Way Out Thoughts

Monday, November 21, 2016

God's Image in Man: What it is NOT

God's image is both a complicated and simple idea that can be both easily understood in one sense and deeply thought-provoking in another. The simple idea is that we, as human beings, are bearers of God's image (Gen 1:26-27) and thus have value that no other creature has. The complex idea is that...we'll cover that in the next post. The first part of this series on God's image in man is what that image is not. Next week's post will cover what that image is and the next week we'll discuss how that ties in to the big picture of creation, the fall, and the parts of salvation (justification, sanctification, redemption/glorification).
The negative description of God's image in man is twofold: i) God's image is not physical and ii) God is not male and female due to His image being borne by both men and women.

1. God's image is not physical
     a. This is really simple when you look at the Bible and connect some dots. John 4:24 says that "God is spirit...". Luke 24:39 says: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Jesus says in Luke that a spirit does not have a physical body. Since God is spirit, He does not have a physical body either. It follows then, that human beings who bear God's image, are not made to look like God in the physical sense.
         Some of you may be thinking about the descriptions of God that assign Him human features at this point. I believe these are anthropomorphism's that merely describe God in ways that make sense to us, because if He truly showed His fullness to us we would be utterly inept at comprehending His infinite vastness of being and character. If you are studious, I think you would find that most of these types of descriptions of God wherein He is described as having human or animal parts of in the poetic and prophetic books which are filled with rich metaphorical imagery. This would be another post in and of itself, so I will direct you to a great explanation of this idea from William Lane Craig.
     b. Another problem with the idea that God has a physical body is that everything came into being when God created it. The traditional understanding of Gen 1:1 is that God created ex nihilo which means out of nothing. There was no matter, space, time, or energy before God spoke it into existence. If that is the case, that no material was present before God created it, then by default He cannot be physical. That would lead to the absurd conclusion that God created Himself out of nothing. If, on the other hand, God is a physical being, then the objection; "Who made God?" has some merit because something would have had to have made the material being we call God.
     c. Yet another problem with the idea of God having a physical body is His attribute of omnipresence, which means God is at every point of space with His whole being. Psalm 139:7-12 describes His omnipresence well: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you." God's omnipresence precludes His being physical. If He was a physical being, He could not be everywhere at once. It would be impossible for a collection of matter forming a body to be everywhere at once. Inferentially, this tells us that God, in order to be omnipresent, must be a non-material being that is not constrained by physical limitations.

2. God is not male and female due to His image being borne by both men and women
   a. Gen 1:27 says: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Both males and females bear God's image. I have recently seen it taught that this means that God is both male and female. This is an absurd concept. God is neither male nor female. Descriptions of Him as a father are His revelation of Himself to us in a way that we can understand Him. Why did He choose to reveal Himself as a father (male)? I have no idea, but that is the way He chose to do it, so it must be correct because He cannot make any mistakes.
   b. The image of God is not physical, so this cannot mean that God has both male and female anatomy. It has already been shown that God is not a physical being.
     c. This also cannot be talking about the attributes of men and women in terms of temperament and personality. Did God give attributes that He has to man and woman? Yes, however, the communicated form of these attributes that we possess are not the same thing as what God possesses. For instance, do we love the same way that God loves? No. His love is perfect, holy, and unconditional. Ours is imperfect, unholy, and conditional. Is our knowledge the same as God's? No. His knowledge is unlimited, perfect, and immediate. Ours is limited, imperfect, and mediate. This means that our characteristics as both men and women come from God, but are not the same thing. This doesn't mean that God is male and female, it means that God has chosen to accentuate various attributes in the different sexes in order to create a complementary set that can partner for His glory and the advancement of His kingdom. God does not express these attributes the same way as either men or women. To say that God is both male and female for this reason is to say that God is modeled on us. This is clearly false, since it is not our image that God is made in the likeness of, but the other way around.

Now that we have a clear understanding of what God's image in man is not, next time we will take a look at a positive description of what God's image in man entails. Happy Thanksgiving!

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Thursday is Link Around the Internet Day

I only have one link for you today. It is an hour long forum about persecuted Christians featuring Nancy Guthrie, Mindy Belz, D. A. Carson, Karen Ellis, and Nastaran Farahani.

1. On the Persecuted Church

Monday, November 14, 2016

Daniel 9:24-26a, Part 3

"24 Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again, with squares and a moat, but in a troubled time. 26a And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing."

Part 1 and Part 2 can be found here.

So far we have seen that this prophecy concerns Jesus' crucifixion and we have seen that the start date for the prophecy was Nisan 1, 444 BC. In this post we are going to look at the three sources mentioned in the previous post to see how some people have attempted to calculate the prophecy dates. Before we cover those models, some groundwork has to be laid.

1. Most of the people who attempt to calculate the prophecy assume, based on Genesis 7:11, 24 and 8:4 where 150 days passes and exactly 5 months pass, that there is a 360-day year (12, 30-day months) that is God's "prophetic calendar". The timing of prophecies must then be calculated using the 360-day year rather than our modern 365.25 days per year model with leap years. This is highly debatable. Probably the foremost expert on the Ancient Near East and an Old Testmanet commentator, Gleason L. Archer, said that there is no evidence that anyone ever used a 360-day year. But, I am not saying this "prophetic calendar" is correct, I am merely attempting to show the timing of Daniel's 70 weeks is accurate by way of showing how close we can get to calculating it. In the end, you will see that if we just had a bit more data, we could calculate it accurately.
2. This prophecy culminates in Christ's crucifixion, so we are looking for that Friday Passover sometime between 28-33 AD. However, the prophecy says first that the anointed one will come. A lot of commentators agree that this is Jesus' triumphal entry. This is intimately associated with the Passover lamb instructions that God gave the Israelites in Exodus 12:3, 6. Namely, that the lamb has to stay in the house with them for 4 days before they kill and eat it (10th Nisan with the Passover being 14th Nisan). This means Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem had to come on Sunday so he could "stay in house" for 4 days as our Passover lamb: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The passover supper would have been on Thursday evening, the crucifixion on Friday, and the resurrection on Sunday. Ultimately, we are looking for a Sunday triumphal entry in a year that had Passover on a Friday.
3. For the sake of brevity, I am leaving out a lot of the astonomical data concerning the moon phases. The first book's author used data from the Royal Observatory in England to calculate his dates. It would be time consuming and confusing to include it. I am giving the information you need, not necessarily all the information used.
4. As I have said before, calendar matching from ancient to modern is not something that can be done with high accuracy.
With that in mind, let's get started.

The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson
Anderson's model is wrong, but it is the most robust modern try at it and it forms the basis for a lot of subsequent thought about this prophecy. He starts off by naming the wrong starting date. He thinks Nisan 1 is March 14th, 445 BC. In his defense, he wrote in the late 1800's/early 1900's, scholars didn't know about the dating procedures of ancients. Remember we said that accession year dating was used, so Artaxerxes' first year, 465 BC, was only partial and wasn't counted. His "first year" by their count was 464 BC. That puts the 20th year (Neh 2:1) in 444 BC, not 445 BC. Next, he calculated the days from that date.
69 weeks of years x 7 years per week = 483 years
483 years x 360 days/year = 173,880 days
173,880 days + March 14th, 445 BC = April 6th, 32 AD (a Sunday)
This seems to work. But, Passover in 32 AD was either Sunday or Monday. This does give us a start though.

Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, Part VI: Daniel's Seventy Weeks and New Testament Chronology by Harold Hoehner
Hoehner took Anderson's model and made some refinements that get us a little further. First, he fixed the start date. Nisan 1, 444 BC is March 5th, 444 BC.
173,880 days + March 5th, 444 BC = March 26th, 33 AD
Hoehner does some finagling with the prophetic calendar and the solar year calendar that I am not showing. I will discuss that below. This also doesn't work because the 26th was a Thursday. This would put the Passover on Monday. We need a triumphal entry on a Sunday.

"An Examination of the Chronological Difficulties of Hoehner and Ice's Calculations of Daniel 9's First 69 Weeks" by Bob Pickle
Pickle points out some problems with Hoehner's model that will be helpful to us. But, Pickle himself comes to the conclusion that Christ's baptism was the end of the prophecy. I am going to ignore that part of it. First, the Jews inserted leap months, 7 every nineteen years, into their calendars. That means they had an extra month 7 times every nineteen years. 444 BC was one of those leap years. That makes the start date April 2nd, 444 BC when the extra month is taken into consideration.
173,880 days / 365.24219 days per year (solar year) = 476 solar years
476 solar years x 365.24219 days per year = 173,855 days
173,855 days + April 2nd, 444 BC = March 29th, 33 AD
March 29th, 33 AD is a Sunday -- Triumphal Entry
March 30th, 33 AD is a Monday -- Nisan 10th
30th, 31st, 1st, 2nd -- lamb kept in house
April 3rd, 33 AD is a Friday -- Nisan 14th (this day would start the evening before according to Jewish reckoning and means the Passover dinner was eaten what we would call Thursday night)
This seems to fix everything, except that there is some serious rounding in the math done. The numbers are actually 476.0676744 solar years and that translates back into 173,880 days. Keeping the numbers accurate would put the triumphal entry on a Friday. Also, the Passover was on Saturday or Sunday in 33 AD. Finally, I am not even going to get into the arguments over what year Jesus' ministry started.
At this point, you can see that every model and set of calculations has some problems, but this still gets us very close to calculating the date of both Christ's triumphal entry and crucifixion. I said previously that this series would be a little bit anticlimactic and I still think it is. However, the fact that we cannot accurately calculate the prophecy in no way means that is isn't true. Jesus held the Jews responsible for not knowing it. In Luke 19:41-44, he says with my highlights:

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it,saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every sideand tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

It is still readily believable that Jesus orchestrated his death down to the very day. That should give us great comfort. Jesus willingly sacrificed himself for us even though he knew the whole time what was coming and the very hour of his death. It also demonstrates the incredible knowledge and power of God that in 483 years of human history, He effortlessly organized it so that the table was set for the God-man, Jesus Christ, to appear on the day he told Daniel 600 years before hand.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Thursday is Link Around the Internet Day

1. On a Christian-Atheist Debate

2. On the Sower Parable in Matthew 13

3. On a Common Objection from Muslims

4. On Abortion

Monday, November 7, 2016

Daniel 9:24-26a, Part 2

"24 Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again, with squares and a moat, but in a troubled time. 26 And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing."

In part 1 we discussed verse 24 wherein we saw that the prophecy related to Daniel in this passage is Messianic. That means it has to do with Jesus Christ as the Messiah. In particular, it has to do with his crucifixion. The reason we can pinpoint that particular aspect of his ministry, his atonement that is, is due to the fact that the removal of transgressions, sins, and iniquity is in view. That only happened on Calvary when Christ was crucified. As mentioned last week, there is a specific timing element to this prophecy and it ends at Christ's crucifixion. In today's post we will look at some theories about where the timing fits in history based on an evaluation of verse 25 and 26a.

Verse 25: The opening phrase of verse 25 is important. It says; "Know therefore and understand...". A lot of people think that prophecy isn't that important, but what we see here is that Gabriel, with a message from God, is telling Daniel to know and understand what he is about to say. Since this is part of the Old Testament canon that God saw fit to give to us, we had also better know and understand it to the best of our ability. The next phrase, "that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem..." is very specific. It points to some kind of word that will allow or order the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem. Remember that in 587/6 BC, Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian armies destroyed Jerusalem and the first temple. Jerusalem has lain in ruins for close to seventy years which is exactly what God told Jeremiah (25:11; 29:10) he was going to do to Israel for their rebellion. At this time, about 538 BC, the Jews were living under Persian rule, so anything they did in their homeland had to be approved by the ruler of the Persian empire. That is exactly what happened. In 538/7 BC, Cyrus the King of Persia allowed, by decree, Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild the temple. This is recorded at the end of 2 Chronicles, verses 22 and 23 and it was prophesied by God through Isaiah in chapter 44, verse 28. This is exactly where Ezra picks up, in chapter 1, verses 1-4; with Cyrus' decree to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. This was the first time that Jews were officially allowed to return to Israel since the Babylonian empire conquered Judah. But, this is not our decree. It says nothing of the city of Jerusalem. It only directs the construction efforts of the temple. The prophecy says specifically that the word is to "restore and build Jerusalem", not the temple.
We have yet another decree concerning the temple in Ezra 6:1-15. It was really just a reinforcement of Cyrus' original decree due to the opposition the Jews were facing in completing the temple. They did get the temple finished, but we still don't have a starting point for the prophecy we are investigating. For that we have to look in Nehemiah 2:1-8.
In Nehemiah chapter 1 it says that Nehemiah got a report that Jerusalem and its gates were still ruined. This causes Nehemiah great consternation. So much so that Artaxerxes, the King of Persia at this time, recognizes his sadness and grants his request to return to Israel. This is how it happens. Nehemiah 2:1-8:

"In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, that I may rebuild it.” And the king said to me (the queen sitting beside him), “How long will you be gone, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province Beyond the River, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy.” And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me."

Now we have our decree to fix Jerusalem! In addition, we have the month this decree was made; Nisan, which is March/April on our calendar. And, we have what year it was; the 20th year of Artaxerxes. Most commentators agree that because no day is given along with the month, this means that Nehemiah refers to the first day of the month. Historians and biblical scholars have shown that the king referred to is Artaxerxes Longimanus, also known as Artaxerxes I. He reigned from 465-424 BC. The 20th year of his reign would be 444 BC due to the fact that ancient peoples started counting a king's rule from the first full year, which in this case would be 464 BC. This means that Nisan 1, 444 BC is our start date.
Our end date is where the real argument lies, though people still argue about the start date as well. The scripture says: "to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again, with squares and a moat, but in a troubled time." The prophecy is now split up into two parts; 69 weeks and 1 week to make seventy weeks. There are 69 weeks total when added in the first part (7+62). However, even this is a point of contention among translators and theologians about how to take the 7 and 62 weeks, but I think it makes the most sense to join them so that it is 69 weeks or 483 years between the decree and the coming of an anointed one. The HCSB, KJV, NASB, and NIV translate it to this effect. I usually read the ESV and that is what is quoted above. That leaves 1 week or 7 years at some point after the "prince" comes. Who is the anointed one that will be the end of the 69 weeks? This seems assuredly to be Christ. In light of verse 24 and the discussion of the end of sin and the ushering in of everlasting righteousness in which a "holy [one]" (see part 1 about the translation here) is anointed seems very clear; it is Jesus Christ. Specifically, it is his crucifixion. This is the only place where atonement for sin was made. Verse 26a gives us that information: "an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing." If Jesus is the anointed one, and I think he is the person in view, then his being "cut off" and coming to "have nothing" seems evident in the Gospels. Specifically in Matthew's Gospel chapter 27, verse 46.
With all that in place, we can now turn to the actual modern calendar dates and figuring out how this prophecy is laid out. We have a start date of Nisan 1, 444 BC and an end date of Christ's crucifixion to be determined by calculating the 69 weeks. In order to do this we are going to take a look at 3 dating models and, in a bit of an anticlimactic ending, we are going to realize that dating this thing with 100% accuracy is virtually impossible this side of heaven. However, even though we can't pinpoint the exact dates, we can get close, close enough to understand that it does happen just as God said it would. That should make us all realize the power in the foreknowledge of God and His providential control of all world events. The three models we are going to look at are:

1. The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson
2. Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, Part VI: Daniel's Seventy Weeks and New Testament Chronology by Harold Hoehner
3. "An Examination of the Chronological Difficulties of Hoehner and Ice's Calculations of Daniel 9's First 69 Weeks" by Bob Pickle

This is where we will continue next time.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Thursday is Link Around the Internet Day

1. On Paul and postmodern skepticism

2. On religious freedom's endangerment

3. On cops looking the other way for other cops

4. Cold-Case Christianity
Cold-Case Christianity is a book written by J. Warner Wallace, an LAPD cold-case detective. He converted from very skeptical atheism to Christianity by evaluating the evidence for the resurrection and the New Testament the same way he would investigate a cold-case homicide. The adult book is excellent. This link takes you to a review of the kids book. Wallace has reworked his original book into a kids format that not only gives the information found in the adult version, but teaches kids how to think critically when evaluating evidence.

5. On justification by Geerhardus Vos

Monday, October 31, 2016

Daniel 9:24-26a, Part 1

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Thursday is Link Around the Internet Day

1. Worship music

2. On progressivism in light of Christian morality

3. On misconceptions about the New Testament Canon (a 10-part series)

4. On King James onlyism

5. On Peter Enns

Monday, October 24, 2016

How much do you read the Bible?

Probably the most commonly talked about spiritual discipline in the Church is Bible reading. Every Christian realizes that they should be reading the Bible every day and, in my experience, most Christians don't believe they are reading the Bible enough, even if they are reading every day. So, what should be done about it?
For starters, we have to connect the idea that Bible reading should be done, to the results promised in the word of God. Why should we read the Bible? Let's take a look.

2 Timothy 3:16, 17
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

John 17:17
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

Psalm 1:1, 2
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

So we see that the word of God is useful for training in righteousness and enables us to be complete, that it sanctifies us when we read it and that it is a blessing when we delight in it. Many other scriptures could be offered, but they all pretty much fall in the categories presented in the above verses. I think most people reading this are on board so far. They see the need to read the Bible and read it more. They see the truth in the verses presented about how the word can shape our life. How do we turn that knowledge into action so that we can actually reap the benefits of consistently reading God's word?
I think the answer is screen time. This used to be just TV time, but now with the advances in technology and the pervasiveness of the use of Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and other social media as well as just plain old surfing the Internet, researchers call this screen time. When considering the time we spend in front of screens, there is ample time to read more of the Bible daily. Tape recorded versions of the Bible have proven that you can read through the Bible in 71 hours, so strap in and get busy. Just kidding. That is a stark number though; what does it mean? "The average person in the United States watches that much television [71 hours] in less than two weeks." (Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald S. Whitney, page 29) That is about 5 hours a day for two weeks on average. The book I am quoting from was written in 1991. How much has that increased since then? The Nielsen report from the 4th quarter of 2014 reports that electronic media time per day for the average US citizen was 11 hours. When you remove the radio time, that's about 8 hours a day in front of screens. (2) That would be 112 hours in two weeks. You could read the Bible 1.5 times through in that period.
Now, I am not suggesting that anyone give up TV (and their entire life!) to sit around and read the Bible cover to cover every two weeks. But, if we crunch some of these numbers we can turn this into useful data. Let's start big.

1. If, instead of 8 hours screen time, you spent the 8 hours reading the Bible, what would you end up with? You could read through the Bible every 9 days. That would be 40 times through in 1 year.

2. How about 7 hours reading the Bible? Completed every 10 days. 36 times per year.

3. 6 hours? Every 12 days. 30 times per year.

4. 5 hours? Every 14 days. 26 times per year.

5. 4 hours? Every 18 days. 20 times per year.

6. 3 hours? Every 24 days. 15 times per year.

7. 2 hours? Every 36 days. 11 times per year.

8. 1 hour? Every 71 days. 5 times per year.

Most of these numbers seem pretty ridiculous. I doubt many people could truly read for 4-8 hours a day. But, I bet there are some people that could read for 2-3 hours and I would guarantee that almost everyone in the Church could read for 1 hour a day. How would you like to read through the Bible 5 times per year? How do you think that would change you over the course of a year if you were constantly allowing God's word to wash over you intellectually and spiritually day in and day out like the ebb and flow of the ocean tides? I dare say you would be a radically different person that looked and thought more like Jesus Christ. If you are a disciple of the Lord, don't you want that?
I want to finish by offering you more practical information. Below is a list of times for reading each book of the Bible. These are averages, so you may be a little faster or slower, but it will give you a general idea. This can help you to plan your reading time. For instance, it takes 3.5 hours to read Genesis. There are 50 chapters in the book. You could split that into 4, hour-long sessions (4 days). That means you should read 13, 13, 12, and 12 chapters on those days. Using numbers like this may seem to take all the emotional spontaneity out of reading the Bible, but, it allows you to stay on track and be disciplined in your spiritual life which the apostle Paul compares to running a race in order to win. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Just as Paul says he does not run aimlessly, neither do professional runners. They plan their training and race strategy and they execute it to the best of their ability. You can do the same with reading the Bible if you will commit to a disciplined life of daily Bible intake.

Book	Time	Book	Time
Genesis	3.5h	Matthew	2.5h
Exodus	3h	Mark	1.5h
Leviticus	2h	Luke	1.5h
Numbers	3h	John	2h
Deuteronomy	2.5h	Acts	2.25h
Joshua	1.75h	Romans	1h
Judges	1.75h	1 Corinthians	1h
Ruth	15m	2 Corinthians	40m
1-2 Samuel	4h	Galatians	20m
1-2 Kings	4.25h	Ephesians	20m
1-2 Chronicles	4.5h	Philippians	14m
Ezra	40m	Colossians	13m
Nehemiah	1h	1 Thessalonians	12m
Esther	30m	2 Thessalonians	7m
Job	1.75h	1 Timothy	16m
Psalms	5h	2 Timothy	11m
Proverbs	1.75h	Titus	7m
Ecclesiastes	30m	Philemon	3m
Song of Songs	20m	Hebrews	45m
Isaiah	3.75h	James	16m
Jeremiah	4h	1 Peter	16m
Lamentations	20m	2 Peter	10m
Ezekiel	3.75h	1 John	16m
Daniel	1.25h	2 John	2m
Hosea	30m	3 John	2m
Joel	12m	Jude	4m
Amos	25m	Revelation	1.25h
Obadiah	4m
Jonah	8m
Micah	20m
Nahum	8m
Habakkuk	9m
Zephaniah	10m
Haggai	7m
Zechariah	40m
Malachi	11m

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Thursday is Link Around the Internet Day

People know that I read a lot and they ask me what I am reading sometimes. Many times I read things and think; "I should really share this with people, it would be beneficial." So, henceforth on Thursdays, I am going to link around the internet to things that I have read throughout the week that I think you might get some useful information from. I will give the topic of the link only. You will have to click and do some reading if you want the full info.

Disclaimer: I do not necessarily endorse everything I will post here. It is up to you to read and evaluate the information and arguments. However, I will let you know if I post something I explicitly disagree with so you can have your radar up if you choose to read it.

1. On Biblical sexuality

2. On disease in the new world

3. On the virgin birth

4. On not voting

5. On love separated by civil war

Monday, October 17, 2016

The Bible is an Idol

"The Bible is an idol, Jesus Christ is the real word. You don't need the Bible." I have read this objection from some fringe Christian groups who declare that the "word", when used in the Bible, isn't actually referring to the Bible but to the Gospel as the apostles delivered it. While technically correct, the idea, ironically turned into an idol by these groups constantly badgering other Christians on the Internet, does not capture the nuance of the organic growth of what came to be the Biblical text as we have it today. If we simply follow out the chain of events logically to our time, we can see that what was called the word in the Bible, the Gospel, came to be the Bible itself over time. This didn't happen because of any church councils or ideological crusades among a certain school of thought within Christendom, it just happened because everyone recognized what words were authoritative.
Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, was the full revelation of God. He is the real, living "word". Colossians 1:19 says: "For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell..." When he was here, he spent most of his time talking and teaching people about the Kingdom of God. Eventually, when the time drew near, he told his disciples the ultimate reason he was on Earth; to die for mankind so we could be reconciled to the Father. After his resurrection, he spent 40 days appearing to the apostles and teaching them, I assume more fully, about the Kingdom of God and then he ascended to heaven (Acts 1:3-11). This is the original "word" that is spoken of most often in the New Testament (see Romans 10:17). When Jesus was gone, what happened to it? He left it with the apostles, with a promise that the Holy Spirit would bring it to their remembrance (John 14:26) and a command to tell everyone (Matthew 28:18-20).
The apostles did just that. In the process they turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). What were they telling people? The word that Jesus had told them. They were sharing the Gospel with anyone and everyone who would listen. As the Gospel expanded, they taught the disciple community in Jerusalem, the Samaritans, Jews and Gentiles in Syrian Antioch, Galatia, Phrygia, Asia, Macedonia, Greece, and Rome. At first, as they evangelized, they did this in person. As they planted churches, they also wrote letters with more instruction about God's kingdom that was recognized as being more than just human writing. One example would be 2 Peter 3:15-16:

And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Notice how Peter referred to Paul's writings; as scripture. Other examples would be 1 Thess. 2:9-13; Gal. 1:11, 12; and 1 Cor. 14:36, 37. This was recognized all over the Christian world, so these letters, and the Gospels/Acts being written at the same time, were copied, preserved, disseminated, and very widely read by the entire Church (with a big "C"!). So, Christ, the original word, taught the word to the apostles, who taught the word to the disciple community in the 1st century by mouth and letter. What happened when the apostles died off? As you have probably already figured out, the Church was already copying, preserving, disseminating, and reading the "word" in the form of letters and Gospels/Acts.
When we look just past the time of the apostles, circa 100 AD, we see that the early church fathers clearly distinguished between their words and the apostles preserved words in the copied letters, Gospels, and Acts. For example, here is Ignatius from about 110 AD:

I do not order you as Peter and Paul; they were apostles, I am a convict; they were free, I am even until now, a slave. (To the Romans 4:3)

By 170-180 AD, the Muratorian fragment counts 22 of 27 New Testament books as canon; leaving out only Hebrews, James, 1&2 Peter, and 3 John. By 250 AD, Origen lists every book we would call the New Testament in his Homilies on Joshua 7.1. This list is debated, but admirably defended by Michael J. Kruger here and by Edmon L. Gallagher here.
This history shows us that the Bible grew out of the authority of Jesus Christ (God!) himself. The apostles preached his word being commanded by him to do such; the disciples treasured the apostles teachings because they had immediately recognizable authority from Jesus via the witness of the Holy Spirit. These writings were preserved and organically came to be the standard of practice for Christian life by the second to third century AD. This is well before the official canonical list was "approved" in 393 AD. So to say that the word that Jesus taught back then is the standard and the word that we have today in the Bible is an idol, is extremely misleading. To say that we don't need the Bible is to ignore the providential organizing of the written word into the canon by God himself. Finally, Christ's authority followed his words all the way into the modern translations of the Bible. It is from Jesus' authority that we can have confidence in the Bible as "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16, 17)

Monday, October 10, 2016

What do you believe?

Belief can be a tricky thing. As humans, we are very good at rationalizing away something we know to be wrong and believe it anyway. One of the hallmarks of a faulty belief system is that it fails tests of internal consistency. This means you hold two beliefs that when put side by side can't both be right. A survey was done by Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research this year concerning the beliefs of evangelicals. Most of the statements deal directly with weighty theological issues. The obvious concern when looking at the data is that self-identified evangelicals don't believe foundational tenets of the Christian faith. But, when thinking about the statements and responses a little more deeply, there appear cracks in the internal consistency of people's beliefs. I think this would be a great way to test yourself. So, rather than give you a summary, I am going to reproduce the statements in this post and then link to the website with the breakdown of responses. Write down your own answers and see where you fall. You may answer: agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, disagree strongly, or not sure.

1. God is a perfect being and cannot make a mistake.

2. God knows everything that occurs in the world but does not determine all that happens.

3. God continues to answer specific prayers.

4. God is the author of Scripture.

5. There is one true God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

6. God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

7. God created male and female.

8. Biblical accounts of the physical (bodily) resurrection of Jesus are completely accurate. This event actually occurred.

9. Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.

10. Jesus is truly God and has a divine nature, and Jesus is truly man and has a human nature.

11. The Holy Spirit is a force but is not a personal being.

12. The Holy Spirit gives a spiritual new birth or new life before a person has faith.

13. The Holy Spirit is a divine being but is not equal with God the Father and Jesus.

14. Modern science discredits the claims of Christianity.

15. Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.

16. People have the ability to turn to God on their own initiative.

17. Even the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation.

18. By the good deeds that I do, I partly contribute to earning my place in heaven.

19. The Bible, like all sacred writings, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not literally true.

20. The Bible was written for each person to interpret as he or she chooses.

21. The Bible alone is the written word of God.

22. The Bible is 100% accurate in all that it teaches.

23. A person obtains peace with God by first taking the initiative to seek God and then God responds with grace.

24. An individual must contribute his or her own effort for personal salvation.

25. Salvation always begins with God changing a person so they will turn to Him in faith.

26. Heaven is a place where all people will ultimately be reunited with their loved ones.

27. Hell is an eternal place of judgment where God sends all people who do not personally trust in Jesus Christ.

28. God would be fair to show His wrath against sin.

29. There will be a time when Jesus Christ returns to judge all the people who have lived.

30. Worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid replacement for regularly attending church.

31. Churches that do not preach from the Bible should not be considered a Christian church.

32. My local church has the authority to withhold the Lord’s Supper from me and exclude me from the fellowship of the church.

33. The church should be silent on issues of politics.

34. There is little value in studying or reciting historical Christian creeds and confessions.

35. God is unconcerned with my day-to-day decisions.

36. God has authority over all people because He created human beings.

37. The Bible has the authority to tell us what we must do.

38. Humans exist to bring God glory and to enjoy Him.

39. Sex outside of traditional marriage is a sin.

40. Abortion is a sin.

41. Gender identity is a matter of choice.

42. God will always reward true faith with material blessings.

43. The Bible’s condemnation of homosexual behavior doesn’t apply today.

44. The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe.

45. It is very important for me personally to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their Savior.

46. Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty of my sin.

47. Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.

Here is the link: http://thestateoftheology.com/. You can use the data explorer at the top right to view each question and you can see data from the 2014 survey to see how the answers changed on the questions that were asked in both years.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Faith in the History of the Church

I have recently finished reading a book about heresy throughout the history of the Church. It is aptly named Heresies: The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy from the Apostles to the Present by Harold O. J. Brown. I am currently reading Evangelism in the Early Church by Michael Green. Both of these are excellent books about the Church in history. One thing they have in common is their assessment of the Church's view of faith during all of its varied phases: its birth in the Apostolic era, the subapostolic era of the great apologists, the ecumenical council era dealing with Christology, and so on. Their assessment is very pertinent to the state of the Church in America in our time.
The American Church tends to be split into distinct camps where one camp does not interact with the other. One camp is interested in the intellectual aspects of the faith: serious study of the Bible, seminary education is held in high esteem, apologetics are a mainstay of evangelistic efforts. Another camp is interested in the spiritual aspects of the faith: Holy Spirit led everything, emotion driven worship and devotion, experience is the hallmark of evangelistic efforts. The issue with these camps is that they are both right. They just ignore the opposite end of the spectrum to their detriment.
There needs to be a blending of these two aspects for the Church to be healthy and engaging in evangelism effectively. The intellectual church needs to open their heart to the influence of the Holy Spirit (in full measure, I am not saying they are not led by the Holy Spirit now) and remember that we are a new creation in Christ; including our emotions (2 Cor. 5:17). The spiritual church needs to open their mind to the influence of sound scholarship and Biblical interpretation principles and realize that virtually every New Testament epistle was written to correct false or misguided teaching and doctrine that had found its way into local congregations. I once heard a great quote from Ravi Zacharias: "Spirituality must always be objectively bounded by the limitations of truth." Ravi was addressing people who say they are spiritual, but not religious, but I think we could tweak this for the spiritual church. Emotions must always be objectively bounded by the limitations of truth. Of course, that objective truth is the Word of God.
I say all that to now return to the two books I referenced above. The assessment of faith that both of these authors offer is this: faith is a twofold action of belief. It is both intellectual assent and active personal trust. Its object is Jesus Christ. We must trust the person and work of Jesus Christ in order to be saved, not just pieces of information about him. While we all believed when we were saved, this is also an ongoing process that God uses to prepare us for the glory to come. Sanctification, among other things, is this process of communing in prayer with God, serving Him by serving others, and so on. This is the active personal trust in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior that makes up part of the equation that equals faith. However, the other side of the equation has an equally important and logically primary role in this active trust. Intellectual assent to propositions about Jesus Christ serve to inform our active trust. An easy way to look at this is to ask the 5 W's and 1 H of journalism with regard to Jesus.

1. Who was Jesus Christ?
2. What is the significance of Jesus Christ?
3. When did Jesus Christ do his significant acts?
4. Why did Jesus Christ do his significant acts?
5. Where did Jesus Christ do his significant acts?
6. How did Jesus Christ do his significant acts?

If we answer these real quickly in the way the early church did, we can get an orthodox picture of Jesus Christ. This is the picture that we should be assenting to intellectually.

1. Jesus is Lord or He is the Son of God. (both of these mean Jesus is God; Acts 2:36; 9:20)
2. He died for your sins and was raised from the dead, so that you might be reconciled to God through his blood if you believe in faith. (Acts 3:26; 4:12)
3. 1st century AD after John the Baptist's ministry. (Acts 10:37)
4. So we could repent and be forgiven of our sins. (Acts 5:31; 10:43)
5. Judea, Galilee, and Jerusalem. (Acts 10:37)
6. He died on the cross as our passover lamb, thereby giving us a way to be cleansed from sin (1 Cor. 5:7). This transaction (our belief in his sacrifice) is called forensic justification. He took our sins and we took his righteousness. Typically called imputation. (2 Cor. 5:21)

You can see that by answering those simple questions we have a clear picture of Christ's person and work. This gives us a solid foundation on which to stand and place our trust. Without that foundation, something is wrong. If I believe Christ was a good moral teacher who was significant for bringing Indian guru teaching to Israel, is that OK? If I believe that Christ was a prophet that didn't really die on the cross is that OK? If I believe that Christ is not really God, but a spirit child of God, just like I am, is that OK? If I believe that Christ is not actually real, but a myth that I can lean on for moral guidance in my life, is that OK? If I believe that Christ did not literally and historically rise from the dead, but he rose "in my heart" (i.e. it's just a metaphor), is that OK?
I think you get the point. Active personal trust is what we do after intellectual assent to the appropriate, factually correct propositions about Jesus Christ. The knowledge must precede the worship, if you will. This doesn't mean you have to answer the 5 W's and an H the way I did. I did that off the top of my head. You may be able to answer them a lot more simply (or more complicated), but still be correct. The point is that you have to answer them correctly before you can have faith that moves you into the business of active personal trust that is part of the ongoing sanctification process that God is leading us through. Since the American Church seems to split down these intellectual and spiritual lines, each side is missing a key component of what makes for a robust faith. We must strive to walk the line between these two worlds so that our faith is not easily shaken. That means having a sound theological understanding of Christ's person and work as well as a thriving personal relationship with the creator and sustainer of the universe.

Monday, September 26, 2016

Science and the Bible According to Andy Stanley

Much has been said recently about Andy Stanley's sermon series "Who Needs God?", particularly his comments about the Bible in the third installment; "The Bible Tells Me So". His statements about the foundation of faith in Jesus Christ are very confused and take a classical apologetic approach much to far. Classical apologetics will take a presupposition like the inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of the Bible and, for the sake of argument, lay that aside. But, Andy Stanley seems to be encouraging the jettisoning of that view in everything but name only. There has been some very good analysis of the problems with his position already. I won't comment on them anymore. See the links below, including one that supports Pastor Stanley.

http://michaeljkruger.com/is-the-bible-foundational-to-christianity-engaging-with-andy-stanley/

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/09/is-christianity-bookish-faith.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-big-bad-wolf.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/09/inerrancy-and-general-historical.html

http://crossexamined.org/andy-stanley-right-foundation-christianity-defend/ (defends Andy Stanley)

What I would like to address are his comments in the second part; "Gods of the No Testament". The part I will discuss below starts at about 25 minutes in on the message only version.

http://northpointonline.tv/messages/who-needs-god/gods-of-the-no-testament

In the sermon, Andy rightly attacks people's misconceived notions about who God is. The aptly named "somebody-told-me-so god". In other words, someone along the line told a Christian this is who God is, but in reality that's not correct, such as; "bodyguard god". This god stops at nothing to protect you and supply all your needs according to your whim at the moment. Andy gives other examples of gods that are not real and does a fair job of deconstructing them. Where he falls apart, however, is in "anti-science god". His overarching message is that the details of creation do not constitute the foundation of our faith and we shouldn't abandon God over them. For instance, and this is my example, not his; a hyper-literal reading of the Bible would suggest that the Earth is flat. When someone finds out, after being told that the Earth is flat, that we have scientific and photographic evidence that the Earth is round, they shouldn't abandon God. They should rethink their interpretation of scripture by paying attention to poetic or metaphoric language based on the literary genre of the passage they are reading. So, here, I think Pastor Stanley is correct. However, he quickly ventures into dangerous territory.
His opening remarks about "anti-science god" pit "undeniable science vs. unreliable religion". He also says: "When religion and science conflict, at the end of the day, if you are an honest person, science must win. But the message that we get sometimes, the message you grew up with, and perhaps the reason you just walked away from God, is you grew up with a message that said; "Quit thinking and start believing!". This is very confused. Of course, if you were told to quit thinking, then that is wrong. But, does that mean that you just believe science in every instance where it supposedly conflicts with the Bible? Hardly. I'm not suggesting we ignore the advances of science, but Andy is talking about science as if it is an authoritative and infallible body of knowledge that should never be challenged. Really!? If scientific knowledge is monolithic and infallible, why are there so many competing theories on various topics? Let's take cosmology for instance. Which theory of the universes' origin is undeniable? The standard model, oscillating model, chaotic inflationary model, vacuum fluctuation model, quantum gravity model, or the cyclic ekpyrotic model? The standard model is the generally accepted model of universe origins due to its broad defensibility based on observable evidence, although opinion is somewhat splintered. Guess what? This model fits with a plain reading of Genesis 1 on either a young earth or an old earth view.
Andy continues by saying that "God or science is a false alternative". Three cheers for him! I totally agree. But then he puts his foot in his mouth with a terrible example. Christians are hypocrites for using medicinal science to heal our kids and ignoring science in other areas. We take them to the doctor while we pray in the background. This is some major equivocation concerning "science". Medicinal science is not the same as say, theoretical astrophysics. First of all, the use of antibiotics for instance, does not conflict with anything in the Bible. Praying and taking your kid to the doctor is perfectly OK. There is no command in scripture that says we should only pray to God when someone gets sick. This also ignores the fact that ultimately, God's sovereignty and providence rule that situation anyway, no matter what the doctors do. Secondly, as I said before, Andy is equivocating on the term science. He is putting all things considered science into one big lump and clearly they are not the same. He is using an obviously wrongheaded example, the use of doctors and medicine for sick kids, to say that we, as Christians, should accept all science, even when it conflicts with the Bible. That is a false transference that doesn't logically follow.
Just to make sure we're not confused, Andy says: "The moment your theology conflicts with the discoveries of science, you have a theological problem, not a science problem." And a little later: "We're hypocrites. If we lean into science for our health, why would we reject science in any other capacity?" It is no wonder why Andy views the Bible the way he does. He has an "undeniable" body of science that informs his worldview, including how he reads and interprets the Bible. In my understanding of what his sermon means: he isn't suggesting that we see where our reading of scripture might be wrong in light of science (or vice versa) and then see how we can attempt to make them compatible, like the flat Earth example above (if compatibility, broadly speaking, is possible and I'm not saying that it is in all cases); he is suggesting that we always believe in the science and simply abandon scripture that doesn't fit or reinterpret it to make it fit. This is a very misinformed and confused view of the interplay of science and religion. Look here for a short, but informative article about this topic. As believers in Jesus, I think we are called to read two books. The Bible and the book of nature or what theologians have traditionally called natural revelation. We should always be asking the question: are we, as fallen humanity, reading both correctly?
Andy also seems to be missing the fact that the preaching of the Gospel, combined with the drawing of the Father to Christ and the conviction of the Holy Spirit on an unbeliever, are how God has ordained salvation to be effected. As I have taught in my classes at church, apologetic methods are a secondary tool to the Gospel. In the end, I think Andy Stanley wants to knock down as many barriers as possible to faith in Jesus Christ. I think he is muddying the waters by taking his apologetic method too far. These are noble intentions, but noble intentions don't always produce noble results.

Monday, September 19, 2016

Calling Men to Salvation

One of the major questions that has been argued about for centuries centers around God calling men to himself in order to save them. Does he call everyone? Does he only call the elect? One of the central texts in this debate is Romans 8:29-30:

"For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified."

Some observations of the text itself are in order first. First, God foreknows people ("those"). Because he foreknows people, he predestined them. Those predestined are the ones called. The calling follows the predestining. Then the called are justified and glorified. Keeping the order of God's work in mind, this raises some issues for two of the major positions on this issue: Arminianism and Molinism. Calvinism already accepts a limited atonement, which means that God only calls the elect. I'll address each of the others in turn.

Arminianism (for a comprehensive look at Arminian theology, see: A Compendium of Christian Theology by William Burt Pope, vol. 2, pg. 335ff)
This system posits that "foreknew" means that God knew beforehand who would choose him and everything else flows from that knowledge. God knew I would pick him, so I was predestined to be like Christ, so he called me, justified me, and glorified me. The problem with this position is that God's foreknowledge in this passage is of "those", i.e. individuals, not decisions. The other issue is with the call. Arminians hold that God calls everyone to salvation. This means that God both wants everyone to be saved and gives everyone that opportunity, even if not everyone accepts the salvation of the Lord and is damned as a result. The issue lies in the text itself based on the order of God's work. If God calls everyone, then he justifies and glorifies everyone. That is universalism (everyone is eventually saved by God's loving will and Christ's atonement) and can't be correct based on other biblical texts (John 3:36 for example). It appears to me that even though Arminians want to affirm a universal call, they cannot. Based on Romans 8:29-30, if God called everyone, everyone would be saved.

Molinism (for a comprehensive look at Molinist theology, see: The Only Wise God by William Lane Craig)
Molinism may not be that well known, but it is gaining some headway among some theologians and Christian philosophers. Molinism posits that God has middle knowledge. This means that God knows what person P would do in circumstance C. If God knows what everyone would do in a given set of circumstances, that gives him the ability to create a world in which he has already taken into account all of his creatures free decisions before he instantiates the world we see now. This is seen as a way to protect the libertarian freedom of humans while also acknowledging the absolute sovereignty of God. So, in the Romans passage, a Molinist would simply say that God's foreknowledge includes middle knowledge and all of humanity's free decisions have been considered. There are two big problems with this philosophy. The first is that we still end up at the same place concerning the call as we did with Arminianism. If God calls everyone, everyone would be saved. Molinists (as far as I know) are not universalists, but, like Arminians, hold that God calls everyone. This means the calling of God can't be for everyone. The second problem is that the Bible does not indicate that God looked at his creatures' free decisions before he created the world. In fact, Ephesians 1:3-14, God chose us "according to the purpose of his will" (v. 5) and "the counsel of his will" (v. 11). That doesn't sound like we had any input when God created the world. It sounds like God, in his divine sovereignty over all things, chose us before he created the world.

The point of this post is to show that all of the major systems of thought concerning the operation of salvation; Arminianism, Molinism, and Calvinism; end up at the same place concerning the calling of men to salvation. That is that God doesn't call everyone. This in itself raise one more issue. Many scriptures indicate that God is calling everyone (such as Acts 2:38-39). It would be silly for Peter to exhort everyone to repent and be baptized if God isn't calling everyone. What gives? In this instance I think that Calvin has it right. There are two calls of God. One, the gospel call, is for everyone. This is simply the preaching of the Gospel to everyone. The second call is called "effective calling". This call is the drawing by the Father of the individual to Christ (John 6:44). Without God's working, no one would come to him, and it is evident in several places (Acts 13:48; 16:14, etc.) that it is God doing the work of salvation in our hearts.

I realize this raises other issues, but I think that's enough for this post. If you hold to any of these systems and want to say that God calls everyone to salvation the same way, you have to explain how that doesn't result in universalism and you have to show that it is in accordance with the clear teaching of scripture. If you can't do those two things, your theory won't work. But, if you can do those two things, I'm open to hearing and discussing your theory.

Monday, September 12, 2016

A New Brand of Evangelicalism

I read a lot of articles and blogs from a variety of viewpoints online. Atheist, Mormon, Catholic; you name it, I'll read it. I like to see what more than just my own group is thinking and teaching about the truth of the reality around us. This also helps me to be aware of buzzwords that certain communities use so I can recognize (at least sometimes, though not all the time) if a writer or speaker identifies with a particular community who is teaching something antithetical to orthodox Christianity. This allows me to beware, though I still try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I thought I would share this article and offer some critique of it. The point of this post isn't to trash these "progressive evangelicals" in a personal way, but to point out that bad thinking about truth, especially with regard to matters of faith, is prevalent and something to be avoided. We should strive to be good critical thinkers. Here a link to the article, though I will quote it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-phipps/progressive-evangelicals_b_11824426.html

Note: everything from the article is in quotation marks. My own comments are not.

"There is a story in three of the four gospels where Jesus stages a protest in the temple during Passover. He releases the animals that were being sold for sacrifice, he overturns the moneychanging tables, and he rebukes the merchants for taking advantage of the poor. The story ends with Jesus shouting, “Tear down this temple, and I’ll rebuild it in three days!"

It seems disingenuous to call Jesus' actions a protest. That has so many connotations in our minds concerning the 60's and the current Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements that to call Jesus' outburst a protest seems to me an attempt at equating him with social justice movements in general. I'll point out that Jesus' mission was of a single purpose, which he addressed right from the get go: "From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, "Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matt 4:17) Christ came to call sinners to repentance and to die for that sin on the cross. Even if we could equate Jesus with social justice causes, which in many cases I don't think you can, that was secondary to his mission. What also strikes me as a mis-characterization is the authors' assertion that Jesus releases the animals. Go read it yourself (Matt 21:12-17; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-47); it doesn't say that. It also says nothing of the poor. The money-changers and animal salesmen could have been taking advantage of any socio-economic group, including, but not limited to, the poor. Finally, the author makes things very confusing when he describes the ending of the story. Jesus' quote about the temple is found in John's gospel (2:13-22), but according to this author, this is not the same story because the cleansing of the temple is found in "three of the four gospels". I don't know what to make of this. It's just confusing.

"In John’s gospel, there is a related passage where Jesus explains that “this temple” he was talking about was his own body. He foretells that he will be killed by the Jewish authorities, then rise from the dead three days later. Meaning, everything that formally took place in the temple would soon be available in Jesus himself.

So what happened in the temple? Well, a lot.
- forgiveness of sins through sacrifice

- healing of the sick

- worship

- prayers

- and most importantly: getting close as one could possibly get to the presence of God."

Again, the author makes things very confusing by saying that the John quote is in "a related passage". It's in the one he quoted from above about tearing down the temple. It's the same story! I don't know what's going on here. I agree with him somewhat about what took place in the temple. The items listed were found in the temple, which would now be found in Jesus. Though, it should be noted that one of Stephen's major points in his speech before the Sanhedrin (Acts 7) is that God was always working outside of both the temple and the land of Israel even if the Jews didn't or refused to recognize it. Another objection is healing of the sick. This happened other places (for instance: 2 Kings 5 where Elisha heals Naaman by telling him to dip in the Jordan river 7 times). Healing didn't formally take place (whatever that even means) in the temple only.

"The temple was constructed in a series of concentric boxes. At the center of the temple was a room called the “The Inner Court.” This is where the presence of God dwelt. It was the most exclusive room in the ancient Jewish world. Only the high priest had access to this room, and even then only on certain days of the year. The next court was called “The Court Of The Jews.” Only Jewish males had access to this court. Next, was the “The Court Of Women.” Jewish Women, no matter how well they behaved were separated from God by two giant walls. The outer court, where the Jesus staged his protest was called “The Court Of Gentiles.” This is as close as non-Jewish people were allowed to get to the Divine Presence, whether male or female."

The inner court is called the Holy of Holies in the Bible. I'm not sure why the author is renaming it here. The high priest only had access to it one day of the year, not "certain days". Other than that I don't have a problem with this description.

"Humankind’s closeness to God in this culture was limited by one’s ethnicity, gender, and religious pedigree. The Gentiles were kept at a distance. They were the original group of people who “were welcome to attend,” but not “welcome to participate fully” in the sacramental aspects of the Jewish religion."

While it is true that the sacramental aspects of the Jewish religion were not fully open to everyone, it was widely understood in biblical Judaism that God would make a way for the Gentiles to be saved as well. Jews thought that only Jews had to do the temple rites. They would not have expected or required proselytes (converts to Judaism) to do these things. This is a half-truth that the author is asserting.

"What infuriated Jesus, then? Could it have been the walls that were constructed to keep people separated from one another and from God? Is it possible that he was outraged by all of the segregation taking place in the Name of God?"

What infuriated Jesus was the fact that the temple was holy because it was where God's presence dwelt. The answer to the next questions is, "No." I say this because Jesus wasn't concerned with walls at the temple separating people from God. He was worried about our own sin and evil separating us from God. The last question could be answered in the affirmative, but Jesus never said anything about segregation in the temple, so who knows?

"If you are a Christian, questions like these are still as relevant today for the “people of God” as they were back then. How would Jesus feel about the religious practices of Evangelical Christianity today, were he living among us?

- a church system that STILL qualifies people based on socio-economic status, race, political parties, and gender.

- a system that welcomes those who identify as LGBTQ until they decide that they want to baptized, take communion, or serve in a greater capacity

- a system that suppresses the ordination of women and their God given gifts to serve in Christian leadership

- a system that elevates the pulpit to the stature of The Inner Court."

I'll answer each bullet in turn.
-Does the church do this? Socio-economic status and political parties are not taken into account in any church I've ever been in. Race is tricky. Churches in America are self-segregated. Blacks tend to go to church with blacks while whites go with whites. I don't know why this happens, but it isn't because "white churches" have signs that say "blacks not welcome" or vice-versa. It's just a happenstance of the society we live in. Gender is assigned by God, we can't pick our own gender. Feelings don't determine gender. If he is talking about women as pastors, I'll address that below.
-I think there is a typo in the second bullet. I think it should say "a system that DOESN'T welcome"... We should welcome those who identify as LGBTQ, while also speaking the truth in love by telling them that their lifestyle is sinful and it is their own actions that separate them from God. And now, before someone says "Hey, everyone in church is a sinner, even Christians!" (whoops, too late!). Yes, everyone is a sinner, but not everyone is living in open rebellion to God without repenting. That is the issue. Read 1 John 1:5-10. Both those who proclaim to be Christian, yet "walk in darkness", and those who say they never sin are not of God. If they are not of God, they shouldn't be baptized, take communion, or serve in a greater capacity.
-If you ascribe to Christian complementarianism, you think that women and men have complementary roles given straight from God. In this structure, the man is head of the wife, the leader of both the household and the leadership of the Church. Is this suppression of the ordination of women? If you want to say it that way, yes, it is. But, it's straight from the Bible and therefore, from God. He has to make an argument as to why the historic reading and understanding of the Bible is not correct.
-No church I've ever been in has asserted that the pastorate is the only place where God is at and that everyone must hang on every word or teaching that comes from that leadership. This is just an absurd accusation.

"We are proud to call ourselves Progressive Evangelicals because we do not support this kind of system... and we don’t think that God does either. Were Jesus in some of our churches today, he’d likely be turning over communion tables, dashing offering plates into pieces, baptizing the marginalized, and performing ordination ceremonies for women."

It is ironic to me that they don't want the church qualifying people by political party, but then they clearly identify themselves with a political party. Progressives are squarely in the Democratic party. The "system" they don't support is a cariacture of what Evangelical Christianity actually is. I don't know if Jesus would break stuff in churches. He probably would be upset with some of them though, just as he was with some in the book of Revelation (chs. 2-3). If by marginalized, the author means those living in open sin and rebellion to God, then, no, I disagree 100%. As far as women pastors, I don't think that women can be in leadership positions in the Church based on my reading of scripture, so I don't think Jesus would ordain women. Again, he has to make a case for eagalitarianism rather than complain about "suppression" of women. There are good Christians that make that case. I, and many others, respectfully disagree.

"When we take an honest look at the life of Jesus, we begin to see that tearing down walls is more Christlike than building them. If there is anything solid we can plant our flag in, it is in the example that Jesus left behind for us to emulate- making the innermost rooms of God available to all people. If you are human, you are allowed access."

I agree, we should not build walls to keep people out of churches. However, telling people they are sinners and in need of a savior isn't building a wall, it's the truth. God has made himself available and nothing external the church could do could block the access he has granted. It is the individual who has kept themselves out of "the innermost rooms of God" by not repenting and turning away from sin and towards the only way to the Father, Jesus Christ.

"We long to be Christians that are known for this message about Jesus. The word, “evangelical” literally means “good news.” If the message of our faith doesn’t read like good news to people, perhaps we aren’t evangelical at all. Indeed, we may be something else. Selah."

Again, sin is the issue. We can't ignore people's sin. Jesus called everyone to repentance at the start of his ministry. The good news of Christ doesn't seem that important when there is no bad news (our sin) accompanying it. That is what this author doesn't understand.

Monday, September 5, 2016

The Paradoxical Gospel

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is both a simple and a complex message wherein there lies a paradox that gets to the very nature of who we are as human beings. It is simple in that Paul can give it in one sentence: "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve" (1 Cor. 15:3-5).
A very simple message indeed. But, at the same time it is very complex. The intricacies of justification as a result of the Gospel are manifold in their action. Christ's blood working through the Holy Spirit on people who "confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead" (Rom. 10:9) is efficacious for regeneration, adoption, ongoing sanctification, future glorification and redemption, being empowered to witness, and the list could go on. The Gospel message is also very complex when considering the person and work of Christ. This is abundantly evident when looking at Peter's speech on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell. As the Jews in Jerusalem from the Diaspora heard the "mighty works of God" (Acts 2:11) and then mocked the disciples for being filled with "new wine" (Acts 2:13), Peter stood up and declared that "God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified" (Acts 2:36). While this may seem like a simple statement as Peter wraps up his argument, it is hardly that. He cites Joel 2:28-32 to indicate that the Kingdom of God is at hand based on Joel's prophecy that the last days would be when the Spirit was poured out. He cites Psalm 16:8-11 to show that Jesus is the Messiah and was not bound by death. He cites Psalm 110:1 to show that Jesus is the King the Jews have been awaiting. In verse 36, quoted earlier, he says that Jesus is both Lord and Christ. The word Lord in the Greek is kyrios which is how the Septuagint writers translated adonai from Hebrew to Greek. Adonai is the Hebrew word for lord or master and is what the Hebrews said in place of God's personal name. So what we have is the chain from Yahweh (God's personal name) to adonai (lord in Hebrew) to kyrios (lord in Greek). He also calls him Christ which is the equivalent of Messiah, Christ being from the Greek and Messiah being from the Hebrew and both of them meaning "anointed one". Peter is saying that Jesus is God and that he is the long awaited Messiah of the Jews. This is anything but a simple message.
The other part of the Gospel message concerns us as human beings. We have a nature and it isn't a good one. We need saving but we are infinitely not worthy of being saved. You could say that in a way we are worthless to God. He is anything but pleased with our actions that are contrary to his very nature and stand in open rebellion to him. In fact, Psalm 11:5-6 says: "The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. Let him rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup." That's right, the Lord's soul hates the wicked. He hates the sinner. Destruction is our portion when we are living in disobedience to a holy God. In the book of Romans Paul quotes Psalm 14:1-3 and 53:1-3 that says: "as it is written: None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one" (Rom. 3:10-12). Those are universal statements: none, not one, no one, all, not even one. None of us are following God and all of us are worthless.
Yet, at the same time, we are of inestimable value in God's sight even though we rebel against him. We are made in his image (Gen. 1:26-27) and he is concerned with our every need (Matt. 6:25-32). Even though we are his enemies he has sought us out in order to reconcile us to himself through the blood of our Passover lamb, Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:6-11). At the end of the book of Hosea, God shows his love for his people, the Israelites who were under a lesser covenant than the one inaugurated in Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. God says in Hosea 14:4-7:
"I will heal their apostasy;
I will love them freely,
for my anger has turned from them.
I will be like the dew to Israel;
he shall blossom like the lily;
he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon;
his shoots shall spread out;
his beauty shall be like the olive,
and his fragrance like Lebanon.
They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow;
they shall flourish like the grain;
they shall blossom like the vine;
their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon."
What beautiful imagery that God uses to show the Israelites how much he loves them even though they had committed "great whoredom" (Hosea 1:2) by turning from the Lord to useless idols. Like the Israelites in Hosea's day, we stand in the same position. Turning away from God at every moment only to have him shower his mercy on us through Jesus Christ. And that is the paradoxical message of the Gospel. The simple but complex person and work of Jesus Christ and the worthlessness of all human beings that God pursues as though we are worth something that can never be valued and for which he paid the ultimate price on the cross:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." (John 3:16-17)