Friday, October 05, 2012
Worth Considering
Some thoughts from Dan Phillips are worth considering (and I'm aiming that recommendation specifically at me).
What Do You Want?
In John 5 we read the story of the man at the Pool of Bethesda. Without all the details, it was a guy who had been lame for 38 years trying to get healed.
This wasn't the only time that Jesus appears to ask a "no-brainer". In Mark 10 we read the story of blind Bartimaeus of Jericho. He was calling out to Jesus and everyone was shushing him, but Jesus stopped and asked, "What do you want Me to do for you?" (Mark 10:51). Seriously, Jesus? Wasn't it obvious?
Of course, Jesus wasn't blind Himself. He wasn't unaware. He wasn't confused. He didn't actually have to ask the questions. Remember, when Jesus forgave the sins of the lame man in Luke 5, He knew what the Pharisees where thinking (Luke 5:22). The questions, then, were not for Him, but for them ... and for us.
You see, often we get confused. The man at the pool was so caught up in his condition that he forgot why he was there. He was bemoaning the fact that he couldn't get to the water rather than remembering that the goal was to be healed. In far too many cases our obvious condition is forgotten and we want that which isn't obvious ... or even necessary. Like the finger pointing at the moon, we begin to focus on the finger rather than the moon.
The most obvious of these kinds of conditions for us is found in our sin condition. Jesus comes to us and says, "Do you wish to get well?" He has to ask, you see, because even though we are aware of our horrible, mangled, spiritual condition, getting right with God isn't often our first thought. No, we want a better life, marital healing, a better job, more comfort, a happier existence. Right with God? Yeah, that's a lot farther down the list. I'm sorry, Jesus, what was the question?
What do you wish from Christ? Do you wish for Him to make you a reflection of Him rather than the spiritually disfigured human that you are? Do you want Him to open your eyes to more of Him rather than giving you more pleasure? Do you wish to get well? What do you want Him to do for you? Sometimes, even though the answers should be obvious, we miss them.
When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, "Do you wish to get well?" (John 5:6).What an astounding question! "Do you wish to get well?" I mean, "Duh!" What else could he possibly wish?
This wasn't the only time that Jesus appears to ask a "no-brainer". In Mark 10 we read the story of blind Bartimaeus of Jericho. He was calling out to Jesus and everyone was shushing him, but Jesus stopped and asked, "What do you want Me to do for you?" (Mark 10:51). Seriously, Jesus? Wasn't it obvious?
Of course, Jesus wasn't blind Himself. He wasn't unaware. He wasn't confused. He didn't actually have to ask the questions. Remember, when Jesus forgave the sins of the lame man in Luke 5, He knew what the Pharisees where thinking (Luke 5:22). The questions, then, were not for Him, but for them ... and for us.
You see, often we get confused. The man at the pool was so caught up in his condition that he forgot why he was there. He was bemoaning the fact that he couldn't get to the water rather than remembering that the goal was to be healed. In far too many cases our obvious condition is forgotten and we want that which isn't obvious ... or even necessary. Like the finger pointing at the moon, we begin to focus on the finger rather than the moon.
The most obvious of these kinds of conditions for us is found in our sin condition. Jesus comes to us and says, "Do you wish to get well?" He has to ask, you see, because even though we are aware of our horrible, mangled, spiritual condition, getting right with God isn't often our first thought. No, we want a better life, marital healing, a better job, more comfort, a happier existence. Right with God? Yeah, that's a lot farther down the list. I'm sorry, Jesus, what was the question?
What do you wish from Christ? Do you wish for Him to make you a reflection of Him rather than the spiritually disfigured human that you are? Do you want Him to open your eyes to more of Him rather than giving you more pleasure? Do you wish to get well? What do you want Him to do for you? Sometimes, even though the answers should be obvious, we miss them.
Thursday, October 04, 2012
No Harm Done
If you ask most people today, "What determines morality?", they would answer "Huh?" Okay, maybe that's not fair. But a large number of people don't think about it. The question is simply subject to their gut reaction. Does it feel wrong? "Eww! Two men kissing? Yuck!" And, therefore, it's wrong.
Others have spent a bit more time thinking it through. The most common view today by far is the "Harm Principle". (Probably not the best name I could come up with. That actually refers to the rightful exercise of government -- preventing harm to citizens. So please just bear with me.) The idea is that morality is determined by that which harms (or helps). If something is harmful, it's immoral. If something is helpful, it's moral. Everything else is amoral -- outside the question of morality. Is it harmful to enjoy a nice chicken salad at lunch? Probably not even a reasonable question. See?
Of course, the difficulty of this principle as the basis for morality is that, while we've managed to "define" moral and immoral, we're still stuck with defining "harm". Take, for instance, the subject of divorce. Forty years ago states were jumping on the "no fault divorce" bandwagon to make divorce less messy and easier to get because, after all, "What's the harm in divorce?" In so many of these cases, staying together is more harmful. People who divorce are glad to get out of that mess (and isn't that helpful?). So divorce was not immoral and was, actually moral because it was not harmful and was actually helpful. Woohoo! Except as time has gone by we've been discovering that divorce is not "harmless". The damage it does to the children of divorce seems to last a lifetime. The damage to the institution of marriage is incalculable (as seen by the absolute obscurity today of understanding what marriage actually means). The emotional and financial outcomes are never painless. Conversely, unhappy couples who remained together have almost universally discovered that going through the toughest of times and remaining a unit have made them stronger and closer. As it turns out, divorce is not harmless or helpful. But it took decades to figure that out. In this case, the "do no harm" ethic failed because we didn't comprehend the harm being done. (I should also point out that, even though studies have clearly and repeatedly shown that divorce is harmful and not helpful, our society hasn't changed its moral opinion of the practice. So even though something is known to cause harm, we aren't using that information on the question, are we?)
There is another factor in the question. It is almost without exclusion that God is excluded from the question. That is, even if we go with "harm" and "help" as the key issues, how often does anyone include the question of "harm" and "help" for God? Now, I admit that it might be a little difficult to suggest that something might "harm God" and, in fact, that we could "help God". But there is still the concern. There are things that can be done that would, say, harm God's reputation, and that would be harm to God. God has always been all about His glory, and anything that would take away from His glory would be harm, wouldn't it? And if God says, "I hate that particular activity", wouldn't it be harmful in some sense to God if we ignored what He hates and go ahead and do it? Does anyone consider those things in the question of what is or isn't moral?
Harm seems like a really good place to go to define morality. Unfortunately, we are finite and often don't really comprehend what is actually harmful. Beyond that, since God is the Ultimate Lawgiver, but is Himself typically excluded from our moral considerations, perhaps "harm" and "help" are not the best criteria for determining "moral". Shouldn't we be able to come up with a more reliable one? (That's an intentionally leading question, my answer to which I'm sure you already know.)
Others have spent a bit more time thinking it through. The most common view today by far is the "Harm Principle". (Probably not the best name I could come up with. That actually refers to the rightful exercise of government -- preventing harm to citizens. So please just bear with me.) The idea is that morality is determined by that which harms (or helps). If something is harmful, it's immoral. If something is helpful, it's moral. Everything else is amoral -- outside the question of morality. Is it harmful to enjoy a nice chicken salad at lunch? Probably not even a reasonable question. See?
Of course, the difficulty of this principle as the basis for morality is that, while we've managed to "define" moral and immoral, we're still stuck with defining "harm". Take, for instance, the subject of divorce. Forty years ago states were jumping on the "no fault divorce" bandwagon to make divorce less messy and easier to get because, after all, "What's the harm in divorce?" In so many of these cases, staying together is more harmful. People who divorce are glad to get out of that mess (and isn't that helpful?). So divorce was not immoral and was, actually moral because it was not harmful and was actually helpful. Woohoo! Except as time has gone by we've been discovering that divorce is not "harmless". The damage it does to the children of divorce seems to last a lifetime. The damage to the institution of marriage is incalculable (as seen by the absolute obscurity today of understanding what marriage actually means). The emotional and financial outcomes are never painless. Conversely, unhappy couples who remained together have almost universally discovered that going through the toughest of times and remaining a unit have made them stronger and closer. As it turns out, divorce is not harmless or helpful. But it took decades to figure that out. In this case, the "do no harm" ethic failed because we didn't comprehend the harm being done. (I should also point out that, even though studies have clearly and repeatedly shown that divorce is harmful and not helpful, our society hasn't changed its moral opinion of the practice. So even though something is known to cause harm, we aren't using that information on the question, are we?)
There is another factor in the question. It is almost without exclusion that God is excluded from the question. That is, even if we go with "harm" and "help" as the key issues, how often does anyone include the question of "harm" and "help" for God? Now, I admit that it might be a little difficult to suggest that something might "harm God" and, in fact, that we could "help God". But there is still the concern. There are things that can be done that would, say, harm God's reputation, and that would be harm to God. God has always been all about His glory, and anything that would take away from His glory would be harm, wouldn't it? And if God says, "I hate that particular activity", wouldn't it be harmful in some sense to God if we ignored what He hates and go ahead and do it? Does anyone consider those things in the question of what is or isn't moral?
Harm seems like a really good place to go to define morality. Unfortunately, we are finite and often don't really comprehend what is actually harmful. Beyond that, since God is the Ultimate Lawgiver, but is Himself typically excluded from our moral considerations, perhaps "harm" and "help" are not the best criteria for determining "moral". Shouldn't we be able to come up with a more reliable one? (That's an intentionally leading question, my answer to which I'm sure you already know.)
Wednesday, October 03, 2012
Why Do They Hate Us?
By Dan
After 9/11 this seemed to be the question. "Why do Muslims hate us?" In attempting to answer this question it might help to try on a little empathy. Consider the influence that the world you live in has had on you; your childhood, what you see as acceptable and unacceptable, right and wrong, that sort of thing. Regardless of your worldview, or its logical consistency and source, you do have some inner standard by which you attempt to live. And within that standard are right and wrong which include behaviors and actions that you inwardly or outwardly become indignant about.
The Muslim is no different. He was raised from childhood in a setting that appealed to a standard sourced from his Koran along with other writings depending on the particular strain of his upbringing. He either inwardly or outwardly becomes indignant when he sees lifestyles and beliefs that differ from all he has ever known, such as the images he sees coming out of the West.
For the true Muslim, western society embodies everything he knows to be profanity and debauchery. Feminism, homosexuality, pornography, abortion, the rejection of family, no fear of, but instead mocking of, his God, unruly children and so on are all part and parcel to the eastern Muslim's view of the West. Even the West's cowardice in the face of their terror is reason for contempt.
And then there's Christianity. Christianity, as well as all other religions, are hated because they are seen as false. But perhaps Christianity is worse because it is not differentiated from the West and its debauchery in the Muslim mind. If there was one favor president Obama did for Christians, I think, it was when he proclaimed that America was no longer a Christian nation1. Of course the Muslim is not buying it. With images like the one below emanating out of the West, why should he?
I can empathize with the Muslim to a degree. Indeed we both believe in the existence of objective reality. Unlike the Muslim, however, I live in the midst of this strange new world; a world completely alien to the one I experienced as a child. In fact, it was the onslaught of this new world, a world that no longer had any external bearings as to right and wrong, that drove me to seek objective reality. I found it in the person of Jesus.
Left to my flesh, indeed my old self, once my living conditions were reduced to having nothing to lose, I might do what Muslims do in some cause equally dear to my heart. But scripture paints a larger picture. It points in a different direction altogether, one opposite my own natural and fleshy inclinations. I am told to love my enemies, and to pray for them, not walk into a market strapped with explosives and kill them. Still, that Christian tolerance2 is rejected, both by the Muslim who sees it as weakness, and the secularist who assumes all religions are the same. The reality remains that since authentic Christianity is the one and only true religion, the evil world will never contort itself to be as tolerant of it as it has Islam3. Evil, at its core, does not tolerate, but rejects, good. (Matt 5:11-12, John 3:19-21)
Yet the most fascinating thing of all with this question is the blindness of those who ask it. They will assume and blame everything, it would appear, except the profane world they have created, and in which they are now so immersed it is no longer visible. This mindset can only conclude that it is the disparity in the allocation of resources that make them hate us. The fact that a people would love their children so much that they would choose poverty and violence over an affluent world that rejoices in the "liberty" that has its young piercing, mutilating and tattooing itself while freely supporting and engaging in sodomy and fornication confounds those who are asking this question, because they are secularists. The answer they provide for themselves is understandably a materialistic one imagined by a purely materialistic and secular mindset and then projected onto the Muslim.
But for those who have the eyes to see it the answer is a simple one: they hate us because we are vile.
__________________________
Note 1 I know I may get some push back for this. But please consider this: the laws of the land still allow for the slaughter of millions of unborn human beings every year. Some states have redefined marriage in the law books for homosexuals while heterosexuals are increasingly rejecting it. The number of these states is almost certain to grow. Our schools have become cauldrons of secular humanism, environment worship, and sensuality, and our society is bearing the fruit of that seed. These are not the fruits of a Christian nation. We do Jesus and Christianity no favors or service by insisting that America is such a nation.
Note 2 Tolerance defined as tolerance, not acceptance.
Note 3 In a particular discussion in the past I simply asked someone, "Do you think the nation would be bending itself over backward right now to paint Christianity in a positive light if the hijackers had been Christians"? You could see the light come on in her mind. She knew better. We all do.
The Muslim is no different. He was raised from childhood in a setting that appealed to a standard sourced from his Koran along with other writings depending on the particular strain of his upbringing. He either inwardly or outwardly becomes indignant when he sees lifestyles and beliefs that differ from all he has ever known, such as the images he sees coming out of the West.
And then there's Christianity. Christianity, as well as all other religions, are hated because they are seen as false. But perhaps Christianity is worse because it is not differentiated from the West and its debauchery in the Muslim mind. If there was one favor president Obama did for Christians, I think, it was when he proclaimed that America was no longer a Christian nation1. Of course the Muslim is not buying it. With images like the one below emanating out of the West, why should he?
Left to my flesh, indeed my old self, once my living conditions were reduced to having nothing to lose, I might do what Muslims do in some cause equally dear to my heart. But scripture paints a larger picture. It points in a different direction altogether, one opposite my own natural and fleshy inclinations. I am told to love my enemies, and to pray for them, not walk into a market strapped with explosives and kill them. Still, that Christian tolerance2 is rejected, both by the Muslim who sees it as weakness, and the secularist who assumes all religions are the same. The reality remains that since authentic Christianity is the one and only true religion, the evil world will never contort itself to be as tolerant of it as it has Islam3. Evil, at its core, does not tolerate, but rejects, good. (Matt 5:11-12, John 3:19-21)
Yet the most fascinating thing of all with this question is the blindness of those who ask it. They will assume and blame everything, it would appear, except the profane world they have created, and in which they are now so immersed it is no longer visible. This mindset can only conclude that it is the disparity in the allocation of resources that make them hate us. The fact that a people would love their children so much that they would choose poverty and violence over an affluent world that rejoices in the "liberty" that has its young piercing, mutilating and tattooing itself while freely supporting and engaging in sodomy and fornication confounds those who are asking this question, because they are secularists. The answer they provide for themselves is understandably a materialistic one imagined by a purely materialistic and secular mindset and then projected onto the Muslim. But for those who have the eyes to see it the answer is a simple one: they hate us because we are vile.
__________________________
Note 1 I know I may get some push back for this. But please consider this: the laws of the land still allow for the slaughter of millions of unborn human beings every year. Some states have redefined marriage in the law books for homosexuals while heterosexuals are increasingly rejecting it. The number of these states is almost certain to grow. Our schools have become cauldrons of secular humanism, environment worship, and sensuality, and our society is bearing the fruit of that seed. These are not the fruits of a Christian nation. We do Jesus and Christianity no favors or service by insisting that America is such a nation.
Note 2 Tolerance defined as tolerance, not acceptance.
Note 3 In a particular discussion in the past I simply asked someone, "Do you think the nation would be bending itself over backward right now to paint Christianity in a positive light if the hijackers had been Christians"? You could see the light come on in her mind. She knew better. We all do.
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
A Logic Test
A friend wrote to me and asked about this concept. "Given 1 Timothy" ("This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, Who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim 2:3-4).) "and 2 Peter" ("The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).), "it appears that it is God's will that all should come to repentance. Given the rest of Scripture, it is quite clear that this will not happen. Some will not come to repentance. Not all will be saved. Since Ephesians 1:11 says that God works all things after the counsel of His will and Psalms says God does as He pleases (Psa 115:3; 135:6), how do we correlate these two ideas? How can we have it as God's will that all should be saved and not all are saved?"
My friend postulates further. "It would appear that we have two options. Either it is God's will that all be saved and He's not willing to carry out His own will, or it is God's will that all be saved but Man prevents Him from accomplishing it. Either God is unwilling or unable. Either God fails to be Sovereign or Man overcomes God's will. Which is it?"
So, answer his question. Of course, there are rules. You can't simply ignore Scripture. "Forget about these verses or those verses ..." If you're going to go that way, you'll have to give a plausible explanation. And you can't stagger into incoherence. "God is sovereign enough to not be completely sovereign while being completely sovereign." If you're going to do something like that, you'll need to offer a redefinition of "sovereign" so that it doesn't mean the same thing that the Bible seems to mean by it. (That's fine as long as you provide a new definition and your reason for it.) By all means, use Scripture. Use the language. Use parallels, cross references, whatever. But don't use Scripture to contradict Scripture. If you're going to contradict another Scripture with Scripture, you'll have to explain why it's not a contradiction. And by all means use logic. "I don't think so" is not logic. A reasonable explanation would be helpful. You don't need to convince me. Just give a logical, biblical answer that someone else might find reasonable and useful.
The question is, then, two-fold. First, do we have a genuine contradiction here in God being Sovereign but failing? Second, if not, what is the reality? Give it a go. See if you can reason through it. And understand I'll not be easy in the comments.
My friend postulates further. "It would appear that we have two options. Either it is God's will that all be saved and He's not willing to carry out His own will, or it is God's will that all be saved but Man prevents Him from accomplishing it. Either God is unwilling or unable. Either God fails to be Sovereign or Man overcomes God's will. Which is it?"
So, answer his question. Of course, there are rules. You can't simply ignore Scripture. "Forget about these verses or those verses ..." If you're going to go that way, you'll have to give a plausible explanation. And you can't stagger into incoherence. "God is sovereign enough to not be completely sovereign while being completely sovereign." If you're going to do something like that, you'll need to offer a redefinition of "sovereign" so that it doesn't mean the same thing that the Bible seems to mean by it. (That's fine as long as you provide a new definition and your reason for it.) By all means, use Scripture. Use the language. Use parallels, cross references, whatever. But don't use Scripture to contradict Scripture. If you're going to contradict another Scripture with Scripture, you'll have to explain why it's not a contradiction. And by all means use logic. "I don't think so" is not logic. A reasonable explanation would be helpful. You don't need to convince me. Just give a logical, biblical answer that someone else might find reasonable and useful.
The question is, then, two-fold. First, do we have a genuine contradiction here in God being Sovereign but failing? Second, if not, what is the reality? Give it a go. See if you can reason through it. And understand I'll not be easy in the comments.
Monday, October 01, 2012
Bad Arguments
I recently spent (way too much) time listening to Matthew Vines give his argument that the Bible does not condemn homosexual relationships. Now, there have been many and far better refutations of his arguments, but I feel the need to point out some serious errors, not for Mr. Vines or even for the topic, but for a general problem of bad arguments.
Matthew Vines put his college education on hold for two years while he researched the topic of the Bible on homosexuality. He came up with a wonderfully emotional argument -- "Do you really think God wants His children to suffer so much?" -- and little else. The primary reason he gave for asking the question about the Bible on homosexuality was because Jesus said, "You can know them by their fruits", and the pain of being gay and unable to marry is bad fruit, so clearly it's false teaching.
That's a problematic argument that we (all of us) should avoid. "Pain is bad. God doesn't want us to have pain." It is not defensible. Don't go there. The Bible indicates that God uses pain. He uses it as training for His own. He uses it as judgment for those who are not His own. Pain may be a product of sin, but it is under the control of God. If this is not true, you will need to explain how it is that God works all things after the counsel of His will ... except pain. You will need to explain the torment of Hell and the discipline of the Father who loves His children. Ultimately, if pain is actually bad (morally evil), you'll have to figure out how God is not.
Mr. Vines approached the two primary Old Testament passages on the topic, Leviticus 18 and 20, from the standard Pauline Dispensationalist view. "That's the Old Testament; it doesn't count." Seriously, you'd be surprised how many people, Christians included, who suggest just such a thing. Don't go there! "Bad Argument Alert!" Look, let's just visit, say, Leviticus 18. In that chapter you will find "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination" (Lev 18:22). And the standard argument to that is "Do you keep the rest of the Old Testament law?" Well, let's see. We also find prohibitions for incest, adultery, idolatry, child sacrifice, and bestiality in this very same passage. No, no, you're right. We don't need all those rules. We're New Testament Christians! They're not applicable! "Now, wait," you will likely hear, "sure we need some of them. So we just keep what the New Testament says. The New Testament prohibits adultery and idolatry, so we do, too." Okay. So far so good. But the New Testament makes no reference to incest, bestiality, or child sacrifice. Apparently those are okay for New Testament Christians, right? "No, no," they'll respond, "that's not right." No, it's not. But if you start with the "The Old Testament is no longer applicable" argument, you will immediately be in a swamp requiring careful consideration. When you wade through that swamp under careful consideration, you will find that the moral codes, such as prohibitions of incest, adultery, bestiality, and men lying with men are still in effect. (Interestingly, if you use the "If it's mentioned in the New Testament, it's still in effect" argument, the prohibition of bestiality is out but the prohibition of same-sex sex is still there.) Arguing that "the Old Testament is no longer applicable" puts you in a really bad place. Don't go there.
Mr. Vines did the normal dance around the New Testament passages. You know ... "Romans 1 is a prohibition of abnormal sex, but if you're gay, then sex with the same gender is normal." The fact that the adjective, "natural" ("For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature ..."), is a description of the relations, not the nature of the person, seems to be irrelevant. The argument there is that heterosexuals violated their own sexual orientation and chose to be homosexual. Oh, wait, that can't be, can it? No, they just chose homosexual acts. Well, that isn't consistent with the text, either. It says they "were consumed with passion for one another." Further, Mr. Vines (and apparently the rest of the current culture) is sure that the ancient world had no concept of "sexual orientation". So ... wait ... which is it? Is Paul saying that their sin was that they violated their natural orientation of which he had no notion, or is he saying that they chose to be a different orientation which you say isn't possible? This is a no-win approach. You don't want to build an argument that refutes your arguments. You don't want to contradict yourself in your own argumentation. Bad argument. Don't go there.
Vines ends up assuring us that God never intended to make "gay" out to be sin. (I wonder why there is no outrage from the pro-gay side that Mr. Vines is conflating his opinion to be God's view?) And God wants "gay Christians" to avoid sexual sin by marrying. Look at 1 Corinthians 7! "But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion" (1 Cor 7:9). Paul encourages celibacy and singleness (because of the "present distress" - 7:26), but if you can't do it, marry. Nice. Clear. Complete. Or not. If you want to use Paul's words, use them as he did. "But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband" (1 Cor 7:2). Paul clearly views "marry" as "man" and "wife". Indeed, he clearly sees it as "one man" and "one woman". To stretch that to "whatever gender I choose" when the very same passage defines it otherwise is not reasonable nor right. Twisting the words of Scripture to align with my preferences is a bad argument. Don't go there.
Bad arguments. Lots of people make them. They may be right points, but the arguments may still be bad arguments. An argument that produces unintended outcomes is unwise. Proving, for instance, that it's God's will that everyone be saved simply proves, if you're not careful, that God's will is not accomplished on earth. Don't do it. Broad arguments that the Old Testament is no longer applicable are dangerous. Don't do it. Constructing arguments that contradict themselves is not a valid means of defense. Don't do it. And twisting Scripture to meet your own agenda is just a losing proposition. The best approach in that case is to either take the Scripture as it is written or discard it completely. Twisting isn't good. Don't go there.
Just a few examples of bad arguments.
Matthew Vines put his college education on hold for two years while he researched the topic of the Bible on homosexuality. He came up with a wonderfully emotional argument -- "Do you really think God wants His children to suffer so much?" -- and little else. The primary reason he gave for asking the question about the Bible on homosexuality was because Jesus said, "You can know them by their fruits", and the pain of being gay and unable to marry is bad fruit, so clearly it's false teaching.
That's a problematic argument that we (all of us) should avoid. "Pain is bad. God doesn't want us to have pain." It is not defensible. Don't go there. The Bible indicates that God uses pain. He uses it as training for His own. He uses it as judgment for those who are not His own. Pain may be a product of sin, but it is under the control of God. If this is not true, you will need to explain how it is that God works all things after the counsel of His will ... except pain. You will need to explain the torment of Hell and the discipline of the Father who loves His children. Ultimately, if pain is actually bad (morally evil), you'll have to figure out how God is not.
Mr. Vines approached the two primary Old Testament passages on the topic, Leviticus 18 and 20, from the standard Pauline Dispensationalist view. "That's the Old Testament; it doesn't count." Seriously, you'd be surprised how many people, Christians included, who suggest just such a thing. Don't go there! "Bad Argument Alert!" Look, let's just visit, say, Leviticus 18. In that chapter you will find "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination" (Lev 18:22). And the standard argument to that is "Do you keep the rest of the Old Testament law?" Well, let's see. We also find prohibitions for incest, adultery, idolatry, child sacrifice, and bestiality in this very same passage. No, no, you're right. We don't need all those rules. We're New Testament Christians! They're not applicable! "Now, wait," you will likely hear, "sure we need some of them. So we just keep what the New Testament says. The New Testament prohibits adultery and idolatry, so we do, too." Okay. So far so good. But the New Testament makes no reference to incest, bestiality, or child sacrifice. Apparently those are okay for New Testament Christians, right? "No, no," they'll respond, "that's not right." No, it's not. But if you start with the "The Old Testament is no longer applicable" argument, you will immediately be in a swamp requiring careful consideration. When you wade through that swamp under careful consideration, you will find that the moral codes, such as prohibitions of incest, adultery, bestiality, and men lying with men are still in effect. (Interestingly, if you use the "If it's mentioned in the New Testament, it's still in effect" argument, the prohibition of bestiality is out but the prohibition of same-sex sex is still there.) Arguing that "the Old Testament is no longer applicable" puts you in a really bad place. Don't go there.
Mr. Vines did the normal dance around the New Testament passages. You know ... "Romans 1 is a prohibition of abnormal sex, but if you're gay, then sex with the same gender is normal." The fact that the adjective, "natural" ("For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature ..."), is a description of the relations, not the nature of the person, seems to be irrelevant. The argument there is that heterosexuals violated their own sexual orientation and chose to be homosexual. Oh, wait, that can't be, can it? No, they just chose homosexual acts. Well, that isn't consistent with the text, either. It says they "were consumed with passion for one another." Further, Mr. Vines (and apparently the rest of the current culture) is sure that the ancient world had no concept of "sexual orientation". So ... wait ... which is it? Is Paul saying that their sin was that they violated their natural orientation of which he had no notion, or is he saying that they chose to be a different orientation which you say isn't possible? This is a no-win approach. You don't want to build an argument that refutes your arguments. You don't want to contradict yourself in your own argumentation. Bad argument. Don't go there.
Vines ends up assuring us that God never intended to make "gay" out to be sin. (I wonder why there is no outrage from the pro-gay side that Mr. Vines is conflating his opinion to be God's view?) And God wants "gay Christians" to avoid sexual sin by marrying. Look at 1 Corinthians 7! "But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion" (1 Cor 7:9). Paul encourages celibacy and singleness (because of the "present distress" - 7:26), but if you can't do it, marry. Nice. Clear. Complete. Or not. If you want to use Paul's words, use them as he did. "But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband" (1 Cor 7:2). Paul clearly views "marry" as "man" and "wife". Indeed, he clearly sees it as "one man" and "one woman". To stretch that to "whatever gender I choose" when the very same passage defines it otherwise is not reasonable nor right. Twisting the words of Scripture to align with my preferences is a bad argument. Don't go there.
Bad arguments. Lots of people make them. They may be right points, but the arguments may still be bad arguments. An argument that produces unintended outcomes is unwise. Proving, for instance, that it's God's will that everyone be saved simply proves, if you're not careful, that God's will is not accomplished on earth. Don't do it. Broad arguments that the Old Testament is no longer applicable are dangerous. Don't do it. Constructing arguments that contradict themselves is not a valid means of defense. Don't do it. And twisting Scripture to meet your own agenda is just a losing proposition. The best approach in that case is to either take the Scripture as it is written or discard it completely. Twisting isn't good. Don't go there.
Just a few examples of bad arguments.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Jesus Wept
When I was a youngster in church activities, I was caught up in the competition. You know. We had "Bible drills" -- who could turn the fastest to a Bible verse. We had contests to see who could recite the books of the Bible the fastest. We had Bible memorization contests. Now, in these contests you were credited with "numbers of verses" or "numbers of chapters". So we learned tricks. If you had to memorize a chapter, volunteer to memorize Psalm 117. Two verses. Done! And our favorite Bible verse to memorize was John 11:35. "Jesus wept." Done!
To tell the truth, beyond it's memorization advantage, the verse has always been somewhat of an enigma. Why did Jesus weep? I mean, look, the text says, "So, when He heard that Lazarus was ill, He stayed two days longer in the place where He was" (John 11:6). He purposely delayed. And the text says that Jesus knew what He was going to do -- bring back a dead man from the grave (John 11:11, 23). It's not as if He was saddened by the death of Lazarus because He knew it was temporary. And still, when He saw Mary weeping and the Jews weeping, "He was deeply moved in His spirit" (John 11:33). Twice (John 11:38). Why?
This isn't the only place that Jesus wept. In the Gospel of Luke we read, "And when He drew near and saw the city, He wept over it" (Luke 19:41). Why? Was Jesus surprised by their lack of faith? Was He hoping that all Jerusalem would be saved and, too bad, couldn't accomplish it? Was God's Sovereign Will failing? Were His plans frustrated? No. Then why was He weeping?
Jesus wept because Jesus was a man. You know ... "fully God" and "fully Man". He experienced the sadness of those around Him. He saw the tears of those He loved and wept with those who wept. He understood the sad fact that most of Jerusalem -- the Jews, His people -- would not be saved and He wept. He raised Lazarus as proof of His divinity. He wept as proof of His humanity.
Beyond that Jesus wept for humanity. He felt their pain. He understood their hurt. He even anticipated the future torment of those who rejected Him. He was fully God, but connected emotionally with the humans of which He was part.
I don't know about you, but knowing that my Savior feels my pain is of great comfort. A God who couldn't appreciate my pain even though He is Sovereign, Loving, and Good wouldn't be really connected to me. He is. He calls for repentance and weeps for my tears. He plans for my suffering for my gain and feels my pain. He was tempted -- tried -- like we are. This is not a God like any other religion's God. This one was the God/Man, the one who, amidst His own Sovereignty, could also feel my hurt and empathize. A truly good God.
To tell the truth, beyond it's memorization advantage, the verse has always been somewhat of an enigma. Why did Jesus weep? I mean, look, the text says, "So, when He heard that Lazarus was ill, He stayed two days longer in the place where He was" (John 11:6). He purposely delayed. And the text says that Jesus knew what He was going to do -- bring back a dead man from the grave (John 11:11, 23). It's not as if He was saddened by the death of Lazarus because He knew it was temporary. And still, when He saw Mary weeping and the Jews weeping, "He was deeply moved in His spirit" (John 11:33). Twice (John 11:38). Why?
This isn't the only place that Jesus wept. In the Gospel of Luke we read, "And when He drew near and saw the city, He wept over it" (Luke 19:41). Why? Was Jesus surprised by their lack of faith? Was He hoping that all Jerusalem would be saved and, too bad, couldn't accomplish it? Was God's Sovereign Will failing? Were His plans frustrated? No. Then why was He weeping?
Jesus wept because Jesus was a man. You know ... "fully God" and "fully Man". He experienced the sadness of those around Him. He saw the tears of those He loved and wept with those who wept. He understood the sad fact that most of Jerusalem -- the Jews, His people -- would not be saved and He wept. He raised Lazarus as proof of His divinity. He wept as proof of His humanity.
Beyond that Jesus wept for humanity. He felt their pain. He understood their hurt. He even anticipated the future torment of those who rejected Him. He was fully God, but connected emotionally with the humans of which He was part.
I don't know about you, but knowing that my Savior feels my pain is of great comfort. A God who couldn't appreciate my pain even though He is Sovereign, Loving, and Good wouldn't be really connected to me. He is. He calls for repentance and weeps for my tears. He plans for my suffering for my gain and feels my pain. He was tempted -- tried -- like we are. This is not a God like any other religion's God. This one was the God/Man, the one who, amidst His own Sovereignty, could also feel my hurt and empathize. A truly good God.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Marriage and the Government
There are more than one or two voices out there today suggesting that maybe the government ought to get out of the marriage business and leave it to the rest of us. The suggestion begs the question: Why is the government involved in marriage? What is the interest of government in the institution of marriage? It cannot -- is not allowed to be -- for religious reasons. So what is it?
Well, from the external, obvious answer given by so many the primary purpose of government involved in marriage is shared rights. Single people have no rights to other single people. Married people share rights. The State gives married people tax breaks and inheritance and health insurance benefits and such. Conversely, married people have State-enforced responsibilities. There is child support and spousal support and such possibly even including garnishing of wages by the State.
These, however, are barely sufficient to involve the government in marriage. These, in fact, are only the tip of the iceberg.
One primary concern of government is the function of family building with long term stability. Marriage provides the optimum environment for child-rearing (two parents, committed, opposite sexes). Sure, not all marriages result in children, but it is the general aim. And, sure, children can thrive in single-parent homes with distant mother or father or two adults of the same gender, but the question isn't survivability; the question is optimum. Common sense and scientific studies have demonstrated that a biological mother and biological father in a permanent, caring relationship provide the best possible environment for children.
Children, of course, are another primary concern of the government. Procreation -- the propogation of the species -- is an essential concern. It maintains any given society (and expands the tax base). And, while all children are capable of being loved, there is no doubt that there is a special, almost mystical bond of having offspring (versus adoption). A loving, biological mother experiences a connection to her child that even the most loving adoptive mother cannot, and so with fathers.
Not many will speak about it, but marriage provides an effect for males that I will call "the taming of the beast". Men are barbarians by nature, doing whatever seems right to them. Put into the environment of marriage, with its inherent lifelong commitment and the natural prospect of children, men settle down. They learn a new level of self-control, self-sacrifice, responsibility, and maturity. This only happens in the close contact of wife (versus "cohabitor") and offspring (versus no children or "someone else's children").
And, because it's considered "sexist" even if it is true, marriage provides a benefit for women that is tuned to their basic structure. Men, by nature, desire a sense of signficance. Women, on the other hand, want a sense of security. They want to be held, protected, nurtured. Only in a lifelong marriage relationship to a committed male is this effect optimized.
The alternative? Families are incoherent. They are without definition. Children are not given the optimum environment. Men are not provided with "taming" and women are not provided with security. The continuation of the society could be in question, and even if it isn't, families are not providing the best for their children. Responsibilities become vague. Costs rise in terms of caring for single parent families, abandoned mothers, and ignored or abused children.
Because it is in the interest of government to provide stable conditions for the two-gender marriage, the government, then, regulates marriage. It offers tax breaks, inheritance rights, family support, and shared rights to this fundamental building block of the society. Good, male-female marriages with children who are loved and nurtured stabilize and perpetuate society.
For some reason, no one seems to pay attention to the fact that none of this is accomplished in a same-sex union of any sort.
Well, from the external, obvious answer given by so many the primary purpose of government involved in marriage is shared rights. Single people have no rights to other single people. Married people share rights. The State gives married people tax breaks and inheritance and health insurance benefits and such. Conversely, married people have State-enforced responsibilities. There is child support and spousal support and such possibly even including garnishing of wages by the State.
These, however, are barely sufficient to involve the government in marriage. These, in fact, are only the tip of the iceberg.
One primary concern of government is the function of family building with long term stability. Marriage provides the optimum environment for child-rearing (two parents, committed, opposite sexes). Sure, not all marriages result in children, but it is the general aim. And, sure, children can thrive in single-parent homes with distant mother or father or two adults of the same gender, but the question isn't survivability; the question is optimum. Common sense and scientific studies have demonstrated that a biological mother and biological father in a permanent, caring relationship provide the best possible environment for children.
Children, of course, are another primary concern of the government. Procreation -- the propogation of the species -- is an essential concern. It maintains any given society (and expands the tax base). And, while all children are capable of being loved, there is no doubt that there is a special, almost mystical bond of having offspring (versus adoption). A loving, biological mother experiences a connection to her child that even the most loving adoptive mother cannot, and so with fathers.
Not many will speak about it, but marriage provides an effect for males that I will call "the taming of the beast". Men are barbarians by nature, doing whatever seems right to them. Put into the environment of marriage, with its inherent lifelong commitment and the natural prospect of children, men settle down. They learn a new level of self-control, self-sacrifice, responsibility, and maturity. This only happens in the close contact of wife (versus "cohabitor") and offspring (versus no children or "someone else's children").
And, because it's considered "sexist" even if it is true, marriage provides a benefit for women that is tuned to their basic structure. Men, by nature, desire a sense of signficance. Women, on the other hand, want a sense of security. They want to be held, protected, nurtured. Only in a lifelong marriage relationship to a committed male is this effect optimized.
The alternative? Families are incoherent. They are without definition. Children are not given the optimum environment. Men are not provided with "taming" and women are not provided with security. The continuation of the society could be in question, and even if it isn't, families are not providing the best for their children. Responsibilities become vague. Costs rise in terms of caring for single parent families, abandoned mothers, and ignored or abused children.
Because it is in the interest of government to provide stable conditions for the two-gender marriage, the government, then, regulates marriage. It offers tax breaks, inheritance rights, family support, and shared rights to this fundamental building block of the society. Good, male-female marriages with children who are loved and nurtured stabilize and perpetuate society.
For some reason, no one seems to pay attention to the fact that none of this is accomplished in a same-sex union of any sort.
Friday, September 28, 2012
A Biblical Parallel
Here, let me give you a verse right from the Bible:
ος αν κοιμηθή μετά άρσενος κοίτην γυναικός βδέλυγμα εποίησαν αμφότεροι θανάτω θανατούσθωσαν ένοχοί εισιν
Well, I don't know about you, but that seems abundantly clear, right? What? No?!? Okay, maybe not. That is a Greek text from the Septuagint. You know the Septuagint, right? Well, Paul did. The Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible at the time that Paul lived. When Paul quoted Old Testament passages in his writings, his Greek-speaking readers could look them up in that book.
Now, before I explain that odd stuff, I'd like to put down another verse.
μη πλανάσθε ούτε πόρνοι ούτε ειδωλολάτραι ούτε μοιχοί ούτε μαλακοί ούτε αρσενοκοίται ούτε κλέπται ούτε πλεονέκται ούτε μέθυσοι ου λοίδοροι ουχ άρπαγες βασιλείαν θεού κληρονομήσουσιν
Now that one is from the Greek New Testament. Clear? Well, no, not if you don't read Greek. And I don't. So let's see if we can figure anything out. Here, let me take it out of the Greek lettering and into English transliteration:
There is an interesting link between the two. Notice in the first one the phrase, άρσενος κοίτην, or arsenov koithn. Now look at the second one. There you'll see αρσενοκοίται or arsenokoitai. Now that's interesting.
Ummm, yeah, Stan, sure. (Humor him.)
Stay with me. Notice that the two are nearly identical. They are certainly of the same roots. In fact, they are similar enough to be synonyms. Since the second passage is from Paul, was he quoting from the first passage?
Well, let me reveal where all this is going. In the New American Standard version of the Bible, we read in 1 Cor 6, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor 6:9-10). From those who would like to deny that this is what we read in this passage, you will read that "homosexuals" is not in the text. In fact, it's an obscure word. It is used twice in Scripture (here and in 1 Tim 1:10). And most of the best scholars believe that Paul himself gave the first known usage of the term. What does it mean? The King James translates it "abusers of themselves with mankind". Young's Literal Translation uses the term "sodomites". Interestingly, the ESV eliminates "effeminate" and translates both terms as "men who practice homosexuality". (Think about why it is that the latest translation, the ESV, felt the need to put it that way.) The word is a compound word. The first part, arseno, references males (men), and the second, koitai, is a reference to the bed ... specifically, the marriage bed. (That is, it typically has sexual connotations.) Indeed, it is the root of the English word, "coitus". But, hey, what does that prove? So what does it mean?!
If Paul was a Pharisee Bible scholar, well educated and well informed on the Greek Septuagint, it would appear that Paul coined a term straight from the Greek Old Testament for this passage. And what was that verse from the Old Testament?
From the GLBTQ Encyclopedia on St. Paul, they say on the subject
Is there really a question about what Paul meant when he used the term? Is there really a need to harangue "too-conservative Bible translators" for concluding that Paul meant exactly what it meant in Paul's own Bible? Is that really a stretch? Or is it just too clear to tolerate?
ος αν κοιμηθή μετά άρσενος κοίτην γυναικός βδέλυγμα εποίησαν αμφότεροι θανάτω θανατούσθωσαν ένοχοί εισιν
Well, I don't know about you, but that seems abundantly clear, right? What? No?!? Okay, maybe not. That is a Greek text from the Septuagint. You know the Septuagint, right? Well, Paul did. The Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible at the time that Paul lived. When Paul quoted Old Testament passages in his writings, his Greek-speaking readers could look them up in that book.
Now, before I explain that odd stuff, I'd like to put down another verse.
μη πλανάσθε ούτε πόρνοι ούτε ειδωλολάτραι ούτε μοιχοί ούτε μαλακοί ούτε αρσενοκοίται ούτε κλέπται ούτε πλεονέκται ούτε μέθυσοι ου λοίδοροι ουχ άρπαγες βασιλείαν θεού κληρονομήσουσιν
Now that one is from the Greek New Testament. Clear? Well, no, not if you don't read Greek. And I don't. So let's see if we can figure anything out. Here, let me take it out of the Greek lettering and into English transliteration:
kai ov an koimhqh meta arsenov koithn gunaikov bdelugma epoihsan amfoteroi qanatousqwsan enoxoi eisinThere we go! No, wait. That's still not it. But let's look at what we might see anyway. Oh, look! There's kleptai; close enough to "klepto" to mean "thief", isn't it? Yeah, okay, but this still isn't getting us anywhere.
ouk oidate oti adikoi qeou basileian ou klhronomhsousin? mh planasqe; oute pornoi oute eidwlolatrai oute moixoi oute malakoi oute arsenokoitai oute kleptai oute pleonektai, ou mequsoi, ou loidoroi, oux arpagev basileian qeou klhronomhsousin.
There is an interesting link between the two. Notice in the first one the phrase, άρσενος κοίτην, or arsenov koithn. Now look at the second one. There you'll see αρσενοκοίται or arsenokoitai. Now that's interesting.
Ummm, yeah, Stan, sure. (Humor him.)
Stay with me. Notice that the two are nearly identical. They are certainly of the same roots. In fact, they are similar enough to be synonyms. Since the second passage is from Paul, was he quoting from the first passage?
Well, let me reveal where all this is going. In the New American Standard version of the Bible, we read in 1 Cor 6, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor 6:9-10). From those who would like to deny that this is what we read in this passage, you will read that "homosexuals" is not in the text. In fact, it's an obscure word. It is used twice in Scripture (here and in 1 Tim 1:10). And most of the best scholars believe that Paul himself gave the first known usage of the term. What does it mean? The King James translates it "abusers of themselves with mankind". Young's Literal Translation uses the term "sodomites". Interestingly, the ESV eliminates "effeminate" and translates both terms as "men who practice homosexuality". (Think about why it is that the latest translation, the ESV, felt the need to put it that way.) The word is a compound word. The first part, arseno, references males (men), and the second, koitai, is a reference to the bed ... specifically, the marriage bed. (That is, it typically has sexual connotations.) Indeed, it is the root of the English word, "coitus". But, hey, what does that prove? So what does it mean?!
If Paul was a Pharisee Bible scholar, well educated and well informed on the Greek Septuagint, it would appear that Paul coined a term straight from the Greek Old Testament for this passage. And what was that verse from the Old Testament?
If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them (Lev 20:13).In that verse, the text translated "a man who lies with a male" is arsenov koithn. Hmm!
From the GLBTQ Encyclopedia on St. Paul, they say on the subject
The word is a verbal noun, and its earliest attestation is in this verse of Paul's. It is a compound of arsen = "male" and koités = "a man who lies with (or beds)." And so we have, describing Oedipus, metrokoités, "a man who lies with his mother," doulokoités, "a man who lies with maidservants or female slaves," polykoités, "a man who lies with many," and onokoités, "a man who lies with donkeys," said of Christians in a graffito from Carthage of about 195.In fact, that source indicates that the source for the term comes from both Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13. Hmmm!
Arsenokoitai are therefore "men who lie with males," and the Vulgate's masculorum concubitores (where masculorum is an objective genitive), renders the Greek exactly to mean "men who lie with males," "men who sleep with males," "men who have sex with males."
Is there really a question about what Paul meant when he used the term? Is there really a need to harangue "too-conservative Bible translators" for concluding that Paul meant exactly what it meant in Paul's own Bible? Is that really a stretch? Or is it just too clear to tolerate?
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Assurance
In a discussion recently I was asked, "How can you know you're one of the elect?" A valid question worth exploring. The proof that you can't know was that even those who believe in election have a hard time with the question. Well, I'd prefer not to use contemporaries as the formation of my beliefs, so let's see what we can find in Scripture.
First, anyone who denies that the doctrine of election is a biblical doctrine is simply not reading their Bible.
It is, therefore, a given that some are "elect", "chosen of God". How, when, why, these are in question perhaps, but not that they are. So the question remains, "How can you know you're one of the elect?" What has changed, however, is who is being asked. The original question implied was, "How can those of you who believe in election know you're one of the elect?" It has to be "How can anyone who is a Christian know that he or she is one of the elect?" By definition those who are in Christ are "the elect".
Lots of people, in fact, aren't sure. Lot's of people question their "election" or their salvation (because, in the final analysis, these two concepts turn out to be the same). Can we even know? I think that the Bible is clear that we can. Paul wrote, "We know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you" (1 Thess 1:4). While some (most?) of us may question our election, Paul believed he could know. How about us? Can we?
Well, Paul offers suggestions as to how he knew that the Christians in Thessalonica were chosen by God. He started with "remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess 1:3). The elect, the chosen, those who are in Christ, have a definite response. There is work and labor and steadfastness. There is love and hope. Paul went on to say that he knew God chose them "because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction" (1 Thess 1:5). Their response to the gospel wasn't academic. It was powerful. It was convicting. It had an impact on their lives.
This is the same sort of method that John uses in his first epistle. Read it sometime looking for the "if's" in the text. They are questions you can ask yourself. He specifies, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13). And be aware that "these things" are not simply matters of faith. Geniune believers -- people made new in Christ -- have genuine responses. Changed hearts make changed lives.
Peter, too, believed that you could know if you were one of the elect. In 2 Peter 1 he lists a series of linked attributes (2 Peter 1:5-7) that believers ought to have and ought to add. He says, "If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:8), and if you lack them you're blind. He goes on to say, "Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall" (2 Peter 1:10).
Assurance is a comforting attribute of a believer. It doesn't come easy. If there is a Christian out there who has not questioned his or her salvation, I would be concerned. Being right with God is something of absolute importance to any genuine believer, and none of us have arrived at perfection. We are painfully aware of sin in our lives. But Scripture repeatedly tells us that we can know. We can know if we are chosen, one of the elect, saved. Whether you believe that God chooses based on Himself or that He chooses based on your right choices, all of us need to know that we can know if we are chosen, and that knowledge is a great comfort.
First, anyone who denies that the doctrine of election is a biblical doctrine is simply not reading their Bible.
"You did not choose Me, but I chose you" (John 15:16).Lest you think that's all there is, just look up the explicit word (and concept) of "the elect" or "the chosen" or "chosen of God" and you will be inundated (e.g., Matt 22:14; 24:22, 24, 31; Luke 18:7; John 13:18; Rom 8:33; ll:5, 7; Col 3:12; 1 Thess 1:4; Titus 1:1; James 2:5; 1 Peter 1:1-2; 2:9; Rev 17:14). My point is not that my view of election is correct and those who disagree are wrong. My point is that election -- God's choosing of the saved -- is biblical and unimpeachable. We can discuss how God chooses or when God chooses or why God chooses, but the fact that God chooses cannot be discarded. It was the story from the beginning. God chose Noah and God chose Abraham and God chose Israel and so on. God has made a career (so to speak) of choosing a few out of the masses, and denying it would eliminate a good portion of Scripture.
He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him (Eph 1:4).
God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth (2 Thess 2:13).
It is, therefore, a given that some are "elect", "chosen of God". How, when, why, these are in question perhaps, but not that they are. So the question remains, "How can you know you're one of the elect?" What has changed, however, is who is being asked. The original question implied was, "How can those of you who believe in election know you're one of the elect?" It has to be "How can anyone who is a Christian know that he or she is one of the elect?" By definition those who are in Christ are "the elect".
Lots of people, in fact, aren't sure. Lot's of people question their "election" or their salvation (because, in the final analysis, these two concepts turn out to be the same). Can we even know? I think that the Bible is clear that we can. Paul wrote, "We know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you" (1 Thess 1:4). While some (most?) of us may question our election, Paul believed he could know. How about us? Can we?
Well, Paul offers suggestions as to how he knew that the Christians in Thessalonica were chosen by God. He started with "remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess 1:3). The elect, the chosen, those who are in Christ, have a definite response. There is work and labor and steadfastness. There is love and hope. Paul went on to say that he knew God chose them "because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction" (1 Thess 1:5). Their response to the gospel wasn't academic. It was powerful. It was convicting. It had an impact on their lives.
This is the same sort of method that John uses in his first epistle. Read it sometime looking for the "if's" in the text. They are questions you can ask yourself. He specifies, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13). And be aware that "these things" are not simply matters of faith. Geniune believers -- people made new in Christ -- have genuine responses. Changed hearts make changed lives.
Peter, too, believed that you could know if you were one of the elect. In 2 Peter 1 he lists a series of linked attributes (2 Peter 1:5-7) that believers ought to have and ought to add. He says, "If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:8), and if you lack them you're blind. He goes on to say, "Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall" (2 Peter 1:10).
Assurance is a comforting attribute of a believer. It doesn't come easy. If there is a Christian out there who has not questioned his or her salvation, I would be concerned. Being right with God is something of absolute importance to any genuine believer, and none of us have arrived at perfection. We are painfully aware of sin in our lives. But Scripture repeatedly tells us that we can know. We can know if we are chosen, one of the elect, saved. Whether you believe that God chooses based on Himself or that He chooses based on your right choices, all of us need to know that we can know if we are chosen, and that knowledge is a great comfort.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Not a Choice
"I didn't choose to be gay." That's the claim. That's the certainty. That's the given. "Gay" is "born that way". Everyone knows that. How could you question it? Why would anyone choose to go through that stigma, to endure that lifestyle, to suffer the prejudice and difficulties? No, no, it's not a choice.
That's the claim, and nearly everyone agrees except the hard-nosed ultra-conservative Christians who see it as an assault on God and an assault on Christianity and, therefore, by virtue of that attack status, cannot be so. I'd like to question the claim that it is not a choice, but I'd like to do it from a different direction. I've never seen it as a threat to the faith or to God, but I still need to examine the question. Is it a choice?
The problem for me is that we're making assumptions before we ask the question. What is "gay"? What is the definition of the concept (not the word -- I know what the word means, and it's not that)? To our current culture "gay" is defined as homosexual, a sexual attraction to the same gender. Merriam-Webster lists that as the 4th definition. Others put it right there at the top. Homosexual -- "same sex". But the culture has defined it as something more. A homosexual doesn't have simple attraction to the same gender; he or she is defined by it. It isn't a desire, but an "orientation". It is held distinct from "heterosexual", an attraction to the opposite gender, and "bisexual", an attraction to both genders. It is further confused by throwing in "transgender", a sexual identity confusion. (I don't mean to sound unkind here. Just pointing out that it's confusing. If a male sexually identifies as a female and is attracted to other males, is that homosexual or "heterosexual"? What makes him female ... or male? And so on.) And the American Psychological Association now argues that all of this is "normal". So at this point we have made the assumption that "gay" is a definition of a person.
Given that this is a definition of a person, we would then realize that persons have rights and some of those basic rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thus, it would be a violation of human rights to prevent someone who is defined by their sexual attractions to be prevented from pursuing those attractions. Isn't that clear? Isn't that obvious?
I would beg to differ because I would not be willing to take the first steps. Let's assume for the moment without argument that people do not choose to desire sexually whom they desire. I'll let that stand. I certainly didn't choose to desire women sexually. But I'm afraid that's where I have to end the agreement. You see, all the rest is problematic. How, for instance, does someone get immersed in adultery, fornication, sexual sin? It is not "by birth". It is by choice. Conversely, we admire folks who control their sexual desires and limit them to one person, one spouse, regardless of where else their desires might go. Self-control is a virtue. And limiting those desires is assisted by not going places that would threaten those limits. A married man at a strip club is a recipe for disaster. A married man devoted to his wife would avoid those places. He wouldn't argue "I'm defined as being attracted to the opposite gender and, therefore, should be allowed to indulge those attractions as far as makes me happy." It doesn't work. I am not defined as "heterosexual". I'm defined in other ways, but I'm classified as "heterosexual" merely because "homosexual" has reared its head as a definition when it never was before.
Here, try this. Let's see if a simple substitution will work. If "gay" is morally neutral -- an accident of birth -- then this shouldn't work at all. Will it? "I didn't choose to be gay." Okay. Substitute something else. "I didn't choose to be adulterous." No, that doesn't work. But "adulterous" isn't an attribute, it's an action. So let's try something else. "I didn't choose to be lustful." Okay, fine. I buy that. But ... clearly you can see that the phrase demands another step. "I didn't choose to be lustful but I will choose how I respond to it." You see, "sexual attraction to the same gender" may indeed be outside of the choices and control of the individual, just as lust, greed, gluttony, or any number of other sinful desires might be, but that's not the issue, is it? The issue is what you do with the sinful desire. If you prevent it, stop it block it, don't feed it, don't allow it to define you, then it stops at the "temptation" level. If you indulge it (choice), feed it (choice), allow it to be your definition as a person (choice), then it reaches the level of sin.
I think, in fact, that this error will take people places we don't want to go. If "my sexual desires" is "my definition" and "my definition" gives me the right to pursue my desires as a matter of human rights, where does it end? If an adult has an uncontrolled desire for sexual relations with minors, ought we allow it on the grounds of human rights? Obviously the answer would be "No", but on what basis? How do you prevent one while allowing the other?
I will allow that the desires any individual has are not under their control. We all want things. We rarely want things by choice. Whether or not a given desire is sin or not is a key question. Indulging desires that please the Lord is a good thing to do. Fostering desires for that which He finds abominable is foolish. And it is not the fault of God, Christianity, the Bible, or judgmental Christians when we choose to feed desires -- any sinful desires -- that are opposed to His delights and suffer from it. At no time has God said, "As humans you should be allowed to indulge whatever your desires may be; that's your right." Nor does being born with (or acquiring them at a young age) sinful desires make them "of God" or "good". The choice is yours.
That's the claim, and nearly everyone agrees except the hard-nosed ultra-conservative Christians who see it as an assault on God and an assault on Christianity and, therefore, by virtue of that attack status, cannot be so. I'd like to question the claim that it is not a choice, but I'd like to do it from a different direction. I've never seen it as a threat to the faith or to God, but I still need to examine the question. Is it a choice?
The problem for me is that we're making assumptions before we ask the question. What is "gay"? What is the definition of the concept (not the word -- I know what the word means, and it's not that)? To our current culture "gay" is defined as homosexual, a sexual attraction to the same gender. Merriam-Webster lists that as the 4th definition. Others put it right there at the top. Homosexual -- "same sex". But the culture has defined it as something more. A homosexual doesn't have simple attraction to the same gender; he or she is defined by it. It isn't a desire, but an "orientation". It is held distinct from "heterosexual", an attraction to the opposite gender, and "bisexual", an attraction to both genders. It is further confused by throwing in "transgender", a sexual identity confusion. (I don't mean to sound unkind here. Just pointing out that it's confusing. If a male sexually identifies as a female and is attracted to other males, is that homosexual or "heterosexual"? What makes him female ... or male? And so on.) And the American Psychological Association now argues that all of this is "normal". So at this point we have made the assumption that "gay" is a definition of a person.
Given that this is a definition of a person, we would then realize that persons have rights and some of those basic rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thus, it would be a violation of human rights to prevent someone who is defined by their sexual attractions to be prevented from pursuing those attractions. Isn't that clear? Isn't that obvious?
I would beg to differ because I would not be willing to take the first steps. Let's assume for the moment without argument that people do not choose to desire sexually whom they desire. I'll let that stand. I certainly didn't choose to desire women sexually. But I'm afraid that's where I have to end the agreement. You see, all the rest is problematic. How, for instance, does someone get immersed in adultery, fornication, sexual sin? It is not "by birth". It is by choice. Conversely, we admire folks who control their sexual desires and limit them to one person, one spouse, regardless of where else their desires might go. Self-control is a virtue. And limiting those desires is assisted by not going places that would threaten those limits. A married man at a strip club is a recipe for disaster. A married man devoted to his wife would avoid those places. He wouldn't argue "I'm defined as being attracted to the opposite gender and, therefore, should be allowed to indulge those attractions as far as makes me happy." It doesn't work. I am not defined as "heterosexual". I'm defined in other ways, but I'm classified as "heterosexual" merely because "homosexual" has reared its head as a definition when it never was before.
Here, try this. Let's see if a simple substitution will work. If "gay" is morally neutral -- an accident of birth -- then this shouldn't work at all. Will it? "I didn't choose to be gay." Okay. Substitute something else. "I didn't choose to be adulterous." No, that doesn't work. But "adulterous" isn't an attribute, it's an action. So let's try something else. "I didn't choose to be lustful." Okay, fine. I buy that. But ... clearly you can see that the phrase demands another step. "I didn't choose to be lustful but I will choose how I respond to it." You see, "sexual attraction to the same gender" may indeed be outside of the choices and control of the individual, just as lust, greed, gluttony, or any number of other sinful desires might be, but that's not the issue, is it? The issue is what you do with the sinful desire. If you prevent it, stop it block it, don't feed it, don't allow it to define you, then it stops at the "temptation" level. If you indulge it (choice), feed it (choice), allow it to be your definition as a person (choice), then it reaches the level of sin.
I think, in fact, that this error will take people places we don't want to go. If "my sexual desires" is "my definition" and "my definition" gives me the right to pursue my desires as a matter of human rights, where does it end? If an adult has an uncontrolled desire for sexual relations with minors, ought we allow it on the grounds of human rights? Obviously the answer would be "No", but on what basis? How do you prevent one while allowing the other?
I will allow that the desires any individual has are not under their control. We all want things. We rarely want things by choice. Whether or not a given desire is sin or not is a key question. Indulging desires that please the Lord is a good thing to do. Fostering desires for that which He finds abominable is foolish. And it is not the fault of God, Christianity, the Bible, or judgmental Christians when we choose to feed desires -- any sinful desires -- that are opposed to His delights and suffer from it. At no time has God said, "As humans you should be allowed to indulge whatever your desires may be; that's your right." Nor does being born with (or acquiring them at a young age) sinful desires make them "of God" or "good". The choice is yours.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Mawwage
"Mawwage. Mawwage is what bwings us togevah today. Mawwage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam wifin a dweam." My son and his wife had the pastor read this in their wedding, but I'm sure if you're familiar with this you know he didn't originate. It is from Princess Bride. The happy outcome of the story required that the princess never actually married the evil prince. She didn't. It ended well.
How important is marriage to us? Well, to those of us who love Christ, it should be considered absolutely essential. Consider this. The Bible, our sole authority in matters of faith and practice, begins and ends with the joining of a husband and a wife. In Genesis, while all that God made was good, the one thing that God considered "not good" was that man had no partner fitted to him (Gen 2:18). All the other creatures had male and female, but Adam was alone. To remedy that, God made Eve, and the grand joining of man and wife was created (Gen 2:23-24).
In Revelation, we are treated to a scene in heaven. Prefaced by, among other praises, the Hallelujah Chorus (Rev 19:1-6), we get a peek at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. "Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready" (Rev 19:7). It is the consummation of the relationship between Bridegroom (Christ) and Bride (the Church) at the consummation of the world as we know it and the beginning of the New Heavens and the New Earth. A magnificant scene, the grand joining of a Man and His wife.
Between these two bookends we find marriage celebrated throughout Scripture. It is the means by which Man was to "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" (Gen 1:28), this joining of man and woman created explicitly by God to complete each other and imitate God's creative power by creating offspring. Finding the proper wife is a key issue throughout the Word. Even before specific laws were in place regarding who to marry, Abraham wanted to make sure his son married from his family instead of from the women around where they lived (Gen 24:3-4). It was Midianite wives that brought about the 24,000 deaths from plague for Israel in the desert (Num 25:1-9). It was foreign wives that brought about guilt to Israel after returning to their land after captivity (Ezra 10:10). There is almost an entire chapter of Proverbs devoted to the celebration of a good wife (Prov 31). The wrong woman for the wrong man was the wrong thing. The right woman for the right man was beautiful.
Marriage was the context for procreation throughout Scripture. Women who were pregnant outside of marriage were shunned. Wives who were barren were ashamed. Solomon sings, "Behold, children are a gift of the LORD; The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They shall not be ashamed, When they speak with their enemies in the gate." (Psa 127:3-5). Children were the delight and the promise of marriage in Scripture.
In the New Testament, the very first sign that Jesus performs is at a wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11). In Matthew 19, the Pharisees try to catch Jesus in a conundrum on the topic. "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?" Jesus doesn't fall for the faulty thinking. Instead, He affirms that the joining of a man and a woman is the design of God and affirms that a man and his wife are united in marriage. "Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate" (Matt 19:6). So clear is this affirmation of marriage that the disciples are taken aback. "If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry" (Matt 19:10). Jesus assures them that marriage is good and that the alternative to the joining of a man and a woman in marriage is celibacy (Matt 19:11-12).
Look for yourself sometime. I think you'll find that marriage -- the union of a man and a woman in common effort and procreation -- plays a major role from the beginning to the end. It is the start of human life and the culmination of God's plan for our present universe. It is always referenced as the joining of a man and a woman and never anything else. Despite today's dwindling, sad view of marriage, the Bible celebrates it. It is key. So when you hear that the Bible only mentions homosexual behavior in six (or so) verses, understand this. It misses the point. On top of the 6 verses opposed, it is the vast value of the marriage of a man and woman in Scripture that speaks volumes about God's view, God's definition, God's preferences, and God's values. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not from either side of the question.
How important is marriage to us? Well, to those of us who love Christ, it should be considered absolutely essential. Consider this. The Bible, our sole authority in matters of faith and practice, begins and ends with the joining of a husband and a wife. In Genesis, while all that God made was good, the one thing that God considered "not good" was that man had no partner fitted to him (Gen 2:18). All the other creatures had male and female, but Adam was alone. To remedy that, God made Eve, and the grand joining of man and wife was created (Gen 2:23-24).
In Revelation, we are treated to a scene in heaven. Prefaced by, among other praises, the Hallelujah Chorus (Rev 19:1-6), we get a peek at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. "Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready" (Rev 19:7). It is the consummation of the relationship between Bridegroom (Christ) and Bride (the Church) at the consummation of the world as we know it and the beginning of the New Heavens and the New Earth. A magnificant scene, the grand joining of a Man and His wife.
Between these two bookends we find marriage celebrated throughout Scripture. It is the means by which Man was to "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" (Gen 1:28), this joining of man and woman created explicitly by God to complete each other and imitate God's creative power by creating offspring. Finding the proper wife is a key issue throughout the Word. Even before specific laws were in place regarding who to marry, Abraham wanted to make sure his son married from his family instead of from the women around where they lived (Gen 24:3-4). It was Midianite wives that brought about the 24,000 deaths from plague for Israel in the desert (Num 25:1-9). It was foreign wives that brought about guilt to Israel after returning to their land after captivity (Ezra 10:10). There is almost an entire chapter of Proverbs devoted to the celebration of a good wife (Prov 31). The wrong woman for the wrong man was the wrong thing. The right woman for the right man was beautiful.
Marriage was the context for procreation throughout Scripture. Women who were pregnant outside of marriage were shunned. Wives who were barren were ashamed. Solomon sings, "Behold, children are a gift of the LORD; The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They shall not be ashamed, When they speak with their enemies in the gate." (Psa 127:3-5). Children were the delight and the promise of marriage in Scripture.
In the New Testament, the very first sign that Jesus performs is at a wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11). In Matthew 19, the Pharisees try to catch Jesus in a conundrum on the topic. "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?" Jesus doesn't fall for the faulty thinking. Instead, He affirms that the joining of a man and a woman is the design of God and affirms that a man and his wife are united in marriage. "Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate" (Matt 19:6). So clear is this affirmation of marriage that the disciples are taken aback. "If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry" (Matt 19:10). Jesus assures them that marriage is good and that the alternative to the joining of a man and a woman in marriage is celibacy (Matt 19:11-12).
Look for yourself sometime. I think you'll find that marriage -- the union of a man and a woman in common effort and procreation -- plays a major role from the beginning to the end. It is the start of human life and the culmination of God's plan for our present universe. It is always referenced as the joining of a man and a woman and never anything else. Despite today's dwindling, sad view of marriage, the Bible celebrates it. It is key. So when you hear that the Bible only mentions homosexual behavior in six (or so) verses, understand this. It misses the point. On top of the 6 verses opposed, it is the vast value of the marriage of a man and woman in Scripture that speaks volumes about God's view, God's definition, God's preferences, and God's values. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not from either side of the question.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Support and Nurture
I received a generic offer via email the other day to attend "Safe Zone Training", a class and workshop offered to help lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and "questioning" (LGBTQ) folk feel safer, welcome, included. You take the training and become a source of support and nurturance for LGBTQ folk of all walks. You say, "I am available to talk about your concerns." And, you know, I thought about it. In fact, if it had been practical, I might even have pursued it. (The training was 3 hours away ... one way ... for a 5-hour course. Not practical.)
Of course, whether you agree with my views on the subject or not, I think you can see pretty quickly that, well, it just wouldn't work. I mean, they don't actually want someone to help that believes that such activities are a violation of God's moral code. The fact that I do care is irrelevant. The fact that I would be willing to talk to people about their concerns would be beside the point. What they ("they" being the people that are putting on the training, likely, as well as people with concerns who want someone to talk to) want is not someone who will tell them that God disapproves, but someone who approves. You can't be helpful, supportive, nurturing, or caring by calling a particular behavior "sin", now, can you? So there is, I think, a form of "religiophobia" or something like it going on there, a frank and open dislike (or worse) of those who would have a negative opinion of the morality of their behavior.
It made me wonder, though. Let's do a little hypothetical examination. What if it was actually true that God disapproved of homosexual behavior. Assume, just for a moment, that it really is something that God finds abhorrent. Now we have a group of people engaging in activities that God considers loathsome. So what does a caring person do? What kind of support should be offered? What sort of nurturing ought to be given? How would a trained, caring, concerned person counsel such a person? Indeed, if the response was "That's okay. Let's see if we can't make you feel better about continuing in your activities", wouldn't that be detrimental to their well-being rather than supportive?
Unfortunately, no one is asking "What is true?" The primary question is "What do I want to do?" followed by "How do I get the support of others to help me do it?" without ever considering the possibility that it will harm you.
Of course, whether you agree with my views on the subject or not, I think you can see pretty quickly that, well, it just wouldn't work. I mean, they don't actually want someone to help that believes that such activities are a violation of God's moral code. The fact that I do care is irrelevant. The fact that I would be willing to talk to people about their concerns would be beside the point. What they ("they" being the people that are putting on the training, likely, as well as people with concerns who want someone to talk to) want is not someone who will tell them that God disapproves, but someone who approves. You can't be helpful, supportive, nurturing, or caring by calling a particular behavior "sin", now, can you? So there is, I think, a form of "religiophobia" or something like it going on there, a frank and open dislike (or worse) of those who would have a negative opinion of the morality of their behavior.
It made me wonder, though. Let's do a little hypothetical examination. What if it was actually true that God disapproved of homosexual behavior. Assume, just for a moment, that it really is something that God finds abhorrent. Now we have a group of people engaging in activities that God considers loathsome. So what does a caring person do? What kind of support should be offered? What sort of nurturing ought to be given? How would a trained, caring, concerned person counsel such a person? Indeed, if the response was "That's okay. Let's see if we can't make you feel better about continuing in your activities", wouldn't that be detrimental to their well-being rather than supportive?
Unfortunately, no one is asking "What is true?" The primary question is "What do I want to do?" followed by "How do I get the support of others to help me do it?" without ever considering the possibility that it will harm you.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
In Spirit and in Truth
Jesus told the woman at the well, "God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24).
What spirit?
Jesus said, "This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me; in vain do they worship Me" (Matt 15:8). Worship, then, is from the heart. Prayer, praise, confessions, and sermons without heart are vain. Valid worship is a heart issue.
"God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6). Worship is from humility, not pride. Humility is the universal response and the natural human response of those who come into the presence of the Living God. Isaiah was "undone" (Isa 6:5). Peter begged for distance (Luke 5:8). It made the disciples "very much afraid" (Mark 4:41).
What truth?
The truth is that Jesus wanted to get across the nature of God. "God is Spirit." The first truth required in valid worship, then, is the real God. Not some version you drum up. Not some unbiblical God who promises you only pleasantness or prosperity. Not some kindly old gentleman who would never intervene or some remote God who isn't concerned about sin. Not any God of our own making, but the One revealed in Scripture. Since God is Spirit, the truth is that we must worship Him as He is.
Genuine worship comes from a spirit inspired by the true nature of God. Worship fueled by a heart impassioned for God by God is true worship. This is a product of knowing who God is truly and in responding to His Spirit within us.
And true worship is contagious.
What spirit?
Jesus said, "This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me; in vain do they worship Me" (Matt 15:8). Worship, then, is from the heart. Prayer, praise, confessions, and sermons without heart are vain. Valid worship is a heart issue.
"God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6). Worship is from humility, not pride. Humility is the universal response and the natural human response of those who come into the presence of the Living God. Isaiah was "undone" (Isa 6:5). Peter begged for distance (Luke 5:8). It made the disciples "very much afraid" (Mark 4:41).
What truth?
The truth is that Jesus wanted to get across the nature of God. "God is Spirit." The first truth required in valid worship, then, is the real God. Not some version you drum up. Not some unbiblical God who promises you only pleasantness or prosperity. Not some kindly old gentleman who would never intervene or some remote God who isn't concerned about sin. Not any God of our own making, but the One revealed in Scripture. Since God is Spirit, the truth is that we must worship Him as He is.
Genuine worship comes from a spirit inspired by the true nature of God. Worship fueled by a heart impassioned for God by God is true worship. This is a product of knowing who God is truly and in responding to His Spirit within us.
And true worship is contagious.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
I Asked
Some time ago I asked what the whole Occupy Wall Street thing was all about. The answers I got were inconclusive and incoherent. Apparently I now have my answer. According to an Occupy organizer, Harrison Shultz, the single unifying message of the Occupiers is ... wait for it ... wealth redistribution. (I know ... what a surprise, eh?) Shultz said, "What I’ve been working on specifically is presenting an actual plan ... to actually rapidly end the economic crisis and permanently alter capitalism ..."
Nice to know. The big plan, the solution to our problems, our salvation is the dismantling of capitalism and the taking of wealth from those who have and giving it to those who don't. According to Shultz, "There is plenty of money in this country -- there is no shortage of money -- it’s just in the wrong hands." I guess the "right hands" would be his?
Apparently no one ever told him that you can't legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of it. You don't multiply wealth by dividing it. And the simple fact that so many were involved in this for so long is, in all honesty, a bit frightening. They don't want solutions. They want revolution. With the numbers of people under the welfare state and the "class warfare" card the president and his side like to play so often, I suspect they'll get it.
Nice to know. The big plan, the solution to our problems, our salvation is the dismantling of capitalism and the taking of wealth from those who have and giving it to those who don't. According to Shultz, "There is plenty of money in this country -- there is no shortage of money -- it’s just in the wrong hands." I guess the "right hands" would be his?
Apparently no one ever told him that you can't legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of it. You don't multiply wealth by dividing it. And the simple fact that so many were involved in this for so long is, in all honesty, a bit frightening. They don't want solutions. They want revolution. With the numbers of people under the welfare state and the "class warfare" card the president and his side like to play so often, I suspect they'll get it.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Informed Consent
So, there I was, reading in Colossians, when I came across this little gem.
If you ask or think about how it is that we please God, the typical response is "obey". We are fed concepts like "obedience" and "duty" and all that as pleasing to God. We are encouraged to "do" even when we're not fully convinced. "Act like a Christian." Indeed, it is biblical language. "Do not grow weary in doing good" (2 Thess 3:13). And that's all well and good. But I notice that Paul has a slightly different slant on it here, and perhaps it would benefit us to learn from it.
Paul wants the believers in Colossae to "walk in a manner worthy of the Lord", to be "fully pleasing to Him", to be "bearing fruit in every good work", to be "increasing in the knowledge of God" -- all those things that we associate with pleasing God. And they do. But Paul doesn't tell them to do all this in a vacuum. He bases it on something prior to obedience. Paul indicates that the way they can do all this is not simply to knuckle under and do, but by being "filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding." Now that's not what we often hear when we're being told to "act like a Christian."
Paul is telling his readers that genuine believers walk in a manner worthy of the Lord based on a growing knowledge of His will informed by spiritual wisdom and understanding. Pleasing God is accomplished rationally, with proper information, good understanding, and a deepening wisdom. It isn't a shallow obedience. It is an informed obedience. Christ's followers are not supposed to be blind followers, but trained, knowledgeable, understanding, wise followers. We are not asked to simply know what to do, but how and why to do it. That's a bit more than the normal instruction we're given to obey God. Perhaps we ought to get to work on that.
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God (Col 1:9-10)."So?" Yeah, sounds pretty simple. In fact, it's so simple that it's part of Paul's greeting to the Colossian church. But it struck me as not quite as simple as it sounds. Or perhaps just as simple as it sounds, but we've missed it.
If you ask or think about how it is that we please God, the typical response is "obey". We are fed concepts like "obedience" and "duty" and all that as pleasing to God. We are encouraged to "do" even when we're not fully convinced. "Act like a Christian." Indeed, it is biblical language. "Do not grow weary in doing good" (2 Thess 3:13). And that's all well and good. But I notice that Paul has a slightly different slant on it here, and perhaps it would benefit us to learn from it.
Paul wants the believers in Colossae to "walk in a manner worthy of the Lord", to be "fully pleasing to Him", to be "bearing fruit in every good work", to be "increasing in the knowledge of God" -- all those things that we associate with pleasing God. And they do. But Paul doesn't tell them to do all this in a vacuum. He bases it on something prior to obedience. Paul indicates that the way they can do all this is not simply to knuckle under and do, but by being "filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding." Now that's not what we often hear when we're being told to "act like a Christian."
Paul is telling his readers that genuine believers walk in a manner worthy of the Lord based on a growing knowledge of His will informed by spiritual wisdom and understanding. Pleasing God is accomplished rationally, with proper information, good understanding, and a deepening wisdom. It isn't a shallow obedience. It is an informed obedience. Christ's followers are not supposed to be blind followers, but trained, knowledgeable, understanding, wise followers. We are not asked to simply know what to do, but how and why to do it. That's a bit more than the normal instruction we're given to obey God. Perhaps we ought to get to work on that.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Jesus's Wife
None other than Smithsonian Magazine is running the story of Professor Karen King who unveiled "an ancient papyrus fragment" that "is sure to send shock waves through the Christian world." The claim? Jesus was married.
The hubbub is over a papyrus. Or, rather, a fragment of one. 33 words. 14 incomplete lines. And the papyrus is -- get this -- 1600 years old. That's right. Ancient. Certainly older than I'd ever care to be.
Oh, wait. That's not as old as we thought, was it? I mean, the texts of the New Testament are all more than 1900 years old. All were written within 100 years of Jesus's life. All others were rejected as unreliable. And, look, it's not just the Church that says this. According to the article, "King makes no claim for its usefulness as biography." Get that?
Still, Professor King is taking the "high road". It's a conspiracy, you see. "Why is it that only the literature that said he was celibate survived? And all of the texts that showed he had an intimate relationship with Magdalene or is married didn’t survive? Is that 100% happenstance? Or is it because of the fact that celibacy becomes the ideal for Christianity?"
Now, concluding that "celibacy becomes the ideal for Christianity" from biblical texts like "Let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband" (1 Cor 7:2) or the affirmations that Jesus gave of marriage in His attendance at the wedding of Cana (John 2:1-11) and His affirmation of marriage for life in Matthew 19:1-12 takes more "thinking" than I can muster. I mean, look, Karen, maybe there was some grand conspiracy where all texts were eliminated for an ideal that Christianity does not hold or maybe the only text that "survived" that said Jesus was married was because He wasn't. Maybe all the writers who wrote when Jesus was alive and all the readers who were alive when Jesus was and could critique those texts were liars or maybe the one document written long after all the rest without possible corroboration is less reliable? Maybe?
King is quite sure that the New Testament documents, written within "35 years after Jesus' death", were "heretics hornswoggled by the devil." (That's what the article said. I wouldn't think to use "hornswoggled" on my own.) Christianity for 2000 years has suffered from the "myth of origins". Luckily the Gnostics, a group soundly marked as heretics by Paul (the purpose of the Epistle to the Colossians), had the true story centuries later. Judas was no turncoat. Jesus did not rise from the dead. Paul was sorely mistaken on that point. Basic humanity included the Holy Spirit already, not requiring some obscure "faith" to receive salvation. Good thing we got that all sorted out, eh?
Does the papyrus she found say that Jesus was married? Well, maybe. Does this prove a conspiracy? Not really. Does it bring into question the Gospels? Not for me. Is it going to "send shock waves through the Christian world"? No. Not the Christian world. Like Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, it might stir up some, but people of genuine faith won't be too disturbed about ambiguous texts written hundreds of years after the fact about, in all honesty, a topic that really doesn't much matter in the scheme of things.
Now here's a side question, connected to this and to current affairs. Given that the King and the Smithsonian believe that this will "send shock waves through the Christian world", that this will reveal Christianity as a religion designed by "heretics hornswoggled by the devil", does anyone really think that Christians are going to rise up, storm Harvard and the Smithsonian, and demand an apology or burn the places down? Does anyone actually fear that Christians around the country are going to start fiery protests outside schools of higher learning? And, on the other hand, does anyone believe that there will be a public outcry to "Stop attacking Christianity and just be tolerant"? Yeah ... I didn't think so.
Update:
One more good piece on the subject is here.
The hubbub is over a papyrus. Or, rather, a fragment of one. 33 words. 14 incomplete lines. And the papyrus is -- get this -- 1600 years old. That's right. Ancient. Certainly older than I'd ever care to be.
Oh, wait. That's not as old as we thought, was it? I mean, the texts of the New Testament are all more than 1900 years old. All were written within 100 years of Jesus's life. All others were rejected as unreliable. And, look, it's not just the Church that says this. According to the article, "King makes no claim for its usefulness as biography." Get that?
Still, Professor King is taking the "high road". It's a conspiracy, you see. "Why is it that only the literature that said he was celibate survived? And all of the texts that showed he had an intimate relationship with Magdalene or is married didn’t survive? Is that 100% happenstance? Or is it because of the fact that celibacy becomes the ideal for Christianity?"
Now, concluding that "celibacy becomes the ideal for Christianity" from biblical texts like "Let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband" (1 Cor 7:2) or the affirmations that Jesus gave of marriage in His attendance at the wedding of Cana (John 2:1-11) and His affirmation of marriage for life in Matthew 19:1-12 takes more "thinking" than I can muster. I mean, look, Karen, maybe there was some grand conspiracy where all texts were eliminated for an ideal that Christianity does not hold or maybe the only text that "survived" that said Jesus was married was because He wasn't. Maybe all the writers who wrote when Jesus was alive and all the readers who were alive when Jesus was and could critique those texts were liars or maybe the one document written long after all the rest without possible corroboration is less reliable? Maybe?
King is quite sure that the New Testament documents, written within "35 years after Jesus' death", were "heretics hornswoggled by the devil." (That's what the article said. I wouldn't think to use "hornswoggled" on my own.) Christianity for 2000 years has suffered from the "myth of origins". Luckily the Gnostics, a group soundly marked as heretics by Paul (the purpose of the Epistle to the Colossians), had the true story centuries later. Judas was no turncoat. Jesus did not rise from the dead. Paul was sorely mistaken on that point. Basic humanity included the Holy Spirit already, not requiring some obscure "faith" to receive salvation. Good thing we got that all sorted out, eh?
Does the papyrus she found say that Jesus was married? Well, maybe. Does this prove a conspiracy? Not really. Does it bring into question the Gospels? Not for me. Is it going to "send shock waves through the Christian world"? No. Not the Christian world. Like Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, it might stir up some, but people of genuine faith won't be too disturbed about ambiguous texts written hundreds of years after the fact about, in all honesty, a topic that really doesn't much matter in the scheme of things.
Now here's a side question, connected to this and to current affairs. Given that the King and the Smithsonian believe that this will "send shock waves through the Christian world", that this will reveal Christianity as a religion designed by "heretics hornswoggled by the devil", does anyone really think that Christians are going to rise up, storm Harvard and the Smithsonian, and demand an apology or burn the places down? Does anyone actually fear that Christians around the country are going to start fiery protests outside schools of higher learning? And, on the other hand, does anyone believe that there will be a public outcry to "Stop attacking Christianity and just be tolerant"? Yeah ... I didn't think so.
Update:
One more good piece on the subject is here.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Obama is NOT a Socialist
You'll hear it from the right all over the place. "You know the president is a socialist, don't you?" And that crowd will huddle together and nod their heads in agreement. They'll draw you in with innuendo and evidence. Did you know that his parents were socialists and communist sympathizers? Did you know that his mentor was Frank Marshall Davis, a self-professed member of the Communist Party of the USA? Did you know that he attended socialist conferences in school? Did you know that he is linked to Bill Ayers, a Marxist and co-founder of a communist, terrorist organization? Did you know that the Democratic Socialist party endorsed him back in Chicago? Did you know that his current motto, "Forward", comes from earlier socialist tyrants? See? Proof!
Please, people, stop. Think about it. Is that proof? Do you even know if it's true? Or is it propaganda? How can you tell? And if every single word of it is true, what does it prove? It proves connections, not status. You know, I grew up in California which once was Mexican territory. I must be a Mexican!! No, connections don't prove status. Think about it.
Socialism is an economic system contrary to capitalism. Socialism gives ownership of the means of production to the people, typically controlled by the government. The people share the wealth equally. Capitalism operates on a system of private ownership and competition. You earn based on your work. Socialism emphasizes equality apart from effort. Capitalism allows for the accumulation of personal wealth; socialism requires equal distribution of wealth. The market determines the economy in capitalism, while the government of the people determine the economy in socialism.
I don't doubt there will be denial of what I'm about to say, but I think it is abundantly clear that the above description of actual socialism is not in line with the efforts and aims of President Obama. He may agree with them, but he does so in private. There is no proof that he does. Actual socialists, in fact, deny that he is one of them. He is, indeed, a capitalist. The president is not a socialist.
I would, unfortunately, be incomplete and unclear if that was the end of the question. There aren't actually a lot of those socialists around these days. The more standard socialist is found in European nations. Take the Party of European Socialists (PES). They, for instance, were voted into power in France just this year. They're more of the socialism you'll see these days. What are they about?
You can get an idea of the mainstream version of socialism from their Declaration of Principles from November of 2011. They are very strong in their support for "the welfare state, universal access to education and to health care." They support free education from childhood through college. President Obama is in favor of the welfare state (taking more of the wealth of the rich to give to the poor), universal access to education and to health care. The PES holds that, in order to be a just society, "we must ensure that the wealth generated by all is shared fairly." The president concurs. The PES argues, "All members of society are entitled to protection from social risks in life." The president agrees and aims to use the government to reduce or eliminate that risk by bailing out oil companies, buying back mortgages, creating universal health care, and extending unemployment benefits. Very high on the PES agenda is environmental sustainability. The president has been working hard at subsidizing environmentally-friendly industries while cutting the assistance or permission for less "friendly" organizations. To the PES, "market forces" are the enemy. They are driven by greed and supported by finances. By subsidies or taxation, the president has tried to counter market forces and to encourage environmental sustainability, penalizing oil, gas, and coal (for instance) while subsidizing "green technology" like Solyndra.
I suspect, in fact, that if the PES were to compare the president's views and efforts with their own principles, he'd rate pretty high. While the country was founded first on individual freedoms that would then provide for an economy and a government, the president has moved to take back power from individuals and assume more control over the economy. He isn't a dyed-in-the-wool Soviet-style Marxist, a purebred socialist, but he certainly seems to align quite comfortably with their quieter, modern cousins.
Americans consider "socialist" a bad word. As such, it's probably not wise to throw that word at the president. It's like comparing someone to Hitler. There is a gut response before there is a mental response. The president is not a genuine socialist. At the same time, I don't think it is unfair to point out that he does seem to line himself up quite comfortably with the values found in many European countries today. It's a pity that they are termed "European Socialists" because that provides such negative connotations to Americans, but I do think it's fair to say that our president is often in line with the views that are held by that particular group of Europeans. Make of that what you will.
Please, people, stop. Think about it. Is that proof? Do you even know if it's true? Or is it propaganda? How can you tell? And if every single word of it is true, what does it prove? It proves connections, not status. You know, I grew up in California which once was Mexican territory. I must be a Mexican!! No, connections don't prove status. Think about it.
Socialism is an economic system contrary to capitalism. Socialism gives ownership of the means of production to the people, typically controlled by the government. The people share the wealth equally. Capitalism operates on a system of private ownership and competition. You earn based on your work. Socialism emphasizes equality apart from effort. Capitalism allows for the accumulation of personal wealth; socialism requires equal distribution of wealth. The market determines the economy in capitalism, while the government of the people determine the economy in socialism.
I don't doubt there will be denial of what I'm about to say, but I think it is abundantly clear that the above description of actual socialism is not in line with the efforts and aims of President Obama. He may agree with them, but he does so in private. There is no proof that he does. Actual socialists, in fact, deny that he is one of them. He is, indeed, a capitalist. The president is not a socialist.
I would, unfortunately, be incomplete and unclear if that was the end of the question. There aren't actually a lot of those socialists around these days. The more standard socialist is found in European nations. Take the Party of European Socialists (PES). They, for instance, were voted into power in France just this year. They're more of the socialism you'll see these days. What are they about?
You can get an idea of the mainstream version of socialism from their Declaration of Principles from November of 2011. They are very strong in their support for "the welfare state, universal access to education and to health care." They support free education from childhood through college. President Obama is in favor of the welfare state (taking more of the wealth of the rich to give to the poor), universal access to education and to health care. The PES holds that, in order to be a just society, "we must ensure that the wealth generated by all is shared fairly." The president concurs. The PES argues, "All members of society are entitled to protection from social risks in life." The president agrees and aims to use the government to reduce or eliminate that risk by bailing out oil companies, buying back mortgages, creating universal health care, and extending unemployment benefits. Very high on the PES agenda is environmental sustainability. The president has been working hard at subsidizing environmentally-friendly industries while cutting the assistance or permission for less "friendly" organizations. To the PES, "market forces" are the enemy. They are driven by greed and supported by finances. By subsidies or taxation, the president has tried to counter market forces and to encourage environmental sustainability, penalizing oil, gas, and coal (for instance) while subsidizing "green technology" like Solyndra.
I suspect, in fact, that if the PES were to compare the president's views and efforts with their own principles, he'd rate pretty high. While the country was founded first on individual freedoms that would then provide for an economy and a government, the president has moved to take back power from individuals and assume more control over the economy. He isn't a dyed-in-the-wool Soviet-style Marxist, a purebred socialist, but he certainly seems to align quite comfortably with their quieter, modern cousins.
Americans consider "socialist" a bad word. As such, it's probably not wise to throw that word at the president. It's like comparing someone to Hitler. There is a gut response before there is a mental response. The president is not a genuine socialist. At the same time, I don't think it is unfair to point out that he does seem to line himself up quite comfortably with the values found in many European countries today. It's a pity that they are termed "European Socialists" because that provides such negative connotations to Americans, but I do think it's fair to say that our president is often in line with the views that are held by that particular group of Europeans. Make of that what you will.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Thinkin'
"Whatcha doin'?"
"Thinkin'."
Do a quick search of the news and you'll find trouble, strife, tension, fear, and, in the end, a lot of questions about what is and isn't true. There is no end to websites that will offer dramatic warnings about how the Democrats are going to lead us into socialism or worse and the Republicans are going to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the elderly while pandering to the rich. Ask most non-whites if racism is alive or dead and I don't think I have to tell you the answer you'll get. Marriages are falling and failing. Families are being torn apart by abuse and disuse. The economy is in a pit too deep to fathom right now and the answers we're getting don't seem to be answers to the questions we're asking. Our political candidates are "bad" and "worse", but if you don't vote for "bad", you'll get "worse" apparently. Education is declining. The church is in trouble in so many quarters. It just looks so very bad.
And then I call to mind ...
I'm not opposed to the news. I'm not opposed to being informed. I'm not opposed to knowing what's going on. Paul says, however, that we aren't to live there. Where are you spending most of your mind? Thinking on the world around us and its difficulties? Or pondering the true, the honorable, the just, the pure, the lovely, the commendable, the excellent, the praiseworthy?
"Thinkin'."
Do a quick search of the news and you'll find trouble, strife, tension, fear, and, in the end, a lot of questions about what is and isn't true. There is no end to websites that will offer dramatic warnings about how the Democrats are going to lead us into socialism or worse and the Republicans are going to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the elderly while pandering to the rich. Ask most non-whites if racism is alive or dead and I don't think I have to tell you the answer you'll get. Marriages are falling and failing. Families are being torn apart by abuse and disuse. The economy is in a pit too deep to fathom right now and the answers we're getting don't seem to be answers to the questions we're asking. Our political candidates are "bad" and "worse", but if you don't vote for "bad", you'll get "worse" apparently. Education is declining. The church is in trouble in so many quarters. It just looks so very bad.
And then I call to mind ...
Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Phil 4:8).Where does all that stuff that discourages and oppresses and worries and frightens us these days fit in the categories of Philippians 4:8? I'm pretty sure they don't.
I'm not opposed to the news. I'm not opposed to being informed. I'm not opposed to knowing what's going on. Paul says, however, that we aren't to live there. Where are you spending most of your mind? Thinking on the world around us and its difficulties? Or pondering the true, the honorable, the just, the pure, the lovely, the commendable, the excellent, the praiseworthy?
Monday, September 17, 2012
Credulity and Faith
You know that when something is "incredible", it's hard (or impossible) to believe. And when you have a "credible witness", you have a witness who can be believed. Thus, "credulity" and "believe" must mean the same thing ... and thus "credulity" and "faith" are the same. Well, not quite. Let me explain.
The dictionary says that "credulity" is not synonymous with "faith", but rather a "willingness to believe or trust too readily, especially without proper or adequate evidence" followed by the simple synonym, "gullibility". "And," the skeptic will say, "that's faith." Not quite.
In the original biblical documents the Greek word for "faith" is pistis (or some form thereof). Vine's Expository Dictionary says it's "'firm persuasion,' a conviction based upon hearing". Strong's dictionary says it means "to be persuaded (by argument)". (The parenthetical part is Strong's, not mine.) Thus, biblical "faith" includes a component beyond mere credulity. Credulity requires no reason, no argument, no evidence. With credulity you simply believe. With faith you are persuaded for a reason, by arguments, with evidence.
Is it possible to have faith in something that is false? Well, of course it is. Is it possible to experience credulity (belief without any evidence) for something that is true? Again, that can certainly happen. The question is not about the truth of the matter at hand, but how you come to believe it. The callers to news and police that morning were operating on credulity. There was no evidence, no argument, no persuasion. There was just a lit trail in the sky that led them to an alien invasion ... that wasn't happening.
Let me give a biblical example of faith. Remember the Israelites in Egypt? When Moses showed up to save them, they made him leave. Forty years later, they weren't better disposed to his efforts at God's command. So, given this particular group of bedraggled, beaten, disbelieving folk, standing at the edge of the Red Sea with Pharaoh and his army behind them, what would coax them to walk into the path with walls of water on either side? Why did this group of hardcore skeptics walk into what would look like certain death? Well, what they had was a series of 10 plagues, 10 events in a row produced by Moses at God's command. The account indicates that the events affected Egyptians, not the Israelites. In the final event, God prepared His people with the blood on the door frame and the Passover meal and every firstborn died in Egypt except for those of the Israelites. In other words, Israel had evidence. Thus, it was not credulity that caused them to walk across the Red Sea on dry land. It was faith.
You see, credulity and faith share a common basis. They are both a belief in something that has no proof, no test to demonstrate the reality. For those things faith is not required. The difference, then, between credulity and faith is that faith demands reasons while credulity needs none. Faith is built on reasons, evidence, arguments, and then goes beyond them. Credulity is built on whatever you want to believe. They are, then, similar, but not the same.
There is another primary difference between credulity and biblical faith.
To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of His calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by His power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thess 1:11-12).Faith says "This chair has always held my weight before, so without actually testing it, I can put my weight on it again" and does so. But Scripture says that God calls and God makes us worthy of that calling and God gives us resolve for good work and God gives us the faith that produces that good work. Now that is a real difference between credulity and faith.
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