I had the great privilege of growing up in the church, and learning the Bible from a very young age.  I remember being in second grade and thinking about how strange it was that the Israelites used to bow down in front of an object and worship it.  How ridiculous!  God, through the prophets, argued this same point.  For example, he describes a man who cuts down a tree, and then

takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!” (Isaiah 44.15-17)

God’s sense of humor is on full display here, as he pokes fun at the bizarre spectacle of a man using his own hands to construct an object he will then worship, treating it as if it had some great power, when it was the worshiper’s own power that brought the idol into existence!  Yet, at the same time he uses the very tree that became a “god,” as fuel to cook his food.  The scene he has painted is a bit pathetic, depicting of a very confused person.  Isaiah laments in verse 19 that none of these poor fools thinks to ask, “Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”

This picture is so clear that even a child can understand, and yet idol-worship was the norm, for most people in the world, for most of history.  Why is that no longer the case?  Simply because God elevated his people Israel and through them, culminating with his Son, taught the world the truth, that there is one God, not many, and he cannot be adequately represented by any image we could construct—nor does he want to be.

Yet even today, there is idolatry in many places around the world.  The three “Abrahamic religions,” Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, all shun idols.  However, within Catholicism and eastern orthodoxy in particular, many who call themselves Christians are at the very least toeing the line of idolatry, with “icons”—images and symbolic objects used in religious ceremonies—holding prominent positions in both their places of worship and in the worship itself.  In fact, one of the complaints that led to the Protestant Reformation in the 16^th century was the accusation that the Catholic Church practiced idolatry.

Nor is the problem today limited to people just getting a little too close to the line.  In many religions still practiced today, chiefly Hinduism and Buddhism, idols are commonplace.  This is also the case in many of the African religions and those of the island cultures and American natives, to the extent that their religions are still practiced.  In these, manufactured objects are still revered as holy depictions of various gods and spirits, just as was the case when God told the ancient Israelites,

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them… (Exodus 20.4-5)

While it’s easy for us to scoff at these silly people with their silly beliefs and practices, do we consider ourselves?  It doesn’t appear in exactly the same way, with blocks of wood and golden calves and so on, but there is much idolatry in the modern world around us, too.

How can an increasingly secularized society be idolatrous?  Consider the devotion many show to Almighty Science—not just the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, but the idea that Science provides moral imperatives.  Or the way many people idolize celebrities, or politicians, or Politics itself.  How many people clearly worship sports, their careers, or money?  This is more or less what Paul was talking about, when he said,

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. (Colossians 3.5-6)

Are those not among the greatest evils we see in this world today?  Clearly, they are, and among them is another sin God was already diagnosing and prohibiting in the Ten Commandments, “You shall not covet” (Ex 20.17).  Paul includes this in an offhand way, almost as if it’s not an incredibly profound statement about the motivations behind people’s actions and the way God looks at them.  Covetousness, roughly equivalent to greed, is idolatry, because it is the elevation of something other than God, to the status and devotion that ought to be reserved for God himself.

As we’ve seen, some people put money on this pedestal, but greed is not the only thing in the modern world that is idol-worship, for all intents and purposes.  What matters most to you?  What keeps you up at night?  What gets you worked up?  What takes up your time?  What takes up your money?

There’s no harm in having hobbies and interests, or in doing your job well, or in having a successful career.  But we must be careful not to let any of these things become our idols.  As Jesus told Satan when confronted with the opportunity to acquire control of all the kingdoms and glory the world had to offer, “it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve’” (Mt 4.10).

Jeremy Nettles

Some people get frustrated by the four separate accounts of Jesus’ life on earth found in the New Testament.  There’s repetition, but also confusion, as they don’t always include the same stories, or in the same detail, or in the same order.  Much effort has been spent trying to perfectly harmonize all four perspectives, but although that’s worthwhile, it’s also a mistake to eliminate the particular flavors that each of the authors infused into the work.  These flavors show up in many forms, sometimes giving us insight into Jesus, his teaching, and the Kingdom of Heaven.

One of these little insights comes at the very beginning of Mark’s gospel.  Of the four, his is the shortest by a longshot.  This is mostly due to his concise, just-the-facts approach, and from the beginning it’s apparent that he intends to spend as little text as he possibly can on an introduction.  Where Matthew begins with Jesus’ genealogy back to Abraham, Luke begins by discussing his writing approach and telling us about Jesus’ distant cousin’s parents, and John writes a dense, yet profound assessment of the nature of light and truth, Mark simply says, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1.1), spends a few sentences telling us about John the Baptist, and by verse 9 is covering Jesus’ baptism.  He picks up 30 years after Luke, 2000 years after Matthew, and eons after John, and rather than slowly developing the character of Jesus, by the end of chapter 1 Jesus has been tempted in the wilderness, begun preaching the gospel, called disciples, and healed a large number number of sick people.  He sets a very quick pace, and we’re hard pressed to keep up.

Mark’s favorite word is “immediately.”  It’s a fairly common word in the New Testament narratives, often used as a transition to the next episode.  Matthew uses it 14 times, and Luke 12 times in his gospel, as well as another 13 in Acts.  Mark, in the shortest of the books mentioned, uses it 35 times, and nine of those occur before he’s concluded the first chapter (vv10, 12, 18, 20, 21, 23, 29, 30, and 42).  To some extent, that’s just because of their personal preferences and writing styles; but it helps to showcase Mark’s approach toward telling this whole story.  Throughout his gospel and especially in the first chapter, he’s deliberately emphasizing how quickly all of this happened.  It’s a rapid-fire course of events with very little time in between to process.  By emphasizing the speed with which these events took place, Mark gives us a window into the experience of most of the people who heard of them in real time, who weren’t actively following Jesus around, who were distracted by the normal, everyday cares of life, and for whom all of this happened very…suddenly.  As Mark tells us after the first healing he records, “at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee” (Mk 1.28).  

Why does Mark do this?  What is the point of demonstrating more clearly the swiftness of all that Jesus did here on earth?  It matches the predictions God makes elsewhere about the judgments he will bring on the wicked.  For example, he tells Babylon,

These two things shall come to you
in a moment, in one day;
the loss of children and widowhood
shall come upon you in full measure (Isaiah 47.9)

Speaking of a different “Babylon” several centuries later, a voice from heaven says,

For this reason her plagues will come in a single day,
death and mourning and famine,
and she will be burned up with fire;
for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her. (Revelation 18.8)

More follows in verses 10, 17, and 19, in these cases speaking of “a single hour.”  The point in each one is that God has been patient, and has given ample warning of harsh judgments to come.  He gave them plenty of time to repent and turn toward him, but now that the day has come, there will be no escaping.  In the blink of an eye, everything is changed.

Jesus’ coming did represent a judgment, but it also represented the opposite—good news.  That included a need for repentance, as Mark notes in both John’s teaching (Mk 1.4) and Jesus’ (Mk 1.15).  But instead of that repentance simply pushing off God’s wrath for a little while, it brought about, for the first time, a genuine cleansing, healing, and God’s favor.  He did all of that in a period of, at most, three years.  Even in terms of our lifespan, three years is short, and yet in that brief time, while it was never quite like the flipping of a switch, everything changed.

Today, we often content ourselves with slow, incremental progress, or even just managing to keep things steady.  While both of those are better than a continuous descent into hell, it’s important that we not become complacent.  As Mark records later, referring to the coming destruction of Jerusalem, “concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mk 13.32).  It’s dangerous to say, “I’ll be ready when the time comes,” either for your death or for Christ’s return.  You don’t know when that time will be.  You need to be ready, now.  If there are still hurdles between you and God, don’t put them off until you’ve figured out every last detail, or mastered the history and philosophy of Christianity in the western world.  Perhaps you’ll have time for that later, but for now, you need to deal with whatever separates you from God’s love, immediately.

Jeremy Nettles

I occasionally hear people saying they prefer the God of the New Testament over the God of the Old Testament, on the grounds that the Old Testament God is vengeful, judgmental, and ruthless, while the New Testament God is loving and forgiving.  This notion ignores, of course, that they are the same God, and ignores that Jesus pronounces judgments in the New Testament that are far more severe than anything in the Old.  Jesus foretells about the day of judgment that the King “will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Mt 25.41).  This severity is seen even more clearly in John’s Revelation, in which Jesus appears wearing a blood-soaked robe, with eyes “like a flame of fire,” slaughtering his assembled enemies with a sword that comes from his mouth and then calling all sorts of animals to feast on their remains—and that’s just chapter 19!  Afterward, the souls of the dead are judged, and those whose names aren’t written in the Book of Life are thrown into the lake of fire.

So, the general impression that God somehow changed, or softened up between the Old and New Testaments is mistaken.  However, it is not terribly difficult to see where people have gotten this impression.  For one thing, most of them simply haven’t read the whole Bible.  For another, they generally focus on the physical, and the punishments incurred in the Old Testament are generally much more physical than those in the New.  Finally, the Old Testament prophets tend to devote the majority of their words to judgment, and less space is reserved for restoration and reward.

But in practically every case, God does turn from his wrath.  He does explain his long-term goals of peace and restoration, for those who turn back to him.  The examples are too many to list, but we can see the pattern by looking at a couple.

In the book of Ezekiel, God tells the Israelites during the early stages of being taken captive to Babylon that worse things are coming, as a result of their sin.  The city of Jerusalem will be destroyed (ch5), the idolaters will be killed by sword, famine and pestilence (ch6), the evil rulers will be killed for their sins against the people in their charge (ch11), God will remove his remaining protections from the people of Judah and allow the surrounding nations to treat them in horrible ways (ch23), and then he will turn his wrath against those surrounding nations and punish them for all their evil acts, as well (chs 25-32, 35).  Then, beginning in chapter 37, God tells the Israelites, “I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land.  Then you shall know that I am the Lord” (Eze 37.14).  This goes on for the rest of the book, with chapters 40-48 describing in detail the new Temple he will cause to be built in Jerusalem, and the abundant blessings that will flow from its center, his throne.

In Hosea, God describes himself as husband to an adulterous wife, and spends nearly all of the first 13 chapters describing Israel’s sins against him, their spiritual adultery, and many punishments he sends to turn her around, culminating in the most extreme results listed in 13.16:

Samaria shall bear her guilt,
because she has rebelled against her God;
they shall fall by the sword;
their little ones shall be dashed in pieces,
and their pregnant women ripped open. (Hosea 13.16)

Yet, this isn’t what he wants, or where he intends to leave matters.  Rather,

I will heal their apostasy;
I will love them freely,
for my anger has turned from them.
I will be like the dew to Israel;
he shall blossom like the lily;
he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon;
his shoots shall spread out;
his beauty shall be like the olive,
and his fragrance like Lebanon.
They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow;
they shall flourish like the grain;
they shall blossom like the vine;
their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon. (Hosea 14.4-7)

This pattern continues in Joel, Amos, Micah, Zephaniah, Zechariah, and Malachi, often introduced with some version of the phrase, “in that day” (e.g. Jl 3.18, Am 9.11, Mi 7.11, Zc 3.10).  That's not the only way the phrase is used, but it highlights the ultimate plan, the goal that God is pursuing, even in the judgments he pronounces, and the protections he withholds.  Over and over again, he reminds his people, it doesn’t have to be this way.  It won’t always be this way.  There are much better things coming, for those who are patient, who trust the Lord and do his will.

The year 2020, still only two-thirds completed, has been the most tumultuous in several decades, prompting many striking (and often hilarious) comparisons to the Ten Plagues in Exodus, and the Seven Seals in Revelation.  Yes, it has been a crazy time.  Yes, it seems to be unending.  Between political uncertainty, a worldwide pandemic, murder hornets, hurricanes, wildfires, lockdowns, domestic insurrection, rioting, looting, and arson, some days I think I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Ohio River running red (cf. Ex 7.20), or footage of three frogs hopping out of some politician’s mouth (cf. Re 16.13).

But remember, as God repeatedly told his people over the centuries, this will all end.  We don’t know the day or the hour beforehand, but it will come.  And in that day, none of this will matter anymore.  The unrest, the uncertainty, the violence, the strife, the natural disasters, the unnatural disasters… it’s all a tied to the evil of this world, but God is not bound by such things. 

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6.19-21)

Be ready for that day.

Jeremy Nettles

The New Testament talks about submission, obedience, and conformity to a standard that has been imposed from above.  Jesus is the king of creation, and he is currently putting “all his enemies under his feet” (1Co 15.25).  Yet, in the present time, he doesn’t compel you to do anything.  Contrast the old covenant, in which “anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses” (He 10.28).  That is in line with the rest of the world through history, in which cultural norms were, and often still are, strictly enforced in order to keep people in line and keep bad, or even just different things from happening.  This is considered a success, and why shouldn’t it be?  The goal was preservation of custom, tradition, and the integrity of society, and in that case, it has been achieved.

Something…different

That’s not the way Jesus treats his subjects.  To be clear, it’s not as if he has no expectations.  In fact, he promises very clearly to pass judgment, and is described as being “ready to judge the living and the dead” (1Pe 4.5).  A time will come when choice is taken out of the equation, and then “at the name of Jesus every knee [shall] bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Php 2.10-11).  In order for it to be universal, and also to include both the living and the dead, it’s clear that on that day, there will be no more room to choose rebellion.

Yet, what will be the result?  Will everyone who confesses Jesus as Lord on that day be ushered into glory?  Of course not—Jesus tells us that on that day he will say to some, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25.41).  But they obeyed!  They knelt and confessed!  Why are they still to be punished?  Because they didn’t do it willingly, when they were offered the choice.

Paul gives us a lesson in the value of choice in his short letter to a Christian named Philemon.  This was a wealthy man, host to the local church and also the master of at least one slave.  His slave, Onesimus, ran away from him and crossed paths with Paul, as a result of which he became a Christian.  After a time spent working alongside Onesimus, Paul decided it was time to send him back to his master.  Consider the way Paul approaches the conversation with the man against whom Onesimus had sinned:

Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you—I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus—I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. (Philemon 8-10)

He goes on to imply that he’d love to have Onesimus’ services back at his disposal, but chose to send him home, because “I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord” (Phm 14).  He’s hinting that it would be good for Philemon to send Onesimus right back to Paul, but won’t even directly request it.  Why?  Because good deeds done of Philemon’s own accord are better than those done under compulsion.  It’s only after all of this that he gets to his actual request in v17, “if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me.”  He’s alluding to the fact that Philemon has good reason to be very angry with Onesimus, to treat him badly, and to never again trust him.  Yet, how much better would it be, if he could instead forgive Onesimus, and “have him back forever, no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother” (vv15-16)?  That’s a pretty tall order, and although Paul could have termed it that way, he instead put his effort into demonstrating it was not an order at all.  He leaves the choice up to Philemon.  There’s still a right and a wrong, a course that pleases God and a course that displeases him; but it’s much more meaningful, if Philemon chooses the better path when both were available, than if he goes along simply because he has no real choice in the matter.

Paul is sure Philemon will make the better choice, saying “Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say” (v21).  The very fact that Philemon saved the letter and shared it with other Christians suggests strongly that he complied.  While it’s obvious this is a better ending than if Philemon had rejected the appeal, it should also be clear by now that the way things turned out is actually better than if Paul had simply ordered him to take back his slave and treat him well.  In that case, would Philemon have really done anything good?  He’d likely have a terrible attitude about it, harboring a bitterness in his heart that would harm his relationship to both men.  If that had been the case, Paul would have brought about a desirable short-term end, but resorted to the notion he elsewhere rejects, “let us do evil, that good may come” (Ro 3.8), to say nothing of the long-term consequences.  If that had been the case, Onesimus wouldn’t feel gratitude or motivation to behave better in the future; instead, he’d feel entitled to others’ help in getting away with insubordination.  Is that good?

If we serve in the church, we ought to do it “not under compulsion, but willingly” (1Pe 5.2).  We are to give “not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2Co 9.7).  This should extend to the rest of our obedience to God.  Compliance because you have no other choice is not good.  Deliberately surrendering your will, actively choosing the good and rejecting the evil when both options are available, and especially going above and beyond in the way Paul expected Philemon to do, are not the sort of things that just anyone would do.  For that, you need Jesus.  Not only does he provide us the best example of this selfless behavior, but it’s also the appeal he makes to each one of us: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mt 16.24).  It’s not that a cross is laid on your back.  You must pick it up, willingly.

Jeremy Nettles

The Old Testament is full of types of Christ.  This is a strange idea to us, but refers to an impression, a stamp—as in type-writer.  These people serve to foreshadow much of God’s overall plan that he established before the foundation of the world, and they also create a useful contrast between the shadow, and the reality.

One of these types is an obscure high priest in the early 8^th century BC, named Zechariah.  He is not to be confused with Zechariah, the slightly later king of Israel to the north, or Zechariah, the literary prophet in the post-exile period, or Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, or any of the other several, lesser known men of the same name.  The Israelites clearly liked this name, and who can blame them?  It means the Lord remembers, which is certainly a thought worth repeating from time to time.  But this particular Zechariah holds the distinction of being the only one specifically mentioned by Jesus, when he told the Pharisees that the blood of all the persecuted prophets, “from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary,” would “be required of this generation” (Lk 11.51).  That should spark our interest.  How did he come to be killed within the temple?

Let’s start with the backstory, which is long and confusing, but I’ll give you a condensed version of the story told in 2 Kings 8-12 and 2 Chronicles 18-24.  The king of Judah during Zechariah’s lifetime was Joash.  Joash had been the target of a political purge when he was just a baby.  His grandmother, Athaliah, saw a power vacuum when her son, King Ahaziah, was assassinated.  Not wanting to be passed over and lose her position as queen mother, she murdered the entire royal family.  But one member of that family, a sister of the dead king, managed to sneak baby Joash out of the royal palace and over to the Temple, to her husband—the high priest Jehoiada.  They kept him hidden away for six years, while Athaliah ruled the kingdom.  When Joash was seven years old, Jehoiada staged an uprising to oust the usurper Athaliah and put the rightful king on his throne.  They succeeded, and Jehoiada, who’d already acted as the adoptive father to young Joash, also served as the new king’s most trusted adviser until his death.

Now comes the story of Jehoiada’s son, Zechariah.  While Joash is generally remembered as a good king, he went downhill in his later years.  With Jehoiada no longer around to advise him and keep him on the straight and narrow, he listened to bad advisors, and

they abandoned the house of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols.  And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs.  Yet he sent prophets among them to bring them back to the Lord.  These testified against them, but they would not pay attention. (2Ch 24.18-19)

One of these prophets was Zechariah.  You might expect that the son of his beloved adoptive father, mentor, and trusted advisor would gain the king’s ear, but that’s not what happened.  Instead, “they conspired against him, and by command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the Lord” (2Ch 24.21).  How telling, that King Joash, who had been sheltered from his grandmother’s wrath in that very Temple, didn’t let it serve as a shelter against his own wrath directed at his adoptive brother, Zechariah.

Of course, the chief sin here is against the victim, Zechariah; but the chronicler ties it to the previous generation, as well:

“Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, Zechariah's father, had shown him, but killed his son. And when he was dying, he said, ‘May the Lord see and avenge!’” (2Ch 24.22)

Joash did not remember the good deeds of the past, or act in ways that were appropriate as a result.  But God does remember.  We’re reminded of this by the name of the martyr, but if that wasn’t enough, he himself appeals to God to remember this injustice and visit wrath upon those responsible—a request God swiftly granted, in the next part of the story.

So, how is this guy a type of Christ?  Well, let’s list some of the details again: he was the high priest.  His father established a king on Zion.  He was sent by God to speak against civil authorities that were blatantly disregarding God’s will.  He was betrayed by someone close, and a conspiracy of elites led to a gross injustice right there in God’s holy city.  All of these things would be repeated in Jesus, and that was pretty much Jesus’ point when he brought up Zechariah in the context of Luke 11.

But there’s a big difference in the ending.  While Zechariah’s dying utterance was, “May the Lord see and avenge,” Jesus said “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk 23.34).  On one hand, the Lord remembers is a comforting thought, because it means he won’t forget us, and will visit us in our affliction and rescue us from the dangers of this world, and more importantly, the next.  On the other hand, it’s a terrifying thought, because it means he won’t forget our deeds, including the awful sins of which we are all guilty.  And, without Jesus to intercede, that’s exactly right.  Thank God, for sending us his Son, to usher in a new covenant, in which he would remember our sin no more.

Jeremy Nettles