Issue: A Fundamental: How and Why to Appreciate Depth of Character

Context: The New Testament letter of Galatians is one of my favorite books of Scripture because it deals with fundamentals. In the late 40s A.D. Paul had been accused by false teachers of not being a true apostle. Apostle means “one who is sent” or “messenger” or who personally saw the Lord Jesus. Paul was not one of the 12 disciples. Paul was later personally blinded and converted and granted spiritual sight by the Lord Jesus himself in Acts 9. (Superscriptions in Acts 9 in English read “The Conversion of Saul” to aid understanding of the metanarrative of what’s happening there.) The Pharisee Saul was born again by the sovereign grace of God, and his name was changed from Saul to Paul, and he was commissioned as the apostle to the Gentiles. Why? Because the Jews were spiritually hardened due to their rejection of the Messiah Jesus (Romans 11:25-26).

The Fundamentals in Galatians: Paul’s depth of character was evident in sundry ways. First, his humility. Paul had been a particularly zealous man as a Pharisee. You would not have wanted to have engaged in intellectual combat with the Pharisee Saul of Tarsus. But God’s grace humbled him permanently. Saul became Paul, just like Jacob became Israel—not by human effort or accomplishment but by the sovereign grace of God. Prideful Saul was transformed into the servant/pastor/missionary Paul. Second, his wisdom. When you deal with Pauline writings in Scripture, you are cast into a sea of wisdom that is perhaps best expressed by Paul himself: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33) and “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:36)

Encouragement/takeaway: When humility and wisdom are united in one person, the fundamental character of the person is deepened. That fundamental depth of character attracts quality in others. May the tribe of such saints increase.

Sometimes Dostoyevsky’s surname name is spelled with a y by translators into English from Russian. Other translators sometimes omit the first y. It does not really matter for my purposes here. I just wanted to acknowledge that issue of spelling.

I’m on a Dostoyevsky kick again. When I fell in love with reading as a boy, it was largley through the great 19th century British masters like Dickens and Hardy. But I also discovered Dostoyevsky and the other Russian masters. They wrote long books, sometimes near a 1,000 pages. But they’re more than worth the investment of time required to plumb their depths.

In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky wrote (among countless other gems): “They [the progressives/atheists/humanists] think to order all things wisely; but having rejected Christ they will end by drenching the world with blood.”

In other words, it’s Christ or chaos–always. Man will either worship the truth or an idol. If there’s no god above the government, government is your god. If there’s no god above the state, statism is your religion. If man is the measure of all things, it’ll come down to brute power of which man will rule. Again, it’s Christ or chaos.

That’s why Dostoyevsky’s line is so packed with wisdom. The secularists spout emotive bromides about progress, brotherhood, and human rights, yet the murders continue unabated. Ask the Christians in Nigeria how tolerant other worldviews are towards them. So much for tolerance.

We can kick against reality, but reality does not disappear just because we don’t like it. It’s there. Folks can and will hate the truth of Christianity, and yet it endures because its King walked out of the grave after three days, despite added Roman guards at the tomb of a corpse.

Folks can mock, deride, and slander–but the truth endures. Why? Because it’s Christ or chaos.

Again, listen to Dostoyevsky: “They [the progressives/atheists/humanists] think to order all things wisely; but having rejected Christ they will end by drenching the world with blood.”

Introduction: No, it’s not the Robert Frost poem I have in mind here. It’s instead Solomon’s writing in Proverbs: “Do not envy a man of violence/and do not choose any of his ways,/for the devious person is an abomination to the LORD,/but the upright are in his confidence” (Proverbs 3:31-32).

Questions:

• Why might the Lord speak through Solomon’s pen that Christians are not to envy a man of violence?
• Why is wisdom rooted in not choosing any of the violent and devious person’s ways?

Answers:

• True to the form of Hebrew literary parallelism, the second half of the construct answers the first section’s question. As to why might the Lord speak through Solomon’s pen on whom not to envy, it’s because we’re mimetic by nature. We all look to examples. I have certain men I esteem more than others. And those men had their men whom they emulated. We’re all imitators. Anyone who says he/she isn’t is dishonest. Imitation is not bad in and of itself. It’s about imitating the proper role models.
• As to why we’re not to envy the man of violence or the devious person, it’s because the moral character of such people is that of rottenness. God calls them an abomination in verse 32 of Proverbs 3.

Encouragement/takeaway: In Scripture, we are told by the apostle Paul not only whom to imitate, but also why: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). We’re to have wise, proper, godly paradigms, the ultimate of whom is Christ for the believer. In the same way that Solomon taught whom not to emulate (and also why not to emulate certain types of people), Paul taught the same thing, but in positive language. The wisdom should be clear: those we choose to emulate reveals a lot about our own values and what we deem important. Are those values wise, biblical, and redemptive or are they foolish, anti-biblical, and corrupting? This is the issue, or, to return to the title, the matter of the road taken.

Introduction: We live in a world of simulacra, emojis, and memes. Depth can be hard to find. It’s the age of shallowness, that’s certain. But there is at least one emoji I admit to relishing: it’s the one of having one’s mind blown. It looks like this:

I use it often when, paradoxically, something is mind-numbingly stupid. I just shake my head and go, “Lord, have mercy.” Or as older generations were wont to say, “Bless your heart,” a genteel way of saying you’re less than bright.

Questions: Have you ever heard folks say, “God is love”? Sure. Some folks might even allude to the actual text from 1 John 4. The entire verse 8 reads, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” But the first part of that verse, much less the larger context of the entire passage, is usually dropped, and all we hear is the “God is love” part, clipped from the rest of the context.

But when’s the last time you heard that God hates, too? I’d wager it’s not often, if ever. But guess what? God does hate. His hatred pervades Scripture, in fact. Here’s just a small sample:

• Proverbs 6:16-19 lists more than half a dozen things God hates:

There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.

• In Psalm 5, David writes, “You [God] destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man” (Psalm 5:6).

Proverbs 8:13 says, “The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil/Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.”

Encouragement/takeaway: Here’s the point, dear ones. It’s a good thing that God hates because it’s hatred of evil that reveals God’s utter holiness. If He did not abhor what is evil, He would not be good. Hell, therefore, is a good thing, because it demonstrates God’s holiness and hatred of evil and His love of righteousness.

To return to the above reference to the emoji of having one’s mind blown, that’s why I appreciate that particular simulacrum. It reveals how utterly shallow it is when people say utter “God is love, love, love” bromides divorced from the biblical witness. God is love, yes; but God loves holiness and abhors sin. That’s why God’s hatred is a good hatred. “Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature” (1 Corinthians 14:20).

Bottom line up front: Confidence in the Unchanging God

Intro: This morning I was reading Psalm 4. It is one of the many poems David penned. Psalm 4 hinges upon the issue of confidence, of where the wise person places his confidence. Is it in himself/herself? Is it in government? Is it in fellow sinners?

Great Question: “How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?” (Psalm 4:2b) That’s just one more thing to love about Scripture. It shows us as we really are, not as we would like to think we are. What do I mean? Here David is lamenting the undiscerning sheeple who mock the godly. David is saying that even though he (as God’s man) is mocked, his confidence is in God, not in the undiscerning masses, the sheeple, those who lack discernment and wisdom.

And in verses 4-5, David writes, “Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah. Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the LORD.” In other words, look to the Lord. Why? Because God is the fount of all wisdom.

It’s why the half-brother of the Lord Jesus penned his wisdom: “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good, fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17).

Encouragement/takeaway: Where do you find in the world system that kind of fruit? We don’t. That’s because the world system largely rejects biblical wisdom, opting instead for headlines, power, and pride. But David, a forerunner of the Christ of God, knew the fount of all wisdom. He wisely put his confidence not in the fickleness of men, but in the unchanging holiness and wisdom of God. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.