Category: Christian

Vain Discussions

We get into the weeds on issues that may be interesting, but they aren’t central or necessary to the Gospel.

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Male friends arguing

“As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.” (1 Timothy 1:3-7)

What Paul characterizes here in the first chapter of his first letter to Timothy is something that goes on quite a bit in religious circles today. We may not speculate about “myths and endless genealogies” today, but we engage in similar discussions. I don’t think that myths and genealogies are so much the issue, as the time we spend locked into trying to prove and persuade others of particular points and principles that are peripheral and distract us from “the stewardship of God that is by faith”.

When Paul talks about certain persons teaching a “different doctrine”, I don’t think he is speaking about doctrine in the way we might view the word today. In Paul’s time, there were no systematic theologies. Doctrinal issues focused on the fundamentals – who is Jesus? Did he rise from the dead in bodily form? Must believers be circumcised?

Today, there is no end to the theologies and doctrinal points of view that get so finely tuned as to focus on modern equivalents to how many angles can dance on the head of a pin without jostling each other. I jest of course; but that is the point. We get into the weeds on issues that may be interesting, but they aren’t central or necessary to the Gospel.

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Righteousness By Faith

Faith and hope of the kind Abraham had that was counted to him as righteousness isn’t real unless it changes us and our outlook on the world and becomes the driving force of our lives.

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Abraham believed God, and God “reckoned” that faith to Abraham as righteousness.[1] When God told Abraham to look at the stars and said to Abraham that he would bear offspring and have descendants like the stars in the sky, Abraham believed God.  What does that really mean?

We get a bit of a clue by looking at the Hebrew word translated “believe”: āman. It means to confirm (support), as when putting confidence in something that is supported (trustworthy).[2] The Hebrew suggests that Abraham confirmed, affirmed, supported, or had confidence in what God was telling him.

But there is more to it than that. The word, āman, as used in this passage, is in the hiphil form. The hiphil form suggests an act of intentional interaction with a subject.

This suggests Abraham didn’t just stare at the stars, daydreaming. He consciously and intentionally engaged with God and what God was saying to him. He affirmatively confirmed, supported and put his confidence in what God was saying to him in some interactive way.

Faith/belief is a key concept and critical characteristic of the follower of Christ. Abraham is held up as the prime example of faith. Abraham is the father of faith.[3]

Paul says that Abraham was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”[4] This active faith, trust and confidence in God that Abraham demonstrated is what God “counted to him as righteousness”.[5] Faith is interactive trust.

This same faith, Paul says, will also be counted to those of us as righteousness who “believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”[6]

In one sense, Abraham didn’t do anything to earn God’s favor but believe God, and God attributed righteousness to him in return. Such a simple thing! On the other hand, Abraham’s faith was not just intellectual ascent; he lived his life in the light of that faith.

And that is what we must do to be counted as righteous in God’s sight today – to believe in the one God sent to us, Jesus Christ, who suffered, died and was buried for us, and who has risen from the dead establishing the promise of God to us that we will be risen to in newness of life. If we truly believe this is true, it will become the pivotal point, the centerpiece and the hope of our lives.

This seems so very simple that we are tempted to think we need to do more. We are tempted to think we must do more to be counted as righteous. It isn’t quite so simple as we suspect, but we have to keep our eyes on what is important.

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Who Are You Not to Forgive Yourself?

If you have confessed your sins and asked for forgiveness, God has forgiven you.

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Depositphotos Image ID: 31059699 Copyright: prometeu

Mary Poplin is a former radical feminist, new age spiritualist, liberal professor who became a Christian and spent some time working with Mother Teresa. Hers is an unusual and intriguing story.

Among other things, she talks about Mother Teresa’s radical forgiveness. For instance, Richard Dawkins wrote an entire book about Mother Teresa in which he criticized her vilely for taking money from other people, among other things. The brief glimpse Mary Poplin gives us into the life of Mother Teresa reveals a woman who, perhaps as much as anyone in modern history, lived the sacrificial example of Jesus. This stands in contrast to the stark, cold criticism of the atheist, Dawkins.

The point of this blog article isn’t a comparison between the two, however, but, to focus “radical forgiveness”. Mother Teresa’s response was: “It matters not; he’s forgiven.”

And when Dawkins heard the response, he wasn’t very happy about it. He scoffed that he doesn’t need to be forgiven, and he didn’t ask to be forgiven. Mother Teresa’s response when she heard about his response was to laugh and to say, “It’s not I that forgives; it’s God. God has forgiven him.”

The point here, is that though Dawkins had reviled Mother Teresa, she forgave him unconditionally. Mary Poplin, summarized Mother Teresa and her followers, “They didn’t have any hooks left in them.” They didn’t hold on to any ill will whatsoever.

I don’t know about Mother Teresa’s theology, but the example of living out the forgiveness that Jesus demonstrated and called us to live out is the key. It is radical, and it’s rooted in our acknowledgment that God is God, and we are not. You might as well call it radical obedience because it matters not what we think or feel about the subject.

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No One is Born a Christian

You can be born a Hindu. You can be born a Muslim, You can be born a Jew.

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Depositphotos Image ID: 171920302 Copyright: GDArts17

I have written a an article titled, God has no Grandchildren. I just watched a talk by Mary Poplin in which she makes the bold statement, “You can not ne born a Christian. You can be born a Hindu. You can be born a Muslim, You can be born a Jew. You cannot be born a Christian.” (Mary Poplin: The Radical Conversion of a Secular Scholar) I realized immediately that these points are intertwined.

Without any adieu, you must be born again!

“Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.’
“Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’
“‘How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!’
“Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’
‘How can this be?’ Nicodemus asked.
“’You are Israel’s teacher,’ said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.'” (John 3:1-13)

We have to be born into relationship with God. We don’t inherit a relationship with God. We must receive Him directly, on our own.

“[T]o all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (John 1:12-13)

 

 

Shadow of Things to Come

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Photo by Beth Drendel

I’ve been reading through the Bible slowly from Genesis to Revelation. This is something I have not done in many years. I have taken some sidetracks and rabbit hole excursions along the way, but I am still plodding forward.

It’s amazing that circumstances of life arise from time to time of which the particular passage I am reading comes to bear on those circumstances. This is the case in a poignant way in regard to a conversation I had with a very close friend recently.

We were talking about the Catholic Church and a bad experience that close friend to both of us had being raised by strict parents in a strict Catholic school setting. I was also raised Catholic, though my experience differed from his. I didn’t go to parochial school, and I didn’t experience the strictness of the Catholic Church like he did, though I certainly saw evidence of it.

In my friend’s case, the strictness and severity he experienced bordered on abuse. I don’t know the details, but his reactions to things religious suggest he might have some degree of PTSD as a result of his experiences.

I don’t mean to pick on the Catholic Church. I have seen the same “spirit” evident in other denominations as well. A hyper focus on do’s and don’ts and religious rituals practiced in front of the foreboding audience of church authorities are the common denominator. The Westboro Baptist Church is a very extreme example of the legalism and dogmatism I am talking about.

The very day following this conversation, I read these words penned by Paul the Apostle about two millennia ago:

Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival our new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come,  but the substance is in Christ.

Colossians 2:16-17

It seems that some things haven’t changed in 2000 years!

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