Some items from church this morning:
A. It was Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost commemorates God’s giving the
Holy Spirit to the church in Acts 2. The youth pastor visited two kids
for his children’s message. One of the kids testified that he shares his
faith—-that God is the creator and that Jesus died for our sins—-with a
neighbor kid, but the neighbor kid does not believe. The youth pastor
encouraged him that God, through God’s spirit, can generate faith in the
neighbor kid through what the kid shared.
B. The pastor’s sermon revolved around Numbers 11. God places his
spirit on seventy elders and two people prophesy throughout the camp.
Joshua is jealous for Moses’s sake. Moses affirms that he wishes all the
LORD’s people were prophets and that God would put God’s spirit upon
them. The pastor speculated that Joshua was upset because he felt that
the two Israelites prophesying diminished the authority of Moses.
Perhaps Joshua felt that he himself benefited from Moses being the only
person with God’s spirit and thus did not want the spirit to be
democratized. Joshua is close to the ultimate man in charge and that
gives Joshua a greater influence than if everyone were in charge because
everyone had God’s spirit. But God’s spirit is not diminished by being
spread out and shared. It is like a candle: a fire on a candle can
kindle another candle without itself diminishing. We are prophets, the
pastor said, when we share the Gospel and convey forgiveness to others.
C. I consulted some Bible commentaries to see how they accounted for
the democratization of God’s spirit in Numbers 11:29. What historical
events, context, or interests led to the concept that all of God’s
people should be prophets? Christians would say, of course, that God’s
eventual plan was for all people to have God’s spirit, that Christianity
fulfilled that (to a greater extent than existed before), and that
Numbers 11:29 was divinely-inspired prophecy about this. But how would
historical-critics, who lack a commitment to the Hebrew Bible being a
Christian document, account for the concept of the Holy Spirit’s
democratization in Numbers 11:29? The commentaries that I consulted were
not particularly helpful. The Word Biblical Commentary, as it usually
does, laid out scholarly proposals about possible
socio-political/historical contexts behind the text. Its conclusion was
that Numbers 11 was seeking to legitimize other authority structures
besides the conventional ones (i.e., priests). Either this was David or
lay prophets who were claiming the right to be heard. That does not
adequately explain why the text supported a democratization of God’s
spirit. The issue of democratization recurs throughout the Hebrew Bible.
At times, it is depicted negatively: people oppose Moses’s authority by
claiming that they, too, are God’s people or have heard from God, and
God affirms Mosaic authority. At other times, democratization is
supported, as when Joel predicts that God will pour out God’s spirit on
all flesh, or when the Book of Zechariah presents a holiness in
Jerusalem that breaks out of the temple. Perhaps a naturalistic scholar
can say that someone had the idea that, if God were the creator and
loved God’s creation, God would desire that all people partake of God’s
spirit.
D. The Presbyterian church that I attended in upstate New York sends
out written e-mails for its services in these Corona times. I was
especially moved by today’s sermon. I will not feel pressured to share
its sermon every week, but what it said this week was helpful. The
pastor talked about the Spirit helping us to persevere and to do things
that we did not think we could do. The pastor shared about how, when his
first wife was deathly ill in 1995, he was unsure if he would be able
to take care of her. She was the one who had changed their child’s
diapers. But the pastor crossed that bridge when he came to it. That
resonated with me because, as my county enters stage 1 of reopening, I
will soon have to resume doing things at work that I dread doing. But,
hopefully, God will be there with me as I cross that bridge when I come
to it.
E. I will reserve this item here for my faith struggles. On (B.), I
would not say that I resent the democratization of God’s spirit. I would
say, though, that I have felt left out in the past from what God is
doing. God appears to speak to other people and to work in their lives
in tangible ways, but I do not see that in my life. My resentment is not
as great as it was in the past, and that is probably because I am no
longer in school, which is where I encountered great moves of God in the
lives of others. Part of my resentment may be because I want influence
and admiration from others; part is because I would like a personal
touch from God to know of his care and concern for me personally. The
line that came in my mind was the sermon point that people make about
Moses entering the Tent of Meeting, which was available to all
Israelites (Exodus 33:7): we are as close or as far away from God as we
want to be. Cold comfort. On (D.), if I had heard that sermon in the
past, I would have been ready with my list of “but what about”s? What
about the times when God has not helped me to do a task well? What about
the times when I was nervous and afraid and alienated others on account
of that? Where was God’s spirit in that? Nowadays, I do not have that
problem as much. Zoloft calms my nerves, and people at work are helpful
and supportive. I find that, once I get back into the groove, I can do
the tasks or cope with them. But do I attribute that to God’s spirit
strengthening me? I struggle to do that, and yet I do pray for God’s
strength and that helps me to face tasks.
F. The Sunday school class was about Psalm 46. The Psalm describes
natural and political cataclysms. The pastor speculated that the natural
cataclysms could have been inspired by the intense earthquake that hit
Israel and Judah in the eighth century B.C.E., which Amos and Zechariah
both mention. The political cataclysm could have been inspired by the
death of Josiah a century later, which marked the ascension of Babylon
as the world power. Both the natural and political cataclysms are
described as the undoing of creation, the order and regularity to which
people are accustomed. The sea, also, is a symbol of chaos, as Hebrews
feared going out to sea. Amidst all of this cataclysm is the conviction
that God is God: God rules and his words accomplish what they set out to
do. Psalm 46 encourages people to be still and know that God is God.
That could be directed at evildoers, telling them to desist from their
resistance and rebellion against God, or it could be reassuring God’s
people that God reigns. The pastor commented briefly on “Selah” and said
that it may be intended to introduce a new topic. In v. 3, it marks a
transition from talking about natural cataclysm to talking about the
river of living waters in the Temple.