1900
Hard Problems of Scripture
Apparent Inaccuracies and Inconsistencies Exploited and Explained
Written for The Ram's Horn by R. A. Torrey, Superintendent, Moody Bible Institute
One of the most puzzling passages in the Bible to many is the story of the Unrighteous Steward, in Luke 16, 1-14. A lady told me yesterday that she had about made up her mind not to teach that lesson. She said: "The three points of difficulty are: First, that Jesus should hold this dishonest scoundrel up for our imitation; second, that the Lord should commend the unrighteous steward; and, third, that Jesus should command His disciples to make themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness." Let us take these three points up in order and look right at them. We will soon see that in each point, if we adhere strictly to what Jesus said all difficulty will disappear and the incident, instead of staggering us, will be found to be profoundly instructive.
Why did Jesus hold this dishonest scoundrel up for the imitation of his disciples? He did not hold him up for imitation. He held him up in the first place as a warning of what would overtake unfaithful stewards, how they would be called to give account of their stewardship and their stewardships be taken from them. Having taught this solemn lesson, one much needed today, Jesus goes on to show how the "sons of this world are for their generation wiser than the sons of light." (R. V.) They are wiser on this point. They use their utmost ingenuity and put forth their utmost effort to make present opportunities count for the hour of future need.
"The Sons of Light" oftentimes do not do that. Indeed, how many present day "sons of light," who profess to believe that eternity is all and time is nothing in comparison, are using their utmost ingenuity and putting forth their utmost efforts to make the opportunity of the present life count for the needs of the great eternity?
Jesus does not point to the steward's dishonesty to stir our emulation. That Jesus plainly rebukes. But Jesus points to his good sense in using the opportunity of the present to provide for the necessity of the future. And, even then, He carefully guards His statement by saying that he "is wiser for his generation." He knows only the life that now is and from that narrow and imperfect standpoint he is wiser than is "the son of light" from his broad and true standpoint of knowing eternity, an eternity for which he is not wise enough to wholly live.
There are other utterances of our Savior where wicked or selfish men are held up by way of contrast to show how much more godly men, or even God Himself may be expected to act in the way suggested. (See e. g. Luke 18. 6, 7: 11. 5-8: Matt. 12, 11, 12.) The first difficulty then in the passage has disappeared. We will pass on to the second.
Why did the Lord commend the unrighteous steward? The Lord Jesus did not commend him. If any one will look up the revised version of verse 8, where it is said, "the lord commended the unjust steward" he will find it reads "his lord (i.e. the steward's lord) commended the unrighteous steward." And he only commended his shrewdness. Jesus, so far from commending him, flatly calls him the "unrighteous steward" and, furthermore, just below warns against unfaithfulness in stewardship (vs. 10, 11.) So the second difficulty has entirely disappeared.
But why does Jesus command His disciples to make to themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness? This difficulty disappears when we get a correct Biblical definition of the terms used. First of all, what does "mammon of unrighteousness" mean? It means nothing more nor less than "money." Money is called "mammon of unrighteousness" because money is such a constant minister to sin and selfishness (as for example in the case of the scoundrel above mentioned) and because "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Ti. 6. 9, 10, 11, R. V.)
Jesus in passing would lift a warning note against the perils of money. He often packed a whole sermon into a single phrase. What does "of" mean? Exactly what the revised version translates it, "by means of." Then what Jesus bade His disciples do was to make themselves friends by means of money, i.e. to so use the money God entrusted to them that they would make friends for themselves by their use of it, and (as the context shows) to make these friends among God's poor and needy ones who would go to "the eternal habitations" and be ready to give us, their benefactors, a royal welcome when our life has ended and so our money failed.
In other words, Jesus simply puts into a new and striking form His oft repeated teaching, not to keep our money, but to spend it in doing good, and so invest it in heavenly and abiding securities (cf. Matt. 19. 21; 25, 35-40; I Tim. 6, 17-19; Prov. 19, 17.)
That this teaching of Jesus was clearly understood by His hearers is evidenced by verse 14, where it is said, "the Pharisees who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they scoffed at Him" (R. V.) So the third and last difficulty has disappeared and this passage stands out in glorious light, teaching with great force a lesson that our day greatly needs to learn, that money is a stewardship and that he who seeks to enjoy it in the brief present and not rather to expend it so that it will bring us interest for all eternity, is a great fool and even the petty shrewdness of the sons of this world rebukes him.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 8.
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
They Knew Faith
1900
A teacher, wishing to impress upon the minds of her pupils the full nature of faith, took them one day to the riverside and, seeing a boat in the middle of the stream, said:
"Now, my little dears, if I were to tell you that there was a leg of mutton in that boat, would you believe me?"
"Yes."
"Well, then," she said, "that is faith."
Some time after the same children were going through an examination when the question was asked, "What is faith?" and all the class, as with one voice, shouted out, "A leg of mutton in a boat!"
A teacher, wishing to impress upon the minds of her pupils the full nature of faith, took them one day to the riverside and, seeing a boat in the middle of the stream, said:
"Now, my little dears, if I were to tell you that there was a leg of mutton in that boat, would you believe me?"
"Yes."
"Well, then," she said, "that is faith."
Some time after the same children were going through an examination when the question was asked, "What is faith?" and all the class, as with one voice, shouted out, "A leg of mutton in a boat!"
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Freedom for Service, Freedom from Besetting Sins
1902
CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR
Topic For the Week Beginning Aug. 24 — Comment by Rev. S. H. Doyle.
Topic. — Freedom for service. — 2 Tim. 2:4; Gal. 5:1; Heb. 12:1-2.
God saves us not altogether for the sake of saving us, but also that our lives may be consecrated to Him. We are saved to serve. In the twelfth chapter of Romans Paul says, "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." That this consecration and this service may be performed to the fullest extent it is absolutely necessary that we should be free and untrammeled in our service. That freedom for service is necessary Paul suggests to Timothy by the illustration of the soldier. "No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of life that he may please Him that hath chosen him to be a soldier." No soldier can be entangled with other affairs in life. He must give himself up entirely to the service; he must be free from worldly cares and avocations or it will be absolutely impossible for him to produce the best results as a soldier. The same thing is true of the Christian soldier. To be a good soldier of Jesus Christ we must have freedom for service.
1. We must be free from affairs of this life. There is nothing that so much interferes with active Christian service as unnecessary association with the things of this world. A spirit of worldliness crushes out a spirit of consecration and service. An unwise indulgence even in the harmless things of life seriously interferes with the faithful performance of our obligations and our duties to God. Unnecessary worries about the cares and the business pursuits of life deprive us of the power to serve God as we ought to serve Him. While in the world we are not to be of the world to the extent that our relations with the world interfere with the performance of our duties to God.
2. We should be free from false conceptions of the law. "Stand fast, therefore, in the liberties wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." The yoke of bondage here referred to was the bondage of the law. It was the conception of the ancient people of God that they were to be saved by the observance of the law. The result was that they became slaves to the law. It usurped the place in their lives that Christ should have had, and it was impossible under these conditions for them to render the cheerful and whole hearted service to God that was His due. The lives of many Christian people have been made miserable and they have been made incompetent for service by a false attitude toward the law. The early religious experiences of Martin Luther were of such a character. He was taught to look upon God as a severe judge ready to punish and to destroy him for the breaking of His law. He had no idea of God as a kind and loving Father or a realization of the fact that Christ had kept the law for him and had paid the penalty for it on the cross. The result was that his life was miserable and he was unfitted for the best and truest service. It was only "when the scales fell" from his eyes and he lived in the liberty wherewith Christ made him free that he was enabled to perform great service to God. Christians are not above the law; they are not immune from the penalties of the law, and yet in Christ they possess a freedom from it that should inspire them to better lives and should give them greater liberty for effective and whole hearted service.
3. Freedom from besetting sins. "Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." All sins have not the same attractive power for all people. What tempts one man may have no temptation for another. In each one of our lives are besetting sins or sins that easily entwine themselves about us. The apostle here likens the form of such sins to the flowing robe of the Grecian athlete. We can easily understand how the runner would be hindered in the race if he had about him the loose, flowing garment of the Greek. It would wrap itself so closely about him as to hinder his every movement. Such is the result of besetting sins in the life of service. If they are allowed to have power and influence with us, they hinder us and destroy our powers for effective service. That we may be free to serve it is therefore important that we should lay aside all cares and all besetting sins and that we should look to Christ for the power to overcome besetting sins and to continue in the life of faithfulness and of patient service.
CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR
Topic For the Week Beginning Aug. 24 — Comment by Rev. S. H. Doyle.
Topic. — Freedom for service. — 2 Tim. 2:4; Gal. 5:1; Heb. 12:1-2.
God saves us not altogether for the sake of saving us, but also that our lives may be consecrated to Him. We are saved to serve. In the twelfth chapter of Romans Paul says, "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." That this consecration and this service may be performed to the fullest extent it is absolutely necessary that we should be free and untrammeled in our service. That freedom for service is necessary Paul suggests to Timothy by the illustration of the soldier. "No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of life that he may please Him that hath chosen him to be a soldier." No soldier can be entangled with other affairs in life. He must give himself up entirely to the service; he must be free from worldly cares and avocations or it will be absolutely impossible for him to produce the best results as a soldier. The same thing is true of the Christian soldier. To be a good soldier of Jesus Christ we must have freedom for service.
1. We must be free from affairs of this life. There is nothing that so much interferes with active Christian service as unnecessary association with the things of this world. A spirit of worldliness crushes out a spirit of consecration and service. An unwise indulgence even in the harmless things of life seriously interferes with the faithful performance of our obligations and our duties to God. Unnecessary worries about the cares and the business pursuits of life deprive us of the power to serve God as we ought to serve Him. While in the world we are not to be of the world to the extent that our relations with the world interfere with the performance of our duties to God.
2. We should be free from false conceptions of the law. "Stand fast, therefore, in the liberties wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." The yoke of bondage here referred to was the bondage of the law. It was the conception of the ancient people of God that they were to be saved by the observance of the law. The result was that they became slaves to the law. It usurped the place in their lives that Christ should have had, and it was impossible under these conditions for them to render the cheerful and whole hearted service to God that was His due. The lives of many Christian people have been made miserable and they have been made incompetent for service by a false attitude toward the law. The early religious experiences of Martin Luther were of such a character. He was taught to look upon God as a severe judge ready to punish and to destroy him for the breaking of His law. He had no idea of God as a kind and loving Father or a realization of the fact that Christ had kept the law for him and had paid the penalty for it on the cross. The result was that his life was miserable and he was unfitted for the best and truest service. It was only "when the scales fell" from his eyes and he lived in the liberty wherewith Christ made him free that he was enabled to perform great service to God. Christians are not above the law; they are not immune from the penalties of the law, and yet in Christ they possess a freedom from it that should inspire them to better lives and should give them greater liberty for effective and whole hearted service.
3. Freedom from besetting sins. "Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." All sins have not the same attractive power for all people. What tempts one man may have no temptation for another. In each one of our lives are besetting sins or sins that easily entwine themselves about us. The apostle here likens the form of such sins to the flowing robe of the Grecian athlete. We can easily understand how the runner would be hindered in the race if he had about him the loose, flowing garment of the Greek. It would wrap itself so closely about him as to hinder his every movement. Such is the result of besetting sins in the life of service. If they are allowed to have power and influence with us, they hinder us and destroy our powers for effective service. That we may be free to serve it is therefore important that we should lay aside all cares and all besetting sins and that we should look to Christ for the power to overcome besetting sins and to continue in the life of faithfulness and of patient service.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
The Scarlet-Tufted Woodpecker — A Legend
1874
Tap, tap, tap!
What a busy little creature, the brown birdie with, a scarlet crown! See her running up the trunk of the large elm by our door, striking the rough, bark with her long beak — tap, tap, tap! — stopping a moment, her pretty head held sideways as if listening, then hopping so fast half around the tree, and tapping again, with now and then a blithe chirp. Pretty, useful little woodpecker! While she gets her daily food she is keeping, tiny as she is the great elm sound and fair. Well may we love the birdies, one and all, for their beauty and song and the many sweet lessons they bring us, as they wing their way from bough to bough, seek their daily bread and nurse their tiny broods in wind-rocked cradles — lessons of love and kindness and industry and trust in a Father's care.
There is a northern legend of the woodpecker that, though it is hardly fair toward the bird, is yet a pretty story. It runs in this way:
Long ago, when St. Peter was traveling about and teaching the people, he was poor, and often went hungry. One morning at sunrise he came to a cottage where a woman in a brown dress and scarlet cape was making cakes. He asked her for a single one, and at first she said yes, and rolled out a small cake. She put it down to bake, but kept looking at it, and soon concluded it was more than she wanted to give. So she kneaded out another, a smaller one; but when it was baking, that, too, seemed large to her. All this time Peter was waiting quietly, patiently, though faint with hunger. She took the tiny bits of dough, put them together and rolled out a tiny cake, thin as a wafer; but when it was baked, she wanted even that.
"My cakes seem small when I eat them myself," said she, "but they are too large to give away, for all that." So she put even the wafer-like cake on the shelf.
Then Peter made indignant answer: "Thou art far too selfish, too mean, to wear a human form, to have a home to shelter thee, clothes and food and fire. Thou shalt live hereafter as the birds do, build in the trees, and get thy living by constant labor, boring, boring, all day in hard, dry wood."
Then up through the chimney went she without a word. Out from the top flew a woodpecker. The little scarlet cap was still on her head, and her dress, changed to feathers, was covered with soot. And from that day to this — so runs the legend — she has been in the wood tapping trees for a scanty living, and every child knows her sooty dress and scarlet hood.
Now, though it is only a legend, and the woodpecker is as good as she is pretty, it will be worth something to us, when we see her, to remember that story, if it lead us to shun every form of selfishness, and pity and help the needy as far as in our power.
You may not be changed to a bird, though you live as selfishly as you can, but you will be changed to a smaller thing, a mean and selfish man. — Children's Hour.
Tap, tap, tap!
What a busy little creature, the brown birdie with, a scarlet crown! See her running up the trunk of the large elm by our door, striking the rough, bark with her long beak — tap, tap, tap! — stopping a moment, her pretty head held sideways as if listening, then hopping so fast half around the tree, and tapping again, with now and then a blithe chirp. Pretty, useful little woodpecker! While she gets her daily food she is keeping, tiny as she is the great elm sound and fair. Well may we love the birdies, one and all, for their beauty and song and the many sweet lessons they bring us, as they wing their way from bough to bough, seek their daily bread and nurse their tiny broods in wind-rocked cradles — lessons of love and kindness and industry and trust in a Father's care.
There is a northern legend of the woodpecker that, though it is hardly fair toward the bird, is yet a pretty story. It runs in this way:
Long ago, when St. Peter was traveling about and teaching the people, he was poor, and often went hungry. One morning at sunrise he came to a cottage where a woman in a brown dress and scarlet cape was making cakes. He asked her for a single one, and at first she said yes, and rolled out a small cake. She put it down to bake, but kept looking at it, and soon concluded it was more than she wanted to give. So she kneaded out another, a smaller one; but when it was baking, that, too, seemed large to her. All this time Peter was waiting quietly, patiently, though faint with hunger. She took the tiny bits of dough, put them together and rolled out a tiny cake, thin as a wafer; but when it was baked, she wanted even that.
"My cakes seem small when I eat them myself," said she, "but they are too large to give away, for all that." So she put even the wafer-like cake on the shelf.
Then Peter made indignant answer: "Thou art far too selfish, too mean, to wear a human form, to have a home to shelter thee, clothes and food and fire. Thou shalt live hereafter as the birds do, build in the trees, and get thy living by constant labor, boring, boring, all day in hard, dry wood."
Then up through the chimney went she without a word. Out from the top flew a woodpecker. The little scarlet cap was still on her head, and her dress, changed to feathers, was covered with soot. And from that day to this — so runs the legend — she has been in the wood tapping trees for a scanty living, and every child knows her sooty dress and scarlet hood.
Now, though it is only a legend, and the woodpecker is as good as she is pretty, it will be worth something to us, when we see her, to remember that story, if it lead us to shun every form of selfishness, and pity and help the needy as far as in our power.
You may not be changed to a bird, though you live as selfishly as you can, but you will be changed to a smaller thing, a mean and selfish man. — Children's Hour.
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