Christian Discipleship – Page 5

Deborah: A Mother on God’s Mission

Against the myth that God only wants men in leadership roles stands the story of Deborah, the prophetess-judge-leader of ancient Israel. Some interpreters will assert that the story of Deborah is a criticism of men who would not rise to the occasion. This is partially true. When Barak refuses to go to the battlefield without Deborah, she declares that the victory will belong to a woman (Judges 4:8-10)—but Deborah does not get this honor. Still, to see the whole story as a mere critique of weak-willed men misses the respect the biblical narrator—and even Barak—had for Deborah.

Before being a “judge,” Deborah was a prophetess, a role which meant she was a preacher and teacher. To get this recognition, Deborah would have had to show that God had truly called her (see Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and 18:17-22 for some of the tests). In addition to her full-time job, she was a wife (4.4) and mother (5.7).

The English translation of “judge” does not do justice to the role; she did far more than just hold court. The NIV is correct in saying she “was leading” Israel, as that is really what “judging” implies in the Book of Judges. Judging, therefore, involved both settling disputes among the people (4.5) but also commanding military leaders into action (4.6-7). There is no doubt that Deborah is Barak’s superior officer.

For example, Deborah will send Barak into the battle while remaining behind to observe the action (4.14)—the traditional posture of a supreme commander, like a king.

The narrator of Judges has preserved for us the victory song known as the “Song of Deborah” (chapter 5). This is a military poem from a woman’s point of view: Deborah is praised for her leadership, Jael, who killed the enemy commander Sisera, for her ingenuity and bravery, and even Sisera’s mother is remembered because her son will not be coming home.

If God so called a woman to serve him as Deborah did under the old covenant, how much more, then, will God use women under the new covenant where now there is neither “male nor female” (Gal 3:28)! Deborah’s story is a good place to acknowledge that God’s Mission is larger than our stereotypes.

Samuel: When God Calls

In the Old Testament (OT), Samuel marks the end of the judges and the beginning of the prophets, and like Deborah, an earlier judge, Samuel was both a prophet and judge (1 Samuel 3:21; 7:15). Samuel is also the only major OT character with a nearly spotless record. Unfortunately, Samuel will make the same mistake as his mentor Eli by neglecting the spiritual development of his sons (8:1-2).

In contrast, Samuel’s story starts with a godly mother, Hannah, who wanted a child more than anything in the world; she wanted a child so much that she promised God that she would dedicate him fully to the Lord. God granted the desires of her heart. After she weaned her son, she and her husband delivered him to Eli the priest; here Samuel “ministered before the Lord” (2:11) and grew into a man. In this context, Samuel had the opportunity to grow up under the one person who should have been most attuned to God’s way.

One night God came calling. Having fulfilled the duties of the day, but just before the lamp in the temple had gone out, young Samuel was lying down in the temple not far from the Ark of the Covenant.

A voice broke the silence.

Samuel responded with “Here I am” and ran to Eli to see what he wanted. However, Eli had not called him so he sent Samuel back to bed. Three times the voice broke through before Eli realized it must be God calling.

Now Eli instructs Samuel to remain where he is the next time the voice comes and to respond: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

What happens next had to be difficult for someone as young as Samuel. God tells Samuel that because of Eli’s negligence in supervising and raising his sons, that God is going to end their lives. The next morning, though scared, Samuel does what he has to do: he tells Eli all that he has learned from the Lord. In this way, God tests Samuel’s integrity and commitment.

God could have revealed his intention straight to Eli, but instead chose to use this situation to call Samuel. Samuel was to learn—and this would not be the last time he would deliver difficult news—that being on God’s mission is sometimes difficult and at times borders on the impossible.

When surveying the whole of Samuel’s life, it is clear that he accepted the invitation to participate in God’s mission. However, this mission was punctuated with times when Samuel had to choose his comfort over lining up with God’s mission.

Perhaps you are at one of these crossroads, God is calling but the task seems overwhelming or unpleasant or even impossible. When we come to these moments, what we do next is critical since it will be the turning point to whether God can move us to the next level, or whether he will have to call again until we recognize his voice.

Moses: Called to God’s Mission

To speak of “being called” by God sounds a bit presumptuous in our ears, yet that is precisely the language the New Testament uses to speak of how God draws us into His mission. Even Jesus came to call sinners (Matthew 9:13/Luke 5:32). The apostle Paul framed his own ministry as calling people to “the obedience that comes from faith” (Romans 1:5). Therefore, not only did God call Paul but Paul’s ministry to others is how God called others to follow Jesus. Moreover, the author of Hebrews refers to our “heavenly call” (Hebrews 3:1) and Peter reminds us to make our “calling and election” certain (2 Peter 1:10). So, this calling of God is something God does but also requires our active participation.

Beginning with the story of Moses, the Bible contains several notable “call narratives,” stories where people have an encounter with God that alters forever the course of their lives. Additionally, these call narrative have some consistent patterns that can inform us about how God might be calling us today.

Using Exodus 3 and 4 as a model, we find that Moses experiences a revelation of God (3.1-4). In this revelation, God expresses his motive (3.4-9) for appearing to Moses, which then leads into God’s commission (3.10) of Moses to a special task. Moses will, of course, issue some objections (3.11ff) to the mission God has just assigned him and God will meet these objections with reassurance (3.12) that God will be on the mission with him. Finally, God will offer Moses several signs (3.12; 4.1-5) both to confirm to others that he is on God’s mission but also to assure Moses that he is not on the mission alone.

While God’s call of us may not be as dramatic as Moses’, I do believe that God calls us in a similar way: There comes a time when we “see” God, maybe through a dramatic revelation of God but often it is through preaching, teaching or someone’s quiet faithful life. But when we see God, we come to know his motives. He loves us intensely and wants to be in relationship with us. However, we, like Moses will often object to God’s interference in our lives, but God will again reassure us that he is with us and he will give us signs along the road that he is there and that we have truly been called by Him.

Transparency: Being Truthful before God

I have been reminded this past week that telling the truth can be hard. I am not just talking about confessing bold sins, but about the way we humans lie to ourselves and others about the little things leading up to the announcement of the bold sins. These more subtle mis-truths set the stage for the curtain to fall.

Now we also lie by what we do not say. The failure to confront is participating in the sin of others. This “fear” of confrontation is one of Satan’s best tools for keeping us from becoming transparent before God. When we get to the point where we cannot speak into each other lives because we are afraid of the possible reaction, we have succumbed to the Evil One–we are working for him.

What we need is a new sense of “transparency.” Even the secular leadership world is giving attention to the need for a new level of honesty among leaders. Warren Bennis, a well-established leadership expert, recently co-authored a book called Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor. When these authors define transparency or candor, they mean that organizations should have a free flow of information among the members of the organization and even the public.

Now if the business world knows the value of being open and honest, how much more should the church of God who has been admonished to stop lying to one another (Col. 3.9) and to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4.15). God calls us to have nothing to do with “fruitless deeds of darkness” but rather to expose them (Eph. 5.11).

Bennis makes it clear in his book that creating an environment where people are free to speak the truth begins with the leaders in the organization. If the leadership will not hold themselves mutually accountable, transparency will never permeate the organization.

Without transparency, there will be no trust and, without trust, we cannot move forward in God’s mission.

Joseph: Betrayed for the Mission of God

The Joseph narrative begins in Genesis 37 and continues to chapter 47, thus, constituting a sizable portion of Genesis. However, in the main story line of the Old Testament, Joseph is a sidebar. He is not a direct ancestor of King David or Jesus yet his story is crucial to the survival of the family of Abraham. You can almost sense the marginalization of Joseph: This is the account of Jacob. Jacob! Yet what follows is mostly the story of Joseph!

Joseph spent most of his life on the margins. First, when he was young, God gave him special dreams. Because of this gift, his brothers despised him, plotted to get rid of him, and finally, sold him into slavery to the Midianites who will transport him to Egypt and resell him to Potiphar, an Egyptian official.

In Potiphar’s home, Joseph becomes a trusted servant until the day Potiphar’s wife accuses him of taking advantage of her. So Potiphar has Joseph thrown into the royal jail—back to the margins again.

In jail, Joseph’s dreams come back to him and he accurately predicts the fate of two other royal prisoners—one will be executed; the other restored to his position. The one who lived promised to mention Joseph to Pharaoh but forgets about Joseph for two years. More marginalization.

After years of being on the margins, God will raise Joseph to the second in command in Egypt. In this position of power, Joseph will be able to save his family—the family that betrayed him—from famine. Sometimes, we feel like we are on the margins, too. We should never forget that God may have us there for a reason and his mission may well include our marginalization. The mission of God does not require that it always goes well for us, but it does mean that God can and will use us to accomplish his mission—whether we are in the center or on the margins—that is, if we are willing to be so used.

Jacob: Wrestling with the Mission of God

In line with His mission to form or create a distinct people for the good of the world, God called Abraham’s grandson Jacob. God has previously called Abraham out of whom, according to God’s promise, a great nation would rise through whom “all people on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen 12.2-3).

Now, Jacob was very different from his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac, who despite their faults were honorable people. Jacob, on the other hand, was a deceiver and a cheat. Even his name which means “he who grasps the heel of another,” a Hebrew idiom for a cheater. Jacob—so named when he was born because as his firstborn brother was pulled from the womb, he reach out and grabbed his brother’s heel—would certainly live down to his name.

Jacob was a conniver. He swindled his brother out of family birthright, the right to inherit the firstborn son’s portion…for what? A cup of soup. Next cheated his brother Esau out of the family blessing by posing as Esau to his nearly blind father. Jacob was always looking for the advantage—his!

However, one man—his uncle—was able to outmaneuver him. Once when uncle Laban promised Jacob his daughter in marriage, he tricked Jacob into marrying his oldest daughter Leah before he could have the sister he really loved. In the end, Jacob still came out smelling like a rose. He had Laban’s two daughters and all the livestock he had raised and all the wealth he had acquired while in Laban’s hire.

Jacob even tried to get the advantage over God. One night a “man” wrestled with Jacob all night. This angelic wrestler was not able to overpower Jacob and so he outmaneuvered Jacob pulling his hip out of socket. Still Jacob would not release his assailant and Jacob demanded that he would not let him go unless the man first blesses him. At that moment, Jacob was transformed from the “cheater” to the “one who wrestles with God,” which in Hebrew is name Israel. The angel explained that it was “because you have struggled with God and men and have won.”

Jacob’s new name Israel will eventually apply to his descendant who will form the distinct people of God, the nation of Israel, and like their ancestor, they will struggle sometimes in partnership with God and sometimes against God over what it means to join God in his mission.

However, the story of Jacob is still a story of hope. God will work out his Mission with or without us, whether we work with God or against him. However, as the story of Jacob testifies in the end, God will do amazing things with us, through us and for us, if we work with him. By the end of Jacob’s story, he has been reconciled to his brother and he is in covenant relationship with his God. It does not get better than that.

God’s Mission for Abraham: The Undiscovered Country

Henry Blackaby and Claude King point out in their spiritually formative book, Experiencing God (1994), that when “God invites you to work with Him,” you will be led to “a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.” They add to this that you “must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.” This crisis of faith hinges on whether you will accept God’s invitation. Will you say “yes” or “no”?

If you accept God’s mission, the authors would remind us, then your life is about to change significantly. The biblical stories bear this out. No one God has ever called was allowed to live life as it had been previously. Think of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Rahab, Deborah, Samson, David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, Jesus, His apostles, and Paul, just to name a few. Their lives were radically changed because they accepted God’s call.

Abraham serves as an exemplar for those who would accept God’s call. Abram, as he was known in the early years of his life, was living among this family in the center of civilization among the ancient people of Babylon (known as Sumer by historians). The city of Ur, his hometown, was well-known for its luxury and sophistication. Ur was a someplace. Important people came to live in Ur.

One day the predictability of his life was shattered forever. God called. Abram! Leave your country, your people and your father’s family and go to the land I will show you. But Abraham does not actually get to “own” the land, outside of being buried there. The land, however, was only a part of the package that God had planned for Abraham. The God who called promised: I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you … and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

Sounds like a good deal, right? Yet before Abraham’s story is over, he will have to run to Egypt to escape a famine in the good land God promised him, he will nearly lose his wife twice to protect his own life, and his relationship with his nephew Lot will disintegrate. Moreover, attempting to make God’s call work to his benefit, Abraham will seek to adopt his servant; his wife Sarah will seek to speed the process along by offering her servant Hagar to Abraham so they can have a heir; and to top it off, Sarah will laugh at God’s messengers when they promise that she will have a child. You see, when God calls you, you will have to make some radical adjustments.

Nonetheless, in the end, Abraham and Sarah will show that they are committed to God’s plan. Despite Abraham’s missteps and occasional lack of faith, he proves faithful even if it means sacrificing the promised heir—because he learns that the God who calls is also the God who is faithful.

This God has a mission for you. He wants to lead you to the yet undiscovered country.

On Being a Disciple of Jesus

Often we describe being a disciple of Jesus in terms of what “Christendom” has taught us about what it means be a good Christian. Show up for church. Read our Bibles. Say our prayers. Etc. Occasionally we get deeper, seeking to do what Jesus did (remember WWJD bracelets). So we move out a bit more to do a kind deed for those who don’t have what we do. And all of these we should perhaps do, but it seems to me that being a disciple of Jesus is more than just what we do but what we are (or, at least, hope to become).

The path to becoming a “real” disciple of Jesus is to focus on those things which Jesus was passionate about. If you begin this quest, you will be surprised to discover that most of what we take as the trapping of being a good Christian concerned Jesus little. What did, in fact, concern Jesus? For one, Jesus was passionate about the kingdom of God. Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God with urgency and with a sense that everything else would make sense if you get this one concept right: Seek first his kingdom…

So take a few moments, and make a list of what you believe Jesus was passionate about. How would your life change if you were passionate about the same things?