Two short thoughts

Here are two short thoughts on some passages I read recently:

Acts 3:24-26:
24"Indeed, all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken,
have foretold these days. 25And you are heirs of the prophets and of
the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, 'Through
your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.'[c] 26When God
raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by
turning each of you from your wicked ways."

In this passage Peter is talking to a crowd of people who are amazed
because Peter and John healed a crippled beggar. He is telling
everyone about Jesus. What I find so interesting is how he says God
is blessing us: "26When God raised up his servant, he sent him first
to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways."
Normally when we think of being blessed we think of receiving health
and welfare sorts of things (in a "Jacob got Isaac's blessing" sort of
way). And those too fall within the scope of being blessed. But this
says that God blessed us by turning us away from sin. Like, it seems
that turning us away from sin is a bigger blessing than all the health
and welfare stuff. And I guess I can indeed see how this is true,
it's just that it's not the first thing that usually comes to mind
when I think of blessing. And then the corollary is, if I want to be
blessed (which I think most people want, generally speaking, both for
themselves and others), then I should turn away from any sin I can
find in my life. I should be ruthless about getting rid of sin. I
guess how ruthless I should be depends on how much I want to be
blessed! Usually I am cognizant of my sin and do try to be free of
it, but I am not frequently ruthless about wanting to be free of it.

Also, an aside.. Peter also repeats the same idea just a little before
this, saying "19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may
be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord...".
Just thought I'd include the extra example too.

James 4:4-6:
4You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world
is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world
becomes an enemy of God. 5Or do you think Scripture says without
reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?[a]
6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
"God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble."

7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your
hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy
to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you
up.

Footnotes:
James 4:5 Or that God jealously longs for the spirit that he made
to live in us; or that the Spirit he caused to live in us longs jealously

Reading this makes me feel two things. One, I am sort of afraid of
becoming a friend of the world. I mean, I don't want to become "an
enemy of God"! That would surely be bad. Because I *do* feel that I
have longings that are in the category of "friendship with the world".
In response to this, it says we should humble ourselves, and that if
we do that then God will come near to us. That sounds like a
reasonable thing to do, though possibly hard.
But the other thing I feel when I read this is very encouraging. I
find the translation in the footnotes most easy to understand, the
idea that "that God jealously longs for the spirit that he made to
live in us". Like, God loves us so much that He really badly wants
our love and affection back. He wants us to want Him! A lot. It's
like if you have a crush on someone and you want them to pay attention
to you. There is nothing that would make you happier than if they
would just devote all their attention to you and like you back. But
then if they don't, you are jealous of the thing that does receive
their attention.
God has a crush on us, a huge one, much more so than any of our
petty crushes here on earth. And that is encouraging. And really, it
is for that reason that we should want to give up our "friendship with
the world", and not out of fear or any other reason.

-Alan

On God not answering prayers

So I was reading Job today and came across some good answers to the
question of why God doesn't answer prayers sometimes, which I heard a
sermon about last week in church. The sermon didn't give a totally
satisfying answer, but this passage addresses the question to a
reasonable extent. I originally wrote this to email my friend who I
went to church with last week, but thought I would pass this along to
the blog as well.

The passage which illuminates the question is Job 35:9-13, duplicated
below (NIV):

9 "Men cry out under a load of oppression;
they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful.
10 But no one says, 'Where is God my Maker,
who gives songs in the night,
11 who teaches more to us than to [c] the beasts of the earth
and makes us wiser than [d] the birds of the air?'
12 He does not answer when men cry out
because of the arrogance of the wicked.
13 Indeed, God does not listen to their empty plea;
the Almighty pays no attention to it.

I was quite confused by it at first so I read the Matthew Henry
Commentary on the Bible, which is in general an excellent resource for
understanding what the Bible is saying. (there is also a Matthew
Henry Concise Commentary you can Google for if you don't have time to
wade through pages of text). In any event, the web page with the
Commentary that I read is at:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc3.xviii.xxxvi.html

and the part about verses 9-13 is a little ways down the page.

In any event, here is a summary of what Matthew Henry says about these
verses. Quotes are either from the website or from the verses above.:

v. 9 - Elihu (one of Job's friends) is posing the question of, if
people are oppressed and they cry out to God, why aren't their prayers
answered? This seems a good a case as any for why God should answer
prayers, so Elihu lists several reasons why God is justified in not
answering those prayers. I have determined that those reasons are
applicable to prayers in general about all sorts of things.
(Different reasons will apply to different situations)

v. 10a - Reason 1: People are just looking for relief from their
affliction and are not looking for an increased relationship with God.
Psalm 78:34 says that one purpose of afflictions can be the purpose
of making us return to God--in the Psalm in particular, it is talking
about how when Israel strayed from following God, God would send them
an affliction of some sort and this would cause Israel to return to
seeking after God. The same holds for us today.
In v.10, the oppressed people don't ask, "Where is God my Maker",
meaning that the people are not seeking after God; they are not
repenting of their sin, returning to follow after God again and
attempting to live the way God would want them to, and they are not
trying to have a relationship with God. Instead, they just want to
have their oppression removed so they can get back to living like they
were before.

v.10b - Reason 2a: People don't notice or benefit from the
consolations God provides when we are afflicted. "Who gives songs in
the night" is referring to comfort or joy that God gives us amidst
affliction. We should "make use of [these consolations], and wait"
until the time comes when God removes our troubles. "He gives songs
in the night, that is, when our condition is ever so dark, and sad,
and melancholy, there is that in God, in his providence and promise,
which is sufficient, not only to support us, but to fill us with joy
and consolation, and enable us in every thing to give thanks, and even
to rejoice in tribulation. When we only pore upon the afflictions we
are under, and neglect the consolations of God which are treasured up
for us, it is just with God to reject our prayers."

v. 11 - Reason 2b: Also related to the comforts we should have while
under affliction, the business about us people being taught more "than
to the beasts of the earth and [being made] wiser than the birds of
the air" refers to how we have been given minds and reason. If a
beast is afflicted it will cry out in pain; if we similarly cry out in
pain and don't seek after God then we are being no different from the
animals. We should instead seek after God, using our minds. Also, we
can take comfort (via our reason, etc) that even if our bodies are
destroyed, people cannot harm our souls (cf. Matthew 10:28). We
should have the "peace of our consciences" which I believe means
knowing we are in good standing with God and should hope for heaven.

v. 12,13 - Reason 3: If the afflicted are proud ("the arrogance of the
wicked"), then God won't listen to their prayers because they are
supposed to become humbled and give up their pride as a result of the
afflictions. "The case is plain then, If we cry to God for the
removal of the oppression and affliction we are under, and it is not
removed, the reason is not because the Lord's hand is shortened or his
ear heavy, but because the affliction has not done its work; we are
not sufficiently humbled, and therefore must thank ourselves that it
is continued."

v. 12,13 - Reason 4: If a prayer is hypocritical in that it does not
come from people who are sincere, God won't listen. I didn't quite
understand what Matthew Henry was saying (it was a very short
description) but it is I think covered essentially by the stuff
written above anyhow.

So, I guess this doesn't entirely answer the question, but makes some
really good points that are worth thinking about.

-Alan