Up Above My Head

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. -- Colossians 3:2

Since my Bible came open on Colossians 3 again this morning, I figured I might as well stay there.  By the way, if you haven’t yet read Father Stephen’s post, “Sin is not a moral problem”, you’ll probably like it, and it goes along with what we’re thinking about in Colossians. 

I’m feeling a little lazy today – like today’s any different, so let me pull a quote from Matthew Henry that covers the first four verses:

As Christians are freed from the ceremonial law, they must walk the more closely with God in gospel obedience. As heaven and earth are contrary one to the other, both cannot be followed together; and affection to the one will weaken and abate affection to the other. Those that are born again are dead to sin, because its dominion is broken, its power gradually subdued by the operation of grace, and it shall at length be extinguished by the perfection of glory. To be dead, then, means this, that those who have the Holy Spirit, mortifying within them the lusts of the flesh, are able to despise earthly things, and to desire those that are heavenly. Christ is, at present, one whom we have not seen; but our comfort is, that our life is safe with him. The streams of this living water flow into the soul by the influences of the Holy Spirit, through faith. Christ lives in the believer by his Spirit, and the believer lives to him in all he does. At the second coming of Christ, there will be a general assembling of all the redeemed; and those whose life is now hid with Christ, shall then appear with him in his glory. Do we look for such happiness, and should we not set our affections upon that world, and live above this?

As Jesus said, No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money (Luke 16:13).  I always liked the good KJV word “mammon” better because it isn’t just about money.  It’s about the status and the prestige and the admiration of the world as much as greed.  Greedy people are just greedy, seeking a false security in their doubloons or the digits in the bank account.  A lot of people who server Mammon aren’t so interested in being rich as they are in looking good to the neighbors, having the right opinions and being accepted into the right cliques, circles, and circuses.  That’s understandable for those who do not know Christ, but for those of us who do, we ought to be as zealous and as engrossed in the pursuit of heavenly things as we used to be in the pursuit of earthly satisfactions. 

Now, clearly Paul does not suggest that we should never think about our situation, our duties, and our responsibilities here on earth.  We have to take care of business.  But these earthly endeavors are not our goal in life.  Paul believed that we are responsible for and in control of what we think.  We can choose that on which we set our minds.  We ought to keep on thinking about those things in heaven we are striving toward, because it does very much matter what we think, and we orient our lives around what we think. 

There is a saying about being too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good.  I don’t believe that.  Certainly there are those who call themselves Christians who have been deluded into a mentality of entitlement.  God ought to take care of them.  It doesn’t matter what they do.  God will do what He wants.  The material world and the body do not matter, and so on.  If that were the case, all Christians would die upon baptism, the gospel would be preached by angels, and the planet would be left to the coyotes and the cockroaches.   

The reality is that social reforms, such as the end of slavery in the western world, often came about through heavenly-minded Christians, like Wilberforce, who had a different perspective on values and righteousness.  Being heavenly-minded moves us to act on the earthly plane in accordance with the mercy, love, and grace of our Father.

Management Material

And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.  -- Luke 16:9

The parable of the Unrighteous Steward is one that has always given me trouble.  The understanding I have of it, I owe, mostly, to Arnot’s The Parables of Our Lord.  The story is simple enough:  a steward or manager has not dealt honestly with his master’s property and is about to be fired.  Desperate to find a means of supplying himself with life’s necessities, the manager, before balancing his ledgers, calls his master’s debtors and offers them a discount.  Those that owe a hundred are told to write down eighty or fifty.  By this ploy, the manager makes friends of those same debtors and may call upon them for assistance once his tenure as manager is over.  The master, upon learning he has been so cleverly cheated, nevertheless commends the ex-manager’s cunning. 

Our tendency is to think that the dishonest manager should have seen the error of his ways, rather like the Prodigal, repented, begged and received his master’s gracious forgiveness.  The Lord, however, had a different lesson He wished to impart. This parable was given to His disciples and was not for the benefit of those outside His circle or as a message for those who opposed Him. 

As Christians, what are we to do with the things of the world?  From our health and strength, our natural gifts, and our families to our property and money, jobs and careers, we have much that pertains as much or more to this world than to eternity.  Jesus wanted to answer that question for us.  The things of this world, including our own bodies and physical lives, are going to pass away.  We should not be afraid or even hesitant to use those things up in order to help us on our journey toward our “eternal dwellings”. 

Unrighteous wealth or, to use the more evocative KJV word, Mammon can be a great hindrance to our spiritual progress.  The Lord’s point is that it need not be.  The Master has given these things to us that we might make the best use of them – not to enrich ourselves and tie our souls to the temporal things of this life, but to make our “calling and election sure”. 

Does wealth get misused?  Are art, literature, cinema, television, the internet channels of evil and wickedness?  Absolutely, but they can be beneficial as well as corrosive.  Arnot asked if the Rich Young Ruler failed because of wealth or sin.  Was the beggar Lazarus saved because he was poor and the rich man in hell because he was rich?  No.  Poverty does not make one holy.  Many will live impoverished in this world only to step from a life of envy into the fires of envy’s just reward.  Some who were rich in this world’s goods already enjoy the bliss of eternal life in heaven.  

Things can be a snare to us.  Things can set us free.  The difference is in us and in our attitude.  The first step is recognizing that nothing we "possess" actually belongs to us.  We are only stewards.  We are responsible for wise management.  This is the key to the parable:  the master commended the unrighteous steward because he wanted him to come out all right.  He couldn’t allow him to go on managing his goods, but he did not want him to starve.  

Our life in this world is coming to an end -- the end of our tenure as steward.  It may be yet many decades for some.  It may be tomorrow.  Regardless of the time frame, we know we cannot go on in this life indefinitely.  Our Good Master wants us to enthusiastically make use of all we have been given, however little or much that may be, whatever form it may take, to improve, augment and further the spiritual components of our lives.  If that is not happening, we are not doing it right, and we are not pleasing God. 

Exit Strategy

Then I heard another voice from heaven: Come out of her, My people, so that you do not share in her sins or receive any of her plagues. --Revelation 18:4

Earlier today, the Quiet Pot posted an excerpt that shows somebody is paying attention, and it got me thinking along these lines.

The verse quoted above is speaking in reference to the great whore of Babylon and the fall of Babylon. This Babylon is a universal archetype, which may, along with the Beast of Revelation and the Antichrist, point to some ultimate antitype and complete fulfillment. I think that is the case, because, though history is cyclical, it does not repeat infinitely. Rather, it spirals toward Teilhard de Chardin’s Omega point. I do not know if the Babylon of our time is that ultimate one – it likely will be for me.

Babylon seems to be related to Babel. Whether the tower named the place or the place named the tower matters little for they are associated in the Hebrew mind. It is a place of deviltry, of pandemonium where sense is lost and we no longer understand one another. Man rebelled at the Tower of Babel. Instead of seeking God, he sought to overrun heaven and overthrow God. And who would he place on the throne? Babylon then is a city, not of libertine morals but of a false religion, following false gods. When John speaks of adultery and fornication in the Apocalypse, he is referring primarily to turning away from a relationship with the true God and a worship or exultation of a false god.

Part of the Tower of Babel’s purpose was to unify all people. Like the tower and the assault on heaven, commerce can unify. Trade and the chance to enrich or increase wealth bring us together. We unite in worship of that god which Jesus called Mammon. In our day we have reaped what appeared to be significant material blessings from our affiliation with this system. I have given myself over to -- perhaps you could even say I have devoted myself to the accumulation of money and goods, to the status symbols and the counters of the Babylonian game. While I have been successful in only a very modest sense, it is obvious what my priorities have been.

Daniel saw the world system and the historic empires as an image with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron mixed with clay. Though this, according to Daniel’s interpretation, was a depiction of kingdoms arising on the historical time line, in the end, the Babylon system can always be said to have “feet of clay”. It is vulnerable, and it will fall.

Even if the current system is not the antitype, it will fall. Its weaknesses have been exposed. For one thing the image is upside-down. Gold, the heaviest, densest, most stable material is on top. Gold is identified with divinity – it should be the foundation. What Daniel shows us looks more like devolution or degeneration from the divine to the animalistic human (clay). This will be crushed by the kingdom of God and overthrow the entire inverted structure.

So, the voice from heaven calls God’s people to leave Babylon behind. Flee, not to Galt’s Gulch, but to the Rock.

“But those who trust in the LORD will renew their strength; they shall soar on wings like eagles; they shall run and not grow weary; they shall walk and not faint.” – Isaiah 40:31

Someone turned the King James Version of that into a chorus, and it remains one of my favorites. I wish I could let you hear it as I do in my head right now with a sweet and righteous woman singing in a rich, warm alto, just like she believed every word.

They that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up
with wings as eagles.
They shall run,
and not be weary.
They shall walk,
and not faint.

Teach me, Lord,
Teach me, Lord,
To wait.