Sometimes God gives us hints.  For example, he told Abraham, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Ge 12.3).  With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that this refers to Jesus, but there’s no way Abraham could have figured this out when God first made the promise!  God has given some of these hints to us, too, and we’re still left speculating as to what exactly they mean.  To be clear, he’s revealed to us far more than to Abraham, or anyone in the Old Testament era.  “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,” and this is more than the understanding, but the actual substance of those things!  They come “through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (2Pe 1.3), meaning Jesus.  But there are still some mysteries remaining. 

One of these topics concerns the nature and involvement of angels in the world today.  From the hints and tidbits God has shared with us, mankind has built a detailed and often amusing set of conclusions.  Examples include guardian angels, longs lists of angels by name, a hierarchy of different types of angel (cherub, seraph, archangel, etc.), elaborate stories about Satan’s angelic origins, and more.  It’s not fair to say that all of this is complete nonsense, but much of it is the equivalent of attempting to recreate an elaborate work of architecture based on observations of two or three tiny bricks that may have come from the original building.  It’s a foolish pursuit; but there’s a kernel of truth at the center, a small hint God has shared with us, and while we ought to toss out the whole set of man-made ideas and stories about angels, we also ought to hold on to what God has actually told us.  Angels appear far too often in the Bible for us to consider each instance here, but a few are worth mentioning and examining.

When Elisha was surrounded by an army dedicated to killing or capturing him, God sent an army of angels to assist him, but they remained invisible.  His servant was afraid, but Elisha reassured him,

“those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6.16-17)

We could easily dismiss that as the product of another time, under a different covenant, and far different from our own situation today.  Yet, in one of the most contentious and confusing passages of the New Testament, Paul strongly implies there were unseen angels around in his day, too!  He says that “a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels” (1Co 11.10).  What exactly this means will be debated until Christ returns; but Paul had been talking about worship, and especially the worship of the assembled saints, and here he says that angels are at least somehow involved in that worship.  Are they actually present?  We don’t know—but Jesus tells us in Matthew 18.20 that he most certainly is, and angelic participation is no great leap from there.

In that same chapter Jesus says something about angels that should get our attention:

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 18.10)

Their angels?  Does each child have his own angel?  Does each adult?  What’s going on here?  Again, we don’t know, but when Peter was supposed to be in jail and yet showed up outside the house of Mark’s mother (in Acts 12.12-17), the Christians inside “kept saying, ‘It is his angel!’” In chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, letters to the churches of Asia begin, “to the angel of the church in” each city.  Perhaps these are all unrelated, and in Peter’s case the story could reflect a misconception among early Christians, not so different from when they insisted Gentiles converts be circumcised.  But in any case, it’s easy to see how, through the centuries, people turned this sort of hint into the concept of the guardian angel.

The author of Hebrews throws us another curve: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (He 13.2).  This reason doesn’t matter much, unless it’s still possible to encounter angels in the New Testament era.  It’s worth noting that during the life of Christ and the early church there was also tremendous demonic activity on earth, some of which left little doubt something both evil and supernatural was going on.  It’s understandable that God may have loosened their chains, so to speak, in order to more clearly demonstrate the power and goodness of his Son.  Perhaps he also increased angelic activity on earth at the same time, and both have since stopped.  But that’s speculation, just like the elaborate catalogue of angels’ names and jobs—we really just don’t know.

But although we don’t see obvious angelic activity around us today, God has at least hinted that they are still here, doing his bidding on earth, and generally going unnoticed.  We shouldn’t assume we’ll get—or have already gotten—angelic assistance with our battles and struggles in this life.  Even if they’re right next to us, we’ll be like Elisha’s servant, completely blind to their presence.  But it is good to ponder the hints God has given us, and to appreciate that he would consider sending his agents to help us.  Then, we should trust him all the more as we seek to do his will in this world.

Jeremy Nettles

“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19.17-18)

The latter part of that passage is quoted 9 times in the New Testament and upheld as the basic rule for how to manage all our relationships.  When we view it along with just a little more context, it seems more narrow than that.  God’s law uses three terms interchangeably here: brother, neighbor, and son of your own people.  That shouldn’t be too surprising—after all, he gave this law to a relatively young and small nation who all descended from the same father, Israel.  God appeals to their sense of familial devotion, since nearly everyone forms strong bonds with the members of their immediate family.  God wanted the Israelites to extend that kind of love to the rest of the nation, so he reminded them constantly that they were brothers.  Paul says

the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Romans 13.9)

Nevertheless God thought it necessary to add an enormous amount of commentary to further explain how this principle is properly applied in this or that situation.  This fills most of the law presented in Exodus 20-23, Leviticus 18-20 and 25, Numbers 27 and 35-36, Deuteronomy 17-25, and assorted tidbits in between.  To be clear, this amounts to only a fraction of the text devoted to laws that fall under the umbrella of the greatest of all the commandment in the Law of Moses: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (De 6.5).  There’s a lesson to be learned there, but also much to gain from examining the conflicts God anticipated among his people, and his prescriptions for solving them in a manner that was just, loving, and gave him honor.

Jump forward into the modern day, and while we may still at least try to subscribe to the notion we are all one big family and brothers with the whole human race, we certainly have not maintained that as the working definition for our term, “neighbor.”  We usually reserve that word for the people who happen to live immediately adjacent to ourselves.  We’re occasionally willing to extend the label to cover others who live nearby, but we’d never say the our neighborhood covers the entire earth, and even when using the slightly expanded definition of “neighbor,” we feel obligated to add a qualifier to set apart those who live closest to us.  They become next-door neighbors to us, in contrast to the perhaps dozens of other neighbors who don’t deserve that same, highest degree of neighborliness from us.

Even under this restricted sense of the word, the Law of Moses has plenty to teach us.  God told Israel, “You shall not move your neighbor's landmark, which the men of old have set” (De 19.14).  He told them, “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another” (Le 19.11), and “You shall not see your bother’s ox or his sheep going astray and ignore them.  You shall take them back to your brother” (De 22.1).  He told them,

If a man borrows anything of his neighbor, and it is injured or dies, the owner not being with it, he shall make full restitution. If the owner was with it, he shall not make restitution; if it was hired, it came for its hiring fee.  (Exodus 22.14). 

How many disputes between next-door neighbors today fall into one of these categories?  There are more of these specific scenarios in the Law, and they help to remind us that even over thousands of years and thousands of miles, people are people.  We continue to create the same basic conflicts over property lines, broken promises, ignoring each other’s setbacks, and failing to return borrowed items.  If only our neighborly gripes were limited to these!  Yet the principle God taught to Israel so long ago would address every one of our conflicts.

He didn’t go silent on the topic after the Law of Moses.  Jesus mentions an apparently common saying among the Jews during his ministry: “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy” (Mt 5.43).  Sometimes we complicate this even farther, and our next-door neighbors actually become our enemies.  Yet, Jesus’ instructions still cover our situation here: “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt 5.44).  It’s not easy to love an enemy—to desire and pursue what is good for someone who harms or seeks to harm us.  It’s difficult to pray on their behalf, too.  But Jesus tells us that loving our friends is nothing to be proud of—that’s easy, and many awful people still love their friends.  This is also the point Jesus makes in his parable of the Good Samaritan.  A lawyer, “desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” (Lk 10.25)  and Jesus’ response in the next several verses demonstrates that God doesn’t care what your enemy says to you, does to you, or thinks about you. Your enemy may very well hate you, and take every opportunity to inconvenience or harm you.  You still have an obligation to “do good to everyone” (Ga 6.10).  Take your cue from Jesus himself: 

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (Ro 5.10)

Jeremy Nettles

There are many things in life we simply take for granted—things that go without saying.  “Church” has been a cultural assumption for so long that it’s tough for some to see the reasons behind it.  Why do we go to church?

Upon some reflection, most church-goers could provide some kind of answer to that question, but these answers won’t all agree.  Nevertheless, the explanation that would be given most often is straightforward: “God told us to.”  That’s a good answer.  God’s instruction should be all we need to spur us into making this practice our habit.  But while God’s command is clearly the prime cause of our weekly gatherings, it doesn’t tell us the purpose God had in mind for them.

But there is a purpose—in fact, there are many goals and ends that are furthered by our gathering each week:

To Break Bread

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. (Acts 20.7)

Luke’s narration here makes it very clear what was the chief purpose of their gathering: “to break bread.”  In this context, it’s obvious he doesn’t just mean they were sharing a meal—this was the Lord’s Supper.

To Stir Up One Another

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10.24.25)

While reminding his audience that they should make a habit of going to church, the author here slips in another major reason and purpose for doing so: “to stir up one another to love and good works.”  We can’t do that very effectively if we have no fellowship, and we can’t have good fellowship if we never see each other—a lesson everyone learned anew during the lockdowns of 2020.

To Put Something Aside

On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper… (1 Corinthians 16.2)

It’s clear that this  points to a joint treasury of some sort, in order to avoid the hassle and delay of taking up collections later.  The implication is very strong that this was to be done during the course of their regularly scheduled assemblies, and it’s another purpose for having such assemblies.

To Proclaim the Lord’s Death

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11.26)

We’ve already determined that sharing the Lord’s Supper is a primary purpose in going to church, but Paul here tells us that it’s about more than just individuals observing the ritual—in addition to the private, inward goal of examining oneself, there’s a collective public aspect to it, in which all can see that we believe Jesus died on the cross to bear the penalty for our sins before the Father.

To Instruct

Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue. (1 Corinthians 14.19)

While discussing the merits of supernatural spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues and prophesying, which were prevalent at that time, Paul shows these early Christians that the more showy gifts weren’t as valuable as the ones that could be directly used for teaching.  Another purpose of gathering as a church is “to instruct,” and of course from the other side, to be instructed.

To Convict

But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all… (1 Corinthians 14.24)

This goes along with instruction, but is more confrontational.  All people, and especially those who are not Christians, need God’s word spoken in church to make them aware of their transgressions and obligations.  This is one more reason to assemble.

To Build Up

What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. (1 Corinthians 14.26)

All of the activities in which the church engages while assembled are to pursue this goal: the edification of the whole church, and each individual present.

This has not been a complete list.  There are other goals and purposes within and beside the ones mentioned above; but one more ought to be included:

To Worship

…the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. (1 Corinthians 14.25)

This one seems obvious, and seems to go without saying, but it’s alarmingly easy to forget.  All of the other purposes, including the several we found just in this section of 1 Corinthians 14, lead to this one.  It’s all about glorifying God and worshiping him in his presence.  We tend to make everything about ourselves, but that’s not how “church” was designed!  Just as the cause of our weekly assemblies was God, he is also the ultimate purpose.  Remember why God wants you to go to church.

Jeremy Nettles

One of the major failures of our society’s moral and ethical standards is that nearly everything is presented as a struggle between abject evil and unblemished righteousness.  This arises from a well-meaning attempt to shun all that is bad, and at the most basic level it is simply the recognition that there are standards—that some things are right, and other things are wrong.  But it leads toward the mistaken notion that there aren’t behaviors that are acceptable but ill-advised, or others that are good but not compulsory.  The Bible provides us with a great many examples of people who demonstrate the value of going above and beyond, and the reason they deserve our respect, admiration, and imitation is precisely that they chose to do something better than the bare minimum of God’s expectations.

One such example is Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus.  Although he appears in only a short segment of the Gospel story and we’re left to speculate as to exactly why he vanishes after Jesus’ childhood, his contribution to God’s beautiful plan for the salvation of man should leave an imprint on us.  The first thing we learn about Joseph is that he wished to divorce Mary when she turned up pregnant—an understandable desire, given that he had every reason to be confident this child was not his! 

“Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly” (Mt 1.19).  We could shorten this sentence easily to simply say, “Joseph resolved to divorce her quietly,” and this raises the question: why include the bit about “being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame”?  What does it add to our understanding of the events in question?  It’s an explanation, telling us the cause of everything else.  We may paraphrase the sentence thus: “because Joseph was a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, he resolved to divorce her quietly.”  Many of the less literal and more interpretive Bible versions render the verse just about like this.

But we’re still not there—how is Joseph’s righteousness the cause of what followed?  Does it explain his desire to divorce her?  Yes it does.  He knows God’s standards, and has what in any other case would amount to absolute proof of his bride’s unfaithfulness.  There are individual ramifications, of course, but it goes even beyond that.  The Law of Moses made it very clear that God intended for each tribe’s land to be passed down from father to son, and not to permanently change hands from one tribe to another, one clan to another, or even one “father’s house” to another (as an even smaller division is labelled throughout the Law).  Without knowing the parentage of this child, Joseph would risk violating this part of the law.  Did the Jews generally bother to keep those commandments anymore?  No.  Consider that Joseph and Mary—of the tribe of Judah—lived in Nazareth, in the territory originally allotted to another tribe, Zebulun.  Clearly, at some point along the way, those rules were mostly abandoned.  Perhaps being conquered and deported a handful of times had a little something to do with that shift. 

Nevertheless, we can tell from events a few months later in the story that Joseph still does his best to adhere to even this defunct portion of the Law.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. (Luke 2.1-6)

He took his full-term pregnant wife all the way to his ancestral hometown of Bethlehem to be counted among the sons of David.  Contrary to some interpretations, Augustus was not concerned in the slightest with each subject’s birthplace, nor did he require them to take a break from their lives and travel there for the census.  A couple of Bible versions insert at least an implication to the contrary, but it’s just not in the actual text.  What Luke says is that each man went “to his own town”—not his birthplace or ancestral home, but the local polling location.  Joseph is the one who decided he ought to make the 90-mile trip on foot with a heavily pregnant wife to be counted in the city of his ancestor David.  That’s going above and beyond, and not to please the emperor, but to please God!

That brings us back to our question from earlier: how is Joseph’s righteousness the cause of his wanting a divorce?  We’ve now answered that.  It was out of extreme respect for God’s law, and not just a selfish—if reasonable—concern for his own heritage.  But there’s one more detail we’ve neglected.  If all of this is the case, why do it “quietly?”  The answer is right there in the verse: he was “unwilling to put her shame.”  Why shouldn’t he put her to shame?  Leave aside that Mary hadn’t actually been unfaithful—Joseph didn’t yet know that, and drew the most reasonable conclusion based on the evidence before him.  But even though all the signs pointed to his bride being untrustworthy and unfit to be his wife, he still planned not only to respect God’s law by protecting both families’ heritage, but to hush the matter up, enacting the principle Peter would later remind Christians to observe: “love covers a multitude of sins” (1Pe 4.8).

Joseph is one of the final shadows and types, however faint, of Christ himself.  The child he and Mary would soon raise in their home would eventually take that kind of sacrificial love to its extreme, actively pursuing the redemption, forgiveness, and salvation of billions who have broken faith with him.  He went above and beyond, agreeing to give up his rights and suffer harm—even death!—so that you, who have been unfaithful to him, might not be put to shame.

Jeremy Nettles

“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6.6-8)

That last verse is high on the list of people’s favorites, and it’s easy to see why.  It reassures us that God’s expectations are not terribly difficult to fulfill.  It’s a pretty simple formula.  Of course there’s still some debate as to what exactly is just, and kind, and humble, and what are the boundaries of our walkway, and those questions end up causing a great deal of frustration and confusion, and even arguments.  The arguments lead to unkind words and actions, and then often escalate.  Those who disagree may become condescending and arrogant toward each other, and occasionally tempers flare to the extent that major acts of injustice are the result.  Justice, kindness, and humility have been rejected.  But the way Micah describes the formula skips over those darker aspects of the walk, and leaves us feeling secure.

Even people who disagree on many of the details still find encouragement in the terms: justice, kindness, and humility.  In fact, nearly everyone, of all cultures and religions, as well as at nearly every point in history, has agreed that these things are good and we should pursue them.  Why is that?  Paul tells us a little about it:

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. (Romans 1.19-20)

This is the same thing David meant when he wrote, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork,” followed up swiftly with “Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” (Ps 19.1&4).  Without a single word spoken in the usual sense, it is as if the very creation is silently screaming at us that someone made it; that its creator must have existed before the creation; that he must have astonishing power and authority; and that we—his creation—ought to direct our everlasting gratitude and honor to him.  Paul’s point was that these obvious facts lead quickly to the conclusion that we have an obligation to behave in a way consistent with God’s will, and he makes that point more clear in the next two chapters.  One might well ask, “how are we supposed to figure out what God wants us to do by listening to the silent voices of the heavens?”  Paul has an answer.

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them… (Romans 2.14-15)

He doesn’t actually provide an algorithm for determining God’s will—instead he says that our actions demonstrate we already know his will, even if imperfectly.  The universal appeal of the simple formula provided by Micah, “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God,” demonstrates this innate understanding of God’s expectations.

But there is more to the story.  We haven’t yet considered verses 6-7 from Micah.  This introspection over what an individual owes to God isn’t supposed to come across as immoral or misguided.  In fact, it’s simply the logical progression of coming to grips with “the sin of my soul” (v7b).  The imagined worshiper is trying to come up with an adequate offering to repay his debt to God, and he realizes first that the burnt offering prescribed in the law is not enough to heal the rift.  Next, even an absurd quantity of precious items would not suffice—even if he had access to such wealth, it wouldn’t mean much to God.  Finally he suggests offering his firstborn, not because he doesn’t value his child, but precisely because he does love and value him, more than anything else.  Of course, the audience is supposed to reject that awful idea with disgust, but we’re left wondering still: how can this rift be healed?  In fact, can it be healed at all?

The answer is the simple, straightforward instruction “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (v8).  The sinner, aware of his shortcomings, has to trust that God knows what he’s doing, that he’ll take care of the rest.  And he did take care of it!  When Micah prophesied, the plan was not yet realized, but in fact God had already decided on a way to heal the rift, and it wasn’t to require us to sacrifice our firstborn!  It was for him to sacrifice his.

That may sound a little silly—how exactly is that supposed to work?  What are the mechanics?  Why this plan and not another?  Is that really the most logical approach?  Isn’t there another way?  Isn’t human sacrifice just about the worst sin there is?  But just like the hypothetical repentant sinner under the Jewish covenant in Micah, we’re left to trust that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men,” and go along with his plan.  “Christ crucified” is that plan.  He stands between God and man to reconcile the two, and we must follow his instructions to emulate his death, burial, and resurrection if we want to “come before the Lord” (Mi 6.6).

Jeremy Nettles