Treasures
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. —Romans 12:2
When reading about the great people and prophets of God throughout the Bible, it would be natural to assume that they were all respected in their society and upstanding citizens in their community. However, if we take a close look at the Bible’s accounts of some of its famous characters, we see that the lives of the great “saints” were often unconventional. They were ordinary flawed people of faith who simply believed God, followed His leadings, and obeyed His commandments, even when they had no idea why God was asking them to do certain things.
At times, God required them to do things contrary to their own natural expectations and reasoning. They were people who “walked by faith and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7), who obeyed by faith just because God said so. Sometimes they even argued with God that surely there must be a better way. But when they finally let God work and obeyed by faith, they discovered that God had a plan and His way was the right way for His will to be fulfilled.
A poem by William Cowper (1731–1800) says, “God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform,” and a study of the lives of the famous Bible characters God used certainly proves this to be true. God’s miraculous intervention in human history shows that it’s God’s work and not man’s, and therefore He receives all the glory for His mighty works and His excellent greatness (Psalm 150:2).
The Lord says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways! For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9). Throughout the Bible, God often worked in unexpected ways—even unconventional and unorthodox ways, contrary to people’s natural expectations.
The Bible says, “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). Those who truly love and follow the Lord will always be different from the vast majority of an unbelieving world—a people who have chosen the ways of God over the ways of the world.
The ways of the world are often very different from the way that God looks at things. “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). Jesus even said that the things that are highly valued in the world are an abomination in the sight of God (Luke 16:15).
Imagine how the world of his day must have viewed Noah, when he suddenly began building a gigantic ship on dry land! Day after day he toiled away for 120 years until finally the great ocean vessel was complete. It was totally unimaginable and ridiculous, so completely unreasonable that people surely must have thought that Noah had lost his mind. No one had ever tried to do anything like that before, nor would there be any apparent purpose to do so!
But Noah and his sons obeyed God and built that boat anyway, faithfully warning an unbelieving world of the impending judgments of God. And though he was laughed at and mocked, the flood came just like God said it would, and the very waters that drowned the world of his day due to its evil and sin literally saved Noah and his family by lifting the ark high above the earth below. (See Genesis, chapters 6–8.)
Another unconventional character in the Old Testament was David, Israel’s greatest king. When the prophet Samuel went to Bethlehem to anoint one of the sons of Jesse to be the next king, he met the eldest son, Eliab, and thought, “Surely this one is the Lord’s anointed” (1 Samuel 16:6). But the Lord told Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I do not look at things as man looks at things; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).
After meeting and prayerfully considering Jesse’s six other sons, Samuel said, “The Lord has not chosen any of these. Are these all the sons you have, Jesse?” To which Jesse replied, “Well, there is still the youngest, but he is out tending the sheep.” Samuel sent for him, and as soon as David entered the room—the one who his own father did not even consider could be chosen—the Lord told Samuel, “Arise and anoint him, this is the one I have chosen to be king” (1 Samuel 16:12).
A short time later, David’s famous confrontation with Goliath took place. King Saul initially refused to let David go meet the giant in battle, realizing that this young shepherd boy was no match for the mighty man of war. But when Saul saw that David would not be deterred, he insisted that David wear his royal armor and take his sword. David declined, however, and went to battle armed with his wooden shepherd’s staff, a sling, and a few stones.
The great Goliath was so insulted to see such a weak-looking opponent coming to meet him that he roared with contempt, “Am I a dog that you send a boy to fight me with sticks?” (1 Samuel 17:43). But David shouted back, “You come to me with a sword, spear, and shield, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, whom you have defied! And the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and everyone present will know that the Lord is not dependent on a sword or spear: For the battle is the Lord’s and He will deliver you into my hand!” (1 Samuel 17:45–47).
David then loaded his sling, ran toward Goliath, and cut loose with just one honest bit of rock, and the Philistine bit the dust! And the Lord won a great victory, in a way completely contrary to anything that the seasoned generals and advisors of Israel’s army had ever imagined or considered possible.
Another example may be found in the story of Gideon. Gideon was the simple son of a farmer, but the Lord was with him, and he found himself commanding an army of 32,000 soldiers of Israel. Before engaging the vastly superior forces of the enemy, “the Midianites, the Amalekites, and all the children of the east, who lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude, without number” (Judges 7:12), the Lord surprised Gideon by telling him, “The people with you are too many for Me to deliver the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel exalt themselves against Me and say, ‘My own hand has saved me’” (Judges 7:2).
The Lord told Gideon to send 31,700 men home, leaving him with a tiny band of only 300 soldiers! Then the Lord told Gideon to divide his 300 men into three bands, and Gideon armed each man with a trumpet and a clay pitcher with a lamp burning inside of it. They then crept up to the sprawling camp of their enemies by night, surrounding it from all sides. When Gideon gave the signal, his men began shouting, blowing their trumpets, and breaking their pitchers.
The Midianites were so startled and terrified by the horrible crash and clatter of 300 pieces of pottery breaking at once and the sudden flood of light from 300 brightly burning fires surrounding them on all sides, combined with the tremendous racket of Gideon’s orchestra of 300 trumpeters, that they panicked and in confusion literally began slaying each other! And all the host ran and cried and fled, and the Lord set their own swords against each other, and the entire army fled before Gideon (Judges 7:15–22).
What an unconventional and inglorious way to win a battle! But God is the one who worked through Gideon’s band to conquer their enemy, and Gideon and Israel could only thank Him for the victory. The part they had played was seemingly absurd: breaking pitchers, waving torches, tooting trumpets, and shouting with all their might. Who else could possibly get the credit for the battle won except the Lord? Gideon’s role was nonetheless a central one—he had to believe God and follow His leading.
The greatest example of God’s unorthodox ways of working that defy convention may be found in the birth, life, and death of His own Son, Jesus. Think how much more respectable and acceptable it would have been if the King of kings had been born in a palace with illustrious members of the court in attendance, and all the honor and praise of Rome! But instead, God chose to have His Son come into this world in a stable with cows and donkeys, wrapped in rags and laid to rest in an animal feed trough, with a motley crew of poor little shepherd boys kneeling on the floor to worship Him.
Common sense tells us that Jesus could have gotten off to a better start if He’d had the approval and recognition of the world of His day. But instead of having a prominent man of influence and power for an earthly father, God chose Joseph the carpenter, a humble hewer of wood. Instead of being received and reverenced by the world, Mary and Joseph were forced to become fugitives from injustice, fleeing for their lives with baby Jesus into a foreign country.
Consider also the men Jesus chose for His disciples: Instead of selecting scholars from the Sanhedrin—the Jewish religious court where the doctors of the law and the nation’s religious leaders were trained—He chose common fishermen and a despised tax collector to be His closest followers. Instead of working with and securing the blessing of the powerful religious system and its hierarchy, He continually challenged the religious leaders of His day and defied their conventions and traditions.
The Bible tells us that Jesus made a whip and stormed the temple grounds, lashing the money changers for commercializing the temple, busting up the furniture and spilling their money (John 2:14–16). Jesus even prophesied that the great temple at Jerusalem, the symbol of their religion, was going to be destroyed (Matthew 24:1–2). No wonder they accused Him of sacrilege and blasphemy! Jesus knew that such actions would have consequences and result in persecution and retaliation from the religious leaders, and they did. He was whipped and publicly executed, crucified cruelly on a cross between two thieves.
After His resurrection, the Lord picked Paul, himself a religionist, to be one of His leading apostles. Surely Jesus knew that the Jewish religious leaders would not respond well to one of their own becoming a radical Christian! Even the Christian believers found it hard to believe that their worst persecutor could suddenly be converted.
Paul once wrote to some rather well-to-do Christians in Corinth, “We apostles are a spectacle unto the world. We are fools for Christ, but you are wise. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored, but we are despised. To this very hour we go hungry, thirsty, and are poorly dressed, persecuted, and have no certain dwelling place. We are as the scum of the earth, the refuse of this world” (1 Corinthians 4:9–13). Paul went on to suffer persecution, imprisonment, beatings, and many things for his faith, while bringing the message of salvation to the world of his day.
Time and space would fail to consider all the unconventional ways God worked through people throughout the Bible, such as Abraham, who left his home country by faith in obedience to God’s promise of an inheritance, “not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). Or Moses, who forsook Egypt and all the wealth and power that would be his, to follow God and become a shepherd in the wilderness, only to return to Egypt 40 years later to defy Pharaoh and to free his people (Hebrews 11:23–28). Or Peter, Andrew, James, and John, who immediately left their families’ fishing business to follow Jesus when He called out to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men!” (Matthew 4:18–21).
God often works through ordinary, everyday people to fulfill His purpose and will. The Bible says that “not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God has chosen what is foolish in this world to confound the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are nothing to bring to nothing the things that are something, so that no human being might boast in His presence” (1 Corinthians 1:26–29).
The Lord chooses and uses such people because they know that their own ideas, strength, and wisdom are not enough, and therefore they put their trust in Him and follow His leadings. They are willing to go God’s way rather than the ways and conventions of the world. As Christians, we are called to follow God and His will and His Word—not the world’s way but God’s way.
If you are willing to go God’s way, sharing the good news about Jesus with others, He will bless you and be with you. God will not only bless you in this life, but He will welcome you home one day, when you will hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your Lord” (Matthew 25:23).
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