Torches of the Soul: A Journey of Scriptural Reflections

Torches of the Soul

A Journey of Scriptural Reflections

By

Saundra L. Washington D.D.

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Published by AMEN Ministries at Smashwords

Torches of the Soul © 2010 Saundra L. Washington

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All Rights Reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

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Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica. Use of either trademark requires the permission of Biblica. The King James Version (KJV) is in U.S. public domain.

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Acknowledgement

To the honor and glory of the triune God.

Dedication

To all those struggling to overcome.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Blind Nine

Showdown on Mars Hill

The Night Fight

Stumbling Across Straight Street

Falling Houses

Go Home

It is Finished

Deliverance from Babylon

Keep Singing

The Spikes Illusion

Living the Contented Life

Looking Back, Moving Forward

When Bad Things Happen

Flaming Fire within Our Bones

Genealogy of Divinity

The Word

Remember Lot’s Wife

Dead End Streets

It’s a Different World

Eagle Christians

The Awful Second Garden

Count it All Joy

Dying Kings

Believe God

The Inheritance

Battlefield Trauma

Our Daily Bread

The Problem of Hubris

Courage to Rise

The Great Momentous Crossing

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A Word from the Lord

"To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne." Revelation 3:21.

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A Word from the Author

Living the spiritual life in times like these is not easy is it? Our world of the twenty-first century is experiencing darkness so pervasive that we can hardly see which way to turn. We grope in the dark daily just trying to live in this rapidly changing world. Sometimes the burdens can be so heavy, the criticism so severe, the opposition so great, that we wonder if it is even worth the effort. In our present day darkness, the path through life is obscured; the way cannot be seen.

But the Good News is that God’s Book is filled with food for the soul, affirmations and encouragement, confidence giving strength and hope that will keep us from bumping into walls of discouragement and stumbling into the potholes of despair. His Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

As you read these reflections, expect illumination as you sit at the foot of the Cross and suddenly realize it why it was not the spikes that held Jesus to the Cross; struggle with Jacob as his past catches up with him and watch him closely as he fights desperately for his life; stand firmly with Paul on top of Mars Hill and listen in as he takes on Athens’ intellectual giants with the Gospel of Jesus Christ; discover hidden nuggets of gold most readers of the Bible totally miss as you survey the genealogy of Jesus; discover Apostle John’s absolutely brilliant solution to the problem of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that both the Greek and Jewish world could comprehend; grieve in spirit as the aged King David is abused by his son and face up to the sad reality of how our society treats its senior citizens; prepare to painfully experience the awesome reality of Jesus’ words, It is finished. This is only a sampling of the adventure you are about to undertake as this e-Book applies the practical insights of thirty selected passages to our daily lives. Each reflection contains biblical verses and pericope adorned with gems of inspiration to nurture the senses, touch the heart, stimulate the mind, move the will, encourage the spirit, and invigorate the soul.

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Journey of Scriptural Reflections

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To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. ~ Edmund Burke

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The Blind Nine

Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, Jesus, Master, have pity on us!

When he saw them, he said, Go, show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were cleansed.

One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

Jesus asked, Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? Then he said to him, Rise and go; your faith has made you well. Luke 17:11-19.

Many individuals today assume that the world of man and the world of the divine are fundamentally different. In many ways it is. The world in which we live seem so far removed from God, that going to a place of worship can be like going to another world. Yet, the Divine does interact and does intervene in the world of man. Those of us in Christ know better than most that God does become involved in human affairs. He does work miracles.

Man’s situation is such that evil forces are constantly threatening him. Dreadful illnesses, widespread hunger, war, all sorts of catastrophes are being weighed upon man and man remains unable to defend himself against the evil. Paul said, when I would do good, evil is always present. Evil is something that is hard to escape. Therefore, we experience great difficulty trying to defend ourselves against evil forces by our own strength.

Now, in the healing miracle that is before us, man’s environment is depicted as perverting his world and dehumanizing his life. Our environment, what is around us, affects us. Therefore, our redemption must and only can come through divine intervention. Redemption can only come through a change in our environment by divine power. It is only then that man’s perverted relationship with his world is humanized.

The miraculous powers of Jesus Christ transfers man into a new world. A world purified of the evil, which Jesus brings about by force. It can only be accomplished by force because you cannot be nice to evil. If you try to be nice to wickedness, it gets all over you. You stay around evil long enough and you will find yourself becoming evil. You involve yourself in a lot of petty mess after while you will be a mess. You cannot mingle and be friendly to evil because eventually you will become a part of the evil. Jesus brings about change by force.

What is the change in the environment that is so critical to our humanity? It is a new awareness. It is the seeing and not the healing that is decisive. Many people believe that if they could just be healed, they would be so much better off. But the healing is not the critical factor; we need to be able to see. Many of us cannot see; we cannot perceive truth. We are blind, spiritually blind.

In our text, the healing of the ten lepers presents a healing miracle. The editor does not locate the incidence with any geographical precision, but rather imprecisely assigns it to a certain village. The locale is vague. Jesus enters into that village. The actors are introduced and Jesus as the Divine Man stands center stage. The ten lepers remain at some distance. The Gospel of Luke focuses the action upon the lepers and their encounter with this Man.

Some of the lepers seem to know Him because they turn to Him and call upon Him in prayer, Jesus, Master, have pity on us. Jesus sees them and dismisses them with a word. He did not say anything about healing them but He simply told them to Go, show yourselves to the priests, and on the way to the priests something happened to them. The fact that Jesus sends them off unhealed is not to be understood as a test of their faith. We know this because the lepers had no faith in a Christian sense. Their religiosity was tantamount to those who attend church, but have no faith. Their religion did not contain faith so much as it did a confidence in Jesus as a Miracle Worker. They had heard of what He was capable of doing. Thus, they did what He instructed them to do and on their way to the priests, they were healed.

It is impossible to adequately describe the physical condition of the lepers. Leprosy (known today as Hansen’s disease) attacks the nerves so that the victims cannot feel pain. Infection easily sets in, and this leads to degeneration of the tissues. The lepers had swelling and lumps over their bodies, and some parts lacked any feeling. Their skin was covered with ulcers. They were segregated from society, ordered to dress distinctively so others could avoid them. Leprosy in the Bible is symbolic of sin and when lepers came in close proximity with other human beings, they were required to shout: unclean, unclean.

Now, no leper, once claimed healed, could simply return to his home or church or reclaim covenant rights. There were certain things he had to do.

First, he had to be pronounced clean by a priest, which is why Jesus told them to go show themselves to a priest, and that entailed a very elaborate, detailed ceremony covering eight days. The leper had to be thoroughly shaved, bathed and examined.

Afterward there were sacrifices, sprinklings by blood and oil, anointing, offerings. After all this, the former leper had to wait another eight days before he could be reunited with his family and assume his rights.

Altogether, the process took sixteen days of strict religious activity. These highly religious ceremonies were all symbolic - types used to teach the people about the glory of the Messiah. It is all described in Leviticus 14, and this is what the ten lepers were headed back to their village to do.

In the second episode, one of the lepers returns to Jesus. When he realizes that he is cured, he returns to thank Jesus for the healing. The thing that distinguishes him from the rest is that his return implies that he does not follow the rest of the crowd who are on their way to the priests. He left the rest to come back and give thanks. This does not mean that the others were not healed, but for them the act of seeing remained superficial. Their bodies were healed, but they were still blind. It is wonderful when God relieves us of our physical ailments, but it is better to be able to see. Only one man understood what was happening. Only one man out of ten could see what was going on and only that man returned to thank the Miracle Worker.

What seems of crucial importance here is the fact that you can be healed and still live without Christian faith. God can perform many miracles in your life, but it does not mean that you know Him. I think we ought to understand the thin line here because if God heals you, it does not necessarily mean that you are one of His. Remember, the sun shines on the just and unjust and it also rains on both the just and unjust. It is only when a special relationship exist between God and the person is a man truly converted. Going to church does not mean we are converted any more than going to a store means we are a product. Our name on the church roll is no index of our conversion. Jesus said, Not every one who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven…even the demons of hell cry, Lord." But something of significance made this one leper turn back.

When you read the text, you will discover that we are not given any explanation of the reason the man came back. We cannot say that it was simply because of the healing because they all were healed. Saying that he came back because God healed him is tantamount to saying that the reason some folks are in church is because God permitted them to rise from their beds of affliction. It is synonymous to saying that people are in the church because God has blessed them with financial stability and a good job. Well, if that is the reason we go to church, it is not a good reason because many people have recovered from illnesses, been blessed with financial security and a good job and they are not in the church. So healing is not the reason this man came back.

Perhaps, you are thinking this leper returned because of his encounter with Jesus. Well, they all encountered Jesus. Judas had been with Him, but he still betrayed Him. The Pharisees and Sadducees and Scribes encountered Jesus, but they still did not have any respect for Him. So it could not have been just the encounter that brought this Samaritan leper back to Jesus. But something different happened to him.

Well, you probably will not have a clue as to what actually happened to this man unless it has happened to you. Something unique happened to this former leper. They were all healed but along the way this Samaritan looked at himself. He looked at his hands and his hands looked new. He looked at his feet and they did too. So he told the others you can go on to the priests if you want to, but I must go back, I must go back and have a little talk with Jesus. I must go back and thank the Man.

This Samaritan, beloved, was not only physically healed, but more importantly, he was spiritually healed. He could now see. When you have been spiritually healed, you must go back to the One from whom all blessings flow and thank Him for what He has done for you.

The Samaritan returned in gratitude, but where are the blind nine? These nine having