Daily Archives: January 23, 2015

God’s Pattern For Authority

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GOD’S PATTERN FOR AUTHORITY

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. (1 Peter 2: 13, 14)

Peter, what are you saying? Don’t you know that the emperor thinks he is God? Don’t you understand that he is killing people in cruel ways because they refuse to call him Lord? How do you expect us to honour and obey a monster like that? Shouldn’t we resist him and defy him because he is not God?

No, my dear readers, that is just where you are wrong. The Lord requires you to submit to his authority no matter what he does. But why? Why is it the right thing to do when he does such wicked and evil things?

Human authority – where does it come from? Apostle Paul explains it more clearly for us. God is the supreme authority in the universe. He rules over the earth through human deputies. He delegates authority to people to govern the earth for Him. Ideally, as He taught His people Israel, those who rule are to do it in obedience to His laws. He gave the instruction to His people in His covenant with them:

When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it and you say, ‘Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,’ be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. . .

When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel. (Deut. 17: 14, 15a; 18-20)

Ideally then, all authority is delegated by God and accountable to Him. Yes, even those who do not acknowledge Him are still answerable to Him because they rule for him. It follows then, that whether they are godly or ungodly, they are to be respected and obeyed since they are God’s delegated rulers.

That does not mean than everything they decree is right. They rule according to human wisdom if they do not rule according to God’s laws. Human wisdom – foolishness to God! How can God tolerate rulers who are ruthless and cruel, who make laws which harm his people, and who in the end do what is best for themselves.

First of all, bad rule is better than no rule. Without authority, a country will descend into chaos. When everyone does what is right in his own eyes, the clashed are catastrophic.

Secondly, every country gets the ruler or rulers it deserves, especially in a democracy where the people choose their representatives.

Thirdly, every ruler will give an account of what he did with the authority God gave him. He or she cannot escape, from the king or president down.

But what about those who suffer under despotic governors? Peter said, ‘Submit!’ But that’s hard. God did not say it would be easy, but it is the right thing to do because, in the end our attitude to government reflects our attitude towards God. They rule on His behalf, and by submitting to them, we are submitting to Him. That is why we are to submit ‘for the Lord’s sake.’

When his readers submitted to corrupt government and suffered under injustice, they were to show the ungodly what was right, and shut the grumblers and accusers up.

But what if rulers require or permit God’s people to do evil through their wicked laws? Peter’s contemporaries were expected to offer sacrifices to Caesar and acknowledge his claim to be God. The right thing to do would be to submit to him by submitting to the consequences of their civil disobedience.

Peter’s response to the religious leaders who tried to stop the apostles from preaching and healing in Jesus’s name was clear:

‘Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. (Acts 4: 19, 20).

There is no place in God’s book for resistance to authority in any form, strikes, marches, protests. Jesus is our pattern – He willingly submitted to those who abused Him because, through it He brought us eternal salvation.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Prove Them All Wrong

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PROVE THEM ALL WRONG

Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us. (1 Peter 2: 11, 12)

Peter spent some time encouraging his readers to understand who they were in God: elect, holy, God’s people, accepted and beloved with a great and glorious future ahead of them. However, they still had to live their lives in the real world where they were rejected, persecuted and falsely accused of doing wrong.

‘Unfortunately,’ said Peter, ‘that’s how it is! Since you are being treated as foreigners and exiles, live like that – remembering that you are not part of this present world system.’ As Paul would remind them, your citizenship is in heaven. God’s kingdom functions on different principles.

The world system is governed by the prince of this world. He has the human race under his influence – and it’s all about looking after number one first, satisfying the whims and desires of the selfish nature at the expense of others. The believer, on the other hand, has been given a new nature, the nature of God who is first and foremost, pure love.

The problem for us is that our old nature is still very much alive within us and wants to drag us in the direction of self-centred lives which leads to self-destruction. It’s war all the way; not war with the devil as we are so often erroneously taught, but civil war within. The spirit, which is infused with the Spirit of God is at war with our fleshly and nature and our sinful desires as war with God’s desires.

If so-called ‘spiritual warfare’ were against the devil, we would always be the losers and the victims of his evil power. This idea negates Jesus’s victory on the cross. Apostle John declared categorically that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3: 8b). Jesus both disarmed and overcame all the evil powers through the cross.

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Col. 2: 15)

We do not need deliverance from the devil – Jesus has already delivered us through His death. We need discipline. Our job is to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God and, through the Sprit, to put to death the deeds of the flesh so that we might live to God.

Jesus broke Satan’s power to lie to us. The devil wants to lead us to believe that he is Lord and in control of us. He is not! Jesus is Lord. The Holy Spirit in us leads us to the truth so that we believe what Jesus says and not what the devil says. No one can control our will. We alone have the power to choose and we have the Spirit who enables us to do what we choose.

The battle that rages is us is the battle of our desires. The sinful nature desires to indulge our fleshly appetites. The Spirit desires us to be holy, and living for God. Which one wins? The one we feed, of course. It comes down to the nitty-gritty of what we choose to indulge, the flesh or the spirit. If we indulge the flesh, we will die. We will lose our appetite for God. We will drift from Him until we are right back under the world system and on the way to self-destruction.

It’s not about going to hell when we die. It’s about living in hell now, living a life that has no boundaries, no purpose and no hope. The problem with living in hell now is that we have no appetite for God. Put us in a room full of earnest believers and we will feel uncomfortable and out of place. For a person like that it’s real hell!

What we desire we will do, and what we do we will become. The solution is simple but not easy – focus and grow your desire for God and His kingdom and the desires of the fleshly nature will lose their pull.

David wrote of the Messiah:

Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. Then I said, ‘Here I am, I have come – it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.’ (Psa. 40: 6-8)

When you choose to live like that, you will prove all your critics wrong by your godly life!

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

God’s Chosen People

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GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (1 Peter 2: 9-10).

Is Peter giving us a clue to the identity of the people to whom he was writing? In his greeting he did not specify that they were Jewish believers, but he did scatter clues along the way – like a parent setting up a treasure hunt for his child’s birthday party.

They were God’s elect according to His foreknowledge but exiles just like the Israelites of the northern kingdom who were scattered throughout the nations when their land was conquered by the Assyrians and the people sent into exile. Perhaps some of these early believers were descendants of those exiles and they themselves were exiles in their hometowns because of their faith in the Messiah.

They were God’s elect, chosen by God and set apart for Himself.

For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be His people, His treasured possession (Deut. 7: 6).

They were to be a royal priesthood. What does that mean?

God chose the nation of Israel to minister to the surrounding nations by ministering to the Lord. It was His intention that they be God’s representative to the nations, bringing the truth about God to them by carrying out His requirements for true worship. Through their praise, their worship and their holy lives, they were to show the ungodly people around them what their God was like.

‘Now if you will obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’ (Ex. 19: 5-6).

A kingdom of priests? It was God’s intention that the entire nation, under His authority and rule was to minister to the Lord. When they chose to worship a golden calf instead of obeying God’s commands, they forfeited that right. Instead, God chose the Levites, the only tribe that remained loyal to Him, to have the privilege of ministering to Him.

The Levitical priests shall step forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the Lord and to decide all cases of dispute ad assault  (Deut 21: 5).

A holy nation? God chose Abraham and the nation that would come through him to be a blessing to the whole world. They were to be set apart from all other gods to be His special people, to live according to His standards and in obedience to His covenant. Through them God would bring the Messiah to bless all the nations of the world. They were privileged above all the people of the world to know God and to make Him known.

For what purpose did God call Israel to be a royal priesthood and a holy nation?

. . . My people, my chosen, and the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise (Isa. 43:20b- 21).

Those to whom Peter addressed his letter would have understood what he was writing. They were part of those who were not God’s people and they had not received mercy but now, because of their faith in God’s Messiah they were restored and had received mercy to become God’s people again.

Although there may have been Gentiles among Peter’s readers, the implications of what he wrote must have hit home to his Jewish readers. Just like God’s intention for His ancient people, they (and we) were also included in His purpose to be a royal priesthood, a holy nation. God’s special possession so that they too might also declare God’s praise to the nations who did not know Him.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.