Thoughts on Christianity

The Love of God

2010-11-10T20:46:00.001-08:00

This is the last verse from the hymn The Love of God by Frederick M. Lehman. When we were singing it the other day I was just struck in the most profound way.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

The Gospel is of First Importance

2010-06-05T14:53:00.001-07:00

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. -1 Corinthians 15:3-8

This may be repetitive, but some things need repeating and surely this is one of them. Notice the words that the apostle Paul uses. He says, "For I delivered to you as of first importance..." There were many things that Paul delivered to the Corinthians, and the letters are full of very important things which he had continued to deliver to them, but this was special. This was delivered as of first importance, as the most important. And it was the gospel. It was the fact that Christ died, and not for nothing. No, Christ died for our sins and this was in accordance with the Scriptures, it was not something done spur of the moment or on a whim, it was planned and considered by God throughout the ages. And then Christ was buried and then he was raised. And Paul says that he was raised and appeared to a great number of people and finally, to him. This event is the center of human history and the only hope mankind has to escape death. It is the most important thing which has ever or will ever happen on this planet, period. It is of first importance.

Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion

2009-12-29T10:25:00.001-08:00

I finished Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion today (reading along at the site at Princeton Theological Seminary). This thing was immense, but Calvin's writing style is quite readable and far from being dry. Apparently the Princeton Theological Seminary site mentioned above is going to do a year-long reading through the 1541 edition as translated by Elsie McKee in 2010. I'm not sure I want to do another tour through the Institutes just now so I'm not going to follow along for that one.

They Do Not Understand

2009-08-13T19:26:00.001-07:00

There is apparently a movie coming out called Legion in which God gets angry at the earth again and, "sends his legion of angels to bring on the Apocalypse" (from the synopsis). In the trailer there are several scenes that show thousands of "angels" flying to do battle with a few humans in a diner. I'm not real sure a "legion" would be necessary, though...

And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. (2 Kings 19:35)

It says, "the" angel. Just one.

Podcasting Sermons

2009-08-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

I created a podcast for the church I attend which made for a nice few weekends of fun figuring out how to do it. The top-level web site is here and the sermon page is here (the RSS feed driving the podcast is linked at the bottom). Here is a direct link to the podcast on iTunes.

A Helpless God?

2009-06-27T14:46:00.001-07:00

Any society's greatest expression of power over its citizens is found in its relationship to those it labels "criminal". For these people their imprisonment, removal of rights and even death is considered a part of the different acceptable actions that a society may take with regard to them once it has them in its power. Understanding this, it is interesting that the plan of the creator of the universe would involve submitting himself to the ultimate situation of powerlessness in a society - that of a condemned criminal. And yet it is so characteristic of the God of the Bible to demonstrate that even the greatest strength of men is still weaker than God's greatest weakness.

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)

Greek and Hebrew Reader's Bible Online

2009-04-06T12:16:00.001-07:00

This site is fantastic:

http://bible.johndyer.name

Working Around Jesus

2009-02-27T14:29:00.001-08:00

This article talks about the Obama administration vetting the prayers given at presidential events. Putting that aside, one quote from the article really got my attention. One of the pastors who gave a prayer decided to "self-censor" his prayer by removing the word "Jesus" from it. He gives this as his reason:

"For some strange reason, the word Jesus is like pouring gasoline on fire for some people in this country," he said. "You learn how to work around that."

No, this reaction is not limited to "this country." The name Jesus will always be "like pouring gasoline on fire for some people" but the Christian is not called to "work around that." How could you, after all?

Do Not Fear

2009-01-05T20:12:00.001-08:00

Sometimes it is difficult to read the Bible and remember that these people had similar hopes and fears to us. It is easy enough to see their humanity but sometimes too easy to condemn there what is obvious to us so far removed and reading about their deeds as breathed out by the Holy Spirit. In Isaiah 7:1-2 we read:

In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not yet mount an attack against it. When the house of David was told, Syria is in league with Ephraim, the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

God tells Ahaz through the prophet Isaiah, "Be careful, be quiet, do not fear and do not let your heart be faint" but Ahaz, according to the account in 2 Kings 16 Ahaz did not trust in God and instead sent the silver and gold from the house of the Lord to the king of Assyria and asked for his help, something that is condemned in the Bible but yet is a very human thing to do. Wouldn't it be a frightening thing to have your city besieged by an invading army? Isn't that a sign of a real problem? And yet, in Isaiah 8:11-15 we read:

For the LORD spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall regard as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.

Consider that in this passage the Lord tells Isaiah, "Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread." This sentiment is applicable to us today but it is easy to believe that we have real problems and they didn't, that we have things to fear whereas they did not. This is odd as there is no invading army waiting to kill us outside our town or city. No, these people had real problems but their very real God wanted their full faith and trust. Their problem was a lack of faith, which is the same problem that we have today when we fear the machinations of men.

There are many things happening now that are making people afraid but the church should let the Lord be its fear and its dread. It should not call conspiracy all that the world calls conspiracy, and it should not fear what the world fears for God is our strength and our sanctuary.

Thoughts on "Your God Is Too Small"

2008-12-31T14:06:00.001-08:00

I just finished reading Your God Is Too Small by J. B. Phillips (my cousin's husband - cousin-in-law? - loaned it to me when we were there over Thanksgiving), and I enjoyed it. It is embarrassing that it took a month to read it but you have to slowly digest a book like this (that is my story and I'm sticking to it).

The book is split into two parts, the first is a tearing down of incorrect ideas of God and the second is a building up of a more correct idea of God. In the first half of the book (the "destructive" part) there were times when I was cheering the death of someone else's sacred cow and then there were times when I was saying, "No, no, no!" and it was usually then that I realized my own sacred cow was being killed. That's usually how it is with these sorts of books.

One of the things I liked about the second half of the book is the way that Phillips uses the reality of what we know and what that must imply about the character of God to make God "big enough." This is a concept that I've tried to pass on to the class I'm teaching at church - specifically that we should apply the things we know about the world around us to God and discover if that matches what we know from the Bible, the two things interrelate. For example, the universe is immense and the world is complex beyond our wildest imagining. We have struggled for centuries to understand little bits and pieces of what surrounds us. A God who created all of this must be fantastically powerful and knowledgeable, in fact must be omnipotent and omniscient. The interesting thing is that the God of the Bible is actually big enough to meet these criteria, and the only time that we think this isn't the case is when we have made a smaller God of our own to replace him with (usually reading that God back into the Bible so that we can still feel "Christian").

I also appreciated the way that Phillips builds everything up from the basics and keeps everything grounded in the basics. Because he does this so well he keeps his eye on the ball, so the speak, when it comes to characterizing God, Christ, this life and the church. It is interesting how silly certain questions become when we keep the basics in view. Keeping the basics in view (and deriving them how he does) makes the following statement naturally follow from the previous part of the book:

Christianity is a revelation of the true way of living, the way to know God, the way to live life of eternal quality, and is not to be regarded as a handy social instrument for reducing juvenile delinquency or the divorce rate.

This conclusion follows from what he has previously written and the way that he juxtaposes Christianity in this statement with two things that are surely important and yet seem so insignificant when compared to the representation here of the eternal, omnipotent, omniscient I AM makes the point a powerful one when you come upon it at the end of the book.

In summary, Phillips seems to be making the very simple and powerful statement that once we understand who God is and place our faith in that God then that faith has to permeate into our understanding of all things (see Eccl. 12, Matt. 6:19-21, 25-33). This seems trite but it is only so because we tend to forget who it is that we worship. Starting at the beginning again is a powerful and useful thing. In this we have to remember who and what the beginning is. The beginning is God, someone we will never truly understand in an exhaustive way so building on that knowledge of God and applying that understanding to our life is, in fact, a lifelong process.

The Story of My Life

2008-12-06T09:18:00.001-08:00

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Romans 7:15-25

Today

2008-11-17T12:04:00.000-08:00

The Irish Monthly:

Only from day to day
The life of a wise man runs;
What matter if seasons far away
Have gloom or have double suns?

To climb the unreal path,
We stray from the roadway here;
We swim the rivers of wrath,
And tunnel the hills of fear.

Our feet on the torrent's brink,
Our eyes on the cloud afar,
We fear the things we think,
Instead of the things that are.

Like a tide our work should rise-
Each later wave the best.
"To day is a king in disguise,"
To day is the special test.

Like a sawyer's work is life;
The present makes the flaw,
And the only field for strife
Is the inch before the saw.

- John Boyle O'Reilly

I Hate What I Think You Are

2008-11-17T11:45:00.001-08:00

This political season has really brought home the fact that most of us dress the opposing side up in clothes we hate and then we hate them for what they are wearing. We need to realize that we are only hating what we think the other side is, in fact what we have ascribed to them, not what they actually are.

God's Government

2008-10-31T15:26:00.001-07:00

It may come as a shock to learn that God has no known preference for any particular kind of government or 'theory' of sovereignty for rulers.

Robert Duncan Culver, Systematic Theology

Great Site for Free Audiobooks

2008-10-30T19:23:00.001-07:00

Librivox is a great site for free audiobooks (volunteers do the reading from books in the public domain so it really is free). One of the best things about it is that you can download so much of The Bible and listen to it. I recommend putting it on CD or your iPod and listening when you are in the car. I don't think you can replace your reading this way, but you augment it since it is coming in through another source. There are many times when I hear something and it sparks my study in other ways.

Politics

2008-10-13T10:46:00.001-07:00

All counselors praise the counsel they give, but some give counsel in their own interest. Be wary of a counselor, and learn first what is his interest, for he will take thought for himself. (Sirach 37:7-8)

This is a good rule to apply to politicians. They are trying, after all, to sell us something. They will always, "Praise the counsel they give" and we would do well to be wary of what we are told, to check what the interest is of those who are running for they will take thought for themselves. And what is it that they want? They want the power of the position they are running for and they will tell us whatever they need to in order to obtain that. Between the two parties we will be told slightly different things because of the base constituencies of the two parties (each constituency must be told what they want to hear) but the message will be tailored to the hearers and does not necessarily represent the reality of what they will do after they are in office and no longer require our input to get there (or at least do not require it for another few years).

When I buy a car I expect to be told many wonderful things about the car I am looking at by the dealer for that car. Do I trust those things? I'd have to be a fool to do so without question. Likewise with these politicians. But it seems that we don't actually apply this rule very often, except to whatever side it is that we disagree with. If we disagree with a politician we will be likely to guess that he/she is just spinning and become cynical and distrusting but if we agree with a politician we suddenly become artless and naive and buy into whatever it says on their web site (copying and pasting it freely to our friends on the other side in the hopes that they, too, will be as trusting of our candidate as we are). We would do well to remember that our own side is selling something as surely as the other side is and doubt accordingly.

Stop Wasting Time!

2008-10-03T10:04:00.001-07:00

The subject line is to myself. I can't believe how much time I waste. There are so many things to be doing that are worthwhile and so much I do that isn't. I think I begin to realize this late every year as it closes in on Christmas and I remember the things I wanted to accomplish during the year that went so speedily by. I'm 36 now and maybe the mid-life feelings are coming on and making this problem worse. I don't want to buy a cherry red Corvette but I would like to feel like I'm doing worthwhile things with my time. I would like to feel like I am obeying this passage:

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:15-16)

Sowing and Reaping

2008-09-21T21:10:00.001-07:00

In a lesson today at Woodward Park Church of Christ Jim Gardner said this:

The pain of the harvest of sin is not worth the pleasure of the sowing.

So true.

Blog Comment Wisdom

2008-09-01T12:59:00.001-07:00

I just ran across this in the book of Sirach:

Do not argue about a matter that does not concern you, and do not sit with sinners when they judge a case. (Sirach 11:9)

This should be helpful when dealing with whether or not to comment on blog posts, I think.

I'm Not Okay, You're Not Okay

2008-08-05T10:36:00.001-07:00

One of the worst developments within our culture in the past fifty years must surely be the notion that we are mostly pretty good. The entire crux of the Bible is that man has a sin problem that separates him from God and he desperately needs a cure and that cure was provided on the cross by the death and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. There are three basic elements to this: 1) man has a sin problem (the sickness), 2) he cannot cure it (the need), and 3) the cure was provided by the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ (the cure). Attacking these truths from any angle attacks the gospel. Disparaging the truth of the resurrection, for example, leaves mankind without a cure for his sickness. The cultural notion that we have of "I'm okay, you're okay" attacks the first element, which is man's sickness. If man does not realize he is sick, he will not seek a doctor and if he does not seek a doctor then he will not realize the desperation of his situation and he will not find the cure.

I'm sitting in a Starbucks at LAX right now and I'm watching the people ordering their drinks and pastries and they all seem so similar. In fact they are all similar, but not in the way that they appear. They appear to be so similar in that they appear to all be so good. We have the notion that if someone is normal (by our cultural standards) then they are good. We feel so sorry for the poor soul that suddenly appears abnormal. The slightly unstable person who is not as good at hiding as the rest of us are and who ends up doing something culturally unacceptable such as yelling in public. That person then becomes somebody who "Needs help." What kind of help do they need? If we are atheists then we might think that they need a visit to a psychiatrist, but if we are Christian we might believe that they need the Lord. But the problem here is that our need for the Lord is not measured in terms of our normalcy. We all require the Lord and fooling ourselves into any other belief creates an extremely perilous situation where we are deathly ill but without any knowledge of it. Consider this passage:

And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? But when he heard it, he said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. (Matthew 9:10-13)

This is one of the greatest warnings in the Bible but it is also a little disguised so it becomes easy to pass by and therefore it is one of the most dangerous passages in the Bible. Consider what Jesus tells the Pharisees. It is apparent from other passages that everyone needs Jesus:

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

So the great warning of Matthew 9 is that those who believe they are well will not seek Jesus. The cure becomes worthless to those who believe they are well because they will not seek for it, not because they do not need it. And now we are working so hard in our culture to convince everyone that they are "okay." In other words we are working so hard to convince everyone who is culturally normal that they are well, that is, righteous. And if they are convinced that they are well then they are not called by Jesus because they will not seek for a cure for a sickness they do not realize that they have.

The victim here is evangelism. Even Jesus himself pointed out that evangelism was less effective for those who think themselves righteous (see Matthew 9 quote above). Within this thought is the answer to the problem but I confess that I think it troubles "middle class Christians." The answer is that Christians must reach out to those who are not "normal" by society's definitions. We must evangelize to the "sick" and the "sick" in a "Christian nation" such as ours are those who the society labels unacceptable. These realize their sickness much more readily and are willing to reach out to a cure so it is to them that we should go.

Many Paths?

2008-06-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

There was a story on the Life page of USA Today titled, "Believers OK with Many Paths" that talked about a new survey in which 70 percent of the respondents said that "Many religions can lead to eternal life."

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

The Legislation of Morality

2008-06-20T15:25:00.001-07:00

I'm struggling in my mind with the notion of the legislation of morality. It seems that the answer is that morality of some source is always legislated and that it is only the source of that morality which is the question. Doesn't any society create laws based on what it perceives to be "right" and "wrong"? For example, if we create laws because of Global Warming then are we doing that because we consider there is some "right" and "wrong" choice that we can make as regards Global Warming? If the concern between right and wrong is a concern with morality then making legislation about Global Warming is legislating morality. At some level nobody is adverse to legislating morality but everyone is adverse to legislating a morality that is not their own. Consider the recent legalization of gay marriage by the courts in California. Is such a legalization a legislation of morality? Some would argue that it is the opposite of the legislation of morality because the legislation of morality enforces the morality of the individual on society at large and the legalization of gay marriage in fact enforces the civil rights of free individuals on the society. So in this view legislation of morality decreases personal freedom and "correct" legislation (legislation not of morality) either does not affect or increases personal freedom. The problem with this is that the idea that personal freedom should be increased is, in itself, a system of morality. So the source of the legalization of gay marriage is a particular system of ethics and that legalization is in fact a legislation of morality. The problem that many would seem to have with that is that there is some notion that the legislation of morality is somehow inherently wrong. It is a little like admitting that some viewpoint is not objective. The problem is that no matter what the viewpoint is, once it is admitted that it is not an objective viewpoint it seems that it must somehow be wrong, or at least it can be relegated to being "Just your opinion" and therefore ignored. So it is with admitting that some action is a legislation of morality. If the proponents of some law admit that they are trying to legislate morality then it is simple to turn public opinion against them. The alternative is to find some political wording that implies that the goal is not the legislation of morality but some other goal. It would be possible to say some other higher goal, but that is also "moral" language. The legalization of gay marriage is the legislation of a view of "civil rights." That is, marriage is a civil right and that civil right should be extended to everyone because all civil rights must be extended to everyone. But this view of marriage as a civil right and the view that all civil rights must be extended to everyone are views of a "right" and a "wrong" and are moral views, so the enforcement of them are the enforcement of morality on society.

The disagreement then is not actually over the legislation and enforcement of morality by society but rather the source of the morality that society will choose. A secular society by definition attempts to ground its morality on some non-religious source. A few questions arise from this. First is the question of whether or not there is, in fact, a morality that exists outside of a religious source. If there is not, then the laws of a secular nation would necessarily be grounded on something that doesn't really exist. If there is a morality that exists outside of a religious source then is it a desirable morality? It seems like it is possible to come up with some sort of concept of a morality outside of a religious source. Utilitarianism is an example of just such a secularly-sourced morality. Utilitarianism is the notion that the morality of a particular action is determined by how much it maximizes the "good" of the whole. Of course "good" requires a definition in this context. The definition that utilitarianism usually chooses is happiness or pleasure. So the choices that maximize society's happiness or pleasure as a whole are moral choices. If a particular choice leads to happiness for more people and doesn't decrease the happiness of others then that choice is a moral choice. In this light it can be seen that Americans who are for gay marriage are usually taking a utilitarian view of the situation. Looking at the specific instance of gay marriage, if gay people can get married it makes them happy and this does not come at the expense of the happiness of heterosexual people (the happiness of people who are angry about the situation don't really count in this equation, they should just get over it). It is possible to see this argumentation everywhere, of course and most of the arguments for gay marriage essentially reduce to such a view (the Two Consenting Adults In Private Can Do Anything argument, for example, is extremely utilitarian, as is the Your Heterosexual Marriage Isn't Affected By What Gay People Do argument). Therefore, it is possible to create a morality based on utilitarianism (or at least it is possible to create a morality based on the perception of the utility of a particular thing). However, this leads to the second question, which is whether or not a utilitarian source for morality is a desirable thing. The problem in this context is that although the definition of "good" was given previously as "happiness or pleasure" even those two derived terms are problematic. If in any society some action X is morally approved of that causes the most people in that society happiness then couldn't X be anything at all? What would bound X? It seems quite possible to imagine an X that we would quickly find abhorrent but which for a given society would cause them the most happiness and therefore would be moral for that society. Consider a society with a large number of adults and very few children. Now consider that the reason that this society has so few children is because most of the society consists of pedophiles who are completely uninterested in anyone over the age of 6. Consider again that this society is extremely utilitarian in its outlook and understands that it has a large number of people with "special needs" so it creates a system where all the children in the society are placed into special containing institutions so that the pedophiles who constitute such a large majority can have an institutionalized way of meeting their needs. Such a situation is sickening, of course, but the only people being hurt are the children and they are so small in number that their particular concerns are not of interest to the utilitarian calculation. A case could be made that this is different than the gay marriage situation because of the issue of "consent." The children in the society cannot "consent" because they are children. "Consenting adults" can do whatever they want to but they must avoid involving those who cannot "consent" (this is used to rebut the argument that after gays marry soon people will be able to marry their pets, since pets cannot give their "consent"). So now a rule has been created to bound X (although it must be admitted that the rule seems somewhat arbitrary and created to preserve a sense of propriety which could easily change in its specifics based on questions like "What is the age of consent?" and "What constitutes consent?"). Even with this somewhat artificial bounding rule, however, the utilitarian viewpoint is stressed by actual situations like that of the German Internet Cannibal, Armin Meiwes where it was conceded that consent had been given by the victim to Meiwes for his own murder. So Meiwes was put in prison even though the victim had given consent and Germany had no law against cannibalism. Utilitarianism is no help in this situation and is in fact insufficient to establish a consistent moral basis for a secular society.

The alternative to this is to use the Bible as the baseline for a system of ethics. Of course "common knowledge" would dictate that this is a ridiculous idea, but common knowledge is often wrong.

Anatomy of a Misconception

2008-06-15T20:37:00.001-07:00

Steve Brown (The Old White Guy Blog) posted a blog a last year that I only read last week as a part of some other person's rant. I don't want to talk about the post, but rather about this particular part of it:

That evening I talked about loving Augustine "but not for the reasons you think." I've often told the story of the incident that happened after Augustine's conversion when he met his former mistress in the streets of the town where he resided. She ran up to him and he ran from her. She shouted, "Augustine, Augustine, it is I."
He shouted back over his shoulder, "Yes, but it is not I."
Cool…or at any rate, it was until I heard the rest of the story, to wit, Augustine's mistress wasn't asking for sex; she was asking for food and acknowledgment of the son who Augustine had fathered. When Augustine gave us his famous Confessions, he mentioned stealing apples when he wasn't hungry…but he never mentioned his son.

I'm not sure why he makes his point with this particular statement, "When Augustine gave us his famous Confessions, he mentioned stealing apples when he wasn't hungry…but he never mentioned his son." I believe that Augustine is speaking directly of his son, Adeodatus, in this passage from Confessions, Book 9, Chapter 6:

We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin.

I suppose that there may be some other reason why Steve Brown says this. Maybe I am completely misunderstanding him. However, his intent seems obvious when he says, "Augustine never mentioned his son" and if I am misunderstanding that then it seems an easy thing to misunderstand. I can see other people who have never read the Confessions quoting Steve Brown or passing along this as a nice example of how even the great Augustine wasn't so great. Sermons get preached around neat little nuggets like this one and then the misconception gets passed to the listeners and so it grows. It is unfortunate that Steve Brown picked somebody like Augustine, though, for whom the Confessions are a complete baring of his soul to God. He covers all of his sins, from stealing apples to having a mistress and yes, bearing a son ("after the flesh" and "of [his] sin"). If he did malign Augustine out of ignorance it would have been nice for him to have done his research a little better and if he did it with some other meaning then it would have been nice for him to have written with a little more clarity.

Difficult Teachings

2008-05-27T19:58:00.001-07:00

The concept of divorce and remarriage is an extremely difficult topic and I find it so troubling. The primary problem, though, is that our culture has so much divorce and remarriage that the extremely blunt teaching of Jesus on the topic is difficult to swallow. Thus the teaching is difficult not because it is actually difficult to understand what the Bible is saying but rather because it is so difficult to actually face the clarity when surrounded by a culture that, quite frankly, completely trivializes marriage. According to a recent review of the book Divorce And Remarriage: A Redemptive Theology by Rubel Shelly:

Shelly claims that what unites Christians is a common commitment to God's plan for marriage including the warnings on divorce. These issues are inarguable. The confusion and controversy results from the nature of the penance for those in disobedience to the divine principles. Shelly asserts, "Divorce is not a sin in its own special class that requires a lifelong penance of remaining single, celibate, and companionless. Can we really bring ourselves to believe that the sinner whose offense is divorce has no spiritual option but to live with his failure forever? Can we really be persuaded that Jesus leaves no option to marry again for someone divorced against her will by a mean-spirited soul."

Shelly's primary assertion here is, "Divorce is not a sin in its own special class that requires a lifelong penance of remaining single, celibate and companionless." His remaining questions are built upon this. Unfortunately I feel misled by his assertion in the first place:

[Jesus] said to them, Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery. (Matthew 19:8-9)

The problem with this passage is that it is so plain. There are so many things in the Bible that are difficult to understand on their face, but this teaching appears so simple. Is that misleading? Does Jesus not really mean what he is saying? Is it possible to divorce and remarry (without an unfaithful partner) and not commit adultery? Shelly tries to answer these thorny problems by invoking deeper theology:

He names this theological view, the "radical continuity of the Word of God" and maintains that adhering to this understanding of the continuous connection of the Old and New Testament is essential in order to effectively challenge more traditional discussions of scriptures relating to divorce and remarriage. Shelly concludes that all the scriptures lead to reveal God's redemption plan and are all unmistakably connected by the interwoven thread of Jesus Christ. Using this "continuity" view, Shelly states, "... anything that Jesus or Paul says on the subject must be consistent with the Old Testament material, for Holy Scripture is progressive revelation - from partial to full, but never from error to truth. ...The teachings in our canonical New Testament are to be interpreted with a view toward their continuity with the Old Testament."

So understanding the Old Testament in continuity with the New is the answer here? That is, I must understand Jesus' statement in Matthew 19 in light of the teaching on marriage in the Old Testament. That seems strange, especially given that the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus by invoking the Old Testament and Jesus' answer was in response to this. Look at the entire passage now:

And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? He answered, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. They said to him, Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away? He said to them, Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery. (Matthew 19:3-9)

So the Pharisees invoke the teaching of Moses on this subject and Jesus responds by telling them what? He responds by violating Shelly's "radical continuity" view. Jesus tells them that Moses "allowed" them to divorce their wives because of their "hardness of heart." That is, the teaching of the Old Testament on marriage is consistent with the New, but only if you go back to the beginning and in the beginning there was only one man and one woman and no divorce, "What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." How can we deal with divorce and remarriage then, without looking at the teaching of Jesus square in the face? What are we to do with this teaching but look sadly at the world around us and realize how many there are which have put themselves into a situation where they are perpetually committing adultery? Even the disciples of Jesus realized that this was something unique in his teaching because in Matthew 19:10 they said, "If such is the case of a man with his wife it is better not to marry."

It gets even worse when we go to the teachings of Paul. In 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 Paul writes:

To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.

This is in a passage where Paul is clearly dividing the parts of his discourse where he is giving his own opinion from those where God is speaking through him. In these verses he clearly states, "not I, but the Lord" and then goes on to say that the wife shouldn't separate from her husband but if she does she should remain unmarried. Now, it is possible to look at this passage as though it were only applicable to that time and was specifically given to the Corinthian church because of the trials they were going to undergo, but you have to work at it and a simple understanding of this passage has it working very well with the teaching of Jesus. Don't they sound awfully similar? Don't 1 Corinthians 7 and Matthew 19 seem to teach some very similar things? If we didn't live in a culture that trivialized marriage and where we all know many people who have divorced and remarried and think nothing of it what would these passages seem to say? Wouldn't they be obvious in that case? Wouldn't we only have a problem and say that they are "difficult" if we found them hard to accept in a culture that so clearly denies what they say (as in fact we do)?

So when Shelly says, "Divorce is not a sin in its own special class that requires a lifelong penance of remaining single, celibate, and companionless" isn't he telling us that the teachings of Paul and Jesus that seem to say the exact opposite of what he wants us to believe? Why would he do this? Does it make sense to believe that Shelly has really discovered some deep and complex theological truth that makes Jesus' teaching much more difficult to understand but which allows us to condone a very obvious cultural weakness? Wouldn't we need to be on guard against the clear bias of our culture in this regard and wouldn't working uphill against quite clear passages in the Bible be an indicator that we were instead allowing that culture to warp our understanding of what God is trying to tell us?

Dust in the Wind

2008-05-20T19:54:00.001-07:00

I think humans have an unavoidable obsession with death. That may seem obvious to some people, but I'm not sure it is to everybody. Most people want to keep that in the closet. It doesn't matter, though, because the shortness of our life and the fact that we are surrounded by the dead and dying always brings itself to our attention in one way or another.

Blaise Pascal wrote:

The last act is tragic, however happy all the rest of the play is; at the last a little earth is thrown upon our head, and that is the end for ever.

That seems like a big downer, doesn't it? But that really doesn't matter, because it is the truth. In this country where youth is glorified, not only for its health and beauty but also, ridiculously, for its knowledge, we would do well to remember that there is wisdom in the contemplation of the end of this life because when it comes won't we want to have figured out what we think of it and whether or not we wasted our lives and opportunities when we had them.

Shall We Seek Power?

2008-05-02T19:21:00.001-07:00

In the debate over women's roles in the church the terms complementarian and egalitarian have been utilized to describe the different views. Roughly speaking, and as applied to the sphere of the church, the complementarian view is the more traditional one, with men being the only ones allowed to hold positions of leadership in the church and the egalitarian is the opposing view, that women can also hold leadership positions in the church. A recent comment on a blog post stated:

The essential difference between complementarians and egalitarians is the distribution of power. Yes, egalitarians want the same (equal) power. Yes, complementarians believe men should have more power, which is different. But that does not mean that egalitarians believe men and women are the same in every way. Maybe some do (I haven’t read any that do) but I don’t.

I don't know, but I think that this really misses what Christian leadership is supposed to be. Jesus tells us this about his idea of leadership:

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:42-45)

He demonstrated this attitude with his life:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

"Servant", "obedient", "slave" - these don't sound like "power" or even "equality." This sounds like "leadership" in the church isn't about "power" at all but rather about the inversion of what a worldly culture thinks about power. I would go so far as to say that if "power" is what you seek in the church then you should never be a leader of the church, man or woman. I would go so far as to say that anyone who seeks power disqualifies themselves from Christian leadership by definition. They may hold the post of a leader if they have managed to "lord it over" the people and they may "exercise authority" over the church, but to God they are not "great" and they are not leaders.

Bible Study Tonight

2008-04-30T17:43:00.001-07:00

I can't wait to go to Bible Study tonight. I am feeling so tired and negative and I know I'll feel better afterwards.

And All These Things Shall Be Added Unto You

2008-04-18T14:10:00.000-07:00

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:31-33)

If we are told to "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness" and then that "all these things will be added to you" (meaning food and drink and clothing) then does this mean that the Prosperity Gospel is biblical? I don't think that it is. If you are seeking the kingdom so that "all these things will be added to you" then you are not seeking first the kingdom of God. And if you are seeking first the kingdom of God I think that "all these things" will not matter to you since they will not be "first."

For Love

2008-04-05T10:11:00.001-07:00

Titus 3 tells us:

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. (Titus 3:1-2)

There are so many passages like this in the New Testament, passages that draw a particular picture of the Christian. I admit that it is a picture I don't live up to. I also admit that many American churches don't teach this particular picture of the Christian.

One of the beautiful things about this passage is how, after drawing the picture of the Christian here - the submissive, obedient, ready for every good work, speaking evil of no one, non-quarreling, gentle and perfectly courteous Christian - Paul goes on to tell us why he asks us to be this way:

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. (Titus 3:3)

We are asked to be this way because of what we once were - foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, and hating others and being hated by others. (This convicts me! Too often I'm still like this. God help me!)

And Paul pushes the point further still:

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7)

We were saved when we were foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, and hating others and being hated by others. We were not saved when we were submissive, obedient, ready for every good work, speaking evil of no one, non-quarreling, gentle and perfectly courteous people.

It is encouraging to me that Paul tells Titus to "remind them" to be the right way. (Am I fooling myself to assume that this means that they, too, had not discovered how to really live this way yet?) When Jesus came to save us we were not living the way that Paul tells Titus to "remind them" to be. We are saved apart from living the right way and yet Paul encourages us to become what we should be. This encouragement does not come from the threat of punishment but rather from the thought that God saved us while we were "dead in our trespasses" (Ephesians 2:5). The fleshly part of me responds, "Why be good if I was saved when I was evil?" But the motivation here is love, not fear. I love the Lord who saved me and so I want to please him. He is pleased if I do the acts of a servant, if I become a submissive, obedient, ready for every good work, speaking evil of no one, non-quarreling, gentle and perfectly courteous Christian and so this is what I strive to become.

The Cruelty of the Prosperity Gospel

2008-03-29T22:28:00.001-07:00

I ran across this post while I was surfing around on Trevin Wax's blog titled Joel Osteen's Negative Message. The essential message of the post (which you can tell from the title) is that Joel Osteen's message is actually not positive but is rather very negative. Osteen preaches that you can have health and wealth and if you don't have it then something is wrong in your life. Most people see this as a very positive message. In fact, saying Osteen is not a positive preacher seems a bit strange. After all, he seems very positive. He is always smiling while he is preaching and his books are titled Become a Better You, and Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential. Those seem like positive messages. Here is a quote that sure seems positive:

"I want you to get a bigger vision. There are exciting things in your future. Your future is filled with marked moments of blessing, increase, promotion. God has already ordained before the foundation of the world, the right people, the right opportunity. Time and chance are coming together for you. Why don’t you get your hopes up?" Osteen tells his audience. "Why don't you start believing that no matter what you have or haven't done, that your best days are still out in front of you."

And here is some more:

"If you’re not making as much progress as you would like, here's the key: don't lose any ground. Keep a good attitude and do the right thing even when it's hard. When you do that you are passing the test. And God promises you your marked moments are on their way," Osteen says.

But is that really a positive message? If you are having pain and suffering and are poor then you aren't trying hard enough. You need a better attitude and your life will be better. This is, of course, what is called the prosperity gospel and I appreciated Wax's approach to it because I hadn't really realized it before, but telling people that they just aren't trying hard enough really isn't a positive message and in fact it is an incredibly cruel message. Furthermore it isn't a biblical message regarding those who are poor in this world:

Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? (James 2:5)

What does this passage say about those who are poor in this world? Does it say that they aren't trying hard enough? Does it say that God is showing his disfavor with them? Does it say that if they hope in riches in this world that God will relent and give them this? No, it says that they are chosen to be "rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom" which is, of course, the kingdom "not of this world" which Christ referred to in John 18:36.

A kinder and more positive message is one that gives all men hope for the future in the life that lies beyond this one. This life ends in death for all of us. Looking for permanent health and wealth here ourselves is a vain search. Encouraging others to look for it is downright cruel.

Is Brutality Civility?

2008-03-22T14:14:00.001-07:00

Tim Challies recently posted a blog about the book The Case for Civility by Os Guinness wherein the case is made that we need more civility in this world and that America is where it should start. This is the section from the blog that talks about why it should start in America:

It is a call for the United States to take the lead in restoring civility. “The place at which we must begin to search for answers is the United States. Not because the problem is worse here than elsewhere—on the contrary—but because America has the best cultural resources, and therefore the greatest responsibility to point the way forward in answering the deepest questions.” America is uniquely equipped to take the lead and Guinness urges her on

I'm not sure why anyone would think this about America (and I'm an American). I'm disturbed about the fact that it seems almost impossible to actually have civil discourse in America and if we are better off here than elsewhere then you must get spit on in the streets in other countries just for walking around. Look at the comment lists of blog posts and you'll see what I mean. It is appalling. The number of people that post comments in the name of kindness that are simply exercises in verbal bullying and brutality is astonishing. Most civil discourse that I have seen in blog threads and boards is terminated by the loud boorish shouting of people maintaining that somebody else is being "rude" or "insulting." This problem with civil discourse on the web is well known and has been a problem for a long time. There was a reason why all of the worthwhile Usenet groups on religion were heavily moderated and comment lists like Slashdot and Digg have (where you can vote down the worst offenders so that the rest of the comment list actually looks civil to later readers) were attempts to solve this problem, but in the end the root of the issue is that there are just too many people who believe that they are "kind" and "loving" and who are, in fact, the exact opposite. Anyone who is reading some thread or comment list and feels the urge from reading what some other commenter said that they merely disagree with to post an attack on the other person has the problem, not the original poster.

Listen, when you are reading something and you suddenly want to post a reply ask yourself in your reply if you are posting something substantive regarding what the actual discussion is or if you are posting a personal insult. Now, I have seen many people who post insults and then maintain that they are substantive so clearly the word "insult" is poorly understood, so here is another way to put it: does your comment have anything to do with the other person (as a person) at all? If it does, then maybe it is out of place. You see this demonstrated a lot in religious discussions where somebody makes some statement about a particular issue only to be replied to by some variation on, "Your constant attacks are sickening and only prove you are arrogant and unloving" and so forth. This response is not civil, it adds nothing to the discussion and furthermore it, itself, fails the test of a loving and gentle response called for in the Bible:

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:5-6)

The person who hurls the insults may think that they are given such a right by the actions of the person they are insulting. But this, too, is completely unchristian:

But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. (Luke 6:27-28)

Even if the original commenter was your enemy your insulting response would not be acceptable. In many cases, if you read something that makes you angry you are better off doing what James says to do:

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger (James 1:19)

In terms of posting things on the Net, we could read it like this, "Let every person be quick to read, slow to post." We are better off posting nothing than posting some insulting response. These passages from Proverbs are apropos:

Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense,but a man of understanding remains silent. (Proverbs 11:12)
Whoever restrains his words has knowledge,and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. (Proverbs 17:27) Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise;when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent. (Proverbs 17:28)

Wrestling with Biblical Relevance

2008-03-11T20:56:00.001-07:00

I put "wrestling" in the title of this blog because this is me "wrestling" with the concept and not preaching to anybody. I want to lay all of these thoughts out on a subject that I find difficult and see where it gets me.

It seems that there are several schools of thought on the relevance of the Bible to our time and culture. There are those who feel that the Bible is relevant in itself and those who feel that it is not relevant unless it is changed to become relevant. Well, as I write that last sentence I don't know that it really says what I want it to say so I'll come at it from a different direction. There is a passage in the Bible that says this:

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says.
(1 Corinthians 14:33-34)

Assuming we are talking about a person who considers themselves a Christian, there are several possible responses to this:

Assimilate the Passage - The passage's relevance is not culturally-based. It bluntly means that women cannot speak in church and have to be quiet. Following the passage then means doing this as best you know how.
Eliminate the Passage - The passage is not relevant to today's culture and hinders evangelism opportunities. The passage should not be considered binding.
Modify the Passage - The passage is relevant to some degree but doesn't bluntly mean that women should keep absolute silence in church. Interpreting the passage in this way is incorrect. Therefore, it is possible to follow the passage without forcing all of the women in church to keep quiet.

I picked 1 Corinthians 14:33-34 since it seems to be such a blunt passage. To me the different approaches are different ways of viewing Biblical authority in general. I think discussions among the three groups are always problematic because the presuppositions that each have gets in the way. The discussion really isn't about whether women can speak in church but rather about how you view the Bible (and I think also about how you view God, but more on that later). Each group views the Bible like so:

Assimilators - The Bible is the work of God and therefore is the supreme authority under all cultural conditions.
Eliminators - The Bible is the work of men in different cultural contexts and is authoritative only when the cultural context is taken into account.
Modifiers - The Bible is authoritative but is interpreted in a cultural context and therefore the interpretation becomes a function of the culture.

It is worth pointing out that Modifiers I have known would quickly state that Assimilators are doing the same thing that they are but they just don't realize it. That is, all interpretation is within a cultural context and claims of discovering the actual meaning of the text should always be viewed with skepticism.

All of these views end up saying something about a person's belief in God and how the Bible came to be created:

Assimilators - God inspired the Bible and is therefore its ultimate author. Since God transcends culture the Bible also transcends culture. When Paul says, "Women should keep silent in the churches" it isn't really Paul speaking but rather God speaking through Paul and since God is an infinite being that exists outside of the world his words are not a function of Paul or Paul's environment.
Eliminators - Men wrote the Bible and although they may have had something called "inspiration" this did not overcome their dependence on their environment. Therefore God did not control the writing of the Bible and the Bible does not transcend culture. When Paul says, "Women should keep silent in the churches" this is just Paul speaking what he thinks God would want him to say but what he thinks God would want him to say cannot be separated from his cultural context.
Modifiers - God may have inspired the Bible but our finite interpretive capabilities will always play a role in how we hear what it is saying. Even if God controlled the writing of the Bible and the Bible itself transcends culture we cannot transcend our own culture and therefore our interpretation is always a function of our own environment. When Paul says, "Women should keep silent in the churches" we have to interpret that within our own cultural context as we can do nothing else.

Eliminators seem to be more modernist and Modifiers more postmodernist. Both Eliminators and Modifiers see Assimilators as arrogant and naive and Assimilators see the other two groups as heretics. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground here that can be found because of the depth of the difference in each view. If the three groups were to have a conversation on "making the Bible relevant to the modern age" they would each be saying those words but meaning completely different things. An Assimilator believes that to make the Bible relevant is simply to preach the word. An Eliminator believes that parts of the Bible that are relevant can be used and other parts can be ignored since the book is a work of man. Modifiers believe that the interpretation can bend as far as needed to meet the application to culture and therefore the interpretation itself is what becomes relevant. In some ways the Assimilator and the Modifier would seem to agree in theory (preaching involves interpretation) but in practice (as with the interpretation and application of 1 Corinthians 14:33-34) this doesn't happen because the Assimilator attacks the culturally difficult meaning directly and the Modifier changes it to something palatable to the culture which it clearly is not in its immediate form.

I admit that I'm an Assimilator. Maybe I am naive and arrogant to believe this way although I try hard not to be arrogant, at least, but I want to think that when I read the Bible maybe I can understand it and maybe I can bend my life to meet it and maybe that will make me a better person. Am I wrong to do this?

Bombastic!

2008-03-01T19:53:00.001-08:00

I just read a post on another blog where a raging argument is taking place. One of those commenting made this statement, which I thought was funny:

It is irresponsible as an historian, theologian, and Christian to use sophistry. And then to manipulate people under false pretenses with bombastic language.

This statement is even funnier in context since he has previously made an argument that if we read "MAL and HL" we will clearly see... well, we'll clearly see something anyway. At the end of this first post he says this:

(Yes, I study Cuneiform at UPenn and am not speaking ignorantly about this literature. I’ve read it.)

So he is apparently one of the most pretentious and bombastic folks in the entire comment chain and he chides others for these traits. I was this way when I was in college, too.

Wisdom Lit.

2008-02-25T18:42:00.001-08:00

When I was in high school they had a class called English Lit. and a class called Modern Lit. I think they should have had a class called "Wisdom Lit."

When a man's folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the LORD.
(Proverbs 19:3)

We read about "meat" and "milk" in the Bible. I think Proverbs is like chewing gum. I can stick that verse above in my mind and chew on it for hours and it never loses its flavor.

In Search of Peace

2008-02-23T11:02:00.001-08:00

I'm so tired of my pride. There is no peace in it. In The Imitation of Christ Thomas À Kempis truthfully wrote:

A proud and avaricious man never rests, whereas he who is poor and humble of heart lives in a world of peace.

To have pride is completely without sense. We live for so short a time and we are so frail. Furthermore, no matter how good we are at what we do, there is always someone better, either at that, or at something else that we take pride in. As Christians it makes even less sense. Believing in an infinite God who spoke a universe into existence should lead us to consider our own "accomplishments" as nothing, but still I preen and strut and hope to be better than the other fish in my tiny aquarium.

In the end, even the complete lack of logic behind the feeling is nothing compared to the stress I feel to keep on attempting establishment of my own greatness. I could find peace if I could find humility. If I could attain to the attitude described in Philippians 2:3

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

then I wouldn't be in this wretched race to prove myself all the time. And I would have peace.

Music

2008-02-15T19:03:00.001-08:00

According to a recent article the Quail Springs Church of Christ is going to introduce a separate "Instrumental" service where they have instrumental music, in addition to a service offering the usual a cappella music you find at Churches of Christ. In the article the "teaching and preaching minister" Mark Henderson, in answer to the question, "What do you hope to accomplish with this worship service?" says:

We want to keep more of our people that were leaving to go to instrumental churches. One of the ways I would describe it is the way we handled it doctrinally. We essentially said you are free to worship with instruments and you are free to worship without them. From just a doctrinal biblical standpoint, we, for a number of years, have treated this as a nonissue. And so to me it seems like we were giving our people freedom to leave. We were saying you're free to worship with instruments — just not here. So one of things we're trying to do is for those people who really connect more with instrumental music, even of our own people, we're trying to give them a greater opportunity to stay and to worship and to serve and be a part of the church here.

So to the Quail Springs Church of Christ the decision whether or not to have a cappella music or instrumental accompaniment is one in which we are free. It is a matter of opinion and preference. Just after the quote above Mark gives another goal that Quail Springs has with this change. He says, "The other thing we're trying to do is to reach some people that we've been missing." So the goals for this change were to give those "who really connect more with instrumental music" a "greater opportunity to stay and to worship and be a part of the church" at Quail Springs and reach people that they had been missing. These goals sound admirable. However, just a few paragraphs later in the article, Mark says this:

We went through a painful process to make this decision. You know when we started this process, our average attendance was in the 900-950 arrange and by the time we finished, we were in the 600-650 range. And those numbers represent people and friends and family members, so we don't take it lightly, and others shouldn't either.

This is interesting. So they lost around 300 members so that they could give their members who "really connect more with instrumental music" a "greater opportunity to stay and worship and be a part of the church" and so that they could reach out to those they had been missing because of only having an a cappella service. Presumably, since Mark states that he believes this to be an area of freedom and opinion he believes that the stronger view is one that believes you can either sing with instruments or without. This means that the 300 members that left the church were the weak ones and he sacrificed the weaker members of the church so that the stronger ones would feel more comfortable and could now "really connect" with the worship service.

Let us assume that brother Mark is correct and that musical instruments will not commend us to God. That we are no worse off if we have musical instruments and no better off if we do. Is there a reason, then, why this passage does not apply?

Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.
(1 Corinthians 8:8-13)

More on Music

2008-02-15T18:39:00.001-08:00

It seems that whatever tradition you are in, there is a certain coolness to breaking with that tradition, even if others outside the tradition may be going in the opposite direction. Given the recent article regarding the Quail Springs Church of Christ introducing a service with instrumental music, isn't it strange that there are those outside the Churches of Christ discussing the usefulness of instrumental music in the corporate service?

Daniel

2008-02-09T19:40:00.001-08:00

From The Desert Fathers:

A brother asked [Poemen], "How ought we to live?" Poemen replied, "We have seen the example of Daniel. They accused him of nothing except that he served his God."

The Bible Through the Lens of the Apocalypse

2008-01-26T14:28:00.001-08:00

Some nice ladies who are members of the Jehovah's Witnesses came by my house today and dropped off a copy of The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom. (I always thought of it as just The Watchtower but according to this, the January 2008 issue, we are supposed to be mindful of the fact that its full title is, indeed, The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom so I'll call it that to be perfectly fair.)

This particular issue is focused on the Kingdom of God. One particular article titled What Is God's Kingdom provides some tidbits of information about the Kingdom of God like:

God's Kingdom has 144,000 corulers with the Christ. Jesus said that others, including his apostles, would rule in heaven with him. He called this group the "little flock." (Luke 12:32) Later, the apostle John was told that this little flock would total 144,000 in number. They would have a thrilling work assignment in heaven, ruling as kings and serving as priests along with Christ - Revelation 5:9, 10; 14:1, 3.

This is one of those well-known beliefs of the Witnesses, although I admit that I thought they considered the 144,000 to be the whole number of the saved and the way that this is written seems to indicate that they actually believe that the 144,000 are simply special leaders among the saved. Of course, maybe they are just spinning it that way so that I feel better about it, too, since according to the book Revelation - Its Grand Climax at Hand! which was published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society:

Interestingly, the first president of the Watch Tower Society, Charles T. Russell, recognized the 144,000 to be a literal number of individuals making up a spiritual Israel. In The New Creation, Volume VI of his Studies in the Scriptures, published in 1904, he wrote: "We have every reason to believe that the definite, fixed number of the elect [chosen anointed ones] is that several times stated in Revelation (7:4; 14:1); namely, 144,000 'redeemed from amongst men.'" [Emphasis Original]

Of course, from a scriptural perspective tying Revelation 5:9 to the 144,000 would mean that the 144,000 would have to consist of the entire body of the saved:

And they sing a new song, saying: "You are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals, because you were slaughtered and with your blood you bought persons for God out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and you made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they are to rule as kings over the earth." (Revelation 5:9)

The body of the saved are the body of those who have been bought with the blood of Christ. It is clear that outside of Christ there is no salvation from sin and the church consists of those bought with the blood of the lamb:

Furthermore, if you are calling upon the Father who judges impartially according to each one's work, conduct yourselves with fear during the time of your alien residence. For you know that it was not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, that you were delivered from your fruitless form of conduct received by tradition from your forefathers. But it was with precious blood, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb, even Christ's. (1 Peter 5:17-19)

Pay attention to yourselves and to all the flock, among with the holy spirit has appointed you overseers, to shepherd the congregation of God, which he purchased with the blood of his own. (Acts 20:28)

The problems with all of this are the same ones that we find whenever we use the book of Revelation to interpret other parts of the Bible and most especially when we decide that some portion of the book of Revelation is literal and then try to use that as a foundation for other interpretation. The identification of a literal 144,000 with the saved is a key belief for the Jehovah's Witnesses. Even if we assume that the stance is being softened on that being the total number of the saved (and instead represents some sort of "ruling class among the saved) the approach of taking the number literally causes all sorts of problems with passages having to do with the 144,000:

And I saw, and, look, the Lamb standing upon the Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand having his name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads. And I heard a sound out of heaven as the sound of many waters and as the sound of loud thunder; and the sound that I heard was as of singers who accompany themselves on the harp playing on their harps. And they are singing as if a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the older persons; and no one was able to master that song but the hundred and forty-four thousand, who have been bought from the earth. These are the ones that did not defile themselves with women; in fact, they are virgins. These are the ones that keep following the Lamb no matter where he goes. These were bought from among mankind as first fruits to God and to the Lamb, and no falsehood was found in their mouths; they are without blemish. (Revelation 14:1-5)

And I heard the number of those who were sealed, a hundred and forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the sons of Israel: Out of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand sealed; out of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand sealed. (Revelation 7:4-8)

So if we take the 144,000 literally then the following must also be true about the people that make up this number:

They are male (Revelation 14:4)
They are virgins (Revelation 14:4)
They are physical descendents of Israel (Revelation 7:4-8)

Regarding the fact that they are male virgins the book Revelation - Its Great Climax at Hand! says:

The fact that the 144,000 "are virgins" does not mean that members of this class are necessarily unmarried in the flesh. The apostle Paul wrote to Christians who had a heavenly calling that, whereas there are advantages to Christian singleness, marriage is preferable under certain circumstances. (1 Corinthians 7:1, 2, 36, 37) What characterizes this class is a spiritual virginity. They have avoided spiritual adultery with worldly politics and with false religion. [Emphasis Original]

And concerning the fact that they would have to be physical descendents of Israel the same book says:

Could this not be a reference to literal, fleshly Israel? No, for Revelation 7:4-8 diverges from the usual tribal listing. (Numbers 1:17, 47) Obviously, the listing here is not for the purpose of identifying fleshly Jews by their tribes but to show a similar organizational structure for spiritual Israel. This is balanced. There are to be exactly 144,000 members of this new nation - 12,000 from each of 12 tribes.

Ah, yes, and here is what we always see with such an approach to Revelation. At some point there has to be a symbolic interpretation. If you find the greatest literalist there is with regard to the book of Revelation you can always find the breakdown into symbolic interpretation at some point. It will undoubtedly show up, for example, in the interpretation of the trumpets in Revelation 8 and 9 and most especially when the star Wormwood falls to the earth. Regarding this passage, for example, Revelation - Its Great Climax at Hand! says this:

We have already met the symbolism of a star in Jesus' messages to the seven congregations, in which the seven stars symbolize the elders in the congregations. (Revelation 1:20) Anointed "stars," along with all others of the anointed, inhabit heavenly places in a spiritual sense from the time that they are sealed with the holy spirit as a token of their heavenly inheritance. (Ephesians 2:6, 7) However, the apostle Paul warned that from among such starlike ones would come apostates, sectarians, who would mislead the flock. (Acts 20:29, 30) ... When the clergy of Christendom apostatized from true Christianity, they fell from the lofty "heavenly" position described by Paul at Ephesians 2:6, 7. Instead of offering fresh waters of truth, they served up "wormwood," bitter lies such as hellfire, purgatory, the Trinity, and predestination; also, they led the nations into war, failing to build them up as moral servants of God.

You've simply got to resort to symbolism at some point when you interpret Revelation. The problem is that the book makes it so easy, once you start mixing literal and symbolic interpretation, to twist it into almost any point you want to. Once you have done this with Revelation, you can then use the "obvious" (notice the use of that word in previous quotes from the literature above) interpretation you have created from Revelation to interpret away truly clear passages from the rest of the Bible. I always get frustrated when people (usually those who don't believe in God and want good reasons not to read the Bible) say, "You can make the Bible say whatever you want to." This really isn't true. The Bible is quite clear on a great many points. However, it is possible to twist the Bible into saying what it does not by using methods such as interpreting the rest of the Bible through the lens of Revelation.

The obvious difficulties in interpreting the book of Revelation if you are going to cling to a literal interpretation of parts of the vision can be seen with how the Jehovah's Witnesses interpret Revelation 7:4. Here is just that verse and I have tagged the parts that the Jehovah's Witnesses read as literal and symbolic:

And I heard the number of those who were sealed, a hundred and forty-four thousand [literal], sealed out of every tribe of the sons of Israel [symbolic]

Thus in the space of part of a single sentence in a single verse we are told to interpret part of it literally and part of it symbolically. How are we to know which parts we need to take literally and which parts symbolically when the two types of reading are mixed within the same sentence like this? The answer to that question gives us the second reason why it is so convenient to interpret the Bible from the foundation of the book of Revelation - Doing so creates a dependency on someone else's interpretation. The Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in a separated clergy and laity (and rightly so) but they have created a system that achieves the same effect by creating an interpretive dependency on The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom. Revelation is the premier book for this effect as it is so difficult to understand and therefore if you can claim that you understand it so well you should be heeded as a source of authority by those less able. Combining this with the first effect of interpreting the Bible through the lens of the book of Revelation (that being the ability to easily twist easier to understand passages by more difficult ones) you can both make the Bible say whatever you want it to and also create a system of authority such that everyone who is a member of your church must listen and do whatever you say as though you were the voice of God himself. Of course, turning the Bible into a tool for establishing human authority like this is nothing new and the Jehovah's Witnesses did not invent this procedure but it is something that we have to be on guard against all the same.

Titles

2007-12-01T18:45:00.001-08:00

I came across the following as a footnote on page 133 of The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware:

In Orthodoxy the title 'Pope' is not limited to the Bishop of Rome, but is also borne by the Patriarch of Alexandria. Among his other honorary titles are 'Shepherd of Shepherds', 'Thirteenth Apostle', and 'Judge of the Universe'.

And in The Catholic Encyclopedia under the entry for Pope, I found the following:

[The Pope] is addressed as His Holiness the Pope. By title and right he is: Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff, Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman province, and Sovereign of the State of Vatican City.

Also, according to the Wikipedia page on the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople the official title of the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople is, "His Most Godly All-Holiness the Archbishop of Constantinople New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch."

It seems strange to me that men who are supposed to be extremely spiritual (as is made clear in the title of the Ecumenical Patriarch, Most Godly All-Holiness) would take such titles for themselves. I find that the closer I get to God the more ashamed I am of my inadequacies and the smaller I want to make myself. I would not want to stand before God on the Day of Judgment and have myself declared Judge of the Universe or Prince of the Apostles. Would you want to have yourself declared Prince of the Apostles with any of the actual Apostles in the room? How remarkably embarrassing that would be! And what if you were asked by Paul, "Were you really the Thirteenth Apostle?" What would you say?

It seems even worse when looked at, for example, where Paul says:

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. (1 Corinthians 15:9)

These are not the words of a man who is seeking to be Judge of the Universe or to call himself "Most Godly All-Holiness." These things bring up the question of what Jesus was talking about when he said:

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, "You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. (Mark 10:42-44)

Given that when this passage occurs in Matthew and Mark it is after the request by the mother of John and James for them to sit at Jesus' right and left hands in his glory it seems that Jesus is trying to teach us something about the thirst for power and what power means in the Kingdom of God. The pattern of Jesus' preaching about humility and the inversion of authority occurring directly after arguments among his disciples about who was the greatest does not seem to be accidental:

An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest. But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side and said to them, "Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great." (Luke 9:46-48)

And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you discussing on the way?" But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, "If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all." (Mark 9:33-35)
A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves. (Luke 22:24-27)

Notice how in the last passage Jesus points out that he is "among you as the one who serves." If the Son of God who is God came among us as "the one who serves" then how is it possible for any mere human to decide that he is among us as the "one who reclines at table"?

The Eastern Orthodox Church

2007-11-17T11:07:00.001-08:00

I started reading The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware in an effort to get a better understanding of the Eastern Orthodox Church before setting off into the second volume in Jaroslav Pelikan's The Christian Tradition. The book is both interesting and disturbing.

My fascination with the Eastern Orthodox goes back to a church camp I went to over a long weekend. At the camp we were informed that another camp a short distance away would be sharing our mess hall and that we should be polite and not stare. This didn't make a lot of sense until the other camp showed up and turned out to be an Eastern Orthodox camp that chanted prayers before each meal and whose leaders wore outfits like nothing I had ever seen. I am sad to say that I remember very little regarding our camp, but I remember almost every time that we came in contact with the the Eastern Orthodox. Late in the weekend several of us managed to sneak off and check out the other camp and when we got there nobody else was around and the door to their church was open so we went in. I don't remember anything special about the building, but I do remember the icons on the walls and I especially remember that all of the pictures of the saints and Christ and Mary all bore the distinctive marks of being repeatedly kissed.

Timothy Ware says this about icons:

One of the distinctive features of Orthodoxy is the place which it assigns to icons. An Orthodox church today is filled with them... An Orthodox prostrates himself before these icons, he kisses them and burns candles in front of them; they are censed by the priest and carried in procession.

Now to me this smacks of idolatry, but Bishop Ware disagrees:

When an Orthodox kisses an icon or prostrates himself before it, he is not guilty of idolatry. The icon is not an idol but a symbol; the veneration shown to images is directed, not towards stone, wood and paint, but towards the person depicted... Because icons are only symbols, Orthodox do not worship them, but reverence or venerate them. [emphasis original]

So, I can make an image of Christ or of a saint and I can bow down to it and I can kiss it and burn incense to it, but because I have redefined the word "worship" I can say that I am not an idolater. The second commandment seems to imply differently:

"You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6)

It is interesting that the second commandment almost seems to anticipate that we might redefine the word "worship" and so it doesn't use that word. It says, "You shall not bow down to them." An Eastern Orthodox might respond with this passage:

"Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. (Deuteronomy 4:15-18)

And they might point out that Christ was the incarnation of God and therefore, as opposed to the Old Testament, we have a God which can be seen and touched with our hands, as mentioned in John 1 and 1 John 1:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life-- the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us-- that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1-3)

And Eastern Orthodox would say that because of this fact, that God has made himself manifest in the form of a man, to make an icon of Christ is not incorrect because, just as Christ was worshipped here on earth, when he had been incarnated into the form of a man, he can be worshipped through a man-made image of him (because we, as mankind, have beheld him).

Given my limited understanding of the Eastern Orthodox I think that is a fair assessment of their teaching on icons. After all of that, I have to say that I think it is also an example of humans twisting the word of God to say what they want it to say. It is not a new thing to spin words like this and it is not at all difficult to do (for example, it isn't "murder" it is "choice" or "euthanasia"). In fact, we humans do it all the time to justify ourselves. Christ was worshipped here on earth, not because he was a man, but because he is God. He was due worship because there was, within his nature, that which was worthy of worship. Bowing down to an icon of him because he had a human nature misconstrues the object of worship into the human aspect and breaks the fine balance of the incarnation into an overemphasis on the human side. Adding the saints and Mary into the mix further emphasizes the human (although I'm guessing an Eastern Orthodox would say that it is acceptable to worship them as well due to theosis) and degenerates the object of worship into the creation rather than the creator, which is the real source of idolatry:

"Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. (Acts 14:15)

When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, "Stand up; I too am a man." (Acts 10:25-26)

Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God." For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. (Revelation 19:10)

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God." (Revelation 22:8-9)

Romans 1 makes clear that the worship due the invisible God is not changed as it regards idolatry (spinning "worship" into "reverence" and "veneration" aside):

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:19-25)

This draws the clear distinction between "what has been made" and "created" and who is the maker or the "creator." If I bow before, burn incense to, and kiss an image, even of Christ, I am an idolater because I have made an image before which to bow down. I may redefine this as "veneration" but in the end, the action is the same.

Such a Worm as I

2007-11-12T21:27:00.001-08:00

There is a song by Isaac Watts titled Alas! and did my Saviour bleed in which the first verse goes like this:

Alas! and did my Saviour bleed, and did my Sovereign die? Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?

In many songbooks today the "worm" in that verse is replaced by some other term, such as "sinner" or even, "one" so that the verse goes like this:

Alas! and did my Savious bleed, and did my Sovereign die? Would he devote that sacred head for such a one as I?

In fact, I wasn't certain that the first quote above was actually what Isaac Watts wrote so I looked it up at Christian Classics Ethereal Library and also at Project Gutenberg and the original verse is as I wrote it above saying, "Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?"

The reasons for modifying the song in this way are not the subject of some conspiracy theory. The theology behind the change is outlined in the Wikipedia page on "Worm Theology." I said that the theology behind the change is outlined in the page on Worm Theology because although the page purports to be about the theology in the Isaac Watts hymn, it really has very little to do with the hymn and very much to do with the theology in a culture of self-promotion like we live in now. Removing the "worm" from the song is supposed to be because we are worth so much to God that he gave his son for us and therefore we can pat ourselves on the back. The first part of the statement is true. God loved us so much that he gave his son for us, but the back patting is where we go wrong. When Christ bled and died and devoted "that sacred head" we were worms. We've got to get it through our thick heads that without the blood of Christ we are not acceptable to God. Furthermore, removing the "worm" from our songs does not help the sinners of this world appreciate their sinful state. Not that they would hear the "worm" in the song itself, but the entire idea of removing the "worm" is rampant in the way that we think so that in our preaching we are so often now trying to convince people they are okay at the same time as we are asking them to come to Jesus! What nonsense! Why do they need to come to Jesus in the first place? You see those people carrying John 3:16 signs and many people who do such a thing have whittled down the Bible to just that verse, but now we've gone even farther and whittled down the Bible to half of that verse. We've managed to get that verse down to "For God so loved the world." And that is it! We at least ought to finish the verse:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

And why can't we have eternal life without God giving his Son? Why were we going to "perish" if God didn't help us? Because of our sin, that's why!

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (Romans 5:10)

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved
(Ephesians 2:4-5)

This is so simple, in fact it is the very gospel itself:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures
(1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

The basics of our sin problem and the remedy for it which is the very gospel itself are undermined by our "I'm okay, you're okay" philosophy. We do the lost and ourselves no favors by removing the "worm."

Writer's Block

2007-10-27T19:26:00.001-07:00

I'm not really a writer, but I play on one this blog so I found this particular Lifehacker post about beating writer's block very helpful. I never thought about the fact that I am completely uninspired to post something here as "writer's block" but I suppose that is what it is.

Comparing Ourselves to Others

2007-10-20T13:01:00.001-07:00

"Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18:10-14)

Have you ever noticed the points of comparison in this parable? The Pharisee compares himself with "other men" and even with the tax collecter also standing in the temple to make the point to God that, relatively speaking, he is a good man. He is looking around at the world and knows that he is "not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers" and he is justified in his heart by this, in fact he was justified to himself before he even started to pray (this is why he thanks God for his good standing), but he is not justified before God so his justification means nothing. The tax collector also makes a point of comparison, but he compares himself to God and so he prays, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" He is unwilling even "to lift up his eyes to heaven" because he is painfully aware of his own unworthiness. Clearly since Jesus himself says regarding the tax collector, "This man went down to his house justified" then the tax collector's attitude is the one worthy of emulation. Like him, we should remember to compare ourselves with God and go out into the world ashamed of our own imperfections, but understanding that "It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?" (Rom. 8:33-34)

Science and God

2007-09-15T16:50:00.001-07:00

I've always found it fascinating how many people there are who want to prove that miracles in the Bible could have been true because of some such naturally occurring event. An example of this are those people who choose to believe the book of Jonah because there are fish that exist that actually could swallow a man. That isn't a belief in God at all. That is a belief in the natural world. I like the way that A.W. Tozer puts it in the book The Mystery of the Holy Spirit. He says,

And the poor preachers, God help them, have tried over the last few years to prove miracles. They want to believe the miracles. I believe them all, but I do not believe them because science permits me; I believe them because God wrote them in the Bible and they are there. But some fellow finds a fish washed up on the shore and he measures its gullet. Gets himself a tape measure and crawls inside the bony skeleton and measures its gullet and finds out it is as broad as the shoulders of a man and he goes out and says see, a great fish could swallow Jonah. See, the unbeliever is wrong; God did make a fish big enough to swallow Jonah. Why go to tape measures and fish to find out whether what God says is true or not? If God did the thing, I could believe that.

The problem with telling the unbeliever they are wrong about God because a fish is proven to exist that could swallow a man is that such a thing may prove to the unbeliever that the Bible has some historical and scientific accuracy, but it doesn't help the unbeliever with what his real problem is and that is his unbelief in God. A miracle is a miracle precisely because it is scientifically impossible not because it happens daily somewhere in the world, and if we believe in a God who could create a universe then we should not have a problem believing that such a God could make a fish that could swallow a man.

On Conscience and Modernism

2007-08-28T21:01:00.001-07:00

I picked up the book On Conscience by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (that would be the Pope) and I am finding it very thought provoking. The book consists of two essays given by the Pope (though when he gave them he was not the Pope) as lectures at workshops of the National Catholic Bioethics Center (one in 1984 and the other in 1991).

I should tell you at this point that I'm not at all Catholic. Not in the slightest. However, when I was perusing the little bookstore in the airport on my last trip I just flipped through this book and I found some of it interesting. The primary thesis in the first essay (Conscience and Truth) is that the conscience is more complex than simply the subjective certainty of man regarding his own actions and is answerable to more than simply itself; and further, that if this is not properly understood then it leads to a system of ethical relativity in the culture where confidence in actions by the powerful render them morally acceptable. The Pope puts it like so:

It will not do to identify man's conscience with the self-consciousness of the "I," with its subjective certainty about itself and its moral behavior. One the one hand, this consciousness may be a mere reflection of the social surroundings and the opinions in circulation. On the other hand, it might also derive from a lack of self-criticism, a deficiency in listening to the depths of one's own soul.

or again:

The identification of conscience with superficial consciousness, the reduction of man to his subjectivity, does not liberate but enslaves. It makes us totally dependent on the prevailing opinions, and debases these with every passing day. Whoever equates conscience with superficial conviction identifies conscience with a pseudo-rational certainty, a certainty that in fact has been woven from self-righteousness, conformity, and lethargy.

I agree with what he is saying here and I think we can easily see this proven in Western culture. Look at what has been "right" and "wrong" in the past 100 years in America, for example. For that matter, consider what has been "right" and "wrong" in simply the past 20 years in America. Is what was "wrong" 20 years ago that is considered "right" today "right" or is it "wrong?" Many would read that question and say that the question itself is a problem since what is "right" and "wrong" today or yesterday has no meaning and that proves the point precisely, of course.

The Pope points this out like so (and attaches it to the concept of progress):

The individual may not achieve his advancement or well-being at the cost of betraying what he recognizes to be true; nor may humanity. Here we come in contact with the really critical issue of the modern age. The concept of truth has been virtually given up, and replaced by the concept of progress. Progress itself "is" the truth. But through this seeming exaltation, progress loses its direction and becomes nullified. For if no direction exists everything can just as well be regress as progress.

To get a bearing and progress you have to have a fixed point. The Pope is here saying that there exists no fixed point to take a bearing from and actually progress so we may just as well go in a circle instead.

This goes along with some thoughts I've been having lately. Modernist thinking believes that there is a science to everything and application of scientific principles to every aspect of culture and society lead to advancement in all fields. It seems fairly obvious from a cursory look at the history of biblical interpretation (and especially since it has been "modernized" by the application of the historical-critical method) to see that such a notion is, in fact, nonsense when applied to a field where a fixed point cannot be established outside of the material under study. You have to have something to put a mark on so that when you move forward you can look back and understand that you have moved forward. This is very simple with the hard sciences since the body of applicable knowledge is expanding and can be tested by experimental means, but this is much more difficult with other areas we have tried to apply science to and in many cases all we have succeeded in doing, it seems, is creating systems of scholarly jargon so that a particular field sounds scientific when it is, in fact, not. Postmodern thinking is chipping away at the roots of scientific knowledge and it is starting with the fields of endeavor that are merely myth decorated with jargon since they are clearly the most vulnerable. The job is more difficult with the hard sciences but their truth can also be undermined because too often they have allied themselves with the other systems and are unwilling to give them up therefore their hypocrisy can be pointed out and this can be used to place doubt in the mind of the culture as it regards all of the truth being propagated by all of the sciences. I wonder what will come of this. Poor folks like Richard Dawkins still believe that logic and rational debate can clear the air and find the truth but the ax of the current cultural shift that is taking place is at the roots of his tree and although it seems likely that rational atheism will suffer greatly from this its impact on Christianity will probably be an increase in the emphasis on mysticism. It is happening slowly but it seems that this shift is already taking place. People probably like all of their technological conveniences too much to allow it to progress all the way to another Dark Ages but what will swing the pendulum back in the other direction?

There Is a Way That Seems Right

2007-08-11T17:40:00.001-07:00

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. (Proverbs 14:12)

This passage from Proverbs frightens me. The part that I find so disturbing is most specifically the part about a way that "seems right to a man." I find it frightening because it doesn't say, "There is a wrong way that a man decides to do even when he knows what the right way is" but rather that the way "seems right" meaning that when I am on it, then it seems like the correct thing to do. I'd like to think that the ways I am choosing are either obviously right or obviously wrong and when I'm on the wrong path then I am only on it because I want to be. That is, I'm being willful and rebellious and I know it. But this passage indicates that this isn't always the case and rather there is a way that I think is right but which is not. What is twisting my judgment like this? In the book of James we find:

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:14-15)

I read this passage and I'm inclined to believe that this is the type of temptation that I know about, acknowledge as such, fight, and end up yielding to. We know what kind of temptations those are and we live with them all of the time. But it seems to me that there are more dangerous temptations and they are the ones that we find a way to justify. So we are still led astray by our own desires, but in the latter case we decide that those desires are acceptable, that is, they are "right" and then when "desire is conceived" and "gives birth to sin" we are now more likely than ever to allow that sin to become fully grown and "bring forth death" because our guard is completely down. Thomas à Kempis writes about this like so:

We frequently judge that things are as we wish them to be, for through personal feeling true perspective is easily lost.

and again:

Many, unawares, seek themselves in the things they do.

Our own emotions and desires cloud our judgment and "through personal feeling true perspective is easily lost." It is this kind of temptation that is the more dangerous kind and it is this kind that the writer in Proverbs discusses when he says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death." The person being discussed cannot see that the end is the way to death because they so long for it to be the way to life and, though unawares, "Seek themselves in the things they do." We are all like this to some degree. We judge a great many things around us in a relative sense to the things we care about and desire. Our judgment is not absolute and we are unwilling to submit to God in all that we do. We determine that passages we read in the Bible don't apply to us for some reason or another or we decide they mean something other than what they clearly state because what they clearly state is against our own desires. So, "hearing we do not hear, and seeing we do not see, or understand."

Worse than Death

2007-08-10T09:54:00.001-07:00

A common mindset of the current era is that our physical well-being is somehow more important than anything else. You can see this if you look at all of the people exercising and eating so that they can "live longer." How long is it possible to live, anyway, and how much longer can your life get if you exercise like a maniac and eat only the very best things? It seems clear that no matter what we do, we all still die. Because of this, we have to get into a mindset for what comes after death. Obviously if you are an atheist then nothing comes after death for you so the point is moot, but if you are a Christian then you believe that there is something else and you believe that this something else will last forever. Therefore, the life we have after death is what matters and this life is of importance only as far as it has an impact on that life after death. This concept is entirely biblical. In fact, the idea that this life matters at all for its own sake is just utter nonsense from the Bible's point of view.

For what is the hope of the godless when God cuts him off, when God takes away his life? Will God hear his cry when distress comes upon him? (Job 27:8-9) If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. (Matthew 5:29-30) For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? (Matthew 16:26)

Jesus turns on its head the idea that our peace and safety here means anything at all by pointing out that it is better for us to have no peace and no safety here (plucked out eyes and chopped off hands) as long as we can follow him to heaven. This thought for our life after death should permeate our lives here. It should form how we treat our jobs, our things, and most especially how we bring up our children. Too often our thinking for them is of their physical and material safety. As long as they have a roof over their heads and enough to eat we determine that they must be fine and we must be good parents. Such thinking is nonsense in the context of an afterlife. It is strange that many Christians have such a materialistic mindset for their children even if they do not have it for themselves. Their own peace and safety here on earth is, like ours, secondary to the safety of their eternal souls. If we understand Christ's lesson and do not forfeit our own souls but we forfeit theirs in a warped reading of the Word then how much mercy can we as children expect from our own Father in heaven who has chosen never to abandon us, even when we were worth abandonment?

Inferiority Complex

2007-07-14T13:47:00.001-07:00

DISCLAIMER: There are some fairly graphic descriptions of torture below so don't read on if that will be an issue for you. I am almost finished reading Eusebius' The History of the Church and although it has been hard going in some ways (off-hand references to all sorts of people, no dates from which to get a point of reference, and jarring context switches) it has still been very educational. One of the most notable things about the book has been the history as it regards the persecutions of the church during its first three centuries of existence. It is difficult for me to read about the martyrs and what they faced because I find it makes me feel so deficient. These people who preceded us went through unimaginable horrors and the worst thing that happens in my life is when I botch some home improvement project. This sense of inferiority I get is very strong because when you are reading Eusebius you realize that you are interacting with a culture for whom torture is a way of life. Consider, for example, this passage which is an excerpt from a letter written during the persecution of Diocletian in the early 300s:

Some, with their hands tied behind them, were hung from the gibbet and all their limbs were pulled apart by machines; then the torturers were ordered to get to work on every part of their helpless bodies, not as with murderers applying their instruments of correction to sides alone, but even to belly, legs and cheeks.

The worst thing about this statement is what is assumed in it. Torture was state sanctioned for murderers, but the torturers were limited by only being able to apply their "instruments of correction" (it seems that political spin by renaming things has always been common) to the "sides alone." In the case of the Christians, however, they could apply it to "every part of their helpless bodies." And what was it that they were being tortured for? Well, according to the edicts issued by the Romans they were supposed to offer incense to the Emperors. As it turns out, this wasn't a huge deal. You weren't expected to like the Emperors, you just had to offer your incense and be done with it. For most in the pagan Roman world the Christian response to this seemed unpatriotic and rebellious. Consider what the recantation prompted by Emperor Galerius at the end of the main period of persecution says:

Among the other steps that we are taking for the advantage and benefit of the nation, we have desired hitherto that every deficiency should be made good, in accordance with the established law and public order of Rome; and we made provision for this - that the Christians who had abandoned the convictions of their own forefathers should return to sound ideas. For through some perverse reasoning such arrogance and folly had seized and possessed them that they refused to follow the path trodden by earlier generations (and perhaps blazed long ago by their own ancestors), and made their own laws to suit their own ideas and individual tastes and observed these; and held meetings in various places.

So when you read the following understand that the Romans are asking for a censer of incense to be offered to a statue of the Emperor and in that particular culture it was quite an insignificant thing and certainly not something that any normal pagan would even bat an eye at, and then ask yourself if you could also do the right thing in face of something like this:

In the city [of Nicomedia], the rulers in question brought a certain man into a public place and commanded him to sacrifice. When he refused, he was ordered to be stripped, hoisted up naked, and his whole body torn with loaded whips till he gave in and carried out the command, however unwillingly. When in spite of these torments he remained as obstinate as ever, they next mixed vinegar with salt and poured it over the lacerated parts of his body, where the bones were already exposed. When he treated these agonies too with scorn a lighted brazier was then brought forward, and as if it were edible meat for the table, what was left of his body was consumed by the fire, not all at once, for fear his release should come too soon, but a little at a time; and those who placed him on the pyre were not permitted to stop till after such treatment he should signify his readiness to obey. But he stuck immovably to his determination, and victorious in the midst of his tortures, breathed his last. Such was the martyrdom of one of the imperial servants, a martyrdom worthy of the name he bore - it was Peter.

I have to confess that this makes my troubles seem so insignificant. I hear a lot of whining all around me all the time. We are a great society of whiners and this is so strongly contrasted to me in Eusebius where there is very little whining although there is a lot of torture and death and "fulfillment" (which is what the early church called it if you were martyred). We'd have a hard time dying for our Lord in America so maybe we should just do what we can and stop whining about anything in our life that falls short of the previous quote.

Then He Appeared to James

2007-06-30T21:31:00.001-07:00

I was listening to a podcast from Covenant Theological Seminary on New Testament History and the instructor brought up the notion that James was converted by seeing the risen Christ. In 1 Corinthians 15:7 we find that Jesus appeared after his resurrection to James and it would seem that this is the Lord's brother since the whole verse says, "Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles." That James didn't believe at one time we know from John 7:

After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Jews' Feast of Booths was at hand. So his brothers said to him, "Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world." For not even his brothers believed in him. (John 7:1-5)

Of course, there is more than a little conjecture here, but it is an interesting thought to consider that James might have been converted by the risen Lord. That is one of those things I wish had been written down - something else to find out after death I suppose.

You Thought I Was Like You

2007-06-23T16:00:00.001-07:00

I'm amazed by Psalms 50. So much of it seems like a backhanded smack. Take, for example, verses 9-11 where God says, "I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine." In this passage God is rebuking the Israelites for believing that their offerings were like the pagans, who believed that they were feeding their needy Gods with their offerings. He points out that he doesn't need what they are offering to him because they are only offering him what is already his. It is the very next two verses, though, that really brings home what I referred to previously as the "backhanded smack." In verses 12-13 God says, "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?" Listen to that: "If I were hungry, I would not tell you." Amazing! Smack! But it only gets better when he shifts and starts to talk about the wicked. I picture this passage like when my sister used to get in trouble and I would be giggling about it and then it was ten times worse for me when my parents were done with her. God rounds on the wicked and says this:

But to the wicked God says: "What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. If you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you keep company with adulterers. You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son." (Psalms 50:16-20)

The wicked don't even have the right to recite the statutes of God or take his covenant on their lips! Their actions prevent any sort of ability on their part to even approach him. But as with the previous section, the real smack comes in the next verse, where God says to the wicked, "These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you." That phrase in the middle, where God says to the wicked, "You thought I was like you" is quite the smack, but it is also very deep. When I consider what most people think about God that really sums it up - they think that he is just like them. Of course, he isn't. He is especially not like them when they are working evil which, oddly enough, seems to be the times that most people are the most sure that God is just like them. We would do well to be on our guard against such thinking. We need to understand that God is incomprehensible and we need to understand that with our own unaided human understanding we will only create idolatrous notions of God because we require assistance to think of him correctly. We need to be starting with the Word and allowing it to form our understanding of God instead of the other way around. This becomes extremely important when we realize that our conceptions of God will permeate our entire life and an incorrect conception of God is a garden for hedonism because our flesh will tend in that direction on its own. The remedy for this is to change our course of action to match what we find in the Word and this does not come without reward as we find in the final verse of the psalm where God tells them that, "to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God."

A Poignant Prayer

2007-06-16T18:41:00.001-07:00

From Thomas à Kempis' On the Passion of Christ:

Gentle Jesus, forgive me for having so often offended you, for so easily turning to vanities, and for not setting my heart on that which I have proposed to do. How often I look back on the amount of time I spent on so many things, all far from important, while I paid no attention to your Passion. You have preceded me along the narrow road, and with eyes dry I pass by as if your sorrows have no effect on me. Remember my foolish heart and instill in it a loving remembrance of your most bitter Passion.

I Know What I'm Talking About Because I Know

2007-06-08T20:15:00.001-07:00

Years ago when I first found out about the Internet I would go online to Usenet and IRC and argue for hours with other people about Christianity. Unfortunately Google archives a lot of that stuff and so you can go on Google Groups and search and find several of my snotty and arrogant posts. Well, I was young and foolish and had very little sense, but I thought I knew so much and everyone I argued with was exactly the same way so we would mock and scoff at each other and even through all of this God thought it worthwhile to teach me a few things even as unteachable as I was making myself to be.

In one particular heated argument I brought up Josephus as an extra-biblical source for Jesus since in Book 18 and Chapter 3 of The Antiquities of the Jews we find this:

Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works - a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

Well, that just caused a great deal of mocking from the learned of the Internet who pointed out to me that nobody who knew anything thought that passage was original (that is, written by Josephus) but had rather been proven a forgery added later by Christians.

For a long time afterward I thought maybe they were right and after all, they spoke with such authority that there must be something to what they said so I didn't use that passage again, but just this past week I was reading The History of the Church by Eusebius and he mentions this very passage in Book 1 (11.7f) - he quotes it exactly. Now, what is so interesting about this? Well, Eusebius wrote early in the fourth century, just before the First Council of Nicea in 325 so we know that the supposed Christian addition to Josephus must have happened before that. I wondered what the translator of Eusebius had to say about this so under the heading of Josephus in the Who's Who in Eusebius section at the back of the book I found this:

Josephus is Eusebius' main source for the history of the first century A.D. Eusebius is also fond of showing how Josephus supports the history presupposed by the various writings of the New Testament. These citations raise various problems. At I. 11. 7f. Eusebius quotes Antiquities, XVIII. 3. 3, a passage that refers to Christ as "a very gifted man - if indeed it is right to call him a man." All the manuscripts we have of the Antiquities agree with Eusebius' reading here: but it is hard not to think that it has been subject to some Christian interpolation.

I put the last part in bold myself so that you could really chew on exactly what is being said there. What the translator of Eusebius is telling us here is that all of the available evidence we have - every manuscript and every quote of Josephus - has this statement about Jesus in it but we think it was a forgery because it is hard not to think that it has been subject to some Christian interpolation. That is incredible. So I was lectured that the particular section in Josephus that provides extra-Biblical evidence for Jesus is clearly a forgery and everybody knows that but the reason that it is considered a forgery is because it is just hard to believe. That's it, it is just hard to believe. There is no evidence for it being a forgery (in fact there is quite the opposite as all of the hard evidence says that it is not an addition) but because "scholars" find it hard to believe it is therefore considered a forgery.

There are many lessons here, but the one that really strikes me the most is that whenever you hear something pronounced with great authority (and little else) you should look it up for yourself so you can make up your own mind based on some actual facts (note that I didn't do this originally and I am not the better for it). Also it seems that this "Believe what I tell you because I know" is extremely prevalent in Biblical scholarship and your faith is the last place where you should ever be placing your confidence in some person who actually knows nothing beyond his own confidence.

Sometimes it isn't God

2007-06-01T16:36:00.001-07:00

I was having a conversation with a deeply religious friend of mine the other day and she told me that her son was upsetting her because of his complete apathy in looking for a job. In fact, he had told her just that morning that God just must have not wanted him to get a job and had other plans for him. She had responded, "No, that isn't God. God isn't making you be a lazy bum."

Apart from the fact that this is slightly funny, you need to understand that this shocked me, coming from her. I say this because the very sweet lady I was talking to is a person who sees God's hand in her life in everything that happens to her and everything she does, but in this case she drew a clear line and said, "No, God isn't responsible for this happening, you are." That's important. God is active in our lives, of course, but I can clearly remember times when he was pushing me visibly in a direction I didn't want to go and I managed to convince myself repeatedly as I banged my head needlessly against the walls he had put up that he wanted me to bash my way through these thick walls. "Wow, what a blessing it is to have these great challenges," I said. "Without these thick walls to bang my head on I just wouldn't know what God's will in my life was." It wasn't until after I surrendered and went the other way that I looked back and felt very foolish as it was then completely obvious that he very much was trying to get me to surrender and stop "kicking against the goads."

In Acts 26 Paul is defending himself in front of Festus and King Agrippa and he tells the story of his conversion. Prior to getting to the part where Jesus speaks to him, though, he says this:

"I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth." (Acts 26:9)

That is important. Did Paul oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth because he was just being evil and didn't know any better or did he believe with all of his heart that he was doing just as God would have him to do? Do you think he prayed all the time about it? Do you think he thought that God was working in his life? Listen to what Jesus says to him when he has been stricken on the road to Damascus:

And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.' (Acts 26:14)

What is Jesus talking about with this "goad" thing? Listen, the amazing thing is that God was working strongly in Paul's life, but not to make him do the things that he was doing; not to make him persecute the church, although Paul was convinced this was the will of God for him. No, Jesus was goading him in his life to go the other way and what was Paul doing? What does Jesus say that Paul was doing here? He tells Paul that he was kicking against the goads. So a goad, of course, is an implement used to get an animal to go a certain direction, right? So Jesus is saying that he is working in Paul's life to get him to go a certain direction but Paul isn't going that way and instead he is kicking against the goads to go the other way. And Jesus tells him that this is hard for him.

Listen, we aren't promised an easy life, but if your life is hard maybe you should stop, take a breath, and ask yourself if it is hard because you are doing the will of God or if it is hard because you are doing what you want to do and are just kicking against the goads that Jesus is using on you while he is trying to get you to go the direction that he wants you to go.

Peace

2007-05-28T20:49:00.001-07:00

I've posted before about the need for us to stop running so hard after the things that are here, but the thought continues to weigh on my mind. I want to be able to put this into words that make an impact beyond just saying, "Stop running so much after the world." That phrase sounds trite and overused. The fact is that I often hear it spill from the mouth of those that are running harder than anyone else, so it falls very flat. The great power of the book of Ecclesiastes is that it draws it all down to the bottom line:

For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! (Ecclesiastes 2:16)

For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20)

The bottom line is very simple: Everybody dies.

That's right, everybody dies. Why are we running so hard after the things of this world when we all die? Of what use is a wonderful career when life is so short? Look, America doesn't help you with this. I'm not trying to be unpatriotic here, but shouldn't we be more concerned with what comes after this life than with what temporary things this life has to offer? That runs against the grain I think. Somehow we have convinced ourselves that good college and a good career is somehow commanded by God as being a "Good steward." The prosperity gospel is actually a few steps behind in this respect, it only promises wealth and honor - too many people are so far gone as to believe that the Bible commands such a thing.

Let's be blunt here, you are dying and the world is running down. If you believe in an afterlife then you ought to be doing whatever you can toward that and forget about the moldy things here. Do we think that Jesus is interested in our careers?

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)

Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Luke 12:33-34)

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. (James 5:1-3)

You tell me. I don't know. I'm still looking for the passage where Jesus says, "Make sure you get into a good college and get a good job that you feel fulfilled in for this is important to me." If somebody finds it, please let me know.

Oddly enough, our lives would be so much better if we would stop rooting around in the dumpster and strive after eternal things. We say that we want peace and we believe it is around the next corner. We are running as fast as we can so that we can stop. On every lap God quietly says, "You can stop now if you want to and have peace" and we pant and say, "No, God, not yet, I'm almost there. *pant* *pant* I can stop after I get this next promotion or move to this other place or pay off this thing or ... " and on and on it goes. Thomas à Kempis knew this, he said:

Whensoever a man desireth any thing inordinately, he is forthwith disquieted in himself. The proud and covetous are never at rest. The poor and humble in spirit dwell in the multitude of peace.

We can run and run. We will never find what we are looking for here. You may disagree with me. It is quite likely you think that you will find what you are looking for right around that next corner. I doubt it. On the next lap you could try listening to Jesus when you pass him by though. He doesn't speak too loudly, but he does say this:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

Confession

2007-05-19T17:12:00.001-07:00

Augustine wrote The Confessions to God, not to us, although much of the book touched me like nothing else I've ever read outside of the Bible. He had a good idea - confession is Biblical after all:

I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. (Psalms 32:5)

Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. (James 5:16)

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10)

Most of the passages that refer to confession throughout the Bible refer to confession to God. James 5 was the only passage that I found directly relating confession of our sins to one another. In that passage it is so that others can pray for you. It is notably not so that others can act concerned and tell all of their friends the great tidbit they learned - that would be gossip of course and there are verses about that as well. I say that latter part because I think that gossip is one of the great unacknowledged evils and I find that some people who want more confession one to another seem to want it for the salacious information rather than to be helpful to each other in prayer. Any grocery aisle today will attest to the immense human thirst for salacious information on other individuals so denying that this motivation exists is nonsense. I think that one of the reasons that gossip and slander is so evil is that it destroys confession and therefore it hinders our prayers for each other (because so much that goes on we never know about). Nobody wants to say anything to anybody because we cannot acknowledge that we have this evil tendency and so we destroy our brothers and sisters with our tongues after we discover some juicy tidbit that was told to us in confidence or which we discovered from some other gossip when what we really ought to be doing is covering their sin and taking it up to God on their behalf. Acting concerned when you spread it to another person is no substitute for love, either. Francis of Sales in Introduction to the Devout Life discussed this like so:

Those who slander others with an affectation of good will, or with dishonest pretences of friendliness, are the most spiteful and evil of all. They will profess that they love their victim, and that in many ways he is an excellent man, but all the same, truth must be told, and he was very wrong in such a matter; or that such and such a woman is very virtuous generally, but and so on. Do you not see through the artifice? He who draws a bow draws the arrow as close as he can to himself, but it is only to let it fly more forcibly; and so such slanderers appear to be withholding their evil-speaking, but it is only to let it fly with surer aim and go deeper into the listeners’ minds.

We have such a problem with this and we try to counteract the destruction of confession in the churches, not by acknowledging and working against slander and gossip, those pests at the root of the tree, but rather by simply pushing everyone harder to confess, confess, confess. This will do no good. We have to get love correct and confession will come from it. That connection is important. The gossip and slanderer does not love the object of their tales, they love the sin they are committing. I'll tell you this, I have confessed all of my struggles and sins to my wife - she knows everything about me, all that I struggle with and all of my failures but there is a reason for this: she prays to God for me, of this I am certain, but she does not take my confessions to her friends and I don't take hers to mine, so I trust her in everything. I have no fear with confessing to her because I know this about her (it is one of the main reasons I fell in love with her). I tell you this because if we were all like this with each other - that is, if we all went to God with each other's sins rather than each other - we would find confession comes naturally as a result.

The Call of the World

2007-05-12T22:12:00.001-07:00

Lately I've been appreciating Ecclesiastes a great deal more than I used to. The book just confused me for so long. Consider this passage right at the beginning:

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. (Ecclesiastes 1:2-4)

I never appreciated that until I started stopping the toiling and running. That's an awkward sentence, I know. I'd say that I have "stopped" toiling and running but I haven't so that would be wrong - but even stopping it a little tiny bit has helped. When you stop running for even a little bit you look around and everyone around you seems very silly with all of their striving after the things in this world that just end so quickly. I want to be free from that same striving but I admit that I'm not and that frustrates me.

Tomato Soup

2007-05-05T13:34:00.001-07:00

I have to start this by saying that I never liked Tomato Soup as a kid. It was a toss up between that and cooked spinach as my least favorite food so when my six year old didn't want to eat hers at lunch it was tough to make her do it. You could really tell that she didn't want that soup but I don't want pickiness encouraged in my kids and I wasn't asking her to eat the whole thing, just some.

After much cajoling and telling her that she wouldn't get any cake at the birthday party we are going to this afternoon if she didn't at least make an effort she choked down 3 more spoonfuls and I asked her to do 5 more to finish. She did it and I was proud of her and she didn't try to "cheat" (you know, dribble half the spoonful out the back of the spoon on each bite, things like that). Anyway, the best part came after I told her she was done and you could tell she was so happy and then she started to brag about eating those 8 more spoonfuls as though it was an amazing thing. It was then that we told her that she probably shouldn't boast about it since it was only by our grace that she didn't have to eat the entire bowl. Eight bites wasn't so impressive to me and in fact I felt a little like I had let her get away with something but then to hear her brag about it really made me wonder if we are like that to God when we talk about how good we are or how little sin we commit:

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. (Romans 3:20-28)

Recently I read a Newsweek article talking about Billy Graham. In the article I read this:

A unifying theme of Graham's new thinking is humility. He is sure and certain of his faith in Jesus as the way to salvation. When asked whether he believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people, though, Graham says: "Those are decisions only the Lord will make. It would be foolish for me to speculate on who will be there and who won't ... I don't want to speculate about all that. I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have."

The interesting part of this is not so much what Billy Graham answers but the assumptions in the original question. The question was whether he, "believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people..." The question itself entirely misses the point. There are no good Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, secular people, or Christians. "God alone is good" and our goodness is like filth compared to his standard. We had to have help which is what the Bible is all about. God had to send his Son to die on a cross because none of us was good and we have got to remember that. We ate our eight spoonfuls of Tomato Soup and we are so happy for ourselves so we wonder if we might get cake based on our own actions, but thanks be to God that he didn't make us eat the 8,000 gallons of Tomato Soup that we would need to because we never could have achieved it and our efforts are so very unimpressive. Make no mistake about it, heaven will be closed to all who do not try to get in by the "Way, the Truth and the Life" which is Jesus Christ. It is that simple and thankfully it has so little to do with our "goodness."

The One Talent Guy

2007-04-28T20:15:00.001-07:00

I just finished reading The Interior Castle by Teresa of Avila and although it got a little too Roman Catholic for me in the sixth and seventh mansions I was still enriched by the experience. One of the things that I've found very edifying while reading The Interior Castle, The Imitation of Christ, and The Confessions has been the incredible humility that these books enjoin on the reader. Consider the 12th paragraph of the 3rd chapter in the fifth mansions:

Beg our Lord to grant you perfect love for your neighbour, and leave the rest to Him. He will give you more than you know how to desire if you constrain yourselves and strive with all your power to gain it, forcing your will as far as it is possible to comply in all things with your sisters' wishes although you may sometimes forfeit your own rights by so doing.

This is not un-biblical:

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
(Philippians 2:3)

I've found the repeated exhortations to humility very un-21st-century-American and it refreshes me, and I'm thankful for that.

Another passage in The Interior Castle that I found very useful was this one near the end of the seventh mansions:

I told you elsewhere how the devil frequently fills our thoughts with great schemes, so that instead of putting our hands to what work we can do to serve our Lord, we may rest satisfied with wishing to perform impossibilities.

This is one of those great nuggets of truth. I lived like this for so long - always "satisfying" myself "with wishing to perform impossibilities" so that I did nothing at all for God. It has only been in the past year that I decided that I could do so little but at least I could do that. This is the reason I blog - because it is one of the few things I find within my ability and will to do. In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) it encourages me that there is somebody given only one talent (when the other two people in the parable are given 5 and 2 talents). It encourages me even though in the parable the poor fellow just buries his one talent in the ground and is clearly the example of what not to do. But that is just it, isn't it? See, I'm that one talent guy and I'm determined to make the most of it, not bury it in the ground happy with just wishing I was the five talent guy. Let's not rest satisfied with wishing to perform impossibilities but rather put our hands to what work we can do to serve our Lord.

So Little that is New

2007-04-14T14:56:00.001-07:00

Lately I've been reading old books. I started in on The Confessions of Augustine on my last trip and I'm amazed by how similar to me he is. I suppose that this is a common reaction to The Confessions since it is even mentioned in the Preface of the book but it is amazing how little is new since he lived. The book was written about 1600 years ago in Italy and although I am unable to fathom that amount of time I find that the book speaks to me as though Augustine just lived around the corner here in town.

I love the way that Augustine puts things sometimes. Like, for example when he talks about his boyhood and going to school and says:

But whereas the frivolous pursuits of grown-up people are called "business," children are punished for behaving in the same fashion, and no one is sorry for either the children or the adults; so are we to assume that any sound judge of the matter would think it right for me to be beaten because I played ball as a boy, and was hindered by my game from more rapid progress in studies which would only equip me to play an uglier game later? Moreover, was the master who flogged me any better himself? If he had been worsted by a fellow-scholar in some pedantic dispute, would he not have been racked by even more bitter jealousy than I was when my opponent in a game of ball got the better of me?

He is absolutely correct! I just came from taking my oldest daughter to a chess tournament and the adults who are there smile and shake their heads at all of the kids who are so vexed by losing to one of their peers, but yet most adults are only above such behavior not because of their own greater maturity but rather because they simply don't care about that particular game. In their own games (meetings at work, for example, where I see this on display all of the time) they are just as vexed as those kids are, and maybe more so, by having one of their peers be proven correct about something after some heated discussion (thus: worsted by a fellow-scholar in some pedantic dispute, as Augustine puts it). It is pitiful, really. It is more pitiful that Augustine knew this 1600 years ago. But one of the gifts of reading The Confessions is an enhanced appreciation for Ecclesiastes:

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. (Ecclesiastes 1:2-8)

The fact that we don't read Augustine in school and the fact that I am shocked at how similar he is to me when I discover him makes me think of just a few verses later in Ecclesiastes:

There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after. (Ecclesiastes 1:11)

Does this mean that there is no hope for humanity to progress out of a constant repetition of past mistakes? Unfortunately I think that it must be so. We know that we can progress if we follow the Bible:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. (Proverbs 3:5-7)

But Jesus himself tells us to"Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matthew 7:13-14)" We require a lamp (Psalm 119:105) and therefore how can we find our way in the darkness without it? If the majority of the world is to remain in darkness then what hope is there fore the honest spiritual progression of the bulk of mankind? Across the world there are so many who deny that progression of the soul requires the light of the Bible. Some say that the light comes from a different book or a different leader and others say that it comes from human knowledge, but this book that I am reading from 1600 years ago speaks of philosophies and ideas we are taught today are new (what Augustine calls the Academics, for example - those who believe that truth cannot be known for certain, and the fact that the Manichees stated that the New Testament writings had "been falsified by unknown persons bent on interpolating the Christian faith with elements of the Jewish law"), and so the Bible which has always reassured me that in such matters humanity does not progress on its own but rather precesses is all the more sweet to me for the truth that it contains.

Congealed Despair

2007-04-07T18:47:00.001-07:00

I didn't grow up thinking too much about Easter beyond candy and hiding eggs since we didn't celebrate the liturgical calendar beyond the usual American cultural observances, but for some reason this year I find myself thinking a lot about the time that Jesus was gone from the earth prior to his resurrection.

As I try to think about what it must have been like for the disciples I can only draw upon the inadequate personal experience that we almost all have of losing someone dear to us. I say that this is inadequate, though, because since Jesus is the Son of God his impact on the lives of those around him was that much more intense. Oddly enough, although he warned them repeatedly that he came to die and be raised again (Matt. 16:21; Mark 9:31) they did not understand (Mark 9:32) and so it came as a shock to them when he did die and they were confused by his resurrection (Luke 24:5-8). To have been so near to the Son of God and then to have seen him brutally killed; to have helped in his burial and to have known what all humans know, that even though there may be a life to come after this one death means never seeing that person here again must have brought about a feeling of such utter despair like we have whenever we lose anyone, but amplified an untold amount by the fact that Jesus was not just anyone. As the Son of God he had demanded a permanent change in their lives, and they had complied (Luke 5:11). Now, then, how do they go back to what was before? Now that they have seen him die, what do they do with the lives that they had given to him? On the day of the crucifixion they were clearly worried most about their own safety (Matt. 26:56) and perhaps they didn't even sleep that first night (I mean, could you?) but when they finally did sleep and wake up the next day and he was still gone, what then? Where do you go when your despair starts to congeal and the sense of loss hardens into the certainty that all you thought was right was proven wrong in front of your very eyes by the most irreversible of all the events known to us in this world? The bottom, of course, was the day before he rose again. How could it not be? I have always believed with all of my heart that the Christian religion would have died there with that man on the cross if he had died there and stayed dead. If he was just another liar with an agenda to bilk his disciples of all their hard-earned cash then where would it have gone once he was gone?

But of course it didn't end there. Christianity became an indestructible religion powered by peasants that confused the great powers of the day by persisting even to the point of death in their strange belief about a man rising again after being nailed to a cross. And why would they do this? Because they saw him. They knew the day when their despair was turned to victory because they saw him and believed.

The Way, The Truth and The Life

2007-03-17T12:36:00.001-07:00

I finished Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. The fourth book was a little too much on transubstantiation and the uniqueness of priests for me (I'm completely Protestant in that regard) but there was still a lot to learn from even this about the right frame of mind to take when partaking of the Lord's Supper. Several of the phrases in the book are still running through my mind and especially the passage in Chapter 56 of Book 3 about John 14:6 where Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." À Kempis says about this passage, "Without the Way, there is no going; without the Truth, there is no knowing; without the Life, there is no living."

I read a few years ago a letter in the local paper that was attacking what the author thought was a false view of Christianity. In it the author said, "Some of you Christians act like Jesus said , 'It's my way or the highway.'" And I remember thinking, "No, he said, 'I am the way, and there is no other.'" Without the Way, there is no going.

There are so many in the world today who deny that Jesus is the only way. They want to make many different ways to the Father with Jesus being not the way but simply a way. Some do this out of malice but many out of ignorance by studying books they believe to be new revelations and understanding the one true revelation to be corrupted, for without the Truth, there is no knowing.

A holiday is coming up when people will celebrate the resurrection of this same Jesus who is both the Way and the Truth. Without his resurrection, according to the apostle Paul, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." (1 Corinthians 15:17) So without his resurrection he is nothing to us, we are still in our sins and our faith is useless. With his resurrection we have hope for resurrection as well, we have hope against the sting of death, which is sin. Without his resurrection not only do we have no hope for a life after death but in fact then we are "of all people most to be pitied" (1 Corinthians 15:19), for without the Life, there is no living.

Vigilance (Part 2)

2007-03-10T15:22:00.001-08:00

Last time I mentioned the following passages from the Bible that exhort us to vigilance in our lives:

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. (1 Peter 5:8-9)

"But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. (Luke 21:34)

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (Romans 13:11-14)

These are just a sample. One of the themes of the New Testament is endurance in the resistance of our sins but it has been one of the most troubling themes for me to deal with throughout my life because I feel so inadequate to resist the devil. I will freely admit that I fall repeatedly. When I was little I remember watching bigger kids push smaller ones in the dirt and then pushing them down every time they tried to get up. It didn't require a lot of effort on the part of someone so much stronger, and I often feel like I'm the little kid and the devil is the big kid. I think I must be so easy to make stumble that rather than God pointing me out as a shining example like he did Job, the devil must go to God and say, "Have you seen your servant Justin lately? I pushed him in the dirt a few more times when I was down there on earth yesterday."

My weakness in the face of temptation is one of the reasons that I mentioned that we have a helper. I think that the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a teaching of the Bible. What do I think the Spirit does? Well, I can tell you that I don't think that the Spirit leads Christians into truths that aren't in the Bible. What I do think is that the Spirit helps us to resist temptation and aids us in our fight against the devil. I think that this view is clearly upheld by verses like Romans 8:13:

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Notice that this verse clearly says that, "if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." This says to me that I cannot by myself put to death the deeds of the body but rather I require the Spirit's help to do so. A similar thought is found in Galatians:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16)

Now, I used to read this to be saying that if I control myself to walk according to what the Spirit tells me in the Bible then I will not gratify the desires of the flesh. This would make the verse into a tautology. I no longer believe that this is what the verse is saying. The remainder of the passage is this:

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. (Galatians 5:17-25)

The passage tells me that if I am led by the Spirit then I am not under the law. How is one led by the Spirit if it is simply a new law unto me? That is, if being led by the Spirit merely means following the words of the Bible then that means that I have the choice of the words of the whole Bible to follow versus the words of just the Old Law. These are the opposing forces in verse 18 - Spirit and law. I have a hard time believing that God has simply given me a new law to follow that is similar in many respects to the Old Law but somehow I am to try harder than all of my forebears, none of which could follow the Old Law (Acts 15:10). That is simply setting me up for failure. I cannot do it. I cannot follow the Bible without the aid of God any more than the Jews could follow the Old Law without the aid of God.

So after all of this what do I think the Spirit does? I remember hearing somebody say once, "What do you want the Spirit to do for you? Do you want him to lead you into truth not found in the Bible?" In response I thought in my head, "No, I want him to help me follow the truth that is in the Bible." I find that I cannot do right if I only draw upon myself to do it. But I find that if I admit my own inability then I can do right by drawing upon the power of God rather than my own power. This is what I think the Spirit does for me. The Christian, we know, has the Spirit:

And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38)

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:11)

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" (Romans 8:15)

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
(Ephesians 1:13-14)

And the Spirit is our help in many ways, both to our prayers (Romans 8:26) and also to our will so that we can bear, not our own fruit and not the fruit of our flesh, but the fruit of the Spirit:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

The Foolishness of the Gospel

2007-03-03T13:28:00.001-08:00

There is an article in the most recent edition of Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) titled Losing Faith: How Scholarship Affects Scholars, 2 Who Did and 2 Who Didn't which is both illuminating and sad at the same time. As you can imagine, the article is about the effects of becoming a biblical scholar on an individual's faith. The article is essentially an interview between the editor of BAR, Hershel Shanks, and four eminent scholars: Bart Ehrman, James Strange, Lawrence Schiffman and William G. Dever. The article is interesting because Mr. Shanks never pulls any punches when he has interviews like these, so the questions are right to the point (example: "Does this God of yours have any attributes?"). Unfortunately, the sadness comes in when you realize that the "Christian" scholar who claimed not to have lost his faith (Dr. James F. Strange) has a "faith" which most would wonder really exists at all. Consider, for example, this exchange:

SHANKS: What historical claims?

EHRMAN: For example, that [Jesus] was raised from the dead. That's a historical claim. I mean either he was raised from the dead or he rotted in his grave. The kind of Christianity I was in believed in an active physical resurrection of Jesus. That was part of what it meant to be Christian. You had to believe that.

SHANKS: Do you believe it, Jim? [to Dr. James F. Strange]

STRANGE: I don't believe that, but, yeah, I believe in something that means that Christ is alive, and our explanation of that is that there was a resurrection. I think I'm more or less untouched by the sort of literalist interpretation [Bart is talking about]; resurrection is sort of a metaphor.

The italics are in the original, which is important. Dr. Strange says, in reply to a question about whether he believes that Jesus was actually raised from the dead in the way that we read about in the Bible (more on that in a minute) and he says, "I don't believe that..." as though it is a silly thing. A foolish thing.

And here is where, yet again, the Bible is always ahead of us all:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18-24)

The cross is foolishness to those who seek the wisdom of the world. Notice how none of the "scholars" believe in the resurrection because it is just silly to believe in such a thing. Ehrman puts it like so, "...I got to a point where the historical claims about Jesus seemed implausible, especially the resurrection. Not the crucifixion - I think Jesus was crucified like a lot of other people were crucified, and I think that, like a lot of other people, he stayed dead." You might think that this doesn't go with the verses above which talk about the crucifixion being foolishness to the Gentiles, not the resurrection, but the foolishness of the crucifixion is tied together with the historicity of the resurrection and the resurrection was a point of mocking contention for the Gentiles who valued "scholarship" and "wisdom." Notice this fact in Acts 17 when Paul is done talking with the Athenians:

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, "We will hear you again about this." (Acts 17:32)

The resurrection that the apostles preached was a physical resurrection of the man Jesus. It is not possible to get anything else from the teaching of the Bible:

So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe." Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:25-28)

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise." (Luke 24:1-7)

Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared ask him, "Who are you?" They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. (John 21:10-14)

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. (1 Corinthians 15:1-7)

The truth of the bodily resurrection of Jesus is absolutely central to the Christian faith. It is so central that in fact it is not possible (or worthwhile) to even be a Christian without believing in the bodily resurrection of Jesus:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:12-14)

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. (1 Corinthians 15:16-17)

This is not a metaphorical thing but a real historical event. It is sad that so many biblical "scholars" are so steeped in modernism that they want to believe in a God who cannot create a universe or animals or even raise somebody from the dead. Such a God is pathetic and is very much not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is the God who created everything that is and is the God who saw that we were lost in our sins and completely without hope and who sent his eternally begotten Son to die as a convicted felon (a disgrace in any society and in any time) and be raised up again so that we, too, could conquer death and live forever. This is the gospel. It is the same as it ever has been. It is old and therefore foolishness to modern biblical "scholarship" that is disgusted with the old and seeks ever for the new (so much like the Athenians - Acts 17:21 - nothing changes). It is trust in this foolishness that comes to us in such simple trappings that is the only saving power for us today (Romans 1:16). Without it we have no hope, as the poor biblical scholars in the BAR article have no hope. This is clear from a part of the exchange in the article between the two who lost their faith:

EHRMAN: I have a different view. I would actually like to be a believer.

DEVER: I would too. I wish it were true. I really do.

And so it is good news, even to these biblical scholars, when the Apostle Paul proclaims:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:20-22)

Vigilance (Part 1)

2007-03-03T09:16:00.001-08:00

As I've been reading The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis I've begun to run across passages that very much reflect the pre-Reformation era that the book was written in. There are large sections on the goodness of monasticism. For example, Book 1, Chapter 20 says the following:

He therefore that intendeth to attain to the more inward and spiritual things of religion, must with Jesus depart from the multitude.

and again:

The greatest Saints avoided, when they could, the society of men, and did rather choose to live to God, in secret.

Okay, so I'll admit that there is some appeal in these statements to me because I'm a big introvert and I would almost always rather be by myself than with a crowd and I would definitely always rather be by myself than with people I don't know; but I see that as a weakness rather than, as à Kempis would see it, a strength, since it greatly hinders any capability I have to obey the New Testament's clear call to evangelism. Honestly, what kind of evangelist can you be when you are by yourself all the time?

That said, there are still many wonderful things about this book. A marvelous quote I came across the other day is this one:

The devil sleepeth not, neither is the flesh as yet dead; therefore cease not to prepare thyself to the battle; for on they right hand and on thy left are enemies who never rest.

Yes, temptation and the devil and battle, we don't hear much about those lately, do we? But of course they are real. The Bible is full of admonitions to vigilance that we ignore to our own peril:

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. (1 Peter 5:8-9)

"But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. (Luke 21:34)

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (Romans 13:11-14)

The practical applications here have to permeate our entire lives. That said, I think we have some help, but that is what I want to talk about in Part 2 of this (there is a To Be Continued here because I want to go somewhere else with this but I'm not ready quite yet, not because I'm smart enough to have planned it out this way).

Of Bearing with the Defects of Others

2007-02-24T10:14:00.001-08:00

I titled the post the same as Book 1, Chapter 16 of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis because nothing else seemed quite as relevant. When I read this passage I was struck deeply by what he says about bearing with each other, and especially by this nugget of wisdom:

If thou canst not make thyself such an one as thou wouldest, how wilt thou be able to have another in all things to thy liking?

This is so amazingly correct! I'm going to add this to, "What do you have that you did not receive?" as one of my repeat-this-often-to-yourself phrases.

There is a Way that Seems Right...

2007-02-24T09:54:00.001-08:00

I continue to be amazed by The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. In the passage I read last night (Book 1, Chapter 14) I came across the following:

We often judge of a thing according as we fancy it; for through private affection we easily lose true judgment.

This is one of the most common problems we have today and yet we don't often acknowledge that the problem exists. At the level of the individual that makes some sense because as individuals we don't usually know that we are doing this. A little later in the same passage à Kempis essentially says as much:

Many secretly seek themselves in what they do, and know it not.

So as he says, we often do this and we don't actually know that we are doing it. Unfortunately this isn't something you hear much today in our essentially hedonistic society. Hedonism in our society masquerades as affirmation of the self so we allow it without thinking. There are very few checks on the self that are levied by our culture and this is done purposefully because modern psychology has convinced itself that self-affirmation is central to personal well-being, but these words really mean that the seeking of pleasure is central to happiness. Of course, the notion that the seeking of pleasure is central to happiness is not new, it dates back at least to the 4th century B.C. What is more insidious about what we have done today, however, lies in our inability to acknowledge that what we are doing is elevating the seeking of our pleasure above all else. We invent fancy words for it in an effort to fool ourselves into not understanding what it is that we are really doing. This blinds us to the existence within ourselves of what à Kempis is talking about in the previous quotes which is our uncanny ability to fool ourselves into actually believing that the seeking of our own ends is really what God wants us to do. People will not believe this of themselves if they are doing it. It is very difficult to see until you are out of it on the other side. Many things in life are this way and we are warned against this effect in Proverbs:

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. (Proverbs 14:12)

Our duty, then, is to examine our life as it stands now and compare it to what we find in the Bible and when something does not match up not to convince ourselves that somehow we are in the right. This comes down to allowing the Bible to convict us. We do not like to be convicted and we naturally resist this, but the Bible seeks to convict us constantly as we measure up to its perfection. Submission is the key that opens this lock for us, and not self-promotion. In this way we are swimming upstream but we will be happier if we do:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

The Imitation of Christ

2007-02-23T10:56:00.001-08:00

I really love bookstores, and the bigger the better. I can get lost for hours in all of the possibilities among the stacks of books. It gets even better when it is somewhere like Barnes and Noble and they have those bargain books up front but it makes it really difficult not to spend a lot of money. A few days ago when I was at a Barnes and Noble I saw a new bargain book that Barnes and Noble had published called Wellsprings of Faith that contained three books: The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila, and The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross. Since it was only $20 (and quite thick- therefore full of promise), I bought it.

I started in at the beginning of the first book - The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis the night after buying the book and it is slow going. Part of this is the age of the translation (around 1900) which imbues the text with somewhat archaic wording but a bigger part of it is the density of each section. The Imitation of Christ is split up into small chunks that supposedly would form part of morning or evening devotional readings for the members of The Brethren of the Common Life, which à Kempis was a part of in the fifteenth century. Even after the first few sections the quotable quotes are numerous:

I had rather feel contrition, than know the definition thereof.

Who hath a harder struggle than he that laboureth to conquer himself?

But because many endeavour rather to know than to live well; therefore they are often deceived, and reap either none, or scanty fruit.

O, if men bestowed as much labour in the rooting out of vices, and planting of virtues, as they do in moving of questions, there would neither be so great evils and scandals in the world, nor so much looseness in religious houses.

Truly, when the day of judgment cometh, we shall not be examined what we have read, but what we have done.

Tell me, where are now all those Masters and Doctors, with whom thou wast well acquainted whilst they lived and flourished in learning? Now others possess their livings, and perhaps do scarce ever think of them. In their lifetime they seemed to be somewhat, but now they are not spoken of... O that their life had been answerable to their learning!

We ought not to believe every saying or suggestion, but ought warily and patiently to ponder the matter with reference to God. But alas! such is our weakness, that we often rather believe and speak evil of others than good.

Enquire willingly, and hear with silence the words of holy men: let not the proverbs of the elders displease thee, for they are not recounted without cause.

Extol not thyself for the height of thy stature, or beauty of thy person, which is disfigured and destroyed by a little sickness.

Continual peace is with the humble; but in the heart of the proud is envy and frequent indignation.

We think sometimes to please others by our company, and we begin rather to displease them with the wickedness which they discover in us.

And that is just a sampling which I cut short because I got tired of holding the book open and typing at the same time. Almost every line is thought-provoking so I find myself going slowly and reading lines over again and then sometimes stopping and thinking for awhile about whether I agree with him from a Biblical perspective (there are lots of scripture references and I don't always find I agree with the way he used them) and sometimes stopping and thinking about how right I think he is on other counts. The book is very humbling (you can see that in some of what I've quoted above), which is good. I find humility gives my heart peace. When I'm not trying to compete with everyone around me I feel better about everything I do. I don't find that I feel what I do is more worthy, but rather I care less about what others might think of what I do and more about what effect it might have for God in the world as he uses it. A friend I met on MySpace recently sent me a message that sums this up:

I don't think it's so much a matter of how we as individuals write, but what we write about that reaches the audience's heart.

I'll go even further than this and say that I think it comes down to understanding that it isn't me that has any effect at all but only God - this notion gives me peace and it doesn't have the effect that we sometimes think it might have - that of making us lazy. In fact if anything it has had the opposite effect on me because as I worry less about what others think of me and allow God to "give the increase" instead of trying to make the increase myself (a wasted effort, of course) I find myself actually doing more in the end than I ever did before. Though here I find I finally understand Galatians 2:20 and the meaning of Paul saying that he no longer lived but that Christ lived through him - I understand that it is not me doing these things and that makes them even easier to do.

Truly His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

The Hollywood Proof of Christianity

2007-02-17T09:53:00.001-08:00

This is somewhat repetitive of a previous post but the obvious aspects of the events in recent weeks makes it worth repeating.

I had a roommate in college who was a very liberal rationalist and loved to talk about it. He would often confront us more conservative types with something he thought was difficult for us to answer. On one particular occasion he confronted me with the "old-fashioned" view in the Bible that you can be (in fact, must be) happy with one person for the rest of your life. In response, I asked him about the people who had been married for 50 or 60 years and his answer was that they had obviously cheated on each other and were just okay with that or they hadn't told the other one that they were cheating. I asked him how long he thought people could stay happy with one person and his answer was, "Three to four years, tops." (Notably he thought women may be able to go a little longer, as I recall.)

Now, I have been married for 12 years and I am pretty sure my wife has been faithful to me, but my old roommate would just laugh and say that she is lying so I'll use the proof I am sure of which is myself. I say this in front of God and everyone else and I would challenge anyone to find a skeleton in my closet that disproves it because I know that they do not exist. So I say that I have not held or kissed, much less had sex with, another woman (or man, to those thinking of Ted Haggard and trying to find holes in my logic) other than my wife for all of these years. I have not flirted with any person (in real life or on the net or on the phone or by any other communication mechanism that exists) other than my wife and I have not ever discussed flirting with any person other than my wife. I go on a lot of business trips and in all of them I spend my nights in a hotel alone and it has never been any different in all the years I have traveled places without my wife.

I titled this post The Hollywood Proof of Christianity because our culture believes what my roommate believed, and our culture believes it to be self-evident. That is, our culture believes it to be self-evident and an absolute truth that beautiful people should have sex with each other and that they should have a lot of money and that this will make them happy. No other source passes this message along in so pure a form as Hollywood does. And yet in this past week we have had two proofs straight out of Hollywood itself that this does not bring happiness. You can say many things about Anna Nicole Smith (and all of them have been said this past week) but you cannot say that she was happy. You can say many of the same things about Britney Spears, but with her recent head-shaving and tattooing escapade nobody who had to deal with her (at the tattoo parlor they said she was a "nightmare") would say she was happy. But these are "beautiful" women (I use the Hollywood definition here - in all honesty Anna Nicole Smith did nothing for me and lest anyone think I am not being honest I'll point out that I think Britney is an attractive woman) and they live(d) Hollywood lives. They had lots of money and went to all the right parties with all the right people. It is abundantly clear that Anna Nicole Smith had lots of sex with lots of different people but she was quoted by those who were close to her as saying that she felt unloved. How is such a thing possible? Both women are following all of the rules as laid down by Hollywood and pop culture in general and yet they are so remarkably unhappy. Maybe, just maybe, it is time for us to apply a little rationalism of our own and suggest, ever so gently, that Hollywood itself has proven that having lots of money and lots of sex with lots of different people doesn't bring happiness (or love or even feelings of being loved).

I don't say this to give the reader too much information but rather to go along with what we are discussing here. In the Bible we read:

Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love. (Proverbs 5:15-19)

I have to say that I have found this to be absolutely true. Even as I get older and as our marriage goes on to 3 times the length that my roommate ever thought I could get to without cheating I have found that all aspects of my marriage continue to get better. This is why I called this post the Hollywood Proof of Christianity, because you will not find the notion that one woman can sexually satisfy a man for 12 years (and more) outside of the Bible. You will in fact find that people scoff and mock at such a suggestion but in fact the Bible anticipates this, too and the continuation of the passage above is as pure a truth and as good advice today as you will ever find:

Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For a man's ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray. (Proverbs 5:20-23)

Remember the sadness and pain in Hollywood as it lives the wisdom of those who think that Bible is full of nonsense and realize that they are in fact living out the words in Proverbs: "The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray."

The Way of Salvation

2007-02-03T19:44:00.000-08:00

I'm halfway through The Way of Salvation by K.C. Moser and I have to say that I'm enjoying the book. I'm not sure I agree with everything he says (his concept of faith as expressing itself in obedience only when a command is associated with it is difficult to establish scripturally, I think), but overall the book is an interesting approach to unifying the concepts in scripture that are connected with salvation (faith, repentance, confession, baptism). Note that if you come from a strong Reformed point of view then you will react negatively to that last sentence, but I'm not passing along an opinion. Repentance, confession and baptism are connected in the Word with faith, and faith with salvation, whether or not you decide that you want to read those passages in the way they are written. If you don't then you still have to struggle with forcing them into a different mold:

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1:14-15) No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. (Luke 13:3) And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38) Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out (Acts 3:19) But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Romans 10:8-10) But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. (Galatians 3:25-27)

Now, returning to The Way of Salvation I have to caveat the rest of the post that since I'm only halfway through the book he might change directions on me, invalidating what I mention later, but at the moment this is the way that things stand. So far, the book is proposing that the concepts I mentioned before that are connected in scripture with salvation are merely different facets of faith. Faith in Christ is defined by Moser as being trust in the power of Christ's death, burial and resurrection to save us. Repentance, therefore, is a necessary aspect of faith since faith is turning in trust toward Christ and this implies the other side of the coin: turning away from the things of the flesh (which is what repentance is). Confession is "faith spoken." That is, confession is the vocal expression of the heart that trusts in Christ. I haven't gotten through the section on baptism but he is already heading in the same direction with it as well (showing that it is a natural facet of faith and not merely something tacked on as an afterthought). This seems to me to be an interesting systematizing of salvation in the Word - tying everything to aspects of faith. I don't think I've actually ever heard it stated this way so it is definitely giving me some food for thought. I'll post some more as I get further through the book.

Reach Them Where They're At

2007-01-27T18:55:00.000-08:00

I was going through the book of Acts the other day and skipping between the discourses given by the apostles throughout the book when I noticed some interesting differences between them depending on who their audience was. For example, when Peter is talking to the Jews who were gathered in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost he begins almost immediately with quotations of prophecy from the Old Testament:

But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: "'And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.'" (Acts 2:14-21)

He doesn't bother to try telling his audience about believing in one God because, of course, that would be repetitive and useless since they already believe that. He begins right where they are at. Paul does the same thing at the opposite end of the spectrum in Acts 17 when he is talking to the Greeks at the Areopagus:

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 'To the unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.' Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." (Acts 17:22-31)

This is an amazing lesson when you stop and think about it. He starts from absolutely nothing and goes all the way to the resurrection... in 9 verses! Notice how he starts with one God (clearly arriving at this by contrasting God with multiple gods since the Athenians had altars to gods all over the city) who created the world and everything in it. You really can't get any closer to the "beginning" than that. While Paul is doing this he also establishes, almost incidentally, that God is "spirit and must be worshiped in spirit and truth" (John 4:24) when he points out that God, "does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything." He also points to God as Father and uses their own writings to link this to their cultural consciousness when he says, "As even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.'" This he uses to counteract the notion that idols have anything to do with the reality of God. After all, since we are God's offspring how can God be "like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man"? Amazingly enough, he saves what we would see as the "Christian message" for the last 2 verses (30-31):

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:30-31)

Of course this is the preaching of Jesus, but Paul has had to establish the existence of God, his rule over all, his aspect as spirit and Father and a denial of idolatry to even get to this point. I think that this is especially instructive for us today. I believe that America is becoming increasingly pagan, but it is difficult for us to perceive how pagan it really is because so much of the culture is still using the terminology of Christianity. However, when people say "God" and "Jesus" although we are familiar with the terms the entities they are talking about are no more the God and Jesus of the Bible than Baal or Zeus. This is problematic because it means that we aren't really communicating at the right level. We are going to have to establish some of the basics (like Paul does with the Athenians) before we can really reach most of non-Christian (and even much of so-called "Christian") America with the gospel message.

What do you have that you did not receive?

2007-01-20T13:30:00.000-08:00

Today my youngest daughter was playing with her sister and their friends and, as often happens in such cases, came in crying. When I asked her what was wrong I discovered that she was sad because her friends had told her that they didn't like one of her toys. I'm not really sure that they actually told her in such a way, but it wouldn't surprise me in any case because many of her toys are for a kid that is younger than they are (her sister is 3 years older than her and the oldest of the four friends is older still). It struck me as interesting because in their young minds it makes sense that they wouldn't want to play with a little kid's toys, even though, of course, they are all little kids and they all have little kid toys; but since everything is relative and at their particular age they are always right they don't see the weird inconsistency in their thinking. It is because of this that I believe we parents have as our duty to pass on mature ways of thinking. I would say "adult" ways of thinking but many adults in our society haven't learned mature ways of thinking so that would be a misleading label. Most people behave exactly as my kids do, believing their own way of thinking to be absolute truth and uninterested in what absolute truth actually is. In any case, I think that the way that I saw my kids' behavior today is most likely how God sees us humans when we fight and bicker over things that make no sense in the long run and yet we believe ourselves to be right in all circumstances. The passage in 1 Corinthians 4:6-7 is applicable here, I think:

I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

I like the question Paul asks in verse 7, "What do you have that you did not receive?" I think it would be a good idea for us to ask ourselves this question often since it really points to God's view of us. What do we have that we did not receive? The answer would be, "Absolutely nothing." Air? Light? Life? Work? Children? Loved ones? No, we received all of that and earned none of it. We have nothing that we have not received, and so Paul follows up the question (since its answer is so obvious he does not have to actually state it) with another marvelous question: "If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?" Yes, absolutely, why do we humans boast about anything as if we did not receive it? Because of course it is in our nature to do so. We believe ourselves to be so important and to have earned so many of blessings. We worked so hard for them and so we are so puffed up as though we did not receive the very air that we breathe. How ridiculous we are. I'm going to try making "What do you have that you did not receive?" my new motto and repeat it to myself constantly to see if it helps to beat down my idiotic boastful pride. I'll let you know how that goes.

It Must Not Be Math

2006-12-29T11:08:00.000-08:00

One of the passages used most for justifying the doctrine of Original Sin is Romans 5:12-21:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned-- for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:12-21)

A key part of this passage that is called out in, for example, Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology is verses 18-19:

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:18-19)

Concerning these verses, Grudem states (Systematic Theology, pgs. 494-495):

Here Paul says explicitly that through the trespass of one man "many were made [Gk. katestathesan, also an aorist indicative indicating completed past action] sinners." When Adam sinned, God thought of all who would descend from Adam as sinners. Though we did not yet exist, God, looking into the future and knowing that we would exist, began thinking of us as those who were guilty like Adam. This is also consistent with Paul's statement that "while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). Of course, some of us did not even exist when Christ died. But God nevertheless regarded us as sinners in need of salvation. The conclusion to be drawn from these verses is that all members of the human race were represented by Adam in the time of testing in the Garden of Eden. As our representative, Adam sinned, and God counted us guilty as well as Adam.

Grudem calls this "inherited guilt" rather than using the terminology for Original Sin, but he means the same thing (Systematic Theology, pg. 494, note 8). You can see from the quote above that this comes directly from the very clear statements in Romans 5:18, "Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men..." and 19, "For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners..." Too often we can be lulled into the sense that such statements are like math equations, where x+1=5 then x always equals 4. Sucking the verses out of context is not possible if they are like equations because the equation x+1=5 cannot be taken out of context, it stands alone. Likewise it appears that if we read "one trespass led to condemnation for all men" and "by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners" then we have equations that always lead to the doctrine of Original Sin (where at the very moment we are conceived the guilt from the Sin of Adam is attached to us). The problem comes in when we take into consideration the remainder of the verses. If "one trespass led to condemnation for all men" means that the trespass of Adam is automatically conferred upon each and every one of us then the rest of that verse, which reads, "so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men" means that everyone is saved. Do you see how this works if we read these like equations, that is, as though we are reading a math book? The original equation is "one trespass equals condemnation for all men" but the follow up equation is "one act of righteousness equals justification and life for all men." They negate each other! The same is true for Romans 5:19, which if we read it like a math book states, "one man's [Adam's] disobedience equals many sinners." The second half of the verse, in math book form is, "one man's [Christ's] obedience equals many righteous." Do you see the problem here? If we proof-text Original Sin by making syllogisms out of sub-pieces of sentences in individual verses then Universalism (the idea that everyone is saved) immediately follows. You can't get Original sin out of Romans 5:18-19 without also getting Universalism and since Universalism violates so many parts of the Bible (large swaths of the Old Testament and most of the New Testament) Original Sin is not an acceptable exegesis of Romans 5:18-19.

When it comes to Romans 5, then, the interpretation must be other than Original Sin. That is, the point of the passage is not to prove Original Sin. I think the problem most people have is not understanding what Adam's sin led to. We can understand this if we go back to what God told Adam in the Garden of Eden:

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17)

The "Surety of Death" was the punishment that came to Adam as a result of his sin. This Surety of Death is passed down through all generations and we inherit it even today, for we know that we will "surely die" unless Jesus comes before our death. Even if it were possible for us to live a perfect life then we would still "surely die" so we have inherited the punishment that Adam received for his sin. This is different from inheriting sin that we did not commit, which would violate passages like Ezekiel 18 (yeah, the whole chapter, which teaches quite clearly that we are responsible for our own actions). Humanity "surely dies" and so that punishment is still with us, even today, but we are responsible for our own actions and do not inherit some sin from our forefathers that we did not commit ourselves.

I AM

2006-12-18T22:14:00.000-08:00

I find the choices that Bible translators make interesting sometimes. For example, in the well-known passage in John 8:58 where Jesus tells the Jews that he pre-existed Abraham almost all translations render the Greek there as "I AM" in a clear reference to Exodus 3:14

Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" (Exodus 3:13-14)

The Greek in John 8:58 is:

εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ᾿Ιησοῦς· ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, πρὶν ᾿Αβραὰμ γενέσθαι ἐγὼ εἰμί.

Which says, "Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.'" The part in question here is specifically the ἐγὼ εἰμί which is an emphasized "I am" since εἰμί by itself means "I am." The Jews clearly understood what he was saying because in John 8:59 we read:

So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. (John 8:59)

They intended to stone him because they knew he was saying he was God.

John 8:58 is fairly straightforward, but what I find interesting are the other passages where Jesus uses ἐγὼ εἰμί and yet most translations don't use the "I AM." A good example (where I think the "I AM" would help) is John 18:4-6:

Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, "Whom do you seek?" They answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus said to them, "I am he." Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, "I am he," they drew back and fell to the ground. (John 18:4-6)

It is not clear why those coming to arrest Jesus draw back and fall to the ground. But I think if you look at the Greek here and translate it differently, then the passage suddenly comes into a new light (I've bolded the use of ἐγὼ εἰμί in the passage):

᾿Ιησοῦς οὖν εἰδὼς πάντα τὰ ἐρχόμενα ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸν, ἐξελθὼν εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· τίνα ζητεῖτε; ἀπεκρίθησαν αὐτῷ· ᾿Ιησοῦν τὸν Ναζωραῖον. λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς· ἐγώ εἰμι. εἱστήκει δὲ καὶ ᾿Ιούδας ὁ παραδιδοὺς αὐτὸν μετ᾿ αὐτῶν. ὡς οὖν εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὅτι εγώ εἰμι, ἀπῆλθον εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω καὶ ἔπεσον χαμαί.

Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and saidto them, "Whom do you seek?" They answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth."Jesus said to them, "I AM." Judas, who betrayed him, was standingwith them. When Jesus said to them, "I AM," they drew back and fellto the ground.

In this case it appears that they draw back and fall to the ground because of the pronouncement of I AM on the part of Christ. (Notice how John even calls attention to this by pointing out that, "When Jesus said to them 'I AM,' they drew back and fell to the ground.")

Another interesting place that Christ uses ἐγὼ εἰμί is in Matthew 14:27 when he is walking on water and the disciples are afraid of him. To comfort them he says, "Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid." At least, in the ESV that is what he says. The Greek here reads like so:

εὐθέως δὲ ἐλάλησεν αὐτοῖς ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς λέγων· θαρσεῖτε, ἐγώ εἰμί· μὴ φοβεῖσθε.

Notice that Jesus says this, "Take heart; I AM. Do not be afraid." This certainly has a different ring to it. Here is the Son of Almighty God walking on water and to calm his disciples who fear what on earth could be walking across the storm-driven sea he tells them to take courage. Why? I AM. Why be afraid? He is the I AM.

A third interesting passage, if looked at in this way, is Mark 14:61-63:

But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" And Jesus said, "I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven." And the high priest tore his garments and said, "What further witnesses do we need? (Mark 14:61-63)

In the Greek, Jesus' answer looks like this:

ἐγώ εἰμι· καὶ ὄψεσθε τὸν Υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐκ δεξιῶν καθήμενον τῆς δυνάμεως καὶ ἐρχόμενον μετὰ τῶν νεφελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ.

So imagine the High Priest asking Jesus if he is the Christ, the Son of the Blessed and the first words out of Christ's mouth are ἐγώ εἰμί - I AM. No wonder he tears his garments. It isn't only Jesus' later statement but the fact that he starts with his claim of divinity - blasphemy to the High Priest who does not believe his claim.

There are a few other instances of this, but these were the most interesting in my opinion since they seemed to actually change the tenor of the passage.

No

2006-12-16T19:55:00.000-08:00

There are passages in the Bible that make you realize some things:

The Jews did not make this up, and
We know very little about the spiritual world

One such passage is at the end of Joshua chapter 5. The children of Israel have just crossed over the Jordan and they will soon be attacking Jericho. The land is theirs for the taking and God has said that the inhabitants there will be driven out before them (Joshua 3:10). And it says that, "When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand." Joshua reacts as a leader of an army would when he is before a hostile city and sees somebody he does not recognize with a drawn weapon. He asks, "Are you for us, or for our adversaries?" Now here is where the story takes a very interesting turn. In one word we realize that the Jews did not make this story up (because if they did, the next word would have been different) and in one word we find out that we know so very little of what is going on behind this world, at the spiritual level. The "man's" answer to Joshua is:

"No."

So in answer to, "Are you for us, or for our adversaries?" He answers, "No." His whole answer is that of immense power, of an entity who realizes he is representative of more power than the man talking to him can even imagine. He says, "No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come." He merely announces his presence. This is reminiscent of the answer that Gabriel gives to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, when his word is questioned. He says, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God." But the interesting thing to me about the answer given to Joshua is that if you were making stories up about your God, who favors you as a people and who is going to purge your enemies from before you then why would you have the Commander of the Army of the LORD answer the question of whether or not he is for you or against you with a "No"? Does that make sense? It certainly does not. This, to me, is a great proof of the Bible. It is one of those times when we get a glimpse into the spiritual realm and it makes little sense to us. There are other verses in the Bible that give similar glimpses (Daniel chapter 10 has a few of them, for example) and it is clear from these that we know very little (and the Bible reveals very little) of what is really going on outside of this temporary existence.

Baby Jesus

2006-12-16T10:20:00.000-08:00

It seems there is a possibility that I'll be preaching the Christmas Eve sermon at the church we attend. It is, of course, a very grand Church of Christ tradition to preach about something completely unrelated to Christmas, or better yet, to preach against Christmas celebration, but I've heard some interesting things on the Incarnation lately that made me think a lot so I'm actually considering a real, no-kidding, Christmas-birth-of-baby-Jesus sermon.

The first thing I heard recently that got me into this line of thinking was listening to David Bercot's lessons on what the early Christians thought of the Atonement. He doesn't just approach this from a single angle and one of the angles that he does approach it from is that the Incarnation was more important to the early Christians than it is to a lot of Protestant churches today. This, of course, is a reaction to the perception on the part of Protestants that Catholics over-emphasize the Incarnation, but Bercot's point is that this is no reason to throw out the baby with the bath water (sorry, couldn't resist). Anyway, he had an amazing point based on 1 Corinthians 15:19-22 and 41-49:

If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
(1Corinthians 15:19-22)

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
(1Corinthians 15:41-49)

His point is that the Incarnation is the birth of a second being to descend from. Before Christ we only had the option of descending from Adam (obviously) and this was insufficient since Adam's sin had corrupted the world and brought death. The second Adam (in accordance with 1 Corinthians 15:41-49) brought to us the ability to descend from spiritual perfection, which explains what Jesus was talking about in John 1:12-13 and 3:5-8:

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
(John 1:12-13)

Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
(John 3:5-8)

So to enter the kingdom of God you must be descended from Christ, a man who was both man and God, thus making it possible for us to descend from God (to become "children of God" - John 1:12) so that we could say to the Father, "Abba, Father" in accordance with Galatians 4:4-6:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"
(Galatians 4:4-6)

It is not a trivial thing to be descended from the Father. In our era we underestimate what that means. In Christ's era such a concept was blasphemous:

But Jesus answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I am working." This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
(John 5:17-18)

But Christ's coming was to give us a new genealogy, a new line to trace ourselves through so that we could escape the effects of sin on this world, so that we could claim as our Father the Father of our Savior, and the Father of our Savior could claim us as sons. The vision of the judgment that I had previously was, I'll admit, wrong. I had in my mind (and I have heard this preached) that on the day of judgment when Satan is accusing us God will look at us and only see Jesus. This paints God as a being who can be deceived, as though he sent Christ so that he could create an optical illusion for himself. The truth of the matter is that when he looks at us he will see us as his sons. We will belong to him, as we were meant to from the beginning.

Smarty Pants

2006-11-29T18:32:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to some of David Bercot's audio CDs recently that I borrowed from my cousin-in-law and so far I'm enjoying them. Bercot has a very straightforward, almost pleading tone and a common sense way of approaching things that makes him easy to listen to and quite persuasive. I've also read a few of his books in the past that I've enjoyed (and found challenging) so I looked him up on Amazon.com and perused through the comments on some of his books (just for fun). One person made this statement regarding what we really needed to understand (in the midst of a very long review of Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up?):

You must understand the world of 2nd Temple Judaism, because that's the world of Christ Jesus, His Apostles, and some of the earliest, Apostolic Fathers of the Church which Bercot writes about. Bercot does not understand this world. I very, very strongly recommend reading two simple books of N.T. Wright's, "The Challenge of Jesus" and "The Crown and the Fire."

That was an interesting assertion so I went and looked up N.T. Wright's books (the ones mentioned and others) and found that he is a much-admired bishop in the Church of England. In the course of this search I also found a web site with some of his writings and lectures posted and started reading through a PDF titled "New Perspectives on Paul." (There is actually an entire movement titled, "New Perspectives on Paul" and this paper has to do with that, but I'm not going to go into that movement now.) In the PDF I found the following statement by Wright:

For me then and now, if I had to choose between Luther and Calvin I would always take Calvin, whether on the Law or (for that matter) the Eucharist. But as I struggled this way and that with the Greek text of Romans and Galatians, it dawned on me, I think in 1976, that a different solution was possible. In Romans 10.3 Paul, writing about his fellow Jews, declares that they are ignorant of the righteousness of God, and are seeking to establish 'their own righteousness'. The wider context, not least 9.30–33, deals with the respective positions of Jews and Gentiles within God's purposes – and with a lot more besides, of course, but not least that. Supposing, I thought, Paul meant 'seeking to establish their own righteousness', not in the sense of a moral status based on the performance of Torah and the consequent accumulation of a treasury of merit, but an ethnic status based on the possession of Torah as the sign of automatic covenant membership?

He goes on to state that this, "Would make excellent sense of Romans 9 and 10" and that it has been "Deeply rewarding exegetically right across Paul." He is, therefore, very fond of the position that he found and I wondered if it might have some merit, so I went and looked up that passage he was referring to and it says this:

For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.
(Rom 10:3-5)

He of course is focused on verse 3 and is pondering the meaning of the righteousness that Israel tried to establish on their own. He draws the conclusion in the paragraph above that this isn't about the Jews piling up works for salvation but rather believing that they have a permanent covenant with God because of their possession of the Law. This might be something that you could ponder for longer than a few minutes if I hadn't pasted the verses right after verse 3 in the cut above, and especially the part that says, "For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them." Yes, so this must have something to do with the "righteousness that is based on the law" (it sure seems to from the fact that it uses the same words and starts the sentence with a "for") and it says that "the person who does the commandments shall live by them." That really looks like somebody thought they could "live" by "doing commandments" if for no other reason than the fact that it is exactly what the passage says. But maybe I didn't go far enough back before the verse to really get the gist of what Wright was trying to say. After all, the "wider context" he mentions stretches back into chapter 9. So in chapter 9 we read this:

What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."
(Rom 9:30-33)

This is exactly the passage Wright mentions as being a part of the "wider context." It states that Israel pursued a righteousness but did not obtain it "Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works." Once again, the passage seems very clear. It seems to say exactly what it means. The most frustrating part about this is that there are parts of Romans that are tough to understand, but this isn't really one of them, unless you make it tough to understand, like Mr. Wright does.

This is another good example of a person over-thinking the Bible. Almost everybody who comments about Wright's books believes him to be incredibly intelligent. There are many comments about the lack of worthiness of the commenter in the face of such superior intellect (you can see how the person above who commented on Bercot's book gives a nod to Wright's superiority, which is not unique). This really brings to mind a passage in 1 Corinthians that we don't read much because it really doesn't sync very well with our idea that people who are highly educated in a particular field ought to be better at that field than people who are not. That passage says this:

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
(1Co 1:26-29)

and again later,

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness," and again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile."
(1Co 3:18-20)

It is possible to over-think the Bible and to make incredible errors in the process. Yes, whether or not all of your Amazon.com commenters believe you be the smartest human on the planet, you are still just that, human.

What Should be a Christian's Moral Guide?

2006-11-18T14:17:00.000-08:00

There have been a lot of recent stories surrounding the launch of the PlayStation 3 and the various attempts people have made to get one before anybody else does. Today I came across a story about a dentist who hired 60 temp workers to stand in line at various places to ensure that he would get a PS3 (actually, 15 PS3s is what he was aiming for). What interests me is the comment in the story by somebody who was in line themselves trying to get a PS3:

"I only want one, but I know there's other people that are going to want them, too," said Williams, who has a 7-year-old son. "I just don't think it's right that you are paying people to stand in line for you. You're using your money and authority to pay people for what you want, and that's wrong."My question is on her last statement, the one where she says, "You're using your money and authority to pay people for what you want, and that's wrong."

I'd like to know why, and where does such a moral judgment come from, because make no mistake about it, that is exactly what such a statement is, a moral judgment. I get the feeling a lot of people would agree with her, though, which I find troublesome given the environment we live in now. Strangely enough, we now live in a society that doesn't care at all if you live together before marriage and get repeatedly divorced, but there is a big problem if you "use your money and authority to pay people for what you want." Why? Because we all know, "that's wrong."As I've stated in various other ways, people who are atheists can think this way, that is fine. They can invent moral systems out of whole cloth because they aren't trying to found their claims on anything but themselves. Christians have a harder time doing this, in my opinion, or at least they should, because the Bible should be our source for a moral compass and the Bible just doesn't have an opinion on whether or not you pay other people to stand in line for you to get a PS3. There are a lot of things like this. Take drinking a single glass of wine at home once a week as an example. The Bible clearly talks about drunkenness, but it does not address drinking in moderation. It is silent on this. I should point out here that I am a teetotaler. About 6 months ago I had a little sip of red wine at my in-laws house because I wanted to see what it tasted like. I didn't think it tasted very good. That is, literally, the only taste of any alcohol I have ever had. For me, however, it has less to do with a moral consideration than with the fact that I have never wanted alcohol and I figure that if I don't want it then why should I make myself want something which just isn't all that good for you? The way I see it, I'm a leg up on something that gives a lot of people a bunch of problems, which is a good thing. I don't need any extra temptations. When I was growing up, though, and this subject came up at home my parents would make the case that even buying alcohol to drink in moderation at home would fall under the rubric of an "appearance of evil" and violate 1 Thessalonians 5:22, which says (in the KJV), "Abstain from all appearance of evil" because the person at the checkout stand would judge that drinking was evil and therefore you would appear evil. I have to admit that at one time such reasoning made more sense to me than it does now because in the past 20 years the US has so warped its value system that if you tell somebody that you do not support homosexual marriage then there is an ever-increasing likelihood that they will judge you as evil (a "bigot" - which is one of the great evils to many Americans). Therefore the real problem, in my mind, with such an understanding is that it ties a Christian's concept of morality to that of their society and the society's concept may be completely anti-biblical (calling good, evil, and evil, good). I think a better idea is to reduce our set of moral judgments to what the Bible says is actually immoral. Things like whether or not you want to pay people to stand in line for a PS3 are exempted from this, as is drinking in moderation. How do we interpret 1 Thessalonians 5:22, then? I think we have to apply practicality to this. I believe that we know what an "appearance of evil" really is and we can make that judgment call ourselves intelligently or we can get silly about it. However, I also believe that the other translations help here in that they almost all go along the lines of, "Avoid every form of evil" which ties the judgment of what is evil back to a Biblical understanding of what evil is, rather than linking it to society's definition (which changes constantly and which can very quickly become something that the Christian cannot follow without violating the Bible, which is unacceptable).I realize, after saying all of that, that there is still subjectivity in what we decide the Bible is teaching us from a morality perspective so reducing to the Bible is not something that is a simple choice. There are things that are obviously wrong in the Bible (adultery, murder, etc.) but there are areas that are harder to discern and then we have to make some judgment calls, but there are things that are simply not in there at all and I think we should purposefully abstain from making a moral judgment on such issues because otherwise we confuse our moral compass with the subjective inputs of society and I for one don't need anything confusing me about something as complex as morals already are.

It All Depends on What You Want

2006-11-13T22:32:00.000-08:00

I keep running into people or stories about people who want something but are unwilling to do what is necessary to get it. For example, people who want to be called "Christian" but who don't want to read the Bible or do anything it says. To me this is like sitting at home and saying that you want to go to a foreign country but you refuse to leave your house. Everything we want to do requires some effort (even changing channels on the TV) and is defined by some sequence of events. I'm always fascinated, for example, by people who do not want to be judged or live according to any standards of note but if you mention to them that they may not be going anywhere nice after death they are upset about this. I have very little respect for such a person. I respect a person more who shrugs their shoulders and says, "Fine, I don't believe in an afterlife anyway." But if you have a problem with going to hell then shouldn't you do something about that? Doesn't that "something" require making changes in your life? Imagine if I told a friend of mine who was complaining about not being able to go to a foreign country, "Well, if you just stay at home you will never get there." And their response was, "How dare you judge me!? You don't know anything about me! I don't need your judgment and I'll stay at home and get there just fine without your help, thank you very much." Well of course we have a word for such a response and it would be, "Lunacy." If you want to do something you find out what it takes and you do it. Christianity is no different. If you want to be a Christian, find out what it takes and do it. Jesus said it this way:

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.(Luke 14:28-32)

Count the cost, make the plan, and execute - but enough with the whining about judgment and having to do what the Bible says. That is part of it, and nothing you or I say or do is going to change that one bit.

That's Fine if You Don't Want to Call Yourself Christian

2006-11-04T20:53:00.000-08:00

Well, today the Episcopalians installed a woman as the leader of their entire church. This wouldn't be a problem at all if the Episcopal church didn't consider itself "Christian" as this quote shows from their web site:

The Episcopal Church strives to live by the message of Christ, in which there are no outcasts and all are welcome. Walking a middle way between Roman Catholicism and Protestant traditions, we are a sacramental and worship-oriented church that promotes thoughtful debate about what God is calling us to do and be, as followers of Christ.

You see, the Bible is quite clear on this point, as the following passages demonstrate:

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.(1Ti 2:11-12)

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.(1Co 14:33-35)

Okay, so this isn't pretty and nice and culturally acceptable, but it is clear. It is so clear, in fact, that to get rid of it you must undermine the basic authority of scripture (either by calling these passages culturally determined or by belittling all of the works of the apostle Paul or by canceling the passages out with less-clear ones, such as 1 Corinthians 11). Now this isn't a problem for a religion that doesn't want to call itself Christian. If the Wiccans want to have dogs and cats be the leaders of their church, that isn't my concern. However, it is a concern of mine when a church widely believed to be "Christian" (and proclaiming itself as such) decides that blunt passages of scripture can be ignored for cultural expediency. If you believe in Jesus you need to believe in the truth of the only book that tells us anything about him or your understanding is weak and useless and can be easily overturned or swayed to and fro by the slightest wind of false teaching. Just find out what the Bible says and do it, that's all, and leave the simple passages simple.

So Sick of the Lying

2006-11-04T20:45:00.000-08:00

The whole Ted Haggard story that is breaking now just tires me out. In the story at this link we read the following:

Haggard stepped down as president of the National Association of Evangelicals Thursday after radio and TV reports featuring a male escort saying that he had frequently paid him for sex and also bought meth from him. Haggard has denied the charges but today his church's senior pastor revealed that he had privately admitted to one or more of the charges. Later today Haggard admitted buying meth but claimed he had only paid for a massage from the accuser, not sex."I bought it for myself but never used it," he said, referring to the drug. "I was tempted, but I never used it."

The part of this that I find the most frustrating is that he bluntly lied about the charges before, essentially disclaiming all of them, and now he wants to say that he bought some meth but never used it and never sold it and he had a "massage" from a male escort but "not sex." It is probably fairly safe to assume that he did much more than just buy and not use the meth and that such a massage from a male escort may bend the definition of "sex" as much as Bill Clinton did. And here is my biggest problem, the constant lying. The fact that he flatly denied it at first and then the truth had to be dug out of him and even now the "truth" he is telling us seems more than a bit ridiculous. We've become so inured to people on TV denying allegations and then being proved wrong that it is old hat. We expect it now. In fact, we would be shocked if a politician were accused during a press conference of something and he responded, "Why yes, I did do that. How ever did you find out?" When a person like Ted Haggard is proved to be a complete liar what other part of the things he is saying can you also not believe? We need to be able to believe what other people are saying about themselves. In the book I am reading (Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present) Gerald Bray makes the point that our trust in the truth of the Bible is like our trust of the self-revelation in any personal relationship. The Bible is what God tells us about himself. In any relationship we have to trust what the other person tells us about themselves. If some of what they tell us is proved wrong, the relationship breaks down. This is why we have to believe that what the Bible tells us is true. If we believe that what God tells us about himself is wrong then our relationship with God will break down. But this makes what is happening in our society even more problematic. You see, when we assume that the first words out of anybody's mouth after an allegation will be a lying denial then we also assume that much of what any authority figure tells us about themselves is also wrong. (Why, after all, should they only lie about this allegation?) We then apply the assumption of lying to other self-revelatory acts and the greatest of these is God's own self-revelatory act, The Bible. So we might assume that everybody lies in their own self-interest, therefore the Bible is probably full of lies. And you can see this assumption at work if you talk to many people about God/Jesus/The Bible. There is an assumption that the Bible must be partially lies (since everybody else does it) and therefore you can pick the parts of it that you would like to be truth. The parts that are unpalatable? Well, that might be where God is lying. The parts that go down nice and easy and don't mean much in the way of a life change? Well, that is the God we would vote for! A nice politician God with lots of mistresses and problems in the closet but a good haircut and a smooth tongue. Such a concept is absolutely unacceptable to me. I want a God I can trust. I also want human authority figures I can trust, but 1 out of 2 isn't bad.

Why Did Jesus Die?

2006-10-21T10:36:00.000-07:00

One of the things that has struck me recently is the way that we view baptism and some of the efforts to change that in the past 10 to 20 years. For example, I remember hearing that we shouldn't be preaching baptism in the "language of fear" but rather we should be talking about it like it is the believer's wedding ceremony. In fact, F. Lagard Smith wrote a whole book titled, Baptism: The Believer's Wedding Ceremony. There is some truth in that. Baptism is where you enter the church and the church is the bride of Christ so in this way Baptism is like a marriage ceremony. Others have pointed out that baptism is like a marriage ceremony in that when you say "I do" you are married, but the work really begins after that since as marriage is the beginning of our relationship to our spouse baptism is the beginning of our relationship with God. As I mentioned before, there is truth in these views, but we have to keep focused on baptism's root meaning:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Rom 6:3-4)

So baptism is a re-enactment of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. It is therefore centered on the crucifixion and it forces you to ask, "Why did Jesus have to die?" Why did Jesus die? Why did he come?

But when he heard it, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mat 9:12-13) And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." (Luk 19:9-10) For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:6-8)

The last verse is really the root meaning of baptism for me. It is an admission of your own helplessness and need for the redemptive power of the death and resurrection of Christ. Baptism has to be tied back to the cross and back to the power that the events there had - the power to save us from sin. Therefore an acknowledgment of our sin is absolutely central to baptism. If you don't acknowledge you have any sin (and sin in America seems to be at an all-time low, you know, unless you actually read the Bible, of course) and you only view baptism as a wedding ceremony or as getting your entry card punched to the church rolls then you are completely missing the point. Which leads to the question: without a view of the purpose of the cross, is baptism effective for anything beyond washing the dirt off of your body?

The More You Learn From Hollywood About Sex, The Less You Will Know

2006-10-14T14:11:00.000-07:00

It is ironic that we have so much "sex education" in America now and yet we know less than ever before. The great "teacher" in this respect is Hollywood. These are the lessons it speaks:

1. Happiness comes from having sex with the hottest person available
2. Good marriages come from great looks and lots of money

And these are the lessons it lives:

1. Great looks and lots of money are not sufficient for good marriages
2. Sex with the hottest person available will not satisfy you

We know this because of the magazines in the grocery aisles. We can see that Hollywood is constantly patting itself on the back and congratulating itself for finally finding the right match. Ben and Jennifer Lopez, no Ben and Jennifer Garner, no Brad and Jennifer, no Brad and Angelina, and on and on it goes. The story is always the same. The magazines have no memory, either short or long-term. The article on Brad and Jennifer forgets everyone in their lives before, claiming that now, finally, they have found the perfect person; the person who is finally sexy enough and rich enough to satisfy; but that article will be forgotten by the one on Brad and Angelina. Like a religion which annually predicts the end of the world and is endlessly wrong Hollywood preaches its filth and the worshipers at its altars keep showing up at the designated arrival point, never questioning why they're still here.

But quietly the Bible simply states its message, and it stands in direct opposition to the twisted rationality from High School sex-ed courses handing out condoms and spewing ignorance about consensuality between those who are barely teens, espousing the false wisdom of having sex with your chosen mate as quickly as possible and reviling the wise foolishness of thinking anyone could enjoy one person for life. God simply holds out the truth and waits for you to listen:

Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.
(Pro 5:18-19)

The so-called wise of our society mock this, but by their lives they prove its truth. That's sex education.

God Knows Us Better than We Know Ourselves

2006-10-09T15:08:00.000-07:00

The shooting of the Amish schoolchildren has set off a firestorm of opinions regarding the role that the Christianity of the Amish has played in their reaction to the killings. Many people seem shocked about the fact that the Amish have made an effort to reach out to the family of the murderer and many contrasts have been drawn between the Amish and mainstream Christianity and American culture. This discussion is further complicated by the fact that the Amish are not perfect. A Legal Affairs article in early 2005 described the problem of incest and child molestation as a "plague" in some Amish communities. Atheists line up to use this as evidence to disprove God's existence just as Christians point to the good aspects of the Amish as a proof of Christianity. The problem with this is that human behavior is not a reflection on God in any way, shape, or form. It does not prove or disprove his existence. From a biblical perspective we have got to understand a very simple fact: God sent Jesus to die because humans cannot be good enough. Therefore the behavior of humans, good or bad, is not a reflection on the existence or person of God. Are people in the church sinless? Can they be?

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (Rom 3:21-25) If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1Jo 1:8-10)

I have to confess, I get confused by people who say, "I believe in God, but I can't go to church because of all the (hypocrites, sinners, bad people, etc.)." This is a misunderstanding of Jesus' purpose:

And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mar 2:16-17) For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:6-8) The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. (1Ti 1:15)

And so the church is full of those who were hypocrites, liars, thieves, murderers, homosexuals, etc. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) Sometimes these stumble because they are human. Could it really be any other way, given the realities of humanity? I am forever thankful that God is more realistic about our shortcomings than we are.

Finally Done!

2006-10-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it since sometimes it seemed like it would never be over, but I am finally done with God's Holy Fire: The Nature and Function of Scripture and although I'm relieved I'm also a little sad. I didn't buy the book so I could insult it. I bought it because I was looking forward to the lessons it had to teach me and the most pathetic part is that when it wasn't being atheistic or trying to undermine my faith it was just so mediocre. The latter half of the book was certainly better than the first and in a way it gave me a little gift. In the first chapter, on page 8, the authors write:

If the Bible has lost its place in our churches, then there are reasons. First, past experiences in classes may have immunized people from serious Bible study. Sunday School classes often fail to demonstrate the relevance of the Bible for our lives. Many people have memories of Bible study that consisted of mind-numbing, fill-in-the-blank questions. They remember the tedium of plowing through passages one verse at a time, passages that they could never connect to their lives. Biblical material was reduced to a kind of trivia, even before trivia was a game: "Which of the judges was left-handed?" "Name the kings of the Northern Kingdom - in order." "Name all of the cities of Paul's third missionary journey." Many people wondered what significance this information had for their lives.

Then, in the next-to-the-last chapter, on page 225, the authors wrote:

I'm reminded of my experience at the Broadway Church of Christ in Lubbock, Texas. Every five year old had to know the books of the Old Testament, the books of the New Testament, the names of the twelve apostles, and the entire Twenty-third Psalm before graduating to first grade Sunday School. ...

What can we do to equip our children to love Scripture and benefit from its message? This plea is not merely a call to learn a mass of facts. As the personal reflection about my experience at the Broadway congregation in Lubbock suggests, however, memorization, or at least basic literacy, forms the foundation that permits study at a greater depth.

But wait, I thought that having to memorize Bible facts "immunized people from serious Bible study" rather than forming "the foundation that permits study at a greater depth." So the book flatly contradicts itself. I say that this is a gift because it proves how amazing the Bible is. God's Holy Fire: The Nature and Function of Scripture was written by three different authors and it shows. The style changes dramatically throughout the book and the book contradicts itself more often than the one example given above. But the Bible consists of 66 books written by many authors, and although the style changes throughout there is a remarkable thread of continuity that runs from beginning to end and it does not contradict itself. The authors of God's Holy Fire could stand to give it a little more respect.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

2006-10-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

As I'm reading along in God's Holy Fire: The Nature and Function of Scripture I have come to a section where the authors are discussing the various genres in scripture. When talking about epistles (letters) they make a point of saying (on page 146):

We can recognize [Paul's] works as ancient letters, and because they take this form we know not to read them as narratives or theological treatises or handbooks covering every imaginable eventuality that the church might face for all time. They cover specific events in the life of the congregations in which Paul ministered. (Emphasis theirs.)

Why would they say such a thing? Well, that becomes evident in a few pages (page 148):

[Paul's] precise rules on head coverings or the display of miraculous gifts or the silence of women may not have been in force in other churches (then or now).

And there you have it. How refreshing! I can be released from the odious "rules" in Paul's letters because after all, he wrote these to specific churches, which aren't us. We can have what we want! This is what you have to guard against when you read the Bible. The Bible is not concerned with what you want and in fact it tells you that many of the things you want are not good for you, but there is a great temptation to find complex theological methods so that when the Bible seems to obviously say that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their sexual sins we can decide that they were, in fact, destroyed because of a lack of hospitality. Then we can indulge in sexual sins all we want. The apostle Paul's teaching on women is embarrassing to our society:

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. (1Co 14:33-37) Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. (1Ti 2:11-12)

And it comforts many who want to be thought of as "scholars" to be able to rid themselves of such "rules." Of course the thorny problem of wording like "as in all the churches of the saints" (1 Co 14:33) and the fact that Timothy is written to an evangelist who is dealing with multiple churches is, I suppose, just irrelevant. This is also something that happens when people make such an error (finding in the Bible what they want rather than what is actually there). They typically run to it and make hasty interpretations that are often proved absurd by just a little bit of reading. And therein lies the antidote to such poison... it's a book... READ IT!!!

God's Holy Fire - Part 3 - Descending Further...

2006-09-30T20:15:00.000-07:00

I should probably stop reading this book. However, my intent is to review it on Amazon and currently I am thinking I would like to warn people away from it. I don't want to do this without actually reading the whole thing, but finishing it is getting harder and harder. The problems I've referred to before are the primary ones in the book - namely the fact that the authors seem to have a very weak belief in God (if in fact they have any at all) and they often seem to be attempting to actively undermine Christianity. However, the book is also riddled with typos (incorrect verse reference on pg. 72, for example) and contextual errors, such as in the second paragraph on page 103, which says:

Their hopes rest on the monarchy, but once again Israel squanders the time of divine favor. Even David is deeply flawed, and his sin with Bathsheba sets in motion a disastrous history of intrigue and violence. David's successors disappoint God, their subjects, and all future readers of their stories. Consequently, the kingdom is soon divided. The kings do not heed the prophets, and both Israel and Judah ultimately go into exile. The curtain of this sad narrative goes down with the return from exile of a few of those who have gone into exile. Hopes are high for the restoration of Israel and the fulfillment of God's promise of the land. But once again, the survivors must face the reality that the Davidic monarchy will not be reestablished, and Israel is not a mighty kingdom. At the end of this narrative, Israel has returned from exile and lives in hope that God will repeat in the future the great deeds of the past. Israel looks for a new Moses, a new exodus, a new David, and a new creation.

There is nothing wrong with the assertions in this paragraph (in fact, I chuckled a bit at the statement that "David's successors disappoint God, their subjects, and all future readers of their stories"); but the authors refer to "both Israel and Judah" at one point in the paragraph and then shift to simply "Israel." I can understand what they are saying, but it is sloppy, in my opinion, since calling out the divided nation in one sense leads the reader down the path of assuming that the 10 tribes (referred to as "Israel" when you are talking about both "Israel and Judah") "returned from exile" which isn't true at all. The authors therefore shift the meaning of the term "Israel" part way through the paragraph without informing the reader. You just have to know in order to follow them properly. This would bother me less if it weren't for the sporadic off-hand references to remind us that the authors are "scholars." An example of this happens on page 106 where in the main text of the book we read:

Like the laws in the Pentateuch and like Ezekiel, both of which we will talk about a little later, the Chronicler underscores the importance of the Temple and its worship as symbols of God's abiding presence in Israel. The cult reminds us of God's abiding justice.

The last sentence seems out of place, but it is put in its place by a small gray explanation box right beside it in the book titled, "The cult..." which says:

Scholars do not often use the term "cult" in the popular sense of a religious group tightly controlled by a powerful leader. The more technical meaning refers to worship in the form of sacrifice of animals and other items, probably led by a priest, usually in a temple or other holy site. "Cult" in this book bears this second, technical definition.

This is simply a gratuitous use of "scholarly" jargon placed here in an obvious attempt to remind us of the fact that the writers of the book are, indeed, Scholars-with-a-capital-"S." I find writing like this to be a sort of intellectual bullying where you are reminding your reader not to disagree with anything in your discourse because of your advanced learning and their own ignorance. You can almost get away with such intellectual bullying if you pay very close attention to your writing and don't make obvious errors, but when you do make such errors as I mentioned before then you are like a schoolyard bully that trips on your shoelaces. It is not intimidating, just embarrassing.

God's Holy Fire - Part 2

2006-09-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm trying to like God's Holy Fire: The Nature and Function of Scripture but it isn't working out too well. I got to page 64 where I found this:

We can learn at times from how others - Jews and Christians throughout the history of the church - have understood these texts. In so doing, we will learn that our own perspectives on the texts do not exhaust their possible meanings. For example, we may read Isaiah 53 in the light of Jesus' last week, as Christians usually have, or we may also appreciate Jewish readings of this text that understand the "suffering servant" to be Israel itself. Both readings have value, and there is no reason to insist that one and only one of them can be true. Truth can only come from consideration, over time, of many factors. It comes by reading the many texts of Scripture again and again and never allowing any one of them to silence the others.

I'm trying to decide if this paragraph is a sort of biblical relativism or if the concept is that we can eventually arrive at truth if we study hard enough. When the author writes: "Both readings have value, and there is no reason to insist that one and only one of them can be true" that sounds like a denial of the existence of absolute truth, but then the next sentence seems to "redeem" the passage a little bit by indicating that reading "again and again" will eventually lead to "truth" since it comes from a "consideration of many factors." Clearly if you are a Christian and believe in the New Testament then you have to believe that Isaiah 53 is talking about Christ since the New Testament writers quote it in such a way:

Who has believed what they heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
(Isa 53:1)

Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: "Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?"
(Joh 12:37-38)

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
(Isa 53:4)

That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: "He took our illnesses and bore our diseases."
(Mat 8:16-17)

Of course the clincher in this regard is when Philip finds the Ethiopian eunuch reading from Isaiah (Acts 8:28) and the passage that the Ethiopian eunuch is reading says this:

"Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth."
(Act 8:32-33)

Naturally Isaiah 53:7-8 is the passage he was reading:

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
(Isa 53:7-8)

So the eunuch asks (Acts 8:34):

"About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?"

And does Philip say, "Well, we aren't really sure. Some Jewish scholars believe that the prophet is talking about Israel, which is an interpretation that certainly has value, but I think another, equally valid, interpretation is that it might be this Jesus fellow. But I could be wrong." Of course not! Acts 8:35 says:

Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.

So when the good writers of God's Holy Fire: The Nature and Function of Scripture write that, "For example, we may read Isaiah 53 in the light of Jesus' last week, as Christians usually have..." I have to feel like they are being misleading to the reader not to state it like so: "For example, we may read Isaiah 53 in the light of Jesus' last week, as Christians always have..." or better yet, "For example, we may read Isaiah 53 in the light of Jesus' last week, as the New Testament writers did..."

The question in my mind is whether this is due to malice or ignorance. Do the writers of this book really know so little of the Bible they are supposedly writing about or are they purposely trying to lead people astray?

God is calling... who?

2006-09-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

My wife sent me a link to a story about the fact that a recent pick for a bishop in the Episcopal Church was not a homosexual (yes, the title of the article is actually, "Gay priest not picked as N.J. bishop"). I'm going to ignore the fact that it seems funny to have an article about not picking somebody as a bishop. (I mean, what if he wasn't picked because the other person was better - or does being gay mean you should automatically get picked for the bishop spot when you apply?) What I'm interested in was a quote from the article:

"God is calling lesbian and gay persons to be bishops, priests, deacons and lay ministers in the Church, and we must never deny God's call," Barlowe said.

(Barlowe is Michael Barlowe - the homosexual man who was passed over for the job as bishop. And I haven't used the "Rev" in front of his name or anybody else's for that matter - not because he is gay but because I don't think we should be putting "Reverend" in front on a human's name. I feel the same way about "Father.") That statement is, of course, completely absurd. You could put in anything you want to the formula used and it would have equal validity. Here is the formula:

God is calling X to be bishops, priests, deacons and lay ministers in the Church, and we must never deny God's call

Just replace X with whatever you want it to be. Let's try a few out:

God is calling pedophiles to be bishops, priests, deacons and lay ministers in the Church, and we must never deny God's call

Does that seem to be silly? I've gone too far? I haven't, of course. Paul Shanley (and don't go to that link if you aren't prepared for some pretty nauseating facts about Mr. Shanley) was a priest in the Roman Catholic Church. He is also a pedophile. He believed he was called by God to be a priest (just like Mr. Barlowe believes he was "called"). Why would we think that Mr. Barlowe was called and not Mr. Shanley? Why should we "deny God's call" for Mr. Shanley, but not Mr. Barlow?

Here is an even better one:

God is calling atheists to be bishops, priests, deacons and lay ministers in the Church, and we must never deny God's call

There we go. An atheist doesn't even believe God exists. But this one must really be silly, right? I mean, an atheist wouldn't try to be a bishop in the Episcopal church. This must be a straw man argument, a fallacy, something easy for me to refute but which isn't really relevant. Once again, of course, it isn't silly at all. In fact it is depressing how un-silly it actually is. John Shelby Spong retired in 2000 as a bishop in the Episcopal Church. He authored many books during his tenure as bishop and Wikipedia describes him as being, "the bestselling liberal theologian of recent times." Harper Collins, who published some of his books, has posted the first chapter of one of his books titled, "A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith is Dying & How a New Faith is Being Born." In this chapter, retired bishop Spong states the following:

I do not define God as a supernatural being.

Since I do not see God as a being, I cannot interpret Jesus as the earthly incarnation of this supernatural deity, nor can I with credibility assume that he possessed sufficient Godlike power to do such miraculous things as stilling the storm, banishing demons, walking on water, or expanding five loaves to provide sufficient bread to feed five thousand men, plus women and children.

I do not believe that this Jesus could or did in any literal way raise the dead, overcome a medically diagnosed paralysis, or restore sight to a person born blind or to one in whom the ability to see had been physiologically destroyed.

I do not believe that Jesus entered this world by the miracle of a virgin birth or that virgin births occur anywhere except in mythology.

Bishop Spong is, therefore, an atheist. But he is an atheist who also claims to have been called to be an Episcopalian bishop (just like the gay man, Mr. Barlow), and "we must never deny God's call."

The bottom line though, is that God does call lesbians, gays, pedophiles, and yes, even atheists to be priests (1 Peter 2:9), but he does not call them to this and expect them to remain lesbians, gays, pedophiles and atheists. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 says:

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Please note the bold italicized "were" in the previous paragraph. That is what some of them were but they were washed and sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were not expected to be those things any longer. And if they were still those things then they would not inherit the kingdom of God. That is the key element in this, and it draws out the problem in the original quote from the article:

God is calling lesbian and gay persons to be bishops, priests, deacons and lay ministers in the Church, and we must never deny God's call

The reason why this quote is correct (but not in the way that Mr. Barlowe meant it) is the use of the word "called." In the parable of the wedding feast found in Matthew 22:1-14 Jesus talks about a king who gives a wedding feast and invites several groups of people. First he asks the original invitees to come and they don't (22:5,6 - "But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them") so after destroying them and burning their city (22:7) he widens the invite list to as many people as can be found "both bad and good" (22:10). Well, then the "wedding hall was filled with guests" but as the king goes through the guests he sees somebody there without a wedding garment and when the man can't give a good answer for why he isn't wearing a wedding garment the king has him thrown out "into the outer darkness [where there is] weeping and gnashing of teeth" (22:13). And then we come to the real crux of the matter in Matthew 22:14, where Jesus says:

For many are called, but few are chosen.

So Mr. Barlowe is right, God is calling lesbians and gays and even atheists to his wedding feast, but God will not choose them to remain unless they clothe themselves in the wedding garment, which is Christ and get rid of their sin (observe that these things go together):

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. (Galatians 3:26-27)

Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. (Romans 13:13-14)

Why Write Christian Books if you don't Believe in God?

2006-09-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

I started reading "God's Holy Fire: The Nature and Function of Scripture" yesterday and I'm already troubled by the content. For you to understand what is troubling me, I have to ask you a question:

Why did Israel and the early Christians survive when the powerful kingdoms of the ancient world are now merely objects of historical and archaeological interest?

This is a question quoted directly from the book. The lead-in to the question is as follows:

The remarkable fact is that, not only do our children learn the same stories that we learned as children, but people continue to tell the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants after more than 3,000 years. This fact is especially noteworthy when one recalls the incredible number of empires that have come and gone over the past three millennia. Indeed, Israel was only a tiny kingdom the size of Massachussetts, far smaller than the empires of the Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, or Persians. Most people today don't know much about Canaanites or Hittites, but they know of Israel, which survived despite the loss of its temple, monarchy, and land. In the same way, the early church flourished when no casual observer could have predicted that it would meet the challenge offered by the competition. Without the survival of Israel and the early church, Christians would not now be telling the ancient story.

The very next line is the question I asked above. Now, the writers of this book are three professors from the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University (http://www.acu.edu). More specifically they are (from the back of the book): "Dr. Mark Hamilton, Assistant Professor of Old Testament; Dr. James Thompson, Professor of New Testament and Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Theology; and Dr. Ken Cukrowski, Associate Professor of New Testament and Associate Dean of Academic Programs for the College of Biblical Studies."

So then, back to the question asked in the book:

Why did Israel and the early Christians survive when the powerful kingdoms of the ancient world are now merely objects of historical and archaeological interest?

And the author's answer:

Israel had a memory that no one could take away. The Israelites survived Babylonian captivity and returned to rebuild their devastated land because of a memory, which later was gathered into a book.

Amazing. One wonders if any of these distinguished professors of the New and Old Testaments have actually read the New and Old Testaments. You see, the question asked above is one that the Bible answers. When it comes to Israel surviving through Babylonian captivity, we find out many times how and why this happened in the Old Testament:

Job 12:23 - "He makes nations great, and he destroys them; he enlarges nations, and leads them away."

Jeremiah 25:11-12 - "This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the LORD, making the land an everlasting waste.

Daniel 9:2 - "in the first year of [Darius'] reign, I , Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years."

Jeremiah 16:14-15 - "Therefore, behold the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, 'As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,' but 'As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.' For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers."

The Old Testament even answers the question of why the ancient empires fell and are no more:

Jeremiah 25:15-27 - For thus the LORD, the God of Israel, says to me, "Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it. They will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them." Then I took the cup from the LORD'S hand and made all the nations to whom the LORD sent me drink it: Jerusalem and the cities of Judah and its kings and its princes, to make them a ruin, a horror, a hissing and a curse, as it is this day; Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his princes and all his people; and all the foreign people, all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the land of the Philistines (even Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron and the remnant of Ashdod); Edom, Moab and the sons of Ammon; and all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon and the kings of the coastlands which are beyond the sea; and Dedan, Tema, Buz and all who cut the corners of their hair; and all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the foreign people who dwell in the desert; and all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam and all the kings of Media; and all the kings of the north, near and far, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the earth which are upon the face of the ground, and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them. You shall say to them, "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, "Drink, be drunk, vomit, fall and rise no more because of the sword which I will send among you."

Now, Jerusalem is mentioned in this list as well, but Jerusalem gets special treatment later in the book (note that the other nations do not):

Jeremiah 27:22 - "[The vessels of the Temple] shall be carried to Babylon and remain there until the day when I visit them, declares the LORD. Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place."

The New Testament answers the part of the question dealing with why the early church survived:

Matthew 16:18 - "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it."

Luke 1:31-33 - "And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end."

Which is according to a great deal of clear Old Testament prophecy:

Daniel 2:44 - "In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever."

1 Chronicles 17:14 - "But I will settle him in My house and in My kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever."

There is nothing in these verses about a "memory" on the part of Israel. There is in fact nothing lauding any action on the part of any PEOPLE in any of these verses. They all have something in common, though, that being that they very clearly point to the answer to the question:

Why did Israel and the early Christians survive when the powerful kingdoms of the ancient world are now merely objects of historical and archaeological interest?

And that answer is: Because the LORD willed it to be so.

The LORD willed for Israel to survive and the LORD willed for the ancient kingdoms to become mere "objects of historical and archaeological interest" and the LORD willed for the early church to survive (and in fact he wills for it to survive today and forever). If the answer given by the writers of God's Holy Fire were correct then man could destroy the church by merely forgetting about it; but this isn't the case because God wills for the church to live forever as the verses above clearly demonstrate. It is not action on our part or the part of the Israelites which led to the maintenance of these kingdoms throughout time but rather action on God's part.

I remain disturbed by the fact that the writers of this book claim to be Christian and teach Bible classes at a "Christian" University and yet give a fundamentally atheistic answer to one of the most central themes in all of the Bible. I intend to continue reading the book, however, and I'll post more on it as it goes.

What is Wrong with Actually READING the Bible?

2006-09-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to Dr. Gerald Bray's church history class via http://www.biblicaltraining.com/ (you can download entire classes and listen to them whenever you feel like it). Today he was talking about the Reformation and the history leading up to it. I found it interesting that the Catholic Church actually made it a heresy in the early 15th century (punishable via being burned at the stake) to translate the Bible from Latin to some other language. But this was a reaction to a "problem" that the Catholic Church was already dealing with. Thus the Reformation was a reaction to a variety of converging forces that led to one very simple thing: making the Bible accessible. Now, there aren't very many people in America that don't have at least one Bible in their homes. This is even true for many atheists. We are "Bible saturated" as it were. This is frightening for me because what I see is that nobody actually reads it and when they do they understand it to say things which are simply absurd, because they had some pre-conceived notion of what it said before they ever opened it. The Bible is a book, therefore it can be read and understood. This isn't that hard, but so many people seem to make it so much more difficult than it has to be. I know why that is, of course, because the Bible tells us things that we don't want to hear and we are a society now that feels justified in ignoring truth if it happens to seem "mean spirited" (a.k.a. just telling you what is going on). This is a big problem, though, because we shouldn't deceive ourselves: We reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7-8). That isn't God saying to us that he is going to give us what-for, though, that is just him warning us that we will suffer the consequences of our actions. That is a tough one for us today. Yes, and it is "mean-spirited," too. So most of the time we just stand by and let people fall in the gaping hole in front of them because if we say, "Hey, sorry to bother you, there is a gaping hole in front of you" we get "OH, THAT WAS SO MEAN-SPIRITED. THAT WASN'T VERY CHRISTIAN OF YOU!" Which is worse, though, the wretched consequences of their actions falling on them without warning or a few "mean-spirited" words of caution?

A Place for Some Thoughts on Christianity

2006-09-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

I just set up this blog as a way to focus my thoughts on religion and specifically, Christianity. So that you know what you are getting, I have the following attributes:

I believe in God - specifically the God of the Bible
I believe that Jesus was his Son
I believe that the Bible is true
I believe that we can read the Bible and find out what it says
I am a member of the churches of Christ and as such I believe that immersion baptism is an important part of the salvation process