Paul wrote, "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor 2:14). Whatever the full meaning of that text is, it is abundantly clear that Natural Man has a problem with ... God. That's consistent with "The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot" (Rom 8:7). Again, Natural Man -- the human who is only flesh and not spiritually alive -- has a problem with God. In fact, "that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened" (Rom 1:19-21). Is it any surprise, then, that believers live in ... a different world?
We live in a physical world with physical laws that govern our existence. We analyze our world and our lives through these laws and come to rational conclusions. The problem is ... we're not quite accurate. That's because we typically ignore God's very real effect in the world. Take, for instance, the whole "10 Commandments" controversy in Oklahoma. A legislator in Oklahoma wants to make it mandatory that schools post the 10 Commandments in classrooms. "No, no," the anti-theists say, "that's religious coercion." "Don't be silly," the other side argues, "the 10 Commandments are pretty universal in all religions ... even atheism." And the middle-of-the-road crowd says, "Why bother? Kids will never read them anyway." They may be right ... in a world without God. But we don't live in a world without God, and God can certainly use any available means to reach a student's heart. I'm not arguing the point for the Oklahoma bill. I'm simply giving an example of our modern secular Christianity that often limits itself to the world's rules without regard for "but God."
We recently struggled with "What if Harris gets elected??" versus "What if Trump gets elected??" as if our world hung on the outcome of that election. To the secular world, it did. We believers live in another world. We live in a world governed by a Sovereign God who can and frequently does use anything at all to accomplish His will, quite often in unexpected ways. I read one time of a homeless guy who pulled a small booklet out of the trash and ripped out a page to use for rolling a cigarette. He caught sight of the text -- John 3:16 -- and gave his life to Christ, because we are not limited to the vagaries of our world. We are governed by God, who can and will frequently surprise us.
2 comments:
We have allowed Science and Skepticism to have more power than the Word and Faith, even in the Church. We have whole swaths of Christians that believe they can thwart the Will of God, that if they don't do x, y, or z, then God can't work in them or through them. We need to remember two things, God does all things for the good of those that believe in Him, and that even when we mean it for evil, God means it for good.
"We live in a physical world with physical laws that govern our existence."
Most of those who would be considered the "fathers of modern science" believed that this was because the world was created by YHWH and created in such a way that we could discover Truths about YHWH by studying His creation. As you pointed out in the other post, Creation declares the glory of YHWH, but we've managed to ignore and hide that fact. To the point that science has almost completely abandoned the convictions of those who shaped it.
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