Minor Thoughts from me to you

Adam is right, of course. The crucial question about whether or not I'm wasting my life -- about whether or not anyone is wasting his life -- is "what exactly [is] a good Christian supposed to do with his or her new life in Christ?" I posed the original question (am I wasting my life) as a result of reading and listening to John Piper. Adam answered the question from his own perspective, I'll start by answering it from Pastor John's perspective.

Pastor John has written a short pamphlet entitled, appropriately enough, "Don't Waste Your Life". His intro to the book provides a succinct answer to the question:

God created us to live with a single passion: to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work, not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives.

Later in the second chapter, he expands on that a bit more:

God created me--and you--to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion--namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. Enjoying and displaying are both crucial. If we try to display the excellence of God without joy in it, we will display a shell of hypocrisy and create scorn or legalism. But if we claim to enjoy his excellence and do not display it for others to see and admire, we deceive ourselves, because the mark of God-enthralled joy is to overflow and expand by extending itself into the hearts of others. The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.

The book itself attempts to answer the question "What does this mean I should do?" He says:

It has become clearer that God being glorified and God being enjoyed are not separate categories. They relate to each other not like fruit and animals, but like fruit and apples. Apples are one kind of fruit. Enjoying God supremely is one way to glorify him. Enjoying God makes him look supremely valuable.

And, later:

Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23). Daily Christian living is daily Christian dying. The dying I have in mind is the dying of comfort and security and reputation and health and family and friends and wealth and homeland. These may be taken from us at any time in the path of Christ-exalting obedience. To die daily the way Paul did, and to take up our cross daily the way Jesus commanded, is to embrace this life of loss for Christ's sake and count it gain. In other words, the way we honor Christ in death is to treasure Jesus above the gift of life, and the way we honor Christ in life is to treasure Jesus above life's gifts.

... But what I know even more surely is that the greatest joy in God comes from giving his gifts away, not in hoarding them for ourselves. It is good to work and have. It is better to work and have in order to give. God's glory shines more brightly when he satisfies us in times of loss than when he provides for us in times of plenty. The health, wealth, and prosperity "gospel" swallows up the beauty of Christ in the beauty of his gifts and turns the gifts into idols. The world is not impressed when Christians get rich and say thanks to God. They are impressed when God is so satisfying that we give our riches away for Christ's sake and count it gain.

This was part of what gave rise to my original question. By this definition, am I wasting my life? I'm rich. Historically speaking (as we've previously discussed, Adam) I'm ridiculously, fabulously wealthy. I can listen to almost anything I want -- spoken or musical -- at any time. I can watch nearly any form of any entertainment at any time. I have access to thousands of books within days or minutes. Most of the world's knowledge is at my fingertips, thanks to the Internet.

I'm pretty well-off by American standards as well. Our household owns 3 computers, 2 iPods, 2 completely paid off cars, 18% of a house, lots of nice clothes, and plenty of food. We can eat out nearly anytime we want to, we can and do fly around the U.S., we rent nice cars and stay in nice hotels on vacation. I have a beautiful, helpful wife who loves me. We have two beautiful daughters. All four of us are in perfect health. In short, I'm doing pretty well at doing as Voltaire's Candide said: "', i.e. enjoy your work, wife, and life - in short, function as you were made to function - and leave the rest up to God."

But, so what? Is that really all there is? Just be thankful that I'm one of the lucky ones and enjoy my wealth? Most days, I'm very tempted to say "yes". God gave it to me, why should I complain about it? But other days I wonder -- am I wasting His gifts? Am I wasting my life?

If, tomorrow, everything were to disappear in a Job-like orgy of destruction, how would I react? Would I praise God and say "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21)? Put differently, is God the most important thing in my life or are my things the most important thing in my life?

My original post also referenced the Rwandan genocide. Many Rwandan Christians reacted as violently and savagely as non-Christians when everything was stripped away from them. I'd like to think I wouldn't do the same thing in the same situation. I'd like to think that my reaction would show that God is the most important thing in my life -- even more important than my family.

God willing, I'll never have to go through that situation and I'll never have to find out the hard way. But it's something I think about as I examine my own priorities and how I react to my stuff.

Now, you also mentioned Luther's solution of passive righteousness to the dilemma of how to improve yourself -- how to become more like God and less like a sinner. And, Luther is right. The two opposite extremes are excessive pride in your accomplishments and excessive despair at your failures.

Personally, I've found Tim Keller to be a big help in understanding how this works. I'll quote from his book The Reason for God. He says:

Religion operates on the principle "I obey--therefore I am accepted by God." But the operating principle of the gospel is "I am accepted by God through what Christ has done--therefore I obey." Two people living their lives on the basis of these two different principles may sit next to each other in the church pew. They both pray, give money generously, and are loyal and faithful to their family and church, trying to live decent lives. However, they do so out of radically different motivations in two radically different spiritual identities, and the result is two radically different kinds of lives.

The primary difference is that of motivation. In religion, we try to obey the divine standards out of fear. We believe that if we don't obey we are going to lose God's blessing in this world and the next. In the gospel, the motivation is one of gratitude for the blessing we have already received because of Christ. While the moralist is forced into obedience, motivated by fear of rejection, a Christian rushes into obedience, motivated by a desire to please and resemble the one who gave his life for us.

I've long lived my life with a constant fear of failure. I'm afraid to try new things because I'm afraid of the consequences of failing at them. That's carried over into my Christian life. I've been afraid to do things for God because I've been afraid of lousing them up and making a bigger mess. Keller (along with C.J. Mahaney and John Piper) has taught me that I can't possibly be any worse than I am. I don't have to worry about God's unhappiness if I fail to live up to his standards and I don't have to bend myself into a pretzel trying to be perfect. Jesus already paid for every single one of my rebellions and moral failures.

I am free to live out my life without endless agonizing over every decision. I'm free to go out and "just do it". I don't have to figure out how to be perfect before doing "it". Whatever I decide I want "it" to be. In a way, I feel like my options are opening up for the first time ever.

Will I do it? Will I step out and do something for God? Will I prove that God is more important than my stuff? Or will I still refuse to take risks, because I don't want to endanger my stuff? Will I use my life profitably or will I waste it?

(Previous discussion of this subject can be found in the entry just below this one.)

The primary evil of Calvinism, in the eyes of those who do not adhere to its beliefs, is its denial of the free will to choose Heaven over Hell, God over the Devil. God's omniscience - His ability to know what we will pick ahead of time - isn't really an issue for mainstream Christianity; in fact the idea that God knows our decisions and accounts for them in His work, thus maintaining total control, is a staple of Arminianism (which is why people who say, "I believe in both!" when asked their opinion on the issue are both right and yet reveal their ignorance - "both" predestination and free will is the standard Arminian position of today, though there are of course some who deviate from it).

Interestingly, the same evil is inherent in Atheism: if we are merely biological machines, we are bereft of free will as Christians understand it. Our genetics and experience are the masters of our fate, not "us" (which we tend to think of as our consciousness).

Only "evil" is a misnomer when we discuss the existentialist horror of the atheist. Nobody has "done wrong" by creating the atheist universe. The most one could say about it (if one does take a negative view of the whole affair) is that it is a cosmic tragedy. Calvinism qualifies in theory as evil only because its situation has a mastermind who could produce something better if He liked.

However, it's worth pointing out that Calvinism has the advantage over Arminianism in that it is soon likely to be the only option left for believers - for the centerpiece of Arminianism is Humankind's "X-Factor", a decision-making entity we refer to as our soul or spirit, wholly independent of our biology and experience. Much as the LORD's Temple serves as an integral part of Judaism, without the soul's existence the entire Arminian view of Humanity is rendered incoherent.

So the fact that scientists are doing their best to prove that we don't have souls or spirits at all is potentially crippling (at least to the honest; Jews have gotten along just fine for nearly two thousand years pretending the Temple was never really important).

But not to Calvinism, since Calvinism doesn't require people to have souls. Removing the need for an independent decision-maker unshackled by the input it receives frees Calvinism of the need for there to exist a soul at all; all other functions of the soul can be easily attributed (and are indeed now largely proven to be the function of) the brain.

Calvinists thus have the following defense against the hypothetical scientists who have just proven the soul doesn't exist: "Well, fine - but you must understand that the Bible's authors were putting their message into words that people could understand."

If you believe in a bodily resurrection, all the better.

A note on the previously-mentioned existentialist horror of being an atheist (or a Calvinist, if you believe you're one of the pre-damned, but then I've never met a Calvinist who does): I recently read a great book of philosophical conundrums, one of which asked whether a robot who perfectly simulated being alive would in fact be alive. The question clarified for me the answer to the dilemma of how people like Dawkins, Harris, et al. live. For the last century, researchers have argued as to which is the chicken and which is the egg: our biology or our consciousness. But when there is no difference between life and its simulation, there is no need to differentiate between them - and so it is with Free Will and Predestination, Consciousness and Biology.

Now, a note on God's predestinative powers and Time: probably due in the main to science fiction stories, educated people have largely accepted the idea that Time is basically just another dimension, like Space (Newtonian Time). While that view is a superb manner in which to mentally picture Time and a lot of fun for the imagination, mistaking that abstract representation for reality is ultimately ridiculous. If God knows the future, it's not because He's already "seen it", "outside of it", or working simultaneously in the past, present, and future. If anything, God simply has a powerful enough intellect and influence to predict the course of events He sets in motion.

A third note, about my comparison of the Temples of Judaism to Calvinism: not to pat myself on the back too much, but I just realized how good a comparison that is. Modern Jews bizarrely insist that two verses, one in Hosea (6:6: "I desire mercy and not sacrifice") and one in Proverbs, frees them from entire books' worth of sacrificial requirements. Calvinists similarly are willing to overturn the entire rest of the Bible in favor of relatively few verses about God's control. Humans are treated as decision-making, moral agents responsible for their choices throughout the entirety of Scripture, except for the relatively rare declaration otherwise.

A final note, this one about God's glory, justice, et al.: We are told that God does everything for His own purposes. Fair enough. But we are often also told that God's purpose is "His own glory". Beg pardon, but what the dickens can God possibly want with glory? And what sort of creature would it make Him that He created beings to give it to Him?

The idea that God created people for the pleasure of creation is understandable. So is the idea that He wanted to have relationships. Those are two values that are self-justifying, independent. The idea that God created people just to reveal how awesome He is to them and demand that they admit it, not so much, and I suspect it's just "theology creep", the government-like tendency of theology to make more and more extreme statements to outdo itself.

God's justice and its requirement of blood to remit Sin is an equally bizarre idea, now that I think about it. I've forgiven many people in my life - and I have not found it necessary to kill anything in order to do so. A Christian might suggest that it is unnecessary for me to kill because Jesus paid the price for their sins against me - but I just don't honestly buy that I would find it necessary to kill regardless, unless I was defending myself from the offending party or utterly consumed by a need for vengeance.

A Christian might also suggest that all sins are sins against God, not men - but that is simply nonsense. Whosoever harms me, harms me (a better argument is the idea that God wants you to forgive as you were forgiven, but that proves a lack of need for blood). God is by all accounts undamaged. Indeed, the only crime against God must be simple, completely ineffective rebellion - which we must assume does not hurt God's feelings, because that would suggest we have some power over Him - and the idea that God can't put up with that suggests He's not merciful at all.

Discussion continued from the comments section of "Two Fun New Books".

If I didn't call them something new, Joe, how could I hope to stimulate discussion? :)

Calvin's views fail to pass the mirror test, whereby one stands in front of the mirror (or in front of someone else, if you are very brave) and proceeds to make a pitch such as:

"Hi. I just want you to know that Jesus loves you - and it's possible that you were arbitrarily chosen to be one of the limited number of people he has created to accept into Paradise. I won't know unless you accept the offer, of course... and then die a Christian, too, 'cause if you ever fall away that means you were shamming.

"Why doesn't God love everybody? Oh, but He does! What's that? But why doesn't He save everyone, then - especially since nobody is capable of choosing Him on their own, or even doing a good thing unless the good thing is done with His incarnation as a Jewish carpenter in mind? Look, I know it sounds strange, but this is the only world view that you can really come up with if you take every line of this book as the unvarnished truth - and you must never question the book. Even though other parts of it have conclusively shown to have been added later/corrupted.

"Oh, and one more thing: When I say He 'loves' you, I don't want you to get any wrong ideas. He's really doing all this for His own glory."

At some point during the mirror test/friend test, your voice may start lowering, perhaps even to the point where you fail to finish the statement or only are whispering. Don't worry; it's a natural side-effect and a good indicator of a healthy sense of shame.

Blogger David D. Flowers cuttingly illustrates how Calvinist theology undercuts Jesus' message of love by tinkering a little with the Bible, producing what he calls "John Calvin 3:16-21".

_

16 For God so loved the elect, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever of the elect believeth in Him shall not perish in the fire God created for those he hath predestined to burneth for all eternity, but have everlasting life.

17 For God sent his Son into the world to condemn the heathen to hell and save only those who acknowledge they have no choice but to repent and do exactly as God says.

18 Whosoever be amongeth the elect is not condemned, but whosoever is among the damned stands condemned already because God’s sovereignty wills it.

19 This is the verdict: Light has come unto the elect, but all the other men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were predestined to be evil.

20 For everyone who doeth evil must hateth the light, and shall not come into the light because they have no choice but to doeth evil.

21 So he that doeth truth cometh to the light by the TULIP, that his deeds may be made manifest through reformed theology, that they are all forced by God._

Also, as I mentioned in my previous comment, John Calvin was something of an animal to anyone who disagreed with his views, and I can't believe he was a Christian, so as a source he's rather untrustworthy anyway. He'd certainly have killed me if he thought I posed a threat. Am I supposed to believe that such a man had Love Incarnate within his bosom? I cannot. One may blather all one wishes about someone's views in historical context and imperfection of man while on Earth, but if the Holy Spirit does not at least instill a man with the understanding that He cannot butcher people until he has established the Kingdom of Heaven, it is an impotent, worthless thing.

I'll add the same for Martin Luther, even though we have a lot for which to thank him as our liberator from the Catholic Church; the man was an anti-Semite who said, "We are at fault for not slaying them!"

Joe, you're a much more moral person than someone like Martin Luther, or John Calvin, and indeed the very God who is described by Calvinists. I think you should be confident enough in that good within you, be it born by the Spirit or through your own intellect, to reject what is clearly ridiculous and evil.

Between Two Worlds: All of Grace:

Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace (p. 19):

Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace.

And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace.

And from pp. 22-23:

Pharisee-type believers unconsciously think they have earned God's blessing through their behavior.

Guilt-laden believers are quite sure they have forfeited God's blessing through their lack of discipline or their disobedience.

Both have forgotten the meaning of grace because they have moved away from the gospel and have slipped into a performance relationship with God.

Together for Adoption: The Forgotten Part of James 1:27

The world tells us that our fundamental identity is determined by our performance not by the performance of another (i.e., Jesus). It seduces us to believing (often unknowingly) that our main sense of significance is found in what we do or in what we're involved in.

It might look like this: "God is pleased with me because I have given my life to caring for the least of these." Now, does God smile at us when we care for orphans? Yes, but if the main way we sense his smile is by our efforts to care for orphans, then chances are we've become stained by the world.

If our primary sense of God's smile upon us comes from our involvement in caring for the least of these, then it's highly likely that to some extent our lives are performance-based rather than grace-based. In other words, it may be that my functional paradigm of Christian living is: "I share God's heart for the orphan; therefore, God is pleased with me," rather than "God is pleased with me because of Jesus; therefore, I am freed to care for the orphan." There is a massive difference between these two ways of thinking. To think the first way is to be stained by the world. To think the second way is to be unstained by the world.

"Something I’ve been thinking lately," our dear webmaster Joe has recently written. "Am I different as a Christian than I would be if I wasn’t a Christian? Am I just wasting my life?"

Then he linked to a rap video appearing to strenously urge its viewers not to knock over convenience stores. DON'T WASTE YOUR LIFE, it demanded at its end via big white letters.

It probably goes without saying (but here it is anyway) that I've been worrying for Joe ever since. I had no idea he was knocking over convenience stores. And what's worse, I still don't know what's driven him to it. Does he need the money for crack?

Here's the worst of it: Separated as we are by just under 900 miles of amber waves of grain and purple mountains' majesty, I'm practically powerless to help the guy - except perhaps to wire him a little green, and wouldn't that just be enabling? My budget says yes, yes it would be, which means all I have left are my words.

And here they are, Joe - and on a public blog, no less, because the best antidote for darkness is the bright beam of posterity.

Joe, your dilemma highlights another problem with modern-day Christian theology: that is, what exactly a good Christian is supposed to do with his or her new life in Christ. Many (even most) Christians will of course scoff at the idea that this is any sort of quandary at all. "What does the Bible say?" they might respond. But my opinion stands that 'tis truly a tad tricky.

Here's why: the Christian New Testament of the Bible is an extremely apocalypse-focused collection of texts. Many scholars in fact agree that early followers of Jesus expected the end of the world to occur within their lifetimes or shortly thereafter, possibly because Jesus told them so (Matthew 24:34 - and no, He's not referring to the Transfiguration). Thus the overriding directive for Christians was to go forth and create new Christians, occupying yourself with as little else as possible - indeed, relinquishing the gift of marriage unless you just couldn't resist your sexual urges, and living as if you weren't married if you were.*

(*And as an aside, boy has that advice from our dear apostle Paul resulted in headaches for young Christians since; many are the Bible-believing boys and girls who have had to struggle with the idea that they're settling for serving their beloved God less by exchanging vows. Would that Paul had never written the stupid part - if he actually did. Anyway:)

If you desire to compare your accomplishments to that original standard, Joe, simply ask yourself how many people you've recruited for the Christ, and deduct points for all the time you've spent married when you could've been SAVING SOMEONE FROM ETERNAL TORMENT IN THE SNAKE PITS OF HELL.

Ahem.

There are other yardsticks available with which to measure your faithfulness, though, since as you are probably aware we are now well past those early, heady days, and we must now take note that God's Holy Church has been caught somewhat flat-footed by just how big a procrastinator its saviour has turned out to be. Pastors and priests usually explain our unexpectedly long wait for Jesus' second coming as an act of mercy on the part of the Lord; they say He is pushing back the final hour to allow more chances for salvation. Knowing that God's love is infinite and that He has now shown the sinners of this world so much love that they have waited well over a thousand years longer for His return than they waited for His arrival in the first place (the first references to a messiah at best occur in the Book of Isaiah, written in the 700's B.C.), the Church and we members of it should probably figure out how we're supposed to pass the time.

We will toss Paul's suggestions into the recycle bin, then (because Lord knows, someone will dredge them up again), and consider other Biblical advice. The Teacher of the Book of Ecclesiastes has some, though readers disagree as to precisely what that advice is; Christians and Talmud-lovers suggest Qohelet pushes for his readers to keep their treasure in Heaven, as Jesus would say, while people who actually read the book understand him to be basically proferring the same advice as Voltaire's Candide: "tend your garden", i.e. enjoy your work, wife, and life - in short, function as you were made to function - and leave the rest up to God.

I find it an attractive suggestion, Joe. What say you?

I should warn you, modern Christian thought rather rejects the Qohelet Theory. Rather, the view of today's mainline Protestant congregations is that your lifespan here 'pon Earth is a self-improvement project. You are meant over the course of your days to be slowly but surely perfected, to morph from a vile, despicable convenience store robber into a poor copy of Jesus Christ. The climax to this evolutionary narrative is your death, whereupon you are to complete your transformation (no matter what your spiritual state at the time of your deceasing) into a glorious new creature.

This option is also attractive, actually, but in my experience deceptively so; self-improvement is hard, stressful work if you take it seriously. Martin Luther addressed the difficulties in a treatise on Galatians. To paraphrase him, if you try to become a good man and think you are succeeding, you are a deluded egomaniac - and if you try to become a good man and fail, you will beat yourself up about it, since Mankind cannot be good enough.

Unfortunately, Luther's solution for this problem - "passive-righteousness" - is one of those ideas that sounds great on paper because it makes use of theology, but doesn't make any sense when you actually try to apply it. He claims that we must simply cease to struggle to be good (presumably "active-righteousness") and allow the Holy Spirit to do the work for us.

One only has to ask, "What does this mean I should do?" to realize it's hogwash. By and large, good things happen when we do them; nothing happens when nobody moves. Mankind's effort is clearly involved, So it clearly doesn't pass the real-world test (and is also horrifically debilitating) to declare nobody can be "good" via their own devices. Yes, you can argue that the results will never equal the amazing goodness of an omnipotent, omniscient person, the every action of whom is the standard by which Goodness is judged even if we don't understand how it could possibly be good at all - but what in the world kind of standard is that? A standard which you cannot reach, as I've learned since meeting my mother-in-law, is really no standard at all (and on the opposite side of the coin, any standard which you will reach no matter what is not exactly worth striving for either).

I would therefore say that the modern Christian concept of Life's purpose is usable, but the theology that accompanies it is not. Clearer some people are better than others and you should strive to be one of them. By all means, consider the question of whether you are a better person than you were five years ago and rate yourself appropriately, if you like.

But I'm personally still not quite crazy about it. To quote one of Franklin Deleanor Roosevelt's cabinet members (I forget which), "In the long run, we are all dead." Self-improvement is not a value in and of itself; taken alone, it is but vanity. Reward for self-improvement is only found in its context. Does being a better man, for instance, result in your being a better husband and father, thus benefiting the people you love? Is that a goal of yours? If yes, it is good.

I'd argue instead for a result-focused lifestyle (and yes, "self-improvement" can be a result - but as I said, it's of no real use as the ultimate one), in which we strive to create the reality we desire.

Note that I am not suggesting a result-oriented life; there is a difference. A man who sets out to be a good husband and father has a chance of dying satisfied only if he keeps proper perspective about how much control he has over such matters.

We have actually come full-circle, since a result-focused lifestyle is exactly what the apostle Paul was suggesting nearly two thousand years ago, the important difference being of course that he had already taken the liberty of choosing the result on which to focus. When I first met my fiance, I was surprised to find her very skeptical about that focus; unlike me, she'd never thought of the commission as binding upon her. Nowadays I agree, if only because so many of my ideas about Christianity are currently in flux that I don't feel I have enough answers to share with others.

But I digress! Let me know which of these options you choose, Joe, or if you'll be selecting another. In the meantime, remember to adequately scope out your targets before you strike, and pay your taxes on whatever your take is.

Something I've been thinking lately. Am I different as a Christian than I would be if I wasn't a Christian? Am I just wasting my life?

In My Blood

Katongole offers a clear and insightful history of what happened in Rwanda before the genocide, including the fast advance of Christianity. He then offers compelling analysis of what happened during the genocide, particularly amongs Christians, who were using machetes to violently kill one another. But Katongole doesn't stop there. He challenges us to learn lessons from this ugly history. He challenges us to never think that "I'd never do that!" or "That will never happen here!"

Last night I read these words in Mirror to the Church: "Maybe the deepest tragedy of the Rwandan genocide is that Christianity didn't seem to make any difference. Rwandans performed a script that had shaped them more deeply than the biblical story had. Behind the silences of the genocide, Hutus and Tutsis alike were shaped by a story that held their imagination captive." Then, Katongole goes on to offer this challenge: "Paying attention to history helps us to see that this was not just Rwanda's problem. The story that made Rwanda is the story of the West. When we look at Rwanda as a mirror to the church, it helps us realize what little consequence the biblical story has on the way Christians live their lives in the West. As Christians, we cannot remember the Rwandan genocide without admitting that the gospel did not seem to have a real impact on most Rwandan's lives. Seeing this, we have to ask: does Christianity make any real difference in the West?" Wow.

Don't Waste Your Life

Suffer/ Yeah do it for Christ if you trying to figure what to do with your life/ if you making a lot money hope you doing it right because the money is Gods you better steward it right/ stay focused if you ain't got no ride/ your life ain't wrapped up in what you drive/ the clothes you wear the job you work/ the color your skin naw you Christian first/ people living life for a job/ make a lil money start living for a car/ get em a house a wife kids and a dog/ when they retire they living high on the hog/ but guess what they didn't ever really live at all/ to live is Christ yeah that's Paul I recall/ to die is gain so for Christ we give it all/ he's the treasure you'll never find in the mall/ Your money your singleness marriage talent and time/ they were loaned to you to show the world that Christ is Divine/ that's why it's Christ in my rhymes/ That's why it's Christ all the time/see my whole world is built around him He's the life in my lines/ I refused to waste my life/ he's too true ta chase that ice/ here's my gifts and time cause I'm constantly trying to be used to praise the Christ/ If he's truly raised to life/ then this news should change your life/ and by his grace you can put your faith in place that rules your days and nights.

The Bible is not the "Word of God"; it is not "inerrant" nor "divinely-inspired", except in the same sense that any book can be said to be inspired by its subject.

That's a statement you've probably heard in some form or other fairly often, at least if you live in a Western or Western-ized country; one of the unique traits of this latest century is that it does not lack for atheists and agnostics. But you've certainly never heard it from me, because at least until three years ago I took the supernatural accuracy of the "Good Book" to be a given, indeed as one of the unassailable axioms at the foundation of my world view.

Now I don't. Can't, really - and the irony of my new inability to agree with the churches assuring us of a flawless text is that I developed it through my obedience to those same "spiritual authorities". A parade of pastors, professors, missionaries, and friends enjoined me to study the Word for myself, so I did - and my resulting growth in understanding quite naturally produced disbelief.

This is not to say that I blame (credit?) any of my teachers, amateur or professional, for my decision to renounce the misconception of the Bible as "perfect" - I have never been told anything by them but that unvarnished truth lies between the leather covers. My conclusions are my own and anyway, obviously other people in possession of far more detailed information about the life and times of the Testaments have remained believers (the apologist Dr. Norman L. Geisler, for instance). I merely tip my hat to them all for pointing the way to the evidence.

For evidence for disbelief it is, to any who are willing to interpret it without undue bias in its favor - and even to some who interpret with it. I was in fact a member of that latter camp back when I first began my concerted effort to be Biblically literate (for that matter, I still think I am). If ever I ran across a charge of inconsistency against the Bible, I took care to absorb the best arguments I could find from both the prosecution and defense (considering Geisler's defense, for instance, on one hand and prominent anti-christs such as Dan Barker on the other). When I judged that a reasonable doubt existed, I acquited.

Far too often that reasonable doubt just doesn't exist, though - and worse, some of the Christian arguments employed on the part of the Bible's defense are on their very face so absurd I want to remonstrate their proponents for either their dishonesty or stupidity. The very same Christians who put forward the ideas of which I speak (but which I shall not at the moment detail, as point-by-point refutation is not the point of this particular missive) would sneer or laugh if the same arguments were suggested to them by members of other religions.

Incidentally, those same arguments would be suggested, too, if those Christians actually took time to read what other religions are saying, which brings to my mind a tangential issue I nevertheless feel the urge to herein mention: the seemingly near-complete lack of authentic investigation of other beliefs and counter-claims by Christians. By "authentic investigation", I mean the consideration of primary sources of information: actually reading what Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris have to say, for instance, instead of only reading what Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, and Timothy Keller have to say about what atheists say. Allowing the defenders of your faith to cherry-pick quotations from your enemies to feed you - and relying mainly on that information to inform your world view - is dishonest, not to mention ineffective, since surprisingly often the people you assume to be honest (because hey, they're Christians, right?) aren't nearly as trustworthy as you'd like. Exhibits A, B, and C: the supposedly famous archaelogist Dr. Ron Charles (the provided link leads to an earlier Minorthoughts.com post about him), "Dr." Jason Gastrich, and the makers of the film Speechless: Silencing the Christians.

Now that I've gotten that off my shoulders, back to the Bible. A Christian might reasonably ask: "You say that reasonable doubt doesn't exist. Yet clearly many disagree with you, including people with doctorates. How can you think the Bible's mistakes are _so _evident when people who know more than you don't see what you see?"

That's not necessarily a question I can wholly answer. I do have my theories. One is that some who claim inerrancy secretly don't believe it and others - this I know for a fact - consider some of the Bible's "problems"to be signs of God actually influencing events by making people suddenly forget things, etc. Another theory is that there's an important difference between many of them and us skeptics: whereas they bring their full attention to the Bible as an act of worship, we considered it important to approach it from a neutral perspective and did so. Finally and certainly, the fact is that most people who want to believe something will, regardless of how obviously incorrect or totally ridiculous; modern cults and political parties (which aren't much different from cults, really) prove it on a daily basis. To the extent people feel it necessary to justify their beliefs, they have demonstrated that their justifications can be invented with little to no pricking of their consciences. I see no reason why those who claim to be Christians or religious Jews should be any different, whether they are laypeople or deans of Christian colleges.

I'll conclude this statement of disbelief with a few words on what I still do believe and what I don't. At least for now, I remain willing to believe in God, as well as a version of Jesus the Son of God somewhat less fanciful than the so-called "Four Witnesses" would recommend. I confess that I'm holding onto that conviction with my fingernails at the moment and feeling my grip lessen with each subsequent discovery; it's possible I still believe only because of my previously-mentioned bias to do so. I was raised to love God and to love Jesus. And I do. To let them go entirely would be emotionaly devastating, many times as difficult as letting go of the Bible (what my professor once referred to as the "fourth member of the Christian Quadrinity") has been. Also the implications of a godless multiverse utterly terrify me, for very good and well-known reasons. I don't want to die. I don't want my soon-to-be wife to die. Nor her grandfather, recently diagnosed with inoperable cancer, or my grandmother, nearing 90 and afflicted with Alzheimer's...

Those are the negative reasons for wanting there to exist a god. Positive ones exist, too. The gift of life is so precious and rewarding that I often feel infused with gratefulness for it, as though the emotion were pumping itself out of my heart and distributing through all my circulatory system. I would very much like this gratefulness to have an object that comprehends it.

I digress. Some items within the Bible I find unsupported and unconvincing include: its inerrancy and incorruptibility, most of the supposed 600+ messianic prophecies, Mary's miraculous pregnancy, stories of Jesus' childhood, Hell as presented, the historicity of the Book of Job, the historicity of the Book of Jonah, the assertion that the Book of Ruth is historical or even of a religious character, the historicity of Genesis's first several chapters, the doctrine of "original sin", the idea that all of the Bible's books combine to present one unified and convincing theology, the Biblical assertion that all who have not believed are "without excuse", the theological assertion that the Bible should be treated as one work by one author instead of as an anthology of works by multiple authors, and the complete reliability of each of the four Gospels' accounts.

Everything else I'm still thinking about.

Maybe you should start thinking about it, too.

Future posts, when they are forthcoming, will concern themselves with specific questions within and about the Scriptures I'm currently investigating.

As unfinished work piles up each day at the office, I could certainly stand to remember this more. The To-Do Lists Are Never Done:

Only God gets his to-do list done each day.

This simple sentence informs how I begin my day, what I expect to accomplish during the day, and how I close each day.

When I step out of my office and turn the light off at the end of my day, and the list of to-dos is incomplete, I say to my secretary, "Nora, we will try again tomorrow." This brief statement is an acknowledgment of my limitations, and is my way of saying that--once again--I didn't get everything done. It's a moment for me to cultivate humility.

No matter how much planning, scheduling, and discipline is present in my life, I will never completely redeem the time. I am a finite creature, limited in what I can accomplish, and further limited by my sin. So it should surprise nobody that I leave to-dos undone each and every day.

My joy is not derived from the flawless execution of my goals. My joy each day is derived from the person and work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Only God gets his to-do list done each day. I need the cross of Christ each day.

(Via C.J. Mahaney's view from the cheap seats & other stuff.)

John Piper offers some helpful insight on some confusing Bible passages.

Does God visit the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation? Some texts seem to say he does and others seem to say he doesn't. Our job is to figure out the sense in which he does and the sense in which he doesn't.

How do these passages fit together? This matters for the sake of God's character, and the Bible's coherence, and how we counsel those whose parents were wicked or just garden variety sinful.

I stumbled across a very interesting essay by Vern Poythress. In it, he talks about gender neutral Bibles (like the TNIV, the Good News Bible, the CEV, etc) and how they can change the meaning of the Biblical text in subtle ways.

Language nerds will probably understand and enjoy it the most, but I think his examples are worth thinking about it -- even for those of us who aren't language nerds.

We may illustrate by considering the complex challenge of translating sentences with gender-marked generic pronouns. In English the issue comes to a head only with the third-person singular personal pronoun, because all the other pronouns are unmarked for gender. The third-person singular has three genders, "he," "she," and "it." Until recently the masculine forms, "he/him/his/himself," served as default forms in generic statements. But now some people frown on this use, and so-called gender inclusive translations have sought substitutes.3

Changing from "he" to "you"

One possibility they have tried is the use of the second person "you" instead of the third-person singular.4 Consider Proverbs 12:14. The New International Version (NIV) reads: "From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him." The Good News Bible (GNB, 2d ed.) reads: "Your reward depends on what you say and what you do; you will get what you deserve." The NIV and the Hebrew, by using the third person, invite readers to see a sample case "out there," and then to apply the truth to anyone whatsoever. Certainly each reader may apply to the truth to himself. But he may also apply the truth to others whom he is counseling, just as the father counsels his son in the early chapters of Proverbs. By contrast, the second-person in the GNB invites each reader to apply the truth first of all personally. Applying the truth to others by offering them counsel is an afterthought. The directness of focus on application to the individual reader is different in the two cases. The same differences crop up again and again in changes from third person to second person in Proverbs.

Read -- or at least scan -- the whole thing.

(And, yes, it's one reason that I'm reading out of the ESV and not the TNIV these days.)

I have a tendency towards quick anger. Every time life doesn't go my way -- kids want attention, wife needs something done (or leave something undone), customers want immediate answers, snow blankets the area, or idiots on the Beltline ruin my commute -- I get angry. I know that the world isn't treating my fairly and I resent having to put up with it.

Perhaps you've noticed, just from the tenor of some of my previous posts?

In the last year, God has shown me that my anger is really directed at him. After all, he's in control of everything. Why didn't he give me better kids, a better wife, more patient customers, better weather and better drivers? Doesn't he know whom I am? Does't he care? Slowly, He's been changing me. He's been making me more humble and less angry.

There's a new book I may want to pick up and read through.

Written by Wayne Mack and Deborah Howard it is titled simply It's Not Fair. Mack deals with the very attitude I had fallen into. "From years of personal and counseling experience," he writes, "I know that nothing is more damaging to us spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and behaviorally than responding to the unpleasant, unwanted, and (in our judgment) undeserved attitude of life with the 'it's not fair' attitude." We fight against this attitude with a properly knowledge of who God is. "Nothing is more helpful to us in overcoming the tragic results of being infected with the 'it's not fair' attitude than possessing the knowledge of who and what God really is and the implications of that knowledge."

In this book, Mack focuses on four aspects of God's character that he thinks are the most useful in counteracting and destroying the devastation brought about by the "it's not fair" attitude. He looks to God's wisdom, love, sovereignty and justice. These characteristics, taken individually and together, counter an attitude that we are somehow getting less than we deserve. "Sometimes we are angry at other people, and sometimes we're angry about situations or circumstances. Ultimately, we are angry with God, regardless of how well we disguise it--even to ourselves."

Tim Keller writes about humility.

We are on slippery ground because humility cannot be attained directly. Once we become aware of the poison of pride, we begin to notice it all around us. We hear it in the sarcastic, snarky voices in newspaper columns and weblogs. We see it in civic, cultural, and business leaders who never admit weakness or failure. We see it in our neighbors and some friends with their jealousy, self-pity, and boasting.

And so we vow not to talk or act like that. If we then notice "a humble turn of mind" in ourselves, we immediately become smug—but that is pride in our humility. If we catch ourselves doing that we will be particularly impressed with how nuanced and subtle we have become. Humility is so shy. If you begin talking about it, it leaves. To even ask the question, "Am I humble?" is to not be so. Examining your own heart, even for pride, often leads to being proud about your diligence and circumspection.

Christian humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less, as C. S. Lewis so memorably said. It is to be no longer always noticing yourself and how you are doing and how you are being treated. It is "blessed self-forgetfulness."

Humility is a byproduct of belief in the gospel of Christ. In the gospel, we have a confidence not based in our performance but in the love of God in Christ (Rom. 3:22-24). This frees us from having to always be looking at ourselves. Our sin was so great, nothing less than the death of Jesus could save us. He had to die for us. But his love for us was so great, Jesus was glad to die for us.

... This is the place where the author is supposed to come up with practical solutions. I don't have any. Here's why.

First, the problem is too big for practical solutions. The wing of the evangelical church that is most concerned about the loss of truth and about compromise is actually infamous in our culture for its self-righteousness and pride. However, there are many in our circles who, in reaction to what they perceive as arrogance, are backing away from many of the classic Protestant doctrines (such as Forensic Justification and Substitutionary Atonement) that are crucial and irreplaceable — as well as the best possible resources for humility.

Second, directly talking about practical ways to become humble, either as individuals or as communities, will always backfire. I have said that major wings of the evangelical church are wrong. So who is left? Me? Am I beginning to think only we few, we happy few, have achieved the balance that the church so needs? I think I hear Wormwood whispering in my ear, "Yes, only you can really see things clearly."

I do hope to clarify, or I wouldn't have written on the topic at all. But there is no way to begin telling people how to become humble without destroying what fragments of humility they may already possess.

This story just breaks my heart. A 7-year old girl who was so neglected that she became a "feral child" -- completely unable to relate to other people, process emotions, or relate to the world.

"I've been in rooms with bodies rotting there for a week and it never stunk that bad," Holste said later. "There's just no way to describe it. Urine and feces -- dog, cat and human excrement -- smeared on the walls, mashed into the carpet. Everything dank and rotting."

Tattered curtains, yellow with cigarette smoke, dangling from bent metal rods. Cardboard and old comforters stuffed into broken, grimy windows. Trash blanketing the stained couch, the sticky counters.

The floor, walls, even the ceiling seemed to sway beneath legions of scuttling roaches.

First he saw the girl's eyes: dark and wide, unfocused, unblinking. She wasn't looking at him so much as through him.

She lay on a torn, moldy mattress on the floor. She was curled on her side, long legs tucked into her emaciated chest. Her ribs and collarbone jutted out; one skinny arm was slung over her face; her black hair was matted, crawling with lice. Insect bites, rashes and sores pocked her skin. Though she looked old enough to be in school, she was naked -- except for a swollen diaper.

"The pile of dirty diapers in that room must have been 4 feet high," the detective said. "The glass in the window had been broken, and that child was just lying there, surrounded by her own excrement and bugs."

When he bent to lift her, she yelped like a lamb. "It felt like I was picking up a baby," Holste said. "I put her over my shoulder, and that diaper started leaking down my leg."

The authorities had discovered the rarest and most pitiable of creatures: a feral child.

The term is not a diagnosis. It comes from historic accounts -- some fictional, some true -- of children raised by animals and therefore not exposed to human nurturing. Wolf boys and bird girls, Tarzan, Mowgli from The Jungle Book.

"In the first five years of life, 85 percent of the brain is developed," said Armstrong, the psychologist who examined Danielle. "Those early relationships, more than anything else, help wire the brain and provide children with the experience to trust, to develop language, to communicate. They need that system to relate to the world."

The importance of nurturing has been shown again and again. In the 1960s, psychologist Harry Harlow put groups of infant rhesus monkeys in a room with two artificial mothers. One, made of wire, dispensed food. The other, of terrycloth, extended cradled arms. Though they were starving, the baby monkeys all climbed into the warm cloth arms.

"Primates need comfort even more than they need food," Armstrong said.

Thankfully she was found by a great set of adoptive parents who are doing everything they can to love her and help her. As I read the story I wanted so hard to find a villain. Somebody that I could hate for doing this to a child. But it's hard to really blame the mother.

A judge ordered Michelle [Danielle's mother] to have a psychological evaluation. That's among the documents, too.

Danielle's IQ, the report says, is below 50, indicating "severe mental retardation." Michelle's is 77, "borderline range of intellectual ability."

"She tended to blame her difficulties on circumstances while rationalizing her own actions," wrote psychologist Richard Enrico Spana. She "is more concerned with herself than most other adults, and this could lead her to neglect paying adequate attention to people around her."

If there's any villain here, I think it's humanity. We rebelled against God and decided that we wanted to do everything ourselves. We wanted to know both good and evil. We wanted to make our own decisions about right and wrong. We wanted to rule the universe and we wanted God to get out of our way. This is the end result. This is what our sin looks like. Is it fun yet?

How important is good theology? Pretty important. Not only can bad theology give people a wrong picture of God, it can also cause them to do some pretty stupid things in the here and now. Take the "prosperity gospel" and the recent mortgage crash, for example. Time recently reported on the intersection between bad theology and bad economic decisions.

Has the so-called Prosperity gospel turned its followers into some of the most willing participants -- and hence, victims -- of the current financial crisis? That's what a scholar of the fast-growing brand of Pentecostal Christianity believes. While researching a book on black televangelism, says Jonathan Walton, a religion professor at the University of California at Riverside, he realized that Prosperity's central promise -- that God will "make a way" for poor people to enjoy the better things in life -- had developed an additional, dangerous expression during the subprime-lending boom. Walton says that this encouraged congregants who got dicey mortgages to believe "God caused the bank to ignore my credit score and blessed me with my first house." The results, he says, "were disastrous, because they pretty much turned parishioners into prey for greedy brokers."

... Although a type of Pentecostalism, Prosperity theology adds a distinctive layer of supernatural positive thinking. Adherents will reap rewards if they prove their faith to God by contributing heavily to their churches, remaining mentally and verbally upbeat and concentrating on divine promises of worldly bounty supposedly strewn throughout the Bible. Critics call it a thinly disguised pastor-enrichment scam. Other experts, like Walton, note that for all its faults, the theology can empower people who have been taught to see themselves as financially or even culturally useless to feel they are "worthy of having more and doing more and being more." In some cases the philosophy has matured with its practitioners, encouraging good financial habits and entrepreneurship.

But Walton suggests that a decade's worth of ever easier credit acted like a drug in Prosperity's bloodstream. "The economic boom '90s and financial overextensions of the new millennium contributed to the success of the Prosperity message," he wrote recently on his personal blog as well as on the website Religion Dispatches. And not positively. "Narratives of how 'God blessed me with my first house despite my credit' were common. Sermons declaring 'It's your season to overflow' supplanted messages of economic sobriety," and "little attention was paid to ... the dangers of using one's home equity as an ATM to subsidize cars, clothes and vacations."

It's sad. Americans have been richly blessed by God. America is the richest country in the world and our poor are wealthy than most of the "rich" in Africa. Our poor are fantastically well off compared to the poor in Asia, South America, or Central America. The Bible also has much to say about contentment. Rather than teaching their congregations to be both thankful for what they have and content with what they have, these pastors have been encouraging people's natural greed, covetousness, and discontent. As a result, many of these people have been directly hurt by the mortgage crash.

Not that these pastors need to be worried about my opinion. Ultimately, they will answer to God for how they've led His people. That's enough for me.

Lately I've been thinking about how Christians should respond to political outcomes. I'm a Libertarian. I believe that government governs best which governs least. Liberty loses no matter who wins -- Senator Obama wins or Senator McCain. Both support a stronger, more assertive government that strips away liberty. How should I respond to that loss?

Well, ultimately God still rules over the world. Things are imperfect -- and will be getting less perfect -- but God never told me that I'd live in a perfect world. In fact, he promised the opposite. I should devote myself more fully to God, no matter who wins. This election is just one huge reminder to trust God, not man. For all men are fallible, weak, and imperfect. Only God is the perfect ruler of this world. One day, he'll rule openly. And that's the day I'm waiting for.

Until then, I'll follow Pastor Piper's advice and vote as though I was not voting.

Voting is like marrying and crying and laughing and buying. We should do it, but only as if we were not doing it. That's because "the present form of this world is passing away" and, in God's eyes, "the time has grown very short." Here's the way Paul puts it:

The appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. (1 Corinthians 7:29-31)

Let's take these one at a time and compare them to voting.

1. "Let those who have wives live as though they had none."

... So it is with voting. We should do it. But only as if we were not doing it. Its outcomes do not give us the greatest joy when they go our way, and they do not demoralize us when they don't. Political life is for making much of Christ whether the world falls apart or holds together.

2. "Let those who mourn [do so] as though they were not mourning."

... So it is with voting. There are losses. We mourn. But not as those who have no hope. We vote and we lose, or we vote and we win. In either case, we win or lose as if we were not winning or losing. Our expectations and frustrations are modest. The best this world can offer is short and small. The worst it can offer has been predicted in the book of Revelation. And no vote will hold it back. In the short run, Christians lose (Revelation 13:7). In the long run, we win (21:4).

3. "Let those who rejoice [do so] as though they were not rejoicing."

... So it is with voting. There are joys. The very act of voting is a joyful statement that we are not under a tyrant. And there may be happy victories. But the best government we get is a foreshadowing. Peace and justice are approximated now. They will be perfect when Christ comes. So our joy is modest. Our triumphs are short-lived--and shot through with imperfection. So we vote as though not voting.

4. "Let those who buy [do so] as though they had no goods."

... So it is with voting. We do not withdraw. We are involved--but as if not involved. Politics does not have ultimate weight for us. It is one more stage for acting out the truth that Christ, and not politics, is supreme.

5. "Let those who deal with the world [do so] as though they had no dealings with it."

... So it is with voting. We deal with the system. We deal with the news. We deal with the candidates. We deal with the issues. But we deal with it all as if not dealing with it. It does not have our fullest attention. It is not the great thing in our lives. Christ is. And Christ will be ruling over his people with perfect supremacy no matter who is elected and no matter what government stands or falls. So we vote as though not voting.

How many regular church members could explain the Gospel this clearly, succinctly, and correctly?

I went to Mars Hill for the first time that January. I sat near the door in case it was weird. It was not at all like I had feared it would be. Here were happy people full of hope and purpose in their lives. "You've got to be kidding me," I said to myself. I didn't know how to respond.

I met two guys who took me to lunch afterward. I explained to them that I couldn't understand why they were so full of joy. I explained that I was a pretty good person, had cleaned up my act somewhat, and still could not find God despite years of fruitless seeking and searching. I explained that everything and everybody had let me down, from my father onward, and that I had been defiled. I was jealous of them, for it was clear to me that day that they were loved of God and I was not.

They pointed out that my attempts at finding God were going nowhere because I had fashioned a god to suit myself and worshiped according to my own preference and superstition. A voice inside my head cried out your whole worldview is sin. God created you. You did not create him! I began to see that I had been wrong about life, God, and everything.

They told me they had some good news. "You have tried to worship what you do not know," they said. "Now you can worship the Living God in spirit and in truth. God became the man Jesus Christ to live a perfect life and then die on the cross to pay for your sins with his own blood. Jesus Christ did not just die. He rose again and is alive today and reigns as God at the right hand of the Father. In him we have reconciliation with God and forgiveness of our sins. If you will give your life to Jesus today and repent of your sins, God will adopt you into his family and you will have eternal life."

Changed by Jesus #16: Trust in the Truth

Right on. I Praise God for what he's doing at Mars Hill Seattle.

(Via The Mission & Vision.)

Last Sunday, Tim Mackie preached about "our circle". Who are the people that we love? Who are the people that we care for? Who are the people that we would go out of our way to help? Who's "in the circle" and who's out?

Tim challenged us to expand our circles. To realize the hardships that others are facing. To move beyond our own selfishness and to demonstrate the love of God. As he taught, I thought of C. S. Lewis's sermon on "The Weight of Glory". I was planning on requoting it here, but I hadn't yet gotten to it.

Earlier today, I watched these clips of Bill Maher on the Daily Show. In it, he roundly mocks Christians, Christianity, and the entire idea of believing in God.

My first, immediate, reaction was "what a loathsome man". He and and Jon Stewart took great delight in mocking everyone who did not live up to the ideals of their towering intellects. It was a disgusting performance.

My second reaction -- very close behind the first -- was "what a great illustration of what Paul was talking about".

[esvbible reference="1 Corinthians 1:18-31" header="on" format="block"]1 Corinthians 1:18-31[/esvbible]

Bill Maher is right: Christianity is foolish. But I'm glad that God demonstrated His love the way that He did.

My third -- and final! -- reaction was to think back to "The Weight of Glory". Once again, it seemed to dovetail perfectly with the challenge in Tim's sermon and my own reactions to Bill Maher. Here's the end:

Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning. A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside. The following Him is, of course, the essential point. That being so, it may be asked what practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour.

The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat -- the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

I need to remember that Bill Maher is an eternal being. Maybe instead of thinking of him as a loathsome man, I should add him to "my circle".

Nathan Williams, from John MacArthur's Shepherds' Fellowship, reported on a recent visit to Mars Hill Bible Church.

It's a good example of how not to do church. I love creativity, I love seeing Christians that are creative. I think far too many Christians portray an uncreative God. But the solution isn't to ignore the cross and focus exclusively on creativity.

I mentioned in yesterday's post that when we entered the worship center we were greeted with quotes on the overhead projectors. One of the main quotes that continued to cycle through as we waited for the "gathering" to start was a quote by Dorothy Sayers. After getting back home and doing some research I realized that much of the teaching on creativity and the Trinity comes from a book by Sayers called The Mind of the Maker. The entire message was based on the idea that every bit of human creativity resembles the Trinity. The creative idea we have is like God the Father, the action that we perform because of that idea is like the Son, and the influence and power of that creative idea is like the Holy Spirit.

Once Jeanette taught this background it was easy to see the shape the message would take. Jeanette taught the philosophy and theology (I use that term loosely) behind creativity and then Don gave us practical insight into becoming more creative. For example, after Jeanette taught on the idea of creativity and that being analogous to God the Father, Don taught on the top ten places for creative ideas to come to us. After the section dealing with Jesus and the creative idea being put into action, Don taught on several habits of creative people.

The ultimate point of the message was for us to learn to be creative and then use that creativity for something useful. The Sayers quote which they kept using throughout the lesson was "…that we may redeem the Fall by a creative act." When one actually begins to break that down and think it through, it's a scary thing to be teaching people. The point of the message was that we can use our creativity to redeem the fall. In other words, our world is in a rough situation. All of the pain and hardship in society comes as a result of the fall. We must use our creativity to fix the problems created by mankind's fall into sin.

Sadly, throughout the message there was no mention of the gospel of Jesus Christ being what redeems men from the fall.

In the end, the tag-team talk consisted of little more than some vaguely inspiring teaching about using creativity to meet the physical and temporal needs of those in our community. Noticeably missing was the centrality of the gospel.

I'd really like to buy a single-column Bible in the near future. Of all of my Bible wants, I think this is the biggest. Of course, I also want a black letter Bible, that's printed in a paragraph-by-paragraph format rather than a verse-by-verse format. Here's a quick rundown of the major candidates:

ESV Study Bible (Crossway)

• 9-point type, single-column layout for the Bible text; 7.25-point type, double-column layout for the notes
• Size: 6.5" x 9.25"
• 2,752 pages

It looks like a good candidate and I'll probably buy a copy just for all of the "study Bible" features. But the pages themselves look really busy and distracting. That's mostly due to those same "study Bible" features.

ESV Literary Study Bible (Crossway, Amazon)

• 8.5-point type
• Size: 6" x 9"
• 1,952 pages

The ESV LSB is smaller than the ESV Study Bible, with a slightly smaller font size. The text is printed in a paragraph-by-paragraph format rather than a verse-by-verse format. The font size is slightly smaller than I'd prefer, but I don't think it would be too small (sample pages).

I'm afraid that I'll get annoyed at the embedded literary study notes. I have no doubt that they'll be very useful and educational. Unfortunately, they break up the text and make the Bible larger than it otherwise would be. That will distract me from using this Bible as a pure reading Bible.

ESV Personal Size Reference Bible (Crossway, Amazon)

• 7.4-point type
• Size: 5" x 7.25"
• 1,308 pages

I think this Bible is exactly what I want -- except for the tiny font size. (Sample pages.)

TNIV Reference Bible (Zondervan)

• 9-point type
• Size: 6.9" x 9.8"
• 1408 pages

I generally prefer the ESV over the TNIV. This Bible would have to really impress me, for me to purchase a TNIV instead of an ESV. This Bible comes close, but I think the verse numbers and footnote letters are distracting. (Sample pages.)

Conclusion

Right now, I think I'd like to purchase the Literary Study Bible as a "bedside" Bible and an ESV Personal Reference Bible as an "out and about" Bible.

Soli Deo Gloria means "God's Glory Alone". When Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the rest of the Reformers tried to reform the Catholic church, they summarized their teachings under five main statements: Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone), Soli Deo Gloria (God's Glory Alone), Solus Christus (Christ Alone), Sola Gratia (Grace Alone), and Sola Fide (Faith Alone). At some point I'll probably talk about all five of these ideas. Right now, I just want to touch on Soli Deo Gloria.

Soli Deo Gloria is the idea that everything on earth happens for a reason. What reason is that? Everything happens to make people recognize the greatness of God. This is one of the main themes running throughout the Bible. God eventually works everything out in a way that will bring Him glory. This has a lot of implications. Some of them are nice to think about and some of them are a little bit scary scary to think about.

I'm not going to talk about that tonight. Tonight, I'm going to share a Bible passage that illustrate this principle. This is a poem, written by a man named Asaph. His nation, Israel, has been conquered and decimated by foreign enemies. But notice the focus of his poetry: he is ultimately concerned for God's repuation and God's glory. He wants his nation restored. But he doesn't want his nation restored because of his national pride. He wants his nation restored so that other nations will know that God is real and is powerful.

[esvbible reference="Psalm 79" header="on" format="block"]Psalm 79[/esvbible]