Tyranny of the Temporary?

/ japfth / Leave a comment

“Back again so soon?” That’s what the attendant at the oil change station asked me as I sat in my truck with the window rolled down, waiting to have my truck tires rotated and engine oil changed. “Yes,” I replied. “Been a busy few days.” Indeed. Busyness as usual. Might I (and others) be so busy that we forfeit the most important things? In only a few days I’d amassed another 3,000 miles of road time, and was again back at the oil change station.

The apostle Paul wrote in the New Testament that Christians are to seek eternal things rather than spending our affections on temporariness: “For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corintimageshians 4:18b ESV). So what are eternal things? What does Paul mean? The context is one wherein Paul contrasts the “light momentary affliction” (v.17) of physical sufferings to the eternal glory that awaits Christians. How much more encouraged and faithful, therefore, ought Christians to be in laboring for the truth.

Believers are not to “lose heart” (v.16) because we know that our labors (if not wasted upon the tyranny of the temporary and mere busyness), our fatigue, our weariness, and even our exhaustion that result, are worth it. In fact, to spend oneself for the sake of the truth should usher in sweet rest. “Sweet is the sleep of a laborer” (Ecclesiastes 5:12a ESV).

Moreover Jesus taught how we’re to expend our energies on matters of substance. We’re to use our minds for things that matter eternally. Frittering away our time on the temporary is sinful.

Too much is at stake: “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the           kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to                       you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be                                  anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:31-                              34 ESV)

Indeed. Sufficient is any day’s trouble. I suspect you’re like I in that you tend to worry about things, at least at times. I have to take breaks from the media deluge. I’m weary of hearing of Hillary’s decades of lies and of Donald’s boasts. I’m weary of hearing how secular government continues to grow and of how individual responsibility and freedom proportionately shrink. I’m weary of hearing of Islam’s continuous bloody conquests across nations. I’m weary of people assuming just because someone’s exceptional in one area (movie acting, e.g.) that he is necessarily qualified to speak intelligently about philosophy, theology, history, or literature.

No one who knows me would ask me to do algebra, for good reason. However, I might be somewhat more helpful if you wished to discuss the 20th century novel or Charles Dickens’ contributions to the world’s greatest literary characters. In other words, it’s important to know where one fits, and where one’s knowledge extends/does not extend.

“Being busy” is often a near neighbor to waste. John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life is vastly popular with good reason. One of the great lines from American writer Henry David Thoreau’s Walden expresses what I’m after here: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

I disagree with Thoreau on several things, but on that principle, we would’ve agreed, and could’ve shared his simple cabin in Concord, Massachusetts any day.

 

 

 

What Makes a Hero: A Glimpse into Contrasts

/ japfth / Leave a comment

This week I resume teaching World Literature to college students. I adore this course. Among the early topics is a section exploring the question, “What is a hero?” We begin the term by readingimages sections of Homer’s epics—the Iliad and the Odyssey. If the classics are the great books that everyone should have read but few actually have read, then I hope this course mitigates that lamentable state.

We examine the Greek and Roman pagan views of what makes a hero and discover therein that they were created. They were gods that came to be. Unlike the God of the Bible, Greek gods are not eternal. Moreover, they were created out of chaos. And the Greek gods deceived wantonly. To be a Greek god required duplicity. Olympus, e.g., exalted gods of treachery.

But what strikes me each time I read and teach through Homer’s epics is the destruction wrought by their pride–the gods’ and warriors like Achilles, Agamemnon, and Hector. When the Iliad opens Homer sets the epic initially as a bloody struggle of wills between Achilles and Agamemnon. Both warriors boast and taunt the other. Women have been captured and each man feels slighted vis a vis the spoils of war. When Calchas prophesies to Agamemnon, notice the pettiness and pride of Agamemnon, as he excoriates the prophet:

You damn soothsayer!/ You’ve never given me a good omen yet./ You take some kind of perverse pleasure in prophesying/ Doom, don’t you? Not a single favorable omen ever!/ Nothing good ever happens!/ And now you stand here/ Uttering oracles before the Greeks, telling us/ That your great ballistic god is giving us all this trouble/ Because I was unwilling to accept the ransom/ For Chryses’ daughter but preferred instead to keep her/ In my tent! And why shouldn’t I? I like her better than/ My wife Clytemnestra. She’s no worse than her/ When it comes to looks, body, mind, or ability./ Still, I’ll give her back, if that’s what’s best./ I don’t want to see the army destroyed like this./ But I want another prize ready for me right away./ I’m not going to be the only Greek without a prize,/ It wouldn’t be right. And you all see where mine is going.” (I, 112-128)

What traits of a Greek hero do you see here? Pride, wrath, petty jealousy, a preoccupation with glory for oneself.

Contrast this with the Bible’s pictures of what constitutes the heroic. In World Literature, I contrast the Greek and Roman views of heroism with biblical examples of the heroic. Joseph, whose story is recounted in Genesis, is one of our case studies.

Rather than being exalted as a boasting warrior like Achilles or Agamemnon, Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and sold by them to Ishmaelites for so many shekels of silver (Gen 37). Joseph was then taken down to Egypt and sold to Potiphar. He was imprisoned. And yet he entrusted himself to God. He did not exalt himself, his strength, or his wisdom. Even when others recognized his wisdom, Joseph ascribed it to the gift of God (Gen 41:16; 45:8; 50:19-20).

Even students with only a cursory knowledge of the Bible have often heard the words Joseph recounted to his brothers: “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen 50:19-20 ESV).

The contrasts between Greco-Roman pagan views and the biblical view of heroism are nothing if not ample and stark. The Greek and Roman gods were finite, dependent, moody, petulant, fickle, self-absorbed, and prideful. As Francis Schaeffer wrote, they were amplified humanity. In short, they were like we are—sinful.

In glorious contrast, however, is the biblical view of the heroic. And the God of Scripture is instead infinite, transcendent, righteous, and altogether holy. And as to human heroes, rather than exalting themselves, readers see men like Joseph–men who suffer due to others’ sin, men who overcome evil with good, men who bore the wrath others deserved.

As my students will see through the Joseph narrative, the ultimate author of Joseph’s narrative pointed to a later Joseph who would likewise, but in an infinitely superior way, not exalt himself, but do the will of his Father. He would suffer for others’ sin, and even be made sin for them. And he would overcome evil by exiting his grave. He would bear wrath so that others would escape it. This was a different hero indeed.

 

 

 

 

Difference as a Key to the Sacred

/ japfth / Leave a comment

Long brown hair. Tawny skin. Jeans. Black sandals. That’s how she appeared when we met. And I was hooked. She was dressed simply but femininely. I’d driven to south GA, where some of my family lived, to meet her. She had met some of my family already, as they’d recently moved to what was her hometown. We’d agreed over the phone that I’d meet her at my family’s house for our first date. She was pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way.

But in the politically correct universe being imposed upon America by liberals/Leftists, I would’ve been called narrow-minded and parochial. I’d be labeled as a male who limited her, who forced her into a Western stereotype. According to the Left, I should not have looked for a woman to be feminine, because that’s a demeaning, misogynistic category imposed by the powerful male-dominated culture, of which I’m supposedly a representative. I should have not wanted her to be, well, what she was—feminine, pretty, and traditional.

The forced erasure of the male/female distinction is yet another indicator of America coming apart morally. And it’s being done via the very means liberals/Leftists say they oppose—by force, by limiting, by demeaning.

The liberals/Leftists are the ones forcing an erasure of the male/female distinction. I’m about as traditional (a nasty word in liberal/Leftist circles) as folks come, I suppose. I think a married man should work, provide for his family sacrificially, lead his family, protect his family, etc. I think the married woman should respect her husband, care for the home and children, in ways for which she’s uniquely designed.

But all of this further alienates me from the political correctness undermining traditional marriage, male leadership, and history.

How? Consider this example from today’s headlines: “NC school to teachers: Don’t call students ‘boys and girls’.” Yep. True story. Google it yourself. Charlotte, NC. To call a boy a “boy” is now, per the Left, hateful. To call a girl a “girl” is now, per the Left, hateful. The system wants to force you to call them “students” because they might “identify” as a boy on Monday but a girl on Tuesday, and then a boy again on Friday.

Now ask yourself this question: Who is behind this? It’s not conservatives or traditional people. It’s liberals/Leftists. Why? Because the inconvenient truth is that if there’s one thing liberals/Leftists are not, it’s liberal/freedom loving.

Who is forcing, limiting, and demeaning those who oppose this sort of statism? It’s liberals/Leftists.

And to further infuriate any leftist readers out there, I’ll tell you what’s at the root of their rage: Leftism hates  the God of the Bible, and his design of difference as a key to the sacred. Leftists seek to deconstruct and destroy the image of God from humanity, erase binary distinctions, force new paradigms upon the obvious differences between men and women, and silence conservatives/traditionalists. If you don’t believe me, look at who’s leading the charge to force, limit, and demean. God help us. (But that is the one voice liberals/Leftists abhor more than all others.)

What Exactly Do You Mean by That?

/ japfth / Leave a comment

A spoonful of this and a dash of that make for good soup but bad theology.

imgresRecently another gentleman and I shared an elevator. I recognized him as one who worked around the same location as I. As we waited for the elevator to arrive, I joked with him that it was forgivable if I took the elevator, since I’d exercised at the gym earlier in the day. He laughed and we began to chat about the day’s events. Casual conversation. The elevator arrived and we entered.

As we entered the elevator, we had several floors to go up. There was that pregnant pause we’ve all endured when we’re in elevators during interstices of our workday, when we’re unsure whether we should speak. Is it worth it? Will I be thought rude if I remain silent? Will it be banal if we speak of the weather? Should I ask him if he’s following the Olympics in Rio?

As it turned out, he spoke first. Upon seeing the cross upon my uniform, he asked, “So what are you working on, chaplain?” I told him about one of the ministries I was working on, and about where I was driving later that day as part of that ministry. He said, “Well, we need some spirituality around here.”

I said, “Sir, we witness the structure crumbling but fail to acknowledge we’ve erased the foundation.” Then the elevator bell sounded, and we both exited onto the same floor, but headed in opposite directions.

I hope I did not come across as rude, but a spoonful of this and a dash of that make for good soup but bad theology. What do I mean? Well, my little conversation in the elevator is symptomatic of a larger issue.

Much of the world wants spirituality, but then falls short of specifying what that means. What type of spirituality? Whose spirituality? What does that term—spirituality–even mean? Does the Islamist have the same idea of spirituality that I have as a Christian? What about the atheist? Does he want spirituality in his world? Mormon spirituality? Jehovah’s Witnesses’ spirituality?

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not taking issue what I think my elevator friend intended—namely, that we are eroding due to a loss of spiritual moorings.

But we are living in a time of syncretism. Syncretism is comprised of syn meaning “with” or “together.” If you search for synonyms, you search for words meaning the same, or nearly the same, thing. A synagogue, for example, is where people of the same faith gather together. If you synchronize watches, you set it to the same time as another’s time (chronos).

But we are living in a culture that is turning to everything except that which is eternal, fixed, and sure. We’re witnessing an overt blending of worldviews that teach opposite doctrines. There may be superficial similarities but fundamentally they are different systems, and they teach different doctrines.

Syncretism in the culture is seeking to harmonize mutually exclusive ideas, often under the moniker of spirituality, and then to often relativize ideas, as if ideas are equal. They’re not. All ideas are not equal. There is such a thing as being wrong. The fact that we even have to say that indicates how juvenile many have become in their thinking. And thus, the cauldron of ideas that is supposedly going to synchronize itself into spirituality is boiling over.

Bits of one theology are blended into others, doing violence to each idea.

My elevator conversationalist phrased it as “spirituality.” This spirituality is so nebulous, vague, and unclear that it’s impossible to say what it even means. If we are not clear, we’re wasting time.

I agree with my elevator conversationalist that we’re in need of spirituality, but we must clarify that. What does that term mean? Whose spirituality? After all, different worldviews teach mutually exclusive concepts regarding spirituality.

We must have the courage to ask people what they mean by their terms. And we ourselves must be clear. There are many ways that may seem right, yet end in horror (cf. Proverbs 14:12).

A spoonful of this and a dash of that make for good soup but bad theology. I hope to continue the conversation with him again soon, in an elevator or another place, and hear how we might go deeper into the spirituality question, because I have some good news for him.

No Lasting City

/ japfth / Leave a comment

Again last night it happened—I couldn’t sleep. So I did what I’ve not done in a few days, I read the news. I came to my La-Z-Boy chair, opened my MacBook, and perused the headlines. More of the same: $400 million U.S. dollars given to Iran as ransom; Obama allows upwards of 10,000 Muslims into America; president commutes prisoners’ sentences, releasing convicted felons into the American population; and of course, Donald and Hillary continue their antics. If we’re at all similar, I get one recurring attitude after reading it all: wimgreseariness. Weary of it all. Perhaps that’s part of the goal—to wear down the public so much that they (those vying for political power) accumulate yet more power.

After reading the headlining muck, I returned to writing out my to-do list for the next few days. Then I laid my journal down beside my chair and returned to reading where I’d left off yesterday: “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). No lasting city.

Context is crucial. To whom was the letter of Hebrews written? Most likely it was written to Jewish Christians in the 1st century, probably before A.D. 70, when Roman forces in particular, destroyed much of Jerusalem, Israel, and the Jerusalem temple. The author of Hebrews had one main thesis: to remind Christians that Christ is superior to anyone else, superior to any competing leader, superior to any politics, superior to any other covenant.

Why is Christ superior? Because here—in this world—Christians have no lasting city. Yes, we are to tend this world. Yes, we are to live godly lives in this present darkness. Yes, we are to be salt and light in a world that is rotting in depravity and spiritually dark. The body of Christ is to be marked by its difference, its set-apartness. Why? Because in this world system, we have no lasting city.

We all have our quirks, I suppose. I enjoy being in the yard, cutting grass, watering trees, and digging in the dirt. Without a doubt, one of my favorite smells is of freshly cut grass. Especially during the summer months in the South, we can smell the thunderstorms moving in during hot afternoons. When lawns have been mowed recently, the chemical interactions between the humidity and the winds from the storm fronts create rich smells in the air. I drink them in.

I have a fellow teacher friend who scintillates when she speaks of the smells of freshly dug peanuts. (Urbanites, forgive us if you don’t understand.) As much as I delight in those simple pleasures, I know that in this world, I still have no lasting city. Therefore, wisdom calls me in the Scriptures to look to Christ, to be found in him, because he’s superior to anything in his creation. We so easily settle for too little.

Psalm 49 says what I’m trying to remind myself of—namely, that here we have no lasting city; that politics and government officials will go on being characterized by evil; that those with seared consciences will go on erecting idols of self-worship; that my words will last no longer than the summer-saturated smells I imbibe when I celebrate the simple beauties of country life, so much so that it almost embarrasses to speak of such things. But just ask yourself, do you not remember the power of smells of, say, a farm, or of the first time you rubbed a sweaty horse and felt his nostrils’ heat upon your forearms and face, or sat upon a tractor where soil is being plowed and held arrowheads between your fingertips? And yet, no lasting city.

 

Psalm 49 contains this motif:

This is the path of those who have foolish confidence;

yet after them people approve of their boasts.

Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol;

Death shall be their shepherd;

And the upright shall rule over them in the morning.

Their form shall be consumed in Sheol, with no place to dwell.

But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol,

for he will receive me (vv.13-15).

Those words are so clear I don’t understand how much explanation is even necessary. If our confidence is in ourselves, in this world system, the grave is our home, and all these pleasures are entertainments on a tragic journey that came from nothing and is going nowhere. No purpose, no overarching metanarrative, just a “tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/Signifying nothing.”

But the Scriptures give very different news for believers in Christ and his gospel. The writer of Hebrews reminds believers that, though in this world we have no lasting city “we seek the city that is to come” (v.14b).

I plan to go outside again today, to cut grass, to imbibe the rich smells of the hot August days, to swat at the gnats that buzz around my sweaty brow, but I will remind myself, too, that this is no lasting city, that there is a city that is to come, where righteousness dwells. And I’m confident that the God who does all things well will finally reveal to me how his beauties of country life shaped this pilgrim soul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Picture

/ japfth / Leave a comment

imgresThe big picture. We ruin ourselves by neglecting it. Information is important. Facts are even more important. More important than both, however, is understanding the big picture.

Stated another way, it refers to the crucial role of understanding worldviews. Not only ought we to understand our own worldview, but the worldviews of others, too. Why? Because life is explainable when we understand that life is a battlefield of ideas/worldviews.

Worldviews collide. And there’s no shortage of evidence for how those collisions make history.

Worldview is a grid of interpretation. We all impose on reality a grid for making sense of experience. In theology/philosophy, the term is Weltanschauung. It’s one’s philosophy of life. It allows for the interpretation of ideas. It enables one to grasp the big picture.

 One’s worldview is evidenced in how we answer some fundamental questions:

*Does God exist? If so, what is his nature? That is, his attributes?

*If God does not exist, how do we explain the cosmos?

*How is non-existence a thing? That is, how can no-thing be referred to as something?

*How would non-intelligence create intelligence? That is, how does nothing give rise to something?

*How do you explain the irreducible complexity we see in life? By chance? Really?

*If God does not exist, why trust our own “knowledge”?

*If God exists, what does he require?

*What is man?

*Where does meaning come from?

*Where did man come from?

*How do we come to know things (epistemology)?

*What is ultimate reality (matter only, as naturalists claim?)?

*How are ethics and morals determined? Who determines right and wrong? Who sets the rules?

*What happens after death?

*Is it possible that God exists, and that he has spoken by way of general and special revelation?

How you answer these questions reveals your worldview. These questions are not exhaustive, but they serve as a primer, a foundation for thinking. Just knowing how we answer these questions goes a long way in determining how we think and behave.

Think with me about how worldviews are being played out in our politics, in our culture, in our wars, in our neighborhoods, in our families.

Filter them through your worldview:

*Is gender a fluid category? If so, in what worldview? (Witness the transgender movement.)

*Is it possible that God created human beings as either male or female, and pronounced it good?

*Is a baby a person inside the womb or not? If not, how does worldview play out in the remainder of said life? If it is a baby in the womb (the lengths to which some people go to deny this reality strains credulity and intellectual honesty), on what basis is the boy or girl denied human rights?

*If naturalism/atheism/secularism are true, then why complain when those worldviews produce violence and “evil” acts? Example: If there’s no God, how can anything be objectively good or evil?

*Why do some academies teach situational ethics but then demand “justice” when defrauded?

*What does it say that in many organizations we have to teach “sensitivity” and heretofore common courtesy? What worldview has been marginalized? What worldview dominates today’s discourse?

The big picture. To use a biblical analogy, we know trees by the fruit they bear.

How our representatives vote and lead; whether we remain free to worship in accordance with our constitutional rights; whether life inside the womb is viewed as a baby or detritus; whether it’s right to enforce current border laws or to sanction libertinism, etc. are all issues that are being fought over based upon the worldviews held by the combatants.

Having a worldview is inescapable for a thinking person. The question is, which one? If you want to see the results of where worldviews lead, look no further than the culture on display.

 

Friendship: A Key to Resilience

/ japfth / Leave a comment

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves,” Jane Austen wrote. There is a paradox in today’s culture—namely, while we are more connected than ever via social media, we are often lonely for true friendsthhip.

The spiritual connections that come through true friendship are worth more than thousands of “virtual” friends.

Like you I’m “friends” with people on social media that I rarely if ever spend quality time with. No, not the friends who live hundreds or thousands of miles away, that’s understandable. I refer to people that would be more accurately defined as acquaintances or peers.

I’m not a Luddite, one opposed to technological advancement. I’m not opposed to social media, obviously. I e-mail, blog, have a Facebook account, etc. These media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et al) allow communication to broad audiences instantly.

But social media alone, if divorced from deep relationships, cannot satiate the hungers met in true friendships. They cannot satisfy the spiritual hunger that’s implanted in us.

I have taught literature and/or composition for much of the last 15 years, in addition to serving in the military. A recurring theme I witness when I observe my students each term is the longing they all have for meaningful connections and true friendships. Some of them share details of themselves online that they’d be loath to share in otherwise public ways. Why is that? I think it’s often this void, this friendlessness void, they’re attempting to fill.

“A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24). The contrast is clear. We may have many folks around us, but feel alone. But a true friend is not just around, or on the periphery. A true friend “sticks closer than a brother.”

Might we take the time to invest in our relationships and cultivate friendships? Resilience, a concept we strive to cultivate in the military, is no less important in our civilian lives. The practice of bouncing back and recovering is immeasurably more likely when built upon a foundation of friends:

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 ESV).

Whose Way?

/ japfth / Leave a comment

If I asked you to list a few current events that are splashed across our headlines, you could probably do it with ease. How about presidential politics? How about BLM? How about Blue Lives Matter, or is it just black lives? If black lives matter, why are blacks assassinating fellothw blacks who serve as our police? How about the 60 million abortions in the U.S. since 1973’s Roe v. Wade? Do their lives matter? 29,000 babies, just in America, will be aborted this year, after 16 weeks of gestation. Do their lives matter? And let us not forget illegal immigration. Should a nation not have borders? If not, why not? Can you name a nation that has lasted that doesn’t have borders? What does the word nationhood even mean if it’s denuded of its written laws and borders? Or how about the tone of our country’s public discourse? What does it reveal about current American public discourse? Current discussions resemble MTV’s pubescent crassness more than substantive debate.

This morning after coffee, I checked the headlines from my computer at work for just some of our current events:

  1. When nonstop terror bleeds into our media and political culture
  2. Baton Rouge killer carefully plotted attack against police, brought 3 guns, investigators say
  3. Erdogan’s appeal to Islamists in wake of failed coup spurs fear for Turkey’s future
  4. Terror strikes again: ISIS claims responsibility for German train attack
  5. White House won’t be lit in blue

Is there a unifying theme through all of these headlines? Some might say the theme is unraveling. Others might say the theme is lack of courageous leadership. Others might say we’re witnessing the triumph of evil. Others might say we’re seeing that the enemy is inside the wire–that is, that current events are being orchestrated by folks who are ostensibly on America’s side, but who, in reality, are vehemently opposed to America, our freedoms, our constitution, and our other founding documents. I don’t speak as one with no view. Presumably like you, I’m a legal citizen, and am concerned, but I speak from a biblical worldview.

Is this the first time that world events have seemed out of control? Is this the first time that culture seems to be unraveling? Is this the first time that people have rejected God, Christ, the Bible, Christian input, etc? Did Noah’s generation repent when he was called to pronounce judgment and warn of a worldwide flood? Did vast numbers of folks repent and turn to hear the preaching of the word? Did the masses repent and turn to God? Listen to Gen 6:11-12:

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.

Sound familiar? Yet God did not leave Noah with just a diagnosis of disaster. He made a way: “But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.” (v.18) God made the way, but it was just that—God’s way, not man’s way.

Or think of another OT prophet, Jeremiah, in the 600s B.C. in Israel, a man called by God to warn the people to repent and turn to God. But did the culture listen to the word of the Lord through his servant Jeremiah?

Listen to Jeremiah’s word of the Lord: “violence and destruction are heard within her; sickness and wounds are ever before me. Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I turn from you in disgust, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.” (Jer 6:7b-8)

That was in the 600s B.C. Was that the first time the nation was unraveling? Was that the first time that God spoke through one of his prophets, pleading with people to listen and obey the word from the Lord? Was that even the first time that God’s people were persecuted for telling the truth?

But did God leave Jeremiah there, in the pit (later in his ministry), suffering alone? Israel and Judah both fell, of course, as judgments. And many were deported to Babylon (present day Iraq) in 597, 586, and 582 B.C.

But did God just diagnose the people’s situation and leave them there? No. But deliverance was to be God’s way, not man’s way. Listen to Jer 31:

Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their heart. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (vv.31-33)

It had to be, then as now, God’s way, not man’s way. The greatest example in history of God speaking is found in God’s incarnation in Jesus–his supernatural birth, life, death as substitutionary atonement, and his resurrection. Christ requires an either/or ultimatum.

Will we turn to him in repentance and faith, or remain in our evil deeds and darkness? As another writer phrased it, it’s Christ or chaos. And what do our headlines indicate most people choose?

Did Jesus not warn the people to repent and turn to the one true and living God? And what sort of reception did Jesus receive? “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” (Jn 1:11)

Why did his own people not receive him? The Scripture says that their works, like ours, are evil: “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” (Jn 3:19)

But did God leave them/us there? Did he only condemn us and abandon us? Are we like the characters in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot? Or is man, as Sartre wrote, a useless passion? Is there no hope?

Probably you’ve heard, “If only God would show up, then I would believe.” May I say this as kindly as possible? He has, and his name is Jesus. God in the flesh not only showed up, but he lived the only life worthy of God’s requirements. “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Mt 3:17) He was born of Mary who’d been overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. He lived a sinless life. Yet he became sin for us, for those who’d believe upon him: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).

What’s more, God raised him from the dead (Mt 28; Mk 15; Lk 24; Jn 20; 1 Cor 15). The theme remains the same: deliverance only comes God’s way, not man’s way.

If you want to witness the bloody contrast between the two ways, witness our daily headlines. What will it take? Will we look, in repentance and faith, to God incarnate who came for sinners? Whose way? There is only one way, but there is, in fact, a way, and his name is Jesus.

One Thing is Missing

/ japfth / 1 Comment

Conviction and clarity do not equal courage, but both are necessary ingredients of it. What’s missing is righteousness. After all, evil is undergirded by strong convictions. ISIS murderers have strong convictions. The Boko Haram Islamists butchering civilians in Nigeria and Kenya have strong convictions. The Islamic terrorists who murdered 200 civilian men, women, and upwards of 20 children last week in the public markets of Baghdad, by blowing themselves up (along with scores of others), have strong convictions. So, it’s not conviction alone that equals courage. What’s missing is righteousness.

Moreover, these groups have clarity. They’re clear in their belief that they want non-Islamists to submit. (Islam means submission.) Our headlines are filled with pictures of decapitated men and women who’d not submit to Islam’s demands, of girls raped and mauled by Islamists, of villages blown apart by car bombs and improvised explosive devices planted in public marketplaces by some followers of Islam. So, it’s not clarity alone that equals courage. What’s missing is righteousness.

But we’re living in a climate in the U.S. where our most visible representatives will not act with courage. Few will even speak with courage. What do they do instead? They evade courage by being neither clear nor convictional. They proclaim, ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace (Jeremiah 6:14).

Remember when (MAJ) Nidal Malik Hasan murdered 13 people and wounded 32 others at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009? Guess what our elected representatives termed the event? “Workplace violence.” Does that accurately reflect what happened or Hasan’s Islamic worldview? Workplace violence. Really? Are you awake yet? Yet Hasan had strong convictions. And he was crystal clear. What’s missing is righteousness.

Remember last month? On June 13, 2016 another Islamist murdered 49 civilians at a nightclub filled mostly with homosexuals. And another 53 people were maimed or injured. Are you awake yet? Was the murderer clear in his thinking, and did he have plenty of conviction? So, clarity of thought and conviction of mind are insufficient in this time that calls for courage. We need those things, yes, but we need righteousness, too.

Remember December of 2015, just 6 and a half months ago, a husband and wife murdered 14 civilians at a Christmas party? They had clarity and conviction of their Islamic faith. But what did we hear? Crafted vanilla speech read by politicians…the words typed for them on a teleprompter. Where was the courage to call a spade a spade? Are we awake yet? What will it take? We, too, need clarity of thought. And we, too, need conviction. But at least as important is our desperate need of righteousness.

How does one attain that? Is it endemic to people? Do your headlines indicate that people are basically good? I hear it all the time–that people are “basically good.” According to Scripture, there is none righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10).

But does the Christian worldview leave us there? That is, does the Christian worldview only indict the human race as godless and then abandon us? No. The Christian worldview demands righteousness, but then offers us what the Islamic worldview, or any other worldview, does not—righteousness through Christ (Romans 3:21-26).

We need clarity of thought. We need conviction to act. As a friend of mine says, we’re in desperate need of being both definitional and convictional in our thinking. Why? Because we’re amidst a mushy and sentimental age that values sentimentality and artifice. This is the age of selfies and Facebook. Millions of people may “tweet” but very few think deeply.

In the Islamic worldview, they’re not lacking conviction. I suggest that many are not even lacking clarity. But what Islam, or any other worldview, cannot offer is righteousness from God. That, according to the Bible, comes one way—by grace alone, through faith alone, and in Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8-9).

The Islamic worldview seeks to conquer through forced submission, and our headlines continue to record a bloody history. Are we really awake yet in this generation? What will it take? Not just conviction, not just clarity, but righteousness alongside those things. And that righteousness will not come by militarism, but by God’s work through Christ.

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God” (Psalm 20:7). We sinners will not stop slaying one another until we see that God incarnate was slain for us.

When the heart is circumcised by God the Holy Spirit, righteousness is imputed—“the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (Romans 3:22).

 

 

It’s a Grave Matter

/ japfth / Leave a comment

Today I went to a funeral. Perhaps I’m odd, but I find funerals, whether I’m the presiding minister or not, to engender pensiveness. Perhaps more accurately stated, I find that funethrals lead me into contemplation of life’s meaning, of life’s value, of what’s most important, and of the basis for importance. Funerals punctuate the transient nature of some matters and the eternality of others. What follows is an abbreviated summary of today’s funeral, some reflections that the confrontation of death elicits, and some questions for consideration.

The mother of one of my coworkers died recently. Her body had been transported back to Atlanta from Illinois for the memorial service and a graveside service. She had been born in Atlanta in the late 1940s, but grew up in Illinois, where she earned her education, became a nurse, married, raised her family, and prospered in her nursing career. However, her spiritual hometown had remained Atlanta. And, geographically speaking, she came full circle. She was buried just miles from where she had been born.

When we entered the church, the scene was just as one might imagine. Men wore dark suits; women wore dark dresses, many donning hats; a couple of grandchildren with quizzical eyes, trying to come to terms with what it means to lose their grandmother, sat on the front pews with their mother. A family friend sang the hymn “Sweet Hour of Prayer.”

Then, the presiding minister read from Psalm 24:

Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not life up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.

Then the minister led the congregation in prayer and several people spoke briefly of the life of the deceased. And then the minister read from Revelation 7, where John writes of the multitude extolling God and the Lamb, and of how the creation bursts forth in doxology: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” (Rev 7:12 ESV)

One never knows, I suppose, what others are thinking, but this is what I thought: Psalm 24 teaches that the whole of creation is God’s. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” And David teaches that there is one who does ascend that hill of the Lord, the Lord of hosts. And the apostle John, a millennium after David chronologically, writes of the Lord Jesus as the Lord of hosts, mighty in battle, who conquered. And because of that Lamb, multitudes now stand in white robes, more than conquerors.

Is that what the minister was trying to teach us, his hearers? Did we all see the connections between Psalm 24 and Revelation 7? Did we all understand how conquering death is only possible if hidden in Christ, the Lord of hosts?

Some questions came to mind as I sat there in the church, as I listened and thought, and scanned the demeanors of the others:

1) What hope does an atheist have at a funeral? Is nature/material all there is? If so, why do we speak of thoughts, love, ideas, truth, sacrifice, et cetera? Those ideas, so seminal to life, are senseless if materialism is true.

2) Why is it that when obituaries are read, we remember and laud (rightly, in my view) the non-material things in the person’s life—her sacrifices, her love for her family, her compassion, her honor, her faith, et cetera, not the material things?

3) Why does it sometimes take a funeral to teach me to keep short accounts with God?

Is it not easy to fritter one’s time? Is it not easy to gain the world and lose one’s soul? It’s possible, I suppose, to even attend a funeral and not be confronted with ultimate questions.

But it’s a grave matter how one answers these questions. If Christianity is true, then death does not have the final say. Its sting has been removed for the believer. If materialism is true, we’re only dust, and it’s perhaps best to eat, drink, and be merry, as Solomon did, but later regretted.

But if Christianity is true, then we, though made of dust, have been breathed into by God himself, and are souls of infinite worth, and are called to honor him, in life and in our death. That call to think on the Christian claims, therefore, is too important to eschew. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”