How to Handle Offenders

People think that they can create a better world by annihilating all those who are against it, but Jesus may not agree!
Recently, in Mumbai a man who appeared to be a thief was beaten to death. The people did not care to hand him over to the police, but they took the law in their own hands. That's what the Jewish leaders who brought the woman caught in adultery also wanted to do (John 8:1-11). Their thinking was very much in line with that of the legal and social systems of our day: the best way to get rid of sin is to annihilate the sinner.
Those who commit crimes or sins continue by trivializing their act. People can always point out to bigger crimes and get away with their "small" offenses. They can always justify saying that they are not the only ones who does such things. We live in a day when people think that paying penance is the be best way to get over sin and its effect. Mahatma Gandhi once told a person who killed a Muslim boy during the riots following India's partition that he can get over the guilt by adopting a Muslim boy and bringing up as his own. That hardly removes the guilt in the eyes of God, but may help us to manage the guilt feeling. Modern psychiatry teaches us to manage anger, get over guilt feelings, etc. but hardly reconciles us to God.
In every act of sin, at least three parties are involved. One the offended, against whom the sin is committed. The second the offender, the one who commits the sin. However, often in the modern thinking the third party is often ignored. That is God. Every act of sin has grieved the heart of God and every sin is committed against God. Penance may sometimes help the offender by helping to feel good; it may also help the offended also. Revenge may help the offended. None of these removes the guilt in the eyes of God. that requires forgiveness from God. Unless we hear God's voice saying "Go Now..." (John 8:11) it is not forgiven. Only God can do that, and that is what Jesus did to this woman. His way of handling the sin is not by trivializing sin, nor by annihilating the sinner but by transforming the sinner to a saint, someone forgiven
There was a woman who claimed that she get direct revelations from God. A committed Christian wanted to test her and asked her to find out from God about the sins he committed while in college. The following day he approached this woman to find out what God's reply was. She said that when she asked God about the sins he committed in the past, God told her that he doesn't remember any. Sins forgiven by God are forgotten for ever!
An offender continues until caught. Once caught the s/he may not be spared. However, the Lord let us free from the guilt of sin on one condition. That is a commitment not to sin again, to have a desire to live lives that are upright before him. That is why he said to this woman, "Leave your life of sin!" (John 8:11). It is a call to holiness: "Be holy as I am holy". When tempted to trivialize our sins let us remember we can come to Jesus for cleansing.

Prayer and the Sovereignty of God

" Confidence to pray stems out of the realization that God is in control of our situations. He can control and conquer the situations that we go through."
Why do we pray to God? As all our actions must have some explanations, we must be able to explain why we pray to God. The prayer of the Psalmist is "Give us aid against the enemy, for the help of man is worthless" (Psalm 108:12).
One of the reasons for this prayer is the confidence in God, which is reflected in verse 13: "With God we will gain victory, and he will trample down our enemies." The second reason is the realization that the human power is worthless. The psalmist cannot trust in human power in order to win the battle that he is engaged in.
However, the most important reason is a realization of the sovereignty of God over the nations. The divine oracle cited in verses 7-9 is the basis of the prayer in verse 10. In this verse God's authority over the nations around Israel is spelt out. Israel's enemies, and particularly the country of Edom with which they are engaged in the battle now are at God's disposal. He can parcel it out as He likes, he can treat some as his washbasin, and some are like the place where he will throw his sandals. In other words, it is God who decides the destiny of the nations and thus God is able to protect each nation.
Confidence to pray stems out of the realization that God is in control of our situations. He can control and conquer the situations that we go through.

Guidance for Strangers on Planet Earth

“Listening to God through His Word must be a daily habit and ordering our life according to the revealed will of God must be an instinct.”

I cannot drive without maps. During my short stay in the US a few months back, I always asked people for their ZIP code and downloaded a map with driving directions from Yahoo.com. I found this more dependable than calling up friends and getting the directions to their house over the phone. Being new to the country, I needed reliable guidance and I always depended on Yahoo maps!
I am a stranger in this world too. I am moving forward in life. Every day new people, new circumstances, new challenges encounter me. I never been there before in most of these situations and I hardly know what to do. I desperately need guidance in life; some authority to tell me what to do, what to say and how to react.
The psalmist who penned Psalm 119 was also in a similar situation. However, he is more poetic than me. He says of himself: "I am a stranger on earth" and prayers "... do not hide your commands from me" (Psalm 119:19). Psalm 119 is a psalm about the Law of God. It extols the benefits of obeying the Word of God. In the Word of God, we find correction and rebuke. There are times when pride corrodes my mind and I need the Word that cleanses me.
Living life according to the Word is a delight. It is more than the delight and pride that you have when you knock at the door of your friend and say you made it (by following the driving directions), and your friends eyes widen with surprise. That is why the psalmist could say, "your statues are my delight, they are my counselors" (Psalm 119:24).
There are many guideposts in modern culture. However, there is only one time-tested guidepost for our life. That is the eternal Word of God. Listening to God through His Word must be a daily habit and ordering our life according to the revealed will of God must be an instinct.

The first drunken act!

"We have two options when we see our dear ones in sin. One is to do nothing about it and give it as much publicity as possible as Ham did. The other is to go and correct so that they may not continue in sin."
It is normal to bungle, especially for the first time. In the first meeting to be chaired, the first speech to be done, it is normal to make mistakes. The very first day of driving, I scratched against a small truck and I learned that truck drivers in my city (Pune) do not pay much attention to the electric signals of other vehicles. However, as the Danish proverb says ("No dog bumps into the same stone again!") mistakes are not to be repeated.
The Bible says Noah was the first to plant a vineyard (Genesis 9:20)!* Thus he must be the first person to make wine and drink it too. He probably did not have anyone to tell him that too much wine intoxicates and you lose control on your thinking and body. There was no one on earth to tell him that so much of wine can make yourself a mockery. This may explain why God did not condemn Noah for drinking wine and become naked before his family though getting drunk is a serious sin and being naked before others is even more serious.
However, the point of the story in Genesis 9:18-28 is not Noah's indecent behaviour but how his sons responded to it. The spiritual lesson is what do you do when you find someone in sin. Two examples are given in that chapter. The first person to spot Noah drunk and naked was his second son Ham who later became to father of Canaan. He did not do about it, but just goes and publicizes it to his two brothers. He could have just covered him; then he did not have to tell his brothers that their father was naked. However, when Ham and Japheth the other sons were told about this disgraceful episode they covered his nakedness making sure that they themselves did not see their father's nakedness. As Noah woke up when the effect of wine wore away he might have noticed the extra garment that was on him and found out what had happened.
We have two options when we see our dear ones in sin. One is to do nothing about it and give it as much publicity as possible as Ham did. The other is to go and correct so that they may not continue in sin. The Bible exhorts us in Luke 17:3, "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him." Correction is a spiritual duty that we have to each other in the Body of Christ.
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* Some versions, for example, NIV translates this verse as "Noah, a man of the soil, proceed to plant a vineyard" instead of " Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard" (NRSV). See the footnote in NIV.

King, Servant and Sacrifice

Jesus is  not the king of the materially minded people; he had come to rule our hearts
"Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself" (John 6:15).
It was an opportunity that anyone who would like to have: to become king! However, Jesus runs away from that excellent opportunity. However, in John 18 when questioned by Pilate, Jesus ascertained that "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth" (John 18:37). At the same time he also had made clear that his kingdom "... is not of this world" (John 18:36).
There are crucial differences between the way kingship was understood by the people of Jesus' day (including Pilate) and Jesus. That is why Jesus had to clarify that his kingship is not an earthly kingship. The people around Jesus, who had just eaten the food that Jesus multiplied from five loaves and two fish, had a different concept of kingship. For them the ideal king is someone who can feed the hungry. The rulers should provide opportunities so that people can work and earn their living. Low taxation, high per capita income, secure investments, etc are all part of it. Here is however, an ideal candidate for kingship: he provides all these without you working for it. He not just provides you opportunity to earn your bread and butter but actually serves it without any effort from your side.
Jesus conceived kingship as an authority that is higher than that of this world. He has come to rule the hearts of the people. That is another way of saying he has come to establish the kingdom of God. A bunch of people craving for the material things, concerned only about their livelihood and nothing higher than that would hardly qualify to be the citizens of this Kingdom. He don't want to be their king. He had no other option except to flee that crowd.
Establishing the eternal kingdom, with eternal values that are high above the earthly, is through the servant-hood. He came to be a servant of all. He suffered as a servant and then became the ultimate sin-offering. Since he became the sacrifice for all of us, those who believe in Him are now citizens of the Kingdom of God and members of the household of God. Becoming the king of Jews that day could have foiled the eternal plan of God. Now he is my king and he rules my heart. Thank you Jesus for fleeing that mad crowd.

The Crowd that Jesus Really Pulls!

The Crowd Puller
The Crowd that Jesus Really Pulls!
The Gospel of John presents Jesus as a loner in the opening chapters of the book. The statement in John 1:11 is rather startling: "He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him." And then we see Jesus walking (alone?) in John 1:29 when John the Baptist introduces him saying, "Look, the Lamb of God!" Then the following day Jesus gets two disciples of John the Baptist to follow him (John 1:35-42). In the second chapter, we see a small crowd around Jesus but they had come for the wedding in Cana and not because of Jesus. Then until chapter 6, he mostly ministers to solitary individuals: Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, etc.
However, by the time we reach the sixth chapter he has become so popular that there were 5000 adult males in the crowd when he multiplied the fish and loaves by Lake Galilee. Rest of the sixth chapter is about the type of people who came to Jesus in large numbers. In these days of mega churches and large crusades, where success and blessings are a matter of numbers, a closer look at this passage is useful.
The first large crowd that came to Jesus because they had seen "the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick (John 6:2). It is this large crowd (numbering 5000 adult men and children and women not counted) that stayed late into evening so that Jesus had to feed them. Miracle workers are still great crowd pullers. Healing miracles, whether it is Christian or non-Christian does draw large crowds even now.
Then in 6:23 we see another group from the city of Tiberias arriving the following day in the place where Jesus had fed the people. They had come evidently seeking free food. They were disappointed because Jesus had moved from that place (probably Bethsaida) to Capernaum. However, the crowd, having not found Jesus there follows him to Capernaum. Looking at them Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill" (John 6:26). Looking for the Jesus who feeds and meets the physical and material needs explains why large crowds gather into meetings and churches where the promises of material blessings are offered.
Large gatherings of people are one thing, but what matters is those who stick! Towards the end of the same chapter, we have people leaving Jesus out frustration! Verse 60 records the disciples grumbling at Jesus' teaching that they found distasteful. Verse 66 says, "from this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him." It is not just the people on the periphery but some disciples (who belong to the inner circles) also left Jesus. This is what happens when miracles stop and people are asked to make moral commitments. There is always a demand for material blessings without any moral or spiritual commitments. This explains why the crowd around teachers of the Word and the churches where teaching the Word get priority is thin!
However, 12 definitely stayed back (see verse 70). The Christian Church has a history of 2000 years and growth and spread that  surpass any other spiritual movement in history because these twelve decided to stick to Jesus even when there was no loaves being multiplied or no sick was being healed. They stayed with Jesus because they found that, as Peter put it, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68). These are the twelve who became witnesses of his death and resurrection and later the pillars of the Christian Church.
Real loyalty to Jesus is a commitment to his Word. This is a commitment to believe what he says, and obey he speaks through his Word. The number of this group who follow Jesus because they have found eternal life in him is not that big!


Paulson Pulikottil
Union Biblical Seminary, PB NO. 1455, Bibvewadi, Pune, India.
http://paulson.fountainpress.org
Phone: 020-21711158

The miracle mix

Miracles are the display of God's power not the strength of our faith
For a miracle to happen you have to have faith, that is what I was taught. I was also taught that miracles happen only when certain people pray, the anointed ones. I have thus developed a notion, as many of my readers have that miracles is a product of right amount of faith with anointing. If there is something wrong in that mixture then miracle may not happen.
Now, I know those who told us this haven't really read their Bible carefully. In the Bible, miracles have happened in the context of unbelief and sometimes by people who lacked faith. They themselves did not believe that a miracle is going to happen.
When God did miracles through Moses in the presence of Pharaoh, it did not depend on the faith of Moses nor the Pharaoh. In fact the miracles were performed that Pharaoh may believe. When the Syrian official Naaman was healed of leprosy what was the role of his faith in his healing? He did not believe that dipping himself in the murky waters of Jordan is going to heal any skin disease. However, he did so, not because of faith but because his servants insisted! However, that miracle generated faith in him. Take any miracles that has happened in the Bible, miracles are not necessarily the product of ones faith, but faith is the outcome of miracles. John the evangelist puts this way, "many put their faith in him". They put their faith in him because they saw the miracles that he did. So, God does miracles in order that we may have faith in him.
The healing of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda happened not because he had faith in Jesus. He did not express any hope that he will be healed nor did he know who Jesus was.
Miracles are a displays of God's power over human body, and nature both his creations.
However, the question remains: then why did Jesus could not perform miracles in places where they did not believe in him. Is not the faith of the centurion the reason for the miracle that he experienced?
We hear this often: "Exercise your faith". It accents human effort, while miracles are purely what God does at his discretion. Nothing may happen however hard your exercise your faith, unless God makes the move!
 
 
 


Paulson Pulikottil
Union Biblical Seminary, PB NO. 1455, Bibvewadi, Pune, India.
http://paulson.fountainpress.org
Phone: 020-21711158