reboot christianity

The Bill Gates Analogy

2012-02-16T13:57:00.000-06:00

Imagine that you read an article about Bill Gates. Gates, a multibillionaire of his own making, has decided to give underprivileged children a chance for an education. So he decides that he will create a scholarship fund for black children whose parents live below the poverty line.

Now imagine that someone raises a stink about it. They are a white kid, or a Latino kid, whose parents are poor. “It isn’t fair,” they say. “I’m just as deserving as the people who are getting scholarships. Bill Gates owes it to me just as much as to them. It isn’t fair that I should be destined to remain poor and they should be given a college education just because he arbitrarily chose to reward black kids.”

What would you say to this?

My guess is that you would be offended by the white kid’s complaints. You would make some form of the following arguments against the complainer, in defense of Gates:
1. It’s his money so he can give to whom he wants.
2. The white kid has done nothing to earn Gates’ money, or obligate him to give it. If he chooses not to give it to the white kid, he has not done anything wrong.
3. The black kid didn’t do anything to earn it, but was given it based upon Gates’ free choice.
4. Gates would be completely right to give no one anything, or to give random people some money, or to give everyone a small amount, or to make any arbitrary decision he wants. It is his money, after all.

And you would be right. Neither the white kid nor the black kid did anything to earn Gates’ gift, and Gates is the only one who “deserving” of his money. To be ‘fair’ would be for Gates to keep it all to himself, since he earned it! Anything he gives is inherently unfair, but in a good way: he is giving to someone who did not earn it. The fact that he does not give money to everyone who did not earn it does not mean that it is unfair to give it to someone who did not earn it. And indeed, Gates could choose to give only based upon the color of skin, or based upon random number generation, or based upon what city someone lives in, or who their favorite football team is, or what color their hair is, or where they went to high school. None of that makes the gift unfair.

I think basically everyone would agree with that.

But now, let’s change that story very slightly. Let’s make the gift eternal life, and the giver God.

If I say the same thing to you that I did before, but with this change, think of how differently you tend to view it: “God is the only one who is Eternal by nature, and eternal life is His to keep or give as He sees fit. He chose to give eternal life to some undeserving humans, and chose a simple way to distinguish who would get it and who would not: those who believe in Him and love Him will get it, and those who don’t, won’t.” Critics will say, “That isn’t fair—I’m just as good a person as they are. Why should I be excluded while they get eternal life based upon arbitrary things like what I believe?”

And if you are intellectually honest, you will use the same line of argument you did against the white kid earlier:
1. Eternal life is God’s to give, so He can give to whom He wants.
2. The unbeliever has done (and can do) nothing to earn salvation, or obligate God to give it to him. So if God chooses not to give it, He has done no wrong.
3. The believer has done nothing to earn it, but was given based upon God’s choice.
4. God would be completely right to give no one eternal life, or give random people eternal life, or give everyone a slightly longer life, or make any arbitrary decision He wants. It is His to give, after all.

This is the heart of understanding God’s sovereignty: to admit that He owes us nothing. He doesn’t owe us salvation if we do X, Y, and Z. There is nothing we can do to earn it, and thus He does nothing wrong if He chooses not to save some people.

It is His to offer, and only His. Our willpower, desires, etc. have nothing to do with it. So He can choose to give (or not give) eternal life as He sees fit. He “owes” us nothing, nor have we earned the right to receive anything.

But the Gospel, the Good News, is that He decided to give us eternal life anyway. And He decided to do it with a profound and painful love, choosing to give His own son’s life in order to wash away any barriers between us.

So God only put one tiny condition on this salvation: if He is going to let His son’s death count as payment for your eternal life, then you actually have to believe that He and His son actually exist.

That’s it. Just truly believe that Jesus lived and sacrificially died and rose again: and, as a natural conclusion to belief, you will find that you are loyal to Him as a result of His amazing sacrifice.

But remember, He doesn’t have to do even that. He could make the decision completely arbitrary, for no sound logic whatsoever: and He would still be “good” in having done so. Because it was His gift to give or keep; we cannot earn it and He does not owe it to a single person in all of human history. So no matter how arbitrary His decision making it would have been completely defensible.

As it is, He offered it widely and freely. Thank God for that Good News.

God's Hidden Sunsets

2012-02-14T14:28:00.000-06:00

As I was flying home from Denmark last week, I found myself between two layers of clouds at sunset. I found myself stunned by the beauty of the sight. Out of the window, all I could see were endless fields of cottony clouds, with the sun making a striking red-orange glow behind it.

And what struck me was: this has always been this way. Ever since creation, this view has existed. But with the exception of perhaps a few brave mountain climbers, no one in history saw this sight until the 20th century. For tens of thousands of years, humans saw the clouds only from below; now and only now can we begin to appreciate the beauty from above.

Think that through for a minute. God created the beauty long before someone else was around to view it. For well more than 99% of all sunsets in history, no man's eye has seen the stunning sight. The same is true for the entire universe: God has created galaxies of stunning beauty, black holes of immense power, supernovas of amazing light...which will never be seen by human eyes. He created beauty in corners far from our reach.

It is entirely possible within the realm of physics that, at this very moment, on some distant planet, dual suns may be setting behind a gorgeous diamond mountain. And no one will ever see it but God. He didn't make it for us, but for Him.

So often, we humans put ourselves as the center of the Gospel story. We see ourselves as the culmination of God's creation and the center of His universe. We imagine that we are all that matters to Him, when in reality more matters to Him than we can imagine.

He is the center of the universe; never forget that. He created beauty because it was beautiful, and because He is a Creator--not for our glory or enjoyment, but for His. He created those stunning heavenly sunsets knowing full well that very few men in history would ever set eyes upon it; He created immense beauty in the universe knowing well that it would remain a total mystery to us forever.

Remember who the center of this universe is. Remember why He created it. For just a moment, let yourself step back and realize that even mankind as a whole is not the central character of the Gospel, much less you: the center of the Gospel is about God, and who He is, and how He loves.

Remember that He makes beauty because He is beautiful--whether we are capable of seeing His hidden sunsets or not.

The Teachings of Jesus (I), Week 7: Jesus States His Authority (Matt 7:24-29)

2012-02-13T07:39:00.003-06:00

Having completed His teachings on the Mosaic Law, Matthew completes this first section of teachings by showing Jesus boldly stating His authority:

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matt 7:24-27, ESV)

Here, Jesus is saying that those who follow His teachings are setting their lives upon a firm foundation--and, those who reject His teachings are destined for disaster when the storms of life arrive. And just as a reminder, what were His teachings? He taught that we were to follow not only the letter of the Law, but its spirit; and that we were not to seek to judge men or receive their praise, but to keep our eyes focused on God and His Kingdom.

And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. (Matt 7:28-29, ESV)

And as is typical of Matthew, whenever he finishes one of his sections on Jesus' teachings, he is sure to record the astonishment of the crowds. And their astonishment should not be surprising, for Jesus' philosophy was as revolutionary as any they had ever heard, and it managed both to reaffirm and destroy the Law at the same time.

Moving Forward
Recall that we said as we started this series that Matthew's gospel contains six general sections of Jesus' teachings, collected by topic, and separated by sections of the actions of His ministry.

Recall that before recording Jesus' teachings on the Mosaic Law, Matthew had told us about Jesus entering the ministry. Chapters 8 and 9 record the next phase of His ministry, as He travels around and performs miracles.

In next week's post, we will move on to the second phase of Jesus' teaching ministry, in which He teaches us about discipleship.

Chicken wings and apologetics

2012-02-11T10:18:00.000-06:00

Last week, I went out to eat with two good friends at Wingstop--which, for my money, is about as good as it gets. (Their Cajun wings are particularly fantastic.) Anyway, as we were talking the discussion turned to apologetics.

One of the things we discussed is how to deal with it when people have a particular hang-up about church. For example, for some people evolution is simply a deal breaker: they will not even consider Christianity because evolution's randomness is in their way. For others, it is gay marraige. For others, it is the hypocrisy of Christians. For others, it is the age of the universe.

Whatever the particular issue, these roadblocks often stand in the path of the apologist. And far too often, the way that apologists approach it is to engage these issues on their respective battlefields.

Of course, this is an impossible mission: you might as well save your breath. The odds of talking an evolutionist into being a creationist are nil; the odds of convincing a homosexual that gay marriage is bad is equally impossible.

No, the evangelist must be careful to avoid these issues--not because Christianity is wrong on these topics, but because these topics are not the focus of Christianity.

What is the focus? Jesus. All that really matters to the Christian is, as Paul said, "Christ and Him crucified." Did Jesus really live? Did He really do the things the Bible says He did? Did He really die? Did He really rise from the dead? Is He really returning to judge all humanity? These are the only things that are important.

Let me be completely clear. What matters to our faith is--does the person believe the essentials, that is, the Apostles Creed. I used to work with a woman who believes in Jesus and the Apostles' Creed, but is gay. I also work with a ton of people who are non-believers but live a more "Christian-friendly" lifestyle. And you know what? My gay, believing former co-worker will be in heaven with us, while the straight non-believers won't.

My point in this is not to defend homosexuality--I happen to believe the Bible is rather clear on it. But the Bible is far more clear on this: it is not our actions, but our faith, that makes us born-again. It is our relationship with Jesus, not our avoidance of sin, that gets us to Him.

So my point is: when you are sharing the Gospel with someone and they raise one of these roadblocks, be careful how you respond. Do not engage on this issue. Instead, if they say something like, "I could never be a Christian because I ____ (am gay/am an evolutionist/believe in an old earth/believe in science/have been hurt by Christians)", your answer should be: "Okay. That's no problem. It is a controversial issue, but it's not really the core of Christianity. You can believe whatever you want about that and still be a real Christian. That issue is not important. What is important is this: who was Jesus, really?"

That is all that really matters. Christianity is not an emotional crutch or a political issue. It is a matter of fact, either true or false: either Jesus rose from the dead, or He didn't. Period. And as CS Lewis once said, "Christianity if false is of no importance, and if true is of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."

Successful evangelism starts with a trusting, honest, open relationship having been built. And then within that relationship, when discussions about Christianity arise, we must be ruthlessly consistent in turning the conversation not into one of the many tangential discussions that spin off of our faith. Instead, our conversation must always be about whether the stroy of Jesus and His resurrection is true.

That is the core of the faith. Everything else is secondary.

The Daedalus Effect

2012-02-07T12:25:00.003-06:00

Full disclosure: I’m well aware that this post is going to have much more to do with engineering than it is with Christianity. Tough. It’s my blog, and this is what’s on my mind. Enjoy the end, where I will awkwardly try to twist it into a spiritual discussion to validate posting it here.

In ancient Greek mythology, there was a legendary inventor named Daedalus. Among his inventions was The Labyrinth, which played a central role in the myth of Theseus. Later, in Ovid’s Metamorophoses, Daedalus is shown to the reader as being imprisoned in a tower with his son Icarus, in order to prevent Daedalus’ knowledge of the Labyrinth escaping. Daedalus built them each some wings, and trained his son how to fly. Daedalus warned that if Icarus flew too high the wax would melt and the wings fall apart; if he flew too low, the feathers would become soaked in seawater and fall apart. As they were escaping, Icarus forgot and flew too high, melting the wax. He fell into the sea and drowned.

I could not help but think of this myth while over in Denmark last week on a business trip. As I may have mentioned, my new role at work is to oversee the launch of new products into the manufacturing side. As such, I work with R&D quite a bit; I also interacted quite a bit with R&D in my past two companies (in fact, I interned at R&D in an automotive company while in college).

One consistent theme that I have seen in engineering—often leading to engineering disasters—is related to the interaction between engineers at the R&D level and at the factory level. When it comes to manufacturing new product designs, I have found that disasters routinely occur because of two tendencies which I shall call the Daedalus Effect and the Icarus Effect.

The Daedalus Effect is the tendency of the R&D engineer to knowingly produce a product that is inferior, and rely on communication and watchfulness to cover the mistakes in the design. When I read the Daedalus myth, I do not get the normal cautionary tale that most people get; instead, I look at Daedalus as a failed designer. He was creating wings and knew that he had two fundamental and major quality flaws in his design: one, that the wax was subject to melting at high altitude, and two, that the feathers were useless if soaked in sea foam.

So how did Daedalus react to his known failure modes with his design? Rather than try and fix those failure modes—a stronger wax mixture, perhaps, or coating the feathers with something to resist the sea foam—he simply called the design a success. Instead of fixing the problem, he simply communicated the concern to his son and hoped that his son would both remember and understand the importance—and, having done so, out the window they jump. He bet his son’s life on whether, in the rush of the moment, he could remember the cautionary tales of his father.

This is a very common failure of R&D engineers. Typically when designing a part, development engineers are under intensive pressure for “time to market”—the amount of time it takes to get from design phase to rollout into production. To be at the testing phase (as Daedalus was) and discover a problem there is immense pressure to simply put a ‘containment action’ in place—a short-term fix that attempts to avoid the symptoms of the problem but does nothing to address the problem’s root cause.

Because of this, a product gets rolled out into manufacturing with known flaws, and it is hoped that an alarm system or a series of quality checks or diligent manufacturers will be able to handle the issue—just as Daedalus went ahead and used the faulty wings on the hopes that his warning to Icarus was sufficient. Then the R&D engineer rests easy: I have provided documented evidence of a risk, he says, so if they fail to follow it then that’s their fault rather than mine.

Unfortunately, those diligent manufacturers have their own problem: the Icarus Effect.

Icarus, you see, heard and understood the warning from Daedalus. But once things started going, he found himself distracted—the wind rushing through his hair, the thrill of success and freedom, etc. And so he began to fly just a little higher than he should, and had no issues. Then just a bit higher again. Then just a bit again. Until, eventually, the wax melted and he dies.

This is very common in manufacturing. The manufacturing group hears the warnings of R&D, but as they get more and more familiar with the product, and they produce products at (or past) the approved safety limits with no ill effects, they gain false security with the product and continue to force it beyond its natural limits. By the end, you are far beyond the allowable limits of manufacturing, and disaster occurs.

If you study engineering disasters, you see this rather frequently. It is what Michael Crichton once called “event cascades”—structural failure happens not due to one person’s mistake, but a series of mistakes beginning in design and continuing through usage. Take the BP oil disaster in the Gulf a couple of years ago. They are still arguing over who is “most” responsible—because BP, Halliburton, and dozens of others each took liberties with seemingly insignificant policies which, all together, created an event cascade and destroyed the rig. The same is true in virtually every engineering disaster you can find: a combination of Daedalus and Icarus effects, creating a string of very slight deviations from allowable conditions, which when accumulated create a massive failure and risk for public safety.

In the end, the Daedalus and Icarus effects both come down to a matter of pride and selfishness. When placed under pressure, our depraved natures have a tendency of coming out. (I often tell my engineers that “Crisis reveals character”—it is only when we are pressured that we find out whether we really have good engineering ethics or not.)

So, when the R&D engineer should be taking the entire line back to the drawing board, he fails to do so—because to admit failure on a potentially very expensive, months (or years) long design process could be a career-killer. So he releases a bad part into production out of either pride (failure to admit he made a mistake) or selfishness (caring more about his career than the company’s future). Then it gets to manufacturing, and the manufacturing engineer is pressured to improve output so he bends the rules slightly, then slightly more, then slightly more—either due to pride (believing he knows better than the designer) or selfishness (caring more about his career than following ethical rules).

In the end, you see that the spiritual condition of a person, and his ethical approach to the job, has as much or more to do with an engineer or businessperson’s success than his or her training and technical aptitude. Only through a humility in yourself and a focus on Someone greater than yourself are you willing to do the thing that might end your career—but also might save thousands of lives or your company’s future. Because only by denying our natural depraved, selfish characters can we actually avoid the Daedalus and Icarus Effects.

The Teachings of Jesus (I), Week 6: On the Mosaic Law - Final Comments (7:7-23)

2012-02-06T07:01:00.001-06:00

In the previous weeks, we have been exploring Jesus' sermon on the Mosaic Law. He set the stage by reminding the Jews that they had lost their position of influence in the world, and said that the reason was because they had obeyed on the letter of the Law, rather than the Spirit. He then gave a discourse on the Law, explaining how we are to treat others, and how we are to relate to God.

Now, as we close out the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus mentions several proverbial-style sayings as He begins to close out the sermon.

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! (Matt 7:7-11, ESV)

When this very famous passage is invoked, it is generally used to remind us that we should be more bold in prayer. Sometimes this principle (which is undoubtedly true) is taken to an extreme, with purveyors of the Prosperity "gospel" saying that God is just waiting around to give you tons of money if you just asked for it.

Yet strangely, it does not seem that Christians win the lottery more than unbelievers. It is does not seem that Christians avoid miscarriages or cancer or other hardships at a better rate than unbelievers. In fact, you could argue that Christians suffer more, not fewer, hardships: and this despite the fervent prayer of pious believers. So was Jesus wrong?

No, of course not. You simply have to not take what Jesus said to an extreme that it was not meant, and also to consider the context of the statement.

Recall that up to this point, Jesus has been astonishing His hearers by expounding upon the Law. He has been telling them to be even more pious, and to be perfectly forgiving, and to be non-judgmental. Just a few verses before He told us not to worry about money, so obviously He is not referring to financial security here. Just a few verses before, He told us that God knows what we need before we even ask for it. Do you think Jesus was so foolish that He forgot everything He just said, and now contradicts it?

To what is Jesus referring here? Notice the result of each action: the gaining of wisdom. Asking questions leads to answers; seeking something leads to enlightenment when it is found; knocking on a door gets it opened, revealing its contents. Jesus has just finished His discourse on the Law--much to the astonishment of those who are hearing Him--and He tells them that these things are knowable: they need only seek God, and they will find Him.

Then Jesus reminds us that like any good father, God gives us what is good. Jesus seems to be speaking in joking terms here to His listeners, deliberately using exaggerated examples (asking for a piece of bread and recieving a stone instead; asking for a fish and receiving a snake). It is almost as if, at the end of a rather shocking and serious sermon, Jesus lightens the mood a bit, saying in essence: If you're a dad, your kid doesn't sit down at the table to find out that you made him rocks and snakes for supper. If you, being evil, give your kids good gifts, won't God who is perfect give His children even better ones? So just ask Him and He will enlighten you. Search for Him, and you will find Him. Knock and He will open the door.

So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matt 7:12-14, ESV)

Most people separate these two statements, which I think inappropriate. They flow together too smoothly to be separated. These two serve as Jesus' very succinct summary of everything that He said before. He says that the entire Old Testament ("the Law and the Prophets") can be summarized by what we now call the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. He then says that we are to go through the narrow gate that is harder but leads to life, and to avoid the wide gate that leads to death.

Now it is worth knowing that in ancient Jerusalem (actually, in most ancient cities), the city has large gates which allow entrance. So Jesus is using an analogy saying, "Everyone else is trying to enter the kingdom by following the wide and obvious path, but this way leads to death. Instead, search around the city walls and find the narrow gate that is harder to enter in, but leads to life."

He clearly is equating the "narrow gate" with following His "spirit of the Law" preachings before, which He has connected as well to the Golden Rule. By default, then, the "wide gate" is the Mosaic Law in general, as the Pharisees and other Jews were following.

So here, Jesus is clearly saying--the wide and easy gate is to avoid murder and adultery and lying under oath; the narrow and righteous way, though, is to avoid the root causes: anger and lust and lying in general.

Speaking of sections which are usually separated but should be read together, let us finalize Jesus' thoughts here:

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'" (Matt 7:15-23, ESV)

This is a section clearly meant to be read together, but which is generally split into three separate statements. People read verse 15 all on its own, to be wary of false teachers. Then they separately quote verses 16-20 about recognizing people by the fruits of their actions--often using this as an excuse to judge other people. Then they read verses 21-23, where Jesus says that many who claim to follow Him will be surprised when He disowns them; this is usually quoted to try and scare people into a conversion.

But it is clearly wrong to separate these verses, as they are one statement from Christ. Here Jesus is talking about the danger of false teachers--people who claim to be teaching God's word, but in reality are not. When we move to verse 16, don't forget--JESUS JUST TOLD US NOT TO JUDGE! He is not contradicting Himself. Earlier He told us not to judge others for their sinfulness; but here, Jesus gives us full permission to judge the teachings of those who are claiming to bring God's word.

About these people--teachers of God's word--Jesus says, you may judge them by their fruits. If they are truly godly people (and He just defined godliness, if you will remember, as adhering to the spirit of the Law), then they are teaching God's word. If they are not--that is, if they are mean spirited and judgmental and unforgiving--then they are not really teaching God's word.

And then--about these false teachers!--He says that at the end of time there will be those before Him who have done many works in the name of God but will still be cast out of His presence.

Do you see how differently this section reads, in context, than the way in which it is normally preached? This is a section about false teachers: those peddling heresy. We are commanded here to be wary of those teaching things which are false, for they may do a lot of great things in God's name, but they do so futily, without knowing Christ. Jesus tells us that we are able to discern which teachers are real or false by looking at the kind of fruits that their ministry bears.

One other thing I want to note--many of these people do not know that they are destined for Jesus' punishment. Notice that in 22, these false teachers are so convinced that they did God's will that they are even willing to challenge His ruling! They are sincere in what they do--but what they do is anti-Christian.

How many megachurch preachers and televangelists today sincerely believe that they are furthering God's cause, but will find themselves on the outside of His kingdom when all is said and done? If you are hearing someone preach, Jesus commands, use your spiritual discernment to determine whether the preacher is spreading God's word or not.

My suggestion anytime you hear a new doctrine is to ask yourself whether the teaching--and the teacher--are in line with what Jesus speaks in His Sermon on the Mount? Specifically, Jesus taught us: the spirit is more important than the letter of the Law; anger and lust and deception and legal retaliation and hatred are always wrong, regardless of whether they lead to outward public sin or not. He taught us that we are to give and pray and fast in secret, avoiding public praise for our holiness. He told us not to worry about financial security, but to simply pray to get by today, and God would provide for us. He told us not to judge others, and instead to treat others as we want to be treated.

So is this what the preacher you are listening to is teaching? Does his life reflect it?

I rarely like to call out specific preachers in my blog, but I will do so to one Joel Osteen at this time. Osteen's teachings simply do not align with the above. His teachings delight in seeking public praise for our holiness. He teaches us to worry greatly about our finances, twisting Scripture to imply that if you "name it and claim it", God will give you whatever 'blessings' you wish. And his lifestyle--living in a veritable palace, renting a sports arena to preach in, etc.--does not mimic Jesus' model of preaching and simple living. Using Jesus' criteria above, we would have to identify Osteen as a false teacher and a wolf in sheep's clothing. Now I for one do not think he does it for the wrong reasons; I think he is quite sincere. And I fear that he may indeed stand before his Master one day, saying, "But Jesus, look at all the great things I did in your name--the tens of thousands in attendance at worship every Sunday, the millions of books about you sold...". And he may well receive the answer in verse 23.

Godless China or Godless Denmark?

2012-02-03T07:18:00.002-06:00

Because of my job, we were blessed to get to experience the culture of living as a family in Denmark for a bit more than a month last year. It was a great way to see a different side of the world. Later this spring, I will be returning to China for my third trip, and this time I will bring the family with me; again, we will live here for a month.

It is interesting the different reactions we have gotten in telling people about these two trips. Everyone was really excited/jealous about the trip to Denmark. But when it comes to China, everyone is just a little nervous: aren't you scared, they ask? Isn't it going to be uncomfortable to be in a godless place like that?

You see the same things online. The other day I went to Christian Spotlight on the Movies to read reviews of Mulan and see if there was anything I should be concerned with showing my four-year old. (There wasn't.) A great deal of discussion surrounded the prayers of the Chinese to their ancestors.

So let me tell you my thoughts on this--and explain why I let my kids watch that scene in Mulan, and why I am actually less worried about China's impact on our spiritual life than I was about Denmark.

I have spent quite a bit of time in both of these countries. What I find in Denmark is a post-Christian world. It is littered with landmarks of a past age of faith: beautiful abbeys and cathedrals, breathtaking carvings of the Lord in castle chapels. But no one has a spiritual life. They do not pray at meals, and think you are shocking strange if you do. The only times I have heard the name of God mentioned in Denmark has been as a curse. My hotel room (I'm in Denmark right now) has a Gideon Bible--with about half an inch of dust on it, and the spine hasn't even been cracked. Denmark is a culture that has heard the Gospel...and chosen to move on from it. They heard the Word, and decided that it belongs in a past era.

Not so in China. Here, for the most part, they have never heard of Jesus--or, if they have heard of Christianity, they know as little about it as the average American knows about Japanese Shintoism. Yet they are a people who hunger for spirituality. When my boys were watching Mulan, and the father prayed to his ancestors, I did not ignore it. In fact, I highlighted it. I paused the show and we talked about it. The Chinese know that they are supposed to pray; they have just not heard Who to pray to. They know that they are supposed to honor their ancestors; they have just forgotten their Great Ancestor. They celebrate rebirth at the New Year better than any other culture; they have just not realized that this desire for rebirth is a spiritual one, a desire for being reborn in Christ.

I admit that I have not traveled all of China (only the Beijing-Tianjin-Qinhuangdao section). I have seen most of Denmark. But what I have found between the two is that one nation is post-Christian, having heard the Word and rejected it; while another is pre-Christian, desiring spirituality greatly but not yet knowing how to achieve it.

In actuality, I do not get sad in China, like I do in Denmark. Although I like the country and the people, in Denmark there is a part of my spirit that is always slightly depressed. There is always a part of me that keeps me from fully enjoying looking at a majestic abbey on a hill, knowing that it is now little more than a tomb of this country's past faith. Not so in China. China's people hunger for truth and they know that it has something to do with ancient ancestry, diligent prayer, connection to diety, death and rebirth, and honor/shame.

Being in China is uplifting, not depressing--for there is the next great explosion of our faith; indeed, it is happening already. It would not surprise me at all if, by the time this century is over, there are more believers who are Chinese, Indian, and African, than all Europeans and Americans combined. And that is a very exciting thing.

Theologies of Convenience

2012-02-01T07:02:00.002-06:00

A friend was telling me the other day about a Joel Osteen video, in which he was justifying his wealthy lifestyle by saying that God made Him rich so that people would want to be like him and thus find Jesus. (Interesting: Jesus said that you couldn't serve God and money, but it appears that what He really meant was, money is a great way to win the lost...).

Not a day later, I read a blogger on a (much more popular) blog write about a theological position that was pretty shaky biblically, but served well to justify his own lifestyle.

Then I read about Mark Driscoll's sex-based theology; over the years he has made a number of strange comments: men wouldn't cheat on their wives as much if their wives would dress up and look hot; women owe it to their men to give them oral sex; sex must be regular between married couples to keep the man's mood in check and his mind clear.

All of these have a common thread.

A while back, I started using a term when debating about science, called "Theories of Convenience". A theory of convenience is one which is not really supported by experimental or even good theoretical evidence, but is favored by the scientist because it provides a convenience for their worldview. For example, the brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking freely admits that the universe is too perfectly fine-tuned for life for it to be coincidence. Thus one either must believe in God, or--as he does--believe in multiple parallel universes: this allows an infinite set of parallel realities, at least one of which would have the right conditions for life, and since we are alive, we must be in that one. This is a Theory of Convenience: it is not based upon actual physical fact, but is accepted because it is better than the alternative.

Be very, very wary of theologies of convenience. It is true that they may be right--they really may. Just because it is a theology of convenience does not necessarily mean that the young earth creation model is wrong...perhaps it is dead-on accurate!

But you should always hold a healthy skepticism when someone's theology ends up leading to a place that just so happens to be very convenient to him. Osteen's theology winds up allowing him to live in a wealthy decadence that few can imagine. Driscoll's theology winds up allowing him to demand that his wife dress sexy, give him oral sex, and have sex at his beck and call.

So just be very careful in these situations. Always take it back to Jesus--does their newfound theology match with the lifestyle that Jesus and His apostles led? Jesus was a virgin, and the apostles don't appear to have been coarse-spoken sex hounds. Jesus and the apostles didn't live wealthy lives either, but chose lives of poverty. So when you hear Driscoll and Osteen (and others) preaching these convenient theologies, make sure and compare them to the Word of God before you get too excited about them.

What did Jesus get mocked for?

2012-01-31T07:00:00.000-06:00

In Matthew 5:11, Jesus says that His followers are blessed when they are being mocked, insulted, and lied about because of their relationship with Him. Jesus states that when we are living in accord with God, then one who mocks you is doing nothing but giving you blessings and identifying your lifestyle as being in sync with God's lifestyle.

This verse is used as a rallying cry to cover all manner of sinful behavior. Far too many Christians simply go around doing whatever feels best to them, then if they are criticized, fall back upon this verse as comfort.

But let me ask: what kind of things are you being mocked for? And is it the same kind of thing that Jesus was mocked for?

Jesus was mocked for not being serious enough about His religion. He was too fun loving, too party-happy. He spent most of His time with bad people who did bad things. He made bold claims about His relationship to God. And His followers did the same things.

So is that what you are mocked for as a Christian? That you hang out with the downtrodden? That you have a good time in life but make bold claims about God and your relationship to Him?

Probably not.

Most of we American Christians are mocked because we are judgmental. Because we look down on others. Because we are always so serious. Because we are hypocrites who live like everyone else while pretending that we don't.

Do you see a problem here?

It is time that we as Christians start imitating our God. Let me give you a good example. Would Jesus have approved of gay marraige? I seriously doubt it; after all, He didn't even approve of divorce and remarriage. But do you know what I do think? I think that while He may not have supported gay marriage, Jesus wouldn't have the slightest hesitation about going out and spending an evening hanging out with a couple of gay guys, having a few drinks, telling a few stories, and building a relationship.

Sound shocking? Then re-read your Bible with fresh eyes. Who were the people Jesus hung out with? It wasn't the every-week church-goers. He spent His time surrounded by poor, coarse, illiterate fisherman; prostitutes; thieves who collected taxes for the Romans and skimmed from the top for themselves; betrayers. These were the men and women that Jesus came to save. And it was with them that He spent three and a half years in ministry. As He Himself said--physicians are here to heal the sick, not the healthy.

So before you go playing the "I'm so holy that people mock me" card, ask yourself why people are mocking you. Is it the same reason that Jesus was mocked?

The Teachings of Jesus (I), Week 5: On the Mosaic Law - Relationship with God (Matt 6:5-7:6)

2012-01-30T08:12:00.002-06:00

As Jesus continues His teachings on the Mosaic Law, He now enters into a discussion about how one relates to God. What is the relationship between the individual and the Father?

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases like the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’ For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Mt 6:5-15, ESV)

Prayer has become a funny thing among Christians. Like too many things, it is a battleground between denominations. Some see prayer a lot differently today than those in the first century appeared to see it. Perhaps that will be a future post. But as for today, there are several fascinating things that Jesus says here about prayer.

Before we begin, it is important that we understand the context of first-century Judaic prayer. Formal prayer time was held three times each day—morning, afternoon, and evening. During this time, prayer was often done in groupings of ten men, and public prayer was quite common. So when Jesus talks about prayer we must keep in mind that prayer was an integral, public part of their lives—and generally speaking it involved a recitation of psalms and/or an inviting of God’s blessing on the individual or the world.

That said, let us see what Jesus had to say to His listeners about prayer.

First, He says that prayer is a private thing. When He says about those who pray to gain attention, “they have received their reward,” He is implicitly saying that they will receive no answer to their prayer, because they did so with the wrong reason. If their prayer was motivated even a little bit by a desire to receive attention from others for their holiness, then said attention is the reward they receive—they are not rewarded with God interacting in their prayer life. Instead, Jesus recommends a private, quiet, secretive prayer life: a time where the temptation to impress others is non-existent. Now this is not to be taken as a new Law; after Jesus’ death, we see Peter and John walking to the Temple at prayer time to have their morning prayers. So do not think Jesus is abolishing praying in public as a strict rule. Instead, He is attacking the meaning behind the prayer—why are you praying? If you are standing on street corners to pray and preach, then you are primarily focusing on gaining attention for yourself—and therefore, you have received your reward and God needs do nothing for you.

Second, He also attacks the Gentile mode of praying. Jewish prayers tended to follow a sort of liturgy, and to be heavily based in the psalms and traditional blessings. On the other hand, Gentile prayers were poetic and oratorical, completely non-liturgical. Jesus also makes a point to decry the vanity of praying beautiful, lovely prayers to impress those around you. Again, then primary focus is upon the purpose of the prayer—if you are trying to weave words together to impress or motivate others, then that will be the entire result of your prayer; God will not get involved.

Jesus then gives us the Lord’s Prayer, or “Our Father”, as an example of how He prays.

People tend to fall into two opposite errors when dealing with the Lord’s Prayer. Some use it as a specific formula—I must pray these words, in this precise order, many times over. Having been raised Catholic, I cannot help but remember time with the rosary, publicly praying and doing so with mindless repetition of the Our Father over and over, as though it were a spell or incantation where the words had value in and of themselves. Yet on the other hand, I have been a part of some Baptist churches which made such a big deal about not being ‘vain and repetitious’ with their prayer life that none could even recite the Lord’s Prayer!

As usual, true value lies between these extremes. Jesus gave us this model prayer, and it has been taught as a part of childhood Christian education for two thousand years; to abandon it now is equally as wrong as to elevate it to an incantation. Instead, we should all know the Lord’s Prayer; it probably wouldn’t hurt to pray it routinely or even daily to focus our prayer life; but also it must be remembered always that it is a model—not an incantation—meant to teach us how to pray, not to replace all of our prayers “from the heart”.

So, what does Jesus teach us in the Lord’s Prayer? There are five primary statements that Jesus makes in this prayer: He (1) blesses God’s name and calls it holy; (2) supports God’s will being done on earth and heaven; (3) requests daily provisions; (4) requests forgiveness for our sins; and (5) requests protection from evil. This is what Jesus said prayer is supposed to be about. Ask for God’s will to be done in your life and those around you, ask for Him to forgive your sins, and ask Him to protect you from evil.

Notice that when Jesus prays about His daily life, there is not a lot of detail here. He does not spend hours pouring over lists of prayer requests—indeed, Jesus specifically says in verse 8 that God already knows what you need before you ask Him; other places in the New Testament confirm the same, saying that the Holy Spirit within you intercedes with prayers on your behalf constantly. Jesus says that a simple request for today’s needs is sufficient.

Far too often do Christians miss this. They take the statement that “You have not because you ask not” to an extreme. I have seen Christian women who blamed their own poor prayer lives for the reason that their husbands or children were not saved; I have seen people for whom prayer is full of anxiety because they must do it right, and frequently enough. Please stop! God knows what you need and hears your spirit crying out. That is not what prayer is about, so you need not worry about naming everything on the list!

The bulk of the point of prayer certainly seems to be the last two requests—forgive our sins as we forgive others, and protect us from evil. People are very uncomfortable with what Jesus says about forgiveness, but He repeats Himself for clarity: both in verses 12 and 14-15, He specifically says that how you forgive others is how God will forgive you. We Christians don’t like to hear that, because we like to hold a grudge! But the reality is, as C.S. Lewis once said, how well we forgive seems to be the key point around which the entire heart of Christianity turns. Jesus is very clear here that we can ask God to forgive us only to the extent that we have forgiven others, and that if we do not have forgiving hearts He will not forgive us!

From a practical standpoint, I think where I see this need the most is in our general attitudes toward life. If, as Jesus will later say, you are focused primarily upon loving God and loving others, then this is not much of an issue; if you and your pride are third place in the priorities, then you cannot hold a grudge against the person who wronged you. You forgive them and move on with your life—for you want God to forgive you as well. You forgive your husband for his laziness around the house, because you want God to forgive you for your own laziness in your spiritual life; you forgive the mean boss, because you want God to forgive you for your meanness; you forgive the selfish driver who cut you off, because you want God to forgive your selfishness.

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Mt 6:16-18, ESV)

With fasting, we see almost precisely the same thing. Now of course a fast is an abstinence from food or drink, and can be done in diverse ways. It can be restraint for a period of time, such as Lent or a season of life where you wish to focus spiritually; it can be a long-term abstinence from something like alcohol or haircuts or whatever (think of the Nazrene periods of some Jewish men’s lives); or it could be lifelong monastic virtues like the Essenes demonstrated.

On a standard “fasting” day in Judaism, where everyone fasted, the fast looked something like this: no food at all during daylight hours; nothing but water to drink all day; a small piece of bread is allowed in the morning, before the sun rises.

Regardless of how the fast occurs, Jesus here says that it is just like prayer—do it quietly, without telling anyone about it, so that you can be sure you’re doing it for the right reasons.

And please, Christians: if you are trying to lose weight, call it a diet. It isn’t a fast. The fast is about your spirit, not your waistline.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Mt 6:19-34, ESV)

This section is a fascinating one when taken all together. Generally people break this up into three topics—versus 19-25, 26-33, and verse 34. This is wrong! Note that verse 26 starts with, “Therefore”, as does verse 34. This ties the entire section together, which puts a slightly different spin on it.

This section deals with wealth and greed. Before I get to the Scripture, I would like to say a few words for context. Today, in a free market economy, wealth and greed do not necessarily always go together. Some people become wealthy due to some brilliant invention (e.g., Bill Gates); others by inheritance (e.g., the Walton family). And of course, many become wealthy through greed (e.g., Wall Street, Enron, etc.)

But in the ancient world, you generally could not have one or the other. Unless you were born into a wealthy family, the only way you could become wealthy was to be greedy. The ancient world, you see, was not a free-market international economy; in fact, it wasn’t even a free market nationalistic economy. Economies in pre-industrial societies were naturally almost entirely local. There was only so much water to go around; there was only so much wine; there was only so much food. This is what is called a “limited goods society”. So every person naturally sees themselves as having a fair share (think of the Jews and the manna falling from heaven). Everyone is expected to take what they need and share the rest.

So a wealthy person, then, generally gets there by greed—he is taking what belongs to someone else. This is a horrible affront in a limited goods society: each should take only that which they directly earned. This is one of the reasons the Bible strictly forbids loaning money at interest: the loaner is doing nothing to earn the money, and thus has no right to expect more back than he loaned.

Think of the stock market today, for example—one person makes money only if someone else loses money or value. That is an example of what the ancients considered greed: profiting by getting more than your fair share of things. Oh, sure, the person “earns” it in a manner of speaking: they are good at their jobs, or have a good stock tip, or take risks at the right times, or whatever. But it is still greed…it is a desire to get away with something. It is living large on the company expense card because you can; it is hard-ball negotiating with your boss for a raise above the level of salary you agreed originally to take. These are the kind of things that Jesus’ listeners would have considered greedy—and sadly, many (most?) of us in modern America fall into this category.

In this passage, Jesus continues His discussion on our relationship to God by saying that we all must choose whether we serve God or “mammon”. Mammon was the Sumerian god of wealth, and his name was synonymous among the Jews with greed.

So here, Jesus is telling us that those who live greedily and lust for money find it impossible to properly relate to God. As we discussed last week, we are all immortals—so to spend your time hoarding and lusting for money (which can help you only in this temporary world) shows a profound mis-priority in one’s attitude toward God.

Jesus uses an analogy here of a “bad eye”—that is, blindness—which makes one’s view of the world dark. What He is saying is that greed is like spiritual blindness: you become so obsessed with money that you cannot properly connect with God.

I find it interesting that this was not included in last week’s passage, but in the midst of Jesus’ teachings on relationship to God. Greediness is wrong not because it hurts others, but because it destroys the fabric of your spiritual relationship.

What many Christians miss is that the passage doesn’t end in verse 25, but continues on. When Jesus speaks about not being anxious, He is still talking about money! Yet so many Christians take verse 26, rip it out of its context, and say, “See? You shouldn’t be depressed about _____! Jesus said don’t worry!” What poor analysis of Scripture!

What Jesus is clearly saying in this passage, in context, is this:
• Focus your efforts on building eternal treasure rather than earthly treasure, because:
• Greed destroys your relationship with God. As a result:
• Stop worrying about having a bank account to pay for future food and clothing and drink. God knows you need them and will take care of them.
• Let tomorrow take care of itself—you just worry about today.

Read the entire thing in context and you clearly see that Jesus is not at all talking about depression or mental health or anxiety. He is clearly discussing greed for the entire thing. He is saying in verses 26-34 that you need not set aside money against future concerns such as clothing or food, for God knows your needs and will take care of you. Instead, spend your money today (on Godly things, of course!)

This is an important thing for us to remember in this time of economic downturn. Our tendency is to build a big bank account for security. My wife keeps me honest about being freely generous, but even so I begin to get nervous if I do not have at least 3 months net salary in the bank…how ridiculous! Jesus says not to worry about next month’s rent, God will take care of you as He sees fit. So instead of worrying about money, be free to worship God rather than greedily seeking financial security.

Notice how this echoes Jesus’ prayer in the “Our Father”—“give us today our daily bread”. Just ask for today’s security; let tomorrow take care of itself. Then you are free to focus on God today, instead of always planning for tomorrow’s events.

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.” (Mt 7:1-6, ESV)

In this final statement on the relationship between man and God, Jesus speaks about an attitude of judgmentalism. He previously spoke (as we discussed last week) that we will be forgiven proportionally to how we forgive others; here we see the same concept at play.

Here, Jesus tells us that if we judge others, we will be judged. The measuring cup that you use to decide the sinfulness of your neighbor is the same cup that God will use against you. To judge others is to pronounce yourself clean, Jesus says—which is hypocritical.

Many people say, “I’m not being judgmental! But some things are still sins and need to be called out.” Really? Can you show me that in Jesus’ words? Or in Paul’s? Jesus doesn’t say, “Judge not…unless it’s something really bad.” His command is simple and plain: do not judge other people.

When people say, “I hate the sin but love the sinner”…I tend to roll my eyes. This is not a realistic situation. The minute you judge someone else’s behavior as being bad, you put yourself between God and man. Leave the judgment up to the Holy Spirit—that is His job, after all. Your job is to love and forgive.

Let me put this in very practical terms. Follow Jesus’ logic from last week’s post and this one. Let’s say that you know a homosexual who is unrepentant—clearly outside the bounds of Scriptural purity. You’re not particularly mean to them, but you judge them, refuse to be around them, think better of yourself than them. Let’s follow Jesus’ logic:
1. You judge them for sexual sin—sex outside of a heterosexual marriage. (Initial premise)
2. You have judged them, so you’ll be judged by the same measure. (Matt 7:1-6)
3. The root of sexual sin is lust; the lust is the sin, not the sex. (Matt 5:27-30)
4. Therefore, you are judging them for their lust. (Logic, from #3)
5. Therefore, from #4 and #2, you are condemned before God equally as them, if you have ever lusted.

Do you see the danger of judgmentalism? If you judge someone else for selfishness, then God judges you for when you are being selfish. If you measure someone else’s worth based upon their actions, then God will measure your worth by your actions.

Jesus is setting a horribly wonderful standard here: one which leaves no room but to follow His earlier advice and be forgiving of everyone, so that you may be forgiven for everything.

Now of course, this does not mean that the sin is okay. Jesus is not suggesting that we enable sin. But what He is saying is that we do not look at others and see a sinner above whom we now stand.

Instead, when we look at others we are to see ourselves, and that Jesus loves them enough to die for them—so you should certainly love them enough to talk to them kindly! Maybe your lust does not reveal itself as homosexuality…but it is still lust. Maybe your anger did not result in murder…but it is still anger. Maybe your greed did not lead to embezzlement…but it was still greed. The important thing is the sinful seed within your soul, not the social acceptableness of the plant that grew from it.

So when you are confronted with sin, be very, very cautious about judging the person committing it. Instead, play it safe and assume that Jesus actually means precisely what He says—that He will judge you just as you judge your neighbor.

The final word Jesus gives on the topic of your relationship with God is the famous (and often misunderstood) “pearls before swine” comment—“do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before swine.” People often take this as a stand-alone comment, which leads to all kinds of strange interpretations—is Jesus saying not to preach to certain types of people? Of course not.

First, understand that the “dogs what is holy” comment is probably a reference to Proverbs 26:11—that a dog returns to his vomit and a fool to his folly/unrighteousness. Further understand that by pigs he is talking about something that is ritualistically unholy in Jewish religion, and pearls are items of tremendous value.

So what is Jesus saying here?

Recall that Jesus has just finished telling us about the Gospel, and admonishing us not to judge others. By not judging others and loving them, we are treating all people—no matter how bad the sinner—with respect. But loving and not-judging others does not mean that we put ourselves in positions to be harmed by them. We can love someone and not judge them without putting ourselves in a position to fall into folly, or to be trampled underfoot by unrighteous people.

For example, does a wife forgiving her abusive husband mean that she can’t get herself away from him? Does not judging the sex offender down the road mean that you let him babysit your children? Does loving the atheist mean that you must debate him about evolution? \

Jesus here is clarifying that yes, we are to be loving and forgiving and judgment free—and that is a radical command. But that does not mean you have to be reckless and it does not mean that you should necessarily be going around sharing the Gospel with people who have no desire to hear the truth and simply want to turn it into a fight.

A pearl is a thing of value to us, but a pig cannot see its value. So don’t waste your energy throwing your valuable Gospel before those who do not appreciate it and will just use it to attack you.

Love them—yes. Share your faith with them—sure. Forgive them—definitely. Be careful not to judge them—correct. But that does not mean that you have to put yourself in a position that will get you harmed or ridiculed or mocked. If I ever meet Bill Maher on a flight somewhere, I’m not going to try and convert him from atheism; but that doesn’t mean I have to be hateful, or mean, or judge him. I can still talk to him, laugh when he says something clever or funny, and be kind to him. I just am not going to spend my energy trying to evangelize someone who is only interested in the Bible as a weapon against Christians.

Conclusion

Having completed His discussion in the last passage about our relationships with each other, Jesus now talks about our relationship with God. He says that our times of prayer and fasting are examples of private worship, not to be shared with others lest we do so for the wrong reasons. He says that we should not be greedy, but be content with what we have today and trust God to take care of tomorrow. And He says not to judge others, because we too are sinners and the way we judge others is how God will judge us.

On Church Discipline (Internet Monk)

2012-01-25T12:08:00.000-06:00

There is a pretty interesting conversation going over at Internet Monk regarding Mark Driscoll's method of church discipline.

Let me start by saying that I was not there. I do not know how bad this situation was. But I agree wholeheartedly with the comments made by the IM community regarding the harshness, legalism, and anti-gospelic nature of the Mars Hill response. It would not be hard to imagine the letter to church members regarding excommunicating this member as being identical to a posting on a medieval Catholic church door.

The Metric-ization of the Church

2012-01-23T16:09:00.001-06:00

This month, a ridiculous amount of my time—as with nearly every manager and director in American business—will be focused on the setting of objectives for our employees next year. In this process, most companies generally try to develop “metrics” or “key performance indicators (KPIs)”—measurable ways of tracking how well you are doing your job. It serves as a scorecard; every quarter you should know whether you are winning or losing the “game” of meeting objectives for the year. And the game is important: at the end of the year, it will be their performance toward these metrics that determine how much of a raise and bonus each employee receives.

It is commonly said in companies that the metrics must be SMART—specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-based. This very data-heavy method of reducing your year’s work into 5-10 objectives can be a challenge. For instance, I have a team working for me, which is responsible for installing all of our molds for new products worldwide. So they each have an objective which is: “For all 2012 launches, the time from mold arrival on site to first-off-tool start of production shall be 30% reduced from 2011 average—that is, average of all mold setups from 2012 shall be 8 days or less.” So no matter what else happens this year, that very specific set of cold data will determine how much or how little I can give them for a raise next year.

This metric-ization of performance reviews has become widespread and industry standard. And it has some real value to it. If done properly, it can be a good way to align your organization. If done poorly, it can cause serious problems. (Example: Once my company decided to judge the quality technicians based upon how many defects they “missed” that were found in a later stage. As a result, each quality tech was so overly cautious that production could not even finish a single process. Getting a product approved to move to the next step became nearly impossible.)

As more and more business and marketing principles from private industry have leaked into the Church in America, we find a natural tendency to want to measure our success in similar ways to our corporate culture. How do we know if our church is succeeding or failing? How do we know if our youth pastor is doing good work? How do we know if we compare favorably to other churches in the area, or need to learn from them?

We are obsessed, as a culture, with success and its measurements. It is why we play fantasy football; it is why sabermetrics is the thing to know in baseball; it is why we all have SMART KPIs in our businesses. It is why we have Tiger Mothers and Dragon Fathers. It is why we “teach to the test” in schools so that our kids’ scores look better (and if they actually learn how to think or reason in the process, that is a nice secondary bonus). We are a data-driven culture, and the data is the only thing that matters. So it is natural that this would leak through to church life.

It is also a very, very bad thing that it has done so. I can say this from experience; I once was in an advising role in a church and found that we continued to justify bad spiritual decisions because it helped our church “grow” in the particular points of data that we were using to judge ourselves.

The fundamental problem with trying to develop KPIs for the Church is that the work of the Holy Spirit is not data-based. Spirituality is, by its very definition, extra-worldly. And therefore we cannot directly measure anything that tells us about our church body’s spiritual growth. There is no combination of factors which says, “If our church achieves X, Y, and Z this year, then we have done the Lord’s work.”

Most churches gage their success (either openly or subconsciously) by the Big Three in church metrics: worship attendance, number of professions of faith/baptisms, and monetary giving. The theory goes that if more people are coming to church then you must be doing something right; if people are claiming conversion experiences then you are adding to the roster in heaven; and if they are giving their money, then they are supporting the ministry with the thing most dear to their hearts—their wallet.

But are those assumptions true? Is this a good method of determining the spiritual health of our Church body?

Scripture seems to indicate that, most of the time, only a small percentage of those who profess faith (“the remnant”) is actually devoted to Him. So clearly, numerical growth (either in attendance or in professions) is not necessarily an indication of spiritual success.

Jesus says (both in the Sermon on the Mount and in Revelation) that it is the poor in spirit who are receiving God, not the wealthy, and that a church may be financially poor but spiritually wealthy. So clearly it is not financial giving which is indicative of your church’s spiritual health.

It is not simply those who are professing faith or have improved the righteousness of their lives; the Pharisees beat us by a mile on such accounts, yet Jesus called them a “brood of vipers”.

In fact, Jesus often tells us that those who on earth appear to be the least valuable are actually the most valuable in the kingdom of heaven; the poor are the richest; the smallest have the biggest influence. So clearly if we are “measuring” our church success in the same manner that we measure success in business, then we are not likely to be properly measuring the success or failure of our ministries.

Frankly, I think any attempt to “judge” the health of a church based on any kind of data-based metric is likely to lead to bad decisions. If your pastors are saying, “God is really at work here—just look at all the people who attend now,” or, “You can tell that God is behind us because look at how much more people are donating than they used to,” then you are likely to be misled a bit on the legitimacy of your approach. Such metricization tends to lead to simply building bigger, wealthier, trendier churches to attract bigger, wealthier, trendier clientele…er, I mean, worshippers.

We must avoid metricization of the Church at all costs. The Church is about matters of the Spirit—and this can never be analyzed through a spreadsheet kept on the associate pastor’s PC.

So then, if you are trying to determine if your church or ministry is succeeding or floundering, what do you do? I suggest reviewing James 1:27 and Acts 2:42,46—two passages which describe purity in the church. From these passages, ask yourself the following about your church/ministry:

• Is your flock devoted to studying the teachings of the Apostles (the New Testament)?
• Is your flock meeting regularly for fellowship outside of ministry/church walls—sharing meals and building “glad and sincere” friendships (Acts 2:46)?
• Is your flock devoted to prayer?
• Is your flock caring for those who cannot care for themselves—the poor, the widows, the orphans, etc.?
• Is your flock avoiding being corrupted by the sinfulness of the world?

These are the measures of spiritual success. But even within these, I encourage you, avoid trying to make it about data. Keep these five questions in your church staff meeting room, or ministry office, and every month as leaders prayerfully consider each question. Do not turn these into measurements and try to figure out how much time each member spends praying on average!

We have a saying in the business world: “What you measure is what you get.” (Or, as some say it: “If you don’t measure it, it can’t get any better.”) In that regard, the business world is onto something: if you keep the five questions above in the forefront of your ministry strategy, then you will always be growing spiritually and succeeding in God’s eyes—and you can know you are a success, whether your flock is 10 people or 10,000.

The Teachings of Jesus (I), Week 4: On the Mosaic Law - The Treatment of Others (Matt 5:21-6:4)

2012-01-23T09:45:00.004-06:00

As we reach this passage of Scripture, we have just heard Jesus introduce His sermon. He began by pronouncing blessings on the crowd (Mt 5:1-12). Then Jesus told the Jews around Him that they had lost their place of influence in the world (Mt 5:13-16), and they were about to find out why: further, He gives them the assurance that what He is about to say is not an overthrowing of the Law but a completion of it (Mt 5:17-19)—and indeed, He says that He is about to raise the bar higher (Mt 5:20).

Jesus then proceeds to teach on the proper application Mosaic Law from verses 5:21 through 7:6. It seems to me that Matthew has clearly organized Jesus’ teachings into two discrete blocks: first, on how to interact with other people (5:21-6:4), and second, on how to interact with God (6:5-7:6).

We cannot overstate the radical nature of what Jesus is about to say here. He is speaking to a group that have known, since they were children, that they have been set apart as special before God—and yet, they have failed to uphold God’s high standards time and time again. Over time this has led them to their current status in the world: a small, unimportant people on the edge of the Empire; poor and uncultured; notable to the Empire in no way except for their strange monotheistic beliefs.

The Law is the one thing the Jews have going for them. It is the thing in which they take the most pride; the security to which they cling the tightest. And Jesus is about to tell them that they have been going about it all wrong, for centuries.

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.” (5:21-26, ESV)

Jesus certainly leads with a ‘bang’, doesn’t He? And here we see a common theme which shall run throughout all His teachings: the Jews have “missed” the spirit of the Law. They read, “You shall not murder” and focus on containing their wrath so that someone is not killed. But, Jesus is saying, they have missed the spirit of the Law—to love and forgive and seek forgiveness, so that murderous anger never develops.

The letter of the Law was, “Do not murder”; the spirit of the Law was, “Do not be angry at others or allow others to remain angry at you.” The anger is the seed which, when harvested, leads to murder. And here Jesus says that you are guilty for planting that seed, regardless of whether it survives to harvest time. So even if you do not end up murdering someone, the fact that you are angry enough with them to do it (if you could have gotten away with it) is the same in God’s eyes.

Obviously, this is a much tougher standard than the Law. It is one thing to control one’s behaviors; to discipline one’s emotions is much, much tougher.

I find it fascinating here that Jesus puts the ownership for the disagreements on both parties. Notice that in verse 22, He says that those who are angry with their brothers are sinning. Then in verses 23-26, He says that those who have caused their brothers to remain angry at them are also sinning. So it seems that the Christ-follower finds himself a sinner on both ends: if I make someone else angry, it is my fault; if someone else makes me angry, it is my fault.

That may not seem quite fair at first, but the beauty and power of this simple passage is profound. My wife and I have seen it in our marriage. We long ago agreed that for every argument, no matter how one-sided, both parties are at fault. When it is over, both of us apologize to the other for something. Either for the action that triggered the argument, or for allowing the action to bother us so much, or for allowing the argument to escalate, or all of the above: both of us were at fault for allowing it to become an argument. It truly does take two to argue.

So think to your work, or your family life, or your church life. If there is someone with whom you are in an argument, what is Jesus commanding here? He is not saying that your hurt it not real. He is saying that you should make things right between each other, and immediately. So urgent is the need, in fact, that God says it is more important than attending worship.

How can that be? I think it is because we too often lose the perspective that Christ had. We are immortals, you and I. Let that sink in. The greatest engineering feats in the world will be dust (indeed, so will the world itself!) before your relationship ends with that person with whom you are angry. What were you two arguing about? Money? Politics? Housework? Grades on a test? Who stole whose parking space? Please. What are these concerns to an immortal? You two will watch from heaven as nations rise and fall, as all our greatest earthly achievements crumble to dust. Is it really important who is at fault for your minor spat?

Keep the perspective. Forgive freely and easily. Resolve within yourself that you will hold no grudges, and give no one the reason to hold a grudge against you.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that of your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (5:27-30, ESV)

This is not a favorite passage among men—and I am no exception. I know men who, every time they see a mildly pretty face, have to make some comment about it when the woman walks away. Thankfully, I (and most Christian men I know) are not quite that lustful. But it would be a lie to say that when I see a particularly striking woman, or a billboard on the side of the road, or a sex scene on a television show, that lustful feelings never enter my mind.

Now many preachers go into a false teaching on this passage, I believe. These preachers (being, not coincidentally, all men) use this passage as an indictment of women. Some use it to argue that women should all dress like the Amish, so as not to inspire lust in men. Others (like Mark Driscoll) have used it to argue that wives should keep themselves looking sexy for their husbands, so that he won’t lust as much. Both of these are, if I may be so bold, profoundly stupid and seem to show a lack of understanding of lust. Has lust gone away in Islam, where women are covered from head to toe? No! Though statistics are hard to come by, it appears as though violent crimes against women occur 20-30 times more frequently in Islamic countries than America (most of which are motivated by sexuality—beatings for being too immodest with their dress, or genital mutilation, or rape, etc.) Indeed, in some countries with decent data, such as Qatar, it appears that one in fifty women have been groped or molested in public marketplaces. So certainly the lust of man cannot be removed simply by women dressing modestly. Clearly, modesty does not remove man’s lustfulness. As for Driscoll’s argument that lust would be removed somewhat if men had hotter wives—this would imply that men with beautiful wives never have affairs. Of course, Tiger Woods is a great example of how untrue that statement is—as are thousands of men every year.

Men are not lustful because women dress slutty. Men are not lustful because they are unsatisfied at home. Men are not lustful because of the pervasive pornography in our country. Men are not lustful because their hormones kick in as teenagers and are often unfulfilled until their twenties or thirties.

Men are lustful because of the Fall. Because God designed us to love beauty and become aroused by our partners and have wonderful sex lives—in fact, “Be fruitful and multiply”, His key commandment after the Fall and the Flood, contains within it the divine requirement to have lots and lots of sex.

But like everything in our fallen nature, it has become corrupted by our distance from God. Our bodies, minds, and spirits are brought into the world in chains. Our willpower to do righteousness is bound by our sinful natures as fallen beings.

That is the root cause of why men are lustful. We are lustful because the desire for sex is good, but is unleashed in unholy ways in our hearts from the Fall. All of those other things—pornography, immodesty, dissatisfaction, hormones and the longer wait for marriage—are contributing factors, sure. They make it worse. Often unmanageable. But the root cause lies with the man’s sinful nature, not with the actions of women, or pornographers, or anyone else.

It is a simple matter of economics, men. If there was no demand in your heart for lust, then how women dressed would not bother you. So please stop blaming bikinis for your lustful ways. Start to take some responsibility for your own actions.

Now, how to take responsibility? Well, Jesus’ prescription is about as radical as one can get! Here He says that if you have a wandering eye, just pluck that sucker out and you won’t have to worry about it any more. Or, if you find yourself masturbating a lot, cut off that hand. (And please, don’t tell me that Jesus isn’t referring to masturbation. He clearly is—He is talking about lust, and ways in which your right hand can cause you to sin in lust. I know we don’t like to think about Jesus teaching on masturbation, but He did. Get over it. It isn’t going away because we are uncomfortable talking about it; we need to address it as Christians, as Jesus did here.)

The key undercurrent here, as with Jesus’ teaching on anger, is the spirit not just the letter of the Law. The problem, Jesus says, is lust—not adultery. Adultery is the harvest of the seed of lust. So we must address the lust itself, in radical ways if necessary.

Jesus says that lusting after someone is the same as committing adultery with them. Imagining sleeping with them is the same as doing so.

Do you see the implicit “out” in this situation?

If you lust about your wife, have you done her any wrong? If you imagine sleeping with your wife, have you done her any wrong? No—because she is yours to sleep with anyway. Her body is yours, and yours is hers. Song of Solomon indeed is graphic in its approval of sexual passion between partners.

So it is that, when I read this passage, I have drawn the following conclusions. Lusting after a woman in all its forms (pornography, masturbation, imagining her during sex with your wife, etc.) is always wrong. It is a major sin—adultery—and should be confessed immediately and addressed urgently. But lusting after your wife—in any of the above forms—commits no wrong whatsoever.

So, I believe, Jesus is not saying here, “Do not be passionate about sex”; He is saying, “Do not be passionate about sex with a woman to whom you are not married.”

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce’. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (5:31-32, ESV)

In our culture of broken homes and marriages, it does not take a Biblical scholar to demonstrate the negative effect all of these divorces have had on the fabric of our society, and upon our children. So I will not take any time speaking to this. Instead, let us focus on the one reason that Jesus allows divorce—sexual immorality. What does He mean here?

One thing can be said with absolute certainty—His definition certainly includes fornication. Speaking to the people He was, Jesus would have had to have been explicit if He was allowing premarital sex. No, it was assumed at the time that a woman was a virgin at the time of marriage, and indeed the proof of such was a big, big deal. On Jewish wedding nights, often some of the guests (such as the fathers of the couple) would be waiting outside their bedroom door as they consummated their marriage. As the virgin bride’s hymen was broken, the blood spilled onto the bedsheets was proof that she had remained virtuous. That bedsheet was seen as physical proof of the righteousness of the marriage. So when a couple consummated their marriage and found that the woman did not bleed, and had not been a virgin—this was grounds for immediate divorce…and banishment from the good graces of the community.

(Does this help explain the extraordinary sacrifice and love that Joseph had for Mary? For he was betrothed but not yet married to her, and was well aware that her pregnancy would be taken to mean that either he had sinned by fornicating with her, or she had sinned by fornicating with another. In either case, great shame would have been heaped on his family. For him to stick with her through it is one of the great testimonies to love that I have read.)

So we can say with certainty that, if you find that your wife has a history of fornication, you have the right to divorce her.

Now, what about if she committed adultery? That is the other potential for a definition for “sexual immorality”. It is important here that you understand a bit of context about the Jewish world at the time Jesus spoke this passage. There were two primary theories going around in Judaism at the time regarding divorce—one led by a rabbi named Hillel, and one by a rabbi named Shammai. Hillel followed the Roman’s view where the husband, being paterfamilias, could issue a divorce for virtually any reason—even a bad meal. Shammai was the more conservative teacher on the topic, holding that a husband could divorce a wife only in the cases of fornication or adultery. Indeed, some among Shammai’s school not only allowed divorce and remarriage in this case, but often required it. Adultery was seen as damaging to the marriage as idolatry is to the relationship with God.

This debate was exceptionally well known and commonly held at the time—it seems impossible that Jesus could not be aware of it, or expect His hearers not to be intimately familiar with it. In His statement, Jesus clearly lays out the two opposing theories and so it seems quite clear that He is siding with Shammai; this clearly implies that adultery, as well as fornication, are valid reasons for divorce in God’s eyes. (Note: For what it’s worth, I do not think “emotional adultery” counts here, but I have no proof for this.)

Further, I think it not a stretch to assume that another other commonly held reason for a valid divorce—accepted by both Shammai and Hillel—applies. It was assumed by all first-century Jews that physical neglect or abuse was a valid cause for divorce. Though Jesus does not explicitly mention it, I think that the wide acceptance at the time would likely have led to His discussing the topic if He disagreed.

Thus I would conclude: it is certainly acceptable for divorce if premarital sex is discovered; it is almost certainly acceptable for divorce if one spouse has committed adultery; it is highly likely that divorce is permissible in the case of abuse. For any other reason—“irreconcilable differences”, “falling out of love”, or whatever—no divorce would be permissible.

“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply, ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” (5:33-37, ESV)

Here, Jesus tells them that they should not make oaths. Jesus here makes an interesting point—oaths are meaningless, and have a subtle unrighteousness in them. As He brilliantly points out here, you often have no control over whether the oaths that you make are achievable, so while they may sound important they are not really adding anything to your statement. Saying, “I swear on my mother’s body” doesn’t really add any validity to your statement—for you have nothing whatsoever to do with your mother’s body, whether you say the truth or a lie. Worse, as Jesus points out: if you have to swear an oath for someone to believe you, then does this not imply that you will lie if you do not swear an oath? Consider our legal system—people swear on the Bible because somehow we believe this will transform them from liars to honest.

Again, Jesus sets a higher standard here: do not be honest only in contracts, but in all things. Let your ‘yes’ always mean ‘yes.’

A personal dislike of mine is the prevalence of church covenants today. The only one I have ever signed—and the only type I intend on signing—was one which basically simply said that I believe in the core doctrines of the Church and will try to live by them. Anything more would be, per Jesus above, wrong.

Your covenant with God in the New Birth is the last oath you ever have to make.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other one also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” (5:38-42, ESV)

Few passages of Scripture are as powerful, or so succinctly capture what Jesus was all about, than these four verses. Think of the additions to our language alone—phrases like “turn the other cheek”, and “go the extra mile” are simply part of our common tongue now, having been said here thousands of years ago.

Now let us start by saying—eye for an eye was a pretty bold and just law, and it is right for it to be in the Law. It restricts payback for an offense to be proportional to the crime committed. Before this, you could repay crimes however you saw fit; after “eye for an eye”, you could only repay crimes to the limit that you were yourself wronged. So the law is good—indeed, today we have a similar law against “cruel or unusual punishment”, which is addressing the same concern.

Reading in the context of our past verses, you see that Jesus isn’t saying that “eye for an eye” goes away—far from it, He is saying that His followers must be held to a standard above that. Eye for an eye is the letter of the law…turn the other cheek is the spirit of the law.

This has broader implications than just laying down during a fight. What Jesus is really saying here is that when someone wrongs you, do not seek the compensation you are legally owed; instead, serve that person even more.

It is about serving those who wrong you, loving them, forgiving them—rather than “getting yours” back. That is why He includes in the same topic being beaten, sued, kidnapped, and begging from the poor. He is showing that your perspective should not be about “getting what’s rightfully mine”, and instead, “How can I give what is mine to everyone else?” And in particular, Jesus tells you to focus that energy on serving the one who is evil and doing wrong to you.

So to use a modern application: let’s say your neighbor’s teenager is learning to drive and destroys your mailbox. The neighbor offers, rightly to pay for the damage. Jesus would say not only should you refuse, but you should look at how you can help them! Do not seek out repayment for ‘wrongs’ done to you just because they are legally allowed; instead, try to be a servant to all.

What a bold, bold statement. And it’s about to go to a whole other level.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (5:43-48, ESV)

Let me start at the end—“You must be perfect”. Some, in their attempts to institute a Christian Law and deny grace, take this out of its context and make it about works-based righteousness. Clearly, the context here forbids that. When Jesus is speaking of being perfect here, He is tying it to the fact that God shows love to both the good and the evil. That is the way in which we must seek God’s perfection—in our love and service and forgiveness to all. So please stop saying that Jesus said “be perfect” in terms of righteous behavior; He says you must be “perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect” with regard to forgiving your enemies. That is the perfection He extols.

Is Jesus saying that it is wrong to hurt your enemy? No. He did not come to destroy the Law. Instead, He is saying that there is a better spiritual place: to love your enemies, to pray for those who persecute you.

My thoughts cannot help but go back to September 11, 2001. That day was transformative for me, so whenever I think of being persecuted by evil men, I think of the terrorists attacking the Twin Towers. How did I respond? How did others? By and large, the Christian response was not one of love or prayer for the terrorists and their funders. Most of us sought vengeance. Others sought safety—but were okay with silently allowing the vengeance of others. We were wrong. How might things have been different if we as a nation had collectively mourned our losses, improved our security at home, but most importantly routinely prayed for the Muslims who so hated us? Did our actions inspire more hatred or more love? It is certainly something to consider, when we discuss foreign policy. I am not saying that Jesus was a pacifist—but I am saying that not going to war should be the Christian default, and only when the calling is clear can we consider it otherwise.

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (6:1-4, ESV)

If you think that Jesus is being symbolic when saying that people sounded trumpets before them, you are wrong. In the ancient world the gap between the rich and poor was so great that free-market economics did not function. There was no way to fund public buildings like gymnasiums, schools, temples, and the like unless a wealthy person paid for them for the community. And such people—patrons—would parade through the streets at grand openings and the like, trumpets blaring, so that the people could give him their reward: their loyalty and public praise as a great man.

Well, Jesus did not like it. Not one bit. This statement may have been as shocking to His first-century listeners as “love your enemy” is to us. That was how client-patronage worked: the patron (who had everything) gave something to the client (who had nothing), so it was only right that the client paid him back by giving him public praise in a parade or when voting or the like. Jesus here is not saying you shouldn’t give them praise—He is not talking to the client who received, but the patron who gave. To the patron, He says: you should give quietly, expecting no praise from man, so that you can receive praise from God.

Why? Because again, the heart is what is important to Jesus, rather than the action. Giving money is all well and good. But why did you give it? To please God, or please men? If it is to please men, then you will tell men about it, and seek their praise rather than God’s. And you will have it, Jesus says—but only it.

What Jesus does not say here is, “Do not give to charity.” In our selfish day—where we in America account for over half of the world’s wealth—Jesus’ assumption here that we will all give generously is by no means a reality. We must all start giving much more sacrificially than we do: and not go around telling people about it in order to get praise.

Conclusion

In this section, Jesus has expounded for His hearers on the Mosaic Law, and set the stage for the introduction of grace to the world. The New Covenant is of course not yet in place, but still Jesus is showing that the spirit of the Law and the way the Jews had tried to follow the letter of the Law do not match.

Recall that during His introduction, Jesus told the audience that the Jewish people had lost their influence in the world, and this section we discussed today is why, according to Him: because they lost the meaning of the Law and tried to only adhere to its letter. They avoided murder when they were supposed to be avoiding anger. They avoided adultery when they were supposed to be avoiding lust. They embraced Roman concepts of easy divorce, when they were supposed to divorce only for the most extreme of circumstances. They agreed to oaths, when they were supposed to always be honest. They sought revenge when they were supposed to be seeking peace. They hated their enemies when they were supposed to be loving them. They gave to charity for the sake of men, when they were supposed to be giving for the sake of God.

That is why they lost their influence, Jesus said: they tried to follow pious rules, but forgot the spiritual grace and mercy and love that undergirded those rules.

I said at the beginning that Jesus was speaking here on the Mosaic Law, and He was. But do you see how applicable His points are to us today? Do we not, having been given grace, fall back into the exact same pattern of trying to follow God’s commandments while giving no thought whatsoever to the spirit of the rules? Have we not embraced legalism in modern Christianity just as much as the Jews embraced it in the Law? And have we not lost that same love for God and man that is supposed to be informing all of our actions?

Women's lib and stay-at-home moms

2012-01-18T11:10:00.000-06:00

There was recently an interesting post about re-entering the workforce by a woman over at Her.menuetics blog. It got me thinking about the topic of the feminism movement and stay-at-home mothers. (Full disclosure: my wife, a brilliant CPA, has chosen to stay home and homeschool our 6 year old.)

Let me say what too few Christians do: that the women's liberation movement, from Susan B. Anthony down to today, has been marvelous and wonderful for humanity. The treatment of women in Middle Eastern countries and third world countries today is deplorable, and it is hard to remember that, not too long ago, this was a standard. Further, as a hiring manager, I have found that women bring amazing diversity to the team and have enjoyed having women work for my teams in the past. One of the best engineers I've ever had--with whom I still keep in touch, though she has moved on now--is a woman who was bright, thorough, and an excellent communicator. So I fully support any woman who wishes to work, and think it is a crime that they are not compensated as well or highly as their male peers.

Now, all of that said...the feminist movement unfortunately has begun to attack any woman who is not "advancing" their cause. And that is unfortunate.

Women's liberation frees women to enter the workplace--as it should. But in no way should it obligate women to work. We are blessed that I was promoted and my wife could afford to stay home and invest in raising our children. It was her choice, not mine (if anything I was a bit hesitant at the beginning). But she found that she was much more interested in assuring that our kids got a top-rate education and spending time with them than she was doing someone else's taxes. She loved her work and was great at it--but she chose, of free volition, to do something else.

Why is that a bad thing? Yet to hear many feminists speak, my wife is somehow a traitor to the cause. Her decision to stay home means that employers trust other women less, pay them less, etc.; or, some say, she is wasting her considerable talent.

(Of course, my wife responds--what is a better use of her talent? To help an already-rich client save a few thousand dollars on their taxes, or to help our children have good morals, a loving home, and a good education?)

The broader point is that women's "liberation" has begun to reduce the liberty of the woman: it was once only acceptable for a woman to stay home and be a homemaker; now it is only acceptable if you do not stay at home and be a homemaker. Do you see, then, that the lack of liberty is the same in each situation?

One argument that I have heard is that the work a woman does at home is less valuable. If you press them on this, they will say that it is less valuable because it does not produce income. What a silly argument...do you think my company pays me because my job is valuable? No! It is me--the employee--who makes the job valuable or invaluable; they pay me because otherwise I wouldn't give them my talent. They have to pay you to come to work, because otherwise you wouldn't show up on Monday. My wife doesn't get paid to stay home, because she loves staying home. No one has to pay her a salary to make her choose to do it. Do not misunderstand: your salary exists for no other reason than to provide you enough incentive that you will show up to work when you otherwise wouldn't. So the lack of pay has nothing at all to do with whether your work is valuable, but everything to do with incentivizing you to spend you time at the company; the very fact that they have to pay you to create that incentive inherently shows that you find it less valuable than staying at home.

I for one am thrilled that my wife chose to stay home and invest in our children. And I will be completely fine and supportive when (if) she decides to re-enter the workplace. But we CHristians should help the feminists remember that point of women's liberation is truly to liberate them--not to exchange one set of shackles for another. So instead of degrading stay-at-home moms,feminists should be extolling their virtues, and showing them for the wonderful, self-sacrificial, loving caregivers that they have chosen to be.

The Teachings of Jesus (I), Week 3: Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount Introduction (Mt 5:1-20)

2012-01-16T09:56:00.003-06:00

As we finally begin to get into the meat of Jesus’ sermon on Mosaic Law, He begins with an introduction. Jesus’ introduction to His sermon on the Mosaic Law can essentially be broken down into three parts:

1. Conveyance of blessings (Mt 5:1-12)
2. Context for the sermon (Mt 5:13-16)
3. Purpose statement of the sermon (Mt 5:17-20)

1. Conveyance of Blessings (Mt 5:1-12)

Jesus first begins, as many Jewish sermons did, with a conveyance of blessings on the crowd.

“Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’ “ (Mt 5:1-12, ESV)

As one our church’s pastors recently shared during a sermon, it is interesting to note that if you were to make a list of “evidences that God has blessed you”, you would probably come up with the exact opposite of what Jesus says above. You say that you are blessed because of comfort and no deaths in the family and living in a peaceful nation, and freedom of religion. Jesus says, you are blessed when you are mourning, when you are persecuted, when you are lacking in power, when you have to make peace during times of trouble.

A few comments are valuable here, as many Christians get wrongly anxious about this passage.

First, a word about blessings. Very rarely does Greek literature outside of the Bible use a term like blessing; it is largely a Hebrew concept. To be blessed by God meant that God was showing you favor, loved you, conferring grace upon you. It meant that God was providing for you in a positive, active way.

Second, what Jesus did not say is, “This is the only way to be blessed.” He does not say, “Go and become these things so that you can be blessed.” To draw that conclusion is a logical fallacy—Jesus says, if you are these things you are blessed; this does not imply that if you are not those things, you are not blessed.

Third, Jesus makes no commands here at all. He is simply stating a fact—people in this condition receive blessings. God takes care of these kinds of people and shows them love. As a typical Jewish preacher, He is blessing the crowd—even if it is a bit of an unusual blessing.

Fourth, his listeners would have been just as surprised to see this list as you and I. This is a very non-typical blessing. If you look at Acts 14:8-20, for example, when Paul is telling his listeners to count their blessings from God, he names things like joy, food, and a good living (healthy crop production). You see similar lists elsewhere in Scripture. The first century was not so different from our own; and just like today, if a set of believers gathers together to count their blessings, you are much more likely to hear a list of things like, “I have a good job” than “I got laid off”; or “I have a great family” than “I just suffered a miscarriage”. Few people would see these as blessings, despite what Jesus says here.

That is, I believe the entire point of Jesus conferring blessings in this manner. The crowds who followed and surrounded Jesus were not people with comfortable lives who wished to maintain the status quo. Jesus was nothing if not revolutionary. First-century Jews sought the Messiah—a person whom they (wrongly) supposed would overthrow the Roman government and set up a new, dominant Kingdom of Israel—and they hoped Jesus was the person. It is those who desired massive change—either due to famine, or poverty, or mourning, or powerlessness, or sickness—who sought out Jesus.

And so, as Jesus looked out over those huddled masses of the poor and cast-offs of society, what blessings did He offer? He did not promise a change at all, did He? Rather, He pronounced them blessed in their current state. Jesus is saying that those qualities which most people wish to avoid in life, God is actually blessing them even in that state. As my friend Josh Hurlburt (who knows the pain of mourning) has said, “God does not bless you in spite of mourning; He blesses you through the mourning.”

After all, do not forget—the roles of mourner, peacemaker, persecuted, and meek are precisely the roles that Jesus Himself demonstrated during His life. So it should not be surprising that, though it makes little sense to us as humans, it is through these times that we see as suffering that God works His mightiest blessings.

(Aside note: I would like to make one further comment, which has little relevance to the subject of Jesus’ post, but which reaffirms the interpretation that Matthew arranges his teachings topically rather than chronologically, as most scholars agree. Notice two things here. First, if this Sermon happened immediately after His baptism and temptation in the desert, where did all of the crowds come from? He already has a massive following by the time of this sermon. But second, and more importantly—notice His last blessing: “blessed are you when others revile you…on my account.” If this was truly Jesus’ first major teaching, how could any of His followers have been reviled and persecuted? Clearly this collection of teachings is something which spanned His ministry, not something which occurred only once, right at the beginning.)

2. Context for the sermon (Mt 5:13-16)

Having conferred His blessings on the crowd, Jesus says the following to His (entirely orthodox Jewish) audience:

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.“ (Mt 5:13-16, ESV)

This can be considered a statement of the purpose or context of Jesus’ talk. He is about to begin a discussion on the Mosaic Law, to a group of first-century Jews. He refers then to their special place as the Chosen People of God.

Jesus points out that as the Chosen People, the Jews were meant to show God’s glory to the rest of the world, and uses a few analogies to demonstrate it. Like salt, Jesus says, the Jews should be adding flavor and preserving the world. Like a city on a hill, their special status should be visible to all the world. Like a lamp, they should be showing their status to the world.

Implicit in this statement is that Jesus is telling His listeners that the Jewish people have lost their status as a leader among the nations, but instead they were a forgotten afterthought—salt without taste, or a lamp hidden by a basket. Instead of being a shining beacon of God’s power, Israel had become a minor, unimportant province on the outskirts of the Roman Empire.

(Aside note: This section is often taken to refer to Christians (as in the kids song, “This little light of mine”). And that gives me a great opportunity to share that although the Sermon on the Mount is written to Jews on the Mosaic Law, it does have a tremendous applicability to Christianity. Perhaps nowhere in Scripture is the Christian ethic and “spirit” of the Law as clearly stated as in the coming chapters. So though I will speak to Jesus’ primary and present audience throughout this passage, do not mean that this makes it somehow less applicable to the modern Christian—just in slightly different ways and contexts.)

So here, Jesus tells them that Judaism is not where it is supposed to be, and that its influence is lost in the world. This provides a good context, as in the coming passages He is going to tell why they have lost their influence, and how to fix it. So remember this context as you read the coming passages where Jesus expounds on the Mosaic Law—much of what He says is within the context of explaining why and how the Jews have lost their influence in the world.

3. Purpose statement of the sermon (Mt 5:17-20)

Having conferred His blessings on the crowd, and given the context of the modern Jewish state, now Jesus tells the crowd the purpose statement of the sermon:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:17-20, ESV)

Here, Jesus makes His purposive statement, His thesis of the teachings that He is about to give on the Law. He states that the Law is not being abolished, it is being fulfilled in His teachings. Based upon this passage, I see no way around the fact that the Mosaic Covenant remains in effect for Hebrews until the end of time.

Jesus in fact states that not only is He not relaxing the Law with the coming sermon, He is increasing it—He is asking for things that the scribes (Sadducees) and Pharisees are not even achieving today. He says that what He is about to say reinforces and fulfills the Law’s demands by God.

Summary

Jesus begins His teachings on the Mosaic Law with a very clear, well-organized approach. He begins by conferring blessings (which we typically call the Beatitudes); then He provides the context of His sermon (the Jews have lost their planned influence in the world); and then He provides the purpose of the sermon (to fulfill the Mosaic Law, not to overturn it).

Next week, we will get into some of His specific teachings on the details of the Mosaic Law.

The Teachings of Jesus (I), Week 2: Jesus on the Mosaic Law (Mt 5:1-7:29)

2012-01-09T08:53:00.004-06:00

As mentioned last week, the first major section of Jesus’ teachings are focused upon the Mosaic Law. In the next five weeks, we will explore each section of these teachings. First, though, a few comments on the contextual background before we explore Jesus’ teachings on the Mosaic Law.

The Law at the time of Jesus

In general, Jesus’ sermon can be taken in five parts: first, an introductory statement (beatitudes, salt and light, etc.); then He teaches on the Mosaic Law’s statements of treating others; He then talks of one’s relationship to God; and then wraps up with final comments and a statement of His authority to say such things.

It is important as we embark upon the coming weeks’ study to have a slight introduction to the Mosaic Law, and how it was seen in Judaism at the time of Jesus.

The Law of Moses was first given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, with God delivering the Ten Commandments and the teachings throughout the book of Exodus and Leviticus. It is most clearly formulated in Deuteronomy (which literally means the “second telling” of the Law).

By the time of Jesus, the laws of Moses had been divided into 613 individual commandments, or mitzvah. Of these, 365 were negative commandments (“thou shalt not”) and 248 positive commandments (“thou shalt”).

The Law was seen as extremely important by the Jews. The Jews were set apart by God based their selection into holiness by God. However, the relational aspect of holiness was insufficient; to go into God’s presence, to participate in holy rituals, and to ensure God’s blessings on your life, you also needed to be in a place of ritual purity. If you could not adhere to the 613 commandments (as most Jews did not, being strongly Hellenized by the time of Christ), then significant purity rituals (such as baptisms) were required to bring one back into a state of purity before God.

To understand everything that Jesus said in this passage, though, you must understand not just what the Law is, but a bit about the philosophical parties in Judea at the time that He taught. There were three groups of note that we should be introduced to before starting our investigation: Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes.

The Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes

The most obvious and frequent opponent of Jesus were the Pharisees. The term “Pharisee” means ‘separatist’ or ‘set apart’. The Pharisees saw the merging of Jewish culture with Hellenized Rome, and feared the end of what it meant to be Jewish. Thus they emphasized an ethic of Jews setting themselves apart from society completely—they emphasized that Jews should be keeping all of these ritual purity laws, all of the time, even outside of the Temple (whereas most Jews only attempted to do so on holy days and in preparation to approach the Temple). Thus the Pharisees were extremely pious, extremely legalistic, and extremely knowledgeable about the Scripture and the 613 commandments of their faith.

In that regard, perhaps the best modern analogy I can draw is to say that the Pharisees had a similar approach to cultural engagement as the fundamentalist Christians do today—the Pharisees believed, as do the fundamentalists today, that the best approach to win the “culture war” is to maintain a strict purity and strict separation from the prevailing culture of the day.

It would be wrong, however, to assume (as we often do) that the Pharisees were unpopular: in fact, they were by far the most popular of the Jewish philosophical classes. They were generous, wise, and extremely active in social justice—they truly did try to follow the 613 commandments. But because of this, they were also quite rigid, xenophobic to the extreme, and quite holier-than-thou. They invested a great deal in the Law, and as we shall see, Jesus’ yoke of freedom was not among their favorite things to hear.

The Sadducees are the second major philosophical branch of first-century Judaism. The Sadducees were, essentially, a religious-political party of Jews who were exceptionally influential. If the Pharisees were the fundamentalist revivalists appealing to the common man, then the Sadducees were the elites scribes and learned scholars, dictating from their ivory towers.

The Sadducees were mostly comprised of the priestly classes and Jewish aristocrats and royalty; not all priests were Sadducees, but they dominated the priestly ranks. Sadducees typical representated Judea in matters of state, collected taxes for the Romans, led the army, served as leaders of the synagogues, and presided over the sacrifices on feast days.

It is also likely that the Sadducees held a majority of the Jewish Council, or Sanhedrin (though the Pharisees were a strong minority).

The Sadducees are most noteworthy for being what Christians would call completely Arminian—that is, they believed in complete free will of man, and that God does not predestine any for good or evil. They also denied that there was an afterlife, choosing to interpret passages about 'heaven' as literally referring to the skies and planets above us.

Much less powerful than each of these, though still important, are the Essenes. The Essenes was a minor sect, who saw themselves as the remnant of true Israel. They lived in various cities but routinely congregated together. They lived a monastic life, imposing voluntary poverty on themselves; likewise, they underwent daily baptisms as a mikvah for remission of their sins against the Law. It is believed by many that John the Baptist was an Essenes, and the description of him in Matthew fits perfectly with this group. The Essenes were also responsible for preserving the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of the oldest copies of the Bible and other writings from the time that have ever been discovered.

It is interesting how easily these three fit into modern theological parameters of Christianity. The Sadducees were like Arminians to an extreme—they believed that God could never preordain evil and that thus all men were completely of free will; they also interpreted the Hebrew Bible quite literally, and saw references to the “heavens” as meaning the sky and stars above us, rejecting any concept of an afterlife. On the other hand, the Essenes were like Calvinists to an extreme—they believed that God preordained every event, that there was an afterlife with the chosen ones already chosen, and they lived ascetic and morally pure lifestyles. In the middle were the Pharisees, who believed (like most modern Baptists) that we did have some measure of freedom to act, but that God already knows what we will choose; and, like modern fundamentalists, they believed that the Jewish culture should be strictly separated from the modern Hellenistic culture in order to retain its ritual purity.

So, without further ado, I believe we are ready to hear Jesus’ first teachings to the assembled crowd of Jews on the Mosaic Law.

On Elections, II: Why my last post probably upset a lot of people

2012-01-08T10:33:00.000-06:00

So yesterday, I posted that your vote statistically speaking, does not count. It is irrelevant. Whether you are voting in primaries, caucuses, or a popular election, your vote has virtually no relevance on the outcome of the Presidential election. Instead, only your money makes any impact. Your vote this November is as much a part of electing our President as buying a lottery ticket is sound retirement planning.

The biggest interest to me, though, is this: why does this bother us so? It is simply mathematics. We do not get offended by being told that buying lottery tickets is pointless; why do we get offended when being told that our vote is irrelevant? Feels like sacriledge, doesn't it? As though I had told you to sin.

Let me ask you something. If you see someone burning an American flag on television, what kind of response do you have? What about when someone (like former NBA player and Muslim Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf) refuses to stand for the National Anthem? What about if someone says (as did a singer years ago whom I forget) that soldiers and firefighters and policemen aren't heroes? What about if someone says not to vote? Or that the Constitution is an outdated document which should be updated or ignored?

Chances are, you have a very emotional, viceral reaction to these things. I do too. I don't even like having typed them to prove a point.

Why? It is not the actions themselves. We do not care if someone burns a Conferedate flag, or refuses to sing Christmas carols, or says they don't respect any other profession besides the heroic ones.

It is not the actions themselves which upset us: it is the fact that they are applied to our nation that bothers us. That is the offensive feeling. And, at least some of the time, the fact that we are offended so deeply likely belies an unhealthy attachment to this nation of ours.

It is good to be loyal to America. I am. I don't think there are many better blessings to have than to live in this great nation. But when the love and loyalty of your nation moves beyond its appropriate limits, it becomes dangerous. When it moves from appreciation to idolatry, we have a problem on our hands. And for all too many Americans, American nationalism is their real religion.

When this happens--when people stop being loyal citizens of America and begin being worshippers at the Cult of America--problems abound. The Constitution ceases to be a historically brilliant contract of freedom, and becomes holy Scripture, to be followed without deviation for fear of being struck down as 'un-American'. The flag ceases to be a symbol of our unity and becomes a replacement for the Cross as our symbol of freedom. Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin cease to be amazing historical statesmen and become apostles and legendary heroes of myth. Voting ceases to be an exercise in liberty and becomes your required work of righteousness to maintain good standing in the Cult. Civil and military service cease to be sacrificial gifts to our loved ones and neighbors and becomes ministry. The Pledge of Allegiance ceases to be a statement of loyalty and becomes the Creed of the nationalistic religion. The national anthem is no longer a song written about Francis Scott Key being inspired to find the flag still standing after a battle, and instead becomes our holy hymn, as sacred as the Psalms of David. Political parties cease to be philosophically convenient gatherings of like minds seeking solutions and instead become denominations of the Cult--with the hateful infighting, schisms, and counter-productiveness which proves so typical of denominations who have wildly varying theologies.

Question: What percentage of American Christians do you think can recite the Pledge, list the basic concepts of the Constitution, and sing the national anthem? I bet a very high percentage. Now--how many of those same Christians can tell you the basic doctrines of their faith, quote the Lord's Prayer, and sing a psalm or two? Do you see why I fear that "American Christians" tend so often to be Americans first, and only Christians a very distant second?

This is why so many of you were likely offended when I said that your vote didn't count. Because from the time we were kids, we have been surrounded by a culture which all too often turns the legitimate blessing of our great nation into an idolatrous cult. As Paul said in Romans 1, professing to be wise, we become fools--and worship the creation rather than the Creator.

Many wise Christians in the past have argued overtly (and rightly, I believe) for a strict separation of church and state--not in the way that people typically mean it today, where people avoid calling December 25 Christmas, or having a Nativity on public grounds. No, by a separated church and state, we mean that the State leaves the church alone, and the church leaves the State alone, and we Christians thus become free to love God first and above all. Because it is extremely dangerous--and sometimes idolatrous--when our faith starts getting inexplicably mingled up in political processes of mankind. When religious terminology, emotions, and tendencies start being used by politicians with regard to public policy, it has no end but to dilute our faith and confuse our sheep, leading them astray into believing that Constitutional intepretation is somehow as important as Biblical interpretation.

It is critical that, as Christians, we must always be on guard that we do not cease holding the proper view of America. God has blessed us to be here in such freedom, and we should be ever thankful for this. America is a great land, and we are blessed to get to participate in its government--either through civil service or voting or donations.

But what we cannot do, what we must not do, is put our faith in the American cult. Our faith must remain in the Kingdom of God alone. America--even at its best--is a government run of the people, by the people, and for the people. And those people are sinners just like you and I. They are sometimes stupid. They are sometimes selfish. They are far too often power-hungry. They are always operating on limited information. And so I beg you, Christians: do not place your faith in the Federal government (as do the Democrats), or in the State governments (as do the Republicans), or in self-government (as do the Libertarians). Because the one thing I can promise you is that whether it is a President or a Governor or you making the decisions, those decisions are being made by someone who is a sinner and incompletely informed.

Faith is about the transfer of trust, I once heard someone say. So please take an honest look at your life. In whom are you placing your trust? To which institutions do you look to for hope about the future? Is your trust in the Christian Church to reform our world, or is it in electing politicians who see things our way to political office? If you are honest, most of your feel that the best way to "fix" American problems is to elect the right people, isn't it? So do you see then, that your trust is not in God but in our government? Not in the Kingdom but in the nation?

Regardless of who gets elected, you have a responsibility as Christians. The Bible says that we are to pray for our leaders, to respect them, to show them honor publicly, and to be obedient to them. You Democratic Christians, did you do those things when George W Bush was president? Did you show him honor or make fun of him as a fool? You Republcian Christians, do you do those things now that Obama is president? Do you speak honorably of him and pray for his guidance from heaven, or do you call him a Muslim socialist?

The Bible says that you are to show honor to the king--and Peter wrote that about a king who would soon make a martyr of Peter. But he wrote it anyway. You think it is harder for you to be obedient to a President with a different economic view than it was for Peter to be obedient to an emperor who was slaughtering Christian leaders? Please.

If you cannot show honor to the President--regardless of his beliefs--then you have placed your political party affiliation above your affiliation as a Christian. If you do not believe that the best way to make America holy is for the Church to engage its community and give to the needy and take care of the orphan--if instead you feel that electing a godly man or woman is the best approach--then you are demonstrating more faith in government than in God.

So as you go into this Election Year, please keep the Christian perspective about politics. We are pilgrims biding our time until we return to our Kingdom. We can be thankful that God blessed us enough that we get to spend our pilgrimage in this wonderful country. But do not forget your true citizenship. When you became a Christian, you became a subject of God first, and America second. Do not forget that America as a nation will crumble to dust long before your life is over. When a Republican and a Democrat Christian fight and argue and destroy relationships, nothing could be sadder: for they are immortals whose focus and energy should be spent on eternal things, not arguing over this or that bill for a country whose lifespan is but a blink of the eye compared to their eternal souls.

So please: do not ruin relationships over politics. Do not allow yourself to transfer your passion and trust from God to government. Have opinions, participate in the process, fine--that is all well and good. But do not allow yourself to love politics: reserve your love for things which will last forever. Be thankful that America is great; do not let America become sacred to you. Only the Church is sacred among institutions. It will last forever, beyond the end of time. Thank God for whom He places in power, regardless of whether they believe what you believe.

In short: enjoy your layover in this wonderful land. But do not worship at its shrines.

On Elections, I: Your Vote Actually Doesn’t Count

2012-01-06T13:38:00.001-06:00

With the Iowa Caucses coming to a merciful end a few days ago, I cannot help but think about politics right now. After all, we are entering Election Year—that every-fourth-year national event where we all get angry and argue at each other and ruin relationships over how we each will be voting in an election in which we allegedly have the power to choose which of two terrible candidates we hate the least. We will spend the year inundated with debates and campaign ads and pontifications and promises which will never be kept.

And then in November we will vote. A completely wasted effort. Because here is the reality: your vote doesn’t count.

I know what you’re thinking: “Whoa, whoa, whoa. But Michael, MTV says that I need to rock the vote. And they have always proven to be very knowledgeable in the past when it comes to statistical significance calculations.” So I know, I know—I’m crazy. But trust me on this.

Am I saying you shouldn’t vote? Maybe. But not necessarily. I probably will vote this year. Because when you go to the polls often there is some local issue that your vote can actually impact—local referendums for example, or amendments to your state’s constitution, or the election of mayors and aldermen in your town.

But the Presidency is not one of the things upon which your vote has any influence.

Stay with me here.

Let's start by looking at the popular vote. In the 2008 presidential election, over 129 million votes were cast. Mine was one of them, and yours probably was, too. So if we measure your influence on the election, your vote carried an influence of 0.0077 parts per million (ppm). Or, to state it differently, you influenced the popular vote by a rate of 0.00000077%. That is, 99.99999923% of the vote was out of your control.

Let me put that in a few examples for you.

• Your vote had as much influence over the past election as the amount of arsenic that the FDA allows to be in your drinking water.

• Your vote in the last election had 1,300 times LESS influence than the amount of cyanide that your company can pump into the air vents at work without even telling you about it.

• If I took 130 fifty-five gallon drums of water, filled a tanker truck with it, and added two drops of gasoline—would you feel comfortable filling your car with it? Probably not. But the two drops of gasoline had as much influence on the 7000+ gallons of water as your vote had in the 2008 popular election.

• Imagine I took two cars out of all the cars in the United States and made them completely energy-independent. Your vote in the last election had as much influence over the result as my conversion of two cars would have on our fuel needs.

• If you choose not to vote, it has as much influence on the popular vote as one person in a room of 26 loses a single hair off of their head influences the total baldness of the room.

The numbers are staggeringly against the popular vote. Your vote literally has no influence.

But, you say, in the primaries and caucuses—there we can make a difference, right? After all, Romney only won Iowa by 8 votes this year. Eight votes!

Sorry, but no. You see, Romney’s win got him seven delegates. Santorum’s second place finish…seven delegates. Ron Paul’s third place finish…seven delegates. You see, if the caucus is a landslide then your vote is irrelevant because it is overwhelmed by the mass of other votes. If the caucus is a close race (as it was this year), then the delegates will essentially be split anyway, so a win is only good for the candidates “momentum”—it doesn’t really make any difference.

And keep in mind—even if a candidate swept Iowa (as Obama will, running unopposed), it still only accounts for 1% of the delegates who will do the nomination at the National Convention later this year. And now that 1% is split three ways. So no…those 8 votes were irrelevant.

Further, winning a caucus or primary is only relevant if you are still in the race when the Convention happens. In 2008, Mike Huckabee dominated Iowa but was out of the race by convention time; as a result, Iowa’s delegates went 100% for McCain—so literally, the voting did not matter.

Okay, okay. But that’s all popular voting. We use an electoral college. How does that affect it?

Actually it makes it worse.

There are seven states (Alaska, Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Oklahoma) that have always voted Republican by comfortable margins, for the last 44 years. If you are Republican, going to the polls likely makes no difference as the rest of the state who votes will elect your guy; if you are Democrat or Independent, it also doesn’t matter. It is already decided. There are two other states (Indiana and Virginia) that have gone Republican for 9 of the last 10 elections. This accounts for 58 electoral college votes right off the bat. Likewise Texas is a virtual certainty for the Republicans, bringing the total up to 92 electoral college votes just for having the “R” after your name.

Meanwhile, the Democrats naturally lock up California, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont in any given year. So they start out with 139 votes for the “D” after their name. (This year, if Romney is the nominee, maybe he wins in Massachusetts, shifting the starting point total from 139-92 to 127-104.

A President needs 270 electoral college votes to win the election. And so it is that three states in particular (Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania) become extremely important. Together they share 58 votes and can be “swung” from year to year. Add a few other uncertain states and a candidate can lock up the Presidency merely by winning a few key swing states and adding them to the historically-sure thing states.

So for this election, the key swing states are seen as: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Colorado, Wisconsin, Nevada, Iowa, and Minnesota. It is in these 9 states (and their 112 electoral votes) that the entire Presidency will be decided. Lose Florida and Pennsylvania and you nearly have to run the table everywhere else to have a chance.

So unless you live in one of those places this year, then your vote counts even less than we discussed above—because your state is already either decided or irrelevant. And if you do live in one of those states, your one voice is just an insignificant drop in the bucket of the election.

So what does count?

Money.

That’s right, money is the primary factor in who wins the election. Because all that really matters is who can spend the most money in the swing states on ads and travel, and who can hire the best team for organizing and getting the swing state votes. It seems that in the U.S., your money speaks much louder than your vote, and allows your ‘investment’ to be applied in the states where the candidate needs it the most (as opposed to your vote, which is in a state that is probably already decided and thus is useless).

Consider:

• In 2008, Obama raised more than double the money that McCain raised. He won the election by a comfortable margin.

• In 2004, Bush raised 15% more than Kerry, and won a fairly close election.

• In 2000, Bush raised 57% more than Gore, and famously won despite losing the popular vote.

So as demonstrated by the last decade of results and proven dramatically by Bush in 2000, if you have the right money and focus it on winning the right swing states, you will win the election—regardless of whether you win the popular vote or not.

Summary

In America, it is not your vote that counts—don’t let anyone fool you. What counts is your ability to multiply your opinions into gaining thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of votes—and getting them in the proper states (rather than where you live today). And from that point of view, putting your money behind a candidate is far more effective than picking his or her name on a ballot.

So if you love a particular candidate this year (Obama or Romney or Santorum or whoever), them put your money where your mouth is and donate to them. Then stay home on election day while everyone else fights the crowds.

Chance are, I have upset some of you with this post. You will be righteously and zealously angry at me for suggesting to people that their votes are statistically irrelevant, and that they might as well stay home on Election Tuesday unless there is something of import at the local level which is up for election. In our next post, we will explore why my suggestion touches such a nerve…

The "Am"s, Not the "Do"s

2012-01-06T11:37:00.000-06:00

I do make wind turbine blades. I do write a blog. I do lead others. I do attend Grace Church. I do coach my son's basketball team. I do follow football. I do enjoy Doctor Who. I do read a lot of science fiction.

I am a father. I am a husband. I am a child of God.

In the end, life is about the "Am"s--the relationships we have--rather than the "Do"s, or how we fill our days. It is in the "Am"s that you find your purpose, your meaning, your joy.

Make sure your "Do"s don't take away from your "Am"s.

Twin Traps

2012-01-04T11:07:00.000-06:00

On the always thought-provoking Christianity Today women's blog, Her.meneutics, there is a post about the Christian response to "Girl with the Dragon Tatoo". I haven't read the book(s?) or movie, nor do I have a real desire to do so. It hasn't made the cut on my Kindle wish list. So I don't really have much to comment on their blog post per se.

What I loved, though, was one brief statement that the author makes: "As Christians, we too often fall into the twin traps of demonization or idolization."

I wholeheartedly agree. It seems that Christians can only find two approaches to any cultural phenomenon--either we boycott it as unholy, or we fall all over ourselves trying to prove how cool we are with it. I can basically guarantee you of this: choose a somewhat controversial cultural topic, and go read Christian blogs on the topic. Rarely do you hear people speak of somewhat enjoying it, or moderately partaking--it is either "We love it and it's totally a part of our lifestyle", or, "It's from the pit of hell."

Such is our current approach to pop culture, unfortunately.

Why can we as Christians not get psat this hump? Why can we not simply be honest and say, "As a Christian I found such and such offensive, but could see why others like it", or, "I definitely enjoyed it, but could see how someone in the faith might be offended by it", or--the rarest of all!--"Eh, it was okay. Didn't bother me, didn't particularly like it."

The Teachings of Jesus, Week 1: Introduction

2012-01-02T10:25:00.000-06:00

I have decided that I will be starting a series which will explore the major teachings of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. There is a lot of gold to mine here, so we will spread the series out, one post a week. This running series will likely take the majority of the year. I hope that you will join me on this journey to learn more about what the Lord is telling us in these passages.

(I will of course be posting other things, unrelated, with my usual lack of consistency.)

Introduction to the Study
It is important as we begin this series that we all understand a bit of the structure of Matthew's Gospel.

Matthew's Gospel must be understood along two strands--the events of Jesus' life and the teachings of Jesus. The events of Jesus' life (pictured below in orange) are told more or less chronologically. Spread among the biography of Jesus, though, are several teachings of Jesus. Jesus' teachings have been accumulated by Matthew into six topical sections, and these are presented throughout His Gospel.

It seems likely that Jesus taught many of these numerous times throughout His ministry, not only at the chronological points in Matthew's story where they are topically arranged.

Each section of teachings begins with a statement like, "And Jesus, seeing the crowds, began to teach...", and often ends with a statement like, "The crowds were amazed at His teachings...".

This is important to understand, because often when studying verses out of context, we lose in our analysis the topic to which the passage is supposed to be referring--and thus miss its primary point.

The six sections of Jesus' teachings are:

I. Jesus on the Mosaic Law (5:1-7:29)
II. Jesus on discipleship (9:35-10:42)
III. Jesus on the Kingdom of Heaven (13:1-52)
IV. Jesus on ritual purity (15:1-20)
V. Jesus on sin (18:1-35)
VI. Jesus' authority challenged and answered (19:1-25:46)

I created the graphic below to help illustrate the structure of Matthew, and we will use this as a guide throughout our teachings.

On Enginering and Failure

2011-12-31T08:10:00.000-06:00

As an engineer, I frequently have people ask me how such-and-such is not better designed, how the Katrina levee disaster and the Minnesota bridge collapse and the shuttle explosion and other famous engineering failures could happen. Currently I am reading one of my Christmas gifts, a brilliant book called, To Engineer is Failure, by Henry Petroski, a professor of civil engineering at Duke. In it, he says:

Nothing manufactured can be or is expected to last forever. Once we reognize this elementary fact, the possibility of a machine or building being as near to perfect for its designed lifetime as its creators may strive to be for theirs is not only a realistic goal for engineers but also a realistic expectation for consumers.

Petroski nails it here, with some theological implications as well.

When engineers try to design a perfect structure, they will either cluelessly fail at their task (thinking themselves successful) or will be paralyzed by the fact that they are attempting the impossible. While it may seem counterintuitive, the closest to perfection anyone gets in design occurs when the engineer realizes that perfection is unattainable, stops trying to achieve it, and instead is free to simply try and make the design as good as it can be to meet the design requirements.

Life with God is no different. If you try to live a perfect life, you will find yourself incapable of doing so. So you will either blissfully and ignorantly fail while thinking you were achieving your goal, or you would be paralyzed with the impossibility of earning the favor of God. It is only when we admit that we are flawed inherently, that our own perfection is unattainable, that we are able to freely and simply live a life to please God.

The Economist - On Martin Luther and Social Networks

2011-12-22T19:44:00.001-06:00

A fascinating article here on the Economist, in which they discuss how Martin Luther's message spread in medieval social networks in similar ways to a modern viral message in our social networks. Much of Luther's success came from tapping into a shared discontent, speaking in the modern language (unlike his opponents who were using theological Latin), reprinting/"sharing" by friends in distributed towns, and responding to his critics in a back-and-forth to generate interest in the debate.

Lego Harry Potter

2011-12-22T06:42:00.000-06:00

We all recall when the Harry Potter phenomenon started, a few years ago, the big Christian backlash, due to the elements of sorcery. For a while I boycotted it, too, though not for the same reasons: in my typical curmudgeonly backlash against pop-culture teendom phenomenons like Twilight and Beiber, I refused to read the books. But in the end curiousity got the better of me, and once I had read the books, I found them (particularly books 3 and up) entertaining, edifying, and exciting.

Now my boys, at 4 and 6, are of course too young for the movies or the books. But recently, they have begun playing both Lego Harry Potter video games on PS3.

I am quite certain, of course, that many Christian parents would disagree with me exposing my children to this. But last night was a perfect example of why it is valuable.

Throughout the game, they of course knew the basic story--the evil one (Voldemort) had tried to kill Harry as a baby but failed. Then Harry grew up, lived a normal life (for a wizard at least), and eventually battled Voldemort. So when it came to the final level, imagine their shock and horror...when Harry dies. Sacrifices himself willingly to save those around him (the Lego game handled this really well--even without words, the cut scenes made the story clear).

So when my six year old asked, "Is Harry really dead?", I was able to reinforce the Christ-story. I was able to tell them how this story reminds us of a real story from long ago: Jesus' story. The devil tried to kill Jesus as a baby, just like Voldemort attacks Harry. Jesus grew up and lived a normal life, just like Harry did. And just like Harry, Jesus had to die so that the evil one could be defeated for his friends' sake.

My six year old "got it". You could see his little mind putting together the pieces of the Messianic metaphor as I was telling the story. And (I'm proud to say) my four year old immediately saw the implication--"And Daddy, let me tell ya something. Jesus didn't stay dead. So Harry Potter doesn't stay dead either, right?"

They were thrilled, then, to see Harry return and defeat the evil one, and everyone live happily ever after.

This example is just one of many where engaging our culture (rather than separating ourselves from it) is actually very valuable for us as parents. It is a mistake for Christians to separate themselves too much from the world's literature and movies. Because here is the truth: every story that someone comes up with is just a derivation of the one Great Story.

The Messianic Archtype--the hero who sacrifices himself innocently to create a path for the salvation of others--is directly derived from Christ's story, and points to it. Consider pre-Christian literature, which is notably void of this archtype. Yet in modern literature, it is actually difficult for an author (even an avowed atheist!) to write a story which will touch and appeal to us without including at least some of this archtype.

So you see the Gospel, then, it virtually any method of media. You have Harry in the Potter series; Frodo in the Lord of the Rings; Superman; Neo in the Matrix; Mufasa in the Lion King; etc.,

In our increasingly anti-Christian, New Atheist culture, I see these "types of Christ" as a very valuable teaching method. Don't let them pass you by.

A clarification on priorities

2011-12-20T09:21:00.000-06:00

One thing that I do not want to miss, in our discussion yesterday on evolution, is the necessity to distinguish what is important and what is not important.

The commands of our Lord regarding our lifestyles are straightforward: to love God with all our hearts, minds and souls; and to love others as we love ourselves.

Further, as my Essentials page mentions, there are only a few things that distinguish what we believe are the 'keys' to understanding and loving God.

So any investigations you do on age of the earth, evolution, calvinism/arminianism/lutheranism soteriologies, Revelation interpretative methods, etc., are valuable only insofar as they are helpful to strengthen someone's faith in the Kingdom of God. In and of themselves, they have no value.

I mentioned that I am an Old Earth Creationist. If you tell me you are a Young Earth Creationist, I say, "Great." It matters little to me. What is the age of the earth to we eternals? Whether the earth is four billion years or a few thousand years of age, millennia are nothing compared to the eternity believers will live together. Who cares how long the carpenter took to build the hotel we are staying at, when our Carpenter is finishing out our mansion even as we speak?

So please be certain that you do not fall into the trap of making such investigations take on a spectre of importance to you--for in and of themselves they matter little.

Never forget that - what matter is the Triune God, come to earth and raised back from it, offering us redemption for our sins. That is what is key. And we who believe in the God-Man and follow His teachings know that all which is truly valuable in this world is to love God and love those around us.

On Evolution

2011-12-19T10:01:00.001-06:00

I had an engaging discussion with some good friends last night regarding evolution. I have written in the past on evolution and science, and while I recommend you read all of the posts there, I thought I might share some more thoughts on this specific subject in a more easy-to-read, edited post.

When a Christian approaches the subject of evolution, he must do so with great caution. There is absolutely no theory of science which is so divisive between Christians and non-Christians than that of evolution. I think it is absolutely critical (as I have stated before) for Christians to understand at least the basics of why they believe what they believe. They do not have to be an expert, but certainly any college graduate who is a Christian has had at least two or three semesters of science and biology, and should be able to reasonably explain what parts of evolutionary theory they accept, what parts they deny, and why.

So let us understand evolution briefly.

When I look at evolution, I find it useful to break it into three sub-component concepts:

(1) Microevolution/Natural Selection. Microevolution says that, when a genetic mutation occurs in an individual, sometimes that mutation is beneficial—that is, the individual will have a higher likelihood of survival than his peers. So, as long as some other factor does not come into play (natural disaster, plague, predator, etc.), this individual is likely to live longer than his peers and father more children. Thus, his mutation will spread. Given a long enough period of generations, this mutation can become the dominant feature within a breeding population. This process is called ‘natural selection’—which is a bit of a misnomer, since nature is inanimate and does not ‘select’ anything; it would be better termed, “probabilistic dominance’ of a trait.

There is quite a bit of experimental evidence for this—Darwin’s finches, the Galapagos tortoises, numerous experiments done with e coli and other fast-breeding populations. In addition, there is nothing at all in the concept of microevolution which disagrees with the Biblical record. Indeed, speaking as an engineer—it is a wise Designer who creates flexibility in His designs! In engineering we call that modularity, and it is completely conceivable that God could have designed His creatures with modularity so that they could respond to changing environments over the ages. Indeed, there is really no other concept that readily springs to mind for how He could guarantee His creatures a long lifetime on earth.

(2) Macroevolution. Macroevolution is the extrapolation of microevolution—assuming that if this happens on the sub-species level, perhaps it happens on the species level as well. So macroevolution takes all of the evidences in microevolution and assumes that they also apply to species generation (and assumption which I do not find to be warranted). The macroevolutionist looks back at the fossil record and commonality of body styles, and says that microevolution to a grander scale creates the descent of creatures from single-celled organism to our modern man.

It probably goes without saying that macroevolution is the thing which is most against Christian thought. Evolutionists see the fossil record and conclude a common ancestry; creationists see the fossil record and conclude a common Designer. The Bible is quite clear about God’s active role in creating at least families of animals (the “kinds” of Genesis 1 and 2), and is very specific about the creation of man. So macroevolution and the Bible are at significant odds.

(3) Randomness in the descent of man. The third key principle is, ultimately, whether all of these changes have a guiding purpose. Christian scripture seems to completely exclude the possibility that God would allow true randomness—unguided change—to create new species and mankind. Yet evolution is completely based upon the concept of random mutations—no end goal or purpose in mind.

Needless to say, the randomness debate is mutually exclusive between evolutionists and Christian.

Now that we have all had our biological refresher, what does that mean for the Christian?

This statement will no doubt shock some of my readers, but--There is absolutely no good reason for the Christian to reject microevolution (#1 above). This component of evolution is well demonstrated, does not disagree with the Bible in any way, and can also be a great “conversation starter” for the Christian and atheist. Indeed, I see it as a great example of how the Creator-God allowed His creations to continue to thrive in environmental changes that He knew would be coming. So I have no problem with this concept. (Heck, every good engineer knows that a key component of design is giving enough modularity/flexibility that your machine can be adjusted as needed to match future needs!)

However, problems become manifold with #2 and #3 above. In these aspects, Christians are well-justified to reject them. The scientific evidence is unconvincing: you will find that virtually every bit of evolutionary evidence falls into two categories—either it is (A) proof of #1, microevolution, which we do not (or rather, should not) oppose, or (B) it is indirect ‘evidence’ of interpreting the fossil record, rather than a true scientific experimental result.

I will not spend space here going through each of these, but suffice it to say that the evolutionist will struggle mightily to provide evidence of #2 and #3. A few example discussions on #2 and #3 are useful:
• We have purposefully—not randomly—cross-bred dogs for thousands of years, and have yet to create a new species. If we cannot do it with intelligent purpose, how can randomness do it?
• We do not have experimentally demonstrated a method that one species can, through random (or purposeful, for that matter!) mutation, create multiple chromosomes…and yet, different species have different numbers of chromosomes. How? Why? Please demonstrate it.
• Please provide an experimental plan that we can use to predict development of a new species. For example: if I take a breeding population of 10,000 e coli bacteria, place one with such-and-such mutation and let them breed, then in 50,000 generations we will have a new species created, because of X, Y, and Z. (I have yet to see macroevolution take even a baby-step toward grown-up, experimental science such as this.)

But please, dear Christian, before you go into this debate, do me a favor—know your own belief system.

So you want to reject macroevolution? Great—so do I. Now you need to know what you believe. The choices are as follows:

• Theistic Evolution: the belief that macroevolution did happen, but that God “weighted the dice” at the beginning of time so that it would happen according to his guided plan. In my opinion, this is philosophical nonsense. If God controls the mutations, then this falls into “intelligent design”; if not, then it is random, and God by definition can have no impact. So to me, this is not an intellectually achievable position. Please reject it.

• Intelligent Design: this position accepts the fossil record, and may even accept #1 and #2 both above. It declines to accept #3—it says that some outside intelligent agent (God, a god, hyper-intelligent alien forces, etc.) designed life on earth rather than randomness. Intelligent Design does not actually point to a Christian God at all; it is more broad than that, the kind of approach that, say, a Deist, Christian, Muslim, and Jew can all agree with.

• Old Earth Creationism: this position accepts evolutionary principle #1 but rejects #2 and #3. It also accepts an old earth. This can happen in a number of ways. Some versions of old earth creationism (such as the Day-Age Theory or Relativistic creationism) say that the earth aged several billion years in the six days of Genesis 1—this also has the support of ancient Jewish scholars, who said that many eras were included within the days of Genesis. Other Old Earth Creationists use the Gap Theory—that there is a Gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, allowing the earth to be formed before God began working on it. In either case, these Christians tend to accept the findings of geology and astrophysics and microevolutionary biology, but reject macroevolution or the belief in random evolution.

• Young Earth Creationism: this position rejects all aspects of evolution (#1, 2, or 3), and asserts a literal six, twenty-four hour days creation. Thus it also rejects the findings of astrophysics and geology. This has long been the primary belief of Fundamentalist, Charismatic, and even some more mainstream Baptist churches.

(Full disclosure: I am an Old Earth Creationist, who wholeheartedly accepts microevolution and completely—and loudly—rejects macroevolution or randomness in the descent of man. God designed us and actively and individually created every species--or at least, every 'kind', as per Genesis 1 & 2--of creature on earth. There was no randomness above the species level.)

In conclusion, if I am to give you advice before you begin a discussion with evolutionists regarding why you believe what you believe, I give the following advice:

1. Know what you believe. Are you an Old Earth Creationist, a Theistic Evolutionist, etc.? Do you reject all three tenants of evolution, or just #2 and #3?

2. If you are philosophically okay with tenant #1, stipulate that to them early. Let them know that you believe in an old earth, and microevolutionary processes. This will help keep them from seeing your position as irreconcilable to their own. Otherwise they will see themselves as too ‘superior’ to you for your discussion to be of any value.

3. Keep it calm, and to the facts. Let them talk about the evidence—and ask them about specifics: demonstrated experimental evidence, as any good scientist should have. If they have it, ask them if that is evidence for micro or macroevolution. You and they will both be surprised when all evidence falls into the “micro” category, which is completely reconcilable with Scripture.

In the end, I give the same advice I always give on this blog—whether discussing theology or science: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love.”

In your discussion, are you exhibiting Christian love (calmness, non-judgmentalism, but a desire to demonstrate God’s truth)?

In your discussion, are you staying firm on the “essentials” of our faith—that God was an active Creator, that He made man in His image (mind-body-soul), that we fell from our relationship with Him, that He became incarnate in the flesh to redeem us from our sins, that He was truly dead and truly rose from the grave, and that He will return to judge the living and the dead?

In your discussion, are you granting the “non-essentials” in liberty—feel free to believe the earth is as old or young as you want, as long as you agree that God made it; feel free to believe in microevolution or not, as long as you believe it was guided and not random; etc?

Why you should not base your worldview on magicians

2011-12-17T09:44:00.000-06:00

Libertarian, magician atheist Penn Jillette makes the following claim in his new book:

"There is no god...if every trace of any single religion died out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again."

Perhaps I should subtitle this post: "When bad logic attacks". Sometimes I wonder at someone who actually took the time to think this out and write it down and publish it--and yet never see the many flaws in his statements.

If Penn didn't spend any significant time thinking about it, I don't see why I should be any different. So here we go--the major logical and factual flaws in his argument, just off the top of my head:

Fallacy 1. Begging the question: his logic only holds if you assume the initial point ("there is no god") to be true. If there is no God, then he would be right--if religion were wiped out that particular religion would not regrow. But if God does exist, then of course that religion could regrow exactly as it was--for He could reveal it to them exactly the same way. So Penn's argument begs the question--it assumes its initial point to be true. Take away the initial point, and the argument falls apart.

Fallacy 2. Non sequitur: Penn is arguing that if (A) the religion could not regrow on its own to be exactly the same, then (B) God does not exist. In philosophical terms we say that the "it does not follow" (or, in Latin, non sequitur). The conclusion is not at all a requirement of the original statement. There is no reason that God could not create entirely different methods of worshipping Himself. In fact, some people believe exactly that--every religion is a "path" to the same God. (Of course that is rubbish, but it is at least logically coherent, unlike Penn's ramblings.)

Fallacy 3. Definition of science: Penn then goes on to say that science is "true". I don't think he understands what science is. Science is not a thing that can be true or false--it is a process of observing and experimenting to explain the world around us. It cannot be "true"; it is a process, not a thing. It is a nonsense statement--science is a process of discovering something which itself may be true or false. Because he fails to understand that science is not just some individual thing that is true or false, he also does not understand the reality of science--that at any given moment in history, the scientific community's beliefs about the world are filled with falsehood! Take the geocentric model of the universe, which every scientist believed. Ptolemy used real, and good, science in developing his model. Copernicus used good science in making his heliocentric model. Kepler used good science in adjusting the Copernican model to make it work. In each case, the "science" part was equally "scientific". But that didn't make the geocentric model true! If there is one thing we know for certain, it is that many of the things we believe to be scientifically accurate today are wrong, either due to bad experiments or bad assumptions or lack of data.

Fallacy 4. False dichotomy: Penn weirdly sets up the scientific method as the opposite of the existence of religion. Which makes no sense--the rise of science does not logically demand that a God not exist, nor does the existence of a God logically demand that science not exist. A great many scientists, in fact, happen to hold both views simultaneously--and their names read like a "Who's Who" of science history: Newton, Kepler, Euler, Descartes, Mendel, Kelvin, etc.

Fallacy 5. Appeal to probability: Penn assumes that "someone would find a way to figure [science] all out again". Again, due to #3, that statement makes no sense. I assume what he really means is, someone would one day reach our apparently-perfect (in his mind) modern understanding of nature again. Why? Just because something could happen does not mean that it would. Lots of aboriginal tribes have lived for millennia without the slightest interest in science. Why assume that science would grow without religion? (Indeed, Penn should study his history...very few scientific breakthroughs were made by atheists throughout our history. And without the monks of the Dark Ages copying the existing knowledge of the Greeks and Romans, the invention of the press by a Christian, the Protestant Reformation freeing access to all kinds of knowledge, and the works of Christian scientists like Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, etc., we would still be having tea in Europe and watching the sun revolve around us.)

If you had told me, "Hey, a Vegas magician who happens to also be a libertarian and an atheist is about to disprove Christianity in four sentences," I would have expected trite silliness. But Penn caught even me off guard here with the thoroughly juvenile logical processes from an otherwise seemingly clever man. Four sentences, which I read in less than a minute, and I see at least five major gaping flaws in his logic.

Penn has made logic disappear. He is a better magician than I originally gave him credit for.

A trump card against atheism

2011-12-16T14:46:00.000-06:00

I wrote a few days ago about the need for at least a basic apologetic knowledge for all Christians, so that we can give a reason, as Peter says, for the hope that we have that Christ will grant us eternal life. One thing that I failed to mention is that we Christians have an argument which, I believe, is a trump card. Most everyone I have ever met, if they are truly intellectually honest, will eventually be able to see the point of view here.

That trump card is the unfair suffering of people on Earth.

Now that may seem strange. How could innocent suffering be a defense of Christianity, when so many atheists use it as an argument against us?

The key is not trying to answer the question, “Why is there suffering?” If you are going to try to convince someone that, somehow, a miscarriage or a war or a sadistic serial killer or a rape or children starving in Africa is somehow a good thing, you won’t get very far. Such arguments are patently unconvincing to the unbeliever.

But when you are discussing the issue of suffering, it is interesting to look below the question itself. The interesting question is not, “Why is there innocent suffering?”; the interesting question is, “Why am I bothered by the fact that there is innocent suffering?”

Look at this photo. What reaction do you have? I am physically sickened; I feel a pit in my stomach. At times, I am angry. I say that it is patently unfair. I say that these poor children have done nothing to deserve this lot in life. Sometimes I’m even angry at God about it.

I would imagine that most of you have the same reaction. But instead of asking, “How could a good God allow this?”, ask yourself this—“Why does this upset me? Why do I see it as a cause to be angry with, or disbelieve in, God?”

The answer to this question is, simply this: it does not seem fair. That is, no matter what we say on the surface, deep down we all feel that it is not okay for someone to suffer who did not seemingly deserve it. Sure, we can be okay with a person's suffering if their actions brought it about. “They bought their ticket: I say, ‘Let them crash’!”, as the great movie Airplane! says. “They made their bed, now they must lie in it,” we say. But when the person is innocent, we cry that it is not fair.

I could come up with a hundred examples. We feel that when a person with unsafe sexual habits gets AIDS, they have only themselves to blame; when a child contracts AIDS because of her mother’s decisions, we are furious. It isn’t fair. We feel a vastly different compassion level to someone who is homeless because he has PTSD from fighting in Vietnam than toward someone who is homeless because he bet everything he owned on the horse races. If a person is lazy and does not come to work and gets fired, we feel little compassion; if a person is laid off from his job despite being a good worker, our hearts break for him.

Atheists think about these examples of unfair suffering and say, “How can God allow _____, when the person did nothing to deserve it? How can He be a good God, if He exists?”

To which I answer, “What do you mean when you say it is unfair?”

Think about it for a moment. If you are an atheistic evolutionist, then there is nothing at all unfair about suffering. Suffering is simply a cold, random byproduct of natural selection. Some creatures will suffer. Others will thrive, either by chance or by better genes. There is nothing to be upset about or consider life unfair—for there is no such thing as “fair”. Life simply is. Some are born into suffering, some into comfort. That’s just evolution, the natural selection of random genes and the impact of other uncontrolled processes.

If a good man slips on the edge of a mountain and falls off, we may think it tragic, but not unfair. We all know that the law of gravity is simply “the way things are”, so we don’t say it is unfair that gravity applied to him.

Yet we often see situations in which we say, “Such and such person did not deserve this suffering. It isn’t fair.” To say that something isn’t fair or shouldn’t be a certain way inherently implies that there is a standard of righteousness or fairness, and you think that this particular suffering was not in accordance with that rule.

You cannot have it another way.

If you say that you believe in moral relativism, and there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ absolute standard, then your philosophy finds nothing at all wrong with unfairness in suffering—because there is no such thing as “unfair”. Without a moral right or wrong, there can be no wrong treatment. Therefore you cannot use the argument of “wrongful suffering” against Christians—for your own philosophy denies that their suffering is wrong at all! You cannot say out of one side of your mouth that there is no such thing as wrong or unfair, yet say out of the other side that unfair treatment is somehow an argument against Christ.

So if you accept that there is something inherently wrong with rape or serial killing or children starving or Hitler exterminating the Jews, then you must admit that there is a concept of “right” and “wrong”.

And if there is a concept of right and wrong, then you must ask yourself—where did this concept come from?

Perhaps in another post I will address that question. But this is the trump card: the fact that we all find innocent suffering unfair and guilty suffering acceptable indicates that deep down we all accept a concept of universal justice. This point, once considered carefully, completely destroys the concept of a pure evolutionary morality or moral relativism. And once you get to the point that the unbeliever accepts the reality of a universal Law, it is a short step to understanding the Lawgiver; and once the Lawgiver is understood and our failure under the Law realized, then the Gospel can take center stage in their lives.

Trinitarianism and three-dimensional solids

2011-12-14T08:12:00.000-06:00

The last few days we have been discussing Jesus Incarnate—specifically, the hypostasis (fully God, fully man) part of His character, and how this helps define what Christians are, and what we believe. This line of discussion often leads to a bigger mystery of our faith, one that is a stumbling block for many believers and non-believers: how can God be a Trinity? How can He be three-in-one? All too often for such a fundamental tenant of our faith, this is a poorly answered question—because it is poorly understood.

Some use an analogy, like saying that the Trinity is a like a candle flame, which is both a burning wick and light and heat all at once. But this is a poor analogy, at least to the scientist—for the wick, the light, and the heat are all fundamentally separate things (a physical object, a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, and excitement of air molecules, respectively). What we need is a better way of understanding and illustrating the Trinity. And I think I have an analogy which will hold a bit more water and help you understand.

Picture a cylinder—a three-dimensional solid made of acircle extruded up to a given height.

A cylinder has three basic geometric features: two circles (the base and top), and the side is (in a flat pattern) a rectangle which has been curved around to meet itself. These are three faces of the same solid. So you see, the cylinder has three surfaces, which we call its faces—the rectangular side, the circular base, and the circular top. The key point is—these are faces, not components. If, for example, I slide a washer on a bolt and attach a nut, the three items are separate components—they retain their individual identity; the assembly can be removed and separated into its three smaller parts.

But a geometric figure like a cylinder cannot.

Let us further imagine that our solid cylinder shown above is made of metal, and say the height is 10cm tall. Got that picture in your head? Now, let’s try to cut it to separate the circle on the base.

It can’t be done. If you cut the cylinder 0.1 cm from the base, you do not get a circle—you get two new solids: a 0.1 cm-tall cylinder, and a 9.9 cm tall cylinder. No matter how finely you cut it, you can never separate the circle at the bottom from the rest of the cylinder. Likewise,try cutting off the rectangle. Can’t be done. If you slice the entire cylinder right up the long axis, you end up with two semi-cylinders. If you slice 1mm deep all the way up and “peel” off a layer of the face, you still leave behind a cylinder, and the thing you peeled off is not a rectangle, but a rectangular block.

Do you see the fundamental difference between an assembly (like our nut-bolt-washer example) and a solid object? A solid object has different faces, with different attributes, but it is irreducible—it cannot be made into those individual components by any method. Separating the circle from the cylinder is logically and mathematically impossible; likewise it is impossible to have a cylinder which does not have two circular faces—to do so would not be a cylinder at all.

In the same way, God is a Trinity—Father, Son, and Spirit. One essence (hypostatic), but with differing faces which comprise it. You cannot separate Jesus from His Godhood, any more than you can take the circle base out of the rectangle; and you cannot have the Christian God without those three faces, any more than you can have a cylinder without a rectangular face for its side.

Unlike the analogy with the flame, whose sub-components are distinct physical phenomena, a solid cylinder’s very definition requires the two circles and a rectangle, and thus it cannot be subdivided without destroying the essence of what it is.

You cannot have a cylindrical solid with just one circle (it becomes a hollow, non-solid at that point); likewise, you cannot have the Christian God with just God the Father.

You cannot slice a cylindrical solid into two separate circles and a separate rectangle; likewise, you cannot separate the Godhood from the Father, or the Son, or the Spirit.

It is the three faces together which logically make the object a cylindrical solid; it is the three persons of the Godhood together which logically make it God. Subdivision is impossible, for they are of the same essence or substance—just as a metallic solid cylinder can never be anything else without destroying its very nature.

The Cylinder Incarnate
Okay, now is where it gets more fun. What does it mean that God became incarnate in the man of Jesus? It means that one face of Jesus was known. As Josh pointed out in our post a few days ago, one question that some have is—if Jesus was God, why did He (while a man) have to learn things, have to ask questions, be limited by space-time, etc.?

One way to picture that is to use our cylinder analogy again.

Let us say that there is a race of two dimensional creatures called Flatlanders (to borrow from one of my favorite math books), living on a piece of paper in front of you. This race is comprised of Triangles and Circles and Squares and the like—but of course no solids, because they live only on a flat piece of paper. Now imagine that we place our cylinder (we will call him Mr. Cylinder) on top of the paper, so that it touches their world. What would they experience?

Well of course, the beings on Flatland have no concept of a third dimension called “height.” They cannot picture a cylinder, nor can it be described to them. Think about it—how would you define height to a two dimensional creature? “It’s kind of like "north” and “south”, but in another direction that, um, you can’t see…”. You’d sound like a crazy person.

No, they would only be able to see one ‘face’ of Mr. Cylinder—the face that was directly touching their world. What they would clearly see before them was a Circle-man, just like them—the other dimensions and faces of the cylinder would remain impossible to comprehend.

So, they see this Circle-man, who calls himself a Cylinder (a meaningless term to them). He lives among them for a while. Now, our cylinder of course still has access to the third dimension, right? After all, most of Mr. Cylinder is still in the third dimension, as it sits on top of the paper! He did not cease being a cylinder just because the Flatlanders could only perceive of one aspect of him.

However, Mr. Cylinder is limited somewhat, isn’t he? Not only can he not describe the third dimension, but what happens if he tries to move around in it? Well, if he moves “down” into the paper, but remains touching the paper, he will still just look like a Circle-man; they will see no change or evidence of his miraculous nature. But if he moves up off of the paper…then what will they see? Only him disappear! He will vanish. Then if he touches down on another part of the paper later, what will they think happened? That he teleported, I suppose…or died and was resurrected.

You see, if Mr. Cylinder is to interact with the two dimensional creatures of Flatland, he is restricted by their restrictions, even while maintaining his nature as a cylindrical solid.

In the same way, when Jesus became man, a face of God was literally among us. That is why, as Jesus says, when you looked upon Him you literally saw the Father (just as our Circle might say, “If you look at me you are literally seeing Mr. Cylinder”).

But just as the part of our cylinder touching their world is “bound”, as it is, to their form—unable to use the third dimension, but forced to move along the two-dimensional space of Flatland—so too was God somewhat “bound” by His attempt to be with us. By becoming man in Jesus, but retaining His Godhood outside of our world, Jesus was bound by everything that binds men—time and space, biological growth and maturity, illness and death, emotion and suffering, and entropy (decay). This is how He can both simultaneously be God, and yet not know everything that God knows (“only the Father in heaven knows…”).

To summarize, I think it best when thinking of God that we remember that the early Christians were very careful to say that Jesus, God, and the Spirit are all consubstantial—of the same substance. Just as a cylinder is all one substance with three faces, so too is God one substance with three Persons.

If we think of God that way, we find many of our problems with Trinitarianism and Scripture going away. We understand how God can be three-in-one; we understand how Jesus can be both God and man simultaneously; we understand how Jesus was bound by His manhood for our sakes.

So all of this helps explain who God is, and how He became man.

Do not forget why He became man.

Why did He do it? Why restrict Himself at all for us—people who have either ignored Him, or yelled at Him, or rebelled against Him throughout history? Because of His love for us, undeserved and unending. He humbled Himself for our sake, coming down to our level, meeting with us, so that He could build for us a path back to Him for eternity.

This is what the season of Christmas is about. The resurrection of Jesus, which we celebrate at Easter, is an amazing miracle. I can’t help but think, though, that God-becoming-man remains the most astounding thing He ever did for us.

What is a Christian? Councils, Creeds, and 25 Doctrines

2011-12-13T13:01:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I shared a great sermon from a friend about the humanity of Jesus, and why this is critical for us to understand as Christians. In this sermon, he talks about the hypostasis of Jesus—that is, the human and divine natures combine into a single essence, one Person, indivisible as it were.

Failure to understand this is, as Josh mentioned, one of the fundamental ways that people have gotten wrong ideas about who Jesus is in the past. And he well described the result to our Christology if we have a God-only Jesus; I’m certain we all agree that a human-only Jesus is equally un-Christian.

Now as you probably know, I happen to be one of those Christians who think it important that all of us at least understand a bit of our history. Neither God, nor His church, is defined by the boundaries of time. We are a universal body of Christ—both spread across time and space; so that a second-century Egyptian Christian is every bit as much a part of the body of Christ as a modern Indian or American Christian. We are all part of the kingdom, playing different roles at the times and places where God has placed us.

It is sad to me, then, that the majority of even well-educated modern Christians are completely clueless about our history, where our theology comes from, and why we believe what we believe. No, the situation is worse than that: most Christians today are not even sure what being a Christian means. This is a common argument between different Christian groups—how do you define a Christian? Is the (seemingly) repentant Catholic convert Newt Gingrich equally Christian as the (seemingly) highly moral Mitt Romney? How do you define a Christian? Is it anyone who claims the name? People who act like Christ? (If so, we will have a small church indeed!)

If you begin looking at the history of the church

and her early councils and creeds, I think that a few things become clear. First, nothing major divided the church prior to the council of Ephesus in 431. So the findings of the two key councils before then—Jerusalem and Nicaea—can be taken to be certainly agreed upon by all of those who call themselves Christians. Furthermore, so many who adhere to these early creeds—both now and historically—hold theologies incompatible with the Lateran and post-Lateran councils; so I think we must reject those as not necessary to be a Christian. So the real question comes with the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon in 431 and 451, which split off the Assyrian and Oriental Orthodox churches. Are these required to be Christians?

I hesitate to say so, but I think that we must answer in the affirmative. The overwhelming weight of scholarship throughout history, the overwhelming weight of Scripture (at least as I can understand it), and the overwhelming weight of theology seems to agree in the full dual nature of Christ, and thus we must take this too as a prerequisite of our faith.

Therefore, I say that we may confidently create a litmus for someone claiming to be a Christian. The theologies set forth by the four most critical early councils—Jerusalem (50), Nicaea (325), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—seem to be the foundational, shared beliefs that define the boundaries of our faith.

CS Lewis once referred to Christianity as a house with many rooms—an Anglican room, a Catholic room, a Baptist room, and so on. I think that is an apt description. And if so, then let me say that these four councils mentioned above are the covenants, if you will, that define membership into the club. Belief in these is what gets you into the house, within which you can interpret Scripture and tradition and choose the room you believe to be most appropriate.

So combining the findings of these four councils, I make the following list of the bare essentials to believe in Christianity. These are the formal dogmatic statements which provide the minimum requirements to rightly call oneself a Christian:

1. We believe that all people can be followers of Christ.
2. We believe that Gentiles are not bound by the Mosaic Law.
3. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty.
4. We believe that God created all things that are visible or invisible.
5. We believe Jesus Christ, the Lord, is the only Son of God.
6. We believe Jesus was not made by God but begotten by Him.
7. We believe Jesus Christ is God just as the Father is God.
8. We believe Jesus is made of both the same substance of God and the same substance of Man.
9. We believe Jesus was truly fully man and truly fully God simultaneously, possessing a soul and a physical body.
10. We believe the two natures of Jesus were inseparably combined in the same person, not parted or divided, nor was nature one superior to the other.
11. We believe that all things made by the Father were made through the Christ.
12. We believe that Jesus was made incarnate in human flesh and became a man.
13. We believe that Jesus was born to Mary, a Virgin.
14. We believe that Mary was the Theotokos, and truly bore God in her womb.
15. We believe that Jesus became man in order to bring us our salvation.
16. We believe that Jesus lived a life like us in all ways except that He did so without committing sin.
17. We believe that Jesus suffered and was crucified at the hands of Pontius Pilate.
18. We believe that Jesus died, was buried, and rose from the grave on the third day.
19. We believe that Jesus ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
20. We believe that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead and establish an everlasting kingdom.
21. We believe in the Holy Ghost who speaks through the prophets.
22. We believe that the Holy Ghost is the Lord and is rightly worshipped with the Father and the Son.
23. We believe in a holy, universal Church.
24. We believe in one baptism for the remission of sins.
25. We believe in a resurrection of the dead, and eternal life.

These twenty-five statements reflect the theology that was considered sufficient for most Christians from the death of Christ until the rise of the political State-Church of the medieval period. As such, I take these twenty-five statements to be the basic definition of a Christian—they are essentially the combination of the creeds of Jerusalem, Nicaea/Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon for the first 500 years of Christian history.

Who’s In, and Who’s Out?

So what does that mean? Is the person next to you a Christian?

Let us start by saying this – just because the person next to you is what I will here call a Christian does not necessarily mean that they have professed loyalty to Christ, and received the Holy Spirit in their hearts as a believer. The term Christian has become so broad as to be nearly meaningless; I prefer to refer to those loyal to Christ as Christ-followers, or disciples. So when I say "Christian", what I mean is: do the beliefs of their denomination fall within the boundaries of Christian doctrine? So I am not saying that just because such-and-such denomination teaches a Christian doctrine, that every member is a Christ-follower! Rather, I am evaluating whether the following churches all teach some form of acceptable, Chalcedonian Christianity.

All of the following churches teach the above doctrines; thus, even despite their massive differences, all are “within the house” of true Christianity: Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Presbyterians/Calvinists, all other Reformed churches, Methodists, Baptists, Evangelicals, and most Charismatic churches.

On the other hand, religions such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Christian Science, and Unitarianism are rejected as heretical or non-Christian religions, incompatible with these basic Christian doctrines.

Furthermore, you may use these basic fundamental thoughts in regard to any number of debatable positions within Christianity. Notice that you can believe the earth is a few thousand years old or several billion years old, and still be well within Christian boundaries. You can be a Calvinist or an Arminian and still be equally Christian. You may only read the King James Version or you may read the Message, and still be a Christian.

But the lines that you cannot cross—the things which leave you outside the faith—are simple: the creeds prior to, and including, the Chalcedonian Creed well define what is a Christian.

How sad that few Christians know it.

On the Incarnation – the Humanity of Jesus

2011-12-12T17:53:00.003-06:00

This past Sunday at church, I was blessed to hear a fantastic sermon for this Christmas season. My good friend, Josh Hurlburt, delivered an excellent message as part of Grace Church’s Advent series: “On the Incarnation”. Josh, who is Grace’s student pastor, had the topic of Jesus’ humanity as his part in the series. Below is the transcript of the sermon he preached, which I think should be mandatory reading (or hearing…) for all Christians during this Christmas season. In it, he discusses what we are really celebrating this season—what do we mean that Jesus was fully human and fully God, and why is that important to our faith?

Sermon: “The Hypostatic Union, Part 1: How Human was Jesus?”

Introduction

We are in the second week of a series that we are calling “On the Incarnation.” And the subject that we get to talk about today is a little tricky. Why? Because I suspect that when I bring up the initial subject, which is the humanity of Jesus, most (if not all) of you will think, “Oh yeah, I agree with that 100%. I’m on board with that notion.” But I also suspect that when I start going into detail about how human Jesus actually was, some of you might start getting uncomfortable because I might start messing with your idea of who Jesus is, what He looked like, how He acted, etc. And when you starting messing with people’s idea of Jesus, you are walking on hallowed ground. So I will attempt to tread carefully this morning.

You see, there are two basic ways to err when you are thinking about the identity of Jesus. The first way is that people have historically erred in their perception of Jesus, is to say that He is man, but not really God. They would say that Jesus is a good man, but He’s not really the one true eternal holy God: he’s just a truly great guy, a guru, a spiritual teacher, a liberator, but not God. And Britton [Wesson] gets to deal with this next week [in his sermon on the divinity of Jesus].

The other way people make a mistake, and I would say if evangelical protestants err, (which, if you are a member of Grace Church, that’s what you are) … the way we err is that we will grant you that Jesus was God, but we sometimes we get a little iffy on the details of Jesus’ humanity.

If I were to ask you, “How do you picture Jesus in your mind, as a baby, during this Christmas season (for example), what do you picture?”

I don’t know what you think of, but often times we can think of the incarnation AS it’s presented in Catholic or Orthodox art.

In many of these pictures (like this one here), Jesus is a little freakish. He’s a kid, but often times He looks like an itty-bitty man. Have you noticed that? It looks like a man got washed in hot-water and shrunk down in size. It looks like a Jesus bobble-head of sorts.

And in these pictures Jesus is always very serious and adult looking. If I had a kid like that I’d sleep with one eye open! There’s something wrong with that kid.

And you can always tell it’s Jesus in these pictures, because what does he always have around his head? A big halo. Now, if I read the Scriptures correctly, during Jesus’ lifetime people weren’t sure that Jesus was God a lot of the time. But I’m sure if He had a big fat halo, that they would have figured it out. They’d be like, “Hmmm, which one is the Messiah?... I’m putting my money on the guy with the big glowing halo over his head. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s my guess.”

But you say, “That’s Catholic and Orthodox art,” but we, as Protestants, have it all together. Really? Do we? We sing a Christmas song that includes the lyrics, “The cattle are lowing, the poor Baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes…” What kind of kid doesn’t cry? Every kid cries! They can’t talk; they’re like, “There’s something warm in the back! Uggghhh!...”. They cry. Jesus cried when he was a baby.

And maybe the idea of Jesus crying or messing his diapers makes you a little uncomfortable. If that is the case, then, perhaps, you are a little uncomfortable with the fully humanity of Jesus. Not in a, “I-am- denying-it-kind-of-way”, but in a, “I-believe- in-it-but-it’s-not-something-we-talk-about-kind-of-way”. If that’s the case… then you are really going to hate this sermon. You are welcome to send all your angry emails to bwesson@gracelr.com and they’ll be dealt with appropriately. That’s bwesson@gracelr.com .

With that being said, let’s jump right into today. And if you’re following along in your bulletin, you’ll notice that I’m going to try to do two things today. First, I want to clear up some misconceptions about Jesus’ Humanity; and then, secondly, I want to point out the importance of Jesus’ humanity to us and all mankind. I’ll spend most my time in the first section as the second section will be fleshed out in a couple of weeks by Steve. With that being said, let’s clear up some misconceptions about Jesus’ Humanity.

Clearing up misconceptions about Jesus’ humanity

1. He looked and lived as a real and normal human (Isa 53:2; Luke 2:52; etc).

You and I have all kinds of misconceptions about what Jesus looked like. The most common misconception that we Americans have is what I’ll call, “California Jesus.” He’s got blond hair, blue eyes. He’s tanned, tall, muscular, nice jaw, rugged European looking, etc. You imagine the Sermon on the Mount sounding like this [Keanu Reeves impression] “Dude, the kingdom of heaven is totally like a treasure hidden in a field…”

Another common misconception about what Jesus looked like is what I’ll call, “Pretty Pretty Princess Jesus.” Pretty Pretty Princess Jesus tends to have long hair, wears make-up, has some rouge on his cheeks, and a little eye-liner, has a long dress and opened-toe-sandals, listens to a lot of Elton John… that kind of thing. And it’s hard to worship Him because you can beat him up… even if you are a girl. It’s hard to worship someone you can beat up.

The truth of the matter is we don’t know what Jesus looked like, except it tells us in Isaiah 53:2, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” I have no idea what he looked like, and you don’t either. He might have been as beautiful as Doug Mary [an elder]. But He may not have been tall; he may have been short. Did you know that the average Israelite at the time of Jesus was five feet tall? Bet you never pictured Jesus as five feet tall. He may not have had long luscious hair like Frank; he may have had a receding hairline like I do. I don’t know.

What we DO know is that he was a carpenter, so he was probably in fairly decent shape. He probably had callouses on his hands and probably looked like a manual laborer. He walked around a lot, so He may have been long and lean and rugged.

So, when we talk about how Jesus looked, you should think of a normal looking, Jewish, blue-collar construction worker, going to work with a lunch box, callouses on his hands… . Not an American, not white, etc.

So Jesus looked very normal. He also lived very normal.

Luke 2:52 says, “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” So, he grew up.

He grew up physically. He started off as a baby that needed to be changed, then became a toddler that had to learn how to walk, then because a teenager and probably tried to grow one of those gross teenager mustaches. (You know, where they don’t have enough hair up here to pull it off, but by golly, they’re going to try anyway…) He might have done this, but probably not, because I’m fairly sure growing one of those is a sin and Jesus didn’t sin.

Not only did Jesus have to grow up physically, He had to grow up spiritually. Jesus had a “human religious life.” This may sound strange, and even blasphemous to some of you, but it is nonetheless accurate. He attended worship in the synagogue on a regular basis (Luke 4:16), He had a deep and meaningful prayer life (Luke 6:12), He read the Hebrew Scriptures and meditated on them, and memorized them and applied them to his life.

On top of this, the Scripture shows us that Jesus showed off a full gamut of human emotions. There are the ones you would like, such as He loved people (John 13:23) and He was joyful (John 15:11; 17:13). We all like to imagine Jesus walking around, frolicking in flowers and petting bunnies all the time, so we don’t have problems with this Jesus in our minds having emotions like this.

But, He also had human emotion that we don't like to think about Him having all the time. He was often sorrowful and troubled (Matt. 26:37). He was often angry with people (Mark 3:5), even indignant (Mark 10:14) at some people. He wept tears when He was deeply saddened (John 11:33-35), and He was stressed, especially in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 12:50, John 12:17; Mark 14:32-42). So Jesus had the full gamut of human emotions.

And, while were talking about emotions, let me get on a soapbox of mine and maybe challenge some of your perceptions of Jesus when I say: I personally think that Jesus was a funny guy. I think God wants us to laugh. I think God has a sense of humor. If you don’t believe me, go to Wal-Mart and look at people. God is funny. When I read the Scriptures, particularly the Gospels, I see that Jesus was constantly being invited to parties. That was a big accusation against Him: the religious people said, ”Behold, a gluttonous man, and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners!' (Luke 7:34)

Jesus went to parties, but He didn’t get drunk, He didn’t eat too much, He didn’t end up with a lampshade on his head belting out “George Michael” tunes on the karaoke machine. He could have a great time without ever crossing over into sin. He was a lot of fun. I think that one of the reasons why the religious leaders hated him so much, is that they never got invited to any parties. Because they were no fun at all. That’s the way religious people tend to be. (Except for present company of course. Jud’s no fun, but the rest of you guys are a riot… .) So I personally believe Jesus was a fairly funny guy.

So Jesus looked and lived as a normal human. One hundred percent human, one hundred percent God, simultaneously. Not only that, but let’s clarify something else.

2. As human, He really was tempted, He wasn’t just faking it (Heb 2:18; 4:15; Luke 4; Matt 4; etc).

Hebrews 2 says, “For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:14-18).

As conservative Protestant evangelicals, some of us really struggle with the idea that Jesus was tempted, and our logic goes something like this: Jesus is/was God, God cannot be tempted, therefore, Jesus cannot be tempted. And, if this is your position, you might take me to James 1 which says: God cannot be tempted by evil. (James 1:13).

To which I would respond, to you, “How do you explain all the temptations that Jesus went through, and all the suffering, and the crying, and the hardship?”

You see, if you don’t account for Jesus’ true humanity, you are left with one option: Jesus was faking it. If this is your theology, that Jesus wasn’t really tempted, Jesus didn’t really suffer, etc… then let me answer with an imperfect analogy. You are saying that Jesus is basically like Superman. Let me explain. For those of you who are comic book fans, or have seen the movies, let me ask you: if you were to see Superman on the street, without his tights on, what did he look like? Who did he present himself as? Clark Kent, the mild-mannered reporter. You have Clark Kent: bullets come flying at him, and bad guys chase him, and hardship befalls him, buildings fall on him, and he gets hit by a car and you are like, “Oh No!” But then you remember: he’s not really Clark Kent, that’s just his cover. He’s (duh,duh,duh,duh…) Superman. He’s got a big red “S” on his chest and nothing can hurt him.

Some of have this idea. We see Jesus who “appears” to be a poor Galilean peasant who was suffering and bleeding, and dying, and tempted. But not really. Because underneath Jesus’ peasant garb was…Superman. And if that’s true, Jesus was a faker. And if He faked about being tempted, and He faked about suffering…if He faked about those things… what else did He fake about? Where does it end?

For those of you who struggle with this, let me help you out real quick. I think I can do this real simply. This is the logic you are struggling with:

1. God cannot be tempted.
2. Jesus is God.
3. Therefore, Jesus cannot really have been tempted.

But let me change this up on you a little bit. Let me apply this same logical reasoning to the death of Jesus. If we use your reasoning, we end up with a most unsatisfactory conclusion:

1. God cannot die.
2. Jesus is God.
3. Therefore, Jesus did not really die.

Let me show you where you go wrong. It’s not in your logic. Your logic is impeccable. The problem is in the second line, or your minor premise. You see Jesus is not just God. Rather, He is God in the flesh, the God-man. He emptied himself of his equality with the Father and took on a fully human nature so that during his incarnation, while He remained fully God, he was also not merely God. As a result, you must change your minor premise, and then things start making sense.

1. God cannot be tempted.
2. Jesus is God-man.
3. Therefore, Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, but absolutely remained without sin. (Matt 4:1-10; Heb 4:15)

Jesus really was tempted during his time on earth. How? He was the God-man. He was 100% human combined with his 100% deity.

So, Jesus looked and lived as human. Jesus really was tempted, he wasn’t just faking it. The last clarification we’ll take on today is this:

3. His identity (i.e., His divinity) did not change as a result of the incarnation, His role did (Phil 2:5-11, etc).

Let me explain what I mean by this:

I once watched an atheist rant (rather angrily by the way), about how Jesus couldn’t have been God because Jesus didn’t display all the attributes that God has. God is all-knowing and Jesus needed to learn things and ask questions. God is ever-present, but Jesus was stuck to one time and place and wasn’t ubiquitous or omnipresent. This particular atheist struggled because he didn’t see Jesus as displaying all of the divine attributes that he expected Him to if He was 100% God.

We, as believers, often go to a text found in Philippians 2 when discussing the humanity of Jesus. It says:

“Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! (Phil 2:5b-8)”

The passage says Jesus “took on” the very nature of a servant. He “took on” humanity. He didn’t rid himself of the divine nature. Augustine, a great church father, wrote this quote which I find to be helpful: “Christ added to himself that which he was not, he did not lose what he was.” It’s like me putting on a coat. If I put on this coat, I haven’t stripped off anything else, I am simply adding to what I already was wearing. I am adding to the ensemble that I already sported. In the same way, Jesus took on something additional, on to himself, a role and nature that He didn’t have before, but He didn’t rid himself of the other. By adding humanity, He wasn’t stripped of divinity.

That bring us back to the question that the atheist asked, which is a good question: “If Jesus was simply adding to what He already was, and didn’t shed himself of any of his divinity, how come he didn’t show all the attributes of God (omnipresence, omniscience, etc.)? How do you explain that?”

Let me share with you an analogy to explain this. It’s not perfect, but you’ll get the point.

I’m a father. I’m a dad. And in a sense, I am “lord” of the Hurlburt home. (Lord having a little “l” here.) And in my little kingdom I have two children of my own, and they’re both boys. And when I say they are boys, I mean they are boys. They like to punch each other, pee in the yard, eat meat, they turn everything into a gun, and they sit on the couch in their underwear… sometimes even when we have guests over, which mortifies my wife.

But what my sons really like to do, is they like to wrestle with Daddy. They like to wrestle with me, particularly on Julie and my bed. Miles will stand in one corner of the bed—and I have to announce him, and I’ll say, “In this corner, weighing in at 45 pounds soaking wet, it is Miles “The Monster” Hurlburt.” And he’ll put up his hands and wave to the imaginary crowd. And then I’ll announce myself, “In this corner, weighing in at 190 pounds, is Joshua “The Hairy Old Man” Hurlburt.” And I’ll go “Ding, ding, ding” and right after that, Miles will point to me and says, “Daddy, I’m going to whoop you like a little girl,” and then, we’ll wrestle.

Now, to any father who has ever wrestled their boy: the first thing you have to do is stoop down to their level. When I wrestle Miles I wrestle from my knees. I have to get down on his level. Secondly, most of the time (not all of the time, because I have some pride) but most of the time I let Miles win. He’s on my back, usually in his underwear, beating me with his fists on the back of my head. He will then grab some random part of my body, hold it down on the bed, and say, “3,2,1… I win!

In these moments that I let Miles win, in these moments where I stoop down to his level, in these moments:

(A) I do not cease to be my boys’ father. Just because I let them win doesn’t mean they get to sit at the head of the table and eat the big piece of chicken. I’m still Dad, right? And I have all the rights and privileges as Dad: I’m still the head of the household and get to be in charge of the remote control. My person and position doesn't change.
(B) Secondly, it also doesn’t mean that while we wrestle, I don’t have available to myself all my attributes. I still have all my strength, and power, and terrorizing might, and lightning quick speed... for example. I just chose not to use them on the 7 year old because I don’t want DHS showing up at my door and taking my children. (They usually drop them off with Julie and I, not take them away…). I wrestle with Gabriel at the 8 year old strength level, and I wrestle with Miles at the 7 year old strength level… all the while maintaining my person, my role, and my attributes.

All that is to say: I am stooping down, I am humbling, I am serving, I am identifying with my boys. I am breaking it down to their level. Because I want to be with them, and love on them, and make sure they know that their Daddy desperately is in love with them, and thinks they’re the “bees knees.” (Whatever that means…)

Back to Philippians 2. It says: “Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; “

It doesn’t say He wasn’t equal with God; in fact, it says He was “in very nature God,” but during His time here on earth, He didn’t “use it to his advantage.” “Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! (Phil 2:5b-8)”.

He took on humanity. He stooped down. He humbled himself. He did NOT change His role, lose His attributes, or cease to become in anyway fully God. Britton will elaborate on this next week for you guys. But, if you struggle with this issue, I hope that illustration helps.

The importance of Jesus’ humanity to us

So having cleared up some of the confusion some of us might have with the incarnation, with the fully humanity of Jesus we might have, let me briefly point out why Jesus’ humanity is so important to you and I. Steve will go over this in a more thorough manner on Christmas Eve, but I must hit on three of them briefly as we close here.

The first is this:

1. Jesus’ humanity reveals God to men (John 14:9; Heb 1:1-3a; etc).

God is Holy. God is Other. God is far superior to humans, so much so that He cannot be known by unaided human reason. If God wants Himself to be known, He must take some initiative to make Himself know to humanity.

And God has done that. He shows and communicates Himself to mankind in many different ways. He has reveals Himself through: His works (as recorded in Scriptures), nature, or the world we see around us (Psalm 19:1-6), His Word (Psalm 19:7-14), dreams, visions, and the like.

But, in the Incarnation, in the coming of Christ, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, God revealed himself in a manner that none of these thing can rival. He reveals Himself in such as way that Jesus can say in John 14:9: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”

In God’s mighty works, in the nature He created, in dream and visions, we see hints of God and clues to who He is, but in the person of Jesus Christ, in the hypostatic union, in the Incarnation, we see God Himself: standing before us, offering redemption and restoration and forgiveness.

So, Jesus’ humanity reveals God to us. But not only that—and we at Grace Church are particularly well-versed in the next point.

2. Jesus’ incarnation redeems fallen man (Luke 19:10; Gal 4:4-5; Heb 9:22).

Galatians 4:4-5 says: “When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”

To put it more directly, Hebrews 9:22 says, “Apart from the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins,” and apart from a human body, there could be no shedding of this blood.

We see this when we are at the communion table. When we come to the communion table we are reminded that our salvation has been obtained for us through the shed blood of Christ on the cross of Calvary. There is the bread that symbolizes his body – the human body that “The Word” / Jesus took on, as we discussed earlier, for man’s salvation. There is the cup that symbolizes the blood that was shed for the forgiveness of our sins.

This is the only way that it could have been accomplished: by the Incarnation, by the hypostatic union, by the God-man laying down his life for your sake and mine.

So Jesus’ humanity reveals God to us. Jesus’ humanity redeems us. But it also:

3. Jesus’ humanity aids Jesus as He sympathizes and intercedes for us (Heb 2:17-18, 4:14-16, 7:25, etc).

Hebrews 2:17-18 points out, “[Jesus] had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.”

This connects directly to what we talked about earlier.

Jesus really was tempted.

Jesus really did suffer.

Jesus really was poor.

Jesus really was rejected.

Jesus really was betrayed.

Jesus really was physically hurt.

Jesus really was sad when His close friends died.

Jesus really did get frustrated when evil things pressed in around Him.

Jesus really did feel pressure and had stressors come against Him.

And because of that, He really can and does understand what you are going through. He does have compassion on you. He does sympathize with you. “Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help [us] in [our] time of need” (Heb 4:14-16).

When Jesus ascended into the heavens after His first go-around here on earth, He wasn’t done with us. He continues to work on your behalf. He intercedes for you, continuing to shape you and I into the redeemed, restored, purified, objects of His affection that we were meant to be.

And all this was possible because God decided to take on a human form for the sake of those He loves.

The privacy of religion

2011-12-11T20:32:00.002-06:00

In my experience, when a person says, “To me, religion is a private matter”, what they are really saying is, “Privately, religion does not matter to me.”

I read this time and again when preparing to live in Denmark for a month this fall; and yet, when living there, I found that while all of them would agree that religion was a private affair, not a one of them had ever given a moment’s thought to anything at all religious. The same holds true in America—those same people who are so shy about their private thoughts on religion are surprisingly loose-lipped on politics, business philosophy, foreign policy, science, and basically any other subject. How strange that we modern Americans and Danes live in cultures where talking about drugs and sex is fine for a public comedy routine, yet religion is to be kept as a “private” affair and not discussed in the public arena!

It would be nice if we all would just be a bit more honest with each other, wouldn’t it?

A Christmas Carol

2011-12-10T19:22:00.001-06:00

The other day, I wrote a thousand words about the subject of why I love Christmas even apart from Christianity--the way that even in a secular Christmas, Christ echoes in it.

And then I sit down to read Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and lo and behold, he said what I meant both more clearly and more beautifully in a hundred words than I said in a thousand. I guess that's why he's one of the greatest novelists of all time...and I'm me. :)

With no further ado, courtesy of Mr. Scrooge's nephew:

I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round--apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that--as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

Careers and fairness

2011-12-04T09:56:00.000-06:00

God makes two people.

One He makes confident, filled with business savvy and the ability to speak in public. He follows God's guidance, and ends up the CEO of a major company, earning half a million dollars per year, and living in comfort and ease his entire life.

The second person, God makes shy and introverted, but with a beautiful heart for compassion and personal study. He ends up being a hospital chaplain at a tiny poor town, giving endless compassion to those who are suffering. But he leads a poor life, with frequent worries about money and where his next meal is coming from.

Is God unfair? Both were made in a certain way, and led to certain careers; Both are fulfilling God's will. And the nonbeliever says, "God isn't fair."

The reality, however, is that God is fair...but our life here on fallen Earth often isn't. In the area that really counts--fulfillment of God's plan for their lives--both men are equally successful. And both will receive equal praise and eternal reward for their faith, these two brothers in Christ.

But our fallen world has chosen, for whatever reason, to compensate people unfairly. Extroverts make more money than introverts. Men make more than women. Sociopaths are statistically more likely to be promoted in companies. Teachers, firefighters, and policemen struggle to get by, while hedonist NBA players make millions per year and argue for more.

We are so financially focused in our determination of success that it has become almost impossible for us to really internalize the fact that God grades using different criteria than our fallen world. Our world measures success in different criteria, and rewards using different methods, than does God.

It is critical that we realize this. Following God's will may make one person richer than the other--that does not mean God is unfair, it means our fallen world is unfair. Some people are born in areas of the world that suffer greater than us in America--that does not mean God is unfair, it means that the rulers in those lands are unfair. A church teaching a Christless Christianity may explode and experience massive growth (both in people and money), while a small, truly Godly church stagnates and dies--that does not mean God is unfair, it means we people on fallen Earth are unfair.

Always reminder yourself of this fact. God does not judge as people judge. God does not reward as our world rewards. He uses an entirely different grade-book. And rest easy...one day God makes all this inequity undone.

Apologetics

2011-12-03T09:03:00.000-06:00

In ancient Greece, when a legal proceeding was ongoing two primary arguments were made: the kategoria and the apologia. The prosecution delivered the kategoria, raising the charges against the defendant; the defendant then responded with the apologia. The “apology”, or defense, was a formal speech or explanation which rebuts the charges or explains the situation. In Acts 26:2, Paul says that he makes his “defense”—using the term apologia. In Romans 1:20, Paul says that those who refuse to recognize God are without defense—the charge is so obvious, they are not allowed to make a speech proving themselves.

Apologetics has a rich cause in Christian history, from Paul to Justin Martyr to Luther’s defenses of reformed theology to CS Lewis.

But today, apologetics seems nearly dead. Most Christians are non-apologists, completely incapable of defending what they believe. They do not really even understand their beliefs, let alone being able to answer the complex questions of our faith: Was God unfair and vengeful in the Old Testament? Why does God allow people to go to hell? Why is the suffering in the world? Why is Christianity narrow-minded? How can Christianity deal with evolution and scientific results?

It is important for us to know these answers, at least on a basic level – both because it gives us strength during our times of weakness, but also because it can help convert those who, based on their relationship with us, see that we have a peace that they desire to have.

But, as I say, most Christians are completely non-apologists: they neither understand what they claim to believe, nor how to defend it.

Perhaps more disappointingly is those who claim to be apologists, but are not. They claim to offer a defense for the Christian faith, but they are not apologists. Many of them are kategorists—they are on the attack, not the defensive. They don’t want to defend the faith but to attack (often mean-spiritedly) any of those who disagree. For a long time I was a poster on a major apologetics website, even winning a few awards; I stopped because I found that for every hundred posts or so, only a handful met the requirements set out by the Bible for apologetics.

So let us look at the key verse in Scripture regarding apologetics – 1 Pet 3:15-17 – and see what we should know as Christians.

“[I]n your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ shall be put to shame.” –1 Pet 3:15-17, ESV

So what does this tell us Christian apologetics should be about?

1. It is motivated by a desire to honor Christ.

The motivation for apologetics is that we want to honor Christ as holy. We want His name to be a good name, well thought of in our communities. We want people to say that they respect Christ—even if they do not follow Him.

2. It is a defense, not an offense.

Notice that it is the word apologia (defense) that is used, not kategoria (offense). Peter says that we are to be ready to provide a defense – when approached by someone else. The Christian is not the conversation-starter here. But he is never taken off guard. When someone asks him why he has hope in times of suffering he has an answer. When he is asked why he is a creationist rather than an evolutionist, he has an answer. When he is asked about alleged contradictions in Scripture, he has an answer. But he is not the prosecutor in the debate, but the defender.

3. The conversation starts based on your relationship with the other party.

Why does Peter say they ask about faith? Because they have seen “hope” in you, and cannot explain it, so they want you to explain it to them. This was written in a time of great suffering; Peter told his readers to simply remain quiet, peaceful, and content—and those neighbors, friends, and coworkers who saw that peace would want an explanation of it.

What Peter is talking about here is something that I have called before, “passive evangelism”, which is all too often overlooked among modern Christians. We all understand the need for active evangelism—God calls some to be missionaries and go out into the world and preach His good news. But passive evangelism (which is also Biblically sound, as we see in this passage) is often overlooked. What Peter is saying here—in both points #2 and point #3—is that Christianity does not spread by having everyone play the role of evangelist or preacher. This is not effective, because we do not all have the tools of an evangelist or preacher. But for those of us who are Christians, and have the peace of Christ to carry us through our pain and suffering, we have something far more valuable: an example. When our neighbors, friends, coworkers, and family—the people with whom we “do life”—see our peace, they want to understand it. And then they start a conversation with us: not a conversation of debate, but an honest, seeking conversation to learn the source of our peace.

Peter says that this is why we must be prepared to give a defense. But this also implies two things: (1) that we are living in the hope of Christ, so that others will notice our peace; and (2) that we have relationships with unsaved Christians all around us, who might be attracted to our lifestyle.

4. Do it with gentleness and respect.

We are not to talk down to others, or consider ourselves superior. If you have a good understanding of Christian theology, this is not an issue – for you realize that you were brought into the peace of Christ not of your own works, but by God’s grace only. As a result, what reason do you have to feel superior to anyone? You did not climb out of the pit, God lifted you out. So you are no better than the person asking you for the reason for your hope. If you realize and truly believe that—that you are the lowest servant of all, greater than none—then your answer will naturally be one of gentleness and respect.

We are not to disrespect someone’s beliefs, or their person, or respond with sarcasm or belittlement. We are to defend our faith with respect and honor for the other person. Why?

5. If you are reviled, your opponent is put to shame rather than Christ.

There is a fairly well-known internet apologist whom I used to read. He is a very bright individual with extremely good arguments. He does great research. He is very knowledgeable about both history and the sociology contexts of the Bible.

He also violates virtually every point that Peter makes here. He is arrogant, writing for his own superiority. He is a kategorist, not an apologist—always on the offensive, starting fights about faith rather than defending. His answers are sarcastic and belittling, trying to paint those who disagree with him as foolish and uninformed (even giving awards for the dumbest arguments among non-Christians).

Do you know what his ministry has brought? Two observations from when I used to read his work. (1) In the three or four years I read his work—monthly—I never once saw a person converted to our faith. Not once. (2) Internet comments and thread posts on his site also often had this statement: “If you are what a Christian is, then I don’t want to be it. I thought Christians were supposed to be about love…”. You see, Christ’s name wasn’t magnified, it was vilified.

And so, when people reviled him…Christ was the one put to shame. His name was the one that suffered, along with the apologists.

What Peter is saying is that if you follow his method—be prepared, build relationships, answer on defense rather than starting the conversation, be gentle and respectful—then you will win converts. And if you do not win a convert, and the atheist is disrespectful or mean to you, then it is he who loses the respect of other onlookers. His name is put to shame, not Christ’s.

We need more apologetics--but real apologetics, which follow Peter's guidelines. In fact, every Christian should be an apologist. You don’t have to be a theologian—read Lee Strobel’s The Case For… series, and Tim Keller’s Reason for God. That’s it—four or five easy reads, and study your Bible. That is all the seminary you need to be a good apologist. Because Peterine apologetics is not about theology, it is about relationship-building; it is about loving those around you; and it is about knowing the reasons that you believe, so that when those around you want what you have, you can share it effectively with them.

Aliens Again?!?

2011-11-30T15:39:00.000-06:00

Why do I keep writing about aliens ? I seriously do not usually think of ETs this much, but it seems to be a consistent theme on this blog. Weird. Am I creating a bizarre niche as “that Christian blog who talks about alien contact even though they don’t believe it will happen?” That’s probably too narrow to gain much readership…

Anyway, there was a fascinating article about SETI by Chris Wilson on Slate . In it, he discusses the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), funding, and problems with trying to find alien lifeforms.

I have said in the past – and as Wilson illustrates well – the probability of us ever finding evidence of another advanced civilization is exceedingly low. The Drake Equation alone makes such a possibility highly unlikely. But as the author points out, you also have the synchronization issues.

For example, say that a planet exists 522 light-years away. Improbably, they rise to a dominant, technological civilization and are putting out electromagnetic signals which are disguishable as such by us, for a period of four centuries during their history before dying off due to disease. We discover that their planet exists and, starting in 2012, we watch this planet for 2 consecutive years.

So here we have exactly the kind of situation we are looking for. But even so, since we look at this planet for a mere two years (AD 2012-2014), we will only be able to see signals if they were sent between AD 1490-1492, Earth time. So their four centuries of dominance out of their entire history had to overlap precisely this two year span. If their signals died out in 1489, we would miss them; if they only rose to dominance in 1493, we would miss them.

Do you begin to see the odds against it? It is not enough that habitable planets exist. These planets must create life. This life must become multicellular. Then it must develop intelligence. Then they must grow technologically advanced. Then they must want to communicate electronically. Then they must communicate over long distances, with signals beaming out of the atmosphere. And all of that must happen at precisely the right time in our history for these signals to hit Earth precisely at the moment when we are pointing a radio telescope toward that particular planet.

Recall that we humans have only even been able to look for these signals for 1% of 1% of 1% of the history of our planet!

Look at it another way. Even if all of the above happens, the odds of these signals reaching Earth during a period where we even have the capability of being lucky enough to receive the signals is one chance in 88 million! Then on top of that, we have to be looking at exactly the right place of the sky when it happens. It is absurd.

Wilson describes the problem well, when he says, “Earth’s arrival…did not occur at some divine moment”.

Ah, and there’s the catch, isn’t it?

Because he’s right--from an evolutionary perspective. As an evolutionist, you cannot truly see SETI as anything other than a colossal waste of money. The odds of another civilization evolving close enough to us to send signals, and that civilization wanting to and being able to send signals that we can comprehend, and doing so at precisely the right time for those signals to reach us, are laughably small; just the communication piece alone is 1 chance in 88 million. The odds of all parts of that statement happening are simply impossible. It’s absurd to the extreme.

But to the creationist, on the other hand…things are much more plausible. Because for the creationist, the randomness of evolution and the age and size of the universe—which completely destroy the potential for interstellar communication for the nonbeliever—are no longer hurdles.

You see, the Christian actually believes that our earth was , in fact, built in a precisely chosen “divine moment”. We believe that each individual is placed at his location and place in history for a reason—perhaps even one person who was put in a particular place because he would have the desire to turn the telescopes to a particular broadcasting planet at just the right time. It can't happen with randomness; it could theoretically happen if God designs it that way. We believe that God has already created multiple races of intelligent life-forms (several types of angels, as well as human beings). We believe that God is a creator who easily could have scattered life across the universe. And there is nothing implausible about saying that such a God could stagger the start times of these alien races in such a way that a signal could pass from one to the other and be received.

To the evolutionist, every dime spent on SETI is a waste. (I happen to agree with them on that point, at least.) But while I can’t understand how an evolutionist could think we might ever communicate with ETs, I can see how a Christian would think so. Perhaps, like in Lewis’ Space Trilogy, we are the only planet who “fell” and thus we are quarantined from aliens to keep from corrupting them, and one day will be allowed to meet. Perhaps, like in Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, aliens are everywhere, fell from grace just like us, and Jesus goes incarnate to each of them, dying and being resurrected time after time to redeem the masses.

As an engineer, I find the idea of getting a signal from ETs laughable.

As a Christian, it falls within the realm of possibility.

How ironic is it, then, that almost everyone who seeks extraterrestrial life is atheistic and evolutionary? Many even feel if they find evidence of life elsewhere, that somehow argues against religion and creationism, and in favor of evolution. It most certainly does not!

As I have said before, and will say again – the minute we hear from ET, we will have received the best evidence since the Resurrection of a divine, personal Creator.

A note of Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T08:47:00.000-06:00

As inspired by something I saw on another website a few days ago, I would like to take a moment to give thanks for some of the churches with whom I am no longer in fellowship. Though, for one reason or another, I may have left that particular church, from each have I grown spiritually.

For St. Joseph Catholic Church, I give thanks for teaching me the awe, majesty, and mystery of Christianity, and for giving me my first exposure to ministering to others.

For my college time wandering in the spiritual wilderness of agnostism and Deism, I give thanks for showing me that evolution and science on its own cannot explain those things that we know to be true in our hearts, and for giving me a better appreciation for the wonder of God's creation.

For University Baptist Church, I give thanks for grounding me as a young believer in the basics of the faith and the Bible.

For Oak Bowery Baptist Church, I give thanks for learning to love and respect the Scripture, and for officiating my baptism and marriage.

For Oasis Church, I give thanks for learning to simplify my life and my first serious exposure to leading ministries, as a pastoral advisor, a financial representative, and a small group leader.

And for my current church--Grace Church--I give many thanks. For it is here that my family is finally being challenged with the "meat" of our faith that Paul describes in his letters. It is here that we have seen our children grow spiritually far beyond what we could have ever imagined possible in merely a year. And it is here that we have found like-minded believers--committed, intelligent, faithful, real, and open-minded.

Above all, thanks to God. Thanks for seeing what was needed for my growth and my family's growth. Thanks for leading us each step of the way, and I trust always that You will continue to grow us spiritually.

Amen. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

A beautiful echo

2011-11-23T14:37:00.003-06:00

At the time of this writing, my family and I are on a flight back to America from a month-long stint in Denmark, part of my new role at my company. It was a fascinating month in which we truly got to experience what it was like living in another culture.

For me, one of the most striking differences was the secularness of Denmark. I have been to a lot of places—atheistic Quebec, libertarian Amsterdam, communist China, Catholic Poland, and post-Catholic Spain, among them—but this was the most overwhelmingly secular place I have been. The kind of place where there are hundreds of beautiful churches and abbeys…which remain empty. Tourist attractions only, reminders of a forgotten Christian past. Denmark is lovely, but it is the kind of country where if you say grace at meals you are looked at funny. It is the kind of country where everyone speaks flawless English (they begin learning in the 2nd grade) and there are tens of thousands of foreigners living in the cities, but we could only find one church which had English services—and since it only had one service a month, was a megachurch, and was located three hours away, we chose not to partake in it.

So as I said, this was one of the most striking features to me—it is a beautiful country and nice people and safe and amazing; but very secular. It’s simply how they choose to live. Religion is an afterthought, if they think about it at all.

So imagine my surprise when, last week—a week before Thanksgiving at home—Christmas decorations start going up. And I mean, everywhere. Streets have laurel stretching from roof to roof. The mall is decked out with dozens of Christmas trees. Stores are filled with Christmas platters. An occasional carol plays on the radio. Gift-wrapping stations are outside of every toy store, and the words “God Yule” (Good Christmas) are everywhere.

Now of course, most of these were secular Christmas themes—Santa and reindeer and gifts and all of that; perhaps one store in twenty had a religious item like a Nativity. But overall it did not look too different from Christmases at home.

I couldn’t help but think of the annual “war for Christmas” back home. Back home, you get two factions—those who want to celebrate Christmas without the Christ, and those who want to keep Jesus at the center (or at least, near-center) of the festivities. For a long time I would grow angry at those who sought a secularized version of Christmas. It is, after all, such a shadow of the reality. To know that in giving gifts we remember the wise men’s gifts to the Christ; to know the meaning of the carols, heralding God’s amazing miracle—God-in-flesh; to see the stars on Christmas trees as a reminder of the manger scene: these are the things that make Christmas a true family time—the time to celebrate with our spiritual family, down through all the ages since Jesus stretched in that manger.

After having been in Denmark to see the attitudes toward Christmas in this land, which has long forgotten its origin, I have come to a slightly different take, however.

It is true—a secular Christmas is but a shadow of the true Christmas. In Santa’s “Merry Christmases”, we hear only the faintest echo of the angelic songs at the birth of the Christ.

But what I see now is—it is a beautiful echo.

You see, Denmark’s secular Christmas is a reflection of their secular world—not the other way around. (So it is in America as well; trying to un-secularize Christmas is going about things in reverse. Christmas cannot be un-seculared when society becomes increasingly secular. The secular Christmas is the symptom, not the disease.)

But think of if Christmas did truly get limited to being only a Christian holiday, celebrated by those who truly understood it. Imagine if Christmas was, like say, Kwanza—somewhat recognized by those outside of the faith, but only in a distant, uncaring way. What would be the result?

Well, if that were the case, then in Denmark you would never see a nativity—not even in one store out of twenty. You wouldn’t see people travel back home from around the world to share a meal and tell each other that they love them. You wouldn’t see people spend tons of their hard-earned money on each other, trying to get gifts to bring joy in those around them. You wouldn’t see people who were normally uncharitable giving to Salvation Army and Toys for Tots and buying Angel Tree gifts.

God has a strange way of working. A long time ago, secular peoples in Denmark (and America) have forgotten that Jesus is, truly, the reason for the season. Yet because of Christmas, one day a year all the people of the world—secular or otherwise—stop working, take quiet time with their families, reflect on their blessings, give sacrificially to each other and to strangers, and the world is just a bit more quiet, joyful, serene, loving, and reflective. Just a bit more like heaven.

For much of my life I have been irritated at those who—being largely unbelievers—celebrate Christmas as though it were somehow their holiday. It felt somehow that they were stealing the purity of our beautiful holy day, and making it unsacred.

I do not feel that way any more. I now see that the beauty of Christmas is more than the Christ-child—it is what the Christ-child can do in our depraved hearts. It is that the spirit of the season in which we celebrate the birth of our Lord is so powerful, even those most ardent agnostic secularist cannot help but find his mind transformed, whistling tunes which celebrate our Lord’s birth; giving gifts after the practice of the wise men; hanging lights to remind us that Jesus is the light of the world; hanging stars to celebrate the star of Bethlehem.

They may have forgotten God’s voice, but even the echo of God’s voice remains ever beautiful.

Against Anti-Intellectual Faith

2011-11-10T08:34:00.000-06:00

It is quite often said, particularly in evangelical circles, that we do not need to worry about theology or history or intellectualism; indeed, such things are sometimes vilified in churches. Instead, they say, we just need practical sermons that make us better today—a sort of self-help motivational speech with a dash of Bible thrown in.

Now to be certain, theology can become an end to itself. I do not think it is all that critical that every person can discuss soteriology or Near Eastern suzerain covenants or any of that. But the modern evangelical too often takes the alternate extreme: that we need not know anything about our faith, only have a strong convictional relational feeling with God.

On the one hand, I do agree that you need not understand much theology to accept Christ. You need to understand that you are a sinner who cannot reach heaven on your own; you need to understand that God loves you despite the fact that you are unlovable; you need to understand that Jesus’ death is substitutionary for your sins, and it is the only way for you to be right before Him; and you need to commit to loyalty to God. So a full systematic theology is not necessary.

But whether it is necessary for salvation is not the question; the question is whether it is important to our faith.

Clearly, Paul thought it was important. He spent most of his career as a minister writing letters of theology—the Pauline Epistles. John clearly thought it was important, spending much of his Gospel addressing Christological concerns. In Acts, we see that the early church devoted most of their worship time to studying the teachings of the apostles, and held conferences (such as the Council of Jerusalem) to discuss key matters of the faith. Peter’s sermon on Pentecost was not practical at all: it was completely theological, discussing who Jesus was and how the cross plays into our lives. Really, the majority of the New Testament is highly concerned with theology – who is God, how do we relate to Him, how does salvation work, how does this relate to Israel’s history?

Yet today we are told to ignore these things, and “theology” is viewed as an ivory-tower elitism.

We are told in the Scriptures that our sword against the devil is to be the Word of God – yet anti-intellectualism undermines our understanding of the Word. We are told that faith shall be our shield – yet a faith based upon nothing but emotional connection is weak and frail, and easily destroyed by the darts of the enemy.

Consider your relationship with your spouse. If you get married purely based upon your passion, but do not take the time to actually know each other, how successful is your relationship? If I am not interested in knowing my wife’s past, her politics, her opinions, her loves, her hates…how strong will we be? At best, we will have a shallow relationship; at worst, we will divorce.

Such it is with God, as well. If we commit our lives to being Christians purely based upon passion, and then never actually decide to learn about Him—where He came from, what He’s done in the past and why, how He wants us to act, how He saves us—then our faith is decidedly weak and self-focused. We will be at best marginal followers.

What Paul considered the “milk” of the faith was in fact more theological than most evangelical churches today preach! And yet he thought that a time should come where we leave the “milk” behind and move on to even weightier subjects.

Some say that all of our answers should be simple—wrong. Simple questions can be answered simply, of course. But complex questions will demand a complex answer. If you ask, “How do planes fly?”, one answer might be, “They go fast enough that the wings lift them up.” And if you are a five-year-old, that is probably fine. But that is not good enough if you want to be a pilot, is it? You need to understand physics at that point—the Bernoulli principle and airfoil design basics. Once you become an adult, and have adult concerns, a child’s knowledge is not sufficient. Why do we think God is different? True, you can boil the Gospel down to a child-like faith of three or four points. And that is great if you are just to be a passenger on the plane. But if you actually want to fulfill your role and fly the plane for others, and build the plane for others…then you will need to ask (and be able to answer) much harder questions.

In the end, it is critical that we all know, at least at some level, the theology and history of our faith. If we do not, we are like a branch that does not know it is a part of a tree—much less does it know what fruit it should bear, or how to handle the harsh winters when they come!

Should we all be theologians? No. God did not make us all to be theologians. But we all should know just as much history and theology as we are capable of knowing. We are, after all, to worship God with all our minds, as well as all of our souls; we are to be as wise as serpents, not just as harmless as doves. Whatever intellect God gave you, it should be devoted to understanding as much as you can about Him. Only then can your relationship bring forth maximum fruits.

“The only people who ever prize purity of ignorance are those who profit from a monopoly on knowledge.” – O.S. Card, Children of the Mind

Don't settle for being a child in the faith of God. Whatever intellectual gifts God gave you, turn them toward Him. Don't just love Him with your heart, through faith. Don't just love Him with your body, through piety. Love Him also with your mind. It is, as Jesus said, the first and greatest commandment.

The Gospel, the whole Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel

2011-11-04T07:25:00.000-05:00

I have extolled the virtues of the Jesus Storybook Bible in past posts. Reading a story from the Bible has become a nightly ritual that my kids wouldn’t let me skip if I wanted to; they love the illustrations and the well-crafted Bible stories.

But what I love most about it is not the fact that my kids love it; what I love most is that it is a good grown-up Bible, for it tells the whole Gospel. In every story, Old Testament or New, it points out how that story fits into the tapestry of God’s interaction with man, and how that story points to Jesus. So when my kids learn about Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt, they learn how this story was foreshadowing of when Jesus would lead us from slavery. When my kids learn that David was a hero for defeating Goliath, they learn that one day Jesus—the Great Hero—would come to save us from the giants of our sin. When they learn about Rachel and Leah, they learn that God sees the inside, and chose the “ugly” sister to be the princess who would give birth to the line of Jesus.

Because of this, my six year old already probably has a better gospel education than many who attend many modern evangelical churches every week.

Unfortunately, we Christians today (particularly the evangelicals among us) have become what Scot McKnight calls soterians (salvation people) rather than evangelicals (Gospel people)—that is, we teach only a part of the Gospel (the plan of salvation) and neglect to preach the whole Gospel.

What is the difference? As McKnight well puts it in his King Jesus Gospel, the Gospel preached by early Christians was more than just salvation—our salvation is only one part of the magnificent Gospel. The Gospel is “the narration of the saving story of Jesus…as the completion of the story of Israel”.

The Gospel is not, “I am a sinner and Jesus died for my sins and saved me.” That is a part of the Gospel. But what the Gospel really is, is this: that an Almighty Being of purity and goodness chose to create man; that man rebelled and fell, creating a world unlike the perfection originally meant for it to be; that God interacted closely with one group of man for millennia with man to rescue him from himself—sometimes through violent punishment, sometimes through longsuffering forgiveness, sometimes through miraculous salvation, sometimes through poetic verse, sometimes through covenantal law; that this God took flesh and sacrificed himself innocently for man’s transgressions; that in the end God will turn all the suffering and agony into the inverse, and run it all backward to remake Creation anew, as it was meant to be from the beginning of time.

This is the Good News. It is more than simply the question of, “What happens to a particular individual who dies?” (Though, of course, when we are that individual, this is a quite important question!)

The Good News is the entire Gospel, cover to cover—the story of God and Jesus, a story in which man is a prodigal son (and occasional villain), who is redeemed not in the end, but in the middle, of the Great Plotline. The protagonist in this story is not you or I; the protagonist is God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The antagonist is Satan and fallen man. Though the story has the appearance of tragedy, the protagonist lives forever (via the ultimate dues ex machina), and in the process fallen man is redeemed. The final act of this saga is yet to come, but it sure reads like it will be pretty exciting…

Make no mistake: the Gospel is not the story of, “How do I get to heaven when I leave earth?”; the Gospel is the story of, “How did God make creation, how did it get messed up, and how will He remake it anew?”

Our individual stories of salvation are a part of this, to be sure: each saved individual is a rock, and those rocks make a glorious tower in the courtyard of God—a monument to Jesus’ sacrifice in the great Eternal City. But to focus only on this part is to rob us of the rich beauty of the entire story—it is like studying only Mona Lisa’s eye, rather than the entire painting.

Unfortunately, few churches today teach the whole Gospel. Just for curiousity, I picked a fast-growing evangelical church in Little Rock that is built in the megachurch ‘style’. In its 2011 sermons, here was the breakdown in topics: 52% “practical self-help”; 24% lessons on holy living; 19% on personal salvation; 5% on the doctrine of the church; 0% on the Gospel story. [Note: What do I mean by “the Gospel story”? By now I hope you know! But basically, I mean—the history of what God did, and what He promises to do; and who He is; and how His story fits together. This could be done through topical stories of Biblical exegesis, but it is essentially…learning about God and His story.]

By comparison, the verse breakdown in Peter’s message on Pentecost was: 0% “practical self-help”; 4% lessons on holy living; 8% on personal salvation; 0% on the doctrine of the church; 88% on the Gospel story. Paul’s messages to the Romans and 1 Corinthians 15 break down something like this: 0% “practical self-help”; 6% lessons on holy living; 6% on personal salvation; 46% on the doctrine of the church; 43% on the Gospel story.

So what does this show? It shows that Paul and Peter did talk quite a bit about salvation – something like one of every ten verses was about how to make ourselves right before God. And they did discuss how to live a holy lifestyle a bit (something like 5-8% of their discussion.) But 80-90% of what they talked and wrote about was the big-picture Gospel—the good news of God the Creator, interacting with Israel, becoming man, dying wrongly, being resurrected, forgiving our sins, and planning an invasion at the end of time. The focus was on Jesus, not on us. Our salvation is an output of the Gospel story, not the key pivot on which the whole thing turns.

By comparison, the modern evangelical church focuses perhaps a bit more on personal salvation than they should, and much, much more on “practical” messages about how to live than they should. And, most damningly, they spend virtually no time discussing the actual Biblical story, the actual Gospel account. Perhaps this is why Biblical illiteracy is so rampant in America. (Sadly, 84% of Americans say the Bible is important to helping them make decisions, but only half can name half of the Gospels, less than half know the Bible starts with Genesis, and two-thirds don’t know who delivered the Sermon on the Mount).

You see, by focusing the message on us and our salvation, we make ourselves the shrines of our own religion. We divorce salvation from its proper context within the great story of God rescuing His creation; instead we make it all about how we can get forgiven for our bad behavior. The end result is that Christians talk about Jesus, without knowing anything about Him.

Am I saying that there is something wrong with preaching about holy living and personal salvation? Of course not. Am I saying that we should focus on trying to make everyone theologians? Don’t be silly. (After all, sometimes when it comes to theology, we must remember Edgar Allan Poe’s dictum from Murders in the Rue Morgue: “What is complex is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound.”)

What I am saying is that the three major focuses of most church sermons today—holy living, personal salvation, and practical self-help—share one trait: they are all about ourselves, and not about God. We focus completely upon the “self” part of our relationship, instead of focusing on God—who is He? what did He do in the past? how does He want us to worship Him? what is His story?

We must put the “selfish” Christianity to death. We must stop the self-centric preaching which equates worship with “practical self-help plus salvation plus holy behavior”. Instead, we must go back, as did Peter and Paul, to preaching the Gospel. And the Gospel is not about us. The Gospel is all about God and His creation—how it went wrong, and how it is being made right.

If a children’s Bible can do it; why can’t we?

Guest Post

2011-10-20T09:13:00.002-05:00

Our friends over at the Mockingbird blog have been gracious enough to host another guest post for us.

In this one, I give a short meditation on Beauty and the Beast - enjoy.

A true fan?

2011-10-19T18:59:00.000-05:00

Someone I know said recently, “I feel closer to God when I am in the woods Sunday morning than when I’m at church. I prefer the church God made, not the church man made.”

While a catchy saying (and a convenient excuse to avoid going to church!) there are of course some key problems with this line of logic.

Some of the problems are of course simply a matter of Scripture — be careful not to worship the creation rather than the creator, do not forsake assembling together with other believers, etc. But I would like to use an analogy which will be close to the hearts of my fellow Southerners.

Imagine that it is Saturday — the second sacred day in the south during football season. I’m loading up to go to the Razorback game, when my neighbor sees me outside. He says, “Hog game, huh? I’m a big fan, too. I don’t really read about them, or go to the games, or watch them on TV. Maybe one game a year or so. I actually have free tickets to every game but I don’t go. In fact, I even have locker room access. But I have found that I really feel the most like a Razorback fan sitting in my house with a Hog shirt on.”

So how big a fan is this guy? Would you buy his story – that he is a fan but doesn’t want to be with fellow fans, doesn’t want to read/watch/experience the game? Of course not – you would say he was no fan at all.

Yet this is not significantly different than what is mentioned at the beginning of our post. Jesus gave us a free ticket to the games, if we choose to go. The Holy Spirit gives us updates on the team (both in writing and in inspiration). We even have ‘locker room’ access to spend time with the team, and yet we say we feel better when isolated by ourselves.

So when you choose to skip church and not study Scripture, because you say, “I just feel closer to God in the deer woods”…well it seems rather silly now, does it not? If God inspired the Scripture, and God founded the church…then isn’t it a bit arrogant to decide you know better than He and all of His millions of believers throughout history when you decide that you want to be in nature?

Chances are, you can find a church nearby that will work for you. Or, you can go the Anne Rice route and essentially begin your own house church. But typically when people say this, they are not instituting a "worship in the woods" scenario--they are simply cutting worship out altogether.

(Also, as a side note: it is always suspicious when you say that you are doing something for God or for some greater good, and the end result just so happens to be the same activity that you wanted to do before church came into your life…).

Does your standing get better with God based on church attendance? Of course not. But there is something strange about someone who claims to love God and yet feels closer to God by himself and not studying God’s word.

Science and the nature of knowledge

2011-10-18T01:15:00.000-05:00

In recent months, I’ve written a couple of posts that dance around the subject of knowledge. I would like to explore that topic further here.

There are two basic categories of knowledge—a priori and a posteriori. The first type, a priori knowledge, is the most pure type of knowledge. This is knowledge that is not based upon observation or evidence, but is based upon pure logic and reason. I have heard it described before as “something you can prove without leaving your couch”—something like “I think therefore I am”, or mathematical proofs.

Then there is a posteriori knowledge—knowledge which is based upon observation. Within this category are all scientific theories and philosophies based upon input from the world around us. Most scientific knowledge we have, of course, falls into the a posteriori category.

So true knowledge (a priori) is to say that two trees and three trees equals five trees. This is irrefutable and there is no scenario in which it is not the case. But secondary knowledge (a posteriori) is that these five trees will produce oranges this year.

What is interesting to me is when you boil through all of the difficulty, science ultimately comes down to this—we observe situations that predictably repeat themselves. These observations are facts. From these facts, we try and derive underlying laws or principles, which we believe explain these facts. But never separate that the facts themselves are more ‘real’ than the principles we attempt to use to describe them. So even within the a posteriori knowledge of science, there is a division of knowledge.

To put it another way, you may say that all knowledge can be broken down into four parts, in decreasing order of certainty: the highest is a priori knowledge (like most mathematics and some philosophy); a posteriori facts which have been observed (data); well-documented a posteriori theories based upon those facts (laws/theories); and hypotheses which are not well-documented (hypotheses). Using these strata, then, we would say that we give top priority and very little question to mathematics and data; we remain appropriately skeptical of laws/theories of science; and we remain extremely skeptical of hypotheses and theories not thoroughly documented.

However, scientists today have (wrongfully) changed the debate. Instead of the well-reasoned layers of knowledge we list above, we divide all knowledge into two types: well-accepted science and everything else. If the scientific community accepts it, then we call it a “scientific fact” and anyone who disagrees is “anti-science” or un-intellectual.

Of course, this is absurd. A moment’s effort should demonstrate to you that a logical person should always remain largely skeptical of scientific theories and laws; this is in fact what all good scientists should do. There are several reasons that we should always retain healthy skepticism:

Limited sample size.
As we noted before, all science is based upon the data available to us. And our data (facts) that we use as the basis for science are highly limited. We have performed observable science for only a few hundred years, with only the most recent hundred years or so having the technological precision to gather reliable data.

Let me try to put it in perspective. We believe that the earth sits in one part of a galaxy some 100,000 light-years, and we have studied the universe seriously for some 400 years of the galaxy’s history. And all of our assumptions are based upon this small sample size (one tiny planet for a short period of time).

What if I told you that I knew everything I needed to about the Earth and its history, based upon studying one hydrogen atom for 0.84 seconds? You’d think I was pretty crazy, right? But mathematically, that is exactly what we are saying.

Our sample size (a 6000 km planet in a 100,000 light year galaxy, studied for 400 years of a 15 billion year history) is exactly the same as studying one hydrogen atom out of the entire planet for 0.84 seconds and assuming that the conclusions we draw apply to the entire earth’s history!

Do I need to describe how ridiculous a statement this is? Yet this is what we do in science – we ignore how small our sample size is, and from the few observations we have, we draw big conclusions. Very big. Too big, for my care. Another way to state it would be to say that because you observed one bag of luggage come out of the carousel at the airport in the correct location, then it is safe to assume that all bags of luggage in the world will be properly handled…for the next 17.6 million years.

Weighty assumptions.
To perform any science at all, we must assume that everything that we have observed is typical of the universe as a whole.

Now this may seem logical but keep in mind – this is a bold, major assumption. We have no particular reason to assume that the measurements we make here would hold true in another galaxy. We have no particular reason to assume that the universe is basically the same all the way over. We simply assume it, because otherwise we are limited in what we can go after. And after a while, this assumption gets forgotten. It is assumed that if we consistently measure the speed of light as having a certain value in our corner of the universe, then it must have the same value elsewhere in the universe.

Imagine that you are a tiny creature who was raised on one particular iceburg in the middle of the Antarctic. You repeatedly measure gravity’s effects, over and over, for years. You use the assumption above, and therefore conclude that gravity always has the effect of 9.81 m/s2. The problem? A bad assumption. Because if you could measure on top of the Himalayas, or on the moon, you would learn that gravitational attraction was not always the same. And thus all of your theories, based upon this one observation, would turn out to be false.

We do not have the technology at this time to perform such observations in other parts of the solar system, our galaxy – much less the universe as a whole. And if it turns out that one of our commonly-used measurements is not in fact consistent across time or space, then a whole lot of science falls down.

So never forget that with all of the great knowledge science can gather, it remains a house of cards built upon a few foundational assumptions and calculations. And if the rules and data of the universe is not standard everywhere (and we have absolutely no evidence to gather to show us whether it is), then the entire deck comes falling down.

Limited Scope.
We also must always remember to differentiate between what is knowable and what is unknowable – a distinction that scientists all too frequently fail to make. Take evolutionary theory, for example. Evolutionary theory cannot be evaluated in one big box; rather, it is actually two separate theories which must be evaluated. One the one hand, you have what I call General Evolutionary Theory – the theory that mutational changes to the genome which provide a higher probability of life are likely to spread throughout the population. On the second hand, you have Specific Evolutionary Theory – the theory that this process led to the descent of life into mankind.

These are two vastly different theories. The primary difference being this—General Evolutionary Theory is knowable, and Specific Evolutionary Theory is unknowable. You can create experiments to test GET, at least in theory: take a population of animals in which one has a genetic mutation which should increase survival rate, isolate them from other breeding populations, and study whether that mutation spreads. (Note: such direct experiments into GET are hard to find, if they exist. There are many which look at data and suppose the results; but actually performing the experiment is more rare.)

But SET is actually unknowable, because all the data is historic. There is no situation in which we can ever actually know whether man descended from bacteria. We can look at the fossil record and suppose; we can test GET and use this to draw conclusions. But these are always assumptions, because by nature of the fact that the past is the past, we can never actually experiment and observe the data. Thus, the Specific Evolutionary Theory is always unknowable. We can never do more than suspect it.

Yet this is not how these are presented! If you look into evolutionary texts, you will find that the “evidence” falls into one of two categories: data/facts (which draw no conclusions but simply describe something which happened); or experimental support for general evolutionary theory. The specific evolutionary theory is based on pure speculation from the above.

So for example, the existence of a fossil which seems transitionary (the alleged “missing link”) is not evidence! It simply proves that a species existed that looks like something that is a cross between an ape and a man. It is data – not an observed change from apes into men. But this piece of data, combined with GET findings, lead people to speculate for SET. And that is fine…as long as we remember that it is speculation.

It is critical that we remember this scope limitation: that science can only know things that it can test and directly observe, but can only suspect things when our theory involves looking at historical data and developing theories to ‘connect the dots’ from our past.

Consider two recent news articles: here, and here. The first discovery, that some particles were observed traveling faster than the speed of light, falls into the “Knowable” category (we can directly measure it). The other article, however, falls moderately into the “unknowable” category (we are unlikely ever to be able to directly observe this) and is still only hypothesized, as you cannot directly observe the phenomenon (only its effects).

Not all scientific knowledge is created equally, as you can see!

So it is critical as we hear of a scientific finding, or are debating scientific theory, that we ask the following questions:

1. What is the “level” of the knowledge being discussed? Is it (a) an a priori proof; (b) a piece of data (without suppositions/conclusions); (c) a well-founded a posteriori theory based upon data; or (d) a logical hypothesis or inherence based upon one of the above?
2. Is the topic even theoretically knowable, or does it always remain unknowable/not directly testable?
3. Have you properly kept in mind the inherent limitations common in many theories (assumptions, scope, and sample size)?

Only then can you have a reasonable discussion of the situation.

Speaker for the Dead - Jobs and Davis

2011-10-13T01:25:00.001-05:00

In Orson Scott Card's brilliant Speaker for the Dead, he develops what is essentially a priest character (Ender from Ender's Game) who 'speaks for the dead'--that is, he provides a eulogy that truly tells the story of the person's life as he tried to live it: his motivations, his failures, his successes. The goal was a truer history of a person's life on earth.

We don't have that today. What we have today is a tendency when someone dies to elevate them to saintly status and conveniently forget all the nastiness of their lives. It is the antithesis of Antony's speech in Shakespeare; where he once famously said, "The evil men do lives on after them; the good is oft interred in their bones", we find it to be the opposite today. The good is elevated and applauded; the evil is carefully and quietly hidden away.

It is said that this is done for politeness; perhaps so. I think more likely, however, this is done because of the preference by society at large to deny the inherent evilness of mankind and instead tell us that we are all basically so good. Anti-depravity, it would seems, requires that we have short memories about how people live their lives.

At any rate, with the recent deaths of two controversial luminaries, Steve Jobs of Apple and Al Davis of the Raiders, we find this principle of polite forgetfulness writ large. Both completely dominated their industries, literally changing the game fundamentally in their roles. Without them, neither the NFL nor technology looks even remotely the same as it does today. Their visionary influence is hard to overestimate, and they fundamentally shaped much of our world. And that is all that you will read about.

The greatness they do lives on after them; the evil seems to be interred in their bones.

But let us not forget that both were far from universally loved during their lives.

Jobs was famously hostile and spiteful; tales of his management style almost always discuss his dismissiveness, hostility, and fear-inducing leadership. He was near-Orwellian about centralization of power in the company, and was sometimes loudly criticized for the outsourcing of production to Chinese factories whose commitment to fair work practices was questionable at best. Under Jobs, Apple became one of the most aggressive censors of information on any Internet device, squashing a great deal of offensive material ("offensive" also apparently including anything invented by other companies). Further, he even established a sort of internal affairs team to seek out whistleblowers and leakers. A visionary he was; a saint, he was not.

Al Davis had his own issues too. He changed coaches like some men change shirts; he was known for being near-impossible to work for, and wasn't opposed to trying to publicly humiliate those whom he had recently fired. He moved his team twice (despite the effect on his fans); he fought legally with the NFL on a nearly constant basis; he was seen as paranoid and hostile; he has nearly sunk the Raiders into obscurity with his micromanagement. Davis vindictively attempted to get Pete Rozelle fired after Rozelle won the commissioner role following the AFL-NFL merger (a position Davis coveted). And let us not forget that he hatefully benched Marcus Allen for two years over a contract dispute, nearly ruining his Hall of Fame career.

Both men were visionaries. Both men transformed our world. Both men bring a lot that we can learn from. But both men were paranoid, mean-spirited, quick to sue critics, angry at any who disagreed, and vindictive to those whom they disliked.

Why is it important to remember these things? It is critical that we all remember that our sins do matter--and they matter just as much after we are dead as before. It does matter that Jobs and Davis stepped on people on their rise to the top. It does matter that they hurt people--many people. It does matter, because it matters when we do it as well.

Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, we say: so how will we (and our children) learn from the history of these great luminaries if we politely wipe clean the slate of sins that they left us with in their paths to the next life?

Both men are perfect examples of what I say on this site often: humans are amazing creatures, capable of great good, creativity, and vision; we are also capable of, and all too frequently guilty of, great evil. To forget that in our dead is to accept it in our living.

On prioritization

2011-10-09T02:31:00.000-05:00

At my place of work, we have a list of priorities to help guide our decision-making: we say safety first, quality second, cost third. These types of lists make us feel good, look great on paper, and are really nice tools for making people feel guilty. (“If safety is number one, name one thing you did today to make the workplace safer…”).

Of course in reality prioritizing in this way is considerably less useful than you might think.

My company says safety is first, but if we failed to make payroll this weekend, none of our employees would say, “Well I can’t go to the grocery store, but at least they provide a safe work environment. That is the most important thing, after all.” So then clearly being an ethical employer (paying people what they are owed) is at least as important as safety. Also if safety is truly number one, then we would spend any amount of money making the workplace safer – instead, we analyze whether it is financially sound decision-making. So it seems that the desire to remain profitable also is at least as important as safety. Hm. What else? Is safety more important than being legally compliant? For example, if the safest possible scenario for a certain confined space entry is to send a small child down it, is it okay to break child labor laws in order to have an overall safer work environment?

So what are we saying, then? Are we saying that the priority list must be much, much larger? No, because even if these things are all included, priority listing them is useless—the situations define the priority, not a rote law.

For example, take financial stability and safety. If, say, an overhead crane is damaged and shuddering unstably, then the risk is immediately dangerous to life and health—so in this case, safety is more important than financial stability. Even if it puts the company under, you do not operate the crane. But if our safety department comes in and tells us we cannot repair defects in our product because it is too dangerous, then our only option is either to shut the entire company down or to put financial stability above safety and try to mitigate the risks.

So you see, sometimes being financially responsible is the higher priority; sometimes being safer is the higher priority. The context is key.

So the way I have tried to explain priorities to employees is to divide all actions into two categories: foundational values and task priorities.

Foundational values are the things that define who we are, not what we do. They are the values of how we do our business. They do not change, and a good businessperson is always trying to balance them to keep as many of them “good” as possible at a given time. They would be things like: financial responsibility, safety, ethics, and legal compliance. These are the things which move through and with all of our other decisions.

Task priorities are what we do, prioritized by which are the most critical for our business. They should help you focus your daily tasks to help you ensure you are doing the right thing for the business. The priority list of tasks is a list where the higher ranked tasks get the majority of your attention. So for example, this list might be: product quality, customer service, low inventory, cost reduction, and improved process control.

You see, your foundational values are not a priority in and of themselves: they run through and with all of the other things. You never choose between two foundational values; you try to balance them all at once. And you never have to say, “Am I choosing safety or quality in this case?” Because safety is a foundational value that you are always trying to employ: you try to bring safety into all of your “tasks”—into quality, customer service, low inventory, cost reduction, and process controls.

Christianity is not significantly different. We tend to want to tie it down and say, “Put God first. Then family second. Then church third. Then career fourth. Then other people fifth.” (By the way: after a great sermon by a good friend, Josh Hurlburt, there is good reason to think that list should be—God, other people, career, then church.)

But with Christian priority lists, we run into the same issue – what to do with the #1 spot? Do we really face a lot of situations where we must decide between God and family? “I know my baby needs his diaper changed, but I haven’t had my daily Bible study yet. Let’s look at the priority list…well God is first. Sorry kid. Be back in 30 minutes.”

Of course we don’t have to choose between God and family – because God tells us how to engage with our family, and thus engaging properly with our family is an act of obedience to Him.

You see, the foundational values of Christianity are two: love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, and soul; and love your neighbor as yourself. These two things (love God, love others) are our foundational principles that go with us through all other decisions. You do not have to choose between these things and other things.

For example, I spend about 50 hours a week (sometimes more, unfortunately) at work. That means that I am by definition spending more time with my career than I am with God. (I also spend more time sleeping than I do praying.) Does this mean that I am somehow not letting God be number 1 in my life? Certainly not (or at least, not for that reason)!

Remember that loving God is a foundational value, not a part of the priority list. So it is not a question of choosing between your career and God; it is a question of how you can love and honor God every single moment of your career. Is your career bringing honor to God? Are you showing His love in your career? Are you making career decisions based upon the principles of His Word and prayer?

So let me humbly suggest a new approach to Christian prioritization.

The foundational values of Christianity are: love God and love others. These two things should be present in whatever you do. These are the things that intermingle with everything on your priority list.

Your priorities should be something like: 1. Immediate family; 2. Career; 3. Serving; 4. Church activities. (The details and ranking I leave up to you and God; I’m not saying this is the perfect order, just using an example.) The ranking may change in certain periods of your life; obviously the priority for a parent of a newborn is different from the priority of a single person, which is again different from the priority of an empty-nester.

The primary point, though, is clear: prioritization must be viewed in terms of foundational values which are encompassed in all areas of life, and task-based prioritization of the day-to-day activities. You do not choose between loving God and being with your family; you instead are to engage your foundational values (love God, love others) while being with your family. You do not choose between God and career; you instead choose how to engage your love for God and others at all times while doing your career (which may require changing jobs, downsizing, or changing how you behave).

This is a much better way of looking at the world, and one that (for me at least) removes some of the guilt-based legalism that can steal your joy in life. You should at all times love God and love others – these are not the top two of a list of priorities; they are the foundational principles that you must be seeking to apply at all times. Focusing on your family does not mean that you are denying God—so long as you are focusing on your family in a God-fearing, God-honoring way.

An analogy for the New Atheists

2011-10-01T08:59:00.000-05:00

I'd like to start today's post with an analogy.

Imagine four students return to their dormitories after school one day. They notice that their yard and sidewalk have water all over it. Looking up, they see that the sky is overcast, full of rain clouds. They also see that a sprinkler is hooked up and laying out in the yard.

The first student sees the situation, looks at the pattern of water drops on the sidewalk, and says, "Someone did this on purpose - the sprinkler was turned on to water the lawn."

The second student sees the situation, looks at the rain clouds, understands the water cycle, and says, "This happened naturally - the rain came out of the clouds and covered the ground in water."

The third student sees the clouds and the sprinkler, shrugs his shoulders, and says, "We'll never know - could be either. I'm going inside for a beer."

The fourth student sees the clouds and the sprinkler, and says, "Since the clouds could have caused the rain, I refuse to believe that there even is a sprinkler."

Now this may seem a strange analogy--with a very odd answer by the fourth student--but I think it is quite representative of how different people view the world.

The creationist or Intelligent Design proponent is like the first student: he looks at the world around him, sees the pattern of drops, and believes the odds are too overwhelming for it to have been random; thus, someone must have purposefully used the sprinkler.

The naturalist or evolutionist gives 'default' credence to a natural explanation: if it could have happened by nature, then it probably did happen by nature. He may believe God exists, or that God could exist - so there is still room to have a good relationship with him, even if he and I disagree on the point of evolution.

The two that are frustrating to me as a Christian are the last two gentlemen.

First, the agnostic - who says that if we can't prove one over the other he's just going to go have a beer. I can't imagine someone having complete lack of curiosity about both the world and the spiritual life. Frankly, I don't think it's natural: I think there is something inside all of us which wants to understand our role in the universe, and someone who is shut off to investigating it is dealing with some emotional burden and hiding himself from his desires.

But the worst is the confirmed atheist--who says that if a natural path exists (rain) then the other path does not even exist (sprinkler). If this seems an extremely silly analogy, please note how apt it is: I have had many evolutionist atheists tell me exactly this; "Evolution could explain the fossil record, therefore I don't need to believe in God." As though the reality or un-reality of God is at all dependent upon whether you can come up with a hypothesis that does not include Him!

I hate to say this--I really do--but after years of debate, I believe that those who are the evangelical "New Atheists" should not be engaged with in discussions about science. Befriend them, show them kindness and love, take care of them...but don't throw your pearls before swine in their case. Those who are so angry at God that they will say, "If any option exists, I will simply deny His very existence" cannot be converted by reason alone; there is an emotional anger on his part that you should simply avoid.

After all...if you come home from school and a roommate tells you, "Well the water could have come from rain clouds, so that sprinkler over there doesn't exist"...what do you do? (You probably move out before he finishes losing his mind.)

Return to Reality

2011-09-26T10:10:00.000-05:00

Ah, finally some rest.

I am returning from a much-needed vacation to Disney World, which was perfect for me and my family. I'm also happy to announce that a weird time at my job is over, as I have been offered and accepted a promotion that is quite exciting and promises to be a challenging and fun position for the coming years. Thanks to all who have been praying for me in that regard.

As I usually do when I get some rest time, I have some good ideas of new content that I'll be adding soon. Keep your eyes peeled!

A note on commenting rules

2011-09-16T08:05:00.000-05:00

All:

I am willing to have open comments on the board, in which you can state almost anything you want. I will trust my regular readers to call out heresy when necessary. :)

The rules to commenting are below, however. Failure to follow these rules will result in bans from commenting on the site. Thanks.

1. No profanity allowed.

2. You are allowed to post anything--even heretical things--if you are willing to engage in open-minded discussion. Trolling or argumentation for the sake of argumentation is not allowed. We are a site of open-minded discussion, so I will not allow people to just use my blog as a forum for argumentation.

3. Links to other sites are generally not allowed, unless it is a major, well known site (large company/ministry, news site, Wikipedia, etc are all fine; your personal site or multi-hour video against the Trinity is not okay).

Thanks for understanding.

I sure hope not

2011-09-15T10:18:00.001-05:00

About two weeks ago, a friend on Facebook posted a status about the Christian faith. Out of respect I did not respond there, and will leave this person anonymous here--but I cannot get it off of my mind, so I feel the need to comment. (Caveat - I still love and admire the person who said it; this is a disagreement with the statement, not the person.)

The quote:

If we are who God wants us to be individually, the church will naturally be what she ought to be collectively . . .

To which I respond...I sure hope not.

I hope that the state of God's church is not dependent upon each of us, individually, being who we are supposed to be. Because as sinners--both before and after salvation--we will never get to the point that we are where we are supposed to be.

I think more than anything, this statement clearly and perfectly illustrates where we evangelical Christians have often and frequently gone off base. What the quote above should say is this: "God makes the church what she should be collectively, so that we may become who we are supposed to be individually."

Evangelicals too frequently see the church as existing to provide an outlet for a holy people to serve their God. This is not a Biblically-sound view of things. The church exists to provide community for a group of imperfect believers to worship together in honesty and openness before a holy God. The Church, as an institution of God, is at all times holier than those of us who make it up; when we approach it with honesty and meekness, and fellowship with those around us, we grow in holiness for our exposure to it.

That is why the focus of church, as outlined in Acts 2, is to study the teaching of the disciples and to be in fellowship together: our primary purpose in attending church is to be fed by the Word of God and to be in communion with fellow sinners saved by grace. Through this interaction do we grow.

What church is not is a collective of people who God has made holy, coming together so that they can prove through their service or their worship how much they love Him.

You see, that is the backward part of the modern evangelical view of church: we try to live holy (but Jesus-less) lives throughout the week, and gather together to "experience His Spirit" as a collective on Sunday. Instead, we are supposed to be walking with Him in the Spirit all week, then gather together on Sunday to fellowship with others doing the same, and learn more about Him.

Thanks be to God that the value of the church is not dependent upon the holiness of its individual members. Thanks be to God that it actually works the other way around, and church is a place that we downtrodden sinners can go to be encouraged and renewed by our fellow Christians.

Aliens (again)

2011-09-14T07:17:00.001-05:00

About once a year, you see an article something like this one on MSNBC. It says that astronomers have discovered some new set of planets, some of which 'might be earthlike' (HUGE assumptions involved there, but okay), and which are "relatively close" distances of 35 light-years away.

I've mentioned before that stuff like this totally proves that aliens ain't visiting Earth. I've made the statement--and I stand by it--that alien visits are so impossible that if one ever shows up, it would have to be taken as definitive proof of a God.

Just in case you're curious...assume that you are on Voyager 1, the fastest spacecraft we've launched. (Note of interest probably only to me: In the past I used Helios as an example, but in retrospect it is only so fast because of the gravitational slingshot effect of the Sun. Voyager is a better example, because it is interstellar and thus more representative of traveling speeds to other stars, where you lose the gravitational slingshot assistance.)

Anyway, Voyager 1 traveled at 32400 km/hr, and this "enticing" Earth is 35 light-years away...or a bit more than 330 trillion kilometers. This means that if you launched a mission toward it today, at Voyager 1 speeds, you would arrive in the year AD 1,168,702.

We consider it amazing that the pyramids are only close to falling apart after 5,000 years...and you are talking about an engineering project to send something a million years away? And just think! When it returns to us, it will only be 2.2 million years from now!! It's right around the corner!

When I read stories like this, all I can think is...why in the world do we waste money funding such ridiculous research? To try and figure out if there is maybe a planet that might be habitable that is a mere 1,000,000 years from here? Good grief. Instead, why don't we try getting our heads out of the clouds and give some of that money to the needy children starving to death on our streets, eh?

What does a Trinity look like?

2011-09-13T18:53:00.001-05:00

Understanding the concept of the Trinity is among the most difficult doctrines for many Christians. What exactly do we mean that God is three-in-one? Is there a hierarchy between them, and if so does that mean that God the Son is not really “God”, since He is under the leadership of the Father? How can they be separate but the same?

One commonly used analogy is to describe the Trinity as a flame, where the Father is the fire, the Son is the light, and the Spirit is the heat. (As an engineer I’ve always hated this analogy, because I don’t think it says what people think it says. The light and heat from a flame are actually separate “things” from the fire itself, not aspects of the same thing. But anyway.)

The problem is that these descriptions are generally unclear, and usually do little to clarify the situation. I think I can help.

To picture what God ‘looks like’, do we have anything that we can look at to draw inferences upon? The answer is yes—according to the Bible, when He made man, we were made in His image. Note the plurality of the verse in Genesis—“Let us make man in our image”. Clearly, even in Genesis 1:26, God is admitting that He is multiple-in-one; “us-in-me”.

So, we are told that humans are made in God’s image. In what way? Clearly He didn’t mean body style, for as our evolutionary friends are quick to point out, our bodies are fairly similar to primates, whom God did not see fit to call being in His image when He created them.

So what about humans is in God’s image? The answer is—we are trinities.

You see, we have a Mind, a Body, and a Soul. That is, there is a part of us which is creative, rational, and emotive (the Mind); a part which has physical form (the Body); and a part which is spiritual and seeks righteousness and God’s kingdom (the Soul).

Likewise, God the Father is a creative being with rational laws and has emotion and personality (the Mind); God the Son took physical form in our human flesh (the Body); and God the Spirit is the spiritual soul which is reaching out to each of us and indwelling us.

So you see that in fact, God did create us in His image—very much so!

But do you see how these individual aspects of you (mind, body, soul), are none of them You? That is, I am Michael. If I lose a leg, I am not 20% less “Michael”. I’m still Michael, but without a leg. Likewise if I develop dementia, and my mind starts failing, I am not less “Michael”—indeed, often we say of those who have suffered this fate that they are “no longer themselves”, which implies that we see who they are as a distinct entity greater than their mind. Likewise, if I commit a horrible crime, and my soul is seen as an evil wasteland, I am not less “Michael”, am I?

Each of us, you see, already understands the Trinity. For we know that we ourselves are a Person who is comprised of three distinct entities (flesh, mind, spirit); but our Personhood is contained not within any of these three things, but encompasses all of them. This is a picture of the One God, who is Himself comprised of three distinct persons (the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit), yet the Godhead is something distinct and separate from these…just as the personhood of “Michael” is something distinct from my mind-body-spirit combination.

So as you try to picture the Trinity, just remember that the person you think of as “You” is both comprised of, and more than, the distinct entities you call your body, your mind, and your soul. Of course, I'm sure God is infinitely more complex than we can imagine...but the Bible tells us that we are made in His image, and thus we can get a little glimpse into how the Trinity looks by taking a look in a mirror.

Ritual Purity II: A review of Biblical scriptures on holiness

2011-09-05T08:56:00.000-05:00

Recall that in our last post, we learned that our place upon the "holiness" axis is based not upon our works, but upon our status in God's eyes. Holy (the Greek hagios) means 'different' or 'separated'. Some bad theology has resulted from some who interpret this "difference" as being less sinful than those in the world. As we saw in our last post, this is not at all the case! It means that you are called out of profane/common things, and given a special task.

Let's take a moment to see how much more clear some New Testament passages become, when we understand what "holy" and "profane" actually mean.

In the Gospels and Acts, the word "holy" is only used to describe nine perople or places: Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God, the city of Jerusalem, the Temple's Holy of Holies, the angels, the prophets (both of old, and John the Baptist), God's Law/covenant, and firstborn children. Notice that in none of these cases was the process of making the person or thing "holy" based upon their actions: in all cases, they were set apart for God's purposes before they were born.

But now that we understand this term "holy", we can better understand a number of Scriptures.

Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. Matt 7:6

This verse creates a lot of confusion and even stress among some people. Jesus' "pearls before swine" comment seems to be saying that we shouldn't be evangelizing to the lost, right?

No, not at all. First of course you must understand the context. In this passage, Jesus is speaking to a gathering of Mosaic Jews, talking about how they had misinterpreted the Law, and that it was much harder than they originally thought to remain on the "pure" part of the cleanliness axis. But he also warns them to not give to dogs/swine things that were precious (pearls) and set apart for special use (holy).

So what He is saying is very specific: the Jews were not to be trying to give their Law (which was holy, or set apart, for their use) to those who were profane/common (the dogs/swine--Gentiles). He is doing no more or less than reaffirming that the Mosaic Covenant binds the Jews, not to the rest of us.

Now after we leave the Gospels/Acts, and start getting into the church era, we see a fascinating change: one more group has been added to the list of those who are "holy"--anyone who has faith in Christ. Those who have faith are those who were set apart from before time for Him.

In Romans, Paul goes to great effort to demonstrate two things: (1) those who were not set apart as holy (i.e., Gentiles) are not worthy to receive God; and (2) no one is on the 'pure' side of the cleanliness axis anyway. But then, after discussing salvation through faith, Paul exhorts us: "present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." Paul is calling us to sacrifice ourselves, and see our bodies as set apart for God's purposes. What does this mean? Perhaps in Peter it is a bit more clear. Here, Peter points out that we are set apart to lead worship just as the Jewish priests had been--but our sacrifice is ourselves, rather than an animal.

Recall how the Jewish priests were 'set apart' to bring worship and sacrifices to God? Well, Paul and Peter are saying, now we have been set apart for God (mind, body, and Spirit). We are holy. But God still desires cleanliness/purity, even among those who are holy; so how do we achieve it? There is no more need for works of sacrifice, for Jesus performed the sacrifice! All that is left to sacrifice, they say, is to turn ourselves over to Him.

Likwise, in Corinthians, Paul says that since the Spirit indwells us, we are now holy/set apart, just as His Temple is set apart.

Perhaps nowhere in the New Testament is the relationship between holiness and cleanliness better demonstrated than Ephesians 1:3-10:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us[a] for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known[b] to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Notice a few things here. First, we are "holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will". So you see that, just as in the rest of the Bible, our status as "holy" or "common" is not based upon us, but predestined by God before we even were born.

But also notice part two of the statement--we are made "holy" through this setting apart, but we are made "blameless" (i.e., clean/pure) because of "redemption through his blood...which he set forth in Christ".

So you see, we are set apart as holy because God called us before all time; we become blameless when we have faith in Christ's sacrifice.

[Side note: much of the Calvinist-Arminian debate is nullified here. Clearly and explicitly, we are told that our 'holiness' is determined before time and our 'blamelessness' or cleanliness is based upon our faith in the sacrifice of Christ. So really the only argument is: did God 'set apart' everyone and some choose to not become blameless (the Arminian stance); did God set apart only those whom He wanted, and compel them to have faith in Him while compelling the others not to do so (the Calvinist stance); or did He set apart His elect, and help them overcome the boundaries of their will to have the needed faith, and allow the others to choose cleanliness or pollution as they see fit (the Lutheran stance). It's all kind of silly, in the end. Clearly from the passage above, and the others before it, we are made holy or not holy based upon no choice of our own. God sets apart those whom He chooses, as is His right as the chooser. But also clearly, our purity/cleanliness before God is not forced upon us (or forcably kept from us), but is based upon our belief/faith in Christ's sacrifice.]

Notice also Colossians, in which we are again told that we are to be presented "holy AND blameless". Notice a repeating pattern here? It is because our holiness is one thing, and our blamelessness/cleanliness is the other axis.

2 Timothy 1:8-10is an interesting passage. In it, we are reminded that when we have a holy or set-apart calling, it is for God's purposes, not ours. Now let's think on this for a minute. What is 'set apart' about our callings from God? It is not just that we are called to be priests--many pagans have priests, so there is nothing 'set apart' or different about that. No, it is that we are all called and set apart in whatever role we are called. I am an engineering manager. There are many engineering managers. But I have been set apart to be a holy engineering manager - to walk with Jesus every day in my role, so that I may be a priest to Him, not just someone balancing statics moments or troubleshooting chemistry/physics issues.

Conclusion

In many ways, we modern Christians have missed some of the glorious brilliance of our Scriptures, because we did not understand this concept of holiness. We confuse "holy" with "righteous", when they are two separate things: holiness is being set aside (not of your works, but at your birth) for a special purpose for God, dedicated to His purpose; righteousness is being clean or pure based upon your actions.

But because we read these two words as being synonymns, too often do we misinterpret what God is trying to tell us in His word. Instead, it is critical that we understand what holiness is, and what cleanliness/purity is. Hopefully this article helps with that.

A graphical representation of ritual purity

2011-09-04T09:11:00.000-05:00

Ritual purity is mentioned so often in the Bible that it is almost impossible to avoid, and yet many Christians fail to understand the concepts at all. I hope in this article to give a brief overview of purity, in a way that is easily understandable and practical for helping illuminate the Bible.

We often reduce Biblical commands to saying that something is “good” or “bad” – we want everything to be easily divisible into right or wrong. So when we see words like “profane” and “sinful”, we see these as being synonyms; likewise, we consider “holy” and “righteous” to be the same. In fact, these are not the case! It is a bit more complicated than that.

In most cultures and ancient religions, you see, there are two different ‘axes’ upon which one may be judged: their purity or righteousness (which I shall call their “cleanliness axis”) and their holiness or commonness (which I shall call their “relational” axis). Let’s look at these one at a time.

First is the relational axis. This can be viewed as a measurement of how closely one is related to God. Someone or something is “holy” if it is set apart for God’s purpose and thus is relationally very close to Him; something is “common” or “profane” if it is not specially set apart for God’s purpose.

Note the predestination-ish aspect of the relational axis—we don’t have anything to do with where we sit upon this axis. As with most people, I am born down at the bottom of the axis, among the common Gentiles. Whether you are born Jew or Gentile, man or woman, priest or non-priest, is due to no choice of yours. You were either set apart at birth, or you were not.

But it isn’t just people who sit on the relational axis; certain places and times are set apart as special to God, as well. So being in the Holy of Holies was to directly stand on hallowed ground with God; to be in Jerusalem at a Feast Day (which were ‘holy’, or ‘set apart’ days) was particularly holy. To be sitting in Rome on a normal Thursday afternoon was a ‘common’ day.

So you see, your holiness had really nothing to do with what you do, but was based upon who you are. You were either set apart, or you were not.

Next, we come to the cleanliness axis. These are the actions that we do, which make us either “pure” (i.e., able to come into the presence of God) or “impure/unclean”. We of course are the same way today. Imagine someone at your church with a large, puss-filled, sore that is oozing on Sunday morning. You might say that they should have stayed home. Or maybe someone who is sick, or someone who is oozing blood from a headwound. Some churches (sadly) go so far as to discourage people from bringing their children or disabled persons or unclean people or other ‘distractions’. Right or wrong, all of these are examples of the same concept – they are people who, because of a temporary state or due to an action, are considered “improper” to be in church.

This was the concept of cleanliness – and the Law describes hundreds of examples of cleanliness. Your sins make you unclean, but that is just one example. Other examples might include perfectly ‘allowable’ or natural events – having sex with your wife the night before, or having accidentally come into contact with a dead body, or having contracted a disease, or a woman during her menstruation cycle. Any of these events were considered “unclean” to come before God.

On the far left of this axis is uncleanliness – the worst example of which were “abominations”. Abominations were events which were considered so far out of the natural order that were so polluting to the individual that he/she could only be cleansed through a death sacrifice. The abominations of the Law were listed as: murder, incest, adultery, rape, bestiality, homosexuality, child sacrifice, and sorcery.

On the far right side of this axis is cleanliness – the perfect adherence to the Law, and its several hundred interpretative traditions.

In between these extremes were a variety of actions which, though polluting, could be overcome. If you ate the wrong thing, or had leprosy, or your menstruation, or had sex with your wife, then you were impure—unable to come into the people of God. However, these afflictions could all be overcome; there were paths that could make you pure. These often involved a mikvah, or bathing ritual.

So now, our situation looks something like this:

So let us start our first post on ritual purity with coming to the conclusion of where you stand. Those who go to heaven are those who are clean and holy. It’s a small crowd. Only Jesus can sit in the far upper-right of the graph. Most Jews are somewhere above the midline and spread from somewhat clean to somewhat polluted. Those of us who are Gentiles tend to be almost exclusively on the bottom-left.

This is what makes grace so amazing: God takes the profane and makes it holy; He takes the polluted and makes them clean. Christ’s death serves as a one-time sacrifice for all our pollution (past, present, and future) if we believe; it moves us from the ‘polluted’ to the ‘clean’. And the Scripture tells us that, for those who believe, God called us and set us apart—that is, He moved us from ‘common’ to ‘holy’.

This is why our righteousness is based upon faith, not works: nothing you can do will move you from ‘common’ to ‘holy’; and even the best of us can only move partway between ‘polluted’ and ‘clean’. But our faith in God’s calling makes us holy; Christ’s death cleanses us from all of our pollution.

The two enemies of grace

2011-09-04T08:05:00.000-05:00

Some people really struggle with embracing their freedom in Christ. Most people who claim to be Christians embrace a Christian legalism, setting up strict rules to create their own version of purity just like the Mosaic Law provided. Others (though many, many fewer) embrace grace by throwing themselves into sinful practices, ignoring Paul's command that though all things are free for us, not all things are good for us.

I came across a great discussion today between Michael Horton of White Horse Inn and Tullian Tchividjian. Tullian described the enemies of grace perfectly:

I’ve argued that that there is one primary enemy of the gospel—legalism—but it comes in two forms. Some people avoid the gospel and try to “save” themselves by keeping the rules, doing what they’re told, maintaining the standards, and so on (I call this “front-door legalism”). Other people avoid the gospel and try to “save” themselves by breaking the rules, doing whatever they want, developing their own autonomous standards, and so on (I call this “back-door legalism”). In other words, there are two “laws” we can choose to live by other than Christ: the law which says “I can find freedom and fullness of life if I keep the rules” or the law which says “I can find freedom and fullness of life if I break the rules.” Either way you’re still trying to “save” yourself—which means both are legalistic because both are self-salvation projects. So that, what some call license is just another form of legalism.

The key is this--does your salvation come from inside or out? You are following front-door legalism if you are trying to live according to a set of rules that define a "good" Christian. (If you don't think you would do that, how often have you said, or heard it said: "I just don't see how a saved person could do THAT." This indicates self-saving legalism). You are trying to live by back-door legalism if you are just hedonistically partaking in sin for the fun of it, and through this trying to "find yourself". Both are looking inward for salvation.

But real salvation comes from outside. Being holy--set apart for God's purposes--demands in its very definition that the setting apart is done by God, not us. Grace is from outside; law is from inside--in whatever form you choose.

And now...the good news from the seminar

2011-09-02T09:35:00.007-05:00

Okay, so yesterday I posted some bad things about the management seminar I attended. So let me share three very good things.

First, Colin Powell (my favorite speaker of the evening) talked about the importance of being trustworthy. He said that none of us are perfect (no shock to my readers!), but that people will follow a leader who is trustworthy into battle while abandoning a deceptive leader even during good times. The way he said it was like this: "Trust is the foundation of every organization that succeeds...it is the glue that holds the team together, and the lubricant that keeps it moving forward." He advised that all of us in leadership positions make it our top priority to demonstrate what he called "moral courage"--the willingness to publicly and privately do the hard things that were right for the vision set forth for the company, even if it led to personal loss.

Another nice moment was when, Lou Holtz, former football coach for our Razorbacks, spoke. In the midst of his speech he was going to give us his version of the three most important things we can learn. Now usually I roll my eyes at this point: every speaker has some magical formula that will lead you to success, and (strangely) they all just so happen to be different from each other. But Holtz actually gave great, practical, spiritually-relevant advice. He says that these are the only three rules he had with his children, and his only three rules on a football team:

1. Do right, to the best of your ability.
2. Pursue excellence in your chosen path, whatever it is.
3. Show people that you care about them.

He argued that if you balanced those three things, you would find yourself making wise decisions that were Godly in nature. I think he was right in general (though I would have added: #4. You cannot will yourself to perfection, and God loves you anyway.). But his basic point is that we can strip away most of the complexity of life and just simplify things. Jesus said something similar, as I recall--all that really matters is to love God and love your neighbor; if we just do those two things everything else works itself out.

Finally, Terry Bradshaw--who was just as goofy and un-serious in his speech as he is on Fox NFL Sunday--had a profound statement. When discussing his suffering after his wife left him, Bradshaw said, "It is in the private, painful crucible of suffering that God gives you the greatest gifts. ...None of us can be displaced from failure, or from God's love during it." Wow.

Some really bad advice

2011-09-01T07:45:00.000-05:00

I had the opportunity a few days ago to attend an excellent management seminar; at this event I was able to hear live some amazing speakers: Rudy Giuliani, Gen. Colin Powell, Steve Forbes, Terry Bradshaw, First Lady Laura Bush, Krish Dhanam, and Lou Holtz, among others. Overall it was an amazing seminar.

But there were two very, very bad seminars. Bad for me as a Christian, not necessarily personally. The two seminars (by businessmen named Bob Patel and James Smith, in case you're curious), were financial advice seminars. And both were dangerously anti-gospel--all the more surprising that one was hidden behind the terminology of spirituality. I'd like to take a moment to discuss the anti-gospel behind their advice.

The two peddled slightly different financial advice (which, of course, you could learn more about if you bought access to their upcoming in-depth seminars, just coincidentally). So I will treat them differently.

The first I would call financial gnosticism. It is the proposition that there is some secretive, hidden knowledge that can set you free from all the issues of the world. If you just buy his website's tools, you will find out the 'inside info' that no one else knows, which will allow you to outperform all of the experts. (Of course, he never adequately answers why it is that he doesn't just keep the knowledge to himself and become a billionaire.)

He was a great orator, and told hilarious stories; but these stories all subtly built into his agenda--follow me, he seems to say, and you will have a life like mine: where you work so little that the neighbor boys think you're unemployed; where your business partner buys a Ferrari; where you can buy your son a car for breaking state records in track and field; where you have so many vacations that travel gets obnoxious.

The second speaker peddled a sort of prosperity gospel: God wants to bless you with plenty, and Satan wants to keep you down. I'm not putting words in his mouth either--he was extremely evangelical (when he wasn't cursing), once even saying specifically, "Satan wants you to be scared and sit on your money" while God wants you to buy property. It is a strange reading of the parable of the talents, I suppose. He also said that Jesus was a carpenter, so I guess that means He approves of real estate deals? And of course his speech was full of the typical trite things such speakers say: "Can't is the language of losers," "You can do anything if you'll just take the first step", "Life is all about positioning yourself for success", yada, yada, yada.

They both preached a "financial freedom" that was anything but free: one required you to pay for his service and perform frequent day-trading of stocks; the other was peddling a system whereby you had three sources of income (investments, work for a company, own your own side business).

But worst of all, what both speakers shared that was so dangerous was a very materialistic end vision: do whatever it takes to protect your retirement. They both said, several times in fact, that you must choose one of two lifestyles: do nothing and be poor and homeless in retirement, or follow them and be a millionaire able to do whatever you want when you reach old age.

I have a number of problems with what they said, which I will try to succintly sum up in four points:

1. Tomorrow is not guaranteed, but eternity is. Do not store up treasures on earth, but upon heaven--be using your money now to invest in other people, not to invest in your future leisure. If your focus is constantly upon how to make money for your retirement, then your retirement becomes your God. I think someone kind of important said that.

2. Both talked about the importance of creating margin in your budget now, so that you can invest that money in your future. While this is good sound financial advice (I'm a big fan of margin-based budgeting, which we do), it is wrong when you violate #1 above. One used the example of having created $3900 of extra money and starting to invest it. Well maybe this is bad advice from me, but...when I get $3900 (as we did when my beautiful wife did extra taxes this year), I don't want to invest it in a potential retirement for me, some 30 years from now. Instead we are going to take our family to Disney, getting to take more than a week to fully enjoy some fun time as a family. Those memories are much more valuable to me than a potential future cash flow.

3. CS Lewis once said, "Aim for heaven and you get earth thrown in. Aim for earth and you get neither." Despite the pseudo-Christian language used by one of the speakers, these kind of anti-gospels are the very definition of earth-based thinking. I don't see a lot of books of the Bible telling you to make sure and provide for your retirement; I see a lot telling you to give until it hurts, forgive debts even when it doesn't make sense, refuse to charge interest when loaning, to loan without expectation of return, and to embrace a lifestyle of providing for others instead of yourself.

4. When I hear these guys speak, I just get tired and sad. Their version of security is a large bank account, earned through a lifetime of pinching pennies, investing in careful risks, Scrooge-like management of your funds, and working tirelessly at all times. I'm sorry, but as for me--I will embrace the real Gospel, which promises rest and eternal security.

A few great quotes

2011-08-31T08:38:00.001-05:00

A couple of fantastic quotes from speaker and author Krish Dhanam:

On fatherhood:

Don't let your children walk around with a hole in their heart where your blessing should be.

On measuring success:

Success is who you are in relation to where you began and what tools you were given, not how you relate to the one sitting next to you.

On ultimate truth:

I can promise you that these three things are true:
1. There is a God
2. It ain't me
3. It ain't you

On the dangers of eliminating competition:

In our desire to create equality, all we have done is raise the banner of mediocrity.

The watered-down gospel

2011-08-30T20:35:00.000-05:00

What if the blase religiosity of most American teenagers is not a result of poor communication but the result of excellent communication of a watered-down gospel so devoid of God's self-giving love in Jesus Christ, so immune to the sending love of the Holy Spirit that is might no be Christianity at all?

--KC Dean, "Almost Christian"

(hat tip Josh Hurlburt)

Explaining my inconsistency

2011-08-28T07:21:00.000-05:00

I wanted to take a moment to apologize to everyone for my inconsistency the past two weeks on posting for this blog - and to say that I expect it to continue for another week or so.

I have mentioned before that in my 'day job' I am the engineering manager at a major company. Well, that company is going through a reorganization globally, and this is causing a few uncertainties.

First and foremost, on a temporary basis I am serving as plant manager running one of our factories--so in addition to my normal job, I am running a $32 million factory with a team of 80 employees. That is a pretty stressful, time-consuming job as you can imagine. If I wish to keep that job long-term I probably can.

Secondly, I am being considered for a global role in the new organizational structure. The role would be exciting, but likely require a good bit of travel internationally.

Third, I of course have my current job (which is busy enough for any of us!)

So please pray for me during this time. My primary reaction is one of thanks for the blessings of God: during a reorganization (in which, no doubt, many will lose their jobs) I am being 'fought' over for new opportunities. That is always reassuring, and I am thankful for the security during an unstable time.

However, also please pray for clarity--which position(s) do I like? Which ones give me joy, and which should I avoid?

Being an heir of Christ

2011-08-22T11:01:00.003-05:00

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. Galatians 4:1-3, ESV

In this passage, Paul is concluding a longer section in which he identifies that we become heirs of Christ through our faith in Him, regardless of our lineage. I highly suggest you read the entire passage.

In it, Paul uses a very intriguing analogy. He compares us to children of a wealthy father. Though a child is an heir to his father’s fortune, the father does not simply let him do whatever he wants. Instead, up until the date that he receives his inheritance, the child is under a set of rules. Perhaps a nanny is placed in charge of him, or he is not allowed to drive the car yet, or he cannot watch television after 8, or he must attend school whether he wants to or not. So for a long period of his early life, he is under guidance of others (people and rules). Then at some date in the future, he is given his inheritance to do with it what he will.

Paul compares this to the relationship between Law and Grace. The Mosiac Law (Old Covenant), Paul says, was developed to be our guardian/manager/nanny early in our lives. This was done to get us through until Jesus came and set us free to claim our inheritance.

A couple of really interesting points come out from this discussion.

First, this helps us understand the purpose of the Law. Paul says that we were given the Law because of our fallen, sinful nature (3:19). This parallels well with his analogy. The reason I have rules limiting my children is generally for their own protection and growth. I do not let my son drive a car at age 6 because it would be unsafe. I do not let my son eat donuts all day because it is unhealthy. I have my son sit with me as I pay bills so that he can understand how to manage his money. I do not let him skip his schoolwork because it is necessary for his growth.

You see, we have rules in our household to protect them from dangers they do not realize, and to prepare them for being able to handle the inheritance.

This is precisely what the Law does for us. The Law was given to Moses because, as a sinful, fallen people, we humans were not yet ready for Christ. The Law showed us what holiness was. It demonstrated our inability to manage our inheritance appropriately on our own. It protected us from the danger of freedom without knowledge of what holiness actually looks like. And, just like my rules for my children, it also prepared us for growth: by knowing the Law, we know the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’; we know what it means to meet God’s standard (and, how far we fall below it!).

We humans, in our infancy, needed the Law. It was good for our protection as well as for our education; this is why Paul consistently says that we received the Law on account of our sinful natures. But then, at the appointed time, God sent His son Jesus Christ. Jesus established the New Covenant. By doing so, He freed us to become heirs of God through our faith in Christ. This frees us from the Law, because the Law existed to prepare us for Grace. That was its purpose. The Law did not go away; nor is it null and void—it is still the example of what perfect holiness looks like. But it is no longer required, just as an adult no longer is required to follow his nanny’s wisdom: our inheritance is ours through faith; our time as children is done.

This analogy helps us all to see the balance. Some embrace Grace, to the extent that they believe they can just go out and live as sinfully as they desire; others embrace the Law (either Mosaic, or the new Christian-legalism that is so prevalent), and through it attempt to earn their inheritance. Paul’s analogy here shows us the real situation: we are freed from the Law, but this does not mean that the Law should be completely ignored or is become totally irrelevant.

Rather, having been freed from the demands of the Law, we are now free to pursue God without the pressure of our salvation being dependent upon it. Our inheritance is secure; we need not adhere to the Law of Moses (or any other law, for that matter) in order to obtain it. Rather, we can simply be with Jesus, seek out His council, and live with Him daily.

To put it in the words of Paul’s analogy: when we were children, our wealthy father gave us a caretaker (the Law) to protect us and train us what it meant to be His son. Now that we have grown into adulthood, our father has given us our inheritance—it is ours to use as we see fit. We are no longer under the caretaker. The wise man will still remember the caretaker’s words and let them inform his life to make good choices—but even if we do not, it will not change our status as the heirs of our father, nor remove the inheritance from us.

Honor and Shame in the New Testament, Part I

2011-08-17T19:17:00.001-05:00

Not long ago, I returned from a business trip to Qinhuangdao, China.

"No thanks, China. I prefer to get urinated on after I get on the bus."

While on the (ridiculously) long flight home, I found myself reading a Beijing-based newspaper. There was an editorial in this paper about a controversy. The author wrote that, while crossing the street, he had seen an American tourist yelling at a motorist who had run a red light. The Chinese author noted that his countrymen seemed upset at the American for yelling, rather than upset at the driver for running the light. The author was arguing that they should instead be upset at the person who broke the law. He (who was American-educated) pointed out that American tourists are the most law-abiding people in China, and encouraged the Chinese to embrace such an approach.

What the author has failed to grasp is an important difference between American and Chinese culture. Every culture, you see, uses one of two “lenses” when viewing and judging a person’s moral rightness. Each of us views actions either in terms of a law-guilt lens, or an honor-shame lens.

Law-guilt cultures (e.g., America, Britain, France) determine the moral righteousness of a person by whether they adhere to the laws of the land. Running a red light is against the law, so the American was outraged by it. Running a yellow, while perhaps just as dangerous, is completely fine because it is not illegal. Lying to someone might not be all that great, but it doesn’t make you a criminal—so we tolerate it, and even freely admit that we all do it. Failure to leave a tip on the table may be bad form, but none of us would say it is morally wrong; skipping out on the restaurant bill is illegal and stealing.

Consider how often people describe themselves as “law-abiding citizens” as an example of their own goodness. Consider how often you have heard a statement like this: “Okay, I might have done that, but it’s not like a killed anyone.” Consider times when taxes or tolls seem outrageous, and you say, “It’s almost criminal”, or “It’s highway robbery.” You don’t like it, but you see nothing wrong with paying the toll; because deep down, a person is not really immoral unless they are engaging in an actual criminal activity.

It is that distinction—criminal versus law-abiding—that ultimately determines for us whether a person is “good” or “bad” for us. This is the primary attitude for a law-guilt culture.

But not all cultures see the world through this lens. Other cultures—some estimates say up to 70% of all cultures throughout history—are in fact radically different in their gage of morality. These are called honor-shame cultures.

Honor-shame cultures (e.g., the Biblical world, Japan, the Far East) judge rightness not based upon adherence to the law, but rather based upon the honorableness of the action. Laws are good, but honor is more important: maintaining the honor of your family and your name is critical, even if laws must be broken to achieve the goal. Your reputation is your most valuable asset, and must be protected. Running a red light is bad if it is seen by others as shameful; if everyone else accepts it as okay, then it is not a “bad” act. Lying to someone is dishonorable, regardless of whether you do it in a criminal manner. If you are supposed to tip, then not tipping is just as bad as skipping out on the bill—especially if others can see you, and know that it was you.

So in an honor-shame culture, the primary consideration is not, “Is this person a criminal?”, but rather, “Is this person honorable?”

For example, let’s consider a celebrity case. A few years ago, Martha Stewart lied during an investigation (which is illegal) about insider trading. She went to jail for obstruction of justice, and was eviscerated by the press. Throughout American society, she was seen as a horrible person. Why? Because she lied. Ah, but is that really the reason? Celebrities lie in public all the time—politicians, athletes, actors and actresses are all famous for lying. They claim faith in one thing but live differently; they claim not to have done things that they are clearly shown to have done; they say that they hate plastic surgery while getting their noses done. So where is the Martha Stewart-esque condemnation for these groups? At most, we roll our eyes and ignore them; more often, we simply accept it.

What is the difference? Well, one was illegal and one was not. To us, in a law-guilt culture, the legality of the lie makes all the difference in the world! To someone from an honor-shame culture, the public lie is equally immoral regardless of its legal ramifications.

This is an example of a law-guilt culture: if you aren’t guilty of breaking a law, you are not a criminal, and hence not all that bad. The honor-shame culture would assess the rightness or wrongness of the act regardless of whether it was illegal or not. So masturbation is either always dishonorable or always honorable, regardless of whether it is illegal.

So in my opening example in China, the American tourist (and the American-educated journalist) sees the law-breaking man running the red light as more wrong than the American who publicly berated him. But to the Chinese, who are an honor-based culture, the American tourist making a public scene is far more "wrong" than the person who, in running the red light, did no one any harm.

Now this distinction, it turns out, has an awfully lot to do with Christianity. The Scriptural word referencing honor (doxa) is used more in the New Testament than the words “sin”, “forgiveness”, “remission”, and “mercy” combined. The authors of the New Testament thought about personal honor so much that it shows up on average about ten times per book of the New Testament. Obviously, this honor-shame context is something that we need to understand, since most people throughout history have viewed the world this way, including those who God used to found our faith!

In the second part of this post, we will look at exactly what honor means in the New Testament, and look at some examples of the text. We will conclude with a look at what this means for us, as sinners saved by the grace of God.

For a more thorough, scholarly treatment of the subject, see DeSilva’s very excellent, “Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity”.i>

Silly logic

2011-08-16T19:36:00.000-05:00
So today I was reading an article about a Christian pro soccer team on CNN. Overall it was an interesting article. But there was one statement that was just mind-blowing to me.

One of the people in the article, a Bob Schindler from Church Sports Outreach, said that the key question was whether there was competition before the Fall. If not, then competition is result of sin and therefore should be avoided; if so, then competition is not a result of sin and therefore can be partaken of.

Now I don't know Schindler. I'm sure he's a great man with some great points. Certainly he's dedicated his life to ministry, which I tremendously respect.

But the logic here is astonishing, and dangerous, and all too common: "the Fall was caused by sin; therefore the results of the Fall are sinful; therefore we should not partake of things that did not pre-exist the Fall."

That is, after all, his argument. So let's follow that same line of logic in some other areas:
* Adam and Eve did not cover themselves before the Fall. Coverings only existed as a result of the Fall. Therefore all Christians should be nudists.
* Adam and Eve did not have jobs before sin. The curse of work (toiling the ground) was given as a result of sin. Therefore, working is sinful. All Christians should quit their jobs.
* Democracy was unheard of until after the Fall. If there had been no sin, there could be no democracy. Therefore, Christians shouldn't vote.
* Adam and Eve only ate fruit before the Fall. Therefore sin brought about meat-eating. Therefore we should all be vegans.

Come on, guys. There are so many good things to discuss with regard to Christian sports (is Tebow the real deal? do Christ's commands for submissiveness and meekness imply we should avoid competition? with so many professing Christians, why are sports so filled with non-Christian lifestyles? who should I take #6 in a fantasy football, 12-team, QB-scoring-heavy draft?). So why make up a silly argument like this?

Just as a general rule...let's stick to the Scriptures, guys. The buffet-style, add-on theologies do nothing but hurt our cause. The Bible is not written to justify or condemn 20th century sporting events, so let's please focus on the important aspects--like the work being done by the team in the article above.

A post of thanksgiving

2011-08-11T23:04:00.000-05:00
I just wanted to take a moment to thank God for sparing me.

I was in a bad accident yesterday on the way to work. A car in the far right lane cut across two lanes of traffic (presumably in a hurry to get to work). He either thought he could slide ahead of me, or--more likely--never really looked. He ran me off of the road and I spun out, into the concrete wall beside the interstate. I'm not entire sure how it all happened (it was so fast; very surreal experience--a few minor things are crystal clear to me and others I don't remember at all); somehow though both the front and back of my car were ripped off. He appeared to suffer minor damage only, and never stopped--just kept going.

But amazingly, not only am I alive, but I seem to be doing well. I'm extremely sore, with some deep bruises on my knees and chest, but that seems to be the worst of it. Thank God! Many have died in far lesser accidents.

The car has been totalled, and hopefully we will get enough back from insurance to at least cover the remaining amount of the loan. I think we should come out about even, which is all you can really ask for.

So I just wanted to take this time to share with my readers, and publicly thank God for His mercy, allowing me to see and hug and play with my children again.

Pics of the car below, FYI:

If you have a Camry, you know that the front of the car in the second picture should be about two feet further than it is--taken clean off at the engine block.

Guest Post

2011-08-09T10:10:00.002-05:00
I am very excited to have a new post up over at Mockingbird's excellent blog--check it out!

Modesty and Vanity in the Church

2011-08-08T09:40:00.000-05:00
Over on Her.meneutics, the women's blog at ChristianityToday, there is an interesting article about modesty in the church.

I'm not really going to talk too much in detail about the article, which had some real strengths to it. One thing with which I strongly disagree, however, is their primary reason why we should be modest--to avoid the causing of sin of lust in others.

This is a common mantra among Christians, particularly those in evangelical circles. And certainly there is some truth to it: some women dress provocatively, specifically to encourage men to lust. I need not say the obvious - this is wrong.

But I have two problems with this being the primary argument for modesty. First, there is only so much that we can hold a person responsible for someone else's sins. Ultimately--even if the women dressed provocatively on purpose--if a man sins in lustful thoughts, the sin is his alone. The fact that she dressed to induce it is not a mitigating factor. You cannot tie her sin or lack of sin to the resultant action of another. If she is an ugly woman and dressing in such a way does not inspire lust, does that mean that she did not sin? Or if a woman is sexy, dresses modestly, and still inspires lust, is she the one at fault? You see the flaw in the logic: women are responsible for their motivations in why they dress a certain way; men are responsible for their own lustfulness regardless of whether a woman was careless (or even purposeful) in creating a greater temptation.

But there is a bigger issue here. We cannot battle immodesty if we do not understand it. Immodesty is not an attempt to cause others to sin. It is a cry for love and appreciation - it is vanity, at its heart. The desire to be appreciated and seen as beautiful.

And this vanity is not limited to women. Think of all the pastors with perfectly coiffed hair and frosted tips and flawless speaking styles. Think of the men with the fake tans and perfect bodies--done purely to gain the approval of others. Think of the rising megachurch worship itself, full of pomp and multimedia and flash and captivation. It is all vanity. It is all, at its heart, a desire to be accepted.

Okay, so it is vanity. How do we attack vanity? We attack vanity with the Gospel. The knowledge that we are loved, simply because of who we are--not because of the airs we put on. Women, you are captivating because God made you captivating. Immodest dress does not enhance this, but detracts from it. The same is true for men, and for worship, and for everything that we pour our vanities into--our shallow desires to be accepted and loved. They all stem from that same root: that same lie that the serpent told Eve: that God would withhold good from us, that He does not love us as He should.

God loves you. Just as you are. Warts and all. And He won't love you any more just because you cover those warts with makeup.

Micro-Charitable Giving

2011-08-05T09:04:00.001-05:00
As you may have noticed, I've been a bit slow to post lately; my apologies. We are launching a new product line at work, which has been extremely time-consuming. Thankfully a light is at the end of the tunnel - my new engineer has been hired and I'm training him. I expect the craziness to last only a week or so.

In the meantime, check out this insightful article on charitable giving at the Freakonomics site.

This really rings true to me. We have traditionally given to large charities, to churches, and to people who need it as we see them. This leads to exactly what they are talking about: giving to a major charity, you have no personal feeling of satisfaction. Sure, you helped someone (probably; or paid someone's salary at the charity, which is also valuable); but you don't know who or how. There is no feeling of connection. Spiritually, it kind of comes down to you writing a check in order to pay off your guilt.

But when you give to the guy on the street corner, you make a difference. A $10 gift to a homeless man is much more valuable and makes a much bigger impact than a $10 gift to a charity.

A few comments I have on charitable giving:

1. Sometimes people do not give because they feel it is wasted. "I see that guy all the time," they'll say. Or, "He should get a job instead." Or, "He'll just spend it on booze." To which I say - So? So? and So?

When it comes to Christianity, what matters - his heart, or yours? Is it your right to judge whether he should be asking for help? Or is it your responsibility to help those who ask for it?

Your gift is valuable spiritually regardless of whether he used it properly.

Oh, and by the way - the only way to be certain that he won't get value from your gift is if you don't give it! Give freely, and if he abuses it then that is his issue, not yours. If you are really worried about giving cash, then take them to a hotel, or give them McDonald's, or sodas, or something tangible.

2. Don't worry about being taken advantage of. I absolutely HATE when people say, as they are choosing not to give money to a panhandler, "I heard
about this one beggar in NYC that made $100,000 a year!" Again - so what?

There are three scenarios in every begging situation:

A. He is taking advantage of you, and you give anyway. The result is that you have given with a good heart, and if there is anything wrong it is on him, not you. Does that fact that he does wrong make your gift less generous?

B. He is not taking advantage of you, and you give. This is a win-win.

C. He is not taking advantage of you, but suspecting it you do not give. This is the worst case scenario: someone needs your help, you can help, and because you judged him (already a Christian no-no!), you have withheld your help.

3. Consider the impact of proportion. Small amounts given to dozens of homeless throughout the year will make a bigger impact to people's lives than one medium-sized check written to a large charity.

4. Remember how you are blessed. Whenever I am tempted not to give to a beggar (if I'm actually carrying cash), I ask myself--what else would I spend this cash on? Usually it's snacks or sodas or something else that I will quickly lose value for. That usually helps me realize that it doesn't hurt me to give it.

Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and the Hero Myth

2011-08-01T08:00:00.001-05:00
So right now I'm reading through the Percy Jackson series. (We'll see how far I get into it. It's not bad, but it is way more derivative of Harry Potter than I had suspected, which has been distracting to me.)

What is most interesting is how so much of literature is based upon the same basic premise.

In Percy Jackson, the hero realizes that there is actually a hidden world that we had heard hints of (the Greek gods); that there is a great, hidden power within that world (the Olympians and monsters); that Percy is in fact a part of that world rather than ours (the son of Poseidon); and that upon recognizing this fact he has access to inborn gifts that he never knew he possessed.

In Harry Potter, the hero realizes that there is actually a hidden world that we had heard hints of (magic); that there is a great, hidden power within that world (wizards and witches); that Harry is in fact a part of that world rather than ours (son of the Potters, enemies of the evil wizard Voldemort); and that upon recognizing this fact he has access to inborn gifts that he never knew he possessed.

In the Narnia series, the heroes realize that there is actually a hidden world that we had heard hints of (Narnia); that there is a great, hidden power within that world (the shallow magic of the Witch and the deep magic of Aslan); that they are in fact a part of that world rather than ours (prophesied ages ago to be the kings and queens of Narnia); and that upon recognizing this fact they have access to inborn gifts that they never knew they possessed.

You even see it with purely adult literature, such as the Odyssey series of Arthur C. Clarke. In it, we learn that space is filled with energy-based creatures who go about propogating life; that our hero (Dave Bowman) is selected to be the first member of the human race to join this group; and upon undergoing this transformation he can do things previously impossible.

Consider the Wizard of Oz. Alice in Wonderland. The Hobbit. Need I go on?

A huge portion of science fiction, fantasy, and children's literature is based upon this key premise: there is more to reality than what we know; we are a part of that world rather than ours; and through this connection we are much more important and powerful than we realize. Think through most fiction books, and you will find this to be the case - that there is more to the reality than we think; that we are a part of that world; and that through this connection do we gain our value as people.

Why do we all have this? Why is there this inner desire that so many authors and readers have found to be fascinating and inspiring?

I think it is an echo of Creation. We all know, deep down, that this world is not all there is - there is something more real out there. There is Someone pulling the strings. And it is through our relationship with this Someone that we truly gain our value, and we truly become important.

What I have learned as a parent - shades of obedience

2011-07-25T21:16:00.000-05:00
If I have learned one thing as a parent, it's that removing a diaper is like being in the Splash Zone at Seaworld - you may think it won't be so bad, but I hope you brought a poncho.

If I have learned two things, it is that there are several different varieties of following the rules or doing the right things.

Sometimes, my kids do the right things because I force them to. I do not let them watch shows that they should not be watching. I take away toys if they cannot play with them properly. I pull one off of his brother when he gets the murderous glint in his eyes. That is one type of obedience - forced righteousness.

Other times, they do the right things because they want to get something out of me. They want a reward. So they do the right thing, and then proudly ask when they will get to play video games, or if they can have an extra cookie for dessert, or to get out of trouble.

But sometimes (all too rare of course), they simply do sweet and kind things because they want to please us. They bring me a coke on a morning where I am grumpy. They spontaneously give their brother a hug and kiss and tell him, "I love you." They bring a stuffed animal to their cousin who is spending the night, so that he won't get scared.

So those are the three types of obedience from children: forced righteousness, goal-seeking righteousness, and unconditional righteousness (without expectation of receiving anything).

It is obvious which I prefer as a father. I get no joy at all from the first; I get little joy from the second; and I take great pride when I see the third.

Despite all of us seeing this in our children, we do the same thing with God.

Some of us are only good because we are forced to be good - through peer pressure at church, or expectations of society, or because God has not given us the capacity to sin in a certain way. It is no virtue to avoid depression if you are not chemically tempted toward depression; nor is it a virtue to avoid homosexuality if you are not attracted to members of your same gender. (Anyone can avoid sin if they are forced to do so, or if they have no temptation otherwise. So of course there is no favor with God for this!) All of our religious systems of guilt-based condemnation of sinners falls into this category.

Some of us are only good because we want something from God - either to avoid some punishment, or to seek out some reward. Though this is better than the first motive, it is still not really valuable for growing our relationship with God. We are still seeking a quid-pro-quo relationship instead of a truly servant relationship. Or perhaps we want something from others; more than a few churches pollute their ministries with church advertisements--sending the message that we want to show you God's love, as long as you know that we are the church who did so.

The right thing for us to do is to model after what we wish our children would do. To be loving and kind to those around us -- not because we expect to get something, but simply because we want to love them. To take care of those around us not with an agenda, but simply because they need tending to. To help those who disagree with us, simply because they need help.

I talk a lot about the bound will here on Reboot. Does that mean we do not seek to do good? Of course not. Obviously I am not recommending a sin-crazed lifestyle. But if you are trying to avoid sin in order to get some credit, or to avoid some punishment, or out of pressure from those around you, then you are doing it for the wrong reasons. You are tainting the value of your righteousness.

You want to really please God? Get rid of all of the other stuff--all of the religious pressure, all of the desires to get rewards from people. Instead, just do good for the sake of doing good. Only when we embrace our freedom from religious systematic dogma-based righteousness can we truly be free to pursue goodness for goodness' sake.

Green cups and grace

2011-07-24T18:52:00.001-05:00
While getting my kids' dinner ready Sunday evening, I did something that my wife and I do several times each day. While pouring my kids' milk, I go to great extremes to ensure that they are the same. Not 'close'. Not approximate. Not equally good - identical. I get out green cups. I pour the same amount of milk in each. I put green lids on them, with green straws. I make sure that in every possible way, they are identical.

Why?

Because the minute I present my kids with something, they immediately turn and compare what they got to the other. Did I get as much milk? Did my brother get a cool cup color (like green, or blue, or purple) and I get stuck with a lame one (like Mickey Mouse, or orange)?

I'm sure parents around the country know what I'm talking about. I know my parents are still in this habit with me and my brother. At Christmas, we not only receive the same total value of presents, but as close to the same quantity of presents as possible. My mom will go buy 3 or 4 cheap presents to add to someone's pile, if that's what it takes to make the piles even.

Why are we this way?

Some would say that we just want a fair shake in life - we want to know that we get what we deserve. But I don't think that's it at all. Watching my kids, I think there is something far more substantial, far more important, underneath this longing for equal cups.

My kids, at their heart, are asking themselves a question: does Dad love me as much as he loves my brother, or is he withholding good things for me?

This is, I would argue, the key spiritual question that we all ask. It is what the Serpent used to tempt Eve (God withheld this one tree from you, because He knows it would make you like Him). It is what the lost question to convince themselves that God does not exist (why would God allow bad things to happen to me and others, if He could prevent it?) It is what the saved torment themselves with into depression and doubt (is God really going to give eternity to someone like me?)

At the center of each of our hearts is a fear. A terror that we might not actually be loved. We all know, deep down, that we aren't good enough to receive perfect love from our heavenly Father. That terror leads some to deny Him; it leads some to sin against Him; it leads others to set up rigid religious structures to try and 'earn' His love.

This is what faith is, my friends: that you believe that God is good, and that He will do those things that He promised. Even when He promised to love you, in spite of yourselves. Sometimes faith means that when He hands you the Mickey Mouse cup with white milk (while your brother gets the green cup with chocolate milk), you contentedly take what you were given and trust that He is giving you exactly what you need.

"I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:38-39)"