Yahweh is my shepherd...

Preface: This post is scandalously bare and naked.  I am still committed to the enjoyable spotting of the shepherd motif God employs in scripture, but I'm no longer going to try to record them all.

I'm going to try to list and categorize all the verses in the Bible that use shepherd imagery using Psalm 23:1-4 and John 10 as my main templates for certain (though not comprehensive) things a shepherd would do. After all, David and Jesus each had a pretty good grasp of what shepherding meant. This list will also help me to understand what it means to be a pastor, since the word actually comes from the Latin pastor (Wow. Crazy etymological application there, I know.), which is the nominative form of the verb pascere, which means, "to feed." Actually, the internet was constructive, and enlightened me that we get our modern understanding from Middle English, from Middle French in the 13th century. Interesting.

It's going to take a long time, and I consider this to be a work in progress.

~Psalm 23~
1b I shall not want. 2a He makes me lie down in green pastures. (Daily Provision and Satisfaction)




2b He leads me beside quiet waters. (Safety in Leadership)
Numbers 27:15-23



3a He restores my soul; (Redeemer, Restorer, Rescuer)




3b He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. (Glorious Guide)






4a Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; (Faithful Guardian who dispels fear)
I Samuel 17:34-35




4b Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. (Discipline and Protection are my Comforter)

Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be.

So Erika gave me a book as a belated Christmas present last month called Surfaces and Essences, and I haven't yet read more than a couple pages of the preface (which is pretty intimidating, by the way!), but I've gathered from that skimming and from conversations about the book with Mr. B and Mr. L that it heavily considers analogies.

I love analogies. I'm trying to incorporate them more into my daily speech. But I also note that songs and books and movies and people have been analogous of each other, which is an idea that my friend Vicki has written about! Here I'll discuss two such analogous songs and how they both are analogous to Christ and the Christian's life, or at least the way that they're analogous to my life. And from there, dear reader, you can take my life as an analogy of your own and learn from me, for in the end we're not that different.

"Yesterday," (The Beatles)

Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away!
Now it looks as though they're here to stay;
Oh, I believe in yesterday...

Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be:
There's a shadow hanging over me:
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Why she had to go I don't know; she wouldn't say.
I said something wrong; now I long for yesterday.

Yesterday love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away;
Oh, I believe in yesterday...

Here the singer has harmed a woman: he admits that he must have "said something wrong" that made her go away, and that now he "long[s] for yesterday." This guilt weighs on him like a shadowy cloud hanging over him, like a thundercloud that crept up overnight. His loss comes upon him "suddenly" and the narrative gives us a glimpse of his failure: he was playing a game of love that blew up in his face today and shames him into hiding, looking wistfully backwards at yesterday. He is a cheating man, and "suddenly" he realizes how much love has exacted from him: a Shylockian pound of flesh.

"Suddenly" (perf. by Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables [2012])

Suddenly I see! Suddenly it starts! 
Can two anxious hearts beat as one?
Yesterday I was alone; today you walk beside me...
Something still unclear, something not yet here has begun.

Suddenly the world seems a different place,
somehow full of grace and delight!
How was I to know that so much hope was held inside me?
What has passed is gone; now we journey on through the night.
How was I to know at last that happiness can come so fast?
Trusting me the way you do; I'm so afraid of failing you!
Just a child who cannot know that danger follows where'er I go;
There are shadows everywhere and memories I cannot share.

Nevermore alone, nevermore apart,
you have warmed my heart like the sun.
You have brought the gift of life and love so long denied me...
Suddenly I see what I could not see: something suddenly has begun!

The word "suddenly" is repeated over and over again in this NEW Les Mis song, lending itself to the title. But it only triggered this sudden epiphany when I heard the Beatles' "Yesterday" when Paul McCartney suddenly picks up the tempo of the strings and the timbres of his voice when he enters the short bridge with that one word: "Suddenly!" And the reason that I remembered this song so well from the Les Mis film is because these NEW dialogue lines resonated so clearly with me and my mother's role in life:

VALJEAN: Where I go, you will be.
COSETTE: Will you be like a Papa to me?
VALJEAN: Yes, Cosette! This is true! I'll be father and mother to you!

Having been raised lived in a one-parent home for the majority of my life, I've seen and witnessed just how desperate and wary a question Cosette asks her immediate savior. But God is able to do more than we ask or think or reasonably expect: He raises the church to be a mother and promises Himself as the great Father to the fatherless. (Furthermore, he gave my grandparents to me as surrogates, so you needn't despair for me, O reader.) In this, the Les Mis "Suddenly" portrays a more true and lovely depiction of love and self-sacrifice.

Ah, self-sacrifice. This is the second analogy I draw from these songs, and they both say the same message, but only one is salvific. Paul McCartney croons "Suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be," but his love song has no resurrection. His love's story is dead and gone, and he longs for yesterday before his love died. On the other hand, Hugh Jackman sweetly asks God, "Suddenly it starts: can two anxious hearts beat as one?" His love song isn't even romantic, yet still all love requires sacrifice: truly Jean ValJean died the day he adopted Cosette as his very own daughter. But because his is a true love in that it is a hopeful and enduring love (a la 1 Corinthians 13), it has a resurrection and a new life that opens with Jean ValJean's defrosting heart. He's not half the man he used to be, but he's a better man for the division since the new life is better.

1. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/2012/12/29/the-les-miserables-movie-suddenly-theres-a-new-song-spoiler-alert/

2. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lesmiserablescast/suddenly.html

3. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/yesterday.html

It's just a fucking cupcake.

So I've been wrestling with the (conflicting?) ideas of patronage and capitalism.

On the one hand, we use our money and feed our souls with what we love because of the ideas behind it. When I am married, any food my wife will make will be the best food I could've eaten, because she is making it with the lovely work of her fingers. We consume that which we would support.

On the other hand, we use our money to buy what is good for us. What we want. What we need. Ideologies aside, Chik-Fil-A makes a good chicken sandwich. Starbucks makes (passably) good coffee. Am I turned on or off by their respective Christian or pro-homosexual agendas and heritage? My stomach and palate sure aren't (That's actually a lie: my tastes are unbiased in terms of quality because I have chronic sinus allergies...). So, we consume that which we would taste.

Sidenote: But is not the body more than its desires, and the stomach for more than food? We are not just consumers, but we are also creators after the model of our creative Heavenly Father.

So what should we do when the two come head to head? What of the atheist who develops a hankering for good quality (look at me, being cute, talking like I know what good quality food is...) fried chicken sandwiches? Does he eschew Chik-Fil-A because he hates Christianity? Would he buy a lesser product in order to perpetuate a different philosophy? Would he pay more money or eat lesser quantities of food in order to perpetuate a different philosophy?

What of the Christian who hates chicken sandwiches, yet would support the Christian values and hiring processes of businesses such as Chik-Fil-A? 

This is madness. Or is this just food sacrificed to idols? 

(The context: the Muslim Student Union was passing out free cupcakes on campus today. I felt no guilt for taking one and devouring it BEFORE my own lunch in all its rainbow sprinkled and chocolate glory. Also, last week or the week before, a Christian club called Navigators was offering free hot chocolate and tea on a particularly cold morning.)

Who would accuse me of sinning by eating the Muslims' offered cupcake? Certainly my own soul points to Christ, who is a heaven of heavens to me complete with all the joys of endlessly flowing milk and honey, and wipes its lips and says "I have done nothing wrong." But I do understand and sympathize with the weaker brothers, and would happily agree to eat different and non-offensive things in their presence. My impoverished tongue would know no difference, anyways. 

At the end of the day, it's just a fucking cupcake. 

I need to study maps.

Long story short, I need to study maps.

I need to study maps because I am good at giving directions, but I have no knowledge of geography beyond my own experience using landmarks.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

So, with the word of God, how can I give directions if I don't know the map? Shall I only derive instruction for others based on my experience of living the Christian life alone, or shall I glean from the wisdom of Scripture and of those who have gone before me? How can I love without knowledge? And how can I trust the promises of God if I don't know that the promisor is faithful?

It's an active stubbornness and arrogance to refuse (or not take advantage of!) the loving advice of elders, and I need to repent of this in more areas than my geographical disorientation, which .... probably? doesn't have anything to do with my Asian-ness, pun notwithstanding. 

Jesus is better than a "rebel without a cause."

Lately, I've been studying Luke 14:25-35 where Jesus teaches on discipleship. Something struck me, reader, which you (being the smarty-pants that you certainly are!) will probably dismiss as a given. But as for me, though I am finishing my philosophy classes at UC Irvine, I'm still feeling a little bit post-modern about my faith: What's real? Where are the foundations? Who is my vision?

Luke 14:25-26 (underline added for emphasis)
And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them, 
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

This verse has always been given to me in anticipation of suffering, of self-denial, of comparatively loving Jesus more than life itself and all the loveliest, goodest, and truest blessings he gives to me. Be ready, the preacher says. Carry your cross daily. Otherwise you're no true follower of the savior who died for you.

But what of the second part of the warning Jesus gives? We must bear the cross of shame AND follow Jesus in order to be a disciple. Bearing the reproach of a cause is has become a thing in our culture. Everybody loves a martyr, though he be a suicide bombing terrorist. But martyrdom is stupid if the resurrection isn't a certain hope: for why should my unborn children benefit from my years of covenantal and postmillenial toil (a la MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech and Solomon's Ecclesiastes) if it costs me everything? But it costs me nothing if it is Jesus's cross.

Yes-- you say-- but of course, Joseph. A disciple is a follower, so following a master is a given for disciples!

Yes. You're right. But how often do I myself forget to follow Jesus? How often do I delude myself into the snares of both older and younger brothers of the last part of Jesus's parable in the following chapter ("The Prodigal")-- that sin is worth the cost: damage to my soul (and others'!), besides the terrible anger of God?

No. For those made stupid by the present terror of sin, remembering to actively follow Jesus besides remembering how to debate for Pro-Life and postmillenial worldviews is a cattle prod in the right direction.

Because crucified men do not sleepwalk in their deathly march. 

Jesus is better than a guilty conscience. {Part One}

1. Romans 7:1,14,21-25; 8:3 states: "Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?...for we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. ... I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:..."

2. I've got a robust and violent conscience, o reader. Mine is the type that wails obscenities, tears its robes apart, and, dragging up the dregs of my sins, smears them all over the pages of Scripture like the margarita I spilled over 1 Peter this past Tuesday. My conscience condemns me and demonstrates how I fall short of all the commands of Christ in Scripture. And I am struck dumb, for the accusations are true and right; I can only confess my guilt and trust the goodness and grace of my covenant redeemer.

Yet so often do I find myself echoing the words of Pastor George Scipione: "I am the chief of sinners, for the sins that I've committed stand against me and no one else, and no one else's sins testify against me."

Indeed, Paul, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

3. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, for there is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (7:25-8:1).

Jesus is better than legalism and self-righteousness that comes with an overly-loud conscience. Paul continues in Romans 8 by explaining how Jesus is the one who delivered him from the body of death: Jesus was sent in the flesh to condemn sin (v3), the very weapon which my lawful conscience bears against fearful me. Furthermore, because "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death," (v2) not only are we "not in the flesh," but we are "in the Spirit" (v9).

Jesus is better than hyperbole, though, and we don't literally have to cut off our sinning "members" as He commanded in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:29-30, Rom. 7:18-23). For if we have the Spirit of Christ (8:9-10), then we're being renewed in the inner man (2 Corinthians 4:16), though "the body is dead because of sin" (Rom. 8:10). Not only is He sanctifying our spirits, but we are promised with a bodily resurrection and restoration modeled after that of Christ's, our guarantee and firstfruits (8:11).

The gospel is clearly one of liberty and exodus from the bondage of sin, and Paul reminds us that our Jesus is better than a mere saving Lord: not only have we not received the spirit of bondage again to fear and guilt and an angry conscience, but we have instead received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, "Abba, Father." This is the clincher for my agitated conscience: the judge is my father who pardons me and points to the cross that powerfully attracts my guilt.

Paul ends this half of his letter to the Romans with a few rhetorical questions which pierce my jealous and accusatory conscience through and through:

a. If God be for us, who can be against us?
b. How shall he not with [deliverance of the obedient Jesus] also freely give us all things?
c. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?
d. Who is he that condemneth?
e. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

A guilty conscience cannot be against me, innocence and righteousness accompany the living Spirit Jesus promised, my past cannot add sins when God has acquitted, Jesus intercedes even for my stubborn conscience's sake, and not even my worst sins can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord. 

Jesus is better than "earthly fathers."

1. Isaiah 9:6-7 states "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this."

Psalm 23:5 states "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup overflows."

2. Today is the first Sunday of the month (and of 2014, too!), which makes it a Communion Sunday! Communion isn't just a symbolic thing to the Christian, but rather it conveys the benefits of union with Christ to the believer. Having just returned from staying at the Leatherwoods' home in Arizona, I drew the analogy of the benefits of adoption transferred to the adopted son being very physically represented in a welcoming meal. The Leatherwoods showered Calvin and me with the benefits of being merely a guest in their home to the point that I felt our houseguest gifts fell terrifically short; how much more hospitable would they treat an adopted son?

Having already discussed the gravity of the Middle Eastern man's hospitality in a previous post about Psalm 23, the Leatherwoods certainly embodied this reckless and extraordinary sort of hospitality. After giving only a brief recounting of how gracious they were, my mother joked-- "Hey, it's good somebody likes you guys out there!"

Our Jesus promises to never forsake us, and he does one better-- more than simply calling himself "Father," he is called our "everlasting Father." He doesn't forget us, he doesn't grow tired of loving us, and his love is like candied bacon sizzling in the morning. He loves to bring us food, and he sends us manna from heaven (the Bread of Life himself!) every time we take and eat the bread of the Lord's Supper. As an orphan may feel the warmth of a hot meal, so too do we feel the warmth of being able to boldly and fearfully call the LORD of hosts our "everlasting Father."

3. I'm going to start a blog project, posting the results of my written responses to these 31 days of prompts as suggested by Art of Manliness. They definitely won't be posted in 31 consecutive days, but I hope it'll be a useful tool to keep me writing stuff.