Contagious
Good and upright is the LORD. Therefore He guides offenders on the way. Psalm 25:8 Robert Alter translation
Therefore – When you think of God as good, what comes to mind? Do you think of His moral character—blameless, holy, perfect? Do you think of His blessings—prosperity, happiness, health? How is God’s goodness connected to the Hebrew word yashar (here translated “upright”)? Does “good and upright” only mean what is good for you?
The Hebrew phrase tov-veyashar is found frequently in the Tanakh. Goodness is integrally connected to the straight path, the blameless way. When it comes to God, yashar is used to describe His reign, His ways, His words and His judgments. The Hebrew idiom, “straight,” “upright,” is the expression of this blameless manner of life, applied first to God and then to all who meet the standard. But, of course, that means there is a standard and that standard is what God does. In the Hebraic worldview, what God does is good and everything He does is blameless. If we desire to be yashar, we will have to be like Him and that means acting according to His example. We will need to be godly verbs.
David suggests a rather startling implication. As a result of God being good and upright, He guides offenders. The Hebrew is al-ken (“therefore”). But this seems to be exactly the wrong conclusion. God is good and upright. That means He is holy, perfect, blameless, praiseworthy, unimpeachable. We would expect a person of this character to have nothing to do with hattaim (sinners). We would expect such a person to put up protective walls, guard purity, withdraw from the corrupt world. But that would be Greek-thinking, precisely what we are most likely to do. The Hebrew God is not impugned by contact with a sinful world. In fact, God’s goodness entails involvement with the world of sinners. God does exactly the opposite of our expectation.
David’s insight challenges one of our strongest but mistaken assumptions. We think that the way to maintain a life of purity, uprightness and moral goodness is to withdraw from sinners. We think that sin is infectious, that contact alone causes tainted lives. We treat sin as if it were leprosy rather than inner rebellion. You can’t catch insurrection by contact.
Do you become a liar in the presence of liars? Are you a thief because you know a thief? Do you commit adultery because your best friend had an affair? Must you covet because your brother covets? Yes, the temptation to accommodation increases, but does that make you commit the offense? If that were so, Yeshua would be a drunk, a cheat and promiscuous. If you are of high moral character and blameless, but you refuse to involve yourself with those who are opposed to God’s standard, then how are you like Him?
Topical Index: good, tov, upright, yashar, therefore, al ken, sinners, Psalm 25:8
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When I look at the little that I think I know about the Hebrew economy, I see a nation designed and instructed to be not only a light to the nations around them, but to actively proselytize them. They were given ways to not only interact with gentiles,but ways to incorporate gentiles: this includes orders to incorporate them into full citizenship. I am thinking of cases like Rahab or Ruth, or even runaway slaves. In David’s reign, he subjected the surrounding nations and put them under tribute, etc. but Solomon took this interacting even further, by marrying into them. Looking at it, he was not wrong in seeking interaction, I am sure he probably had an earnest desire to reveal to them the truth, but he disobeyed in HOW that interaction occurred. He married them instead of converting them.
I don’t see that they ever were able to figure out how to overcome the evil around them with the good. Instead, I see them copying that evil, and being even worse. The Babylonian captivity did seem to manage to cure them of idolatry, but, sadly, the conclusion they eventually came to was to not interact with gentiles at all.
The story of the Good Samaritan is a picture of HOW goodness really works. It is not afraid to get down in the ditch: it is not afraid of cooties.
On the outside, though, from a flesh perspective, it does appear that contact with evil inspires evil. We read the verses about shunning evil associates and that is something that I can understand in the flesh. It is like a small child being instructed not to wiggle in church. The instruction does not remove the wiggle factor; it suppresses it through fear. But if the small child next door wiggles, then all of a sudden, a license seems to appear. The principle of FAIRNESS, of all things, seems to be perfectly applicable, and the wiggles feel free to wiggle.
When I see the abhorrence the Jews exhibited toward the gentiles around them, I think I see a people who only understand goodness from a works standpoint. If you are trying to refrain from idolatry from a flesh point, then the only way you are not going to wiggle every time the person next to you wiggles is to believe that he is not just like you.
But, wait! The whole basis I see for me to be GOOD to the person next to me is because I believe that that person is just like me! Isn’t that what Paul is instructing us in Galatians when he says for the church to bear the unbearable burdens of those around us, keeping in mind that we are just like them? I am supposed to see myself in them. Isn’t that why Jesus Christ of Nazareth came in the flesh, so that He could become “reckoned with the transgressors”? So that He could be just like me?
The only way I see I can stop REACTING to the sin in others; to stop being ‘infected’, or, actually, on closer examination, being LICENSED to do the same thing, or to have a flesh reaction, is to do what Paul also says, which is to walk after the spirit, and not after the flesh.
In fact, the way I read it, I do not even have a real WAY in my flesh to be good to others, and yet remain upright myself. Interesting that those two concepts are so often presented together! I am either going to have to believe I am somehow ‘different’ from that person I am being ‘good’ to, which automatically is going to translate into me condescending to them (or, if I am operating in a spirit of victimization, of kowtowing to them), or I am going to have to believe that I am really just like them, which is going to translate into me having to condone their behavior. And, of course, if I am in agreement with where they are in the flesh, I am back to only practicing phileo goodness with only people who are not in my ‘enemy’ category. And I am not practicing agape G-dliness, which is the ability to act in someone else’s interests while they are yet alienated from me.
Only in the Spirit of G-d can I escape from this conundrum. Upon examination, it is simply impossible to love my enemy in my flesh.
I find the Golden Rule fascinating. There is no equivalent for it outside of Judeo-Christianity. The closest thing I have seen is the Confucian quote C.S. Lewis records in The Abolition Of Man, which states “Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you”. But if I look at this closely, it still stays within the natural principle (law of the flesh) of mutual reciprocity. The Golden Rule, more than anything else in Judeo-Christianity, is the most alien aspect of all to the natural human mind that I have been able to find. I do not believe we could have ever even have thought it in the flesh. Hmm. We probably cannot even truly ‘think’ (do) it in the flesh even if we are Christians; even if we have been ‘taught’ it (heard it being spoken to us); even if we agree with Paul where he says that he agrees with the Law, that it is “good” with his mind, yet in his flesh he obeys another law! All the more reason to stay out of that flesh!
Thank you, Skip, for the Galatians recordings!
Laurita,
Thank you so much for putting many of my thoughts into written words.
I have been reading some books by Lee White, Fossilized Customs is one of them. It is so startling to me how much we as a people have allowed, and on the most part, been taught through the traditions of men and just the good ole idea of a good time, the idea of idolatry into every single area of our lives! Oh how my heart aches with repulsion and repentance for the way we have believed and lived! How could we abandon those around us and let them fall further or remain in the slavery from which we ourselves struggle to become free from. I pray for the strength and wisdom to live my life in a witness that speaks without shoving and purity that somehow only my Abba can provide within me. Wow, now that is a tall order knowing this girl and my whole self!
“that is a tall order knowing this girl and my whole self!”
Yep, me too! Sometimes, my mouth runs much faster than my feet.
My husband says I lack the filter between my mouth and my brain, bless him if he only had a clue jus exactly what really does get filtered!
hahahahaha. Exactly.
Where the Fish Are
When I could not come to where He was, – He came to me.
~ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children ~ ( Matthew 11:18-19 )
And as He was being crucified, He had this sign placed above His head: “Jesus- King of the Jews.” I would “suggest” this additional sign: “Jesus, Friend of Sinners.” He not only touched, but *embraced* the leper!
My neighborhood, my workplace, my home, and my “world” (the world where I now live and move and have my being) has no shortage of sinners. Starting with the center, (an observation from the guy who I shave everyday) and working my way outward from there, -my wife? sinner. My children? sinners,- every one. My closest neighbors? Sinners also.
And as I review Biblical history, starting with our (not-so-great) great-great grandparents, Adam and Eve, their children, and their (not-so) grand children, a pattern emerges: ~ *ALL* have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God..” and yet.. And yet we have this “instruction” from our Father: “Be perfect, even as I AM perfect.” Who then, is “Perfection Personified?” “ALL” have sinned, with the exception of One. – One and only One!
Jesus Christ, “THE” Righteous. “The” Anointed One. “The” Christ. (Hopefully) this will be helpful to many: How well we hear this and how well we receive this will determine to a large degree, how well we live. The “quality” of our hearing will determine the “quality” of our living. I too, will “incline my ears” to hear this: *There is ONLY one perfect Man ever to have lived.*
He, and He alone is the Standard of Holiness. As for the rest of us? (We the people)- Sinners all. Remember the Standard. *it is the LORD!* Do not stretch yourself out alongside the sinner in the gutter and say- “I’m an inch longer than he (or she) is! No, the Standard, our Standard is Christ (Himself). He (and He alone) is the full measure of righteousness, love, compassion and holiness.
~ Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith ~ (Always-ever-only) looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith. ~ (Consistently-Continually-Consciously) looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith. Why? Because of Him and to Him and through Him are (only?) ALL things! Christ is the Center. Christ is the Compass. Christ is the Circumference. ~ *In Him* lives all the fulness of the Godhead, bodily. ~ In Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body! ~ and Who is the LORD that I should obey Him? ~ Shall we? Should we?
What were the clear instructions of His mother to the servants? ~ Whatever He says unto you- “do it!” ~ For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. “Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his Master, nor is one who is sent greater than the One who sent him. ~ * If you know these things, – you are blessed if you do them! *
(Fellow sinners), ~ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness ~ (I John 1.9)
One call, – does it all.
It is written: ~ Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the LORD shall be saved ~ (Romans 10.13)
The Father’s plan for Jesus
is the plan He has for us!
In Jn 20:21 it says: “So Jesus said to them again,
“Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also
send you.”
Earlier in John’s Gospel, Jesus is recorded as being
more specific. “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who
believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and
greater works than these he will do, because I go to
My Father.” Jn 14:12
The plan, the works, are to be among the lost and reveal
to them the love of God, and His Son, who leads to eternal life.
If anything is contagious, it’s love. His love.
And all must happen in His Way. Again, John’s Gospel
points it out. “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits
nothing. The words I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”
Jn 6:63
Rich, good points–they have spurred me to thinking, perhaps in a little different direction. So many believers don’t get involved with the “world’s problems” because we think those problems are beyond our capabilities. We leave them for God to sort out. I believe some of that thinking comes from a misunderstanding of the verse you quoted, John 14:12. If we think Jesus had to be God to do the things He did, well, then, what does this verse say about us? I believe Jesus was the Son of God, and that was sufficient for Him. If Jesus is God, and we are to do greater works than Him, then are we doing greater things than God? The logic here is ridiculous.
Thomas,
Jesus was speaking about the power of multiplication.
He implied that He was only one Man. The disciples
were many. And about to become more.
Jesus’ ministry was only in Palestine. The disciples were
commissioned to go to all nations, thus doing greater works
in greater numbers in a greater number of locations.
In addition, Jesus referring to go to the Father has historically
been seen as an indication of the Father sending the Holy Spirit
to empower the disciples.
You and I have that empowerment today!