Full Contact Christianity

When you see someone behaving unreasonably, there is one thing that you can know for certain, and it’s not what you think. Of course we all want to think that we know the other person is being unreasonable. But that’s difficult to know for sure. You’ll find that the person who presently seems so unreasonable to you doesn’t think they’re being unreasonable. In fact, it can be quite a challenge to explain to them why they’re being unreasonable, even when it’s obvious to everybody else in the room. And if we’re honest, I think we’ve all had the experience of being that person: in the moment believing ourselves thoroughly reasonable, only to discover in hindsight that wasn’t the case—and everybody but us knew it. It’s surprisingly difficult to assess your own reasonableness from the inside. 

It’s safe to assume that you won’t know you’re being unreasonable without outside help. So when you find yourself internally certain that someone else is being unreasonable, all you really know for sure is that you don’t share their concerns and priorities. 

Why does that matter? James 1:19 has the answer: “Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” You can escalate, condemn, demand compliance. But rather than being quick to anger, slow down. Listen. There’s something going on in this other person that you don’t know about. Ask questions. Study the person in front of you. Get curious. See if you can grasp what’s going on in their world. 

Of course, it really may be that the other person is being unreasonable—after all, it won’t always be you. But you can always get angry later, if you need to. Get curious first.

“For both the Sanctifier and the sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, ‘I will declare Your name to my brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You,’ and again, ‘I will trust in Him,’ and again, ‘Here am I, and the children whom God has given Me!’ (Hebrews 2:11-13)

I’d encourage you to keep reading through the end of the chapter. The context here is Jesus’ present ministry as our High Priest before the Father.

His present ministry.

It doesn’t say He was not ashamed to die for you. It does not say that He will not be ashamed of you when you’re resurrected. It says He is not ashamed to call you His brother or sister right now.

Let that sink in: Jesus, now, is not ashamed of you, now.

When you are weak, when you ask for help, when you should but you don’t, when you sin–Jesus is not ashamed to be your brother. He is not ashamed to admit it loudly in the throne room of heaven, in front of the Father, the angels, the saints who’ve gone before us, even in front of the accuser who stands before God day and night pointing out every sin and mistake you make. He’s not embarrassed by you.

So don’t be embarrassed to ask Him for help.

I had a chance to talk with Chris Morrison of Gulfside Ministries in our continuing series on Hebrews. Our latest conversation covered 2:5-18. Hope it’s helpful to you!

“Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” This was Jesus’ answer when the devil enticed Him to jump off the pinnacle of the Temple (see Matthew 4). The pinnacle was (for the time) a dizzyingly high point. Many Christians look no further than that, take it as the ancient equivalent of being tempted to swan dive off the Empire State Building to see if God would protect you. In this reading, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” is a general rule not to do stupid things hoping that God will save you. Look both ways before crossing the street. Skip dessert; your arteries and your waistline don’t need it. Max out your 401(k) contribution. Jesus would.

The problem, of course, is that throughout the Bible, God has people break this rule. Moses is wanted in Egypt, but God sends him back. There’s no water or food in the desert past the Red Sea, but God leads Israel out there anyway. Jesus is a homeless wanderer for three years. They stoned Paul at Lystra, and he barely escaped with his life, but he’s going back to encourage the church there. The Macedonian churches give “beyond their ability.” What gives?

Scripture does expound some general principles about sowing and reaping and handling risks, but trying to find those ideas in this text is biblically ignorant and sloppy. None of that is what “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” is talking about.

It’s not a ‘general rule,’ it’s a specific quote from Deuteronomy (6:16), as are Jesus’ other responses to the devil’s temptations (cp. Matthew 4:4//Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:10//Deuteronomy 6:13). Read Deuteronomy 6:16 in context: Moses is warning the conquest generation not to be like their parents, and specifically warns them against the sin their parents committed at Massah (Heb. “Temptation”). That sin is described in Exodus 17:7. See also Deuteronomy 9:22 and 33:8, where Moses brings it up again.

(According to Exodus 17:7, the place is also called Meribah (Heb. “Rebellion”), and by that name it comes up in Psalm 95, which is then a central part of the argument of Hebrews 3-4. So the warning gets repeated in David’s time, and is still an issue for Christians — praise God that we have Jesus’ example to follow in resisting it!)

What, exactly, is the sin at issue here? Read Exodus 17: Israel tempted God at Massah, saying, “Is the LORD among us, or not?” Was the question legitimate? No! This is after all the plagues, after Passover, after He saved them through the Red Sea, after He gave them drinkable water at Marah, after He began literally dropping food (manna) from the sky daily. They are following the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night; it couldn’t be clearer that He has led them to this place in particular. They have every reason to trust that He will provide for them in the place He has led them to.

He had even already warned them at Marah (Exodus 15:25-26) the last time they complained about water. Now, the next time they come up short on water, they accuse Moses (and God): “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?” They have no faith that God will bring them to the place He promised. Deuteronomy 6:16 is Moses’ admonition to the next generation not to commit that same sin, and that’s what Jesus quotes.

What does that have to do with the situation Jesus is facing? The temptation is to leap off the pinnacle of the Temple. There’s no danger; it’s not yet His time, and to whom do the assurances of Psalm 91:10-12 apply, if not to Jesus Himself? Does He not fulfill the conditions of 91:9? Jesus could kick off His ministry by floating down from the pinnacle, carried by angels into the throngs of worshippers gathered in the courts of the Temple. What a way to start! Why not?

But no. Jesus has reason to know that God is with Him: the Father spoke over Him from heaven at His baptism, the Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove, and John witnessed the whole thing. It is the Spirit who has led Him out into the desert, where He has gone without food these past 40 days (an occasion for another temptation that He also answers out of this passage in Deuteronomy). He should remain committed to following the Father’s lead, and not gin up His own solution to the question of launching His ministry — effectively accusing the Father of leading Him to the wrong place.

The recipients of Hebrews faced a similar temptation. These were the people who stayed in place after the stoning of Stephen when everyone else fled, who cheerfully accepted the persecutions of that time to remain where God had called them to be. They are tired, beaten down, and are considering giving up and returning to the Temple worship — effectively accusing God of leading them astray. Hebrews 3-4 treat this as parallel to Exodus 17, but the warning of Hebrews 2 has already made it clear that although the cases are parallel, this would be a much worse sin than the Exodus generation committed in the desert, and would be subject to a much harsher punishment.

We continue to face this perennial temptation today. When a financially tight month tempts us to believe that God is not caring for us, when we discipline children out of panic rather than trusting God’s kindness to us and mirroring it to our children, when we do something flashy and self-aggrandizing at work (or in ministry) rather than trusting God’s leading and His ability to promote us in His time, we face this same temptation. Let’s handle it the way Jesus did: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”

“Of His fulness we have all received, and grace in place of grace. For Law came through Moses; grace and truth through Jesus Christ.”

In the closing sentences of his introduction, John lays out a contrast between Moses and Jesus. Moses gave us one thing, and Jesus is now giving us something in its place. What we got through Moses was the Law. What we get through Jesus is grace and truth.

If that’s all he said, then we could walk away with a simple contrast: law on one hand, grace and truth on the other. But it’s not that simple, because John tells us the substitution is “grace in place of grace.” It’s not law vs. grace. It’s the Law-that-was-grace-already vs. grace-and-truth-through-Christ.

We had one sort of grace; we are now being given a different, a higher, sort of grace. There’s a real contrast here, and John wants us to feel the difference. He also wants us to know that contrast takes place within a continuity of divine grace toward us. Jesus changes everything, and yet Jesus is in keeping with everything that has come before.

When you read what comes before, read it with this in mind.