THE WORD OF RUTH BADER GINSBURG

Something disturbing happened in a Bloomfield, New Jersey synagogue on the evening of Friday, September 18, 2020. It occurred in the midst of the most important religious cycle in the Jewish calendar, ten days often referred to as the High Holy Days.  The first holy day is Rosh Hashanah, which welcomes the Jewish New Year. During the first night of the service, the Bible reading is always from 1 Samuel 1:1-2:10.  

The text describes how Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, prayed to God to bless her with a son, whom she later entrusted to Eli, the high priest. The traditional reading ends with Hannah's prayer thanking God and prophesying the coming of the Messiah. The final sentence of Hannah’s prayer is amazing: “The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed”

 When Hannah prayed this, Israel had no king, no monarchy; she lived in the time of the judges, so her prayer is prophetic, looking forward to the time when a king would rule the nation. Also, Hannah’s reference to God’s “anointed” is a clear messianic prophecy.

That prayer is always read in its entirety at the New Year's synagogue service. But not on that night, in that synagogue in New Jersey and that is what was so troubling.

The Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments, are a divine document, a divinely inspired document. Jesus said it was and is, as did the apostles who wrote what God wanted them to write, just as he Old Testament authors did in their day. 

However, on September 18, the rabbi set aside the reading of the Word of God and told the assembled that those who want God's words to usher in the New Year could go and find them elsewhere. Yes, that's what he said. So, what did the rabbi read instead of the Bible?

On that evening, he felt it was more important to read the words of another "prophet," (his word, not mine)--Ruth Bader Ginsburg, not the Bible. This is the way rabbi put it to the congregation: "I'll invite you to listen as . . . we read a few key teachings in Ruth Bader Ginsburg's own words as a way to bring out her memory and to pay homage to her. I hope you'll take these into your heart and use them for inspiration as each of you seek to make this world a better place." 

As Andrea Widberg writes, "And so we [had] this spectacle: to honor Ginsburg's staunch defense of killing babies — the Baal practice that the Bible strongly condemns,  a rabbi, in a grotesque mockery . . . recited, not the Word of God, but the word of Ginsburg." 

What was happening on September 18 was an echo of what had happened earlier in the history of Israel when a king heard the Word of God read to him: "Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month, with a fire burning in the brazier before him. When Jehudi had read three or four columns, the king cut it with a scribe’s knife and threw it into the fire that was in the brazier, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier. Yet the king and all his servants who heard all these words were not afraid, nor did they rend their garments."

Did the congregation just sit there as the the rabbi tossed the Bible into the fire for a man-made substitute? Did anyone object, was anyone afraid, did anyone metaphorically rend their garments? Was anyone's soul tortured by what they heard and saw? Andrea Widberg raised her voice to object and even dared to criticize the uncritisizable in print. Is there one more?

There is a historical parallel we find in Acts 12:21-22: "On an appointed day Herod, having put on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum and began delivering an address to them. The people kept crying out, “The voice of a god and not of a man!”

There is a price to pay when the voice of the government becomes the Word of God. 

BEHEADING GEORGE WASHINGTON

 "More than three weeks after its namesake was beheaded on campus, and following pressure from its own professors, George Washington University finally acknowledged [after three weeks] the criminal act [of beheading the statue of George Washington] with a brief statement." 

In Portland, "Demonstrators pulled down the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of Jefferson High School"

A college news organization polled students at George Washington University, asking if they support the nationwide riots and looting. Overwhelmingly, students said that the riots and looting are "justified." One student said, "If change is gonna come, there’s gonna be some violence."

"In one widely publicized episode . . . assembled students [at Evergreen College] shouted down the university president for gesticulating normally as he addressed them.  Some students found this threatening. Someone yelled, 'Stop pointing, George!' The president, George Bridges, appeared momentarily stunned and then obeyed, meekly announcing, "My hands are down." The crowd burst into applause and laughter. Bridges held his hands up as if to say, 'I surrender.'

"In another incident [at Evergreen College], protesters surrounded the library building and barricaded the exits with furniture. Some of them interrupted a faculty meeting inside and stole a cake about to be served in honor of retiring professors. They carried it out and handed pieces to their fellow demonstrators. Others gathered outside the president's office and refused to let him leave the building. Clearly, many of them relished controlling and humiliating others, especially authority figures."

"Everyone is reading from a tired script . . . settling into a calcified habit of saying things like"We don't feel safe' and "Stop hurting us!' It's too late to stop the normalization of this behavior. It has already become essentially institutionalized at universities and, increasingly, elsewhere." (Spencer Case)

"This fall at Washington and Lee University (removal of Lee pending), students will learn reading writing, arithmetic — and 'How to Overthrow the State.' As riots have continued in Portland for almost 100 nights, students at the Virginia university named after George Washington and Robert E. Lee will study Marxist revolutions in the Global South, complete with role-playing regime change."

"Writing Seminar 100-18, “How to Overthrow the State,” will award each student three credits toward graduation. This course places each student at the head of a popular revolutionary movement aiming to overthrow a sitting government and forge a better society,”

 SOLUTION?

What's going to stop all this violent, academic nonsense? Rational discourse? Assigning book reports like "Washington at Valley Forge"? Maybe a reading of "The Federalist Papers"? How about a classroom showing of the movie, "The Patriot"? 

Let's get real and in getting real, a look at the Old Book can point the way. The Bible states in story and in statement that there are people who can reach a point of no return; there are people who cross the line of rebellion and become people with whom you cannot reason (Romans 1 et al.). 

We find the classic case of such a person in the account of the first king of Israel, Saul. We watch him cross the line in his years of interactions with David. As David begins to ascend to hero status, Saul begins his descent into madness. 

 It may not have been a wise move on the part of the women of Israel to compose a song that hit number 1 on the charts, but that's what they did. We read, "It happened as they were coming, when David returned from killing the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy and with musical instruments.  The women sang as they played, and said,

“Saul has slain his thousands,
And David his ten thousands.”

"Then Saul became very angry, for this saying displeased him; and he said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, but to me they have ascribed thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?” Saul looked at David with suspicion from that day on."

Then we read that Saul attempted to murder David, but his aim was bad; the spear with which an enraged Saul wanted to pin David to the wall missed its mark. Then we read of David on the run from Saul as Saul and the military tried in vain to hunt him down and kill him. For at least 7 years David hid in caves as a frothing at the mouth Saul chased him all over Israel. The might of the government wanted David dead. Sometimes Saul was sorry, "I have played the fool and erred exceedingly," he said. But later, he was right back on the hunt.

There was a point that Saul reached in which there was no reasoning with him, no Bible verse you could give him, no scathing denunciation that would change him. Even the remonstrances of God's anointed prophet Samuel fell on ears of stone; come what may, he would have David's head on a pike or he would die trying. There's no reasoning with evil.

Saul had rid the nation of the mediums, the people were not to consult them. But, Saul, to whom the rules didn't apply and were for the common people, but not him, went to consult one. By divine intervention he's told that in the battle the next day, he's going to die. Knowing that, he still goes into the fight and winds up like Hitler, a suicide so the enemy wouldn't take him alive. Instead of his pinning David to the wall, the Philistines took the slain body of Saul, cut off his head, stripped off his armor, and fastened his body to the wall of Bethshan. 

You can't reason with a Saul because "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction." And because "If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet." (Proverbs 29:9)

Thousands in the younger generation have been raised in a culture and nurtured in an educational environment from kindergarten through college of ideological kerosene in which there is no fear of the  Lord ( a positive response to God and His Word). We're seeing their graduation party. 

As with Saul, there is no reasoning with them. They've crossed the Rubicon of no return. What else should we have expected having removed God's Word from every nook and cranny of our society, having ridiculed those who proclaim it, having shamed, slandered, and ruined those who sought to live it? The ideological kerosene has done its work. The flames in our cities have felt its heat.

In view of this, four texts of encouragement roar to the surface. 

II Timothy 1:7--"For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline." 

Matt. 19:26--"And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." 

John 16:33: "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." 

Psalm 2: "Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? .  . . And the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, 'Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!^' He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them."

MAX LUCADO'S SINS

The old saying is, "Confession is good for the soul." Is it? I John 1:9 commands the follower of Christ to confesses his sins for the renewal of fellowship with God (not for salvation). It's a family matter, not a salvation concern. Yes, following the Apostle John's dictum is a good thing and we should do it frequently. Confession of our sins is an acknowledgement that our heavenly Father is right and we were wrong in what we did. 

An school-boy question is, "Whose sins are we confessing?" The proper answer is right there in the verse, "If we confess OUR sins," so those are our sins we're confessing, not someone else's. 

Enter wildly popular author/preacher, Max Lucado who produces best sellers as often as he changes his socks: He has written almost 100 books with 92 million copies in print, with many of them occupying spots on every major national bestseller list.. With that hefty tome count, Lucado's name is no stranger to the New York Times Best Seller List. 

He's also a pastor in San Antonio, Texas, and a nationally recognized leader in the evangelical world. And truth be told, he's reached the rarefied air of a cleric celebrity in the evangelical niche. And, as the story is told, there are instructions in the church bulletin saying something to the effect of "Don't ask the pastor to autograph one of his books." That's a cleric celebrity with a capital "CC." 

Events are surfacing however that should give us pause, no matter his rarified status. In a public event in the Alamo City, Lucado waded neck-deep in the social justice movement raging around the country when he spoke to the assembled telling them that he's guilty of white supremacy and racism. How so? Because of what his ancestors did over 150 years ago and then he begged God to forgive him for that. (A subsidiary question is, "How does he know what his ancestors did," but that's beside the point.)

What does he think his long ago ancestors did? He said that they owned slaves. In his mind that's something he needs to confess in 2020. The he confessed his sin of forcing people to ride in the back of the bus. He was confessing all over the place, but the sins he was confessing were not sins he himself committed. 

Lucado was born on Jan 11, 1955. On December 18, 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery in America. He can no more take credit for the 13th Amendment than he can take the blame for slavery. All that happened at least 90 years before he was even born. 

Let's be clear: we can take responsibility for our sins, but we can't be blamed for someone else's sins. The Bible is clear on the matter: "The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself" (Ezekiel 18:2, 20).

Confessing what you had nothing to do with isn't good for the soul, but all these confessions we're hearing today are good for one thing--popularity--and pastors aren't immune from an approbation lust. It is just as easy for a pastor to crave approval, as it was for Pilate. 

The approbation lust is ever with us.

 

 

FAVORITE PREACHERS

 Unfortunately, I Corinthians 1:12ff has been misused to produce an unnecessary guilt on the part of believers. Here's the text: 

"Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.  For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you.  Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.”

The way this text has been used by some Bible teachers to create guilt is that people come away with the idea that if they have a favorite Bible teacher from whom they learn and grow, that such is sinful.  But that's not what Paul is saying.

We all have a teacher or teachers from whom we learn and grow more than others. Granting that your list of teachers with whom you are familiar contains names of those who are accurate in doctrine, yet, if you have a favorite, the text is used to make you feel guilty. Again, that's not what Paul is saying. 

There might be a name on your list that, although he's on the mark in doctrinal matters, to you, he's boring, repetitious to a fault, or you can't concentrate because of some mannerism he has such as having to read his sermon and never making eye contact or he says "uh," "ah" over and over.  

But then there's one to whom you resonate. Maybe he comes from a background similar to yours, geographically, educationally, or vocationally. Maybe his sense of humor appeals to you. He's on the top of your list. Is that wrong? Sinful? That isn't the reason Paul is being critical of the Corinthians. 

We find what he's warning against in verse 10: "that there be no divisions among you." For the Jewish believers in the Corinthian church, Peter was at the top of their list perhaps because he was the apostle to the Jews--he was the apostle who wrote I Peter specifically for Jewish converts; but the Gentiles would put Paul at the top of their list because he was the apostle to the gentiles. 

The problem is that, as each group had its favorite, each group was making an issue out of it. They were quarreling. It's like we hear today from some believers: "Isn't _____________ your favorite teacher?" Then if you have someone else at the top of your list , they have nothing to do with you. But we all have our preferences and to have a preference isn't a sin, yet it's made out to be and they let it cause divisions.

We're not talking about refusing to listen to someone for legitimate reasons such as his doctrine isn't orthodox or because of his moral failures. The issue is that we aren't to cause divisions in the church by quarreling over sound teachers.

 

ST. WEIRD

 Some one wrote, “It is difficult to think clearly about Francis of Assisi.” 

 
However with Bible in hand, we can think biblically and therefore clearly about him and come to the conclusion that he fundamentally misunderstood the Bible and his misunderstandings led him into bizarre thoughts and deeds. Yet his weirdness brought him misguided admiration that has lasted down through the centuries. 

Francis was born in 1182 in Assisi, Italy. When people think of him, the first thing that comes to mind is that he preached to birds and tamed wolves. (There’s weird and not biblical.) As the record states, “As Francis and some companions were traveling through the Spoleto Valley in Italy, Francis noticed that a huge flock of birds had gathered in some trees beside a field. He saw that the birds were watching him as if they were expecting something. He decided to preach a sermon about God's love for them. Francis walked over to a spot beside the trees and began a sermon, "My sweet little sisters, birds of the sky, you are bound to heaven, to God, your Creator. . . .”

According to “Catholicism Pure and Simple, “Francis wondered aloud to his companions why he had never preached to birds before. And from that day on, Francis made it his habit to solicitously invoke all birds, all animals and reptiles to praise and love their Creator.” [Score another point for weirdness.]

Later in his life, he believed that Christ spoke to him three times from a crucifix: One day as he prayed in a run-down church, he said that he heard Christ repeat from the crucifix: "Francis, go repair My house, which, as you can see, is falling completely to ruin." Francis understood that he was to repair the church he prayed in, so he proceeded to sell family goods to raise money for repairs. [Score two points for weirdness.]

Then there was the time he stripped himself naked in front of a bishop and renounced his father, claiming God was his father. Then he walked out of the cathedral to become a hermit—to "be alone in solitude and silence," a biographer noted, "to hear the secrets which God could reveal to him."[The points are adding up.]

One day he heard a sermon from the book of Matthew, "Take no gold or silver or copper in your wallet, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics or sandals or a staff." He took it literally and began an itinerant life.

Abandoning his own wealth, Francis determined that there must be no man anywhere poorer than he. No matter what rags Francis might be wearing, if he met a beggar dressed even worse, Francis would remove his own clothing and give it to the beggar. [His problem here is a modern one—the Matthew text is a description of what the disciples were to do on that occasion, not a prescription of what we are to do.]

In winter, he often threw himself in a ditch full of ice and stayed there until all sinful temptations departed. To avoid lust, he fixed his gaze on the sky or ground whenever he spoke with a woman.

 
One other oddity: Francis loathed laughing or idle words. He didn’t laugh, and he didn’t want to give others any reason to laugh. [At this point, I've lost count.]

Yet, this is the man whom Protestants and Catholics have admired. Go figure.

SQUEEZING

 The Jewish fellow had a burning question for which he needed to know the answer: "Can I go swimming on the Sabbath?" He was so obsessed with knowing the answer that he wrote to an authoritative Jewish website to learn the answer. The answer was amazing. Read on.

According to the Mishnah, (the authoritative collection of material embodying the oral tradition of Jewish law) the obedient Jew cannot go swimming on the Sabbath and it defines swimming as "lifting both feet from the ground and floating on or treading water." 

The Talmud (the body of Jewish civil and ceremonial law) says that the reason for that decree is because swimming could lead to building some sort of flotation device to help someone learn to swim which is forbidden on the Sabbath. 

But wait--the prohibition not only applies to swimming in a body of water similar to a lake or pond, it also includes a man-made pool of water, if, when a person swims in it, he's likely to cause some water to overflow the pool, which will then run into rivulets and pools, resembling a pond or lake. There have been many an argument over what constitutes a "rimmed" pool which would, therefore, keep water from overflowing. An unrimmed pool would not be able to do so.

In addition, there are other considerations: Since swimming implies the wearing of a swim suit, this apparel might lead to violating the prohibition  of squeezing  out water from it. But that's not the only thing to be concerned about--if it's extremely hot, a person would be allowed to immerse himself in a rimless pool (it must contain cool water) without swimming if there's no squeezing of the swim suit afterwards. 

But what if, for medical reasons, the questioner has to swim on the Sabbath? The answer was in three parts: "Consult your rabbi and if he approves, use a private pool and take the necessary precautions so prevent  squeezing." 

During Christ's earthly ministry, He confronted the same thing (Matthew tells us in 15:1-20).
The angry religious leaders said that Jesus and his disciples had violated the “traditions of the elders” as if those traditions were authoritative and could be sinned against. These traditions were still in oral form in Jesus’ day, but were written down a two centuries later in what. became the Mishnah.

 What was going on in Jesus' day and what's still going on today is that the traditions of men had been and continue to be elevated to the status of Scripture, so that a person could be guilty of violating them. Many groups today have their “biblical” views, and to violate them means facing anger, criticism or expulsion from the group. 

What we often don't see is that, Jesus, knowing of these traditions of the elders deliberately broke them and allowed or instructed His students to do so. This infuriated the religious leaders. 

Sound familiar?

It's a very serious matter to replace the true meaning of the Word of God with traditions. Traditions can be helpful, but they can crowd out the basic biblical standards. We don't have to look far to see that the attitude of these teachers appear in our churches. 

So many traditions have grown up over the centuries that many of them are regarded as sacred. They remain untouchable, unquestioned. We can become more concerned that people might violate our man-made rules for the running of the church, the institutions of baptism and communion, or the set of rules that our particular group follows in the name of being spiritual, than we are about righteousness. We can spend far more time getting physically ready for church than we do preparing the heart. If we aren't careful, these traditions quickly achieve biblical status, and we might even forget what the Word of God actually says about some of those things we do. 

Dr. Allen Ross writes a note of caution: "Before we come down too hard on the Pharisees for focusing on externals and outer show, we need only to remind ourselves that week in and week out we spend far more time getting the outer body ready for church than we do the heart."

That Jewish questioner, what about him? He's trying to bear an unbearable yoke (cf. Acts 15), now learning that he must not only be concerned with swimming of the Sabbath, but also with man-made pools, rimmed or unrimmed, sloshing water, not squeezing water out of a swim suit, what his rabbi decides, and potential medical reasons for swimming.

Yet, Christ's invitation echoes through the ages, "Come unto Me and I will give you rest." 

 

A POEM FOR PORTLAND

Portland, Oregon rioters followed the lead of a king (Jehoiakim), the lead of the the French Revolution, and the lead of university students in Nazi Germany.

On April 8, 1933, the Main Office for Press and Propaganda of the German Student Union proclaimed a nationwide "Action against the Un-German Spirit," which was to climax in a literary purge, or "cleansing" by fire. The burning of works by Jewish authors, and Jewish literature, took precedence over everything else.

In Germany, on May 10, 1933, a book-burning of more than 25,000 volumes was presided over by the most intellectual of the Nazi leaders, Dr. Joseph Goebbels. It was broadcast on the radio for all to hear. But it didn't stop with secular books; in November 1938, Torah scrolls were burned inside 237 burned synagogues in Germany and Austria. Torah scrolls are copies of God's Word and cost a large amount of money for a Jewish synagogue to have and hold.

A German author whose books were burned made a famous prophecy: "Where they burn books, they will also burn people."

AMERICAN REACTION

Back in 1938, Yale University's head librarian, Professor Andrew Keogh, yawned and said, "European book burnings are never so serious as the newspapers make them out to be." The book and Bible burnings were seen by Americans back then in newsreels in the movie theaters, newsreels in which the narrator dismissed  the burnings as "student pranks." But the world would soon learn that the Nazis weren't pranksters out for a little harmless fun.

THE MOTIVATION FOR THE FLAMES

Enter Portland, Oregon. At midnight recently in Portland, they burned a Bible. Listen to Rabbi Abraham Cooper:

"The burning of the Bible is different [than destroying any other book]. Bible burners want to eradicate the truths which have provided believers with pillars of hope and faith, and which have inspired even non-believers to pursue a just and compassionate world.

"This is why the Bible has always been attacked by the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Maos—and yes, the Xis and the Kims of the world.

"Totalitarian regimes have always understood that their control could never be total so long as God's word was in the way."

Israel's King Jehoiakim knew God's word was in the way, so he threw Jeremiah's scroll into the fire; the leaders of the French Revolution  knew it because their revolution, unlike the American one, was, according to Os Guiness, “expressly anti-biblical, anti-Christian, anti-religious, and anti-clerical.” The Bible must go and unaided human reason take its place. The result: the guillotine came down on an estimated 40,000 people during the French Revolution.

We see the motivating idea in places high (CNN) and low (rioters) as reflected by commentator

Chris Cuomo who told his viewers: "God did not do that [bring the numbers of cases of the virus down]. Faith did not do that. Destiny did not do that. A lot of pain and suffering did that...That's how it works. If you believe in one another and if you do the right thing for yourself and your community, things will get better in this country.  You do not need help from above. It's within us."

There we have it, the adaptation of the philosophy of the Greek Protagoras who's famous for his claim that "Of all things the measure is Man," an aphorism in direct opposition to Christianity.

In all of this, the following poem might be dedicated to the rioters in Portland:

"Last eve I paused beside a blacksmith's door

And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;

Then, looking in, I saw upon the floor

Old hammers worn with the beating years of time.

"`How many anvils have you had,' said I,

`To wear and batter all these hammers so?'

`Just one,' said he; then said with twinkling eye,

`The anvil wears the hammers out you know.'

"And so, I thought, the anvil of God's word

For ages skeptic blows have beat upon,

Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,

The anvil is unharmed-the hammers gone."

Christ has the last word: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”.