Team Hammer's Musings

Why China's "Waiting Children"? (Part 4)

2011-08-26T21:46:00.001-04:00

Matthew 25: 40 And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'

As we began the process of looking into agencies and programs, it didn't take long at all for God to close many doors- some countries we weren't eligible for, some required very lengthy stays in the country. China was actually one we first thought was closed to us because they have a "4 children in the home" limit. We kept looking. I found myself poring over adoptable children's pictures and I was always looking at the cute ones, I'll admit. The Lord pricked my heart and showed me that was not HIS heart. Jesus went to the least desirable by the world's standards. He came to those who were the outcasts, the ugly, the despised of the world. How far is my heart from where it needs to be! What is the one thing we pray for when we are pregnant? A healthy child (and I secretly hope they are cute!). In our culture, abortions occur all the time when a child is found to have even the slightest problem. These children are truly among the "least of these" that Jesus is talking about. In China, girls are not valued, much less a girl with a deformed limb or a cleft lip. These children are orphaned mainly due to the "one child" law. Parents aren't allowed to put their children up for adoption, so they are abandoned and found by orphanages.

Early in our marriage Joey very seriously said to me that he thought someday we might have a child with special needs. I was not surprised, and I don't know why. I just never thought it would happen by adoption. To ask for that sounds nuts! We found out after doing some research that China's "4 children max. in the home" does not apply for the "hard to place" special needs children. Thank God, He says that in His kingdom the last will be first, and the first will be last. His thinking is so different from ours!

We looked online and did phone interviews with four agencies. What set apart Lifeline agency for us was the MaoMing orphanage they are connected with near Hong Kong. It houses 60 orphans, all with medical special needs. If these children are not adopted by a family, they will typically spend the majority of their youth in institutionalized care and most will never have the opportunity to lead a normal life. I watched an interview of a woman describing the first time she went to an orphanage in China and saw her future daughter there. She described how dirty the special needs babies were- they were bathed last and were of a lower priority than the healthy children. Totally opposite of how Jesus said heaven will be. That gripped my heart! Looking at the pictures and videos of these waiting children, Joey said, "we need to go get Charlotte". Now, we aren't certain she is the child we will adopt, but at the very least, she was the motivation God used for us to choose that agency and the MaoMing orphanage.

http://lifelineadoption.org/adoption/international/china/maoming-kids/

Truly, this is not something I ever would have chosen on my own. If it were up to me, I would have continued to ignore the call and enjoy an easier life. I am just thankful for His amazing grace that I didn't have to get swallowed up by a whale to get me to do what He called us to. It is so freeing to finally submit to His will with a long overdue cry of, "yes, Lord, I will go. Send me." To God be the glory, great things He has done!

Why Internationally? (Part 3)

2011-08-26T21:44:00.000-04:00

"Matthew 28: 19-20" Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

There was never a question about domestic vs. International for us. We had no idea which country, agency, or any of the logistics, we just knew God was calling us to go completely out of our comfort zone and embark into the unknown world of international adoption- we had no choice but to trust and obey in faith. For our family, part of our "Great Commission" calling is to go into 'all the world' and bring a child into our family to love and share the love of Christ. This was one aspect of our hearts' desire to adopt Internationally. We also knew we were supposed to choose a country that was restricted or hostile to the gospel. While there are so many who need homes right here in America, at least these children are in a country with great opportunity and a chance to hear the truth of God's word. It is just not like that in approximately 54 other countries around the world. Here is a short link to read about China.

http://www.persecution.com/public/restrictednations.aspx?clickfrom=bWFpbl9tZW51

Why Adopt? (Part 2)

2011-08-05T23:23:00.002-04:00

James 1:27 "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

While not every family is called to adopt, as Christians, we are all expected to do something and not turn a blind eye to the plight of children around the world. I turned a blind eye for so long! For us, sending a check to a good cause to ease the suffering just wasn't enough, for "obedience is better than sacrifice" (1 Samuel 15:22). I'm sure it sounds crazy and we'll be asked a lot of questions about why in the world we would want to do this when we already have 5 children and obviously do not have trouble having kids "of our own". It is hard to understand and cannot be explained without giving God all the credit and pointing to Him. When I was an orphan without a heavenly Father because of my sin that separated me from Him, He came and sent His Son to take the punishment for my sin and forgave and adopted me to be His child. Adoption is a beautiful picture of the Father's love for HIS children- an earthly picture of a heavenly idea.

It's hard not to wonder how adopting one child in a sea of literally millions of orphans can actually make a difference. But, for that one child it will make a world of difference. I am only one child of God's in a sea of millions, and how very grateful I am that He counted me as important enough to die for. Christ would have come down to save just one sinner like me. He rescued me from the plight I was in, and now He wants me to be His hands and feet to help one of these precious little ones. Not that I am the rescuer, but that He is and I am a vessel He can use to bring others to Himself. What a privilege! What a calling!

It all comes down to this. Children are a blessing and there's always room in our hearts and our home for one more. There is a little child out there somewhere right now without hope in the world waiting for this Mommy to come get her and she has no idea how great her life is going to be someday. She will have a whole house full of people to love her- a family to call her own.

Do Something Radical (Part 1)

2011-08-03T20:00:00.007-04:00

I've learned to never say what I won't do. I told Joey before we got married that if he wanted someone who was going to homeschool his kids, that person was NOT me. It's funny how when we finally give in to doing what the Lord wants us to do, he can make it so that we want to do the thing he's called us to more than we ever thought possible. After all, it wouldn't be obedience if we were just doing what we wanted to do. It was that way with homeschooling, and it's become that way with this crazy adventure called international adoption. It wasn't that adopting hasn't always been in the back of my mind. It has been. But, way, way back. Before we got married, we discussed adoption as something we would do "someday", and I was totally comfortable with that. We looked into it while Joey was in Korea when we were engaged and he often visited a local orphanage. I'll have to admit, I was secretly very relieved when we found out adopting from Korea was not an option at that time. It came up a few other times in our marriage, but I always had a reason why it was just not a good time. Joey read "Adopted for Life" a couple years ago and I know he was hoping I would read it, but I didn't even want to hear about it, much less read the book and risk being convicted about it.

Upon Joey's return from Afghanistan, it became clear that my complacency in my Christian walk was no longer going to be an option. Joey and I each read three books that brought to life what we already knew to be true from the Bible. Those three books, which I highly recommend for every Christian to read were "Stop Dating the Church", "Crazy Love" and "Radical"- followed by me finally reading "Adopted for Life". What a much needed jolt to my spirit! God called me to so much more than my comfortable life here and now. I do not want to stand before Him someday ashamed that I lived for me and my own desires. I want to live for Him and His glory and share in His eternal and global perspective. "Crazy Love" had been given to me by a Christian friend over a year before I actually read it. Again, I really did not want to read this book, because I knew it would require something of me and I was already resisting the Lord's voice in my life to "come, follow me"..."sell everything you have and give it to the poor and come, follow me". I was like the rich young ruler walking away from Jesus sad because I had so much, and I didn't want to give it all up for him for far too long. I love the way God works, though. He doesn't let us stay this way when we are His.

We were selected to go to a family retreat at Sandy Cove in Northeast MD this summer free for military after a deployment. We almost didn't go because we thought we were going to be moving. I sent an e-mail to Sandy Cove to cancel our reservation or at least switch us to come a different weekend than "home school week" because it was going to conflict with our move. But, alas, our orders were changed and we weren't moving and somehow that e-mail never made it to Sandy Cove. Instead what I got from them was a confirmation e-mail for our reservation for homeschool week. So, we went. And, what was the speaker talking about all week long? Living a "Radical" life for Christ. Being willing to sell or give up everything to come and follow him. Wow. The same exact thing we had been reading about and that the Lord was constantly pricking my heart with- my resistance to doing what he wanted me to do. We heard so many testimonies that week of families who had adopted. They set out to be a blessing to others and in the end they were the ones blessed. The Lord worked on my heart there and asked me if I really believed all children were a blessing, or just my own (the ones I could have biologically)? One of the mornings Joey and I actually put into words what we were both knowing we were supposed to do. It was time for us to start the process to adopt. I was still scared, but I knew that saying no to God was not an option anymore.

As soon as I submitted to God and gave up the fight, He filled me with a desire and a passion and now I want to adopt. It truly is amazing how quickly this happened- it was almost instantaneous. I went from saying no way, I can't do that and I could have told you a million reasons why it was a crazy idea (and I can still do that in my weak moments of doubt and worry!) to having a heart realizing God's love for precious children around the world who need a family to love them. Yes, it is a crazy idea. It is Radical. But, everything God has called me to do so far in my life, He has equipped me for and walked me through every step of the way, and even given me the desires of my heart that I didn't know I had.

"Psalm 127: 3-5" Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord...Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!"

Christian Carnival CLXXXI

2007-07-20T09:14:00.001-04:00

The most recent Christian Carnival, a collection of current posts on Christian thought, is posted at Mere Orthodoxy. Matthew cleverly put together a little poem for each post, and the one for my new Earth post is:

Water becomes wine,
Science says that’s fine,
But cannot register an opinion.
The earth begins from nothing,
Due to God’s speaking,
where science finds its limits.

Check it out!

New Earth Creation

2007-07-16T23:31:00.000-04:00

The year is 27AD. There is a celebration of a marriage in the town of Cana, in the Galilee region. One of the guests is a relatively unknown fellow who has attended with his mother, Mary. His name is Jesus of Nazareth.

During the festivities, a problem arises – the host of the wedding celebration has forgotten to have enough wine on hand for the party. Unless something happens fast, the host will be embarrassed and the party will be remembered as a failure. Discerning that her son can somehow do something about this, Mary tells her son that there is a problem. Jesus is not particularly receptive to her suggestion that he just ‘do something’. However, his mother ignores his reaction and instead tells the head servant to ‘do whatever he tells you to do’. The servants follow Jesus’ order, and where once water had been, wine now stood – the best wine at the wedding, to the amazement of many.

As we encounter the work of God in his miracles, in his actions taken and the results that follow that only he can do, we are faced with a question directly applicable to our creation dilemma: What scientific test could we perform that would tell us that the wine now in the jars was water only 60 seconds ago? What could we do to the wine to tell us of its sudden appearance, in apparent defiance of everything we know about how wine is created?

The answer is simple – nothing. There is no scientific test that would show that the wine was created instantly. There is no scientific test that would show that the woman who had an issue of blood for 12 years was healed instantly. There is no method we could use to show how Jesus made a blind man see instantly. In every case, God spoke, and it happened immediately, and not only could we not show that it was so after the fact, but we also cannot show that each was ever broken in the first place, or that it was the word of God that did the healing.

“Young Earth” creationism is the same. Some have claimed that God making a creation that seems older than it is would be an example of God being deceptive in some fashion. Laying aside the inherent (necessary) foolishness of the assumption of universality – that, for example, the amount of Carbon-14 in a living organism now is the same as it would have been 1 million years ago – there is no more deception in a creation we can’t prove its age than the same problem with the water and the wine.

In fact, I am far more likely to assume that our failure to “prove” a young earth creation from science is answered better by the Scriptures than by science. “For God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised has God chosen, yea, and the things which are not, to bring to naught the things which are – that no man may glory in his presence.” (1 Cor 1:27-29)

Jeremy has said that to believe that the earth is young, in the face of scientific ‘evidence’ to the contrary, is completely irrational. While Jeremy is a theologian of the highest degree, I would differ slightly. I would say that it may be foolish, but that it is also an expression of humility that recognizes my limitations compared to the God who the heavens cannot contain, whose works defy all the wisdom of men. While both the old and new earth theories I’ve described fit a historical view of Scripture, I will stick with a new earth theory that affirms that “evening and morning was the first day”.

Old Earth Creation

2007-07-05T23:21:00.000-04:00

As mentioned previously, to believe in theistic evolution - that God used evolution to create man - requires a previous commitment to an age of the earth that is old enough to allow this evolution to occur. If the earth is this old, it is essentially impossible to believe that the creation account is a literal six-day event, because a six-day creation has man in existence only five days after the creation of the heavens.

Old-earth theory was essentially unknown until the advent of evolutionary theory. As evolution became culturally popular, theologians tried to find ways to make the reading of Genesis 1 fit evolutionary theory. One attempt was the "gap" theory, which proposed that there is a very long time gap between Genesis 1:1-2 and the rest of Genesis 1 - between the creation of the earth itself and the creation of life forms. There often is an expansion that explains that there was a completely formed heaven and earth, but something catastrophic, such as the fall of Satan from heaven, led to the destruction of the earth, leaving it without form and void. My Scofield reference Bible has this explanation.

Another effort is the literary framework method, explained by Jeremy in the link in the last post. This essentially says that the framework of the text is poetic, indicating a section that is not intended to be read literally, and thus its point is not intended to be historically accurate, but instead to demonstrate that there was a logical order to the pictures of creation given to Moses by God.

A third effort is age-day theory. This explanation posits that the Hebrew word transliterated "yom" that we translate to "day" does not always mean a 24-hour day, but can mean simply an unspecified period of time. As that is completely true, it has some exegetical value behind it that the other two do not. Yet what has been a struggle for me in accepting this theory is an exegetical reason in that passage that would lead us to beleive that the intent of the author was to read anything other than a 24-hour day for "yom".

However, recently I was presented with such a proximate exegetical reason...the seventh day. The Scriptures read that "So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. (Gen 2:3)"

What did He rest from? He rested from creating. So, if on the seventh day God rested from creating, when did he stop resting from creating? Has he begun creating again? I don't think so. If God's rest from creating the heavens and the earth ended on the seventh day, and he has not begun creating the heavens and the earth again, could it not be the seventh day still? And, if we are not aware of when this end of creation began, may it be that the "days" are very long periods of time to us?

What do you think?

Creation, Evolution, and Theology

2007-07-02T23:56:00.000-04:00

It's a grand sounding title, but the coverage will be limited. Two and a half years ago I wrote a series of posts about evolution, concluding here.

My position hasn't changed from what is stated - your stance on evolution does not have an impact upon your spiritual condition. What has changed is this - why you have your stance speaks volumes about your spiritual condition.

While Jeremy posted one of the better defenses of old-earth theory, a required component of theistic evolution I have seen here, based upon literary styles, I found it still pretty unconvincing. I don't deny the presence of poetic elements, I simply acknowledge (and I'm guessing Jeremy does, too) that they do not demand a rejection of a more literal interpretation of the days as days. (I do think the whole 'sevens' issue is of little value to the argument).

Yet, in recent months I have come across the two most compelling arguments for both old-earth and new-earth creationism. Stay tuned and decide for yourself!

Free Will III

2007-06-20T22:28:00.000-04:00

How can it be that we are free to do what we want, yet God remains in control?

There are several example of how this works – how a man can do the very thing God intends him to do, yet the same man is condemned for it.

First, it is easy to see that we are condemned for our sins. Malachi 3:5 is one of literally hundreds of instances of declaration of future judgment for people’s sins.

Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.

How does this apply when the person is explicitly doing what God intends? In the previous posts Robert mentioned Joseph and his suffering prior to gaining high office in Egypt.

So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. (Gen 45:4-8)

Here, in the quote Robert selected, we see that God is the author of Joseph’s life story. Robert mentioned that this excludes the culpability of the brothers, because, “it was not you who sent me here, but God.” Yet Joseph’s testimony about the situation doesn’t end in chapter 45.

But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. (Gen 50:19-20)

What is seen in Joseph’s clarification is the crux of my position – that we do what we intend out of our desires. Here, Joseph’s brother’s, out of their own evil desires, wish to get rid of their brother and sell him into slavery. Yet, this very act, which they meant for evil, is exactly what God wills for good. The result of the divergent desires is the same – Joseph goes to Egypt – yet it is clear that their intentions and God’s intentions are far from each other. They have done exactly as they wanted to do, but the action that occurs is also exactly what God wanted them to do.

Another prime example is Assyria’s destruction of Israel as foretold by Isaiah. Note the clear proclamation of what will happen, who is making it happen, who is culpable and why they are culpable:

Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury! Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Is 10:5-6

But he does not so intend, and his heart does not so think; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few;…When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes. For he says: “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I remove the boundaries of peoples, and plunder their treasures; like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones. (Is 10:7, 12-13)

Assyria executes God’s righteous judgment upon Israel, but the King of Assyria will be punished for it. Why? Not because he fulfilled God’s will, but because the desires of his heart were evil. He is culpable for his evil desires, thoughts and words.

So, it can be easily seen that a man’s desires are different from God’s desires, yet the very acts taken will be God’s desires. How can this be? In a previous post, John mentioned that I painted all Arminians with the same brush (and I do), yet there is a small group of Arminians who have figured it out – Molinists.

God has complete and exhaustive divine foreknowledge. Let’s call that a given, to avoid a lengthy proof. He not only knows everything that has and will happen, but he also knows everything that can possibly happen (example: Matt 11:21-22), which is called middle knowledge. While we are responsible for our own desires, God knows how we will react in any given situation and can manipulate the environment, experience and just about anything else such that our desires lead to the choice he wants us to make. I believe (thought I don’t have a Scriptural specific detail, just inference) that God can even make us consider something in our minds before we make the decision.

Look at the confrontation between Moses (God) and Pharaoh. Initially, Pharaoh hard heart tended to be self-driven. However, after six plagues, God hardens Pharaoh’s heart. How he does this we do not know, but it is not God directly creating the desire for Pharaoh. Pharaoh was not a repentant or graceful man, and his natural pride, arrogance and hubris was used against him. Perhaps God encouraged advisers to whisper about what the people would think if Pharaoh caved in, or perhaps God gave Pharaoh that kind of concern directly. God manipulated the environment, internal and external, to glorify His name.

What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.”But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just. (Rom 3:3-8)

There are none righteous, no, not one. Our condemnation is just, because God is just. We cannot claim we are not culpable because if we were not culpable, it would be unjust for us to be punished. We cannot appeal to “Who can resist his will?”, because we are responsible for our evil intents.

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ ” “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”(Rom 9:14-26)

Free Will II

2007-05-31T22:32:00.000-04:00

Arminians and Hyper-Calvinists share a definition of free will I previously called libertarian freedom. This freedom, simply defined, would be: the freedom to do, in any given situation, any action or lack of action. That is, one can choose to do something or not to do that something in any situation. For example, if a person is asking me to tell them some information about troop locations, I can choose to tell them or not. No matter what the pressures, tortures, etc may be that are thrust upon me, I am free to tell or not to tell as I will. This is libertarian free will – a free will the Arminian claims we have, and a free will the hyper-Calvinist claims we do not have.

Yet I also would claim we do not have this “free will”, because I hold it does not exist and has never existed – not because it is intentionally not present in creation, but because it ignores something we all agree we have – inclination. This free will would demand not only that I can do anything in any situation, but that I might actually do anything. It holds that I, as I sit with a man next to me on the bus, could decide to pull out my .38 and shoot him dead on the spot. With this freedom to do anything, I am just as likely to do this as not, actually. For if I am free to do it, and not restricted, why wouldn’t I? “Libertarian Free Will” s actually what I will hereafter call “freedom of indifference”. Because it holds that we can do anything at any time, it is indifferent to the situation and inclination.

What is it that prevents me from putting a fist through my monitor right now? It is simple – I don’t want to. In fact, in almost every situation in life, I am neither going to want to shoot a man on the bus next to me, nor put my fist through my computer. And thus, I will not. So, this freedom cannot be – I must not be free to do this act, because I don’t want to.

You who read are free, right now, to dump a glass of water on your keyboard as you read. But you won’t, right? So how can you be free to do it, if you won’t? You see, your inclination in the situation drives your decision completely. Thus you are not free to do anything, but you are certainly free to do what you want to do, which while it may vary from ceasing to read this post to continuing, will not include pouring water on the keyboard. Of course, you may decide to “prove me wrong” and pour water on your keyboard, but at that point, hasn’t your inclination changed? Isn’t what you most want to do to prove me wrong?

You have discovered the freedom I claim we have – not freedom of indifference, a random, who-knows-what-I-might-do-next freedom, but a freedom of inclination. You are free to do exactly what you most want to do. Here’s another example: You are strongly opposed to stealing. In most situations, you will not steal. Yet your mother is kidnapped by some criminals who tell you that you must participate in a robbery or she will die, so you do. In both cases, you do exactly what you most want to do – in the first you refuse to steal, in the second your inclination to preserve your mother’s life is greater than your inclination against stealing, and you most want her to live, so you steal.

This is compatibilist freedom, a freedom that recognizes that you do in every instance exactly what you most want to do. Right now I have no chance of willfully chopping off my hand – none. Thus, I am actually not free to chop it off! Yet a freedom of indifference would demand that I am as likely to chop off my hand as not.

The Arminian is committed to freedom of indifference, and because of his desire that it exist, he denies that God wills us to commit any act. Freedom of indifference is something the hyper-Calvinist thinks free will is, and (rightfully) denies it exists. He recognizes that God is sovereign, and thus we cannot have as likely a chance of doing something as not doing it. Thus, he concludes, that we are not free at all. The consequences of this are completely logical. If I am not free, whatever I do must be what I am supposed to do, and I am not responsible for my actions. If God is sovereign in his election, I don’t need to obey Christ’s commands to go and tell – and in fact, when I don’t, it is because God wills I don’t, and thus I am not accountable.

It is completely logical – yet it misses something. The hyper-Calvinist does not want to obey. He does not want to evangelize. So in both cases, he is not merely doing what God wills – he is doing what he himself wills – and we can certainly agree that my will and desires are not conformed to be exactly what God’s are!

Think about it – Jesus condemns us not for committing adultery, but for lusting in our hearts. We are condemned for our inclinations that lead to our actions, not our actions. We are condemned for our unbelief, not our failure to say the right words. We are condemned for our failure to love God and our neighbor, not because we didn’t do something for God or our neighbor. Of course, when we commit those sins of action and inaction, we commit them because they are exactly what we most want to do.

It may sound odd, but I believe it makes perfect sense. Furthermore, I hold that it is entirely Scriptural. With the next post I will demonstrate its Scriptural basis – so I ask commenters to try to hold back on demanding that until then.

Free Will

2007-05-24T22:33:00.000-04:00

“God wants you to love him, and you can’t be forced to love someone, so you are free to choose to love God or not.”

If you’ve been around people who claim to be Christians and discussed the relationship between God and man, you’ve heard that idea. There is truth and falsehood in that proposition. I would agree that it is true that God wants all to come to Him and is willing that none should perish. I would also agree that you can’t “force” someone to love you. I would even agree that we are, technically, free to choose to love God or not. Yet, despite my concurrence with each of those propositions, I would hold that you, while being free, are completely unable to love God without His action, and once He has taken action, there is no possibility of you doing anything but loving Him.

By agreeing that we are free to choose to love God are not, I side with Arminians, who essentially believe that our salvation is of our own choice, not God’s action. Yet, by holding that we cannot love God unless he supernaturally and specifically moves us in His direction as individuals, I side with the hyper-Calvinists. How can this be? In a nutshell, I stand against both the hyper-Calvinists and the Arminians in their shared definition of freedom.

I described Arminianism here, so I won’t do so in detail again. Simply put, if you believe that you can, of your own volition with or without a prompting by God – a prompting which can be refused – choose salvation in Christ, you are an Arminian in general. Hyper-Calvinism, which many confuse with historical Calvinism, needs more explanation.

Since I also defined historical Calvinism (also known as historical Christianity!) here, I’ll point out what the fundamental differences are between it and hyper-Calvinism. Hyper Calvinism agrees with Calvinism in the sovereignty of God and the five Solas of the reformation. The two areas it differs most significantly are:

1) Its stand against evangelism and missions. As a hyper-Calvinist once told Andrew Fuller, “If God is going to save the heathen, he can do it without any help from you or me!” Hyper-Calvinists not only do not believe in focused evangelism in general, but if they are intellectually honest (which many are) they do not even believe in evangelization of their loved ones. Committed to the Scriptural picture of God as the author and finisher of our faith, the hyper-Calvinist trusts God to do the work He will do, and considers himself completely abdicated of responsibility to go and disciple.

2) The logical progression of this idea results in an abdication of personal responsibility, followed by an almost inexorable slide to antinomianism (a rejection of any moral law). It isn’t that the hyper-Calvinist is not a moral person with ethical stands, but because they rightly believe in the sovereignty of God in all things, they also believe that whatever they do is scripted by God and therefore they need not feel any responsibility to obey God’s precepts if for some reason they conflict with something else important in their lives. After all, if God is in control, if He would have wanted me to obey his command in this instance, I would have done it. After all, who can resist His will?

These stands may seem bizarre, but in many ways, they are completely intellectually honest – because of the hyper-Calvinist’s belief in libertarian freedom. The Arminian and the hyper-Calvinist bold hold to the definition of free will as libertarian freedom: the Arminian contends we possess it, and the hyper-Calvinist contends we do not. The historical Calvinist instead defines free will as compatibilist free will, or freedom of inclination. In the next post I will define both of these ideas and describe why they lead to the results they do. In the third and last post I will demonstrate the support for compatibilist freedom as well as propose a mechanism for God’s sovereignty in it.

Next Things

2007-05-16T23:54:00.000-04:00

When you take a course in Systematic Theology, and you come to the subjects that involve heaven, hell, the second coming and the final judgment, it is summarized as “Last Things”. This obviously isn’t about that – it’s just a quick preview of the plan for what’s coming next here at Team Hammer.

I’ve been on vacation and completing final exams for this semester, hence my lack of posting and comments, but while some of my time previously allocated toward school will be used for sermon preparation as I preach through Isaiah this summer, I will have some more time to blog.

The next series will address the freedom of the will. Based upon the writings of Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, Bruce Ware, and others, it will be simultaneously a case against hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism – because they share the concept of freedom of the will that I believe is erroneous.

Following that will be a two or three post series presenting what I think are the most compelling cases for and against theistic evolution. I have done some reading for both sides recently, and find both cases worthy of serious consideration.

Third will be a short series on the Trinity. Recognizing that it is truly a concept beyond our understanding, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t understand it to the limits that we have. I think it is the doctrine that most separates Christianity from every other religion, more even than other unique aspects of Christianity.

Finally (at least as finally as this plan goes) will be what I think will be the most thorough series yet, one that surpasses my series on Biblical Inerrancy in scope, research and level of detail. The subject is one worthy of such a work – the atonement. I hope that UK John will be constructing his at the same time, to provide a contrast for our dozen readers!

The Hell Jesus Really Meant III: The Epistles and Revelation

2007-04-28T08:09:00.000-04:00

After looking at the Old Testament conception of Sheol, and examining the depth and detail to which Jesus explained the environment, purpose, and residents of hell, we finish with a brief survey of the remainder of the New Testament.

The fact is, while many cling to a “Hell That Jesus Never Meant”, Jesus’ words in the gospels reference hell more than the rest of the New Testament. If anything, Jesus himself emphasized hell more than his disciples. Yet what the NT does say of hell is in line with Jesus’ own words as recorded by the Evangelists.

James, when writing about the dangers that an unbridled tongue brings, uses hell to describe the results of an unrighteous tongue, and couples that Hell with the fire it has and brings. Peter writes that the unrighteous angels are cast into hell, and that the ungodly will be there as well. He also points out that hell is a place of darkness, just as Jesus described. Think of that – fire, but no light!

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews reminds the hearers that rejection of the grace of God in Christ Jesus and a faithless turning to a deeds-based salvation can only result in “but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries” and that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Paul and John give us more detail on hell, and while Paul reminds us in Romans 2 that the ungodly will suffer the “wrath and fury” of God, perhaps the best overall summary of hell is given in Paul’s second letter to the church at Thessalonica. Speaking of the last day, he writes:

“when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints”^{^[1]}

Yet, appropriately, the Apocalypse of John, revelation, a book focused upon the last days, gives the greatest amount of text to hell – God’s wrath, eternal torment, and the ultimate defeatof death along with them - some of the examples are:

“And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.” ^{^[2]}

“And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.^{^[3]}”

“and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

^{^[4]}

We might be tempted, considering that Revelation is apocalyptic literature, to dismiss the descriptions of hell given. Yet, what should be striking is that the descriptions match exactly what Jesus said while on Earth. To put the finishing nail in the argument, Jesus himself in revelation says,

“But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” ^{^[5]}

The Hell Jesus Really Meant – it’s real, it’s bad, and we deserve to go there. Thankfully, we don’t have to. Praise be to God!

^{^[1]} The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. Wheaton : Standard Bible Society, 2001, S. 2 Th 1:7-10

^{^[2]} The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. Wheaton : Standard Bible Society, 2001, S. Re 14:9-11

^jch. 20:10, 14, 15; [Dan. 7:11]

^{^[3]} The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. Wheaton : Standard Bible Society, 2001, S. Re 19:20

^{^[4]} The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. Wheaton : Standard Bible Society, 2001, S. Re 20:10-15

^{^[5]} The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. Wheaton : Standard Bible Society, 2001, S. Re 21:8

The Hell Jesus Really Meant II: The Gospels

2007-04-19T14:19:00.000-04:00

In Part 1, we examined the Old Testament concept of hell, or more properly, Sheol. We could verifiably conclude that Sheol explicitly was a place of the dead, that it was bad, and that the wicked went there. The OT also left open the possibility that everyone goes to Sheol, and although there are places that strongly allude to the righteous being saved from Sheol, it certainly does not clearly speak of a heavenly reward for the righteous and eternal judgment for the unrighteous.

Enter Jesus, the Son of God. What did Jesus teach about hell? One of the first things we may notice about Jesus’ description of hell is that there is a difference in the way the OT speaks of hell and the way He does. The Greek word most often used by Jesus to describe hell is gehenna. Gehenna is well described by Wikipedia here. Gehenna has a different aspect to it than hades, one of fiery torment. The scriptures do occasionally use hades as the word for hell, but even in a number of those cases Jesus mentions that Hades is, in fact, fiery, (Luke 16:19-31, ) removing the distinction.

Jesus does not leave us in limbo as to where the wicked will go. He also dos not leave us in limbo wondering who those are who go there – sinners. Sinners include those who lust , who lie, who says, “You fool!”, who do not believe the gospel, who murder the prophets, who claim they follow Jesus but actually do not, who mistreat others. Whoever has failed in one area of the law has failed in all, Jesus says, and thus is guilty and condemned to this place called hell. What should be startling is that the wicked are not only the robbers, rapists and murderers. They are us.

Jesus clearly also describes hell as fiery not just by using gehenna, but by actually calling hell a place of eternal fire in Matthew 5:22, Matthew 18:7-9, Mark 9:42-29, Luke 16:19-31, Matthew 25:41-46, Matthew 7:19-20, Matthew 13:27-30, 36-41, John 15:6.

Some wish to quibble, that hell is described as eternal but that the punishment is not. It is certainly true that the torments of hell are described more often than the state of the sinner thrown in. A few passages tell us otherwise. “Their worm never dies, their fire is never quenched” from Mark 9 speaks of it – it is not “the worm never dies” but “their worm never dies”. Why is it “their” worm if its only function is to eat quickly before the person dies (again)? More explicitly, Jesus calls hell a place of “eternal punishment” in Matthew 25:41-46, and in Mt 13:36-43 Jesus tells us that hell, a fiery furnace, will be “a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth”. If hell is a place, an eternal place of eternal fire, how can it be a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth if its ‘residents’ are expunged quickly? An eternal place can only have an adjective that is eternal!

Hell was not created for men. It is a place of fire made for the devil and his angels. Yet, our sin, according to Jesus, condemns us to it, as a just punishment from a holy God. This is The Hell That Jesus Really Meant. Yet, the Word of God is the words of Jesus from beginning to end. In the next, final, post, we will see what the remainder of the New Testament says about hell.

Ressurection Day Smiles

2007-04-16T09:01:00.000-04:00

Eggs + Dye + Funny Face Stickers =

.

Yay, Jesus!

(I can't post them full size - you'll have to click on them to see them well)

The Hell Jesus Really Meant I: The Old Testament

2007-04-05T12:44:00.000-04:00

“I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

Luke 12:4-7

There are fifty-four occurrences of the word “hell” in the King James Version of the Bible. In the Old Testament, the word is exclusively the Hebrew “Sheol”, which is what you will see in many modern translations. The New Testament words for hell are the Greek words “gehenna” (primarily), “hades” and “tartarus” (only once in 1^st Peter).

What is this hell that Jesus speaks of? The first thing we have to do is determine when Jesus is speaking and isolate those, right? Well, yes and no. If we want to know what he meant by hell, we have to look at how he used it – but because Jesus was God incarnate, the very words of Scripture are His words, and thus every use of it in the Bible is the hell that Jesus meant. Attempts to separate Jesus’ words from other words in the Bible deny his divinity and/or the inspiration of Scripture, neither of which we are willing to do here at Team Hammer headquarters.

Yet, for those who think that somehow we should differentiate, I don’t think the answer changes. Jesus Christ was not only God, he was a Jewish man in 1^st century Palestine. The OT use of the word “Sheol” was the way that the Jewish people would think of hell. Culturally, there would certainly have been some influence of Roman and Greek thought in the intertestamental period, so gehenna and hades have meanings of their own that are relevant as well, but we have to start with Sheol.

The concept of Sheol is introduced in Deuteronomy 32, which is the song that God teaches Moses to teach to Israel. The song does not reflect liberal theology.

“The Lord saw it and spurned them, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. And he said, ‘I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end will be, For they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness. They have made me jealous with what is no god; they have provoked me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are no people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled by my anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth and its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.”

God continues with an explanation of the kinds of things his wrath brings – not only fire, but sorrow, wounds, pestilence, hunger, plague, disaster, venom and the teeth of wild beasts. We need to keep in mind that this song is, in fact, poetry. The intent of all of these descriptors is not to say that specifically all of these things will come to pass, but that bad things will happen when people do not serve the one true God. What can we discern about hell from this song? Hell is a bad place where bad things are happening. It is true that this fire is metaphorical, and thus from Deuteronomy we cannot say that there is any fire in hell. What we know for sure is that it is, in fact, bad.

In 2^ndSamuel 22, David sings a song to the Lord rejoicing in his deliverance. Sheol here is paired with death and destruction. Not only is Sheol bad, but it is as bad as we can imagine. What is worse than death to our minds? What is worse that destruction? Job mentions Sheol twice, and pairs it with its ruler in Job 26 – the same ruler, Abaddon, of Revelation 9, who is described there as the ruler of the bottomless pit. In fact, pit is one of the translations of the word “Sheol” in the KJV. Thus we see that Sheol is associated with death, yet also a place that is inescapable – a bottomless pit.

The Psalms make our picture of Sheol more clear. It is a place for souls, and more specifically, the souls of the wicked (Ps 9:17, 55:15). It is a place that the righteous one will not be in. The Proverbs make it clear the Sheol is not a place of everyone by definition, for it is sin that leads to Sheol. Isaiah and Ezekiel reinforce these further ideas – a place of the wicked dead, whose iniquities still lie upon them. Apparently, the dead in Sheol yet live in some fashion, for they can be seen by the most high God. The OT stands united in its description of Sheol as a place of the wicked dead which is, simply, bad.

Does this change in the NT? Are we released from a view of a hell that is bad, that is a realm of the wicked? Is that “The Hell That Jesus Never Meant?” Or in the Incarnation, as he does in many other things, does Jesus explain to us more about hell than we ever knew before, just as he tells us more about God, man, sin and salvation than we knew before Him?

Tune in next time to see…

Wee Me

2007-03-29T15:12:00.000-04:00

Yup. That's a wee me. You can't hold a lightsaber and have a stack of books, nor a Guinness and a sword, so I had to choose - but it's kind of fun. Try it! Hat Tip to Anna.

Go

2007-03-27T13:37:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, I was able to spend some quality time with my oldest son when we attended the Newsboys concert together. He was actually more excited to see Kutless and Stellar Kart. It was quite a hit on the budget, but as toddlers, school and work dominate so much of my time, it was a worthy investment to spend some time with him. We also brought one of his buddies with us.

Stellar Kart opened, and they were fun, with a lot of energy. Kutless was as well, although their main musical genre is not the songs we typically hear on our local radio stations – they tend to hard rock, which suited the boys fine. Between the Kutless and Newsboys sets, Paul Coleman (formerly of the Paul Coleman Trio, now the lead guitarist for the Newsboys), came out and made a presentation about a missions group they were partnering with called Global Tribe. The layout of the venue and the sets resulted inmost of the view of the video being obscured, so the pitch was essentially verbal. Paul isn’t a gifted public speaker, so you bought what he said or you didn’t – no emotional draw aside from the details. He said that He believed that 100 people would commit to the Global Tribe her in our area, but when he asked for people to raise their hands to take a form, my son said, “Dad, there’s only like five people raising their hand.” I was one of them.

This is unusual for me. I have been supporting children in Sri Lanka since 1996, and consider my box checked when it comes to charitable giving outside the local church. Every Christian concert I have attended has a connection to a missions organization of some kind, and I have never felt compelled to respond. Why now, when my income is at its lowest, and my non-discretionary budget at its highest percentage ever? Some might say that it was because Mrs. Hammer wasn’t there to stop me, but I attribute it to a “Spirit Thing”, to quote the ‘Boys themselves.

So, we went back to join the Global Tribe, and the lady at the desk asked me how many were with me. I told her two boys, and she handed me three backstage passes to meet the Newsboys after the concert! Nifty!

The Newsboys portion of the show as awesome – sure, I enjoyed the music, but during the rendition of “I Am Free”, Peter (the lead singer) began quoting a lengthy section of Isaiah 40 (which I knew from a recent 45 day meditation upon that chapter). How often does that happen in a Christian concert? It flowed well with the song, and was quite a blessing. He spoke for a while as well, which is not uncommon in such a setting. Other Christian concerts I have attended also include the artist speaking at length about Jesus and God – that God loves you, can help you, is there for you, etc. However, this was the first concert I heard the words “lake of fire” used. (Revelation 20:15, John 15:6) Smokin’ – in more ways than one!

When I met the band, I thanked them for the blessing I received through them, and I thanked Peter for preaching the whole gospel. My son had them sign his Newsboys drum sticks he bought. Checkout the Global Tribe, waging war on spiritual and physical poverty, when you get a chance – as well as the Voice of the Martyrs to see what the price of true faith is on the edge of the fires of the gospel.

(Curiously, I thought I always had VOM linked here. I have no idea how it got missed.)

A Burden Carried

2007-03-18T23:22:00.000-04:00

A letter written and not sent.

A language read but not understood.

A stroke observed and not overcome.

A miscarriage with complications but without a baby.

A passage exposited and not taught.

A gospel preached and not accepted.

A man wounded and not willing to heal.

A woman in fear but willing to trust.

A mission of hope but not peace.

A word heard and yet not quite believed.

These are the things that have dominated my mind and my time the past 45 days or so. It hasn't been quite as dramatic as it sounds, but it has been dramatic enough. Perhaps I will be able to tell of some of it - but if I am to write, it is not of trials, but truth. Sometimes, though, the two dwell in the same place.

" Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes;

and I will keep it to the end.

Give me understanding, that I may keep your law

and observe it with my whole heart.

Lead me in the path of your commandments,

for I delight in it.

Incline my heart to your testimonies,

and not to selfish gain!

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things;

and give me life in your ways.

Confirm to your servant your promise,

that you may be feared.

Turn away the reproach that I dread,

for your rules are good.

Behold, I long for your precepts;

in your righteousness give me life!"

Ps 119:33-40

Church Membership: Humility

2007-02-01T12:20:00.000-05:00

"When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship. "

Did you laugh to yourself when you read that? Did it seem ridiculous? Probably so, as it would to nearly all of us. We think of the broken people in churches - broken through their own pettiness, sinfulness and power-mongering, and we know it can't happen. We think of the fellowships broken through the pursuit of various agendas or dogmatic grappling over worship styles or Bible versions or the use of the tables in the fellowship hall, and we know it can't happen. We think of the different Christian communities we have been in and see all that has been wrong with them and we know it can't happen.

Yet there is a single, solitary thread that imbues all of those things we think of: we are not among those we consider messed up. The church problems we encounter are always the fault of someone else! We never could have been apart of that! Those people...

Consider what the book of Romans has to say:

Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations… Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand... For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way… Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.

Romans 14:1-19 (excerpts) (KJV)

Why do you consider yourself better than your brethren? Because, at the end of the day, it is our pride that keeps us from the fellowship. "Not those people, with their blue hair, their hang-ups over the buildings, their failure to evangelise, their failure to aid the needy. Not those people." How dare we? How dare we reject the gospel and place our righteousness above our brother's?

This applies in a special way to the complaints often heard from pastors and zealous members about their congregations. A pastor should not complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men. When a person becomes alienated from a Christian community in which he has been placed and begins to raise complaints about it, he had better examine himself first to see whether the trouble is not due to his wish dream that should be shattered by God; if this be the case, let him thank God for leading him into this predicament. But if not, let him nevertheless guard against ever becoming an accuser of the congregation before God. Let him rather accuse himself for his unbelief. Let him pray God for an understanding of his own failure and his particular sin, and pray he may not wrong his brethren. Let him, in the consciousness of his own guilt, make intercession for his brethren. Let him do what he is committed to do, and thank God.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality. Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:1-21 (KJV)

When we separate ourselves from our brethren, we explciity are stating that we are better than they - whatever the reason might be. The is no part of the body meant to be separate from the body, and there is no spiritual gift given that is meant to operate exclusively outside the body.

I finish with a short though from Max Lucado. I'll be the first to say that I don't buy Max Lucado's books - I find them essentially written for people who do not think like me, or are in a place in their lives that I am not (at least not today). However, his words are often profound. I first read this one about three years ago,and I'll never forget it. I know, for certain, that it will speak to some of you as well. (I apologize for the font issues. I can't seem to fix them.)

Lord, who may enter your Temple?

Who may worship on Zion, your sacred hill?

Those who obey God in everything

and always do what is right,

PS 15:1-2.

Have you ever noticed how many people want to be right with God?

Rich people,
Religious people,
Nature people,
City people.

All kinds of people want to be right.

Some people get educated:
They learn all the funny little Greek symbols,
They learn all about theology,
They learn all about manuscripts, papyri, Dead Sea Scrolls
And so on and on…

They are righteous, they say…and they huddle together and sneer at those who are not.

Some people get mission-minded:
They learn new languages,
They teach untaught people
They take pictures of converts and speak at conferences.

They are righteous, they say…and they all huddle together and sneer at those who are not.

Some people get vocational:
They get a job,
They pay their own way,
They rub elbows with the “real world”
They are drops of leaven in a swelling society.

They are righteous, they say…and they all huddle together and sneer at those who are not.

You know, I think that sometimes God looks down at this dusty footstool and sees

The righteous theological huddle,
The righteous missionary huddle
The righteous vocational huddle
…and I think he sighs.

Church Membership: Shattered Dreams

2007-01-22T15:15:00.000-05:00

Have you even been in a perfect church? I don’t mean perfect as in completely ideal, I mean perfect as in, “As good as I can expect human beings to be.” Those who say, “Yes” are clearly in it now, and I would guarantee that they’ve been there less than five years, or they spent less than five years in that perfect church.

Whenever we show up at a new assembly, we have an idea in our minds of what the perfect church looks like. I, myself, thought I had found the perfect church, even acknowledging the standard laziness and selfishness of human beings and the impact that has. Yet, a year in, I found that my dream church was shattered.

For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? 1 Cor 3:3-4 (KJV)

Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.

By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and a community the better for both.

God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions as visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself…When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes first and accuser of the brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.

Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. 1 Cor 11:17-19 (KJV)

So what do we do when faced with such a condition? If it is true that every fellowship must face times such as these, what is our response? Again, we return to the Scriptures.

Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. Gal 6:1-3 (KJV)

A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. 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? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye. Luke 6:40-42

For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me. Heb 2:10-13 (KJV)

Can we not see the value that we must place on our brethren? We do not complain of what God does not give us; we rather thank God for what He does give us daily. And is not what has been given us enough: brothers, who will go on living with us through sin and need under the blessing of his grace?...is not the sinning brother still a brother, with whom , too, stand under the Word of Christ? Will not his sin be a constant occasion for me to give thanks that both of us may live in the forgiving love of God in Jesus Christ? Thus the very hour of disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably salutary, because it so thoroughly teaches me that neither of us can live by our own words or deeds, but only by that one Word or Deed which really binds us together – the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship.

And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:5-11 (KJV)

The reaction of the Christian to a brother in sin is not to complain about it, abandon the fellowship or even to correct them, but first, to remove the beam in their own eye. I must ask – where is my sin? When have I done sin like this and been unrepentant? When have I done sin totally unlike this and been unrepentant? What about my heart, my relationship with the risen Christ? May God have mercy on us for our judgmental attitudes and failure to recognize that the presence of a brother who sins is grace – grace in that it reminds me that I am a fallen human as well, sinful, in desperate need of His grace and forgiveness. This doesn’t remove our calling to correct – but it is a prerequisite to correcting. What about your heart?

Smiles

2007-01-12T21:21:00.000-05:00

My middle son, Corin, is a happy guy. After days of theological wrestling, administrative challenges and minitering to the poor in spirit, seeing this happy face makes the day brighter. His smile is obviously far superior to mine.

And yes, my facial hair is naturally that color. I never knew it until I got out of the Army.

The pic on the top was our Christmas picture this year. I was impressed with how impossible it was to get our three kids looking at the camera, smiling naturally, and on the right spot. There were many cases of looking away, hand in the mouth, hitting the dog, running to Mommy and crying. We went with the cheesy smile shot.

To my friends who manage to do great pictures of multiple kids in their homes, I have this to say - You have a gift we do not. Of course, we have some pretty amazing gifts too, as the above pictures demonstrate!

Church Membership: The Word in the Mouth of Our Brother

2007-01-12T12:48:00.000-05:00

Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake; Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.

Phil 1:27-30 (KJV)

Why do the Philippians need to hear this word from Paul? In the age immediately following the resurrection and the ascension, it is the New Testament church, the church many denomination claim to hold true to, the church that is supposed to be as good at it gets…yet the Philippians need to be told to hold true to the gospel. This isn’t due to external persecution, but internal strife!

In fact, this is not a rare occurrence in the New Testament. Galatians, 1^st Corinthians and 1 John speak of the strife in the church, as do other passages. The church has false converts, heretics, confused Christians, weak Christians, arrogant Christians, and sin-laden Christians in it, yet the Philippians are not told to abandon the church because of its problems. Instead, they are told to stand firm. There is a very good reason for this.

The death and the life of the Christian is not determined by his own resources; rather he finds both only in the Word that comes to him from the outside, in God’s word to him. The Reformers expressed it this way: our righteousness is an “alien righteousness,” a righteousness that comes from outside of us. They were stating that the Christian is dependent on the Word of God spoken to him. He is pointed outward, to the Word that comes to him. The Christian lives wholly by the truth of God’s Word in Jesus Christ. If somebody asks him, Where is your salvation, your righteousness? He can never point to himself. He points to the Word of God in Jesus Christ, which assures him salvation and righteousness. He is as alert as possible to the Word. Because he daily hungers and thirsts for righteousness, he daily desires the redeeming Word. And it can only come from the outside. In himself he is destitute and dead. Help must come from the outside, and it has come and comes daily anew in the Word of Jesus Christ, bringing redemption, righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

The Philippians, and all Christians, need the righteousness of Christ. Even when we are at our best, we are still sinful. It is Christ that saved and Christ that drives us in sanctification, not ourselves. We become disgusted at our brethren, yet were we not them at some point? We need the Word, but because we are sinners, we need it to come from outside of ourselves.

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men. When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find his living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure.

The very best person to bring the Word of God to use in a pure application is anyone but ourselves. Placing ourselves in a box where we will take in and interpret how we wish is not the design of God for the church universal – it is the church local that provides the mechanism for growth. When we are faced with the pettiness of many of our churches and in our churches, we need to review one of the hard sayings of Scripture in Philippians 2:

Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Philippians 2:1-8 (NKJV)

The humility exhibited by Christ is the humility we are to demonstrate. Calling the sinfulness of our brother a justification for separating ourselves is pride resisting the call of the Spirit to humility. You are no better than they, and neither am I. Abstention not only denies us the benefits of receiving the Word from our brother, it denies them the blessing of receiving the Word from us. Whatever justification you may use, humility and placing others above ourselves are no part of it.

So why does God place us in churches that so often get broken? That is the subject of the next post.

Church Membership: Considerations for Abstention

2007-01-10T08:33:00.000-05:00

There are, I would say, historical, practical, technological and theological reasons that believers choose to isolate themselves. Some are more valid than others, but each should be considered in the light of circumstances (historical/practical), effects of culture and human depravity (technological) and context (theological). I’ll address an example of each, in that order.

The Desert Church Fathers are historical examples of believers who isolated themselves intentionally and grew closer to God. Some significant names include Chrysostom, Augustine, Athanasius, and Anthony the Great. These men demonstrated that an isolation can be very edifying, indeed, and can help us divorce ourselves from our parochial attachment to the cultural dressings of our faith.

Yet, what these men did is not what those of today who abstain from the assembly do. First, these men of God did not have multiple media blaring at them with the worldview of secularism, did not go to a workplace every day full of ungodly people and events, and furthermore, subjected themselves to forms of purgation and single-minded devotion to God. Second, many of them were driven to the desert by persecution, not their distaste for other believers. Third, the vast majority returned to either a monastic community or to the church in the culture and made a huge impact upon the local and international church. These three differences make the desert fathers a rather unlikely example for ‘abstainers’ to claim as models for their lives.

An advantage that ‘abstainers’ have over the early fathers is technology and the availability of spiritually helpful resources even while absent. The printing press, the radio, the DVD, and the internet provide a massive volume of theological information that is beneficial to the believer. We can listen to sermon series’ while driving, read the works of the early fathers with a mouse click, and read any of a seemingly limitless breadth of written works, with new ones of value being turned out monthly or more.

Yet, the advantages proffered by technology have cultural baggage. The same media that provide edification can provide ungodliness. The printing press prints heresies, the radio spews unrestrained sexuality, the DVD can be a vehicle for Passion Conferences or for gangster movies (my vice), and the internet is rife with pornography, even when it isn’t being sought. Furthermore, it is far, far easier to blow off many of these helps because it is just as easy to ignore it, turn it off, or put it down as it is to engage it. Truly, because we humans trend to laziness and selfishness, these helps are more likely to be dismissed immediately if they challenge our beliefs, and are more likely to be ignored than benefited from. On the contrary, a group of believers with the best interests of the kingdom and their brethren in mind will not allow us to merely ignore the truths of Scripture, and a preacher or Bible Study leader is far less likely to be walked out on than an internet site we disagree with is to be ignored. Technological advances do not replace the edification of fellowship and teaching of live brothers and sisters in our presence.

We must also consider the theological emphases upon individual. Salvation is an individual event, with individual people who were foreordained before time brought to Christ in individual quickenings. In Acts 8 we read of the Ethiopian eunuch who was left with himself, the Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit as he headed home, where there likely were no other believers. In 1st John 2, we read that we do not need a man to teach us what is true and what is not, because the Spirit of Truth lies within us and will discern it for us. 1^st Peter 2 discusses the priesthood of the individual believer, who as a priest is individually responsible for his own conduct, confession and worship.

These theological truths do not interfere with the descriptions of and prescriptions for the regular assembly of believers for kingdom purposes. A person is saved as an individual, but he then is part of the body of believers, as described in 1^st Corinthians 12, and a body is deprived of a part and of its gifts when a member abstains. We do not need a man to teach us what is true, but the discernment of the Holy Spirit is not a license to avoid the prescriptions given to the church, which are numerous! They include communal constancy in prayer (Colossians 2), breaking of bread (1 Corinthians 11), giving of thanks (Ephesians 5), watching over one another (Hebrews 12), caring for one another (1 Corinthians 12, Matthew 25), Exhorting one another (Hebrews 3), bearing one another’s burdens (Galatians 6), loving one another (Hebrews 13), reproving one another (Matthew 18), submitting to one another in the Lord -which is pretty difficult by yourself (1^st Peter 5), ministering in gifts (1 Peter 4), that offenders seek reconciliation (Matthew 5), private admonition and public rebuke if necessary (Matthew 18, 1 Timothy 5), to conduct the assembly in good order (1 Corinthians 14). All of these flow through the assembly prescribed to gather together (Hebrews 10).

Yet, as some have already pointed out, it’s awfully hard to find a church that does all of these things. It may even be that there are large geographical areas without such a church. Again, we can’t answer for the church unless we are the bishop/pastor/elder, but we must answer for our own obedience. The first thing that must happen for a church to move toward where it should be is for one person to do it.

What I present is that few of us realize what are some of the very important behaviors we should exhibit in our hearts and lives in the community of believers, and thus we neither demonstrate these behaviors nor understand the importance of a community that looks like something more than a tribe, social club, support group or fans of a sports team (thank, David!). The next few posts will outline what these critical behaviors are. I pray you will be as convicted about them as I have been.

Why I'm A Baptist

2007-01-08T14:39:00.000-05:00

I'm in the middle of a week long class on the history of the Baptists. It has 800 pages of reading, lectures from 8-5 daily, and various written requirements. I go to my church administrator job from 0530 to 0700 and 1900 to 2200 to keep the system running. Oddly enough, I may have more time to write this week during class, which demands less of my undivided attention than my job does!

The first book I read for the class is "Baptists and the Bible", a historical look at the relationship between Baptists since their inception in the 17th century and Biblical inerrancy and authority. Clearly the Baptist denomination (if you can really call it such -there is no more fragmented group than the churches that call themselves Baptist) is one that has historically held to Biblical fidelity.

A further confirmation was this -

Today, a man in my “History of the Baptists” class was asked where he was from, and if he was a Baptist. He replied that he was from a small town in Alabama, and that he became a Baptist in August. When asked if he was a “convictional Baptist or Baptist of convenience", he relayed that when he was called by the Lord, he went to his Methodist pastor to inquire about seminaries. His Methodist pastor told him – “Don’t go to a Methodist seminary,” and “the place to learn the Bible is Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.”

I'm thankful to be here, as tired and ridiculously undercompensated as I am (the Mrs. and I went over the budget this weekend. Ugh). May the Lord make me worthy of the study of His Word that I am blessed to be a part of.

Church Membership Defined

2006-12-22T15:41:00.000-05:00

The word church has several meanings, depending upon context. One is what most non-believers and some believers think of – a building. Another could be a worship service – “We’re about to have church up in here (this may be a U.S. urban specific use)”. A third is a profession or group of those in the profession of clergy – “He considered the church as a possible career” or “The church declared Joan of Arc a heretic”. None of those, of course, are being considered in this series!

The two definitions relevant to church membership describe a group of people. One is the entire body of Christian believers. It is in this sense that the Scriptures speak of the Church as the Bride of Christ for who Christ gave his life (Ephesians 5), or of whom Christ is the head (Colossians 1), or what would be built upon the rock of faith (Matthew 16). This church, the Church with a capital C or the church catholic (universal), is a church that has a membership – but it is a divine membership added to by God (Acts 2:47). That is not the church membership for our discussion.

There are groups of people throughout the world who gather together for worship, exhortation, instruction, and fellowship. They may be under a tree in east Africa, in underground catacombs in South Asia, in illegal house churches in China, under a bridge in North Korea, or in a Cathedral in Europe. They are in small country churches of fifty and megachurches of 20,000 in the U.S. They may or may not have formal memberships, membership requirements, or paid staff members. They may or may not have doctrinal statements to which one must affirm, classes they should attend, or established procedures of discipline for members who do not meet the standards of behavior they set forth.

The church we are talking about is “a” church, not “the” church. I do not seek to make distinctions between denominations or even what might or might not be a “real” church. The only distinction I seek to make is simply what the word means – an assembly of believers. I, for one, would certainly make distinction in what exactly they believe in, but for the purposes of our discussion we will assume that any church considering itself “Christian” qualifies for our discussion of church membership.

Why should we consider a collective group of believers a church? Why not different people sitting at home watching T.D. Jakes on TV? Why not the people who stop by Alistair Begg’s website and listen to his sermons?

Words mean something. Anyone who has spent any time at this site has read that! The Greek word translated “church” is ἐκκλησίᾳ, which merely means “assembly”. In every case, the church is a group of people gathered together in one place. Furthermore, there is clearly a sense of permanence to the ἐκκλησίᾳ. When Paul writes a letter to the church of the Thessalonians, he is not hoping that some random people show up at a certain place to read his letter – no, he is writing to a specific group of people that need specific exhortations, who regularly gather together. The permanence is not that the membership is fixed, but that the assembly is consistent and ideally growing, not reducing.

So how does one qualify as a church member? I consider the existence of a formal membership or membership list of some value, which is why I engaged Rightthinker about it in my previous post. However, I do not think a list necessary for church membership. Following the Biblical and historical model, church members are those who are a part of a local body of believers that gathers together specifically for kingdom tasks. Those tasks can vary wildly, and necessarily may involve things that are not specific to the church, but should always include elements of worship, teaching and fellowship.

A church member is not an occasional attendee, but is someone who is dedicated to that community of believers. 1 Corinthians 16 contains instructions to collect funds when the church comes together on the first day of the week. 1 Corinthians 11 discusses the fashion and context of the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper when the church (assembly) comes together regularly. The instances of the church (assembly) described as being together is countless, beginning with the apostles on the day of Pentecost, continuing with meeting in the temple and in synagogues and expanding to homes and specific locations for gathering. John and Paul both write of situations where someone is cast out of the assembly (church), as does Jesus in Matthew 18. Finally, Hebrews 10:24-25 explicitly states, “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”

There is no instance of a church which is not an assembly of believers, and furthermore this assembly is one that meets regularly to worship, teach, and build each other up. There is a significant body of Scripture dedicated to how the church (assembly) should be structured. Clearly the church is a community of believers, and I have yet to see Scriptural license for failing to join in an assembly. A church member is one who is a committed, regular attendee of the assembly.

That said, I recognize that there are other, non-Scriptural arguments used to defend a lack of church membership for an individual. The next post will examine the desert church fathers, the impact of technology upon the ability of the individual to grow outside of the assembly, and the priesthood of the believer.

Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!

2006-12-13T16:11:00.000-05:00

As I lay in bed last night contemplating Christmas, it was not visions of sugarplums that were dancing in my head. I’ve been feeling a little like Charlie Brown this Christmas, not because I don’t understand the true meaning of Christmas, but because I DO. I’ll explain.

This Christmas season has been the most spiritually eye opening Christmas of my adult life thus far. Let me begin by saying that I am a Christmas fanatic. I love Christmas. My husband would attest to the fact that I begin watching ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ and getting excited about the season mid-July. I’m like a little kid at Christmas- I love everything about it. I love the music (all of it!), the lights, the movies, the scents, the weather (when it’s cold and “frightful” J) the decorations- you name it. Until this season, I even loved Santa Claus. Well, I must admit, a part of me still loves the magic of believing in Santa, but this year is different.

I recently completed reading the book of Isaiah in the Bible from beginning to end, meditating on it over a period of weeks. I have never felt so in awe of the Lord’s greatness and faithfulness to His promises. Each prophecy of the coming messiah was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and I cannot understand how anyone (especially Jews who are familiar with the Old Testament prophecies) can miss the fact that Jesus was and is the long awaited King born to save His people from their sins. My heart aches for the unbelieving world and culture of today who is increasingly trying to push Christ out of Christmas. A wonderful new movie, ‘The Nativity Story’ opened recently, and to say that it seems to have been a flop in the box office is an understatement. I’d bet that ‘The Santa Clause 3’ had a better turn out. Why? Because people don’t want to hear about Jesus. ‘Happy Holidays’ has replaced ‘Merry Christmas’ in most stores, and it almost feels rebellious to greet passerby’s with a jolly “Merry Christmas!” because it might be offensive to someone who celebrates the recently made up holiday “Kwanza” instead. I despise what the world has done to Christmas, and with Christmas being celebrated without any reference to Christ, Christmas seems to have done little to affect our unbelieving world today.

My initial aversion to the worldly celebration of Christmas began on the night of Thanksgiving when I was watching the news and saw the line of people camped out at Best Buy to get the early morning bargains. The next night mobs of people were shown trampling each other to get their hands on the new PS3, someone even getting shot in the process. Christmas has been turned into a greedy push and shove shopping spree. When Christmas is focused on snowmen and Santa and jingle bells and decking the halls, what is really being celebrated? Why not just celebrate the winter solstice? I have many lifelong childhood friends who are not believers in Christ who celebrate Christmas and take part in the many traditions of the season- the tree, the lights, the food, the sending of Christmas cards, etc. What I find most absurd, however, is the professing “Christians” who celebrate Advent and don’t even believe in the virgin birth of Christ or the entire reason He was born!! If you don’t even believe Jesus is God in the flesh, come to Earth to save people from their sins, what in the world does the “Advent” mean to you? I just don’t get it.

My family has celebrated the Advent so far this year in meaningful ways that have focused on the forgotten true reason for the season: the birth of Christ. We’ve read passages of the Christmas story from the Bible while enacting it in the nativity set, lit candles for the advent and talked about Jesus’s upcoming birthday. We’ll be making Jesus a birthday cake instead of cookies for Santa. We’ll be excited to put baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas morning and try to focus on giving to others because of the great gift God gave us, rather than being focused on what we’ll get from Santa. My children are excited about Christmas because of Jesus, and that’s how it should be. Their preferred Christmas movie is not ‘Rudolph’ or ‘Frosty’, but ‘The Very First Noel’. My twelve year old is long past believing in Santa, and no, I don’t think he’s damaged in any way from believing in Santa in his early years, nor does he hold resentment because I “lied” to him. Those are not my reasons for diminishing Santa from our family celebration. My little ones of course recognize Santa Claus in their Christmas books, but when they see him out in public, they want nothing to do with him. In fact, Santa approached my 20 month old daughter in the grocery store with a bag of goodies the other day and she was frozen with fear and turned her little face away so he’d leave her alone. So, at this point, why make a big deal about Santa and further frighten her by telling her that this big, burly red suited stranger is going to come down our chimney and check on her while she’s sleeping? Why distract from the true meaning of Christmas in our home any more than the world already tries to detract from it? My kids are plenty excited about Christmas for the right reasons, and I prefer to let them know that their daddy worked very hard to buy them the few presents they have- not that some man they don’t even know will give them whatever their little heart’s desire.

Call me a fundamentalist, legalist, killjoy- whatever. While I loathe the term “fundamentalist” because it conjures up visions of religious extremists like that of 9/11, I remind myself when I know I am being mocked for my convictions that there IS only one way of being Christian. Repenting of sin, trusting in Christ’s sacrificial death to pay the penalty for my sin and believing the fundamentals of the faith that are taught in the Bible. Dr. Albert Mohler wrote an article about this on his blog, and I encourage you to read it. He goes as far as I have in previous posts to say that if you do not believe the fundamental truth of the Biblical account of the virgin birth of Christ once you are presented with this truth, then you are not a Christian. I am not giving up Santa because I think it is a sinful practice. However, I do think Santa has a danger of becoming an idol of Christmas in many homes today- even Christian homes. I don’t think I HAVE to do it this way, but the Lord has changed my heart and I WANT to. I don’t plan to ban Santa altogether- at this point, at least. We will still read our Christmas books about Santa and watch holiday classics starring Santa, and we’ll still belt out songs like Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus is Coming to Town, but we won’t make this a focus by playing it up and emphasizing it. We’ll tell our children that Santa and all the other secular traditions of Christmas are fun additions to the season, but that’s not the reason we celebrate. When we focus on the wonder of the manger and Christ’s birth, it far overshadows any nostalgia about Santa.

You can’t be expected to appreciate Christ’s wonderous birth if you don’t understand why He came. And, you can’t understand why He came until you can admit that you are a sinner in need of a Savior. We are lawbreakers sentenced to death and cannot afford to pay our fine ourselves. Christ paid the fine for us and released us from the oppression and bondage of sin and death. He did not come to promote social reform or to teach us how to properly love our neighbor or to change our circumstances, but His primary reason for coming to Earth was to “save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1: 21). What greater reason do you need to celebrate this Christmas?

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Luke 2: 8-14)

And THAT’S what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown. It was a divine revelation for Charlie Brown and I finally fully understand it myself. I’m not going to let anything distract my family from the fact that JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON!

Church Membership: Introduction

2006-12-12T22:16:00.000-05:00

“To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints”

“To the church of God that is in Corinth”

“To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:”

“To the churches of Galatia”

“To the saints who are in Ephesus”

“To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi”

“To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae”

“To the church of the Thessalonians”

“To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion”

“To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion”

“My little children, I am writing these things to you”

When we read the Epistles of the New Testament, something should stand out to us – these books are written to churches. There are letters to church leaders (Timothy, Titus, 2 & 3 John), and a letter of direction regarding a specific case (Philemon), but even in those the letters are written to believers who are part of a fellowship of believers. They are written to be read and applied by individuals, but read and applied by individuals in community.

Yet today, many professing believers give short shrift to church membership. They feel that being intimately connected to a body of believers is of little consequence. Some are honest enough with themselves to say it, others simply do not join themselves to a fellowship and make excuses. The result is the same – Christians who are supposed to be a part of the body of Christ, yet have little connection to that body.

This series covers two interrelated themes – the need for church membership and how one lives in community with believers. I’ll give a bit of sneak peek into a major idea – our failure to live properly in community is inseparable from our failure to live in community at all. I’m not yet sure which led to which, but a lack of regard for community is not likely to encourage us to make the harder choices to live properly in community, and a failure to live properly in community necessarily creates disregard for community living.

First I will talk about what church membership means, followed by a Biblical and historical support for the communion of saints. Then I will describe the lost ‘secrets’ to living in community that makes it everything it should be. This will necessarily involve examining the reasons given for abandoning the fellowship of our brothers and sisters and weighing their balance against the body of Biblical and historical evidence.

As I consider this short series, I marvel that of those who have commented in the past, many who oppose me on several issues are likely to agree with me on this issue, while some of those who have supported other doctrinal positions I have presented will not Perhaps I will better understand that dynamic when we are completed.

Next: What church membership really means.

Crater Analysis: Terry

2006-11-27T23:30:00.000-05:00

When a U.S. military position receives incoming mortar fire, if the firing tubes are not identified through other means, the unit can conduct “crater analysis” to find out where the round came from. To start this, they measure the impact of the round – its depth and direction.

This series, which will make occasional appearances on the blog, will recount the impact that different people I met while on active duty had upon me. This first one dates back to 1997.

By the time I became an Army Aviation platoon leader, I had spent time as a staff officer and as an executive officer for a headquarters company. This allowed me to view aviation units from the outside, and I had come to a sobering conclusion – the US Army Aviation Warrant Officer lacked military discipline.

This demands two rapid clarifications. First, Army Aviation warrant officers have a different career path and set of responsibilities than other warrant officers. The lowest warrant officer rank is Warrant Officer One (WO1). In aviation, a WO1 would be responsible for essentially showing up on time. In other branches of the Army, a WO1 would be responsible for an entire battalion’s maintenance planning and performance, for example. As an aviation warrant officer progresses, their responsibilities creep up only a little bit each time. At no time are they responsible for troops, or for a unit’s performance. Yet, these officers are afforded the same level of privilege as commission officers, who are responsible for every aspect of their troop’s lives and their units functioning. This combination of greater privilege and low responsibility breeds poor discipline.

The second clarification is that while they lack military discipline, they do not lack professionalism. In fact, their occupational professionalism is unmatched. They take great pride in being the best pilot, maintenance test pilot, instructor pilot, safety officer, or whatever specialty they work in. They can be counted on to do an excellent job at their aviation tasks. It is military discipline they lack – they do not look, speak or present themselves as soldiers and officers. Obviously I am not speaking of them all – I have had some very disciplined warrants – but the group as a whole suffers here.

That preface complete, on to the story!

With that in mind, I prepared my initial in brief for all of my warrant officers. Unlike some other commissioned officers in Aviation, I was committed to maintaining a level of discipline and order, and that began by addressing my warrant officers by “Mr.” and their last name, as opposed to their first names. I would let them know that I would continue to do that, as a measure of my respect for them, and I expected a reciprocal level of professional respect for me. I would inform them that I felt that aviation has a poor image outside of the branch, and that I would hold them to a high level of military bearing in appearance and conduct, and mentioned three specific things – uniform appearance, physical fitness, and military courtesy.

The first person I briefed was Terry, a CW2 who was the platoon instructor pilot. When I finished my monologue, Terry looked at me with narrow eyes and said, “Let me tell you something, sir.”

I was cringing inside, anticipating what came next:

“Don’t you ever change that!”

He went on to tell me how he agreed, how he held himself to high standards and he was glad to have a leader who would do the same for him and his peers.

Having Terry in support of my leadership style made all the difference in the world. Over time, I became better friends with Terry. I know that God placed Terry in my life at the right time for the right reasons. Had I met Terry two years earlier, we never would have been friends. Terry had left his wife for another woman – and although he justified it with his wife’s abusive relationship with him at the time, he knew by the time we met that it was wrong, but that the right answer was not to leave his new wife. We discussed scripture and its application, professional development, and personal decisions. On a helicopter flight to Louisiana, Terry revealed to me what a mistake it was going to be to marry the woman I was engaged to at the time, for which I am eternally grateful. It went like this:

“Sir, close your eyes. Imagine that you are at the altar with X, and you have just said ‘I do’. What are you thinking?”

I snapped my eyes open and said, “My God, what have I done?!”

Terry remains the model of professionalism. I wrote recommendations for his selection for Officer Candidate School and promotion to a commissioned officer – but he eventually turned it down, feeling he could make more of a difference within the warrant officer corps. One of the downsides of my departure from the military is that I unexpectedly lost my Army email account, and lost many of my Army friends’ contact info. Terry is one that I miss most. Hopefully when I return to the Army as chaplain (Lord willing), I will see Terry as a CW4 and find out what kind of difference he has made and is making. I hope I made as positive an impact upon him as he did upon me.

Hiatus Complete

2006-11-22T11:42:00.000-05:00

We've been out for a while with the aforementioned work and school challenges. I am happy to announce that I am no longer working the third shift, and have been hired on by my church as the adminstrator and pastoral care associate! This will allow me to assist the church in an area of talent with things (administration) and with people (pastoral care). Furthermore, I will be able to spend more time with my wife and oldest son, as well as net more overall sleep, reduce total travel time, and increase study opportunities. All in all, even though the move is a pay cut, we are excited about the change.

I recently had the opportunity to spend three days and two night with all three children, minus Mrs. Hammer. I survived the ordeal, as did they, and I leave some advice for Dads who are presented with this kind of opportunity:

1) Get them out of the house. No, not just into the yard, but away. Bring them somewhere outside of the property for three hours. We went to the seminary and the mall on Friday, the local privately run forest / park on Saturday, and church on Sunday. This removes that dreaded extended time of entertainment that the great moms of the world fill with crafts, teaching and training and the slightly less great moms fill with a lot of "lighted box" time. Dads, don't be in a spot where your answer to what you did with the kids was "watched TV"!

2) Recognize needs vs wants. When the toddler falls down and busts her lip, she needs to be held. When she is bored of hitting the dog with a wooden sword, she does not. If you are doing a family critical job, like cooking dinner, you are not capable of simultaneously holding the toddler and cooking without burning someone or something. Moms can pull this off, we can't. A firm, "Daddy is busy cooking, we'll play later" is key here. She may whine for a minute, but she'll head over to the power tools for entertainment soon enough.

3) Physical activity reduces household stress. Tired kids go to sleep easier, and running around the forest like a madman guarantees this state.

4) Notre Dame football is an acceptable kiddie show.

5) It is always the oldest one's fault. This may not always be true, but it makes punishemnet decisions easy and makes the older one motivated to avoid fighting with the younger.

6) Punish early to avoid more of it later. We had a "naughty stick" incident Friday, and no further ones were required.

The Mrs. and I have been planning the direction of the blog, though we haven't had time for implementation. Now we will, as final exams are next week and I will only have school for one week out of the next ten. Some things we'll cover:

A) The first of an intermittent series on people in the military that made a lasting mark on me.

B) A series on church membership.

C) A post or short series on the doctrine of hell.

D) An exchange of posts regarding Hyper-Calvinism and my disagreement with it (Robert, are you up for it?)

E) A series addressing the Trinity, a lost doctrine in many of our "low churches", of which I am a member.

And whatever else may come from you all.

Wal-Mart, Hotel Maids and the Kingdom

2006-11-02T16:31:00.000-05:00

What follows is a transcript I made of a sermon by Dr. Russell Moore, the Dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. There is a link to the entire sermon (audio) here. You will note that I cut the whole first paragraph and some parts of the second for the final post in the inerrancy series – but what may surprise you is that while the text completely fits that context, it was leading towards a different one – a warning to theological conservatives.

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

- James 2:1-9

Nancy Anderson and Richard Marius, both of whom are liberals, wrote sociological analyses of the Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention – and both came up with the same conclusion. When you look at people who were moving toward liberalism, and the ones who were standing toward orthodoxy, the ones who were the fundamentalists were those who grew up in blue-collar homes; while the ones who were liberal, regardless of how much money they had now, were the those who grew up in very comfortable homes. Not as a rule, but generally. Why? Anderson and Marius both asked, Why? Their conclusion: those who are more at home in American culture, those who are more secure in American culture, were those who were more likely to move with American culture, were those who were more likely to be concerned about what the outside culture thinks. Those who instead were insecure in the culture, those who were already marginalized, were the ones who were willing to hear and to listen to a gospel that the scholars had been telling them is ridiculous!

That’s not an accident, it’s not unusual. James says, “God has chosen the poor of this world, God has chosen the downtrodden of the world to be rich in faith.” God is preserving orthodoxy and preserving commitment to the word of God specifically through those that the world says have no influence at all! There is a reason why boutique liberalism and faddish evangelicalism don’t really take root in the trailer parks. There’s a reason why Brian McLaren has never been translated into Sudanese. Places who are feeling the persecution of the sword, places in which those who have the power over your income also have the right to tell you what to believe, are the very places where God brings forward men and women who will stand and say “This I believe, I can do no other.”

God has chosen them to be rich in faith, and not only that, but to also be the heirs to the kingdom, he says, which he promised to those who love Him. What you need to understand is that you are looking through the wrong priority lens, and what you need to see is that the last will be first and the first will be last. When you welcome in the poor among you, do not sit around and congratulate yourselves as if you did some act of charity. When you are pastoring, ministering and loving the people who are rich in faith but poor in the things of this world, all you are doing, James says, is being the political consultant to those who will one day be the rulers of this earth! They will be heirs of the kingdom, and when you recognize that, you are saying that you know that at the resurrection of the dead, God will be giving glory and authority

Those who may not have had anything in this life, may have had had shabby clothing, who were hotel maids who had to take Motrin eight times a day because their backs are giving out, but those who believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they will be exalted. James says when you don’t listen to them, it is to your own detriment, it is because you don’t know what is coming! That’s exactly what Jesus is saying when he tells his disciples, “The first will be last and the last first.” When you understand this, you will understand that there will be church janitors who will be crowned with glory and church celebrities who will be humbled…

In every generation of the church, and in our generation, too, there is a danger of defining the great commission as chasing whatever the world values. In the 80’s it was upwardly mobile baby boomers who wanted a mall. In this generation perhaps it is cool, hip, edgy postmodernists who are technologically savvy. In every generation there is a tendency to despise the very people through whom God has given us the gospel. It is very easy as a seminary student, or seminary faculty member, or administrator to make fun of shofars blowing at the Southern Baptist Convention. It is very easy to turn around and see our churches and to despise them. It is very easy to look at what we see as Biblical illiteracy and look at what we see as silliness, and scoff at them in coffee shops.

In older days people had liberalism to show how much smarter they were than the rednecks. However, it is just as easy for Satan to tear you apart by taking orthodox theology and relevant missiology in order to prop up in your mind your superiority to these people. And you can find yourself believing things that are true, and you can find yourself doing things that are effective, and find yourself serving in churches with your heads cricked- just like the liberals did toward Harvard and Yale - you can have your heads cricked toward all of your peers who are looking at what you are doing and looking to see if you are fitting in with what they expect, you can find yourself doing that, while secretly considering yourself above the people you serve – and it will take more than five points and an elder board to keep you from liberalism…you’ll already be there. It will take more than a spread in Relevant magazine to make you relevant to the culture - you’re gone.

James says that you need to recognize that the standards here and priorities here are very, very different. You need to understand that you can have all the justifications you want to for thinking you are superior to them, more educated than them, more socially well off than them, but what you need to understand is that you can have all the ironic conversations you want to, and have all the theological sophistication that you want to and you can miss the fact that the kingdom of God is dawning in a Wal-Mart break room of people sitting around over a Bible leading someone to Christ, who don’t know who John Owen is, who can’t diagram a Greek sentence, who like Bill Gaither more than they like Bach, who understand the gospel in what may be a very narrow way, but they are people who are rulers-in-waiting of the cosmos, and you need to recognize that because your own soul is at stake.

---

I pray that the Almighty keep us all from such arrogance...and especially me.

Biblical Inerrancy: The Lectionary

2006-10-28T10:47:00.001-04:00

When I began the inerrancy series, I mentioned in the “What Inerrancy is Not” post that the doctrine of inerrancy forced us to be confronted with things that challenged our worldviews and held beliefs about ourselves, God, and our relationship to Him. John countered that those denominations that use a lectionary are more often faced with challenges to their faith because they are more likely confronted with the Scriptures than his caricature of evangelical churches:

“For example, an inerrantist in a church that only cycles through the pastor's favourite dozen passages (a far too common occurrence) will face up to far fewer biblical challenges than a non-inerrantist who attends a church that follows a lectionary. We will only face up to challenges if we read them!”

I did not respond to that idea because it sounded quite reasonable to me. I also remembered times when I was in a church that used the lectionary and was able to talk about the passage for that Sunday with my friend who was a Roman Catholic that heard a homily on the same passage the same Sunday, another benefit of a lectionary. However, recently, as I was finishing the series and considering the more liberal denominations, the thought struck me: What do they do with Isaiah 66:15-24, or Isaiah 63:1-6? There is no way that, even with their dismissals of the meanings of these texts, that they could read them to the church on a Sunday morning – so what do they do?

It’s very simple, actually. They don’t read them. In fact, what is not read seems very deliberate. I compiled a short list, which is not exhaustive.

Key Scriptures supporting historical doctrines eliminated from the lectionary:

Warnings against sexual immorality:

Gen 19;1 Cor 5:1-4, 9-13, 6:9-10, Leviticus 18, 20; Rom 1:26-27; 1 Tim 1:8-10. (This includes every single scriptural prohibition of homosexuality. Every one!)

Marriage and family guidance:

1 Cor 7:1-18; 1 Tim 5 (entirely); Titus 2:1-10; 1 Tim 2:8-15; Eph 5:22-33, 6:1-10, 1 Peter 3:1-7

Bishop (pastor) qualifications: 1 Tim 3 (entirety); Titus 1 (Entirety)

Warnings against false teachers/doctrine:

2 Cor 11; Jude (the whole thing); 1 Tim 1:3-11; 1 Tim 4; 1 Tim 6:1-5; 2 Tim 3:1-13; 2 John (all of it); 1 John 4:1-6; 2 Peter 2; Rev 2-3;

Judgment:

Matt 12:41-42; Luke 11:31-32; 1 Cor 15:35-53; Rev 8-18, Rev 20; Matt 18:1-14, Matt 23:13-33; Matt 24:1-35, 45-51, Romans 2 (entirety)

What do liberal churches do with a Bible they don’t believe? Two things – they encourage parishioners to believe that they should only digest it in “community”, and then ensure that the community does not hear the Word that stands against their positions. Of course, any person who dislikes specific texts can dodge them (though I doubt the caricature presented is a “far too common occurrence”, for which there is no evidence of it being far too common) – but an adherent of inerrancy must either suffer cognitive dissonance or read and believe all!

“We will only face up to challenges if we read them!”

Indeed. Indeed.

Pause

2006-10-24T15:33:00.000-04:00

Sorry that I'm absent - I am at a difficult conflation of heavy loads at work and school as I enter a job transition and face the portion of the semester that maximizes papers and tests, plus an under-40% average in Hebrew! I'll return to posting and commenting here and elsewhere soon.

Biblical Inerrancy VI: Why Is Inerrancy Necessary?

2006-10-16T16:09:00.000-04:00

“My conscience is captive to the Word of God; to go against conscience is neither right nor safe; on this I stand, I can do no other; God help me, Amen.”

- Martin Luther

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites,and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
-Romans 16:17-20

(Introduction and subsequent links to the series can be found here)

After acknowledging that there is more truth than is contained in the Bible, that all truth is of God, and that there are other ways in which God speaks to us, why insist upon an inerrant Scripture? Aren’t all forms of revelation equally valid? Why would we consider a written revelation any more authoritative than a word directly from the Holy Spirit to someone? If God has spoken, who am I to contradict it? Perhaps a true, current example will suffice.

The current worldwide Anglican Communion comprises millions of members from throughout the entire world. However, the Communion is in danger of a split that may exclude parts of it from certain functions and meetings, if not from the Communion altogether. While the issues may be more myriad than on the surface, the issue that has the headlines is the acceptance and ordination of homosexual clergy. The Anglican branches in Canada, the US and New Zealand allow this. Other first world, westernized countries are neutral or considering it. The remainder of the Communion, particularly in the third world, is vehemently opposed to the practice.

The western branches, who happen to be primarily white, wealthy, western, and liberal, believe that they have been and are led by the Holy Spirit to move in this direction. Thus, they claim, in essence, revelation from God as an authority to do so. The majority of the Communion disagrees, and claims that the Holy Spirit has led them to an opposite conclusion.

Yet, we know that “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph 4:4-6)

The same Spirit cannot assent that an act is praiseworthy and abhorrent at the same time. There must be an arbiter – that arbiter is Scripture. In fact, they are more than arbiters – they are sufficient for our knowledge of the things of God. That is why St. Athanasius said, “For indeed the holy and God-breathed Scriptures are sufficient for the preaching of the truth.” Cyril, a bishop in the mid-fourth century, wrote, “In regard to the divine and holy mysteries of the faith, not the least part may be handed down without the Holy Scriptures…even to me, who tell you these things, do not give ready belief, unless you receive from the Holy Scriptures the things of which I announce.” St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in the thirteenth century, “we believe the successors of the apostles and prophets only in so far as they tell us those things which the apostles and prophets have left us in their writings.”

The belief that the Scriptures alone are the final authority for the believer is crucial to Christianity. For only as the authority of the Bible stands supreme over the authority of the individual, or the community, or even the church can we truly be addressed by the Word of God and not by our own word. Only when the difference between the work of the Holy Spirit in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures is recognized as different from His work in the teaching ministry of the church can the church hear a Word from God rather than its own voice.

What do we have in those branches of “Christianity” that deny an inerrant Scripture? What do we have in liberal theology, neo-orthodoxy, and historical-critical theology? What do we have in the other theologies that have sprung up in the last 200 years or less that deny the authority of the Scriptures over their own authority?

They are not Christianity. They are made up religions.

That sounds harsh. I don’t think it is anything but the truth. While liberal, neo-orthodox, and historical critical theologies have distinct differences (all three are hereafter referred to as liberal), and those of one color are insulted when called another, in the end, they all have the same hermeneutic (method of determining what the Bible says) as described by Marcus Borg in “Reading the Bible Again for the First Time”: “There are parts of the Bible that we will decide need not or should not be honored, either because we discern that they were relevant to ancient times but not to our own, or because we discern that they were never the will of God.”

This kind of hermeneutic is one that, essentially, reduces our faith to a faith that is in only what we want to believe. Think about it. It is this faith that agrees that God is a God of love, who is our heavenly Father, yet denies that, somehow unlike an earthly father, He would give us rules that we don’t like, or knows things that we do not, or would impose his authority upon us in wisdom we cannot understand. It is this kind of hermeneutic that results in a faith that relies upon the “Spirit working in community”, yet restricts that community to my particular denomination, culture, place and time and completely rejects the testimony of historical Christianity, Scripture and the faithful the world over. It is this kind of hermeneutic that creates a “Christianity” that is extremely acceptable to secular intelligencia and culture, instead of preserving a gospel that offends the world and makes them hate us (Matt 10:16-41).

These followers of this kind of faith are following something, but not Christ. They are following the teachings of demons (1 Timothy 4:1). (Appropriately enough, many of these very people will deny the existence of demons, or that they actually do anything.) They use a hermeneutic that allows them to pick and choose Bible verses they already agree with, and reject those they do not.

Consider this – what basis does one reject Scriptural teaching upon? Upon their own desires. Oh, they may cite the agreement of others or current scientific evidence, but the evidence and opinions of others conveniently agree with what they already believe.

So where does the Spirit play in all of this? The Spirit is active, living and mighty in our world. He leads us into all truth (John 16:13), and gives us guidance, comfort, strength, wisdom and discernment. What He cannot do is contradict himself. He does not “lead” one believer to march in a “women’s choice” rally and another to volunteer in a pregnancy counseling center to save unborn children. He does not “lead” one preacher to proclaim a gospel of earthly prosperity and another to preach financial sacrifice to help others. He does not “lead” one denomination to ignore the Biblical prescription for the qualifications of pastors yet another to adhere to it. He does not “lead” one Christian to support a gay pride event and another to campaign for a traditional marriage protection amendment. None of these views make one a non-Christian, but to claim that both in any case are Spirit-led actions is ludicrous. Specifically, He does not contradict Scripture or lead us into “new” readings that did not become acceptable until secular culture said it was acceptable. In fact, the way we know the difference between the Holy Spirit and the leading of evil spirits is obedience and submission to the Scriptures, (1 John 4:1,6).

There is another difference you will notice between the adherents of inerrancy and those who do not: fruit.

Go to the Passion 268 website and after you enter, click on “Watch Louie’s talks online” choose “Unthinkable Rescue”. After it loads far enough, move the pointer to 22:45 and listen for a few minutes. He reads a personal letter of deliberate sin and its consequences, followed by divine salvation and the joy that results.

These stories are frighteningly rare in liberal circles, and common enough in inerrantist circles to be beyond the highest level of statistical significance in comparison. They are found in churches that maintain an orthodox view of Scripture – though many of them may look very different in presentation. This one (Louie’s), for example, is a Southern Baptist Church, though you wouldn’t guess it until you hear the Word preached. The salt of the earth are found, not in highbrow European neo-orthodoxy, but in a Promise Keepers rally where gang members renounce their gang ties at the risk of their lives; where homosexuals leave that lifestyle as they deny themselves and take up their cross; where alcoholic fathers gives their lives to Christ after being witnessed to by a street preacher; where porn-addicted husbands find rescue from their addiction after watching Billy Graham on TV; where drug addict sons leave their sin behind forever when they meet the living Christ in the preaching of the gospel! The stories of redemption from unspeakable sin are found in fundamentalist Christianity, where the Bible is regarded and preached as fully inerrant. The former gangsters never become pastors preaching that gay sex is honored by God. They are instead in COGIC churches, Cities of Refuge, and other urban gospel congregations that demonstrate real joy and exuberance in the Lord and who believe in the inerrant Word. They are coming to Christ in Pentecostal and charismatic congregations who practice gifts of the Spirit in a way I never would and who believe in the inerrant Word. They find community in a little Baptist church that makes weekly altar calls and proclaims an inerrant Word. They serve others as part of a Roman Catholic mission that believes in an inerrant Word and lives it in service to the poor. The drunkards, prostitutes, child molesters, murderers, thieves and liars come to the Christ who was fully God and man, who was born of a virgin, who suffered bodily under Pilate, who was crucified, dead and buried, who rose again from the dead, leaving an empty tomb, rose into heaven to sit at the hand of the Father, and will come again in Judgment. They come in response to a call to repentance and submission to the King of Kings, and not because they are told they have a “God-shaped Hole” and are seeking comfort after a tough week at the office. Christians the world over are martyred not for a liberal gospel of pick and choose doctrines – the Chinese government, after all, makes their own approved Bible of pick and choose verses – but for proclaiming that the road is narrow and that the truth of the Bible that Jesus is the only way!

There is a reason that Brian McLaren is never going to be translated into Sudanese; there is a reason that liberal theology isn’t exploding in North Korea; there is a reason that the trailer parks are not embracing neo-orthodoxy; there is a reason that spiritual revivals in the ghettos of New York are not found in churches that do not believe the Bible is the final and authoritative revelation, just as it was given. Lives are not changed by a “God” who doesn’t do real miracles, who doesn’t hold the universe in his hand, who somehow couldn’t communicate what He really meant until Bultmann, Schliermacher and Barth opened our eyes over the past 150 years.

Nancy Anderson and Richard Marius, both of whom are liberals, wrote sociological analyses of the Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention – and both came up with the same conclusion. When you look at people who were moving toward liberalism, and the ones who were standing toward orthodoxy, the ones who were the fundamentalist were those who grew up in blue-collar homes; while the ones who were liberal, regardless of how much money they had now, were those who grew up in very comfortable homes. Not as a hard rule, but generally. Why? Anderson and Marius both asked, Why? Their conclusion: those who are more at home in American culture, those who are more secure in American culture, were those who were more likely to move with American culture, were those who were more likely to be concerned about what the outside culture thinks. Those who instead were insecure, those who were already marginalized, were the ones who were willing to hear and to listen to a gospel that the scholars had been telling them is ridiculous!

What do those who claim Christ yet deny the Scriptures do? They say things like, “The crucifixion of Christ is not salvific.” Then they claim they are following Christ, and use their superior seminary education and high status as an ordained pastor as justification to scoff at the fools who believe the Bible. Yet, we should not be surprised.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:18-31)

Those who are saved believe the Bible and those who are perishing deny it. The Scriptures and the communion of saints throughout the ages stand in unison against the false religions followed by many who call themselves Christians. Are there those who deny some part of the Bible that is true and are yet saved? I’m sure there are. There is a difference, however, between denying Scripture one is ignorant of or perhaps not discipled in and denying Scripture after studying it. The Holy Spirit will not allow a Christian to continue to deny the wondrous truths of his name and follow sin as righteousness (John 15:26-16:15). I would wager my own salvation on a brother from any culture who believes the Bible, is not ashamed of the gospel, and serves the Lord with his life – yet would not even consider it for a highly educated westerner whose faith mirrors that of their culture. Yet my assent is of no relevance – the One who brings well-being and calamity, the only one who saves, the one who has breathed out the words of Scripture, has the final say.

He has spoken – to whom will you listen? Will you listen to those “Christians” who deny the inerrancy and authority of Scripture like Borg, who says “the gospels are neither divine documents not straightforward historical records. They are not divine products inspired directly by God, whose contents are therefore to be believed”, or will you listen to the Word of God: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16, from the larger section on Scripture 2 Tim 3:1-4:8)? These conflicting views cannot both be right. You either believe in an inerrant word or pick and choose that which you will believe and that which you will disregard, of which it is written, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” (Prov 14:12)

(This concludes the inerrancy series. I will have two short addendums – one regarding the lectionary and one that is a warning to conservative Christian leaders)

UPDATE: The Passion website took down the Louie Giglio message (which was #3 in the Unthinkable Series) today, Oct 16th. I'm sorry you won't get to hear the story.

Romans 15:4 Project: Christian Carnival

2006-10-11T11:34:00.000-04:00

Christian Carnival CXLIII is up at the Romans 15:4 Project: Christian Carnival .

Check it out - we are featured in the "Reflection, Spiritual Training, Teaching and Discipline" section.

Biblical Inerrancy V: Alternate Views of Scripture

2006-10-08T09:28:00.000-04:00

“I want to know one thing – the way to heaven: how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself has condescended to teach the way. He hath written it down in a book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be a man of one book.”

- John Wesley

(Previous posts in the series can be accessed here)

When you encounter a present-day view of Holy Scripture, you encounter more than a view of Scripture. What you meet is a total view of God and the world, that is, a total theology, which is both an ontology, declaring what there is, and an epistemology, stating how we know what there is.

The view of Scripture I have defined is called “full inerrancy”. There are other types of “inerrancy” that many claim to believe, yet an examination of them reveals that most are no inerrancy at all. The other types of “inerrancy” include:

Technical or Absolute Inerrancy: This view was expressed in Harold Lindell’s “Battle for the Bible”, and presents that all of what the Bible is can be shown to be true when evaluated based upon contemporary science, historiography, and journalism. This differs from full inerrancy in that it demands that every description in Scripture be defended in accordance with current scientific, historical, and journalistic standards.

Limited Inerrancy: This view holds that the Scriptures are inerrant in its salvific doctrines. It creates a distinction between these and empirical, natural references, ascribing errors to the state of scientific, journalistic and historical limitations of the time of the writers. For the purposes for which the Bible was given, it is fully truthful and inerrant.

Kergymatic Inerrancy or Inerrancy of Purpose: The ‘big picture’ of the Bible gets across, even though there are errors in it. The ‘inerrancy’ in view here is one that holds that the Bible inerrantly accomplishes its purpose, which is to bring people into personal fellowship with Christ, not to communicate truths. While it accomplishes this purpose effectively, it is improper to relate inerrancy to factuality. Thus, truth is not thought of as a quality of propositions, but as means to accomplish an end. Implicit in this position is a pragmatic view of truth.

Accommodated Revelation: Also, there are views which do not claim any inerrancy of the Scriptures at all. This position emphasizes that the Bible came through human writers and thus participates in the shortcomings of human nature. This is not only true in historical and scientific matters, but in theological and moral matters as well. Proponents of this view are those who simply declare that Paul was wrong in some of his doctrinal teachings because of his rabbinical background, or that sometimes he was right and sometimes wrong. Some even feel that Jesus was wrong, not merely unaware, of the time of his return.

Nonpropositional Revelation: This view denies that the Scriptures are revelation at all, preferring to describe only the person-to-person encounter as revelatory. The whole question of truth or falsity does not apply. The presence of errors in the Bible are those of the writers, because the words are those of the writers, not of God, yet these in no way work against the usefulness of the Bible.

The type of theology that arises from full inerrancy is evangelical or perhaps fundamentalist (though many who call themselves fundamentalist demand absolute inerrancy). While there are a smorgasbord of other theologies, the three most prevalent are liberal theology, neoorthodoxy, and historical-critical theology.

As I demonstrated in a previous post (the bottom half of it), full inerrancy was the historical view of the church, both Protestant and Catholic, until the so-called “Age of Reason” and particularly in the subsequent “Enlightenment” of the 18^th century. Even though the Catholic Church added the authoritative interpretation by the church authorities as revelation as well, it did not change the fundamental view of scripture as God’s revelatory word. The Reformers rejected the idea of additional revelation, but their understanding of the nature of the Bible was also the historic position.

Immanuel Kant, perhaps the single greatest contributor to the Enlightenment, said that “Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s own intelligence without the guidance of another…Having the courage to make use of your own intelligence is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment.” This movement was characterized by a rejection of external authority – whether the Bible, the church or the state – because people, they said, should not be bound by ancient customs or creeds. Second, human destiny lies in progress, based upon the belief that human nature is basically good. Third, the knowledge of God and religious truth is ultimately attainable through human reason – and therefore divine revelation is unnecessary. As a result of the Enlightenment (the advent of the “modernist” worldview), many theologians came up with new ways to explain the concept of revelation and the nature of the Bible.

Liberal Theology: Liberal theology uses the last two views of scripture (accommodated revelation and non-propositional revelation) to construct its views. Essentially, liberalism claims that revelation comes through human subjective experience.

The primary figure in Theological Liberalism (hereafter referred to as liberalism) is Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) who was highly influenced by Kant. He agreed that we cannot know anything for real, the thing in itself. Therefore we cannot know God in Himself, it’s in the ‘noumenal’ realm. We can’t know Him, but we can only know our experience of God. He defined religion as “a feeling of absolute dependence”. We use our imaginations to construct God concepts that help people because the purpose of religion is to help people, and our religion ends up becoming ideological. Liberalism does not believe that God has spoken.

Thus, the Bible is regarded as nothing but the confirmation of the religion of reason, often stated in fictitious stories, and is not the Word of God. Rather, the teachings of the Bible are only the experiences of the Christian community expressed in words. The idea of revelation in the religious experience became popular first in liberalism. Schliermacher’s student, Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889) argued that we need to understand Christ as the archetypal man, the Christ-figure (since liberals believe that we obviously don’t know if we know the historical Christ, that Christ is not the revelation of God, and is not God) for how we should live in ethical behavior – social justice. In liberalism there is no sin, no atonement (because there is no need since we are “basically good”), and no revelation. Another example of a leading pioneer of liberalism is Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930) a church historian. His claim would be that we read the Bible to discover the kernels among the husk. There are all kinds of “husk” according to von Harnack - miracles, supernatural parts of the Bible, etc (of course he and his followers are Darwinists, and think there is a lot in the Bible that is crazy) but there are some “kernels” of truth that we save and keep.

Liberalism affirms, in Clark Pinnock's words, that "divine truth is not located in an ancient book but in the ongoing work of the Spirit in the community, as discerned by critical rational judgment." Note, however, that "divine truth" means to liberals, not God's instruction nor a permanently valid human formulation, but simply an authentic awareness of God, to which no particular form of words is necessary either as a means or as an expression. As J. Gresham Machen pointed out half a century ago in Christianity and Liberalism, the liberal position in all its forms is deeply anti-intellectual in both its stance and its thrust, and this explains why it is so consistently hostile to the attempts of both Roman Catholics and evangelicals to formulate a definitive theology on the basis of a supposedly definitive Bible.

Liberalism also espouses a type of Christology that is not "from above" in the sense of seeing Jesus Christ as the divine Son, the second person of the Godhead, and the eternal Word made flesh, according to John's Gospel, Philippians 2, Colossians 1, and Hebrews 1-2, which the Nicene and Chalcedonian formulae follow. Instead, liberal Christologies are "from below," seeing Jesus in "humanitarian" terms as a prophetic, God-filled man, an archetype of religious insight and excellence, one who, however much he carries for us what Ritschl called the "value" of God, is not God in person. Such Christologies involve, of course, abandoning all thought of a real ontological Trinity and a real divine sin-bearer. They require a reconstructed view of salvation in which Christ's mediation appears as a matter of teaching and trail-blazing only, with no hint of his having borne the Creator's wrath against our sins in order to render him propitious to us - for it would take a divine person to do that. Liberals characteristically cut the knot here by denying that there is any personal wrath of God against us that needs to be quenched and maintain a barrage of criticism against "word-made-flesh" Christology as being necessarily docetic, minimizing the true humanness of our Lord.

Liberalism highlights human religious greatness, as seen in the Bible, in Jesus, and in all Christian, pagan, and secular pioneers who have in any way contributed to man's "humanization" by stressing life's spiritual and moral values. Rightly does Pinnock say that “liberals have sought to replace the idea of the Bible's infallibility as teaching from God with what they saw as proper respect for its human greatness" as "a classical witness of those in whose lives God once worked which can once again serve to alert us to his reality."

Liberalism held its greatest sway from the late 1800’s until the First World War – when the idea of a subjectivity that cannot describe anything, not even the poison gassing of men, as objectively sinful, fell out of favor, and out of the ashes of WW I arose…

Neoorthodoxy: For many theologians, equating subjective religious experience with divine revelation brought God too close to human beings, who were clearly capable of significant evil. Thus, some kind of objective message from God, the One who is transcendent and who can encounter individuals in their sinfulness, is necessary. Revelation and its expression in human words must be more than human insight into spiritual and moral things. In neoorthodoxy, revelation comes through events in which God personally encounters individuals. Neoorthodoxy often uses kergymatic and limited inerrancy to describe its view of the Scriptures.

The initiator of neoorthodoxy was Karl Barth (1886-1968), who embodied the neo-orthodox commitment that God exists and had made Himself known. The events through which God revealed himself include the saving acts of God in history such as the call of Abraham, the Exodus, and the person and work of Christ. God exists as a transcendent, holy God, who made Himself known in Christ. The Bible is a witness to the revelation of God in Christ, and Christ is the Word of God, not the Bible. The Bible does a pretty good job of witnessing to God, but is not inerrancy or a divine product. Therefore, since the Bible is a good witness to Christ, we should preach from it. In neoorthdoxy, however, the Scriptures are not revelation itself. God continues throughout history to use this original witness of the Scriptures to confront people in similar revelatory occasions in which he encounters individuals to reveal himself.

This “encounter” is referred to as God “speaking”, and its content is “the Word of God.” But this Word is never equated with human words, such as those in the Bible. Rather, the “Word” is personal, that is, God himself in revelation, and particularly Jesus Christ, the Word of God. This revealed Word encounters us not as information, but as God’s saving presence, and this calls for obedience, not assent to certain truths.

Barth represents not only the greatest of the neoorthodox thinkers, he also represents its most conservative. Even so, though Barth makes quite a meal of rejecting any formal ascription of inerrancy to the Bible and of affirming its "capacity for errors," he declines to identify particular mistakes in it, although he declares in general terms that there are some, both factual and religious.On the contrary, "while preaching the inerrancy of the Bible, Barth practices its inerrancy": his interpretations, while sometimes novel and unconvincing, are always presented as elucidations of the witness the text actually bears, without any suggestion that anything it says should be discounted as false. Evangelicals will applaud Barth's exegesis as correct in method, if not always in substance; but we must realize that by stating that the prophets and apostles erred in their writings, even if we cannot say where, Barth himself has made his exegetical method seem hazardous, arbitrary, and untrustworthy. It is impossible to maintain high doctrines of revelation and inspiration without at the same time being willing to defend in detail the veracity and historicity of the biblical writings. But here Barth fails us, and the effect of his failure is to make it seem unreasonable for anyone to trust the texts as he seems to. It must be recorded that other neoorthodox thinkers see this very clearly, and therefore do not so trust the Scriptures.

No self-respecting neoorthodox preacher would ever preface the reading of Scripture by saying, “We will now hear the Word of God.” That would be blasphemy, presuming to tell God when and to whom He is to speak. The neoorthodox view is that reality and truth are dynamic rather than static or substantive. Revelation is something that happens, not something that is. Thus, when the neoorthodox speak of revelation, they have in mind the process, not the product.

Historical-critical Theology: The third view of Scripture sees revelation not in or through history, but as history. These theologians, led by Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928-), state that God acts through history in such a way that the events actually were and are revelation of himself. They view the acts of God in history as literal, not figurative or metaphorical. The resurrection of Jesus, perhaps the supreme act of God in history, can be proved by reason, just as any other fact of history.

In HC Theology, the history discussed is not exclusively the events in Scripture, but all of history is considered the revelation of God. By doing so, the previously discussed differences between general and specific revelation are eliminated. In this view the revelation of God throughout history does not need the support of any supernatural revelatory Word. Rather, the manifestation of God is open to anyone. When we thoroughly investigate our world and our own human nature, using the best critical tools of modern scholarship, we recognize the reality of God by the light that his presence sheds on our experiences. The resurrection of Christ obviously has significance for human life – it proves that the God of Israel is the one true God. However, it’s further significance is not established, because history continues, as does the revelation of God.

Conclusion:

All of these Modernist views of Scripture have four things in common. First, they are significantly different from the nearly 1800 years of Christian theology regarding Scripture prior to the Enlightenment. Second, they all accept human reason as the final criterion of truth. Even those who have a desire to have a Word that addresses humanity from outside still accept the conclusions of rationalistic scientific historical criticism in saying that the Bible has errors in it and is not the objective truth of God. Third, revelation is conveyed only indirectly through human religious subjectivism. Revelation may come through the exalted insight of human reason – individual or communal – through emotional religious experience, or through an encounter with God. This reason may be described as “illumination by the Spirit”, but it is reason nonetheless, revealed as such because it is almost always in exact agreement with the current cultural view of that time and place. But, revelation is never the direct communication of divine truth, coming to individuals as objective propositional teachings. Lastly, because this revelation is mediated indirectly and never objectively, it never communicates absolute truth. Its truth is always conditional in some way by its limited historical environment and it is therefore always relative. It is only claimed as truth when it cannot be measured in any fashion. Thus, in all cases above one can “follow Jesus” without believing anything specific.

Now that the alternate views of Scripture have been defined, I will finish the series with a post describing “The Need for Inerrancy.”

Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 3:14-18)

So Much For Tolerance!

2006-10-04T15:10:00.000-04:00

I recently commented on a blog of a dear friend’s sister who was writing about her “de-conversion” from “christianity”. It is amazing to me that those who adhere to a belief strictly in a “gospel” of the good works of Christ and “humanitarian chrisitianity” while preaching tolerance and “being nice”, are some of the meanest and most intolerant people I have come across when they are challenged with opposing views. See for yourself- read the posts here (scroll down to the post for the 27th of September, "On not being a Christian" and previous posts on the subject, as well as comments) and see my comment below (which was rudely deleted so no one would have a clue that I was actually not the demon I was made out to be by her response!) Her comment back to me (currently viewable in the comments of the post, but may be deleted at any time) was, “Mrs. H - Do not EVER cross the cyber threshhold onto this blog again. EVER.” When asked “who is Mrs. H”, she wrote, “Someone who will lose this url if she has any sense (and her husband too).”

She pulled the same stunt with my husband last year, as he documented here (most of the details are in the posts he links to, one of which has conveniently been deleted). As I’ve said before, no matter how nicely and respectfully you present the truth to someone who doesn’t want to hear it, the truth hurts!!

Here was my comment:

Let me start by saying that I appreciate your honesty, openness, and genuiness. It is nice to see someone admit that there are non-negotiable beliefs that are required to be a Christian, and to see you admit that there are “Christians” who only believe and practice the humanitarian aspects of who Christ was.

I am wondering what you think of this verse in light of your comment that the gospel message “doesn’t make sense” to you. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. (1 Corinthians 1: 18-20)

Here is an example that may help it to make more sense to you:

What do you value more than anything on this Earth? Your own life? Maybe. The life of your child? Definitely. God loved us so much that to reconcile us to Him He came to Earth and sent His precious only Son to be tortured, mocked and crucified to take the punishment for our sins when we repent and trust in Christ. He loves you so much, Jennifer, even when you turn away from Him, that He died for you to have eternal life when you believe in Him. I know you already know all this, but it’s one thing to have head knowledge, and another thing entirely to have that knowledge applied to your heart. There is no hope apart from Jesus Christ. There’s no other path that leads to God apart from Christ. “Humanitarian ‘christians’” are not saved will not be in heaven because there is not one who does good, no, not one. Our works can’t save us, only Jesus’ blood can.

It saddens me to see your friends simply giving you a pat on the back as you “bravely” deny the only source of salvation- Jesus Christ. I know your sister loves and cares for you and is praying for you, and I am, too.

I hope you don’t take offense to this, but what makes you think you were ever really “Christian” in the first place? Did you ever have a deep and personal relationship with Jesus Christ? If you say yes, then you are admittedly denying the Lord. I’m not even sure if this is possible, since this is blasphemy of the Spirit. If you say “no” or “I’m not sure” (which probably means you didn’t), then you never really “de-converted” from anything, because you never had a regeneration or rebirth experience in the first place. I am praying you will come to know the Lord as you search for answers.

(End of comment)

My husband also commented, with this simple word:

“Thank you for your intellectual honesty, Jennifer. It is refreshing. I will pray for you as you continue on your journey.”

She deleted that as well.

It’s no coincidence that I heard a sermon this week by Alistair Begg where he said, “Don’t be surprised when you stand firm on the word of God and boldly proclaim the truth that people will say to you, ‘Who do you think you are?! You arrogant…’

Remember Jesus’ words: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’” (John 15:18-24)

Well Spoken

2006-09-25T14:02:00.000-04:00

Check out this short video clip, "That's My King", which we had in our worship service a few weeks ago.

I wish I could describe him to you...

Biblical Inerrancy IV: Revelation, General and Specific

2006-09-24T10:04:00.000-04:00

God’s friendship with men begins and grows through speech; His to us in revelation, and ours to Him in prayer and praise. Though I cannot see God, He and I can yet be personal friends, because in revelation He talks to me.
- J.I. Packer

We previously covered the ground rules and introduction to the series, reduced confusion by separating terms and ideas often confused with inerrancy, identified the faulty arguments against inerrancy, and defined inerrancy. If you haven’t reviewed these, please do!

There are two basic building blocks to any faith system – ontological (who God is) and epistemological (how we know God). While the two are certainly intertwined, we can only develop ontological ideas through epistemology. How can we know God?

Unlike the gods of the imagination and the gods made of wood and stone, our God speaks! (Deut 4:33). We call the ways God speaks “revelation”, how he reveals himself to us. If it were not for the fact that he has spoken, we could not know him. Revelation can be practically defined as "the unveiling of something that is hidden so that it may be seen and known for what it is.” It is not the creation of truth into existence, but exposing the truth present and making it known. A simple metaphor: an auction of a painting under cloth, and the moment when the cloth is pulled away is revelation. The auctioneer did not make the painting, but he revealed it. God’s truth is not created in revelation but made known in it. Thus, every truth we know given to us by revelation is given to us as an act of God’s grace. Without it we would be left in the dark. Karl Barth wrote, “God did not have to tell us these things but in his grace did. There can be arrogant professors of science, English, history, etc, but there can be no proud theologian, because every truth they study is given to them by grace.” Revelation is not a matter of human discovery, but of divine disclosure.

The Bible speaks of the revelation of God; that he has chosen what to reveal of himself. In Psalm 19 we read of how the created order speaks of God’s nature. Matthew 11 shows that God reveals some things to some and keeps them from others, and only God himself knows everything about God: At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. See also Matthew 16:13-17. We need revelation because God is transcendent because He is so much greater than us, He is holy, He is pure, He’s beyond our comprehension. We’re fallen and finite. Thus we need Him to do something to bring us to Him. This gulf can only be reached, not by man reaching in through human exploration of someone, but given by God. The fullest and most direct is the Incarnation (God coming to Earth as the man, Jesus Christ), but all revelation is from God. He must bridge the gulf.

There are two primary divisions of revelation – general and specific (often called ‘special’).

General Revelation

General revelation is general in its scope and its substance. It reveals God’s power, wisdom, etc. There are two avenues of general revelation – creation and the conscience of man.

Romans 1 gives a detailed description of the revelation of creation: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. Creation attests to God’s existence, power and glory.

Man’s conscience is the other avenue of general revelation. As demonstrated in Romans 2, man’s conscience is the revelation of God written on man’s hearts, expressed in moral sensibility, moral action and moral judgment; “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”

These things are true across time and across cultures. When Abraham tells the king of Egypt that Sarah is his sister, we all, whoever and wherever we are, recognize that he has lied and that it is wrong. Thou shalt not steal is universal, as are other moral laws of God.

Specific Revelation

It is specific in scope and substance. Scope – it is given to some, not to all: to Abraham, and no one else; to Israel, not Egypt, not Babylon. It is more specific in detail – we learn of the trinity not through the heavens, but through His Word, as well as his purposes, plans & will, the duties of man. We have the moral law upon our hearts, but we learn in greater detail through special revelation. God chose when to speak and how – creation, the flood, the selection of Israel, the giving of the law, and the Incarnation occurred at specific times. There are four types of specific revelation.

1) Personal Encounter: God confronting and talking to people. Examples include Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Isaiah, Daniel, and Mary. Think of the burning bush – God speaking directly to an individual, which is not shared (at least in actual experience) with anyone else.

2) Mighty Act: God’s action (aside from speaking) that is an amazing work – creation, the Exodus, the Assyrian plague (2 Kings 19 & Is 36-39), the Cross & the Resurrection. While acts such as the burning bush or Jonah’s survival in the belly of a whale are also mighty acts, they are acts between God and an individual. Mighty acts are acts of God that involve whole groups, in a revelation that can be attested to by more than one individual.

3) Propositional Revelation: Revelation in the form of human language. It includes poetic, narrative, parable, didactic statements. It is a larger category than Scripture (an obvious example of propositional revelation), because it includes things said that were not recorded (as stated at the end of the Gospel of St. John for example). Read Peter’s sermon to Cornelius in Acts 10. It only takes 20 seconds to read aloud – do we think Peter spoke a 20 second sermon that lead to the conversion of a whole group of Gentiles? Obviously not!

4) Incarnation: Is all three of the avenues of special revelation taken together. In fact, it is the greatest example of each. Deut 18:15 was fulfilled! Jesus quotes Moses – “You have heard that it was said” then goes on to say, “But I say unto you”! How can he speak with more authority than Moses? Because he is the Incarnation of God himself! Moses brought them the words from God, but Jesus, as God, could tell them exactly what his intent with the giving of the law was!

What is the importance of special revelation? It is the only way that the gospel is delivered (Psalm 19:7-11, Hebrews 2:3, 2 Tim 3:15) and because it is specific, it must be obeyed. Also, if special revelation is the only method of salvation, we must bring the gospel to all – 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 shows how it is through the preaching of the word that men are saved, and Acts 4:2 and Roman 10:8-17 demonstrates that faith in Jesus Christ specifically heard through the proclamation of propositional revelation, is the only way to come to eternal life.

Without God’s interpretations of His actions, they would not have been fully understood. Many witnessed the Exodus out of Egypt, the Babylonian captivity of Israel, the death of Christ, or the empty tomb. But all did not see the same meaning in these acts. Only God’s revelation can tell us, for example, that the crucifixion of Christ was “for our sins”. Unless God reveals the meaning of his actions, we can never be sure of their full significance.

A revelation through words is also necessary for personal relationship. The warm personal relationships of life are carried on by means of conversation, and the deaf man is largely severed from those relationships. The soundless world is far more frustrating than the sightless world. Radio drama is entertaining, but a television drama without its soundtrack is robbed of meaning. In life as in drama it is the word which carries the meaning; it is the word which is the element of cohesion; and it is the word which is the necessary presupposition for warm personal friendships. God’s special revelation is designed for personal fellowship, and this requires words so that we might understand the actions of God and respond to them.

It is necessary to note here that there is no conflict (despite the assertions of some) between Christ as the personal Word of God and God’s verbal Word. It is, of course, possible to focus on the words of Scripture without fellowshipping with the living Word of whom it speaks – this is a real danger in legalist fundamentalism in particular. Indeed, some of the Jews in Jesus’ day studied the Scriptures intently, believing (truthfully) them to give the way of life. But Jesus told them, “It is these [Scriptures] that bear witness of me; and you are unwilling to come to me, that you might have life” (John 5:39-40). Unfortunately some “Bible-believing” people know all about the Bible, but they do not have a living relationship with Christ.

Yet, according to the Scriptures, there can be no real separation between the written words and the personal Word. In our own communication with another person, his or her words are the way we get to know that person’s thoughts and feelings. In a real sense a person’s words are an extension of that individual as he or she seeks to bridge the distance between himself or herself and another. The assertion that we cannot know someone through their words is illogical, for “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh”. We cannot understand actions without words to express the intentions and beliefs of the person who makes those actions. I and Mary Beth both have read books by Marcus Borg, but unless we tell you what we think of those books and why we read them, you have no idea how we relate to those books. Similarly, the living God who came to earth in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, reveals his heart and mind to humanity through the medium of language, the verbal word of God.

A warning comes with these revelations – these specific revelations exist, which eliminates the use of our intuitions to determine if or how they happened or not. Our intuitions, unless we are people who spend hours a day for years investing in Scripture, are shaped primarily by our culture, our experiences, and our emotions, and are hence notoriously unreliable, because they are not a revelation by God, but a creation of man and his surroundings.

Jesus no longer walks among us as a man. The Holy Spirit communicates with men, but how can one man know if the Spirit has communicated with another man, or if he is mistaken? We cannot exclusively rely upon personal communication with God for our doctrine and directions. A good example is the Worldwide Anglican Communion. The Western, affluent arm of the communion has significant numbers who claim that homosexual ordination is acceptable. The rest of the communion disagrees. Both claim communion with the spirit and agreement in their local church communities. Therefore, the only final and authoritative source of revelation must be an inerrant Scripture, which can be read by all men, and can help us discern when men are speaking from the influence of the spirit, or from the influence of something else in matters of doctrine, faith, and practice.

Obviously many do not always agree. Those who disagree on the roles of these types of revelation and how they relate to an inerrant scripture are the subject of the next post, “Alternate Views of Scripture”, which will be followed by the conclusion to the series, “Why It Matters” that will defend the need for inerrancy.

Can We Really Know if Someone is Truly Following Christ?

2006-09-23T23:46:00.000-04:00

This is my final comment to UK John on the ridiculously long series of comments on the latest 'Christian Carnival' post (which has 60-something comments- who would have even thought it would have one??!) The basic argument here is this:

UK John's position: We cannot determine if someone is truly Christian by what they say. We can say they are wrong. We cannot say they are not following Christ.

Teamhammer's (and RT and Robert's) position: Those who deny the core truths of Christ cannot know Him and are not His.

For those of you who started reading the comments and gave up (which I don't blame you), these final comments and quotes from UK John wrap up the whole debate. Why is the title of this post even important, and why is it anyone's business if someone else is truly following Christ? Because we must distinguish the lies from the truth. If we take someone at their word when the say they are a Christian and don't challenge the validity of their proclamation, we can be deceived and led into believing a falsehood. We must be clear to others who question the Christian faith what a real Christian believes- what characteristics to look for in a sincere Christian and what sound doctrine to believe about Christ. We are not to point a judgmental finger at someone and go around haughtily deciphering who is real and who is fake for the sake of "being right" or proving our own genuiness or righteousness, but we are to discern truth and uncover lies for the sake of leading others into knowledge of the truth. We are to have concern over lost souls and those who are being deceived and this is why it is vitally important to know if someone is truly following Christ when they say they are a Christian.

I am speaking to John throughout the rest of this post, but you'll get the point:

Since I am consistently accused of misunderstanding, reinterpreting, and putting words into your mouth, I will use your exact words in numerous places throughout this strain of comments to show for the last time why your argument does not make sense, and where the real issues lie, as well as a final attempt to explain our position as crystal clear as it can be:

what matters is not what we say (i.e. that we use the right creeds or the right names for God) but what we do (i.e. that we do the will of the Father in heaven).

Acts 4:12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

One can be converted, saved, elected, and yet have incorrect fundamental beliefs about God.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say this is true.

When I asked what “following Christ” means, you said this:

Following Christ means following Christ (if you'll excuse the tautology). "Follow" as in "walk in the way of", "go with as a companion", "do what He says and does". "Christ" as in "Jesus", "the Son of God", "the second Person of the Trinity".

You are defining who Christ is by stating the FACTS about Him! So to “follow Christ” do we, or do we not, have to believe these facts about Him? This seems to contradict everything else you’ve been saying, such as:

provided that we are really following Christ it doesn't fundamentally matter what we believe about Him.

Whatever we understand Him to be is irrelevant if only we hear His voice and do as He commands

"Christianity is a relationship with the person who Jesus actually is." What we think Jesus is like is largely irrelevant to this point (although crucial in other ways!).

"we cannot tell [where someone stands with Christ] from the facts that someone assents to"

The truth about Christ is important, but what is central is who Christ is.

You can’t separate “who Christ is” from “the truth”!

John 14:6- I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life.

Someone is far more likely to follow Christ if they have heard of Him and about Him.

This is an example of why I called much of what you are saying “nonsense”. It is not possible to follow Christ if someone has never heard of Him or about Him.

Over and over you demand we cannot determine if someone is not a Christian without “spiritual revelation”:

unless we receive a spiritual revelation. We cannot tell by reading what someone has written

we may not say (without divine revelation) that they are unsaved.

we cannot be sure of this without specific spiritual revelation or personal knowledge

We may not say that they are damned without spiritual revelation.

The Bible is the final and authoritative SPIRITUAL REVELATION! It gives us the spiritual insight to distinguish the truth from the lies, the false teachings from the sound doctrine, and the saved from the unsaved!

(Robert asked you:)"How much of Christ’s nature can be denied before one is no longer a genuine Christian...Where is the line of demarcation or do you think that there isn’t one?"

(Your response to Robert was): By "Christian" do you mean "member of the Christian religion" or "follower of Christ"? If the former, none of it. If the latter, all of it apart from His existence…But the absence of facts (or even their denial) doesn't prove that the relationship is absent.

This is a denial of the obvious. If my husband says he married a tall, black woman from Brooklyn who is a tax lawyer, he didn’t marry me! If he says he just met me, and that I am a Korean-American student at Oxford University, he hasn’t met me! We cannot have a relationship with someone we can’t even describe basic facts about!! Am I much more than my color, height, education and residence? Of course I am – but if you don’t even know those things about me, you can’t claim to have a relationship with me!

"Believe in your heart" doesn't mean "believe with every fibre of your being", as is sometimes suggested.

You need to do a Bible study about the heart. The Bible describes the heart as the core of our being. Believing in our heart means with everything that we are.

we have established from Romans that we must confess Christ as Lord. This is not a propositional fact but the establishment of a relationship.

Confessing Christ as Lord means just what it says. We must acknowledge that Christ is Lord (His divinity!) to be saved. It is not just confessing His lordship over us or an “establishment of a relationship”.

We have also established that a belief in the resurrection is required - although any claim to follow a Christ who is not alive is illogical. (And, remember, this verse just says that God raised Him from the dead. It doesn't require any particular understanding of that fact

When the Bible refers to the resurrection, it means BODILY. While his body had its limits removed, Jesus was seen, heard, held, fed, spoken with, and observed ascending into the sky. A “spiritual resurrection” means nothing. THE TOMB IS EMPTY- THE BODY IS GONE!

No vague verses saying that Christians recognise "truth" will do - you are claiming that Christians must recognise specific facts to be genuinely saved.

No matter how many verses we have given (including Romans 10:9), you manage as you always do, to excuse or explain how it doesn’t actually mean what it says (as you did in the homosexuality debate). So it really doesn’t matter how many more verses I lay out because you don’t believe in the inerrancy of Scripture (as defined in the series).

You are demanding that we give you a verse that lays out specifically ‘you must believe a, b & c’ to be saved. We’ve already given you that. You must believe in Jesus Christ to be saved, with which you repeatedly agree. But Jesus IS something definable! He is defined by certain characteristics which we have repeatedly laid out here. A denial (not a simple misunderstanding!) of these characteristics of WHO HE IS and WHAT HE DID, means that you are NOT FOLLOWING JESUS, but a god of your own making whom you can call ‘Jesus’ if that makes you feel Christian, but you AREN’T one! (I am speaking in general terms here when I say “you”)

Verses about “truth” are fundamentally important in this line of discussion for this reason:

Jesus said He came to bear witness to the TRUTH. (John 18:37)

And, "every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." We can't hear His voice unless we recongnize the TRUTH (the FACTS!) about Him! (John 18:37)

What is truth?

THY WORD IS TRUTH! (Psalm 119:60)

The Bible is truth. That is why everything in this exhaustive line of commenting returns to the issue of Biblical inerrancy.

Jesus asked this profound question:

"Who do you say that I am?" (Mark 8:29)

He asked this because it is a question of salvific importance. Our answer to that question determines where we will spend eternity!

The gospel of John tells us: "[The gospel] is written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believeing (these facts about WHO Jesus actually is!) ye might have life through His name." John 20: 31

Borg and his followers deny the core fact that Jesus is the divine Son of God! This denial means they do not have "life through His name" as this verse says!!

Christian Carnival 13 September

2006-09-13T14:00:00.000-04:00

The newest Christian Carnival is up at

Thoughts of a Gyrovague.

While I am still perusing it fully, I noticed that there is a post
(Brain Cramps for God: What is a Christian?) that pointed to an issue that has come up over at UK John's blog.

It's worth a quick read, at least.

Biblical Inerrancy III: Inerrancy Defined

2006-09-10T08:57:00.000-04:00

The Scripture is a tree, or rather a whole paradise of trees of life, which bring forth fruits every month, and the fruit thereof is for meat, and the leaves for medicine. It is…as it were a heavenly shower of bread sufficient for a whole host, be it never so great, and as it were a whole cellar full of oil vessels; whereby all of our necessities may be provided for, and our debts discharged. In a word it is a pantry of wholesome food against moldy traditions; a pharmacist’s shop (Saint Basil calleth it) of preservatives against poisoned heresies; a code of profitable laws against rebellious spirit; a treasure of most costly jewels against beggarly rudiment. Finally, a fountain of most pure water springing up into eternal life.

-From “The Translators to the Reader” in the preface to the Authorized Version of the King James Bible, 1611.

(Intro and Ground rules are here)

In our quest to establish the meaning and need for inerrancy, we have examined how it has often been confused with other terms relevant in discussions of Scripture, as well as debunking the most common straw man arguments used against inerrancy. With this post, we will define inerrancy and demonstrate some of the Scriptural and historical evidence supporting it.

Biblical Inerrancy is: The Bible, when correctly interpreted in light of the level to which culture and the means of communication had developed at the time it was written, and in view of the purposes for which is was given, is fully truthful in all it affirms.

There are other uses of the term inerrancy with different meanings. However, I would present that those uses are hijackings of the term in order to allow the users to say they believe the Scriptures are inerrant while actually denying it as such. I also recognize that my definition may seem to be rather malleable – but that is a function of form rather than being. To explain, I will give some qualifiers. I would expect comments to generally refer to these qualifiers.

1) Inerrancy is what is affirmed or asserted rather than what is reported. The Bible contains false statements by ungodly people. This is the easiest example of a distinction – the Bible reports what occurs and does not assert to the truthfulness of these kinds of descriptive passages. Even reports of the words of godly men, such as Stephen in Acts 7, can have errors in their statements, because the Bible is describing or reporting what is said inerrantly, not that what was said is inerrant. However, when something is taken by a biblical writer, no matter the source, and used in his message as an affirmation, then it must be judged as truthful.

2) Inerrancy is judged in terms of its cultural meaning in which its statements were expressed. We should not expect the exactness of quotation to match our current standards in an age of the printing press and mass duplication. We also need to recognize that numbers were used symbolically in ancient times, much more so than today. The words “son” has one meaning in our culture today, but in biblical times its domain included “descendant”. When we speak of inerrancy, we mean that the Bible is fully true in what it affirms in terms of the culture of its time. Thus, though the culture changes, what is affirmed does not.

3) Inerrancy requires that the Bible’s assertions are fully true when judged in accordance with the purpose for which they were written. Descriptive language is not meant to be prescriptive, and vice versa. Exactness will also vary according to the intended use of the material, with approximations likely at times. A simple modern example to explain this: If I make $22,325 a year, and I am asked, “How much do you make?” and I reply, “$22,000”, is what I said true? If I am talking to a friend about employment opportunities, it is true, but if I am talking to an IRS agent doing a financial audit on me, it is false!

4) Inerrancy recognizes that reports of historical and scientific data are in phenomenal rather than technical language. The writer is reporting how things appeared to the eye, which is normal in popular (rather than technical) publication. An easy example is the phrase, “the sun will rise”, which describes what we see, as opposed to what is happening in a fixed-sun reference. It is not meant to be taken literally. Also, Biblical reports do not attempt to explain how an event exactly happened as it appeared when, for example, the walls of Jericho fell, the Red Sea parted, or the Jordan River was stopped.

5) Inerrancy necessarily implies that difficulties in the text should not be prejudged as indications of error. The failure of modern archaeology to discover the Hittite culture or the unknown Sargon of Isaiah (20:1) were eventually overcome. The philosophical fallacy of the argument from silence remains a fallacy. Overall there is less difficulty for the belief of the factual inerrancy of the Bible than there was one hundred years ago, as greater discoveries of archaeology and research have supported Scriptural truthfulness, not undermined it. At the same time, we must realize that there may be difficulties in the Bible that we may never be able to substantiate with empirical evidence, and instead of developing fanciful explanations, we should leave them unresolved in the confidence that they will be resolved as the data becomes available, even if it is not in our lifetime.

6) Inerrancy is applied specifically to the originals and in a derivative sense to the translations and copies, to the extent they reflect the originals. Any research on Greek manuscripts will show that there is not a single passage of significant length that does not have a manuscript with at least one difference in it. However, our Bible today can be considered inerrant in preservation. Clearly some translations will not be – see my Bible Translations series – but those that convey the truth of the originals are entirely reliable. A Scriptural example is Paul’s exhortation to Timothy that all Scripture is inspired, yet the Scriptures Timothy was familiar with were translations of copies. The God who is able to inspire is able to preserve, and in a fashion that those who seek him will find his word.

7) It is worth noting that inerrancy does not entail a few things. It does not tell us what type of material the Bible will contain. Nor does it tell us how we are to interpret specific passages. In particular inerrancy does not imply that the maximum amount of specificity will be present. Words mean something, and their meaning is not only drawn from themselves, but also from their purpose and meaning. That said, “truthful” must mean something, and cannot be expanded so as to mean nothing, as some do. If Jesus did not die on the cross, if he did not still the storm at sea, if the walls of Jericho did not fall, if the people of Israel did not leave their bondage in Egypt and depart for the promised land, then the Bible is in error.

The following three posts will develop toward a defense of the need for inerrancy in much the way these three built toward a definition of inerrancy. The next post will discuss the ways in which God speaks to men, followed by a post describing other types of theologies that do not hold to inerrancy, with a concluding post in defense of inerrancy.

What follows here is a selection of Scriptural and historical support for Biblical inerrancy. Although I have tried to keep it as short as practicable for its purpose, it may be tedious to some, so I will lead with a statement by Kirsop Lake, a respected liberal biblical scholar at Harvard University in the early twentieth century, who himself had little respect for the accuracy of Scripture:

It is a mistake often made by educated persons who happen to have but little knowledge of historical theology, to suppose that fundamentalism is a new and strange form of thought. It is nothing of the kind; it is the partial and uneducated survival of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians. How many were there, for instance, in Christian churches of the eighteenth century who doubted the infallible inspiration of all Scripture? A few, perhaps, but very few. No, the fundamentalist may be wrong; I think that he is. But it is we who have departed from the tradition, not he, and I am sorry for the fate of anyone who tries to argue with a fundamentalist on the basis of authority. The Bible and the corpus theologicum (body of historical theology) of the Church are on the fundamentalist side.

Scriptures:

Jesus of Nazareth clearly assumed the errorlessness of the Old Testament in all its statements and affirmations, even in the realms of history and science. In Matthew 19:4, 5 he affirmed that God himself spoke the words of Genesis 2:24, with reference to the literal, historical Adam and Eve, as he established the ordinance of marriage. In Matthew 23:35 he put the historicity of Abel's murder by Cain on the same plane of historical factuality as the murder of Zechariah the son of Barachiah.

Matthew 24:38, 39 Jesus clearly accepted the historicity of the universal flood and Noah's ark: "For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away...."

"For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:40). In the same way, Christ goes on in the very next verse to confirm that the heathen population of Nineveh really did repent at the preaching of Jonah, just as recorded in Jonah 3:7-9.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever (Isaiah 40:8).

[Jesus speaking] “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. (Psalm 19:7-9)

All your words are true (Psalm 119:60)

Every word of God is flawless (Proverbs 30:5)

[Jesus speaking] 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. (Matt 5:17-18)

Historical:

If a Scripture which appears to be of such a kind [contradictory to another Scripture] be brought forward, and if there be a pretext (for saying) that it is contrary (to some other), since I am entirely convinced that no Scripture contradicts another, I shall admit rather that I do not understand what is recorded, and shall strive to persuade those who imagine that the Scriptures are contradictory, to be rather of the same opinion as myself.

- Justin Martyr, circa 100 A.D.

Give ear for a moment that I may tell you how you are to walk in the holy Scriptures. All that we read in the divine books, while glistening and shining without, is far sweeter within.

- St. Jerome, fourth century

You have studied Scripture which contains the truth and is inspired by the Holy Spirit. You realize that there is nothing wrong or misleading in it.

- Clement of Rome, mid-first century

No person of common sense can permit them [those who deny the authenticity of Luke’s Gospel] to receive some things recounted by Luke as being true, and to set others aside, as if he had not known the truth.

- Irenaeus, second century

For those who have ears to hear [there is in fact] no conflict…[they] are truly at perfect concord.

- Origen, 4^th century

We, however, who extend the accuracy of the Spirit to the merest stroke and tittle, will never admit the impious assertion that even the smallest matters were dealt with haphazardly by those who have recorded them, and have thus been borne in mind down to the present day.

Athanasius, 4^th century

[To those who disregard portions of Scripture] Do not utter such infamy. God speaks, and you have the effrontery to say, “Nothing is useful in what is said.”

With the Scriptures…it is not like this. The gold does not lie before us mixed with earth; instead it is gold and only gold.

Chrysostom, 5^th century

[Regarding the 66 canonical books of the Bible] Of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error.

Therefore everything in Scripture must be believed absolutely.

Whatever they [scientists] can readily demonstrate to be true of a physical nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures; and whatever they assert in their treatises to be contrary to these Scriptures of ours…we must either prove it as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events, we must without the smallest hesitation believe it to be so.

Augustine of Hippo, 4^th century

For I am sure that if I say anything that unquestionably contradicts Holy Scripture, it is false, and if I am aware of this I do not want to hold it
- Anslem, late 11^th century

All which is spoken of in Holy Scripture is spoken of God.

We must keep to that which has been written in Scripture as to an excellent rule of faith so that we must add nothing to it, detract nothing, and change nothing by interpreting it badly.

- St. Thomas Aquinas, mid 13^th century

…I am ready to trust them only when they prove their opinions from Scripture, which has never erred.

Consequently, we must remain content with them [words], and cling to them as the perfectly clear, certain, sure word of God which can never deceive us or allow us to err.

- Martin Luther, 16^th century

You all have by you a large treasure of divine knowledge, in that you have the Bible in your hands; therefore be not contented in possessing but little of this treasure. God hath spoken much to you in the Scripture; labor to understand as much of what he saith as you can. God hath made you all reasonable creatures; therefore let not the noble faculty of reason or understanding lie neglected. Content not yourselves with...divine truth...you accidentally gain in conversation; but let it be very much your business to search for it, and that with the same diligence and labor with which men are wont to dig in mines of silver and gold."

Jonathan Edwards, 18^th century

Since for unbelieving men religion seems to stand by opinion alone, they, in order not to believe anything foolishly or lightly, both wish and demand rational proof that Moses and the prophets spoke divinely. But I reply: the testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. For as God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find acceptance in men's hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who has spoken through the mouths of the prophets must penetrate into our hearts to persuade us that they faithfully proclaimed what had been divinely commanded ... "
--John Calvin, 17^th century

If there be any mistakes in the Bible, there may well be a thousand. If there be one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of truth.

- John Wesley, 18^th century

Christian Carnival, 6 September

2006-09-06T14:52:00.000-04:00

Christian Carnival CXXXVIII (138) is up at From the Anchor Hold. Check it out!

Biblical Inerrancy II: Straw Men

2006-09-03T23:33:00.000-04:00

Christ absolutely trusted the Bible; and though there are in it things inexplicable and intricate that have puzzled me so much, I am going, not in a blind sense, but reverently, to trust the Book because of Him.

-Bishop H.C.G. Moule

(Intro and Ground Rules here)

The previous post addressed the aspects of scripture that are often confused with inerrancy: inspiration, authority, interpretation, and importance. As we look at the “straw men” used to attack inerrancy, we will see that the confused elements are often intentionally confused.

[For those unfamiliar with the term “straw man”, it is a case where one party falsely restates the position of the other party in order to easily attack it. An example in the political arena of a straw man would be as follows:

Mr. Lib - “We are losing the war in Iraq. We should pull out now and get our troops home.”

Mr. Con – “You want to tell the troops that we should cut and run – don’t you think that is cowardly?”

Mr. Lib – “How dare you call me unpatriotic! What ever happened to freedom of speech? I thought you conservatives believed in liberty – but only when it’s your side, right?”

Here, Mr. Lib has committed the fallacy of the “straw man”, where he accuses Con of attacking his patriotism. He does so because it is easier to defend against someone who is calling one’s patriotism into question than it is to explain how an immediate pullout of Iraq is not “cutting and running”.]

Back to the matter at hand.

Straw Man #1: “If you believe in inerrancy, you are a literalist/ you believe it all literally”

This is an intentional confusion of inerrancy and interpretation. It is very easy to discredit someone who believes that every word of the Bible is to be interpreted literally – that person would have to hold that when Jesus says “I am the bread of life” that Jesus actually was made of bread. Such a thought is simply ridiculous, which is why opponents of inerrancy often throw around the term “literalist” or “literal”. However, there is no person who has ever espoused such an interpretation, and even if they did, it is an interpretation of the words, not a value statement of the inerrancy of the entire scriptures. Words mean something, and inerrancy is not interpretation – and especially not a caricature of an interpretation that no one holds.

Straw Man #2: “If you believe that God only speaks through the Bible, then you are denying that God speaks through the Holy Spirit or personal experiences or creation itself”

Another intentional confusion of terms. Holding to an inerrant text of Holy Scripture is not tantamount to denying anything else of any kind. The subject of inerrancy of Scripture is limited to the very subject it clearly is about – the Scriptures. The presence, reliability and authority of other methods that God uses to speak to people are not at issue. I will discuss the ways that God reveals himself to humanity in the post after next to explore this subject in more detail. For this straw man, it is false because it is confusing the issue of authority with inerrancy and is introducing subjects that are not part of the issue at hand.

Straw Man #3: “You think the Bible is a science textbook”

Perhaps the single greatest reason this is a fallacy is that it is a lie. Like the false claim that inerrantists are literalists, no inerrantist is claiming that the Bible is a science textbook. Once again, opponents are intentionally creating a confusion of terms to make inerrantists look like idiots. Whether scientific facts are present or absent and what relation they have to science are matters of authority and interpretation, not inerrancy. Inerrancy does impact the issue potentially – because an inerrant book cannot contradict a known truth. However, believing that there are no conflicts between scientific facts and events described in scripture is a long way from thinking the Bible is a science (or math, or engineering, etc.) textbook. We’ll discuss some of these apparent conflicts later in the series.

Straw Man #4: “You think the Bible is a step-by-step rulebook for life”

This is a curious attack, for it is not even related to inerrancy, authority, inspiration or importance. It is an attack upon an application of Scripture, which is why it is a fallacy. There may be some who apply the Bible in this fashion – but I have never met them. Claiming that the Scriptures are inerrant will affect one’s application (after authority, interpretation and importance are determined), but to state that a belief in inerrancy is equal to a specific and very restricted application is an intentional deception and a straw man.

Straw Man #5: “You worship a book.”

A tedious straw man. Again, I have never met someone who worshipped the Bible instead of Christ. Inerrantists are in agreement with some non-inerrantists that the Bible is a witness to the One we worship. The matter of disagreement for these two groups who agree here is not who is worshipped, but the inerrancy of Scripture. As we will see in an upcoming post, the line of division between inerrantists and non-inerrantists creates room for great disagreement in other areas, too – but the issue of the worship of a book is not one of them, because no one is doing it!

Now that we have dispensed with unintentional confusions and intentional straw man attacks against inerrancy, we will move forward in the next post, “Inerrancy Defined”, where I will define inerrancy and demonstrate the scriptural and historical support for the doctrine of inerrancy. Following that, we will discuss the different ways that God communicates with people in “Revelations, General and Special”, and then the alternate views of Scripture that exist without a belief in inerrancy, before finishing up with a defense of the need for this doctrine.

Christian Carnival 30 August

2006-08-30T11:06:00.000-04:00

Please stop in to the Christian Carnival, posted this week over at Brain Cramps for God, and check out the writings of others who are interested in matters beyond human limitation!

Borg Exposed

2006-08-28T19:46:00.000-04:00

“For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for dishonest gain’s sake. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; not giving heed to fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth. Unto the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.” (Titus 1: 10-11 & 13a-16)

Recently we criticized a book by Marcus Borg which was recommended to someone looking into Christianity. After reviewing the publishers’ reviews on Amazon.com, we called Marcus Borg a non-Christian and his book heresy. After doing so, we were told not to judge a book by its cover- so instead we will now judge it by its complete contents. It is important to note that heresy isn’t merely disagreeing with current church doctrine, but is a denial of the core truths of Christianity: divine creation, inspiration of Scripture, both the divinity and humanity of Christ, the Trinity, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, salvation through Christ alone, and the future second coming of Christ. Borg denies all of these, making him a heretic in every sense of the word.

It was hard to narrow down which quotes from Marcus Borg’s two books to use, since each book was entirely drenched with heresy, but here are some examples to summarize his “fantastic” works. I was not able to obtain a copy of ‘The Heart of Christianity’, since neither the Southern Baptist nor the Presbyterian seminary carried them, but I did check out “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time”, and “Reading the Bible Again for the First Time”, which says it all about Borg’s version of the “Heart of Christianity”.

(all quotes are from “Meeting Jesus again for the First Time”, unless otherwise noted.)

Borg does not believe that Jesus is God:

“The image of Jesus sketched in this chapter (Borg’s chapter) suggests that Jesus was not God.” (pg. 37)

“the sketch of Jesus as a spirit person suggests that Jesus was not simply a person who believed strongly in God, but one who knew God.” (pg. 37)

“We have no way of knowing whether Jesus thought of himself as the Son of God in some special sense.” (pg. 29)

Borg does not believe that Jesus is the Son of God:

“it is not the case that Jesus is literally “the Son of God,” though he can also be spoken of metaphorically…” (in feminist terms) (pg. 109)

Borg does not believe the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God:

“I learned that the gospels are neither divine documents nor straightforward historical records. They are not divine products inspired directly by God, whose contents therefore are to be believed. (pg. 9)

and from Borg’s book, ‘Reading the Bible again for the first time’:

“[The Bible] is an all human product, though generated in response to God.” (pg. 27)

“The Ten Commandments are also a human product. Divine genius is not required to come up with rules like these.” (pg. 27)

It is also clear, especially in “Reading the Bible,” that Borg doesn’t believe that any supernatural miracle in the Bible actually occurred- they are only symbolic and metaphoric to teach a moral lesson.

Borg does not believe the Genesis account of creation:

“It is Israel’s story of creation, not God’s story of creation.” (page 68)

“It is important to realize that the Genesis stories of creation are myths.”(pg. 71)

Borg denies the Virgin Birth:

“The stories of his birth and childhood are not historical.” (pg. 23)

“To hear the birth stories again in a state of postcritical naivete [which Borg defines as a state in which one can hear these stories as “true stories,” even while knowing that they are not literally true- where have I heard that nonsense before?…] is to be able to hear their rich symbolic affirmations without needing to believe them as historical records.”

Borg denies the Second Coming of Christ:

“I do not think that it makes sense to expect a visible future second coming of Christ.” (pg. 279- ‘Reading the Bible’)

Borg’s warped view of the character of God:

“Compassion, not holiness, is the dominant quality of God, and is therefore to be the ethos of the community that mirrors God.” (page 54)

He claims to be a Christian, yet says:

“The popular Christian bumper sticker that reads: “Christians aren’t perfect- they’re just forgiven” implies that other people aren’t forgiven, and that Christians have done something (become Christian? Believed?) that merits forgiveness.”

“Believing in Jesus does not mean believing doctrines about him.” (page 137)

“Jesus is unique, which most commonly is linked to the notion that Christianity is exclusively true and that Jesus is “the only way.” (pg. 37)

Borg denies the true gospel message:

“The notion that God’s only son came to this planet to offer his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, and that God could not forgive us without that having happened, and that we are saved by believing this story, is simply incredible. Taken literally, it is a profound obstacle to accepting the Christian message.

Borg and his followers reduce the “Heart of Christianity’s” message to this:

“’Be compassionate as God is compassionate’ is the defining mark of the follower of Jesus. Compassion is the fruit of life in the Spirit and the ethos of the community of Jesus.”

While compassion is a trait that Christians should possess, this characteristic does not distinguish Christianity from any other religion or moral person. It is a Christians’ godliness, holiness, and righteousness that can only come through Jesus Christ that is so repulsive to the world that sets Christianity apart from any other religion. We worship a risen Lord, which no other religion can boast of. The heart of Christianity is truly this: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We can be made right with God only through forsaking our sins and trusting in Jesus for salvation.

It is also worth noting that it is not compassionate to affirm sinners and tell them that God will accept them just as they are, and that they won’t have to turn from their sinful ways. That is selfishness- loving the praise of men more than the praise of God. But true Christian compassion grieves for the souls of lost sinners, begging them to repent and come to Christ, wanting to see them saved more than wanting them to like you.

Borg’s heresy began here:

“There are parts of the Bible that we will decide need not or should not be honored, either because we discern that they were relevant to ancient times but not to our own, or because we discern that they were never the will of God.” (‘Reading the Bible…page 29)

Borg and his followers have created a god in their mind, an idol of their own making, which does not reflect the God of the Bible.

This is what the Biblical inerrancy series is all about!

[speaking of the epistles in the NT] "In which some things are hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. Since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the widked; but grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." 2 Peter 3:16-17

Biblical Inerrancy I: What Inerrancy Is Not

2006-08-26T14:33:00.000-04:00

Within this awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries;
Happiest he of human race
To whom God has given grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray.
To lift the latch, and learn the way;
And better had he ne’er been born
Who reads to doubt, or reads to scorn.
- Sir Walter Scott

(Intro and Ground Rules are here)

Before I define inerrancy, I will first set out to reduce the confusion that exists over the term by defining what it is not. There are essentially two types of misunderstandings about inerrancy: the first, which will comprise this post, are confusions with other spiritual terms often applied to Scripture, and the second, which will comprise the next post, are intentional “straw man” mischaracterizations used for ease in attacking inerrancy. While the first type can also be intentional, they are the ones most likely to be unwittingly confused, and thus we address them first - inspiration, authority, interpretation and importance.

1) Inerrancy is not inspiration.

“All scripture is breathed out by God…”(2 Timothy 3:16a)

The inspiration of the scriptures is an issue that has many academic angles – how were they inspired? What role was played by the Holy Spirit, and what role by the human authors? When we discuss the inspiration of the Scriptures, we are speaking of the source of the Scriptures. As with the rest of these misunderstandings of inerrancy, there is a relationship between the terms. Divine inspiration is a requirement for the Bible to be inerrant, yet it is not entirely true that “if it is inspired, it is inerrant”. The understanding of the meaning of “God-breathed” scriptures is a key component to inerrancy – but inerrancy is not inspiration.

2) Inerrancy is not authority

“…and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:16b-17)

The authority of Scripture is also a separate issue from inerrancy. Specifically, authority is drawn from a view that includes the sources of revelation, both general and specific, the relevancy of different types of revelation, and the relationship between human experience, the church, history and Scripture. Authority and inerrancy are related in nearly the opposite manner that inspiration and inerrancy are – one’s view of inerrancy determines a large portion of their view of Biblical authority. Authority is the level of rule that we give the Scriptures over our theology and worldview, and is largely based upon the presence or absence of inerrancy – but inerrancy is not authority.

3) Inerrancy is not interpretation

“no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:17)

“That’s just your interpretation” we often hear. Of all the possible ideas confused with inerrancy, this is the most common – that inerrancy is merely just a description of one’s interpretation. However, like authority, interpretation will be driven in large part by inerrancy, and indeed, by authority. Someone who rejects inerrancy will interpret the Scriptures in any way to make their current thoughts and behaviors seem justified. On the other hand, someone who believes in an inerrant Bible is forced to confront a greater breadth of challenges from an uncompromising word of God. Inerrancy is a limiter to interpretation, because an inerrant word of God cannot be interpreted in any way we want, but only within the reasonable bounds of the words chosen in their literary and cultural context. On the contrary, a lack of inerrancy opens interpretation to the full bounds of human imagination. Clearly, inerrancy is not interpretation.

4) Inerrancy is not importance.

Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:28-31)

To those who already believe in Biblical inerrancy, it may sound sacrilegious to say that “All Scripture is not equally important”. However, it is clear that Jesus himself recognized what should be easily seen – after all, his questioner saw it. Some Scriptures are more important than others, despite being equally inerrant. Confusion with importance can be a stumbling block to those considering the question of inerrancy, because they can’t see how the genealogies of Chronicles are equally as important as the resurrection. Simply put, they aren’t! Furthermore, all Scripture is not equally applicable. Try teaching a group of 1^st graders about the Levitical code for priests! Instead, teaching them the Biblical precepts that God made them, loves them, and that Jesus wants to be their friend forever will be far more applicable to them. It is important that we recognize that not all of Scripture is equally important or equally applicable – but inerrancy is not importance.

Hopefully we have clarified some of the possible confusion surrounding inerrancy by showing that it is more restricted in definition than some think it to be – although it may be less restricted in impact on our faith and our lives. The next post will discuss the false depictions of inerrancy given by those who will not accept it called "Straw Men", followed by “Inerrancy Defined.”

Questions

2006-08-24T15:35:00.000-04:00

I was sent this thought-provoking article and asked for my opinion- I’m sure no one will be surprised in the least as I pick it apart: (I’m unsure of the author)

"Jesus is asked 183 questions directly in the four Gospels. He only answered three of them forthrightly. The others he either ignored, kept silent about, asked a question in return, changed the subject, told a story or gave an audio/visual aid to make his point, told them it was the wrong question, revealed their insincerity or hypocrisy, made the exactly opposite point, or redirected the question elsewhere!

Check it out for yourself. He himself asks 307 questions, which would seem to set a pattern for imitation. Considering this, it is really rather amazing that the church became an official answering machine and a very self-assured program for 'sin management'.

Many, if not most, of Jesus' teaching would never pass contemporary orthodoxy tests in either the Roman Office or the Southern Baptist Convention. Most of his statements are so open to misinterpretation that should he teach today, he would probably be called a 'relativist' in almost all areas except one: his insistence upon the goodness and reliability of God. That was his only consistent absolute."

We underestimate the importance of questions co-existing with faithfulness; so often we want, or think, that what is most healthy for us is certainty – living without questions. The spaciousness that uncertainty and doubt opens up is unsettling. Having to sit with questions and listen to our inner responses can be scary.

But the reality is that good questions (and our responding to them as they are asked of them) are one significant way by which our lives, our faith, our relationships, our being, our church, is actually deepened. Questions, rather than certainty, help us grow, help us remain open to the activity of the Spirit, help us remain open to new possibilities, to new directions, to new ways of responding to following Jesus – a Jesus who questions and invites us to become more than we currently are; to do more than we currently do!

Questions are stepping stones; they invite us on a journey.

This author does not have clear spiritual understanding of Scripture, and has a misguided sense of how Jesus answered the many questions asked of Him. The underlined parts of the article do address how Jesus responded to His questioners, but for different reasons than the author suggests. Jesus was not promoting an example to follow of valuing questions more than absolutes, nor did He ask them because He didn’t know the answer. Instead, His indirect method of answering questions allowed his hearers and skeptics to expose their own errors by getting them to examine themselves. I would argue that Jesus didn’t ignore, keep silent about, change subjects, give an audio/visual aid, or tell someone it was the wrong question. The author makes these blanket statements without giving any examples, and it shows his/her lack of understanding for Jesus’ teaching methods. And on a side note, if this is supposed to be motivating, the author should at least explain what he/she means: “a Jesus who questions and invites us to become more than we currently are; to do more than we currently do!” This is exactly my point- “a Jesus”- this author’s version of Jesus does not exist, for the Jesus of the Bible would never be considered a moral relativist today, and the only people who would claim that Jesus’ statements were “wide open to misinterpretation” are unbelievers who don’t wish to accept absolutes and that Jesus really is who He claimed to be. There are no “new ways” of responding to Jesus that are valid for salvation. There is only one way- denying yourself and taking up your cross to accept Jesus’ complete lordship over your life. (Matthew 16:24)

The author is correct in saying that Jesus often told stories in answer to questions. The stories He told were called parables- analogies and earthly comparisons to drive home a point. However, not everyone will understand these parables, as the author models, seeming to think that Jesus used stories and questions in an attempt to ignore or change the subject. Much of the Bible and its mysteries do not make sense to unbelivers who do not have the Holy Spirit to lead them into understanding of the truth. Jesus explains in Matthew 13 why He told these stories, or parables:

Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given…This is why I speak in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: [Isaiah 6:9-10] You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.

God has chosen to reveal Himself through Jesus to those who will believe by faith in His Son, and to those will He unlock the mysteries of His word and Jesus’ teachings.

Jesus already knew the motives and intentions of the hearts of those questioning Him, because He is God, and when answering a question with a question, He often forced them to recognize and expose their insincerity and hypocrisy, as the author was correct in identifying. Jesus’ very effective teaching method allowed the answerer to condemn himself by his response to Jesus’ question. It was the way He brought about conviction in the hearts of sinners. Here is an example from Luke chapter 20: 1-8

One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to him, “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority?” He answered them, “I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?” And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven’, He will say, ‘Why did you not believe him then?’ But if we say, ‘From man,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” So they answered that they did not know where it came from. And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

Jesus brought a sense of conviction to the priests and scribes through the way He responded. His teaching was interrupted by those seeking to challenge and discredit Him, similar to what this author is doing in the above article.

While Jesus may be setting a pattern for imitation for how to respond to questions to cause conviction in the hearer and self examination, He is in no way advocating idle questioning, doubting His authority or that of Scripture, or using questioning as a way to “remain open” to progressive ideas contrary to Biblical doctrine. While there is nothing wrong with and it is natural to have sincere questions regarding faith issues, it is our motive behind our questioning that makes it either helpful or hurtful to our search for truth. If we are seeking to understand and believe, questioning is helpful, but the heart and faith must overcome the intellect at some point. If questioning only in an attempt to discredit the authority of Jesus or the Bible, we will only be led further down the path to destruction. Think on these verses regarding the value of questioning that the author promotes:

1 Timothy 6:3-5 [in part] If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions…and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.

2 Timothy 2:23 But foolish and unlearned questions avoid…

Titus 3: 9-11 But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and worthless. A man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition reject; knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.

1 Timothy 1: 4, 6-7 Nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

As for the last sentence the author declares: “Questions are stepping stones; they invite us on a journey.”

Stepping stones they are, but steps that can lead down the wrong path. Questions do take us on a journey- but it’s the destination of the journey that’s most important. So, is certainty (or absolutes) a strength or a weakness? If questioning only lead’s you away from the truth because you refused to listen to the answers, then I would have to say that questioning is a weakness.

Certainty can be a weakness because you can be certain and be absolutely wrong, and thus stubbornly refuse to hear the truth!

When Jesus returns as King of King and Lord of Lords to judge a sinful and unbelieving world, He will save only those who are absolutely certain of His promises and confident of their belief and trust in Him. He will leave behind the skeptics and those who are still questioning and wavering about who He is and doubting His word. Not choosing is still a choice- it is a choice, by default, to reject the Truth. There is no middle ground, for Jesus said, “He that is not with me is against me.” (Matthew 12: 30) Today is the day to make up your mind about Jesus- there is no grey area about it: Jesus gave these absolutes and it is certain that:

In Luke 13:3 Unless you repent, you will perish!

And in John 14:6 I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.

Got Jesus??

Biblical Inerrancy

2006-08-19T23:25:00.000-04:00

Last year I put together a short series titled “Biblical Inerrancy” – but, as UK John identified early in the first post, it was not about inerrancy at all. It addressed biblical reliability and biblical uniqueness, but inerrancy itself (though I would say that both of those things are necessary for inerrancy) was not addressed.

Over the time since then, I have observed how inerrancy is spoken of, particularly by UK John and Sven, as well as comments interjected by RightThinker and Mary Beth demonstrating clear differences not only on the definition of inerrancy, but whether it is true at all.

What is clear is that, for reasons I find difficult to explain, some people have different definitions of inerrancy. Furthermore, some deny inerrancy, and some question it. I will set out to do three primary things:

1) Define inerrancy

2) Describe the need for inerrancy

3) Defend inerrancy

I expect this series to be long, because I desire a level of clarity often absent in discussions of this issue. For example, before I actually define inerrancy, I will do a post about what inerrancy is not, and a post describing the straw man attacks most often seen. Before I describe the need for inerrancy, I will discuss revelation in general and the various uses and manifestations of the word of God. I will also describe the views of Scripture held by Christian and pseudo-Christian groups in opposition to inerrancy. I will even spend time describing how an unbalanced view of inerrancy will be as dangerous as an outright denial of the importance of Scripture.

I cordially invite those who disagree with my positions to comment and challenge whatever and however they may desire. I have a small number of regular readers, and so I plan to post the series on as many carnivals as it fits. What I really want to hear is the liberal view, which neither John nor Sven have, even though they certainly do not share the evangelical view of Scripture. I believe that Mary Beth holds that view, and hope she and those who agree with her will defend it here.

Here are the “ground rules”, which I recognize that only I am bound to and can guarantee, but hope others will as well:

1) No ad hominem attacks. One can say, “I don’t think this is a Christian point of view you have, Hammer”, but not, “Hammer is a moron”.

2) Be prepared to defend your point of view with two things – Scripture and historical support prior to the mid-eighteenth century. Opponents of the evangelical definition of inerrancy claim it never existed prior to the past 100 years. Thus, while I intend to back up my position with historical Christianity, detractors should do the same. Christianity is a fact-based and historical faith, and a position arrived at in the past 200 years is highly unlikely to be closer to “the faith once for all delivered unto the saints” than that of the apostolic and early church fathers. While Catholic commenters may not regard Luther, Wesley and Calvin as authorities, nor some Protestants Aquinas or Chrysostom, it is not the men that make them authoritative, but the connection of the communion of saints through the ages in doctrine that does.

3) Be clear, concise, and courteous. Clarity, because we don’t want to waste time commenting about something that is misunderstood; courteous, because it begets courtesy and frank speaking, and brevity (yes, that means you, RT) because long comments lead to longer retorts, and others get tired of reading it and drop out.

If someone can think of other important ground rules before I begin, let me know and I’ll include it in this post.

Finally, I should say what I have held since the first day I wrote a post on spiritual matters – I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind with any of this, at least, not someone who is dedicated to their view of Scripture. My goal is to present the various viewpoints in a fashion that eliminates the cloud surrounding the different views for two reasons – to sharpen my own understanding and to allow those who have yet to determine their permanent view of Scripture to choose from the real choices.

You Are What You Read

2006-08-18T14:06:00.000-04:00

I recently read a blog meme that asked about books. Here are some of the answers:

A book you’ve read more than once? The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg.

Let’s cut to the chase – Borg denies the divinity of Christ, and says that Jesus is not the Son of God. He defines the heart of Christianity as some “love what God loves” nonsense, yet denies that God saved men through the Incarnation. Marcus Borg is not a Christian, nor is anyone who thinks this book is worth reading. Not surprisingly, in the top five list of books that those who bought this heresy buy is a book by Bishop Spong, a God hater who denies pretty much everything Biblical.

A book that changed your life? The Preaching Life by Barbara Brown Taylor.

Barbara Brown Taylor gives Marcus Borg’s book great reviews. That says it all. If it didn’t, her denial of the authority of Scripture or the saving grace of Christ, that instead to “Simply perform mercy or justice to whomever you encounter and this will bring you eternal life” is denial of the necessity of the Incarnation, the Cross and the Empty tomb.

A book you have been meaning to read? A History of God by Karen Armstrong

First sentence of this book: IN THE BEGINNING, human beings created a God who was the First Cause of all things and Ruler of heaven and earth. Armstrong is a liberal broadcast commentator in Europe and a former nun who denies the exclusivity of salvation in Christ. She believes (as put forth in this book) that the “idea of a personal God has helped Jewish, Christian and Muslim believers mature as full human beings”, and that all religions are outgrowth of sociopolitical ideas and that the “believers” in all faiths should group together toward a notion, not of the God of the Bible, but a “notion of God that works for the empirical age”.

The person who finds these books and authors worthwhile is not a Christian. Their works may be good, their conversation kind, but anyone who is willing to read and reread these kind of heretical books is not someone who has denied themselves, taken up their cross, and followed the Son of God, who is eternally generated from the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, who is begotten, not made, one being with the Father, through whom all things were made, without whom nothing has been made; who, though he was equal with the Father, stooped to humility and humbled himself by becoming a man, and was obedient in ultimate humility unto death, even the shameful death of the cross, who rose again from the dead, conquering sin and death for all who would believe. This is not a small god whom these authors and this person follow – this is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, who hates sin, loves people, and at the last day will raise up those that are His unto glory – and those that have worshipped a god of their own making, a God who is not revealed in the final and authoritative source of revelation, the holy Scriptures, which speak of the Son of God and his salvific work of grace for us, will instead see:

For behold, the Lord will come in fire,

and his chariots like the whirlwind,

to render his anger in fury,

and his rebuke with flames of fire.

For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment,

and by his sword, with all flesh;

and those slain by the Lord shall be many.

(Isaiah 66:15-16)

And the actions He will take:

I trod them in my anger

and trampled them in my wrath;

their lifeblood spattered on my garments,

and stained all my apparel.

For the day of vengeance was in my heart,

and my year of redemption had come

(Isaiah 63:3-4)

And what will the results be?

And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.

(Isaiah 66:24)

Why?

These have chosen their own ways,

and their soul delights in their abominations;

I also will choose harsh treatment for them

and bring their fears upon them,

because when I called, no one answered,

when I spoke they did not listen;

but they did what was evil in my eyes

and chose that in which I did not delight.

(Is 66:3-4)

Never forget:

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;

all those who practice it have a good understanding.

His praise endures forever!”

(Psalm 111:10)

Divorce and Remarriage IV: What About Pastors?

2006-08-17T16:14:00.000-04:00

The final consideration in the question of divorce and remarriage regards pastors.

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) Not a novice , lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

(1 Ti 3:2-7)

If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men , sober, just, holy, temperate; Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

(Titus 1:6-9)

The operative term in the Scriptures for a bishop’s (pastor’s, overseer’s, elder’s) marital status is this – he must be the husband of one wife. What is certainly inarguable is that he cannot be polygamous. What seems to also be at least more likely than not (and seldom mentioned) is that he should be married! The question at hand is whether “husband of one wife” means “not remarried”.

Whatever one’s answer to this must be, it has to mirror their view on the possibility of a marriage being broken by something other than death. That is, if divorce and remarriage are permissible, than the remarried person remains the husband of one wife. If there is no possibility of the marriage bond being truly broken, then a remarried person is polygamous and disqualified.

Oftentimes, however, people’s views on divorce and remarriage do not extend to their view of who can and cannot be a pastor. Many believe that divorce and remarriage are permissible, yet do not believe that a pastor can be remarried. Why is this? Do we honestly believe that they must be more godly than we?

That may be a shocking statement, but what an assertion implies is that some of us are less sinners than others. The other implication would be that while my pastor has a laundry list of things he must be, I am somehow exempt from the list – that I do not have to also be the rest of it - “above reproach, not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination, not arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined”.

These pastoral qualities are qualities all Christians are to possess, and to dissociate them from us is to deceive ourselves. Thus, our interpretation of Scriptural warrant (or lack) for divorce and remarriage must mirror our interpretation of this verse.

That being said, recognizing that we are sinners does not mean we should not expect a pursuit of godliness in our pastors. This is scriptural prescription, and a man who does not meet these requirements should never be selected for the office. If a man is divorced and remarried because he committed adultery against his first wife and divorced her, the pastorate is not his call, no matter what he may think.

My position mirrors my position on divorce and remarriage, which I developed in the comments section of the last post in the series. A man who suffers divorce for his wife’s adultery, physical danger to the family (this must be a truly rare case!), or abandonment and remarries is permitted to be a pastor.

Addendum: A pastor who experiences the divorce should at least temporarily step down. The lack of order in his own house during such a period Scripturally prohibits him from serving, not to mention the massive emotional turmoil he would be in. How can a man going through a divorce counsel others on marriage? I don’t know how long such a sabbatical from ministry would last, nor am I even sure if he could return as the pastor of his church. However, the importance of a pastor’s role in the life of a church is such that a man who is under fire at home and certainly unfocused for many months and even years is not a proper vessel during that period.

Blessed are the Peacemakers

2006-08-08T14:56:00.000-04:00

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God"

- Mt 5:9

But what do you do when you cannot make peace?

Some of you who have read me for a while may think I am about to rant about Hezbollah and Israel. That might be appropriate, but it is not what is on my heart today. What is on my heart is the state of my church.

Over the past several months there have been those who intentionally spread dissention within the church. Why? Simply read Jude 11.

Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion

From Barnes' Notes on the New Testament:

Woe unto them! See Mat 11:21.

For they have gone in the way of Cain. Ge 4:5-12. That is, they have evinced disobedience and rebellion as he did; they have shown that they are proud, corrupt, and wicked. The apostle does not specify the points in which they had imitated the example of Cain, but it was probably in such things as these--pride, haughtiness, the hatred of religion, restlessness under the restraints of virtue, envy that others were more favoured, and a spirit of hatred of the brethren (comp. 1Jn 3:15) which would lead to murder.

And ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward. The word rendered ran greedily--execuyhsan, from ekcew--means to pour out; and then, when spoken of persons, that they are poured out, or that they rush tumultuously on an object, that is, that they give themselves up to anything. The idea here is, that all restraint was relaxed, and that they rushed on tumultuously to any course of life that promised gain. See Barnes "2Pe 2:15".

And perished. They perish, or they will perish. The result is so certain that the apostle, speaks of it as if it were already done. The thought seems to have lain in his mind in this manner: he thinks of them as having the same character as Korah, and then at once thinks of them as destroyed in the same manner, or as if it were already done. They are identified with him in their character and doom. The word rendered perish (apollumi) is often used to denote future punishment, Mat 10:28,39 18:14 Mr 1:24 Lu 13:3,5 Joh 3:15,16 John 10:28 2Th 2:10 2Pe 3:9.

In the gainsaying of Core. Of Korah, Nu 16:1-30. The word gainsaying here means properly contradiction, or speaking against; then controversy, question, strife; then contumely, reproach, or rebellion. The idea here seems to be, that they were guilty of insubordination; of possessing a restless and dissatisfied spirit; of a desire to rule, etc.

It was envy that others were more favored, pride in not having more say in the direction of things not under their stewardship, desire for gain, a rebellious spirit, and a seditious character. Not all had all of these traits, but the leaders did. Charles Spurgeon writes about what the inevitable result of this type of dissention leads to:

If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution."
--Exodus 22:6

But what restitution can he make who casts abroad the fire-brands of error, or the coals of lasciviousness, and sets men's souls on a blaze with the fire of hell? The guilt is beyond estimate, and the result is irretrievable. If such an offender be forgiven, what grief it will cause him in the retrospect, since he cannot undo the mischief which he has done! An ill example may kindle a flame which years of amended character cannot quench. To burn the food of man is bad enough, but how much worse to destroy the soul! It may be useful to us to reflect how far we may have been guilty in the past, and to enquire whether, even in the present, there may not be evil in us which has a tendency to bring damage to the souls of our relatives, friends, or neighbours.

The fire of strife is a terrible evil when it breaks out in a Christian church. Where converts were multiplied, and God was glorified, jealousy and envy do the devil's work most effectually. Where the golden grain was being housed, to reward the toil of the great Boaz, the fire of enmity comes in and leaves little else but smoke and a heap of blackness. Woe unto those by whom offences come. May they never come through us, for although we cannot make restitution, we shall certainly be the chief sufferers if we are the chief offenders. Those who feed the fire deserve just censure, but he who first kindles it is most to blame. Discord usually takes first hold upon the thorns; it is nurtured among the hypocrites and base professors in the church, and away it goes among the righteous, blown by the winds of hell, and no one knows where it may end. O Thou Lord and giver of peace, make us peacemakers, and never let us aid and abet the men of strife, or even unintentionally cause the least division among Thy people.

I sat in a place where, although I had pressed to be a peacemaker with several up until today, I was forced to choose one side or the other. I was pressed to tears as I agonized over choosing to support the dismissal of a man I count as a friend and a brother, who has prayed for me and I for him. However, since he had at one time allied himself with the seditious group, and was being propped up by them as their leader, he had to go for the benefit of the body. I could not be sure of exactly what he had done, but I knew for sure that not only was he sympathetic to the seditious, he never attempted to stop the sedition, even though he has the charisma, skills and following to do so.

If I am ever asked why he resigned, I will state what I believe to be the truth - he sought to do what was best for the church, and did not want to be tarred with the paint of a leader of mutineers.

Sometimes, you have to choose sides. Really, you always do, if it is a matter of any import. Not choosing simply puts you passively on one side. The choice to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Christ is the same. If you don't choose, you choose instead to deny Him. Are you ready to make that wager? For you make it whether you wish to or not.

Divorce and Remarriage III: When Can a Christian Remarry?

2006-08-02T12:17:00.000-04:00

The positions held by the church are similar to the views on divorce – some say there is no remarriage, some say that remarriage is permissible, and some say that it is permissible only in restricted cases.

I) No Remarriage.

Obviously, those who believe that divorce is not possible do not support remarriage! However, there are those who support limited cases of divorce, but do not support remarriage. In fact, this is the testimony of the majority of the early church fathers who address the issue.

In this view, only the death of the spouse dissolves the marriage bond. Jesus’exception allows couples to separate in cases of porneia (normally understood as adultery). However, since porneia does not break the marriage bond, neither spouse can remarry. Hopefully, while remaining apart, the erring mate would be driven to repent and return to his or her spouse. Moreover, the so-called Pauline Privilege (1 Cor 7:15) does not allow deserted believers to remarry. Thus, this view allows separation when there is porneia but never allows remarriage.

Those who hold to this view emphasize that the marriage bond is indissoluble and appeal to the Deuteronomy 24 and kinship argument in support. Likewise, Mark 10 and Luke 16 allow no one to divorce, and Jesus’comments (Matthew 19) on creation ordinances and leaving intact what God has joined leave no room for divorce. In Matt 19:9 Jesus says: “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for porneia, and marries another, commits adultery.” Who commits adultery, according to Jesus? The person who both divorces and remarries. Separation alone without remarriage is not adultery.

This view sees Matt 19:9 as an answer to the Pharisees’ question in 19:3 ( “is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?”). Jesus responds that only porneia is just cause, but even then, one may not remarry without committing adultery. This view can be summarized into four points, which I find completely reasonable according to scripture:

1) divorce for any cause plus remarriage is adultery;

2) divorce because of porneia is acceptable, but no remarriage is allowed;

3) whoever divorces a woman forces her into adultery (i.e., once she remarries), unless the divorce resulted because of her porneia (adultery)—in that case she was already an adulteress before the divorce; and

4) whoever marries a divorcée commits adultery himself.

II) Remarriage is always acceptable.

Honestly, this view isn’t really supported Scripturally. Proponents of this position use several arguments that seem to be (and some are) honestly loving, considerate and thoughtful. However, the merits of the emotions in the argument do not translate to merits of the argument itself! They include some scriptural support, but do not address the breadth of Scriptural prescription. Here are some:

“God made and women for each other, so he wouldn’t want you to be alone.” Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” (Gen 2:18)

“God wants you to be happy”

“God doesn’t want your children to grow up without a daddy in the home” (Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring.” (Malachi 2:5)

“Divorce is not the unforgivable sin” (but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—), Mark 3:29

These statements affirm the beauty of marriage, the need to maintain marriages for the sake of children, and the grace of God in Christ. All of these statements (well, not “God wants you to be happy”, since happiness is not a virtue nor possible to produce beyond moments) are true in themselves. God did make men and women for each other, for the purpose of making each other better. God does want children to have a mother and a father, and divorce is not the unforgivable sin. However, none of these represent Biblical justification for ignoring Biblical prescription. Furthermore, the accelerated rate of divorces of those previously divorces demonstrates that this line of reasoning cannot be the right one. Thus, I must dismiss the notion that anyone can remarry for any reason.

III) Remarriage is acceptable only in specific cases.

There are several divorce and remarriage views, most of which are variations of what many call the Erasmian view (named after Erasmus of Rotterdam). Those who hold some form of the Erasmian view consider the exception clauses in Matthew to allow a morally acceptable ground for divorce. Moreover, if divorce is permissible, then remarriage is as well.

Some variations in the Erasmian view stem from one’s understanding of porneia. Many interpret it narrowly to refer only to adultery. On this view, Jesus is saying that if a wife commits adultery, her husband may divorce her and remarry without committing any sin himself. Others object that Matthew’s usual word for adultery is moicheia and that in Matthew 15 he distinguishes between porneia and moicheia. Thus, porneia in Matt 5:32 and 19:9 should be understood in a more general way to refer to any kind of sexual impurity, including adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, and incest.

A further variation of the Erasmian view arises from interpreting Paul as allowing a second ground for divorce (1 Corinthians 7). Paul instructs converts to Christianity not to leave their unbelieving spouses just because they are non-believers. However, if the non-believer leaves the believer and seeks a divorce, the believer is told to let him depart (v. 15); the believer is not bound in such a case. Many understand this to mean that willful desertion of a believer by a non-believer is permissible grounds for divorce. The believer may not initiate divorce proceedings, but if the non-believing spouse does, the divorce is not a sin. Typically, those who think Paul allows divorce for willful desertion argue that if the divorce is morally permissible, so is remarriage.

This view is the view held by many Protestant denominations since the 17^th century, which, unlike the Roman Catholic Church, would be almost their entire time of existence! It is interesting to note, that while the Anglican Church was primarily instituted by the King of England to allow his divorce, the Church of England did not allow divorced people to marry in church until 2002!

There are other reasons that some would add to a limited list of reasons to allow remarriage, and they typically mirror the specific reasons for divorce: physical abuse, danger to the family through substance abuse, financial failure, etc. In fact, while few would say one can divorce for any reason, fewer still would stand against remarriage for any reason. How often have you heard, “Jill and Jim are a great couple, but since Jill left her husband who never cheated on her and was a good man, she shouldn’t be allowed to remarry”? Well, pretty much never. Many will claim to be in the limited divorce/limited remarriage camp, but few are, as evidenced by their actions and words when in a situation that demands an opinion be given.

Obviously, I find the no remarriage and limited remarriage cases most compelling. What I have found difficult is this – while I can find never-divorced leaders who will speak of allowing remarriage, never-divorced leaders who will speak of not allowing remarriage, and divorced leaders who will speak of allowing remarriage, I have not found a divorced leader of character who was divorced for a reason included in Jesus or Paul’s words (or even in Deut 24 – abuse), yet stands against remarriage. Can we interpret this without our experience forcing our hand? Let me know what you all think of the presented ideas.

Divorce and Remarriage II: When is Divorce Permitted?

2006-07-26T15:18:00.000-04:00

(continued from here)

Considering the value of marriage, we know that death breaks the bond. Besides this, are there any other ways that the marriage bond can be broken? There are essentially three views on this – no, yes, but limited, and yes, but limited in name only.

1) No. This view is based primarily upon exegetical variations of the exception clause presented by Jesus in Matthew 19 (and similarly taught in Matthew 5)

“And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” (ESV)

The Greek word for “sexual immorality” here is porneia, a word with a broad range of English words that it includes, all of which are aberrant or immoral sexual behaviors, such as incest, adultery, etc. Because other Greek words are used to refer to adultery specifically, some see this reference as a prohibition to incestuous marriages, not an exception clause.

Added to the Greek exegesis argument is the use of a preposition we would consider woefully inexact: epi. In the dative case, as it is used here, it can mean “only” or “including”. Thus, proponent of the no divorce argument would say that what Jesus says is not what every English translation reads, but instead: “whoever divorces his wife, not only for cases of sexual immorality (but for all reasons), commits adultery.” This reading would obviously support an “all divorce = sin” view. Of course, out of over 200 Bible translations, none read this way, so we can probably consider their exegesis faulty.

2) Yes, but limited. This represents the views of many in the West, who hold that divorce is ok, but only for certain reasons. For this view to be truly limited, the reasons must also be limited. They include adultery, physical abuse to the spouse or children, drug addiction, and abandonment. The reasoning varies, but is either the exception clause here in Matthew 19, common social perceptions, or a combination of both. Honestly, the view is really only a two-exception clause, with sexual immorality and danger to the family as the only reasons.

3) Limited in name only. Once one gets beyond sexual immorality and danger to the family for reasons for divorce, there really are no limitations. Reasons such as emotional abuse, mental abuse, financial insolvency, irreconcilable differences, etc all really can mean, “It’s not as fun as I thought it would be”. Is there real emotional and mental abuse? Certainly – but those who hold that these will be ground for a possible divorce of their own will justify “she’s not meeting my needs” or “he’s always crushing my dreams” as some kind of non-physical abuse.

This last category has no Biblical justification. Honestly, I don’t know how people who claim to be Christians can hold this view.

However, as interesting as the distinctions may be (and feel free to comment on them and my appraisal), the real issue for most is not, “Can a person get divorced”, but, “can a person remarry?” I feel that is the most interesting question, because for some, the two questions are in exact accord. For others, they are definitely not. Most Southern Baptist congregations will not reject a prospective pastor if he is divorced, but they will if he is remarried!

The next part of the series, “Can A Christian Remarry?” will address these differing views and attempt to present them even-handedly. While I have come to a conclusion while studying for this series, I recognize my own inherent subjectivity, and find the arguments that are not in agreement with mine to be somewhat compelling as well.

Divorce and Remarriage: What Makes and Breaks a Marriage (Conclusion)

2006-07-25T12:23:00.000-04:00

Clearly, marriage is something special that makes people, on the whole, better than they are without it. We must ask ourselves, why is there such a high divorce rate in the US?

I believe it is because the special, sacred nature of marriage is largely ignored prior to the wedding. I would wholeheartedly agree that many of the couples who were married and get divorced, “made a mistake”, just as they often say. Why did they make this mistake? Because they did not consider the marriage unbreakable from the start.

Simply put, if two human beings commit themselves to a lifetime of marriage, with no room for divorce, the marriage will work. The person initiating the divorce often says, “I have only two choices: get divorced or stay miserable the rest of my life.” This is a false dilemma, intentionally ignoring the option of “get happy – work it out”. In short, if quitting is an option, human beings will quit.

Ironically, when individuals who rated their marriages as “bad” or “very bad” are surveyed five years later, of those who stayed married 80% rated their marriages as “good” or “very good!” Of those who divorced, over half rated their personal happiness as “fair” or “poor!”. Divorce is not only the only option other than “stay miserable” - it is often the option that is most likely to lead to continuing misery. Some couples divorce because they think that a strained marriage hurts children, However, one landmark study revealed that 90 percent of children from divorced homes suffered from an acute sense of shock when the separation occurred, including profound grieving and irrational fears. Fifty percent reported feeling rejected and abandoned, and indeed, half of the fathers never came to see their children three years after the divorce. One-third of the boys and girls feared abandonment by the remaining parent, and 66 percent experienced yearning for the absent parent with an intensity that researchers described as overwhelming. Most significant, 37 percent of the children were even more unhappy and dissatisfied five years after the divorce than they had been at 18 months. In other words, time did not heal their wounds.

Why is this? In nearly every case, the married couple becomes unhappy due to selfishness on the case of one or both of the partners. That is why second and third marriages fail at even higher rates than first marriages. The problems in the first marriage are attributed to the other partner, and the self-correction needed (and forced when divorce is not an option) never happens.

God knows how lazy and selfish humans are – that’s why he hates divorce. Not only is it a failing of the sinful man, but it negatively impacts not only the other spouse, but especially the children.

In her landmark study, “The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce”, Dr. Judith Wallerstein follows children for 25 years, observing those whose parents divorced and those who didn’t. The results are disturbing: children of divorce were negatively affected well into adulthood, and had much greater difficulty in establishing trusting romantic relationships that lasted. Divorce hurts families. Surely this is one of the reasons why God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16).

The failure of our society to embrace this hatred for divorce is because we do not start with the regard for marriage that would lead to a hatred of divorce. A marriage lightly regarded is a marriage lightly dissolved. Until we, as a society, regain a regard for marriage that is found in Asia, Latin America and Africa, our divorce troubles will continue. Unfortunately, this type of progress only occurs with massive societal upheavals, and is unlikely.

Next: When is Divorce Permitted? (I hope to have it up today)

"Tolerance is a virtue - for those who have no convictions." G.K. Chesterton

2006-07-18T22:05:00.000-04:00

To judge another religious group to be false can seem a pompous undertaking, especially in a culture that preaches tolerance for everything. Tolerance is the banner that unites much of our culture, and anyone who points a judging finger at someone or something is often ridiculed.

But Christians are told in the Bible to separate themselves from the sinful practices of man and to expose error. A distinction has to be made between Christians and those who label themselves as such who clearly are not. God’s word tells us to examine all things and hold fast to that which is true (1 Thessalonians 5:21), so we do.

How can we then examine without judging what is right and wrong? Jesus judged the Pharisees as hypocrites. Peter judged Ananias and Sapphira as liars. (Acts 5:3,4) Paul judged the Galatians as fools (Galatians 3:1).

Something can be said to be right or wrong because the Bible has laid out before us a moral and doctrinal standard that is clear. It is wrong to lie, so we are able to say to someone who lies, “what you are doing is wrong.” That is making a judgment. Of course, a Christian already realizes they are sinners saved by grace (recognizes the log in their own eye first), and is therefore not perfect. But, that doesn’t mean that we should have an ‘anything goes’ attitude for fear of being seen as “judgmental” and ignore sin when we see it.

Christians are commanded to be able to give answers to everyone and to contend for the faith. If we do not fight for the faith, the faith will be lost. If we do not expose the errors of false "Christians" and cults, then the cults and false teachers will move unchecked in the world and lead even more people into eternal destruction.

To make a judgment means we must recognize that there are absolutes. In a world that worships relativism, absolutes are not welcome and the cults that espouse their demonic doctrines beg tolerance.

The true Church stands for the truth of God’s Word, not a compromising collection of beliefs that changes as people’s whims change. The false religions are false because they deny the true God, add works to salvation, and corrupt a multitude of biblical truths. Their end and the end of all who follow them is damnation. To do anything other than warn people about them would be unloving.