tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9007000701807556282024-03-14T02:30:18.759-05:00Considered OpinionComments on a variety of subjects relating principally to writing, culture, theology and biblical interpretation, by author, editor and educator Richard C. Leonard, Ph.D.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger91125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-25634647866382835062024-02-01T10:46:00.000-06:002024-02-01T10:46:32.541-06:00Literal and Figurative Expressions in the Bible<div align="justify"><br />
Should we take every expression in the Bible literally? Interpreters have always recognized that some expressions in Scripture are not intended to be taken literally, since the obvious meaning is a figurative one. For example, when the Book of Isaiah states that “the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear” (59:1), interpreters acknowledge this as a figurative expression that doesn’t imply that God has a literal arm or ear. And obviously, when Genesis portrays people as being made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26) this doesn’t mean that people are visually modeled after the deity, but rather that their human functioning is in some sense patterned after the way God functions, exercising dominion over the earth.
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Portions of the Bible that are poetic (e.g., the Psalms or writings of the prophets) or in dramatic form (e.g., the Revelation to John) may not be candidates for a literal interpretation. The astute interpreter makes a judgment about what type of literature is in question before deciding what can be taken literally and what is symbolic, analogical, or figurative.
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Nevertheless, there are some expressions in the Bible where what seems to be a figurative expression — and is usually taken as such — may indeed have a literal referent. When such expressions are taken literally, a new insight into the meaning of he passage may emerge. Here I am exploring two such expressions, one from the Hebrew Scriptures and one from the Gospels.
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First, a believer may speak of being nurtured by the Lord “beneath the shelter of his wings.” The meaning is that the believer senses the protection and blessing of the Lord in the course of his life, as in the promise of Psalm 91:4, “He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.” In using this expression we would not visualize God as some gigantic fowl with literal wings.
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Nevertheless, in Psalm 61:4 the worshiper prays, “Let me dwell in your tent forever! Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings!” Here, the “wings” of the Lord are located in a specific place, the “tent” or tabernacle where the presence of the Lord is most intensely manifested. The reference is clearly to the ark of the covenant, which was set in the most holy place of the tabernacle of the wilderness, later in the Temple of Solomon. The “wings” are the literal wings of the cherubim, the guardian figures of hammered gold which faced one another above the ark as in Exodus 37:9, “The cherubim spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat were the faces of the cherubim.” While it is said that the high priest alone would enter the Holy of Holies annually on the Day of Atonement, there is evidence that at times the ark was removed and returned in procession to the sanctuary (e.g., Psalm 24), so other worshipers would be familiar with its appearance.
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Recognizing the literal implication of the phrase “beneath the shelter of his wings” adds an important nuance to this expression. It’s not enough for the believer to have some sort of personal, but nebulous, assurance of enjoying the presence and protection of the Lord. Rather, this sense of presence is specifically connected to the place of worship, where the Lord’s devotees have gathered to offer “a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name” (Hebrews 13:15). Participation in the worshiping community is, or should be, the venue in which an individual believer experiences “the shelter of his wings.”
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Turning to the New Testament, we find another expression that is always taken figuratively, but which has a literal geographic referent that most interpreters ignore. In Mark 11:23, Jesus tells his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.” Obviously this “faith to remove mountains” (1 Corinthians 13:2) doesn’t refer to the use of supernatural earth-moving equipment, but to the ability of our faith to challenge difficult conditions encountered in Christian life and witness.
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Nevertheless, there is a specific historical nuance to this statement by Jesus. When he states, “whoever says to <i>this mountain</i>,” to what mountain does he refer? The scene is Jerusalem, and the largest mountain in view is the Mount of Olives to the east of the city. But there is another mountain close by, not as prominent topographically but vastly more important theologically: the elevation we know as Mount Zion or, in context, the Temple mount that adjoined it.
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A well-known passage in Isaiah (2:3, echoed in Micah 4:2) declares that “many peoples shall come, and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” It was the Lord’s intention that the worship of Israel should be the vehicle through which his righteous purposes would be extended from “his mountain” to all the world’s peoples. But, as is clear from the Gospel record, Jesus was acutely concerned that this hadn’t happened. Through his proclamation of the kingdom of God he sought to remind his Jewish contemporaries of God’s interest in reaching other nations, the “Gentiles,” as well. In cleansing the Temple of the activities that were blocking Gentile access (the vendors’ booths were crowding the Temple’s outer enclosure, the Court of the Gentiles), he reminded his listeners that the sanctuary in Zion was to be “a house of prayer for all the nations” (Matthew 11:17, quoting Isaiah 56:7).
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In the Scriptures, especially the writings of Isaiah, the sea can stand for the Gentiles, the nations of the world (e.g., Isaiah 60:5, “the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you”). When Jesus speaks of the “mountain” being “thrown into the sea,” we can note a specific reference to extending the worship of the one righteous God to all nations, displacing their immoral polytheism. This was to be accomplished through the faithful witness of his followers, who carried the message of kingdom of God beyond its Jewish environment into the wider Mediterranean world and beyond.
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So, while figuratively dwelling “beneath the shelter of his wings” and exercising “mountain-moving faith” are expressions describing the believer’s ideal life as a follower of Jesus, they have literal implications as well. Acknowledging the specific architectural and geographic references underlying these expressions can yield additional interpretive insights.
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-18226381879450148512023-12-25T18:03:00.000-06:002023-12-25T18:03:07.442-06:00What “World” Did “God So Love?”<div align="justify"><br />
Perhaps the best-known passage of Scripture is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Usually this is taken to mean that God loves all people in the world and wants them to come to him and live forever in heaven. Of course, we know that God does not love sin, which is a violation of his plan for human life. So to the extent that human cultures practice and advocate conduct or doctrine that (based on the witness of Scripture) is clearly repugnant to him and therefore sinful, God does not love that culture. Indeed, he wants to free people from enslavement to sinful cultural values, and that is what repentance (<i>metanoia</i>, “change of mind”) in the New Testament is all about.
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So, when John (or Jesus, depending on how you punctuate the originally unpunctuated manuscripts) says that “God so loved the world,” we understand this doesn’t mean that God loved a sinful world culture. But does it mean, instead, that he loved all <i>people</i> in the sinful world, as is usually taught? To approach this, we need to define some terms. What does “love” mean, in the Bible? What does “world” mean in the Gospel of John?
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Usually, in our culture, we associate “love” with a feeling of attraction toward someone (or something — like money). But the New Testament word for “love,” <I>agape</i>, has a radically different connotation. It is based on the concept of <i>chesed</i> in the Hebrew Scriptures. The word is variously translated in English versions as “lovingkindness,” “steadfast love,” or simply “love.”
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The Torah and the Prophets often speak of the Lord’s <i>chesed</i> toward his worshipers, and the way the term is used shows that it refers not to the Lord’s attraction to them but to his <i>loyalty or faithfulness</i> because he has entered into a partnership, or agreement, with them. This agreement is often termed the covenant, a treaty or contract in which the partners have a family bond and have mutual obligations. For example, the Psalmists sometimes appeal to the Lord for deliverance on the basis of his <i>chesed</i>, not because they deserve his help but because that is his fatherly responsibility in the covenant.
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So <i>chesed</i> is God’s covenant love, his faithfulness to the agreement he has made with his people — that is, his family. Obviously, if there is no covenant and no family bond, there is no application of the Lord’s “covenant love.” If the New Testament usage of <i>agape</i> “love” has its roots in this important biblical concept (as I am persuaded it does), then it’s not correct to state that God “loves” everyone. He loves those who have become his partners and entered into his family, and to whom he therefore has a gracious obligation.
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Then, what does it mean that “God so loved the world?” And here we have to look at what the term “world,” or <i>kosmos</i>, means in the Gospel of John. Today, when we speak of the “world,” we usually mean the globe of the earth. But certainly God doesn’t “love” the physical globe in the same sense that he would love his family members (although as Creator he surely has an attachment to what he has made). Ancient people knew the earth was a globe (Columbus didn’t invent the idea), but when they spoke of the “world” or <i>kosmos</i> they did not have the globe of the planet in mind. They were referring to the human culture of the globe’s inhabitants.
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But, in John’s Gospel, this term has a specific reference to the community of ancient Judaism. We know this because of the way Jesus uses the term in John 18:20, speaking to the high priest. Scripture often uses the method of parallelism, where an idea is stated in one phrase, then restated in different words in another phrase. This style is why the Bible often sounds like the Bible and like nothing else. And in John 18:20 Jesus states, “I have spoken openly to the world [<i>kosmos</i>]. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together.” By parallelism, Jesus is equating the “world” with the institutions of the Jewish community.
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When John 3:16 states that “God so loved the world,” the meaning is that God was faithful to the people he had chosen to serve him in his call to their father Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3). In spite of their lack of faithfulness to that mission to be a blessing to all peoples, God provided a way for his people to be reconstituted as “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16) through membership in the risen Jesus, and through living out in their witness the kingship of God — the “new-creation” life, the eternal life (<i>zoe aionion</i>, “life of the [new] aeon or age”). This was always God’s plan for people made in his own image, that through Jesus his chosen family, his covenant partners, might be “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
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When Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, they often say that Jesus was born so that through his death and resurrection we have a way to “go to heaven” when we die. But this is “another gospel” (Galatians 1:6-7), a serious truncation of New Testament teaching, because the “Israel” dimension is left out. Jesus announced the kingship of God, was crucified, and was raised as “both Lord and Messiah” (Acts 2:36) with specific reference to Israel. And through what he did the “Israel of God” was raised up as the renewed family of Abraham to fulfill that calling to bless all people, inviting them into Jesus’ new-creation life — a life available to people from “every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-50625610586064307602023-11-02T22:47:00.000-05:002023-11-02T22:47:20.816-05:00Our Creator, the Analyst<div align="justify"><br />
<i>In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. — Genesis 1:1-4</i>
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Our Creator is an Analyst.
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It wasn’t enough just to launch the “big bang,” when “what is seen was made out of things which do not appear” (Hebrews 11:3). In the beginning, after the primordial plasma, there was nothing but light. But light reveals nothing if there’s nothing else to reveal. So the Creator took a further step. He “separated the light from the darkness.” As the older translations say, he divided. That’s what an analyst does, for analysis is the process of differentiating things into their components. God continued his analysis until the created order began to take shape, no longer “without form and void.”
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In other words, God created information. As Gregory Bateson pointed out, information is “a difference that makes a difference.” There’s no information in sameness; information is the difference between one thing and another. That’s the principle of the digital computer. A “bit” is either on or off, and everything the computer does for us is based on the difference between what’s on and what’s off. God is the original Programmer-Analyst.
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In a day of post-modern skepticism about the possibility of knowing what’s true and what isn’t, the Christian thinker needs to emulate the Creator in his digital differentiation. As Harry Blamires wrote six decades ago, “The thinker hates indecision and confusion; he firmly distinguishes right from wrong, good from evil; he is at home in a world of clearly demarcated categories and proven conclusions; he is dogmatic and committed; he works toward decisive action.”
A Christian intellectual may well acknowledge nuances and “gray areas,” but works through them to a firm conclusion. He or she is like the men of the tribe of Issachar “who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32).
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In submission to the Creator, we pursue His analytical ways. We learn to differentiate and distinguish, in order to contribute to his purpose for human civilization. The English Old Testament begins with God’s differentiation of the created order. It closes, in Malachi 3:18, with an admonition to carry the process of analysis into the realm of human conduct: “Then once more you shall distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.”
<br /><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-32535735144900944442022-08-21T22:32:00.000-05:002022-08-21T22:32:21.672-05:00Did Jesus “Watch the News?”<div align="justify"><br />
For many people today, the network or Internet news has become so full of negativity that it engenders disquiet and depression to the point that some refuse to listen to it. There are even some Christian teachers who recommend that believers avoid watching the news because it discourages living the life of faith. Instead, they suggest, focus on reading the Scriptures and listen to Christian teaching, and don’t let the CNN (the “constantly negative news”) pull you down into defeatism and fear.
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While it’s clearly a believer’s responsibility to focus on the Word of God, it’s not a responsible attitude to ignore the news of the world and the nation. Christians need to be forewarned in order to be forearmed. Knowing what’s happening in politics and world affairs is important in understanding how to vote, and how best to prepare for the impact of current trends or the ill-considered policies of authorities who make unwise decisions that affect all members of the public.
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Pondering this issue, I asked myself whether Jesus “watched the news.” Obviously, the various broadcast or print media we know today were not available in first-century Galilee and Judea. What people knew of “the news” was what had been circulated by word of mouth, or perhaps announced in some local gathering. But while their immediate access to the news of events outside their local milieu was limited, they could be aware of general conditions that obtained in their region, and of events that had occurred within recent memory.
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The Gospel record reveals that Jesus knew of situations that were “newsworthy” in the cultural environment within which he functioned. He would have been aware, of course, because Jesus himself was a <i>news broadcaster</i> announcing the arrival of the kingdom of God. At the outset of his ministry he gave out the “late breaking news” that Israel’s God, seemingly silent for centuries, was back on the move. “The time is fulfilled,” he proclaimed, “and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent [change your thinking], and believe in the gospel [good news]” (Mark 1:15). For people in Jesus’ cultural environment, as for people today, the idea that the Creator God is implementing his plan for his human family is the most newsworthy, and perhaps most disquieting and ominous, developing story.
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Jesus understood how rulers functioned in the pagan environment of the Roman Empire. “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them,” he told his disciples. This, of course did not meet with Jesus’ approval. “It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave” (Matthew 20:26-27). The coming of God’s rule means that a new style of leadership and human interaction is to become the order of the day.
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So Jesus understood, and referred to, the ways rulers and nations typically acted in the first century, as they might act today. He knew that going to war requires careful planning and an accurate assessment of the assets available to both the attacker and the defender. “What king,” he asked, “going to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an embassy and asks terms of peace” (Luke 14:31-32). World conflicts in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries show the disastrous effects of ignoring this advice, but Jesus had “watched the news” and drawn a wiser conclusion. In the same vein, Jesus had observed that a nation weakened by internal conflict and division is in serious trouble. He posed this to his disciples: “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand” (Mark 3:23-24). As we watch the media today, we understand that Jesus was highlighting a serious problem for any nation, including our own.
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Jesus was well aware of the power and sway of imperial Rome, and how Caesar demanded allegiance, tax revenue, and even — for most people of the empire — worship. He knew how the faith of Israel adamantly condemned idolatry and rejected images, but he also knew that Jewish teachers who opposed him still possessed images of Caesar on coins they carried. When they tried to trip him with a question about whether paying taxes to Caesar was lawful for a committed Jew, he asked for a coin and was presented with one with Caesar’s image. He used that coin to expose their trickery, telling them to give Caesar his pittance but the give God what was really important — the loyalty of his covenant partners (Mark 12:15-17).
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Nor was Jesus unaware of the conduct of the local Galilean ruler, Herod Antipas. It had been Herod’s rash vow that had resulted in the execution of John the Baptist, and Jesus know about his cunning ways — perhaps by report of the wife of Herod’s steward Chusa, Joanna, who was a supporter of Jesus’ traveling ministry (Luke 8:3). When some Pharisees tried to get Jesus to leave their locality by warning him that Herod wanted him killed, he replied, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course’” (Luke 13:32). Jesus understood that the “teaching,” or manner of life, of neither the Pharisees nor the Galilean puppet ruler Herod were what God was looking for in the people of his kingdom; he warned his disciples not to let their “leaven” creep into their outlook and lifestyle (Mark 8:15; 16:11).
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Jesus knew the history of the region in which he circulated. In the well-known “parable of the talents” (Luke 19:12-27) he referred to a nobleman who “went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return,” but whose subjects “hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.’” When the nobleman returned to assume rulership, he had his enemies executed. This seems to be a reference to how the first Herod (“Herod the Great,” ruled 37-4 B.C.) was made king of Judea by the Roman Senate, and then executed many of his real or suspected opponents.
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More recent newsworthy events in Judea also came to Jesus’ attention. Consider this passage from Luke 13: “There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish’” (Luke 13:1-5). This was not a warning about people’s eternal destiny. Jesus was aware of long-term trends in his nation, including a growing appetite for rebellion against Judea’s Roman occupiers. He was warning his community of the fateful consequence of an uprising against the superior military power of Caesar, and urging them to repent (change their mind) about resorting to violence. His warning went unheeded, however, and many people lost their lives in the Jewish revolt of A.D. 66-70 that ended in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and its temple.
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Jesus, evaluating the temper of many Judeans (including the Pharisees), saw that difficult times were ahead if they persisted in the course that would lead to revolution. He counseled his followers about what stance they should take during the coming time of turmoil: “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains. But be on your guard. For they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them. And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations” (Mark 13:8-10).
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Jesus, prophetically, was “watching the news” ahead of time, like the news analysts of today who warn of the future consequences of things occurring in the present. Knowing the temper of the times, he advised his disciples to be “wise as serpents” even if they were to be, in their own conduct, “innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:13).
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And Jesus, himself, was <i>in the news</i>. Speaking later of the events of Jesus’ ministry and what eventuated from it, Paul reminded King Agrippa that he knew about it because “this has not been done in a corner” (Acts 26:26). The Gospels tell us that news about Jesus’ doings was being widely reported in Galilee and Judea. Mark records that when Jesus healed the daughter of Jairus, a synagogue official of Capernaum, “the report of this went through all that district” (Mark 9:26). And when he brought a dead man back to life, Luke tells us, “this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country” (Luke 7:17).
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When Jesus approached Jerusalem shortly before the Passover week that would take him to the cross, crowds of people went to meet him because they had heard about his raising Lazarus from the dead. The Pharisees, in consternation, said, “Look, the world [i.e., the Jewish community] has gone after him.” But the news about Jesus had gone beyond Judea and penetrated even the Greek-speaking Jewish Diaspora, for, as John tells us, some “Greeks” attending the feast asked Jesus’ disciple Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (John 12:17-21). When Jesus entered the city in procession many people already knew who he was and answered their questioners, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee” (Matthew 21:11).
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Did Jesus “watch” the news? He was aware of current, recent, and future events in his region. Not only that, but he was <i>in the news</i>, and a <i>broadcaster of the news</i> of the God’s return to his people — the news we call the gospel.
<br /><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-86032678946144453302021-06-30T00:00:00.000-05:002021-06-30T00:00:59.032-05:00Addressing the Decline in Church Participation<div align="justify"><br />
Decline in church participation is an almost universal phenomenon in the Western world, as churches find it more difficult to involve younger populations. Prosperous economies, coupled with government policies, have created a situation in which people feel less need for help from a “spiritual” or non-material source. Perhaps the most serious factor, however, is the disconnect between the world of the Bible and the world experienced by people in the twenty-first century, a world shaped by technology and by the philosophy of scientific materialism. In such a world, God is simply not on the “radar screen” of most young people.
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At the same time, demographics point to an expansion of the “senior” population in proportion to other segments. Factors responsible for this include a declining birth rate, and advances in medicine. The declining birth rate has resulted from the availability of abortion, postponement of child-bearing, and reduced fertility due to environmental factors such as widespread exposure to cell phone and other wireless radiation.
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Considering these factors, I am led to several conclusions. First, ministry style that is comfortable for older people does not have to mean a decline in church membership, since the percentage of older people in the community is on the increase. Tailoring the ministry style to appeal to younger people may have limited effectiveness, because that demographic group is decreasing in proportion to the whole population.
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Second, renewal of the church needs to begin with the people who are already taking part in church life, and not with people who are indifferent to Christian faith. (You cannot revive the faith of someone who has no faith to begin with.) The apostle Paul indicates that unbelievers entering the Christian assembly will become worshipers if they recognize that “God is surely among you” (see 1 Corinthians 14:23-25).
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This means that the first step in church renewal might be for members of existing congregations to become more spiritually sensitive and aware of the living presence of the Lord in their midst, and the effect of that living presence on the corporate life of their community. Historians of the New Testament church have concluded that the appeal of the gospel of Jesus was not so much the proclaimed message, as it was the corporate life of the body into which new believers were invited.
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As a family centered on the presence of the risen Jesus, believers were committed to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Each local church was a “beachhead” of God’s new creation, which had been inaugurated in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The churches’ witness was undertaken as a vanguard of the fuller appearance of the kingdom of God, which is at the heart of Jesus’ own proclamation of the gospel (Mark 1:14-15). A church that functions simply as a “religious club,” without embodying this new creation in a caring and sharing family, will have little to offer to new entrants.
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This does not mean, however, that the church is to become a dispenser of social services to the larger community. Of course churches need to obey the gospel imperative to help the less privileged, as a demonstration of God’s providential care for all (Matthew 5:42-45). But churches can hardly compete with tax-supported or other public agencies in providing services to those in need. It would be easy to get lost in such efforts and forget what makes the church the church. Paul wrote, “Do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10), and Jesus reminded his disciples, “You always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them; but you will not always have me” (Mark 14:7).
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Finally, churches need to consider what it is that makes them different from other organizations. Other organizations reach out to people in need and assist them, but <i>the church is the only organization that worships</i>. Proper attention to worship, as the offering to God of the praise that is his due, should be a priority. The ordering and content of the Sunday gathering for worship, or other worship occasions, cannot be left to chance. Worship should not be conducted in a casual or haphazard manner.
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Worship is the principal way in which the invisible God is made real to people — and the great need of people in Western culture is to come to the realization that God is real. Through worship, and the life of the body that flows from worship, it becomes apparent that God is not distant, but near, and that he has a plan and purpose for those made in his own image — Jesus being the full realization of that image (Colossians 1:15). The church’s witness to the resurrection of Jesus, epitomized in its worship and in its own internal quality of life, would be the most effective path for bringing to repentance (change of worldview or mindset) the person who exists “having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). In this way people can be enabled to work out their potential for successful living, under the guidance of the Word of God.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-24407603542827430902021-05-16T17:49:00.000-05:002021-05-16T17:49:01.193-05:00“Christian Sacred Cow” No. 5 — “We all have our cross to bear.”<div align="justify"><br />
We conclude our discussion of "sacred cows" — familiar things Christians sometimes say without thinking, but which on further examination don't really square with the teaching of the New Testament. In this final example, when people are experiencing difficulties in life we sometimes hear these problems described as a cross we have to bear. It could be a serious illness, or a difficult family member (such as an alcoholic spouse), or some other stressful condition. People think of Jesus’ suffering on the cross and try to compare their own situation to what Jesus was facing. But let’s take a closer look at this comparison and ask if this isn’t another one of these “sacred cows” we need to avoid.
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What was the cross of Jesus? In the ancient Roman world, crucifixion was the penalty for rebellion. A person the Roman authorities deemed guilty of defying their regime could be hung on a cross, in public view, and might linger for hours or days in painful humiliation before succumbing to a merciful death. (In fact when we speak of <i>excruciating</i> pain we’re comparing the pain to crucifixion.) Jesus was crucified as a rebel against Rome, actually for questioning the “sacred cows” of some leaders of first-century Judaism who got the Romans to do their dirty work for them.
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But it was through the cross of Jesus, and his resurrection, that God won the victory over sin and death and opened up the possibility of new life for those who unite with him. As Paul asks the Romans, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:3-5).
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I suggest that to call sickness, or family problems, or some other stressful condition a “cross” we have to bear is to <i>cheapen the cross</i>. Jesus spoke of “taking up our cross and following him” (Mark 8:34), but in the New Testament the cross means persecution. Unless we’re being persecuted for our faith we’re not “bearing a cross.” Paul (Philippians 3:10) and Peter (1 Peter 4:13) speak of sharing in the sufferings of Jesus. But didn’t Jesus suffer enough for all of us? As members of Jesus we enter into his suffering on the cross, and also his victory over sin and death in his resurrection. The stressful and difficult situations we face aren’t equivalent to the cross of Jesus.
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Sometimes our favorite songs contain “sacred cows” we need to question. “Take the name of Jesus with you, child of sorrow and of woe.” No, we’re not children of sorrow and woe; we’re children of our Father and we take the name of Jesus as our shield against the foe. Or we sing, “I will cling to the cross, the old rugged cross” – no, we don’t cling to the cross; <i>we cling to the risen Jesus</i> who has overcome the cross and opened our pathway into God’s new creation.
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In this study we’ve looked at five “sacred cows”: (1) “God is in control”; (2) “This world is not my home”; (3) “You never know what God will do”; (4) “I’m just an old sinner”; and (5) “We all have our cross to bear.” When I hear expressions like these I’m tempted to exclaim, “Holy Cow! — is that really true? Does that square with Scripture?” We need to be like the people Paul and Silas met in Berea who “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11).<br /><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-87474376955024649102020-06-19T19:11:00.001-05:002024-02-04T10:53:20.385-06:00“Christian Sacred Cow” No. 4 — “I’m just an old sinner, saved by grace.”<div align="justify"><br />
We continue our discussion of Christian “sacred cows” — ideas or sayings we accept without thinking just because they’ve been traditional. Like the sacred cows that roam unhindered in certain regions of India, we don’t question these statements because they sound pious, or holy, and are so widely accepted we never venture to examine them in the light of the full testimony of Scripture.
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One of these “sacred cows” is the statement one often hears, “I’m just an old sinner, saved by grace.” People think saying this makes them sound humble and religious, because it would be prideful to claim they’re not sinners. But does this idea stand up to the Berean test, a thorough scrutiny and deep understanding of the Scriptures? That was the test applied by the people the apostle Paul met in the ancient city of Berea (Acts 17:10-12) who were “examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
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It’s really easy to dispose of this “sacred cow,” once we remind ourselves that as believers we’re members of Jesus. “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body . . . ,” says Paul, “and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13). The “body,” of course, is the body of Christ, and we’re members of that body. The New Testament tells us that Jesus “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). As Paul states, “For our sake he made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). So <i>follow the logic here:</i> if you’re in Jesus, and Jesus isn’t a sinner, then you can’t be a sinner either.
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That doesn’t mean that, from time to time, we don’t commit sinful acts. Paul often has to remind his readers — whether in Corinth, or Ephesus, or wherever — to avoid sinful conduct of one sort or another. He warns the Corinthians, “Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). Christians can slip up once in a while; if that weren’t the case John wouldn’t have told his readers, “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).
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But just because we don’t always measure up to the standard of godly behavior doesn’t mean we’re supposed to brand ourselves as “just an old sinner.” We were sinners before we knew the Lord, but when we were “saved by grace” <i>we stopped being sinners and became “the righteousness of God”</i> in Messiah Jesus. What I do on a few occasions doesn’t mark my identity for my entire life. Sometimes I drive a car, but that doesn’t mean I’m always a motorist. Every week I go the store, but that doesn’t make me nothing but a Walmart customer. Three times a day I enjoy a meal, but I’m not just an eater all the time. So for me to say, “I’m just an old sinner, saved by grace,” is to feed another “sacred cow” I shouldn’t be feeding.<br /><br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-77200715051278676192020-04-13T09:59:00.001-05:002024-01-21T15:52:56.471-06:00"Christian Sacred Cow" No. 3 — “You never know what God will do.”<div align="justify"><br />
In heavily Hindu nations like India, milk holds a central place in religious rituals. In honor of their exalted status as milk producers, cows often roam free even in large cities. Authorities in several cities have tried to remove the cows, but usually they come back. Christians have their own “sacred cows” as well — things we just assume are true, and often say without asking whether they square with the Bible. As we continue our discussion of these Christian “sacred cows,” we turn to the often-heard statement, “You never know what God will do.”
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It sounds pious, or religious, to say we don’t know what God will do because we think that expresses our humility in the face of God’s sovereignty, his ability to do whatever he wants to do. In Isaiah 55 God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). And, of course, because “God’s space” is a dimension we can’t access through our normal senses, we recognize that there are many things about the Creator we’ll never fully understand. But that doesn’t mean we “never know what God will do” — because in many cases <i>he’s told us exactly what he will do.</i>
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There shouldn’t be any doubt that he will heal us — in fact, he <i>has</i> healed us — if by faith we take the healing he offers us in Jesus. There should be no doubt that God will bring justice to unjust situations, because as Psalm 103 declares, “The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed” (Psalm 103:6). There ought to be no question in our mind that God will hear our prayers, forgive our sin, and renew our living space according to his purpose — since he tells us, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
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The Lord has told us that if we obey his commandments he will make us “the head and not the tail” (Deuteronomy 28:13). So we have no uncertainty about whether God will reward a life of generosity with blessings in return; Paul says, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. . . . And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:7, 9). We could go on and on.
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And there’s the other side to that equation: foolish actions will bring unpleasant results because that’s the way God has set up the universe. Paul, in Romans 1, calls this “the wrath of God”; but God doesn’t actually have to do anything for the consequences of disobedient and foolish actions to have their effect. As Paul explains, all God has to do is to “give people up” who refuse to acknowledge him, and the effects of their poor choices will play out in their lives because that’s the way his universe works.
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So it’s not correct to suggest that God is unpredictable and we don’t know what he’s going to do. We do know, because he’s told us in his Word. God’s purposes aren’t hidden from us. Paul quotes Isaiah 40:13, “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” Then he adds, “But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). As members of Jesus we have insight into God’s purposes and intentions. So when people say “You never know what God will do,” that’s another “sacred cow” we can drive off, like the city authorities in India.
<br /><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-34033967102976976092020-01-23T10:35:00.001-06:002022-03-24T21:38:32.812-05:00"Christian Sacred Cow" No. 2 — "This world is not my home."<div align="justify"><br />
We continue our discussion of “Christian Sacred Cows,” things believers often say that have taken on the status of truisms but which lack a real biblical foundation. One of these declarations is “This world is not my home — heaven is my home, I’m only passing through.”
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Discussing this “sacred cow” is bound to raise some eyebrows because we hear it all the time, especially in a some of our songs including a lot of country “gospel” music. But we have to apply the principle of the Bereans, to “examine the Scriptures to see if these things are so.” Does Scripture really teach that “heaven is our home” and this earth is only a place we pass through on our way there? Let’s take a closer look.
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It may shock you to hear that “going to heaven when we die” is not the ultimate goal of the Christian life. The New Testament says little about what happens when we die. Indeed, Paul told the Philippians, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Philippians 1:23). But he doesn’t elaborate on exactly what that means, or give us a picture of what it looks like. Several passages in the New Testament tell us that Jesus is seated “at the right hand of God” (Romans 8:34), so we assume that means heaven because heaven is the dwelling place of God.
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But what is “heaven”? Obviously it’s not someplace that’s literally “up” above the surface of the earth, because the earth is a ball floating in space. So heaven could be “down” as well as “up.” It’s better to say that <i>heaven is “God’s space,”</i> as contrasted with our space. It’s not “up there” but it’s all around us in a dimension beyond the four dimensions we normally experience. Paul says, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). If we’re in Jesus, who has been raised from death, then we’ve already been raised and are already “seated with him in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6) — we already participate in God’s space.
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The aim of being “saved,” or delivered from the false values of the prevailing culture (see Galatians 1:4) through membership in Jesus, is not so we can “go to heaven when we die.” The aim of our membership in Jesus is to live the resurrection life now, as we anticipate the fulfillment of God’s ultimate plan for us.
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But what is that plan, as Jesus and the New Testament writers teach it? God’s plan is to merge “his space” with “our space” <i>in the new creation.</i> Often we quote Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, to say that when a person comes into Christ he becomes a “new creature.” But the Greek puts it a little differently: <i>ei tis en Christo, kaine ktisis</i> – “If anyone in the Messiah, a new creation.” There isn’t any “he is” in this sentence. What Paul is saying is that when a person becomes a member of Jesus, a new creation exists for him, a new way of life in which everything has changed. As members of the risen Jesus we experience a foretaste of our ultimate destiny in the new creation, which is described in the Bible’s final chapters.
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The picture many people have of heaven, with the “golden streets” and all that, is actually drawn from the Bible’s picture of the new creation in Revelation 21, the “new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:2). But if it’s coming from heaven then it’s not heaven but the renewed earth, which is to be like the earth God originally made, where God dwells with his people as our space merges with his space. So if we say, “Heaven is my home, I’m only passing through,” <i>we have it exactly backwards.</i> Earth is my home, and heaven is where I pass through on the way to my real home in the renewed earth. Heaven is a “holding pattern” until, with Jesus, we “come in for a landing” in our ultimate destination in God’s new creation, here on this earth. We don’t stay in heaven forever. “This world is not my home” is another “sacred cow” we need to put out to pasture.
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-80127881261728253492019-12-13T00:05:00.000-06:002019-12-13T00:05:15.374-06:00“Christian Sacred Cow” No. 1 — “God is in control.”<div align="justify"><br />
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines a “sacred cow” as “someone or something that has been accepted or respected for a long time and that people are afraid or unwilling to criticize or question.” However, as Christian believers we need to follow the example of the people the apostle Paul met in ancient Berea (Acts 17:10-12) who were “examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” Sometimes we just repeat certain “sacred cows” that sound religious or pious without asking whether they’re really true in the light of Scripture. This is the first of several Christian “sacred cows” we’ll be taking a closer look at.
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A favorite saying of Christians is that “God is in control.” When we say this, we usually mean that in spite of some kind of bad news, of whatever sort, God is working through it to achieve his purpose. It’s easy to extend this thought to the idea that everything that happens occurs because it’s God’s will that it should happen — even bad things we don’t like because they’re harmful. We think that if God is God, then nothing can happen that isn’t his will.
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Actually, that’s not a Christian teaching; it’s a Muslim teaching. In Islam, Allah has total control of everything; his will overrides every other influence or purpose. In fact, “Islam” means “submission” — total submission to the will of Allah.
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As Christian believers we understand that God has created all things by his Word, and his Word underlies and sustains the universe. That’s clear from the Bible’s opening chapters in the Book of Genesis. Hebrews reminds us that through Jesus God is “upholding the universe by his word of power” (Hebrews 1:3). But does that mean God controls everything? We need to look at the whole story.
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Consider Genesis 1:26: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’” In other words, the Creator has turned control of this earth over to people who are made in his image.
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People are the Creator’s representatives or agents in the management of the world. If something goes wrong that’s not God’s fault; it’s usually because <i>people</i> have made sinful decisions contrary to his purpose. God has made all things, but he’s turned the management of those things over to us. As Psalm 115:16 says, “The heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man.”
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So claiming that “God is in control” is a “sacred cow” we need to question over against the full teaching of Scripture. When it comes to problems we deal with in life, for example, God isn’t responsible for them. Jesus declared that, as the Son of God, he came to give us abundant life, not problems and difficulties.
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When something goes wrong, then, that’s not God’s doing; it’s the thief who “comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10) who is responsible; and <i>we have the authority to oppose him</i> because God has put us in charge and given us dominion. As James says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). We don’t need to ask God to change something he has given <i>us</i> the ability to change. As Gloria Copeland puts it, “If you need a change, <i>make a change</i>.” Don’t just wait for God to change things.
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So when we say “God is in control” we’ve forgotten that he has entrusted to us the control of many aspects of our life and experience. Don’t let that religious-sounding expression be an excuse for accepting or tolerating situations or conditions you have the ability to deal with, as a creature made in God’s image.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-53305627016955706302019-02-25T09:46:00.000-06:002019-02-25T10:05:14.651-06:00The Logical Fallacy of “Endangered Species”<div align="justify"><br />
The efforts to prevent certain “endangered species” from extinction are well known. One has only to recall the 1973 “snail darter controversy,” in which construction of a Tennessee dam was halted because of the threat to the habitat of a tiny mud fish. Since then such incidents have multiplied with an impact on agriculture, fishing and other industries, and recently on the use of river water in California to combat forest fires. For that matter, the proliferation of fires is itself the result of restrictions on forest management, supposedly in the interests of preserving botanical habitats.
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Of course, the most “endangered species” is the human race, whose young are liable to be deprived of life while still in the womb — or even newly emerged from the womb. Human young, in the United States, enjoy less protection than the pre-hatched young of the bald eagle. But that’s another story.
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The purpose of this essay is to point out the logical fallacy of protecting “endangered species.” We’re not opposed to such efforts. We only wish to expose the irony in the philosophical position of people who push for the protection of all species, whatever the cost to human industry and property rights.
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It’s highly likely that proponents of protecting all species believe in the theory of unguided evolution — that life has arisen, and life forms have evolved and changed, without the intervention of a directing Intelligence, namely, God. In popular culture today there’s no room for the activity of a non-natural force in the emergence and development of life in its various forms. I surmise it would be rare to find anyone concerned about “endangered species” who’s not a believer in unguided evolution.
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And this is where the logical fallacy we’re pointing out begins to appear. One of the principles of evolutionary theory is that life forms less equipped to survive in their environment are superseded, and eventually wiped out, by more successful life forms. The crass formula “survival of the fittest” (which really means only “survival of the survivors”) is a generally accepted maxim of the evolutionary viewpoint. Species exist today because they’ve successfully adapted to a particular environment and haven’t been driven out by another, more successful, species which has passed on its genetic information to succeeding generations.
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Humanity, according to the evolutionary point of view, is simply another form of biological life having no inherent superiority over other species. Indeed, to regard human life as somehow having more worth than that of, say, the snail darter is to merit the epithet of “speciesism,” an accusation equivalent to “racism.” <i>Logically, then, for human beings to drive out another species less able to cope with its environment is a perfect example of the evolutionary principle in operation.</i> Someone with an evolutionary worldview, if looking rationally at the issue, should have no problem with extinction of the snail darter, bald eagle, or any other species when the human species proves more powerful, more “successful” in coping with its environment. That’s how evolution is supposed to work.
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So the outcry for “animal rights” to take precedence over “human rights” is a logical fallacy, because any species has the evolutionary “right” to supersede another, less viable, species. To regard human life as simply another example of a zoological species means that when human activity adversely affects another species this is simply evolution talking its natural course.
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There’s a better approach to the protection of “endangered species,” and that’s to abandon the religious faith of unguided evolution. That is a “faith” without evidence in natural history, for it ignores the presence of sequential information in the genetic code of living creatures — information which could have originated only in the mind of an Information-Giver. In other words, an Intelligence has been at work in fashioning each species, and that’s what gives them their worth.
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There’s only one species that cares about the welfare of other species. That is <i>people</I> who, according to the Book of Genesis, are charged with managing and protecting the rest of the biological ecology (Genesis 1:28; 2:15). No one ever met a wolf, or a shark, concerned with “people rights.” The sea otter that people rescued from the Exxon Valdez oil slick, when cleaned up at a cost of $80,000 and released into the ocean, was immediately attacked by a killer whale. But there’s something unique about people, a trait that goes beyond what can be explained by the unfolding of blind, impersonal processes. People care about other living creatures in a way that’s unique to them, and can’t be explained by unguided evolution. Protecting supposedly endangered species is an activity appropriate only for people who believe, with the writer of Genesis, that “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-54397858973798266102018-09-01T23:29:00.000-05:002018-09-01T23:29:49.382-05:00How Do We Evaluate a Preacher's Message?<div align="justify">
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Unhappily, Christian people are often all too ready to attack other Christians and to accuse them of being “heretics” because they disagree with their teaching. The gospel (<i>euangelion</i>) is the proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection and his authority over all things,as the Son of God (e.g., Romans 1:1-4).
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But this basic “good news” has many implications and facets, and different preachers focus on different aspects of the gospel. Some stress accepting God’s forgiveness of sin and the promise of eternal life. Others emphasize the experience of knowing that God loves you. Still others stress the new way of life that becomes possible for us through the work of Jesus. Obviously all these are aspects of the basic message about Jesus, so it’s unkind and even foolish to attack a preacher as a false teacher because he or she stresses a different facet of the Christian message.
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As an example, in certain Christian circles there’s a sustained attack on the “prosperity gospel” or “word of faith” movement as a false teaching. (Never mind, of course, that the Apostle Paul calls the gospel the “word of faith” that he preaches — Romans 10:8-9.) Opponents evaluate the “prosperity gospel” negatively because millions of third-world Christians continue to live in deprivation and poverty despite having come to the Lord.
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But, we have to ask, should we evaluate the truth or falsehood of a preacher’s teaching based on the experiences of people, or on what we see reported in the media? Or should we judge the preacher’s message based on how it corresponds to the Word of God? In other words, does the poverty of millions of believers negate the clear teaching of Scripture that “the reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life” (Proverbs 22:4)? It seems to me that it’s the Word of God, rather than human circumstance, that provides the criterion by which to evaluate the truth or falsehood of someone’s teaching.
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-6732100107411644042018-08-01T10:22:00.001-05:002023-12-25T19:25:27.225-06:00We Need More Pharisees<div align="justify">
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The Pharisees get a “bad rap” in the New Testament because Jesus called some of them on their inconsistent practices (Matthew 23:13ff.). Indeed, he told some of them that they were children of the devil (John 8:44) — pretty strong language! The epithet “Pharisee” has become synonymous with “hypocrite,” and nobody wants to be accused of being Pharisaical.
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But the fact is, all Christians are Pharisees. If you believe the Word of God should be your guide for living, if you believe in miracles, and if you believe in the resurrection of the dead you’re a Pharisee — for those things were what distinguished the Pharisees from other Jews of the first century. The apostle Paul was a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5), and used his identification with the Pharisees to stir things up among his accusers (Acts 23:6-7). Jesus certainly cared about the Pharisees or he wouldn’t have tried so hard to straighten them out, to make them into more effective and accurate teachers of his people.
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Contrary to common opinion, the Pharisees weren’t trying to get people “saved” by keeping the most stringent provisions of the Law of Moses. They were actually developing “workarounds” so the Law would be <i>easier</i> for more people to keep. For the Lord had given the Law as an act of grace (Deuteronomy 7:7ff.), in order to prepare the people he had chosen as his witnesses to lead an orderly and successful life in the land he had promised to give them.
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Our culture of today has experienced the disappearance of many standards of upright and compassionate behavior, and a diminished belief in the resurrection and in God’s miracle-working power. So we don’t need fewer Pharisees, we need <i>more</i>.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-10681464673171685052017-09-18T11:08:00.000-05:002017-09-18T11:08:22.131-05:00Jesus and the Crowds: A False Teacher?
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Several times recently in social media I have seen posts that contrast an image of a large, well-filled auditorium with that depicting a sparsely populated church. The message accompanying these images proclaims that false teaching about the Christian faith draws large crowds, while a small attendance is indicative of true Christian teaching. <br />
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If the message is drawing a large audience, that must mean it’s tailored to the “itching ears” of people who only want a non-challenging, complacent, or distorted version of the faith. On the other hand, it is inferred, genuine Christian teaching appeals only to a few. The implication of this contrast is clear: if a preacher has a large following, drawing great crowds to his ministry, <i>he must be a false teacher</i> who should be avoided.<br />
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Let’s apply this criterion to the Gospel record of the ministry of Jesus. Because whatever Jesus taught about living in the kingdom of God was true and valid, he must never have spoken to large crowds, right? Only a handful of people would have been drawn to his teaching or followed him.<br />
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<b>Jesus drew large crowds.</b><br />
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The problem is, that’s not what the Gospels tell us about Jesus’ teaching. In all four Gospels we find that large crowds sought Jesus out, surrounded him, and received his teaching gladly. I surveyed the Gospels in a well-known English translation of the New Testament looking for occurrences of the word <i>crowd</i> or its equivalent in association with Jesus’ teaching or healing activity. Here’s what I discovered: for the words <i>crowd</i> or <i>crowds</i>, 72 occurrences; for <i>multitude</i> or <i>multitudes</i>, 25 occurrences; and for <i>throng</i>, 5 occurrences. (In almost all cases the Greek word is the same, <i>ochlos</i>, though in a few cases the Gospel writers used <i>plethos</i>. The translator’s judgment governs which English word is used.)<br />
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In collating these instances I was able to group them into ten, often overlapping, categories:<br />
<i>Crowds follow Jesus or gather around him<br />
Crowds surround Jesus and hinder access to him<br />
Jesus addresses the crowds<br />
Jesus dialogues with a crowd, or with people in the crowd<br />
The crowds react to Jesus’ teaching or things he does<br />
Jesus has compassion on the crowds and meets their needs<br />
Jesus leaves the crowds or dismisses them<br />
Jesus’ opponents react to the fact that he draws great crowds<br />
The crowds acclaim Jesus<br />
A sorrowful crowd accompanies Jesus to his crucifixion.</i><br />
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What is most often said of the crowds in the Gospels is that they gathered to Jesus, followed him, or clustered around him. A good example is Matthew’s introduction to the “Sermon on the Mount”: <i>“And great crowds followed him</i> from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him” (Matthew 4:25—5:1). Mark reports, “Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea; and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land” (Mark 4:1).<br />
<br />Luke provides another instance: “When the crowds learned it, they followed him; and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God, and cured those who had need of healing” (Luke 9:11). And this example comes from John: “After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a multitude followed him, because they saw the signs which he did on those who were diseased” (John 6:1-2). There are too many instances of this to list here; altogether the Gospels contain some twenty passages or verses that refer simply to the fact that whenever Jesus taught about the kingdom of God, and demonstrated its presence by healing peoples’ diseases, large numbers gathered to him and followed him.<br />
<br />Jesus’ audience was often so closely clustered about him that it was hard for people to gain access to him. Luke provides two examples: “Then his mother and his brothers came to him, <i>but they could not reach him for the crowd</i>” (Luke 8:19). “And there was a man named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector, and rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not, on account of the crowd, because he was small of stature” (Luke 19:2-3).<br />
<br /><b>The crowds respond to Jesus’ teaching.</b><br />
<br />Sometimes the Gospels simply report that Jesus addresses the crowds, and occasionally they record his conversation with members of his audience. Here’s an instance from Mark: “And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). Again, Luke tells us: “And when a great crowd came together and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: ‘A sower went out to sow his seed . . .’” (Luke 8:4-5). The people surrounding Jesus were not simply passive listeners, but engaged him in conversation as in Luke 11:27: “As he said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!’” Jesus’ hearers asked questions: “The crowd answered him, ‘We have heard from the law that the Christ remains for ever. How can you say that the Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man?’” (John 12:34).<br />
<br />The Gospels record the crowd’s reaction to things Jesus says and does. Matthew concludes the “Sermon on the Mount” with this statement: “And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Matthew 7:28-29). Jesus’ healing of the paralyzed man provoked the crowd’s response: “And he rose, and immediately took up the pallet and went out before them all; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We never saw anything like this!" (Mark 2:12). John tells us one reason why people were attracted to Jesus: “The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign” (John 12:17-18).<br />
<br /><b>Jesus has compassion on the multitude.</b><br />
<br />We are reminded, several times, that Jesus had compassion on the crowds who came to him and was moved to meet their physical needs. Here’s an instance from Matthew: “Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. As he went ashore he saw a great throng and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:13-14). Mark provides these examples: “As he went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things” (Mark 6:34). “In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him, and said to them, ‘I have compassion on the crowd . . .’” (Mark 8:1-2).<br />
<br />The needs of the multitudes coming to him were so great that sometimes Jesus had to send them away and take his departure, often by boat. As Matthew tells us, “And sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan” (Matthew 15:39). Mark records another instance: “Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd” (Mark 6:45). Jesus drew aside from the crowd to heal a deaf man (Mark 7:32-34). <br />
<br /><b>Jesus’ crowds threatened his enemies.</b><br />
<br />Jesus’ popularity with the people alarmed his enemies. The Gospels record their reaction, and we cite three instances. Matthew reports, “But when they tried to arrest him, they feared the multitudes, because they held him to be a prophet” (Matthew 21:46). John tells us, “Yet many of the people believed in him; they said, ‘When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?’ The Pharisees heard the crowd thus muttering about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him” (John 7:31-32). Because the crowds believed in Jesus, Judas could not arrange to have him seized when they were present: “So he agreed, and sought an opportunity to betray him to them in the absence of the multitude” (Luke 22:6).<br />
<br />Beginning the week of his passion with his entry into Jerusalem, Jesus drew the acclamation of the multitudes — as the well-known account of “Palm Sunday” reminds us. John tells it this way: “The next day a great crowd who had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!" (John 12:12-13). The esteem in which the crowds held Jesus complicated his enemies’ efforts to eliminate him.<br />
<br />It was only at Jesus’ crucifixion that crowds were stirred up against him and called for his death, and that was the doing of Jesus’ enemies. Preachers sometimes claim that the people who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem on “Palm Sunday” had turned against him by Good Friday. That’s not true; <i>the scornful Friday crowd was a different crowd</i>. And even as Jesus was being led to Calvary, Luke tells us, “there followed him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him” (Luke 23:27). The disciples whom the risen Jesus met on the Emmaus road were but two of <i>a sizeable following</i> who had “hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21).<br />
<br /><b>Is the size of the audience a valid criterion?</b><br />
<br />It’s clear that Jesus, during the years he preached the kingdom of God in Galilee and Judea, was the head of a large popular movement, gathering crowds of people wherever he went. So, returning to our original issue, <i>was Jesus therefore a false teacher?</i> If we follow the logic of the social media posts we cited, we would have to conclude that he was — because if his teaching was the truth, it should have attracted only a small following!<br />
<br />The size of a preacher’s audience ought not to be taken as an indicator of whether or not he or she is giving forth teaching that is true to Scripture and the Christian faith. As the Gospel record of Jesus’ ministry shows, the message of the kingdom of God can draw a large, responsive audience. If there is a question about the validity of a popular preacher’s ministry, the question can only be resolved by a thorough examination and analysis of what’s being presented in the light of the Word of God.<br />
<br />Attacking fellow believers is surely not an effective way to promote the Christian faith. But if, on social media or any other platform, a critic wants to label a preacher as a false teacher, let that critic state his case on the basis of Scriptural principles. The size of the audience has nothing to do with it.<br /><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-23450576574832194792017-03-18T23:15:00.001-05:002017-03-21T09:34:35.037-05:00"Keep the Butter Square!"<br />
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I seem to have inherited from my father not only my first name, and my profession in the ministry and college teaching, but also my habit of wanting to make everything neat, orderly, and symmetrical.
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At mealtime, in our family home as I was growing up, the butter was placed in a dish to pass around the table as needed. I think this was before we were buying the spread packaged in four quarters, so it was in a larger shape like a cube protected by an ancient pewter cover. To butter our bread, boiled potatoes, or whatever, we would take our knife and dig out a gob of butter, only to hear my father admonish us to “Keep the butter square!” He preferred that the butter in the serving dish not become misshapen, but remain neatly squared off.
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This trait stayed with Dad till the end of his life. One incident stands out. When I was the pastor of a small-town church, he and my mother visited for a Sunday worship service. Seated on the platform after the service had begun, I noticed Dad in the congregation making a sideways motion with his outstretched hand. It turned out that the flower stand and pulpit chair on one side of the platform were not symmetrical with those on the opposite end. He was trying to get me to make the necessary adjustment then and there, to restore the proper order of the furniture.
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This penchant for having things orderly and organized has been one of my lifelong character traits. Books must be shelved by topic and subtopic, and within the subtopic organized by author’s name. Vinyl records or music CDs must be organized by composer and genre, and a list made of all music so I can consult it when considering a new purchase, in order to avoid duplication, without going to another part of the house where they are stored.
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Memorabilia must be boxed by life periods, in sequence. All other stored items, such as railroad ephemera (a hobby of mine), computer equipment, or unused kitchenware must be placed logically into cartons and labeled. I prefer the type of carton with a removable lid, like the cartons used to ship reams of copy paper, and have collected enough over the years to contain anything that will fit into them. I never throw away a good carton, and have stacks of folded cartons stored in a shed for possible future use.
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When I moved to a new home some years ago, I installed seven large metal shelves in the basement to store such items, each loaded with clearly labeled cartons grouped by similarity of contents. When I held an open house welcoming friends to my new residence, people would go downstairs to inspect the basement. Cries of “Oh, my God!” could be heard as they registered their shock at what they witnessed down there.
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The urge to organize and sort affects my use of the computer, as well. I don’t understand how people can load up their cameras or cell phones, or their computers, with thousands of images none of which have a caption that would explain, to the outsider, the subject and date of the image. I have standard methods of naming photo files that enable me to quickly find what I want. For family photos, for example, the file name begins with the date (year-month-day) and then the subject. A photo of my wife and me in front of a locomotive is labeled “2015-09-26_Richard_ Shirley_at_Monticello_Rwy_Mus.tif.” That way, when I sort by name I am also sorting by date. Of course, photos from each branch of our large family are kept in their appropriate sub-subfolders, under the proper subfolder, under the master “Images” folder in my hard drives (I back up everything to two other computers). I don’t keep every image I take of a subject; I pick out the best one or two and then get rid of the rest. Why do some people keep every shot, whether blurred, off-center, duplicative, or whatever, and then even put them on Facebook?
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And I don’t like what the various versions of Windows do with downloads, scans, etc. Since I’m the only user of my computers, I don’t use the “My Documents,” etc. folders; I put everything in an appropriately named folder on the main “C” drive. It annoys me when some piece of software, such as a printer program, automatically puts my scans into “My Scans,” in “My Documents,” in my User folder, and assigns it some goofy name of its own. I have to go and locate it, cut it out to where it should go, and rename it according to my naming conventions.
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Okay, call me compulsive if you like. I’ll tell you one thing, though: when I need to locate something I know where to find it, whether it’s in bookcases or storage shelves or the computer. “OCD” can pay off if you use it wisely; in the end it can save time and trouble.
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Besides, I have a theological justification for my efforts. When God began to create the earth it was “without form and void”; what he did during the days of creation was to bring symmetry (e.g., light and darkness) and labeling (“God called the light day,” etc.) into what had been unordered and unlabelled. Then, finally, he could “rest” in his temple and enjoy his good work. By ordering our lives we participate in the Creator’s work; at least, that’s how I think of it. So when my open house guests encountered the order and organization of my basement, their reaction, “Oh, my God!” was not entirely inappropriate.
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And, of course, it’s also good policy to keep the butter square.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-48519091093992257482017-01-11T19:39:00.000-06:002017-01-14T13:30:17.576-06:00Defending the “Prosperity Gospel”<br />
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The so-called “prosperity gospel,” or “health and wealth gospel,” is much maligned in certain Christian circles. An Internet search will turn up a plethora of web sites, blogs, and the like that raise objections to the idea that following Jesus leads to a healthier, more prosperous life. The assumption of these critics is that the Christian life is to be marked by suffering, so that Christians who view their faith as promoting prosperity and health are departing from the pattern of the New Testament church. We present here some arguments that counter certain assumptions of the critics of the “health and wealth gospel,” who would instead advocate a “sickness and poverty gospel.”
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<b>The early Christians were not poor.</b>
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Jesus and the earliest Christians were not poor by the standards of their time and place, as they are often depicted. Jesus was a general contractor; the word <i>teknon</i> (Mark 6:3) refers to something more than a simple carpenter. The first disciples were in the fishing business; Matthew (Levi) was wealthy, being a publican. Well-to-do people, including the wife of one of Herod’s officials (Luke 8:3), supported Jesus and his disciples in their ministry. The disciples maintained a treasury from which they distributed aid to the poor (John 13:29). Jesus’ garment was of such quality that the Roman soldiers declined to cut it up (John 19:22-23). Wealthy men provided a tomb for his burial (John 19:38-40).<br /><br />
Early Christians worshiped in the homes of substantial citizens (e.g., Lydia, Acts 16:14-15) whose residences could accommodate an assembly. People like Paul with his entourage, or Priscilla and Aquila, could afford to travel through the Mediterranean world, booking passage on merchant ships. Paul was able to rent the lecture hall of Tyrannus to conduct his seminars (Acts 19:9).
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<b>The New Testament writings are the work of educated authors.</b>
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The New Testament writings are not the work of poor, uneducated peasants. They display a literary skill consistent with a high level of education, vast knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures, and serious historical research (e.g., Luke’s introductions to his Gospel and Acts; a wealthy patron apparently underwrote the production and publication of these works, Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1). The manner in which the gospels are constructed reveals a deep theological insight into Jesus’ own intent, and reveals his intellectual brilliance in reformulating the story of Israel around his own ministry.<br /><br />
Paul’s writings reveal a philosophical genius that has been said to equal or surpass that of pagan thinkers of the time. The New Testament writers, and Jesus himself, were multi-lingual, conversant with Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek (Jesus, Matthew 15:22-28), and perhaps Latin and various local languages such as Lycaonian (Acts 14:11).
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<b>The early church had the witness of the Scriptures.</b>
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The earliest Christians did not have a “New Testament;” their Scriptures were what we call the Old Testament, i.e. the Hebrew Scriptures of the Law, Prophets, and Writings. Thus they had the example of wealthy Israelite leaders such as Abraham, Joseph, and Solomon. Moreover, they had the counsel of the Book of Proverbs, that “the reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life” (Proverbs 22:4), and such counsel was not lost on the New Testament church.<br /><br />
While Jesus made clear that excessive concern for wealth can be a hindrance to receiving the good news of God’s kingdom, he also promised a “hundredfold” material reward for his followers in the “age to come” (Mark 10:17-31). He also told a parable about faithful servants who used what they were entrusted with for material gain (Matthew 25:L14-23). Paul recognizes that some members of the Christian community will have ample resources to give “with generosity” (Romans 12:8), and underscores the Scriptural principle that “sowing” leads to reaping a reward (Galatians 6:7; cf. Malachi 3:10).
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<b>Suffering, in the New Testament, is not poverty or sickness.</b>
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While the New Testament refers to the suffering of Christians, this suffering is not poverty and sickness but persecution, because the message of the earliest Christians ran counter to prevailing societal norms. Among Jews, the inclusion of Gentiles threatened the exclusivist, revolutionary mentality of the Pharisees and others, about which Jesus warned them (Luke 13:1-5). Acknowledging Jesus as “Lord” threatened the Jewish understanding of monotheism, and it is clear that early Christians, while not abandoning monotheism, melded the work of Jesus into the activity of the Father (1 Corinthians 8:6; cf. Jesus’ words in John 14:9 and <i>passim</i>).<br /><br />
In the Roman world, the announcement that “Jesus is Lord” threatened the lordship of Caesar, who was worshiped as a god. For these reasons the activity of the followers of Jesus was accompanied by persecution. But Jesus taught his disciples to pray that they would not be subject to <i>peirasmos</i>, the testing of persecution (Matthew 6:13). Writing to Gaius, John reproduced the customary greeting of a letter writer, “I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in health” (3 John 2); he saw no need to alter the greeting to reflect an expectation of illness and deprivation.
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<b>The purpose of Jesus’ coming is not to foster poverty and sickness.</b>
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The New Testament abounds with brief statements about the purpose for which Jesus has come. While he came to serve, and to seek and deliver the “lost,” he also came to impart abundant life (John 10:10) — however we take that phrase. He also came “to destroy the works of the evil one” (1 John 3:8). Since the “thief” comes to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10), logically the Son of God comes to do the opposite — that is, to bring blessing instead of curse, fulfilling the promise of God’s covenant and delivering his people from “the curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13) in which pestilence, deprivation, exile and other evils are included (Deuteronomy 28). In so doing, Jesus comes to “deliver us from the present evil age” (Galatians 1:4) so that the harsh circumstances of sickness, poverty, and ignorance that mark this age can be overcome. Part of Jesus’ stated mission, at the beginning of his preaching, is to bring “good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18), which can hardly mean the continuation of their impoverished condition.
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<b>The New Testament church is a transitional phase in God’s purpose.</b>
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The New Testament is not the final story in God’s plan for his people. It is a transitional phase that records how the message of the kingdom of God was first proclaimed and spread throughout the Mediterranean world. The New Testament expresses the vision for a greater culmination: “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). “Every knee shall bow . . . and every tongue confess that Jesus the Messiah is Lord” (Philippians 2:10-11). These were not realities achieved in the New Testament church, except by anticipation: “For whoever is in the Messiah, there is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The kingdom of God is like seed that takes root and eventually spreads throughout the earth (Matthew 13:31). The early church labored under great difficulty, but the difficulty was not supposed to last forever.
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<b>Two millennia of history show the beneficial results of Christian faith.</b>
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The history of those parts of the world that have been dominated by Christian influence reveals the beneficial impact of Christianity as a “health and wealth gospel.” The development of hospitals and charitable organizations, institutions for research and learning, and efforts to promote the public good has been the result of the practice of Christian virtues. The rights of the individual, valued by God as a creature in his own image, have become a cornerstone of human culture leading to such milestones as the abolition of slavery. Industrial initiative and the results of technology have, on the whole, benefited people across a spectrum of society. Poverty has diminished, pestilence has been curbed, and people have been freed to explore their possibilities in life to a degree not seen in parts of the world where this Christian “health and wealth gospel” has not been promulgated. (For a summary of the cultural and social impact of the spread of Christian faith, see John Ortberg, <i>Who Is This Man?</i> Zondervan, 2012.)
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<b>Opponents of the “health and wealth” gospel are inconsistent.</b>
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Critics of the “health and wealth” gospel take the supposed New Testament church as their model, claiming that the Christian life is subject to poverty and sickness. To be consistent, they should apply that model to all aspects of their life and witness. They should not have church buildings, or if they have them, not furnish them with electricity or flush toilets. They should avoid the use of radio, television, or the Internet to propagate their ideas. They should walk to all church meetings instead of riding in automobiles, and meet during the night only because there was no “weekend” as we know it in the Roman world. They should not use printed or electronic Bibles, which were unknown in the early church, but restrict their use of Scripture to oral or handwritten format.
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<b>Insistence that Christians must suffer poverty and illness is a “gospel” of works.</b>
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The “sickness and poverty gospel” nullifies the suffering of Jesus on our behalf. It claims we have to suffer in order to be true Christians. It is a “gospel” of works, not grace. In a world awash in poverty, illness, injustice, and all forms of oppression one wonders why any Christian would not choose to preach a gospel of deliverance from these evils.
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</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-3200866498322969222016-09-12T00:03:00.000-05:002016-09-12T00:04:01.959-05:00<h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'>
<a href='http://considop.blogspot.com/2015/12/was-first-christmas-really-so-heavenly.html'>Why Is Christianity True?</a>
</h3>
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<div align="justify">
Why do people believe Christianity is true — or not true? Answers to these questions depend, of course, on who is trying to answer them.<br />
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The person who wants to affirm the truth of the Christian faith is likely to answer the question in one, or more, of several ways:<br />
— "It works for me. My life was a mess till I became a Christian, and Jesus straightened me out."<br />
— "I accept Christianity by faith. I just believe in my heart that it's true."<br />
— "I accept the Bible is the Word of God, so Christianity must be true."<br />
— "God told me it's true."
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The person who doesn't accept the truth of the Christian faith might respond to the believer with something like this:<br />
— "Maybe it works for you, but it doesn't work for me so it must not be true."<br />
— "You can't make something real just by believing it. Anybody can believe anything they want to, but I don't have to accept their belief as the truth."<br />
— "The Bible is just the opinion of some people who lived long ago, in a pre-scientific age. We're smarter today than they were, so we don't have to take what they wrote seriously — we know better."<br />
— "I don't see any evidence that God is real. How could he tell you anything, if he's not there?"<br />
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What characterizes the answers of both the believer and the non-believer is that both are basing their opinion on something about themselves. The first person is saying that Christianity is true because he has faith, and because of what his faith has done for him. The second is saying that from his own experience and outlook he doesn't see any reason to consider Christian faith a valid option.<br />
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Is there a way to anchor the Christian worldview on something other than subjective factors such as one's personal preference or perspective? Is there a way, in fact, to anchor Christian belief <i>in reality itself?</i> Does the Bible offer any guidance here, guidance that might even respond to the objections of a person who accepts only his own authority and not that of Scripture?<br />
<h4>Biblical Insights into Cosmology</h4>
What, after all, is reality? That question, like that of faith, can be answered in several ways. Most people in contemporary Western culture would probably accept the view that reality is whatever exists; in other words, reality is <i>the universe</i>. Is the Christian worldview just fantasy, or does it have a foundation in the structure of the objective universe? Thinking about this, one might wonder why there should even be a universe. There is no logical necessity that anything should exist at all. How did the universe "get here"?<br />
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The Bible contains some statements about that; in fact, it begins with such as statement: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light" (Genesis 1:1-3). The statement is couched in geocentric terms, from the standpoint of an earthbound observer. But, in its essence, it says this: Once there was nothing — just "dark" nothingness. But then something was brought into being, and that first creation was light. In the same vein, the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews declares that "the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear" (Hebrews 11:3).<br />
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Most cosmologists accept the "big bang" theory, which holds that the universe didn't always exist but had a beginning. This view is reinforced by the observation that the universe is still expanding from the force of that original "explosion" of heat and radiation, an event best imagined as a flash of intense light. Light, itself, is still something of a puzzle to physicists, having the properties of both matter (a particle) and energy (a wave, or vibration). That the Genesis account begins with the appearance of light is in complete accord with the consensus of cosmologists about the earliest stage of the universe.<br />
<h4>Creation by Division</h4>
The Genesis account goes on, of course, to relate the successive stages of creation, again from a geocentric perspective. In the earliest stages the universe takes shape by a process of division. Light divides from darkness, gaseous matter (called "water") is separated by more solid substance ("firmament"); then the "water" of the earth separates into the components that make up the surfaces of the globe. Echoing Genesis, the apostle Peter writes that "by the word of God heavens existed long ago, and an earth formed out of water and by means of water" (2 Peter 3:5). It is of interest that this process of division is a breaking down of what is undifferentiated into components that differ from one another, in much the same way that cosmologists regard the formation of heavier elements from the universe's original simple element, hydrogen — a term derived, incidentally, from <i>hudor</i>, the Greek word for "water."<br />
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The creation process, as described in the Bible, is also a process of <i>analysis</i>, or the breakdown of things into their component parts. The description makes it clear that the components can be analyzed, and viewed objectively, because they are not sacred in themselves. The universe itself is not God, but is what God has made. Further, the portion of the universe that is accessible to human beings has been placed under their management, as the Creator's agents. This is the meaning of Genesis's declaration, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth'" (Genesis 1:26). Without such a perspective that permits analysis and human intervention, what we know as modern science and technology would not be possible.<br />
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Additionally, this process of differentiation creates <i>information</i>, since information is the difference between one thing and another. This difference is binary; something is either "on" or "off," it is either one thing or another — the principle that makes the digital computer and modern information technology possible. This biblical view of the origin of the universe through division is foundational to all information, and therefore knowledge, since there is no information or knowledge in undifferentiated sameness. For human beings, who have the faculty of language, information is typically conveyed by <i>words</i>, or some equivalent symbol or action that functions as a word. Thus biblical writers speak of the informational, or word-like, aspect of the creative process. Psalm 34:6 summarizes the Genesis account this way: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth."<br />
<h4>Upholding the Universe</h4>
The Gospel of John equates the creative word with Jesus Christ, as the incarnate revelation of God. The Gospel begins, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:1-3). The letter to the Hebrews carries the thought further; the informational aspect of the creative process not only brings it into being, but also keeps it from collapsing back into itself. Thus of Jesus Christ, as the revelation of God, it states, "He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power (Hebrews 1:3).<br />
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Physicists note that the atoms and molecules of physical matter consist of subatomic particles separated from one another by distances that can be compared, on an astronomical scale, with the distances between bodies of the solar system. In other words, even the "solid" matter of the universe is mostly space. What keeps these particles both separated and bound together? Scientists give names to these mysterious forces, but that does not mean they understand how they work. The Scriptural authors identify Jesus Christ, as the Word of God, not only with the creative agency of God at the universal, or macro, level, but also with the operation of these forces at the quantum level to "uphold the universe."<br />
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The cosmos is filled with radiation emanating from various sources that astronomers have been able to identify. However, their instruments also detect a faint background radiation that permeates the universe and comes from no identifiable source. Their general conclusion is that this background radiation is the echo of the "big bang," an afterglow from the event that brought the universe into being. In this context, it is interesting to recall the words of the writer of Psalm 19: "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world" (Psalm 19:2-4a). Somehow, this writer understood that the universe conveyed a message about its creation that could not be expressed in speech.<br />
<h4>How Did They Know?</h4>
The non-believer may regard the Bible as the work of benighted writers working with a primitive, pre-scientific picture of the earth. He might call them "flat-earthers." It is true that the biblical authors describe their universe in geocentric terms; like contemporary weather forecasters they speak of the sun as "rising" and "setting," as though it revolved about the earth. But apparently some Scriptural writers knew the earth was a globe, not a flat plane. Isaiah wrote, "Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in" (Isaiah 40:21-22a).<br />
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Of course, any astute observer of an eclipse of the moon would see the curved shadow of the earth and understand that it is not flat but spherical; ancient thinkers, including the authors of Scripture, had a better understanding of such things than they are often given credit for, despite their lack of modern scientific instrumentation. They were aware of their limitations; Isaiah, himself, had just asked, "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?" (Isaiah 40:12). Nevertheless, despite the restrictions of their perspective these thinkers had insights into matters affecting the structure of the universe that accord with contemporary understanding of the cosmos.<br />
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How did the biblical writers <i>know</i> about these things, in an era before the work of modern cosmologists, physicists and other scientists was available for reflection? There is only one answer: their insight came from the Creator himself, through means that transcend our "normal" path to the acquisition of knowledge. The Apostle Peter stated that "men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God" (2 Peter 1:21). Paraphrasing the prophet Isaiah, the Apostle Paul wrote, "'What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,' God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God" (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).<br />
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To return, then, to our earlier question: Can the Christian worldview be based on something other than subjective factors — can it be anchored in reality, or the structure of the universe? These examples from the Bible show that it was not written by people who lived in a fantasy world. These writers had a grip on some basic cosmological realities, even if those realities were largely hidden from people of their time due to the restrictions of a geocentric perspective. These men were skilled authors, brilliant thinkers, astute observers of life and of the world around them, but beyond this they had insight into foundational truths about reality. Christian faith, which inheres in Jesus Christ who is "upholding the universe with his word of power," is based on this biblical understanding of the universe. Therefore, Christianity is grounded in reality in a way that competing worldviews, including those of its detractors, are not.<br /><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-32538555713890099262015-12-17T20:55:00.000-06:002015-12-17T20:55:00.138-06:00Was the First Christmas Really So Heavenly?<div align="justify"><br/>
We think of Christmas as a time of special beauty, a time of glory. The mystery of the incarnation — God taking human form in the baby Jesus — inspires in us a sense of wonder. Because this idea of God’s becoming man is so extraordinary, we feel it’s appropriate to celebrate Christmas with all the glitter and sparkle and tinselly trappings we can muster. Our Christmas cards are full of lovely pictures of angel choirs, peaceful villages, reverent manger pageants, and gleaming stars. Somehow we feel the first Christmas must have been such a special, “holy” time.<br/><br/>
Our favorite carols reflect that sentiment. “There’s a Song in the Air” as angels “touch their harps of gold.” “All is calm, all is bright.” Bethlehem’s “deep and dreamless sleep” is undisturbed, for “born the king of angels,” “little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.”<br/><br/>
Was it really that way, that first Christmas? Was it really so heavenly, so ethereal, so glorious? Let’s think for a moment about the familiar Gospel story of the people and events surrounding the birth of Jesus. Think of what people were doing as the story unfolds:
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— A doubting priest loses his ability to speak.<br/>
— A young woman learns of her unexpected pregnancy.<br/>
— Her startled husband considers getting a divorce.<br/>
— People travel for miles in order to pay their taxes.<br/>
— A foreign emperor’s troops occupy their land.<br/>
— Shepherds have to work all night in the open field.<br/>
— A baby is born in a stable because the inn has no vacancy.<br/>
— Foreign dignitaries are trudging across a barren desert.<br/>
— A suspicious ruler slaughters innocent children.<br/>
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No, the birth of Jesus wasn’t all glitter and glory. It didn’t occur under peaceful, benign circumstances. It wasn’t at all like the beautiful scenes on our Christmas cards. The birth of the Son of God took place in the midst of some very ordinary situations. Jesus was born into a harsh environment, where people faced difficulty and deprivation, where they had to struggle to get along.<br/><br/>
But that’s the point of it all, isn’t it? A God who loves us wouldn’t come to us covered with forbidding glory, shielding himself from our struggles and putting on a façade of peaceful complacency. A God who loves us would come just as Jesus came, in the midst of the ordinary grind of our daily existence. He would come to say, “I’m taking on your humble life, in order to raise it up to my kind of life. I’m taking on human nature so you can become ‘partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:4). I’m coming to you as Immanuel, ‘God with us,’ so that through him you can come to me and belong to my family.”<br/><br/>
We do celebrate, yes. We do cover Christmas with glory and glad song, because of what Christmas means: God with us, Immanuel; “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). That’s a truth we can’t ignore, and it’s right that we should celebrate it because of the difference it makes in our lives today. But let’s always remember, too, that God is with us even in the everyday humdrum of life when things look dull and ordinary and even tedious and hard. For Messiah Jesus first came to us in that very same kind of world.<br/><br/></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-90002526392548142072015-09-17T15:21:00.000-05:002015-09-17T15:21:50.597-05:00The Principle of Complementarity<div align="justify"><br/>
A principle by which the universe operates, and which is fundamental to life and existence, is the principle of complementarity. By this I mean that all phenomena depend upon the interplay of opposites — things that are dissimilar to each other, and therefore work together in a complementary manner. Without this dissimilarity, the phenomena (whichever ones we care to discuss) simply cannot do what they’re supposed to do, maintain themselves, or even exist to begin with.
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To state the obvious, existence itself is a complement to nonexistence. If we say something exists, that’s because that “something” cancels out its own nonexistence. This may appear a simple truism, but it’s a profound philosophical truth with extensive ramifications. Light, for example, is meaningful only in apposition to darkness, i.e., the non-existence of light. Matter and energy (really “two sides of the same coin”) are effective only to the extent that their presence contrasts with their non-presence. Otherwise matter wouldn’t matter — because it wouldn’t be.
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The principle of complementarity extends to the field of information. As Gregory Bateson pointed out, information is “a difference that makes a difference.” That is, information is found in the difference between one state and what is not that state. A blank sheet of paper holds no information except in how it differs from its background, i.e., the information is found only at the edges. For a sheet of paper to contain information it must have some kind of markings on it which differ from the paper medium itself. There is no information in undifferentiated sameness.
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Therefore, digital information also depends on the principle of complementarity. In a digital computer, a “byte” must be either turned on or turned off; there’s no half on or half off. The information in the DNA of living cells depends on the sequential ordering of the nucleotide bases along the spine of the molecule; each of the base pairs is either in one position along the sequence or another, and the positioning governs the information that is replicated into the rest of the nucleus to build the many types of proteins that enable the organism to function. The base pairs themselves (adenine-thymine, guanine-cytosine) are complementary; for example, a cytosine-cytosine combination doesn’t work because hydrogen bonding can’t occur between two such molecules.
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Proteins themselves follow the principle of complementarity by folding into a three-dimensional shape that interlocks with whichever chemical they are designed to process. Unless the shapes of the protein molecule and the target molecule are complementary (that is, fitting like a hand into a glove), the two molecules cannot “nest” and the protein cannot do its work.
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Mechanical and other objects also demonstrate the principle of complementarity. Take fasteners, for instance. Two bolts can’t be bolted together; to do what it’s designed to do, a bolt requires a complementary nut with threads of the same pitch and diameter. Or try fastening your jacket if both its edges have only holes, or only buttons. If your car battery had two negative poles, or two positive poles, you would never be able to get the starter to turn over. Two North American railroad cars can couple because the coupler knuckles face each other in opposite directions (always being right-handed as viewed from each car, therefore interlocking when viewed as a pair).
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Now let’s apply the principle of complementarity to biological life. Both male and female parents are required to reproduce offspring. Without a complementary union of gametes (ovum and sperm), fertilization and a resultant zygote (the beginning of a new organism) doesn’t occur. An ovum can’t fertilize itself.
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The principle of complementarity makes it clear why homosexuality is a ludicrous concept and a practice devoid of function — like trying to start your car with two negative poles on the battery. The requisite pairing of complementary body parts is absent from intimacy between two individuals of the same sex. There’s a logical reason, grounded in the structure of the universe, why marriage is appropriate only for the complementary pairing of male and female.<br/><br/>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-65857639176115669552015-07-15T13:14:00.000-05:002015-07-15T13:22:09.377-05:00We Bigots Have Rights, Too<div align="justify"><br/>
As Executive Secretary of the National Association of Mean-Spirited Bigots (NAMSB), I am lodging a protest against the vilification our organization has been receiving in the national media. Because we oppose, for example, “gay marriage,” abortion on demand, and unrestricted infiltration of illegal aliens, we’re excoriated for our opinions and told, in effect, that we have no voice in the national discussion of such matters.
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I am wondering why we Bigots aren’t allowed to be intolerant of certain trends in our culture, when non-bigoted people are allowed to be vehemently intolerant of our views. It seems there is a double standard here. If you’re non-bigoted, you can condemn and marginalize Bigots with impunity. But if you’re a Bigot, you aren’t allowed to criticize the opinions of non-bigots.
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The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States reads, in part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” But it seems that the courts are reading the Constitution differently: “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, except the speech of Bigots.”
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We Bigots have the same rights as anyone else to hold and express our mean-spirited opinions. Yes, we’re bigoted against the irrational, the illogical, and the goofy. We believe that which is unreasonable — such as the items mentioned in my first paragraph, or the recently signed agreement encouraging Iran to pursue its nuclear program, or the proliferation of entitlement programs — are not only goofy but also dangerous to our nation’s moral and physical welfare. We’re mean-spirited, because the idiocies of public policy in our nation anger us; we don’t like to see people hurt by the effects, intended or unintended, of ill-considered court decisions, legislation, or executive actions.
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So call me a Mean-Spirited Bigot. How could that bother me? That's what I call myself.<br/><br/>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-37215542728252805542015-04-09T11:19:00.000-05:002015-04-09T11:19:04.683-05:00What Is Salvation?<div align="justify">
<br/>“Salvation,” in biblical terms, is simply <i>rescue</i> or <i>deliverance.</i> Biblical references to salvation, unlike contemporary presentations of “salvation” in many Christian communities, rarely speak of <i>salvation from sin</i>, as though sin were some sort of internal condition within the subject. In the Scriptures salvation is deliverance or rescue <i>from an outside threat that has seized the subject</i>. A typical reference is the apostle Peter’s appeal to his fellow Jews on the day of Pentecost: “Save yourselves from this crooked generation” (Acts 2:40).<br/><br/>
Following the biblical pattern, salvation would be offered as deliverance from an enslaving or oppressing world view that affects a person’s existence and future possibilities within a particular, concrete cultural and historical setting. The individual who responds to the Christian gospel is “saved” not from some internal state of being as such, but from the false paradigm that has hitherto prevented that person from recognizing Jesus Christ as the risen Lord and Authority in life, and which has therefore held the person in a pattern of alienation from the purposes of God as revealed in Scripture.<br/><br/>
Today millions are trapped in the bondage of such false paradigms — whether they be imposed by media, the educational establishment, political ideologies, non-Christian religions, dysfunctional behavior patterns or destructive habits. These are the external enemies from which people need to be rescued, or “saved,” so that they can enjoy the life for which God has created them.<br/><br/>
In Scripture, salvation is usually mentioned in connection with a person’s rescue from forces or conditions that affect his life in the “here and now” It is rarely presented in a form that could be understood as an action by God that affects the state of a person after death, or his eternal destiny. No single verse or passage relates salvation to “going to heaven,” a phrase not in the Bible. Where “heaven” and words relating to salvation appear in the same context, the reference to heaven is not to the goal of the believer’s salvation but to the abode of God, his particular “space.” The believer’s “heavenly” destiny is an inference from other passages that state the matter quite differently.<br/><br/>
The New Testament makes it clear that salvation is <I>salvation by incorporation.</i> The believer has already entered into his or her future destiny through incorporation into the life of the risen Christ (John 3:36; Romans 6:3-5; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Colossians 3:1-3; 1 John 3:14, 5:12). Since the believer, in dying to self, has already died the “first death” (a phrase not in Scripture), he has no fear of the “second death” as do those who are not in Christ (Revelation 20:6).<br/><br/>
Salvation is an abstract concept, not an entity or state that exists somewhere in and of itself. “Salvation” is only a word that identifies an action that occurs in a relationship between two persons. A savior delivers or rescues another person, so that the other person is “saved” — or, indeed, a person “saves himself” through laying aside a false paradigm or world view that prevents him from recognizing the work of God in his life or that of his cultural context. Salvation is not a trait that describes one person as distinct from other persons, but is a name for the <i>action</i> that has rescued that person from the oppression that affects him or her.<br/><br/>
In the New Testament, that rescuing action takes the form of being incorporated into the body of the risen Christ. One who is “in Christ” has been delivered from a corrupted “age” (cultural world) and lives a life that anticipates God’s new, or restored, creation (e.g., Acts 3:19-21; Romans 8:19-21). Thus terms relating to salvation, in Scripture, usually describe a concrete, down-to-earth experience of being set free from threatening or destructive conditions of ordinary human life.<br/><br/>
In common Christian parlance “salvation” is a religious-sounding word that has been “spiritualized,” removed from its concrete biblical associations and related to some inward condition in an individual, or in the “soul.” To restore biblical understanding it might be better to speak not of “salvation,” but of rescuing people or helping them break free of dysfunctional relationships, harmful values, false world views, oppressing conditions, or other factors that constrict and diminish life and keep people bound in “sin” (estrangement from God) and away from Christ. On this understanding, people are not “saved” when they assent to certain doctrines or say a prayer, but <i>when their life changes</i>.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-14259123047272200212014-11-21T15:08:00.000-06:002014-11-21T15:08:15.688-06:00Eternal Torment<div align="justify">
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In a Bible study group I once led, one of the members — a deacon on the church board — told why he had become a Christian. His chief motivation, he explained, was that he didn’t want to “go to hell.”
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The desire to avoid the eternal punishment of hell is probably the reason why many have made the commitment to Jesus Christ. In some Christian circles, at least, the “gospel” is often presented in those terms: “Come to Jesus, in order to be saved from everlasting torment and ‘go to heaven’ instead.”
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Scripture does contain a few hints about the possibility of eternal torment. Speaking of the need to avoid sinful motives and actions, Jesus quotes Isaiah 66:24: “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:47-48). Jude, the brother of Jesus and James, also has harsh words for those who rebel against the way of God, calling them “wandering stars for whom the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved for ever” (Jude 13).
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Most vividly, the Revelation to John speaks of the “lake of fire,” the ultimate destination of those whose names haven’t been written in the book of life of the Lamb of God. They, and particularly those forces who deceive and oppress the people of God, will be cast into the lake of fire “and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Revelation 20:7-10; 14-15).
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But is the idea of eternal torment believable today? Two arguments, at least, speak against it. First, if God is good and merciful, would he really consign a person to an eternity of unspeakable anguish and suffering? Such an action seems unworthy of a benevolent Deity whose being is so often identified with love in Christian teaching.
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Second, where is this everlasting hell, anyway? The first Soviet cosmonaut famously returned to earth and announced that he didn’t see any God “up there.” If hell is real, wouldn’t it also show up somewhere as powerful telescopes range throughout the vast reaches of the universe? In the age of science, people have trouble believing in things that can’t be detected and measured by our sophisticated instruments. “Spiritual” concepts like heaven and hell have been relegated to the sphere of private opinion, and therefore ruled out of public discourse.
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Whatever one thinks of avoiding hell as a motivation for committing one’s life to Christ (and I think there are better reasons), it is ironic that contemporary science itself — especially astrophysics and cosmology — provides an interesting analogy to the biblical hints concerning eternal torment. I am referring to the phenomenon of the “black hole.”
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A black hole is the remnant of a star that has “burned itself out,” having expended all the energy created by the nuclear fusion that gives the star its brilliance. When this occurs, the core of the star collapses to a tiny ball of matter so dense that nothing — not even light — can escape its gravity. Anything near the black hole is affected by its gravity and is in danger of being drawn into it and annihilated, as it crosses the “event horizon” that marks the point of no escape.
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And here’s where the idea of “eternity” enters the picture. Einstein showed that, as a body approaches the speed of light, time slows down for that body. What to an outside observer would seem like a thousand years would be experienced, by someone on that body, as mere seconds. The gravity of a black hole is so powerful that objects streaming toward it approach, or perhaps exceed, the speed of light. Thus, as you near the black hole’s event horizon, time will slow down for you to the point that it ceases to exist and becomes an eternity. In the interior of a black hole, time has no meaning.
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Astronomers now contend that a huge black hole occupies the center of our galaxy, and that most of the 100 to 400 billion galaxies in our universe (I have heard both extremes) have such a black hole at their center. Anything falling into their clutches has indeed come to the place of eternal torment. The phenomenon of the black hole, by analogy, makes the everlasting “lake of fire” believable.
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People need to know that the concept of eternal torment isn’t so far-fetched, after all. Maybe I will go ahead and put that bumper sticker on my car: “ETERNITY — SMOKING OR NON-SMOKING?”
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-25529678472333197372014-08-30T15:14:00.000-05:002014-10-23T09:21:07.331-05:00The Free Exercise of — WHICH Religion?<div align="justify">
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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .” This is the wording of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1791 by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states.
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Today, this First Amendment’s purpose has been lost. The first clause has been dramatically widened and twisted into the doctrine of “separation of church and state,” with the express intention of preventing religion — especially Christianity — from having any role in politics or the shaping of public policy. The result has been what Richard John Neuhaus famously called “the naked public square,” a forum supposedly devoid of any arbiter of values. In reality, the removal of ostensibly religious concerns from public discussion has not left a void. Rather, it has put in place a dominant secular naturalism, with its conviction about the irrelevance of religion and a stress on “diversity.” This philosophical view, which its adherents hold with a religious tenacity, permits no opposing views to enter into the debate. The so-called “separation of church and state” has resulted in a state-supported religion controlling the parameters of public discussion.
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This, of course, was far from the intent of the framers of the First Amendment. Their intent, rather than to prevent religious interference in the political process, was to restrict the government from interfering in religious expression and practice. The first clause is not a restriction on religion, but a restriction on the legislative power of government: “Congress shall make no law . . .” In other words, Congress is not to pass legislation establishing a government-supported religion. This restriction applies to the Federal government, not to other governing bodies within the United States. For decades after the ratification of the First Amendment, several states continued to have state-supported churches such as the Congregational churches of Massachusetts. It was only later that the clear wording of the First Amendment was extended to cover state legislatures as well as the United States Congress, and twisted even further into the doctrine of “separation of church and state” as it is commonly understood today.
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The second clause of the First Amendment is a critical one: Congress is not to prohibit the free exercise of religion. This clause, too, has been compromised by the doctrine of “separation of church and state,” to the extreme that public school students have been told not to bring Bibles into their classrooms, or a high school valedictorian is told not to pray, or to refer to Jesus, during a graduation ceremony. Recently we saw how a company’s Christian owners were originally compelled, by the Affordable Care Act, to provide their employees with insurance that covered the destruction of a fertilized human ovum, as a birth control measure; only a narrow Supreme Court decision prevented these Christians from being forced to become accessories to the murder of an unborn child, against their deeply held convictions.
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Praying in public in the name of Jesus, or upholding the sanctity of human life in your business practices, are not things that diminish the good of society, even if some on the political left irrationally believe they do. But what about religious practices that do, in fact, endanger the well-being of others? What if a Muslim woman insists on wearing her full head covering for her driver’s license photo? The photo ID serves the legitimate purpose of identifying a person qualified to operate a motor vehicle, and of establishing the person’s identity in general, for the protection of the wider public. (Yet, in a Florida case, a woman was allowed to be photographed for her license wearing the Muslim covering.) To take a more drastic instance, what if a Muslim U.S. Army officer repeatedly voices his view that non-Muslims are to be suppressed, and follows up on his conviction with a mass murder of fellow servicemen to the cry “Allahu Akhbar” — as occurred in the “Fort Hood massacre”? The demeaning of women by forcible head covering and relegation to servitude, and the thrust to eliminate all who refuse to convert to Islam (as seen currently in the gruesome acts of the “Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq), are not harmless activities that have no effect on the public good. Are these ostensible “religious” beliefs covered by the wording of the framers of the First Amendment, that Congress shall not prohibit the free exercise of religion?
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The problem, clearly, lies in today’s inclusivist tendency to treat all religions the same, with equal indifference — except that, in the name of “diversity,” detrimental non-Christian beliefs get a pass, while benign Christian beliefs are vilified. But the truth is that all religions are not equal in their contributions to the good of society. Is a religion that demeans women and demands “Convert, or die!” equal to a religion that teaches, “Let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10), and accordingly has built schools and hospitals and undertakes projects such as building wells to supply African children with clean water?
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The framers wrote that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .” But what religion did they have in mind? The American nation had been shaped by values emerging from the tradition of Judaism and Christianity; when the framers spoke of “religion” they did not have Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism or some other religion in mind, but the various groups based on biblical faith. The First Amendment was put in place to prevent Congress from favoring one Christian denomination over another, and to prevent the suppression of any biblically based group’s exercise of its faith and practice.
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Rightly understanding the meaning and intent of the First Amendment’s “religious liberty” clauses requires a determination that not all religions are the same, or can be treated in the same way. The resurrection of Jesus Christ validates biblical faith as the only religion that is true, and worthy of protection under the First Amendment; all other religions are false, and their detrimental and violent aspects should not be given free reign in the name of “religious liberty.” To apply the First Amendment according to its intended purpose, our nation’s leaders and judiciary must recognize the priority of the religion centered in Messiah Jesus. “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-65683988143796621802014-07-21T20:34:00.000-05:002014-07-21T20:34:49.162-05:00Why Can’t We Have It ALL?<div align="justify">
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Are you content with your church relationship? Or, to put it differently, is your church life — especially its worship life — all that you would like it to be?
Increasingly, my wife and I find we are on a quest for a more fulfilling “church experience” — a tawdry sort of phrase, but I can’t think of a better way to put it right now. But we’ve been frustrated. One reason for our frustration is that, while many local churches have something of what we’re looking for, none of them even comes close to having <i>everything</i>. And we wonder why not.
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Let me explain.
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We can find a church that has liturgical solemnity and celebration, with the aesthetic satisfaction of color, pageantry and symbolism and the dignity of Christian tradition. These are things that could stretch us beyond the four limited dimensions of our mundane world into the transcendent realm of God’s presence. But those churches, typically, have abandoned the Holy Scriptures as the standard for faith and life and are caught up in stylized “inclusiveness,” pro-homosexual policies and other earmarks of political correctness.
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At the opposite extreme, we might find a church that meets in homes as did the earliest Christians — where every member is free to offer his or her gifts contributing to the life of the body, where there is a wonderful sense of being bonded together in common life in Christ, in faithfulness to New Testament patterns. But when do we experience those moments of high worship when the transcendent glory of Christ breaks through to touch us intuitively? Where is the opportunity for the high ceremony of the worship of Israel, or the pageantry of heavenly worship reflected in the visions of John the Revelator?
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We might easily locate a church that stresses faithfulness to the Word of God, where astute expository preaching brings out the nuances of the sacred text. But our role is pretty much limited to that of passive spectators of an oratorical or pedagogical performance. In such a preacher-dominated atmosphere there’s no opportunity for us to offer gifts of our own, whatever they might be, to our fellow worshipers. And the wordiness of such gatherings stifles or eliminates any breakthrough of the mystery of the transcendent — a mystery that touches us through sensibilities that can’t be confined to the flat world of rational understanding.
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We could just as easily identify a church where free expression is valued, where there is a sense of the movement of the Holy Spirit among the whole body of worshipers, and where a sense of “family” pervades the congregation’s life. But such congregations often lack a sense of continuity with the historic church. They stem from movements that once experienced a life-giving breakthrough in understanding some neglected aspect of the Scriptures. But now that understanding has become a shallow formula that inhibits learning from other branches of the body of Christ.
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It’s not hard, any more, to find a church that desperately seeks to connect with contemporary culture through cutting-edge music, heavy use of media and down-to-earth, conversational preaching. But the sensitive person on a quest for an encounter with the transcendence of God can be overwhelmed by the high-volume electronics, or lost in the busy crowds that flock to such churches.
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Why can’t we have it all — in one congregation? Why can’t we have a church that holds to the moral standards of God’s Word, expounds that Word in depth with fidelity to the original texts, combines historic and solemn liturgy with free and passionate expression of praise, makes room for the exercise of individual gifts even during corporate gatherings, engages with the issues of our culture using the technology people have come to expect, and does all of this through a pervasive atmosphere of <i>koinonia</i>, the shared common life of all Christian believers in the unity of the faith?
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Why can’t we <i>have it all?</i> Just asking.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900700070180755628.post-65827189720698787982014-06-21T22:39:00.000-05:002014-06-21T22:39:40.428-05:00Where Does Evil Come From?<div align="justify">
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If God created all things and considered them “good” (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25), then where did evil come from? This question sometimes vexes Christian believers, who wrestle with the effects of evil in their lives — illness, poverty or financial reversal, ill-treatment by others, unhappy circumstances of all sorts — not to mention the incidents of evil persistently reported in media news of nation and world. If God is good, why do we face these undesirable conditions, and why do our prayers for relief seemingly go unanswered?
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The question has philosophical, as well as personal, implications. Atheists are quick to point out the presence of evil in the universe, considering it to be an argument against the Christian view of a good God. In fact the experience of evil circumstances has led many to deny the existence of God altogether, on the supposition that a good God would not allow the suffering and abuse that are so widespread on the human scene. Furthermore, an unjustified belief in God — especially the God to which the Christian Scriptures bear witness — is seen as the source of evil in the world. This objection is epitomized in the title of Richard Dawkins’s book <i>God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything</i>. If Dawkins finds religion itself as the source of evil (neglecting to take into consideration the unspeakable horrors committed by atheistic dictators like Josef Stalin in the last century), Christians have sought to explain the origin of evil in other ways.
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One popular explanation is the rebellion of Lucifer, once a prominent angel — a fanciful theory based in part on a misinterpretation of Isaiah 14:11ff. and Ezekiel 23:12ff.. These passages refer to the king of Babylon and the king of Tyre, respectively, and the details of Lucifer’s fall from heaven owe more to how John Milton used the imagery of these passages in <i>Paradise Lost</i> to develop his picture of Satan than to any direct scriptural source. The Israelite prophets sometimes used such grandiose imagery to depict the fall of earthly rulers, but there is no substantial basis in biblical theology for seeing in these passages an explanation for the origin of evil.
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Another popular explanation among Christians is that based on the creation of mankind in the image of God (Genesis 1:27-27). As creatures after God’s likeness, people have the option to disregard God’s moral order and go their own way. Otherwise they would be acting in robotic fashion, predetermined to do only good and not evil — a contradiction of their having been created in God’s image. Having a will of their own, people tend to “play God,” arrogating to themselves the authority to dominate and control others. Evil eventuates from mankind’s attempt to “be like God” (Genesis 3:5), a temptation placed before them in the Garden of Eden by the serpent. If the serpent is seen as “that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan” (Revelation 12:9), then the origin of human evil is ultimately traced back to the rebellion of Lucifer, as mentioned above. In any case, the working of earthly evil — not only in human affairs but in all of nature — is attributed to “the fall,” when Adam and Eve chose to disobey their Creator and went in a different direction, away from his will.
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But even a supposed pre-human origin of evil in the fall of Satan may not go back far enough, for the possibility of cosmic evil must have been present for that hypothetical event to have occurred. Is there another way to approach the question of the origin of evil, from both a biblical and a cosmological standpoint, that carries it still further back in time? We believe there is.
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The Bible, as stated above, makes the point that the original creation was “good.” Cosmologists typically ascribe the creation of the universe to the “big bang,” before which nothing existed — not even space and time. Matter, in the primordial form of light (as the Bible states, Genesis 1:3), came into being at the same “singularity” when space and time appeared. Matter requires the elapse of time in order to exist; that is, for anything at all to exist it must exist in space and time. However, on a universal scale time is characterized by <i>entropy</i>; over time energy dissipates, order degenerates to chaos, everything “runs down.” Barring a new creative infusion, the universe will ultimately die the “heat death” when no more movement occurs except the expansion of its components into cold isolation. Thus existence itself, since it requires time, dissolves into nonexistence through entropy. This is the cosmological origin of evil, which is the denial and destruction of all meaningful existence.
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This is why the Scripture is at pains to show that God, who is “good” and made his creation “good,” continually works to combat the evil of entropy. By the very nature of things existing in time, evil will arise and do its destructive work. God, therefore, though he may “rest” from his creation (Genesis 2:2), <i>has never retired</i> from the activity of sustaining his universe. He acts constantly to “uphold the universe by his word of power” (Hebrews 1:3), the Word revealed historically in Messiah Jesus (cf. John 1:1-5). The apostle Paul states, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17), as the cohering force that opposes the disintegrative effects of entropy. The Bible affirms that “the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear” (Hebrews 11:3). The foundation of all things is the information, or “word,” which is immaterial but which is necessary for matter to exist at the quantum or even sub-quantum level. That information needs to be continuously infused into the universe, or entropy takes over to accomplish its evil end.
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When we see evil at work, whether in human affairs or in the events of the natural order such as storms, earthquakes and the like, we understand that this is a necessary consequence of existence in time. God is not responsible for it, and has established his Word as the bulwark against it. Aligning ourselves with his Word is the best defense against the encroachments and effects of evil.
<br /><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0