“Holy Hostility”

That’s what John Stott calls God’s wrath.

Lately, I’ve been surfing blogs, podcasts and websites of folks who, burned by “the institutional church”, “organized religion”, “evangelicalism” or various other expressions of Christianity in the West, have taken to calling God “Dad” and talking about His great love. I’m not against that per se. I just find that at times it’s a bit reactionary and therefore unbalanced. These folks seem to be rushing from abject terror of the Cosmic Cop into the awaiting arms of a great Celestial Softy.

I think Stott’s commentary “What is God’s Wrath?” can help to restore balance. Afterall, since “Dad” is so crazy about us, then shouldn’t we expect Him to be hostile toward whatever and whoever would harm us? (Romans 1:18-32. 1) What is the wrath of God?

If we are to preserve the balance of Scripture, our definition of God’s anger must avoid opposite extremes. On the one hand, there are those who see it as no different from sinful human anger. On the other, there are those who declare that the very notion of anger as a personal attribute or attitude of God must be abandoned.
Human anger, although there is such a thing as righteous indignation, is mostly very unrighteous. It is an irrational and uncontrollable emotion, containing much vanity, animosity, malice and the desire for revenge. It should go without saying that God’s anger is absolutely free of all such poisonous ingredients.
The desire to eliminate any notion of God’s personal anger, as being absolutely unworthy of him, is usually associated with the name C.H.Dodd, whose commentary on Romans was published in 1932. He argued that ‘Paul never uses the verb “to be angry” with God as subject’, although he is often said to love, and that the noun *orge* (anger) is used only three times in the expression ‘the anger of God’, whereas it occurs constantly as ‘wrath’ or ‘the wrath’, without reference to God, ‘in a curiously impersonal way’. Dodd’s conclusion is that Paul retains the concept ‘not to describe the attitude of God to man, but to describe an inevitable process of cause and effect in a moral universe’. A.T.Hanson elaborated this view in *The wrath of the Lamb* (1959), maintaining that God’s wrath is ‘wholly impersonal’ and is ‘the inevitable process of sin working itself out in history’.
But the argument based on the comparative absence of the expression ‘the wrath of God’ in favour of ‘wrath’ or ‘the wrath’ is weak. For Paul treats grace similarly. At the end of Romans 5 he writes both of ‘the grace of God’ (15), and about ‘the grace’ which he nevertheless personifies as both ‘increasing’ (20) and ‘reigning’ (21), and which is the most personal of all God’s attributes. If then ‘grace’ is God acting graciously, ‘wrath’ must be God reacting in revulsion against sin. It is his ‘deeply personal abhorrence’ of evil.
The wrath of God, then, is almost totally different from human anger. It does not mean that God loses his temper, flies into a rage, or is ever malicious, spiteful or vindictive. The alternative to ‘wrath’ is not ‘love’ but ‘neutrality’ in the moral conflict. And God is not neutral. On the contrary, his wrath is his holy hostility to evil, his refusal to condone it or come to terms with it, his just judgement upon it.

God’s Particular Will

In a commentary on Ephesians, particularly chapter 5, John Stott says:

“Secondly, *wise people discern the will of God*. They are sure that, whereas willfulness is folly, wisdom is to be found in God’s will and nowhere else. *Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is* (verse 17)…Moreover, in seeking to discover it, it is essential to distinguish between his ‘general’ and his ‘particular’ will. The former is so called because it relates to the generality of his people and is the same for all of us, e.g. to make us like Christ. His particular will, however, extending to the particularities of our life, is different for each of us, e.g. what career we shall follow, whether we should marry, and if so whom. Only after this distinction has been made can we consider how we may find out *what the will of the Lord is*. His ‘general’ will is found in Scripture; the will of God for the people of God has been revealed in the Word of God. But we shall not find his ‘particular’ will in Scripture. To be sure, we shall find general principles in Scripture to guide us, but detailed decisions have to be made after careful thought and prayer and the seeking of advice from mature and experienced believers.”

Pardon my presumption, but I would add two things to Stott’s commentary at this point. First, while it is true that we will not find God’s particular will for ourselves in Scripture, we will find His particular will for others. (Consider God’s will for Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Paul.) Why bring this up? I’ve noticed that there is an assumption that many Christians have when it comes to discerning God’s particular will for their lives which is rooted in their attitude toward God’s revelation of his particular will to these and other people in Scripture. The assumption is that, just as God had a particular call on these people’s lives, He has a call on each and every individual. Note that I use the word assumption for that is what it is. The Scriptures never say that God has a particular will for each and every individual beyond being delivered from death to life. Second, I’d like to add that even after we think carefully, pray earnestly and pursue good counsel from “mature and experienced believers”; we still can not claim to have flawlessly divined God’s particular will for our individual circumstances. We can say that we have used the resources available to us and commended our decision to God who “in all things, works for the good of those who love him”.

I think many Christians are unnecessarily burdened with the task of finding God’s particular will for their lives. I’m not thinking of those folks who tramp through life confident that they’ve rightly understood various impressions, leadings and “burdens” on their hearts or faultlessly interpreted the results of “fleeces” they’ve “lain out”. I’m thinking of those who are constantly wondering if they are “in the center of God’s will” or who, due to a change in their circumstances, feel oppressed by the guilt of having “missed God’s will”. For those people, I would ask God to help them reach the point where they can rely on His revealed general will and the wisdom that He provides to make particular decisions, ultimately confident that God is at work, mysteriously, on their behalf.

Begging to Differ

I recently found myself doing something that I almost never do, namely disagree with something written/said by NT Wright. 

His book on justification is coming out (or has come, I don’t know) and Intervrsity Press has an interview with Wright transcribed and available online. Somewhere along the way he appears to wholly endorse a Reformed sentiment that I’ve yet to fully come to terms with. It’s the whole bit about faith (the saving sort) being from the Holy Spirit as opposed to something that humans bring to the God-sinner relationship. Wright says:

“Many doctrines of justification through the years have actually kept the Spirit a bit at arms length and have not factored in what for Paul is
absolutely vital, that when somebody becomes a Christian, even the faith by which they believe, Paul says, is the result of the Holy Spirit’s working through the grace-filled preaching of the gospel of Jesus. I’m thinking of 1 Thessalonians, I’m thinking of Galatians and many other passages we could call in at this point.
The result is that when somebody then lives the kind of life which in Christ is honoring to God, it isn’t that they are earning their final justification by their own efforts; it is already given; it’s a datum; it’s part of who they are in Christ from the moment they believe and are baptized. Rather it is the Spirit working in them, through them, so that they are freely choosing to do what the Spirit wants them to do.”

I’ve long had a problem with the Reformed articulation of  this area of Paul’s teaching. The idea that the Holy Spirit unilaterally forces himself upon a person in order to save him/her has always felt wrong to me. After all, what kind of relationship can be established by coercion, even divine coercion? Love has to be given freely or it’s not love. And now here is a personal theological hero of mine saying something that sounds like the Reformed theology that I reject…or is he?

The difficulty here is understanding what it means for the Holy Spirit to work through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus. The Reformed position that I reject is the one which says: the Spirit first regenerates the sinner so that he is capable of (saving) faith, which is aroused by the preaching of the gospel. As I see it, this is effectively the Holy Spirit playing both sides of the gameboard. Is this really what Wright is saying? If so, then I genuinely don’t agree with him.

I tend to believe that through the preaching of the gospel (whatever form “preaching” takes) the Holy Spirit “knocks at the door” of the sinner’s mind and heart, asking to be allowed in. No matter how shabby and depraved a hovel the sinner’s life is, the doors are still his to open or shut as he desires because this is the way that the Carpenter designed and built it. Of course, one must be careful with metaphors; reading, writing and applying them.

I doubt that this point will be addressed at length in the new book and I don’t really need it to be. My disagreement won’t keep me from buying and reading it.

What Do You Say?

I’m a Christian; not one of those Left Behind evangelicals who see the talons of Satan behind every migraine or flat tire or even failed business venture in life. That being said, I can’t help but wonder if that’s not a hint of brimstone I smell in the air these days.

I ‘ve been given three months notice. As of June 30^th, we are jobless, homeless and insurance-less. We knew it was a possibility but we had thought that we would dodge the bullet. We were wrong. Of course, three months is plenty of time to hear back from one of the many places that I’ve contacted looking for work. However, this is the in-between time when the acrobat slips off the tight-rope and is waiting to hit the circus floor.

Later, on the day that the news about my job came, when my wife went to pick up our son from school, a boy chased a soccer ball into the street. She wasn’t moving very fast. When she heard the thud of his prepubescent body strike the side of the van, she saw the boy bounce off and shake himself into recovery. All the same, visions of death (the kid’s) and incarceration (hers) flooded her mind and she had to be lead into the Director of the school’s office and calmed with tea and assurances that all would be well.

When she got home, our daughter was covered in red spots. A case of chickenpox was reported at the school, so we expected that it was going around and had hitched a ride home on one of the boys. As the evening wore on, the spots became blotches and my wife took our little girl to the doctor. The much needed good news was that she was probably having an allergic reaction to something she ate. Two days later, there was no sign of recovery so we made an appointment with a dermatologist. The next day, the blotches were fading so we skipped the appointment. Then we discovered that some of them had turned purple.

About an hour ago, my wife was finished with the doctor and told me that he suspected that our little girl has a blood disease called anaphylactoid purpura. No one knows what causes it. There is no medication to treat it. It isn’t exactly deadly, but occasionally it leads to liver and/or kidney damage. We’re waiting on tests to find out if either has occurred in our little girl.

So, let’s recap: we’ve lost a job, struck a child with our van and had our two-year old daughter diagnosed with an uncommon blood disease all in less than one week. While the ball-chaser is fine and it’s unlikely that our daughter will die from this disease, we still have to bear the burden of uncertain job prospects…in difficult economic times at that. What does one say at a time like this?

Expressions of shared sadness are appreciated. Advice is not. Silent, supportive presence is priceless. Ignorant yammering about the mysterious outworking of God’s will or the pernicious work of the devil and his henchmen are worthless. A prayer would be the most helpful thing you could say. After all, when you want action, you always talk to the one in charge…and regardless of how things look, or feel, I still believe that God is in charge.

All Rebellion is Sin but…

…not all sin is rebellion.

The first time this thought occurred to me was in the earliest days of parenthood. My wife and I had been reading different books in order to prepare ourselves as best we could for what was coming. I’m not sure what well-intending, misguided soul lead us to read the Ezzo book but it didn’t take either of  us long to realize that we had a different idea of God’s way of raising children. Like a lot of evangelicals, Ezzo sees children as not just little sinners but little rebels. For him and those in his camp, to be sinful is the same as being rebellious. Consequently, God’s way of parenting is less about nurturing life and more about putting down a rebellion in the home. Even if that is an overstatement, it’s not an overstatement to say that the parent-child relationship portrayed in this book was combative. As we read it, we felt like children were seen as the (rebellious) enemy who need to be taken firmly in hand and have the rebellion squeezed out of them. While neither of us were inclined to deny that humans are born with a sin nature, we also were not willing to look upon our gift from God as the enemy. We refused to believe that every time our child misbehaved (i.e. sinned); he was acting rebelliously toward our God-given parental authority.

This past week-end, in a conversation with another Christian, I noticed that this person held the opinion that all sin is rebellion. The comment that revealed this had something to do with The Fall, the event in which Adam and Eve sinned/rebelled against God. I pointed out that I don’t think that all sin is rebellion and derailed the discussion just a bit. Come on, think about it…

I’ll assume that you know the story in full and pose the rhetorical question; did Eve rebel against God when she ate the forbidden fruit? As boring and/or sophomoric as it may be to do it, I’m going to take a moment to define the terms. The biblical word translated as “sin” can mean “to miss, to miss the way, to go wrong, to incur guilt” and the nearly-clichéd meaning “to miss the mark”. The biblical word translated as “rebel” can mean “to be contentious, refractory, disobedient”. The difference between these two concepts is that the first (sinning) can be either intentional or accidental, while the second (rebelling) can only be intentional. So, was it Eve’s intention to reject God’s authority and repudiate His love? Perhaps we can’t really know the answer to that but I’ll base my opinion on Paul’s characterization of Eve’s state of mind.

On two separate occasions (2 Corinthians 11:3, 1 Timothy 2:14), Paul made the comment that Eve was “deceived” by Satan.  On both occasions, the root of the words translated as “deceive” are the same and carry the idea that Eve was “cheated” or “beguiled”. She was lied to by the serpent, and for her part, she believed the lie. Believing the lie was wrong. Eating the fruit was disobedient but was it contentious? Was she contending with God or was she simply failing to think through the implications of her decision to trust the serpent and ignore her own experience of God? I’m inclined to think that Eve, without the knowledge of good and evil, had no idea that the serpent could have a sinister intent and so she was not on her guard. The devil was cunning and he “beguiled” her, leading her astray. Eve missed the goal of obedience but I don’t think that she contended with God. The word “deceived” just doesn’t carry the concept of intention(ality?) and making it carry that concept is forced. I suppose it could be argued that there is sufficient overlap between the concepts of sinning, disobeying and rebelling to allow for the position that all sin is rebellion but I think that doing so requires ignoring significant nuances. After all, words are chosen because they signify particular meanings and not other meanings. It’s not “just semantics”.

Why God Kills Babies

Chances are good that if you come from a Christian background, at some point in your life you had an encounter with this Bible Story book. This is the one that I’ve been reading to the kids from lately. (We have several that I’ve been rotating through.)

If you popped over to Amazon and took a look at it, you noticed right off that it’s a “serious” kid’s book. The illustrations are not quite photo-realism, but they’re not cartoons either. The people smile when they’re happy and frown when they’re sad, unlike this one where you’ll find a grinning Jonah kneeling in prayer on a comfy looking bit of whale innards. Obviously, the Egermeier book attempts to “keep it real”, which is why my wife and I recently had to have a discussion about reading the story of Moses to the boys.

If you know the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, you know that God had to afflict Pharaoh and all of Egypt in several different ways before Pharaoh obeyed God and released the Israelites from their slavery. One of the plagues that God visited on the hard-hearted Pharaoh and the complicit Egyptians was the death of all their first-born children . As far as I can tell, the plague killed all of the first-born whether infant or elderly, however I suspect my children would only think about the little ones. The challenge in telling this story to our little ones is reconciling for them why our Good and Loving God would kill Innocent Babies. My wife and I have had this discussion before and I’ve even posted about the time my oldest son quizzed me about why God wanted Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. My wife and I didn’t come to a unified position on whether or not to read the Egermeier version, which doesn’t shy away from the facts, however we agreed that it’s not a bad idea to have an answer in mind should the kids ask why God killed the Egyptian babies. So, I went off, grabbed a notebook and pencil and began to write an imaginary conversation with the kids in order to come up with some kind of answer that is both true and understandable for kids. Here’s something akin to what I came up with that night:

Kids: Daddy! Why did God kill the Egyptian babies? That’s mean!

Daddy: That’s a good question. Let’s think about it: Do you know what a slave is?

Kids: Someone who works.

Daddy: Yeah, sort of. You see, a slave is someone that other people treat like animals. The Israelites used to be neighbors with the Egyptians but then the Egyptians took them, made them slaves and began to treat them like animals. Think about that: Where do animals sleep?

Kids: Outside? In barns? In houses?

Daddy: Ok. Where do animals go potty?

Kids laughter) In the potty!

Daddy: No, they don’t. Animals don’t have clean places to go potty. Some animals on the farm tend to potty in the same place where they eat and sleep…or just anywhere they can find. What kind of food do animals eat?

Kids: Grass!

Daddy: Yeah, some do. Do people eat grass?

Kids: No! Yuck!

Daddy: The Israelites probably didn’t eat grass, but they didn’t eat nice food like you and the Egyptians either. What are animals good for? What are chickens good for?

Kids: Eggs! Nuggets!

Daddy: Exactly. Does anyone ever offer to give the chicken money for their eggs? No. We just take them. As for nuggets, before you can make chicken nuggets, you have to kill the chicken. Do you go to jail if you kill a chicken?

Kids: No!

Daddy: That’s what the Egyptians did to the Israelites. They made them live in dirty places like animals and gave them simple food like animals. When the Israelites had babies, the Egyptians took their children and sold them like they were animals. Remember that the Egyptians even killed the Israelite babies and nobody put them in jail for doing it. Should the Egyptians have been punished for this?

Kids: Yes, but not the babies!

Daddy: God gave the Egyptians 400 years to stop being mean to the Israelites, but they didn’t. When God sent Moses to Pharaoh, He told Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt. If Pharaoh had listened, then the babies would not have died.

Kids: But the babies didn’t do anything wrong! God should’ve killed Pharaoh!

Daddy: You’re right; the Egyptian babies didn’t do anything wrong and neither did the Israelite babies that the Egyptians sold and killed. God sent Moses to give the Egyptians a chance to do what was right: to release the Israelites and to stop treating them like animals. God tried to give them mercy but they didn’t want God’s mercy.

Kids: What’s mercy?

Daddy: Mercy is when we get something good that we don’t derserve instead of the punishment that we do deserve.  Justice is getting the punishment we deserve for the bad things we’ve done. God offered Pharaoh and Egypt mercy but when they said No! He gave them justice for killing the Israelite babies. Just like the Israelites lost their babies, so the Egyptians had to lose theirs because they would not accept God’s mercy.

Kids: But what about the babies? Doesn’t God love the Egyptian babies? Couldn’t He give mercy to the babies?

Daddy: Yes He does. In fact, God loves those babies so much that when Jesus returns, God is going to give those babies new bodies and new life. They’ll live with people who love each other and don’t treat people like animals. They won’t learn how to be mean like the Egyptians that God punished for treating the Israelites so badly.

Of course, no conversation with my kids would ever last this long. They’d get bored and begin to make jokes. In fact, I’d probably lose them completely once I brought up the idea of animals going potty. Additionally, my kids would constantly interrupt with additional questions. Yet, having gone through the exercise I think I’ve come up with a condensenced answer.

God loved both the Egyptians and the Israelites and He was very unhappy when the Egyptians took the Israelites and started being mean to them. Remember, the Bible says that the Egyptians killed Israelite babies. God sent Moses to give them a chance to stop being mean but Pharaoh and the Egyptians would not stop. When God saw that they would not stop, He gave them the same trouble that they gave the Israelites: He took away the Egyptian babies just like the Egyptians took away the Israelite babies. When Jesus returns, the babies of both the Egyptians and the Israelites will be given new life and there will be no more killing.

I don’t know if the kids would understand that or not. I think they might. They may not remember it either. I just know that I’d rather give them an honest, if difficult, answer instead of avoiding the subject entirely. I’d really love to give them THE CORRECT ANSWER but honestly, I don’t think I know that that is.

Bow Down or Boogie?

Over at The God Journey, Brad and Wayne were talking about Chuck Colson’s criticism of the book The Shack. Colson criticized that The Shack’s low view of God and the Bible, pointing out that Isaiah, John (the Revelator), Paul et al fell down in abject humility before the glory of God while the main character of The Shack ate collard greens with God and called her “Papa”. The conversation eventually turned to discussing who God is. Is God High and Exalted as experienced by Isaiah or is He Meek and Lowly as experienced through Jesus. Is God our Sovereign Lord or is He our Abba? On the Day of Judgment, will we kneel in reverence before His Majesty or will we be giving high-fives all around?

In the conversation on The God Journey podcast, Colson represents the God Most High attitude. The most intimate word that he could use for God would be the formal Father, but only because it’s in the Bible. Approaching the other end (if not completely on the other end) are Brad and Wayne. They would prefer to use Jesus’ word “Abba” to address God, a word that is supposed to be roughly equivalent to our “Daddy”. Colson thinks the appropriate relationship to God requires falling on our faces and proclaiming “How Great Thou Art” before the throne while Brad and Wayne want to play in God’s lap the way that little children did with Jesus. Which is appropriate? Should we grovel or should we dance before God?

The Bible shows God as “Most High” and “Most Nigh”. In the beginning Adam and Eve took walks in the garden with God. After the Fall, they fled from His presence. Abraham haggled with God over Sodom and Gomorrah. The Israelites cowered at the foot of the mountain begging that God not speak to them. Moses and the elders ate and drank in the presence of God. Isaiah fell prostrate and confessed to be a “man of unclean lips”. David called God his “shepherd” and described Him lovingly in the famous Psalm. When God came in the man Jesus, He dandled children on His knee and turned over tables in the temple. Sinners were drawn to him. Roman soldiers “drew back and fell to the ground” before Him. After the resurrection, Mary threw her arms around Jesus while Saul of Tarsus fell to the ground and called him “Lord”. The appropriate concept of God is one that is able to accept the all of these expressions. Some folks groveled. Others danced. Some responded in other ways. Relationships are complex as the Bible shows.

I don’t know if it’s necessary or not, but it seems to be fairly common that people who are growing in their faith go through a period of extremes. Someone grows up with God Most High, finds out that he is free in Christ and rushes toward God Most Nigh. Another one starts out with Big Daddy, Junior and The Spook in the commune only to end up with The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost at the Orthodox Church. Some folks need to experience greater intimacy with God. Others need to experience greater reverence for God. Some need to hear that they can approach the throne boldly. Others need to realize that it’s a throne and not a Lazy-Boy recliner.

If it is an error to tend toward one of these attitudes or the other, I tend to err toward the throne forgetting that the One seated there is Love. There are days when I boogie when I should bow. There are other days when the reverse is true. Some day, I’ll see God and I’m confident that whatever attitude I have then will be the appropriate one…for me.

MiniEarth

Watch this video and then think about these questions:

How would “MiniEarth” be different if there were 0 Christians or 18 Christians or 66 Christians?

With 33 Christians in “MiniEarth”, why are there 13 hungry people and 14 people who can’t read?

Would one of the 33 Christians also be the 1 with HIV? Would that 1 be able to tell the other 32 without being afraid?

How many churches/denominations would there be in “MiniEarth”? Does that idea bother you for some reason?

If the 6 people with 59% of the wealth were all Christians, would any of the numbers related to poverty, military spending or aid change? In what way?

I’m just thinking…

 

Justice or Mercy?

What do you do with a student who is .6 points away from passing the course? If you’re a teacher, your mind is already filling with additional questions, withholding your answer until you’ve gotten a fuller picture. “Why is she only .6 points from passing?”, “Were there any outside factors like illness?”, “Was she absent a lot?”, “Were the assessments fair/valid?” and so forth. All valid questions and whatever the answers to them are, there comes a moment of decision, a moment when you will either choose to act justly or mercifully. How do you decide? How do you know when to be just and when to be merciful?

A student from my class finished the year just .6 points away from a passing mark. As is customary in the host culture, other students approached me to intercede on her behalf. One day, Student .6 waited outside my office door with a group of about eight supporters to speak with me about her situation. The next day, I got a visit from the Program Director who wanted to know “what we could do” for Student .6. At the end of that day, as I sat on the bus headed home I began to think about the question of justice versus mercy. As a Christian, I’m supposed to be transformed in my thinking and conformed to the likeness of Jesus who always knew when to be just and when to be merciful. Should I have been just with Student .6 and let the failing grade stand or should I have been merciful and rounded her mark up to passing?

No answer came to me until I got home and was changing out of my work clothes. It was a light bulb moment and I’m not sure of the reasoning that brought me to my answer but here it is: give people what they ask for. Student .6 came to me complaining that it wasn’t fair for her to fail the course when she was so close to passing. She reasoned that it would be a waste of her time to repeat the course for want of 6/10 of a point. She asked me for justice, not mercy, which lead me to another realization: mercy is only possible where there is confession.

Had Student .6 come to me and confessed that she had not taken the course seriously, the situation would have been different. Had she confessed that she spent more time talking to her friend and daydreaming during class, that she chose to do other things instead of studying for the tests, that she had memorized bits of texts to use in her assignments instead of producing original work, then there would have been an opportunity for mercy. She would have seen herself rightly and understood that the passing mark was not the product of her clever argumentation, her meritorious work or even my weakness of character.

Maybe I’m wrong, but perhaps this is why confession is so important when it comes to receiving mercy from God. (Don’t get confused. I’m not using mercy as another word for grace. I see that as something significantly, though not altogether, different.) We are not ready to receive mercy from God until we rightly understand that we are justly condemned. Confessing our sin, our failure, our mark-missing is the sign of our understanding of our situation. Sure, Student . 6 could have “confessed” while thinking to herself, “I’ll say what he wants to hear if it means that I get what I want”, but that only works with humans. God, knowing the heart, knows when a confession is an attempt to manipulate and when it’s sincere. Without a confession, it’s impossible to receive mercy. Mercy may be shown, but it may not be perceived as mercy. Should mercy be shown even when it will not be perceived as mercy? I think only God really knows and we just have to do the best we can.

As for Student .6, she came to me looking for justice and I think that is what I gave her. Sadly, decisions may be made higher up which will subvert justice. Happily, one day God’s justice will prevail…which is why I’m asking for mercy today.

Convincing, Converting, Manipulating Authentically

“…and convincing is all about manipulating…our job was not to convince, not to convert. It was to live authentic lives and to help people who want to know the Jesus I know.” http://www.thegodjourney.com/audio/2008/0328h.mp3

I’ve been giving “The God Journey” podcast a listen and this is a quote from one of the hosts. (I don’t know which one said it as I have not placed the names with the voices yet.) It’s neither my desire nor my intent to take issue with either of these two former pastors. I just want to interact with this statement.

“…convincing is all about manipulating…” This is certainly true of some folks. There are religious people who NEED to convince us so that they might control us. Sounds sinister doesn’t it? If you knew what hackles were, you would get them up about now wouldn’t you? However, I think that there is a class of religious people whose motivation to manipulate isn’t so much sinister as it pathetic. They need to shore up their own doubts and insecurities by creating numbers (of people) in which to find their strength. They’re not interested in having power over others so much as creating security for themselves. It’s still wrong, but it’s pathetically wrong and not aggressively evil, don’t you think?

“…our job was not to convince, not to convert.” I think that there is a sense in which the job of those who follow Jesus is to convince which leads to conversion. The problem is motive and method. Do I try to convince others because I am insecure and need their conversion to make me feel secure? That’s a bad motive. Do I try to convince others because I love them and want them to “know the Jesus that I know”? That’s a good motive. Biblically, we see God invited his people to reason with Him; we see Moses giving signs to the elders convince them that YHWH had sent him; we see Elijah having a showdown with the priests of Baal in order to convince the people who was really God; we see Philip explaining from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah to an Ethiopian; we see Paul in debate/dialogue with Jews and Greeks in order to convince them that Jesus is the Messiah/Christ. I think our job is to live and interact with folks convincingly so that they might come to see Jesus as King, just as we do. Of course, we first have to see Jesus as King ourselves.

“…to live authentic lives and to help people know the Jesus I know.” Authenticity is highly valued in our culture. We immediately understand what it means when applied to works of art and collector’s plates but do we instantly grasp what an “authentic life” is? Do you live an authentic life? Do I? I think that the term authentic means genuine or even transparent when it appears along side the word life. People who live authentic lives are more than earnest or sincere. They are transparent. What we see is all there is. In matters of religion, people living authentic lives openly express doubt, frustration, anger and other “negative” emotions about God and / or His people. What I wonder is this: when we think of authentic lives, do we also think of people openly expressing faith, contentment, joy and other “positive” emotions about God and / or His people. I’m afraid that this idea of authenticity is only applied whenever someone is in the negative category and not in the positive. It’s the same trap that we fall into whenever something bad happens and we say that “real life is like that” or “Welcome to the real world!” as if only the negative is real or authentic. Is there room for something good to happen in an authentic life?

Again, I just want to interact with the statement. I mean no criticism of the one who made it. I have no agenda against anyone associated with The God Journey podcast. I just wanted to express some thoughts that burst into my mind when I heard these words.

A Poem…

…perhaps.

I’m tired of groping in the darkness of Your shadow.

So, I sit with crossed legs and wait for You to turn around,

to let Your face shine upon me.

“Follow me” You said, and I did.

You never stop.

You never rest even though I grow tired.

Your stride is too great and I feel that I have to run at times.

So, I’m tired.

Your shadow is shade to me,

but I’m alway having to shift to stay covered.

“Take up your mat and walk” You say from somewhere far ahead.

The darkness of Your shadow advances, taking Your shade and exposing me.

(You never stop.)

I feel the heat return.

And the thirst.

What choice do I have…really?

“You have the words of Life.”

I’m tired from groping in the darkness of Your shadow…

What’s That About?

Last night was a rough night.

Apart from my baby girl waking up about every two hours crying, I had a rather odd dream that has left me wondering, “What’s that about?”

I was in a church building somewhere standing behind the audio mixer. The mixer was set up outside the auditorium so all I could see were these two double doors. There was a young guy not only running the mixer but he was single-handedly providing the praise and worship music.

This kid had plugged a microphone directly into the mixer and was singing along with a karaoke track. The music was actually pretty good (not the cheesy 7-11, jazz-hands friendly fare so common in the American mega-church of today) but the kid was singing “skippy dippy do” and other nonsense over and over. Just before I was wakened by my little girl’s cries I remember really getting into the music but feeling appalled at the junk coming out of the kid’s mouth.

Perhaps this is what happens when a Christian reads a biography about Frank Zappa.

A Comment for Ben Witherington

Unfortunately, Dr. Witherington’s Blogspot blog only allows Blogspot bloggers to blog er, comment so I thought I’d cast my comment upon the blogosphere and hope he gets it.

He’s written a post that I rather appreciate, which you can read here. If you do, you’ll notice some typos and some confusing use of language. Out of my appreciation for it, I’ve edited a bit. (I’d hate for folks to miss what he’s saying.) I’d hoped Dr. Witherington might be able to simply cut and paste the edited version into his blog, but I guess not. Anyway, here’s the comment that I wanted to leave along with my revision of the post.

I imagine that you are a very busy person who doesn’t have time to go back and edit this post, so out of appreciation for what you have written, I’ve gone through and edited it. I’m an English teacher by profession, so doing this is almost second nature for me.

I hope that you approve…but understand if you don’t.

Thanks for a good post.

One of the more interesting subjects to discuss is the freedom of God. What exactly is God free to do or not to do? Is God’s will the primary and controlling divine attribute such that even God’s knowledge is dependent on God’s will in the first place? Are there things that a sovereign God cannot do? For example, is God free to sin? Or is God’s behavior determined by the unalterable divine nature? That is to say, is God subject to the same sort of determinism some Christians believe applies to human beings? These sorts of questions and their answers all have a bearing on how we ask and answer the question about human freedom and its nature.

A few preliminary points are in order. Firstly, I take it that the primary attribute of God is not God’s will but rather God’s love, which is a holy love. Not holiness without love, and not love without holiness. I say this because God’s will has primarily to do with his doing, but what is prior to that is God’s being or character, and in my view God’s willing is dependent on his character. There are certain things which, while theoretically God might be able to do, God would never do because it would be ‘out of character’. For example God is light, and in God is no darkness at all. I take this to mean that God would never do evil nor commit sin. Of course there have been theologians who have argued that the terms good or evil are simply defined by what God does or does not do and sanction. I think there is a problem with this whole approach. The moral order of the universe and, more specifically, the image of God in human beings are meant to tend in a particular direction, namely conformity to the character of God. God says “be ye holy as I am holy”. There is supposed to be a reflection of the divine character in us, and indeed in all of creation. This in turn means that God, having set up the universe in a particular way, is not free to be capricious and redefine the meaning of holy in the middle of the game. God has chosen to express the divine nature in a particular way and has chosen to limit himself such that God as well as all of his creation is subject to certain standards of truth, holiness, love, and so on. This is a complicated matter, but the bottom line is that once God set up the universe with free agents other than himself, God is not free to do just anything without violating his revealed character and will. This is not an absolute limitation. I am assuming God could set up a definition of sin and could violate it, but if God did, he would cease to be the good God of the Bible. It is the last refuge of a scoundrel to say that God, who has already defined darkness and light, can change the definition along the way so that “whatever is, is right, because God has done and said it”. This is one of the reasons why it is terribly false to attribute to God sins that he prohibits us from doing, say for example destroying innocent human lives for no good or appropriate reason. But I digress.

I assume that when human beings were created in the image of God this meant, among other things, that Adam had libertarian freedom to either obey God or not. It is not appropriate to judge this matter on the basis of the attributes of fallen human beings who indeed in various ways can be said to be in bondage to sin or addicted to sinful behaviors. No, the question is: how did God make us in the first place, and how in Christ does God restore us in Christ as we are renewed in the image of Christ? Does grace restore the power of contrary choice in redemption or not? Of course much depends on one’s view of grace. Some people think grace works rather like an escalator– it does all the heavy lifting and we are just along for the ride. I disagree with this. Grace is not irresistible, it is rather a form of enablement from a gracious God which gives us a further chance to freely love and obey God. In other words, we must indeed work out our salvation with fear and trembling. God’s grace does not do it all for us and in spite of us.

Another of the major issues which affects this discussion is the nature of love. Now, I understand love to be the most personal act of either God or human beings. Furthermore, it is the most free and freeing act of all beings. It must be freely given and freely received. It cannot be coerced, co-opted, manipulated, and it most certainly does not work in an impersonal manner, like say the way iron filings are attracted to a magnet. God is not a magnet and he does not treat his creatures in an impersonal way that makes their behavior inevitable. If he did, it would cease to be personal and loving behavior on our part for sure.

This leads me to a further point. Ethics in the Bible are largely what are called “virtue ethics”. They are not intended to be exercises in futility or frustration. Nor is the function of ethical enjoinders to simply give us a clear picture of our impotence compared to God’s omnipotence, though it must be said it often has such an effect. Now, virtue ethics require that a person has the capacity to be virtuous, by which I mean, the person has the capacity to either freely behave in this way or not. Otherwise there is nothing virtuous about the behavior. The pure “fight or flight” instinct of a deer is not an example of making a conscious choice to “do the right thing”. I am utterly convinced that the Bible calls us to be virtuous beings, or as Paul suggests in Phil. 4, to be creatures who can not merely reflect on what is noble and excellent, but seek and attempt to do it. The commands to love as we are loved, to forgive as we are forgiven and so on, presuppose that grace actually enables us to freely attempt to imitate Christ and do what he commands us to do, at least approximately. God is an ethical being and he wants Christians to reflect the highest and best behavior a human being can muster. Indeed, he commands us to do it, but as Augustine says, God gives what he commands; he enables us to believe and behave as we ought to do.

In short, the discussion of the freedom of human beings should never be undertaken in isolation from the discussion of the freedom of God, and the ways God has chosen to limit himself in order to allow us a limited measure of freedom, and so be a small reflection of the divine character. Here we must return to the matter of God’s will and knowledge. Notice how in Rom. 9-11 God foreknows things that he did not will, for example the apostasy of Israel and the rejection of its savior by most early Jews. Not only did God not will this, but his heart is broken by it just as Paul’s heart is. What this tells me is that Calvin was wrong about the relationship between God’s will and God’s knowledge. God does not merely know it because he wills it. There is some other relationship between knowing and willing in God and they are not inexorably linked. At the end of the day, I believe whole heartedly in what John 3.16-17 says: God loves the whole fallen world and Jesus died for the sins of all human beings as 1 Tim. 2 also says. This in turn means there are other agents in play in the matter of redemption, human agents who can either positively or negatively respond to the Gospel, and the eternal lostness of some is in no way willed or destined by God. Were the matter otherwise, our God would cease to be a good God by his own definition of goodness. One final reminder– as the prophets told us, God requires of us that we reflect the divine character– to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God. What God requires of us, he enables us to do, so that in small measure we may reflect the virtuous and free character of our God.

Not Jealous

I think that I’ve mentioned before that I subscribe to the John Stott Bible Study. It’s been a while since I’ve actually read a complete commentary that I’ve received in my e-mail, but today I did.

Today begins a study of Romans which is good because it’s the book that I’ve been reading bits of most recently. The study for today begins with commentary on Romans 1:1-7. In his commentary Stott says that Paul was motivated to reach the nations with the gospel because he was zealous that the name of Jesus be glorified. Stott says that Christians should be “ ‘jealous’ (as Scripture sometimes puts it) for the honour of his name – troubled when it remains unknown, hurt when it is ignored, indignant when it is blasphemed, and all the time anxious and determined that it shall be given the honour and glory which is due to it.” (italics mine)

After reading this, the first thing I thought was “Yeah, but…” followed by an attempt to moderate the statement in order to make myself feel better about the fact that I am neither troubled nor hurt by ignorance of Jesus, nor indignant when my peers spit out his holy name as part of a curse, nor anxious and determined that the name of Jesus be given proper honor and glory. At least, not as a rule. Why is that?

Why am I not troubled and hurt by ignorance of Jesus? To reply that I simply don’t care doesn’t really answer the question. At the risk of coming across as insincere, I think that the following quotes from the Bible truly do provide the answer. I do not “have the mind of Christ”; I have not been “transformed by the renewing of” my mind; I have not attained the “fullness of Christ”, that is a full appreciation of who he is and what he has accomplished on my behalf and the behalf of everyone on the planet.

Why am I not indignant when people around me speak the name of Jesus as a curse? To some degree, it’s because I expect it. Or more accurately, I don’t expect people around me to honor his name because I don’t see that they honor anyone. They may admire someone for something they have, but I can’t think of anyone whom my peers honor. For that matter, I’m not sure who it is that I honor. Just because I say that I honor the name of Jesus, doesn’t mean that I do. I’m not exactly sure what honoring someone looks like. Honor is a concept that is very difficult for Westerners to grasp, whether we’re Christians or not.

Why am I not anxiously determined to see the name of Jesus honored and glorified in the world? Perhaps the answer is found in examining what I am anxious and determined about. These days I’m anxious about repatriating to the US next year. I anxious about providing for my family. I’m determined to make the move in spite of all of the adversity that this move will entail. I’m anxious about my children and my relationship with them. I’m anxious about getting traffic at this blog. (How embarrassing that is to see in writing!) I’m determined to get out of my host country as smoothly as possible. So, it appears that I’m anxious and determined when it comes to me and my world, but not when it comes to Christ and the wider world.

So, how do I become troubled, hurt, indignant, anxious and determined regarding the honor of Jesus? How do I go about acquiring the “mind of Christ”? How do I come to understand the meaning of honor? Should those emotions actually rise up within me at some point, what is the proper way to express them?

Let us pray…

In Memory of…

Today, this blog keeps a respectful silence in the presence of the suffering of the Chapman family who lost their 5-year old daughter Maria about a week ago.

 

I join the Chapman family in the hope that Jesus will raise Maria to New Life.

What Kind of Car Would Jesus Have Driven?

Jesus would have driven a minivan.

Sound like heresy? I don’t think so. I know he never married and never had children, but he had 12 disciples with him practically everywhere he went. Granted, there isn’t a minivan on the market today that can hold twelve people but remember, people were probably smaller back in Jesus’ day as a result of (mal)nutrition. (I see examples of this almost everyday. Here in the host country, Indians from poorer areas of India are significantly shorter and thinner than those from more modern areas.) He could have taken out the second and third rows of seats and easily fit 12 disciples in the back. But he wouldn’t have done that. Not everyone would have been able to wear a seat belt. So maybe he wouldn’t have driven a minivan. Well, whatever Jesus would have driven, I’m confident that he would have chosen the safest vehicle on the market and I’m sure that he would have paid cash for it.

What I need to know is; if Jesus had 8,000 USD to spend on a used minivan and he had to choose between an older Japanese car (like a 2000 Honda Odyssey) and a newer American car (like a 2004 Chevrolet Venture), which one would he choose? Would he go with the older vehicle with the better reputation or would he go with the newer vehicle with the worse reputation?

Yeah, this really is all about me. We’re planning on buying a minivan when we visit the states this summer and we’re having a tough time figuring out what the wise path is. I’m certain that the wise path is not to go into debt for anything, especially a car, that is certain to go down in value. Beyond that I just don’t know. As I’ve been praying about it, I’ve come to see that a wise thing to do is to buy the best that I can afford…but I don’t know how to evaluate “best”. Over at MSN Autos, the “experts” rate the Odyssey high (9/10) and the Venture low (7/10), however owners who have commented score the Venture high (8.7) and the Odyssey slightly lower (8.3). Odysseys are much more expensive to repair than Ventures according to Consumer Guide Autos. If we start considering the 2000 Toyota Sienna at this point, the issue gets a little more clouded. The Sienna is ranked below the Odyssey and above the Venture by experts and only slightly below (8.6/10) the Venture by users. Repairs are still more expensive than the Venture but less than the Odyssey. The Odyssey and the Sienna have much better safety ratings than the Venture. So, if I go back to what I said earlier about Jesus buying the safest vehicle he could afford and paying cash for it, I guess I have to choose between the Honda and the Toyota.

I wonder which one he would choose.

Thoughts on Slavery

I recently told a Christian co-worker about my plan to return to the states at the end of the next academic school year. We got to talking about how intimidating it is to return home after being away for almost 9 years. I mentioned that the next year and a half would be spent saving up money to buy our first home. At this point, in a sincere attempt at being helpful, my brother suggested that I go into debt to flip some real estate on that the local market in order to build up even more money for a down payment on a home.

Since I was introduced to Dave Ramsey and my family worked its way out of debt, I can’t hear about such “investment opportunities” without thinking of Proverbs 22:7, “The borrower is slave to the lender.” This time was no exception. All I could think about was being enslaved to a mortgage for a piece of property in this host country where it is not uncommon for the laws to work against foreigners and fail to protect them, particularly from locally sponsored ventures. For me, it’s one thing to go into debt for the house that I’m going to live in. It’s another to put nearly all of my savings at risk on a property deal for a chunk of sand in a place that I’m trying to leave in the hopes that the overly inflated market is going to yield a 20% or more return on my investment. I think the financial term for this is “too risky”, but I’m not sure.

Anyway, this got me to thinking about slavery and what the Bible says about it. At first glance, it appears to some folks that the Bible isn’t exactly against slavery. One point that I’ve heard people use to criticize the apostle Paul, the Bible and Christianity is that none of them, in their own ways and times, opposed slavery as strongly as they should have. Particularly with regards to Paul, who gets credited by these folks as the “real” founder of Christianity, I’ve heard people say that he should have encouraged Christians to resist Rome on the issue. While I’m certainly not sympathetic to the detractors, I do see that the argument does capitalize on a fact: there is no Biblical condemnation of the practice of owning slaves. There is plenty of condemnation for the abuse of human beings, both slaves and free people. There are regulations in the law of Moses for the proper treatment of slaves, which includes both setting them free and retaining them for life. Paul teaches slaves and their masters how to relate to one another under the lordship of Jesus, while encouraging those Christian slaves who can gain their freedom to do so. I would sum up the Biblical position on slavery this way: Freedom is better than slavery, but slavery is not the worst thing that can happen to a human being.

I don’t say that glibly. My wife and I recently watched “Amazing Grace”, the story of Wilberforce’s efforts to abolition slavery in the British Empire. I comprehend the atrocious abuse which attended the slave trade as it was depicted by the film. However, not all instances of slavery in the Bible describe a similar existence for slaves. Joseph, from the time he was bought from his brothers until the time he was put over Potiphar’s house was a slave. It’s reasonable to assume that the quality of his life, if it was ever so bad as that shown in the Wilberforce film, improved quite dramatically…apart from that stint in prison. Daniel and company were slaves in Persia and it seems that they also lived fairly well in spite of it. Basically, some slaves had horrible lives and some didn’t. A slave with a master who followed the law of Moses or who exercised his authority bearing in mind that he must answer to Christ, his own Master, may not have seen his circumstances as being all that bad. It’s not uncommon for people to give up freedom for security, even today. Conversely, a slave with a lawless master may have wished for death daily until it finally came. Even the Israelites found slavery in Egypt, where they had food, clothing and shelter, more appealing than dying in the wilderness.

Perhaps I should look more closely at the Bible’s perspective on slavery.

Forgive or Forget About It

In one way or another, I’ve said this before: there are teachings in the Bible that are difficult to understand and there are others that are difficult because I understand. While I’d like to place the following teaching in the first category, I’m afraid that it actually belongs in the second.

I’ll paraphrase: According to Jesus, if we want God to forgive us of our sins, we must forgive the sins of other people. Or we can word it in the negative and say: If we don’t forgive people when they sin against us, God will not forgive us when we sin against Him. (Read Matt 6:13-15, Matt 18:21-35, and Luke 6:36-38.)

Recently, I listened to a sermon by a guy out of Texas whose response to this teaching was, “Did Jesus really mean that?” That’s what I’d like to know. I mean, what about being saved by grace through faith; what about removing my sin as far from me as the east is from the west; what about no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus? Does Jesus really mean that God’s forgiveness of my sin is contingent upon my forgiving others? It certainly sounds that way, doesn’t it?

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, so he gave them a model to follow. Matthew’s version shows Jesus finishing the prayer and then adding an aside, so to speak, as if to say: “By the way, you need to understand that before you ask God to forgive you of your ‘debts’, He expects you to forgive the ‘debts’ owed to you.” The idea being, of course, that our sin creates an imbalance in God’s moral economy. When we sin, we owe God something, namely our lives. (Rom. 6:23) I taught this
model prayer to my sons and to this day my four-year old still says, “Forgive us of our sins if  we forgive those who sin against us.” Textually inaccurate, but theologically sound…right?

Jesus capitalizes on the debt concept again later in Matthew 18 when he tells the story of a servant who owes the king and insurmountable debt. The king mercifully forgives the servant who then goes out and prosecutes a fellow servant for a miniscule loan the man owes him. When the king hears about this, he revokes his forgiveness and requires the first servant to repay the massive debt. At the end of the story, Jesus spells it out; “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” Jesus is telling God’s chosen people, the one’s with the Law and the sacrifices to atone for their transgressions of that Law, that God will do exactly as the king in the story: revoke forgiveness and require payment, whenever they do not sincerely forgive their brothers.

Before we get distracted by a discussion of who those brothers are, let’s take a look at what Jesus said about praying in Mark 11:24-26. Jesus tells Peter and company as they’re heading into Jerusalem together for the last time, that when they are praying they must forgive “anyone” for “anything” that they have against them. In this way, Jesus makes it clear who these brothers are. He also gives the reason they must forgive; “so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” Since we are also his disciples, isn’t Jesus talking to us too? Yet, weren’t our sins forgiven when we believed with our hearts and confessed with our mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord? Weren’t we told that when God forgives us of our sins, He forgives ALL of them, past present and future? Doesn’t that include the sin of withholding forgiveness?

I don’t want to be disingenuous and leave the impression that my questions indicate that I’m afraid of “losing my salvation”. (I don’t believe we lose it but rather that we repudiate it, but that’s a post for another time…or not.) It’s just that as someone who has been churched almost my whole life, and a Christian almost as long, I often blow right by bits of Scripture without a thought. When that Texas preacher paused and asked if Jesus really means that we have to forgive in order to be forgiven, I thought that it’s an important question to take the time to think about, especially since my thoughts and prayers focus so heavily on receiving forgiveness, as opposed to giving it.

 

Blogging Grace

Gracious speech is easy enough to recognize when folks are face to face. However, when our conversations occur in writing, as is the case with blogging, then gracious speech can become difficult to recognize. A visitor to this blog asked me to explain how someone can recognizably “offer grace” when blogging. After mulling this over for a bit, I think I’m ready to attempt an answer.

Before I get started, I need to say the following: when I use the word “blog” as a verb, I’ll be referring to both posting and commenting. I think that most people simply mean posting. Additionally, I’m not always a gracious person, either in speech or in writing. Consequently, I’m a bit embarrassed and uncomfortable advising folks on how to blog graciously. I suppose I could take comfort in the fact that, judging by the number of hits so far, I’m writing mostly to myself.

In order to communicate grace when blogging, I think we need to be mindful of the obvious. Bloggers are writers. Every writer has a voice and every voice has a tone which communicates an attitude. Grace is a “heart-attitude”. When the attitude of the heart is not gracious, the writer is unable to offer grace through his words. Said another way, “Out of the overflow of the heart…” the blogger blogs.

Grace is widely defined as “unmerited favor”. Favor can be understood as “friendly or well-disposed regard, goodwill”. Often we express our goodwill toward someone or something by saying that we are “for” them. Consequently, a gracious attitude can be characterized as being “for” someone without that person giving you a reason. To offer grace through our blogging, we have to be “for” the reader.

When we blog, it’s a good idea to check our attitude to see if we are “for” our reader, keeping in mind the following: It is possible to disagree without disdain. Expressing confusion over some point or issue is not ungracious but expressing contempt for the reader is. Disapproving of a method, a mode of reasoning, a conclusion or even the poor expression of a position or point is not ungracious. However, disapproving of some one because of these things is ungracious, especially among Christians. To blog graciously, we have to strive to communicate that we are “for” the reader even though we may be against his methodology, reason and / or position.

The Bible says that “wholesome speech” builds up the listener. I think this applies to gracious speech, (spoken and written) as well. Since gracious blogging builds up the reader, we ought to ask ourselves  “Does what I write build my reader up?” There are many ways to build up one’s reader. The following are a few that I’ve thought of thus far.

One way to build up the reader is by using appropriate language. An expert edifies his amateur/novice readers by avoiding unnecessary jargon and providing lots of explanations. He doesn’t expect the reader to rise to his level of expertise and writes accordingly. A gracious blogger expresses understanding of why the novice (erroneously) thinks the way he does, and then explains why his understanding is erroneous. If a blogger presents himself as being knowledgeable and obviously isn’t, we are not justified in using the language of our expertise to pummel him into silence or shame. Sure, lofty egos need to be torn down but we must pause and ask if we really are the ones to do it. When we catch our fellow blogger in the sin of pretense and fallacious argumentation, we must remember what Paul said to the Galatians .

Another way to build up the reader is by avoiding sarcasm. As a teacher, I’ve seen how sarcasm not only shames a student but also creates an obstacle to communication, effectively shutting down the learning process. While it may be fun to write and entertaining to read (when not aimed at us), sarcasm tends to tear down, not build up. Jesus never used it against is disciples, and neither should we.

As I said earlier, offense is unavoidable. Despite our good intentions, we’re bound to offend someone at sometime and so gracious blogging is apologetic, without being defensive. When we become aware that we have unintentionally offended someone, we ought to be quick to apologize for the offense, not to defend our words. When we go on the defensive, we demonstrate that we are “for” ourselves more than we are “for” the offended. However, a timely and genuine apology (followed by a clarification of point if necessary or beneficial) shows that we are “for” the reader and builds him up. Sometimes, when my little sons are playing they accidentally hurt one another. When they do, my wife and I make them apologize immediately. Their instinctual response is to defend their actions/egos by crying out “But I didn’t mean to! It was an accident!”. It’s as if they’re saying “I didn’t do anything wrong, so I don’t need to apologize!”  We then explain that the apology is a way of accepting responsibility for our actions and showing genuine care for the hurt person. Caring about the physical and emotional hurts of others is gracious.

Bloggers, especially God-bloggers, tend to be passionate about their subjects. Consequently, our emotions tend to run high. The Bible affirms both zeal and anger in their proper places, not that these are our only two emotions. However, above these two and all other passions (and virtues for that matter), the Bible exalts love, so when we blog graciously, we love.

Certainly, there are others who have blogged about this more succinctly and more eloquently than I have. Even so, just working through this has been good for me. Hopefully, if you’ve also worked your way through my prose, it’s been good for you too.

Doctor, My Brain Hurts!

I’m just posting to say that I won’t be posting this week. (Feeling a bit woozy from the Buick )

Instead, I thought that I’d share some links to some interesting things that I’ve read and listened to over the past 2 weeks.

From Reformed Perspectives Magazine- a critique of Sola Scriptura (found this by accident!)

From Stand to Reason-”Bad Arguments Against Calvinism“

By way of Theopedia-a lecture on Calvinism’s take on salvation (really appreciated this!)

Steve, a former Calvinist, offers this.

Fred, a current Calvinist, explains why Steve is wrong.

I know that it’s pretty lame to post a bunch of links like this, but I need the break and if nothing else, I now have a place where I access these things again at a later date if I want to.

And if you’re curious, when next I post, it won’t be about Calvinism, Calvinists, and/or Reformed Theology… and if it is…(whimpering) help me.

What’s Wrong with Kyle?

My guess is; not much. He’s a bright young man, married to “the most beautiful and talented girl in the world”, studying philosophy while being “trained up for ministry” in the Presbyterian church. He’s intelligent, educated and, I’m certain, extremely well-read in all matters which mean anything to him whatsoever, particularly Reformed Theology. You really ought to visit his blog. When you do, I think it’ll be obvious that between us, his opinion is better researched and informed than my own.  For his opinion about what I think is wrong with Calvinism, read this.

For my considered response to his comment, read on:

Kyle,

I took some time to read your comment slowly and check your biblical references. I seriously considered what you said and I also took some time to look at your blog to get an idea of who you present yourself to be. Honestly, I’ve come away from your comment feeling a bit like a fly being swatted with a Buick. I’m okay with that though. I can take it.

I’m also okay with much of what I said. There are some things that I would alter but mostly I don’t feel the need to recant my core beliefs (even if they are badly expressed). My point is/was that it is better to try to understand Scripture from the perspectives of the author and the audience than it is to try and understand Scripture from the perspective of another interpreter. When reading Paul (the Jew and the Pharisee), it is better to try to understand his writings from an Eastern/Jewish/Pharisee perspective as opposed to a Western/Gentile/Christian perspective of early church fathers (Origen, Augustine) and previous theologians (Calvin, Luther, et al.). This still makes sense to me.

My miserably expressed belief is that Calvin (but actually, I confess that in my mind I was thinking “present day Calvinists”) came to certain theological conclusions because he (they weren’t) wasn’t attempting to view Scripture in light of Paul’s Jewish worldview and Pharisaical education. Granted, if I presented myself as anything more than an “armchair theologian”, I would be remiss not to support this accusation through scholarship.  However, as I do not present myself to be anything greater than a blogger who likes to read think and write about theology, I don’t feel compelled to commit myself to the serious work of research and referencing at the same level of a student and future pastor like yourself. Again, you need to consider the author of this blog (“armchair theologian”) and his audience (realistically speaking, mostly himself…oh, and that nice guy Wonders for Oyarsa).

Of course, I realize that sounds like I’m advocating poor reasoning/scholarship but I’m not. I’m advocating that you and other readers of this blog use some discernment and adjust your expectations according to who I represent myself to be.

Nothing that you referenced in your comment indicates beyond question that Paul’s Jewishness and Pharisaical education was vaporized that day he met Jesus on his way to Damascus, nevermore to influence his writings. So, for now I’m content to believe that Paul, the Jew and former Pharisee, would not necessarily recognize his own beliefs regarding predestination in the theology of Calvin’s current disciples (and possibly even Calvin himself).

You were right to point out that I invite criticism by posting my (ill-conceived) opinions for all to read.  Additionally, you’re right to suggest some serious scholars for me to read and learn from. You have given me precisely those things which I had hoped would come from writing this blog. However Kyle, what you have not given me is “grace”. There is nothing gracious in the tone of your comment or the style of your prose. You did not attempt a gentle correction and so your invocation of “Grace” at the close of your comment rings hollow and leaves me cold.

I chose “What’s Wrong with Kyle?” as the title of this post because it neatly refers back to my previous post “What’s Wrong with Calvinism?” I didn’t choose it to be vindictive, although I certainly understand why someone might choose to read it that way. Yet, I’m sure that Kyle would tell you that there are plenty of things wrong about him which the blood of Jesus covers by the grace of God…and, like his observation that my post is “flawed in multiple ways”, he’d be absolutely right.

Exodus 2009

The decision has been made. At the end of academic year 2008-2009, my family and I are going to leave the host country and return to the US. It’s time.

Truthfully, it’s kind of a scary time. If you’ve ever moved house before, you know that change is not easy. Moving internationally is especially difficult. Particularly when it involves four small children and a large degree of uncertainty. We own no home in the states. We have no car. At this point, there is no job waiting for me to take on. At times, the whole situation looks more like immigration rather than repatriation.

Now is not a good time for well-meaning Christians to pelt us with talk about God’s will, but they do. A sister from church that I really like said to me recently something about “If it’s God’s will…” and I just winced. Sure, God is Supreme and His will is ultimately done. I’ve no argument with that. The problem is that much of the time, my evangelical brothers and sisters pronounce “God’s will” over events and circumstances when, to be blunt, they haven’t the slightest clue what God’s will is. Later, when circumstances change, (usually from positive to negative) they retract their comments and revise their pronouncements, as if it is never God’s will that anyone ever go through some sort of negative experience. The fact is that sometimes it is God’s will that folks go through hard times. Jesus showed us that and yet so many Christians divine God’s will based on degrees of adversity or outward signs of “success”. When it’s easy, when it’s successful, God has paved the way. When it’s hard, we’re outside of God’s will. That sort of thinking is just plain wrong.

So where is my comfort in these anxious times? If I can’t confidently say that this move and all of its accompanying changes are God’s will for my life, where will my wife and I find peace? I trust in God. Good, bad or indifferent, I trust in God. I pray for opportunities for work. I tell Him what I’m afraid of. I ask for His comfort, strength and wisdom. I wrestle with the verse that says “Seek the kingdom of God first and all of the other stuff will be added as well”, and try to understand how that applies to my circumstances. There are times when I feel peaceful and there are times when I don’t, and that’s an acceptable way of life. It certainly seems to be the way it was for so many of the people we read about in the Bible. Moses had his good days and bad days. Joseph experienced triumph and tragedy. Pretty much any major character you choose to focus on in the Scripture can be seen going through both good and bad, certainty and uncertainty and God is always there. Sure, some of those people were blessed to have God say in clear terms precisely what He wanted from them, but not everyone experienced that. God never told Joseph that he was made a slave in Egypt to save his family from starvation. God never told Esther that she’d been made queen to protect the Jews from annihilation in Persia. Yet, in their anxious days filled with questions about their future, they trusted in God. I should follow their examples and do the same.

What about “God’s will for my life”? His will is clear enough. Seek the kingdom first. Love my neighbor as myself. Love my wife as Christ loved the church. Raise my children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Do all for the glory of God, without complaining. I could go on, but I think you understand what I’m getting at: God’s will for my life is clear. The context for living out His will for my life is what’s hidden, or perhaps it is not hidden. Perhaps, God gives me the right and responsibility to choose the context for living out His will that I know. This is what I believe and honestly, it’s really difficult. Taking responsibility, at least for me, is always a challenge. Sure God could speak to me from flaming shrubbery, but I’m much more likely to grow and mature in my faith if I’m allowed to struggle with taking responsibility for my life and choosing the career, the relationships, the culture in which I am to obey the will of God that He has already made clear in Scripture.

The Well Has Gone Dry

I had a burst of energy there for a while. I wrote several posts in advance, cued them up and then let them publish automatically. Now, I’ve run out of those surplus posts and it’s coming up on my self-imposed deadline.  It’s not like I haven’t been thinking and reading all that time. I have. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to order my thoughts into a readable bit of prose during the preceeding weeks.

I’ve been revisiting my views on Calvinsim, particularly its doctrine of predestination. From time to time, I do this because I tend to be drawn to Reformed types of preachers/teachers. They tend to be a cerebreal bunch, which appeals to me. And since they also tend to hold a high view of Scripture, I feel more drawn to them than to other Protestant preachers/teachers. Concsequently, I hear something impressively supported by Scripture, sharply disagree with it and then feel the need to revisit my views.

That’s what I’ve been doing these past several weeks as the post auto-published. I’ve been reading and thinking about predestination and trying to articulate why I believe that the Reformers have gotten wrong. Eventually, I’ll get it written but it won’t be today.

Sorry.

I’ll try to have something more substantial written next week.

Saved by…

Are Christian’s saved by faith or by works?

If you ever want to see an ecumenical meeting erupt into the theological equivalent of a West Texas cage fight (aka session of UK Parliament), then toss this question out for discussion.

Once long ago, I took out a concordance and I made a list of all the things that I found in the Bible which “saves” us. Here’s  a sample from just the New Testament:

standing firm

belief and baptism

human testimony (about Jesus)

calling on the name of the Lord

a message (about Jesus)

believing in the the Lord Jesus

the life (resurrection?) of Jesus

confessing

handing over to Satan (didn’t see that one coming did you?)

grace

God

childbearing (still haven’t heard a good explanation of that one!)

washing and renewal

baptism

Yes, I know that piling up verses in which the word “save” appears in one form or other is not a good way to do biblical exposition, however the point is not to nail down a single answer. The point is this: since all of these saving actions/agents are mentioned in the Word of God, there is a way in which they all save us. As someone said before, Peter does not trump Paul. When Peter says that we are saved by baptism, he is not contradicting Paul when Paul says we’re saved by grace through faith. They are both apostles of Jesus and they are both right. When Jesus says that we save our lives by losing them, he’s right too. When Peter tells the crowd to “save yourselves from this corrupt generation” we have to conclude that there is some way in which we are capable of / responsible for doing just that. We’re saved by everything and in every way which the Bible says we are. Simple and yet not.

Instead of feeling like we have to be loyal to one of these two positions (or some third one I’ve left out), we’d be wiser to broaden our loyalty to the whole Scripture and leave room in our rhetoric and doctrine for all of the saving actions/agents which God tells us about in His Word.

St. Valentine’s Day 2008

I hate Valentines’ Day. 

I’m sure that I’m not the only one. Undoubtedly, the web is replete with articles and blog posts by people who are, to varying degrees, in agreement with me: Valentine’s Day is one of the worst holidays on the calendar. Perhaps there are many who feel the same way that I do for the same reason: Valentine’s Day is a yearly reminder of various inadequacies on my part. 

First I have a poor memory. Despite obscene amounts of marketing and its annual appearance, Valentine’s Day invariably sneaks up on me unawares. Of course, one excuse I could (legitimately?) make is that I live outside of the US in a Muslim country where it is unseemly, at best, to celebrate a holiday named for a Christian saint and extols the virtues of romantic love. And after making this excuse, my wife would be stricken mute and immobile, unable to chose between guffawing and bawling at the at the absurdity of it. It’s not like she doesn’t do all the shopping for the family and hasn’t noticed the abundance of heart-shaped candies, trinkets and teddy bear feet. No, local retailers may not assail us with circulars emblazoned with “St. Valentine’s Day is February 14^th!”, but they know all of the gift-giving occasions of all of the cultures represented here and they make sure to have the appropriate gifts prominently displayed at the appropriate time. In short, my poor memory is no excuse for not getting J. something on Valentine’s Day. 

Second, I’m selfish, which is probably the underlying cause of my poor memory. Again, it’s not like remembering the holiday is all that difficult. There are numerous reminders available. The date is noted on our calendars. Hearts adorn our preferred search engine website during the month of February. Holiday related spam floods our e-mail accounts. And, even here, there are plenty of retailers pushing holiday-themed merchandise without invoking the name of the departed saint. With all of these reminders, the only excuse for “forgetting” the wretched event is that I’m just too self-absorbed to notice. My mind is preoccupied with the important events on my calendar. I am practically blind to superfluous decoration both on and offline. I never ever read anything that ends up in my bulk mail folder on my e-mail account and I block out all attempts to sell me anything that I don’t already want. The whole point of Valentine’s Day is to shower someone other than myself with attention and gifts and that is not easy for me to do. 

Third, I’m financially constrained. I’m not poor and I’m not in debt. (Seriously, absolutely no debt at all!) However, all of our money is spoken for. Our budget at this stage includes nearly no frills so we can save up for our repatriation to the states in the coming year. Consequently, the gift options for my wife are simply pathetic. Jewelry is too expensive. Candy doesn’t move her. Flowers do, but they’re expensive and often are not in very good condition when they’re available. I refuse to add to the grotesque amount of plastic baubles that have followed our children into the house simply because it’s Valentine’s Day. (If he wants plastic knick-knacks inscribed with his name, he’s welcomed to them!)  

Apparently, I am not only lacking in disposable income, but also in romantic sentiment and creativity. Great! Even more defects. Yet, for all of my inadequacies (and this is such a small sample) I have a really good woman who loves me. She accepts me where I am but not as I am. At first that may sound like a bad thing, but think about it. She knows that I have a bad memory, but instead of leaving me to flounder, she reminds me of things, and not just those things that are important to her. She reminds me to call my mom, write my brother, give special attention to one or all of our children and other things which are important to other people. She knows that I’m selfish, but instead of punishing me in various ways for it, she draws me out of myself and makes me aware of how I affect other people by what I say and do. She knows that money is tight but instead of nagging me about climbing the corporate ladder or badgering me to make more money; she respects the budget and looks for ways to maximize what we have. All of this requires some sort of sacrifice on her part, not the least of which is the sacrifice of her ideal husband. Don’t sell that sacrifice short. We all cherish our dreams, whether they are of perfect careers, perfect children or perfect mates. Letting those things go in order to genuinely love someone who is so obviously and painfully imperfect is a great sacrifice worthy of admiration.  

I really hate Valentine’s Day, but I really, really love my wife.

The Hardest Thing to Believe

As you might have noticed, I’ve really enjoyed listening to Mark Driscoll as of late; particularly the series of lessons called “Religion Saves + 9 Other Misconceptions“.  In the series Mark addresses a set of questions put to him by the members of the Mars Hill community (and beyond?). By the time I post this, I will have heard lesson #6, but before I do I thought that I would tap out my own response to the question. 

01/27: #6 “Of all the things you teach, what parts of Christianity do you still wrestle with? What’s hardest for you to believe?”

The parts of Christianity that I still wrestle with are the ones that are transparent. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is not eschatology (end times), soteriology (nature of salvation) or any other hard to grasp “-ology”. Sure, we could hold forth on the various types of love signified by different Greek words and then try to identify exactly who my “neighbor” is, but in the end we would find that the statement stands as is. Love others  as I love myself. I wrestle with that…and I often lose. There are lots of other teachings that are equally plain like; “husbands love your wives as your own body“, “fathers, do not exasperate your children“, “give to him who asks of you“, “bless and do not curse“, “do not store up treasure on earth“, “be doers of the word and not hearers only” and the list goes on.

As trite as this may sound, the hardest teaching of Christianity for me to believe is that God loves me. When I first began to think about what I would write in this post, this thought didn’t occur to me. Originally, I thought that that the hardest thing for me to believe was that God is more interested in my conforming to the likeness of Jesus than my “sound doctrine”. Then I asked myself why I spent so much energy on “getting it right”, that is pursuing right-thinking and I realized; at a gut-level, I still think that God will love me (more? better?) if my theology is right/good/sound. In short, after more than 20 years of belonging to Jesus, there’s a place deeper than my intellect where I don’t believe that God loves me…really…”Just As I Am“. While I know that God loves me (and all of His creation), this truth has not so fully penetrated my heart that it keeps me from emphasizing “sacrifice” over “mercy”. 

Check back with me in another 20 years and maybe by then I will have finally gotten it.

Light in the Darkness

This is something that I wrote a long time ago. Not sure exactly when. The image that I refer to is long gone, but I remember it well. You can probably find it or one like it online somewhere. After all, I’m sure that’s how I got it originally. Anyway, I was cleaning up the PC at work and found it. I thought I would give it a new home here on the blog.

I have a great image on my desktop computer at work. It’s a composite image of some satellite photos of the entire earth. Night has come upon the entire planet. Oceans are black beneath inky blue continents. The nations are illuminated causing the surface of the globe to look like various constellations have been dislodged from the heavens and fallen to the ground. The wonder of the photo is the brightness of mankind’s wealth and achievement. The US glows brightly on its coasts then dims a bit in between, yet Europe remains ablaze. Japan is so thoroughly illuminated that it’s hard to imagine there’s anywhere on the island that one could sleep without a light shining in your eyes.  An incredibly large portion of our globe has been electrified merely in the last century. All the same, my eye is drawn to the various voids.

Greenland is dark, as is much of Northern Canada. South America has a black interior. Australia is barely discernible. In the center of the screen, the overwhelming majority of Africa remains in darkness.

I imagine how this image might be altered if it were comprised in a slightly different manner. What if the cities and the nations were not illuminated by electricity, but rather by the presence of the kingdom of God? What if the darkness indicated the territory under the ruler of this world? How might the picture change? Would North America become barely perceptible against the black backdrop of the oceans? Would Europe simply vanish as though it had fallen into the sea? Would Africa change at all? Where would God’s presence be most visible?

How Can God be Trusted?

I can’t believe that I’m doing this. I mean, how foolish is it for an “armchair theologian” to attempt to say something meaningful and intelligent about the Book of Job on his first day back at the blog in nearly a week? It’s not like Job isn’t one of the most difficult books in the Bible for the “professionals” to get a grip on; at least that’s what I’ve read repeatedly over this past week. Anyway, it’s what’s been on my mind so here goes.

Dave Carlson of Fresh Read has recently been looking at the book of Job. While visiting over there, I invited Dave to take a look at something that I wrote about the vindication of God as a theme in Job. After reading it, he left the following comment:

“I am not sure  the Lord feels the need to vindicate himself-perhaps that is why some critics of the ‘God Speeches’ don’t feel satisfied.”

His comment set off a series of thoughts that went something like this: Since God feels no need for vindication (assuming that’s true, which is a thread to follow another day), why is His vindication in the text? Why is the vindication of God important? And to whom is it important? For nearly a week, I’ve been reading, thinking and writing my way through these questions. Since I have a self-imposed deadline to write on Thursday of each week, here’s what I’ve come up with this far.

The vindication of God is important to Job because it is his vindication as well. This is essentially what I said in the post which Dave read and commented upon. (Wonders for Oyarsa appears to agree with me, for what it’s worth .) God says Job is “blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil”. Satan says Job is not. He accuses God of buying Job off with blessings and safety. He says that Job will turn from God if these things are taken away. The trial begins but in the end Job remains righteous and God is proved right. Job, like God, also claims that he is innocent of sin. His friends see his suffering, believing that only the guilty suffer as punishment from God, and accuse him of lying. Job maintains his integrity and refuses to sin against God. When God shows up, He approves of Job as one who has “spoken of me what is right” and makes Job a mediator (or even a priest) between Him and the three “friends”. Job’s righteousness both vindicates God and is vindicated by God.

In his essay “The Cohesive Issue of mishpat in Job” , Carl Schultz says that divine justice is the central theme of the book and I followed his argument easily enough. However, as I thought about it more, it occurred to me that the questions accompanying divine justice are the questions of earth, not heaven. Why do the innocent suffer? How can a just God so cruelly afflict His creature, whom He says is “blameless”? Where is justice when the wicked live well and the righteous suffer and are killed? These are Job’s questions from his earth-bound perspective. They are the questions of earth, and certainly they are important questions. However, the text does not answer them, not really. When God speaks with Job at the end of the story, He doesn’t explain why Job suffered and He does not offer any defense of or insight into His justice. Instead, the only questions that are answered in the story are the questions of heaven. The questions of heaven are: Who is right about Job’s character, God or Satan? Who knows the heart of Job specifically (and men generally) better? Which of these two are more credible? Who can be trusted? The affliction of Job is permitted in order to answer these questions and it is their answers which demonstrate why the vindication of God is important to the reader.

God’s vindication is important to the reader because it shows that He is worthy of trust. If Job sins in his affliction, God is proved wrong and Satan is proved right. God may be powerful, but He is shown to be self-deceived about His own creation. God’s credibility is compromised. How can the “sons of God” trust His wisdom and judgment ever after? So, God initiates a public trial of his credibility for the benefit of His creation, both those inside the story and those outside reading the story.

Job trusted in God. In the beginning, he believed as his friends did; that God is just and that He inflicts suffering on the wicked for their sins. By permitting Satan to bring horrible suffering  upon Job, who knew his own innocence, God created the circumstances in which Job’s trust in Him would be tested. Job’s choice was to either trust in his own limited and uninformed understanding of his circumstances or in the omniscient sovereignty and justice of the Lord. The reader of Job is faced with this same choice.

In a sense, I think that the choice for the reader is complicated by his knowledge of the back story. Job doesn’t know what’s going on in the heavens. He doesn’t know that His suffering is actually a result of God’s praise of him before the heavenly court and Satan, rather than God’s condemnation of Him for some secret sin. But the reader knows and, like Job, his trust in the Lord is assaulted. While Satan may bring the accusation and commit the crimes, it is clear that God is responsible. He staged the drama and He never once rebuked Job for giving Him the credit for the action of the story. As a result, Satan is given an opportunity to raise in the mind of the reader the same questions raised in heaven in the first chapter: Can you trust a God who is more concerned with His own credibility than He is with the life of Job; a man that God Himself says is righteous and fears Him? How can you believe in such a “monster…who is more interested in the wager than Job?” How can God be trusted?

The answer is found in Job.

Post of Substance?

A friend of mine and I were corresponding a while back about blogging. He passed along some things for me to read about what constitutes good blogging, which I’ve tried to incorporate ever since. Some of the advice that I’ve tried to follow since reading it is to post concisely and frequently. A quick look through the archives will show that I don’t tend to have long posts and they come about every other day. Consequently, the quality of the posts is not always consistently good. Perhaps that would make AMTOG a good candidate for “Blog Euthanasia”, a term that comes from a lecture given at a recent Godblogger Convention in the states.

 

I learned about both the convention and the lecture over at Scriptorium Daily. Several of the writers associated with that site presented at the conference, but the one who spoke about “Trafficking in Substance: The Case for Blog Euthanasia” was Dr. Paul Spears. I’ve listened to the lecture twice now and I have conflicting feelings.

 

Spears has a high-view of blogging. He says toward the end of the lecture that  “Our job (as Christian bloggers) is to articulate the majesty of God in a way that’s properly evoking to our readers.” (italics mine) Everything up to that quote explained by analogy how to go about articulating the majesty of God and I agreed with and saw the good sense of all of it. The conflict arises when I think about where this person posts.

 

To me, Scriptorium Daily is not a blog. While it may use a blogging software to publish, I don’t consider it to be a blog because the comments are disabled. As I understand it, the key feature that transforms a static webpage into a dynamic blog is the comment utility. If readers cannot comment upon what they read and engage in a public discussion with the writer (and other readers), then the website in question is something other than a blog. So here is someone who lectures for nearly an hour about how to craft (a word that was used often) a blog of substance yet writes for a blog that, to me, isn’t a blog. I feel an important disconnect here.

 

I recommend that Godbloggers listen to the lecture. Despite my conflicting feelings, I am considering acting on some of Dr. Spears’ points. Particularly, I’m thinking about posting less frequently in order to have time to think more deeply and write more reflectively and to edit more conscientiously.

The Called and the Chosen

About a week or so ago, I was thinking about the concept of being “called” by God; what it means when Christians say it and whether or not this is what it means in the Bible. In my thoughts, the verse from one of Jesus’ parables rose to the surface; “many are called but few are chosen”. The verse comes from a parable about a wedding banquet which I found  in the book of Matthew. I read it again carefully. Here’s what I found.

Matthew chose to place this parable in with a couple of others which, it seems, Jesus was telling to his audience in an effort to say something about God’s authority (which had been given to him). He had just told his listeners that he would not tell them the source of his authority because they would not acknowledge that John the Baptizer came from God. However, he does tell them about their current relationship to God and His authority. The first parable gives them an example of a son who submits to his father’s authority and one who doesn’t. Through it, Jesus implies that his listeners are like the second son. In the second parable, Jesus tells what will happen to those who do not submit to this authority: they will be destroyed. Finally we come to the parable in question; the parable of the wedding banquet. I think that this parable was intended to show the audience that as a result of their rejection of Jesus’ authority (God’s authority) and their punishment for this rejection, the way would be opened for Gentiles to become part of “the people of God”.

The king in the parable is God. The son is Jesus. The banquet is the rule and fellowship of God through Jesus as foretold by the prophets. The invited guests are the children of Israel, the Jews, Jesus’ audience. The servants are the prophets that God sent to the people. The people on “the street corners”, “the good and the bad” are the Gentiles, the rest of the world. The under-dressed man whom the king had bounced from the party represents one of the “bad”, those who attempt to enter the kingdom on their own terms instead of on those of the king.

The call that Jesus refers to when he says “many are called” is the call to fellowship with God. That fellowship is predicated on Jesus. The whole reason for the party in the first place is to celebrate the joining of the Son of the King to his betrothed, the one(s) promised to him. Obviously the call to fellowship goes out to the whole world; Jews (the invited) first and then non-Jews (the uninvited). Good and bad folks (whatever those terms mean) from both groups are called to come. The call is not to a mission, a job or a Divine course of action. It’s a call to dwell with God just like mankind did in the beginning.

So, who are the chosen few who get to be where God is and party with him and his Son? It seems from the story that the chosen few are the ones who came dressed for the occasion. They had showered and shaved, and were wearing their party clothes. Surprisingly, Jesus uses one man to represent the majority of folks who attempt to crash the party and come to God on their own terms, unclean, unshaven and undressed. The king in the story doesn’t allow gate-crashers to ruin the party for the other guests and neither does God.

Come As You Are

I recently read through Yahoo news that San Francisco is considering providing places for intravenous drug users to shoot-up. Of course, the supporters of such a program say that this is the humane thing to do. The assert that those people need a safe place and the competent hands of a trained nurse to administer the various drugs to which they are addicted.

Jesus is like those kind-hearted folks in San Francisco. He accepts folks as they are, where they are. However, Jesus doesn’t perpetuate the inhuman condition in which people come to Him. He doesn’t keep them addicted, dependent and weak. He restores their lives, makes them dependable and strong.

“Safe” places for drug abuse may be a human response, but it most certainly is not humane.

It’s a Metaphor

I enjoy reading the blogs and apologetic websites of folks in the Reformed Theology camp, which is good because there seems to be a lot of them out there. Yet, there are times when I get a bit frustrated with Calvinists. Most recently, I felt this frustration with an Australian Presbyterian pastor whose sermon I was listening to.

The sermon was on the doctrine of Total Depravity, which essentially says that there is absolutely nothing in all of Creation that has not been broken (corrupted) by the Fall of Adam and Eve. When it comes to humans, the Calvinist position tends to be that we are so corrupt that we are incapable of having a faith that results in salvation (aka “saving faith”). The metaphor that is used to illustrate this comes from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. (Eph. 2:1-2)

The pastor argued that just as a material corpse is non-responsive to external stimuli, so is a spiritual corpse. Before the dead spirit can accept the grace of God, it must be brought to life by the Spirit of God.

I think this is simply forcing the metaphor to say more than what Paul meant for it to say.  It’s a metaphor! The letter to the Ephesians is full of them. Gentiles are said to be “far away” from God, while Jews are said to be “near” and yet it’s clear that Paul isn’t talking about distance. He’s making a statement about relationship. Paul says in Chapter 2 that Jesus made “one new man out of the two”, but no one would suggest that Paul was saying that Jesus physically fused two male human beings. He was referring to classes of people; insiders and outsiders or simply enemies and their reconciliation.  Later in Chapter 5, Paul says to the Ephesian Christians “You were once darkness but now you are light in the Lord.” He didn’t mean: people =  darkness  or even people= light. Even the phrase “in the Lord” is a metaphor. Metaphors are limited and do not indicate a direct 1 to 1 correlation.

When he says that we were “dead in transgressions” Paul is simply making a strong statement about the abhorrent state of humans apart from Christ. Without Christ, we are as good as dead because when Jesus comes to judge the world, we will be separated from Him who is the Truth and the Life. (I tend to think that the expression here is similar to the one that we’ve heard in other contexts where someone ominously threatens to kill someone by saying, “You’re dead meat!” ) Whenever someone lays hold of this metaphor of the human condition apart from Christ and makes it say that humans are as responsive to the call of God as a dead dog is to the call of it’s owner, I think they’re saying something that Paul was not saying.

Confession

I confess that I covet my neighbors’ blog traffic.

I’ve known for a long time that if I want readers for this blog, I’ve got to be a reader (and commenter) on other blogs. It’s hard to do simply because I feel like I have to scrabble for time just to post every other day on my blog, which I understand is a way to keep readers once you have them. But, I do try to visit the blogs on my blogroll and leave a comment or even post my thoughts here with a link to them. However, there are times when reading other peoples’ blogs and seeing the volume of comments that they get just brings me down.

Yesterday I visited Suddenly Christian for the first time in a while and enjoyed this funny post. Then I saw that there are 44 comments and I thought, “My blog sucks.” Last week, I visited the iMonk and again I saw the massive amount of comments that he tends to get on his rather long posts and again I was discouraged.

That’s the thing about coveting; it saps me of my drive. I tend to covet other people’s lives more than their possessions.  When I look at other folks and see their exciting careers, formidable intellects, and genuine talents, I tend to say to myself “Why bother?” and want to quit doing the things that I do. Especially when they are similar to the one’s that I covet.

This probably comes across as rather lame and perhaps I would be more embarrassed than I am for posting it if I thought more than 10 people would see it. Then again, do I really need 44 comments from folks saying, “Yeah, you’re right. You are lame.”

By the way, that’s a rhetorical question…but I leave the comments open just the same.

Choose your own mountain

In his sermon, the preacher told the audience that he was ready to take on several challenges for glory of God. He told them that his last child was going away to college soon and that he’d asked God to be able to finish preparing his son for the big change coming his way, and then he said;

“…after that I am open to anything….If God wants us to move to Africa or South America to medical missions; I’m there. If he wants me to drop my nice healthcare company job and go into some full time ministry; let’s do it! If he wants us to go and teach or train and mentor at some Christian college to encourage students to look for a God-thing to do with their lives and move to some un-churched, non-Bible belt places so that God can use them to plant and evangelize and serve in those places, then I’m up for that. If he says, “Tom, come back to Maine. There’s still stuff I want you and Jeannie to do there;” man, we’re all over that mountain! If he says, “You know, now I need you to sell that big ol’ , kid-empty house and move into some inner-city ministry dwelling, which means you might have to take a pay cut, but you’ll be better able to take the gospel and authentically live it before the very folks that Jesus came for, the ones who are poor, who are beat up, who are hungry, who are scared, who are defeated: Tom, this is where I really now need you.” If that’s my mountain, then here we go.”

The mountain that the preacher refers to is a metaphor for a God-honoring activity that challenges and shapes the course of the life of a follower of Jesus. It’s taken from the King James version of this story in the Old Testament.

As I listened to this litany of God-honoring activities, I asked myself, “Why would God not want the preacher to do any one of these things?” Think about it for a moment: which one of those activities is God against? None of them. Every one of them would be pleasing to him, especially done with the enthusiasm that was evident in the preacher’s voice and demeanor. Let’s assume that God does not “call” the preacher to quit his job and move to South America to do medical missions, but he does it anyway: would God really refuse to allow anyone to come to faith in Jesus because the preacher was doing a God-honoring service to which was not called? Where’s the logic in that?

As I see it, God saves us and sets us free in Christ to do good works. He give us some principles (i.e.-”Do unto others….”) and some specifics (i.e.- feed the hungry, visit the prisoners etc) and then lets us decide what we’ll do. We’re free in Christ to choose our good works and to make plans. That’s what Paul did. He made a plan to preach Christ in places where no one else had done it. He prayed for “an open door”, meaning opportunity. Sometimes the Lord opened a door and sometimes he closed one, but he never told Paul to change his plan, to quit preaching.

Waiting for God to tell us exactly what to do is a bit immature on our part. Think about it; do you want your grown-up children calling you every morning with questions like, “What should I wear today?”, “How should I get to work this morning?”, “How much money should I give the homeless guy who washes my windshield when I stop at the red light?” God is the perfect father. He’s told us what pleases him. He even sent Jesus to model what pleases him. Now we are free to do as we’ve been told in Scripture and to follow the example of the One and Only Son. So, instead of waiting for God to give us a mountain, we need to choose one for ourselves and ask God to give it to us.

“True Self”

In this video by Emergent Church personality Rob Bell, he talks about knowing who we really are. The video concludes with a slide at the end which is not readable through YouTube, so I’ve added it below. Watch the video and read the slide.

 

What does Rob mean by really knowing “our true selves”? How will knowing our true selves help us to live the life God wants for us? What exactly is this life that God wants for us?

While these are great discussion questions for the church youth group, I can’t help but wonder what Rob’s answers would be. Afterall, the phrase “true self” doesn’t appear in the majority of translations available at the Biblegateway. (The Message is the noteworthy exception.) I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the absence of such a phrase is because the true self is not something that we know, but something that we develop.

Paul talks about an “old self” and a “new self”. The old self is the corruptible one that we come into the world with. It is the one that is contaminated by The Fall and enslaved to sin. By choosing to live by the principles of this world, we contribute to the development of the “old self”. We turn away from God and become progressively less like him in whose image we were created. The “new self” is the incorruptible one that is set free (by God)from sin.  By choosing to believe in and submit to the Authority of Jesus, we turn toward God and become progressively like him. Our “true self” is directly dependent upon our relationship to Jesus, our as Paul puts it, whether or not we are “in Christ”.

So, knowing our true old self may actually propel us toward God through Christ. Or, perhaps knowing our true new self may encourage us to continue moving toward God in Christ. Is this what Rob is getting at?

Vindication of God

A while back, Wonders for Oyarsa chimed in on a post of mine and shared a link to a podcast that he took part in. (Check it out here.) In it, he speaks with the host, Emery, an atheist, about the book of Job. In their conversation, Wonders points out that God is vindicating Job in front of Satan, which might have been a point that was lost on Emery, I’m not sure. While I think that’s true, I don’t think it’s the primary vindication of the story. (Maybe Wonders doesn’t either, I dont’ recall him saying.)

The primary vindication is of God. God, creator of men, holds up Job as an example to Satan. It’s like God says, “I know you think men (whom I made) are worthless, but have you seen Job? He’s an excellent example of what men can be.” So, Satan attempts to show God that He’s wrong and accuses Job of merely seeking the gifts and not the Giver. His questioning of Job is really a questioning of God’s wisdom in creating men and lavishing his love attention on them.

God allows Satan to inflict all kinds of suffering on Job within specific limits. When Job stands his ground and refuses to be disloyal to God and dishonest about himself, God shows that all of Satan’s accusations were without merit, vindicating his wisdom, love and affection for men.

I think God, in his love, then turns and vindicates Job before his “friends”, who (like Satan) accused him of being secretly wicked in some way and too arrogant to confess it.

Dating God

Preacher Dean in Nashville, Tennessee is doing a series of sermons from Exodus. Last week, he reached the point of the story when Moses goes up on the mountain to receive the 10 Commandments from God. In order to make his point, Dean reminds his listeners that the inclusion of those 10 Rules are not a non-sequitor but rather they are part of the narrative. His point is that the part they play in the story of God’s rescue of Israel from slavery is this: they are the marriage vows of God and Israel.

Now, if the giving of the law at Sinai was like the taking of wedding vows, then was God’s first date with Israel a camping trip?

What do you think?

What Would Solomon Say?

The Bible tells us the following about the wisdom of Solomon:

 29 God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. 30 Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. 31 He was wiser than any other man, including Ethan the Ezrahite—wiser than Heman, Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations. 32 He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five. 33 He described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. 34 Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom. (1 Kings 4:29-34)
 

Notice that verse 33 demonstrates that Solomon was, at some level, a scientist, a biologist even.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that one of Solomon’s proverbs reads as follows.

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter;
       to search out a matter is the glory of kings. (Proverbs 25:2)

Which is precisely what Solomon did.

While it would be great hubris to disagree with Solomon, I do think that, some kings (read “governments”) might be better off to leave some matters concealed.

…and yes, I was looking for a way to include a link to this post on this blog. Sorry if it’s a bit forced. I guess this is an example of proof-texting.

God’s Answer to yOur Pain

I heard this in a sermon.

Look at the verbs from this passage of Scripture:

The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”(http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%203:7-10;&version=31)

When God entered into a conversation with Moses that day in the wilderness and sent him to Pharaoh to resuce the Israelites, he showed us something about what he does in answer to human suffering.

He sees.

He hears.

He is concerned.

He comes down.

He sends you and me to do something about it.

Global Warming Blasphemy

I disbelieve in the theory of Global Warming. Not for scientific reasons. Not for religious reasons. One could argue that I don’t even disbelieve for logical reasons. I disbelieve for visceral reasons: my gut tells me that whenever there’s an apparent majority opinion about some great cataclysm that is soon to befall the country, the planet, the universe, it’s wrong. Distopic predictions about the future of the world have been part of my whole life and none of them have come to pass.  Not Soylent Green, Not the Day After, not the Killer Bees or the Second Ice Age (anybody growing up in the 70’s remember hearing about this one?). Every prediction of annihailation and doom for all of mankind in my lifetime has missed the mark. People simply don’t know as much as they think they do and can’t see nearly as far ahead as they believe they can. If the weatherman can’t get the five day forecast right much of the time, why should I believe he’s going to accurately predict planetary destruction 50 years from now?

If anyone should know the limitations of human knowledge it ought to be Christians. It’s not like there isn’t plenty of examples of “pride going before a fall” in the Bible. Consequently, it distresses me to read something like this. So, let me make this plea to those who would represent Christianity on the world stage with regards to Global Warming: Please don’t endorse this theory. Confess that we Christians have been poor steward’s of God’s world because a good case can be made for that. But don’t go along with the crowd on this nihilistic, fear-mongering crusade to “save the planet” from a threat that probably doesn’t exist.

Facing the Truth

Earlier today I was thinking about certain truths that I’ve had to face up to as I’ve gotten older. Just the fact that I’m getting older is one of those facts. The attending degeneration of my aging body is another one of those facts. (Yes, a simple strain in the back is enough to turn me morose.) And as I was turning over the phrase “face the truth” in my mind, a scene from the life of Jesus came to my mind.

It was the night of his betrayal. He had finished praying in the garden with his disciples and was admonishing them for their weakness when Judas and a mob showed up. According to John, Jesus asked the mob who they had come for. They replied “Jesus of Nazareth” and then something strange happened. Jesus said, “I am he” and the mob “drew back and fell to the ground.” Why? What did Jesus say that drove back an armed mob and caused them to fall to the ground?

There’s a good theological answer to that, but I won’t attempt to give it…today. I think the reason that this scene came to my mind is because it sort of mirrors what happens whenever people have to face truth, particularly difficult truths about ourselves.

We go charging about convinced and intent just like the mob in the garden that night. Then, like them, we come face to face with truth and it knocks us back on our heels, or even flat on our backs. And then, we must choose. Do we get up and continue our charge, even more convinced and intent or do we approach the truth and embrace it, learn to deal with it on its own terms? Wasn’t that the mob’s choice: to continue with their plans to arrest Jesus and drag him before the rulers for a bogus trial or to admit that they were in the presence of “I am” and learn from Him what to do with The Truth they were face to face with?

No, really. This is how my brain works sometimes…

Have You Seen This?

My cousin passed this internet goodie along to me. I thought it might be a decent little filler until I can get a real post in a little later on. (Back is better. Sitting is easier.)

Looking at it reminds me of song that we taught our kids:

My God is so big

so strong and so mighty.

There’s nothing my God can not do!

I’ll teach you the hand motions and melody later!

God’s Will for the Traffic

Perhaps one of the best books I’ve ever read is “Decision Making and the Will Of God: A Biblical Alternative to the Traditional View“.  While there were some stylistic choices which didn’t appeal to me, I liked it so much because it echoed back to me a clearer and more articulate understanding of my own views regarding God’s will and how to find it.  (I think that if people are honest, they’ll admit that this is often the reason why books become their favorites.) A decent synopsis of the book can be found here. If you read it, the rest of this post will make more sense.

While reading it, I made an effort to change the way I was praying. At the time, I prayed like so many others, asking for God to reveal what He specifically wants me to do with my life. I wanted the burden of the responsibility of choosing the course of my life taken off my shoulders. Afterall, if God revealed to me that it’s His will for me to do X, then any consequences could be laid at His door. However, praying this way never seemed quite right. Even though I asked for God’s supernatural leading in the details of my life, I never really believed that Scripture indicated that He worked that way. As I read Friesen’s critique of what he calls the “traditional” view of God’s will, I stopped asking God for signs and leadings (meaning highly subjective emotional predispositions) and started asking for opportunities, wisdom and courage to do His will that I already knew.

Yesterday, while driving to pick up my son from school, I was praying about the upcoming month of Ramadan. Honestly, it is my least favorite season in my host country.  One of the main reasons is that people drive much more dangerously during those 28 or so days than at any other time of the year. (I don’t drive after sundown now if at all possible because the streets are unsafe.) People are more discourteous and make more rash decisions during these days of food, water, caffiene and nicotine deprivation than at any other time in the year. Several times last Ramadan, my wife and children were almost involved in some serious accidents going to and from school. So, I was asking God to make the roads safer this year than last year. It occured to me that I was asking for His Divine intervention, possibly asking Him to override the wills of the free people He created and I wasn’t sure if I believed that God works this way. Then I asked God to show me how to pray about this problem.

I’ve been praying the Lord’s Prayer with my sons each night before bed for a while and this phrase came to me; “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” Right, so Jesus says that I ought to pray for God’s will to be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Next I thought, “What is God’s will for these drivers?” and it was clear. God’s will is that people drive considerately, thinking about how their actions affect others. The Bible states it this way, “Love your neighbor as yourself”, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, “Deny yourself and follow Me”, and “Think of others” etc. Consequently, I prayed that during this Ramadan people would drive carefully, aware of those around them and concerned for the safety of others. This is certainly God’s will, especially for me since I say that I love Him.

Of course, everyone on the road is free not to do God’s will, however, Jesus’ model is still valid. So, I’ll continue to pray that God’s will is done on the streets of Earth as it is in Heaven until it is.

PADD

Prayerful Attention Deficit Disorder.

Do you have it? I do. Essentially it means that I can’t keep my mind focused on my prayers. I start talking to God about something and almost immediately my mind wanders off and I’m no longer talking to God. Instead, I’m thinking about how to handle  the situation that I was praying about or I start planning the class that I want God to help me with or whatever.

If my memory is correct, CS Lewis once wrote that silent prayer (praying in one’s thoughts) practiced through out the day is an advanced form of the discipline. He went on to say that he personally saw the real benefit of kneeling in prayer (a practice he saw as an elementary one) because it kept him in a proper frame of mind. I think he was right as I tend to experience my PADD while trying to pray silently in the shower, in the car and other “public” spaces.

Yesterday, I actually went into a private office, closed (and locked) the door and prayed aloud. Apart from the two phone calls that distracted me (and I had to answer), I found that I had no trouble keeping my mind on God and the subject of my prayer.

I guess it’s sometimes necessary to revisit the basics.

Where is God?

Mosaic is a community in LA where the noted speaker and writer Erwin McManus is the pastor. I’ve been listening to their podcast off and on for a while and occasionally I take a peek at the blog . After  listening to a sermon given not too long ago about the spiritual reality that affects our material world, I cruised over to the blog and found this comment.

To be honest, I think that the best thing to do would be to meditate on this for a while and then write something. In fact, it would be best to write something, edit it and then post. Instead, I’m just going to share what popped into my head.

“And lo, I am with you always. Even unto the end of the age.”

Pardon the archaic language but apparently that’s how it’s stored in my memory. Jesus said this (or something quite similar) before returning to God. Between then and now, Satan and those aligned (wittingly or not) with him have gone about testifying in a variety of ways that God has checked out. Jesus says, “I am with you.” Satan says “He’s outta here!” Someone is lying.

Honestly, there are times when it looks like Jesus is lying, doesn’t it? When you look at the evil that is crushing the world and the people in the world, it’s understandable to think that God has abandoned us. According to a recent news article, even Mother Teresa, God’s servant to the poorest of the poor in India for so many years, lived in a dark shadow dispairing of God’s presence in her own life.

Then there are times when light dispells shadow, when we are awestruck by an expected selfless act of kindness. Teresa’s life, regardless of her inner turmoil, is a testimony to the presence of God in the world, for she was motivated by nothing other than her desire to serve Him…even when she did not feel His love or appreciation of her devotion.

What other stories of God in the world can you tell if you stop long enough to think about it?

(NB: for the sake of “full disclosure”, I didn’t manage to write this post in a single go, but I assure you that I did not give it the meditation that I said that I think it deserves.)

Uncomfortably Numb

There was a time in my life when I felt much more intensely than I do now. About what? Practically everything, but especially about religious things. I can remember being in my early 20’s, hanging out with someone on an old Civil War battlefield and being moved to tears as I thougt about denominational division in the Church. Then there was a time in my mid 20’s,  when I lived with a missionary couple in Ukraine in close community with brothers and sisters and I had a feeling that I would have described to you at that time as “homesick for heaven”.

I’m in my late 30’s now and I simply don’t feel those kinds of things any more. If I ever think about the fragmentation of the Body of Christ, I feel resignation. It’s not going to change in my lifetime. As for that homesick feeling; it doesn’t come any more. I’m so occupied with thoughts of what’s going on here.

Granted, I can get emotional, especially when it comes to my children but in general I feel as though a great deal of my passion has burned away with my youth.

Why do you suppose that is?