Author: kevingdrendel

I am sixtiesh, an English Literature major in college and an attorney by profession. Faith informs my life, and this blog is about my faith journey.

Is Merely Believing In Jesus Enough?

Jesus said that many people will say to him on the day of judgment, “Lord, Lord”, but he will tell them that he never knew them.

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I follow a daily Bible reading plan every year. In most years I read through the Bible from beginning to end, but this year I am focusing on the New Testament only. Today, I came across this rather innocuous verse that prompts my thoughts:

Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people. 

John 2:23-24 ESV‬

Though I was raised Catholic, a combination of evangelical people who shared the Gospel with me led me to a real, authentic belief in God and surrender to Jesus “as my Lord and Savior” (as the saying goes). I can’t say that I didn’t believe in God before that time (intellectually), but God didn’t mean anything to me before then. I had no relationship to God, and the existence of God carried no relevance in my life.

As a young Christian, I put great weight on simply believing in Jesus, which was what was emphasized to me. It seemed to me that believing in Jesus was all a person needed to do to be saved, and everyone who believed in Jesus was OK. I think that is still fundamentally true, but it is not the whole truth.

I was grateful, of course. Belief in Jesus changed my life! I recognized the changes deep within me, which I believe is indicative of being born again. My eyes were opened, and now I could see!

Many years later, however, it doesn’t seem quite so simple. Examples of people who go to church, and claim to be Christian, but who don’t act anything like Jesus, are legion. This hypocrisy among the people who call themselves Christian is a common reason why people say they don’t go to church any more. Many people don’t live what they believe.

Of course, we are all hypocrites to some extent. None of us live up to God’s standard. (Nor do we even live up to our own, lower standards, if we are being completely honest.)

There are differences in degrees. Some people are more like Jesus than others. The Bible acknowledges that we must all grow in our knowledge of God, and the Bible recognizes that sanctification is a process.

In my own life, I experienced some relatively instantaneous changes in me, especially in my attitudes, in what I was drawn to, and in my understanding (like a light bulb turning on). I also continued to struggle with habits of thought and action, some of which dog me still to this day.

We want simple formulas. Romans 10:9 says, “[I]f you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” ( ESV) This literally says that believing in our hearts and confessing with our mouths that Jesus is Lord is all that is necessary for salvation.

I believe in that “formula” with all my heart. BUT – at the same time – it is is not quite so simple. Jesus said, “Many will say to me, “Lord! Lord!”

We might have a tendency to view the “Romans Road” as a kind of magic formula that makes a person a Christian, but it doesn’t exactly work like that. Anyone can mouth those words with no change in their inner reality. It’s not enough to confess with your mouth, a person must believe in his/her heart.

Anyone can confess that “Jesus is Lord”. The confession must come from a real and authentic belief in the heart that results in a change to be assured it has real substance.

This change is not something we can manufacture. It occurs organically from the inside out. The change may not even be immediately noticeable. This is because the change results from God working inside us, not by our efforts to conform, but by His regenerative work in us. It may take a while to bear fruit on the outside.

People look at the outward appearance (confession), but God judges the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7) People may claim to be Christian, especially in the United States where being Christian can provide social, political, or other capital, but that doesn’t mean everyone who claims to be a Christian is an authentic believer and follower of Jesus.

Jesus said that many people will say to him on the day of judgment, “Lord, Lord”, but he will tell them that he never knew them. (Matt. 7:22) Jesus said that some of these people will even prophesy, cast out demons, and perform miracles in his name, but, they are not true believers. (Matt. 7:23) (If you want to hear the personal stories of people who recognize that they were once “false converts”, I am providing a link to their stories here.)

Continue reading “Is Merely Believing In Jesus Enough?” →

A Facelift Proposed on the Doctrine of Inerrancy

God guided the circumstances in which the biblical literature was divinely inspired, and God approved the final product

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The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy is just a little older than my Christian faith. It was relatively new when I first read the Bible in college and when I first asked Jesus to be the Lord and Savior of my life. I have wrestled with the idea of inerrancy from the beginning of my Christian life until now.

It isn’t that I don’t think the Bible is the “word of God”. It isn’t that I don’t have a “high” view of the reliability, integrity, and divine nature of the Bible. It isn’t that I don’t think the Bible was inspired by God and should be relied on as His word to us to follow.

I believe all these things, but I have issues with statements on inerrancy that seem to push what the Bible says about itself beyond what it says.

Finally, I have found some similar thinking in two of the great Christian thinkers of our time: Mike Licona and William Lane Craig. In his blog, Risen Jesus, Licona introduces a paper to the world that he wrote and presented at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological society.

In the paper, Licona cites Craig in support of a new proposal on inerrancy. First, though, he explains some of what is problematic with the Chicago Statement. I am not going to restate the points he makes here. You can read the paper, CSBI Needs a Facelift, yourself, but I will summarize it for those who don’t have the time or inclination to read the original (though it isn’t long).

Licona starts with the two main verses that provide the inspiration (pun intended) for the doctrine of inerrancy: 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:20-21. At the center of this are the words “God-inspired” or “God-breathed” which are English translations of the Greek word, “theopneustos“.

Licona traces the history of the use of the word, theopneustos, prior to the 3rd Century. The word was not often used, and it was used in very diverse contexts. Licona quotes a commentary on 2 Timothy, stating, “Theopneustos does not have enough precision to go beyond the basic idea that the Scriptures came from God.” and he concludes:

Therefore, 2 Timothy 3:16 does not contribute as much to our discussion as we may have first thought. So we should be cautious not to read more into it than Paul may have intended.

The 2 Peter 1:20-21 text speaks of prophets who were “carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Licona observes that the Greek word translated “carried along”, pherō, is also used by Philo “to describe how prophets received revelation from God, during which time they had ‘no power of apprehension’ while God made ‘full use of their organs of speech.’ Josephus likewise used this word to say that “God’s Spirit put the words in the mouths of the prophets” (quoting Licona, who paraphrased Josephus).

The 2 Timothy passage and the 2 Peter passage express different ideas and give rise to different pictures of how God speaks to/through people who authorized the writings of the Bible. some writings purport to be prophetic and some do not expressly adopt that attitude. The Chicago Statement assumes that both passages mean the same thing, but most biblical scholars disagree with that conclusion.

Licona goes on to summarize some phenomena in the text of the Bible that suggest a “human element in Scripture”. Licona concludes from this, “Although [the human element] does not challenge the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture, it does challenge the concept of inspiration imagined by [the Chicago Statement].”

These issues with the ambiguous meaning of the Greek words and the very different images of God working to convey His “Word” through people (God-breathed and carried along by the Spirit), can be reconciled with a “new” paradigm, says Licona. This paradigm was suggested by Craig in 1999.

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Keeping It Real for the Church: Talent in Tension with Character

Talent, confidence, and boldness can be a dangerous combination in the Church without the character to counterbalance it.

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I have been listening to the podcast series, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. I didn’t listen to it when it came out and was popular. I tend to eschew popular things. This might be wisdom. It might be pride, or it might just be the way I am wired.

That instinct or intuition or character trait, whatever it is, has been good for me in many ways. I resist going along with the crowd, and I have learned not to trust crowds and crowd mentality. That mentality may have been instrumental in my coming to faith and becoming a follower of Jesus.

Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14, NASB) When I read that, I was (perhaps) predisposed to be drawn to that sentiment.

Perhaps, I was that way because of some noble intuition. Perhaps, I was that way because I felt like an outsider. It’s hard to be sure (really) of our own motivations. I think the prophet, Jeremiah, was right when he said that human hearts are deceitful. Who among us can really (truly) know our own hearts completely?

Pride has a way of making our own weaknesses look like strengths. Pride tempts us to embrace our character flaws and to lead with them. Pride can even clothe itself in a form of humility and nobility.

The truth is often a very mixed bag. My inclination to buck what is popular and trendy and to seek “the narrower” way may have helped me in being willing to embrace Jesus and become a follower, but it has also lead me down some rocky and rough terrain that was, frankly, dangerous.

For one thing, I almost didn’t return to college for my senior year because of a “cultish” denomination that believed their theology was right, and everyone else was wrong. I was afraid that going back to college might be walking away from God because I was predisposed to believe in the narrow path. (And their path was very narrow!)

Another example has had much more long lasting effects on my life and sent me on a trajectory that continues today. I shared recently some of my story in, Keeping it Real on the Path to Wherever I am Going. My predisposition to avoid the beaten path influenced me to take an alternative route to ministry, which is all I wanted to do after I got “saved” in college. In that piece I wrote:

“I didn’t trust my college advisors because they didn’t believe the Bible like I did. I should have gone to seminary, but I didn’t because the apostles who stood up on the day of Pentecost and preached powerfully and eloquently in various tongues to the crowds in Jerusalem were unlearned men. I wanted to be like them.”

Keeping it Real on the path to wherever I am going

That path to ministry never worked out for me, and maybe it’s a good thing it didn’t! The audacity to think that I could perform in ministry like the apostles without sitting at the feet of Jesus in the flesh for three years would not have been a good foundation for shepherding his flock.

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is an object lesson in where my kind of disposition can lead. I am not saying that it must (necessarily) lead to the kind of crash and burn that occurred with the Mars Hill church movement, but the danger is certainly great.

I have listened to all of the primary episodes of that podcast, and I am listening now to the bonus episodes. I am finishing the one that features Tim Keller. The more I listen to him and read what he has written, the more I appreciate his depth of understanding and wisdom.

(You can listen at the link below if you are so inclined. In fact, if you don’t have enough time, energy or inclination to go much further here, I suggest you stop and listen rather than read on. But, I will continue anyway.)

Continue reading “Keeping It Real for the Church: Talent in Tension with Character” →

Do Our Past Actions Impact Our Present Choices?

‭”[T]he Pharisees and the experts in religious law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.”

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Byzantine mosaic of John the Baptist at Hagia Sofia, Istanbul, Turkey

My thoughts today might seem a little obscure, but let me set the stage first.  Imagine the scene when two followers of John the Baptist were sent to ask Jesus a question. News of what Jesus was doing had traveled far and wide. People even reported that Jesus brought a dead man to life!

This is the backstory. Jesus happened upon a funeral procession. (Luke 7:11-17) The dead man being carried to his final destination was the only child his mother had, and she was a widow. Jesus was filled with compassion, ands he did the unbelievable. Jesus brought that dead man back from death!

This man and his mother were locals. They lived in a nearby town. They were talking, and it wasn’t just them. People saw it, and they were talking about it also. A crowd had witnessed the whole spectacle.

News about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country, so that people were coming to Jesus from all around. John the Baptist heard about these things also, and he sent two of his followers to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

(Luke 7:20) (As an aside, Luke does not tell us why John did not come himself, but we know from Mathew that John was in prison. (Matthew 14:1-12)

The “one” John the Baptist wondered about is the Messiah who had long been expected. John and his ancestors kin had been reading about the Messiah in the prophets for centuries. The time seemed right. Many had come recently, claiming to be him, but they were killed, and their following faded. Still, expectation was in the air.

John was imprisoned because he was open and blunt with criticism of Herod the Tetrarch, the local governor, who married his brother’s wife. Herod imprisoned John to silence him.

John was equally straightforward and to the point with the question he sent his followers to ask, “Are you the one?”

John the Baptist’s followers arrived on the scene as Jesus was curing people with diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, healing people and even giving sight to the blind. When they asked him whether he is the one, or whether there is someone yet to come, Jesus said

“Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

Luke 7:22-23

These words were familiar to John. They come from the book of Isaiah, one of those the prophets that foretold the Messiah to come (see Isaiah 35:5 and 61:1). The Messiah was predicted to be the cornerstone of a new order, but the prophets also warned that he would be rejected, and he would be a stumbling block for many. (See here)

The Pharisees and religious leaders also would have known exactly what Jesus alluded to in his response to John’s followers, though they didn’t even ask the question, and they probably were not privy to the answer. For them, Jesus was a stumbling block. The way Luke describes their response is what prompts me to write today.

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The Untitled God Song and the Deity of Our Existential Angst

The solution to our existential angst and a “god like me”

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I saw Haley Heynderickx this evening at Space in Evanston, IL. She was (once) an obscure, modern folk artist. Then, a song of hers went viral on TikTok. (So, my son tells me.) The crowd this evening was young, even for this trendy venue on Chicago’s ever hip north shore.

Existential angst (or dread, depending on your flavor of melancholy) is the thread that runs through her work. She is a siren for the spirit of this age. Her chords strike true with my son, who turned me on to her, and with my daughter, who accompanied us to the show.

I was young once also, and the existential angst of my youth drove me on a quest that led me to the threshold of Jesus, the Lamb of God who was slain for the sins of the world. A different generation, now, leans into a similar ages old myopia.

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
….
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

Ecclesiastes 1:2

This words may have accompanied a more ancient tune played on a lyre from a more distant youth, but the melody sounds the same.

Existential first visited me one night when I was too young to have a vocabulary for the experience. We watched old home movies from a projector in our living room. Younger ghosts of my parents and grandparents played on the grainy screen in washed out black and white.

I remember it like a dream sequence. The images and feelings of the past are equally washed out in my mind now, but the poignance and clarity of the dread that I felt is clear.

This was, I believe, the first time I became aware of the unforgiving and unrelenting passage of time. This was the first time, perhaps, that I stared the inevitability of death in the face, and the eyes of death stared back, penetrating into my soul.

The next sequence in this dream is now (and always has been) more palpable and imminent than those grainy home movies. Later that night, I found myself detached …. floating in a yawning chasm of outer space …. utterly alone and disconnected.

I don’t know to this day whether I had a dream when I fell asleep that night or whether it came to me in a ghastly vision. It doesn’t matter. If claustrophobia can be felt in an endless void, the experience would be close to what I felt. Angst and dread have nothing on the feelings I had that night.

I say this to frame my thoughts as I recall the song with which Haley Heynderickx closed out the evening: the Untitled God Song.

Continue reading “The Untitled God Song and the Deity of Our Existential Angst” →