one vote, once, then a suspension of elections). I could write on and on about the leaders of nations.

Instead, let’s look at me – a husband, a father, a neighbor, an acquaintance. I don’t know why verse 8 cannot be extended to something like:

Are not my captains all husbands (fathers, neighbors, acquaintances, you pick the role)? he (God) says.

• Do I acknowledge the role that God has in my life?
• Do I realize that God employs me to change the lives of others?
• Do I accomplish God’s will with the attitude of a humble servant?
• Am I more like the Assyrians and tout my influence as a result of my own wonderful abilities?

God, let my realize that you created and enabled me and am using me daily for your glory. And it’s not the other way around.

This contemplation is a little different. I have a friend who reads a lot of novels. Sometimes he reads one novel a day. One of the things he does to read so much is that he only reads where the characters are talking. He skips all the description of events that are not conversations.

Here is the book of Jonah with all the descriptions of events removed. I list only the conversations between God and Jonah.

Jonah (New International Version 2011)

1:2 God, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

2:1-9 Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. ² He said:

“In my distress I called to the LORD,
and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.
³ You hurled me into the depths,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.
⁴ I said, ‘I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple.’
⁵ The engulfing waters threatened me,
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
⁶ To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, LORD my God,
brought my life up from the pit.

⁷ “When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, LORD,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.

⁸ “Those who cling to worthless idols
turn away from God’s love for them.
⁹ But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the LORD.’”

3:2 God, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”

4:2-3  ² Jonah prayed to the LORD, “Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. ³ Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

4:4 God, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

4:8, Jonah, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

4:9, God, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

4:9, Jonah, “It is and I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

4:10-11, God, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. ¹¹ And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

What does Jonah say?

• Save me
• You are a gracious and compassionate God
• Take away my life
• It is better to die
• I wish I were dead

What does God say?

• Go preach
• Go preach
• Is it right for you to be angry?
• Is it right for you to be angry?
• You were angry about a plant while I was concerned about 120,000 people

God seems to be a bit more consistent than Jonah. That is a gross understatement as Jonah wants to live and then after being saved and being a wildly successful preacher wants to die.

Are we all like Jonah? Am I like Jonah? I am afraid so.

God, help me in my inconsistency.

Deuteronomy 28:20 (New International Version 2011)

The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.

I work as an engineer and a manager of engineering projects. In these projects, we must have every little detail correct or the plane won’t fly or the car won’t run and so on. Projects involve people – dozens of people. All these people need to understand their part and how their part fits into the whole system.

Confusion is a curse.

When I read this verse, I felt as if life would be one continuous bad dream. I have bad dreams often. The worst of the bad dreams are about confusing situations where nothing works. Such is the life of an organized engineer.

Personal quirks aside, confusion can cripple a nation. People talk with one another, and no one seems to know what they are to do. Farmers and marketers don’t understand each others’ condition, so they squabble weekly and food production dwindles. Water stops flowing; walls crumble, and everyone spends their day trying to fix something that worked yesterday. Things that seem to work, things to ought to work, well, they don’t work.

Confusion is a curse.

Lord, grant me the blessing order in my life.

1 Peter 4:1-6 (New International Version 1984)

¹ Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. ² As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. ³ For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. ⁴ They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. ⁵ But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. ⁶ For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.

They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.

They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you.

living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry

Acts 9:20-22 (New International Version)

²⁰ At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. ²¹ All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?” ²² Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah.

Ho hum. Of course we know this. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the Messiah. Why waste time on this point? It is easy to have this attitude 2,000 years later. Let’s try to go back to the time of Paul in Damascus.

Nazareth was a small town – a really small town. Jesus of Nazareth was a well known figure of the day, but he had died and gone away without restoring the kingdom of Israel. Therefore, Jesus of Nazareth was just another of those guys claiming to be someone, but actually being another nobody. This was the prevailing attitude of the Jewish school, i.e., the synagogue.

Paul enters the synagogue and tells everyone that Jesus is the Son of God. That seemed odd as Paul was famous for killing people who said the same. What happened to Paul? Why had he changed?

The key words for me come at the end of verse 22. Paul proved that Jesus is the Messiah. How did he do that? Paul had no photographs or video of before and after the crucifixion. Would people have believed those? I mean, you can Photoshop those things. Paul and the people in the Jewish school had what we call the Old Testament. Paul was able to step through the Old Testament and prove that this nobody from a nothing town was the Messiah.

I wish I had a recording of Paul’s words. I wish I could do the same, take the Old Testament and prove that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God, convince a group of people who had rejected Jesus that they were wrong about Jesus.

God, give me the wisdom and knowledge and dedication to study. Push me to show people that Jesus is the Messiah.

Let’s step aside for a few moments from the regular posts on this blog.

Most of the Bible verses shown on this site come from the New International Version of the Bible. I go to the Biblegateway site, type the verses I want to show in the blog, and copy and paste.

Well, the New International Version (NIV) has changed. The vast majority of the NIV verses shown on my blog are from the 1984 release. Some of them are from the 2011 release. I am trying to be precise when showing verses as to which version of the NIV I have used. If I put “New International Version” in the parentheses next to a verse, that was from the 1984 version. Otherwise, I put “New International Version 2011.” At least, this is what I have tried to do. I don’t guarantee perfection.

Which version are you reading in your hand? Look at the copyright page in the front of the book.

The Holy Bible, New International Version

Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

The above indicate the 1984 version. If “2011” appears in these lines, that is the 2011 version.

Please avoid confusing the version of the translation with the version of the printing you have. For example, I have an NIV Study Bible from Zondervan. Below the two lines shown above are the lines

Zondervan NIV Study Bible (Fully Revised)

Copyright 1985, 1995, 2002 by Zondervan

Other publishers have printed other “study Bibles” as well as other special-purpose Bibles.

2 Chronicles 13:13-18 (New International Version)

¹³ Now Jeroboam had sent troops around to the rear, so that while he was in front of Judah the ambush was behind them. ¹⁴ Judah turned and saw that they were being attacked at both front and rear. Then they cried out to the LORD. The priests blew their trumpets ¹⁵ and the men of Judah raised the battle cry. At the sound of their battle cry, God routed Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. ¹⁶ The Israelites fled before Judah, and God delivered them into their hands. ¹⁷ Abijah and his troops inflicted heavy losses on them, so that there were five hundred thousand casualties among Israel’s able men. ¹⁸ The Israelites were subdued on that occasion, and the people of Judah were victorious because they relied on the LORD, the God of their ancestors.

This is the (hi)story of one of the many battles between the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Jeroboam is leading Israel; Abijah is leading Judah.

The men of Judah find themselves in a losing position as they are attacked from both the front and the rear. Instead of dying, they cried out to the Lord. The result was

God routed Jeroboam and all Israel

The tally was horrific – 500,000 casualties among Israel. Half a million men were either killed or injured in one battle on one day. Medical practice of the day was limited and that bode ill for someone with a puncture wound from a sword or spear.

Please note – these are all cousins. The men of Judah and Israel all descended from Jacob. This is family massacring family.

As we look back on this about 3,000 years later, we wonder. God allowed half a million men to suffer. How could he do that? How could reliance on the Lord bring about such a disaster for one big family? I find no soothing answers. I find one ugly answer: sin. Many of those involved on that day – on both sides – were  not obeying the Lord in their daily lives. They had forsaken the Lord’s instructions for life. Horrible? Yes.

I thank God for His grace that allows me to live as I do given my sin.

Ecclesiastes 12:5 (New Century Version)

You will fear high places
and will be afraid to go for a walk.
Your hair will become white like the flowers on an almond tree.
You will limp along like a grasshopper when you walk.
Your appetite will be gone.
Then you will go to your everlasting home,
and people will go to your funeral.

The Teacher, the writer of Ecclesiastes, is here writing about the marks of older age. The item near the bottom caught my attention:

You appetite will be gone.

This has occurred with several people I know who are in the late 70s and beyond. The sense of hunger is gone. They eat three meals a day, but from habit or discipline. They watch their weight, not to keep it from ballooning as many of us younger people do, but to ensure that they don’t wither.

Think about it – you are never hungry. You never desire food. And that becomes a health problem as you may often forget to eat.

The Teacher is lamenting the uselessness of life without God. We grow old; we lose out appetite, and we die. What’s the use? Well, without God, there is no use in this life on earth.