Contemplative Bible Reading

Acts 10:34-35 (New International Version 2010)

³⁴ Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism ³⁵ but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.

Peter is speaking to Cornelius and his family. Also present are some Jews who believed that Jesus was the Christ. Peter delivers a simple message:

God accepts the person who fears God and does what is right

In this situation, in this context, Peter is emphasizing God’s acceptance of a person regardless of ancestry. Cornelius is a Roman, not a Jew. That doesn’t bother God in the least. Cornelius is an officer in an army that is occupying the land of the Jews. That also doesn’t bother God in the least.

The only things that matter to God are accepting Him as God and doing what is right by God.

Notice something about Peter and the other Jews who came with Peter. They live close to Cornelius. In today’s slang, Cornelius is “in their face.” It is easy for me to accept people who live in Africa, India, China, and other far-away places as fellow followers of Christ. It is another thing to accept people with black, brown, or tan skin who live in my town as fellow followers of Christ. I mean, surely they would be happier attending a church with people of their own kind, people who share a culture with them. Right? ooops. And then there are people who are poor and live in subsidized housing near me. Those people would “fit in” better  with their own kind and, well, you know? Right? oooops.

God accepts the person who fears God and does what is right. Peter and his friends accepted a Gentile who was occupying their homeland. I have a lofty goal to attempt. I am glad that God has presented me with such examples and such clear instruction.

Acts 10:1-2 (New International Version 2010)

¹ At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. ² He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.

Here we have an officer in the Roman Army named Cornelius. “Cornelius” is not a Jewish name, so I believe he was not a Jew, i.e., not one of the chosen people of God. Cornelius was an outsider, but note two things that he did:

• gave to those in need
• prayed to God

These are two fundamental actions of a Christian: love God and love my neighbor. And these things are being done by an outsider, by a person who is neither a Jew nor a follower of Jesus (yet).

I could speculate about Cornelius in several different ways. For now though, I’ll try to contain myself to one direction. Cornelius is yet another example in the Bible of a person who is not on the “inside” in that he has not been taught what the prophets relayed from God to the Jews in the Old Testament. He has also not (yet) been taught about Jesus of Nazareth and how that Jesus was the Christ, the one anointed to redeem mankind. Nevertheless, Cornelius “gets it.”

Cornelius understands fundamentally how God wants me to live in this world.

The ways of God are a mystery to many. At the same time, they are plain to some persons who notice God.

John 12:47-48 (New International Version)

⁴⁷ “If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. ⁴⁸ There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day.

There are times when I forget the simplest of things. I don’t think that I am unique in this failing. Here is one of the simplest of things:

Jesus came to earth to save the world

Okay, we have that simple statement in print. Let’s sit quietly and contemplate that for a few lifetimes, or at least two minutes, well, maybe ten seconds. There, done with that. Now, for the rest of my life, the rest of my life would be much better if I can keep that simple statement from Jesus about himself in the front of my mind.

I believe – here is where I wander into dangerous ground – that God created the world and created mankind in the world to be a wonderful place. God intended for our lives here to be the best of everything any of us can imagine. Then mankind messed it up, and things have been pretty messed up since that moment. Now what do we do with this mess?

We don’t have to do much, because

Jesus came to earth to save the world

There, now we have it. Simple. Jesus gave us what we need to change, to be different, to stop being messed up.

Oh, and one more thing in verse 48. God also allows us to choose. God allows us to reject Jesus and His saving of the world. God will judge those who reject Jesus, but He does allow for rejection.

I suppose there are enough of us who reject Jesus to keep things here on earth pretty messed up. And I acknowledge that I have my moments where I contribute to the general mess. I think that I am improving in my efforts to get out of the way and let the saving power of Jesus do its work. Still, I have a long way to go.

Isn’t it odd how I have trouble merely getting out of the way?

2 Peter 1:5-9 (New International Version 2010)

⁵ For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; ⁶ and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; ⁷ and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. ⁸ For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

Consider this list of adding-to qualities:

• faith
• goodness
• knowledge
• self-control
• perseverance
• godliness
• mutual affection
• love

Now consider the benefits of “possessing these qualities in increasing measure.” I hate the way this was written or maybe it is the translation that bothers me. We fall into a type of double negative as the qualities prevent a lack of something. Those things are

• ineffective
• unproductive

Perhaps it is my personality or type, but being ineffective and unproductive are like smoothing my teeth with sandy gravel. Have you ever had a mouthful of gravel? It isn’t a good feeling. If I am not growing in these qualities, I am going around with a mouth full of gravel. I don’t wish to do that.

And a lack of these qualities also leads to being nearsighted. I always confuse nearsighted and farsighted, so I looked  it up to make sure I had the right one. Nearsighted means the inability to see objects that are far away. In this case, I think it means that you cannot see the big picture.

As a Christian it means that Jesus cleansed me from all my sins. That act by Jesus is a big deal that serves as the foundation of my life. I should always be able to “see” that foundation provided by Jesus. If I can see that, my day-to-day activities and attitudes change.

Romans 5:5 (New International Version 2010)

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

There are times when I read the Bible from a simple perspective. The recent reading of this verse was one of those times. Consider the center phrase in this verse.

The Apostle Paul does not

• ask God to fill his heart with love
• hope one day to be filled with God’s love
• claim God’s love in his heart and ask that the Christians in Rome will also receive that love

Nope. Paul writes that

God’s love has been poured into our hearts

God’s love has been poured into the hearts of those who believe that Jesus is the Christ, the one anointed to redeem us and bring us back to God.

This means, among other things, that

• I have all the love in my heart that I could ever need
• I have no excuse for not loving every person I ever meet or hear about or read about or see on TV or…
• If I do not love people, I must be doing something else with God’s love
• If I just get over myself, I am capable of loving everyone all the time
• The love that God gives is probably not the same love that Baskin and Robbins gives
• I may have to decide if I really believe these words that Paul wrote through inspiration

The list could go on.

God, thank you for pouring your love into my heart. Help me to share that love as you have intended, and not the way I may sometimes want to dole it out bit by bit.

Haggai 2:15-19 (New International Version 2010)

¹⁵ “‘Now give careful thought to this from this day on—consider how things were before one stone was laid on another in the LORD’s temple. ¹⁶ When anyone came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When anyone went to a wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were only twenty. ¹⁷ I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail, yet you did not return to me,’ declares the LORD. ¹⁸ ‘From this day on, from this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, give careful thought to the day when the foundation of the LORD’s temple was laid. Give careful thought: ¹⁹ Is there yet any seed left in the barn? Until now, the vine and the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have not borne fruit.

“‘From this day on I will bless you.’”

Consider the items mentioned in these verses,

• a wine vat
• blight
• mildew
• hail
• seed
• vine
• fig tree
• pomegranate
• olive tree

These don’t mean much to me today. I live in the information age; I work on the fourth floor of a building that has a constant temperature the year round. We have running water and microwave ovens everywhere. I don’t even have to climb stairs as we have a machine that takes us up and down.

What do I care about a little mildew?

Haggai’s audience in these verses cared a lot about mildew as it could destroy their stores of food. The result would be death. These people lived in an agricultural world. They lived closer to nature, and they noticed things that my contemporaries and myself take for granted. They noticed the blessings of God much more than I do.

I live in a complex world. We have a global economy that works. Drought in California this year? No problem. We’ll buy strawberries grown in China and brought to us on refrigerated ships. I just don’t know how we would survive the year without fresh strawberries. We’ve taken care of all these things with our technology and diplomacy. We are so smart. Blessings from God? We don’t need those. That is such a silly, ancient concept.

Well, maybe not. Our information age works because a technician at a power-generating plant shows up for work. If this technician, a low-paid fellow, can’t go to work, the lights go out and we return to concern about mildew on the sack of potatoes because all the food in our refrigerator spoiled and water just stopped coming out of the faucet.

I live closer to God than I like to pretend. I depend on His blessings far more than I realize. The following short prayer may sound silly, but I mean it with all my heart.

God, thank you for getting that technician at the power plant to work everyday.

Romans 8:18-21 (New International Version)

¹⁸ I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

In these verses, I believe “the creation” is the world and the universe which was created by God. In verse 21, it seems that the creation, e.g., the world is in bondage to decay. This “bondage to decay” sounds like entropy to me.

While a complex subject, entropy is the basic property that describes how things decay. Things fall down, they age, they rot, they become less useful. Put a car in a parking lot and don’t touch it for ten years. How does it look after the decade? Consider our sun: if nothing changes in the universe, one day our sun will go dark after it consumes all its energy.

Entropy takes its toll.

In verse 19, i read that the creation, once again, the world waits in eager expectation for something. I believe that something when the children of God will be revealed is the second coming of Jesus and the descending of the new heaven onto the new earth. There is a lot of explaining that goes with this belief, and I will not delve into that at this time.

I will, however, say that I  believe the children of God will see an end to entropy.

Isaiah 33:7-8 (New English Translation)

7 Look, ambassadors cry out in the streets;

messengers sent to make peace weep bitterly.

8 Highways are empty,

there are no travelers.

Treaties are broken,

witnesses are despised,

human life is treated with disrespect.

The prophet Isaiah is lamenting the condition of life among his people. He starts with the officials in government who are trying to make peace (the ambassadors and the messengers). Isaiah turns to the awful state of regular life (travelers). Then Isaiah looks at the legal system, the part of society that  brings justice. Treaties – justice among nations – are broken. Witnesses – those who recount events – are despised.

Isaiah summarizes the state of affairs with the most basic of elements:

human life is treated with disrespect

I write sadly that it is easy to find cases of this in my community – the wealthy neighborhoods of Northern Virginia outside of Washington D.C. I guess I have found this in the half-dozen places I have lived in America. And then there are the half-dozen foreign countries where I have worked in my life.

Disrespect for persons and their lives is not centered in any one place on earth. It seems to be a part of the human condition. I guess that is in our fallen nature.

God, thank you for sending your Son to redeem us from our fallen nature. Help me to live as a truly restored person who respects human life in all places at all times.

John 11:47 (New International Version)

Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.    “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs.

What a great question:

What are we accomplishing?

This group of religious leaders gathered to consider what to do with and about this man from Nazareth (of all places). They had all sorts of ideas, plans, concept, programs, and those types of things that committees and working groups tend to have.

Finally, someone in the group with a little bit of sense asks the key question. After the lots-of-sense question is asked, the group quickly departs the concept of sense and returns to the usual group nonsense.

That was a shame. That is also a thought that all groups of Christians should consider to this day.

Isaiah 28:29 (New English Translation)

This also comes from the Lord who commands armies, who gives supernatural guidance and imparts great wisdom.

The word “supernatural” has come to be associated with witchcraft and other things condemned by the Bible. Sometimes I need to step back a little and reconsider words, especially in light of the Bible.

God is supernatural. He is not natural in that I cannot explain Him and how He works via the sciences such as biology, physics, and astronomy. That is what the word “supernatural” means – outside of nature, outside of the sciences we have to describe nature.

Somehow we have come to think of witchcraft as supernatural. Witchcraft is supernatural, but it is not the only thing that is supernatural. All spiritual – including and especially God – is supernatural. This translation of Isaiah helps remind me of that.

Sometimes we as Christians think on God so much that we start to think of Him as natural. Perhaps that is the working of Satan (another supernatural being). If Satan can convince us that God is natural, Satan can lead us into all sorts of trouble.