Rare but Potent
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 2 Timothy 3:2 NASB
Boastful – Not exactly! The NASB translation of alazon doesn’t quite capture the idea Paul has in mind. That’s because in the Tanakh and the LXX, alazon points us to yahir, a Hebrew word used only twice in the Tanakh, once in Proverbs 21:24 and once in Habakkuk 2:5. The TWOT comments:
Both the Hebrew parallels and the Greek translation clarify the meaning. In Prov the parallel words are zēd “presumptuous, haughty” and lēṣ “scoffer” (q.v.) which are further described as “one who acts with insolent pride” (zādôn). In Hab “the haughty, arrogant man” is one who, betrayed by wine, is motivated by greed. In short, his confidence is not in the Lord who is in control of the destinies of all men. In Wisdom 5:8 alazoneia (“what has our arrogance profited us?”) is set in contrast to the ways of the Lord and thus separates from God.[1]
Gilchrist notes that Paul’s list in 2 Timothy describes “the unregenerate who deserve to die for these sinful practices.”[2] Clearly, alazon is serious. The point of alazon is not bragging but rather the rejection of God’s sovereignty. These people live according to their own evaluation of good and evil. Proverbs reveals that such lives are driven by greed; greed for anything that enhances their control.
In the last days, men (anthropoi – people) will reject the sovereignty of the Lord. They will think life should be lived on their terms. They will crave whatever enhances their desires and purposes. They will ignore the needs of their neighbors and concentrate on themselves. They will refuse to be grateful for God’s gifts and will consider what they have as the product of their own hands. They will magnify themselves, exalt themselves and enrich themselves. They will consider inflation a necessity for personal improvement. None of these characteristics require actual fulfillment. It is enough to be driven by them even if the desired result never occurs. If they don’t get what they want, then the alazon will decry the “unfairness” of life because they did not get what they deserved!
Ego, desire, control, entitlement, greed and self-importance know no limits. A world occupied by alazon is hell on earth where every man thinks himself to be the center of the universe. Perhaps you and I need a planetary analysis. Who do you think orbits your celestial plane? Who do you want to circulate around you? Just how important are you to yourself? And when you finish looking at your navel, gaze upward to the stars and ask yourself how much of this universe you really occupy?
Topical Index: arrogance, pride, boastful, alazon, yahir, 2 Timothy 3:2, Habakkuk 2:5
[1] Gilchrist, P. R. (1999). 851 יהר. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (370). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Ibid.
The opposite of the voluntary bending of the yatzer ha-ra to the will of God, which will clear the space necessary to fill a person completely with His love, is to experience a HUUUUUUUGE vacuum. And nature abhors vacuums. The devil did not invent nature or her laws, including the laws of our nature. So we experience something that MUST be filled. Filled with what? The ‘control’ that is supposed to be the CHOICE of handing over one’s own will to GOD ONLY gets metamorphosed into externals. When I bend my will to His, my view of myself clears up: I can then ‘see’ myself clearly; I KNOW (experience) myself correctly, the way I was created to be. Why? Because the handing over of my will, moment by moment, to the MOTIVES and ACTIONS (yes, it takes the one to produce the other, folks) of love FILLS me with what I was created to be filled with: the love of God. But when I do not see myself clearly (which is the proper view of myself as an extension of God and others; a part of a continuum of this big big love fest), then I end up with a view that tells me the truth; tells me that I am fractured from God and others. This view of this fracture is terrifying! It is the literal experience of being Out Of ‘Control’. What control? The control of love. It is this control that Paul writes of in 2Cor. 5:24-21: that “constraint” that “makes all things new” so that we live no more “unto ourselves” because we have been rejoined to the commonwealth (love that word!): that continuum of love that we were fractured from by sin.
The experience of the LACK of love is the experience of death, literally. It is torment: it hurts. Things die inside every moment that I am not experiencing love! I was created to run on love! When I cannot ‘see’ myself clearly; when I am NOT experiencing the Love That Comes From Beyond Me, my body, and mind and spirit instantly goes into FEAR. Fear is good: fear is a signpost that says “Turn around and get out of here, fast!” So what do we do with that fear? When we do not have the Word of God as a guide, or when we do not turn to It every time we find ourselves in this place, we start searching for another word to guide us, because fear is a blinding experience, and we must see! Then what shows up? Another ‘interpreter’ that whispers in our ear and says “This is the way to go; walk ye in it”. And why do we listen? Because we are hardwired to follow a word! We think we are ‘telling ourselves’. But are we? Or are we just doing what we have been trained to do, which is follow another word? Yes, I have something that is ‘my own will’, but in every moment I am making a choice WITH THAT WILL to either follow Life, which is to literally follow the directions of that Good Word, or I am following Death (sin), which is that ‘other’ word, is it not? Moses, and Joshua, who repeated him, did not leave us the ‘other’ choice, that modern mythical choice that we were taught from the other word exists, but does not; namely, the ‘Our Own Way’ choice. Someone try to prove to me that it exists! Neither Moses nor Joshua seemed to think so! And I think that, to the extent that we do, is to the extent that we are being hoodwinked.
To be trained in the Law of Sin is to be trained in the myth of My Own Way. Literally. Why is that a sin? Because it is a lie! Believing a lie is sin. The above list, that Skip is whaling through (thank you so much!), is a list of motives and their actions based on a big bunch of beliefs that ARE NOT SO. The devil takes a truth (you are outside of the control (constraint) of the love of God), and replaces it with HIS rest of the sentence: “so therefore you must seek ‘control’ yourself”. This becomes our attempt to fill that intolerable void, that vacuum where Love should have been. There is no ‘control’ of ‘self’ possible without God! That is another myth. If you think you are ‘in control’ by your own will, of anything, yourself or the outer world, you are walking in a belief of something that is not so. No such thing. Either God is in control, or the Dark Side. There is no such thing as “The Force be with YOU”, because there is no such thing as My Own Way for a Force to be with. Oh, we are easy pickin’s! We have been trained so wrong for so long!
The above verse is a list of spiritual realities that we go into when we fall for the myth of My Own Way. These are the attempts to ‘control’ that we are left with when we buy that big bridge out on that prairie. Because we have no clear view of ‘self’ (LOL) without seeing the truth of ourselves as part of a continuum, which Skip keeps trying over and over to show us, outside of that unifying love, we buy any distortion that shows up. I am convinced the modern distortion that we have been trained in, almost to perfection, is the myth of Self. What a perfect straw man for a devil to snuggle himself into! No wonder we are in such torment! Once we buy that bridge, it opens the way for every other lie to come traipsing across to ‘sell’ us more ‘ways’ for that mythical ‘Self’ to “control’ its mythical ‘self’ and that terrifying Other Reality Outside Self that we are left fractured from when we are outside the Love that was supposed to keep us connected to it.
It is a lack of CONNECTION that creates the vacuum that the myth of ‘control’ tries to fill. But it is that Big Bridge On The Prairie of ‘self’ that I firmly believe we have been sold in the first place that all the rest of this miserable rack of Ways To Control comes knocking on our door across from.
Want a fun exercise? You can do this! Try breaking down the above verse, using what you know is true from Scripture, and list to yourself the lies you would have to be believing before you would be tempted to be any of the ways that it lists. Yes. The devil is in the details. When we go looking at the details, he comes into focus, and then we can see that sneaky enemy. The biggest lie that we have been sold is that he (the enemy) is ‘us’ (self)! Not so! And if you believe that, I have a bridge…..
THE FIRST CHOICE
Is it about what man does and is?
Or is it about who God is and what He’s done for man?
Who made the first move?
Paul notes from first hand experience in Gal 1:15-16 that God
“called me through His grace to reveal His Son in me.”
Jesus Himself cleared up any confusion when He said to His
disciples “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.”
As Master and Lord, He called us first. It was His choice to love us
and die for us and invite us to Himself.
JESUS MADE THE FIRST CHOICE.
For those of us who have chosen to receive this invite and in
the newness of life obey His teaching, Jesus has said: “My Father
will love him and We will come to him and make our home with him.”
Jn 14:23
I often wonder as I look out at this current world, how many have
actually received this incomprehensible invitation and God is, in fact,
making His home with them?
It’s time to pray that more of them do.
I am convinced that many more have received the invitation than have accepted it. It cost God to give the invitation, but it costs men to accept it. Therein lies the rub.
Is it only me or is Skip on a roll with succinct, knife-point memorable lines? “Just how important are you to yourself? And when you finish looking at your navel, gaze upward to the stars and ask yourself how much of this universe you really occupy?” Wow.