Category: Faith

Are We Alien and Strange Enough in Our World?

Are you looking for a heavenly country?

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Aliens and strangers in our world: that is an apt definition of Christians. We are made for more than the present heavens and present earth that we live in. Though we are born of perishable seed, we have been born again of imperishable seed, and we look forward to the day when we, like the acorn, will die so that we may rise again.

I say these things as I think about the chaos, or law and order, of our times, depending upon your perspective. I see it as chaos from the perspective of the immigrants who have come to the United States for a better life. It is just law and order from the perspective of the person who defends the current immigration laws of our country.

Of course, it isn’t that simple. Slavery was once legal in our country. Is it really just law and order? Or is it something else?

Our ancestors came here for a better life. Unless, of course, our ancestors are Native American. My father’s ancestors came here in 1846. they entered a commercial port in New York City before Ellis Island existed and before there was any process in place to receive immigrants. My mother’s ancestors came here long before that.

When I was young, we celebrated the pilgrims and other sojourners who came here for a better life. Seeking a better life for ourselves and our families, our children and our children’s children was the American way. We were proud of the pioneer spirit brought people to our shores.

It’s also a bit more complicated for Christians, as we believe this world is not all there is, as I often say. Followers of Christ know that a place has been prepared for each one of us. We know that storing up treasures on this earth is a futile and fruitless endeavor at the end of our days. The only thing that ultimately matters are the treasures we store in heaven – if, indeed, we are actually people of faith.

We store our treasures in heaven by following the narrow path, by taking up our crosses and following Jesus. We do this by laying down the desires of our own flesh, and living for the love of God and the love of our neighbor.

To those of us who are clinging to the rock of this country, who are trying to defend the law and order that protects our comfort, our future, and our way of life, I say, you are clinging to the wrong thing. In fact, it really isn’t really a rock at all.

A nation is actually shifting sand. Like the sands of the great civilization of Babylon that lies today in deserted ruins, on a wind-swept dessert expanse without inhabitant. A nation is an empty and parched hope that turns to dust. People, however, have eternal value.

As I look at the way the present administration of this country is carrying out the agenda of President Donald Trump, I am saddened all the way around. I am not unpatriotic. I am not empty of all nationalistic pride, but the older I get and the more deeply I commit to Jesus, the more I identify as an alien and stranger in our world. My citizenship is not ultimately in the United States of America – or in any worldly nation. My citizenship is in heaven.

And as I turn down another stretch in this journey of my life, I am learning to be more focused on life after life, which is the life that Jesus urges us to focus on. The kingdom of God, which is not a kingdom of this world, is a foretaste of the next. That is the aim of people of faith.

By faith Abraham made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country. Isaac and Jacob did the same. They were waiting for “the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11: 9-10) All the people offered to us as examples of faith in Hebrews 11 welcomed the promises of God from a distance as “welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were “foreigners and strangers on earth” (Heb. 11:13) because they were longing for a “heavenly country” (Heb. 11:16) – not an earthly country.

So, as Christians on either side of the modern immigration issues, we cannot lose sight of our heavenly home, of that city whose architect and maker is the Lord. We longingly wait for the new heavens and the new earth that will come down and that day when the Lord, Himself, will dwell among us. That is our destiny and that is our destination.

Nations come and go. The grand monuments to our national identities will become like the Babylonian ruins, the heavens and earth will fade away, but a person who is born of imperishable seed lives forever. What, then, is a nation? Nations do not last.

We live by faith in the hope of the new Jerusalem where people from every tribe and nation and tongue will gather before the throne of the Lamb, crying, “Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord, God Almighty!” No human eye has seen nor mind conceived what is the greatness of the world that lies in store for us.

Why cling to the comforts and the privileges and the things that we can accumulate in this life when we are promised a life we cannot even imagine? Perhaps it is because we have a hard time imagining it. Yet, that is the substance of true faith – the certainty of things hoped for.

We should ask ourselves as we look at the great examples of faith God chose to parade before us in Hebrews 11 whether we would be honored to be counted among them? Or whether we think they were foolish to be tortured, jeered at, flogged and imprisoned for such a hope? They are commended for their faith in the promises of God they didn’t receive in this life.

Perhaps, the immigration issue separates sheep from goats. The laws and order of this country that wall out a field that is ripe unto harvest for the imperishable seed of the gospel are of illusory value to the person of faith. Are we willing to gain our country at the loss of our citizenship in heaven?

That is a question we all must ask ourselves. Even if we do not ask that question, though, we are all deciding which side of the wall we are on in the decisions we make daily. Are we aliens and strangers in our world? Or have we chosen the world as our portion?

Training in Godliness

Training in godliness may be a bit different than what you suppose.

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Life is a journey, and each day is a leg in that journey. Proverbs says that a man makes his plans, but God directs his steps. Basically, God is ultimately in control, but we have something to say in the process. Where we end up depends on whether and how we align ourselves with God and HIs purposes.

The weekly reading for the small group I am in (and the subject of the sermon this coming Sunday) is 1 Timothy 4:7-10. That passage inspires my writing today as part of the leg of my journey that I call today. My focus will be the following two verses:

Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.

1 timothy 4:7-8 (niv)

I was fortunate today that I didn’t just set out to check off this reading for Wednesday night. I came at this reading with a more intentional and devoted mindset, which I suppose is appropriate for the topic. I can’t say that I always have the mindfulness to do that, but today I did.

I might otherwise have assumed I knew what “godless myths” are and what “godly” training is. I might have glossed over those phrases without really understanding what Paul is saying, but I realized as read them that I didn’t really know what he meant by “godless myths” and training to be “godly.”

Acknowledging this, I took one step back to read these verses in context. I read verse 6, which says:

If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed.

1 Timothy 4:6 (emphasis added)

Of course, then I had to step further back to see what Paul meant when he said, “If you point these things….” What things? The previously verses contain those “things”:

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

1 Timothy 4:1-5

I am still not sure what “deceiving spirits” these people followed or what “teachings” Paul references here, but the fact that Paul calls these teachers “hypocritical liars” who taught ascetic religious practices (forbidding marriage and ordering abstinence from certain foods) is a clue. Affirming that God created everything good and receiving those good things with thanksgiving and prayer is another clue.

it seems that another clue lies in the use of the word, hypocritical,” which I learned recently was not meant in exactly the same way modern people think of it. We think of hypocrisy as saying one thing and doing another. The Greek word, ὑπόκρισις (hupokrisis), that we translate as hypocrisy literally means “to act under a feigned part.”

In other words, a hypocrite is an actor. A hypocrite according to the Greek meaning is someone playing a part, a person pretending to be someone or to know something than who or what they are.

As I considered these things, I realized that the Greek words translated into English as “godless myths” and training to “godly” might also give me a better understanding of what Paul is saying. When I dove into the Greek, the meaning became clearer, and it isn’t necessarily what I might have thought.

I might have answered, if someone pressed me, that godliness is how a person behaves. I might have said that godliness means doing right, living according to God’s rules, and conforming to biblical morality, but that isn’t what Paul is saying here. To be sure, godliness does bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit, but we should not confuse the fruit for the root.

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Is the American Church a House Divided Against Itself?

Whether God for us or against us is the wrong question.

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I have yet to find my equilibrium after the Charlie Kirk killing. I didn’t know Charlie Kirk. I didn’t follow him. I heard him speak one time at an event in which Ravi Zacharias was the keynote speaker, but I never watched, or listened, or read anything from Charlie Kirk online. I didn’t agree with his Republican apologetic, though I couldn’t have identified anything Charlie Kirk specifically said before his death.

Since his death, I have heard and read testimony of his love for Jesus. His wife, Erika, publicly forgave his killer in an ultimate act of sacrificial obedience to Jesus.

Charlie Kirk’s legacy will always be that of a follower of Jesus and a staunch Republican, friend and defender of Donald Trump, who maintained political views opposed to mine.

I am a born again Christian. I believe in the death of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of my sins and his resurrection from the dead. I believe the Bible is the word of God and His revelation to mankind. I read the Bible daily. I believe there is only one path to God, and that is through Jesus Christ. I go to church every Sunday, and I am involved in Wednesday evening and Saturday morning Bible studies.

I have been a Christian for 45 years. The fundamentals of my faith have not changed in that time, but I have gone down some side roads from which I had to retreat back to a more orthodox faith. I was tempted by the prosperity gospel, and I once embraced an Americanized Christianity verging on idolatry.

Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God has not changed during my life (or at any time since the foundation of the earth), but I have changed often, as I have had to adjust my thinking, confess my sin, and allow my mind to be transformed by God’s Word and the influence of the Holy Spirit in my life.

I am a work in progress, of course. I have yet to arrive at any final destination, but I look forward with yearning for the day when I see Him face to face, and I will know as I am fully known!

I used to believe that all true Christians should (and therefore must) believe all of the same things about everything. That makes sense in a rationalistic way because we all have the same Holy Spirit, and we all read the same Bible, so we all should believe exactly the same things about everything. Right?

Continue reading “Is the American Church a House Divided Against Itself?” →

The Importance of Separating from the Culture, Politics, and Spirit of Our Age

We are called to be in the world but not of the world or influenced by the world

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I have become hyper vigilant about the influence of our current times, culture, politics, etc. on my theology. We can’t help ourselves but to struggle with the currents of our times as they threaten to push us along in their path.

We might find ourselves swept along without even noticing it. Or we might take the opposite course and fight against those currents in the opposite direction. Both responses are problematic for the Christian who desires to follow Christ and to live according to his kingdom that is not of this world.

Whether we are being carried along by the currents of this present world, or fighting in opposition to them, we can find ourselves being wholly defined by the world – what we are for and what are against – instead of the purpose and commission Christ Jesus gave to us. Both types of responses to the world lead us off the path of following Jesus.

My views on this come from a sermon I heard in my early twenties 40 some years ago. I forget the biblical texts that laid the foundation, but the foundation remains with me: whether we allow the currents of our world to sweep us along or we fight in opposition to those currents, we are constantly in danger of defining ourselves and our theology in relation to the world – rather than in relation to God and His kingdom.

If we are followers of Jesus Christ, we might look at times as if we are going in the direction of the world. At other times, we might look as if we are going in direct opposition to the world. In reality, the Christian who follows Christ is walking a straight path. His path will take us at times in the same direction the world around us seems to be going and at other times in the opposite direction.

Christopher Watkin calls this Christian phenomenon “diagonalization” because it often looks like we are working at cross purposes to the world in both directions. As the world is pushes left, we appear to be pulling right; and as the world pushes right, we appear to be pulling to the left.

The key is that we should not allow ourselves to be defined by the world around us. We should be influenced and defined by God alone and His revelation to us found in the Bible.

I made one statement above that is not exactly true. I do remember one verse on which the sermon that influenced me so many years ago hung: “It is good that you grasp one thing, and also not let go of the other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them.” (Ecclesiastes 7:18) I call this holding things in tension.

We do this with the Bible itself. We learn to hold things in tension. Our fear (respect) for God and His word compels us to grasp one thing we know to be true while not letting go of other things we know to be true – even when it is difficult holding onto both things.

We fear (respect, trust) that God has greater perspective than we do. When He tells us to hate sin as He hates sin and to love people (who are all sinners), we need to grasp and hold onto both things as true, even though they may seem (to us) to be in tension with each other.

When we do that, we find that we come forward with both truths and a better understanding of Truth (capital T). We understand, for instance, that God hates sin because of what it does to us and to the rest of His creation, among other things.

As finite beings, we always have an understanding gap. Even when we think we know something, we are ignorant of what we don’t know. The Bible describes that reality by saying that God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts.

We all know “religious” people who are hard, self-righteous, and unloving. They find it easier to hold onto the idea that God hates sin and more difficult to grasp the love God has for people who sin. We also know people who tolerate, accept, and even embrace sin in everyone (including themselves) because they feel that the tension between love for people and hating sin is too difficult to navigate.

People tend to want to gravitate to one end or the other of a spectrum of thoughts that seem to be in tension with each other because it might seem simpler and make more sense to us. For instance, some people reject the idea that human beings can even know truth because of our finitude, while others (in rejecting this post modern skepticism) double down arrogantly on the things we think we know. If we hold these things in tension, we reject the idea that human beings cannot know truth while we remain humble in what we think we know.

The person who fears God, grasps the one thing without letting go of the other. We may not do this perfectly well, but we understand that both of these things are true, and we strive to hold them in tension.

I have taken longer to get to the point than I expected, so I am going to finish this train of thought now by tying it back into the opening paragraph. What does this have to do with influence of the currents of the culture, politics, and spirit of our times on our theology?

Continue reading “The Importance of Separating from the Culture, Politics, and Spirit of Our Age” →

Does God Flip Flop? Abraham, Isaac, and Us

What changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament?

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I am listening to The Basic Folk podcast episode 316 with Joy Oladokun (an artist I like by the way) Perhaps, that is a strange way to open a blog post on the age old heresy of Marcionism – the belief that the god revealed in the Old Testament is different from God revealed in the New Testament. Hang with me though!

Joy Oladokun (who is a musical artist you should check out) grew up in the church and cut her musical chops on worship music and listening to Phil Collins with her father. She uses biblical themes in her music, which also has a distinctly spiritual character to it.

Though she may have some heretical ideas about God and the Bible, I believe we can appreciate and like music even when the artist doesn’t believe exactly as we do and, in this case, even when she has heretical ideas about God and the Bible. We are all on a journey in our relationship to God, and I appreciate that about people and the music people make on their own journeys.

Anyway, around the 15 minute mark in the podcast Joy Oladokun expresses her understanding that God, in the Old Testament flip flops. Then, she provides this short theological synopsis, “It’s like, ‘Sacrifice your son…. Never mind, here’s a goat.” I am chuckling even now, but her thoughts and the example she gives deserves a response.

Many people her age (and all ages, really) have an issue with the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. It also opens up a biblical theme that I glimpsed as a young nonbeliever reading the Bible for the first time many years ago that continues to develop as I age.

Perhaps, I am fortunate that I didn’t pay much attention to theology in my formative years, because I didn’t formulate many theological ideas that colored and warped my view of God. When I read the Bible for the first time in college, I came to it with no preconceived ideas and no assumptions (that I recall).

I was raised Catholic, but I didn’t even realize that the readings in the mass were from the Bible (until after I became a Christian). I could not recall anything from the catechism classes I took. I was pretty much too zoned out (and, later, stoned out) to latch onto many theological constructs.

I didn’t know anything about evangelical ideas, like biblical inerrancy, predestination, and eschatological schemes. I came at the Bible like I approached all literature, poetry, and philosophy. I let it speak to me and convey its message to me.

Early on (as I read Genesis), I learned that Abraham heard the voice of God, and he responded in faith (with trust). I learned that the Ancient Near Eastern people from whom Abraham descended and believed in many gods who were more or less arbitrary and capricious. One of those beliefs that was ubiquitous in Abraham’s day was the belief that gods require child sacrifice to be appeased.

I could see that the God who Abraham “heard” was not like those other gods that he and the people around him believed in. I could see that Abraham lived his life on a journey (quite literally) of discovery about this God whose “voice” he heard.

Abraham’s understanding was evolving as he sensed this God and responded in faith to Him. He was learning that God was not like the gods with which he was familiar. This God made promises, and He kept them. This God desired a relationship with Abraham, and He was trustworthy.

I have to admit that the story about Isaac was a bit of a mystery to me then, but I didn’t rush to any conclusions. I understood that child sacrifice was practiced throughout the ancient Levant, but something was different about this story that carried some significance, though I wasn’t quite sure of all that it meant at the time.

There was a lot I didn’t understand. I was on a journey myself, and I realized there was mystery in the stories that belied quick or simple explanations. I, like Abraham perhaps, was willing to explore where a connection to this God might take me (after a brief flirtation with Eastern religion).

I have been on this journey now for over 45 years. I responded to the God of Abraham when I was 19 (the summer after I first read the Bible). I was far from knowing all the answers (though I did go through a period in which I thought I knew much more than I did).

I guess the thought that we know more than we really do is a human trait, and it is one we are well advised to resist. We are finite beings, regardless of the knowledge we collect, and we will never be more than finite beings in these earthly bodies that we will take to our graves.

I can’t tell you how many years I have taken to get to a place of some comfortable understanding on the Abraham and Isaac story. It is more than I might like to admit, but I have always been willing to give God the benefit of the doubt, which is what Abraham did. It is what he was commended for: faith, which is simply trusting in the goodness of God.

The Bible we have says that God told Abraham to go sacrifice his son, Isaac. We cannot escape that is what the Bible says. But, is that what God actually said?

Or is that just what Abraham “heard”? Or is it just what Abraham understood? Or is it just what he felt compelled to do?

I don’t know, and I think it is ok to say, “We don’t really know.” I also think it is ok to ask the question and to assume we may not necessarily have the right answer.

In any event, Abraham clearly believed that God told him to sacrifice his son. That requirement, of course, is antithetical to the promise God had given Abraham – that Abraham’s descendants would fill the earth and become as numerous as the stars in the sky. Yet, Abraham dutifully (if not reluctantly) complied with what he believed he must do.

This is a kind of faith that we don’t understand today, especially in the post Enlightenment age of reason and science driven more recently by post-modern skepticism. We are told in Sunday school (as I have learned) that this story is about Abraham’s faith and willingness to do what he was told, though it didn’t make sense

I think that is partially true, but I have come to see that the story is not only (or maybe even primarily) about faith. The story isn’t primarily about Abraham, either. He is just the vessel through which the story unfolds. The story is about God, and who God is, and the character of God.

Whether God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, or Abraham jumped to that conclusion, doesn’t matter so much. Child sacrifice was demanded by the gods, according to Ancient Near Eastern religious thought that was formative in Abraham’s outlook on the world. He responded according to the custom, practice, and wisdom of his age.

I have written about this a number of times before. (See the Abraham and the Paradigm Shift, Abraham and the Love of God, Abraham and Isaac Revisited: Introduction, Abraham and Isaac Revisited: Here I Am, Abraham, Abraham and Faith and the Hope Deferred, and Abraham and the Blood Path) I am not going to cover all that ground again, but I return to the same theme again because it has roots in my initial revelation of God and my own journey of faith. As I hope to flesh out, it also provides some insight into the God who seems to flip flop.

Continue reading “Does God Flip Flop? Abraham, Isaac, and Us” →