The Love of God

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

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

The Gospel is of First Importance

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

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

Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion

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

They Do Not Understand

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

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

It says, "the" angel. Just one.

Podcasting Sermons

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

A Helpless God?

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

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

Greek and Hebrew Reader's Bible Online

This site is fantastic:

http://bible.johndyer.name

Working Around Jesus

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

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

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

Do Not Fear

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts on "Your God Is Too Small"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Story of My Life

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

Today

The Irish Monthly:

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

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

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

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

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

- John Boyle O'Reilly

I Hate What I Think You Are

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

God's Government

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

Robert Duncan Culver, Systematic Theology

Great Site for Free Audiobooks

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

Politics

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

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

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

Stop Wasting Time!

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

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

Sowing and Reaping

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

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

So true.

Blog Comment Wisdom

I just ran across this in the book of Sirach:

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

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

I'm Not Okay, You're Not Okay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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