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)

Vigilance (Part 1)

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

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

and again:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of Bearing with the Defects of Others

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

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

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

There is a Way that Seems Right...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Imitation of Christ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Truly His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

The Hollywood Proof of Christianity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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