Titles

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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)