Let not those who hope in you be put to  shame through me, O Lord God of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel.  For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons. 

For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. (Ps 69.6-9)

This psalm is quoted numerous times in the New Testament, not only showing that God’s predictions about the Messiah came true, but telling us more about the Messiah and his purpose than we would have seen by simply observing his life, death, and resurrection.

The psalm is not exclusively about the Messiah, as verse 5 makes clear: “O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.”  A centrally important part of Christ’s character is his sinlessness, and this admission of folly and wrongs committed cannot be reconciled with that fact.  As usual with the Old Testament prophecies, there was a simpler, more fleshly meaning intended for the Jews when it was written; then, as more time passed and the promises about the Messiah began to pile up, it became clear that even many of the old Scriptures, the ones they thought they understood already, weren’t just about the here and now, but looked forward to something far greater in the age to come.

In this case, the prediction was that the Messiah would not be treated very well—that he would be associated with shame and dishonor, and bear “reproaches.”  That’s not a word we use very often, and it’s tempting  to replace it with a more relatable word like “insults”; but that would detract from its weight.  Insults are a dime a dozen, but reproaches cut to a deeper level.  They’re not merely intended to hurt someone’s feelings, but to make them an object of public scorn.

David apparently composed this prayer at a time when he bore that kind of public blame without cause—not that he’d never done anything wrong, but that he hadn’t done what he was accused of doing.  How much worse, how much more unjust was the situation when Christ was the target of such  derision from the vast majority?  When we think about Jesus’ death, we generally focus on his role as the substitute, accepting the penalty for our transgressions.  This is, of course, appropriate, as Isaiah tells us:

Surely he has borne our griefs

          and carried our sorrows;

     yet we esteemed him stricken,

          smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our

               transgressions;

          he was crushed for our iniquities;

     upon him was the chastisement that

               brought us peace,

          and with his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53.4-5)

But that’s not the whole story.  Paul brings our passage from Psalm 69 into his instructions in Romans 15, telling us to bear with each other and put up with each other’s weakness, pleasing our neighbors and not ourselves.  “For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me’” (v3).  It’s not just that the shame and dishonor we deserved was laid on his shoulders instead.  It goes deeper than that.  The people who scoffed at God, scoffed also at his Son.  Rather than retaliating, Jesus allowed them to do it, accepted the shame and derision, and said, “‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’” (Lk 23.34).

When we reject God’s commandments today, in a sense we participate in crucifying Jesus, even though it happened long before any of us was born.  Not only are we contributing to the burden of sin he had to bear on the cross, but in a way we are “crucifying once again the Son of God to [our] own harm and holding him up to contempt” (He 6.6).  We might not think our little slip-ups in the heat of the moment amount to anything, and in comparison to the inexhaustible grace of God, that’s partly true.  His blood is more than adequate to atone for all the sins of the world—past, present, and future.  How could a relatively decent and moral person’s fairly mild sins amount to even a drop in the bucket, in comparison to the horrendous acts of evil committed even by some who later repented and turned to Christ?  Yet, just as the police officer isn’t swayed by the argument, “that guy was going way faster than I was,” God isn’t concerned with assigning ranks to our sinfulness.  The standard is simple: righteous, or wicked?  But we can’t claim righteousness on our own merits, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Ro 3.23).  Since we’ve all sinned, we’ve all contributed to Christ’s crucifixion.  Not only did he bear our sins on the cross; he also bore the brunt of our sins!  Yet he offers forgiveness.

His offer stands today for those who treat him so poorly, holding him up to contempt.  The offer stands until he returns, and we do not know the day or the hour that will be.  What’s a sinner to do?  We can see the basic answer in the very next verses of the psalm with which we began.  They looks forward to Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, and our imitation of that process:

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.  At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.  Deliver me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me. (Psalm 69.13-14)

Jeremy Nettles

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. (Romans 14.1-3)

These verses introduce one of the most difficult passages in the entire Bible.  Christians are supposed to get along with each other even when they disagree, but anyone can see we have often failed to do so.  This passage does not give license to contradict God’s instructions, of course.  We should not be more open-minded and less judgmental toward those who insist God approves of their adultery, or theft, or gossip.  Instead, these instructions pertain to standards that aren’t so clear-cut.  These are often called “matters of opinion,” but when we search for this term in the text, we come up empty-handed.  In fact the word, opinion, only appears here at all in a few versions.  The others render the last word of verse 1 as “scruples,” “disputed matters,” “thoughts,” “doubtful disputations,” “what they think is right or wrong,” or yet something else.  Opinions differ even on the meaning of this word, and therefore on the meaning of the passage.  How can we disagree gracefully, when we can’t even agree that’s what the Bible is telling us to do?

It’s at least clear that we ought to have some degree of unity and acceptance, from the instruction in the passage to “welcome” those who are “weak in faith.”  But now we have to figure out what that label means, and the answer isn’t straightforward.  It’s often assumed that “strong” means right, and “weak” means wrong.  But does God expect us to welcome those who are actually wrong?  Wrong in their actions, their beliefs, or both?  If a person professes to be a Christian, but believes that Christ never came in the flesh, should that person be welcomed?  According to 2 John, no!  After identifying such a person as “the deceiver and the antichrist” (v7), John tells us, “do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works” (vv10-11).  He simply has an incorrect opinion, but it’s important enough to warrant avoiding him—in part because the bad idea will lead to bad actions.  Likewise, in Romans 14 the “weak” one isn’t just a Christian who holds an incorrect opinion.

Perhaps we can get some help from the example Paul already gave us of a “weak” brother: the one who “eats only vegetables.”  It’s not wrong to eat a vegetarian diet; but Paul’s instructions make it clear God doesn’t require us to do so.  The weak individual is very restrictive.  Is that the answer—whoever is permissive is strong, and whoever is restrictive is weak?  We need only look at the example of adultery, already mentioned, in order to see that this doesn’t work!  In that case, it’s not at all a question of “strong” or “weak” to the Christian who commits adultery believing God approves.  He’s horribly mistaken, living in sin, and denying Christ by ignoring his commandments.

But we were getting close: in fact, the weak individual is one whose opinions lead him to be more restrictive than God.  This is the answer to the question we were asking, but upon reflection we’ll realize that it didn’t help us very much.  Why?  What’s the problem now?  The weak Christian who eats only vegetables doesn’t do so out of mere personal preference, but because he really believes God expects him to shun meat!  It’s easy for us to brush off disagreements as “matters of opinion,” because we assume that our own opinions are the right ones, and expect everyone else to see it that way, too.  But if they did, we wouldn’t have disputes in the first place.  One side believes it’s a matter of opinion.  The other believes it’s a matter of salvation.  Now what?

There’s not an easy answer.  It has often been lamented: why didn’t Paul just tell us all the answers—lay out God’s expectations in all things, plain as day?  Then we wouldn’t need this chapter!  But another disagreement is always around the corner, and there’s not enough paper or ink in the world to address each one individually.  We won't just disagree from time to time about what we could do, but about what we should do.  The purpose of Romans 14 is to prepare us for this.

We’ve been tossing around the words, strong and weak, for quite a while now, but Paul hasn’t actually used one of them at all in the passage we’ve been considering.  Perhaps that should tell us something!  In fact, Paul leans on our assumption at the beginning of the next chapter, finally saying, “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak” (Ro 15.1).  He’s been writing to both the strong and weak this whole time, but aside from the specific examples he’s used to make his point, he allows us to assume throughout that we are the strong, and they are the weak.  We prefer to see ourselves this way, especially when we’re mistakenly reading “strong” as “right,” or “correct.”  Fine, says Paul; then do what the strong person should: welcome the weak, do not despise him, and bear with his failings.  Give up some of your rights for the sake of a brother who’s not sure they are rights at all.  If you’re the strong one, then carry more of the burden, and do it with a good attitude.  After all, that’s how Christ treated us.  He “did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me’” (Ro 15.3).  Let’s imitate him, and “pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding” (Ro 14.19).

Jeremy Nettles

          The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,

                        and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,

        and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;

                        and a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze;

                        their young shall lie down together;

                        and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,

                        and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.

They shall not hurt or destroy

                        in all my holy mountain;

        for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord

                        as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11.6-9)

As with so much in the book of Isaiah, while this prophecy has some minor relation to the coming judgement from God on the enemies of his people such as Babylon, it has a lot more to do with the coming—700 years later—of the Messiah.  Earlier in the chapter, God predicted a descendant from the then-failing line of David, who would reign on his ancestor’s throne with God’s approval and help.  This Branch of David would rule over a kingdom centered, as we saw in verse 9, on God’s “holy mountain”—Zion, on which the city of Jerusalem was built.  But it wouldn’t be limited to that city, or even to the region of Judea.  The whole earth would “be full of the knowledge of the Lord,” and the rest of the chapter lists Gentile nations round about, from which God says he will “recover the remnant that remains of his people” (v11).

The Jews who first heard and read these words would have generally assumed that “his people” referred exclusively to their ethnic group—the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  But in the very same passage, God made it clear the Branch would offer hope to others outside that family tree:

In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious. (Isaiah 11.10)

This was always planned as a worldwide kingdom, ruled from David’s throne by the Chosen one of God.

And what kind of rule would it be?  This audience was used to regime changes—they’d seen both their brothers to the north and several other nearby nations conquered by the Assyrians, and finally the Assyrians themselves waning in power.  Most of these rulers treated each conquered populace brutally, establishing dominance through the exercise of power and punishment.  They executed enemies simply as examples to scare the rest; they took captives and made them march hundreds of miles “naked and barefoot” (Is 20.4) to serve masters far from their homes.  A rising nation was a great threat to every other nation around it, and it went without saying that violence would decide the course of each person’s life.

What would the Messiah bring?  “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb” (Is 11.6).  Each of the details shared in the verses that followed is another demonstration that in the Kingdom of Heaven, there is no cause for fear.  God didn’t say wolves, leopards, lions, bears, cobras, and adders would be exterminated; nor did he say that there would be no more weakness or vulnerability—the lamb, kid, calf, cow, ox, and children of all ages remain, too.  But they’re no longer threatened by violence from the strong.  They get along, and the strong allow themselves to be led by a child—who couldn’t have forced his will on any of them.

Jesus had much to say about this topic as well.  As he went around Galilee and Judea preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 4.17), he also told his disciples, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” (Mk 9.35).  He told them, “let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves” (Lk 22.26), and followed that up by using himself, the king, as an example: “I am among you as the one who serves” (v27). 

But as we saw in Isaiah 11, his purpose is not simply to declaw everyone and establish a society of frail weaklings.  He expects his followers to be strong, and to put up with adversity.  “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Mt 10.34).  In fact, he instructed them, “let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one” (Lk 22.36), and permitted Simon and another unnamed disciple to carry their swords with them to the Mount of Olives on the night he was betrayed and arrested by armed men.  His predecessor, also heralding the ever-nearing Kingdom of Heaven, didn’t tell soldiers to get out of that line of work, but to refrain from using force to secure unjust gain and be satisfied with their pay (Lk 3.14).

But the kingdom of heaven isn’t to be a violent affair, either.  Jesus tells his followers to be strong, but also to serve the weak.  He tells them to behave peaceably, even among those who are hostile.  “Beware of men,” he says (Mt 10.17), but “have no fear of them” (v26).  We could sum all of this up in one instruction: “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (v16).  The world contains many powerful people.  By and large, they use their power for their own ends, which are usually aimed at collecting more power.  How should the Christian behave?  Shun all power and become passive and docile?  No, far from it!  But use your strength to serve those in the kingdom who are weak in comparison.  That’s what Jesus—the most powerful man ever to live—did for us.  “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Ro 5.6).

Daniel Latini

And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.” (Matthew 21.9-11)

One of the themes of Matthew’s Gospel is that Jesus is the heir to David’s throne.  Today we take this point for granted, but the reason for this, in large part, is Matthew’s focus on this very topic in his Gospel.  He’s not just trying to prove that the expected Messiah was to be from David’s line or was to reign on David’s throne; after all, the religious scholars of the day already knew that.  When Jesus asked them, “‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?’ They said to him, ‘The son of David’” (Mt 22.42).  They had figured this out from several Old Testament prophecies.

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. (2 Samuel 7.12-13)

God gave this promise to David in response to David’s intention to build a glorious temple for God in Jerusalem.  Most immediately it applied to his son, Solomon, who did exactly as God had predicted.  For centuries this was seen as a prophecy long since fulfilled.  There had been an unbroken line of descent beginning with David himself, stretching back to the 11^th century BC, of those who reigned in Judah.  The temple on Mount Zion was so grand that no one could have seen it and gone away disappointed.  By the late 7^th century BC, the promise that David’s throne had been established “forever” could reasonably be considered fulfilled.

However, when Judah fell to the Babylonians in the 6^th century, it became difficult to maintain this interpretation.  David’s throne was no more.  Zerubbabel, the grandson of one of Judah’s final kings, was made governor of Judea when the Persians finally allowed them to return home, but it just wasn’t the same.  What happened?  Had God failed to keep his promise?  No!  In fact, God had begun preparing them for this turn of events since long before they fell to Babylon, hinting that the best for Israel lay in store.

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

     and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,

     the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

     the Spirit of counsel and might,

     the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. (Isaiah 11.1-2)

Even while acknowledging his people’s intense struggles with Gentile invaders—including the ongoing fall of the northern kingdom of Assyria—God promised that David’s line, though it would appear cut off, was not finished.  The stump would produce a shoot who would have God’s favor in every way.  Even as things got worse for Judah, and the Babylonians took over and began deporting the aristocrats, God gave another promise:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” (Jeremiah 23.5-6)

This certainly inspired hope in the poor people of Judah as they watched their nation decline under progressively worse kings, and ever-stronger enemies.  Justice is coming!  A king like David will rise!  We will be secure!  And yet, rather than reversing course and beating back the Babylonian hordes, the remainder of the Jews crumbled and submitted entirely to the heathens who burned the temple of the Lord to the ground. 

Had God failed this time?  No!  He repeated the promise again, even while the Jews were in exile:

“My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever.” (Ezekiel 37.24-25)

When Christ came to live as a man on earth, the Israelites were still waiting for the Son of David to restore the kingdom’s former glory.  Matthew worked hard to make it clear that Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise.  He first established that Jesus was a direct descendant of David, then recounted the wise men’s conclusion that a new “king of the Jews” had been born.  Afterward, he pointed to everyone from country bumpkins (12.23), to blind men (20.30), to Gentiles (15.22), to little children (21.15) recognizing Jesus as the Son of David, so long awaited.

He didn’t look like the earthly king they expected.  It wasn’t about putting Israel at the top of the food chain again.  It wasn’t about forcibly compelling the powerful to be nice to the powerless.  But the truth was in the promises all along: he came to build a house for God on earth, to share wisdom and counsel, to grant eternal security in a blessed home, and to be our righteousness.  Hosanna to the Son of David!

Jeremy Nettles

When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. And Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben, for she said, “Because the Lord has looked upon my affliction; for now my husband will love me.” She conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also.” And she called his name Simeon. Again she conceived and bore a son, and said, “Now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore his name was called Levi. And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she called his name Judah. (Genesis 29.31-35)

Leah, through no fault of her own that we can discern, found herself in in a disagreeable position—her father pushed her into a marriage with a man who wasn’t at all interested in her; then her new husband and her father agreed to add her younger sister Rachel to the mix—the bride Jacob had really sought in the first place.  The result was a twisted mess, a corruption of what God designed marriage to be.  Who could blame Leah for feeling inadequate and rejected?  God saw her affliction, and blessed her with a healthy child to raise and love.  What did Leah see, though?  She perceives the situation in terms of her relationship with Jacob, saying, “now my husband will love me.”

Yet it is clear from the story’s progression that little Reuben didn’t bring about her desired effect.  Leah was still dissatisfied, even though Rachel remained unable to conceive.  It’s apparent that Jacob continued to obviously favor his second wife over Leah, because when God blessed her with a second healthy son, her response was again to focus on the shortfall in her relationship with her husband.  She said that God had “heard” of her plight, and given Simeon, whose name is tied to the Hebrew word for heard, to improve her lot.  Once again, God gave her a blessing of tremendous value, one that should have brought her immeasurable joy—and all she could think about was how another person in her life didn’t live up to her expectations or treat her well.  She had a steadfast rock for a foundation—a Lord who clearly loved her and watched over her.  But while she appreciated his blessings, she viewed them primarily as tools for improving her standing before her husband, who constantly disappointed her.

It happened again: God provided a third son, whom she named Levi (“attached”) in the hope—by now obviously deluded—that this one would produce a different result and bring Jacob to value Leah more highly.  She’s looking the gift horse in the mouth, to use a modern proverb.  Her frustration with another person’s ill treatment of her has kept her from simply appreciating the incredible blessings God kept showering upon her, conspicuously singling her out above her sister.

But God doesn’t give up.  He gives Leah one more son, and this time, she has learned the lesson.  She doesn’t expect her husband to love her, to treat her with greater kindness or dignity, or to feel more closely attached to her.  She has come to accept that Jacob will persist in favoring his second wife over his first.  How does she respond?  She names this boy Judah—“praise”—saying, “This time I will praise the Lord.”  Instead of looking around her on earth for the meaningful relationship she desires, she has finally learned to look upward, to God.

The story isn’t over—Rachel ups the ante some time later and pulls the same foolish trick Abraham and Sarah tried when they brought in Hagar to bear children by proxy.  When Rachel’s servant Bilhah has borne two sons to Jacob, Leah is drawn back into the competition, and gives her servant Zilpah to Jacob in order to do the same thing.  Eventually, after many years of this struggle and conflict, God blesses Leah with three more kids, before finally allowing Rachel have two—although she died in the process of birthing her second son, Benjamin.

It’s not as if the birth of Judah ushered in a new age of joy and bliss for Leah, but at least for a little while, she’d learned to just be grateful and give glory to God, rather than diminishing the value of his blessings over the failures and offenses from other people.

This is a lesson each of us ought to learn.  No matter our expectations of other people; no matter how hard we strive; no matter how carefully we scheme, God’s plans are the ones that really matter, as Solomon reminds us: “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand” (Pr 19.21).  If you live by fleshly desires and plans, how will it work out for you?  It’s nearly guaranteed you’ll be disappointed far more often than not in this life, and absolutely certain you’ll face nothing but disappointment in death and beyond.  Your friends and family will disappoint you.  You’ll disappoint yourself.  The world will disappoint you—but God will not.  He gave his Son not only to redeem and restore you, but as a pledge that “He will not leave you or forsake you” (De 31.6).

Whether you’re just at the beginning of your walk with God through this life, or struggling and stumbling along the way, learn to be content; to trust him; to appreciate his blessings; to take human failure in stride.  Learn to be confident that

for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8.28)

Jeremy Nettles