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Let me first start by saying this isn’t a post to start controversy, no, not at all. However, it is a post to point some things out. Today there is a push for women to sit by silently and let the men do the work. Men can care for, disciple, train, lead and even admonish women, yet women are not allowed to reciprocate that type of work. Women are to sit silently by, waiting tables, keeping the kids quiet, taking care of the home, while the men go out and do the “real work of ministry. Many men have rewritten ecclesiological history basing their theological conclusions off of a handful of verses. Well what does Paul think?

Romans 16 provides us with a totally different perspective of womanhood and manhood in the church, at least at Rome. Here is what Paul says:

16:1 I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, 2 that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well. 3 Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, 4 who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. 5 Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia. 6 Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. 7 Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me. 8 Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. 9 Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. 10 Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. 11 Greet my kinsman Herodion. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus. 12 Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord. 13 Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. 14 Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them. 15 Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them. 16 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.

Jon Zens whose latest book “What is With Paul and Women” says this:

Paul designated Priscilla and Aquila as his “coworkers”(cf. Rom. 16:3). The same word, sunergos, issued with reference to people like Timothy and Titus. Junia and Andronicus [wife/husband or sister/brother] were greeted by Paul as “outstanding among the apostles” (cf. Rom. 16:7). They were his relatives and had been in prison with him. Clearly, there were many identified as “apostles,” like Barnabas, who were not among the original Twelve. Junia was also among such apostolic workers. There is no reason to think that she was the only such female apostle or that female apostles were regarded as rare or unusual. This illustrates that apostolic labor was not male-specific. Among all the people Paul greeted in Romans 16, ten were sisters among whom were “Tryphena and Tryphosa [who may have been twins], women who work hard for the Lord” (cf. Rom. 16:12).

In other words, women were not just passive, standbyers waiting to be told what to do by men. They were filled with God’s Spirit, which means they were gifted just like men and these gifts were used to build the Church along side of their fellow Spirit filled male contemporaries.

If the Church is to be all that it can be, then we have to allow all who are gifted to operate in their gifts. This is not exclusive to women but also children who are filled with the Spirit. As the Body we dont’ want to mute anyone who can speak on the behalf of God, rather that is gender, age, or tenure in the faith. All of God’s people can speak, can be used and can “bear burdens”, “admonish”, “teach”, “encourage” and “edify”. As Paul says “when Jesus ascended He gave gifts unto men” these gifts are to be used for His body and these gifts are not exclusive to any specific demographic as all are “one in Christ”.

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Our reading today has us continuing through the Law of Moses and how Israelites are to behave. This move beyond what the Israelites were to do vertically to what they are now to do horizontally. God gave them strict laws on how to treat one another, and especially the poor. It is funny that even then, God was letting us know that the poor will always be among us. Things happen, people make all the right decisions and things go wrong. We have a common misconception that hard work and discipline pays off; however, many poor people were both and tragedy struck in a way that crippled them financially and socially. We have the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” mentality. This mentality is fine for those who have not tasted the sweet nectar of grace known as salvation, but it is a travesty of love for Christians to have such a mentality.

God gave the Israelites one another and if a man was found in need there was a certain response. Now this is Law; however, look at what YAHWEH appeals to. It is because what He had done for them in their deliverance from oppression that He appeals to. He appeals to His grace and kindness to get them to understand how they are to relate to one another. This is a gospel picture my friends.

We then see Jesus casting out demons, healing the sick, and touching the leper. Touching a leper is a post in and of itself, but needless to say, lepers were social outcasts and for Jesus the holy one to go and touch Him, shows us the real heart of God even in the Law.

Let me explain something here. COMPASSION is the mark of the believer, it is a defining factor that we have been born from above. Studying the bible, memorizing scripture, going to seminary, reading the latest great books, speaking in theological language, sharing the Gospel and even being a good family are good things, but compassion is a great thing. He says this in Matthew 12

12:1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” 3 He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

Our Lord is compassionate towards the have nots, shoot, you and I were have nots. God didn’t save us because of ourselves. He didn’t save us because he “peeked down into the corridor of times and saw us choosing Him”. That position is the foundation for haughtiness. We were dirt, trash, filthy rags, good for nothing but the furnace! However just like He told Israel, it wasn’t because of something they had done, it was because He loved them.

We weren’t good people needing a nudge, a boost of some sort, we were hell bound and needing saving completely and that is why we are to be compassionate, we above all the world have experienced this compassion and we are to express this compassionate God to a cold and dead world!

Jesus touched the leper, feed the poor, restored sight to the blind, touched the prostitute, gave strength to the lame, casted demons out of the possessed, ate with sinners and tax collectors, raised the dead, loved the outcast and unclean, He took on the role of being responsible for others. We see this in Leviticus where God demands such a response and we see this in the life of Jesus flushed out (the Israelites didn’t follow this law, just read in later OT books). He has now given us this responsibility and there are NO CONDITIONS, Jesus knew some of the people were probably responsible for their condition and He extended them grace, we have no excuse to do anything otherwise!

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Mark’s narrative of the life of Jesus starts off by saying

 ”The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”

I remember reading a book by John Piper called “God is the Gospel”. Piper has developed a theme called “Christian Hedonism” and under that theme is the slogan “God is most satisfied in us, when we are most satisfied in Him”.

Now that may sound wordy or like some catchy slogan. But read it again. God is most satisfied in us, when we are most satisfied in Him. Now I want you to think of all the books out there “Have Your Best Life Now”, “Being An Over comer”, “Slaying Your Giants”, and on and and on. If you go to the preaching it is even worse! Many churches are packed everyday, full of good information on how to be wise business man, how to get your kids in a good college, how to be successful, how to save your marriage by having good sex and on and on and on!

And the most important person, the person we are to gather around, the person whom we come to hear from and through one another, rarely ever comes up! My friend, having a good life is having Christ. Having a good marriage is having Christ, Having a successful “business” is having Christ, for He is the BEST news ever! Nothing else matters my friends, this world and its fleeing pleasures will be destroyed and the eternal Jerusalem will come down from heaven and we will dwell in the city of God!

If you want to satisfy God, be satisfied in His Son. Mark is going to show us who He is and show us why He is the good news! Don’t let this okie doke preachers convince you that having Jesus is some basic truth, He is Truth! Our bodies are going to get old, the economy will fool you, your marriage will end, your children will leave, your sex life will evaporate, success is not guaranteed, but Jesus is the rock from where the water flows and when we are satisfied in Him, all of our hunger, thirst and desires will be fulfilled. My friends Jesus is the good news, everything else is “vanity”.

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This is it!!!  Jesus has been beaten and mocked, spat on and pierced, He’s been hung on a cross and has died (given His life). In most cases this would be it, this would be the end of the story and we would have nothing left to say. When it comes to Christ we can’t stop there because the story does not end there. Christ continues to live, He rose from the grave just as He said He would do, (Jn. 2:19) and has lived on, and will continue to live on. (Matt. 28:20, Mk. 16:19, Col. 3:1) We my friends must take much confidence in knowing that Christ is not only alive, but He has not left us alone. He has promised to always be with us. (Matt. 28:20)  I get very excited when I speak of all the acts Christ has done. Lets look at some of them: He left a holy heaven where there is no sin at all, to come here and dwell in a sin ravaged earth with us people who suffer from sin ravaged hearts. How do you think that felt to Him? Jesus left a life that had never touched sin to come to a place that is disgustingly polluted and littered with sin for the specific purpose of dying for those who are sinning against Him and free them from there sin, most importantly rescue them from the wrath of God. The reason why I get excited about the works and selfless acts of Christ is not only because He has rescued me, but also because I know He didn’t have to do any of this.  He didn’t have to do one single thing, not one. But He did.We should rejoice in the freedom that is ours through our savior Christ Jesus, the freedom from sin, the freedom from the law, the freedom from the wrath of God. We must not stop there, we must now live our lives ever learning from the example Christ has shown us. (1Pet. 2:21, Jn. 13:15) We must live a life that pleases our Father not one that pleases us. We must go out and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Sone and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded us and remember that Christ is with us always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:19-20).

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As we near the end of Matthew’s gospel. We find ourselves seeing the one who healed, loved, served, accepted the mariginalized, forgave the sinner and rebuked the self righteous, being betrayed by the infamous kiss. We see the master eat His last meal before His death, we see Him still thinking of others more than himself when the one coming to falsely arrest him is attacked by one of Jesus’ own disciples and even more heart wrenching is the prayer, the plea with the Father 3 times to let the cup pass; however, His will was totally submitted to the Father and what must be pursued; the wretched cross!

There are so many things to say about our readings today, but the only thing I want to focus on is the love of Christ. Hebrews 12:2 talks about the Joy of Jesus. Ultimately He knew what had to be done. As we are reading through Leviticus we see animal after animal killed, cut up and consumed by fire. We are now going to see a human sacrificed. The three years are up, Jesus has lived the sinless life, He has been prepared as Brian pointed out, by the oil being poured on His head. The betrayer has put things in motion and things are looking bleak.

But again we see a future statement in Matthew 26:32. He says “but when I am raised”. They have not yet understood this, but for us who look back we know fully. He who will be crucified raised from the dead and that is our hope. We know the end of the story. Christ is raised as the firstfruit of the ressurection and He promises us the same salvation.

I don’t want to get to far ahead, but last not look at the disciples with too much piety, we know that we will be raised from the dead and we still doubt, they had not yet experienced such a truth.

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I want to be honest, Leviticus is not the most exciting book to read. Historically many pastors have strayed from teaching its contents and when they do they teach it as moral case studies. Unless we view the Scriptures as Christian Scripture we too will fall into this category of ignoring one the many books of our “bible”. I want to attempt to help you see this a bit clearer with today’s reading.

Put yourself in the shoe of a Hebrew. You have been delivered from the slavery that has oppressed you your entire life, you have seen plagues utterly abase the greatest kingdom ever, you have seen the mighty Pharaoh (a god in and of himself) humbled, broken and eventually drowned in the same waters that were miraculously parted and then released on the greatest military around. Later this God that Moses has talked about you have heard, you have seen Him come down in a cloud, feed you from the sky,  give you water from a rock and graciously enter into a relationship with you by the way of a covenant.

Now, you will begin to understand just how Holy this God. He is terrifying, all powerful, all knowing but in spite of all of this He is full of grace. However this grace is not free, something (and later someone) has to pay for God not to utterly obliterate you and that is where I want to pick up.

Death is forever before the Hebrew. As you read through Leviticus I want you to keep the concept of DEATH before your eyes, it is the scarlet thread so to say of our biblical narrative and will unfold beautifully in the person and work of Christ.  So go back a few thousands years.  I want you to see the knife slit the throat of the lamb, bull, goat and ram,  I want you to see the blood trickle down their neck as they scream and kick. I want you to hear the squealing, see the priest wrestle with the animal. I want you see the pools and pools of blood. Now I want you to smell these animals. I want you to smell the blood. Look at the heart, look at the liver, look at the kidneys, look at all that blood. Look at the blood on Aaron’s ear, his clothes are saturated in blood, he stinks. The smell is nauseating, it is disgusting to see the animal, with all of its skin, eyes, ears and teeth, being cut up. Now I want you to see the fire that is kindling, I want you to see the priest THROW all of this stuff into the fire, I want you to see the remainder of some of these animals, thrown outside of the camp, look at the dung smell it, touch it, let the scent soak into your skin.

Now, see a HOLY GOD only blinking at your sin, because tomorrow it is going to happen again, and the next day, and the next year, year after year, day after day, the smell, the death, the sacrifice is perpetuated. And day after day, sin is before God and He graciously accepts this sacrifice but only temporarily. These scents, these deaths, these innocent animals, are a PLEASING sacrifice to the Father. Because HE HATES SIN! And He WILL NOT be approached, talked with, bargained with until His wrath and hate for sin has been propitiated!

Now after all of that, think of His Son Jesus Christ, who was also innocent who bore the wrath of His Father, agonizing in the garden, beat, mocked and spit on and nailed to a cross. And much like the sacrifice of these animals just became another thing, they got used to the scent. Many today are used to the story of our Lord, they come Easter after Easter, Christmas after Christmas, they drive pass church after church, they hear the stories, hear the songs, they know all about this and guess what? They too have grown cold!  But not only them those who have experienced this grace are bored with the story of Jesus. We say “I get it He died on the cross, I got it already, can’t we move on”. But our actions show we haven’t got it. We see the obedience of the Lamb and yet don’t follow in His footsteps. Yes we need to hear more of this Jesus. Our reading in Matthew deals with this. Much like God judged the Hebrews for their passivity, Jesus will judge others for theirs! Lets not take Leviticus too lightly my friends.

Atonement, Propitiation, Sacrfice, Wrath

The extreme detail and exquisite design of the tabernacle and everything that went in it is something to marvel. They used the very best materials (gold, bronze, silver, acacia wood, and the best essential oils known to man) to create a place of worship for the Lord God. But as I read today’s OT reading, I couldn’t help but think, “All of the splendor and majesty of the tabernacle was still not good enough for true worship. Christ still had to come. In fact, He was already slain and waiting for the Father to dispatch Him at the time when they were actually building the tabernacle!” We must keep this in mind as we are sifting through the Scriptures this year in order to understand the depth and severity of the Messiah and His redemptive work.

Speaking of redemptive work…

In our NT reading, we are in the middle of Passion Week. Christ is coming closer and closer to death, but before He dies He has to set the Pharisees straight once and for all. Now, let me pause right here to say this: The Pharisees were NOT “bad” men! In most teachings they are depicted as some rebellious God-hating sinners when in fact these guys were morally upright. They kept all the laws, were well-versed in the Scriptures, kept all the holy holidays, and were keepers of the temple ordinances. These were nice men with good intentions, but as the saying goes, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” and that’s exactly what Jesus was saying.

Jesus repeatedly calls them hypocrites because all the good that they were doing outwardly didn’t amount to a hill of beans because their hearts had not been transformed. They knew the Scriptures—they TAUGHT the Scriptures—yet they did not know the One to whom the Scriptures were about. He accuses them of being clean on the outside but dirty on the inside. He tells them that their proselytizing is worthless and that they make it harder—if not impossible—to enter the Kingdom.

Whoa, Jesus! What are you trying to teach us here?

The implication of the word hypocrite has everything to do with the condition of the heart. You can know the Word, teach the Word, be the first one in the church and the last one out, pass out tracts and evangelize on the street corners, pay your tithe, fellowship with the brethren, and do all the things that make you look righteous on the outside…But if your heart has not been transformed by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, if you do not understand that worshiping God is not restricted to a majestic place or merely something that we do but that it starts with a transformation of the heart, you are a hypocrite and no good will come from you. And on that Day, He will say, “Depart from me. I NEVER knew you…”

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In the OT, we open with the Lord telling Moses that He has filled a man with His Holy Spirit to empower him to do the work that He called them to do. He graced them with the ability, intelligence, knowledge, and craftsmanship to worship Him.

God does not leave us to ourselves to figure out how to worship Him. He has given us a specific way (in Christ) and endows us with His Holy Spirit to do so.

Moses has been up on that mountain for quite some time getting instructions from Lord, and the Israelites get very impatient—so impatient that they convince Aaron to build them an idol god so that they could “worship” Him. The ink on the Ten Commandments hasn’t even dried yet, and they are already SERIOUSLY violating the first one! God’s sees this and gets angry enough to want to destroy them. However, Moses intercedes for them and God spares them from His wrath.

We must ALWAYS wait patiently on God and refuse to settle for a cheap idol to fill our desire for worship. Ours may not be a golden calf. Maybe it’s our car, gadgets, children, or spouse…Also, let us never downgrade the power of prayer—especially intercession. Because of Moses’ faithfulness to God and willingness to intercede for His people, Moses was able to see the glory of God—so will we. Chances are He’s not going to side-slide by you on a mountain while you hide in a rock, but His glory will be revealed in others ways, namely His Son and the fruit of your regenerated heart’s work for Him.

In our NT reading, the Sadducees have approached Jesus in an attempt to disprove Him, and He throws a wrench in their plans with one of His classic moves: the double entendre (ambiguity of meaning arising from language that lends itself to more than one interpretation). He tells them that they do not know the Scriptures or the power of God and that God is not the God of the dead but of the living.

The Sadducees could recite Scriptures but they didn’t know the Scriptures. Jesus counts that as not knowing God at all because if they did they would have understood the things He was trying to teach them. Jesus also tells them, “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” Jesus meant that literally to validate the resurrection, but He was also trying to convey that God is not the God of those who are spiritually dead and stuck in their religious traditions. He is the God of those who are alive IN CHRIST. Only those alive in Christ can rightfully say they belong to God and He to them. The spiritually dead are not in Christ; therefore, He is not their God.

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Today’s reading has us listening in to the conversation God had with Moses. God is giving details on how He is to be worshipped and not only that, who is allowed to approach Him. We have before us the purification of the priest, the instruments of worship, how God is to be approached and what must be offered to Him as acceptable. You see God gave CLEAR details and nothing else will be accepted. The result of approaching God wrong, offering something unacceptable, using the wrong instruments and even substituting something else for what HE has commanded resulted in only one thing. DEATH!

Today; however, many believe they can worship God however they please. You hear “come as you are” or even worse, many teachers in the body of Christ feel that anything and everything is acceptable. Others say “don’t judge”, this my friend is in a specific context and it is not that we don’t judge, we don’t judge wrongly or hypocritically. But we MUST make a judgment call on what God calls acceptable worship and what He does not. As ambassadors of His word we have no choice. And just in case we believe that God only kills in the Old Testament we only need to read Acts 5:1-11 and 1 Corinthians 11:27-32.

But why we must ask? Because God is Holy, Righteous, Just and Perfect and He is not to be played with. God is not a nice cosmic teddy bear that you can hug whenever you are feeling down, nor is He like Santa Claus, big jolly with a red suit bringing gifts and candy to good little boys and girls. Nor is He like a jolly ol’ grandpa who allows the children to behave unruly when they are with Him. God is not like us and any God who does not look like the God of Numbers 16:25-35 is a god of our imagination. However….

God has provided a way. We will see a High Priest who does not need to offer up atonement for Himself  (Hebrews 9:11-28). He will be the all sufficient, ram, lamb and bull. No need for bells to be tied to Him, no need for Him to kill a bull at the opening of the tent, no need for Him to slay a young ram and poor its blood on the alter, nope! He is all sufficient 100% God and 100% Man. We will see the blood of bulls and goats can never atone for the people. It will tell us in Romans that God only winked at our sin, but every year more bulls, more goats, more doves, more lambs had to die. More incense, more perfume, more anointing oil, had to be burned and poured. Thank God of Jesus Christ.

Finally in our NT reading we see this “come as you are” also being rejected. There is a parable about a great wedding. The original invitees not only rejected the invitiation but killed the King’s servants. You see what the response to that was right (Matthew 22:7). He then went out and called those who were not invited and many came; however, one “came as he was”. And the results were tragic for that fella.

God will only be worshipped on His terms. He is too Holy to negotiate with man. Do not be fooled that you can come as you are, you must come, covered with the blood of Christ or you will hear on that day “depart from me, I never knew you”. Don’t be numbered in that number friend. Trust wholly in the Lord Jesus, He has approached God on your behalf, you only need to be sprinkled in His blood.

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