God’s Perspective – Page 17 – Three Minute Bible

January 24, 2020January 25, 2020

God’s Shoes – James 2: 2-4

Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

In this example, James once again applies his very logical brain to a specific issue. The topic at hand is why a believer in Christ must not show favoritism (See verse 2). Why is this important?

Discriminating between rich and poor is not the problem. It is the symptom. It is a sign of a deeper problem that infects the soul.

January 22, 2020January 22, 2020

Wisdom Wednesday – Labyrinth

For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

Then you will understand what is right and just
and fair—every good path.

— Proverbs 2: 6, 9

The problem with being human – that is, being human without knowing God – is that we don’t understand the difference between right and wrong. That is not to say we do not ever do what is right. It just means that we do not know what is right.

As a human, we can say this is good and that is bad, but our knowledge is imperfect. (Ecclesiastes 11: 5) We do not know what lies beyond our vision. We cannot know how all things turn out. Because we cannot know the ending, we cannot know for certain if something is good or bad. Everything depends on how it turns out at the end.

January 21, 2020January 22, 2020

Two Pictures – James 1: 27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

I can relate to James. I like the way his mind works. What we are reading in his letter is the mind of God expressed through the lens of James’ life. (Keeping in mind that all of this is orchestrated by God’s Holy Spirit!)

In the prior verse, James describes the very worst kind of religion. It is so bad that he calls it “worthless.” In today’s verse, James goes to the other end of the spectrum. Today he shows us the kind of religion that is “pure and faultless.”

January 20, 2020January 20, 2020

Affirmation Monday – Happy Ending

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

— Romans 10:9

Do you want to be saved?

One day I took a small sailboat out on a large lake. I had not sailed on this lake before and I did not know its tricks and traps. My sailboat ride started very pleasantly. The sky was blue and the sun was bright and warm. I had sailed perhaps a mile from the park where I had launched the boat when I noticed the wind was picking up. It was blowing me away from the boat launch so I turned the boat around and started sailing into the wind.

January 10, 2020January 11, 2020

The Patience of God – James 1: 20

…because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

I find it interesting that James says we should be “slow to become angry” instead of telling us not to get angry. Why? Is James saying it is okay to be angry if it is the slow kind? In today’s verse, James sheds a bit more light on what he meant by “angry.”

James distinguishes “human anger” and “slow anger.” So what is the difference? What is it about human anger that James doesn’t like? This is a situation where it helps to look at the underlying Greek to better understand what was meant.

January 6, 2020January 6, 2020

Affirmation Monday – John 1:12

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

A Child’s View

There are moments when life seems simple. They are moments when everything comes into focus at once and makes sense. I wish those moments could last forever. Of course, someday they will.

For now, in this life, we are consigned to a complicated world. Sometimes even trying to reconcile the Word of God with itself can seem complicated. How are we to understand the Old Testament? How do we understand the New Testament? How do we even begin to get our minds around the concept of Creation or God himself?

January 5, 2020January 5, 2020

Psalm Sunday – Psalm 2: 1

Why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain?

Conspiracy Theory

I am not going to say a lot on today’s verse except to point out that this is a GREAT question! It seems especially appropriate with all the drama in the news these days.

One phrase I’ve heard a lot lately is “conspiracy theory.” It seems like I was able to live most of my life without ever running into a conspiracy theory. Now I cannot turn around without someone claiming that what someone else has said is one.

The way I have heard the phrase used usually involves a complicated plot by shadowy political figures. The problem with such plots is that there is no way to verify the truth. Because of the number of these alleged plots these days, one is caught between succumbing to total paranoia or bemused incredulity.

January 1, 2020January 2, 2020

Wisdom Wednesday – Happy New Year!

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 1: 7

There is a theme that runs through Scripture and underlies every great piece of human literature as well: Good Guys vs Bad Guys. In Proverbs, this eternal battle is often characterized as a conflict between the “wise” and the “fool.” (See our discussion under the post, “The Big Picture.”)

December 30, 2019December 31, 2019

Affirmation Monday – Romans 5: 8

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Whose Rules?

Yesterday, Psalm Sunday’s post generated some interesting discussion on what it means to be wicked and righteous. From God’s point of view, we are all unrighteous in a practical sense.

What I mean by that is that a practical righteousness would be sufficient to allow a person into heaven without any help from God. In effect, such a person would be as good as God himself. The Pharisees in Jesus’ time measured their righteousness by their compliance with the laws of Moses. Unbeknownst to them, there was a little flaw in their measurement system. Because they wrote most of the rules, they were a bit blind to how well they fulfilled them.

Imagine that you want to play baseball. You make the rules so that the pitcher can only pitch balls to you that you can hit. Then you demand that the umpire is a member of your team. Better yet, the umpire has to be a relative and a member of your team. When you hit the ball nobody on the other team is allowed to touch it until you have made it safely to home plate. Sound like a fun game? It is if you are on the right team.

December 29, 2019December 30, 2019

Psalm Sunday – Psalm 1: 4-6

Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

The Big Picture

As I read this passage, the Pharisees of Jesus’ day come to mind. They seemed to think of themselves as righteous. They certainly acted like they thought they were God’s gift to humanity. Yet, what they did in conspiring against Jesus was very wicked.

Among all the righteous men who have ever lived, Jesus is by far the most righteous of all. Being without sin, he defines what it means to be righteous. It might be unfair to compare these people to this verse, but it might also open the door to understanding something about God’s perspective.