Have Mercy

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy."

Mercy is a word I'm going to focus on in 2018. I'm going to look for it in my daily Bible reading, and I'm  going seek to grow in understanding it. What does God say about mercy? How important is mercy to God?

O course it goes without saying (but I'll say it) that mercy is very important to God.

"He has told you, I man, what is goodl and what does the Lord require but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." Micach 6:8

That word translated "kindness" (ESV) is "mercy" in the King James ad many others. "Kindness" is perhaps a more down-to-earth word for mercy. And kindness, you may recall is one of the fruits of the Spirt (Gal. 5:22).

In fact, that passage, Paul's list of the fruits of the Spirit, provides me with all my keywords for 2018. These are the concepts I'm going to focus on in my Bible reading this year.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

As I said in the last post, all virtues are foretastes of the Kingdom of God. Their "down-payments" of the Kingdom. But (to take today's example) what is mercy? I'm not going to rest on what I think I know about it. I'm going to ask the Bible to refine my knowledge of mercy, and all those other virtues listed by Paul.

That's the idea, anyway. The Spirit wants to raise up a crop of kindness/mercy in the children of God. May all of us grow in mercy in the coming year.

4 Virtue Points

1. All true virtue is a foretaste of the kingdom of God.
2. The Bible is a handbook for virtue development.
3. By virtue I do not mean the avoidance of sin, but the development of a God-inclined heart, resulting in the virtuous (God-pleasing) life.
4. See Psalm 1 for more details.

Translation Blues

It was an article that provided six handy Bible quotes for dealing with anxiety (or something like that). Not the sort of thing I normally click on, but there it was, I glanced down through the six quotes, One of them caught my attention. It was said to be Ephesians 2:19-22.

Whenever you feel unloved, unimportant, or insecure, remember to whom you belong.

Those were the words, but they didn't look at all familiar. What translation is that, I wondered. I googled the quote, and found a thousand Instragrams, Pinterests, and therapeutic self-help articles, but as yet not the translator responsible for this travesty.

I'm not philosophically against all loose translations, but when they actually hide the original meaning and substitute something entirely new, that kind of bothers me. This is substitution, not translation. Here's a more literal rendering of those verses (NIV).

19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. 

So, there's quite a gap there. The first converts Biblical truth into pop-psychology, just right for our therapy culture. There are a million churches that thrive on that sort of thing. It is the form of Christianity, more or less, but not the substance.

Psalms about the Wicked

I've been reading Psalm 10 lately, which is one of those psalms that speak of the wicked and how they seem to prosper, and ask God why, and asks him to hurry to the rescue of the weak and the innocent, whom the wicked, the oppressor, is always taking advantage of.

This theme is a pretty consistent one in the Psalms. This wicked oppressor is often associated with power, with nations, while the ordinary people, his victims, are the weak, the innocent, the helpless. The deck seems to be stacked against them. These wicked one are what nowadays might be called "power elites." The humble of the earth, the meek, these are their victims.

So power and violence are associated with these wicked ones, these oppressors. "The nations" are with them. The nations are not generally spoken highly of in the psalms, for they are closely associated with oppression. They are disturbers of God's peace, and they have been disturbing it ever since the Fall, I'd say.

Anyway, thinking about this theme, I decided to cobble together my own psalm, drawing mostly on Psalm 10 but trying to use my own words. I guess I'd call it a kind of prose poem. Here iti s:

There you are, Oppressor, riding your high horse. Liar, cheat, schemer, for you even murder is no big deal.Your visage is bloated with pride, your hand never trembles. Servants come running at just a nod, for your dirty work is never done. Your arrogance is boundless, your mind a sink-hole of iniquity.

Wicked one, you think you'll never come tumbling down. You'll never be beaten. You trod down the little ones, you leave moaning and grief in your wake.Your heart is a rock. You scoff at God, crack jokes about justice, and consider love and mercy a daydream for weaklings and losers. You really think you're something, but you're nothing.

Deceiver, layer of traps for the innocent, empire-builder, advantage-taker, jack-of-all-evils, terror-maker, back-stabber, every night you lay down scheming and in the morning you rise up eager for theft. The helpless are your target, the weak are your bread and butter, the poor you trample in the mud. Peace-hater, the nations have always been putty in your hands, and their war-making is for your pleasure. The banner over you is greed, and all you do is take take take.

Watch out, fool, for the Lord's anger burns against you. Even the nations tremble. Your strutting days are numbered, you laughter will soon turn to dust in your throat. Your weapons will be shattered, your strength will waste away in the blink of an eye, your boasting will ring hollow, your servants will run from you and you will find yourself utterly alone and helpless. You will beg for mercy, but mercy will not be given. Your name will never again be spoken, and even the fear of you will be forgotten.

The Lord reigns, rest assured, the Lord reigns. The afflicted, the oppressed, the poor, the bereaved, their cries are heard, their justice is coming, their Deliverer is mighty to save, and he is not far off.