God's Word: Handle With Care

The Quran is the “holy book” of the religion of Islam. Muslims consider it to be the revealed word of God. Obviously I disagree, but that’s not my point here. Consider two recent stories involving the Quran, both of which made national headlines.

Story # 1: At Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, guards were accused of desecrating copies of the Quran in front of Muslim prisoners by stepping on them and dropping them into toilets. Officials have insisted that any improper treatment of the Quran at Guantanamo was the result of carelessness, not malice. They have stressed that guards at the base are carefully instructed in handling the Quran so as not to offend Muslim prisoners.

Story # 2: Muslims in Blacksburg, Virginia were outraged when some burned Qurans were left at the door of a local mosque. Several groups publicly denounced the action as a hate crime. However, the situation cooled off when a local Muslim student contacted police and said he was responsible. The books, he explained, had been damaged in a house fire, and he had hoped someone at the mosque could give them a “respectful disposal.” He left the books there with a note of explanation, which, unfortunately, blew away in the wind.

Both of these cases illustrate the deep reverence Muslims have for the Quran. Believing that its contents are the words of God, a devout Muslim treats the Quran as a sacred object that must be given the utmost care and respect.

I’ve heard some people remark that these cases might never have made the news if they had involved Bibles instead of Qurans. They may be right. And I’m afraid that’s largely due to the fact that many professed Christians have nowhere near the respect for the Bible that most Muslims have for the Quran.

I’m not suggesting that we should start treating our Bibles as sacred objects. I can’t find any Biblical teaching that requires us to handle a copy of Scripture in any certain fashion. But I do wonder if the casual, often careless way many of us treat our Bibles is evidence that we have little regard for their contents. When it comes to God’s message, He has always taught His people to show the greatest reverence and care.

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).

“For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and so teaches others, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:18-19).

“He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day” (John 12:48).

“For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God…” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

Crucifixion

It’s uncertain exactly where the practice of crucifixion originated. It was sometimes used in ancient Phoenicia, Carthage, and Egypt; but it was the Romans who perfected this barbarous art. Guy Woods observed, “Surely diabolical human ingenuity never devised a crueler scheme for putting men to death.”

Roman citizens could not be crucified. This most cruel and humiliating form of execution was reserved for the dregs of society. In all the regions of the empire, murderers, rebels, thieves, and other such criminals were regularly condemned to the cross. “In Palestine during Jesus’ day, the shameful spectacle of a victim carrying a cross to the place of execution was so familiar to his hearers that Jesus three times in his teaching spoke of the road of discipleship as that of cross-bearing (Matt. 10:38; Mark 8:34; Luke 14:27)” (Dan King, Truth Commentaries: John, 400).

As in Jesus’ case, one condemned to be crucified was often scourged first. “Under the Roman method of scourging, the victim was stripped and tied in a bending posture to a pillar, or stretched upon some sort of frame. The ‘scourge’ (Latin flagellum) was constructed from leather thongs attached to a wooden handle, weighted at the ends with sharp butterfly-shaped pieces of bone or lead, which upon contact ripped apart the flesh of the back or breast.…It was an extremely severe form of punishment, often causing death for those who were frail or in ill health, and thus sparing them the terrible agony of the cross” (King 385).

The crucifixion itself was made as public as possible. The condemned individual was typically forced to carry part or all of his cross through the city streets to the place of execution outside the walls. At the appointed site, often by the side of a public highway, a squad of four soldiers stripped the victim naked, laid him on the cross with arms outstretched, and fastened him to it with ropes and/or nails driven through the wrists and ankles. The cross was then raised and its base dropped into a hole — the jolt of which sometimes dislocated the victim’s joints. A seat of sorts was often fastened to the vertical post to help support the body, not to ease the suffering, but to prolong it.

The condemned person died a slow and agonizing death from a combination of blood loss, exposure, hunger and thirst, and suffocation. F. W. Farrar described it this way:

A death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and death can have of the
horrible and ghastly — dizziness, cramp, thirst, starvation, sleeplessness,
traumatic fever, tetanus, publicity of shame, long continuance of torment,
horror of anticipation, mortification of untended wounds, all intensified just
up to the point at which they can be endured at all, but all stopping just short
of the point which would give the sufferer the relief of unconsciousness. The
unnatural position made every movement painful; the lacerated veins and crushed
tendons throbbed with incessant anguish; the wounds, inflamed by exposure,
gradually gangrene; the arteries, especially of the head and stomach, became
swollen and oppressed with surcharged blood; and, while each variety of misery
went on gradually increasing, there was added to them the intolerable pang of a
burning and raging thirst (Life of Christ, 497-499).

Many victims lingered for days — which is why Pilate was surprised to hear that Jesus had died after only a few hours (Mark 15:44). In order to hasten death, the soldiers might break the victim’s legs with a club (see John 19:31-33). This made him unable to raise his body to breathe, thus bringing on death from lack of oxygen. The usual Roman practice was then to leave the body to be devoured by birds. The Jews, however, would take the dead man down and bury him in keeping with the Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 21:22-23).

All these things Jesus endured. All these things God watched His Son suffer. Why?

“By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has send His only begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10).

“For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

Now We're All Just Crazy?

A survey for the National Institute of Mental Health says that one in four Americans suffers from some sort of mental disorder. The report, published in June, predicts that more than half of us will develop a mental illness at some point in our lives.

If you’re like me, you’re skeptical of those numbers; they seem awfully high. Part of the problem is that the definition of “mental illness” is always expanding. In the last 50 years, the American Psychiatric Association’s “official list” of mental disorders has grown from 60 to well over 300. Even some things that once were just considered bad behavior, like drug and alcohol abuse, are now classified as mental illnesses.

Which brings me to my point.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to talk about how our nation is “defining deviancy down.” Like those of Isaiah’s day, we have become skilled at calling evil good and good, evil (Isaiah 5:20). Redefining some sins as “illness” — implying that we can’t help ourselves, so it’s not our fault — is just one way of doing that. Instead of taking responsibility for evil choices, it lets us claim to be innocent victims.

But sin is still sin, no matter how stubbornly we ignore it, no matter how eloquently we excuse it, no matter how creatively we redefine it. “If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us…if we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8,10).

Beating the Daily Grind

“And as they went, it happened that He entered into a certain village. And a certain woman named Martha received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she came to Him and said, ‘Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.’ And Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her’” (Luke 10:38-42).

Martha is so much like us, don’t you think? Most of us live life in a frenzy. Unless we have too many irons in the fire, we’re not “satisfied.” We think the only way to make life fulfilling is to overcommit ourselves in every direction. We have so many demands on our time that we’re always racing against the clock. Most of us can relate to the sentiment of Alabama’s song, “I’m in a hurry and don’t know why.”

Now, I’m not suggesting we drop all of our responsibilities and become freeloaders. Laziness is not a godly quality. But there’s no profit in spreading ourselves too thin, either. In fact, it’s harmful. We may involve ourselves in so many different things that we can’t devote enough time or energy to any of them. Instead of doing a few things well, we do a whole bunch of things poorly. And unfortunately, that includes things spiritual. Many of us are so overloaded with temporal concerns that we live in constant anxiety and can’t possibly give our best to God. With that in mind, here are three Bible-based suggestions for beating the daily grind.

1. Learn to be content. Even life’s honorable pursuits can’t bring us real fulfillment. Multiplying them until we’re hard-pressed to keep up certainly won’t help! Solomon came to realize that a life consumed by work is vanity (Ecclesiastes 2:4-23). There was nothing he lacked the resources to do or build, yet he found no satisfaction in it. “Is it not good that he should eat and drink and make his soul see good in his labor? This I also saw, that it was from the hand of God” (verse 24). Whatever you’re able to do well, be content with it. Whatever you’re able to provide, be satisfied with it.

Contentment doesn’t come automatically; it has to be learned (see Philippians 4:11). But every child of God has a head start, because the greatest contentment of all is knowing that you are justified before God in Christ. It’s sad, then, that many Christians still aren’t at peace. They go on striving, struggling, trying to find happiness in earthly pursuits (as noble as they may be), not realizing that the peace which passes all understanding is already theirs!

2. Learn to replace anxiety with prayer. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7). Which do you spend more time on, worry or prayer? Which makes more sense? Jesus taught “that men ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). We are to pray without doubting, knowing that our God is able to do all things (James 1:5f). We are to pray persistently, knowing that God cares and will provide what we need (Luke 11:5f). Even the necessities of life — food, clothing, shelter — need not be a source of anxiety for us. God has promised to meet those needs if we give Him first place (Matthew 6:25-33). And that brings me to another point.

3. Make sure your life has the right goal. If your life seems out of control, take some time to re-evaluate what’s important to you. Is God first? Really? Part of the reason our lives get so overcrowded is that we devote too much of them to money, recreation, hobbies, and entertainment, while our Lord, the church, and our families have to “take a number.” Jesus warned that the “cares of the world” can choke His word from our hearts and make us unfruitful (Matthew 13:22). A lot of us have no concept of sacrifice. We’re going to have to give up some things — even good, wholesome, constructive things — if we want to succeed as Christians.

Mary seized the opportunity to hear Jesus. Unlike her sister, she saw what was of greater importance. (Notice that Luke says it was Martha who was “distracted.”) “Do not labor for the food that perishes,” Christ tells us, “but for that food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of man will give you” (John 6:27). Are we instead letting life’s smaller concerns — and they are smaller — keep us from things of great spiritual value? Do we have so many secular commitments that we can’t even make room for something so vital as worship? Do we spend more time reading progress reports and newspapers than God’s word? Are worldly social obligations keeping us from being hospitable to our own brothers and sisters? Are our families so scattered that we can’t even sit down together for a meal? Many of us must answer an embarrassed “Yes.” And that’s a good sign that we’ve lost our focus. Remember: Nothing is more important than the kingdom of God and His righteousness. If you’re too busy for God, then you’re too busy!