John Tillman - The Park Forum

May 5, 2020May 3, 2020

The Sin Which Fells Nations

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 2.4-5
4 They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.

5 Come, descendants of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the LORD.

Isaiah 2.17-20
17 The arrogance of man will be brought low
and human pride humbled;
the Lord alone will be exalted in that day,
18 and the idols will totally disappear.
19 People will flee to caves in the rocks
and to holes in the ground
from the fearful presence of the Lord
and the splendor of his majesty,
when he rises to shake the earth.
20 In that day people will throw away
to the moles and bats
their idols of silver and idols of gold,
which they made to worship.

Reflection: The Sin Which Fells Nations
By John Tillman

Isaiah is filled with incredible contrasts.

Isaiah holds beautiful descriptions of the future God has for his people. Many of the most hopeful and uplifting promises of God can be found in the prophet’s words.

Isaiah also shows unflinching portraits of wrath. His pen does not shrink from descriptions of grim destruction that will eventually come to Judah and the terror that will strike the powerful when God destroys injustice.

We must remember both.

One might assume that these were bad times in Judah. Far from it. By most external indicators, it was the best of times. The land overflowed with gold, goods, horses, and chariots. (Isaiah 2.7) Isaiah served as prophet to four kings and only Ahaz is described as being overtly evil. Yet there was something rotten at the core of worship in this prosperous and powerful kingdom.

So if the kings are (mostly) good, why is Isaiah’s message so serious and so often bleak? A hint may be found in the downfall of two of those righteous kings. Hezekiah and Uzziah (Also called Amaziah) are among the great kings of Judah but each was felled by the axe of pride.

Hezekiah died knowing that his prideful display before the Babylonians would cause slavery and death for the generations following him. Uzziah’s prideful sin was greater and his fall was worse. He died alone, a leper, outcast even from being buried among the kings of Judah. These kings ended their reigns bearing the ignominy of consequences brought on by pride.

Even under good kings, sin (especially pride) brings ruin to nations. How much more so, under evil kings? How much more so beyond that, under evil kings who think themselves to be good?

From Isaiah we can learn that what looks like a great and powerful nation may actually be a spiritual wasteland of pride and greed and what looks like God’s faithful worshipers may actually be rebels entering the Temple with blood on their hands from the injustice they either ignore, support, or use to fuel their prosperity, which is their true god and idol.

May we flee pride and prideful leaders. May kings of the earth be of little consequence to us compared to the king of Heaven. May our worship be marked by humility, confession, contrition, and repentance. May the indicators that most matter to us be ones of spiritual import not financial or political.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. — Psalm 51.11

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis TickleToday’s Readings
Isaiah 2 (Listen – 3:00)
Hebrews 10 (Listen 5:33)

Read more about Pride and Shortsightedness
The remarkable life of Hezekiah ends in pride and shortsightedness.

Pride and Short-sightedness :: Throwback Thursday

Read more about Pride and Cowardice
The separation of cowardice and pride is a false one, for these two are really one and the same.

Pride and Cowardice :: Readers’ Choice

May 4, 2020May 3, 2020

A Worn Out Welcome

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 1.12-15
12 When you come to appear before me,
    who has asked this of you,
    this trampling of my courts?
13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
    Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
    I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
14 Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
    I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
    I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
    I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
    I am not listening.

Reflection: A Worn Out Welcome
By John Tillman

When we go into the house of the Lord, is God glad we have come?

Much of Isaiah’s first chapter concerns how the worshipers in Judah had worn out their welcome in God’s house. God was actually weary of putting up with the very acts these worshipers thought were pleasing to God.

To hear Isaiah’s words, one might assume that these were bad times in Judah. Far from it. All external indicators looked good, but the spiritual reality was quite different.

Many churches are considering plans to return to worshiping in their sanctuaries as bans on gatherings are relaxed. But before we start singing, “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord,” perhaps we need to consider Isaiah’s warnings to a prosperous and crowded Temple.

How can we tell if we have worn out our welcome in God’s house? Let’s look at the commands and warnings God gives through Isaiah. (Isaiah 1.16-17)

Are you “clean?”
“Your hands are full of blood!” (Isaiah 1.15)
This is figurative blood of the suffering these worshipers are responsible for. Are your accounts lined with profit from taking advantage of the poor? Is your security more important than others’ oppression? Are you deaf to suffering? Are you hard-hearted? Are you close-handed with those in need?

Will you repent?
“…stop doing wrong. Learn to do right…” (Isaiah 1.14-15)
To stop doing wrong you must learn to do what is right. You cannot repent of what you claim is not sin.

Will you seek righteousness?
“…seek justice.” (Isaiah 1.15)
Do not misconstrue righteousness as forcing others to live in obedience. Righteousness means surrendering your own sinful nature to be killed and replaced with Christ’s righteousness.

Who will you defend?
“Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” (Isaiah 1.15)
Will you take up the cause of the oppressed, the fatherless, the widow? Will you expand your definition of the oppressed to include not only the oppressed people you are comfortable with, but the ones who make you uncomfortable?

Who will you correct?
“Defend the oppressed.” (Isaiah 1.15)
“Defend the oppressed” can also be translated as “correct the oppressor.” Will you confront the powerful? And not just powerful enemies? Will you confront powerful friends, as Nathan confronted David?

When what we say and do outside God’s house misrepresents God’s identity, our worship is wearisome rather than welcomed. As Jesus says, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I say.”

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. — Psalm 19.14

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis TickleToday’s Readings
Isaiah 1 (Listen – 4:36)
Hebrews 9 (Listen 4:40)

Read more about Confession as a Crucible
The crucible of COVID-19 is revealing in our society and ourselves the ugliest most sinful parts of our nature.

Confession as a Crucible

Read more about Humble, Welcoming Servants
Help us to be servants to all-comers, not contestants against all-comers.

Humble, Welcoming Servants :: A Guided Prayer

April 30, 2020April 30, 2020

Keep Drinking the Milk of the Word

Scripture Focus: Hebrews 5.11

11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Reflection: Keep Drinking the Milk of the Word

By John Tillman

In Hebrews chapter 5, the author wishes to discuss complicated topics of Christ’s transcendental priesthood, the Trinity, and the incarnation. But how is this possible when the readers are not ready for such theological complexity? The writer rebukes the readers, telling them that it is difficult to teach them when they don’t even try to understand.

Just like the chastised readers, the maturity of western Christianity is in question.

Our world needs a gospel-driven worldview, yet half of those raised in church can’t identify the Great Commision. What is it? Who said it? What does it mean? Where is it in the Bible? One out of two don’t know.

This is not just an indictment of our lack of biblical knowledge. More knowledge isn’t the answer. Jesus didn’t call Peter to build a biblical trivia team. Peter, and by extension every Christian, is called to feed a flock, starting with the young. Starting with milk. Milk changes a lamb to a ram.

However, even the simplest of disciplines, church attendance, has been in decline since 1959. (We can’t, therefore, blame millenials for it.) It’s not that we are still drinking milk when we should have been weaned, but that we’ve never drunk it consistently.

Perhaps our culture disdains milk and small beginnings too much? We desire something for nothing. We want spiritual marathon ribbons without putting in the hard miles of training.

Drinking the milk of the word should not be a marker of immaturity and shame but of growth. The purpose of milk is progress. One doesn’t leave milk behind, but adds to it, learning to consume and digest spiritual foods of greater complexity.

Babies physically grow faster in their early years than at any time in their life. But the growth of the visible is nowhere close to as impressive as the cognitive growth that is happening in their brains. The growth we can experience by the simple application of spiritual practices to our lives can be similarly exponential.

Prioritizing the basics of faith—Bible reading, reflection, prayer, and corporate worship—is a spiritual intake process that matures with us, leading deeper into scripture as we repetitively read and absorb God’s Word.

If we expect to effect change in our complex and demanding world, we need to consistently drink our milk.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him. — Psalm 62.6

Read more about Slavery to Maturity
Perhaps the best thing God can do for our spiritual maturity is to lead us through a desert of trials, mistakes, and dangers

Slavery to Maturity

Read more about The Purpose Beyond Growth :: Throwback Thursday
Reproduction, not mere development, is the goal of matured being—reproduction in other lives.

The Purpose Beyond Growth :: Throwback Thursday

April 29, 2020April 28, 2020

Transcendent Peace and Rest

Scripture Focus: Hebrews 4.1-3
1 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. 2 For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. 3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said…

Reflection: Transcendent Peace and Rest
By John Tillman

Quarantine experiences vary widely. Some of us are at leisure while some are pushed to work around the clock. Some suffer in boredom and some in financial panic. Some are in danger outside the home at essential jobs and some are in danger in the home from abusers they cannot leave home to avoid.

Despite the variety of our experiences, there is a resource available to believers that the rest of the world cannot tap. It is a type of rest in which the busiest can recharge and a type of refreshment and stimulation unavailable in the most captivating leisure activity. There is a place of peace that those in peril can hold on to. There is security unattainable even by those with stockpiles of resources. Christians can rest in God.

This is a spiritual rest that can exist in the midst of strenuous activity. It is transcendent rest, that is unassailable by physical suffering. It is rest that, although invisible, is as tangible as our next breath.

Hebrews speaks of this rest by referencing the Genesis account. Many commenters note that the end of the seventh day, the day of rest, is not noted as the others are. It has no “morning and evening,” no beginning and no end. God’s “rest” was not intended to end. But for sin, Adam and Eve may have lived in a continual “seventh day” period, experiencing “shalom” or peace with God.

In Jewish culture, sabbath, or shabbat, and peace, or shalom, are linked. We find shalom within shabbat. We find peace within the sabbath. This weekly illustration was never intended to mean that we can only have peace on one day out of seven. Instead, we can experience God’s peace in every day and any moment. Hebrews tells us that “we who have believed enter that rest.”

God has made a new day for us to live in. The author of Hebrews and David the psalmist call it “Today.” It is a day of opportunity. This day we choose who we serve, as Joshua said on the banks of the Jordan. God sets before us the Promised Land, the Sabbath rest.

Israel, when they trusted their strength, failed. So will we. Israel, when they trusted in wealth, caused needless death. So will we. Israel, when they trusted only in God, saw impossibly great walls fall to the ground. So will we.

Trust and enter his rest. Carry his peace with you always.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
The Lord is near to those who call upon him, to all who call upon him faithfully. — Psalm 145.19

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Song of Songs 4 (Listen – 2:46)
Hebrews 4 (Listen -2:43)

Read more about A Restoring Sabbath
This post by Dena Dyer from 2019 reminds us of the value of a Sabbath. How are you using the unintentional Sabbath of Quarantine? How are you allowing yourself and your “land” to rest

A Restoring Sabbath

Read more about Better Things to Do
Amos 8.5-6, 11
When will..the Sabbath be ended
that we may market wheat?
…buying the poor with silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals…

Better Things to Do

April 28, 2020April 26, 2020

Tabernacling While Quarantined

Scripture Focus: Hebrews 3.6, 13-14
6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory…13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.

John 7.37-39
37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.

Isaiah 55.1 (the scripture Jesus is quoting in the above passage)
“Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
you who have no money,
buy and eat!
buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.

Reflection: Tabernacling While Quarantined
By John Tillman

Hebrews tells us that we are God’s “house” which Jesus has been placed over. The concept is a repeated theme in other New Testament writings (1 Corinthians 3.16; 1 Timothy 3.15).

No matter what the atmosphere of our quarantine, we can remember that Jesus dwells or “tabernacles” with us. (Leviticus 26.11; Ezekiel 37.27; John 1.14; Revelation 21.3) Whatever suffering we endure, he feels it with us. Whatever joys we experience, he is celebrating with us.

In John 7, we read of a Feast of Tabernacles celebration during Jesus’ ministry. The Feast of Tabernacles was a reminder to Israel of their dependence on God in the wilderness. It recalled the years of wandering and being a people who dwelled in tents and who worshiped a God who dwelled in tents with them.

Jesus entered this festival secretly. He misled his brothers who did not believe in him, telling them that he would not go. Then he snuck in. He then revealed himself to call attention to elements of the festival that pointed to him.

In particular, Jesus called attention to one new element. Priests would dip water from the pool of Siloam and pour it on the altar in the Temple. This symbolized salvation through the water from the rock in the desert.

In our “tents,” our quarantined homes, we may feel as if we are isolated in the wilderness. Like Israel we long for Egypt. In Egypt they didn’t know thirst. They didn’t know hunger. In the desert, Israel reevaluates Egypt. How bad was the subjugation and slavery really?

We aren’t enslaved in our vocations in the same way Israel was. Our culture enslaves us with consumerism and greed, among other idols. We hang the carrot in front of ourselves on the treadmill and run ourselves to death. We forget our chains in our longing for chain restaurants.

In the desert and in the Temple, Israel is offered something better. Water from the rock. The water of life. Jesus stands among us wanting to quench our thirst with Living Water. “Come to me!” Jesus cries. While we are tabernacled with him, take time to drink what he offers.

As with Jesus’ brothers, Jesus may sneak up on us and sneak into our “tabernacle.” Are we aware of him? Are we trusting in him? Will we come to him and drink?

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; let those who love your salvation say for ever, “Great is the Lord!” — Psalm 70.4

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.Today’s Readings
Song of Songs 3 (Listen – 1:48)
Hebrews 3 (Listen -2:25)

Read more about Presence is Precious
Practicing the presence of God means living as a tabernacle of the Holy Spirit, making everywhere you set your feet holy ground.

Presence is Precious

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Prayer is our tent of meeting, where the deepest thirsts of our souls may be satisfied.

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