Bible Devotion

Meditative Reflection
God first and family second…

“If you’ve been around Christian teaching in our culture for very long, you’ve undoubtedly heard the reference to a hierarchy of priorities. This hierarchy says that in your life you should put Christ first, your marriage and family second, your church third, people fourth, and so on. The priorities become far less specific and ordered after number two or three, but you get the basic idea. God and family are up at the top. Work is never higher than number three or four.” (D. Sherman and W. Hendricks, Your Work Matters to God)

I agree with Sherman and Hendricks in questioning if such a hierarchy is being taught in the Bible. The Pharisees were using this belief in hierarchy to trump the command to honor parents under the guise that God took precedence. Thus, Jesus chastised them in Matthew 15.

In His reply to what is the greatest commandment, Jesus makes clear that there is in fact no hierarchy: “’Love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” (Matt. 22:37-39)

You might say, “Did Jesus make God first and people second?”

Well, we have to understand the following:

1. Jesus’ reply is about what is the greatest commandment, not which two are the greatest;

2. Jesus did not end with v.39 above, but continued to emphasize in v. 40 that “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” That means anyone of the two does not stand alone, but both, together, undergird the principle of all the commandments; and

3. Throughout the Scripture, it is clear that our love for God is primarily demonstrated through how we love and treat people. “For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” (1 Jn. 4:20)

It is in our family relationship, in our church life, at work or school and in our community that we express our first love for the Lord. We care about people and we put our emphasis on people exactly because we love God who loves people. He put us in such a priority that He even sacrificed His own Son that we may have eternal life.

Watchman Nee understood this very well. He wrote his famous hymn, “Let Me Love”, and ended with these words, “May I finish my days in pleasing other people.” No one will dispute that Watchman Nee was not a people-pleaser. Everyone will agree that Watchman Nee put God first in his life. But these very last words of his song clearly reveal his understanding that in putting God first, he would humble himself to seek the good of other people around him.

Meditative Reflection
Let Me Love

As I quoted from Watchman Nee yesterday, I invite you to reflect on the words of his song which has touched the lives of an untold number of believers. (Note: I prefer my more literal translation of the last line as “May I finish my days in pleasing other people.”)

Let me love and not be respected;
Let me serve and not be rewarded;
Let me labor and not be remembered;
Let me suffer and not be regarded

’Tis the pouring not the drinking;
’Tis the breaking, not the keeping —
A life suffering to seek others’ blessing,
A life loving and true comfort giving

Not expecting pity and concern,
Not accepting solace and applause;
Even lonely, even forgotten,
Even wordless, even forsaken.

Tears and blood my price for the righteous crown shall be;
Losing all, my cost for a faithful pilgrim’s life.

’Tis the life, O Lord, that You chose to live
In those days when on earth You walked,
Gladly suffering all injuries and loss
So that all might draw near and repose.

I cannot see how much farther I shall go;
Still I press on knowing there is no return.
Let me follow Your pattern so perfect and true,
Bearing ingratitude without complaint.

In this time of trial, O Lord, I pray
That You'll wipe all my hidden tears away;
Let me learn, O Lord, You are my reward,
Let me be others' blessing all my days.

Watchman Nee, 1930

Meditative Reflection
God Can and Will

Jesus commended the Canaanite woman in that she had “great faith”. (Matt. 15:28) I have been pondering about what way her faith was great.

Being a gentile, somehow she already acknowledged that Jesus was the Son of David, in that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. If this implies that she also acknowledged Jesus as God, then He would still be a foreign God to her.

Given such an understanding, she still asked Jesus for healing. This, in itself, was an act of unusual faith.

But Jesus was bent on testing her faith further, with words so mean that surprise all readers of the Bible down through the ages. But the key to understand that Jesus was by no means mean is His statement to the disciples that “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” If that was true, why would He choose to spend time in Tyre and Sidon of the gentiles purposely? We know certainly that Jesus was sent to save all mankind. But, none of the disciples challenged His statement. Perhaps this statement only served to reinforce their bias towards gentiles, which was clearly demonstrated in the first chapters of the Book of Acts. They had a hard time believing that gentiles could be saved and receive the Holy Spirit, just as the Jews.

As Jesus acted as if He were like the rest of the Jews “who spoke with arrogant insolence about ‘Gentile dogs’” (Barclay), the woman willingly accepted such an insult and persisted with her request, and this invited the commendation by Jesus that she had great faith.

Indeed her faith was great, because in addition to having faith in the power of Jesus to heal, her persistence showed that she had faith in the compassion of Jesus. She knew the heart of God. If Jesus was God, He would definitely have compassion. Her faith in the love of God did not waver in spite of the apparent mean remark by Jesus.

Indeed, it might be easier to have faith in what God can do; it is far more difficult to trust in what God will do, especially when time drags on, and God does not seem to care, or even, in the case of this woman, God seems to turn hostile to us. But this Canaanite woman believed that what God can do, God will do.

Meditative Reflection
Who is corrupted?

The rise of the historical and grammatical approach to exegesis has certainly enriched our understanding of the Scripture, but at the same time, it has opened a flood gate for skeptics to shed doubts upon the inspired Word of God. Most unfortunately, such skeptics have expanded beyond the liberal realm into the Evangelical.

A case in point is the view taken of the miracle of the feeding of the 4,000 in Matthew 15. As Lenski bemoans, “Some modern interpreters regard the accounts of the two feedings of multitudes as, in reality, of the same incident. But there are differences in time, place, number fed, number of loaves, of fishes and of baskets full left over.” (Lenski, Matthew, 602)

To me, the strongest evidence is the fact that Mark makes it unmistakably clear that the two were separate incidents in Mark 8:19-20.

The study of the original language, cultural and historical settings of biblical times is important to us, who are far removed from those times, in order to gain a deeper and more accurate understanding of the teachings, the narratives, the parables and the prophecies which the Holy Spirit has inspired the authors to commit into writing. But all these scholarly pursuits have to be done with an attitude of humility and faith — humility so that we are not critiquing the Word of God, but rather judging whatever information we have discovered through our human wisdom (needs to be judged) by the Word of God instead; and faith in that the authors of scripture were indeed inspired by the Holy Spirit and thus, “not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear” from the Word of God, and that nothing can be added or taken away from the Bible. (Matt. 5:18; Rev. 22:18-19)


Unfortunately, as scholars and Bible teachers continue to flaunt their skeptical wisdom over the Scripture in seminaries and in the pulpits, the first thought that comes to the mind of many lay Christians when confronted with scriptural passages that appear to be hard to understand or are in apparent conflict with logic is, “Maybe, my version of translation is incorrect”, or worse, “The manuscripts must be corrupted.”

The best attitude, as far as I am concerned, is to take the Scripture as it is. While I still exhaust my intellectual faculty in analyzing its contents and consulting reliable and godly resources, I humble myself and pray to the Holy Spirit –– the original author, “Lead me into Thy truth.” Most of the time, the Holy Spirit opens my mind to see things that were there, but which I had failed to notice. But at other times, I still remain ignorant of the deeper meaning of the passage and I have come to thank God, because after all, He is not obliged to show me everything I want to know, but only things that I need to know.

Meditative Reflection
Wrong Focus

It is interesting to read the comments of Jesus about the “little faith” of the disciples in Matthew 16 which took place shortly after Jesus’ commendation of the great faith of the Canaanite Woman in chapter 15.

As it happened, the disciples forgot to bring bread for their journey. Whoever was responsible must have felt badly. So, when Jesus seized the opportunity to teach them an object lesson, not to chastise them of their negligence, but to warn them of a far more serious lesson of guarding against the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees, they became overly sensitive and misunderstood the intent of Jesus.

Instead of rebuking their defensive attitude, Jesus rebuked them of little faith. I believe here lies a relevant lesson that we should learn, especially when it comes to the understanding of what is more important in kingdom ministry.

Jesus always focuses on the heart. He worries that as much as He has relentlessly attacked the teachings of the Pharisees (whose sin was hypocrisy based on their outward observance of the law) and the teachings of the Sadducees (whose error was their stubborn objection to resurrection), Jesus knows that their errors would be like yeast and would spread even among those who would follow Him. His fear was not unfounded, as we learn that the idea of salvation by work and the doubt about resurrection were two of the most important apologetic concerns of the Apostle Paul. And yet, all that the disciples were concerned about was whether their negligence in bringing bread would make Jesus mad.

When Jesus rebuked them of little faith, He was in essence saddened by their misplaced focus. Bread, or for that matter any material need, should never be the focus on His followers. Our focus should always be on matters of the heart.

When a church or any Christian ministry spends much time and energy in addressing material needs or issues of that nature (often disguised as spiritual but which are administrative issues), we are repeating the same mistake of the disciples.

Meditative Reflection
Who binds and who loses?

Allow me to the quote from Calvin’s own words about the meaning of this difficult passage in Matthew 16:18-19 for our reflection today:

“The substance of this statement is, that Christ intended to assure his followers of the salvation promised to them in the Gospel that they might expect it as firmly as if he were himself to descend from heaven to bear testimony concerning it; and, on the other hand, to strike despisers with terrors, that they might not expect their mockery of the ministers of the word to remain unpunished. Both are exceedingly necessary; for the inestimable treasure of life is exhibited to us in earthen vessels (2 Co. 4:7), and had not the authority of the doctrine been established in this manner, the faith of it would have been, almost every moment, ready to give way…

"This is a great honor, that we are God’s messengers to assure the world of its salvation. It is the highest honor conferred on the Gospel, that it is declared to be the embassy of mutual reconciliation between God and men (2 Co. 5:20.) In a word, it is a wonderful consolation to devout minds to know that the message of salvation brought to them by a poor mortal man is ratified before God. Meanwhile, let the ungodly ridicule, as they may think fit, the doctrine which is preached to them by the command of God, they will one day learn with what truth and seriousness God threatened them by the mouth of men. Finally, let pious teachers, resting on this assurance, encourage themselves and others to defend with boldness the life-giving grace of God, and yet let them not the less boldly thunder against the hardened despisers of their doctrine…


"But it will be said, Christ addresses Peter alone: he does so, because Peter alone, in the name of all, had confessed Christ to be the Son of God, and to him alone is addressed the discourse, which applies equally to the rest. And the reason adduced by Cyprian and others is not to be despised, that Christ spake to all in the person of one man, in order to recommend the unity of the Church.”

(Excerpts from Calvin’s Commentary, Vol. XVI. pp. 294-296)

Meditative Reflection
Spiritual Direction

When the famous quarterback, Randall Cunningham considered joining a football team, he went to his pastor for his opinion. His pastor, when being interviewed years later, said, “He asked the wrong person.”

I admire the honesty and humility of this pastor and I hope we, pastors, and especially those who minister to others as spiritual directors will take heed.

More and more, we who are in the role of counselors, feel the pressure to give answers to those who come for advice. The truth of the matter is, unless it is about choices of a moral nature, we do not know God’s will in the lives of other people. All we should do is to listen, to pray with the consulter and give them pointers according to common sense and/or biblical principles.

But I have come across more and more cases in which pastors or spiritual directors are bold enough to tell the consulters what they should do, as if they do have a hotline with heaven above. This is not only arrogance, but it is dangerous. Yes, ultimately the consulter has to own up to their own decision, but for the pastor or spiritual mentor to give more than pointers, is irresponsible. The danger is not only to the consulter as we become their stumbling block to the will of God, but to us too, because we have chosen to play God.

Part of the reason, I am afraid, is not so much the arrogance of the spiritual mentor, but the succumbing to popular culture which demands answers and results as a sign of competence. Henry Nouwen is right, we have nothing to offer, except our vulnerable self.