Preventative Maintenance - How I learned to appreciate my least favorite prayer request.

Question: If you went to my fifth grade Sunday School class, what would you say if you couldn't think of a prayer request?

Answer: I don't read my Bible or pray enough.

Believe me, this happened all the time. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure there was a Sunday where this was the only prayer request anyone had at the end of the meeting. Two things about this request made me cringe every time I heard it. One, it didn't really sound like a request.

Them: "I don't read my Bible enough."
Me: "Yeah? I forgot to brush my teeth this morning. Let's pray."

Two, I wondered if it was entirely honest. Not in the sense where I thought these kids read their Bible or prayed all the time and simply lied. I mean I used to feel there was something bigger they wanted to share, but were too embarrassed to do so.

Now that I've said all that, I feel comfortable telling you this. I don't feel like I read my Bible or pray enough. If I were in a prayer circle right now, I would give it as my request. Before my house caved in last Spring, I used to have a morning routine of reading a few chapters and praying for 10-20 minutes before work. But after the Disaster and having my way of life uprooted, I lost the rhythm of my routines.

Last night, I thought about the Disaster and how I felt the presence of God throughout the turmoil. It helped my wife and I endure the hardest trial we had faced as a couple. I realize it's not the routine I miss, but the regularity of coming into God's presence. So even though I do read the Bible and pray, I want more interaction with the Holy Spirit in the prayer and study.

From now on, I'll try to think of my least favorite prayer request as preventative maintenance. Hard times will come, but I want to feel secure in my new life in Jesus when they come.

Doing What Those Guys Did - Finding motiviation through heroes.

When my friends and I formed our band, The Summer Country, we spent a day discussing vision. Why did we want to play music in Nashville? What impact did we see ourselves having on the city? How did we want to achieve our goals?

During this discussion, we wrestled through the idea of merchandise. What would we make to sell and why? For the last seven years, all I had ever wanted to sell were recordings and books. I never even entertained the idea I would once again make the standard rock and roll Tshirt/sticker/button spread. If selling records exclusively was good enough for Fugazi, it was good enough for me.

Eventually, I conceded. We could in the future make non-record or book merchandise to sell. But I made a condition. For every normal business decision The Summer Country made, I reserved the right to do one punk thing. If we made Tshirts, for example, I would also have stencils made of our logo. Not that I'm encouraging anyone to commit vandalism. They could spray their car hood or the back of a hoodie. They could create their own merchandise without having to buy it from me.

So the point of that story is this: I have musical heroes. I look up to Fugazi, Piebald and Meneguar for what they created and how they created it. When it comes to music, I want to do the kinds of things those guys do. I know in the past I've talked about people turning musicians into idols, but I read something in James which made me rethink the subject of admiration.

James 5:10-11 says, "As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed who endured." Then he uses Job as the example. Later, in verses 16-18, James writes, "The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit."

It's okay to have heroes. We should find inspiration in what others do. Paul once wrote, "Follow me as I follow Christ." But looking at the condition of the church in America, and definitely the church in Nashville, I wonder how many people here really admire the heroes of the Bible. If we look up to Elijah, David, and Paul, wouldn't we see more people doing what they did? Would it become normal for us to meet a Christian who wanted to tell people about Jesus, pray for them, and expect to see results?

Maybe we would see a change in the dead religious culture of Christianity if we found inspiration from heroes in the Bible. And I don't mean that in a daily-devotional inspiration way where we feel good in the morning as we read about what other men did in the past. I mean it in a way where we allow the stories of godly men to motivate us into action. I want to see Christians read the Book and do what those guys did.

Human Wisdom - How I used to be the smartest idiot.

You know what I'm doing this weekend? Finishing my FAFSA application. If things go as planned, I'll begin my third year of college this coming August. Nearly six years will have passed since I last went to school, but I'm totally psyched about going back. Any other adult students out there with me?

I love learning. I love it enough to pay someone to teach me. This may explain why I lasted as long as I did in my Baptist background. They may be stiff, they may be legalistic, they may even think it holy to listen to the worst music, but the Baptist church loves to teach the Bible. At four years old, I had already become bored with Sunday School and joined my parents in an adult class as they went through a video series on Francis Shaeffer's How Should We Then Live?

That church shared the gospel with me. I became a believer there. I got my first Bible from them. It was a good place. But when I described Sunday mornings to my classmates, a number of them had the same impression. "It sounds like school." Without saying so, I agreed with them.

Years later, for all sorts of reasons, I began my eighth grade year at an Assemblies of God school. If you don't know what that means, I'll leave it at this: It was a big change. They might have frowned upon social dancing and going to the movies, but they taught me the importance of God's presence in a church meeting.

I'd be a dope if I tried to compare myself to Paul, but I like to think Paul had a similar experience. He grew up as a Pharisee, lovers of learning and scriptural prowess. He studied and studied and studied, but he hadn't yet experienced the presence of God. And when he did, BAM, lights out.

But he didn't toss his learning away. He let the Holy Spirit give him wisdom to finally understand what it all meant. He explains some of this in 1 Corinthians 2:12-13. "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words."

When I first experienced the Holy Spirit, I thought to myself, "Why didn't I ever get this before?" I thought I was a smart kid. I had read the whole Bible. I won scripture memorization awards. But nobody ever brought up the importance of the Holy Spirit. The answer to my young question was this, I thought I was wise, but I was really a fool. I had relied on my intellect rather than the Spirit, thinking He would make me roll around on the floor and babble crazy words. I was the kind of person Paul described in the next verse, "But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised."

Now I experience God's presence on a daily basis. I've seen miraculous things. I've begun to understand the gifts of the spirit like prophecy and discernment. But more than that, the Bible came alive. I understood it in a more full and complete way.

And looking back on all of this, I wonder, what's the point of reading the Bible and going to church if the Holy Spirit isn't a part of it?

"What Made You Want To Worship God?" - Part two of Questions From the Lifehouse Youth Group

My wife, Chelsea, used to manage a coffee shop in Franklin. Before she left for her new job, she hired a sixteen year old girl who lives near the shop. During her first training shift, the girl said she was interested in learning more about Jesus. This sort of stunned Chelsea because they had only just finished going over how to make Gelato. Nobody handed anyone else a wordless book. Chelsea encouraged her to keep asking questions and invited her to church one week.

After a few visits to Sunday services and Youth Group meetings, Chelsea invited the girl to our house to hang out. When they arrived at our house, Chelsea excused herself into the other room. I think I was writing a weblog post at the time, not really paying attention to the teenager I had just greeted. The girl sat down on the other end of our couch and asked, "So what made you go from believing God exists to wanting to worship Him?" I'm not sure she realized I was wearing headphones, so I had to ask her to repeat herself.

"What made you go from believing God exists to wanting to worship Him?"

Having had no time to think about it, I started rambling about the time I began taking Him seriously in prayer and study. Ugh, forty-five minutes of frantic storytelling about stuff that didn't much answer her question. While prayer and study did have something to do with my conversion experience, the simple answer could have been, "When I understood that God is more than real, He's active."

The Civil War was real. Long Division is real. But either those things are either history or they require you to do all the work yourself. In the past, I might have compared my faith to long division. It existed before I did, it's more complicated than I think it is, and it does me no good unless I make it work for me. Like that moral to Aesop's Fable which some people confuse with a Bible verse, "God helps those who help themselves".

The truth is, God moves when He wants and how He wants. Yes, an answer to prayer does mean that I pray first. And learning something from the Bible means I have to read it first. But I also think God created a desire in me to talk to Him and study His word. Besides, He's moved in my life and the lives of people in my family without anyone even thinking to ask. When he rescued my brother from a life of total destruction, when he healed me of a decade long dairy allergy, when he gave my parents the idea to listen when we prayed together as a family, He showed Himself alive and at work.

Realizing God was more than a story or a specter to fear if I misbehaved made me look at Him in a completely different way. He became bigger, wiser, more gracious, and so on. I began to see myself as more selfish, foolish, and bad-tempered. Verses in Psalms began to make more sense. "What is man that you take thought of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" (Psalm 8:4) " O Lord, what is man, that you take knowledge of him? Or the son of man, that you think of him?"


And yet God sent Jesus to bear the burden of our punishment. He doesn't need me, but He still decided to rescue me and adopt me into His family.

That's why I want to worship Him.

Still Sacrificing? - A word about shame.

On a handful of occasions, some well-meaning people have asked me this question, "You seem like a really smart guy, so why are you a Christian?" And when this happens, I try to remember one of my favorite quotes from Charles Spurgeon, "Defend the Bible? I would just as soon defend a lion. Just turn the Bible loose and it will defend itself." It's a good thing for me to remember in those instances because I've sometimes succeeded only in stumbling my way through a quick explanation of some philosophical part of Christianity while somehow leaving out the gospel.

But the Bible is powerful and alive. It is truth which can speak for itself. As my friend Luther would tell his muslim friends back in Africa, "Just read it, and then you can disagree with me." So for this post, I'm going to leave out most of the rambling stories and shoe-string references. Instead, I'll type out a passage which hit so hard I had to stop after only eight verses.

Hebrews 10:11-18 says, "And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

"And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, 'This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,' then he adds, 'I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.'

"Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin."

Here are a couple of questions I want you to think about: If you accept the sacrifice Jesus made for the wrong you do, is it right to ever feel ashamed? Do you ever try to "do better" to "make it up to God"?

Old Guard vs. Young Guns - Two Ways For Believers To Look At Things Like Biblical Authority, Revelation, And The Church.

Before writing my last post, I told my wife, "I think I'm going to poke a hornet nest and talk about biblical authority again." Lots of people seemed to have read the post, even though Matt and William became the voices for what I think are the two major camps within the Western church. The Old Guard and the Young Guns.

I used to pride myself in my religious angst. At times, it was justified, like when a high school classmate told me, "You know, maybe you're not doing so well in Algebra because of that music you listen to." And other times, I think I wanted to see holes in the church, holes in the Bible, and "elasticity" to Christianity because it allowed me to justify almost anything. What can I say? My argumentative style is persuasion.

Even though I agree more with William's comments, I think I know Matt's point of view. I tried my best to grind an axe with the Bible, "institutional church," and every aspect of Christianity all the while calling myself a Christian and claiming to follow God. In hindsight, I think I was fighting God kind of like Doug in this sketch (not that I think it's a perfect example. Sorry if you think it's a little blue, but I hope you get the idea). I think I wanted my friends outside of the church to think I was savvy like the Young Guns and not judgmental like the musty, dusty, Bible-thumping Old Guard.

I used to say that human writers and translation errors made the Bible untrustworthy as a perfect book.

I used to say that I trusted the guidance of the Holy Spirit more than the Bible.

I used to say that every Christian was a part of the church, so why couldn't I call a group of believers in my living room "church"?

I gave up that kind of thinking when I realized this: I'm an idiot. I have a serious pride issue when I think I'm the wisest dude in the room.

If God wanted to explain Himself and His ways to men in a way they can understand, wouldn't He have some awareness of human folly and short-comings? If God allowed men to insert anything into the scriptures apart from His perfect truth, doesn't that mean the book is (at least in part) deceptive? Do we really think God is limited by human wisdom or even a deceiver?

If I feel like the Holy Spirit is putting something on my heart, but don't have an authority on the true nature of God, how can I know God is talking to me and not something foolish or evil? How could I know if I was feeling the Spirit's direction or just my own human passions?

If a group of people say they believe in Jesus, gather together in one place, and get drunk like those old friends of mine at our "men's Bible study," should I call that a church meeting? Do I grow closer to God, gain wisdom, or learn how to operate in my spiritual gifts?

But that's my story. What do you think? Do you think the Bible is inherently flawed because people wrote it? Can a person discern the direction of the Holy Spirit apart from Biblical understanding? Do we need the church or is it a breeding ground for antiquated, hateful codgers?

The Popular View of Scripture - A look at the Press reader's perspective on the Bible.

I've heard and seen the Bible quoted in a lot of places. Sometimes it's poignant, like the scene in Renaissance Man where one misfit soldier quotes Ecclesiastes and says it's the only writing better than Shakespeare (start it around 7:31). Sometimes it's totally weird and misquoted, like in Ghostbusters. It's in books, television, all over popular culture. In a way, it's meant to make us feel a sense of weight. "You should take this moment seriously, they're referring to the Bible."

Then there are people who have respect for the Bible, but in ways that confuse me. In the past three months, I've had two friends tell me they think the Bible is full of errors, but still a perfect book. One friend went on about "the Deuteronomy hoax" and said it was proof the Bible admits its own faults. Last week, a guy at work went into a passionate discussion about his belief in Creationism but then finished with a lament over all of the books the church conspiratorially kept out of the Bible.

Then, of course, there are those who don't respect the Bible at all. Some think nothing of it. Some even hate it. I typically expect some polarization but every now and again get a disinterested shrug.

Since discovering the Stats tab on Blogger, I was surprised to see the second and third most popular posts are the two essays I wrote on the Bible's authority. It seems like a popular, if not heated, topic. Those of you who read my posts have an idea where I stand, but I want to know where you are on the subject.

Let's see what Press readers have about the authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of the Bible. What do you think?

Is This Thing On? – A brief message on why Christians pray.

I knew at some point in this series on basic Christian living I'd have to talk about prayer. Christians do it all the time. But has anyone explained to you why? Haven't we all heard people describe feeling like their prayers hit the ceiling and fall splat on the floor like an undercooked pancake? Haven't we felt once or twice like our prayers don't do any good? Still, those who read the Bible and live by what it says can't ignore verses like Psalm 5:3. "In the morning, O Lord, you will hear my voice; in the morning I will order my prayer to you and eagerly watch." Not only should a Christian pray, but he should expect God to both hear and respond to the prayer.

Early in the drafting process of Stark Raving Obedience, Dad and I added a Lily Tomlin bit somewhere in the text. "Why is it when a person talks to God it's called prayer, but when God talks to a person it's called schizophrenia?" The first half of our book deals with the reality of God speaking to people. I could easily rattle off the verses we cite about God speaking, people hearing His voice, the verbal guidance of the Holy Spirit, and so on. When I thought about verses talking of God hearing people, I had a harder time coming up with examples.

I mean, it's in there. The Bible definitely talks about God hearing prayers. In my search for good examples, I went where anyone would go: The Beginning. Nobody makes an explanation of prayer in Genesis. No, "Adam heard the Lord and called out, 'Who said that?' And thus did Adam speak the first prayer unto the Lord." Nope. People and God talk to each other as if that sort of thing happened all the time. Adam, Eve, Cain, Noah, all sorts of people. It doesn't even sound like prayer was anything different than simply talking to God until Genesis 4:29, "At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord." I don't think this means God couldn't keep up with all the people trying to talk to Him at once. Prayer isn't like Santa's workshop, receiving millions of letters and sorting them based on importance and a naughty/nice list. It would make more sense to see this text as people realizing just how much sin had caused separation in their relationships with God. Maybe they felt like their prayers hit the ceiling and it freaked them out.

As my research went on, I found lots of passages where God hears the prayers of Kings and Prophets. In 1 Kings 9:3, God tells Solomon he heard the King's prayers. When King Hezekiah finds out he'll probably die of a particular illness, he prays for God to heal him. God tells Hezekiah in Isaiah 38, "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will add fifteen years to your life." The leaders of Jerusalem asked Jeremiah to give them a word from the Lord and Jeremiah, knowing they had wrong motives, responded, "I have heard you. Behold, I am going to pray to the Lord your God in accordance with your words; and I will tell you the whole message which the Lord will answer you. I will not keep back a word from you." I can relate to Jeremiah's frustration. Why didn't the rulers just pray to God themselves? In another passage, Ezekiel tells the people of Edom that God hears more than prayers when he says in 35:12, "Then you will know that I, the Lord, have heard your revilings which you have spoken against the mountains of Israel." In Micah 7:7, the prophet says with straightforward confidence, "My God will hear me."

But those men had special distinction. They were recognized Prophets and Kings. Of course God would hear their prayers. Then I reread a verse in Habakkuk 1. The Prophet feels like his prayers hit the ceiling, too. You can hear his confusion in 1:2 when he says, "How long, O Lord, will I call for help, and you will not hear? I cry out to you, 'Violence!' Yet you do not save." Once in a while, even men of spiritual distinction ask God, "What the eff?" This passage should give us some comfort. God never promises to answer our prayers quickly or in the way we expect.

Isn't that great? I spent all of July talking about the authority and need for the Bible because it lays a foundation for our understanding of a relationship with God. The Bible doesn't just say God will hear and prayers and respond to them, it also says we'll sometimes feel like He's not listening. But that's just how we can sometimes feel. Scripture is clear. God hears us. This is why He laid out the plan of redemption. It makes Him happy when we pray.

As for God talking back to us, I feel like I've written at length on that topic already. Suffice to say for now the Bible also tells us we'll hear from God. I bring up July's discussion on scriptural authority because some people have expressed concern over the topic of listening prayer. One lady told me I was playing a "dangerous game" listening to voices in the spiritual realm. "How can you know it's really God and not something evil?" She wasn't trying to put me in my place. The look on her face told me she genuinely cared about my soul.

I tried to explain, as I often do, "Everything spoken from God has to line up with the Bible."

She didn't seem comforted by my response. "I know you mean well. Just be careful with that sort of thing."

As long as I'm talking about prayer, I may as well attempt to clear this misunderstanding. God will only say things that confirm what He said in the Bible. Listening prayer, hearing from the Holy Spirit, isn't new revelation. It's just personal. It's as if the Holy Spirit was telling you a personal application of the Bible in a way that doesn't feel like a freakin' Sunday School lesson. The more a person reads the Bible, the more they recognize the voice of God because it agrees with what He said in scripture. It might even help us to get over that ceiling-effect. We'll always hear God respond to our prayers in the Bible, even if it's just to say, "Don't worry. I hear you."

The Comfort Of A Narrow Path - Why Christians need the Bible

Last month, I wrote about the need for people to understand the basics of Christianity. Since every post regarding this topic will have its foundation in the Bible, I wanted to first write about the Bible itself.

In Romans 10:2, the apostle Paul teaches about people having genuine zeal for God, but zeal "not based on correct understanding". Verse 3 says, "for, since they are unaware of God's way of making people righteous and instead seek to set up their own (way of making people righteous), they have not submitted themselves to God's way of making people righteous." They didn't correctly understand God's message of salvation so they created their own. Elsewhere in the Bible, you can read about this man-made version of salvation. It based itself on the merit of good deeds (Matthew 23:2-4, Galatians 2:16), ethnicity (Luke 3:8, 1 Timothy 1:3-4), and painful surgery (Galatians 5:6-12).

Paul goes on to use several Old Testament references explaining Jesus as the only source of salvation, ending with a quote from the prophet Joel in verse 13, "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered." Starting in the next verse, Paul gives us a strong argument for the need of the Bible in understanding the truth of God and the salvation He offers. "But how can they call on someone if they haven't trusted Him? And how can they trust in someone if they haven't heard about Him? And how can they hear about someone if no one is proclaiming Him? And how can people proclaim Him unless God sends them? - as the scriptures put it, 'How beautiful are the feet of those announcing good news about good things!'"

God told specific men to proclaim the truth of His words, to write them down. These writings are the Bible. The Bible truthfully and sufficiently tells us about who God is, what Jesus has done, and how we can know Him with the help of the Holy Spirit. If a person reads the Bible and comes to believe its words are true, he can put his trust in Jesus and receive salvation. Romans 10:17 sums it up this way, "So trust comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through a word proclaimed about the Messiah."

This is a very controversial and emotional topic for people. I think it's probable every person who reads the Bible has or will come across a passage offending their reason or emotion. The idea of scripture as the unchanging standard of truth can cause panic. People like flexibility. But when people resist the teachings of the Bible and come up with a different explanation of God or how He wants us to live, they almost always deviate toward some form of humanism, nihilism, pluralism, or universalism. These appeal to human reason or emotion and make them the final authority. For example, the Bible says that Jesus is the only way to find forgiveness for sin and spend eternity with God in Heaven. Jesus said in John 8:24, "Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He (the Son of God, the Messiah), you will die in your sins." But then, some might say, what about people who will never have a chance to hear about Jesus? Does that mean they'll go to Hell, even if they never had a chance for salvation? According to the Bible, even they have no excuse for their sin and face an eternity in Hell (Romans 1:20).

Most objections to scripture tend to occur because of this sort of specificity, not because of vague generalities. Time and culture don't determine its truth. Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." Jesus knew some would struggle with this when He taught in Matthew 7:13-14, "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it." One of my favorite interpretations of this passage comes from Dennis and Rita Bennett's book, The Holy Spirit and You. Bennett compares the narrow way to the flight path of an airplane traveling from Los Angeles to Honolulu. The plane must follow a specific route to make its destination, otherwise it will end up somewhere way off course near Fiji. If the pilot follows the correct directions given him, he can fly without fear of losing his way.

Talking to people in Nashville, one of the country's most heavily-churched cities, I'm amazed at all the pilots thinking they can travel north to go west. If they're really nerdy, they might argue, "It's like Star Wars when Luke flies his X-wing into the Death Star trench. I'm just letting the Force guide my hand. It works so much better than the navigation device." Or, if they're less nerdy, they might say, "I'm more spiritual than religious."

Okay, I get it. The stiff and hypocritical church pissed me off enough to say the same thing a few times when I was younger. I talk to people all the time about how they need to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit for guidance while they pray. Until recently, I didn't stop to think about how many people assume I'm talking about guidance apart from the Bible. Let me make this clear: the Holy Spirit always agrees with the Bible. Yes, you might hear something regarding a personal situation or an edifying word for the church meeting you attend. That doesn't mean the prophetic word can defy or contradict scripture. Paul says just as much in 1 Corinthians 14:36-38. "Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? If anyone thinks he is a prophet or is endowed with the Spirit, let him acknowledge that what I am writing you is a command of the Lord. But if someone doesn't recognize this, then let him remain unrecognized."

In the next post, I'll discuss more on the Bible's authority and inerrancy. For now, I want you to think about man's need for the Bible. I hope with this post you will begin to think of it more than a positive moral influence. I want you to see it as a detailed guide, vital to your life and relationship with God. Without it, every decision made will come from man's own fallen reason or fickle emotion. Man needs an authoritative, objective truth and I believe God revealed it in the Bible.

Seven of the Twelve - Nahum and a question of evil.

I have so many stories and songs that could serve as metaphors in Nahum. I could talk about the first time I saw my dad yell at my brothers. I was eating a PB&J in my highchair. When my large, bearded father began shouting, I froze with the sandwich halfway in front of my gaping mouth. I wondered for a second, "Is he going to kill them?" He told my brothers to go outside and they booked out the door. Dad sighed and put his face in his hands. I sat completely still, sandwich and all, just in case he turned his fury on me. After a moment, he looked up at me and saw my face. "Oh. Sorry, buddy. Did I scare you?" Yes Dad, you did.

There was the time some friends and I tricked a body-builder into letting us duct tape him to a chair. It didn't last. When he realized that we weren't rehearsing a skit about "binding the strongman" for youth camp, he flexed his whole body at once and the tape seemed to melt off of him. Watching that display of power scared me enough to think, "He might actually kill me." My friends and I survived because one roll of tape still held his ankle to the chair. God is merciful.

I was also going to try applying the lyrics of Warren G's Regulate but I think we have enough to work with here.

Reading Nahum, you might think your dad was about to kill your brothers. Or at least the neighbor kids since the prophecy concerns Nineveh in Assyria. I mean, all of the prophets know how to write doom and gloom passages, but listen to this. Speaking to Nineveh, Nahum writes in 3:5-6, "'I am against you,' says the Lord of Hosts. 'I will uncover your skirts on your face; I will show the nations your private parts and the kingdoms your shame. I will pelt you with disgusting filth, disgrace you and make a spectacle of you.'" After reading this last month, I turned to my girlfriend and asked, "How exactly did they interpret this in the Illustrated Children's Bible?"

You might file Nahum 3:5-6 under "verses we don't mention in conversation". The Bible has a few of those. Leviticus, Ecclesiastes, certain parts of Song of Solomon that can't call allegory. That sort of thing. Still, it's in the Bible for a reason. So what is God trying to say?

Nahum stated some foundational points in chapter 1. "The Lord is a jealous and vengeful God. The Lord avenges; He knows how to be angry. The Lord takes vengeance on His foes and stores up wrath for His enemies. The Lord is slow to anger, but great in power; and He does not leave the guilty unpunished." Then later in 1:7, "The Lord is good, a stronghold in times of trouble; He takes care of those who take refuge in Him."

God is good, but He knows how to be angry. This is the same, unchanging God who inspired Paul to instruct people not to sin in their anger. Anger in itself isn't sin. Why? Because God gets angry. When it agrees with God, who is perfectly good with no evil in Him, then it isn't sin. It's not always easy to think of it that way, though, because we often attempt to hold God to our faulty and incomplete standards. We compare Him to ourselves and end up with a fuzzy Xerox copy of what anger should look like.

God has every reason to be angry with Assyria. First off, they named the country after their patron deity, a demon named Assur (or Ashur). Their king performed the duties of Assur's high priest. This was no casual religion. King Sennacherib wrote of following Ashur's commands in battle. Second, they were the ones who overtook the northern kingdom of Israel, blended in with the population, and brought their gods with them. This is how God-fearing Israelites became idol-worshiping Samaritans. Micah condemned the Assyrian city of Lakhish for transmitting these pagan elements to God's people. Third, they were ruthless with the cities they conquered. Some accounts talk about brutal rape, gouging out eyes of men so they could tell of Assyria's mercilessness, and maiming men in horrific ways until they died. Pastor Craig Brown of City Church once told of an Assyrian torture where a man would have the flesh on his back peeled off by a metal rake.

This nation existed for something around 1,400 years. We're talking centuries upon centuries of horrors. I think that's why Nahum felt it necessary to remind Nineveh the Lord is slow to anger but wouldn't let them go unpunished. "You guys had well over a millennium and a visit from Jonah. Don't say God didn't warn you."

Remember in the midst of this that God is still good. While the imagery in Nahum spells disaster for Nineveh, it comforts God's people. Nahum 1:15 says, "Look! On the mountain are the feet of him who brings good news, proclaiming peace. Keep your festivals, Judah, fulfill your vows; For the wicked one will never pass through you again; he has been completely destroyed." The book closes with the people celebrating Assyria's downfall in 3:19. Speaking again to Assyria, "Your wound cannot be healed. Your injury is fatal. Everyone hearing the news about you claps his hands in joy over you. For who has not been overwhelmed by your relentless cruelty?"

Another passage of the Bible speaks of God's people celebrating their enemies coming to justice. Revelation speaks of a time when God will punish his enemies. The tone of Revelation 18:20 resembles that of Nahum 3:19. "Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against her (Babylon)."And in Revelation 19, John describes Jesus' return to punish Satan and his followers. Jesus has a sword, blood-soaked clothes, and is proclaimed as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. An angel calls all the birds of the earth to feast on the flesh of those Jesus slays. This, again, is not from the Illustrated Children's Bible.

This is, however, God's justice. Isaiah 9:7 prophesies of Jesus establishing His kingdom on earth saying, "Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this" (emphasis mine). It might be hard for us to think of this slaughter as justice but the Bible clearly calls it just that.

I had a conversation about theology with a friend of mine recently. He brought up the topic of predestination, which always makes for light discussion. During our talk, he said he used to struggle understanding how evil could exist if nothing in existence didn't come from God's hand. My voice lowered as I asked, "Don't you think that's duelist thinking?" He laughed and said, "I'm not agreeing with the idea. I'm only saying I have a hard time understanding evil. When I die and come into God's presence, all of the tumblers will fall into place and I'll finally see what is truly good and understand what is truly evil."

I walked away from that conversation still unsure if my friend believed God was both good and evil, a ying-yang creator. Something of what he said made sense, though. I believe the Bible is a perfectly true revelation of God and His character. The Bible tells me that God is good. Anything good comes from God. The Bible tells me that there is no evil, no darkness, in God. He hates evil. But I only know of God's goodness and His aversion to evil because of what He has told me in the Bible. My emotions might have at one time told me that Nineveh's destruction sounds awful, that God's command to Saul to kill every Amalekite was as wicked as any other genocide, that any hard act of God is an act of cruelty. But these are just emotional reactions not necessarily based on my standard of truth in the Bible.

All of this has caused me to wonder about God's command to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. He told them not to eat of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Was it simply an arbitrary command? Like, "let's see if they can keep this one rule"? Was it because God didn't want them to have knowledge of evil so they could prance around the garden in ignorant bliss? I'm beginning to think (and I might change my mind on this as I continue to learn) that God gave this command because finite humans couldn't understand the full context of God's perfect goodness. And if evil is that which is contrary to God and His character, one would need to fully understand what is good to know evil as its full antithesis. When we make decisions between what we think of as good and evil based on our own understanding, isn't that a recipe for failure? This strengthens my conviction that I need God the Holy Spirit to guide me into all truth.

I believe Nahum knew this while writing about private parts and feces getting tossed in someone's nose. His trust lay in God's revealed character. I needed to know that my dad loved my brothers. I later found out the body-builder was actually a pretty gentle guy. Now when I read the doomy parts of books like Nahum, I am reminded of God's goodness and this causes me to love Him more.