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In Numbers 32, a bit of a controversy arises between the tribes of Reuben & Gad and Moses.  Reuben and Gad present a reasonable request: since Gilead is good for our flocks, please let us settle here.

Moses, however, doesn’t care much for that idea.  His problem?  Gilead is on the “wrong side” of the Jordan River.  Remember, Moses was at Kadesh-Barnea when the Israelites refused to enter the Promised Land almost forty years earlier.  Moses had decades of experience with the rather grumbly and unfaithful nation of Israel.  Also, keep in mind that Moses is one of a tiny handful of people who actually experienced the Exodus and saw God’s power displayed then.  Moses hears the request of Reuben and Gad – and a mental trigger goes off.  I can almost see him shake his head and say, “Oh no! Not more unwillingness to enter the Promised Land!”  I can hear him begin to berate the leaders of Reuben and Gad, reminding them of Kadesh-Barnea and threatening God’s wrath.  In fact, he pretty much does just that: Num. 32.6-15.

This passage reminds me of one of those times when two parties are both right, but because they’re talking past each other, they feel like they’re arguing.  The Reubenites & Gadites were right – they had a reasonable request and they had no intention of disobeying God or forsaking Israel.  Moses was right – if the people of Israel shied away from the land of promise again, God would deal with them severely.  Perhaps those two tribes could have made their request clearer the first time, but (as the story is recorded in the chapter) it looks like Moses is the one who jumps past the actual and gives warning based on the possible.

Pause the Biblical story for a moment.  Think about the last time you saw this happen.  Perhaps you’ve seen it happen in a church or a movement of Christianity.  Older leaders are firm on the lines they’ve drawn because of the battles they’ve fought; younger members are reasoning through the whys and wherefores with good intention.  But there are times when the youngsters ask questions or probe philosophies or practices – and then the older generation responds with warnings and scolding (but no answer to the question!).  What happens next?  I’d submit to you that what happened in Numbers 32 is rather different from what often happens today.

The Reubenites and Gadites didn’t run off to their forums, blogs, Facebook pages or Twitter feeds.*  Ok, they didn’t have those.  They didn’t run back to their families in the camps and spread the news about how unfair and grouchy and anti-intellectual and wrong Moses was.  They responded humbly.  First, they moved closer to Moses and spoke to him directly (Num. 32.16) to reword their request (speculation: without a big brouhaha!).  Second, they allayed Moses’ fears.  They didn’t take affront at his “accusation.”  They (in the text) calmly explained their willingness to follow God’s plan and promised to give up their Gilead possession if they shrank back from the conquest..  Third, they put action behind their words of clarification.  They took up their swords and went to battle, keeping their end of the bargain.

Moses didn’t get up on a soapbox and denounce these two tribes to the rest of the nation.  He didn’t call them out publicly for cowardice, unbelief or any other sin.  Moses responded humbly.  When they demonstrated sincerity and obedience to God’s command, he agreed to their request and treated them kindly.

Why do things seem to fall out differently today than in Moses’ day?  Sadly, humility is often lacking.  Young Christians take offense at well-intentioned warning; older Christians assume the worst of well-intentioned questions.  What all of us need is Christ – we need his humility in us as we minister together (Phil. 2.5-8; I Pet. 5.1-6).

* I’m not condemning these technologies; all they do is facilitate good or evil.  We are accountable for how we use them.

From the “correcting common misconceptions” files…

Michael Bird:

Jesus did not cruise around Palestine saying, “Hi, I’m God, the second person of the Trinity, soon I’m going to die on the cross for your sins so you can go to heaven, but until then I’m gonna teach you all how to be good Christians”. That is wildly ahistorical, and yet it might be how many pious Christians read their Gospels.

The rest of Trevin Wax’s interview has some thought-provoking material and is worth reading.

I’m taking a Greek class next semester that includes memorizing nearly all the vocab in the New Testament.  My goal is to use my iPod Touch for my vocab flash cards.  I’ve looked at a few apps that do vocab cards, but none specially set for all NT Greek vocab (yep, it’s not the most common college course).

What I’d like to know is…

1. have you found a good app that already has most of the NT Greek vocab (sorted alphabetically) available for it,
2. have you used any iPod Touch flash card apps (which, and what do you think) or
3. do you have or know where I could find an electronic list of all NT Greek vocab (spreadsheet, csv, Access DB, etc.)?

If you’ve got helpful info, drop a comment below.  If you’ve got access to a file, I’ll reply to your comment via email.

Thanks much!

UPDATE: Thanks to some comments, tweets and research, I’ve got the list of all vocab words & glosses in a CSV file.  When I get access to a macro-capable copy of MS Office (i.e., not ’08 for Mac!), I’ll run the BibleWorks Greek to Unicode font, then start experimenting with an iPod Touch app to see what works best.  I’ll report what happens as I go…

Advice for actors on how not to appeal to crowds:

And let those that play your
clowns speak no more than is set down for them. For there
be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity
of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the meantime
some necessary question of the play be then to be
considered. That’s villainous and shows a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that uses it.

Hamlet’s advice to the acting troupe may have some application to preaching, music and other aspects of life.  What say you?

When George Sodini walked into his Pittsburgh gym and opened fire on August 4, killing three women and wounding several others, that was a tragedy.  An edited version of his diary over the last year has been released and it is heart-breaking.  His bitterness and loneliness escalated through the posts; he never turned to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness and fulfillment he desperately wanted.

He did, however, include a bit of theology near the very end of the diary:

Maybe soon, I will see God and Jesus.  At least that is what I was told.  Eternal life does NOT depend on works.  If it did, we will all be in hell.  Christ paid for EVERY sin, so how can I or you be judged BY GOD for a sin when the penalty was ALREADY paid.

To read his attempt to bring the grace of God (albeit a flawed view of that grace) into his rationalization and self-pity – that floored me.  How I wish he had known the truth about what God and Jesus!

All of us need to realize that eternal life absolutely does depend on works!  Now, our works can’t earn eternal life, but the righteous works that Jesus Christ did during his life on earth – those works are the ones that eternal life depends on.  Call it the active obedience of Christ: he never sinned and always did right.  He was the only man to walk this earth and actually earn eternal life.  For us to have eternal life, we must be in Christ.

That statement that “Christ paid for EVERY sin” is misleading in this context.  It ignores the fact that there really is a limit on Christ’s atonement.  Here’s the false dichotomy: either we all go to hell for our sins OR we all see God because Jesus paid for them.  In other words, either (A) no hope of salvation or (B) universalism.  You can say what you like about the potential limits of the forgiveness that Jesus secured with his death, but when you look at what actually happens between men and God, there is a limit.  God does not extend the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice to people who don’t want it.  He does not give those blessings to people who think they want it but won’t humble themselves to ask for it God’s way either.  God gives forgiveness (based on Christ’s death) and righteousness (based on Christ’s life) freely and unreservedly to those who repent from their sin and exclusively trust Jesus for the salvation he has provided.

Unfortunately, when people choose to stew in their own self-pity, loneliness and bitterness, they close their eyes to the joy and liberty of forgiven life in Jesus Christ.  How sad it is when they almost come close to Christ, but their mistaken theology leaves them to wallow in despair.

One thing I love about music discussions is that they’re never controversial.  Especially when the discussion focuses on associations for particular songs or artists – then the conversation becomes exceptionally balanced!

Anyway, all joking aside, here are two well-balanced articles on music and association.  Scott Aniol does an accurate job breaking “association” up into carefully nuanced categories in the first post; he explains why “association” arguments often miss the real issue in the second post.

On Associations
Punting to “Association Problems” may be a cop out.

This morning, I opened an email entitled “FWD: [Fw:] Fwd: FW: Fw: [FWD:] (maybe a couple more) HB 1388 Passed.”

That was the best part of the email.  The rest of the email was a stereotypical urban legend, “conservative” watchdog alarmist message.  It nearly frightened me into buying a gun (or several!) and joining militia (fergit that! I’ll start ma’ own!).  Apparently, President Obama recently signed an executive order to spend $20 million to help terrorists immigrate to America.  The email chronicled all his other woeful failures and deliberate attempts to destroy America and warned the reader to “LOCK AND LOAD MY FRIENDS!!!!!!” (sorry to all the original sender’s friends – I need to find you and “lock and load” you before our country is destroyed) and to “PLEASE PASS THIS ON” (I really do care, but stop shouting at me).

All most tongue-in-cheek mockery of that email aside, here’s why it really bothered me.

1. It’s factually bogus from the get-go.  “HB 1388″ has nothing to do with terrorists or immigration or terrorists who immigrate.  In fact, “HB” is not how people refer to legislation anyway.  Conservatives got all riled up about “HR” 1388 (it allegedly forced students into a mandatory volunteer group to be brainwashed by the President just like the Hitler Youth – only with more capital letters and “FWD:” notations).  Moving along, the alleged $20 million for Hamas terrorists issued is a presidential order, not a bill from the House (which would be noted with “HR”).  Frankly, the email is so factually confused in the subject line that I have very little hope for the body…
2. The allegation that the President is sending $20 million of hard-earned American taxpayer dollars to move terrorist to US soil is also a load of malarkey.  That money is not earmarked for plane tickets and box-cutters for Hamas extremists.  It is, according to the US Dept. of State, intended for “distributing emergency food assistance, providing medical assistance and temporary shelter, creating temporary employment, and restoring access to electricity and potable water to the people of Gaza.”  To put things in perspective, President Bush signed for nearly $30 million for refugee relief in Somalia, Sudan and Chad in 2007 and nobody started a militia.
3. This is no urgent matter that we must do something about now. It was signed in January.  Seven months ago.  What a shame: we are incapable of keeping track of current news; only old stuff is capable of angering us!

Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not writing in favor of that presidential directive.  In fact, I’m not offering any opinion about it all.  I am making a point about honesty, factuality and integrity.  That watchdog (more like watch-chihuahua) email lacked honesty, factuality and integrity.

Christian, why would you forward that email?  “Because people need to know what those sneaky liberals are up to!”  Stop.  When the “information” is emotionally manipulative misinformation, people do not (repeat: do not) need to know it.  That email was (for lack of a better term) a “false witness.”  And if I recall rightly, God placed a prohibition on bearing false witness.

Don’t succumb to the temptation to get all riled up at every allegation made against your “political enemies.”  Don’t forward malarkey email either.  (Hint: if it’s been forwarded more than 5 times, it’s either a joke or an urban legend.)  If we are children of light, our interaction with our world must be marked by truth (Eph. 5.6-8).  I cannot see how a Christian can “pray for kings and for all who are in high positions” (I Tim. 2.1-2) at the same time that he forwards inaccurate and deceptive emails about those leaders.  “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt” (Col. 4.6) – including your email!

Read this and this for some helpful exegesis / theology regarding American conservative activism.