Good Quote

"There is no such thing as a great man of God - only weak, pitiful, faithless men of a great and merciful God." - Paul Washer

I had heard lately that Paul Washer was ill, hopefully he is on the mend - I came across this quote of his recently. Its easy to look at Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Joseph, Job, etc and to hold them up as examples of great 'men of God'. Most of these are mentioned in Hebrews 11, a passage commonly referred to as the "heroes of the faith". But the reality is, there are no great men of God - Noah wasn't blameless (see Genesis 9), Abraham twice lied about his wife being his sister, among other things. Moses killed a man in anger. David killed a man out of envy and then stole his wife. These men walked out their faith, and that is high praise enough...they weren't perfect. Thanks to the merciful, loving, gracious and forgiving God we serve, we are offered forgiveness for our sins and for our lack of faithfulness, despite His perfect faithfulness towards us. He is the one who deserve the praise and glory.

A Chasing After the Wind

A few months ago, after a months long self-imposed Twitter ban, I re-joined Twitter. This time, I was very particular about who I followed. Previously, I had gotten sucked into the equivalent of yelling at a wall...never-ending political and social/culture disagreements that resemble shouting into the void. In the end, that wasn't healthy and after taking a break, I knew that I didn't want to get back into that. I decided to follow mostly theologically-related people. I'm a MN Sports fan too so there is some of that, but most of the people I follow are somehow related to Christianity or the Church. Even this, however, has its pitfalls and today was illustrative of that.

It was an argument between two evangelicals about Rights, ostensibly American rights. The first one said something like, "Christianity should sound a lot less like "How can I protect my rights" and a lot more like, "How can I protect my neighbor?" The second one responded in disagreement saying something like, "Protecting my rights is the same as protecting my neighbors rights, that's why Jesus said 'love your neighbor as yourself'." The argument wasn't hostile, just a typical disagreement you see on Twitter hundreds of times every day. But it got me thinking...these people are both missing the point...and perhaps most of the intra-Christian arguments these days are missing the point.

Interesting Quote

I was sent an article last week entitled, "Why sexual morality may be far more important than you ever thought" on the Kirk Durston blog. In the article, he is discussing the results of a lengthy and very detailed study conducted by J.D. Unwin back in the 1930s surrounding the effects of sexual revolution on societies throughout history. He studied 86 of them in total and teased out many interesting correlations - if you want to read them, please go and read the above linked article, which is a good short summary of Unwin's 600-page book. The blog author also mentioned another researcher, Mary Eberstadt, and I found his comment on her work to be the most interesting thing in the article. He summarizes,

"The old adage, "correlation does not entail causation", probably holds true here as well. Unwin makes it clear that he does not know why sexual freedom directly leads to the decline and collapse of cultures, although he suggests that when sexual energy is restrained through celibacy or monogamy, it is diverted into more productive social energy. Perhaps, but I find that difficult to accept as a primary cause. Mary Eberstadt's recent research into mass killings, the substantial rise in mental health issues including depression, and the explosion of identity politics is a "primal scream" due to the loss of identity that was once provided by growing up in a long-term, immediate family with siblings and a sizable group of cousins, aunts and uncles, all of which provided identity - essential for well-being. Eberstadt shows and documents from various studies that this decimation of the family was a direct consequence of the sexual revolution at the end of the 20th century. Her research indicates that increased sexual freedom led to the decimation of the family, which resulted in the loss of family identity, which produces Eberstadt's 'primal screams' - a massive increase in mental health issues, mass killings, and the rise of extreme identity groups at war with each other...all symptoms of a society rapidly spiraling into collapse. This appears to have greater explanatory power that Unwin's psychological suggestion, although the two may actually be closely related, given what Eberstadt shows."

The 'primal scream' argument is what caught by eye - as well as the general argument that unrestrained sexual freedom is, or could be, a primary source for cultural decline. I'll have to think more about this or perhaps read Eberstadt's books. At first glance, I see the connection she is trying to make, though it may be a stretch to directly connect the rise in mass killings to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Generally speaking, the fabric of our culture seems to be unraveling and that has perhaps created the conditions where these incidents would become more commonplace. Lots to think about...

Wrestling

Bear with me as I think out loud...

Just as the sacrifices of the Old Testament were only efficacious for the people if the Lord God recognized them as being so (in other words, someone offering a sacrifice did not obligate God to forgive them), so Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross is only efficacious because God recognizes it as efficacious. Because Jesus willingly laid down his life – God granted him the position as judge. Any person that Jesus judges as worthy of the Kingdom, God will recognize Jesus’ sacrifice as efficacious for that person, not holding that person’s sin against them. If Jesus does not recognize them, then they stand on their own, with an accusation against them and no defense (Matthew 7:21-23). I guess the realization here, for me, is that Jesus didn’t die for sins per se – he sacrificed/laid down his own life in faith that God would recognize his sacrifice as covering over sin for others. This is exactly how the sacrificial system worked – there wasn’t anything about the animal dying that made any difference to anybody for anything; it was the fact that God accounted the sacrifice as atonement. The sacrifice was representative of the obedience, humility and repentance of the one offering it. This is what David is getting at in Psalm 51, “You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.” Maybe the difference here is too nuanced to be meaningful…difference without distinction in other words, I’m not sure.

A Modest Proposal

At one time or another, all of us believers have heard (or said) something along the lines of “I can’t wait to go to Heaven” or “I’m looking forward to going to Heaven”, or something close to that. Even if unintended, what is implicit in that statement is the idea that our future residence is somewhere else, perhaps even some non-Earth place. But what does Scripture teach and is this a Biblical idea? I would suggest that it is not. That isn’t to say that there isn’t some place that deceased souls go as all of Creation waits for the return of Jesus and the ushering in of God’s Kingdom; I don’t have time to address that here…rather, I want to talk about where this all ends up, the culmination of history. In the end, I want to suggest that instead of saying one of the phrases above, we say, “I can’t wait to live in God’s Kingdom”, or “I can wait until the Kingdom is here”.

Nothing against the guy, but Plato is the reason that many (some? not sure how prevalent it is) modern Christians have a spiritualized view of Heaven (referred to as Platonic thought/philosophy). Plato heavily influenced Origen, who heavily influenced the fathers of modern theology. The spiritualized view, however, was not the view of ancient Hebrews or 1st Century Jewish believers. What we see in Isaiah 65:17 or Revelation 21 is the idea of a RE-newed Creation…it is the idea that God cleanses the Earth from sin and RESTORES the Earth from the Curse that he placed on it in Genesis 3. Our modern translations make it sound as if Scripture is talking about the total obliteration of the current heavens and earth, but based on Old Testament eschatological expectations, it simply cannot be that the New Testament writers had this in mind.

The Good Samaritan and Abortion

I was considering the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ this morning and I think it has something to say about the issue of Abortion. I don’t believe its too much of a stretch either, in suggesting this.

The Parable is about Ritual Purity
I’ve recently been reading Matthew Thiessen’s book ‘Jesus and the Forces of Death’, a book that talks about Jesus’ interactions with the ritual purity system in the Gospels. In one of the chapters, he addresses this parable and makes the argument that Jesus, in this parable, is speaking about the hierarchy of good and relates that back to the ritual purity system. The question asked of Jesus, in the presence of the Scribes and Pharisees is “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29) Jesus proceeds with telling a parable we are all familiar with — a man is beaten and robbed and left for dead (left ‘half-dead’, or between death and life, in the literal translation). A Priest and Levite pass by him and leave him, while a Samaritan stops, helps the man onto his own donkey, brings the man to a place of safety and pays for his expenses. Thiessen argues that the reason the Priest and Levite pass by the wounded man is because of the purity laws about touching a corpse. Presumably the wounded man was unconscious. We would not say that someone who has a bad cut or who simply has a bruise on his head is “between life and death”. The Priest and Levite, not wanting to risk ‘corpse impurity’ — a condition requiring 7 days away from the Temple and a couple of other ritual cleansing responsibilities — pass by the man.

If you want Thiessen’s whole argument, read his book, but he goes on to say that Jesus here is addressing a situation in which one good surpasses the importance of another. In other words, there is nothing wrong with observance of the Law (in this case, from Numbers 19), except in cases where observing one Law means the neglect of a greater Law. As it relates directly to the parable, Jesus is saying that if one is presented with preserving Life or avoiding corpse impurity, preserving Life is the more important Law to keep. In addressing it this way, he is ultimately addressing the question of ‘who is my neighbor’ by saying, in a nutshell, anyone who is in need, regardless of the circumstances (Love your neighbor as yourself).

A Self-Reminder

I had a vacation last week with some significant time to reflect and the one thing I have been reminded of is that when The End draws near, it will be God Himself shaking the world.

"As he [Jesus] was sitting on the Mount of Olives, his disciples came to him privately and said, "Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" Jesus answered them, "Watch out, that no one misleads you. For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will mislead many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. Make sure that you are not alarmed, for this must happen, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise up in arms against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these things are the beginning of birth pains. "Then they will hand you over to be persecuted and will kill you. You will be hated by all the nations because of my name. Then many will be led into sin, and they will betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will appear and deceive many, and because lawlessness will increase so much, the love of many will grow cold. But the person who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole inhabited earth as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come." Matthew 24:3-14

Is this the 'end times'? Honestly, who knows. I see some Christian talking heads discussing it and saying "this is it", but they don't know any more than you or I know. The End is coming, I know that much, whether these are signs of it or not. What stood out to me when reading and thinking about this passage again was the sentence "Make sure that you are not alarmed". God is the one who is shaking things up, and not because He is some kind of sadist, but because He wants us to reach for him. He is the one who is going to bring about the return of the Kingdom...because its on his time, He must be the one who brings it about. In His great mercy, He has told us that before its too late, he is going to give us one good last shake...