The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.
Bible Study Course Lesson 8 – 9
No man has the authority to compel you to do something contrary to what God has told you to do. This is beyond all question (Acts 5:29). But if we only follow men when they agree with God… what exactly do we need the men for?
God placed men, other men, still other men, angels, other angels and still other angels, and finally His own Son in authority over men (Hebrews 13:7, 17). So clearly some obedience to other men’s judgment is intended, otherwise we’d have to scrap every mention of authority, obedience, and humility in the Bible.
But what does that really mean, if you’re only supposed to obey them when you can find a verse that shows God already said to do what they’re telling you to do? If, at each command, we must decide for ourselves if this is what God already said or not… why exactly do we need anyone in authority over us?
If you only obey me when I tell you “God said to keep the Sabbath”, then diligently search the scriptures whether these things are so (Acts 17:11), are you really obeying me… or just obeying God? And if you’re capable and qualified to do that… what purpose am I really serving?
Then again, if we blindly obey every command… what is the point in having a Bible at all? But if we are indeed meant, on occasion, to obey men in the absence of clear scripture to back up this particular judgment, exactly how far should we obey them?
It’s obvious that you can take this to two extremes; either you obey every single thing your Pope says, everything Herr Fuhrer says, up to and including torture and genocide, because you were “just following orders”;
Or, on the other extreme, you question every single word he says, and do literally nothing he says that you can’t independently prove is good, in which case, there really is no such thing as authority in your world at all. Finding a compromise between these two extremes is not really any better, because without a clear
dividing line, you can’t ever truly do it right. You will always be a bit too rebellious, or a bit too much of a sheeple, for God’s taste. Which is a paradox; for you cannot obey men without question, nor question them in everything; nor anything in between. So what is left? There is a fourth option; which is neither blind obedience nor full autonomy, nor any compromise between them.
AMBASSADORS
2 Corinthians 5:20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. Webster says an ambassador is “…the resident representative of his or her own government or sovereign…”. So if we are ambassadors for Christ, it means we represent Christ and His country to the world. And what is His country? Hebrews 11:13-15.
When we come out of the world, we renounce our citizenship in the world; we become “strangers and pilgrims” in the Earth, and “declare plainly” that we seek a country. What country do we seek? Hebrews 11:16. So where is our citizenship? Philippians 3:20 [read this verse in several translations; NKJV says it well “our citizenship is in heaven”].
At baptism we renounce our old life and adopt a new one; all the ties of that old person are broken, including national citizenship – at least, morally. The new person is a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven; but by definition, our kingdom is in Heaven, not on Earth. For now it is “a far country” (Luke 19:12), and while that kingdom is coming to this Earth, it’s not here yet.
But until it does, we are ambassadors from another country in this Earth. We represent not only the Kingdom of Heaven, but also the ruler of that Kingdom – God Himself – to everyone we meet. So when we speak to the world, it is “as though God did beseech them by us”.
And in order to reflect well on that position, that country, and that King, we are specifically commanded to obey the laws and authorities of the lands we travel through (Romans 13:1-7). Not because we owe them obedience! Not because their rank is truly greater than ours – for an ambassador of heaven outranks a president of Earth (Luke 7:28).
Rather, we obey them because the highest Authority of all has commanded us to submit to their authority. Not grudgingly, not only when forced to do so – but willingly (Titus 3:1-2, Ecclesiastes 8:2-5). All of the conservative Christian militia types should read 1 Peter 2:13-17.
And this applies not only to government authorities, but to all types of masters – bosses, teachers, and
heads of all kinds ( 1 Peter 2:18-25). The police and officials of the land we live in are higher in authority than we are not because they deserve it, but because the God of all, as a courtesy to them, has commanded us to obey them.
Nonetheless they ARE higher in authority than we are; and disobeying them is disobeying Him. And yet obviously, there are limits to that authority as expressed in Acts 5:29. Obey God rather than man, when there is a conflict. But what about when there is no conflict? Well then, “submit yourselves to EVERY ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake”.
Whether the authority is between a child and parent, master and apprentice, elder and apostle, or serf and knight, if they are in authority, their authority is absolute. It is their right, and their responsibility, to have the last word. And if they’re wrong, they will be punished for the results – not you.
So however badly I think my taxes are spent or what my views on traffic laws are, it’s my job to pay my taxes and obey the speed limits. Whatever evil things they do with those taxes, whether their traffic laws save lives or cost lives, it is not my problem.
But remember what I said – there is no compromise. We don’t obey authority sometimes, and not others; we obey them with full-hearted, willing compliance in all things that are within their authority, and we are utterly independent and answer to God alone in things that are not within their authority to command.
CHILDREN OF THE KINGDOM
God is the highest authority of all, and everyone in authority of any kind, even evil kingdoms, are put there at His command (Daniel 4:17). And as children of God, we outrank the appointed and elected servants of God on this world, just as the heirs of the king outrank the officials he appointed.
Which is why we don’t owe taxes at all (Matthew 17:24-27); and YET, though we are children of God, it was His will to make us subject to the governors and masters of this world until we come of full age – just as Jesus Himself was! (Galatians 4:1-7).
Therefore, we are responsible to keep the local laws not by right, but by courtesy extended to these governors by our Father; first, to make God and our native land look good (Philippians 2:15), but no less importantly… so that they can teach us humility and meekness for Him, in His absence!
And yet since we obey these governors, not by covenant, not by a true moral duty to them, but rather only because God told us to do so, they cannot command us contrary to God. We only obey them because of God’s will; if they command us to defy God’s will, then obviously obeying them cannot be God’s will!
Their authority derives from God; when their commands differ from His, we must always choose to obey the True authority. So if they tell us not to run a red light, we have a duty to obey God by obeying them. But if they tell us to go and kill enemy soldiers, we have a duty to obey God by disobeying them.
Thus, there is no compromise necessary to resolve this paradox; for the default is absolute and complete obedience to those in authority over you, even when you disagree with their commands. With the SOLE exception of commands that would require you to do things God already told you not to do.
So we don’t owe them fealty, but to disobey them without such a conflict is to disobey God. And until they give you a good reason, you must obey God by being models of obedience to the authorities of the lands in which we sojourn. A classic example of this would be Daniel and his friends. Daniel 2:46-49 says his friends were put high in the government of Babylon – a poster child for idolatry and evil. And yet Daniel was absolutely blameless under the laws of the great whore kingdom of Babylon!
Even after having their version of the IRS and FBI investigating him, they found nothing (Daniel 6:1-5). So they passed new laws, laws specifically intended to put God’s laws in conflict with Babylon’s. And so Daniel quietly rebelled and did what His God said. He didn’t stage a protest, hire lawyers, rage and scream curses at the king or his ministers – he simply ignored them and did what he knew to be right. He went, as it were, as a lamb to the slaughter.
RISKS OF REBELLION
But standing against the authority over you is risky – doubly so, because you risk not only the king’s anger, but also God who appointed that king over you! So if you rebelled because the king commanded you to worship an idol, the king will be very angry, but God will protect you as He did Daniel’s friends (Daniel 3:14-18).
But if you rebelled simply because you hate wearing seatbelts or refused to give Caesar the tax money with his own face on it (Matthew 22:15-22), then both God and the government will be angry at you! (Matthew 5:25-26).
So refusing to follow the authority over you, whether physical, spiritual, marital, martial or otherwise is a serious matter and should be done only if you’re absolutely certain you have no other choices, because you are, in many cases, literally staking your life on this decision.
Obviously, God will be angry if you blindly follow orders and sin (Exodus 23:2), but He will be more angry if you selfishly disobey good orders for a bad reason (2 Peter 2:9-12, Romans 12:1-4). So all told, you’re safer if you just shut up and do what you’re told.
But safe, in the sense of avoiding getting yelled at loudly, does not equal salvation. “I was just following orders” is a really good defense – in the sense that, if you get yelled at you can always pass some of the buck to the guy above you.
But while it is a defense against the worst of the punishment… blindly following orders will not get you into the first resurrection either. God might not be furious with you, but He certainly won’t be pleased either (Luke 12:47-48 comes to mind).
It’s a risk to stand against authority figures and say “I won’t be doing what you commanded, king” (Daniel 3:16-18). Because if you’re wrong, you’ll have them and God mad at you. But if they are wrong, and you just go along with them, and let God judge His own authority figures – well, God can’t be too mad at you.
…But He won’t love you, either. To be one of the saints of God, you absolutely must not be afraid to stand up for the truth whenever and wherever you’re called upon; “not be careful” to object to a government, or a church, or any man who commands you to worship idols, go to war, or keep Christmas; But also, as one of the saints of God, you must “show meekness unto all men”, specifically unto “principalities, powers, and magistrates”! (Titus 3:1-2).
Knowing that how they do their job is their business, and all that matters is how you do your jobs – both the ones the authorities over you command you to do and the one the True authority gave you do.
Which brings us to the one verse for this lesson; 1 Peter 2:17. You can do all of these things simultaneously without paradox; for you honor, respect, and obey all authorities cheerfully, willingly, and without question within the areas of authority God has given them. And you disobey them meekly, quietly, and without rancor – but firmly and without compromise or yielding – whenever they overstep those bounds.
WHOSE NAME IS ON THE CHECK?
As always, this is easiest to understand if you use the golden rule. After all, the Roman centurion was praised by Jesus for his understanding of authority (Luke 7:1-10). So how would you want your underlings to treat you? If you were in charge, what would you expect – and what would you not expect – from them?
Let’s say you are a contractor building a house. It’s your name on the truck. Your name on the check. If you make a mistake, will the homeowner sue your employees? Of course not. So how you build the house is entirely within your own authority, and any mistakes will cost you and no one else.
So then how would you feel if, when you tell them to put a board in a certain place, they argue with you, saying “no, it doesn’t go there! That’s wrong, I won’t put it there!” Is that their job – is that their right? Would you not fire that employee?
Of course you would. Because he’s not doing his job, which is to help you build the house your way. But it’s not just that he’s not doing his job… he’s making your life harder by trying to do your job, which is to make sure the house is built properly! It is not his job to make sure the house doesn’t fall over. He’s not the architect. He doesn’t know what plans you might have to finish the house and make it stable. And most importantly, if the house falls over, no one will blame him!
His job is to carry things and wash things and drive things. But if he is too busy telling you how to do your job, he won’t be able to do his own! Which would, in turn, make YOUR job harder by forcing you to constantly explain yourself and defend your decisions… thus possibly leading to the very thing he says he’s trying to avoid… you making a mistake!
Now obviously, you would want him to tell you if he sees you making a dumb mistake. But if you say “don’t worry about it, I have a plan”, he should accept that – and do so with a good attitude – because he’s done all he could possibly be expected to do.
Persisting, nagging, hassling – or worse, half-heartedly doing it your way because he doesn’t think it’s going to work anyway – is only going to get him fired because he’s not doing his own job. So it is with all types of authority, everywhere.
HELPFULLY PERSISTENT
I’ve been on both sides of this fence, and so I know what the stubbornly, insistently helpful employee was thinking. My dad and I worked together most of my teenage years, into my twenties. It was miserable for both of us most of the time, and it was mostly my fault.
I recall when I was about 5 years old, watching my dad cover a window with paneling, without marking where the edges were; I clearly remember telling him he was doing that wrong, because he couldn’t possibly measure accurately enough to cut the hole in the right spot (yes, I was a cute little darling).
He said to trust him, he knew what he was doing, and I recall being skeptical and grumbling something or other (again, I was adorably precocious). As it happened, he had a router with a bearing guide which could poke through the plywood and slide along the edge of the window frame beneath, making a perfect cut along the edge of the frame – even better than if it’d been measured and cut beforehand.
I, of course, didn’t know about this marvelous tool (I was five, after all). And after witnessing my father vindicate himself, rather than being humbled by the experience, as I should have been, I recall my attitude being along the ideas of a sullen “well I didn’t know about that tool, if you’d told me about it I would have understood” (charming to the last).
But see, here’s the thing. I WAS FIVE. Whether the window got cut right or not wasn’t my job, wasn’t my problem, and honestly… why did I even care??? This did not get better as I aged and added more knowledge to my helpfully correcting attitude. But the thing is – I wasn’t doing it for bad reasons. I just really thought it was my job as helper to make sure the job got done right.
If dad disagreed, then obviously I just hadn’t explained myself well enough, or he was too dense to see what I knew was right. The obvious answer, then, was to keep arguing until he saw the light. And to be fair, I was right pretty often. But it didn’t matter, because my constant nagging was part of the reason dad did it wrong in the first place! And when he did do it wrong, I didn’t pay for it; I didn’t have to work harder; I didn’t stay up late thinking of how to fix the problem. I went off and played. So again… WHY DID I CARE??
NOT YOUR PROBLEM
The answer, now that I know about the fractions, is simple; I had an unbroken spirit, which believed its job was to make sure it got done right; when in fact its job was merely to warn my head if I saw a problem; and having notified whoever was in charge, do my best to help their decision work!
Dad, for his part, misunderstood my motivation and thought I was rebelling, trying to run everything. I can see how he got there, because that’s kinda how it looked – but that really wasn’t what I wanted. I just wanted to make sure he did it right, because I thought that was my job.
So I got yelled at a lot for the wrong thing, which didn’t help, because it didn’t treat the problem. He believed the problem was pride (a problem of the heart), when the problem was actually arrogance (a problem of the spirit).
Hence, all the yelling I got for pride failed to help. Because while pride was a problem, it wasn’t this problem. It wasn’t that I wanted to run everything, it was that I wanted to help him do it right whether he liked it or not.
In my mid twenties, I finally learned this on my own, and our last few years of working together went great; because I let him do it his way, after I told him I disagreed and why, and I shrugged off the responsibility I’d spent my whole life carrying to both of our detriment.
WHAT I WOULD HAVE TOLD MY TEENAGE SELF
I believe that a few sentences, delivered by time machine, would have changed my teenage self into a much more meek and helpful person; because he just didn’t understand what his job was; and most importantly, what it wasn’t.
It was dad’s house; dad’s plans we were working on; dad’s money he might be wasting; and even if he was wasting my time, that was still dad’s time too, to do with what he wanted. If I saw dad make a mistake, I absolutely should have said something.
Because if I hadn’t, then he would have a reason to complain that I wasn’t doing my actual job. And he did – for, unbroken, binary, all-or-nothing spirit that I was, I regularly switched between arguing about the tiniest detail for the principle of the thing, then after being yelled at, resolving to say nothing at all even when he did something wrong; then, of course, being yelled at for that.
So it was my job to point out flaws that I saw in his work; but once he heard me, and rejected my opinion, I should have shut up – not sulkily (as I actually did), but cheerfully (hah!), knowing whether dad listened or not, I had DONE MY JOB ALREADY!
It was never my job to make SURE it was done right, or to save dad from himself. Likewise it’s not my job to second-guess what God does. It’s my job to tell Him what I think, when I have a thought worth sharing (which is rarely).
Sometimes He listens, sometimes He laughs, but it’s not my job to pester, nag, and plead because it’s not my job to make SURE He does it my way! (Deuteronomy 3:26, Matthew 6:7). That’s HIS job, and why He gets paid the big bucks – so He can afford to pay for His own mistakes… and ours.
Likewise, if you’re hired to help me build my house, it’s my job to build my house my way; if I do it well, I’ll be paid well (1 Corinthians 3:10-15). If I build it badly, I will suffer – financially, or at least in reputation (Luke 14:28-30).
Either way, you will bear none of the costs of my mistake… so it’s not your problem! You get paid either way! And if you eventually conclude that working for me is teaching you bad habits, and making you complicit in unsafe or illegal acts… quit. But until then, your job – agreed upon by contract, verbal or otherwise – is to do what you’re told, and get paid the agreed amount. If I build the house wrong, it’s none of your business. It’s only your job to make sure that you do what you’re told – and preferably, to do it with a willing heart.
If you see me make a boneheaded mistake, you should certainly point it out. But if I say to shut up, that I know what I’m doing… then whether I do or not, it’s no longer your problem. It doesn’t matter if you think you know better; not even if you actually know better! Because I have chosen to bear the results of this action, good or bad.
At that point, your job is ONLY to help me make my alleged “mistake” work, as well as you possibly can. Because even if it isn’t the best way, like you said… your willing and motivated assistance might help me make my way work anyway! That is, after all, what I am paying you to do! To help my vision come to pass, even if it isn’t the vision you would have chosen. But contrary to how most employees act, it is definitely not your job to make SURE I do my job right, whether I want to or not!
DRAWING A LINE
Daniel and his friends were very high in the Babylonian hierarchy, Daniel being something like a prime minister, and his friends at something like the governor or senator level. Then there was Joseph, who was effectively prime minister of Egypt, second in authority only to Pharaoh and in charge of all practical decisions. But how could they ethically be in such positions of authority in such unholy places as Egypt and Babylon?
By respecting the authority God had given Nebuchadnezzar and Pharoah, and doing their jobs – and refusing to obey their commands only when they interfered with the commands of their mutual Father. Given the authority Joseph, Daniel and friends had, if they were completely blameless within the kingdom, that meant they were governing pretty much how the king wanted them to govern. They couldn’t have been arguing constantly or going behind his back to change orders or they’d have been fired (given the habits of Babylon, possibly literally “fired”).
So they were taking the commands of Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar and putting them into practice. Helping the beast do its job! But if Daniel was refusing to stop praying to God, we can be confident he was also refusing to work on Saturday, or eat unclean animals, or make offerings to Ishtar or any of the other things that Babylonians did wrong.
So clearly – they drew a line at how far they would follow the beast. A line defined by the limits of the authority God had given the king. And God had, very specifically, given Nebuchadnezzar his people, his kingdom, his money (Jeremiah 27:4-8).
If Nebuchadnezzar wanted to make them work 18 hour days, die trying to conquer a far city, or build massive monuments to his greatness, it was his right to do what he wanted with what was his. And it was Daniel’s job to help him to do that to the best of his ability – within the limits of his own conscience.
So if Nebuchadnezzar wanted their help – and clearly, he did (Daniel 3:29-30), then he had to know that their religious quirks came with them, and had to be willing to overlook that. If not, then these men were perfectly willing to become peasants, or go back to jail again (Daniel 1, Genesis 39:20-22).
And yet it was not Daniel’s place to second-guess the king’s decision to invade Egypt or raise taxes. To respectfully disagree, sure (Proverbs 25:12, Proverbs 16:14, etc.). But it wasn’t his job, even if he disagreed with the decision, even if the decision was demonstrably unfair or wrong, to refuse to let the king do what he wanted with what was his (Matthew 20:15).
The same goes if you’re a tax-collector or soldier when God calls you (Luke 3:12-14). I mean, Joseph literally helped Pharoah make slaves of his own people, including Joseph’s own family (Genesis 47:13-26, particularly Genesis 47:23-25).
It was Joseph’s dreams which gave him the knowledge, and Joseph’s wisdom that helped Pharoah turn literally all his people into slaves. Was that ethical? Wouldn’t the “right thing” have been to just feed the hungry for free? (Matthew 25:44). Yet Joseph used his God-given wisdom to serve his master’s selfish ends all of which served God’s ultimate ends! (Genesis 50:20). Because Pharaoh ruled because God wished it, a concept he and Nebuchadnezzar both learned the hard way (Daniel 4:17).
So provided they’re willing to accept that you obey them only because God said so, as long as they don’t ask you to break God’s laws to keep theirs, then you are morally obligated to obey all authorities from dog-catchers to the Devil himself (Jude 1:8-10). Had Joseph refused to make his brethren into slaves with the grain he had helped Pharoah save, or if Daniel had refused to execute Nebuchadnezzar’s enemies or build Nebuchadnezzar’s self-indulgent monuments, they would have been rebelling against God Himself, who set them in this authority in the first place – Romans 13:1-2 bears repeating.
Yet it also bears repeating that, Nebuchadnezzar, Pharoah, the Pope, even the angels, have no authority to change the commands of God (Daniel 7:25, Galatians 1:8). But the authority they do have, within the sphere God gave them to manage, is absolute and should not only be obeyed, but respected (Exodus 22:28, Acts 23:3-5). Why? Romans 14:4.
WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY?
So wherever you find yourself in the universe’s chain of command, the most important thing is to clearly define your responsibilities. What has God placed you in charge of? Because the point of authority is not so much to tell us what to do, as it is to, by default, relieve us of responsibility for everything not specifically delegated to us.
Children rarely worry about grocery shopping; they don’t stress over electricity bills or getting the yard mowed. It never enters their heads because these are someone else’s problem. Why would they think about it? It’s someone else’s problem!
So if God told Timothy to go teach people in Corinth, he did not say “get people saved in Corinth”, he just said “work on getting them saved”. And while there, Timothy had no reason to worry about how Paul was going to reach people in Rome or Galatia because it was Paul’s problem.
Timothy was free to shut out the outside world and focus on doing his job as well as he possibly could, so that Paul wouldn’t have to worry (much) about what went on in Corinth. As I said, having this umbrella of “everything not my problem is automatically my bosses’ problem” is one of the main purposes of authority.
But this only works if the authority is obeyed by default and only questioned when specifically disagreeing with God. For if you have to double-check your boss’ every order… why do you even call him your boss, when you act as if you were his? Luke 6:46, Proverbs 19:10.
Having established what authority you do have, next you must ask yourself what specific goals you were given. When your boss gave you this order, did he say these things absolutely had to get done, or were they things you were only supposed to work ON?
That’s a key most people miss. There’s a big difference between a foreman telling his worker “you have to finish painting this room by 5pm because we’ve got the carpet coming tomorrow and it has to be done before then”, and telling him “work on painting this room until I come back”.
See, the one is a deadline; he has put the burden on his employee of finishing this job by a certain time or else it will cost him. Which means, clearly, he thinks this task is well within his abilities both to do, and to do in time (1 Corinthians 10:13).
But in the other, far more common version of the command, he simply said “work on this until I get back”. That is a lot less stressful, because it doesn’t have to get done, he simply expects progress to be made. Sure, more is better – but any progress will be acceptable.
Likewise, God told me to preach the gospel; He did not tell me to get people saved, but rather, to work on it. Therefore it’s not my job to make SURE you find salvation; that’s well above my pay grade, and I would refuse to accept the assignment if God gave it to me.
I was sent to help make it happen (1 Corinthians 3:5-10), and I am willing to take the responsibility of working on it… but I cannot take the responsibility of guaranteeing that you get finished… because that’s not something in my power to assure. And I should only vow to do that which I can assure (Matthew 5:33-37). Which sadly, is very, very little (James 4:13-16).
SETTING GOD’S PROBLEMS APART
So it’s not your job to make SURE God saves mankind. You shouldn’t bear the stress of that problem, nor even let it into your head at all, because it’s well beyond your abilities to control. It’s your job to do what He told YOU to do, and nothing else.
If you get that done early and feel like tackling some bonus tasks – good for you, I’m sure He’ll appreciate it. But don’t let that desire to overachieve interfere with your ability to actually achieve. Which is the epitaph of many a well-meaning, absurdly optimistic fool whose tower collapsed (Luke 14:28-30).
Moses forgot this once (Numbers 11:11-15), and thought God was indeed asking him to guarantee that Israel would be righteous, and get into the Promised Land, and that was never Moses’ job. It was in fact this misunderstanding, and the resulting frustration of trying to do a job which was literally impossible, which God would never have asked him to do, that led Moses to actually sin and strike the rock (Numbers 20:7-13). His attempt to overachieve caused him to underachieve.
Notice that Moses didn’t sanctify – set apart – God in the eyes of the people. Moses didn’t remind them that GOD was the one who was responsible for saving them, bringing them into the Promised Land… instead saying that he and Aaron would be fetching them water from the rock! Implying that he and Aaron were responsible for their salvation, and their obedience.
Moses and Aaron worked hard effectively trying to herd cats across miles of trackless wastes, and that was all God ever asked. But somewhere along the way, Moses confused the goal with the journey, as we all do from time to time, and needed to step back and say “this is not my problem” (Matthew 6:34). And in particular… they are not my problem (Matthew 15:24).
Moses didn’t need to get Israel into the Promised Land. The Lord had committed to do that, and He would do so with or without Moses’ help. So by carrying stress that the Lord was already carrying, he made his burden unbearable – because he was trying to carry his own load and help Jesus carry HIS! (Matthew 11:28-30).
Getting them saved wasn’t the point. Working on saving them was the point. Likewise, telling you the truth is the point. If I stress over whether you learn it or not, that’s a burden that would quickly drive me insane. But Christ’s burden is light precisely because He only gives you that burden which you can bear.
It’s not His fault if you’re trying to carry that burden, plus the burden of saving everyone you know, and the burden of making sure everyone you know does things right… including endlessly nagging God in prayers to make sure He does His job right, too! How many lilies of the field do these things? (Matthew 6:28). Exactly.
The lowly contractor’s helper isn’t paid enough to worry over whether the job gets done on time; it’s enough that he worry about doing his part on time. Which is all God ever asked of any of us (Micah 6:8). Not to stress over how the job would go tomorrow – just to do the job today.
It is your responsibility to make the truth available to people who need it (1 Peter 3:15). It is not your responsibility to SAVE them! Because that’s something you cannot do! So why insist on carrying that burden, as Moses mistakenly did, when it worked so badly for him?
IF GOD WANTED IT DONE RIGHT…
The stressed out people in the world have missed this concept, and they start thinking that God needs them to finish something, that He is depending on them – and God is not so foolish as to depend on any of us for anything. To believe otherwise, as all of our spirits, by nature, do, is the height of arrogance (Psalms 50:7-13).
Because of that unbroken spirit’s arrogance, we tend to misunderstand God’s commands, and think that we are obeying things because He needs us to obey them. But if you keep the Sabbath, does that help God? Job 35:8.
Likewise, if you kill a man, it doesn’t hurt God at all. God can resurrect him, or make a new one. You hurt another man, you hurt yourself, but God is not affected by it. Nothing you do this life, good or bad, helps or hurts God at all. If He were hungry, He wouldn’t ask you!
But self-important people (everyone) walk around with the idea that their righteousness means something to Him. That if you tell a lie, God weeps and somewhere there’s a hurricane. You aren’t that important, and your obedience far less so. Our obedience is for our benefit.
And yet even there, God doesn’t need you to keep the law for your own sake; He could just heal you. He doesn’t need you not to sin for sin’s sake; He could just forgive you. He doesn’t need you to rest on the Sabbath; all of these things exist to teach us something else by the doing of them.
I NEED YOU TO) KEEP MY SABBATH HOLY
When your teacher quizzes you on math or history, is it because he doesn’t own a calculator? Is it because he can’t use Google himself? Teachers never NEED the answer. They never NEED your homework. They only reason they ask you to do it is to make you think, and to prove that you can be trusted to give the right answer!
But if, instead of simply trying your best to hear the lessons and work the problems, you think he needs you to give him the right answer or else Santa kills an elf, you’ll be under such pressure, so afraid to fail him, that you’ll be nervous and give the wrong answers! (Job 3:25).
If your teacher was indeed counting on your math to balance his budget, build his bridge, or run his empire he would indeed be angry, because your mistake would cost him dearly. But what teacher would be stupid enough to trust his student to do that?
What teacher would burden his students with such responsibility, when they need to be free to learn, fail, be corrected, and learn some more without the fear of dire consequences? So likewise, for the exact same reason, God doesn’t count on us for anything.
I stress all this because when God gave us a command, such as “thou shalt not work on Saturday”, the Jews heard “God NEEDS us not to work Saturday”. And since God is depending on us, this is an enormous responsibility – we dare not risk breaking it, because if we break it a little piece of God dies inside!
Obviously, since the command is this important, rather than risk breaking it, they had to invent scads of rules and regulations to fence off anything close to Sabbath breaking. Questions like how many apples you can pick up on the Sabbath day had to be carefully considered lest we risk God dying.
How many sheets of toilet paper, how far you can walk, whether or not you can use an elevator on the Sabbath day, all had to be carefully and painfully debated and written down to MAKE SURE the Sabbath is never, ever, ever even close to being broken.
Because they were sure God needed it not to be broken – and would surely take swift vengeance on them or hurting Him if they ever came close to touching His holy commandment. So they multiplied their own rules around the law, making a religion which was a grievous burden to be borne, which Jesus roundly condemned! (Luke 11:46).
Because His commandments – His actual commandments, the only things He actually expected us to do – were not burdensome (1 John 5:3). They became burdensome when people took responsibility that was never theirs to take.
SAVE A PIG
So did God want His commandments to be so holy that the mere thought of breaking it was taboo? Well, consider pigs; if God really didn’t want pigs eaten, then He certainly shouldn’t have trusted us not to eat them!
If the commandment itself, for its own sake and the negative effects of it, was truly important to God, He should have simply made pigs taste nasty or be poisonous, which would have handily solved the problem whether we loved His laws or not. I mean, He never had to tell us not to eat skunks or hemlock!
So He could have easily made it impossible for us to eat pigs, or at least so unpleasant or dangerous that no sane person would. Since He did the opposite, making them cheap, tasty, efficient, and easy to raise… only to tell us not to eat them, we can only infer that the law was not for the pig’s sake, nor for His sake, nor even for our health’s sake, but for the lessons we can learn by not eating pork.
Likewise, if He really didn’t want the tree in the garden touched, a “keep off” sign was clearly insufficient. If it was really that important to Him, He should have simply built a fence. Or put it on a high mountain… or on the moon!
If He really didn’t want man to work on Saturday, He could have made him require a full day of sleep once a week; or made it dark all day Sabbath (a large enough moon in the right orbit would solve the problem handily). But man not working on the Sabbath, for God’s sake, or for its own sake, was never the point! Mark 2:23-28.
God didn’t make man so that His laws could be kept. How stupid would that have been! Rather, He made the Sabbath as a tool for us; a test to learn how to keep it, week by week! Exodus 16:4, 23-30. But if the Sabbath is too holy to risk breaking, you never risk crossing the line… and thus, never truly learn where the line is!
And learning precisely where the line IS… learning the consequences not only of crossing the line, but ALSO the consequences of fearing the line and staying too far within it… that is WHY we have the laws!
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
The man in Luke 19:20-27 had such great respect for the talent, that he buried it lest harm come to it; never realizing that if God had wanted the talent buried and kept safe, He would have done son Himself! But God wanted the talent to be USED. He knew it might be lost; but that was never the point! God didn’t really care about the results (as if God needs money??), except in that the results showed how well someone had learned to invest the money.
That was the point of the test – as a teaching tool, using disposable funds God didn’t really need, in order to see which of His servants could use them well, before He entrusted them with the true riches, the things He actually cared about!
But because he feared the Lord, feared to make a mistake, and foolishly thought God NEEDED this monopoly money, and would take vengeance if he lost it, he took such good care of it that he never learned how to use it – and therefore never learned how to truly take care of ANYTHING… and lost the very thing he thought most precious.
So likewise, the Sabbath, like all commandments, was not a museum piece, meant to be kept behind glass and worshipped… but a toy, meant to be played with by incompetent children, broken, and bound up, and broken again. A way for the children to learn about their job in the world to come, when God must be able to trust us to take care of true holiness! Ezekiel 34:16.
The feeding is to be done with judgment. But you cannot judge that which is too holy to look upon. The Sabbath and these laws were meant to be given for us to play with; and we will get in trouble for carelessly breaking them, don’t get me wrong; but not without measure (Jeremiah 10:24).
But without toys to break, no child learns the skills he needs to use dangerous tools! Without a toy car, without a bicycle, he can’t safely learn to drive a real one. And so to the adult Elohim, all things are lawful. But all things are not expedient; and not all things teach us, or others, what God wants us to do (1 Corinthians 6:12, 10:23).
It is easy to play it safe, to keep the letter of the law, to bury the talent, be a good soldier, follow the letter and never stray from the path of abstinence, poverty, charity, and faith that every good monk or nun vows to follow. But the first resurrection will not be made of those who played it safe, but of those who loved righteousness more than their fellows (Psalms 45:7).
And loving righteousness means being willing to fight for it – willing to take risks for it, and WITH it – in the service of understanding it better. Those who build fences around the law they were meant to learn from don’t love it at all; they fear it. And that can be fine, at first… but those who fear anything are not made perfect in love (1 John 4:18). No less those who fear the law too much to love it (Psalms 119:97-104).