When Zeal Kills

When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken. (Deuteronomy 24:5)

I want to play the devil’s advocate today.

I have said that I suspect that Bathsheba set up David for that fling that brought so much pain on the man of God and his kingdom. And of course there are verses that demonstrate her complicity. But today I want to see whether she can be defended for doing so.

But we will first look at her husband. Who was Uriah?

He hailed from the Hittites, a heathen nation, one of the ones that were to be cleared for Israel to occupy the Promised Land.

How did he get a Hebrew name? He must have converted to the faith of Israel so completely that he wanted no trace of his past that would remind him of the gods he had served previously. He joined that faith alone as we are not told that he had siblings. Also according to the Bible David could not have married his wife after his death as his brother was the one permitted by law to take her.

How did he join Israel and David? Allow me poetic license as I recreate a scenario that may possibly have led to his conversion.

Let us imagine him with the Philistines as they were the most powerful army around. You know that armies and their generals ascribed their victories to their gods. It is possible in his spiritual pursuit he ended up in Gath, Goliath’s city. And it held him spellbound as it was a city of giants who could fight.

We therefore have him side by side with Goliath as the giant taunts Israel and their gods. And he is feeling the greatest thrill serving an unbeatable army especially when the Israeli army runs to hide after Goliath appears.

Then the other army sends a small boy to face his hero, the indomitable Goliath. He does not have armor or weapon. He joins his army at laughing at this folly.

Then Goliath speaks with a voice that shakes the hills, the same voice that had sent his army scampering, but the boy does not show any fright.

They keep quiet when they realize he has started to speak so as to catch his words. And what words he speaks!

You come with weapons, I come with a name. That catches every one’s attention.

Then he rushes toward Goliath with sling. Just like that and Goliath goes down, totally.

He decides he must have that God. As the rest of the army is fleeing he flees them to the direction of Israel with raised hands shouting that he wants that God. And they accept him. They do not even have a problem having him joining their army.

In a short while, David, his small hero is chased from the palace and he decides to follow him though he had no issues in the palace. He just decided he must be close to the one person who knew enough about his God to face a giant without weapons or armor. He even enjoys the adventure of fleeing and hiding that was their lot especially because he was able to see David’s faith even better.

When David becomes king, the wars reduce but do not end. Every so often they have an enemy or other to deal with.

It is in Jerusalem that his faith is confirmed when he is given a Hebrew girl to marry. But even then he is in and out due to the many wars David was involved in; especially that he had gone up in rank. He therefore does not get to spend as much time with his young wife as he may have wanted.

This is the situation the girl found herself in. She had a ‘tourist’ for a husband and so was thoroughly frustrated. She was all alone in a huge house with a husband who would come for a break and not even sleep in his house if the army was not also around.

Why did God issue that commandment? The army calls for sacrifice. Someone must therefore be ready to die at any time in the course of their service and had to consider his wife.

The one year was to give them enough time to bond as a couple. That bonding would also have produced a child who could have kept his wife busy in his absence as well as ensure the continuity of his name should he die. And Uriah had failed that test. Deuteronomy 20: 5 – 7 also deals with that.

Why did he fail? I believe he was not properly inducted into the faith of the Hebrews. He was not introduced to the scriptures. The only priest on their team had enough problems to think of teaching foreign converts religion.

He therefore changed gods but failed to know the dictates of his new God and thus dealt with Him as he had dealt with the gods he had served previously. And we know those gods do not have provisions for marriage and family. Their only interest is self-interest.

It is no wonder that he could come on an errand to the city and go back before seeing his wife as we saw when he was being set up by the king.

What does a young and attractive girl do under those circumstances?

Now assume that she went through as much religious instruction as her husband. Will she have the knowledge to resist the temptations and urges her body will place upon her? Will she be able to resist the pressure of her worldly wiser sisters who do not care what God demands? Will she be able to counter the suggestions and accusations her age mates will on her and her husband sleeping out in the cold whereas she was in his house, alone?

Does this mean I support her? Of course not. Sin is sin and the scriptures do not have any room or excuses for sin.

But I write this not just as a post mortem of sin. I write this to help us appreciate that similar things are happening in the church of Christ for the same reasons. We have neglected instruction on the scriptures. We have no place for the public reading of the Bible in our churches. But saddest of all we do not even think the Bible is pivotal to a healthy Christian life.

The successful pastor is not one who expounds scripture accurately but the one who gathers information from all over to expound on a single verse of the Bible. Worship is singing that makes us feel nice instead of challenging us to be holy.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28: 19, 20)

Where is the place for discipleship in our generation? What actually do we understand discipleship to mean?

A secular musician gets saved (we assume genuinely) and before we even understand where he comes from we get him singing in church, many times making him a key leader in the singing (many would call him a worship leader). All the worship he knows is in the other kingdom. Then we are hurt and even feel betrayed when he breaks down, gets into sin or even backslides.

A dreaded criminal, say a thief gets saved in prison. His testimony leaks even before he leaves prison. He comes back to society and he is received with open arms by a church that needs a pastor. And they hire him. And they will be shocked when hard times come that the offering starts disappearing!

You see, a conversion, however drastic it may be, has no capacity to build spiritual muscle instantly. That is the reason for this verse dealing with leadership.

Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. (1Timothy 3:6)

It is like planting a fruit tree and expecting to harvest the next day!

There must be adequate time between conversion and commissioning. And that duration should be infused with instruction to the faith. This is because I know enough believers who have been saved for decades yet are spiritual infants. You find them taking milk at fifty

What do I mean? There are many of you out there who have never noticed a preacher incorrectly quote or apply scripture as they hang on his every word. They do not countercheck those notes they take with the scriptures. They do not question the outrageous prophetic pronouncements even when they fall flat. They do not question the openly sinful tendencies some of those pastors and bishops do not even attempt to cover up. They think ‘touch not my anointed’ applies only to the big man/ woman. And only because they are deceived to think Martin Luther protested to replace the catholic pope with their bishop or pastor emeritus. Yet the foundation of that protest was to have every believer able to read and understand the scriptures without needing the clutches that are the clergy.

Don’t you know that the presence of the Holy Spirit in you makes you anointed too?

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: (1Peter 2:9)

A public anointing is not an introduction to anointing, just the confirmation of the same for public spiritual service.

But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. (1John 2:27)

And there are many verses proving that the believer has the anointing and does not need other anointings to be anointed of God. Sadly, some of those anointed are anointed with other oils just like Aaron’s sons presented a strange fire. That is why they display arrogance and pride. And we know Christ’s anointing produces humility and servant hood.

Yet this false display of anointing may be the clearest pointer of the fact that we do not properly prepare and equip those we put in spiritual positions. We do not prepare their spiritual muscle to handle the spiritual rigors of the exertions those positions require. Like with Uriah and Bathsheba we care only for the fact that they will fight our battles without caring that their world could be falling apart.

Just imagine with me that Uriah did not die and came to learn that the king whose God he had followed, had slept with his wife. What could have happened to his faith?

Do you know for a fact that many people have suffered the same, and worse, at the hands of those spiritual superstars they follow? I for one have had a few such experiences and so am not just writing. I understand the pain. Many people gave up on the faith because of what they went through those ‘giants’ of faith.

Yet do you know what the real problem is? The injured and the injurer have not had a real encounter with God. They therefore know God from a distance, what they hear or have read about God, and certainly not from the Bible. They landed to those positions and relationships without much spiritual effort on their side. They therefore have no one to take their pain to when their world crashes.

I could have crashed were it not for the fact that I had experienced God outside those people and structures. I therefore knew where to take my pain. And He was more than sufficient to bring healing. Many however do not have that option as they were thrust to the deep end of ministry without preparation. I have counseled with ministers who had given up, some who had even attempted suicide because the pressures of ministry were immense. This comes about many times because a youth pastor, missions’ pastor, house group leader, choir master/ worship leader gives responsibility and forgets that the same young person has other responsibilities at home or school/ college. And the mindset that church work is worthier than their ‘unspiritual’ responsibilities. They will therefore cave in when the parent or teacher rightly stands his ground.

Many very successful ministers (in the worldly sense) are spiritual toddlers yet they are treated as spiritual giants. They simply can’t handle the pressure their ministry exposure brings their way.

How many crybabies do we see when a cyber-bully trashes their testimony or even asks a very personal question on their page? How many think they are being persecuted when they are invited to a function to perform and something changes at the last minute? How many are unable to keep their word? How many have no private devotional life? And how many wrack their minds to remember the last time they read the Bible for its own sake?

It all boils down to foundations. Like with Uriah and Bathsheba, we become content with zeal and gifts and overlook character and its development. We are happy provided people are serving God and do not care the cost of that service to them.

We are not much different from the capitalist who revels at getting maximum output from minimum input as profit is the king of the enterprise. We forget that God operates on a completely different plane from that when we decide to seek the scriptures for direction. And it is that plane He expects us to operate ALL the time without any excuse.

Since creation, God develops someone before using him. He never calls someone He has not heavily invested in. That is His expectation for His people. It simply means that if you use readymade people you are not operating in His Spirit and leadership. And there is no short cut to this.

We therefore sow in the lives of people before reaping any spiritual harvest from them. We must invest heavily in their discipleship before commissioning them to join our program even if we will call it ministry. Otherwise we are spiritual thieves! And we must reap our spiritual thievery.

I am also talking about giving. Just because you excite the people who are under your voice any Sunday does not qualify you to eat any of their offering. You may discover that there are other people who have invested heavily in their spiritual stability before they came for your entertainment. There are some you trashed and others were not ashamed to lift them up, yet you still think they owe you that offering because they came to you after others were involved in their healing and lifting. Maybe that pastor who agonizes preaching and making a difference in the slums is the reason you are enjoying that success as very few raised in the slums ever want to be identified with them when they ‘succeed’. They therefore will leave their struggling church for your successful one especially because they have space to park their cars. You forget that there was a minister who invested in their spiritual formation when they were not visible in any radar, when they were being called nothings.

How many can you say are spiritually stable and bearing fruit because of your spiritual investment? And reading books you sold to them does not count. It is business. Seminars you taught may also not qualify as you knew you will be given honorarium. We are talking of parenting the way a parent takes care of an infant when it has no capacity to even manage its poop, let alone taking care of itself.

I long for the day when decisions will not be the only spoils of evangelism. I pray for the day when decisions will, instead of bringing celebrations, will raise a great cry and concern for follow up and discipleship to ensure that Christ’s army grows as we deal with spiritual infant mortality.

This is because it is impossible to have ten people getting saved in a village without a visible change everywhere. In the first century only a very small percentage of the world was saved, yet the few were able to turn the world upside down. And their strength was discipleship and instruction in the scriptures.

Let me mention something else that troubles me, especially because it is spiritual leaders who are involved in it. So much time is being wasted debating on the best and worse translation of the Bible. Are the people you want to impress read their Bible? Do they even see the Bible as instrumental in their spiritual life?

Could we be playing the devil’s game by giving believers a reason to stop reading the Bible since they do not know the best translation or the one with removed or added verses?

God inspires the scriptures when we are reading just as He inspired those who wrote them.

My conviction is that a believer who reads the Jehovah’s Witness Bible is way better than the one with the best translation on his shelf. In fact even the Muslim who reads his Quran might find Christ faster and easier than the believer with all the ancient manuscripts that he doesn’t read.

That is not to say there are no ‘bad’ translations. It does not mean that verses have not been removed in some. It simply means that God will use the Bible you read to bring His truth to you. He is the one who will inspire the scriptures as you read them.

I like it when someone approaches me after getting confused about a passage or words that do not connect as they read a particular Bible. That is the person I can engage about versions as he consistently reads, so much that he has been able to see some inconsistencies. Otherwise I just tell people to read the Bible they have.

Let me give an analogy. Who needs to learn nutrition? Is it people with food or those who are starving? Just imagine with me that you are taking relief food to a starving village. Before you leave you see them start to prepare food and you see them pick a jar of animal fat to fry food with.

That is bad cholesterol, you shout to them. It will clog your arteries and kill you with high blood pressure. Will they listen to you? Does it even make sense to them? Would you listen to yourself if you were in their situation? In fact they need that cholesterol to take care of their bodies when they do not have food.

That is how it is with the Bible. It is only the consistent readers of the Bible who should be speaking about translations, and not on social media but in the privacy of their studies. Otherwise you are helping the evil one dissuade believers from reading God’s word.

How central is the Bible to the Christian life Christian leader?

My greatest joy and fulfillment is when I meet a person I gave a Bible Reading Plan less than a week before proclaiming how they are enjoying reading the Bible and the kind of impact it is having on their life. I am excited when like yesterday I released a mission team going to a church outside the country to a church I had invited their leader to accompany me. Now he does not need my name or invitation to go. He just requires my blessing, a blessing I full heartedly release.

I rejoice when people I have discipled will invite me to see them ministering as appreciation for my ministry to them. And of course it gives me great delight to see people I have ministered to supporting ministry, some being pillars of ministries. No money can equate that. No windfall can compensate the feeling a parent has seeing his child making it in life.

Interestingly, that could be the reason we see believers, even pastors getting into gambling through what is called sport betting. They do not know how spiritual sweat is shed. It is the reason pastors are becoming sales people and executives, because they have never experienced the joy of raising spiritual children in the Bible way. They think of the spiritual life as a short cut.

And it is the main reason pastors are scared of preaching against sin, because they do not have their own children and so are scared of scaring them away. A person you disciple will take anything you dish out without running away to the neighbor because they know you have earned that position, just like a parent is not scared of his children running off to the neighbor if they punish or beat them.

Are you a parent to those you call spiritual children? Did you change their spiritual diapers and clean their spiritual poop? Did you teach them to spiritually walk and talk and manners?

If not, you are not their parent, however much you enjoy being called papa and mama. In fact you probably need to look for a papa or mama to start raising you even with your thousands of fake children. Get off that fake perch and ask God to lead you to a father in the faith to raise you properly in the faith. This is especially true if your church is composed of most that joined you from other congregations. Forget the programs you are creating to make you appear like a parent because you are not.

And of course if you are a spiritual pastoralist, running from this church to the other because you always find something wrong somewhere, also ask God to direct you to a parent who will raise you and will therefore qualify to rebuke you because he was involved in growing you. Run away from motivators as they will motivate you to hell since they fear to rebuke you so that you do not run away.

Pray. Let God confirm whether what I am sharing is from Him. Then act accordingly.