Forced to Face Mortality

I came across an excellent opinion piece today, authored by an anthropology professor at Wheaton College (my alma mater). She talks about how one of the major things that this pandemic is forcing Western culture to face, is death. I was just thinking about this topic this morning, in a quiet moment of reflection, that most of what I see happening, is an overreaction meant to stave off suffering and/or death...two things which we talk very little about in our culture...neither of which we will ever be successful in preventing or eradicating this side of Jesus' return.

I think it's good to have to face death, to have to think about it and wrestle with it. Death, and thoughts about the finite-ness of our lives, has a way of reminding us to focus on what is important. If you're over the age of 15, chances are good that you have attended at least one funeral and likely many more than one. Some funerals are incredibly sad - especially the ones where people died younger, and you have this sense that they missed out on some life that was left to be lived. Also, you feel intensely for their families, who have to deal with the incredible sense of loss they will feel. Some are more joyous, when the person has lived a long life and are now free of the suffering they had to endure at the end. But whether you are attending the funeral of that younger person, or it is of the ladder kind, a funeral naturally forces you to focus, even if only for a moment, on your own eventual death and if you're an introspective type, that leads you to some self-evaluation.

I dare say we need to think about death more, perhaps much more, than we do. I think one of the big reasons that older people seem so much wiser, aside from years of experience, is that as they have gotten older, they realize they are closer to the end. That realization, I think, helps them put things in perspective. Things that used to seem like a big deal, aren't as much, because their sense of what truly matters has been reoriented. Obviously this doesn't apply to all older folks - some only get more crotchety and rough, but that doesn't seem to describe most.

I enjoyed Dr. Jeske's thoughts on how youth obsessed and how production-obsessed our culture is. I have seen myself get wrapped up in the productivity side of things. It is a very easy trap to fall into. "If some is good, more is better." -- and our culture is only too happy to encourage that type of thinking. Anyway - very good thoughts from Dr. Jeske; alot to think about and consider.

Biblical Fear

When I was growing up, I was taught that the "fear of the Lord" was akin to 'a healthy respect for' or 'reverence for', but I'm starting to question that. The other night, it occurred to me that there are two types of fear mentioned in the Bible; there is a fear which talks about how we relate to God and there is a fear/worry/anxiety about this world or regarding the things of this world. Here are some relevant Scriptures to help me illustrate this:

Matthew 10:28

"Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." (NIV)

This, to me, is the clearest passage that distinguishes the difference. Jesus is clearly saying here - do not fear this world because the worst it can do is destroy your physical body, but after that it has no power. God, however, has the power to send you to eternal torment and punishment in hell. If we aren't found in Him on the day when Jesus returns, then we will face His wrath - which certainly merits fear...actual fear.

1 John 4:18-19

"Where there is love there is no reason to be afraid; indeed, love that is blameless drive fear away. Fear, after all, anticipates what? Punishment. If someone fears punishment, he still hasn't been made blameless in love. We love because he first loved us." (Blessed Hope Translation**)

I used to think this was one of those passages that was saying I shouldn't be afraid of God because, "God is love". In reality however, I think it is saying the opposite. I think this is saying that if we live in the Messiah's love, and by that I mean live it out, then we have nothing to fear. But to the one who builds his own Kingdom - to the one who walks around with this "I am awesome" mentality; that person has reason to fear. The verses immediately prior to the passage I quoted highlights this, "Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement..." (1 John 4:16-17) Implied in verse 16 is that if you do not live in love, you do not live in God and God does not live in you. If love is not made complete in you (verse 17), then you do not have reason for confidence on the day of judgement. Jesus even goes on, a few chapters later, to explain what it means to love him. He says, "On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you. Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me." (John 14:20-21, Berean Study Bible)

Hebrews 10:26-27

"If we go on sinning deliberately, you see, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there is no other sacrifice being held in reserve to atone for sins. No, the only thing held in store now is a terrifying dread of judgement and of fire a blazing fury, a fire which is ready God's foes to devour." (Blessed Hope Translation)

"If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains, but only a fearful expectation of judgement and raging fire that will consume all adversaries." (NIV)

To me, this verse couples well with Matthew 12:30 - "He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters." If we are living in God's love, obeying his commandments and relying on the power of the Holy Spirit to keep us holy - then we have nothing to fear, we are "co-heirs with Messiah" (Romans 8:17). If we are being disobedient, however, we are enemies of God and we have only "a terrifying dread of judgement".

Matthew 6:25-27

"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?" (NASB)

The things Jesus lists here, food, drink, clothing - they are all things of this world. "Do not fear a lack of basic needs, or make this life all about the things of this world" is basically what he is saying. His summary statement after this is "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and ALL THESE THINGS will be added to you."

Hebrews 13:5-6

"Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?"

Implied here again is that the world and the things it can do to us; we are not to be afraid of these things.

Another interesting story to consider is that of Adam & Eve. After they ate the forbidden fruit, we read this: "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." (Genesis 3:8-10)
Adam knew that he had broken God's law and he was afraid...and not just a 'reverential fear', but a fear that caused him to literally hide from God. We don't hide from things that we don't have an actual fear of.


I think the bottom-line is that my view of God has been too small. Francis Chan talks about this some in his book "Crazy Love", but that's really is what is comes down to. It makes me think about Job, who sat there and demanded God to give him audience and then God shows up and this is what God says, "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct me! Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding, who set its measurements? Since you know."" (Job 38:1-5, NASB) Job's response is perfect, he says, "Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to you? I lay my hand on my mouth. Once I have spoken, and I will not answer; even twice, and I will add nothing more." (Job 40:4-5) His breath is literally taken away and you can tell from his response that he now has an appropriate concept of who God is and how unsurpassably great and awesome He is. I need to work on this.

I think fear gets a bad rap - especially spiritual fear. People say that fear is a bad motivator, or that things done out of fear don't last. I don't think that's wrong - but I think fear can be an excellent catalyst for change. I think God's ultimate aim is that we come to love and adore Him and that love will be what motivates our on-going walk with Him (see John 4 above)...but for a lot of people, myself included, the thing that got me on that path towards loving Him was a healthy dose of fear...a kick in the rear, a fire under my butt. It was God saying, "Adam, if you continue in the direction you are going, you will not grow up, you will not mature and the seed of Truth that was planted in you will get choked out and die." It was the 'fearful expectation of judgement' and the realization that I was on a road to destruction.

**A man named Tim Miller, who I have learned a great deal from, recently finished and published his own translation of the New Testament (from the original Greek) and you can access that translation by going to his website, blessedhope.life. He sought to put together a faithful, fully transparent translation and the end result is fantastic, I highly recommend it.

What Are Our Modern Idols?

This whole pandemic situation has left me quite introspective and as normal life has been put on hold and the normal busyness of life has subsided in the wake of social-distancing and shelter-in-place, it has been easier to self examine. Initially, I was quite angry - angry at what I felt (and still feel) was hyperventilation and overreaction, but I couldn't stay in that mode for very long, so my initial feelings of anger subsided into something like acceptance. It's not an idle acceptance, but it is a realization that I cannot change much on my own, so I need to stop being so frustrated by it all. One side-effect of all of this though has been some rarefied mental clarity. I find myself able to think about the big picture of things much more clearly.

The other day, I started thinking about modern idols. Obviously most of us are not walking around making physical idols for ourselves, cast out of some precious material, as in the days of old. No, today's idols are much more subtle, but every bit as misguided. Here are three that I've come up with:

The Idol of Safety
There is no denying, especially now, that we live in a culture that is obsessed with 'safety'. My best evidence of this is the fact that in neighborhoods all across Illinois, they dug up the last square of sidewalk concrete at every intersection to install a "pad" with raised bumps on it in order to prevent people from slipping as they came to stop to wait for traffic to pass...at least I think that's what it intended for. Regardless, the financial cost of doing this had to be incredible while the incidence of injury or death that is saves has to be incalculably small.

The response to COVID-19 has also revealed just how much of an idol safety is. If this is a novel virus (meaning new) which there is no reason to doubt, then everyone is going to get it at some point. All of the social-distancing efforts and shelter-in-place orders were sold as a way to "slow the spread" or "save lives", when in fact, this is a stretch, at best. I see the benefit in not overwhelming hospitals, but this virus will kill exactly as many people as it will kill. That may seem like a tautology, but we do not have cures for viruses - and any vaccine that is developed will likely be fairly ineffective on a broad scale, just as the flu-vaccine is (typically 10-20% effectiveness). We can treat people with viruses, and that may indeed 'save' some small number of lives, but typically, the people who die from viruses are people with co-morbidities or the very old/very young. This virus has been no different - and once the "low-hanging fruit", as one scientist described it, have had the virus, death numbers will drop significantly as the virus encounters healthier people whose immune systems will prove quite formidable. But, I digress. My point is, you aren't any safer in your home than you are outside - and that is true whether you are talking about this virus, or regular daily life. If  you get into a car, you aren't safe. If you're walking down the street, you are not safe - no matter what you do, there are hundreds of things that can kill you - maybe not immediately, but at some point. As the trite saying goes, the death-rate for humanity is 100%. Illness, accident, or evil, something is going to get you. A fear of death and suffering has led to making an idol out of safety - even if that idol is a complete mirage. At the end of the day, it's about control - convincing ourselves that if only we have enough control, we can stop bad things, perhaps even death itself, from happening. It's false. It's empty. It's an idol.

**great verse I thought of after the fact: Matthew 6:27, "Who of you by worrying, can add a single hour to his life?" (BSB)

The Idol of Open Options
I can't claim credit for this one - I first read about it a few months ago in a Gospel Coalition article - but since then, I have seen it over and over. Read the article if you want a full explanation, but in a nutshell, it is this idea that we love not having to commit to anything. The author of the article uses some fairly banal examples - replying 'maybe' to party invitations, always looking for better conversations than the one we're in, etc - but there are some very serious real-life ways in which this plays out, particularly in the life of someone following Messiah Jesus. For example - do we read the Bible and not take some of it's commands at face-value? Let's take 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 which reads, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, not drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God." I used to read that and think to myself, "that cannot possibly mean what it says  because I look at pornography every once in awhile and if I'm reading this right, it says that will disqualify me from entering the Kingdom of God" (Heaven). That was me, bowing down to the Idol of Open Options. It very clearly DOES say that people who don't obey what Jesus commanded WILL NOT enter with Him into his Kingdom...and yet my flesh didn't like that and so it sought another way, another option.
Jesus very clearly says, three times in John 14, "If you love me, you will keep My commandments" (verse 15), "whoever has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me" (verse 21) and "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My father will love him, and we will come to him and make Our home with him" (verse 23). There is no "if you feel like it" or "if you keep them most of the time" - it's all or nothing. As Christians, we need to first count the cost (Luke 14:28), and then either decide to be 'all-in' or not in at all. There is no middle, there is no having your cake and eating it too. God's primary commandment is "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength." (Matt. 22:37) There is no alternative. "Having options" is false. It's empty. It's an idol.

The Idol of Community
This could alternatively be called "The Idol of Technology", but most of what our technology centers around today is having or building a sense of community, or connected-ness. I have talked with many parents who have older kids (middle and/or high-school) during this pandemic and they tell me that their kids are 'living' on their cell phones, desperately trying to stay in touch with their friends. I see it in adults too, we can't go out with each other right now, and so we've resorted to endless video calls and the like. Don't get me wrong, humans are relational creatures, and we were created to be in relationship with each other, but I think it has become idol-like in the way, and to the degree which we pursue relationship. I'm not railing so much on actual, messy, real-life relationship, but how we have become obsessed, with the advent of social media, with being 'in the know' about the lives of others without really being involved. There are two sides to this coin, hear me out:

The Observer - I confess, I fall into this category. For me, social media isn't so much about staying 'connected' as much as it is an easy, typically effort-free way of knowing what people are up to. There are many others (usually introverts) like me. I am easily exhausted with having to be "on" in-person, and social media allows me to not have to put forth actual real effort. I can be in touch with someone's life without really having to make much effort.

The Sharer - This is the type of person who uses social media as a means of deriving some kind of self-worth from sharing their lives on Instagram/Facebook/etc. They share the good moments, or they make moments look better than they actually are. This isn't necessarily intentional because, afterall, how lame would social media be if we shared a bunch of mediocre (or sad, bad, depressing) moments every day? But it can lead to a false sense of what life is really like, or it can mask the true feelings of the person sharing. Even more insidiously, the sharer can become dependent on "being seen" (likes, feedback, etc) by his or her community - which substitutes for real relationship. If they receive a lackluster response to something, they begin to feel depressed or less-than.

Some people are combinations of the two types, but those two categories seems to describe most people. Someone cynical once told me, "everyone you know is going to disappoint you at some point". It's true - no human-to-human relationship is flawless or perfect; people are always going to let us down. Either they won't do something we want them to, or they will do something we don't want them to do. When we put human relationships on an inappropriate level, we are substituting the value that God says He has given us and that we have in Him, for false value derived from the acceptance and love of others. It's false. It's empty. It's an idol.


I would love to hear from you if you can think of other modern idols. Some are fairly obvious - we in the West are professional idolaters of entertainment and escapism. I could probably write a book on that, with evidence from my own life. But what are some of the less obvious ones? Things that we perhaps even subconsciously bow down to? In 2 Corinthians 13, Paul calls the believers in Corinth to consistently examine themselves to see if they are "in the faith". In Romans 2, he says that believers should "not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the reviewing of [our] mind." Here is my encouragement to be in regular self-examination of what you are giving yourself to. As John Calvin once said, "The human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols."

A Preview of The End

Man - what a difference a month makes. On February 21st, my wife and I left for a week-long vacation to Mexico and on March 21st, Illinois was placed on "shelter-in-place" orders due to this stupid COVID-19 thing...and that's to say nothing about the difference in weather between Cabo and Chicago! At the end of last week, I felt like asking people, "how was your month this week?" Time and everything else, it seems, has slowed way down and left a lot of us with time to think. I don't know about you, but my mind hasn't always been going to the healthiest of places. Thankfully, I have a few people in my life who remind me of what's important and that's what I want to talk about here.

As a Believer, I have found myself awfully weak lately. We're supposed to have this Hope right? We're supposed to trust and run to Him with our doubts and problems, right? While it's true that I have found myself on my knees more, I cannot say I've been a shining example of hope and trust. Those friends I mentioned, they have been reminding me about where all this is going - and now I'm starting to come around to thinking that this is just a preview, a practice run if you will, for the end of this Age.

Here's what the Bible has to say about what it will be like when Jesus returns:

"Don't assume that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter again her mother, a daughter-in-law again her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies will be the member of his household. The person who loves father or mother more than Me is not worth of Me; the person who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever doesn't take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Anyone finding his life will lose it, and anyone losing his life because of Me will find it." - Matthew 10:34-39

"Wail, for the Day of the Lord is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore all hands will fall limp, and every man's heart will melt. They will be terrified, pains and anguish will take hold of them; they will writhe like a woman in labor, they will look at one another in astonishment, their faces aflame." - Isaiah 13:6-12

"For the day is near, even the day of the Lord is near; it will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations." - Ezekiel 30:3

"Alas, you who are longing for the day of the Lord, for what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? It will be darkness and not light; as when a man flees from a lion and a bear greets him, or goes home, leans his hand against a wall and a snake bites him. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light, even gloom with no brightness in it?" - Amos 5:18-20

"But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; avoid such men as these." - 2 Timothy 3:1-5 

"But before all these things [the last days], they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name's sake. It will lead to an opportunity for your testimony. So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves; for I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute. But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death, and you will be hated by all because of My name" - Luke 21:12-17 (corollary passage in Mark 13:9-13)

It doesn't sound like a cake walk right? It sounds hard and arduous. It sounds like something that would really shake you, and perhaps cause you to abandon your faith, if you didn't really trust deep down that God is going to do what he said he is going to do. My question for all of us, is what if this happens in our lifetimes? Maybe it doesn't, but what if it does - are our hearts and minds prepared for that kind of trial and difficulty?

This is where the importance of discipleship comes in. Jesus talks about "taking up your cross daily" and about finding a "narrow road". Paul talks a lot about 'running the race' and about perseverance. These statements and metaphors imply that being a disciple of Jesus requires something significant from us. So often, in church, we hear about the "free gift" of God, of grace for sinners and the promise of Eternal Life. What we don't hear about as much is that though the gift is free, it is also extremely expensive in terms of what it requires from us...our very lives. I don't think that means we have to physically die for Jesus - but it certainly means that we have to die to ourselves. Figuring out what this means and what it looks like for us personally is a lifetime effort, but nevertheless, that is the call. Jesus couldn't have been more explicit about it.

So join me, during this time, in becoming more firmly rooted in the Messiah, in the promises of God made to Israel, through which we can have hope for Eternal Life, a renewed Earth, and a new body of Life. This current trouble, though light and momentary, is just a preview of much harder times that will accompany Jesus' return and we need to be about the business of preparing ourselves and each other.

Commentary: Rhett and Link

I am an occasional reader of The Gospel Coalition website - I think some of the articles found there are thought-provoking or interesting and recently, I stumbled across one entitled, "Let's Deconstruct a Deconversion Story: The Case of Rhett and Link". The story tells of a pair of YouTube stars, Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, who are former missionaries and Campus Crusade (Cru) staff members and now consider themselves former Christians as well. The TGC article portrays their decision as having a lot to do with the sexual ethic of the Bible and their problems with that, but I listened to both of their testimonies - each about an hour and forty-five minutes long - and I don't feel as though that is a fair portrayal, certainly not for Rhett, but likely not for Link either. That is part of their story, but the etiology of their deconversions is much more subtle.

From listening to both stories, it is clear that this all started with Rhett. He is the one who seems to have a more comprehensive understanding of Scripture and of apologetics; I suspect he started to have doubts on some of the scientific stuff and then started talking to Link about it and slowly convinced his childhood friend away from faith. If you listen to their stories, Rhett is clearly the one putting a lot of time and effort into the struggle and then when you hear Link's story - there are a lot of the same elements, but most of them are referring back to things his friend Rhett gave him or was telling him about. They pretty much acknowledge this straight out at the end of Link's testimony.

I very much identify with some of Rhett's doubt - as someone who has spent some time looking for scientific or archaeological verification of Scripture and desperately wanting my faith to have a strong rational component to it, I can identify the unsettling feeling he had when some of that stuff doesn't match up. But for me - rather than pushing me away, it caused me to ask different questions. Also - it reminded me of God's response to Job:

"Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: "Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you and you will answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone - while the morning stars sang together and the angels shouted for joy?" (Job 38:1-7)

We can look at the scientific data and the archaeological finds and all of these things in order to try and support a belief in a God of the universe, but ultimately, those pursuits eventually become a God in and of themselves - ultimately it is an attempt to make a God out of 'certainty'. It seems like they are missing the point and by that I mean, the point of God revealing himself through the Bible is not so that we can go and verify everything and come away with some certainty about it all...it's so that we can know Him and know where all of this is going. The bottom-line is that science is not "settled" any more now than it ever has been, particularly in the area of origins of the Universe. For every scientist that has become an atheist because of their work, you will find another scientist who came to belief in God as a result of their work. There are ardent Christian scientists in every field of science, genetics and evolution included. There never was such a thing as certainty and there never will be, in either direction - towards God or away from him.

As a kid, I was a big fan of the C.S. Lewis books in the series, "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe". Towards the end of the first book, Lucy and Edmund (her brother) have both found Narnia through the wardrobe and Lucy is trying to convince their older siblings of this place they have found. Lucy insists that it is real and Edmund is more mum about it and eventually, the older two go and tell the master of the house about this, seeking his advice on what to do. He says,

"Logic!" said the Professor half to himself. "Why don't they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn't tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth."

Neither Rhett nor Link seem to be willing to go as far as Atheism. Rhett refers to himself as a 'hopeful agnostic'. I think they are both open to the possibility that they are wrong - but it seems like they have come to the conclusion, for now, that Jesus is either a madman or a liar. Lying would go against Jesus' very nature (if he is who he says he is) so the only logical conclusion would be that he is a madman - afterall, there is no denying his actual existence and life - that he was a real person who lived on earth is a historical fact.

One thing that struck me about their stories is how big of an impact one person can have on another. As I mentioned above - Rhett has clearly been the one who has led his friend Link away from the Lord. Which makes me feel for Link - I think he understands the doubts and struggles of his friend Rhett, but since they did not come out of his own heart, he is following but isn't as convicted/convinced. Rather, he has justified his own feelings by identifying more strongly with his disagreement with the Biblical sexual ethic that is bothersome to him. Here are some of his comments:

"The specific issue of the LGBTQ issues; the church was a welcoming place and a loving place, but when you really got down to it, they [some of his friends] weren't accepted as couples and that really ate away at me. This was a long time coming - as we made meaningful connections with people here, I couldn't sit in the seat at church knowing that the couldn't get married there. I just felt like it was a betrayal of my friends and what I believed. And so I didn't go back."

"I'm just not ready to enter back into a specific system of belief even if it's different and the practical applications of that belief system are exactly in line with how I want to live my life. Maybe I'm still just too close or have been in it so long that I need more distance from it."

"...it's easiest for me to believe that when you die -- it's just like Dana Carvey said, my Wayne's World doppelganger -- that "when you die, it's just like the experience you had before you were born, do you remember that?" So I'm like, yeah, that's actually comforting and I find it easy to believe that for some reason, I'm not compelled to believe it, but it's just an easy place for my mind to rest."

"...everybody believes whatever they want to believe, like, your innermost desires, it could be something primal like survival and security, there are so many different things - but we have a way of finding what works for us and I think that's instinctive. To put it bluntly, you believe what you want to believe, you know, I find it easy to believe that. I find it easy to believe that because so many people have had so many earth shattering experiences that are in complete contradiction, that probably means that God's not personal." 

"I want to do the work to stay open and not dogmatic - and I know that it will take work, it takes an investment of time and priority to not just sit back and go with the flow. I'm not looking for the next thing to latch onto and believe and start to follow, but being open to how God may exist and may want to connect with me. The main thing is, I don't want to judge, I don't want to condemn - I want to be as loving as I can. [...] I do feel like over the past few years my capacity to love has grown - my capacity to love myself and others has expanded a lot more over the past few years. I take that as a good sign. I just don't think that if God exists, I just can't believe that me being open and sincere and as loving as possible and as honest as possible is disqualifying me from receiving God's love. I can't accept that."

These, my friends, are the comments of an James 1:6 man: "...because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do."

Reading between the lines of some of these comments, which echo some of the comments that Rhett makes in his testimony - I get a sense that "the God of open options" is that one that Rhett and Link have built for themselves. It looks different for each of them, and how they got there was different, but ultimately, the God of the Bible doesn't align with their own views on certain things and because they are unwilling to accept that, they had to create their own God, or abandon him altogether. There was actually an article on TGC about this not too long ago.

Anyway, that's enough from me on this. I find these types of discussions interesting because they get at the heart of mankind. John Calvin once said, "The mind is...a perpetual forge of idols". Jeremiah 17:9-10 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his way, according to the fruit of his deeds."
We all have our experiences, yes, but at the end of the day, there is actual, real truth. The question we must ask ourselves is, "Do I trust Him?" That question lies at the intersection of faith and knowledge. Again, hearkening back to the C.S. Lewis kids book series, Susan (Lucy's older sister) is asking one of her new friends in Narnia about Aslan, the great lion who rules over Narnia and she asks, "Is he quite safe?" And her friend responds, "Safe? Who said anything about safe? Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king, I tell you."

...To The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel

How many times have you read or heard Matthew 15:24?

"He answered them, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel."

A companion verse is in Luke's gospel, a little less specific, but similar in tone, "For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost." (Luke 19:10) In this instance, Jesus is speaking to Zacchaeus, and it is important to note that Zacchaeus was a Jewish tax-collector, Jesus refers to him as a 'descendant of Abraham'.

The question begs itself, what does Jesus mean by "only to the lost sheep of The House of Israel?" I think the answer to this question lies at the very heart of God and demands Gentile believers consider and come to terms with some very difficult truths. These truths have been distorted over the past 2,000 years and the consequences are subtle, yet potentially profound.

The simple fact that no one, Jew or Gentile, would disagree with, is that Jesus himself was Jewish. He was born to Jewish parents, he was a descendant of the House of David, he was circumcised on the 8th day (Luke 2:21) according to Jewish law and tradition (Leviticus 12:3), and he was brought up and raised in the Jewish custom. He went through years of training and school to become a Jewish Rabbi, who were considered the foremost experts in writings of the Law and the Prophets (what we call "the Old Testament") and who were given the responsibility to teach the People of Israel. This would have, most likely, included memorizing the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, along with other writings. There's no getting around it - Jesus was a Jew in every possible way, and not only that, He had been steeped in the entire history and heritage of the Jewish people. He spent the vast predominance of his time speaking to the people of Israel and to their teachers and leaders. Furthermore, all of Jesus' Apostles were Jewish and all of the New Testament writers are Jewish. Paul, in particular, was a Pharisee ("Pharisee of Pharisees" Philippians 3:5) before his encounter with Jesus which meant that he was also an expert in the Law and the Prophets. Before coming to terms with who Jesus was, he was literally killing followers of Jesus because of the claims that they were making about Jesus (namely, that he was the Messiah) - that's how much of a Pharisee he was... Put simply - the ENTIRE Bible is steeped in Jewish culture and thought.

So the questions we must wrestle with are - does the fact that Jesus was Jewish (of the House of Israel) matter? What does removing the Jewishness of Jesus do to our understanding of who he was and what he was doing? Perhaps even, "if we don't acknowledge Jesus' Jewishness, and seek an understanding of the culture He himself was speaking to, is it even possible to rightly understand who He was and what He was about?"

I have few answers, but many questions.

I cannot take credit for this insight, but one thing I have come to realize recently is, you either view the Bible as having continuity between the Old and New Testaments, or you view Jesus as having done something different, or started something new, in the New Testament (discontinuity). Another way of saying it would be - either you view Jesus as further revelation of who God is, providing a perfect sacrifice and then pointing us to His return or you view Jesus (or Paul) as having started something new, changing God's plan part-way through the story.

This leads us to a brief but important discussion on something called 'supersessionism' (also called "replacement theology"). It's a seminarian term that simply refers to this idea, which is running rampant in the church today, which suggests that Jesus ushered in a 'new covenant' which supersedes the 'old covenant' which was made directly and exclusively to the Jewish people. Supersessionism is the ideology of those that claim that The Church is "the new Israel" or that the Israel of the Old Testament has been replaced by The Church. Proponents of this view will point to Jeremiah 31:31-32 and Hebrews 8:8-9 (which quotes the Jeremiah 31 passage):

"The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt - a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord." (Jeremiah 31:31-32)

"For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: "The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord."" (Hebrews 8:7-9)

Jesus also speaks of the 'new covenant', when he is eating the Passover meal with his disciples. He says, "In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant of My blood, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."" (Matthew 26:28) So, Jesus certainly has something to do with the New Covenant, but when you read the totality of Jeremiah 31, an image of Jesus being the fulfillment of this prophecy in his first coming, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The overall tone and spirit of Jeremiah 31 is that of complete liberation and salvation - much more of a Heavenly motif and feel than an Earthly one. I would like to suggest (and again, this is not my insight but something I have learned from others) that what Jeremiah is referring to is chapter 31 is actually talking about the second coming of the Messiah. Read it for yourself with that lens and tell me that doesn't make more sense. To me, it is an image of God regathering His people to himself and the 'new covenant' he talks about is that of perfect union or marriage. He says, "...no longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another "Know the Lord," because they will all know me..." Not only that, but Jesus himself says that the New Covenant is in His blood, but is unto the forgiveness of sins. We are told to, as believers, to ask for forgiveness continually, in this life, but ultimately, we are looking to that Day when we stand before him and our sins are not counted against us, making us worthy to inherit Eternal Life.

What Jesus is doing here (Matt. 26) is revising the sacrificial system, not doing away with the Old Covenant. In ancient times, the Israelites had a system, established by God through Moses for how they could be forgiven of unintentional sin. Depending on who they were - if they sinned and became aware of it, they were to bring an animal to the temple, with the help of the priest they placed that sin upon the head of the animal which was then slaughtered; the blood was sprinkled around the alter and the animal was sacrificed.

Jesus is saying there is now a new way - as Hebrews says, "a new and perfect Sacrifice" - a single Sacrifice that covers all Sin, for all time. He is saying to his disciples, "I will bear your sin, I am the offering to the Lord on your behalf and placing your trust in my sacrifice is how you will be able to stand before me on That Day and not have your sins accounted to you." As Jeremiah says, it is not like the other covenants that God has made, where there was some onus on the people of Israel to hold up their end...no, this Covenant is unilateral. "If you trust in Jesus and in his Sacrifice for you on the Cross, that is the means by which you can stand blameless before him when He returns." Jesus did all the work - our side of the deal is to trust that God accepts Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf. To bring it all the way back around - those who put their trust in Jesus' blood

Are you starting to see what I'm saying when I talk about how critical it is to know the Jewish history and tradition within the Bible in order to accurately and rightly understand what Jesus and his Apostles are saying/doing?

Speaking personally now, I have struggled and wrestled with this a lot over the past several months - currently, I feel I have a strong grasp on the fact that our faith is a Jewish faith, but I'm wrestling with what to do with that, not in a political way, but as a Gentile disciple. It is difficult to wrap our minds around the fact that God would choose to be identified by an ethnicity, of this there is no doubt. But it's true - He is the (self-identified) 'God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob' - he is the 'God of Israel'. He chose Abraham and through that line, came Jesus and out of that comes the offer of salvation to the whole world...but it is still a Jewish faith. The Jewishness of it is the background of the story that we need in order to fully/accurately understand what Jesus, Paul and the other Apostles are talking about. In other words, the 'Jewishness' of the gospel in inextricable - to extricate it is, quite possibly, to have a different gospel than the one Jesus was preaching because it ignores the context and expectation around it.

Some Thoughts on Salvation

One of the most difficult things I've had to wrestle with in learning this full gospel framework, the framework I've alluded to in past posts, is the issue of Salvation. Salvation, and more accurately, the issue of "assurance" has been a life-long question of mine. For some reason, the "once saved, always saved" just never sat well with me, but having said that, I've always longed for some kind of assurance that when Jesus returns, to judge the living and the dead (2 Timothy 4:1, among other places), that I will be counted among the Righteous and that the Lord will turn to me and say, "well done good and faithful servant."

In many regards, there is not a more important moment in the life of a soul - the Bible is clear that the culmination of every life lived will be the same, that we will all stand and give an account of our lives and Jesus, the Righteous Judge will either usher a soul into Eternity with him, or usher a soul away from him to the lake of fire. There is no 3rd option and, either way, your soul exists forever. When considered, the prospect of the whole thing is enough to provoke our spirit.

Nowhere in the Bible will you find justification for "once saved, always saved" and I will argue that what you find is exactly the opposite - that God clearly says that someone who is 'righteous' can lose their salvation. Before I get too far in; what I mean by "once saved, always saved" is the sentiment implied in the 'sinners prayer' - specifically, "all you have to do is "declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, [and] you will be saved."" (Romans 10:9, emphasis my own) - the Gentile church has turned this into a prayer, or a justification for a prayer that will allegedly lead to salvation; the verse is often coupled with John 10:28 (see below). Jesus talks about the 'narrow road' or 'path' (Matthew 7), Paul talks about the 'race' (1 Corinthians 9) - whether talking about a road or a race, you're talking about a journey, not a singular event. Interpreting passages that appear to make it seem like the Bible is saying "once saved, always saved" deserve a second look.

Romans 10-9-10
"If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and  it is with your mouth you profess faith and are saved." (Emphasis added, and I would insert into Paul's initial statement, the words "on that day" - so it would read, if you declare with your mouth on that Day, and believe in your heart on that Day that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.)

This is a favorite verse to quote by those who say, "once saved, always saved." The thing to note, however, is the tense and the context. In this passage, Paul is talking about living out a life of faith, but not putting any confidence in works. Also, in these specific verses, he seems to be talking about a point in the future, when we are standing before Jesus at the judgement (i.e. 'will be')

If you disagree, I would direct you, again, to the Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 7:21-22: "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in Heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out many demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness." Also, towards the end of chapter 7, Jesus talks about the two men, the one who builds his house on the rock and the one who builds his house on the sand - the one who builds his house on the rock (i.e. the one who will be saved) is the one who "hears these words of mine AND puts them into practice". I believe Matthew 7 clearly indicates that there are those who will think they are saved on the Day that Jesus returns, but who have been deceived. And these are well meaning people! Francis Chan captures this better than I can in a video on this subject. Check it out.

Ephesians 2:8-9
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast." What is Paul saying here? First, he is saying that we are saved BY GRACE, not by faith - THROUGH faith, yes, but not BY faith. He marries faith and works together, just as James does later on in his Epistle when he says, "But someone will say, "You have faith and I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds." (James 2:18) Faith in something is shown by living it out. Are you saved by living out that faith perfectly? No, no man can save himself by what he does or does not do. This was the fundamental error of the Pharisee - God gave the law through Moses, and then the people of Israel missed the point. They thought that righteousness could be achieved by outward law-keeping, which is something Jesus addresses directly:

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin, but you have disregarded the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are filthy, full of greed and self-indulgence." (Matthew 23:23-25)

Jesus addresses this in the sermon on the mount as well - the passages about anger ("whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement"), lust ("whoever looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart") and the parts about gouging your eye out and cutting your hand off - these are all clarifications of the law - getting to the HEART of the matter, which is what the law was intended for. It was intended to cause Israelites to see their inability to save themselves and then cast themselves upon God's mercy. In other words, clean the INSIDE of the cup first, and then the OUTSIDE action will follow.
But back to the point - can someone save themselves through works? No, but faith implies endurance - it necessarily means that there will be something in a person's life to indicate what it is they are putting their hope and trust in. Is that thing Jesus? Or is that thing you? Or your money? Or your status? What someone does, how they live their life, tells you what they are putting their faith in. So faith is the indicator, or as James might say, "the evidence". Faith isn't the thing that saves us, but it is the thing that reveals what the state of our heart is.

John 10:27-29
"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of My Father's Hand."

In this particular passage, Jesus is speaking to a group of Jews, gathered at the Feast of Dedication. At this point, he was well-known and had already performed many signs and wonders and this passage is an answer he is giving to the question, "How long will you (Jesus) keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly." The real question, underlying the question they are asking is, "are you going to bring your kingdom now; are you going to sit on your throne now?" This is important to point out because in Jesus' response to them, he pivots, in the middle of his thought, to talking about the Day of the Lord. He says that his sheep hear his voice and follow him - he then makes the accurate claim that he will be the judge - "[on that day] I give them eternal life" - after that point, there will be no need for God to change anything, those chosen ones are His forever.


What about Ezekiel 18?
One thing that any serious believer will agree to is that the Word of God cannot contradict itself. So, I would ask of those who advocate for a 'once saved, always saved' point-of-view, "what about Ezekiel 18?

"The word of the Lord came to me: "What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: "The parents eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge"? "As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For everyone belongs to me, the parent as well as the child - both alike belong to me. The one who sins will die." (Ezekiel 18-1-4) ... "But if a wicked person turns away from all of the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die." (Ezekiel 18:21-22) ... "But if a righteous person turns from their righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked person does, will they live? None of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness they are guilty of and because of the sins they have committed, they will die" (Ezekiel 18:24) ... "Therefore, you Israelites, I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!" (Ezekiel 18:30-32)

These are the words of God himself in these passages - would God suddenly change his mind on this later on without making it clear that he is changing how he views sin?

Also, in 1 Corinthians 15:2, Paul says, "By this gospel you are saved, IF YOU HOLD FIRMLY to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain." Why would Paul add this condition unless it were true? And then there is a stern warning at the end, "otherwise you have believed in vain." He is talking to believers and saying, if you don't hold firmly to the Word, if you do not follow what is says and live it out in Faith, you might as well have not believed - it is meaningless for you if you fall away.

What about Assurance?
I want to be clear, I'm not saying we cannot have assurance. I think we can - through the work of the Holy Spirit and through our the evidence of obedience in our lives. Will we be perfect in that effort? No. But when we sin, when we fall short, what are we doing? We cast ourselves, once again, on God's mercy and we repent of that sin, turn to God and continue walking with him. We cannot do this on our own, that is why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit - the Holy Spirit's work is to confirm the Gospel and to empower us to lay down our lives daily, take up our cross, and follow Him. Jesus commanded us to "take up [our] cross DAILY and follow me" (Luke 9:23). When Paul talks about running 'the race' he talks about enduring to the end. Friends, if we truly believe, a) we will want to keep going and b) we will not be worrying about whether we are saved or not.

Wrong Question
My thoughts presented here are the way that I look at things now, and this isn't a hill I will die on (alternatively read, not a salvific issue), but to me, the question "Am I saved?" is probably the wrong question to ask. The question we should be asking ourselves is a little more complex and would go something like, "Is my life emulating that of Jesus in increasing ways and is there evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit in my life on an on-going basis?" If the answer to these questions is 'yes', then I believe you can walk with assurance that if you died right now or Jesus came right now, you would be able to confidently stand before Him and that His blood would cover your sins and no charge would stand again you. Our job, as believers is to listen to the words of Jesus and put them into practice (exercise faith), relying on the power of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus has sent us, to resist temptation, live an upright life before Him, and 'make disciples of all Nations". That is the 'narrow path' that Jesus talks about in Matthew 7 and if we stay on that path with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can live with confidence that when we stand before him on the Day of Judgement, Jesus will have mercy on us and say, "well done good and faithful servant!"

Other people are much better at explaining things that I am, and they have far more credentials and years of study that I do. If you'd like to hear more about this - listen to this, it's a message given by David Pawson (about 50 minutes) and towards the end, he talks about these issues directly. Overall, the message is very good, give it a listen! https://www.davidpawson.org/resources/resource/1455