We Live Like Kings

Kings have not been a part of the American experience. When our nation was formed, our wise leaders worked hard to avoid the role of a totalitarian ruler. They remembered from whence they came. And so, we have a representative republic. No king.

The idea of kingship was also foreign to Israel in its early days. Foreign nations indeed did have kings, but God was Israel’s King, and He ruled initially through Moses, the prophet, God’s spokesman. It came as a shock, then, generations later, when Israel demanded a king from Samuel. It seems as though they were rejecting the Kingship of God! But the seeds of kingship can be found way book in the Law, in those words that Moses wrote under God’s inspiration, in Deuteronomy 17.

It has been said that we in American live like kings. To a degree, this may be true, with regard to our luxury. Not, thank goodness, with respect to our authority. But if it is true that we live (a little) like kings, then it we might consider the warnings and instructions given to future kings in Deuteronomy 17. There are three warnings:

• Do acquire many horses (transportation)

• Do not acquire many wives

• Do not acquire excessive silver or gold

Scripture says to the king, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you must.” It says, “Set limits on your selves.” We should do the same.

With regard to instruction, the text says that the king is to make his own copy of the Law of the Lord in his own hand. Painstaking? Yes. Helpful? Of course. Sometimes we take notes, not so much to review them later, though we may, but because the very act of writing may help us listen better. It helps to internalize the message.

But the king was to do something with that personal copy: “he shall read it all the days of his life.” We might call it “daily devotions.” Call it what you will, make sure that you do it daily, so that we might not just imitate the kings of the world, so often models of really bad behavior, but rather, that we might prove to be humble subjects of the King of Kings, even though he has allowed us, in His providence, to live a little like kings.

Jesus Himself, King of kings, modeled a role that required a new term. He was the Servant-King, and we would do well top follow His lead. 

Love Your Neighbor

The command to “love your neighbor as yourself” is famous. It’s context in Leviticus 19, not so much. But it’s that context that may help us understand what is involved in loving our neighbor.

The command to “love your neighbor as yourself” is in Leviticus 19:18. It concludes a short passage on treatment of those around you. That section is preceded by other regulations, unrelated to neighbors, and is followed by more of that same kind of thing. But there is clearly a “neighbor” paragraph.

“Don’t reap to the corners,” and don’t “gather the gleanings” (vv.9-10). Don’t take it all. Leave some for the needy. Leftovers are God’s gifts to be shared, not gobbled up by the greedy. It’s an aspect of being neighborly, and of being loving.

“You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another” (v.11). This hardly needs comment, except in a world where, in order to get ahead, one is willing to do whatever it takes. But that/this world is not godly. It does not express God’s love. Better to do without than to get ahead at the expense of others.

Do not “oppress” your neighbor, so as to put him in a vice, a tight spot. If you owe him, pay him. Don’t withhold. Don’t make him ask or beg. Further, do not take advantage of the deaf and blind. Take pains to look out for them, anticipating their peculiar hardships. Look at life from the perspective of others, and take measures accordingly (vv.13-14).

“Judge your neighbor fairly” (v.15). Interestingly, the text says that “thou shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great.” Treat people the same, not with differing standards of justice, though, as in the last note, with special levels of consideration. This section goes on to warn against slander, and, curiously, “you are not to stand against the blood of your neighbor” (v.16). Calvin suggests that these are “vagabonds, who too eagerly run about hither and thither, and in their malignant inquisitiveness penetrate into everybody’s secrets, to bring quiet people into trouble.” 

Leading up our key verse, we are told not to hate, but “you may surely reprove” (v.17), as it says in Matthew 18:15 “go and show him his fault in private” - not publicly, to destroy him or his reputation, but alone, so as to “have won your brother.”

Finally, within our key verse (Leviticus 19:18), we hear the double admonition: “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge.” Let it go. Forgive, as we ourselves have been forgiven. There are no old offenses to rehearse; no stories to tell about how bad or dumb someone is. After all: he’s your neighbor, whom you love.

One point then, that must be taken, is that the well-known command to love neighbor, following after the command to love God, is not to be merely a slogan or a banner. It is practical, to the point of being painful, and it is to be put into daily practice in our lives. Indeed, “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Faith's Receiving

You may have thought about the difference between giving and grabbing. Easy to think about. They are exact opposites. It’s not hard to think about which category of person with whom you would rather share a table. You may have heard a discussion on the difference between love and lust. Actions may look alike, but the motivations are very different. Perhaps even more subtle is the difference between receiving and reaching. It is the difference between trusting the promise of God while waiting for the fulfillment of that promise, in God’s timing, in God’s way; or, on the other hand, the very human tendency to reach out and try to make happen what you want to have happen. The difference is illustrated in the Old Testament of the Bible, in the lives of Abraham and his nephew, Lot.

The promise of God had come to Abraham, repeatedly, over a period of time, in which God said, “I will …, I will …, I will … Many times, the “I will …” is followed by the word “give.” Other times, the “I will …” is followed by “make you” into something that you presently are not. One of these things was a “great nation.” But Abraham wasn’t even a father. From the first promise, Abraham would wait 25 years until he received a son by his wife, Sarah. But receive a son, he did, named Isaac. He didn’t reach for him. He received him.

Lot was invited to choose a land to inherit away from Abraham. “If you go this way, I’ll go that way, or the other way around. Lot, you choose.” And so Lot lifted his eyes, and reached for what looked best. His eyes could see the natural prospects of the land, but his eyes were blind to the spiritual peril. And that’s so often what happens when we reach rather than receive. Only God knows what’s best. Our short-sighted vision is incapable of making the best decisions.

Oh, it’s not as though Abraham lived by faith flawlessly. There were times when he reached; when he wearied of ever receiving. He went and had a son, Ishmael, by Sarah’s handmaid, who was not the son of promise, and who brought much discord into the whole story. He twice placed his wife in danger in acts of self-preservation - not good for a future father. He laughed in his heart at the incongruity of God’s insistence that the promise would yet be fulfilled. But however imperfectly, Abraham believed. He waited. He received. He did not have to reach. Neither do you.