Category: Love

How We Set Boundaries On Who Is Our Neighbor and the Least of These

God expands our boundaries to correspond to His purposes

kevingdrendel3 Comments

I am writing today about the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in light of the Old Testament passage that introduces what Jesus called the second greatest commandment: love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18) If you have read anything I have written lately, you know that I have have been meditating on this theme.

How People Misinterpreted “Neighbor”

When Jesus encountered a First Century expert in the Law, the issue became: Who is my neighbor? The Parable of the Good Samaritan was the response from Jesus. The backstory to the Parable of the Good Samaritan reveals how First Century Jews misread Leviticus 19:18 to limit who they considered neighbors. It reads as follows:

“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.“

Just 16 verses later (in Leviticus 19:34), Moses hints at a broader, more expansive meaning to the rule to “love your neighbor as yourself”:

“The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”

Distinguishing Among Jews and Gentiles

In the time of Jesus, Jews distinguished between Abraham’s descendants and everyone else (Gentiles). They limited neighbors they were instructed to love to those from among their people because they interpreted Leviticus 19:34 in light of Leviticus 19:18. They interpreted “from among the people” to include descendants of Abraham, and they likely included those foreigners who lived among them and observed their religious practices, but they did not go further.

The Hebrew word translated “foreigner” in verse 34 is ger. It generally means “sojourner, stranger, foreigner, alien,” and it literally means “a guest.” (See Biblehub) Ger is derivative of guwr, which means “to sojourn, dwell, reside, live as a foreigner,” with connotations of being a guest, shrinking & fearing, and being afraid.

According to the topical Lexicon, gurw centers on “the act of taking up residence as a non-native, a ‘sojourning’ that is self-conscious of impermanence and dependence on the goodwill of the host community.” The sense of this word as scholars have come to understand it is of foreign guests who dwell permanently among the people and conform to the requitements of the Mosaic Law. I believe First Century Jews would have had a similar understanding of the concept of neighbor that defined who they were to love.

By the First Century, there were two categories of people: Jews and Gentiles. We know from historical records that some Gentiles lived harmoniously with Jews and more or less subscribed to Jewish religious customs as they were allowed to engage with them.

The Samaritans as Others

There were varying degrees to which Gentiles could be incorporated into Jewish community. Some Gentiles were circumcised, converted to Judaism, and were fully integrated into Jewish community. The largest group of Gentiles who lived among the Jewish community, however, were the “God-fearers”. They were welcome in the temple and synagogue. They participated in prayer and instruction. They ethically aligned with Jewish community, but they were not circumcised, not bound to the full Torah, and were not considered covenant members of the Jewish community.

These Gentiles who believed in God as the Jews did, who worshipped God as the Jews did, and who lived in harmony with biblical, ethical requirements were accepted in Jewish community. They more or less represented the ger in Leviticus 19. They, like the ger, were considered neighbors who must be loved.

The question posed by the expert in the Law in Luke 10 reveals that the scope of who is a neighbor was limited, but with some sense of uncertainty, in the First Century. That uncertainty was settled by Jesus in sharing the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Samaritans and Jews Opposed Each Other

Samaritans were ethnically Hebrew. They descended from the northern tribes of Israel. They were descendants of Abraham, but they were deviant, ritually impure, and estranged from First Century Jews.

They were people who remained in the land after the exile to Babylon and integrated with the conquering Assyrians. They opposed the return of the exiles who rebuilt the Temple. They rejected Temple worship. They rejected the Levitical priesthood returning from Babylon, and they had their own religious practices.

The hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans was mutual. They were closely related by kinship, but they disagreed sharply over theology, religious practice, and heritage. They were estranged, avoided each other avoidance, and clashed (sometimes violently).

Insiders and Outsiders

Though the Jews would accept the Gentile converts and God-fearing Gentiles into Jewish community, Samaritans and other Gentiles were excluded. They were the people the legal expert’s question was about: Who is my neighbor? They were not from “among the people.”

Many people in the Jewish community, like the expert in the law, had a theology that excluded Samaritans and most Gentiles from the definition of “neighbor”. Their mistaken interpretation and bad theology created insiders and outsiders.

Jesus Cuts Against Our Insider Logic

Jesus reveals how God’s Word cuts against our insider logic. Jesus interprets Scripture and compels us to view our neighbors (whom we should love as ourselves) Expansively. Our neighbors include people who are not like us, people who are heretical and (therefore) threatening to us and people in opposition to us. Outsiders.

Jesus shockingly made a Samaritan the hero in the Parable. Most Jews would not have used “good” in the same sentence as a Samaritan. Samaritans were outsiders, people in opposition to the Jews, heretics, and estranged. Samaritans were not seen as neighbors, but Jesus disavowed them of their bad theology.

We know this, but we are not immune from our own interpretive shortcomings and bad theology. We have less excuse than the Jews to hold such a de minimis view of neighborliness and love (because of the clear words of Jesus), but we can fall into the same interpretive trap.

In that context, consider the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.

Continue reading “How We Set Boundaries On Who Is Our Neighbor and the Least of These” →

How the Bible Cuts Against Insider Logic at Every Turn

Insider logic is the natural inclination of the heart

kevingdrendel1 Comment

I am reminded today of the backstory to the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Second Temple Jews interpreted the Law about loving your neighbor as yourself to mean they should love their Hebrew neighbors as themselves. They didn’t extend the law of loving their neighbors to the Gentiles because of Leviticus 19:18:

“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.”

They read the qualifying language in that verse – among your people – as a limit to the requirement to love your neighbor as yourself. Just 16 verse slater (in Leviticus 19:33-34), the principle of loving your neighbor is expanded:

“The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners  in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”

Foreigners are not expressly called neighbors in verse 34, but Israelites were commanded to “love them as yourself” all the same.

It’s easy to see how Jews arrived at their conclusions. Leviticus 19:18 is the first expression of the rule, so they might have assumed it should be given precedence. Foreigners were not called neighbors in verse 34, so there is a distinction to be made. This is how we use Bible verses as proof texts and sneak in our outside assumptions and biases to guide us to an interpretation that makes sense to us – but is wholly inconsistent with the meaning God intended.

How do we know how God intended it? Jesus

When the expert in the law asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus turned the table on him and asked, what does the law say. Love God and love your neighbor was the answer, but the expert pressed Jesus to ask, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responded with the Parable of the Good Samaritan that provides us an expanded interpretation of who is my neighbor. (Luke 10:25-37) In case we might still question that interpretation, Jesus removes all doubt in Matthew 5:43-44:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies….”

We need to do careful biblical exegesis with integrity to avoid proof texting and sneaking in assumptions that are motivated by our natural biases. We need to let Scripture, itself, provide interpretive guidance; we need to let the words of Jesus (the Word made flesh) be an interpretative filter; and we need to let the Spirit guide us. “The letter of the Law kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

People are naturally provincial and tribal. We are naturally inclined and biased in that way. Paul calls our natural inclinations “the flesh,” and he warns us to guard against them. We might call the flesh our “insider logic,” and the Bible cuts against that insider logic at every turn.

Our natural inclinations are to take care of ourselves and our kind first. Our natural inclinations are to view others with suspicion and distrust. Our natural inclinations are to seize and hold onto what I can get for myself and leave others to fend for themselves. Our natural inclinations encourage us to adopt a zero sum gained attitude.

When Jesus tells us to take up our crosses and follow him, he is telling us to let go of our insider logic driven by our naturally biased assumptions. When he says the last shall be first, and the first shall be last, and the greatest among you shall be servants of all, he is cutting against our natural inclinations that inform our insider logic.

When Paul said, “[C]onsider your calling, brothers and sisters, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble,” he was cutting against our how we naturally see ourselves that feeds our insider logic. (1 Cor. 1:26) When Paul said, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” he is saying there are no insiders in the kingdom of God. (Gal. 3:8)

Our insider logic makes sense if we begin with our natural inclinations, but the Bible which is God’s revealed word and Jesus, the Word in the flesh, cut against the grain of our insider logic. When we seek first the kingdom of God, we check our privileges and other allegiances at the door.

Continue reading “How the Bible Cuts Against Insider Logic at Every Turn” →

What It Means to Know God

One sure way to know God

kevingdrendel1 Comment

The age old questions humans have asked since time immemorial are, “What is God, and how do I know God?” We have conceived of gods as animated trees, mountains, and the sun, the stars, and the moon. We have conceived of gods as a pantheon of god-men and god-women. We have conceived of God as a force that is in everything, and we have conceived of God as an aloof judge and guardian of the ever after.

The Hebrew Scripture provides a robust concept of God, the Creator of the universe, who reveals Himself to human beings, but who remains mysterious and even “hidden” to people who must seek Him. The Tanakh (the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings) that Christians call the Old Testament purports to be God’s revelation to human beings with a promise that those who seek may find Him, “though he is not far from any one of us.” (As the Apostle Paul said to the Greeks in Athens. (Acts 17:27))

Of course, the God of the universe must be greater than we could ever fully comprehend to have created such an intricately designed universe as the one in which we live. If the men who passed on the revelation of this God that has been recorded in the Bible are correct, we can know much about God even if much remains a mystery.

I am impressed today with the words of the Prophet, Jeremiah, who provides a glimpse of who God is in the words of warning he spoke to Jehoahaz, the King of Judah,

“Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his own people work for nothing, not paying them for their labor. He says, ‘I will build myself a great palace with spacious upper rooms.’ So he makes large windows in it, panels it with cedar and decorates it in red. “Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father [King Josiah] have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the Lord.”

Jeremiah 22:13-16

I have never noticed before that Jeremiah equates defending the cause of the poor and needy with knowing God. In defending the cause of the poor and the needy, we come to know God.

We can search for God here and there and, perhaps, never find Him. In defending the poor and needy, however, we can know the Lord. It’s that simple.

To know someone in a biblical sense is to know more than facts about someone. To know someone biblically is to know someone intimately. The ultimate example of knowing someone biblically is to know someone as a spouse.

Thus, when Jeremiah says that defending the cause of the poor and needy is to know the Lord, he is talking about an intimate, experiential knowledge of the character and nature of God. The cause of the poor and needy is close to God’s heart, and it is essential to who God is.

The Psalmist says, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling….” (Psalm 68:5) A dwelling place is where a person is most able to be who they are. God’s holy dwelling is where God is “at home”, where God is most like Himself, and the cause of the fatherless and the widow is at the core of who God is in His most intimate place.

Thus, people can intimately know who God is by taking up the cause of the poor and the needy, the widow and the orphan, and similarly vulnerable people.

The opposite is also true. People do not know God to the extent that they do not defend the cause of the poor and needy. This was the point Jeremiah was making when he said of King Johoahaz:

The father of Jehoahaz was Josiah. “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.” (2 Kings 22:2) Josiah found the Book of the Law, reestablished Temple worship of God, and destroyed the idols in Judah. (2 Kings 22 & 23) Josiah also defended the cause of the poor and needy, according to the Prophet Jeremiah, and defending the cause of the poor and needy is what it means to know God.

Indeed, Josiah modeled the entire law that Jesus said can be summed up in these two statements: 1) love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul; and 2) love your neighbor as yourself.

Throughout the Bible, then, we find that a sure way of knowing who God is and what it means to know God is to be concerned with the cause of the poor and needy. This is not liberal wokeness; it is the essence of who God is and what it means to know God.

“Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”

1 John 4:20

Jesus even goes so far as to say that we should love our enemies and so be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48) Loving others – caring for the poor and needy – is not superfluous or secondary; it is central to who God is and a key in what it means to know God.

Trust for Those Who Would Judge the World?

Living out our trust in God by waiting on Him

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Do you trust God? Do you have faith? Those aren’t trite questions, and they don’t discount the desperation behind those who cry out to God for justice, for righteousness, for real change in the world and in our own circumstances.

Where is the justice in this world? The writer of Ecclesiastes looked for justice and observed, “In the place of justice – wickedness was there!” (Ecc. 3:16) I have seen injustice in the American court system myself. I see injustice every day in the news. Just today, I met with people who have suffered great injustice in the local legal aid clinic I run.

The injustice in this world is undeniable, and it can be utterly crushing for those on the wrong side of injustice. In truth, we have all been on the wrong side of injustice at times in our lives, big or small. Truly, the writer of Ecclesiastes was accurate when he said:

“I saw the tears of the oppressed—
    and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
    and they have no comforter.“

(Ecclesiastes 4:1) Injustice feeds injustice in a seemingly never-ending cycle. (Think about the Hatfields and the McCoys or the Palestinians and the Israelis.)

In our human minds, we imagine that injustice must be met immediately with action and force. Justice cries out for redress. We lament when justice does not come. We pray and cry out to God. When justice does not come for us, we might even be tempted to believe that God does not care or worse – the God does not exist.

The questions I pose, therefore, are not glib or lightly asked: Do you trust God? Do you believe?

When we are tempted to take judgment into their own hands, we fail to trust God if we act on that temptation. We become judge and jury. We usurp God’s justice in the process. (Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.) And, when become the judge and executioner, we make a mess of it in the process. We warp God’s justice to our conceptions of justice.

“Justice is not God wielding ‘the stick.’ It’s His desire to restore, redeem, reconcile, and mend all that’s broken in the world.” Chris Gresham-Britt

When the world talks about justice, the focus is on punishment. We don’t realize it as Christians that our view of justice is often more colored by the world than by God. Worldly justice is punitive.

If we are going to trust and believe God, we accept what the prophet says: that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. (Hosea 6:6) God desires to save and not to judge. That is why God sent His only Son into the world: not to condemn the world, but to save the world. (John 3:17)

God’s goal is redemption and destruction. God is just, but justice seems to be lacking in the world. Why? Peter says, we need to trust and be patient, as God us patient with us:

“[T]he Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

God is waiting (longing) to have mercy on us! (Psalm 30:18) “[God takes] no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ezekiel 33:11)

So, God waits patiently, withholding His judgment – withholding ultimate justice. He does this because He desires that none would perish, that all would turn to him and be saved. He waits to be gracious to us.

But we are impatient. We don’t want to wait. We want everything to be made right immediately, especially the injustices done to us, the people like us, and the people we know. “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8), but a day seems like a thousand years to us when are suffering or see suffering.

We cannot imagine the delicate and complex balance of God’s patience in waiting for people to come to repentance so that He can have mercy and the judgment that He will inevitably allow to be imposed on those who refuse to turn and repent. All the while, God hears the outcries of people suffering the injustices of their own folly and wickedness and the folly and wickedness of others – sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.

But, we do not see as God sees, and we do not know as God knows. Judgment is God’s business. It is not our business to judge the world. (1 Corinthians 5:12) That is where real faith comes – to leave the judging to God and to love the world as God loves the world, which is His instruction to us.

The whole law is summarized in two principles: love God, and love your neighbor. (Matthew 22:37-40; Romans 13:8-10; Galatians 5:14) That’s it. Just do it.

If you see a hurting neighbor, don’t judge; just help. Like the Good Samaritan, cross the road (go out of you way) to help your neighbor. Bear one another’s burdens. By doing these things, you will fulfill the law of love. (Romans 13:8-10)

In the end, justice will come quickly, but will God find faith on earth?

Do you trust God? Show it by loving others and leave the judgment to God. Do you have faith that God will bring justice? God’s justice is always colored by his desire to be gracious and compassionate. Be a vessel of God’s justice that is tempered by mercy and love, and love your neighbor.

When You Are Bitterly Disappointed and Angry at the World

God waits to be gracious

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The Book of Jonah is an important story, but not for its historical significance. Whether the story is historical fact is not what’s important. If that is our only focus as we read and think about Jonah, we are missing the point.

Jonah is the story of a reluctant prophet. When God commands him to go to the wicked City of Nineveh and warn them to repent to avoid judgment, Jonah heads the opposite direction by ship. God stirs up a great storm, and Jonah is swallowed by a whale. After three days, Jonah prays and submits to God, and the whale vomits him up on the shoreline.

Unable to run from God’s command, Jonah heads off to Nineveh where he delivers the warning. The wicked people of Nineveh repent, and God relents from the judgment He planned, but God’s mercy on Nineveh causes Jonah to be bitterly disappointed and angry.

Jonah was disappointed because Jonah wanted what Jonah wanted. He didn’t want what God desired. He was focused on what he thought should happen. He thought Nineveh should pay the price for its wickedness, but God had different plans.

God was patient with him and went to great lengths to show Jonah His heart for a people Jonah despised. We might credit Jonah for his (reluctant) obedience, but Jonah doesn’t understand God’s sovereignty, mercy, and compassion, even at the end.

God’s determination to spare the people of Nineveh “seemed very wrong” to him, “and he became angry.” (Jonah 4:1) If it were up to Jonah, the people of Nineveh would have been destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah. Jonah identified with God’s judgment, but he didn’t understand God’s compassion.

Jonah reminds me of Elijah, who was known for his boundless faith in (and preoccupation with) God’s power. Elijah is known for calling down fire to consume a sacrificial bull that he soaked with water, showing up the false profits who could not get their gods to consume a dry sacrifice. When Elijah exposed them for the false prophets they were, he agitated the crowd to march the false prophets down the mountain where Elijah slaughtered them.

I imagine Elijah and Jonah would have gotten along well…. Or maybe not. Though they are much alike, Elijah was a loner, and perhaps Jonah was also. Elijah complained that he was the last of God’s prophets, though 100 of God’s prophets remained in the land. Perhaps, Elijah thought he was too good for them.

Jonah and Elijah wanted to see God’s judgment. They wanted the people to burn for their wickedness. They were personally affronted when God showed patience and reluctance to rain judgment down on the people who deserved it.

Despite the awesome display of God’s awesome power summoned by Elijah’s undaunting faith before King Ahab and his prophets, the wicked Queen, Jezebel, was not moved. She ordered Elijah to be arrested and killed on sight.

When Elijah heard her decree, he fled into the desert, where he sat down under a broom tree in bitter disappointment and anger at the way things turned out.  

Couldn’t Elijah call fire down on Ahab and Jezebel? Why didn’t he do it? Elijah had just slaughtered all the King’s prophets after showing them up with fire from the heavens. When Jezebel wasn’t phased, Elijah fled in fear.

Elijah may have run in a moment of fear, but his fear turned to anger and disappointment, like Jonah. Both of them ended up under a tree that provided them shade. God ministered to both of them in their dejected state.

Elijah kept going south, all the way to the mountain where God met Moses on the Sinai Peninsula. In the cave where he took shelter, God came to him, asking, “Elijah, why are you here?” Then, Elijah let God have the full weight of his disappointment and anger:

“I have been most zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, but the Israelites have forsaken your covenant. They have destroyed your altars and murdered your prophets by the sword. I alone remain, and they seek to take my life.”

1 Kings 19:10

But, God was patient. He told Elijah to stand at the mouth of the cave so the Lord can “pass by”. “A strong and violent wind rending the mountains and crushing rocks” came, but the Lord wasn’t in the wind. Then an earthquake came, but the Lord wasn’t in the earthquake. After the earthquake, came a fire, but the Lord wasn’t in the fire. (1 Kings 19:11-12)

Finally, “a light silent sound” came, and the Lord said to Elijah, again, “Why are you here?” God was not in the mighty displays of wind, earthquake, and fire. God was in a still, small voice.

Yet still, Elijah was fixated on his own disappointment and anger and responded exactly as he did before:

“I have been most zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, but the Israelites have forsaken your covenant. They have destroyed your altars and murdered your prophets by the sword. I alone remain, and they seek to take my life.”

1 Kings 19:14

Elijah’s disappointment, anger, and indignation turned toward God. “They destroyed your alters and murdered your prophets!” Elijah said. It’s everyone’s fault but his. It’s ultimately God’s fault, right? Because Elijah knew what God could do. God could have destroyed Ahab and Jezebel in a ball of fire, but He didn’t.

In similar fashion, God asked Jonah twice, “Why are you angry?” (Jonah 4:1 and 4:9) Twice Jonah responds exactly the same way: “It is better for me to die!” (Jonah 4:3 and 4:8) It’s the same pattern for Elijah and Jonah.

At the end of Jonah, God asks the rhetorical question, “Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh?” But, Jonah doesn’t respond. (Jonah 4:10) Jonah didn’t want God’s compassion for Nineveh. He wanted them to burn.

We don’t know what became of Jonah, but we do learn the rest of the story of Elijah. God sends him back to Damascus to anoint a new King and pass his prophetic torch to Elisha. (1 Kings 19:15-18) When Elijah pronounced God’s judgment on the wicked King Ahab, the King humbled himself and repented, and God spared him (just like Nineveh). (1 Kings 21:27-29)

Eventually, Ahab’s son, Ahaziah, took over, and Elijah continued with his righteous taunts. Ahaziah sent fifty men to summon Elijah before him, and Elijah called down fire to destroy them. (2 Kings 1:10) Ahaziah sent another company of fifty men to summon Elijah, and Elijah called down fire again to destroy them. “(2 Kings 1:12)

Elijah is the prophet who called down fire. He was a man of great faith. He had great confidence in God. He was a firebrand, himself, in his sense of God’s righteousness and communication of God’s righteousness to the false prophets, the unrighteous and wicked leaders of his time, and even on the remnant of God’s prophets who escaped the sword only hid away in a cave.

Jonah had similar confidence in God. After the people of Nineveh repented and God relented, Jonah said, “I knew it! That’s what I said! That’s why I went the other way, because they don’t deserve it! Just take my life.” (Jonah 4:2-3)(my paraphrase)

Jonah and Elijah are held out in the Bible as God’s prophets and men of great faith, but they are flawed. They are self-righteous. They have a hard edge. The desire judgment, and they don’t love as God loves.

Their disappointment and anger stems from their desire to see the wicked people destroyed. God’s desire is ever to save, to have compassion, and for people to repent so God can show mercy. God’s great desire is not to judge, but to be gracious:

Truly, the Lord is waiting to be gracious to you,
    truly, he shall rise to show you mercy;
For the Lord is a God of justice:
    happy are all who wait for him!

(Isaiah 30:18) God’s justice is ultimately to be gracious and to show mercy. Justice and mercy are not divorced from each other; they are intertwined. His judgment is meant to bring us to repentance so that He can have mercy on us.

When we have our act together and have great faith, our temptation is to desire judgment for its own sake, but God is not like that. Jesus, who was the exact representation of God in the flesh, shows us God’s heart when his disciples returned from traveling the countryside to tell people about the kingdom. The disciples wanted to call down fire on the people who rejected them and refused to welcome them, and Jesus rebuked them.

When we find ourselves disappointed and angry at a world full of sinners who deserve judgment, we need to think of Elijah and Jonah and the counterexample of God in dealing with Nineveh and Jesus in rebuking the disciples. God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” (Exodus 34:6-7) God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. (Ezekiel 18:23 and 33:11)

We can laud Elijah and even Jonah for their faith and (ultimately) their obedience, but we need to recognize that they didn’t understand God’s heart of compassion for people. They didn’t understand God’s desire for mercy and grace. God ultimately wants more than our raw belief and cold obedience; He desires “mercy, not sacrifice.” (Hosea 6:6 and Matthew 9:13)

God wants out hearts, and He wants us to see the world as He sees it. He wants us to love even our enemies (the wicked) and to sacrifice ourselves for the good of others as He sacrificed Himself for us in Christ. Thus, Jesus emphasized forgiving as we have been forgiven and showing mercy as God has shown mercy to us:

“Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

(James 2:13) When we are tempted to be judgmental and righteous, we need to remember that God has been gracious to us, and He desires – above all – to be gracious to the world. When we are bitter and angry at the sin in the world, we need to remember that Jesus came into the world not to condemn it, but to save it, just he saved us.