Tag Archives: Spiritual

Chapter-a-Day

Inclusive vs. Exclusive

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Exclusive vs. Inclusive (CaD Matt 9) – Wayfarer

But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”
Matthew 9: 34 (NIV)

In yesterday’s post, I wrote about the spiritual revival that broke out while I was in high school. I wrote about the fact that I was merely an observer of the revival because I had insulated myself inside of my fellow holy huddle with other believers.

I’d like to unpack that experience a bit further as I meditate on today’s chapter. In it, Jesus begins to experience opposition from the institutional religious leaders of His day. They have their own holy huddle going.

I have observed along my spiritual journey the difference between an inclusive spirit and an exclusive spirit.

An inclusive spirit is one that is outreaching, arms wide open in anticipation of God who can do exceeding, abundantly beyond all that we ask or imagine. An inclusive spirit fully embraces the Apostles Creed when it says “I believe in the holy catholic church,” which means the expansive true church made up of all believers of every nation, tribe, language, race, people, and denomination of which God alone truly knows the number and the full membership. An inclusive spirit sees God working in His enemies like Nebuchadnezzar, the Roman Centurion in yesterday’s chapter, and Saul of Tarsus, and drawing them to Himself. An inclusive spirit understands that Jesus is not slow in returning, but rather patient wanting everyone (including my personal enemies) to repent and believe.

An exclusive spirit, on the other hand, is one that feels that it is right and only those who agree are acceptable. An exclusive spirit has arms extended in a defensive and warning posture. Only those who pass the litmus test, are pure in their doctrinal agreement, and visibly shun unacceptable actions, words, beliefs, and political/social affiliations are accepted in. Most people are excluded, and exclusive thinkers are convinced that God thinks and acts in lock-step with them.

Jesus was being inclusive when, in yesterday’s chapter, He healed the Roman Centurion’s servant and handed His enemy an invitation to the feast of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in God’s Kingdom. Jesus was being inclusive when He and His disciples feasted at Matthew’s house with unacceptable tax collectors (e.g. politically incorrect Roman collaborators) and their sinful social circle. He was certainly being inclusive when He called Matthew to become one of The Twelve.

His political and religious opponents were exclusive in their thinking. They alone were exclusively “God’s people,” “Children of Abraham,” and anyone who disagreed or believed differently was obviously not “of God.” Jesus refused to walk, speak, act, and believe in lock-step with their exclusive religious world-view. Therefore He could not be of God despite the miracles He performed. If He is not of God, then He must be of Satan.

So, in the quiet this morning, I look back at that revival in high school. It taught me another important spiritual lesson. Yes, I missed out on being a part of it because I was too busy in the exclusivity of my holy huddle. At the same time, me thinking that I needed to be a part of it is a different brand of exclusive thinking. God was doing something amazing and He didn’t need me to be involved. He was working through others whom He had prepared, raised up, and through whom He was flowing. I could be envious, jealous, and think (exclusively) that anything I wasn’t a part of doesn’t count. I could also open my arms, rejoice, and embrace that God was at such powerful work in others all around me. I chose the latter.

The further I get in my journey, the more open my spirit has become to God doing whatever He wants to do in whomever He wants to do it in order for all things to work together for good and accomplish His ultimate purposes in this Great Story. I long ago took off my Junior Holy Spirit badge pretending that I had exclusive rights, insight, or editorial control of that Story for myself or anyone else. The result is that I approach each day of this journey with a sense of awe and wonder.

God, what are you going to do today?

I’m open.

Surprise me.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

“How Not to Be a Dick”

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“How Not to Be a Dick” (CaD Matthew 6) – Wayfarer

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”
Matthew 6:1 (NIV)

My buddy Nathan is a senior in high school this year. When Wendy and I got married, she was the last of her “Golden Girls” friends group to get married, but none of the five of them had babies at that point. At our wedding rehearsal dinner, Nathan’s mom told the girls she was pregnant. Nine months later, Nathan was born. Wendy and I have enjoyed being a part of his life. His mother blames Wendy and me for instilling in him a love for baseball. I had the honor of mentoring him in his profession of faith. It’s hard to believe that in a few months we’ll watch him graduate from high school.

When Nathan was entering adolescence, I read a review in the Wall Street Journal of a clever little book by Meghan Doherty called How Not to Be a Dick. It’s a brilliant parody of the old Dick and Jane books that schools used to use to teach kids reading. Doherty uses the parody to teach young men some of the basics of how to be respectful and capable young men as it relates to being around others, girls, and adults. We gifted it to our young friend.

As I read the middle chapter of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” this morning, my heart and mind continued to notice the contrast between His instructions and the instructions God gave His people through Moses in Leviticus. Once again, I couldn’t help but notice that there are plenty of “dos” and “do nots” but they are different.

Take for example some of the “dos” and “do nots” from Leviticus 18 contrasted with Jesus’ “dos” and “don nots” from today’s chapter:

God in Leviticus: “Obey My laws and follow My decrees.”
Jesus: “Seek first [God’s] Kingdom.”

God in Leviticus: “Don’t have sex with family member, including in-laws.”
Jesus: “Don’t brag about how much you give to the poor.”

God in Leviticus: “Don’t take your wife’s sister as a rival wife.”
Jesus: “Don’t give showy public prayers to be seen by others.”

God in Leviticus: “Don’t sacrifice your children on the altar of Molek.”
Jesus: “Don’t worry about your life, clothes, needs, or future.”

Can you see the contrast?

Leviticus was like a Dick and Jane primer helping little children figure out some of the spiritual basics of life like my five-year-old self trying to figure out how to phonetically sound out words and read a simple sentence. Jesus in His sermon on the Mount isn’t calling for strict obedience to the parent’s household rules or dealing with prohibitions of incest and child sacrifice. Jesus is talking about choosing in to a hearts desire for the things of God and more addressing spiritual issues of the heart like sincere faith, doing things with right motives, and developing faith as an antidote to fear. It’s as if Jesus is addressing a humanity moving into adolescence how “not to be a Dick.”

In the quiet this morning, I’m thinking about entire churches I know who perpetually treat their members as children as if they are spiritually learning how to read. They approach life with black-and-white rules of morality, lord over people like strict parents hovering over toddlers they expect to be naughty, and punish disobedience with tactics of fear, shame, and the threat of being ostracized. God, however, calls on me to be “mature” and Jesus moved beyond such spiritual basics to address deeper matters of the Spirit and my heart’s motives and intentions.

As a child, I learned to obey behavioral rules because my parents demanded it. As an adult, I learned to avoid certain behaviors to avoid the painful consequences while maintaining other behaviors simply because I know they are the right and healthy things to do for myself and others.

As Paul put it in his letter to the followers of Jesus in Corinth: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”

In other words, somewhere along the line I graduated from learning how to read about Dick and Jane, to choosing not to be a Dick.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

Dedication

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Dedication (CaD Lev 27) – Wayfarer

“‘A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord.’”
Leviticus 27:30 (NIV)

Dedication is one of those words that I know its meaning but when you ask me to simply and clearly define it, it sort of escapes me. So, I looked it up this morning. It’s actually a Swiss army knife of a word. The American Heritage Dictionary actually had eight different definitions. For our purposes today, I’d like to focus on just two of them:

  1. Selfless devotion.
  2. The act of setting apart or consecrating to a divine Being, or to a sacred use, often with religious solemnities; solemn appropriation.

Today’s chapter is the final chapter of God’s instruction manual for the newly appointed Hebrew priests and the Hebrew people back in about 1500 B.C. God finishes the manual with a chapter about dedications and tithes. God has already talked about the offerings, sacrifices, and festivals that He wanted His people to weave into the fabric of their lives. He ends with instructions around acts of dedication that go above and beyond what has already been prescribed.

God tells His people that they have a choice to dedicate servants, houses, and land to God. What’s more, God tells them to consider a tithe (10 percent) of everything they have and everything their land produces belongs to Him. God has already told them that everything that they have been and will be blessed with are God’s divine and generous gift (Lev 26:3-5). In reality, all of creation, including all we are, have, and are blessed to acquire are God’s. God asks His people to gratefully embrace this truth and show it by consciously and willfully setting aside ten percent of everything as a tangible “thank you” back to God.

Why?

As I meditated on this question in the quiet this morning, my mind and heart found themselves wandering back to this pesky human problem of sin that began in the Garden of Eden. God gave everything in the Garden to them for their consumption, save one thing. They were given 99.9% of everything the Garden had to offer, but they couldn’t abide surrendering their appetite and desire to have it all.

I appears to me that God is, in effect, asking His people to turn their hearts back to Him in a way that reverses the Eden Problem. He has generously shown up, miraculously delivered them from slavery, and now promises to abide with them and bless them with life, provision, and land. As with Eden, He’s blessing them with everything. What He asks is that they recognize this and reserve just ten percent to offer back as an on-going “Thank you” card.

First, this requires a spirit of “selfless devotion.” It’s so easy to think that my paycheck is mine. It’s my job. It was my hard work that earned it. It’s my money. But, wait a second…

Who blessed me to be born in the wealthiest and most materially blessed nation in the history of the entire world?

Who blessed me to live in a place with a great educational system that taught me everything I know?

Who saw to it I was born into a family who provided for me, cared for me, and taught me everything I needed to succeed in life?

How blessed have I been to enjoy almost sixty-years of health, opportunity, and affluence?

Did I do one thing to make any of these things happen? Did I do anything to deserve the amazing lot in life that I’ve been afforded?

No.

And that’s the point that God is asking me to tangibly and metaphorically remember every day, every month, and every year of my life. Take ten percent and “set it apart” in a willful act that says:

“Everything I have is from you anyway, God. I wouldn’t have any of it if it wasn’t for you. And, it’s all yours anyway. Someday, any day now really, I’m going to die and my body will return to dust and ashes just like you said. Not a single thing I think I own or consider to be mine is going to mean anything at that point. Adam and Eve weren’t content with 99.9% of the Garden. They had to have that last one-tenth of a percent. I don’t want to live like that. I don’t want to be like that. Here’s ten percent, God. I dedicate it to you. I gratefully give it back to you.”

In the quiet this morning I am reminded of the ten lepers whom Jesus healed. One came back to say, “Thank you.” One of ten was grateful. Ten percent made a willful choice to turn around, trek back to Jesus, and offer his thanks. Jesus response?

“Where are the other nine?”

Wendy and I are consciously willful about being generous with the money and things with which we’ve been blessed. We talk about it. We practice it. We weave it into the fabric of our everyday lives. I don’t want to be like Adam and Eve, discontent with God’s gracious and generous blessing and deluded into thinking that anything (let alone everything) I think I own is really mine. I want to be a ten-percent person like the leper who came back to say “thanks.”

The further I get in my spiritual journey, the more I come to understand that the extent of my generosity is a leading indicator of the depth of both my spiritual understanding of the economics of God’s Kingdom, and my gratitude for God’s insane generosity towards me.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

“Break This Wild Pony!”

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“Break This Wild Pony!” (CaD Lev 26) – Wayfarer

“‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze.’”
Leviticus 26:18-19 (NIV)

Last week I wrote about our granddaughter Sylvie and her two-year-old willfulness. I will never forget the words of our son-in-law as he and our daughter addressed the subject of their daughter’s stubborn self-will.

“We’re going to break this wild pony!” her father proclaimed with all of the love and resolve of a parent who ultimately wants what is best for his daughter. He knows instinctively that allowing her self-centered tenacity to continue will not be healthy for her or those around her in the future.

Exactly.

We are down to the final two chapters of God’s ancient priestly manual for His ancient Hebrew people in the toddler stages of humanity. Today’s chapter reads like a father addressing his toddler in simple and direct terms.

“Trust me on this, kiddo. If you obey and do as daddy says, then things are going to be good between us. Life is going to be better and more enjoyable all around for you. If, however, you refuse to obey and continue in your stubborn, willful disobedience, then I’m afraid life is going to get extremely difficult and not at all enjoyable for you. You can learn this the easy way or the hard way. It’s your choice, but I love you and I am not going to let you get away with being a self-centered little shit-hill.”

[By the way, “shit-hills” is what my grandma Vander Well called me and my siblings after spending a week with us while our parents were on vacation in the UK. I was five. I’m sure we earned the four-letter-laden moniker. It seemed apt in this context.]

What really blew me away as I read through God’s warning to His brood of toddlers is that it is a prophetic foreshadowing of exactly what is going to happen 750 years in the future:

“I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.”

Eventually, about 500 years after God warns His children about this in today’s chapter the Hebrew family splinters into two with the siblings factions at war with one another. That’s what happens when stubborn toddlers grow up to be pig-headed adolescents. About 200 years later, one set of siblings is conquered by the Assyrian Empire. About 150 years after that, the other set of siblings falls to the Babylonian Empire.

“When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.”
Leviticus 26:25-26

When they were conquered, the city of Jerusalem was surrounded in a siege by the Babylon. The Hebrew people stuck inside the walls slowly used up all of their provisions until starvation set in. Jeremiah describes it in his poem of Lamentations:

All her people groan
    as they search for bread;
they barter their treasures for food
    to keep themselves alive.
“Look, Lord, and consider,
    for I am despised.”
Lamentations 1:11

God goes on in Leviticus:

“You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.” (vs 29)

Jeremiah goes on to describe this eventuality:

“Look, Lord, and consider:
    Whom have you ever treated like this?
Should women eat their offspring,
    the children they have cared for?”
Lamentations 2:20

God continues in today’s chapter:

“I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins.” (vs. 33)

Jerusalem was utterly destroyed along with Solomon’s famous temple, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Both the Hebrew children of the northern kingdom and southern kingdom were taken into exile by the Assyrians and Babylonians, just as God foreshadowed.

But the bitter consequences of a child’s stubborn will and rebellion do not change the love of a parent. The hope is that those harsh life lessons will eventually lead to a change of heart. God even foreshadows this in today’s chapter.

“‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me… I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them.’” (vss. 40, 42, 44)

It was while in exile in Babylon that the stories of Daniel, Esther, and Ezekiel take place. Just as promised, God does not abandon them in exile, but uses them to encourage His people and bear witness to their enemies. In the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, God brings His humbled and repentant children back home to Jerusalem like the Prodigal Son in Jesus’ parable. They rebuild Jerusalem and their lives.

There are even more direct prophetic connections and spiritual truths in today’s chapter than I have time and space to unpack. I hope you get the picture. In the quiet this morning I am amazed at the layers of meaning and spiritual truth contained in one chapter. God and humanity, parents and children, prophecy and fulfillment, historical events and metaphorical spiritual lessons that are applicable for me today are all crammed into 46 verses.

As I enter my day, I am reminded that no matter how old I get in physical human terms I never stop being a child of God. Each day my heart, my mind, my actions, and my choices can search out and follow my Father’s will. I can also choose to follow my own stubborn will, self-centered desires, and indulge my base human appetites. It is the same every day. It is my choice. My choices have natural consequences of both flesh and Spirit.

What choices will I make today?

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

Keep the Flame Burnin’

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Keep the Flame Burnin’ (CaD Lev 24) – Wayfarer

Outside the curtain that shields the ark of the covenant law in the tent of meeting, Aaron is to tend the lamps before the Lord from evening till morning, continually. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.
Leviticus 24:3 (NIV)

It was a bitterly cold night forty-four years ago last month. I was just a snot-nosed fourteen year-old kid. I was a middle-schooler for crying out loud. I walked down the aisle, knelt down, and prayed a prayer of total surrender. As did this, everyone sang,

“I have decided to follow Jesus. No going back. No going back.”

Young people, especially adolescents, make a lot of silly statements at that stage of their lives. If you had asked me then, I’d have probably told you that I was going to study Law and go into politics. Perhaps I would be President of the United States someday. That was what my yet to be fully formed brain was thinking before that night. But something happened in that prayer of surrender that penetrated far deeper than the fog of adolescent angst, dreams, and natural delusion.

“Though none go with me, still I will follow. No going back. No going back.”

Here I sit in the quiet, forty-four years later. I’m still following. The spiritual reality is that I’m following Jesus closer than ever, even though it looks very different than I could have even conceived forty-four years ago. It’s less religious and more relational. It is intensely personal and organic rather than being communal and tied to an organization. It is less sure and more real. It has grown in intimate mystery as I have slowly learned to relax my fingers clinging to human dogma. I’m loving far more, and judging far less than I ever have before. Forgiveness comes easier. So does generosity.

“I have decided to follow Jesus. No going back. No going back.”

A few days ago, in my post/podcast entitled Ritual and Spiritual, I talked about the 40-watt light-bulb inside the candleholder above the altar of the church in which I grew up. I was taught that it was “the eternal flame” that illuminated the altar always.

In today’s chapter of God’s priestly manual for the ancient Hebrews we learn where the Methodist church learned about eternal flames and altars. There were golden lamp stands that God had Moses and the Hebrews make and place outside the “Most Holy Place” of his traveling tent temple. Others stood by the altar outside the tent temple. Aaron the high priest, and his priestly sons were to tend the lamps and keep them burning around the clock. This required constant attention, making sure the wicks were trimmed and replaced and that they never ran out of oil. If they weren’t vigilant in these mundane tasks of checking, adding, replacing, and maintaining, the fire would go out.

What I once again find so profoundly simple is that God gave this metaphorical lesson to His people in the toddler stages of humanity that we humans might grow-up, mature, and learn the spiritual lesson that the metaphor had to teach us. Jesus made it clear that the lesson was not that we should replicate this practice of building altars in churches and hanging 40-watt light bulbs over them. This, by the way, requires nothing from the humans responsible for them other than telling the janitor to replace the bulb once every year-or-two to make sure it doesn’t burn out and no one notices until Sunday morning worship. That’s not quite the spiritual lesson of vigilance, discipline, and maintenance that God was giving Aaron and the boys.

The lesson of the “continuous flame” was a spiritual lesson for the day when Jesus would come, indwell, and illuminate my 14-year-old heart, mind, and soul.

“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”
Matthew 5:14-16 (MSG)

How do I keep the Light of the World burning within and shining out in my words, actions, and relationships for forty-four years? This is where the routine of spiritual vigilance, commitment, investigation, and mundane perpetual maintenance that God taught Aaron and the boys comes in. Being a disciple of Jesus has not been simply a process of hooking up the wires, flipping the switch, and changing the bulb every few years. Keeping the spiritual flame burning and the Light shining has required more diligence, discipline, and perseverance than that. Not that I haven’t had my own struggles to maintain it in the ebb and flow of this life journey. I’m human like everyone else. Some seasons I’ve done better than others.

Still, here I am in the quiet this morning, still tending the internal spiritual flame. Another chapter, another hour of meditation, reflection, and internal conversation with God’s Spirit. Another day on this earthly journey.

“I have decided to follow Jesus. No going back. No going back.”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

“Acky”

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“Acky” (CaD Lev 15) – Wayfarer

“‘You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them.’”
Leviticus 15:31 (NIV)

Wee ones are hilarious as they are developing their vocabularies. A few I remember from our girls was that an umbrella was a “rainbrella” (made sense). When grandma was having a heat flash and suddenly her face was covered with sweat, she was “raining.” When something was dirty or nasty or something you shouldn’t touch, it was “acky.” This, as I recall, became a euphemism for when they did the number two in their diapers. They would tell me they were “acky.”

Today is the last of several chapters regarding the distinctions of “clean” and “unclean” that God gave the ancient Hebrews. These distinctions were part of system of rituals and offerings given to newly appointed priests. God was preparing the ancient Hebrews to live in community with God dwelling in the center of their camp in a traveling tent temple. A Holy God, Creator of the heavens and the earth who created human beings. When they were deceived and disobeyed God’s one prohibitive command, they became “unholy.” A series of judgments followed and they were sent from God’s presence.

A Holy God desires only holy things to be in His presence.

A good parent teaches a their young child that we can’t abide with “acky” in any of its forms in our home community. Mom and Dad won’t put up with it. It could be a poopy diaper, it could be dirty hands and clothes after playing outside, or it could be that gross moldy leftover in the fridge. If it’s “acky” then we need to avoid it and clean it up. We want a clean and healthy house.

God is teaching His toddler children the same spiritual lesson through daily life rituals. And, as I pondered these things in the quiet this morning I was reminded that the ritual cleansing for most of these forms of “acky” were as simple as washing up. The ritual “uncleanness” lasted no more than the end of the day. Being unclean wasn’t a condemnation. The cleansing wasn’t punitive. The entire was system was about what was good for the community and God not being able to abide “acky” in His people and His presence at the tent temple

Today’s final chapter of “unclean” distinctions is all about human “discharges” that made a person ritually unclean. It included both male sexual discharge and female bleeding that happens with her monthly menstrual cycle. As I read the part about men being unclean for the rest of the day after having sex, I couldn’t help but laugh. I am quite sure that his was a “thing” between Hebrew dudes in the day.

“Hey Josh? Want to grab some grilled goat poppers and wine in the market with me and the bros?”

“Nah! I’m ‘unclean ’til evening,’ if you know what I mean.”

“Ha! Good for you, dude!”

Joking aside, the downside of the ritual distinctions came when the realities of living in a fallen world of sickness and death made being ritually clean impossible. Such as a woman who because of a medical issues has been vaginally bleeding continuously for twelve years. There was no easy ceremony. Being ritually clean was impossible. This was a tragic circumstance.

When Jesus arrives on the scene a thousand years later, He makes it clear that it was exactly these kinds of tragic situations that He came to “clean up” once, and for all. His sacrifice would provide a way for anyone, now matter how perpetually unclean, to be washed in Living Water, to be made holy, and to have God’s Spirit take up residence inside them.

This larger spiritual truth is beautifully embodied in the story of the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. Perpetually unclean, she was an outcast. Her family kicked her out. She had no friends, no life, and no hope. Her perpetual, “ritual” uncleanness made her every day existence unbearable. In desperation, she throws a Hail Mary. She thinks to herself that if she could just touch the hem of Jesus’ cloak, perhaps she would be healed like all the others she’d seen Him heal.

Driven by her faith, she pushed her way to Him through the crowd that was pressed in like a can of sardines. In doing so, she was making everyone she touched ritually unclean, and if they found out the consequences could be socially (and perhaps physically) lethal. Jesus doesn’t even know that she is there until her fingers touch his cloak and He feels the holy flow of divine power. She knew better than anyone else that she was “unclean.” Her faith in what Jesus could do for her forever healed her.

The beauty of her story is that it points to the larger spiritual lesson that God has forever been telling from the beginning of the Great Story. Our sin is “acky” and can’t be abided in God’s House. We can no more clean up our own sin than our two-year old granddaughter could change her own diaper. No, someone has to do that for her. That’s what Jesus came to do through His sacrificial death on the cross and resurrection.

Jesus cleaned up my perpetual, spiritual “acky” condition, and then He came to abide in me.

If you’ve never seen it, may I highly recommend that you watch this compilation of scenes from The Chosen that tells the story of the woman who was bleeding for twelve years? It’s well done, and captures the heart of what I’ve been trying say better than I could ever write it. Have a good weekend, my friend.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

Of Doctors and Priests

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Of Doctors and Priests (CaD Lev 14) – Wayfarer

The priest who pronounces them clean shall present both the one to be cleansed and their offerings before the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting.
Leviticus 14:11 (NIV)

In the past few weeks, Wendy and I have had a smattering of medical appointments and procedures of various kinds. There is more to come in the near future. As much as I hate to admit it, our bodies are showing the signs of our ages (Wendy is way younger than me! 😉). As I mentioned in yesterday’s post/podcast, no matter how good medical science gets, there is ultimately no antidote for the eventuality of our bodies aging and dying. Of course, there have been and always will be those who continue to seek that holy grail.

Which had me thinking as I read today’s chapter. Yesterday described the process by which the newly appointed Hebrew priests would examine, diagnose, and quarantine those individuals who showed signs of a skin disease that could be contagious. In today’s chapter, the priests are instructed how to examine and then prescribe a healthy person’s return to the Community. This included a ceremonial ritual for cleansing outside the camp followed by a regimen of washing both body and clothes, and shaving off all hair. The individual was then allowed into the camp, but there was a seven-day period in which the individual did not go into their family’s tent/house. If after seven days there was no sign of relapse, on the eighth day they went to the same priest who declared them clean and he would make an offering to the Lord to atone for the cleansed person. Then they could return to their family tent.

What struck me as I read these instructions was the role of the priest, who is acting very much as a doctor. Have you ever noticed the universal symbol we still use today for medicine and healthcare? It originates right out of the story of Moses and these Hebrew tribes escaping from slavery and beginning this new way of living in the wilderness. In Numbers 21, the people are being plagued by poisonous snakes. Moses makes a bronze snake, places it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten by a snake looks at it and lives.

So the first doctors in this tradition were priests, and there was a connection between God, health, and healing. Two thoughts, make that three, are churning in mind.

First, in all of my years of involvement with churches of every shape, size, and tradition, I’ve never experienced one that truly addresses, emphasizes, and attempts to help people make the spiritual connection between their spiritual life and their physical health. As Paul put it to the believers in Corinth:

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NIV)

Second, as I’ve observed my aging grandparents and parents in these final seasons of earthly life, I can’t help but observe the healthcare system. The system appears to me to be largely designed to profit by helping a human beings stay alive as long as possible. There is a lot of money to be made in doing so. As the body ages there a multiple things that begin to breakdown. For every single one of them there are examinations, tests, scans, procedures, drugs, and regular follow-up visits. And for every thing on that list there is a price tag.

As I think about this from a spiritual perspective, it strikes me that the what the healthcare system really wants to do is to help humans avoid death as long as possible. On one hand, this is a natural human instinct. The pursuit of longer, more productive lives is worthy. I’ve observed along my journey, however, that worthy human pursuits almost always have the propensity to be twisted in spiritually dark ways. Voldemort was pursuing the eternal avoidance of death. Dr. Frankenstein, too.

Have we made the medical establishment modern day priests who will extend our lives in a form of Godless religion?

At what point does the avoidance of death at all costs become empty of any kind of Life?

At what point does an industry designed to profit from helping people avoid death become just a modern tower of Babel built with DNA strands, stem cells, technology, and pharmaceuticals?

And this brings me to the third thought rummaging around in my mind and soul this morning. At the very core of everything God is doing in Leviticus, at the core of everything Jesus taught, is an unescapable spiritual paradox: If I want to experience Life, I am required to face death and embrace it. Jesus was very clear that He came to this earth to die as the ultimate sacrifice for my sin. It was a willful and servant-hearted act of love, surrender, and sacrifice. He calls me to follow in his footsteps every day. If I really want to Live, I must daily pursue the death of my pride and selfish desires to pursue love, surrender, and sacrifice

And wouldn’t you know it? I have observed that even this spiritual truth appears to have been twisted by some into a pursuit of death in a selfish desire to avoid life. It seems the healthcare industry and some governments are more than willing to profit from this, as well.

Lord, help me to die to myself that I might live for You and others.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

“Unclean!”

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“Unclean!” (CaD Lev 13) – Wayfarer

“Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp.”
Leviticus 13:45-46 (NIV)

We live in the most ridiculously healthy era of human history. Never has have so many human beings on the face of the earth had access to medical care. Never has humanity, on the whole, been as healthy and wealthy. I encourage you to take four minutes and watch Dr. Hans Rosling show you the animated data from the past 200 years. When I saw how poor and unhealthy the people of the world were in 1800, it gave me some perspective to imagine how much worse it must have been around 1500 B.C. when the Hebrew tribes were wandering in the desert becoming a nation.

Today’s chapter is strange, repetitive, and more than a bit boring for modern readers. It is all about skin diseases and mold. To get at the heart of what’s going on in today’s chapter I have to put my feet in the sandals of the Hebrews. There is no healthcare. There are no doctors. There’s no pharmacy. And yet, there is an understanding that disease can quickly wipe out an entire population. God through Moses is setting up a triage system as it relates to skin diseases, infection, and substances that can create health problems for their community as a whole. There’s even a system of quarantine for those who might have something that could be contagious. This is a giant leap forward for these people who will be protected from untold health and medical issues going forward through the priests examining, diagnosing, and prescribing quarantine when needed.

But there’s a spiritual element to this as well. According to the Creation story in Genesis the consequence of sin was that our bodies became subject to death and illness. Despite the fact that I will live 50-60 years longer than the average American in 1800 and have access to the greatest healthcare in human history, I can’t escape the eventual physical decline that aging will bring. I am doing to die. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” Paul writes to the believers in Rome. He goes on to remind them, “The wages of sin is death.”

I am spiritually “unclean.”

How tragic for the person with incurable leprosy. Forever banished to live outside the camp, to wear torn clothes, look like a beggar, and cry out “Unclean!” whenever a “healthy” person was near to warn them off. It was necessary for the health and safety of the community, but what must it have done to the soul of the person? Never to be hugged or touched by your loved ones ever again. To have people shun you, children fear you, and still be condemned to proclaiming “Unclean!” knowing that it will forever perpetuate the bitter isolation and public scorn.

Which reminds me of an often overlooked episode of Jesus’ story. I picture what I have just described, a man condemned to this life as a leper. His clothes are torn. His hair is unkempt. He has a mask covering his face. His is a life of bitter isolation and public scorn. People literally “avoid him like the plague.” Day and night he shouts “Unclean!” if anyone draws near. Lord only knows how long it had been since he’d experienced a human touch, a kind word, or an ounce of kindness. He approaches Jesus on his knees and asks, “If you want to, you can make me clean.”

Mark is careful to describe that Jesus reached out and touched the man.

“I want to,” Jesus replied.

The man’s leprosy was healed.

Suddenly, this episode takes on a whole new beauty and meaning for me. I may not have leprosy, but I am a sinner stuck in this body subject to sin, sickness, and death. I am unclean. Who will save me from this state?

“Jesus? If you want to…”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

“New Things Come”

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“New Things Come” (CaD Lev 9) – Wayfarer

On the eighth day Moses summoned Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel.
Leviticus 9:1 (NIV)

I have learned over almost 45 years as a disciple of Jesus that this spiritual journey as His follower is all about my transformation. It’s the gradual migration from my earthly and worldly mindset into having my mind fixed on the things of God. Treasures on earth lose their perceived value for me as spiritual treasures are considered increasingly more priceless in my mind. What I desire becomes less significant (in fact I desire things less) and what God desires of me becomes more of a priority. This is literally what Paul was writing about when he told the Corinthian believers: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

In today’s chapter, Aaron and his sons are facing an abrupt transformation. The chapter begins by describing the events as taking place on the eighth day. In yesterday’s chapter, God told Aaron and the boys to camp out at the entrance of His tent for seven days. Granted, this seems like a strange request to our logical sensibilities. Today’s events take place on the eighth day. God is using His base language of metaphor again. What does everyone know, from the very beginning of the Great Story in Genesis took place in seven days? Yep, creation. How long were the dudes camping with God? Yep, seven. It is now the eighth day. Something is new. A spiritual transformation has taken place. Something new has been created in Aaron and His sons. The dudes are now priests of the Most High God.

In today’s chapter, Aaron performs the priestly duties and sacrifices for the first time. This is new. Another thing that is abundantly clear is that Aaron performs the offerings exactly as prescribed by God through Moses. The text is painfully repetitive as it recounts Aaron’s exact actions detail for detail. In fact, it’s one of the strange things about Leviticus that drives modern readers bonkers. As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, two things came to mind.

First, I returned to the reality that these are events are taking place in the toddler stage of humanity thousands of years ago. Writing is a relatively new technology that few know and reading isn’t even a thing for the masses. Things were passed down orally and as an actor currently working on my lines for a role in a play I am reminded that repetition is the key to memorization. When toddlers watch Sesame Street they are introduced to a letter and a number and those are repeated over and over and over again in that episode. The repetition was likely helpful and necessary to the ancient Hebrews learning these detailed instructions.

Second, there is a spiritual lesson taking place even in Aaron’s exacting conformity to God’s instructions. Five hundred years or so later, the Hebrews will decide they want a king and they will choose a guy named Saul. Saul will subsequently decide that he can perform these offerings even though he’s not a son of Aaron as prescribed. Samuel tells him:

“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
    as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
    and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”

One of the spiritual lessons God is attempting to teach His fledgling people through this sacrificial system is the importance of obedience. The obedience is more important than the sacrifices themselves. In fact, God makes this abundantly clear in Psalm 50:

“Listen, my people, and I will speak;
    I will testify against you, Israel:
    I am God, your God.
I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices
    or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
I have no need of a bull from your stall
    or of goats from your pens,
for every animal of the forest is mine,
    and the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains,
    and the insects in the fields are mine.
If I were hungry I would not tell you,
    for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
    or drink the blood of goats?“

At the end of the chapter, as a result of Aaron’s obedience in presenting the offerings according to the instructions, the “glory of the LORD” shows up in the form of fire. So this spiritually transformed dude who is now a priest obeys God, does as instructed, and God responds. It’s the eighth day. It is a new beginning for Aaron and the boys. Old things have passed away. New things have come.

Which is exactly what God has spiritually done in me through being joined with Christ thousands of years later. In fact, spiritually speaking that transformation includes making me a priest of the Most High God, as well (see 1 Peter 2:9).

In the quiet this morning, I find myself marveling once again at how God’s message is consistent even as He communicates it differently at different points of the Great Story, even as I communicate about these same things differently to my toddler granddaughter than I do to her adult parents.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

Ceaseless Maturation

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Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.
1 Corinthians 14:20 (NIV)

I had a conversation the other day with parents who have a child in their late teens. As with most parents, they were struggling with that fact that this intelligent, capable child regularly makes really stupid choices and foolish decisions. Yep.

I shared with my friends that Wendy and I both observed a major shift in our daughters as they reached their mid-twenties and their brains were fully developed. I learned how much the brain is a part of our maturation process. We don’t control it. It just is.

At the same time, I know fully functioning adults who continue to act like teenagers as if their brains never fully developed. They allow themselves to be led by their self-centered appetites and passions. They repeatedly make foolish life decisions. Their lives are always in chaos. They are perpetually trying to escape the painful consequences of their own childish foolishness.

Paul is dealing with people like this among the Jesus’ followers in Corinth. In today’s chapter, he once again tells the Corinthian believers to “grow up” and stop acting like children.

One of the things I thought as a foolish child was that adults reached a level of complete maturity around the age of 30 and then it was sort of smooth sailing after that. You act like an adult and the rest of life is easy. It was around the age of thirty I started making some of the most foolish and childish life decisions of my entire journey!

As a disciple of Jesus, I’ve had to embrace that the process of growth and maturity never ends. Jesus said He was the Vine and I am a branch of that vine. What healthy plant stops growing, developing new growth, and bearing fruit? So it is with life in the Vine.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about the many ways I still need to prune, water, feed, and cultivate continued spiritual growth and applied wisdom in my life. I do this so that as my aging body wanes my life continues to grow, flourish, and remain spiritually fruitful until the end.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!