Tell Me a Story

When I was in college, the experimental theater class would occasionally put on small productions entitled “Tell Me a Story.” They didn’t have a huge budget, but they would dress in costumes generally and spend an evening performing short dramas, usually around a particular theme. After a night titled “Tell Me a SCARY Story”, I remember watching my fellow students dart to their dorms in groups thanks to the night’s fare and thinking to myself about how drama is such a powerful method of communication.

In fact, anything involving the use of narrative seems to exert a good deal of influence over us. Perhaps that’s why so much of the Bible is made up of narrative. Some Christians believe that the Bible should be understood strictly as narrative, especially since our postmodern society leans heavily in this direction. I don’t have anything personal against my brothers in Christ, but I definitely have a problem with limiting God’s Word to a narrative whose story must be consistently reinterpreted.

On this subject, Rob Bell said in a 2004 interview in Christianity Today that he and his wife were in the process of “discovering the Bible as a human product.” In his view, the Bible is more like a member of his church community with stories to share about a variety of topics. Bell’s desire is to avoid the mistake of placing the Bible on the dissection table and forgetting to look into and be changed by “the Perfect Law of Liberty.” Brian McLaren is even more transparent when he writes:

When we theological conservatives seek to understand the Bible, we generally analyze it. We break it down into chapters, paragraphs, verses, sentences, clauses, phrases, words, prefixes, roots, suffixes, jots, and tittles. Now we understand it, we tell ourselves. Now we have conquered to text, captured the meaning, removed all mystery, stuffed it and preserved it for posterity, like a taxidermist with a deer head.”

It’s a tragedy that people would analyze God’s Word without it applying to themselves, and it happens all too often. I suspect that the emergent church is more of a reaction against modernism than it is a return to right thinking. McLaren would tell us that intensive Bible studies are the result of the Enlightenment, I would ask him to peer further back into the past. In doing so, he would see the Bereans, apostles, church fathers, Reformers, Puritans, Methodists, and Baptists all involved in this very sort of Bible study. Christians have always believed that the Word of God is worth studying by whatever means necessary.

It’s true that the Bible includes a good deal of narrative. However, the Bible is also almost entirely made of propositional statements. In his book The Post-Evangelical, Tomlinson ironically states: “Post-evangelicals are less inclined to look for truth in propositional statements and old moral certitudes and more likely to seek it in symbols, ambiguities, and situational judgments.”

One has to wonder where the animosity toward propositional statements came from. After all, we make use of them every day. Every time we state a fact, we are making a proposition. We don’t have to be right about the fact we are stating, but a proposition is made nonetheless. “The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.” “I love artichoke hearts.” “My cat’s name is Olivia.” Whether it’s an account of David vs. Goliath or Jesus’ assertion that He is Way, Truth, and Life or Paul’s teaching on salvation being by grace instead of works, propositional statements are all over the Bible. To be honest, I have no idea why emergent church leaders even bother writing about this. After all, their own claims and assertions are themselves propositional statements!

It seems the postmodern believers are quite fond of the “good fences make good neighbors” mantra. You must either adhere to one extreme or the other, and never the twain shall  meet. It’s either propositions or narratives, being informed or being transformed, knowing what to believe or knowing the Lord of those beliefs. The Bible doesn’t put such burdens on us, fortunately. We can boldly proclaim the truths of Scripture when they are stated outright, and we can also enjoy and learn from the narrative of Scripture.

So go ahead. Tell me a story. Just make sure you get your facts right, and make sure there’s a point to it all.

Short: Naturalism as a Worthless Worldview

J. P. Moreland lists five questions that all worldviews must answer:

1. What is real?
2. What are the nature and limits of knowledge?
3. What is the good life?
4. Who is a really good person?
5. How does one become a really good person?

Now I know these are not the usual questions a person asks about a worldview. It’s all about origin and reality of the physical world, but that’s not all there is to reality. There must be things that are accounted for that extend beyond matter and energy.

In naturalism, the physical world is the only reality. Knowledge is merely an understanding of that physical world through the sciences. The good life is whatever you choose for yourself, a good person consists of bettering yourself according to your own definiton of “bettering”, and there’s no real advice to be offered in bettering yourself because everything is ultimately worthless and empty. We only have to wait for death of life on this rock orbiting our home star, and the universe will ultimately suffer heat death.

Isn’t it obvious? Naturalism is a shallow worldview, incapable of offering satisfying answers. As Moreland says, Jesus Christ is the only “game in town.”

Naturalism: Devalued Existence

In a previous post I had briefly pointed out a few flaws with a naturalistic worldview. It fails to explain the humanity behind being human. Free will, appreciation for beauty, and reason aren’t well-explained in terms of natural causes. Another difficulty with a naturalistic worldview is the devaluing of existence. If our lives are to have objective meaning, there must be some things that are good, right, and beautiful. Those things must be ends in and of themselves, and they must be worth pursuing. There must be people and ideals that are worth living and dying for.

Of course, we must also believe that we can know what is good, right, and beautiful. This also means that we can know what is wrong, evil, and marred somehow. The means of knowing is unsavory to the naturalist. The existence of value and the standard of value are seemingly abstract and not a part of the physical world, which of course blows the naturalistic agenda to bits. Therefore, things and people of value are flatly denied, or the value of everything and anything is readily affirmed. The problem, then, is that if everything has value we still have no basis for evaluating worth in an objective sense. I say that hard work and honesty make a person valuable, but what if you value deceit and slothfulness? Are those character traits truly valuable to individuals or societies? I dare say not! No, the naturalist would rather blithely put that all things lack intrinsic value. It is much easier to say “vanity, vanity, all is vanity” and leave it at that. That’s the sort of world Bertrand Russell believes in.

You are no more valuable than a cockroach or a star or an atom in a naturalistic world. Fortunately we know that reality is far different than the naturalist portrays it. Some things are beautiful, and some are not. Some things are valuable, and others are worthless. Some things are moral, and others are horribly immoral. The naturalistic world required to allow Darwinism to exist as a plausible theory simply cannot be.

The Pursuit of Happiness

In 2006, the biographical drama The Pursuit of Happyness graced the silver screen with a heart-warming message of hope. That hope, we are told, is one in which you and I can be truly happy if we can just succeed. We can succeed in our jobs, in our families, and in our various other goals, and if we have success (however we define it) we will be truly happy. Such is the lie of a sensate, spiritually-bankrupt culture. Reality tells a much different story.

The truth is that happiness itself cannot be experienced when it is the ultimate goal. In fact, you will see happy people in Western mansions and developing countries, in homes and orphanages, and in hospitals and gymnasiums. Happiness is not something that can be captured through seeking. It is something that must be experienced through the fulfillment of other purposes. To be honest, I’m not so sure that humans are even capable of being happy with “mere” happiness.

This is what many philosophers and poets refer to as the “paradox of hedonism.” As William Bennett once said: “”Happiness is like a cat, If you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you; it will never come. But if you pay not attention to it and go about your business, you’ll find it rubbing against your legs and jumping into your lap.” If you and I live by a modern, hedonistic interpretation of The Pursuit of Happiness, we’ll interpret everything according to that paradigm. Jobs, spouses, churches, children….even God Himself will wax or wane in importance to us based on how well they help us achieve this goal of happiness. It’s the new geocentric theory: the universe revolves around 6.5 billion individuals simultaneously!

The truth is that people must live for something bigger than themselves to even remotely experience this Happiness we all crave. We must take up some Cause, some Belief, some Purpose that we deem worthy of ourselves. Comedian Jeff Allen (Yes, I’ve quoted a comedian and a politician in the same post. It’s an off day…) once said that a man needs something he’s willing to die for to feel complete. He’s absolutely right. We need a sense of true purpose, to know that what we accomplish in life matters. We need to know what the standard for success and failure is. We need a finish line to press toward.

In a culture incapable of creating a sense of enduring worth and any sense of real absolutes, we have produced several generations of what psychologists call “empty selves.” Philip Cushman defines the empty self as: “filled up with consumer goods, calories, experiences, politicians, romantic partners, and empathetic therapists…. experience a significant absence of community, tradition, and shared meaning….a lack of personal conviction and worth, and it embodies the absences as a chronic, undifferentiated emotional hunger.” What an accurate depiction of life in these United States!

And what is the result? Martin Seligmann’s research in 1988 states that the Baby Boom generation increased tenfold in levels of depression relative to previous generations. Seligmann states that this was because Baby Boomers started living for self and not for a cause (God, family, country) bigger than they were. They forgot the Eternal in favor of the Immediate. They lost the art of becoming a wise, virtuous person. In seeking pleasure and happiness, they lost both.

Happiness is not an achievement. It is a byproduct of living the good life. Any worldview that is worth its salt must accurately describe the good life, and it must have true happiness as its byproduct. Christianity accurately describes a good life- the life of discipleship- that yields ultimate happiness and satisfaction. The lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Daniel, the Disciples, Paul, and even Jesus Himself speak of a life that may require sacrifice and choosing hard roads, but will result in ultimate joy, ultimate satisfaction, and the promise of eternal reward in the bliss of Heaven. This is the abundant life that Jesus gives. It isn’t just about length of life. It’s about the ultimate quality of that life.

With My Body, I Thee Worship

I want to suggest here in this post that worship is the greatest need of any human who has walked the face of this earth. That isn’t to say that you and I don’t have other needs that are important. However, the need to worship is what we feel most strongly. The reality is that worship is what makes the world go round. I mean that both in the most positive and most negative way possible. Of course faith is important to people, and many good things have been done in the name of Christianity. Many evil things are done because of worship as well. In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis says: “All that we call human history–money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery–[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

Ravi Zacharias defines worship as “a posture of life that takes as its primary purpose the understanding of what it really meant to love and revere God. It is the most sacred intimacy of all.” In other words, when Jesus said that He was the Bread of Life and that He offered Living Water capable of quenching any hunger and any thirst, He intended His words to be far more meaningful than most of us take it. When He said that the greatest commandment was: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, He was referring to a life of worship. He was referring to a relationship that blends together both the physical and spiritual, reverence and passion, intense celebration and deep commitment.

Perhaps this is why Jesus speaks in terms of food and water. Yes, they are needs that must be fulfilled. However, we do not merely eat to satisfy a need. We also eat and drink because it is pleasurable. We enjoy eating, drinking, and being merry. Worship also is pleasurable to us, and it brings a sort of satisfaction and joy that is more celestial than terrestial. Partaking in food and drink are also times of fellowship. Any Christian knows that fellowship and food are virtually synonymous in a church setting. Outside the church, the relationship between relationship-building and food is strong. We meet and eat for business, romance, as a stress-relief, and even as a way of showing sympathy. Worship is also a time of fellowship. It is in worship that we have true fellowship with the Creator, the God Who came near. (Is there a significance in Communion being a time of people partaking of food and drink together? I think so.)

In short, worship is about far more than music. It is about prayer, Bible study, evangelism, discipleship, child rearing, engineering, teaching, construction, rest, travel, and, yes, even meals. Worship is about the whole Being. Notice that Ravi Zacharias says that worship is a “posture of life.” It isn’t about an hour on Sunday, or even several hours every day. It is about every moment of every day being Sacred. It is about doing all to the glory of God. It is about a reverential love for the Creator and Savior.

Thomas Cranmer knew that the English word “Love” didn’t do justice to the reality it was meant to describe. Though it has gone out of practice, Cranmer changed the marriage rite in 1662 to include the line: “With my body I thee worship and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.” It was later changed to “with this ring I thee wed.” I personally like Cranmer’s version better. How much better is that line than crassly describing the consummation of marriage as “having sex”? How much more accurate is it to describe the intimacy of marriage as a type of worship, an image of the worship of God that should be a part of every believer’s life.

If it isn’t a part of our lives, we very quickly move on to worshipping something else, for we cannot restrain ourselves from doing so. We may worship power, wealth, fame, relationships, pleasure, false gods, or- ultimately- ourselves. That simply means that we haven’t looked beyond ourselves to see that there is Someone truly worthy of all that attention. If God is the only Thing in this world that can bring true happiness, doesn’t it make sense that we pursue Him with all of our Being? If experiencing Him brings the greatest fulfillment of all human experiences, what aspect of devotion can be deemed unnecessary? We must learn the Truth of Who He is, and we must experience that truth. We must seek the purity of heart He described. We must be willing to make sacrifices for Him because of Who He has sacrificed for us. We must enthusiastically revere the One Who is the chief end of Man.

MIA: Transitional Forms

Darwinistic "Tree of Life"

Dr. Geoffrey Simmons once wrote that if evolution is the explanation, then evolution has a lot of explaining to do. When it comes to attempting to trace the supposed macro-evolution of present-day flora and fauna through the fossil record, Dr. Simmons is very, very right. If evolution took place through small adaptions that culminated in major changes, one must ask how these changes took place and where all of the “missing links” went. Here’s a few examples of creatures which are too complex for adaptation over millions, nay billions, of years to explain away. And if someone were to theorize a mechanism to bring this adaptation about, there is certainly no fossil evidence for it. As one of my agnostic friends insists, those who assert a claim are responsible to validate that claim…..

• Bombardier beetles fire off hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone from separate glands in its abdomen. When combined, the exothermic reaction blasts predators at 500 bursts per second. How did the beetles choose those two chemicals out of the thousands available on this planet? Where are the transitional forms that developed the glands, chemicals, and firing mechanisms?
• The various species of whales can dive thousands of feet, adjust the pressure in various parts of their bodies to withstand the crushing weight of the water around them, adjust spermaceti in their heads to regulate buoyancy, store additional oxygen in muscle tissue for extended diving, and hunt by blowing a wall of bubbles to trap krill. How did they develop these abilities? Where are the transitional forms?
• The amoeba- a single-celled organism- can extend a “false foot” in any direction as it moves to attack food or escape a toxin or a predator. It lacks any apparent ancestors, yet is too complex to have been anything like the “simple” single-celled organisms mentioned by the Darwinists.
• Consider also the “migrating” body parts of some types of sea life. Leftvents have anuses that migrate from their left side to mid-line later in life, and flounder’s eyes migrate when they bury themselves in the sand. (Incidentally, one species of leftvent known as “netdevils” consist of females who function as predators and males who function as parasites, since they attach to the females and gain nourishment from their host’s circulatory system.) How did such features adapt? How did one species develop a parasitic and a predatory distinction between genders? And what evolutionary impetus necessitates a mobile anus, anyway?
• Some microbes suck out the chloroplasts of other microbes to create an internal food manufacturing system. The sea slug elysia does the same thing to seaweed. They are animals that depend on photosynthesis and nutrients from their prey for survival. How did they learn to do this?
• Fleas jump many times their body length with an acceleration of up to 100Gs. When they bite, their saliva injects blood thinner and vasodilator to prevent the blood vessel from clotting.  How did this adaptation take place?
• Nudibranchs are a type of sea slug that can swallow nerve toxins from sea anenomes and jellyfish and transfer them to their cerata to be used as a defense mechanism. If the ancestors of the nudibranchs had to develop this ability over time, how exactly did that work? Wouldn’t the first wave of ancestors be killed off?
• Cockroaches can survive over nine times the amount of radiation a human can. Their antannae alone have over 130 segments. They have an “extra” brain in their lower abdomens. They can carry a variety of pathogens yet not contract the diseases. They secrete a “suit of armor” upwards of seven times throughout their lifetimes which helps keep moisture in and bacteria out. They have a second set of teeth in their stomachs. Where is the precedent in the insect world for a second brain in the abdomen or a second set of teeth in the stomach? Did the 130-segment antennae develop all at once or gradually? How did they develop the ability to molt and secrete a new coat in such a short time?

How did all of these creatures evolve in the Darwinian sense? Gradual evolution seems nigh on impossible, yet here they are. Few serious scientists believe in punctuated equilibrium, yet if transitional forms do exist thanks to gradual macro-evolution, 99% of them have yet to show up in the fossil record. There is simply no clear-cut evidence for Darwinism in the fossil record. Why then has Darwinism persisted in the scientific community? The religious fervour surrounding Darwinism is curious. One would think the much-vaunted intellects of our day would appreciate some rigorous criticism so that they could more accurately get to the bottom of the “mystery” of how life originated.

Strangely, as James Lovelock pointed out in his book Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, “Things have taken a strange turn in recent years; almost the full circle from Galileo’s famous struggle with the theological establishment. It is the scientific establish that now forbids heresy.” Perhaps Intelligent Design is a better explanation in a scientific sense after all. True, that means postulating the existence of a Being that isn’t strictly detectable in the normal sense, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t evidence for His existence. And, as I’ve pointed out before, the ID vs. Darwinism debate only pits one metaphysical concept against another. Naturalism is a metaphysical concept which is ultimately unprovable by science, and Theism is a metaphysical concept which is just as ultimately unprovable by science. As such, the answer to the question of origins will never be strictly within the realm of science. It is ultimately in the realm of metaphysics that the solution will present itself.

The question is: which concept is there more evidence for? Job had the answer thousands of years ago:

“But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this?” (Job 12:7-9)

Contemporary Christian Music

I came from a slice of Christianity that loved to point out everything that is wrong with the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) movement. I grew up believing that drums and Christianity don’t go together. I believed that combining worldly music with Christian words made you sort of a Frankenstein. I believed that anyone involved in this sort of movement didn’t really love God, that they simply wanted to hang on to their liberal lifestyle. Then I did some studying in the realm of music, history, theology, and world cultures. I also met a number of people who did enjoy CCM, and I actually started listening to a few samples of this music. What I found out didn’t really jive with what I’d been told to believe.

Now, in defense of those that hold to such a belief system, there are any number of examples of poor Christian musicians, lyrics, and music. I know that there are some people who listen to and enjoy CCM that are flat out worldly. I also know that there are some who stand to make a profit off of music that is Christian. I also believe that believing that CCM is wrong or worldly doesn’t make you a bad person.

Here’s the thing: music standards aren’t on the list of things that I’d die for. Sorry if that bothers you. Yes, I’ll die for being a believer, protecting my family, or defending my country. I just don’t think music standards are something worth bickering over. Any Bible concordance will tell you that the Bible never directly addresses music standards, and I have a hard time shouting when the Bible is silent. In fact, I think we ought to be very careful when doing so. The Pharisees (“separated ones”) did that, and Jesus wasn’t too thrilled with them when He walked the earth. An otherwise good movement wound up doing significant damage to the Kingdom because they insisted on following their own traditions.

I’ve seen a number of arguments against CCM music. They can involve anything from application of Scripture (in which case I don’t mind if that’s your personal standard if it’s done honestly) to racism and what can truly be described as a eurocentrism. I’ve heard it said that CCM is evil because the beats and instruments come from the heathen in Africa. The last time I checked, most cultures, if not all of them, have included stringed, brass, woodwind, and, yes, even percussion instruments. A quick perusal of the Psalms will let you know that the worship of Jehovah is no stranger to instruments of all types, and Jewish worship music is filled with many styles of music. Beyond all of this, I would argue that there is a difference between using the music of a culture as an expression of worship and purposefully watering down worship so that it is more appealing to unbelievers.

There is no such thing as sacred music in terms of musical notes and rhythms. It is the text of the lyrics enhanced by the mood of the music that makes music Christian. We can all point to songs that are supposed to be “Christian” that just don’t work. Listen to almost any “Plus One” song, and you’ll see a perfect example of how watered-down lyrics can devalue and denigrate worship. It’s also true that the mood conveyed by melodies, harmonies, and rhythms can either add to or detract from a song’s usefulness in terms of worship. However, upbeat music, syncopated rhythms, and varied styles do not immediately eliminate the sacredness of music.

There are at least five words for worship used in the Psalms. They vary in intensity from quiet and meditative to boisterous celebration. Music of all sorts should be present in church. There are times for peaceful music and times for celebration. Some music may bring a tear to the eye and other music may make you want to clap your hands or tap your toes. I’ve heard arguments levied against CCM because it causes the congregation to “become emotional.” What, I must ask, is wrong with experiencing emotion? Perhaps that’s really the big reason some people don’t like CCM. It’s easy to stay in control if you’ve become dull of hearing to the message and music of a particular hymn. CCM brings new music into a church service, and it isn’t as easy to steel yourself to the awesomeness of Who God is and what He has done.

Then, of course, some folks dislike the “showbiz” environment of CCM. I would suggest that not all people get involved in CCM because they want to get rich. To be sure, there are some. However, in some cases the songs produced are  still very good, and it is possible to enjoy the music without partaking in the faddishness of the modern movement. (There’s more spiritual meat in one CD of Casting Crowns music than whole hymnals in some cases.) Furthermore, I would point out that many of the authors of Christian music and even famous evangelists of the past enjoyed celebrity status in their day. (George Whitefield was so idolized that people robbed his grave in the hopes of keeping something the man actually owned or wore.) I would also point out that even fundamentalist Christian circles are not without their pastoral and musical prima donnas. Just because some people in a movement desire fame, wealth, or power doesn’t mean that the movement as a whole is evil.

I think it’s time that we all realize that there is a difference between obeying a particular Bible command (avoiding worldliness) and having a particular preference. Honestly, I prefer hymns. I love the chord structure, the doctrine that is so eloquently stated, and the nostalgia that comes from singing a song that I’ve sung so many times before. I also love Southern Gospel music. I love how plainly the truths of the Bible are stated. I love the style because it has energy and passion, and because it states truth very clearly. I also enjoy many styles of CCM. It has a much more personalized view of God that is a nice contrast to the impersonal nature of most corporate worship. Of course, I recognize that there are good and bad examples of all three categories. There are hymns in the hymnal that I’d rather not sing because of doctrinal error. There are hymns in the hymnal that I think are plain stupid. (“Joy Bells”, anyone?) We all know of good and bad modern Christian music. It just takes some discernment to weed out the bad stuff. Time has a wonderful way of doing that anyway.

Where’s God In Hard Times?

Those of you who regularly read my blog have probably noticed that this latest posting is coming out a little later than usual. This past weekend I lost a very good friend to a tragic accident. While he was driving to preach as part of a prison ministry a few hours away, he lost control of his vehicle when he hit a wet patch of pavement, struck a tree, and found himself in Heaven just moments later. Travis is a well-respected man in our community. He loved (and still loves) his wife and son. He was a respected police officer who was responsible for many acts of heroism and had even saved lives. I could sit and listen to his stories- some funny, some sobering- for hours on end. He was heavily involved in the school I teach at. He worked security for school events, he was a faithful coach and fan of our sports teams (nobody could heckle quite as well as he could), he spoke in student chapel, and he was a leader in our school in many other ways. He was involved in his church, and he had a heart to minister to those in prison. That last part was his passion. He loved to see people come to Christ. He’d talk excitedly about the times he had preaching in prison. The times I loved most were when we’d talk about some of the things we’d read in the Bible. He always had an interesting thought or question.

When I found out, I was devastated. Many of us are deeply saddened by the loss of a truly amazing man. It would be easy to question God in the face of tragedy like this. I can’t say I would blame anyone who told me they had at some point during the grieving process. How was this good? Did He care? Where was He?

To answer the first question, God doesn’t ever claim that everything that happens is good. Some days in the Bible are described as “evil.” Various Psalm writers talk about tragedy and difficult times. The Bible doesn’t ask us to wear rose-colored glasses, because life isn’t that way. Our world is filled with death, disease, chaos, war, and evil courtesy of the Fall. On days like Saturday, I’d love to backhand Adam and Eve across the room. “This is my Father’s world”, but this isn’t the world my Father intended.

All of this doesn’t mean that God Himself isn’t good. He’s good because He is God. He is called Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. He’s called the God of All Comfort. He loves and cares for His own. He’s good because He does good things for us. Offering salvation springs readily to mind. He intervenes directly and providentially in our world according to His will. The truth is, we may never know on earth why God allows some things to end tragically and chooses intervene in other areas. Our view is so limited. How can we make sense of things when we can’t see the whole picture that’s being painted? As my former music pastor once wrote after experiencing some significant tragedies in his life, including the death of twin children:

“Though I don’t always understand

All the ways of God with Man

Still I’ll hold my Savior’s hand

His Way is Perfect.”

Regardless of what may come- life or death, wealth or poverty, health or disease, good or evil- God does care. God cares when loved ones pass away. How profound is the shortest verse in the whole Bible: “Jesus wept.” The God of all reality cried at the death of a friend. The Psalmist writes: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” (Psalm 116:15) He cares for sparrows when they fall from the air, and He never even claims to be their Father! (Your Father, Jesus says when speaking of God’s care for lilies and sparrows.)

The skeptic may ask where the proof of all this is. How can we know that He cares or loves for anything in this world? Why doesn’t He do something about it if He is all-powerful? Why not remove pain? Remember that pain can be helpful. It tells us that something is wrong, and something is definitely wrong with our world. Pain can be necessary. Any dentist can tell you that. How often is pain the thing that drives us to God? God would still be just in leaving the world that humans have destroyed to its own wretched end. That’s not what He did though. God the Son stepped off of His throne, wrapped Himself in human flesh, and was born into this wretched, pitiful, sin-cursed world. He came from a lowly place, lived a relatively ignoble life, and died a terrible death. He experienced the worst of what this world had to offer. And think of the Father in Heaven. He knows what it is like to lose a Son. The union we call the Trinity had experienced fellowship and relationship for eternity stretching backward. It was cut off in one horrible moment on the Cross. Not to minimize human loss, but God was cut off from something far deeply intimate than we can even imagine. For the believer, Heaven is waiting, and God promises to create a new universe for believers to inhabit. One day sin, sorrow, death,  and disease will be banished forever.

So we come back to our original question. Where is God in hard times? He is right where He’s been all along: right there. He’s with us throughout our times of agony. We come not before one of the icons or idols of religion. We come before the Savior Who Weeps, the God Who Comforts.

PS- Travis, you were an inspiration and a true friend to me. You taught me what it meant to stand up for what I believe in. You helped me see things in Scripture that I’d never imagined were there. Thank you for that. You will be greatly missed, but I know that you’re enjoying time with the Father, getting those questions answered (and finding out that you were right, I’m sure), rejoicing over those who come to Christ through your life and passing, and no doubt eating some of the best southern cooking ever. Save a leg for me!

Atheism: Light or Heat?

Over the course of the past few years, I’ve made it a point to do a lot of reading on the subject of Christianity. I’ve read many books by Christians and Atheists to get their respective points, and it has occurred to me that works from both worldviews claim to be illuminating on the subjects of eternity, purpose, reality, and human nature. Christianity affirms inherent worth, describes our purpose, and reveals the nature of reality and, ultimately, eternity.What is also abundantly clear is that Atheism denies that a vast portion of reality even exists, and instead of reason uses sarcasm, intense emotionalism, and a fervent indignation toward those who espouse any faith. Hitchens’ major complaint is that he can’t see why anyone would want to serve a deity. Dawkins thinks that Christianity is a foolish relic of a distant age. Harris belittles anyone who believes in any god. There may be some justification for some of these thoughts, but they aren’t proper justification for a worldview. Atheism promises light, but only provides heat. It has the appearance of substance, but fails to deliver.

To be certain, there are people on both sides that are passionate. Heck, I’m passionate. There are even believers who are the epitome of “zeal without knowledge”; they are the results of soapbox preaching and topical Bible studies. They roam the internet and do some stupid if not deceitful things in the name of Christ. This isn’t exactly Christian, though. Christ wanted us to be above-board in our dealings with others, and we are admonished to grow in our faith and in our love for God- heart, soul, and mind.

Atheism, on the other hand, lays no such requirements on its adherents. I was recently at an event in which Christopher Hitchens spoke. After the event, I was talking with him and he said that he needed to get to the book signing because he’s needed to “move product.” Later, I talked with him again in the book signing line (hey, if I’m going to buy the book I might as well get it signed), and he told me that even though I didn’t agree with him he didn’t care because anyone who bought his product was a friend of his. The man is obviously in it for the money. Why not, though? If this life is all there is, and you can get rich in this life by selling what you believe, go for it! Christians who are in it for the money, on the other hand, ought to be kicked out of their ministries. They are an anomaly, not representive of Christianity. They may be leaders of megachurches, but they are not leaders in Christian thought or practice. In contrast, Atheists like Hitchens are leaders in atheistic thought and practice. They are heralded as revolutionaries.

Another such revolutionary was philosopher Michel Foucault. Foucault wanted to experience life free of inhibitions after the death of God. This led him to try LSD in the wilderness and experiment sexually in ways that range from normative to the grotesque. As a result he died of AIDS. “To die for the love of boys,” he once told a friend, “what could be more beautiful?” Foucault lived out the natural result of an atheistic worldview. There was passion and fervency in his life and in his works, but there was no substance. It was heat without light. Like Stephen Jay Gould and a host of other atheists, Foucault believed that there were no answers.

Finally I turn to Sam Harris, whose Letter to a Christian Nation is the incarnation of the vitriol contained within the New Atheism. He asks where God is when children are raped (page 51) and when New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina (page 52). His illustrations are intended to tug at the heart’s strings, and they certainly do so. I hope to deal with the problem of pain at a later date, but for now I’d like to focus on Harris’ assertion that Atheism is nonviolent in nature. Again, I would point out that unrestrained fervency in the last 100 years has been unleashed by those who espouse atheism.

It isn’t that Christians have not had cause to respond violently. The film adaption of The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988, Serrano’s “artistic” rendering of a crucifix in urine, The DaVinci Code, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, and almost any episode of Family Guy are all blasphemous enough to enrage most of the Christian population, but no rioting occurred. There were no deaths. No one was “roughed up” because of these blasphemies. They were decried, but there was no violent action taken or encouraged. Contrast this with what transpired after Proposition 8, the California proposition that defined marriage as occurring exclusively between a man and a woman, passed. The vast majority of homosexuals are atheistic and anti-religious, so it is not a leap to conclude that the reaction is largely the result of an atheistic worldview. Of course, I don’t have time to talk about the affects of Nietzsche’s atheistic writings on Hitler, who in turn passed them on to Mussolini and Stalin. Perhaps we should be reminded of the words of Hitler, inscribed over one of the gas ovens in Auschwitz: “I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of conscience, imperious, relentless, and cruel.” Fervency? Of course. Light? Nothing worth mentioning.

Inherent Human Dignity?

A friend of mine recently pointed me in the direction of the United Nations’ “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” He’s done a phenomenal job writing his thoughts on the subject, but he encouraged me to write on it as well. It’s a fascinating world-wide “Declaration of Independence” with a preamble and thirty articles. What interests me most is the preamble (emphasis below is mine):

“Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, Therefore the General Assembly proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.”

Of supreme interest to me, as I’m sure you’ve gathered from the highlighted words above, is that the United Nations, at least in 1948, had a concept of inherent human worth and dignity. Such a document begs the question: where do humans get this inherent worth and dignity from? Who imbued us with such a lofty position?

If our sense of worth comes from within it is pride and is hardly inherent. If our sense of worth comes from governments or documents it is applied to us. In either case, human dignity is prescribed rather than described. If however, humans are indeed truly significant and special, if they were- one can’t help use the word- created with worth, dignity, purpose, conscience, and meaning, then a transcendent Being must have intended for it to be so. And so it seems to be. While societies run hot and cold on the issue of murder, no society permits the murder of any human for any reason. We are all aware of the value of a person. Some believe in fate or destiny, but most cultures have an innate sense of purpose in this life.

The Bible offers us the answer to the question of inherent purpose:

“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”- Psalm 8:3-9

Man’s dignity come from God, for He has placed us in a position of honor. The whims of politicians and potentates may change on this matter, but God has His mind quite made up: we are made in His image.

As Rollwagen says in his blog: Kingdoms come and go…“Kingdom come.”

What I’ve Done

“In this farewell there’s no blood,
There’s no alibi.
‘Cause I’ve drawn regret from the truth
Of a thousand lies.
So let mercy come and wash away…
What I’ve done.”

So begins Linkin Park’s “What I’ve Done.” That’s one way you could view the Judgment Seat of Christ, and perhaps the unfaithful or disobedient Christian would do well to consider these words  as they may very accurately reflect his attitude on that day. However, I would like to add that there’s a very different view one could take if he continues in faith, nothing wavering, and if he lives a life that is obedient to the Master’s call. What does the Judgment Seat hold for such a believer?

I’ve listed the basis of judgment in a previous post as well as given Old Testament and New Testament perspectives on the Judgment Seat. Now let us turn to the rewards for those who are obedient and faithful.

1. Those who are humble will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, not merely enter into it. (Matthew 5:3)
2. Those who experience godly sorrow over life’s circumstances, poor health, or personal tragedy in this life will receive great comfort in the Age to Come. This is a specific sort of comfort received at the hands of the God of all Comfort. (Matthew 5:4)
3. Those who are meek will inherit their portion of the physical earth. This refers to possession and authority. (Matthew 5:5)
4. Those who crave righteousness above everything else will experience the great satisfaction of becoming righteous progressively on earth and ultimately in Heaven. (Matthew 5:6)
5. Those who are merciful will receive mercy at the Judgment Seat. (Matthew 5:7)
6. Those who are pure in heart will be able to perceive and know the Godhead in a deeper, fuller, richer manner. (Matthew 5:8)
7. Those who are peacemakers receive the unique title: “Child of God.” (Matthew 5:9)
8. Those who are persecuted for being righteous will inherit the Kingdom and receive a great reward that Jesus leaves undefined. (Matthew 5:10-12)
9. Those who lead others to Christ are given a Crown of Rejoicing. (Philippians 4:1 and 1 Thessalonians 2:19)
10. Those who teach, guide, care for, and disciple others are given a Crown of Glory. (1 Peter 5:1-4)
11. Those who live righteous lives and long for Christ to return receive a Crown of Righteousness. (2 Timothy 4:6-8)
12. Those who do not lose their love for Christ or return to Christ as their first love will be allowed to eat of the Tree of Life. (Revelation 2:1-7) What humans have been denied for thousands of years will be permitted to those who love Christ.
13. Those who are killed for their faith receive a Crown of Life, an eternal reward for faithfulness resulting in a tragic end. This most likely also is an allusion to a unique degree of enjoyment of the eternal life Christ has given us. See my discussion on Philippians 3 in my previous posts (Revelation 2:8-11)
14. Those who do not deny their faith receive several rewards. They receive the hidden manna, which is probably a reference to the messianic feast, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. This will be a tremendous time of celebration and honor. They will also receive a “white stone”, which is probably a reference to a stone of victory given at Grecian victory games. Finally the believer is told he will receive a new name, which is probably a reference to the Jewish custom of renaming a person based on what kind of life they have lived. (Revelation 2:12-17)
15. Those who abstain from religious and personal fornication and idolatry receive authority over the nations. Paul speaks of this when he tells Timothy that there are some who will reign with Christ. (Revelation 2:18-29)
16. Those who live pure lives are given white robes. They are called worthy because of personal holiness. Finally, they are commended before God the Father and the angels in Heaven. The Person Who speaks so highly of such a believer is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. (Revelation 3:1-6)
17. Those who are faithful witnesses in the face of persecution of all sorts will share a unique, intimate relationship with God. (Revelation 3:7-13)
18. Those who refuse to conform to the spirit of the age in which they dwell will be permitted to sit in the Father’s throne, a position of honor and authority. (Revelation 3:14-22)

How much better is it to enter the Kingdom with the rewards of faithful service rather than enter the Kingdom “so as by fire.” How much better it is to enter into the joy of the Lord without regret, to not simply being reliant on God to wipe away “What I’ve Done”!

Work Out Your Salvation: Success, Failure, and the Results at the Judgment Seat

I’ve written two other posts on the types of inheritance in Scripture, one based on the Old Testament and the other based on the New Testament. I should state what will be quite obvious to some: I’ve only scratched the surface of what there is to be said concerning inheriting and suffering loss in the Kingdom. I hope this will help open doors for those interested in the subject. The most serious and practical aspect of this study is what success and failure mean for the believer in the future- a very, very real future that we are only moments away from at any given moment. Christ could come back, and you and I would stand before the Judge of all the Earth. Who will be judged at this event, what will this judgment be based on, and what will the results be?

Without question, those who are judged at this event are the believers. The unbelievers will be judged at the Great White Throne judgment mentioned near the end of Revelations. The dead unbelievers will stand before Christ, will be judged based on their works, and will receive their portion in the Lake of Fire. The believers, too, will be judged based on their works. Works, however, are only a portion of what this judgment will be based on.

We will be judged based on the following criteria:

1. Actions- 1Corinthians 3:13, 2Corinthians 5:10, Revelations 3:23
2. Words- Matthew 12:36-37, Luke 12:2-3
3. Thoughts- Hebrews 4:12
4. Motivations- Matthew 6:4
5. Faithfulness- Matthew 24:45, Matthew 25:23, 1 Corinthians 4:2

There are three important things one can do to take care of past mistakes:

1. Confession of Sin- 1 John 1:9 (which, it must be remembered, was written to believers)
2. Show Mercy to Others- Matthew 5:7 (This was written to believers and has future rewards in mind. More on this in a future post.)
3. Judge Ourselves- 1 Corinthians 11:31

The wicked, lazy, or unrighteous believer may partake in one of three consequences of running the race of the Christian life poorly. Keep in mind that none of these consequences affect eternal security or our acceptance by God. They don’t affect our presence in the Eternal State and are not permanent in nature. The worst-case scenario is that they last for the duration of the Millennial Kingdom.

1. A rebuke from Christ Himself: “Thou wicked and slothful servant!”- Matthew 25:26
2. Exclusion from the Marriage Supper of the Lamb due to sinfulness- Matthew 22:11-13
3. Denial of inheritance- Matthew 10:33, 2 Timothy 2:12

If this all seems a bit heavy-handed, allow me to add some comfort from Scripture. It should first be pointed out that those who receive such hash judgments are those who are stubborn in their carnality or laziness. This is not about the day-to-day struggle with sin. This is not about our personal failures when we give into sin. This is about blatant rebellion. In fact, those who struggle with sin do not fall into this category at all! This is, after all, about righteousness, and Proverbs 24:16 tells us that a righteous person is one who gets up when he falls. No, the stern warning in Scripture is toward those who fall and do not care.

There are rewards, though, and Scripture has much to say on this subject. There are crowns, the rewards of those who overcome which are mentioned in Revelation 2-3, the out-resurrection mentioned by Paul in Philippians, treasures in Heaven, and the prospect of reigning with Christ and even being praised by Him before the angelic and believing hosts!  To those who are faithful disciples of Christ, there is a great inheritance waiting indeed!

God is concerned primarily with our hearts and with our faithfulness. Can we stand firm when God seems distant or absent? Can we trust Him when He waits until the eleventh hour to work? Think about it: the Israelites in the wilderness really didn’t struggle with doing right most of the time. They struggled with believing God, and that led to huge problems for them. Consider also David, who was a man after God’s own heart, even when he sinned with Bathsheba! The “degree” of sin doesn’t determine success or failure at the Judgment Seat. Furthermore, Christ is a High Priest who understands the weaknesses of the human flesh. He understands the struggles necessary to overcome a poor family life or background, stress, anxiety, peer pressure, and the weaknesses in our own personalities and genetic make up! These aren’t excuses that we use to talk God into lightening up on us; they are things God as a faithful and loving Father will surely take into account.

More on the inheritance to come!

Salvation: Two Inheritances, Part 2

Most believers are convinced that salvation in all of its forms is strictly a free gift of God. I fully believe that justification, sanctification, and glorification are all free gifts of God. However, I also believe that there is more to the story than meets the eye. We will see in the following verses that inheritance may be gained or lost, and that eternal life is something that we are sometimes told to work for. Certain habitual sins, according to several passages of Scripture,  preclude a person from inheriting the Kingdom. How is salvation free if it must also be worked for? How is salvation secure if one can lose their inheritance?

• He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. -John 12:25

• To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life.- Romans 2:7
• Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.- 1 Corinthians 6:9-10
• For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.- Galatians 6:8
• For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.- Ephesians 5:5
• Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.- 1 Timothy 6:12

Such verses are cause for deep concern for the believer, since warnings against sin and exhortations to gain eternal life would not exist unless there were a very real possibility to fail. As in the last post, I would like to suggest that the Bible is speaking of two types of inheritance or two aspects of salvation. In one sense, we have God as our inheritance and Heaven as our final home. This occurs at salvation because of faith. However, there is a second inheritance that we can enjoy that is by obedience, obtainable only by sanctified living. Our salvation is indeed secure, but there is a lot concerning our experience in the Kingdom that can change considerably.

I want to write an article that will discuss what this inheritance will consist of, but for now I’d like to focus on an aspect of what I’m saying that is likely to cause some consternation on the part of believers. What is this business of working for eternal life? How can a person be a believer but lose eternal life?

In John 10:10, Jesus says: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Interestingly enough, John begins his gospel by saying that life originates in Christ. Paul echoes this thought when he writes that it is in Him we live, and move, and have our being. The implication is that eternal life in Scripture is intimately tied to an active, dynamic relationship with Christ. In other words, eternal life isn’t something you and I simply get at salvation and hang onto until we die; it is something that can grow and develop or whither away in the present. An eternal home in Heaven is secure, of course, but Jesus came not to simply give us an infinitely long life, but an abundant quality of life. Enjoying a life of fullness and fulfilledness, one in which times with God can truly be described as “sweet”, can only occur when we are living for Him and desiring to know Him more. We all have access to eternal life, but our experience in that life will differ from individual to individual.

The reward for living out this life eternal in the here and now will have some bearing on the rewards we receive in the future. Paul makes this clear in Philippians 2:11 where he states that he has rejected the elements of his past to know Christ, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering so that he could attain a resurrection. What’s interesting is that this word isn’t the usual Greek word for resurrection (anastasis). Instead, Paul uses the word exanastasis- separation from out of the resurrected. Of those who are believers and enter into eternal life, there will be some set apart because they sought to win Christ. They alone of all believers will receive the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

God is faithful enough to reward believers based on their actions and attitudes. All believers will have eternal life, a home in Heaven, and forgiveness of sins. However, the vastness of that eternal life, the joys of that heavenly home, and the rewards in the Kingdom will be experienced by each of us to different degrees and in different ways.

More on that subject in the near future!

Salvation: Two Inheritances, Part 1

Israel During Joshua's Time

What happens when a person who claims Christ rejects his faith or lives a blatantly immoral lifestyle with no sign of remorse? That’s a question that the theologians have been batting around for ages. Some believe that such a person loses their salvation, an idea that requires some exegetical acrobatics when it comes to verses such as Romans 8:1 and John 10:28-29. Others believe that that person was never truly saved in the first place, and I believe that there are some people who definitely fall into this category. However, I do believe that it is possible for a genuine believer to fail the grace of God. What happens then? He suffers loss.

The Old Testament frequently refers to the term “inheritance.” In fact, the Old Testament uses the term 185 times, while the New Testament uses it only 18 times! We normally think of an inheritance as something one gets the moment a parent dies. However, in Old Testament times, two things are true of inheritances:

1. In order for an heir to receive an inheritance, the parent does not have to die. Psalm 28 and 33 at least speak of Israel being Jehovah’s inheritance. At the risk of being crass, who has to die to make Him God? The story of the prodigal son in the New Testament also bears witness to this fact.
2. If a parent, Divine or otherwise, put stipulations or prerequisites on the inheritance, there was a potential for a person to lose that inheritance.

This second point is of utmost importance when we consider what we received when we got saved. We certainly received Heaven and were rescued from a destiny in Hell, but there is so much more to it than that. There are two types of inheritances, even in the Old Testament. Believing Israelites as a result of faith had Jehovah as their inheritance, but on top of that, they could receive a secondary inheritance as the result of obedience. This secondary inheritance was a possession in Canaan, and there is a difference between living in Canaan and owning Canaan.

Contrary to many songs sung in churches today and many Bible lessons I have heard, Canaan doesn’t represent Heaven. That makes no sense whatsoever. Canaan had to be worked for, while Heaven is free. Canaan was never free from enemies, Heaven will certainly not be that way. While they are actual historical events, the journey in the Wilderness and Canaan itself are pictures of the possibility for success and failure in the Christian life (1 Corinthians 10).

Here’s some additional examples of the inheritance loss/gain factor:

• Abraham received God as an inheritance when he believed Him and left the land of his fathers, but when he obeyed, God promised him the nations and the land of Canaan through the Abrahamic covenant. (Genesis 22:15-18)
• Caleb and Joshua alone of the Israelites involved in the Exodus actually received the inheritance of Canaan. Even Moses failed to receive an inheritance there because of disobedience. This wasn’t because they weren’t believers, but because they weren’t “obeyers.” (1Corinthans 10:4-5, Hebrews 11:29-30)
• Lamentations 5:2 makes it clear that the Israelites again lost their inheritance due to disobedience.

Israelites and others might enter Canaan but not be able to inherit/possess it. Those who dwelt in Israel when it was established but were not Jewish did not have the same rights as landowners did. They did not have the same rights or access to the same privileges. Some of the Israelites remained in Israel when Babylon conquered, but they did not have all the rights that they had had before. They had lost their possession.

What does this mean for the believer? We’ll look at the New Testament in the next post, but let me tell you what I believe to be true based on what we have seen:

1. All believers have God as their inheritance. They will be with Him for all of eternity. (Psalm 16, 73, 142)
2. Some believers will inherit the Kingdom, while others will not. There will be some who are residents of the Kingdom, and there will be others that enter AND truly possess the Kingdom.This is something additional to being in Heaven.
3. The difference between “enterors” and inheritors is obedience. (Joshua 14:8-9, Genesis 22:15-18)

All believers will enter into the Kingdom of Christ in the Millennial Kingdom and the Eternal State, but not all will be co-heirs with Christ when we are there.

Continue on to Part 2 for a discussion on the New Testament concept of a multi-dimensional salvation!

The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ: Way, Truth, and Life

The latter part of John 6 tells of a fascinating event in the life of Christ. The crowd is following Jesus, hoping to see another miracle, to taste again of the bread supplied by a miracle.

“If you want life, you must eat my flesh and drink my blood,” said Jesus.

“This is a difficult saying. How can we accept it?”, said the unbelieving multitude. They hadn’t expected this. They had been looking for a free meal. The miracles had become the point of their time with Christ, and Christ Himself had become the means of their “bread and circuses.” Jesus had been trying to get them to focus on their spiritual need but the unbelievers couldn’t see it. They only wanted more of the same. They wanted to have their desires fulfilled without having to deal with God. Of course, Jesus knew that one more meal wasn’t going to bring true happiness. C. S. Lewis once wrote: “All that we call human history–money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery–[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

God has not designed the universe to work in this way. He has designed human beings in such a way that the ultimate and deepest satisfaction you and I can partake of is in Himself. There may be other delights in this world, but they are mere hints and whispers of a far greater joy. If we choose to reject God as our ultimate joy, to paraphrase Lewis, we have no choice but to starve.

Life must be about more than consumption and reproduction. Those motives that are supreme in the Darwinian worldview don’t provide lasting satisfaction and fulfillment. Perhaps that is why, in a recent study, only around 40% of Americans admitted to buying into the lie of evolution. There seems to be something instinctive within the human psyche that drives them to seek satisfaction outside of those basic physical needs. Humans want expression and knowledge, love and passion, acceptance and significance. They want Truth in all areas. They want the Sacred.

“I am the Bread. I am the Way. I am the Life. I am the Door. I am the Vine. I am the Light. I am the Shepherd. I am the Resurrection…..I am the Truth.” Jesus makes statements throughout the book of John which tell us of His ability to meet our needs. It is this last claim, the claim to BE Truth, which is so profound and so unique that it distinguishes Jesus forever from any other god that may be raised up in the temple of the mind.

In every other world religion, there is a distinction between the source of the truth claim and the truth claim itself. Krishna offers philosophy and mysticism, but he is not the philosophy itself. Mohammed points to the Koran, but Mohammed the person is not the vaunted truth. The Muslim does not turn to Mohammed himself in worship and obedience. Buddha speaks of a “Noble Path”, but he himself is not that Path. Buddha is the teacher, not the supposed reality behind the teachings. At their very best (the points at which these religions make some accurate statements regarding morality and reality), these religions are like an HIV test. The test reveals the problem, but cannot treat the disease.

Jesus, in contrast, was both the Message and the Messenger. He did not merely teach truth. He is Truth. He did not show a way. He is the Way. (Deepak Chopra recognizes the unique union of Message and Messenger and must make up some pretty weird ideas to get around it.) Life in Christ, in contrast to materialism, is not merely about consumption and reproduction. It is about who we are (our natures) as humans made in the image of God, our new position and relationship as children of God, and our destiny as believers. Our greatest hunger is to be filled with awe and love, to experience celebration, and to commit ourselves to Him. Our greatest hunger is fulfilled in living a life of Sacred Worship.

Hinduism says that I must nurture the god within because I am part of the divine universe. Islam says that I am so different from Allah that I will never really even get close to him. Jesus says that the God- Who is distinct from His creation and from Whom humanity was estranged- has come near. Instead of union with the universe or separation from Allah, God offers us communion through Jesus Christ His Son.

“God Did It So Shut Up”

My final (brief) post on Nitwit Nastik‘s article is a summation of his fifth problem with Christian’s responses. Basically, he hates it when Christians dismiss the question or argument because some Christians will say that the question is unreasonable. Nitwit has a good point. Do children like it when you say “because I said so”? No! Do you like it when your boss pulls rank? No! What makes anyone think that saying “Your question doesn’t matter” is a good response?! We are commanded to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you.” I would think that Nitwit was making up this last one, but I’ve seen Christian do this to other Christians. Shameful!

Now, Nitwit also seems to have a problem with an appeal to those who are professional students of the Scripture. I’m afraid that I must disagree with him on this point. We ask doctors questions on medicine. We want to know what scientists think on matters of science. We want to know what economists and politicians think about the state of the world these days. Why would we not go to the pastors and theologians when we have questions concerning their professional area of study?

The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ: His Dwelling

Coexist: Blind Leading the Blind?

“Christianity is no different than every other religion.” That’s what some of my friends will tell me if we’re ever discussing religion. “They all teach the importance of morality, the existence of eternity, and give people some comfort as well as a reason to be good.” Fair enough. Christianity does have some things in common with most of the major religions. In fact, I would suggest that any religion worth having a look at should at least provide this much information and motivation. I would also suggest, however, that Christianity is very different from mere religion. Christianity is unique because of the Person of Jesus Christ.

Where are you from?

If you read John 1:38-51, an interesting story (which I’m going to paraphrase for the sake of space) unfolds.

“Rabbi, where are you from?”, the disciple asks.

“Come and see.”

We don’t know where exactly Jesus spent the night, but we do know that He and His disciples rarely stayed in houses. We can also hear the incredulity in Nathanael’s voice a few verses later when he asks: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

In the Eastern parts of the world, I am told, one of the most important things about a person is where they are from. In fact, in some areas, where you are from and what your family heritage is like is more important than your own personal credentials. In the West, of course, we are interested in where you are from, but we are more interested in what you can do. If you are dividing the world strictly into East and West, then ancient Israel is very much an Eastern land. That is why the disciples are originally very much interested in where Jesus is from, and that is why Nathanael has difficulty with Jesus’ hometown. Nazareth wasn’t much to look at.

But Jesus wasn’t from Nazareth. Not really, anyway.

Jacob’s Ladder

“You will see greater things, for soon you will see Heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man,” said Jesus.

Jacob. He escaped his brother’s wrath after tricking his father into giving him the blessing. In the middle of the desert, he slept with a rock for his pillow and dreamed of angels descending and ascending into Heaven on a ladder. When he woke up, he knew that He was in Beth-el (“the house of God.”)

In effect, Jesus had said: “I AM Beth-el. I AM the House of God.” Jesus’ dwelling place was identical to the dwelling place of Jehovah, the “High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity.” All of reality is His domain, but His throne is in Heaven.

The Visitation

Nicodemus came to Jesus by night (John 3) to ask Him some questions. Jesus’ teachings astounded him, for He spoke of a new birth, eternal life, and the “lifting up” of Himself. As part of His claim to authority, Jesus speaks of coming down from Heaven, not ascending into Heaven. This is not Enlightenment. This is not Revelation to Jesus from God. This is a Visitation of the eternal, transcendent God.

This truth about Jesus’ origin (if you can call it that) separates Christianity from other world religions. Islam claims that Mohammed was taken to Heaven on a particular night to see what It was like. Heaven was foreign and unknown to Mohammed. Not so with Jesus. He knows all there is to know about reality.

Mohammed, Buddha, and Krishna (assuming his historicity) were born of natural means (sexual union). Not so with Jesus. He is eternal, and His birth was supernatural. Prophecy predicts it; Gabriel announced it; Mary and Joseph proclaimed it in spite of ostracism; Elizabeth and Zacharias  backed it in spite of the fact that their son had to serve the younger Cousin; the disciples preached and risked death for it; and even the Koran affirms it.

Jesus, as the eternal God from Heaven, is holy perfection. Not so with Buddha, Krishna, and Mohammed. One only has to read the scriptures of these other religions to see that. Surahs 47, 48 speak of sins committed by Mohammed that need forgiving. Mohammed struggled with the supposed command to receive revelation, but Jesus knew exactly why He was there. The tale of Krishna’s immorality with the Gopi is an embarrassment to many Hindu scholars, and Buddha had to endure countless reincarnations to achieve perfection and enlightenment.

He didn’t come to teach morality. He didn’t come to teach enlightenment. He came from eternal Heaven into His temporal creation to die for lost humanity and give us abundant life.

“Rabbi, where are you from?”, the disciple asks.

“Come and see.”

Text Without Context

This is my fourth (and probably shortest) response to Nitwit Nastiks “Errors, Inconsistencies, and Contradictions in the Bible.” His fourth problem deals with the tendency of Christians to “proof text” their way through arguments. For starters, I will openly admit that there are a lot of people, both Christian and non-Christian, that love to use verses without a context. This is just plain old wrong. For too long, Christians have been content to explain Scripture topically. Rather than do the hard work of digging into Scripture to determine its actual meaning, we have become consumed by a love of milk and forsaken spiritual meat. This leads to poor exegesis, fuzzy doctrine, and weak theology. Shame on us, Christians, for getting to this point.

That being said, I do not believe that the Bible Itself takes Its own passages out of context. The link provided in this section of Nitwit’s post indicates that the New Testament is a twisting of the Old Testament. On the contrary, the New Testament relies heavily on the correct interpretation of the Old Testament. Matthew quotes, paraphrases, and summarizes the prophets frequently. Jesus Himself quotes from Deuteronomy frequently. Peter’s sermons in Acts and Paul’s illustrations in the epistles come from the Old Testament. It may not have been what the Jews expected, but it was what God meant. For more information on the prophetic portions of Scripture, I would highly recommend J. Dwight Pentecost’s Things to Come.

In summation, I don’t believe that anyone should use verses out of context. Proof texting is a bad maneuver on anyone’s part. Quoting verses is perfectly fine, but to ignore context or the overall perspective of Scripture in order to support one’s perspective is patently dishonest.

The Bible: Lost in Transmission?

This is my second post responding to my friend Nitwit’s article concerning supposed errors in the Christian perspective on Scripture. To get an idea of what has come before, you should probably go here to read the first article. Nitwit’s second point is, frankly, difficult to discern since there is a lot of terminology thrown around without being clearly defined. I can gather that Nitwit believes that the actual words written by God (which he technically doesn’t believe in) have been lost. Rather than directly respond to each thought of the article, I am going to positively state a Christian view of the Bible.

1. Inspired- “God breathed”- all Scripture originated from God, and humans wrote down what He said. (1 Peter 1:20-21)
2. Preserved- God has providentially ensured the accuracy of the transmission of both the Old and New Testaments (Matthew 24:35, 1 Peter 1:22-25)
3. Inerrant/Infallible- The Bible is without error. (Psalm 12:6, 19:7; Proverbs 30:5) Note: Some Christians distinguish these two terms, but my point is that you can’t have one without the other.

I’ve dealt with the translation issue and the transmission of the New Testament texts in four previous posts starting here, so I’ll not beat the horse to death (though some would argue that I already have…) Suffice it to say that, with 5,500 copies or partial copies of the New Testament in its original language, there is plenty of manuscript evidence concerning the New Testament. We are content with just having ten copies of the Greek classics in their original language.  Also, New Testament copies originate only 100 years after the original autographs were penned, as opposed to Greek classics, whose extant copies are often available only 700-1400 years after their original composition. John A. T. Robinson writes: “The wealth of manuscripts, and above all the narrow interval of time between the writing and the earliest extant copies, make it by far the best attested text of any ancient writing in the world.”

As for the Old Testament, I know of very few serious scholars that would question its accuracy. Of course, we don’t have the original manuscripts. It would be a rare find indeed to find the completed autograph from nearly 4,000 years ago! What we do have is a knowledge of how the Old Testament was transmitted. The scribes and priests in general were given this task, and they faithfully did it for countless generations. After the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., the scribes continued their work in Egypt and Babylon. When the Remnant returned seventy years later, a strict method of copying was resumed, as outlined in Wikipedia (of all places) but confirmed in a number of books.

1. Only clean manuscripts could be used.
2. Each column must contain between 48 and 60 lines. (This kept the writing from getting too small so that the copy could not be copied.)
3. Even the ink had a special recipe, and it had to be black.
4. The scribe had to speak each word as he wrote it.
5. They had to clean both pen and body before they wrote God’s name.
6. Each copy was reviewed within three days of completion. If more than three pages required correction, the entire copy had to be rewritten.
7. The letters, words, and paragraphs had to be counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other. The middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document.
8. The documents had to be stored in sacred places.
9. When the document became worn out, it had to be buried in a genizah.

After Jerusalem was destroyed by Rome in A.D. 70, the Jews continued their work of faithful copying, which culminated in the work of the Masoretes. The Masoretes used the ancient scribal system and even expanded it. According to F. F. Bruce, the Masoretes wrote “with the greatest imaginable reverence, and devised a complicated system of safeguards against scribal slips. They counted, for example, the number of times each letter of the alphabet occurs in each book; they pointed out the middle letter of the Pentateuch and the middle letter of the whole Hebrew Bible, and made even more detailed calculations than these.”

The results of such careful transmission are clear. We have a Bible available today that we can have maximum security in, knowing and believing that God was faithful in preserving His Word.

Literary Aspects of the Bible

In this post I’ll be directly replying to Nitwit Nastik’s blog article “Errors, Inconsistencies, and Contradictions in the Bible.” (Nitwit and I have a fairly cordial friendship going, so please don’t see this as my attempt to tear him to shreds. You’ll have to read through both our blogs to see that we have had a number of conversations concerning faith.) His basic assumption in this article is that the Bible contains a number of “contradictions and factual or scientific errors.” I call this an assumption because he doesn’t actually list any errors, but rather critiques the responses of Christians when confronted with these so-called errors.

The first response by Christians that he critiques is the use of literary techniques to explain verses in the Bible. Apparently, the use of metaphor and symbolism in Scripture is problematic for Nitwit, who seems to prefer a more “literal” interpretation of Scripture. He goes so far, in fact, as to describe an appeal to the poetic nature of Scripture as “deceptive.”

In order to understand Scripture, we must understand that it is a book of ancient literature. As such, it makes use of a variety of literary types such as proverb, saying, chronicle, lament psalm, oracle, apocalypse, parable, song, epistle, and many others. (For those interested, I highly recommend Leland Ryken’s books How to Read the Bible as Literature and The Complete Literary Guide to the Bible.) On the subject of literary technique, Ryken writes:

“Virtually every page of the Bible is replete with literary technique, and to possess the individual texts fully, we need to read the Bible as literature, just as we need to read it theologically and (in the narrative parts) historically.

“The importance of genre to biblical interpretation is that genres have their own methods of procedure and rules of interpretation. An awareness of genre should alert us to what we can expect to find in a text. Additionally, considerations of genre should govern the terms in which we interact with a text. With narrative, e.g., we are on the right track if we pay attention to plot, setting, and character. If the text before us is a satire, we need to think in terms of object of attack, the satiric vehicle in which the attack is couched, and satiric norm (stated or implied standard by which the criticism is being conducted).

“In view of how many literary genres are present in the Bible, it is obvious that the overall literary form of the Bible is the anthology, as even the word Bible (Gk. biblia, “books”) hints. As an anthology, the Bible possesses the same kinds of unity that other anthologies exhibit: multiple authorship (approximately three dozen authors), diverse genres, a rationale for collecting these particular materials (a unifying religious viewpoint and story of salvation history), comprehensiveness, and an identifiable strategy of organization (a combination of historical chronology and groupings by genre).”

One would expect literary complexity in the Word of God. One would expect literary complexity in any religious book. It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that parallelism, foreshadowing, metaphor, simile, symbolism, etc. should appear throughout the Bible. It is the logical result of a Creative Mind guiding other creative minds to write.

Now, I must be clear here. Biblical Christianity has always believed in a literal, grammatical, historical interpretation of Scripture. We do believe in a literal interpretation of Scripture. That means that we believe that some Scripture literally makes use of literary techniques. We also believe in comparing Scripture with Scripture to determine Its true meaning. These principles are both practical and logical.

Nitwit correctly asserts that anything can be given a metaphorical meaning, and he uses The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings as examples. I would like to make a few statements as a way of wrapping up the post:

1. I find it a bit ironic that The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings themselves both make use of allusion, metaphor, and symbolism throughout, frequently in referencing Christianity. The Matrix references Christianity (Zion, Trinity, etc.) throughout, and Tolkien himself explained that Eru is a fictionalized version of God.
2. If modern books and movies use literary techniques, why is it so difficult to believe that the Bible would?
3. In the works mentioned above, we can turn to either the author or the author’s works to figure out what the literary techniques used are meant to represent. When we read the Bible, we do the same thing. We turn to the Author in prayer and further study His Word to determine the correct interpretation.

1 Peter 1:20-21: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”

Entertainment, Bible Narrative, and The Power of Shared Experience

Those of us who grew up in the 1980′s remember the popular slogan for Music Television: “I Want My MTV!” There were commercials, t-shirts, and a host of other paraphernalia on which the slogan was emblazoned. I came from a fairly conservative background and wasn’t allowed to watch MTV (not that we could, since the cable company STILL has yet to actually run cable to my parents’ house), but I was keenly aware of the mania that surrounded the cultural phenomenon that is still a fixture today.

For a number of years I’ve wondered what it is about entertainment (broadly defined in this article as reading material, music, movies, television, video games, and even the sin of pornography) that is so powerful. With the possible exception of reading, each of these forms of entertainment have a certain addictive quality. Of course, when I was a teenager I thought that the content of my entertainment was irrelevant. As I’ve gotten a little older, I’ve come to realize that there is a strange power in entertainment. I think I’m finally ready to take a “stab” at what that power is.

The power of entertainment is the power of a shared experience. When I read a book, watch a movie, or play a video game with a decent plot, I am involved in the experience. My heart races during the intense parts. I may like or dislike certain characters. I am emotionally and cognitively involved with the protagonist of every “story” I am told. Such is the power of narrative. It doesn’t matter whether or not the characters are real, I respond to them as if I knew them personally. Music seems to be even more powerful because melody, harmony, and rhythm blend together with the narrative of the lyrics. The musical elements reinforce the power of the experience.

This is what makes entertainment so wonderful….and so perilous. A protagonist that overcomes tragedy can strengthen us. A family in a movie that rallies during a time of difficulty can inspire us. Music that glorifies real love (as opposed to the whimsical, fickle sort) can draw us closer to a spouse. Entertainment that glorifies an immoral protagonist and emphasizes sensual “love” causes us to experience reality as the author sees it, sometimes quite graphically. We may be able to label actions, attitudes, and thoughts as “wrong”, but we cannot escape the experience. This is why we must be so careful what we allow our souls to imbibe.

I’ve also thought about the nature of sharing experience as it relates to the Bible. Perhaps the reason why God shared so much of His Truths through Old Testament narrative is that experience is so powerful. Most of the Bible, after all, is a narrative of one sort or another. There’s really very little in the Bible that doesn’t take the form of a narrative.

Perhaps God wants us to experience the lives of the men and women of the Bible. We can bask in the wonder of the Shekinah with Moses on Mount Sinai, slay the giant Goliath with David, stand boldly before the king with Esther, and sense the wonder of John as he writes: “And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father.” Experience is often a better teacher than men. How much better is it to experience life from those who have gone before, to learn the wisdom of the ages vicariously, than to have to learn everything the hard way?

Whether we consider the power of entertainment or the power of the Scriptural narrative, we cannot ignore or deny the hold that a “story” has on us. We must be careful to abhor evil, to cling to that which is good. Because it isn’t just a movie. It isn’t just the Bible. It’s an experience that, once shared, will be a part of us forever. If MTV is what I choose to watch, it really is “my” MTV.

It’s Just Bible Class…

The Problem

Bible teachers hear it all the time, it seems. A student wants permission to go to the bathroom, make a phone call in the school office, or go to their locker. You tell them that they need to wait until the end of class since that is school policy. They sigh, turn around to return to their seat, and you hear them mutter: “It’s just Bible class…”

A parent needs to schedule a doctor’s appointment for their child or a class sponsor needs help with a fundraiser. “It’s just Bible class…”

Now, I’m no heartless, embittered teacher. I think most of my students would agree that I enjoy what I do and I enjoy teaching them. I’m also admittedly guilty of being something of a pushover at times. I know doctor’s appointments are difficult to work into a schedule. I understand that there will be times when school activities overshadow my class or any other class. What I don’t understand is the apathy toward Bible study amongst Christians. Maybe the reason the world doesn’t “buy into” Christianity is that the Christians barely seem to believe in Christianity themselves. Maybe we are guilty of taking a privilege for granted in our Christians schools. If Bible class is “just” Bible class, perhaps we should all pack up and go home. There’s plenty of free education out there.

No, what I don’t buy into is the idea that Bible class should be treated like an elective thrown in at the last minute to fill a student’s schedule. I don’t buy into the idea that Bible should be an easy class so that students don’t get frustrated with the subject and reject their own faith. A quick look at the statistics will tell you that our apathetic attitude toward serious Bible study in church has already done plenty of damage. In our attempt to entertain people into the Kingdom, we’ve turned them off to Truth. Many students will attend a secular university and reject their faith primarily because it has no depth.

The problem is that Bible classes in our Christian schools are very much like glorified Sunday School classes. We do short little studies of Bible characters, positive character qualities (something you could find in any government school, by the way), and half-hearted outlines of books of the Bible in the upper levels. Then we spend most of our time applying Scripture to our own lives.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe time in God’s Word suddenly became about us instead of about Him. Maybe we don’t want to do the study necessary to come up with real Bible lessons. Maybe we are so focused on “discovering what this verse means to me” that we don’t know what to make of it in its own context. Maybe “personal application” is just another way of saying “I need a crutch.”

I’m not saying Bible can’t be fun, exciting, and have times of application. I am just saying that we have gone so far in the wrong direction concerning styles of Bible teaching that I can’t even find a decent Bible curriculum to use.

An Apologetic for the Academic

Yes, Bible classes in a Christian school- particularly in middle and high school- should be academically challenging. We believe that the Bible is our sole authority in faith and practice. How can we know what to believe, how can we know what to do, say, think, and feel, without knowing what the Bible says? If the Bible is truly a “love letter from God”, a special revelation of the Divine, should it not be treated as such? If we have access to the mind of God Himself, should we not feel burdened with the necessity of serious study?

What sort of message does it send to students if they have to work for decent grades in math, science, history, and English, but Bible is “an easy A.” Of course that’s going to give them the impression that “it’s just Bible.” It seems ironic that elementary school teachers often will teach Bible lessons and have students memorize verses (academic pursuits), but the standard levels off or even drops as students approach graduation from high school! Just when science becomes physics, math becomes trigonometry, and english becomes American literature, Bible class becomes a glorified youth group meeting! We have told them to be good, but we have failed to tell them why. No wonder students stop seeing the importance of the class period!

We also want to teach Scripture to students so that they are exposed to the whole counsel of God. We want them to know what God is actually saying. By their senior year, students should have an idea of what is in every book of the Bible- Genesis to Revelation. If they are given an idea of what is in the Bible, it will cause them to want to study it themselves. When they do study it themselves, their Bible classes will give them a context for what they read so that they aren’t lost. Who knows how many students have left a Christian school without having a clear idea of what the gospel message is all about?

Finally, Bible classes are necessarily academic because students must know the Bible in order to be considered educated as far as the Western world is concerned. Art, music, history, science, and literature are all touched in some way by God’s Word. Each of these areas alludes to the Bible in some way, whether through paintings, symphonies, the rise and fall of nations, various discoveries about our natural world, or the English classics. If students do not know what the Bible says, they lack the ability to understand the very world around them.

Only when students are given a proper Biblical context will they stay strong in their faith when they are no longer in a Christian environment. Students must learn to think for themselves. We must teach our students the theology, literature, and history of the Bible if we are to accurately label our schools as “Christian.” We have an obligation to parents, students, and the Lord to do so. If we fail to develop an academic Bible curriculum, we are guilty of false advertising, and- far worse- we are guilty of setting souls adrift in this world.

Again, I’m not opposed to having fun in Bible. Bible teachers had better have a love for their “jobs”, students, and subject matter. They must be enthusiastic about what they do. Serious academic study doesn’t require that the mood of class be serious. It takes the efforts of the entire school: administrators, teachers, and parents to create the right atmosphere.

At the school I currently teach at, high school students take courses in the Life and Teachings of Jesus, Old Testament Survey, New Testament Survey, and Christian Philosophy and Apologetics. You won’t hear many of them complaining (until test time, that is.) What you will hear are things like the following quotes, which were written by students in course evaluations last year:

• “I learned more about the Bible in a fun way. The discussions we had in class helped me see other people’s views on things.”
• “Your Bible class has helped me a lot this year. I have always gone to church, and I’ve been a Christian for a few years, but I never knew why I was or what it meant. I can put into words what I believe and why. I’m not afraid to stand up for my beliefs anymore because I know how to explain it and back it up with Scripture.”
• I have not always agreed with what you say, but I have learned from that. I have really enjoyed this class. I have learned so much, and this class has helped me stay strong in my faith.”

Why I Use the KJV: Translation Philosophy

If you’ve read my previous three articles on textual families, the KJV’s history, and the history of the non-Traditional texts, you know that we’ve gone through a lot of depth in a very short period of time. In this final article, I’ll be talking a bit about how the Bible is translated. At the end, I will also give a few examples to show that textual families, historical beliefs, and translation philosophies have led to some important differences between Bible versions.

The KJV

The translation techniques of the KJV translators are by far superior to modern translations. In his work on translation styles, The Word of God in English, Leland Ryken quotes Alister McGrath regarding KJV translation style: “The translators tried to ensure that every word in the original had an English equivalent, highlight all words added to the original for the sake of intelligibility, and follow the word order of the original where possible.” Accurate translation should be a window to the text, and the King James Version does just that.

Leland Ryken, himself a literary critic with extensive credentials, writes: “Its style combines simplicity and majesty as the original requires, though it inclines toward the exalted. Its rhythms are matchless.” In comparison to the language of the day, the KJV is unique. It blends together both the highest of English styles with the simplicity of the common English. The language itself, however, is wholly biblical. It is precisely what is written in the originals, nothing more, nothing less, save that which is included to aid in comprehension. It should again be noted that words added for comprehension’s sake are set apart from the text of the Bible by italics.

Some have complained that the style of the King James Version has added confusion, especially in the use of synonyms to translate the same word from the original language. This should be considered a blessing, not a curse. Synonyms further expound on the original word, so that those who do not know the original languages are not at a disadvantage. To balance the variety provided by the use of synonyms, unity is ensured by the proper translation of words in their context. Truly the vast richness of the English language in the seventeenth century has been utilized in this translation.

It should also be pointed out that the KJV is a translation, not an interpretation. This stands in stark contrast to the New International Version, The Living Bible, and a host of others. Such translations have received criticism from conservative and liberal scholars alike for misinterpreting Scripture.

Dynamic Equivalence and the Modern Translations

Eugene Nida’s philosophy of dynamic equivalence, which interprets the original text rather than translates, spread quickly to the publishers of Europe and America. Translations became increasingly more thought-for-thought oriented, rather than word-for-word. This poses a problem as it is God’s words, not His thoughts, that he promised to preserve.

Ryken lists several reasons for the acceptance of dynamic equivalence, none of which are theological or scholarly in nature: antitraditionalism, a preference for colloquialism, evangelistic zeal, and a consumer-oriented church. These translations, according to Ryken, who was on the board for a recent translation of the Bible, reduce the level of vocabulary to a seventh-grade vocabulary level, drop metaphors, and change words to what the translator believed what was intended. You wouldn’t do that to Shakespeare, Milton, or even A. A. Milne, so why would people do that to God? If you change structure, you’ve ruined the masterpiece. Part of the beauty of a poem is in how it is structured (and the Bible is filled with poetry). You can’t simply sum it up and expect it to have the same effect.

Results and Practical Pointers

The following verses have been omitted or relegated to a footnote in many modern translations. I typically go to the popular NIV when comparing:

• Matt. 6:13, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.”
• Matt. 7:21. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
• Matt. 15:8, “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth”
• Matt. 18:11. For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.
• Mark 15:28. And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered
  with the transgressors.
• I John 4:3, “Christ is come in the flesh”
• I John 5:13, “and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God”
• Rev. 1:11, “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last”

Notice which doctrines are effected in the above verses. Of course, there are also some significant changes between versions even when the verses are present:

I John 5:7 reads as follows:
NIV- For there are three that testify:
NASV- And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth.
NWT- For there are three witness bearers,
KJV- For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father,
the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

Messing with the doctrine of the Trinity sounds like dangerous ground to me!

Isaiah 14:12:

NIV- How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star …
KJV- How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

I thought Jesus was the morning star…

Acts 3:13:
NASV- The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Servant Jesus

KJV- The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers,hath glorified his Son Jesus;

Is Jesus God’s Servant or His Son?

I also like the KJV because it distinguishes between the sinular (thee, thou, thine) and the plural (you, your, yours) more directly. Technically, modern translations would need to distinguish between the two by using you/you all.

The results of all of this are far-reaching. First of all, there is no longer a Bible that everyone uses. It is up to the reader to determine which Bible is the best for them. Additionally, there is no longer a universal, Bible-centered Christian language, because the text of each Bible is different. Instead of confirming faith, the textual criticism and production of dozens of Bible translations has caused doubt in believers all over the world. According to Lewis, in seminaries, students are told that “the careful student of the Bible will not rely completely upon one version of the Bible, but he will seek to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the versions he uses.”

Either God preserved His Word or He did not. If God is incapable of protecting His Word, then we are all miserable creatures cut off from Him. We have lost our ability to trust the most direct line of communication between God and mankind. Fortunately, God did preserve His Word through the Masoretic Hebrew text and the Traditional Greek text.

I should be clear here that I don’t believe that the KJV is the only English translation that is or ever will acceptable. Languages change, and one day what we call English won’t look anything like English. Here’s an example of Luke 8:1-3 in Middle English:

And it is don, aftirward Jesus made iourne bi cites & castelis prechende & euangelisende þe rewme of god, & twelue wiþ hym & summe wymmen þat weren helid of wicke spiritis & sicnesses, marie þat is clepid maudeleyn, of whom seuene deuelis wenten out & Jone þe wif off chusi procuratour of eroude, & susanne & manye oþere þat mynystreden to hym of her facultes.

Summary

It remains for the church, not denominations, publishers, educational institutions, or fellowships, to continue to print and translate the Word of God into languages for people who have not heard. The text of Scripture was given to God through His chosen people, Israel, and to His bride, the church. When publishers, educational institutions, and the rest get involved in matters of textual criticism, translation, and transmission, trouble follows swiftly.
The believer can be comforted with the reality of God’s faithfulness. He will preserve His Word today, as He has throughout time. Believers have only to come to the sweet waters of God’s Word, and find all they need as they traverse this wilderness with their backs, as always, to Egypt.

Why I Use the KJV: An Age of “Reason”

Tischendorf

Previously I’ve shared my reasons for preferring the KJV based on the family of text it comes from as well as some of its historical background. I want to move on to the history behind the other translations, for most of them come from a blending together of the textual families using textual criticism. Textual criticism comes from an age of unbelief. This is a fact that cannot be ignored as we see the raping of Biblical Christianity unfold.

Enlightenment

The modern age, ranging from 1800 until the present day, has become one of ancient heresy  reborn and endorsed as truth. Men placed themselves above God in determining what He has said. A shift occurred, like a tremor among a fault line, toward rationalism. Many men turned to pay homage to the god of Reason and produced their own translations and paraphrases. Edward Carpenter lists the following one-man translations: Mace’s 1729, Wesley’s 1755, Purver’s 1764, Dodderidge’s 1765, and Newcome’s 1796, to name a few. Each translator saw the KJV as a handicap because it was unscientific and not in line with modern, rational thinking. Their translations are wooden, difficult to read, and not faithful to the words of the original text. Perhaps this is why these translations were not widely used even though they were from the Traditional text.

It should be mentioned that even in this darkening age of human history, the Traditional and Masoretic texts of the Bible continued to be printed, read, and studied almost exclusively. This is particularly true prior to the twentieth century. The majority of Christians believed the Bible was the Word of God and that the Bible was inerrant and infallible. Then, like a flood, lower criticism from apostates in Germany came rushing into seminaries and universities. “Scientific investigations” of the words and manuscripts of Scripture began. Man truly began to wonder what exactly it was that God had inspired men to write long ago. Questions arose regarding the purity of Scripture, and, ever so slowly, faith disappeared from the scene.

Textual critics sought to “fashion” texts according to research and investigation, determining which texts were “legitimate: and grouping them into families. Patristic citations which disproved theories of the Traditional text being a late text were determined to be illegitimate; only those that referred to a non-traditional text were accepted.

From Bengel to Tischendorf

The important men behind this movement were both proud and blind to what was going on around them, endorsing the rationalism of the day. Bengel published a text which classed different variant readings, but it was still based on the Traditional text. This was intended to weaken the faith of those who held to the Traditional text. Griesbach came on the scene in the early nineteenth century, and included in Bengel’s text apparatus for textual criticism. His theories were accepted completely by many scholars of the day, including Lachmann, perhaps one of the most infamous of the old-line scholars. He rejected the Traditional text used by the church for the better part of 1800 years in favor of the heretical texts, creating his own independent version. Lachmann purposefully ignored fifteen centuries of copied Traditional manuscripts in favor of the texts which, to him, carried more weight. It was upon his work that Constantine Tischendorf, in turn, would build his studies.

Tischendorf believed that textual criticism was exercised by Stephanus and Beza when they printed their editions of the Greek manuscripts, and that they were one and the same with Bengel and Griesbach. His goal was “to clear up in this way the history of the sacred text, and to recover if possible the genuine apostolic text which is the foundation of our faith.” Notice the complete lack of faith in God’s ability to preserve His Word.

Westcott and Hort

It was Tichendorf’s discovery (actually a theft) of Sinaiticus (in a garbage room) that bolstered the resolve of rationalistic theologians’ to reconstruct a true critical Greek text. From the work of these men came two men which every student of textual criticism knows well: Westcott and Hort.

Hort was by no means an evangelical believer. He scoffed at the idea of “a fictitious substituted righteousness” or a “fictitious substituted penalty.” He wrote the following to Westcott on April 12, 1861: ” I have sort of a craving our text should be cast upon the world before we deal with matters likely to brand us with suspicion. I mean a text issued by men already known for what will undoubtedly be treated as dangerous heresy, will have great difficulties in finding its way to regions which it might otherwise reach.”

Westcott is no better than Hort. He disdained the concept of infallibility, sided with Darwin’s evolutionary theory, and viewed heaven as a state and not a place. It was from men such as these that a critical text emerged which was a blending of heretical texts from the school of Origen and others like him. Interestingly enough, Westcott and Hort used mainly the patristic citations as proof of the legitimacy of their heretical texts. For this, they had to ignore the patristic citations referencing the Traditional text based on the idea that they had to have been tampered with at some point.

Their Critical Text came largely from two manuscripts known as Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. An inspection of these texts reveals some interesting facts. Vaticanus omits, according to Burgon, 2,877 words and adds 536. This does not include substitutions. Sinaiticus omits 3,455 words and adds 839, not counting substitutions. Burgon reminds us these alterations are not the same in both Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. From this, it can be ascertained that a major flaw in logic, to speak nothing of theology, must have occurred to even allow the two texts to be combined into one text.

It is from this work that the Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Society’s texts come. These texts are used in every major English translation. The Nestle-Aland and United Bible Society texts have been revised twenty-seven and four times, respectively, and great changes are made regularly. The most recent revision of the UBS text included 500 changes. It must be remembered: these are changes to the actual text of Scripture, not a translation thereof. Each of these changes is a change from what God actually said. Still men continue to attempt to do what Tischendorf said: “To set aside this textus receptus all together, and to construct a fresh text, derived immediately from the most ancient and authoritative sources.”

Why I Use the KJV: An Age of Faith

Tyndale

For 1500 years, the Byzantine text was used almost exclusively for Bible study among the educated and in translations for the laity. For 1500 years, the Greek New Testament existed as papyri fragments, uncials, and minuscules. That all changed with the invention of the printing press.

Greek Printings

In the early sixteenth century, God began a mighty work in Europe to bring about a printed Greek Text. It was at this time that Desiderius Erasmus came on the scene. He set out to print, for the first time ever, the Greek text of the New Testament. He gathered together and studied, but did not accept as valid, every available manuscript. Erasmus was given access to nearly every library in Europe because of his scholarship and friendship with the Pope. Far from being unaware of heretical manuscripts, Erasmus divided all manuscripts based on whether or not they agreed with either the Traditional text or Vaticanus. He chose to reject Vaticanus as a pure text in 1533.

It is true that Erasmus’ first printing of the Traditional text was done hastily and contained errors, but the last four were not so. He added 1 John 5:7 and corrected his errors in the last four revisions. It was from the third through fifth revisions that most translations came. He also studied some of the more critical readings of the texts, and was aware of the passages removed from the Alexandrian versions, such as the last twelve verses of Mark and the Pericope de Adultera. The Pericope is the omission of the story of the woman caught in adultery. This was occasionally omitted because of cultural and religious biases.

From this printing of the Greek text, many translations arose. Luther’s German, Tyndale’s English, Lefevre’s French, Biestkens’ Dutch, Laurentius’ Swedish, de Reyna’s Spanish, as well as the Danish, Czech, Italian, and Welsh translations all came from Erasmus’ printing of the Traditional text. In fact, almost all translations came from this text until the nineteenth century! Other printings of Greek manuscripts, such as those done by Stephanus, Beza, and the Elzevir brothers were simply reprintings of Erasmus’ Traditional text. It was at the time of the Elzevir brothers that the Traditional text in printed form came to be called the Textus Receptus because of an advertisement regarding their printing.

English Translations in an Age of Faith

Tyndale is a name that English-speaking Christians know well. What few realize is that Tyndale studied under Erasmus for four years at Cambridge. Tyndale was an excellent linguist who was fluent in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, and French. The stir Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament caused was incredible. He was denounced by church and government alike. It was, however a great translation of the Traditional text. Even Westcott is forced to give Tyndale’s translation its due: “It is impossible to read through a single chapter without gaining the assurance that Tindale [sic] rendered the Greek text directly . . . .”

After Tyndale was martyred, the Coverdale and Matthew Bibles were published in 1535 and 1537, respectively. Both Bibles were revisions of Tyndale’s New Testament. The Matthew Bible also included Tyndale’s unpublished notes and translation of Joshua through Second Chronicles.

In 1539, the Great Bible was published, followed by the 1560 Geneva Bible. This last Bible was the first complete English Bible from the original languages. In 1568, the Bishop’s Bible was produced by order of Queen Elizabeth. This was nothing more than a revision of the Great Bible. The translators of all of these Bibles relied on the Textus Receptus and the Masoretic text for the basis of their translations. They also relied on previous English translations and translations in other languages for a guide.

The King James Version

In 1604, King James I ordered that a new translation of the Bible be produced, and in 1607, the work began. In their book, The Bible in English Translation, Steven M. Sheeley and Robert N. Nash describe the organization of the translation committees: “Work on the new translation was divided among fifty-four renowned translators from the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster. These translators were divided into six teams, each responsible for translating a section of the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha. The work of each team was carefully reviewed by other teams, and the final translation was edited by two representatives from each team.” The translation committees were organized and had a system of checks and balances. The translators relied on the Masoretic text and the traditional text, most significantly Stephanus’ third and Beza’s fifth editions.

Unlike the translators of today, these men were not paid. They were therefore not wooed by the love of money, something which cannot be said for translators and publishing companies today. These men were not in any way under King James’ jurisdiction due to financial assistance or official governmental authorization.

They included few marginal notes. The notes included were meant to reinforce the text and clarify the translation rather than be a hindrance. This stands in stark contrast to modern translations. Marginal notes in these new translations are intended to cause doubt with vague references to “variants” and “the best manuscripts,” without defining terminology.

“The King James Version was born in an age of faith,” writes Paisley, “Its inception and reception are characterized by faith.” Nash and Sheeley agree: “The influence of the King James Version, or Authorized Version as it came to be called cannot be exaggerated. . . . It stands as one of the outstanding masterpieces of the English Language.” No other translation of the Bible in English has had the impact of the King James Version. It has been used for 400 years in churches across the world. It has been used to translate daughter editions of the Bible when Christians were not familiar enough with the original languages to translate directly. It set the standard for all translations to come in every area.

In spite of the 400 years that have passed, it has changed little since its first printing. From 1611 to 1917, D. A. Waite discovered only 136 changes of significance in the text of the KJV. These changes are mostly only changes which do not sound the same when spoken aloud. While 136 changes may sound like a lot, it is really a very small amount compared to the number of words in the rest of the King James Version. It should also be recognized that changes within a translation is not the same as changes within the original text of Scripture, so long as the translation changes are accurate to the original. There are, after all, many different ways in which a word may be translated. Additionally, the italicized words for which there is no Greek or Hebrew equivalent may have been dropped because it was determined that they were not needed.

Why I Use the KJV: Families of Texts

I sometimes get asked why I bother using the King James Version of the Bible. After all, there are plenty of translations that use modern language out there. However, I would like to suggest that readability isn’t the only issue when choosing a Bible version. We should be confident in the underlying text. We should also be comfortable with the translation philosophy and the purpose behind the translation. In this article, I’d like to trace the transmission of the Greek New Testament texts through history.

Texts are typically divided into families of transmission. There are three primary families that most students of the Bible will talk about: Western, Alexandrian, and Byzantine (also known as the Traditional text or Majority text).

Western Texts

The Western Greek manuscripts are known for paraphrasing the words of Scripture. Now, I’m not opposed to paraphrasing when it comes to summarizing a passage of Scripture, when performing a play or skit produced from Scripture, or when teaching Bible. I am opposed to changing the original words of Scripture. If we cannot say with absolution and authority that God said something, then we shouldn’t even bother. If Jesus said “My words shall not pass away”, then He meant it. A quick read through Psalm 119 makes it very clear that God’s Word is eternal. The Western texts are a paraphrase of Scripture, not Scripture itself.

The Western texts also tend to add to Scripture from other books. This is most serious, since adding and taking away from God’s Word is a sin in the highest degree. I personally think that it is strange that anyone even considers these this group of texts to even be considered a family of text. The original words of Scripture have been paraphrased, taken away, and added to. It is no wonder that there are very few ancient papyri, uncials (Greek manuscripts written in all capital letters), or miniscules (Greek manuscripts written in all lower-case letters) available.

Alexandrian Texts

The Alexandrian texts originated in Alexandria, Egypt. Codex Vaticanus (found in the Vatican library) and Codex Sinaiticus (found in the trash-room of a monastery on Mt. Sinai) are usually placed in this family. There is some debate over exactly how many papyri and uncials are in the Alexandrian text family. The reason for this is that the majority of old manuscripts are really only fragments of manuscripts. However, for the sake of fairness, I am willing to go along with the assertion that the oldest manuscripts (uncials) and papyri are of this family. Those of modern scholarship (though I cringe to call it that) favor the Alexandrian text for the following reasons:

1. They believe the more difficult the original is to interpret, the closer it is to actual Scripture.
2. They believe the shorter the original is, the closer it is to actual Scripture.
3. They believe that older manuscripts are better manuscripts.

I have problems with all three assertions. First of all, there doesn’t seem to be any basis for believing that difficult is better. That assumption seems to be entirely arbitrary. This is believing that difficult is better than simple. This is a baseless claim.

To the second assertion, we must ask why shorter is better. This claim is once again arbitrary. Those who hold to this view maintain that Mark 16 should have ended with the disciples running scared from the empty tomb of Jesus. They believe that Mark never wrote of the women at the tomb or of Jesus’ ascension into Heaven. These people do not even believe that we can know the actual words of Scripture in the first place.

Finally, we come to the assertion that “older is better.” While this might be true of wine or cheese, it isn’t always true elsewhere. We must ask ourselves why these copies survived and others didn’t. First of all, the climate of Egypt is much  more suited to preserving parchment and papyri. It has very low humidity, less rainfall, and a narrow degree of temperature change. It would make sense for these texts to survive for longer periods of time. Secondly, Kirsopp Lake believed that the copiers of the Byzantine text type (having originated primarily in Antioch) would have emphasized a respectful disposal of worn-out manuscripts. A third explanation is that the Church (here capitalized to mean the body of true believers) did not heavily use the Alexandrian manuscripts since they were not in line with actual Scripture. In contrast, the Byzantine manuscripts were heavily used and therefore wore out much more quickly.

I also struggle with the acceptance of Alexandrian manuscripts because of the Gnostic apostasy that was heavily taught in Alexandria. I have few reasons to trust people who believed in such error. I would also point out that the two famous (infamous?) Alexandrian manuscripts were found in suspicious locations. Vaticanus was found in the Vatican library. This already makes it suspicious to some people’s minds, since many Christians are not Catholic because of doctrinal reasons. Sinaiticus, on the other hand, was found in a trash room, waiting to be burned. That the monks didn’t even consider Sinaiticus worth saving makes us suspect that they knew the errors it contained. Finally, we must consider that the Byzantine text is has, in recent years, been given a position of higher authority by some scholars. In fact, the American Bible Society’s Greek manuscript of 1966 has changed from the Alexandrian reading back to the Byzantine reading in thirteen different passages. (Zane C. Hodges, A Defense of the Majority-Text, pg 14.)

Byzantine Texts

The vast majority of New Testament manuscripts are of this family of texts. Zane C. Hodges writes that there are 81 papyri, 267 uncials, and 2,764 miniscules. Of these manuscripts, eighty to ninety percent are in agreement with the Traditional text. Some scholars, such as Riplinger, would put the percentage much higher, even as high as ninety-nine percent. Harry A. Sturz notes in The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism that the preservation of this vast body of manuscripts is God’s stamp of approval on this text. Indeed, it would make sense that the text most used by the early church would be the text preserved by God, and the vast numbers of manuscripts recovered throughout the centuries would be a great testament to God’s marvelous work of preservation. This was, in fact, the position of the New Testament church with regard to inspiration.
Many of these manuscripts appear to originate in Antioch. Textual critics argue that the Traditional text must be an edited version of the Alexandrian texts. This argument makes little sense historically for two reasons. First, a church which sent out missionaries across the known world was most likely a distributor and not a receiver of manuscripts. From the books of Acts and Galatians, we know that Barnabas, Paul, and Peter all ministered there. Secondly, Jews fleeing Jerusalem would have understood the importance of careful copying of Scripture and would have impressed this concept on all who were at the Antiochan church.
Another proof of the early church’s possession and use of the Traditional text is that the early church fathers quoted and paraphrased it frequently. Sturz lists eighteen examples of this as proof, citing Clement, Tertullian, Marcion, and Origen as examples. In fact, from the time of Chrysostom on, the Traditional text is the predominant text in patristic citations.While certain
The Traditional text is not only the most numerous family of texts, but is also used universally. These texts have been recovered from all over the Greco-Roman world. By contrast, the corrupt texts appear to originate in only Alexandria. The implication is obvious: the Traditional text is an accurate sampling of the text used throughout the known world in early times, while the Alexandrian texts come solely from Alexandria and the surrounding locales.

My point in all of this is that most modern translations come from the Alexandrian text family while most- if not all- older translations come from the Byzantine text family. That’s another story, though…

Scripture: The Revealed Word

In previous posts, I’ve spoken about God’s revelation of Himself through nature and Jesus Himself. I will finish this train of thought and begin another by discussing the topic of Special Revelation. God revealed certain aspects of Himself through Creation. God’s ultimate self-disclosure was in Jesus Christ. Peter tells us that we have  another revelation from God that we can be confident in. (2 Peter 1:16-21) This final revelation we have to discuss is the Word of God.

Like the Incarnate Word and the Creative Word, the Living Word has unique characteristics. The Creation displayed God’s infinite intellect and majesty (Psalm 19). The Incarnate Word revealed God Himself to mankind and is the chief method of God’s interaction with His creation (Hebrews 1). Scripture reveals God’s words and thoughts. This makes the Bible a unique gift to mankind. While the Creation reveals God’s power and sovereignty and the Incarnation reveals God’s nature and personality, the Bible reveals His theology and philosophy. King David writes the following in Psalm 19:7-11:

The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.

There are many details that I could go over when discussing the uniqueness of the Bible. I could talk about the probability of a book claiming to be written by God to be logically coherent when it was penned by scores of men over several thousand years from different parts of the world speaking three different languages. I could reference the accuracy and detail of prophecy. I could talk about the probability of an ancient book making it to our day without losing anything. (Since many of our Greek and even English classics have gaps in them.)

However, I would point out that the Bible itself predicted that it would last forever and claims to come from God. (Psalm 119:89) To make a claim to be eternal truth is one thing, but to actually be true in both spiritual and physical realities is quite another. To speak for God (thus saith the Lord) is one thing, but to bear the marks of the Divine is something quite different.

Scripture allows us to think God’s thoughts after Him. We can partake of the knowledge of the Holy any time we desire. God reveals His past works, His present will, and His future plan in one Book that spans the ages. Who would shun such a wondrous gift?

Fiat: The Creative Word

King David of Israel wrote the following words, which are recorded for us in Psalm 19:1-3:

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.

How have the heavens spoken? In what way has God revealed Himself to mankind? At God’s fiat (an authoritative decree coming from the Latin word meaning “Let it be done” [Fiat lux = Let there be light]), matter, energy, and even time itself leapt into existence. Every experiment and experience we are a part of is made possible by God’s Creative Word. God’s very act of creation was done to glorify Himself and to point mankind to Him. His beauty is reflected in the starry sky. He is shown to be wise in the complexity of the human eye, to speak nothing of the body. His majesty is revealed in the roaring of the ocean waves. His power is displayed in the thunder and lightning.

On a sunny spring morning, we can hear His music that birds sing. On a wintry day, we can discover His “treasures of the snow.” The physicist and mathematician are impressed by the elegance of the natural laws designed by the great Mathematician. The more we learn about our universe- and there is so much to learn- the more impressed we are by the magnificence of God. Whoever you are, wherever you are, and whenever you are, God designed His world with you in mind. He makes His presence so obvious, Paul tells us in Romans 1:20 that those who deny God’s existence are without excuse.

Evangelical Darwinism

Bertrand Russell

I’ve written a few posts on the religiosity of Darwinism, but now I want to turn my attention toward the “evangelical” aspects of the movement itself. The term “evangelical” is, of course, generally applied to a particular type of Christianity. Evangelicalism emphasizes a variety of means to bringing people to the truth as well as withstanding the advancement of sin or anti-Christian thought: preaching by evangelists, apologetics, sermons (both fiery and compassionate), and public outcry against heresy, apostasy, and immorality.

Strangely enough, Atheism and Darwinism share many of these same traits. They have evangelists: Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and others. These men preach powerful sermons and employ convincing apologetics. They warn the listener of the dangers of religion. They are no post-modernists; they see everything in terms of black and white. In fact, they even go so far as to speak in apocalyptic terms concerning the results of a truly Christian nation. To change one’s mind concerning atheism is viewed as  a type of apostasy. Dawkins himself went so far as to refer to Anthony Flew’s “conversion” from atheism to deism as “tergiversation”, a term that is synonymous with apostasy.

In addition to the nature-worship I mentioned at the end of the previous post, they also associate Charles Darwin with Messianic terminology. “Cosmology,” says Richard Dawkins in his debate against John Lennox, “is still waiting for its Darwin.” Stephen Jay Gould is even more explicit in the deification of Darwinin his “Sociobiology: the Art of Storytelling”: “All theories [of natural selection] cite God in their support, and … Darwin comes close to this status among evolutionary biologists.” Michael White echoed Gould in 2002 when he said: “Of course today, for biologists, Darwin is second only to God, and for many he may rank still higher.”

Once again, lest you think that I’m twisting words or “making a mountain out of a molehill”, allow me to quote Darwinist Michael Ruse on the subject:

“Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion — a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint — and Mr. Gish is but one of many to make it — the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.”

Is Darwinism a sufficient faith? I think not. It does not answer the burning questions of the soul. Consider the words of Katharine Tait in her book My Father, Bertrand Russell:

I would have liked to convince my father that I had found what he had been looking for, the ineffable something he had longed for all his life. I would have liked to persuade him that the search for God does not have to be vain. Somewhere at the back of my father’s mind, at the bottom of his heart, in the depths of his soul, there was an empty space that had once been filled with God, and he never found anything else to put in it.

Lest someone accuse Tait of making her case a little too poignant compared to Russell’s own feelings, here is Russell in his own autobiography: “Nothing can penetrate the loneliness of the human heart except the highest intensity of the sort of love the religious teachers have preached.”

Darwinism, atheism, and their ilk are insufficient replacements for true faith in God, for in Him we live, and move, and have our being. Apart from Him, we are left with, in the words of Tait again, “a ghostlike feeling of not belonging, of having no home in this world.”

Change Worth Believing In

Recently, I have been made aware of an argument against Christianity that is really somewhat shocking to me. This argument states that Christianity is not all that unique. In fact, Christianity- so say the critics- is just one more attempt by man to set up moral standards, reward good behavior, and comfort those in need of a “crutch” by offering them a God to obey and lean on. I have to tell you, I just don’t see the resemblance between Christianity and these religions.

Oh, I know that Christianity shares a similar moral code with many different religions. I also know that many religions claim to have a way to God, an afterlife, etc. Every religion has some fragment of truth in it, but a fragment of truth and having the Truth are not the same thing. All religions recognize the obvious flaws in mankind. What religions don’t agree on is how to take care of those flaws. Islam and Judaism, for all their differences, attempt to make adherents follow a legal code. They have their own distinct yet similar Law which restrains evil and makes or breaks one’s chances of a decent afterlife. Buddhism and Hinduism rely heavily on meditation and other practices to focus on inner strength, purity of thought, and peace.

Christianity has a different answer. Christianity also recognizes that humanity has an evil bent. Christianity also has elements of Law and an emphasis on the eternal soul. Law serves a different purpose in Christianity, however. The Apostle Paul writes the following in Galatians 3:24-25: “The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith; but after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” The Old Testament Law’s purpose is to teach us that we can’t live up to God’s standard. There comes a point when we “graduate”, though, and we don’t need our teacher any more. Once we “graduate” our souls gain their true significance.

If we can’t live up to God’s standard, what are we to do? Can we just make up for our shortcomings by doing more good works? No, because “good works” are what we are expected to do anyway. Whatever good we accomplish in our lives, we can never undo the bad things we did. Under the law, every lie, lustful thought, moment of indiscretion, bitter thought, etc. is an action that we are “paid” for. Paul tells us of this payment  in Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death.” This spiritual death leaves the sinner in Hell for all of eternity.

What is Christianity’s alternative to Sin and Hell? How do we earn our way to God and His Heaven? The answer is perhaps the most shocking in all of history: we don’t. We can’t. God’s standard is not that we be good, but it is that we be perfect. Many have claimed to be good, but few- if any- would claim to be perfect. This is where God steps in and does the unexpected. He came down into a world of sorrow and violence caused by man’s sin and took on human flesh. He doesn’t take on flesh to advise, encourage, punish, or trick us as the heathen “gods” did. He took on flesh to experience human suffering and, ultimately, to endure the agonies of the Cross “that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

When we could not ascend to God because of our sin, God came down to us. This is the great difference between religions and Christianity. Some religions may share similar thoughts with Christianity, but things change dramatically when it comes to Jesus. Muslims are willing to accept Him as a prophet and even recognize His perfection and virgin birth, but they stop short of calling Him “God.” That Allah would take on flesh is akin to blasphemy. Judaism is offended that Messiah would die and thus rejects Him. Buddhism and Hinduism have little- if any- regard for Jesus. In the person of Jesus, the Divine experienced the pain and suffering of this world and the weight and guilt of sin. The Lord of Life experienced Death. This shocking truth is what separates Jesus from all other “gods” and faiths. Trusting in His death and resurrection makes Christianity a “change” from all other religions. It’s a change worth believing in.

Why the Water Boils: Procedural vs. Philosophical Atheism

Why is the water boiling? One could explain, in scientific terms, how water molecules behave when they reach a certain temperature. That is certainly one reasonable explanation. There’s another very reasonable explanation: I want a cup of hot tea on a cold morning. Neither of these answers would be wrong. One answer explains how matter and energy behave, while another explains purpose. So it is with science and Christianity. There is no difficulty in reconciling science with religion. They work in different fields to explain reality. Why then do atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, say that the two “sides” are at war with each other? The difference is in the types of atheism.

Leaving God out of the Gaps

The first type of atheism is what D’souza calls procedural atheism. Procedural atheists aren’t really atheists at all, at least not in the sense that we usually think of atheists. Procedural atheists are merely trying to find ways to accurately describe how the universe works. I don’t know a Christian that has a problem with this. No one wants to see a scientist trying to find a cure for disease and just give up, claiming that the disease was a miracle, so no cure could be found. No one wants to hear that it’s impossible to understand how stars are formed because, as a part of God’s miraculous creation, we can’t really know how it works in the first place. Procedural atheism treats nature as if that is all that exists simply because nature is all that science has to work with. There are a many scientists that believe in God that use procedural atheism in their discoveries.

Astronomer Owen Gingerich writes: “Science works within a constrained framework in creating brilliant pictures of nature. This does not mean that the universe is actually godless, just that science within its own framework has no other way of working.” Gingerich later writes: “Reality goes much deeper. A universe where God can play an interactive role…is not excluded by science.”

No “Divine Feet”

Philosophical atheism, on the other hand, is a dogmatic position that believes that the natural universe is all that exists. Often, procedural and philosophical atheism are blended to form a case against a Creator. The philosophical atheist dogma barricades itself into a very small box, shielding itself against any knowledge that does not fit the naturalistic theory. Theists, on the other hand, are entirely willing to admit naturalistic explanations for how something works- our natural laws- while reserving room for supernatural explanations for why something exists and functions.

Philosophical atheists are sometimes unwilling to admit their own bias, but at other times they are astonishingly frank. Physicist Stephen Hawking writes: “Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention.”

[Meanwhile Christians have long believed in a beginning, and Augustine even posited that time itself was an aspect to the created world.]

Astronomer and physicist Lee Smolin rants: “Must all of our scientific understanding of the world really come down to a mythological story in which nothing exists…save some disembodied intelligence, who, desiring to start a world, chooses the initial conditions, and then wills matter into being? It seems to me that the only possible name for such an observer is God, and that the theory (that the universe had a starting point in the Big Bang [ironically]) is to be criticized as being unlikely on these grounds.”

Cut off from any other explanation for origin and purpose, philosophical atheism must now thrive on ludicrous and unprovable ideas. Biologist Franklin Harold writes: “Life arose on earth from inanimate matter, by some kind of evolutionary process. This is not a statement of demonstrable fact, but an assumption. It is not supported by any direct evidence, nor is it likely to be.”

Francis Crick, the man who helped discover the structure of DNA has another alternative to mankind being God’s special creation. He’s serious, folks. In his book Life Itself, Crick theorizes that aliens brought life to our planet from theirs. Really? So if your newborn baby’s skin tone seems a bit green to you….

Richard Dawkins, in his book The Blind Watchmaker, tells us that we should expect gaps in the fossil record. In his mind the absence of evidence for biological Darwinism should be “exactly what we should positively expect.” Later he writes that “we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it.” How very scientific, Richard.

Naturalism as a Faith

Here’s the reality: naturalism and materialism are not the conclusions of the modern scientific community, rather they are premises of the modern scientific community (at least the majority) that have been imposed on nature. Welcome to the Church of Naturalism!

I’ll close with the words of Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin, since they speak for themselves:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment- a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori commitment to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanation, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

You Don’t Need God to be Good…

Ah, those crazy guys known as “the New Atheists.” They’re kinder, gentler, and eager to please. They’re also quick to point out that you don’t have to be a Christian in order to be a moral person. They cry: “You see! We don’t need God anymore! We don’t need Him as Creator, we don’t need Him as judge, and we certainly don’t need Him as Savior! We don’t need God to scare us into being good!” I have no doubt that there are many moral atheists out there. Most Westerners (and the vast majority of Easterners, for that matter) are decent people. I am, however, just a bit confused on one major point.

…but you do need God for there to be such a thing as Good.

How can you say that you are a good person, a moral person even, when you don’t believe God exists? If there is no God, where are we getting our basis of “good” from? Not from society, that’s for sure. Our customs and laws always change, many national laws conflict with each other, and there are some twisted societies, such as those set up by Nazism and Communism (both Atheistic societies, by the way) whose laws are the most immoral things around. Morality doesn’t come from nature, as that whole “survival of the fittest” thing doesn’t go too well when you applied to natural or social Darwinism. Only the existence of God explains any sense of morality. We aren’t talking about high ideals here. Good must either exist apart from the actions of mankind, or it does not exist at all. Only an immutable Being is capable of producing an immutable Law.

You don’t have to take a Christian’s word for it. Nietzsche was hardly a Bible-thumper in his day. He’s famous for his “God is dead,” statement. Most Christians are still quite up in arms over that , however, they forget Nietzsche’s point in making that statement. Nietzsche saw that moral absolutes have no foundations apart from God. If society ignores (or denies) His existence, there is a massive void in its structure that must somehow be filled. It’s a problem that has never quite gone away.

The New Atheists may be right when they say they are good atheists, but they will have a hard time proving it without God.

Is Nothing Sacred?

I’ve used the term “sacred” a number of times in my blog recently. In order to avoid confusion, I’d like to write a short entry to explain what I mean by this term. When I say that something is Sacred, I am referring to its essence, not its purpose. By this broad definition, the whole of Creation is Sacred because it was created by and for the Godhead. The whole of Creation is Sacred to the degree that it adheres to the will of its Creator.

The narrower definition of sacred (what I call “little s” sacred) has more to do with its purpose. The Arts, entertainment, relationships, education, music, minds, and all created things are Sacred to one extent or the other. Satan himself, however evil, can’t wholly exorcise the “good” things given to him by God. He cannot remove his own intelligence or abilities. In this way, Martin Luther was correct in saying that the Devil was ultimately God’s Devil. Even the Enemy cannot escape God.

Of course, this is not to say that all things are to be considered sacred in purpose. Satan is far from sacred in purpose. However wonderful a sunset or the beach may be, they are not sacred in purpose either. Experiencing them is not equal to singing sacred songs, prayer, or the study of God’s Word. Music may have meaning and develop eternal truths, sometimes even accidentally. That doesn’t mean that any sort of music qualifies as worship music. In recognizing the Sacredness of God’s World, we must not ignore the importance of sacred writing, speech, or music. You cannot replace that which is sacred in purpose with that which is sacred in essence. Though I’m sure the (minutely) Sacred Devil would disagree. . . .

The Eye of the Beholder?

Psalm 29:2 exhorts us to “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.” There is a relationship between that which is beautiful and that which is holy. Holiness- purity from sin- is a beautiful thing, and, by the same token, Beauty is a holy thing. It is a holy thing because Beauty itself originates in God. It is from His mind that stars leaped into being. His creative powers brought forth this world. His genius formed man from simple clay. Even in this damaged world in which we live, we can see His splendor in the sunset, the mountains, and even the falling snow.

Because beauty originates from Him, God does not differentiate between Sacred and Secular. There is of course, a specific type of Sacredness that is reserved for our communion with Him. In general, though, all things that are pure and without sin are Sacred. Races and ethnicities are Sacred. Music is Sacred. Sexuality is Sacred. Our living and dying [Romans 14:7-9], eating and drinking [1Corinthians 10:31], and whatever else may accompany our existence is Sacred to the extent that we obey God’s ordained order. An important part of that ordained order is the Law of Beauty. In fact, one could argue that God’s Law of Purity (His moral law) is based heavily in the Law of Beauty.

Think of it this way: God considers the variety of races to be a beautiful thing. Therefore, racism is wrong because it belittles the Beauty God has created in this world. Sexual perversion is wrong because it mars the beauty of the marriage relationship. When we turn to the matter of man’s creations, though, things get a bit more sticky. People argue that passion and creativity are all that matters.

This is simply not the case. Music, art, and literature are only beautiful to the degree that they adhere to God’s set standard of holiness. In this way, holiness acts as a shield and defense to true beauty. Holiness does not limit Beauty. It protects Beauty. When the Arts cease to model true Beauty, they are no longer Art. They are a profanity, a twisted mockery of the Sacred.

I’m a Lord of the Rings fan, and I like Tolkien’s illustration of this. He writes that Sauron (what we might call the “Satan” figure in Tolkien’s mythology) cannot create anything. Trolls, goblins, and other evil creatures are merely a corruption of the created order. In fact, none of the creatures in Tolkien’s Middle Earth were originally evil. The distortion came from within at the bidding of Evil. So it is with our world.

There is much that is good, holy, and beautiful in our world. It is still “my Father’s world” after all. As awful as things have gotten here, evil is only a mockery of the good. It is at best an assault on Beauty. Such mockery is really an attempt to assault God Himself, because He is the author of Beauty. A quick read of Psalms 2 will quickly point out that evil is only a passing thing, and though evil men and women may mock God and His Law of Beauty, a Day is coming which will end all such attacks.

God has so much for us to enjoy in this world. Find sources of pure Beauty to enjoy, summon the measure of creativity He has given you, and you will both glorify God and enjoy this world He has given to us. We are no more perfectly His Image-bearers than when we exalt Beauty as something Sacred.

Fun Dip and Beer

If you are in the least bit sane, you probably saw the title of this post and had a few questions for me. No worries; it’s just that there’s a story here that has to be shared. This year my wife and I decided to give each other a Christmas gift that we could really enjoy: a night at the symphony and a nice dinner. We don’t go out for culture and class very often, so we were both pretty excited. I donned my nicest attire and even threw on some cologne. No khaki slacks for me!

After an amazing dinner at our favorite (nearly) high-end restaurant, we went to the symphony. The music was absolutely beautiful, and it’s safe to say that we had an enjoyable time. There was only one major glitch in the whole night. Ten minutes into the concert, the guy next to me whipped out a bottle of beer and a Fun Dip package. Now, I’m a huge fan of Fun Dips. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve taking a sugar stick, dipping it into a fruit-flavored powder, and enjoying a nice, refreshing sugar high. Could he have enjoyed the music while enjoying his “snack”? Sure. But it was obvious that he wasn’t tuned into the concert at all. No doubt, he was simply there because his wife wanted to go.

I was irritated and maybe a little sad because this guy missed out on something of the Eternal. And that, I think, is what irked me so much. The truth is, I enjoyed the experience regardless of what the bozo next to me was doing. What drives me nuts as I sit here writing at 12:45am is that, while hundreds around him partook of a Sacred experience, he exercised his free will in wallowing in amusement (a term which originally meant the absence of thinking.)

Tonight, in the middle of this repository of passion, skill, and intelligence (classical music), this glorious cultural- or perhaps hypercultural- experience, sat one man who couldn’t perceive what was going on around him. There he sat, eating his Fun Dip and sipping his beer, while music- some of it written hundreds of years ago- stirred the emotions and the minds of those around him.

“How,” you may ask, “is the symphony Sacred? And what in the world do you mean by hypercultural?” When I say “hypercultural,” I simply mean that there are things that in their essence transcend culture. Beauty is one of those things. Music- true music- is a potent expression of the Law of Beauty- a transcendent reality. It is proof that beauty is not simply in the eye of the beholder. Classical music isn’t classical just because it was written a long time ago. It is a classic because it speaks across generations, languages, and cultures. It has survived the test of time. In a sense works such as classical music and classical literature are not merely beautiful works. They are the incarnation of the Law of Beauty. Something in the thought put into their creation, the passion summoned by a rational mind, has a soulish quality that speaks to the listener.

If the music played at the symphony is indeed soulish, if it communicates something deep and real to the mind and heart of a human being, if it awakens the listener to a higher reality (in this case transcendent Beauty) than himself, then it is in fact Sacred. I don’t mean that it is Sacred in the sense that it reveals God’s Word or is a substitute for Christian music or that a person could come to God by listening to it. I mean that it stirs within the listener (or at least a listener who isn’t dulling his senses with beer and Fun Dip) a desire for Beauty, it tantalizes the Soul which was breathed into Man at Creation, it causes him to turn from himself and ponder the existence of a deeper, broader, more intricate reality than he can perceive with the senses. Something as simple as enjoying Christmas music in a crowded theatre can be just one movement of the Anthem of the Ages orchestrated by a loving God. How sad would it be if we missed Him because we traded the Sacred for Fun Dip!