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leadership that refreshes: Proverbs 21

August 9, 2014 by David Baer

We have learned to be cynical about both leaders and leadership, and so we are slow to capture the rich blessing that a good leader produces for the fortunate community that surrounds him. To modern eyes and ears, the biblical account of kings and princes is sometimes embarrassingly lavish. Yet this impression fades when the relative restraint of the Hebrew Bible with regard to human leaders is contrasted with the sometimes slavish hyperbole that characterizes Israel’s ancient neighbors when they set to chronicling—and lionizing—their kings. Continue Reading »

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wisdom’s admiring eye: Proverbs 20

August 8, 2014 by David Baer

Ah, to be young!

What glory. What fun. How awful.

Biblical wisdom is not as quick to glorify youth as we are, besotted by tan lines and taut skin. But neither does wisdom deny the splendor of the young. It gives them their due, in this case admiring the strength of young men.

The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair. (Proverbs 20:29 ESV)

At the same time, biblical wisdom is not satisfied by monochrome obsession with any one of life’s stages. As it admires youth’s undeniable beauty—who would want to deny it!—wisdom knows too the dignity of old age, in this proverb the splendor of an old man’s gray hair. Continue Reading »

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recklessness: Proverbs 20

August 6, 2014 by David Baer

We fool ourselves—quite literally—when we imagine that spontaneous means genuine.

It is a snare to say rashly, ‘It is holy,’ and to reflect only after making vows. (Proverbs 20:25 ESV)

The Hebrew text is a tough one to penetrate. Continue Reading »

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out of control: Proverbs 20

August 5, 2014 by David Baer

For a course of instruction that is all about observing how the world works and then turning that understanding to shaping that world, the book of Proverbs’ counsel to just let go delivers a jolt:

Do not say, ‘I will repay evil’; wait for the LORD, and he will deliver you. (Proverbs 20:22 ESV)

In the face of the possibility of revenge, wisdom’s studied activism turns suddenly still. We are waved away even from imagining how good vengeance would feel. How righteous it would be. How justified my setting things back in balance by striking back at the one who has taken from me. Continue Reading »

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Etsi Deus non daretur: ¡Vivir como si Dios no existiera! (Por invitación, Alexander Cabezas M.)

August 4, 2014 by David Baer

La expresión se le atribuye al  teólogo y pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945).  Sin embargo, la autoría le corresponde al jurista, escritor, poeta y teólogo holandés, Hugo Grocio, quien la pronunciaría tres siglos atrás. Por supuesto, Bonhoeffer la retoma y la contextualiza desde la realidad de su cautiverio: prisionero en la celda número 92, de dos por tres metros cuadrados, en la cárcel de Tegel, en Berlín, Alemania. Continue Reading »

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eye contact: Psalm 27

August 4, 2014 by David Baer

We loathe the moment when our conversation partner looks distractedly over our shoulder. Or fidgets with his keys. Or gives the appearance of listening, but with her eyes empty as clouds, her thoughts elsewhere.

We long for eye contact. We were made for face-to-face. Continue Reading »

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reading palms: Psalm 26

August 3, 2014 by David Baer

Convinced of his integrity, the writer of Psalm 26 pleads for vindication with a confidence that tender souls might find disturbing.

We must understand that the writer has done precisely what the ‘wisdom psalms’ instruct the novice in life to do if he wants to become both just and wise. The psalmist can speak transparently about his trajectory in life because he has followed the game plan. It is not that he has beat out his neighbors in some cheap contest of personal rectitude. Rather, YHWH’s plan for the development of a human life has proved reliable. Except, so far, for the part about vindication. Continue Reading »

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What was I thinking?: Psalm 25

August 1, 2014 by David Baer

What was I thinking …?

We ask ourself the impossible question when our idiocy has come under the irrefutable light of day.

I was a fool. I was deluded. Distracted. Or drunk. Or stupid.

It is every believer’s nightmare, to have been wrong about everything. Regardless of the ideology that has claimed heart,  mind, or wallet—faithfully secular or conventionally religious—the wolf at the door is to have been simply wrong. Because faith goes to the root of things, to be proven wrong about our core conviction is to have been wrong about everything else as well. Continue Reading »

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so far away: Psalm 22

July 29, 2014 by David Baer

Out of sight, out of mind.

So do we forget people we ought always to remember. So do we lose contact. ‘We aren’t really in touch’, people say, the absence of communication speaking volumes.

That’s the thing about distance. It’s not so much the matter of being across the river or the next town over or a time zone away. It’s that there’s no seeing. No hearing.

‘I can’t be reached’, we say. Terrible things might happen and the one who could have done something finds out when it’s already too late. Just by being far away. Continue Reading »

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finding out that you can

July 27, 2014 by David Baer

On Friday evening I sat on the patio of my favorite Italian restaurant and listened to my son’s stories.

Little more than a year ago, he and his older brother successfully completed the U.S. Army’s Ranger School, often considered the most difficult thing the Army can throw at a young man outside of actual combat. As though that were not enough, this strapping son had just come through the Army’s other elite training program, the Sapper Leader Course (a.k.a. ‘Sapper School’). Continue Reading »

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