Weekly Articles

According to the Bread for the World Institute (www.bread.org) over one billion people on this planet are hungry.  This in a world that produces enough food to feed everyone on the planet with more calories per day than thirty years ago (www.worldhunger.org).  So why are so many people hungry in a world with plenty of food?  They are not eating enough.

No, this is not my attempt at dark humor; the reason people are hungry is that they are not getting food that is available in the world.  For most of human history, the main cause of hunger was the scarcity of food – simply put, we did not produce enough food for everyone.  But since the industrial revolution and the tremendous breakthroughs in agricultural technology we consistently produce more food than we need; I remember news stories in the 1980’s about shiploads of wheat sitting in the dock, rotting because the United States had no way to get food to the starving people in Africa without utterly collapsing their primitive agricultural economies.  In other words, hunger today is not the result of the lack of food but rather the inability or unwillingness of people to consume existing food.

Hunger due to inability to eat is understandable.  But are there really people who are unwilling to eat?  Absolutely.  From cultural dietary restrictions to traditional rejection of modern agricultural technology, some people simply refuse to do what it takes to eat.

Most of us would respond with incredulity, saying something like “that’s crazy!” and shaking our heads.  But how many in the church starve themselves spiritually for far less credible reasons?

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.  But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.  All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.  For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.  And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.  For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”  (John 6:35-40 NIV)

If we believe that Jesus is the “bread of life,” then why do we not seek sustenance from him?  There seem to be so many in the church today that want to “experience Jesus” and so go from church to church, seeking some spiritual fulfillment in the event taking place in the worship service.  But that is not what feeds the spirit of man!

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.  (Deuteronomy 8:3 NIV)

It is by no mistake that Jesus quoted this in response to the Devil’s temptation!  Jesus certainly was experiencing an event when he had fasted and then was confronted by Satan.  But he drew on what he knew from the scriptures and was saved from giving in to a false hunger.  Why would we think that we do not need the scriptures, when Jesus himself nourished himself with them?  The early church fathers also believed in deriving spiritual sustenance from the scriptures.  Many examples exist of their belief in the need for Bible reading, such as Clement of Rome (96 AD), Irenaeus (180 AD), and others.  The following sums up their ideas well:

Thomas of Alexandria (300 AD) “Let no day pass by without reading some portion of the sacred Scriptures – at such convenient hour as offers.  And give some time to meditation.  Never cast off the habit of reading in the Holy Scriptures.  For nothing feeds the soul and enriches the mind as much as those sacred studies do.”  (A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, David Bercot, 1998 Hendrickson Publishers Inc.)

If the ancient Christians, who typically worked from dawn to dusk, seven days a week, could struggle to learn from scattered manuscripts and listen to words they possible could not themselves read, is it too much for God’s people today to pick up the Bible we have in our homes and read in the hours we have to ourselves each day?  We all fill our days up; but I guarantee that every American Christian reading this took time last week to eat food.  Did you take at least that much time to read God’s word?  A person who does not eat food will die in time; a Christian who does not feed on God’s word will die in eternity.  Are you choosing to starve or to thrive?

-Charles Peterson

Last month we celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing.  This monumental feat in which the United States sent three astronauts roughly 384,000 kilometers to land on an airless rock and then to return, safely.  This is but one of many examples of mankind doing the seemingly impossible.

We tend to admire achievements of this sort:  the construction of the Pyramids, the Great Wall, and the Panama Canal; and the Battles of Thermopylae, Masada, and the D-Day invasion of Normandy.  We glory in our technological supremacy.

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.  As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.  They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.”  They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.  Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”  But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.  The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.  Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”  So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.  That is why it was called Babel —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.  (Genesis 11:1-9 NIV)

The people in the ancient post-diluvian world gloried in their ability to build and maintain a common identity.  But God stripped them of this vainglory, halting their construction and separating them by the mighty gulf of language.

His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.  He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.  He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.  He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.  (Luke 1:50-53 NIV)

He mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble.  (Proverbs 3:34 NIV)

God frustrates the plans of men.  Our “mighty deeds” are nothing compare to the glories that God has revealed.  We landed men on the moon, but God created the moon!  We build a building, but God built this universe!  Now with these mighty deeds comes the expectation that great things will be accomplished.  So when the mighty among us fail, we are hit with a devastating blow to how we look at the world.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”  When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”  Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”  (Matthew 19:23-26 NIV)

Notice that when Jesus says that it is impossible for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the disciples become clearly agitated.  They ask “who then can be saved”; with the implication that if the rich couldn’t enter, then who could!  But Jesus explained that just because man cannot do anything about his state, God can!  What is impossible for man is possible for Jesus!  So remember to cling to the one who can save you – Jesus Christ.

-Charles Peterson

Actress Mischa Barton was recently hospitalized for her own protection; last year she had been arrested on drug-related charges.  A Los Angeles mother killed her 4-year-old son by stabbing him to death and then slit her own wrists.  The Governor of South Carolina was exposed as having left the country to have an extramarital affair.  These three news stories show the heavy burden of dark sin and deep despair that weighs down mankind:  Ms. Barton is but one of many examples of Hollywood stars who seem to be trying to find the quickest path to personal destruction; this mother entered some dark place in her soul that allowed her to brutally slay her own child; and Governor Mark Sanford (who had until this been held up as a possible Presidential hopeful in 2012) basically torpedoed his political dreams and shattered his marriage for a fling with his “soul mate”.

This is nothing new!  Many examples of this behavior are shown to us in the Bible.

They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee.  When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town.  For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs.  When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!”  For Jesus had commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man.  Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.  (Luke 8:26-29 NIV)

As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”  The king replied, “If the LORD does not help you, where can I get help for you?  From the threshing floor?  From the winepress?”  Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”  She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’  So we cooked my son and ate him.  The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”  (2 Kings 6:26-29 NIV)

One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace.  From the roof he saw a woman bathing.  The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her.  The man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”  Then David sent messengers to get her.  She came to him, and he slept with her.  (2 Samuel 11:2-4 NIV)

Here we see three examples of similar behavior:  a life seriously derailed and out of control, a mother killing her son, and a ruler abusing power and privilege to gratify carnal lusts.  This is the condition of all mankind, even though these are particularly disturbing examples for us.  The world wants us to fill up with sin and depravity.  It wants us to shed true morality that is fixed by the creator for a false one made up by men and changed at a whim.

This world uses people up and discards them like yesterday’s garbage.  If you seek out the world, you will have to give up everything about you that links you to God; likewise if you seek out God you will have to rid yourself of the world’s influence.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  (Matthew 11:28-30 NIV)

Jesus knows the heavy, unbearable burden mankind struggles with.  So he came to lift it off of our shoulders in order that we could take up his burden through the grace of God.  If you stay with the world, you will never escape the world’s burden of sin and despair; if you choose Jesus, you will indeed lay down those oppressive burdens and pick up God’s mercy, love, hope, and forgiveness.  The choice should be easy: lay your burdens down and pick up Christ as your burden.

-Charles Peterson