Despising the shame
I was reading about the atrocities being committed in Syria this past week by anti-Assad, radicalized members of the religion of peace. Sects such as Alawites, Druze, Kurds, Christians, and even non-radicalized Muslims have been slaughtered by the thousands. When I read about the hundreds of Alawite women being paraded nude through the streets—with the obvious intention to shame and degrade them—before they were unceremoniously executed, I found myself reeling in grief. And then, that Voice I’ve come to recognize said this, “I was naked when they crucified Me.”
If not one sparrow falls to the ground without His knowledge, then my heart takes hope thinking that He, who understood their dilemma more than any of us could, moved with compassion among those women, depositing grace, courage, and the hand of forgiveness and everlasting life to them. I believe that Death cannot win…not even in this.
As I was mulling these thoughts over, I was reminded of a section of Scripture I dove into years ago. It revolutionized my thinking about SHAME. Hebrews 12:1-2 opened my eyes to a nuance of Jesus’s death on the cross that I had never before realized.
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, DESPISING THE SHAME, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2
Since the entire scope of these two verses is so huge and instructive, in honor of the women and others who have been martyred this week by Syrian jihadis, I will simply focus on the three words that reveal what occurred within Jesus during the excruciating ordeal surrounding His torture, mock trial, and execution by way of the cross—DESPISING THE SHAME.
As I have mentioned, the purpose of stripping these Syrian women naked was TO SHAME THEM. It was to make them FEEL SHAME about themselves. To make the last thoughts they had about themselves to be FILLED WITH SHAME—to THINK “I AM A SHAMEFUL PERSON.”
The same ploy was used on Jesus, believe it or not. How do I know? A quick read through Mark 15 in the New Testament gives several depictions of the mockery and shame-inducing methods used by the soldiers and others upon Jesus, including the final straw before nailing Him to the cross—stripping Him of His clothes, hence any dignity, and hanging Him publicly for all to see.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. When Hebrews 12 says that Jesus DESPISED THE SHAME, it does NOT imply that He felt squeamishly horrified about being embarrassed and humiliated; nor does it mean that the public degradation was so intense that He despised it; NO!!! That word, DESPISING, in the Greek, kataphroneō, actually means this: He “contemned, despised, disdained, thought little or nothing of” the shame being poured out upon Him. [from G2706 – kataphroneō – Strong’s Greek Lexicon (kjv)]
Let’s look at this definition a little more closely. The word “contemned” means that Jesus—while suffering through taunts and torments—treated and regarded all their attempts to personally shame Him with CONTEMPT! He DISDAINED their tactics to make Him feel bad about Himself—in other words, He KNEW that the mockery, the taunting, the torture, and the nakedness was absolutely unworthy of His consideration or respect. He “thought little of or NOTHING” of their determination to make Him feel as if He had blown it, and their strategies of shame NEVER fazed Him.
It is significant that during His entire passion, Jesus never felt ashamed of Himself. But this was the goal of those who targeted Him! Not only did the political and religious leaders want to terminate Jesus in every sense of the word, but they also wanted to so saturate the Man with imposed shame that no one would ever desire to be associated with Him or His “miserable” life again. Disposed! Done! Finished!
However, Jesus DID bear shame on the cross–but not His own. He bore your shame, my shame, and the shame—both earned and unearned—of the entire human race. Had the forces of darkness succeeded in causing Jesus to FEEL PERSONAL SHAME, He never would have been able to bear ours. Had He yielded for a second to personal shame (as planned by the enemy of our souls), His death would have been just that—one man’s humiliation and demise…and this sacrifice would have been made void.
But Jesus—Son of Man and Son of God—disdained and regarded as NOTHING their attempts to make Him ashamed of Himself! He had far bigger fish to fry! He thoroughly and effectively took on OUR SHAME! OUR SIN! And, as a result of His unequaled, excruciating yet marvelous sacrifice, He has made available full REDEMPTION for anyone and everyone who will believe. THIS is His Joy. And THIS is why He died that ignominious death for you and for me.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2, Berean Standard Bible
Dorothy
© Dorothy Frick, 2025
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What kind of fool are you?
I was a new believer in Jesus, barely 3 months old in the Lord, and while listening to country gospel radio, I heard a few things about water baptism. Pretty soon, I was loaded with curiosity and conviction about this new concept and asked a lot of questions of a gal in the dorm Bible study I had recently started attending. I was a sophomore, and she, having been saved as a kid, was a senior. She was as learned as Moses in my eyes, and did she ever have the answers! In fact, after all my questions were addressed, she declared, “I’m calling Rick [the leader of the Bible study] and getting everyone together tonight for your baptism.”
I was shocked. It was April Fool’s Day! How could I EVER do something so scriptural on THIS day? Wouldn’t that be mocking God??? Wouldn’t I be committing sacrilege? I poured out my concerns to her.
She had the answer. Obeying God and His Word trumps every label, every date on the calendar, and every criticism that I could ever face.
So that evening, around 7:30 or so, a bunch of us trooped down to the rock quarry just outside of campus. Someone had a bundle of blankets for both me and the baptizer, Rick, to wrap each of us in after we stepped out of the cold April first water, and others built a blazing bonfire. Evidently, that group had everything down pat, having done this many times before, and I myself witnessed many baptisms after that in the very same quarry…some in the dead of winter when we had to break the ice!
I thought long and hard about that word “FOOL” many times after my April Fool’s Day baptism and discovered that the word frequents many passages and verses in the Bible. For example, Jesus told His disciples to stay away from rash name-calling in Matthew 5:22, “…everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” In other words, He nailed all of us on our attempts to crush others with weaponized labeling. OUCH!
However, the Word of God is not timid in the use of the word “fool”. In fact, scriptures use it multiple times to identify certain individuals—and not due to impulsive rage or outbursts. No, the word is used concerning a whole assortment of behaviors, and in particular, one unique point-of-view. I want to focus on that one perspective—brought to light more than once in the Bible—used to identify a certain type of fool. In this case, in the spirit of calm, reflective study, calling such a person a fool is NOT anti-Matthew 5:22.
“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God,’ they are corrupt, and have committed abominable injustice; there is no one who does good.” (Psalm 53:1). If you look up Psalm 14:1, you’ll find almost the exact same declaration.
So—not my words, but the Words of the Psalmist—when someone declares that God does not exist; that He is a fairy tale or a Bronze age fabrication—they have effectively identified themselves as a fool. Good news is that right now multitudes of believers in Jesus once said the same thing and embraced the fool’s notion. However, somehow the Living God penetrated their worldview and made Himself known to them. For some, like me, it may take a few “visits” from the Spirit of God before they recognize “Wow! This is GOD! And He’s talking to ME!” but He knows how to work with hard cases. I challenge any of you in that category identified in the Bible as a “fool” (and I challenge agnostics as well, but He’s not so blunt in your case!) to simply ask Him to make Himself known to you. He will. But remember, He’s sovereign. He’s not a genie in a bottle, something you can conjure up in a spell or incantation, a magic 8 ball (do they still sell those things?), or a gum machine where you drop in the quarter and out pops the gumball. He is God, King of kings, Lord of lords, and is subject to no one’s commands. But He is also Love, and in love, He will reach out to you in the way He has determined best suits YOU. Remember, this is not about giving you a goosebump moment, but it’s all about preparing you for a lifelong (and beyond) relationship with Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ.
So, in honor of the 49th anniversary of my water baptism in a cold rock quarry at 7:30 in the evening, I want to honor God and challenge you on this April Fool’s Day to open your heart and simply ask Him, “Will You reveal Yourself to me?” I will be praying for you in the meantime.
Dorothy
© 2024, Dorothy Frick
Read MoreCognitive Dissonance and the last days
I read Matthew 24 this morning for my Bible reading. In that chapter, Jesus discusses the end days with His disciples. Very interesting read.
I used BlueLetterBible.org to follow David Guzik’s commentary on that chapter to see what he had to say about it. He pointed out that even though Jesus describes the absolute chaos and calamities of that time, the Lord also states that during that season, people will go about a fairly normal day to day life— “eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” (vs. 38).
Guzik asked, “In this, there is a dilemma. How can Jesus” [return at the end of time (my clarification)] “to a ‘business-as-usual’ world, and a world experiencing the worst calamities ever seen on earth?”
I thought about that, and then while comparing his question to our current cultural situation, I feel the answer to this dilemma is easy:
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: The refusal to recognize that things are spinning apart and that evil is permeating and influencing everyday people’s daily lives and decisions.
Another way to view this dilemma is the frog in the unhurriedly but continually heated water analogy. The frog incrementally becomes more and more adapted to his soon-to-be fatal surroundings because it is all happening so slowly—and so comfortably.
I can see how in the last days people will act like nothing out of the ordinary is happening while chaos and disaster and violence spread like butter over the toasted earth.
Something to think about.
Dorothy
© 2023, Dorothy Frick
Read MoreNebuchadnezzar: The dream from God and the subsequent unwise image
Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, the height of which was sixty cubits and its width six cubits; he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Daniel 3:1
In chapter 2 Nebuchadnezzar had dreamt of an enormous statue consisting of sections of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and an alloy of iron and clay. Daniel explained to the king that God had given him a prophetic dream to reveal the kingdoms on the earth, present and yet to come. Daniel also told him that he—Nebuchadnezzar—was the head of gold and that all the other kingdoms would be inferior to his.
Well, this morning I opened my Bible to chapter 3 and got no further than verse one. In the margin I read something I had written on 9/21/19: “I’ll bet Neb was ‘inspired’ to do this [build the idol] because of his dream.” The dream was from God; the subsequent construction of the golden image was NOT. The note I had written started the wheels to spin in my mind.
It hit me—ministries, ministers, and everyday Christians ALL get tempted to pull this same sort of thing whether God speaks to them, uses them, or reveals to them something to come.
We are all quite capable of playing into the same temptation, revering the dream, the prophetic word, or the revealed call of God on our lives, and sometimes we even expect others to do likewise. The gift or directive of God now becomes the object of worship and awe, not God Himself! And without realizing it, we have erected Nebuchadnezzar’s image in our own likeness and name.
When Jesus is Lord and the Father Himself is the sole object of your love, worship, and devotion, you would not expect—much less demand—reverence or allegiance to be shown by others to the vision, word, or gifting that God has given to you. Any respect shown or loyalty displayed to you by others is received as a gift, treated as a free-will offering, precious, and NEVER as that which is due.
Would your refusal—as a Christian or a leader—to set up your own gifting or ministry as an idol mean that you no longer have the right to speak into the lives of others? Of course not! When self-promotion is set aside, discernment is free to operate more purely. Instead of counseling based on partisan affiliation or allegiance status, now the full motive in ministering to others is to help them to embrace the Lord and discover the direction He has for them, not to get them onboard with your church, ministry, vision, or with any particular leader. Nebuchadnezzar image-builders get people hooked on themselves and not on the Father to whom belongs all the glory.
It is my suspicion that most of the partisan, sectarian issues in the church of “I’m of Paul” and “I’m of Apollos” (see 1 Corinthians 3:1-4) has to do with the erection of Nebuchadnezzar-like statues in seeking to immortalize a simple gift, ministry, or prophetic understanding. In turn, these providential blessings from God morph into idols to which full devotion is often demanded.
Stop idolizing humans! Stop idolizing ministries!
Stop idolizing the directives and dreams that God has given to you, and just simply obey them as from the Lord! By the same token, stop expecting others to pay homage to your wisdom, your words, your dreams, your vision, or your ministry.
Let people be followers of Jesus, and as for you, be available to God to use you to help them on the course He has for them. And likewise, receive as a gift—not as what is due—the help others give to you as you pursue His will for your life.
But the bottom line is this: Shun idolatry of all kinds.
Dorothy
© Dorothy Frick, 2021
Read MoreFreedom of speaking
…do not throw away your CONFIDENCE… Hebrews 10:35
CONFIDENCE here is the Greek word parresia, which means FREEDOM OF SPEAKING.
So, here is Hebrews 10:35 in its entirety using this definition:
Therefore, do not throw away your FREEDOM OF SPEAKING, which has a great reward.
In other words, you are not required to submit to the rules imposed upon you by those who do not fear God. You know—rules such as don’t talk about this; don’t refute that; never oppose culturally-held, unscriptural beliefs openly or publicly.
God’s Word gives you a different directive: Hold fast to your confidence. You have as much right to speak as anyone else. Speak Life. Speak Truth. Speak the unadulterated counsel of God.
Dorothy
© 2020, Dorothy Frick
Read MoreDiabolos
Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things. 1 Timothy 3:11
[Men and women of the last days will be]…unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good… 2 Timothy 3:3
Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good… Titus 2:3
I often look up the Greek or Hebrew for a word when I’m reading the Bible. Today, I looked up the Greek word for malicious gossips which I found in 1 Timothy 3:11. Here’s what I found:
Diabolos: [Strong’s Concordance, #1228]
- prone to slander, slanderous, accusing falsely
- a calumniator, false accuser, slanderer [Note: a calumniator is one who makes false and defamatory statements about someone.]
- metaph. applied to a man who, by opposing the cause of God, may be said to act the part of the devil or to side with him
However, of the 36 verses in which the Greek word diabolos is used, 33 of them—nearly 92%—refer to this:
“Satan, the prince of demons, the author of evil, persecuting good men, estranging mankind from God and enticing them to sin, and afflicting them with diseases by means of demons who take possession of their bodies at his bidding; the malignant enemy of God and the Messiah…” Thayer’s Greek Lexicon
It hit me: Of all the sins described or listed in the Bible, this sin, the sin of making a false accusation, is the ONLY sin that is one and the same with the word uniquely used for the devil.
Therefore, of all the sins described/listed in the Bible, the most Satan-like of all when utilized by a human is not idolatry, stealing, sexual sin, simple lying, cheating, violent behaviors, etc., (all of which must be confessed to God and repented of by the human so engaged if they want to be free of the toxic internal environment caused by such involvement; see 1 John 1:9). Instead, the sin most likened to the devil himself is the sin of false accusation.
My take away is this: Be careful that you don’t jump aboard the bandwagon of finger-pointers and tongue-waggers; there’s a good chance that some, if not all, of the accusations darting around are false. Come to terms with the fact that some men and women have given themselves over to false accusations. They are DIABOLOS—men and women most closely reflecting the devil himself. You don’t want to be counted among that group. Fortunately, however, in Christ, there is redemption and cleansing for such people if they choose to confess and repent; but it is better not to devise, embrace, or further those accusations in the first place.
Some food for thought.
Dorothy
© 2018, Dorothy Frick
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