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Counting Calories

Tuesday, April 03rd, 2012 | Author:

Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.  Psalm 73:7  ESV

Fatness – Asaph’s description of the physical qualities of the wicked is certainly metaphorical.  Asaph is not writing about corneal edema.  He is poetically describing the results of a life of opulence; a life that pursues luxury.  But his use of the Hebrew word helev has interesting implications.  Helev is also the word used in proper religious contexts for offering the best to God.  In Leviticus it is used 45 times to describe the “fat” of sacrifices, the part that is burned as a sweet savor to the Lord.

Now we could look into the cultural context of Asaph’s poem.  We could point out that by nearly every ancient standard of wealth, almost all of us far exceed the expectations of luxury afforded to the top few of Asaph’s world.  We could decry the paucity of charity, the deliberate aversion to the plight of the poor or the proxy Christianity we find so common today.  But why make a point about what is so obvious.  Hardly anyone reading this commentary even comes close to the plight of the poor in the ancient world.  If anything, we are some of the wealthiest people who have ever lived, even if we find it tough going financially today.

I would rather concentrate our examination on the twist in the word helev.  I find it fascinating, and consequential, that the very word used to describe the spiritually dull hearts of the wicked wealthy also describes the sacrifice God most appreciates.  Scripture teaches a great deal about the excess of life.  Perhaps that lesson is no more clearly seen than in this word.  God enjoys excess.  He commands fruitfulness and multiplication.  But all this fecundity must be harnessed for His purposes.  The problem with wealth is not the treasure.  It is the use of the treasure.  Asaph correctly evaluates those who use God’s storehouse as their personal bank account.  They have turned godly sacrifice into indulgence.  In so doing, they violate two cardinal principles of God’s blessings.  First, they forget that the nexus of the divine interaction between Man and God is community, not individuality.  To have in excess means to be obligated to distribute.  To retain what is intended to nourish others is to question God’s design of the universe.

Secondly, luxury violates the principle of gratitude.  Paul makes this clear in his opening indictment of the pagan world.  Pagans are condemned not because they don’t come to Yeshua for forgiveness but because they don’t acknowledge the sovereignty of God and they are not grateful.  Luxury denies the essence of giving because it obscures the nature of a gift.  When we realize that all that we have is a gift from God, we will not despoil His generosity by turning His gift into personal accumulation.  God’s gifts are to be given.  The way to desacralize the seductive power of treasure is to give it away.  The first ruler of money – profit – is defeated by charity.  Just as we love because He first loved us, we give because He first gave to us.

Asaph calls into question our entire paradigm of economic gain.  He challenges us to consider our goals and our motives.  He demands that we recognize helev belongs to God, not to us.

Topical Index: fatness, helev, Psalm 73:7, sacrifice, money

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Spiritual Gains

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010 | Author:

Then Yeshua said to His disciples, “If any one wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Matthew 16:24

Deny – What does Yeshua’s statement mean to you?  Do you think of denial in terms of turning away from pointless affluence, seductive pleasures or immoral behavior?  Do you think that Yeshua intended us to refuse our own selfish desires in order to submit to God’s higher purposes?  Perhaps we gain a deeper understanding of the nature of denial when we apply this instruction to the specific arena of money.  Jacques Ellul helps us see this connection when he says, “When God attacks this power [money] that has us in its grip because it has aroused our love, when he tears away a treasure to which we have become attached, he is attacking us. God’s deliverance in not a stroke of a magic wand which leaves us intact, the way we were. It is a rescue of part of ourselves.  Consequently we may have the impression , the feeling, of being amputated, diminished. God who is delivering us from the shackles of this power, is also destroying its roots which have taken hold of us.”[1] In other words, the act of denial is an invitation to let God amputate.  It isn’t simply refusing to do something we really want to do.  It is asking God to cut it out of our hearts.

The Greek verb aparneomai means “to renounce, to disown.”  Yeshua reminds us that renouncing other lovers is a requirement of following Him.  This is no different than the requirement of the first commandment.  YHWH has exclusive right to the love of His children and He will tolerate no rival, even if that rival has roots deep within our own personalities.  Exorcism must follow.  The fact that Yeshua demands such exclusivity in a Jewish culture is another indication that He is God manifest in the flesh.  If this were not the case, His requirement could be nothing but idolatry.

Consider what this means for our world’s preoccupation with money.  Money and wealth are not the same.  Money is a tool.  It is to be used as a tool.  That means it has no intrinsic value.  It is not something to be enjoyed in itself.  It is to be used to bring about those purposes and plans that enrich life and advance the Kingdom.  God grants wealth.  He grants it to those who are equipped to accomplish His purposes with their abundance.  Not all respond appropriately to His gift.  The consequences of this rejection will be worked out in the Judgment.  Not all are wealthy, but money touches everyone.  Whenever we convert money into a goal rather than a tool, we invest value into it and make it into an idol.  God intends us to use money, not to collect it.  In fact, money has no purpose aside from its use to bring about restoration.  That doesn’t mean it is only used for evangelism.  That is too limited.  Money is a tool that should be used to enhance life.  It is life that has value.  Money is simply a means to bring life to the full.

Does that mean our objective is to have as much comfort and convenience as money can buy?  Of course not.  Wherever life suffers from lack of money, we who have the tool need to apply it.  Believe me, there are enormous opportunities to enhance life that do not include jet skis and iPods.  When those opportunities are fulfilled, then there will be time to think about jet skis.

Let’s consider one simple example.  The norms of business often provide commission payments in financial deals.  Good business could be defined as doing everything according to the norms – or – we could act on the basis of Kingdom ethics, deny that money is anything more than a tool, and be generous toward others whenever we are able.  We can remove the power of money by refusing to allow it to determine our behavior.

Is God amputating a bit of your worldview today?  Are you assisting Him in the exorcism of subtle idolatry?

Topical Index:  deny, aparneomai, money, Ellul, Matthew 16:24

[1] Jacques Ellul, Money and Power, p. 85.

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The Remedy

Saturday, July 31st, 2010 | Author:

Then the Almighty will be your gold and choice silver to you. Job 22:25

Then – It’s about the money!  For most of us, it’s always about the money.  In Job’s day, it was about the gold and the silver.  I suppose that a lot of us wish we have gold and silver instead of the promise on paper we carry in our wallets and purses.  But the concerns haven’t changed if even the commodity of exchange has.  What Eliphaz says here has a direct bearing on our struggles with money, and in particular, with our temptations toward greed.

Actually, there isn’t any Hebrew word justifying the translation “then” in this verse.  The first word of the verse is hayah – “will be.”  The temporal conditional “then” is added in order to draw a connection between the first action that Eliphaz suggests to Job and the subsequent result Job will experience.  Eliphaz suggests that Job treat his gold as dust and his silver as if it were common riverbed stones.  Then something will happen.  Job will see that his real wealth is found in El Shaddai, the Almighty.

We probably agree with Eliphaz.  It’s good advice.  We acknowledge that the Almighty really is the source of whatever prosperity we enjoy.  He is our true silver and gold.  But acknowledging the truth of Eliphaz’s statement isn’t quite the same as doing something about it, is it?  It’s hard to think of our wealth as nothing more than dust and river rock.  Jacque Ellul made the point that money – and the greed that usually accompanies it – must be desacrementalized.  We must turn the power of money upside down.  We must remove its pull from our consciousness.  How do we do that?  By demonstrating our declarations in concrete action.  If we say that our true gold is God, then we must actually treat our wealth as if it had no more power, and was of no more concern, than dust.  We demonstrate the truth of the Almighty’s sovereignty over our borrowed wealth by showing the world that it has no attachment to us.  We give it away!

“We see than that wealth is a down payment; it is the first part of the fulfillment.  God has promised grace, and he begins to fulfill this promise by acting in this material way [by granting us wealth].”[1]

“In our world, we solve our problems all alone with our technology, our science, our money, our political parties; God does not answer because we do not call him.  The poor do not call on him, and those who call him are the rich.   . . . The  Bible calls anyone who has no real need of God’s help rich.   . . . The church cannot be an assembly of the rich; it is made for  poor outsiders.”[2] We should be deeply distressed when we enter a church that is not filled to the brim with those who are in need.  A comfortable ease found in most sanctuaries is only a symptom that we are indeed among the rich, the ones who really no longer depend on El Shaddai for their status in life.  As the church accommodates itself to the symbols of success, it turns its back on the least of these, and on the Lord of the least of these.

Yeshua spoke more about money than any other subject.  He knew how much we value that dust and those river rocks.  He knew that concrete actions to remove the false and idolatrous holiness of money require enormous faith.  The world will offer no consolation.  To find our wealth in the Father is to shun the wealth-accumulating frenzy of the world.  What will you do today to affirm that you know gold is nothing but dust?

Topical Index: then, gold, dust, money, Job 22:25, Jacques Ellul

[1] Jacques Ellul, Money & Power, p. 64.

[2] Ellul, pp. 153, 152, 150.

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Life Together

Tuesday, February 03rd, 2009 | Author:

You husbands, likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and grant her honor as a fellow-heir of the grace of life;  1 Peter 3:7

Life Together

Fellow-heir – No one wants a marriage that doesn’t work.  When we walk down the aisle, when we take the vows, we all have “Hope” written on our faces.  We want what Peter offers – “grace of life.”  The problem is that once we settle into marriage, we soon discover that grace is not as easy to sustain as we thought.  “Everyday everythings” get in the way until our hope is a fragile dream rather than a solid foundation.  Some of us are blessed.  We truly experience voluntary, mutual submission and joyous reunion.  But most of us have to work at it, just like the audience of Peter’s letter.  And Peter has some very good, Torah-based advice for those of us who hope and struggle.  Once more, he has something important to say to husbands.  Give her the checkbook.

Oops.  That isn’t what it says, is it?  Well, let’s take a look.

“Fellow heir” is really “co-heir” (sugkleronomoi).  This word comes from two Greek words which mean “allotments together”.  Uncovering the imagery of the two words makes the concept even stronger than “fellow-heir”.  It suggests one allotment shared by both parties.  It is not an equal lot but the same lot.  Here is a word that perfectly pictures God’s plan for marriage – one flesh sharing in one purpose.  In this case, the husband is to ensure that his partner is sharing the same allotment in “the grace of life” – charitos zoes.  Charitos is from charis, the word for grace, rejoice, joy, pleasure, gratification, acceptance, kindness, benefit, thanks and gratitude.  We can see how all-encompassing this expression is.  Marriage is a single allotment of grace, rejoicing, joy, pleasure, gratification, acceptance, kindness, benefit, thanks and gratitude.  The husband is responsible to ensure that all of these attributes of charitos occur in his marriage.  This is the result of “yada according to yada“.  These are covenant attributes.

Peter is reaching the end of his commentary on Torah obligations for marriage.  There is only one more part of the verse – the consequences for ignoring these instructions.  But we should notice that even though Christian circles have often placed the emphasis on Peter’s instructions to wives (verses 1-6), the responsibility of husbands cannot be dismissed.  In fact, if you go back to those first six verses, you will find that they are filled with practical advice for dealing with husbands who are not fulfilling their God-given assignment.  The instructions to wives are not spelled out in covenant language.  You don’t find words like “honor,” “co-heir” or “grace of life” in that section.  But you find those Scriptural covenant terms here – applied to the responsibility of husbands.  Maybe we need to see this shift in emphasis before we go running off proclaiming that the husband is the “head” of the home.  Maybe the husband qualifies as head of the home only insofar as he is fulfilling his covenant-language responsibility.  And if that is the case, then there is nothing as important as equal inheritance.  Don’t spiritualize this one.  You could make it about sharing in love and legacy or calling and comfort, but co-heirs is probably most often observed in handling the assets of marriage.  A man who withholds the purse strings probably also withholds grace. 

Certainly “grace of life” includes far more than what’s in the bank account.  Peter is interested in the full meaning of grace, just as God is interested in grace as the basis for our inheritance with Him.  But grace is evidenced in very practical ways.  One of those is money management.  There’s a reason why Jesus talked more about money than almost any other subject.  Too often our use of money is an indicator of our real life values.  In marriage, that indicator better demonstrate “co-heirs in grace.”

So, what’s the most important thing in your wallet – the paper with some dead man’s face on it, or the picture of the one who shares your life?

Topical Index:  co-heir, sugkleronomoi, grace, marriage, money

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Taking A Bite

Sunday, November 30th, 2008 | Author:

You shall not lend on interest to your brother Deuteronomy 23:19

Interest – What do we do with a commandment like this?  Our entire global economy is based on financial leverage.  Interest is an integral part of this mix.  How could God command us not to loan funds without any profit?

There are several verses in the Scriptures that speak about interest-bearing loans.  You might look at Psalm 15:5 or Exodus 22:25.  Of course, there is also Deuteronomy 23:21, the very next verse, which says interest-bearing loans to foreigners are acceptable.  Finally, you could look at the implication in the great blessing of Deuteronomy 28:12.  The simple fact is that God expects a different behavior toward those within His community.  The legislation about interest-free loans applies to action between followers, not to everyone.  If we looked carefully at the Hebrew word for “interest,” we would see why this is the case.

The Hebrew verb here, nashak, also means “to bite.”  The pictograph of this Hebrew word really paints a picture we would recognize immediately – biting the hand that feeds you.  Why is interest described as biting the hand that feeds you?  Two important factors help us understand this image and its implications for the community.  First, from the Hebrew worldview, every blessing comes from God.  If I am wealthy enough to be able to make a loan, it wasn’t my money in the first place.  My wealth is a direct result of God’s blessing.  I am merely the steward of His treasure.  Therefore, He determines how I am to use it, not me.  Secondly, the circumstances surrounding loans to fellow believers imply that these loans are given to those members of God’s community who are in real need.  These are not loans so I can buy a new car or take a vacation.  These are loans so that I can stay alive.  The idea is that one of my brothers in the faith has fallen on desperate times.  God says, “You are to help him without expectation of profit.”  In the cultural setting of the 14th Century BCE, these loans were given as a shield against abject poverty.  They were not so much financial transactions as they were charity.  God expected His people to be gracious to each other.  After all, the money was His.

Why is loaning money with interest like biting the hand that feeds you?  The only reason you have the money needed to make a loan is because God gave it to you.  So, to take advantage of the blessing God gave you by charging interest to one of His own is literally to bite God’s hand.  The commandment is simple:  Don’t do it!

On the other hand, the Torah does allow interest on loans to those outside the community.  These loans are not expressions of charity.  They are business transactions, and the Scriptures explicitly allow profit from such transactions.  The Scriptures never allow exorbitant rates but they do allow reasonable interest.  Even some of Jesus’ parables imply that business transactions with bankers should bring profit.  So, rest easy.  You have a different obligation to those inside the household of God, but it doesn’t apply to everyone.  Or so it seems, until we take seriously Jesus’ requirement to love our enemies.  What is allowed may not always be what love requires.  Jesus’ commentary on the Torah gives us something else to wrestle with, doesn’t it?

Topical Index:  Money

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