What He Said Comes Next

 

Basic Foundations for Understanding a Difficult Scripture

Matthew 24 / Mark 13 / Luke 21

Update: I made this into a song:

 “What He Said Comes Next.”

There may be no section of the Gospels that has generated more speculation than what is commonly called the Olivet Discourse, recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. Jesus speaks about the destruction of the temple, wars, persecution, false prophets, tribulation, cosmic signs, His coming, judgment, and the end of the age. It is not difficult to understand why Christians have spent centuries trying to determine exactly how these events fit together.

I have participated in that discussion myself.

I have read and studied these passages for more than thirty-five years. During that time, I have been exposed to most of the major approaches to biblical eschatology. I grew up hearing the popular premillennialism associated with teachers such as Hal Lindsey. I remember A Thief in the Night. Later I read and listened to teachers representing premillennial, amillennial, postmillennial, partial-preterist, and other approaches.

I have benefited from people with whom I disagree. I have also changed my mind about some things.

That experience has made me increasingly cautious about highly detailed systems that claim to explain precisely how every prophetic passage will be fulfilled. The scholars of Jesus' day knew the Old Testament exceptionally well, yet many failed to understand what the prophets had said about His first coming. That should produce some humility in those of us attempting to explain His second coming.

Humility, however, does not mean that we cannot know anything.

Jesus gave His disciples substantial information about what was coming. More importantly, He gave them very clear instructions about how they were to live in light of it.

I have become convinced that we sometimes spend so much time debating the information that we neglect the instructions.

Begin With the Setting

Matthew tells us:

Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

The disciples then ask the obvious questions:

“Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

Mark adds an important geographical detail. Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple when Peter, James, John, and Andrew questioned Him privately.

That context matters.

Jesus was not conducting a seminar on speculative end-times chronology. He had just made a remarkable prediction about a real building that His disciples could see from where they were sitting. The temple represented the religious and national center of Jewish life. Jesus told them it was going to be destroyed.

Approximately forty years later, Jerusalem was devastated by the Romans and the temple was destroyed in AD 70.

Any responsible interpretation of the Olivet Discourse must take that historical event seriously. Jesus was speaking to first-century disciples about circumstances that had meaning for them.

One interpretive principle has helped me considerably over the years:

A biblical text cannot mean to us something that it could never have meant to its original audience.

That does not mean every prophecy must have been completely fulfilled during the lifetime of the original hearers. Biblical prophecy frequently contains patterns, types, and fulfillments that extend beyond the immediate historical situation. It does mean that we should resist the temptation to read our newspaper, political circumstances, technology, or international crises back into a first-century conversation without first asking what Jesus' words meant to the people sitting in front of Him.

Prophetic Language Requires Care

Another difficulty is the nature of apocalyptic language itself.

Scripture contains different literary genres. Historical narrative does not communicate exactly like poetry. Proverbs function differently from epistles. Apocalyptic and prophetic passages regularly use images, symbols, numbers, cosmic language, and Old Testament references that would have been familiar to their original readers.

This does not diminish the truthfulness or authority of Scripture.

Figurative language can communicate literal truth.

Jesus Himself said that not one stone of the temple would be left upon another. The temple was indeed destroyed, even though stones associated with the larger temple complex remain. We understand the statement because ordinary human communication allows emphatic and figurative descriptions of real events.

The same care is necessary when interpreting language about stars falling, the heavens being shaken, beasts, dragons, numbers, horns, trumpets, and other prophetic imagery.

The question should not be, “Do I interpret the Bible literally?”

The better question is, “What kind of language is the biblical writer using, and what truth is that language intended to communicate?”

Taking Scripture seriously requires us to take its genre seriously.

AD 70 and the Future

I believe a significant portion of the Olivet Discourse concerns the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

Several statements make good sense in that setting. Jesus tells people in Judea to flee to the mountains. He speaks about circumstances in which someone should not return home for a cloak. He tells them to pray that their flight will not occur in winter or on a Sabbath. He describes extraordinary tribulation. Most significantly, He says:

“Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.”

Those statements deserve to be interpreted in their historical context rather than immediately transferred thousands of years into the future.

At the same time, I am not convinced that AD 70 exhausts everything Jesus is teaching.

Matthew 24:14 says:

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

The discourse also moves toward the unmistakable coming of the Son of Man, final judgment, and the necessity of being prepared for an hour that no one knows.

For that reason, I am comfortable recognizing both historical fulfillment and continuing or ultimate fulfillment. The destruction of Jerusalem can be a real fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy while also participating in a larger biblical pattern that culminates in the final Day of the Lord.

This should not surprise us. Scripture frequently presents historical acts of judgment and deliverance that anticipate greater acts of judgment and deliverance.

The important point is that we do not have to resolve every disputed chronological question before we can understand the primary application of Jesus' teaching.

Jesus repeatedly tells us what to do.

Do Not Be Led Astray

The first command deserves attention because it comes before the wars, earthquakes, famines, and persecution:

“See that no one leads you astray.”

Deception is one of Jesus' principal concerns.

He warns about false messiahs and false prophets. He even warns that impressive signs can accompany false claims. The existence of spiritual language, apparent supernatural activity, confidence, popularity, or influence does not establish that a teacher is telling the truth.

The Christian response is not paranoia. It is biblical discernment.

We should know the teaching of Christ and His apostles well enough to recognize teaching that contradicts it. That requires ordinary practices that are considerably less dramatic than end-times speculation: reading Scripture, participating in the church, learning sound doctrine, praying for wisdom, and remaining teachable.

This is particularly important when people claim to possess special knowledge about current events or the prophetic calendar.

Jesus' instruction is straightforward.

Do not be deceived.

Do Not Be Alarmed

Jesus then says:

“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed.”

This may be one of the most neglected commands in the passage.

War is real. Natural disaster is real. Persecution is real. Political instability is real. Human evil is real. Jesus does not minimize any of them.

He tells His disciples not to panic because of them.

Every generation of Christians has been able to produce a list of events that appeared unprecedented. Wars, disease, economic upheaval, natural disasters, political instability, cultural change, and technological development can make a particular historical moment feel uniquely apocalyptic.

Modern communication intensifies that feeling because we now learn about suffering throughout the world almost immediately. We can consume an uninterrupted stream of alarming information.

Christians should pay attention to the world. We should care about suffering. We should respond to injustice. We should pray, serve, give, vote, work, teach, protect, and help where God gives us responsibility.

But anxiety is not the same thing as vigilance.

Jesus specifically tells His followers not to be alarmed.

The existence of chaos does not indicate the absence of God's sovereignty.

Be on Guard

Mark records another command:

“But be on your guard.”

The context here includes persecution.

Jesus tells His disciples that they will be brought before councils, governors, and kings. Some will be betrayed by members of their own families. Some will be hated because of His name.

Christian faithfulness does not guarantee cultural acceptance or personal safety.

At the same time, “be on your guard” does not require Christians to seek persecution or behave recklessly. The Book of Acts provides examples of believers standing publicly when necessary and leaving dangerous situations when appropriate.

There is no virtue in unnecessary suffering.

There is virtue in refusing to abandon Christ when obedience becomes costly.

Wisdom may tell us to speak. Wisdom may tell us to leave. Wisdom may tell us to wait. What wisdom cannot tell us to do is deny Christ in order to protect ourselves.

Endure

Jesus repeatedly connects faithfulness with endurance:

“But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”

Christians have debated the timing and nature of the Great Tribulation for generations. Those discussions have value, but persecution is not merely a theoretical future possibility.

There have been Christians throughout history for whom following Jesus has involved imprisonment, displacement, poverty, violence, or death. There are Christians in the world today for whom those possibilities remain real.

The relevant question is therefore larger than whether Christians will experience a particular period labeled “The Great Tribulation.”

The question is whether we are developing the kind of faith that endures tribulation whenever it comes.

Endurance is rarely developed during the crisis itself. It grows through years of ordinary faithfulness: worship, prayer, repentance, Scripture, fellowship, obedience, and trust.

We ask God for grace now because we will need His grace then.

Stay Awake

Jesus repeatedly tells His disciples to stay awake.

This command is not primarily about sleeping. It is about spiritual attentiveness.

His comparison with the days of Noah is instructive. People were eating, drinking, marrying, and continuing ordinary life. Those activities were not inherently sinful. The problem was that ordinary life had become ultimate life. They were unaware of approaching judgment because the normal routines of existence had convinced them that tomorrow would always resemble today.

That remains a significant spiritual danger.

Careers matter. Families matter. Recreation has value. Houses need maintenance. Bills need paying. Games are played. Trips are taken. Meals are enjoyed.

Christianity does not require us to reject ordinary life.

It requires us to remember that ordinary life is temporary.

Worldliness does not always arrive as obvious wickedness. Sometimes it appears as complete absorption in good but temporary things.

Jesus says: stay awake.

Be Faithful to the Assignment

Jesus follows His teaching about His return with the illustration of a servant whose master has gone away.

The central question is simple: What will the servant be doing when the master returns?

The faithful servant continues doing the work assigned to him.

The unfaithful servant interprets the master's delay as permission to live as though the master will never return.

This illustration has increasingly shaped how I think about eschatology.

The purpose of studying the return of Christ is not merely to identify when the Master might return. It is to make sure He finds us faithfully doing what He assigned us to do.

That means feeding His sheep. Making disciples. Teaching His Word. Loving our neighbors. Caring for those entrusted to us. Proclaiming the gospel. Seeking justice. Practicing mercy. Raising our children. Serving the church. Doing our work faithfully. Repenting when we sin. Forgiving when we are wronged. Continuing until He comes.

A detailed prophetic system is no substitute for obedience.

Birth Pains

Jesus uses the image of birth pains to describe the events He has discussed.

I continue to find this image helpful for understanding the biblical presentation of history.

Birth pains repeat. They can increase in intensity. There can also be intervals between them. Most importantly, birth pains are not meaningless suffering. They are moving toward an appointed conclusion.

That keeps us from making two opposite errors.

The first error is assuming that every crisis means the end must occur immediately.

The second is assuming that because similar crises have happened before, nothing is moving toward an end.

Christianity teaches neither endless historical repetition nor constant date-setting.

History has a destination.

God may show remarkable patience between periods of judgment and upheaval. Scripture tells us not to interpret that patience as indifference. Peter explicitly connects the apparent delay of Christ's return with God's patience and salvation.

The delay is mercy.

It is also temporary.

The Fig Tree

Jesus also tells His disciples to learn from the fig tree.

Patterns tell us something.

When branches become tender and leaves appear, summer is approaching. We understand this principle in ordinary life. Certain conditions indicate what is likely to follow.

Jesus expects His followers to observe the world intelligently.

But observation is different from obsession.

The purpose of noticing the leaves on the fig tree is not to spend every day measuring them.

It is to live with an awareness that history is moving somewhere.

The Days of Noah

Jesus' reference to Noah adds another dimension.

Judgment arrived while people were conducting ordinary life.

The emphasis is not on their ability to calculate when the flood would begin. The emphasis is that they were unprepared when it came.

That helps explain Jesus' statement that no one knows the day or hour.

There is a deliberate tension in the passage.

Jesus tells us enough to know that He is coming.

He refuses to tell us enough to calculate when.

That tension appears intentional.

If we knew the exact date, sinful human beings would undoubtedly organize our lives around the deadline. Instead, Jesus requires continual readiness.

Where I Currently Stand

I still have opinions about the disputed questions.

I believe the “last days” began with the redemptive events surrounding Christ's death, resurrection, ascension, and the giving of the Spirit rather than referring exclusively to a short period immediately preceding His return.

I believe much of the Olivet Discourse has a genuine historical fulfillment connected with Jerusalem and AD 70 while also participating in patterns that ultimately culminate in Christ's return and final judgment.

I generally interpret apocalyptic numbers and images symbolically unless the context gives compelling reason to do otherwise.

I do not currently hold a pre-tribulation “Left Behind” understanding of the rapture. I expect the gathering of believers to Christ to occur in connection with His return.

My understanding of Revelation is closest to an amillennial framework, though I appreciate elements of postmillennial expectation and the confidence it places in the continuing advance of the gospel.

I believe the church should expect both gospel advance and serious opposition.

I believe Jesus will return bodily and visibly.

I believe there will be a resurrection of the dead and final judgment.

I believe evil will finally be defeated.

I believe God's people will be with Him.

Those last convictions matter much more to me than my ability to arrange every event between now and then.

Faithful Christians disagree about many of the other details. Those disagreements should produce careful study rather than unnecessary division.

Theology Should Lead Us to Christ

I remain strongly committed to theology.

The answer to bad theology is not less theology. Christians need doctrine because doctrine tells us who God is, who we are, what Christ has done, what God has promised, and how we should live.

But theology can become distorted when our system becomes more important to us than Scripture itself.

We can begin forcing passages to fit our framework rather than allowing Scripture to correct our framework.

Worse, we can become fascinated with the message while growing cold toward the Person the message reveals.

Jesus told the religious leaders of His own day that they searched the Scriptures because they believed that in them they had eternal life, yet those same Scriptures testified about Him.

That warning should apply to every theological system, including my own.

The goal is not to win the eschatology argument.

The goal is to know Christ, trust Christ, obey Christ, and be found faithful when Christ returns.

What He Said Comes Next

After all these years of reading Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, Daniel, Thessalonians, and Revelation, I am less confident that I can tell you exactly how every detail will unfold.

That does not bother me as much as it once might have.

I still study these things. I still have conclusions. I still think some interpretations fit the biblical evidence better than others. I also expect that continued study may require me to modify some of my conclusions.

What has become clearer is what Jesus expects from His people while we wait.

He told us not to be deceived, so we should know the truth.

He told us not to be alarmed, so we should trust His sovereignty.

He told us to be on guard, so we should develop discernment and courage.

He told us to endure, so we should build patterns of faithfulness before difficult days arrive.

He told us to stay awake, so we should refuse to allow temporary things to consume our attention.

He told us to be faithful, so we should continue doing the work He has given us.

These commands apply whether Christ returns during my lifetime or a thousand years from now.

That is one reason I find the Olivet Discourse more encouraging today than frightening.

Jesus does not pretend that history will be easy. He describes deception, conflict, natural disaster, persecution, apostasy, lawlessness, suffering, and judgment with remarkable directness.

But none of those things surprises Him.

He tells His disciples about them in advance precisely because they are not evidence that events have escaped His control.

The Christian hope has never been that history will gradually become predictable.

Our hope is that history belongs to Christ.

I do not know precisely what comes next.

I know that Christ will return.

I know that He will complete what He began.

And I know what He told His people to do in the meantime.

Perhaps that is the most useful way to study what comes next:

Pay attention to what He said comes next, and then pay even closer attention to what He said to do until it does.

BTW- I think the song is really cool! I hope you do too!

The Story Behind “Fri. Night Lights”

The song "Fri, Night Lights" hits Spotify tomorrow- it has been playing before games in our stadium for 2 years... here is the backstory.....

In the fall of 2024, we started the football season 0–5.

I had never been 0–5 in my life.

And it wasn't as if we were simply showing up every Friday night and getting run off the field. We lost 38–28 to Oak Mountain. Then 28–7 to Homewood, 23–14 to Ramsay, 20–7 to Carver, and 20–14 to Wenonah.

It felt like bad break after bad break. We were competing. We were fighting. We just weren't winning.

The Monday after the Wenonah loss, I went back to Wenonah for a JV game. I was pretty down. When you've coached as long as I have, you learn not to make too much of any one game or season, but 0–5 was unfamiliar territory for me.

The Wenonah varsity players were working the chains that night. I walked over toward the sideline, and one of their players—a really big guy who I believe was their starting offensive tackle—saw me.

He smiled.

“Coach, last Friday night, man... THAT WAS A GAME!”

Then he gave me a hug.

That stuck with me. Their kids were terrific. And I was reminded that beating Briarwood still meant something to them. Our record didn't matter. They knew what kind of fight they had just been in.

Then he said something else.

“Coach, it was a war! That big #90... I felt him.”

Number 90 was Garrett Witherington, one of our defensive linemen. Garrett is now a freshman defensive lineman at Virginia Tech. He has been playing a good number of snaps this season under James Franklin.

But that night, he was just #90.

“I felt him.”

For some reason, those three words hit me.

Here I was thinking about 0–5. Wins and losses. What had gone wrong. All the things coaches think about when the scoreboard isn't cooperating.

This kid wasn't thinking about any of that. He remembered the battle. He remembered the guy across from him. He remembered what it felt like to compete against somebody who gave him everything he had.

And suddenly I remembered something too.

That's part of what Friday night football is supposed to be about.

I went home that night and wrote a song.

I originally called it “You Felt Me.”

The chorus said:

Yeah, I know you felt me, in the heat of the fight
We battled like soldiers under those lights
Didn’t care 'bout the score, just the heart on the line
When we shake hands, it’s more than the grind.
'Cause it’s not the win or the loss I see,
It’s the respect, man, yeah, you felt me.

I wrote it about two players walking away from a football game knowing something about each other that nobody sitting in the stands could completely understand.

And then something pretty crazy happened.

We didn't lose again that season.

The following Friday, September 27, we hosted Leeds. We were 0–5.

Before the game, our “Voice of the Lions” Scott Kellner, started playing a song over the stadium speakers. He hadn't told me he was going to do it.

It took me a second. Wait a minute. That's my song.

Then we went out and beat Leeds 31–14.

Afterward, people started asking about the song. One of our assistant coaches told me his daughter had actually tried to Shazam it during the game. When he told her it was Coach Mathews' song, apparently she gave him a somewhat bewildered look—which is probably the appropriate reaction.

Our offensive coordinator's wife, who teaches at the school, found me and said, “I loved the song.”

The next week we beat Corner 31–6. Then John Carroll, 21–17. Then Hayden, 50–16.

On November 1, we played our final game. We had missed the playoffs, and McAdory—a 6A playoff team—came to our place. We won 55–35 in one of those wonderfully fun Friday-night football games.

A few more people asked afterward:

“Was that your song they played before the game?”

And I just said yes... it really is no big deal... just fun!

Somewhere along the way, the song became part of our Friday-night routine. We still play it just before kickoff at home games.

And here's a completely meaningless statistic that I nevertheless enjoy: since we started playing it before home games, we're 10–3 at home.

I don't believe in superstition, so I'm not taking credit for those ten wins, but I do love what the song has come to represent.

Because the strange thing is that “Fri. Night Lights” wasn't written after a win.

It was written when we were 0–5.

It came from an opposing player. It came from a Monday night JV game when I was discouraged and a young man on the other team unknowingly reminded an old coach what was important.

The season eventually turned around. We finished with five straight wins.

But that's almost beside the point.

The kid from Wenonah had already given me the lesson before we won another game.

The cheers fade. The scoreboard gets turned off. Most people eventually forget who scored what.

That's the story behind “Fri. Night Lights.” 

The song officially releases on Spotify Thursday, September 17.

And every time I hear it playing in our stadium before kickoff, I still think about being 0–5, standing on the sideline at Wenonah on a Monday night, and one big offensive lineman with a huge smile saying:

“Coach... that big #90—I felt him.”

BTW- I hope other stadiums get to enjoy it, it is a fun pre-game song celebrating a good part of the American experience!

Here is the Soundcloud Link: Fri Night Lights

Verse 1: Friday night lights, the whole town’s here Band’s playin’ loud, you can feel the cheer Mud on my cleats, leather in my hand Drums pound the beat, I’m a warrior in the land. Whistles blowin', crowd on its feet Sweat in the air, it's time to compete But all that noise, it drifts away When it's just you and me in this 4-quarter fray. Chorus: Yeah, I know you felt me, in the heat of the fight We battled like soldiers under those lights Didn’t care 'bout the score, just the heart on the line When we shake hands, it’s more than the grind. 'Cause it’s not the win or the loss I see, It’s the respect, man, yeah, you felt me. Verse 2: Grass stains on my jersey, pain in my bones But you gave it back, every inch we owned Could hear the cheerleaders, fans in the stands But out here, it’s just me and this man. Helmet to helmet, down to the wire Pushin’ through mud, through the dirt and the fire When the game clock ticks down to none We’re both standin’ tall, knowin’ what we’ve done. Chorus: Yeah, I know you felt me, in the heat of the fight We battled like soldiers under those lights Didn’t care 'bout the score, just the heart on the line When we shake hands, it’s more than the grind. 'Cause it’s not the win or the loss I see, It’s the respect, man, yeah, you felt me. Bridge: All the cheers, they’ll fade away But that war we fought will always stay The glory ain’t in the crowd or the fame It’s in the respect we earned in the game. Chorus (repeat): Yeah, I know you felt me, in the heat of the fight We battled like soldiers under those lights Didn’t care 'bout the score, just the heart on the line When we shake hands, it’s more than the grind. 'Cause it’s not the win or the loss I see, It’s the respect, man, yeah, you felt me. Outro: Friday night lights, they’ll shine again But it’s that handshake, man, that says where we’ve been.

Come find me on Spotify- I have new songs coming out soon!

The Men of Ephraim — 15 Years Later

Fifteen years ago, I wrote a post on Judges 12 called “Ephraim’s Evil and Our Wicked Ways.” I recently went back and read it again, which is always an interesting exercise. There were parts that made me smile because I could hear my younger voice so clearly, and there were other parts where I found myself wanting to interrupt and say, “Yes, but there is more going on here than that.”

I still believe much of what I wrote. I have now spent even more years working in churches, schools, teams, and organizations, and nothing in those additional years has convinced me that gossip, dissension, bitterness, and the recruiting of people into factions are minor problems. If anything, I probably take those things more seriously now. What has changed is that I am less certain that Judges 12 gives us the simple division I once saw between troublesome people and the strong leader willing to confront them.

The story comes immediately after Jephthah’s victory over the Ammonites. Rather than celebrating what God has done, the men of Ephraim confront Jephthah and demand to know why they were not called to participate in the battle. Their complaint quickly becomes a threat: “We will burn your house over you with fire.”

What makes the incident particularly interesting is that we have seen this before. Back in Judges 8, after Gideon’s victory over Midian, the men of Ephraim approached him with essentially the same complaint. Why did you go into battle without us? Why weren’t we called?

There does seem to be a pattern here, and that was what caught my attention fifteen years ago. God had given Israel a victory, but Ephraim seemed less interested in the victory than in the fact that the victory had occurred without them at the center of it. There is something very human in that response. We can be surprisingly capable of taking something good and immediately filtering it through the question of how it affects us. Someone succeeds and, rather than celebrating, we wonder why we weren’t included. A decision works out well, but we remain bothered because no one asked our opinion. Before long, the perceived slight becomes more important than the original issue.

I have seen enough over the years to know that grievance can become a kind of culture. People repeat complaints to one another, interpretations harden, motives are assigned, and eventually something that began as a legitimate concern can become a settled narrative. The story gets told often enough that nobody remembers exactly where the facts end and the assumptions begin.

Scripture takes that kind of behavior seriously. Proverbs lists the one who “sows discord among brothers” among the things the Lord hates, and Paul includes dissensions, divisions, rivalries, jealousy, and fits of anger among the works of the flesh in Galatians 5. Churches have sometimes been very good at identifying certain obvious sins while being much more tolerant of sins that slowly poison relationships. Gossip, factions, whisper campaigns, half-truths, anonymous accusations, and the constant questioning of motives can do enormous damage while the people participating in them remain convinced they are simply defending what is right.

I still believe all of that.

What I see differently fifteen years later is Jephthah.

When Ephraim confronted Gideon in Judges 8, Gideon found a way to lower the temperature. He appealed to their pride, gave them credit for what they had accomplished, and the confrontation ended. When I wrote the original post, I was somewhat dismissive of Gideon’s response. I saw it as appeasement, perhaps even as the kind of response that encourages difficult people to keep behaving badly because they learn that confrontation works.

Jephthah certainly did not appease them.

He defended himself and apparently had good reason to do so. He reminded Ephraim that he had called for their help and they had not come. The Ammonite threat could not simply be placed on hold while everyone worked through their feelings, so Jephthah acted, risked his life, and God gave him the victory.

The argument could have ended there, but it didn’t.

The disagreement became a battle, and the battle became a slaughter. Jephthah’s Gileadites defeated Ephraim and captured the fords of the Jordan. As the surviving Ephraimites tried to cross, they were required to pronounce the word “Shibboleth.” Their dialect betrayed them because they pronounced it “Sibboleth,” and that single word became enough to identify them for execution. By the time the episode ends, 42,000 Ephraimites are dead.

Fifteen years ago, I read that primarily as the eventual consequence of Ephraim’s rebellion. Today I find it much harder to read past the 42,000 bodies.

This does not look like a leadership success story. It looks like another stage in the tragedy of Judges.

Israelites are killing Israelites. The people who should have been united against the enemies surrounding them have turned their weapons against one another. A disagreement that began with wounded pride has escalated until brothers are standing at a river identifying other brothers by their accents so they can kill them.

That makes Judges 12 considerably more uncomfortable for me now, because it is no longer a passage that allows me simply to identify the difficult people in an organization and warn against becoming like them. It forces me to look at both sides of the river.

There is certainly an Ephraim problem worth examining. I have to ask whether I carry grievances longer than I should, whether another person’s success bothers me when I was not involved, or whether I have ever discussed a problem with several people before discussing it with the person who could actually address it. I have to consider how easily I can believe a negative interpretation of someone once I have become frustrated with that person, and how tempting it is to assign motives that I cannot possibly know.

But there is also a Jephthah problem, and I probably understand that one better now after fifteen more years of leadership.

Anyone who leads for very long will eventually be criticized unfairly. Decisions will be questioned by people who do not know everything that went into making them. Motives will be assigned. Partial stories will circulate. There will even be times when a leader can demonstrate that the criticism is factually wrong.

The danger comes when being right begins to justify everything that follows. You can be so right that you are dead right- you can kill people with the truth.....

There is a subtle progression in conflict where defending the truth can become defending ourselves, and defending ourselves can eventually become defeating the people who oppose us. That progression can be especially difficult to recognize because it often begins with a legitimate grievance. Jephthah really had called Ephraim. They really had failed to come. He really had risked his life, and God really had given him victory. None of that prevented the situation from eventually becoming a catastrophe.

Years of leadership can make this more dangerous rather than less. Experience teaches us to recognize patterns, and that can be a tremendous gift. After enough years, you have seen certain behaviors before. You recognize how gossip moves, how factions form, how a small complaint can become an organized grievance, and how quickly inaccurate information can become accepted truth.

But experience has another edge. Wisdom can slowly harden into cynicism. We can become so skilled at recognizing the men of Ephraim that eventually we begin seeing Ephraimites everywhere. A leader who has been wounded enough times can begin preparing for battle before anyone has actually declared war.

That is one reason the scene at the Jordan strikes me differently now.

The Jordan River carried enormous meaning in Israel’s history. Their fathers had crossed that river together when God brought them into the Promised Land. It had been a place associated with God’s faithfulness and Israel’s identity as one people. Yet here, at those same waters, Israelites are using a word to determine which Israelites belong to the wrong group.

There is something hauntingly contemporary about that.

We have our own Shibboleths. Sometimes they are political words, theological expressions, institutional loyalties, leadership philosophies, social-media positions, or opinions about whatever controversy happens to be consuming us at the moment. We learn the vocabulary of our group, and sometimes a surprisingly small difference in language is enough for us to decide whether someone belongs with “us” or “them.”

Sadly, I can write someone off just because they don't say the Jesus words correctly- and I know God sits up there sometimes and says- "Who is the real man of faith? One with the right words, or one with the right heart?"

Once people become categories, it becomes easier to stop listening to them. Once they become opponents, it becomes easier to justify treating them in ways we would never treat a brother.

That does not mean disagreement is wrong, nor does it mean leaders should tolerate destructive behavior indefinitely. I still believe churches and organizations must confront gossip, persistent dissension, anonymous attacks, and efforts to undermine people through private campaigns. Matthew 18 remains a far healthier model than talking everywhere except to the person involved. Healthy organizations need honest disagreement, but healthy disagreement requires courage, specificity, charity, and accountability.

What I would add fifteen years later is that the person confronting discord must guard his heart every bit as carefully as the person creating it.

Ephraim needed repentance, but Jephthah needed restraint, and Israel needed something neither of them could ultimately provide. That is part of the larger tragedy of Judges. The book keeps showing us people doing what is right in their own eyes. Even its deliverers are deeply flawed. Victories are followed by failures, and eventually the external battles against Israel’s enemies give way to internal battles among Israelites themselves.

So if I were writing the old post again—and I suppose that is what I am doing—I would spend less time identifying “the Men of Ephraim” around me and more time asking what the passage exposes in me.

There are times when I have been Ephraim, too concerned with my place in the story, too willing to nurse a grievance or too quick to assume I understood another person’s motives. There are probably other times when I have been Jephthah, legitimately frustrated and perhaps even factually correct, but too ready to view the disagreement as a battle that needed to be won.

After fifteen more years, I am less interested in deciding which side of the Jordan I would have been standing on. I am more interested in why brothers were killing brothers at the river in the first place.

Perhaps that is the warning I missed the first time. The greatest danger in conflict is not always that we will lose. Sometimes the greater danger is that we will win, only to discover that somewhere along the way we began fighting the wrong people.

When I read these old posts, I am so tempted to hit delete- but that was who I was then... and that is OK. Maybe someone reading this will be encouraged to keep growing and allow time, Word, and Spirit to keep moving forward.....

Contributing to the Delinquency of a Culture

There is an old legal expression, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, that assigns responsibility beyond the person who actually commits the offense. The minor may have made the choice, but the law recognizes that choices do not always occur in isolation. Someone may have encouraged the behavior, provided the opportunity, supplied what was needed, or created an environment in which misconduct became easier and increasingly normal.

I have been thinking about that phrase lately, though in a somewhat different context.

Is it possible to contribute to the delinquency of a culture?

That question becomes more complicated the longer I consider it because culture is one of those things we routinely discuss as though it exists somewhere outside of us. We complain about what "the culture" celebrates, what social media has done to public conversation, how entertainment has changed, what technology is doing to children, how politics has become increasingly hostile, or how standards that once seemed reasonably settled can disappear within a generation.

There is certainly plenty worth examining in all of that. What bothers me, however, is how easily I can speak about culture as an observer when I am obviously one of its participants.

I live here too.

I consume the products, use the technology, follow the news, watch the games, listen to the music, carry the phone, scroll through the feeds, click the links, participate in the conversations and, on occasion, become irritated by strangers I have never met over subjects about which I probably know considerably less than I think I do. I can complain about our shortened attention spans and then reach for my phone during thirty seconds of inactivity. I can lament the superficiality of social media while paying attention to how many people viewed something I posted. I can criticize sensationalism while clicking on a headline precisely because it was sensational.

At some point it becomes difficult to maintain the fiction that culture is merely something happening around me.

I am contributing to it.

That realization creates an interesting problem for anyone attempting to take seriously the biblical instruction concerning our relationship with the world. John quotes Jesus rather plainly, "Do not love the world or the things in the world," and throughout Christian history believers have wrestled with what faithful obedience to that instruction should actually look like.

One solution has always been withdrawal. If the world is corrupting, create as much distance from it as possible. There is an understandable logic to that instinct, and there are certainly occasions when separation is both wise and necessary. Yet complete withdrawal creates its own theological problem because Jesus, in His prayer for His disciples in John 17, specifically says, "I do not ask that you take them out of the world." A few verses later He adds, "As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world."

Apparently, removal was never the assignment. Neither was assimilation.

The Christian is therefore placed in an uncomfortable position: sent deliberately into a world he is simultaneously warned not to love. We are expected to participate without being absorbed, to engage without surrendering discernment, and to influence an environment that is inevitably influencing us at the same time.

That has probably always been difficult, but our technological age has added another dimension to the problem. Most of us are no longer simply consumers of culture. We have become distributors of it.

For most of human history, relatively few people possessed the ability to broadcast an opinion to hundreds or thousands of others. Today we carry that capacity in our pockets. With almost no effort, we can promote an idea, circulate a rumor, celebrate an accomplishment, humiliate another person, recommend a book, spread misinformation, encourage a friend, share something beautiful, intensify an argument, or introduce hundreds of people to something they otherwise would never have encountered.

We are all, in some small way, publishers now. And publishing means contributing.

This is where I have begun thinking about the idea of adding to the noise. The phrase is usually used negatively, but perhaps the issue is not simply whether I am making noise. Participation is unavoidable, and silence itself can sometimes become a form of participation. There are moments when refusing to speak demonstrates wisdom, just as there are moments when refusing to speak demonstrates cowardice.

The more useful question may be what my participation is helping to amplify.

That question reaches farther than whether something is technically right or wrong. I can be correct about an issue and still contribute something unhealthy to the culture surrounding it. I can defend truth while behaving contemptuously toward people. I can criticize outrage while becoming outraged. I can oppose vulgarity using language and methods that gradually make me vulgar. I can become so preoccupied with defeating something that the thing I oppose begins determining the kind of person I am becoming.

Social media makes this particularly difficult because its machinery often rewards precisely what wisdom tells us to restrain. Anger travels quickly. Nuance rarely does. Certainty attracts more attention than humility, accusation more than careful inquiry, and controversy more than ordinary goodness. The temptation, therefore, is not simply to believe questionable things but to become the sort of person the system rewards.

Even our disapproval can become part of the machinery. We share the offensive video to demonstrate how offensive it is, repost the ridiculous statement so everyone can see how ridiculous people have become, and circulate the latest example of cultural decay while wondering why cultural decay receives so much attention.

We condemn the noise while helping increase its volume.

None of this means that Christians should retreat from public life, entertainment, technology, politics, education, business, athletics, art, or the countless other places where culture is made. If anything, the opposite seems closer to the biblical picture. Jesus sends His followers into the world, which suggests that presence is not an unfortunate consequence of being alive at the wrong time; it is part of the vocation.

The difficulty is learning how to be present without allowing the surrounding culture to establish all the terms of our presence.

Perhaps that requires changing some of the questions we ask.

Instead of asking only whether I am permitted to watch something, I might consider what repeated exposure to it is cultivating in me. Instead of asking whether an article confirms what I already believe, I might wonder whether sharing it contributes truth or merely reinforces my tribe. Instead of asking whether my criticism is justified, I might ask whether the manner in which I express it reflects the character I claim to value.

The same questions apply positively. What deserves amplification? What is worthy of attention? What kinds of conversations make people more thoughtful rather than merely more agitated? What music, writing, humor, art, teaching, friendship and public discourse remind us of things that are true, excellent, beautiful or humane?

Culture, after all, is not produced only in Hollywood studios, corporate boardrooms, news organizations, universities or Washington. It is produced around dinner tables and in classrooms, locker rooms, churches, offices, text threads and social-media feeds. It develops through countless decisions about what receives our attention and what does not, what earns our praise and what earns our silence, what we tolerate long enough to normalize and what we care enough about to resist.

Which brings me back to that strange legal phrase.

Perhaps contributing to the delinquency of a culture rarely looks dramatic. Most of us will never possess enough influence to change society in any obvious way. Our contribution will be much smaller than that, consisting largely of ordinary decisions whose significance is almost impossible to measure individually.

But that is probably how culture has always been formed.

We inherit something from those who came before us, live inside it for a while, alter it through millions of choices we scarcely notice, and eventually hand some version of it to those who come after us.

The question, then, is not whether we will contribute.

We already are.

The question worth asking is what we are adding to the noise—and what kind of culture those contributions are quietly helping to create.

All of this hits home tomorrow when I will see jayopsis music go live on Spotify......

Before Anyone Knew the Ending

Note: Christopher Vizzina will start tonight vs LSU and Arch Manning will start for Texas today as well. I'm excited to watch CV and I know what kind of person he is and WHO he trusts in. This is a cool memory as we get set for football.

On June 5, 2021, I took Christopher Vizzina to Clemson for a summer football camp.

CV was a rising junior quarterback at Briarwood Christian, and we already knew he had ability. He had the size, arm talent, athleticism, and temperament you look for at the position, but at that stage of the process, potential is still mostly that—potential. Summer camps are where players begin turning projections into evaluations, often while competing alongside dozens of other quarterbacks trying to do exactly the same thing.

CV had a great morning workout.

Good enough, as it turned out, that he was one of only a handful of quarterbacks who threw in both the morning and afternoon sessions. That was significant by itself. More repetitions meant more opportunities to be evaluated, particularly with Clemson's coaches watching closely.

Then the afternoon took an unexpected turn.

Arch Manning showed up.

Even then, the Manning name carried its own gravitational pull. Arch was already becoming one of the most discussed recruits in the country, and when he walked into the Clemson facility, there wasn't much mystery about who had arrived.

Eventually the quarterbacks moved into one-on-one work against defensive backs. CV and Arch ended up throwing in the same rotation, with another quarterback between them.

And something interesting began to happen.

A crowd gathered.

The Clemson coaches gathered.

Dabo Swinney was watching.

And CV and Arch started putting on a show.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I was creating a record of the afternoon because I was texting a group of friends back home as the drill unfolded. Reading those messages now is almost like finding an old play-by-play sheet.

“Both are 3 for 3 so far in last drill.”

A few minutes later:

“Both 4 for 4.”

A beautiful throw was dropped. Both moved to 4-for-5.

CV went to 6-for-7, then 6-for-8 with two drops, then 7-for-9.

One of my friends texted:

“Dabo watching all this part.”

He was.

So were the other Clemson coaches.

What had begun as another camp drill was becoming something different. There was energy around it now. Coaches were congratulating both quarterbacks after throws, and the crowd was responding to the competition.

At one point, Dabo called for a double move.

CV hit it for a touchdown.

My sophisticated scouting report to the group back home:

“Dabo just called a dbl move that CV hit for TD — everyone wooped lol.”

The numbers kept accumulating.

CV: 9-of-11.

Then 9-of-12 after his first bad throw.

Arch: 7-of-12.

CV hit a speed-out to go 10-of-13.

There was even a third quarterback caught between the two of them in the rotation. Since I didn't know his name and had noticed him wearing a distinctive wide-brimmed hat, my texts simply referred to him as “Brim Hat.” After he threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown, my entire report consisted of:

“BRIM HAT pick 6.”

We eventually discovered his name when he handed out a recruiting card: Aliam Appler from Dutch Fork High School.

But the real drama remained the two quarterbacks on either side of him.

Arch had a bad throw and went to 7-of-13.

Then came one of my favorite texts of the afternoon:

“CV hits pearl in perfect rhythm 11-14.”

Arch moved to 8-of-14.

CV missed badly: 11-of-15.

Arch answered with a deep touchdown: 9-of-15.

“ARCH bomb for TD.”

Arch completed another to move to 10-of-16.

CV finished his sequence 12-of-16.

Then the bell sounded.

My final text:

“And the Bell sounds — what a show!”

____________

Five years later, that afternoon looks very different to me.

Not because the throws have changed, or because my unofficial statistics suddenly carry some great historical importance. They don't.

What has changed is that now we know what happened next.

Arch Manning went on to become one of the most closely followed recruits in the country and eventually landed at Texas.

CV's recruitment took off as well. Clemson offered him, he committed, and eventually he returned to the very place where that memorable afternoon had unfolded.

But his story didn't immediately produce the glamorous ending we sometimes expect in recruiting.

He had to wait.

For three seasons, CV worked behind Cade Klubnik. In an era of college football when the transfer portal offers quarterbacks an increasingly easy escape from waiting, he stayed. He developed. He competed. He kept working.

And now, on Saturday night, September 5, 2026, Christopher Vizzina will walk into Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge as the starting quarterback for Clemson against LSU.

Arch Manning is now the starting quarterback at Texas.

Both made it.

And that is what makes those old text messages so fascinating to me.

There is an almost irresistible temptation, when looking backward, to impose the future upon the past. Once we know how something turned out, we begin remembering it as though the ending were somehow inevitable.

It wasn't.

On June 5, 2021, there were no guarantees.

There were no college depth charts. No starting jobs. No certainty about where either quarterback would eventually play. CV didn't even have a Clemson offer yet.

There were simply two very talented high-school quarterbacks standing a few yards apart at a summer camp, competing in front of a growing crowd.

One of them happened to carry the most recognizable last name in football.

The other was the kid I had driven up from Briarwood.

And he belonged.

That's probably what I remember most clearly.

CV didn't seem overwhelmed by the moment or distracted by the attention surrounding Arch. If anything, the competition appeared to sharpen him. He simply kept stepping into the rotation and throwing.

Completion. Next rep. Touchdown. Next rep. Bad throw. Forget it.

Next rep.

There is something wonderfully honest about competition before anyone knows the ending. Reputation matters less once the ball is snapped. Recruiting rankings can't complete a deep out. A famous last name can't read the coverage for you. Eventually somebody blows the whistle, a defensive back lines up across from a receiver, and the quarterback has to take the snap and make the throw.

That afternoon, both of them did.

Five years later, they are doing it on a much larger stage.

Saturday night, when CV takes his first snap as Clemson's starting quarterback in Death Valley, Louisiana, I suspect my mind will drift for just a moment to another summer afternoon in another Clemson facility.

Turns out, it was just beginning.

POST SCRIPT (9/7/26)

Postscript — The Process Continues

Five years after that Clemson camp, CV finally got the moment he had worked and waited for: walking into Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge as Clemson's starting quarterback.

It didn't go the way any of us hoped.

LSU was very good, Clemson struggled across the board, and Death Valley provided exactly the kind of hostile environment its reputation promises. After a nearly two-hour weather delay, more than 100,000 people were there to watch LSU take control early and eventually win 51-10. LSU finished with 644 yards of offense in a game that became difficult for Clemson in virtually every phase.

CV finished 10-of-16 for 83 yards, completing 62.5 percent of his passes. He didn't throw a touchdown and had one interception—the costly first-quarter pick-six that helped LSU turn an early 10-3 lead into 17-3. Clemson eventually played freshman Tait Reynolds as well before CV returned later in the game.

It wasn't the debut we had imagined. But perhaps this is where that old story from 2021 becomes even more relevant.

I've watched CV long enough to know that his story has never really been about one afternoon, one recruiting ranking, one depth chart—or now, one difficult Saturday night. It has been about the process.

Before the game, CV had talked about wanting his composure and poise to be characteristics people saw in him. He also spoke openly about his journey at Clemson: “It's all in the Lord's plan, and I've been trusting that.” and I thought some of the best evidence of that composure came after the LSU game.

There was no hiding from what happened. On the interception, CV simply acknowledged that he never saw the defender and called it a throw he wanted back. That's what quarterbacks have to do. Own the mistake. Learn from it. Go back to work.

And I was proud of him. Not because he played a perfect game. He didn't. Not because Clemson won. They didn't.

I'm proud because there is something revealing about watching a young man handle a night when the dream doesn't unfold the way he pictured it. Success tells us something about a player; disappointment often tells us considerably more.

CV waited three years for this opportunity. Now he's experienced the other side of getting it—the hard part. The film won't be pleasant in places. There will be corrections to make, criticism to absorb and another week of competition ahead. Dabo Swinney said Sunday that Clemson will evaluate both quarterbacks and “reset, and go get better.” That's football and life

The process doesn't stop simply because you finally get the opportunity you've been waiting for. Sometimes getting the opportunity simply begins another part of the process.

Keep working, CV. We'll keep watching the process.

Belongs In the Ring

Idols to Ashes- Isaiah 44

Isaiah 44 contains one of Scripture’s most penetrating examinations of idolatry, partly because Isaiah does not approach the subject merely by prohibiting it. Instead, he studies it. He follows the process by which an idol comes into existence, examines the assumptions required to believe in it, and then exposes the remarkable contradiction at the center of the entire enterprise. The result is a passage that is theological, satirical, and surprisingly psychological.

The larger context matters. Isaiah 40–48 repeatedly contrasts Yahweh with the gods of the nations, particularly in anticipation of Israel’s deliverance from Babylon. The question is not simply whether Israel will avoid religious statues; the larger issue concerns the identity and sovereignty of God. Who governs history? Who announces what is to come? Who creates? Who saves? Who has the authority to call Israel His own?

Isaiah 44 answers those questions emphatically. The Lord identifies Himself as Israel’s King and Redeemer, “the first” and “the last,” declaring, “besides me there is no god” (44:6). What follows is therefore not an isolated lesson about pagan craftsmanship. Isaiah places two radically different claims to deity beside one another: the God who creates, speaks, knows, governs, and redeems, and the god who must first be manufactured before anyone can worship him.

That contrast is what makes Isaiah’s description of the idol-maker so devastating.

Beginning around verse 9, Isaiah slows the narrative down and allows us to watch idolatry being constructed.

A craftsman selects his material. Another man works with tools. Measurements are taken. Lines are drawn. Human features are incorporated into the design. The finished product is intentionally made “like the beauty of a man” so that it can occupy a house.

The irony is deliberate. Everything about the idol demonstrates dependence.

Someone must choose its material. Someone must design it. Someone must shape it. Someone must determine what it looks like. Someone must decide where it will stand.

Yet when the process is complete, the relationship is mysteriously reversed: the maker becomes the worshiper, and the object he has fashioned becomes his supposed deliverer.

Isaiah then pushes the absurdity further by tracing the material back to its source. The man cuts down a tree—or plants one and waits for the rain to nourish it—and eventually divides the wood according to its usefulness. Part becomes fuel. He burns it, warms himself, and prepares food over it.

The remainder becomes his god.

The point is sharper than simply saying that wooden idols are powerless. Isaiah wants us to notice that there is no ontological difference between the wood in the fireplace and the wood on the altar. The distinction exists entirely in the mind of the worshiper.

One portion produces heat because it burns.

The other supposedly produces salvation because the man has decided that it is sacred.

That is why his eventual prayer is so tragic:

“Deliver me, for you are my god!”

The craftsman has assigned ultimate significance to an object whose entire history he knows. He remembers the tree. He held the axe. He produced the shavings. He watched part of it burn. Nevertheless, he now petitions the remainder for deliverance.

Isaiah is diagnosing more than ignorance.

He is diagnosing self-deception.

Verse 20 may contain the key to the entire section:

“He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray.”

That description moves Isaiah's argument from the workshop into the human heart.

The idolater's fundamental problem is not a shortage of information. He possesses enough evidence to recognize the contradiction. What he lacks is the capacity—or perhaps the willingness—to follow that evidence to its conclusion.

Isaiah says that he cannot bring himself to ask:

“Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

This is an extraordinarily perceptive description of human behavior. We often imagine deception as something imposed upon us from outside, but Scripture recognizes a more complicated phenomenon: human beings can participate in maintaining their own illusions, particularly when those illusions protect something they deeply desire.

The idol is attractive precisely because it is manageable. It does not arrive with an independent will. It makes no demands except those its creator assigns to it. Its boundaries are predictable because the worshiper established them. In that sense, idolatry offers the appearance of transcendence without requiring surrender to anyone genuinely transcendent.

The idolater wants a god, but preferably one who remains under human management.

This helps explain why Isaiah 44 remains relevant even where carved images have largely disappeared.

A modern idol need not be an object of formal religious devotion. Biblically understood, idolatry occurs whenever something within creation is assigned a weight of meaning, security, identity, or hope that properly belongs to the Creator.

This is why perfectly legitimate things can acquire idolatrous functions.

Career, financial security, institutional success, reputation, political influence, family, athletic achievement, intellectual respectability, physical appearance, and even ministry are not intrinsically idolatrous. In fact, many are legitimate goods and may properly be received with gratitude.

The diagnostic question is not simply, Do I have this thing? or even, Do I enjoy this thing?

A better question is: What am I requiring this thing to provide?

If professional success must establish my worth, success has acquired a theological function.

If financial resources must guarantee that nothing beyond my control will threaten me, money has become more than stewardship; it has become a doctrine of providence.

If reputation must continually assure me that I am significant, public approval has begun functioning as justification.

If an institution's success determines whether I possess meaning or value, the institution has quietly become part of my identity in a way it was never designed to bear.

This is where Isaiah's image of the craftsman becomes remarkably contemporary. Human beings remain capable of constructing something, investing themselves in it, and eventually depending upon the very thing they constructed to tell them who they are.

We manufacture the object and then grant the object authority over us. The ancient craftsman did it with timber. Modern people generally use more sophisticated materials.

There may be another dimension to Isaiah's satire that deserves attention. The idol is not merely powerless; it is controllable.

The craftsman determines its dimensions, appearance, location, and ultimately its existence. This provides a revealing contrast with the God who speaks throughout Isaiah 44.

Yahweh cannot be constructed, domesticated, assigned or even summoned when we need it.

He does not derive His identity from Israel; Israel derives its identity from Him.

This explains the repeated language of creation in the chapter:

“Thus says the LORD, who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you…”

The idol is something Israel forms. Israel is someone God formed.

Those two propositions represent fundamentally different religions.

One allows human beings to construct meaning and then sacralize their construction. The other requires them to receive their existence, identity, purpose, and redemption from outside themselves.

The biblical God is therefore more comforting than an idol, but He is also considerably more disruptive. An idol can be modified when our preferences change. The living God reserves the right to modify us.

If Isaiah 44 ended with the exposure of idolatry, it would be a brilliant critique of human foolishness. But the passage does not end there.

After describing the craftsman who cannot recognize the lie in his own hand, God addresses Israel again:

“Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you; you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.”

Then comes the remarkable statement of verse 22:

“I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.”

This changes the character of the passage. God's exposure of idolatry is not merely prosecutorial; it is redemptive.

He exposes the lie because He intends to recover the worshiper.

“Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”

The imperative rests upon divine action.

Israel's hope does not lie in becoming sufficiently perceptive to escape idolatry, nor in demonstrating enough religious discipline to earn restoration. God grounds the summons to return in what He Himself has done.

That pattern anticipates a gospel logic that runs throughout Scripture: divine grace does not merely reward repentance; grace creates the context in which genuine repentance becomes possible.

Perhaps Isaiah's most useful diagnostic question remains the simplest one:

“Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

I have often been amused that my I-phone is strangely IDOL- shaped

That question deserves more reflection than we usually give it.

Song Link: Idols to Ashes

Notes from past blog posts on Idols

‘Sensory Organ Malfunction Imagery’ is the Biblical language for idolatry. We become callous and hardened toward God because we are worshiping other things. As a result, we grow less sensitive to our God and His ways. He is foreign to us and He begins to fade. We do not hear Him, we do not see Him, and we do not speak of Him. When we do think of Him, it is often as an expedient. We feel the need to tag Him as a superstitious ritual in solving a mess. But there is no sense of His Lordship and no heart desire to seek Him.

Sadly, culture has taught us how to live without God. In our media-model culture, God is seldom referred to as a part of everyday life.
In stark contrast to men and women of the Scriptures, we sense only weakly the presence of the Creator. The saints of old had a daily awareness, but we are so immersed into the media view of world that we compartmentalize Him and allow Him to speak only on Sundays or in a Bible Study. We live with little or no sensitivity to God working in our life.
I like watching the TV show “24”, but there has never been one reference of a spiritual nature in the many seasons of that show. Entire ‘days’ of death and drama take place with no perception of the afterlife, no foundation for morals, no prayer, no Bible, no real hope. Where is spirituality? It is becoming more unnatural to see an active God in the moment-by-moment details of life. We definitely don’t talk that way. It has been said that worldliness is what any culture does to make sin seem normal and righteousness seem strange. We go into life as blind as the idol makers of Isaiah’s day. The gods we serve are empty of power and we curse the heavens because God won’t show Himself. Who moved?

WHAT WE REVERE WE RESEMBLE EITHER TO RUIN OR RESTORATION
G.K. Beale

“At the core, idolatry is trying to control life and manage life by trying to make God controllable: if you can get God to do what you want by getting his attention or through some sacrificial service, then perhaps life will turn out the way you want it to. This is one of the root beliefs of pagan religion. It is telling to ask how much pagan religion is still in the confines of the church.” Bill Delvaux


GOD MADE US TO ENJOY HIM, ACKNOWLEDGE HIM AND WORSHIP HIM.
HE GETS GLORY AND WE GET JOY.

"We are more spiritual than we even know.”

“I ordinarily begin speaking about sin to a young, urban, non-Christian like this:
Sin isn’t only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God. Whatever we build our life on will drive us and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry.” Tim Keller

As we list modern day idols, simple state what are the ‘good things’
that we have made into ‘god things”?


Questions to Help Us Identify Idols:
Most afraid of? What are you afraid of losing?
Long for most passionately?
Where do you go for comfort?
What media-advertisements pull your heart strings?
What do you complain about the most?
What angers you the most?
What makes you happiest?
How do you explain yourself to other people?
What has made you be angry at God?
What do you brag about?
What do you want to have? What one thing?
What do you sacrifice the most for?
Whose approval matters?
What comfort do you treasure?