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Jonah 3:3 – Making Assyria Great Again

By Jeremy Myers
8 Comments

Jonah 3:3 – Making Assyria Great Again
http://media.blubrry.com/one_verse/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/334375817-redeeminggod-jonah-33-making-assyria-great-again.mp3

Jonah 3:3 Make Assyria Great AgainWhat does God think of evil people? What does God think of people who disobey Him, and are opposed to Him and His ways? Well, according to Jonah 3:3, God thinks they’re great. We’re going to see that the wicked and violent people of Nineveh are great to God.

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and so this is why I titled today’s podcast Making Assyria Great Again. Assyria was in modern day Iraq, so maybe I could have said Make Iraq Great Again. I know, that’s a challenging thought. But if God thinks they’re great, who are we to disagree? This is what we learn from Jonah 3:3.

The Text of Jonah 3:3

So Jonah got up and walked to Nineveh, according to the word of Yahweh. Now Nineveh was a great city to God, a three-days’ walk.

In this discussion of Jonah 3:3 we look at:

  • How Jonah finally obeyed God
  • The size of Nineveh
  • What it means that the city was great “to God”
  • How Jonah 3:3 reveals God’s love for all people

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God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture Bible & Theology Topics: Discipleship, evangelism, following Jesus, Jonah 3:3, loving others, One Verse Podcast

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How to Discover the Image of God in People

By Sam Riviera
15 Comments

How to Discover the Image of God in People

Everett and his wife lived near my wife and me. Everett loved his rose garden, and spent many hours there, weeding, pruning, fertilizing, spraying insecticide, and cutting fresh blooms to give to friends and neighbors. Everett also attended the same church we attended. We met at Everett’s house every Thursday evening for a summer Bible study.

Everett was elderly and had health problems. One Thursday when we went to his home for Bible study, he mentioned that he was not feeling well. Three days later the pastor announced in church that Everett had passed away on Saturday. A few days later we attended his funeral service at the church.

One of Everett’s sons delivered his eulogy, and included numerous biographical details. Everett had been a very accomplished person with many skills. He had a distinguished career as a decorated officer in the military. He had been an outstanding and well-known engineer. His son revealed detail after detail about Everett that none of us had ever heard.

Everyone in the church was astonished. None of us had known any of those things about Everett, even though he and his wife had attended our church for almost ten years. It seemed that we had never really known Everett. He was one of those people who didn’t brag about himself or his accomplishments and none of us had ever bothered to ask him to tell us about his life.

How was it possible that we knew he loved roses, he drove a blue Buick, he attended the same church we attended, and he and his wife hosted a Bible study at their home, yet we knew almost nothing about him? What else about Everett had we missed?

What Do We Really Know About Other People?

That experience served as a wake-up call for some of us. We realized that our lives were filled with people who were merely acquaintances. We knew a little about them, but never knew their stories. We had never bothered to ask.

seeing image of God in othersIf we had never heard their stories, how could we possibly really know them?

In this age of messages limited to one hundred forty characters, how well do we really know most people? We have huge amounts of information at our fingertips, information that we can access in seconds, but how often do we bother to get to really know other people?

Frequently people tell me “I have no close friends,” or “I have only one or two people that I’m really close to.” As I write this, I am reminded that just yesterday evening a man I have known for many years told me “If anything happens to me, I’m screwed. I have no one.”

How is it possible that our culture is filled with people who have no one or almost no one? Almost everywhere I go I see people walking, driving, sitting in restaurants, riding on public transportation, and involved in almost every conceivable activity while talking on their cellphones or pressing keys on their cellphones and tablets, seemingly very involved with their electronic communications devices. How can they have no one or almost no one in their lives when they appear to be connected almost all the time to other people?

friends on facebook“I have hundreds of friends on Facebook.”

“How many of these people do you know outside Facebook?” I often ask.

“What do you mean?”

“How many of them have you ever met in person?”

The usual response? “A few.” Sometimes, “One or two.”

“How do you know they are who they claim to be? How do you know that the pictures and the things they tell you about themselves on Facebook are true if you’ve never met them in person? Maybe the pictures are of someone else, or pictures of the person from a long time ago. Maybe they make up the stuff they say.”

“Hmmm. Well I don’t really know.”

Many of us don’t really know. We don’t really know many, if any other people very well at all. Nor do we really know very much of anything about many of the people we think we know.

How often have we turned on the evening news to yet another story of someone who committed some atrocious act and heard the reporter interviewing that person’s neighbors and acquaintances and heard “We were shocked.” How could the person who lived next door or across the street have done what they did?

image of God in people

How Do We Discover the Image of God in People?

Many of us believe that we were created in the image of God, but have we been able to discover that image in people? What does it look like and how do we go about discovering it?

I am making the assumption that the image of God in people does not mean that we physically resemble God, but that some of his attributes may be found in us, albeit in a lesser degree. Many of his attributes might be found in us but let us consider three, love, mercy and grace.

In order to determine if people might possess these attributes, first we must get to know them. Mr. Upstanding Citizen in his private life may be something very different from his public persona. The homeless person we see sitting by the side of the road dressed in tattered, dirty clothes might be one of the most loving, merciful and grace-filled people in town.

Really knowing people involves more than recognizing them, being acquainted with them and maybe knowing a few basic facts about them, such as their names, where they live or work, and perhaps a few other bits of surface information. It includes knowing their stories, even if in abbreviated form.

Knowing their stories and getting to really know them includes getting to know where they come from and discovering some of the things that have been their joys in life, as well as the things that have caused them pain. Whom do they love? Who loves them? How do they show love and care and grace both to themselves and to others?

In my experience getting to know people well happens most successfully when we spend time and share space with them, which allows us to interact with them face-to-face, observe who they are and hear their stories.

Is this necessary? Must we really go to so much trouble? Is it not enough to recognize that the Bible says we are created in God’s image? On the other hand, don’t most of us know people who look and act nothing like what we suppose someone created in God’s image should look and act like? Perhaps it is necessary to get to know people well if we are to know if some of his attributes are actually present in them.

In the next two posts in this series we will discuss getting to know other people by spending time and sharing space with them, and getting to know them by hearing and knowing their stories. If you want to get to know other people and see God in them, you don’t want to miss these posts!

God is Redeeming Life Bible & Theology Topics: image of God, loving others, Sam Riviera

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Your Enemy is Your Prophet

By Jeremy Myers
12 Comments

Your Enemy is Your Prophet

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us to love our enemies (Matt 5:44).

Since love for enemies is one of the most unnatural things for a human to do, I believe that enemy-love is one of the clearest and most defining characteristics of a true follower of Jesus. Show me someone who truly understands the heart of God, and I will show you someone who loves his or her enemies.

In recent months, I have discovered that one reason we can love our enemies is because they, above all others, might tell us the truth about our actions and behavior.

Normally, we humans tend to gather around us the people who will affirm our beliefs and behavior, and tell us that everything we think, do, and say is correct and loving and godly.

love your enemiesOf course, it is true what Proverbs 27:6 says, that “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiples kisses,” but this principle can often be reversed as well, in that friends often overlook our faults and failures because they love us (and maybe because they have the same issues), whereas enemies see through our self-righteous attitudes and hypocritical charades and are more willing to criticize and call us out for our many failures.

Yet when they do this, we tend to ignore what they say, because we believe they are only saying such things from spite and anger. And maybe they are.

But might there also be truth to what they are saying? If so, could it be that the criticism from our enemy is actually the voice of God to us?

I am reminded of the prophet Micaiah in 1 Kings 22. King Ahab and King Jehoshaphat were planning on going to war against Ramoth in Gilead. So they call all the prophets together to tell them whether their war will be successful or not. They have a parade of prophets — 400 of them — who tell the two kings to go to war against Ramoth, “for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king” (1 Kings 22:6).

King Jehoshaphat finds this a little strange that all 400 prophets say the same thing (or maybe they were not all prophesying in the name of Yahweh), so he asks if there is not a prophet of Yahweh around to ask what they should do (1 Kings 22:7).

And I love what King Ahab says. He tells King Jehoshaphat, “Oh sure… there’s Micaiah. But I hate him because he never tells me anything good.”

In other words, King Ahab viewed Micaiah as his enemy. He hated Micaiah.

Nevertheless, they had Micaiah come in, and initially, he agreed with the other 400 prophets in telling the two kings to go to war, for they would be victorious. But King Ahab knows Micaiah better than this (and I imagine that Micaiah’s tone of voice of flippant and sarcastic), so King Ahab says, “Stop lying to me. Tell the truth!” (1 Kings 22:16).

And Micaiah does. And he is the only one who prophesied correctly.

The King’s enemy was the only one who prophesied truth to the King.

I think the same thing is happening today within Christianity.

We have gathered around ourselves teachers who tell us what our itching ears want to hear, and we ignore and silence the prophetic voices who tell us what we need to hear because these prophetic voices come from those many Christians love to hate.

Our enemy is our prophet, but we ignore what he says because he is our enemy.

Like who?

Who is our prophetic enemy?

How about atheists?

Christians love to hate atheists. We feel we do not have to listen to them, because “They don’t believe in God.” They live “secular” lives. They “live in sin.” They “don’t believe the Bible.”

Atheists are prophets for Christianity.

Atheists often point out real problems with Christian theology, Christian practice, and Christian hypocrisy. They often show us how our portrait of a loving God is not very loving, how a God who accepts everybody really doesn’t, and how the values and priorities of many Christian churches and organizations do nothing to help with the real problems in this world.

In my opinion, we Christians fail to listen to the prophetic word from atheists at our own peril.

How about Muslims? Especially Muslim terrorists.

I watch the angry Muslims on TV calling for the death of America and waving signs about “the Great Satan.”

I believe they are flat-out wrong, but at the same time, I have to ask myself, “Why are they saying these things? What have we done to make them think such things about us?”

It is too “easy” of an answer to say that they are just delusional or that they have been lied to about Americans. Certainly they hear lies about us, just as we hear lies about them. But at the same time, we must listen to the complaints they have about American values, American greed, American morality, and American intervention in foreign affairs and recognize that our Muslim “enemies” might be making some good points.

This is especially true when the Christians in American offer full and complete blessings on everything the United States does overseas, including the killing of Muslims and the bombing of cities. Why is it okay for Christian leaders to call for God to bless us in killing our “Muslim enemies” but it is not okay for Muslim leaders to call for Allah to bless them in killing their Christian enemies?

Whatever happened to Jesus instruction for us to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”?

How about the LGBTQ community?

When they tell us that we Christians have treated them with hate and contempt, our response is, “No, we haven’t! We’re just warning you about your sin! It is loving to do so. If you don’t repent and change, God will judge you and our nation!”

Their response is, “See? That right there was hurtful. We think our lifestyle is loving, not sinful. Furthermore, it is not right to blame us for all the ill that happens to our country.”

“Well, you’re trying to put Christians out of business!”

“That’s true. Some people are doing that. Just like you Christians have done to us for hundreds of years. Are you saying it’s wrong?”

“Well, it’s wrong when you do it, but not when we do it, because God is on our side. You’re on the side of the devil.”

“That right there was hateful also.”

And the conversation goes on from there. Or more likely it stops.

But I believe that in these sorts of situations, Christians need to stop and listen to the LGBTQ community and what they say about Christian hatred. In this case, they are prophets, bringing to us a revelation from God.

Listening to Our Enemies is One Way to Love Them

In his excellent book, Engaging the Powers (I HIGHLY recommend it!), Walter Wink talks bout the gift of our enemy. He says that our enemies bring us revelations of ourselves that we cannot get from any other source:

These “revelations” (and they are precisely that) need to be treasured, because that is the gift our enemy may be able to bring us: to see aspects of ourselves that we cannot discover any other way than through our enemies. Our friends seldom tell us these things; they are our friends precisely because they are able to overlook or ignore this part of us. The enemy is thus not merely a hurdle to be leaped on the way to God. The enemy can be the way to God (Engaging the Powers, 273).

Do you have someone you consider to be your enemy? Do you know of a group of people that are considered the “enemies” of Christianity? If so, do not seek to harm, discredit, or ignore them. Instead, listen to what they have to say, for their words may in fact be the very voice of God to you and to me.

If you want to hear the voice of God, start by listening to your enemies.

listen to your enemy

God is Redeeming Life Bible & Theology Topics: 1 Kings 22, love your enemies, loving others, Luke 6:27, Matthew 5:44, prophecy, Proverbs 27:6

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18 Questions for Re-Imagining the Church

By Jeremy Myers
18 Comments

18 Questions for Re-Imagining the Church

imagining the church

I spent a few posts this week (Questioning the Church, Extreme Church Makeover, What if You Were God?) talking about how you and your church and figure out what God wants you to do in your community with your time, energy, and money.

Part of this process involves imagining different ways of being church, different ways of loving others, and different ways of serving our neighbors.

Some people calling this “casting vision” but in my opinion, the word “vision” is one of those overused churchy buzzwords which makes most people gag. So following the ideas presented in books by Walter Brueggemann and Greg Boyd, I invite you to imagine what the church can be and do.

Imagine new ways of being the church, living within the Kingdom of God, loving others, serving the needy, and revealing Jesus Christ to others.

Here are some great “What if” questions to move you in the right direction: (Note: So I don’t pull a Driscoll… These 18 questions for re-imagining the church originally came from a post by Kevin Bussey in 2008, but I can no longer find that post.)

What would happen if…

  • Followers of Jesus concentrated on sharing their faith with a lost and dying world?
  • Followers of Jesus prayed for the church across the street?
  • Churches didn’t see other churches as competition but as allies?
  • Churches rejoiced when another church is thriving?
  • We realized our view might be wrong?
  • Their church is just as important to God as yours?
  • We recognized God likes variety?
  • Followers of Jesus didn’t shoot their wounded?
  • We acted like Grace really is amazing?
  • We give Grace beyond the point of conversion?
  • We realized God likes worship–no matter what the style is?
  • Churches in a community partnered with each other to reach the lost and hurting people that God has given to them?
  • Churches didn’t criticize other churches?
  • Followers of Jesus didn’t nit-pick other believers, churches or ministries?
  • Followers of Jesus became part of the solution rather than being the problem?
  • We really prayed…?
  • Followers of Jesus could put aside differences in order to minister to a dying world?
  • Followers of Jesus really became one?

Do you have any questions to add to this list? Include them in the comments below? How do you and your church seek to find new ways to share the love of Jesus with others?

God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: being the church, church, loving others, ministry, mission, missional, service, Theology of the Church

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