Sorry to be so long completing this post. I've been working the last few nights and when I come home from a twelve hour shift of patient care and teaching a student (I currently have a student) I just don't have two functioning brain cells to rub together.
John (cowart.info) asked me to give the link to the book discussed in the last post. Here it is: http://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Original-Greek/dp/0759800774/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201512804&sr=1-1
And now, without further ado, the rest of the story.
Alphaeus’ son, Matthew Levi, was a tax-collector. He was considered something of a traitor by the Jews. He had taken this position because it provided him an opportunity to make a good living without a lot of manual labor.
Tax collectors were assigned a certain amount they had to collect from their district. They could use what ever method necessary to collect the amount required by the Romans. All they collected over and above this amount was theirs. If they failed to collect at least the required amount, they were subject to retribution by the Roman official.
All this means that he was accustomed to detecting fraud and deception on the part of those from whom he was to collect money.
He was an expert at detecting deception.
He was also accustomed to compressing the results of his investigations into tight statements of fact.
He was also a convert of John Baptist. He had investigated him and found him to be legitimate. He had been convicted about the way he did business. He had straightened up and made restitution to those whom he had ripped off. He had believed John’s preaching that the Messiah was about to appear. He knew that John had identified Jesus of Nazareth as this person.
It only stands to reason that Matthew collected the information given in chapter two of his gospel account from Mary and possibly Joseph, the still living witnesses, Jesus himself and from the synagogue records in Nazareth. (In the last 150 years there have been those who assert that the gospel accounts are forgeries written in the second century. These assertions break down under examination, and are only attempts to assasinate the witnesses (the gospel writers) because their testimony is unimpeachable as it stands.)
Matthew was a disciple of John Baptist. He had been watching Jesus for months. Jesus had been identified by John Baptist as the one who was to come, the Messiah of God. Matthew had been investigating in his spare time. He had though about what it would mean to throw in with this Jesus. He had considered the cost in time and money.
One day Jesus stopped by the office and called him to make the decision and be his full-time follower. Luke says he just got up and left it all and followed him.
Now, a balanced man would not do this unless he had been investigating. Evidence is that Jesus’ mother and brothers were somewhere proximal to him and his disciples during his early ministry. At one point they wanted an audience with him and could not get at him because of the crowds. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to think that at some time, possibly in the days of transition from being a disciple of John Baptist to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ, Matthew Levi interviewed Mary, Jesus’ mother, and investigated the official records of the elders in Nazareth to find out about the rumors of his birth.
So in his little summary sentence, “she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Ghost” what does he imply?
“She was found” means that there were other people involved in the investigation. It would be no problem to figure out that she was pregnant. But how would the investigators “find” that she was with child by the Holy Ghost?
Her own story, along with her known character would be the first line of evidence.
Then Joseph’s account of what happened to him is another.
The critics assert that in those times, people believed that a woman could become pregnant by the gods. However, the Jews did not believe in “gods”. And, as C. S. Lewis points out in his essay “They Asked for a Paper”, if they believed this, then why the investigation, and why did Joseph seek a way to divorce her? Why didn’t they all say, “Yeah, well, these things happen once in a while.”
Then, in a tiny little town with the strict Jewish/Middle-Eastern customs that required young women to be completely separated from young men except under the most careful supervision, it would have been sure she was not pregnant by Joseph.
Read the outline of the ritual related to this in Deuteronomy 19:15ff. If she were found to have been seduced, she was under sentence of death at the door of her father’s house, which would bring reproach on the whole family for not watching and protecting her from such an occurence.
It would have been against Mary’s interests because of the consequences. It would have been completely against the interests of Joseph for him to get her pregnant before the wedding. He could lose his business, his standing in the synagogue, his life. Matthew’s record states that it was before they came together.
If she had been courted by another man it would have been common knowledge.
If she had been raped, it would have been known.
When she told her story to the women folk, there would have been some kind of a gynecological examination by a rabbi or priest to see if she still had her hymen, called in the Deuteronomy passage “the tokens of her virginity”. There would have been a report entered in the official records of the synagogue.
There was just everything against it happening by any other means than by the Holy Spirit. There would have to be a report made to the elders. There would have been some kind of documentation in the city or synagogue records about this.
So she had been kept separate, she still had her hymen, there were no other men, it definitely was not Joseph. and her story was in accord with the expectation of elect Jews that one day this would happen to bring the Messiah into the world, and apparently she was of a character that made her story believable.
The matter had been investigated by the group of people who are charged with investigating such things. They had interrogated and looked and examined and thought and verified.
Matthew had interviewed, asked, read the synagogue record, talked to the still living witnesses, sifted the evidence, looked for fraud, deceipt, or just a plain mistake. He was convinced. It was settled in his skeptical and analytical mind.
And in his summary he reports, “She was ‘found’ to be with child by the Holy Ghost”
Monday, January 28, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
"It Found Me"
I was sitting and drooling the other day when I came upon a shocking realization.
I suppose I should explain the drooling part. I was at work, taking a break in the nursing station, fooling around on Amazon.com. And their automatic cross-referencing system took me to a new critical edition of the Greek text of the New Testament following the Byzantine text-type. I clicked on it and went to the page. Without realizing it, I was transported out of the nursing station, away from my near-sitting co-workers, into the cloud land in my head where I spend most of my time.
I was immediately taken with the beautiful cover. Being a printer by trade, I am attracted to beautiful printing. And on the cover was a nice reproduction of a papyrus fragment of a New Testament Greek manuscript. I was also taken by this.
I clicked on the “Look inside!” feature. I read through the table of contents, all in Uncial letters, which I find difficult to read. I was interested in the arrangement of the books with the Gospels, followed by Acts, then the catholic epistles, which is not our accustomed order, then the Pauline epistles, then Revelation. I flipped to the first page of Matthew and read through the geneology. I was interested in the presentation of some orthographic details that have interested me in this passage.
I was lost in it. If one of my patients had coded, I don’t think I would have known it. The orthography, and the classical type-font, unlike these modern utilitarian sans-serif Greek fonts that are so unlovely, and the critical apparatus at the bottom of the page -- all these details held me, like Solomon beholding his beloved Shunamite, drooling.
I became aware that I was attracting the attention of my co-workers. I had been mmmm-ing, and laughing, and ooooooh-ing. They wanted to know what I was so interested in. Their little clatter came into the periphery of my attention, and then I edged it out. I read on.
I clicked to turn the page and began to read chapter two. And there -- lying in wait for me -- was a statement I have read hundreds of times. But, as my attention was drawn away from seeing what one is accustomed to seeing in a familiar text, a word suddenly pounced on me. I was off balance, then overcome, then enthralled with this word in its setting. “The generation of Jesus Christ was like this: His mother, having been bethrothed to Joseph, before they came together, was found to be pregnant by the Holy Ghost.”
“Found” -- “found” -- The Greek word is from the verb root eurisko. And thereby, as my father used to say, hangs a tale.
You remember (or not -- so I will tell you) the story of Archimedes and the gold crown. Some time in the third century B.C. (I think) a Greek king, whose name escapes me, gave the local crown maker a hunk of gold to make a crown. After he got the crown back, he got wind that the crown maker had substituted some silver into the crown, and had kept the surplus of gold for himself. But how to detect the theft? Simple: ask Archimedes, the local Thomas Edison of this time, to look into it.
Archimedes thought and thought about how to determine if the crown was pure or an alloy. He searched and sought and figured. Then one day while taking a bath, the solution occured to him. You can read it for yourself on the internet. But, upon realizing the solution, he jumped out of the tub and rushed home, clad only in his birthday suit, shouting “Eurika! Eurika!” Eurika is the perfect tense of our verb root above, eurisko, which means I find. He was saying “I have found it.”
This word found is specific in meaning. It means to find something after seeking, investigating, searching, interrogating. It is scientific in nature.
This statement, “she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Ghost” is pregnant with meaning.
And, while I was not paying attention, it found me.
But this post has gone on long enough. I will talk more about this in the next one, which I will probably post tomorrow.
I suppose I should explain the drooling part. I was at work, taking a break in the nursing station, fooling around on Amazon.com. And their automatic cross-referencing system took me to a new critical edition of the Greek text of the New Testament following the Byzantine text-type. I clicked on it and went to the page. Without realizing it, I was transported out of the nursing station, away from my near-sitting co-workers, into the cloud land in my head where I spend most of my time.
I was immediately taken with the beautiful cover. Being a printer by trade, I am attracted to beautiful printing. And on the cover was a nice reproduction of a papyrus fragment of a New Testament Greek manuscript. I was also taken by this.
I clicked on the “Look inside!” feature. I read through the table of contents, all in Uncial letters, which I find difficult to read. I was interested in the arrangement of the books with the Gospels, followed by Acts, then the catholic epistles, which is not our accustomed order, then the Pauline epistles, then Revelation. I flipped to the first page of Matthew and read through the geneology. I was interested in the presentation of some orthographic details that have interested me in this passage.
I was lost in it. If one of my patients had coded, I don’t think I would have known it. The orthography, and the classical type-font, unlike these modern utilitarian sans-serif Greek fonts that are so unlovely, and the critical apparatus at the bottom of the page -- all these details held me, like Solomon beholding his beloved Shunamite, drooling.
I became aware that I was attracting the attention of my co-workers. I had been mmmm-ing, and laughing, and ooooooh-ing. They wanted to know what I was so interested in. Their little clatter came into the periphery of my attention, and then I edged it out. I read on.
I clicked to turn the page and began to read chapter two. And there -- lying in wait for me -- was a statement I have read hundreds of times. But, as my attention was drawn away from seeing what one is accustomed to seeing in a familiar text, a word suddenly pounced on me. I was off balance, then overcome, then enthralled with this word in its setting. “The generation of Jesus Christ was like this: His mother, having been bethrothed to Joseph, before they came together, was found to be pregnant by the Holy Ghost.”
“Found” -- “found” -- The Greek word is from the verb root eurisko. And thereby, as my father used to say, hangs a tale.
You remember (or not -- so I will tell you) the story of Archimedes and the gold crown. Some time in the third century B.C. (I think) a Greek king, whose name escapes me, gave the local crown maker a hunk of gold to make a crown. After he got the crown back, he got wind that the crown maker had substituted some silver into the crown, and had kept the surplus of gold for himself. But how to detect the theft? Simple: ask Archimedes, the local Thomas Edison of this time, to look into it.
Archimedes thought and thought about how to determine if the crown was pure or an alloy. He searched and sought and figured. Then one day while taking a bath, the solution occured to him. You can read it for yourself on the internet. But, upon realizing the solution, he jumped out of the tub and rushed home, clad only in his birthday suit, shouting “Eurika! Eurika!” Eurika is the perfect tense of our verb root above, eurisko, which means I find. He was saying “I have found it.”
This word found is specific in meaning. It means to find something after seeking, investigating, searching, interrogating. It is scientific in nature.
This statement, “she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Ghost” is pregnant with meaning.
And, while I was not paying attention, it found me.
But this post has gone on long enough. I will talk more about this in the next one, which I will probably post tomorrow.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Jesus Christ, Morons, and Blood Clotting
I am reviewing a medical disorder called DIC (disciminated intravascular coagulation). This is the kind of thing I do for fun. It is related to my job as a nurse.
DIC can kill a patient in short order, and is fairly difficult to detect. It is more suspected than directly seen. Certain things, like bacterial infection in the blood, can cause the clotting system to go crazy and form thousands of little blood clots all over the body. This dams up blood from tissue down stream, thus killing the tissue and eventually the whole patient. It also uses up all the clotting factors in the blood thus causing the patient to be susceptible to sudden, irreversible bleeding. Nasty.
Stick with me. This all has a point. When a blood vessel is damaged and starts to leak (bleeding), a number of things happen. Fibers in the blood are acted upon by chemicals released by the damaged cells and start joining together to form a mesh over the wound from the inside. Red blood cells, other things in the blood, and activated platelets get stuck in the mesh and stop the bleeding. After the clot has formed and stopped the bleeding long enough for the vessel to close and start to mend, the fibers in the mesh start to break apart because they are acted upon by other chemicals. The fibers break into their component parts (fibrin degradation products) and are: 1. Unable to form any more clots; 2. Consumed by scavenger cells in the blood and secreted as waste. Fibrin degradation products can be created by other processes like inflammation. However, there is one that is specific to the dissolution of a clot called D-dimer.
When a person is suspected of being in DIC, a panel of tests is run which checks for D-dimer and some other things. If D-dimer is present in large amounts, along with a lowered platlet count and elevated clotting times, it is indicative of DIC.
This, believe it or not, is a greatly simplified explanation of what really happens when blood clots, either normally or abnormally. The process is unbelievably complex. The understanding of it has undergone several revisions over the years because the researchers continue to fine additional factors in the process.
The other day, I was watching another iteration of Darwin’s proposition about the origin of life and how life got to it’s present state. In a sentence, the Darwinists believe that some kind of simple life form (there is no such thing) got started by accident and continued to mutate and differentiate until all the different life forms that now exist developed. This occured by random chance processes over a long period of time.
That intelligent people actually believe this in the face of the remarkable wholistic complexity of everything is almost beyond me. No one believes that his computer is the product of random chance. It is obvious every time one must be repaired that the owner thinks that the machine is a product of intelligent design, was made for a purpose, and had irreducible complexity (all the parts have to be present and working for the whole thing to work).
But this same person may believe that the person who built or repairs the computer is just the product of random processes operating by chance over a long period of time.
However, the explanation for this is fairly simple. And, of course, it is in the Bible.
Paul states in Ephesians chapter four that those whom Christ has not regenerated by His Spirit “walk in the emptiness of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. . . .” And in Romans chapter one, he says that Adam’s race once knew God, but did not like Him, and did not want to retain him in their system of knowledge. For this reason, God handed them over to this ignorance, and, while they (and we) profess to be wise, they (we) have become morons. Morons who will nevertheless face the wrath and judgement of God because, in the face of the evidence to the contrary, namely the majestic, infathomable complexity of all that can be observed, we insist that this God does not exist or that He is irrelevant, and refuse to worship Him or to believe on His Son Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of crimes against the Creator. All of Adam’s race is guilty corporately and personally of discounting God our Creator in some way. We are all guilty of volunteering to be morons. We are all, in our natural state, volunteer criminals against the Living God.
Jesus Christ said to all us morons, “I am the light of the world. He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but he shall have the light of life.”
DIC can kill a patient in short order, and is fairly difficult to detect. It is more suspected than directly seen. Certain things, like bacterial infection in the blood, can cause the clotting system to go crazy and form thousands of little blood clots all over the body. This dams up blood from tissue down stream, thus killing the tissue and eventually the whole patient. It also uses up all the clotting factors in the blood thus causing the patient to be susceptible to sudden, irreversible bleeding. Nasty.
Stick with me. This all has a point. When a blood vessel is damaged and starts to leak (bleeding), a number of things happen. Fibers in the blood are acted upon by chemicals released by the damaged cells and start joining together to form a mesh over the wound from the inside. Red blood cells, other things in the blood, and activated platelets get stuck in the mesh and stop the bleeding. After the clot has formed and stopped the bleeding long enough for the vessel to close and start to mend, the fibers in the mesh start to break apart because they are acted upon by other chemicals. The fibers break into their component parts (fibrin degradation products) and are: 1. Unable to form any more clots; 2. Consumed by scavenger cells in the blood and secreted as waste. Fibrin degradation products can be created by other processes like inflammation. However, there is one that is specific to the dissolution of a clot called D-dimer.
When a person is suspected of being in DIC, a panel of tests is run which checks for D-dimer and some other things. If D-dimer is present in large amounts, along with a lowered platlet count and elevated clotting times, it is indicative of DIC.
This, believe it or not, is a greatly simplified explanation of what really happens when blood clots, either normally or abnormally. The process is unbelievably complex. The understanding of it has undergone several revisions over the years because the researchers continue to fine additional factors in the process.
The other day, I was watching another iteration of Darwin’s proposition about the origin of life and how life got to it’s present state. In a sentence, the Darwinists believe that some kind of simple life form (there is no such thing) got started by accident and continued to mutate and differentiate until all the different life forms that now exist developed. This occured by random chance processes over a long period of time.
That intelligent people actually believe this in the face of the remarkable wholistic complexity of everything is almost beyond me. No one believes that his computer is the product of random chance. It is obvious every time one must be repaired that the owner thinks that the machine is a product of intelligent design, was made for a purpose, and had irreducible complexity (all the parts have to be present and working for the whole thing to work).
But this same person may believe that the person who built or repairs the computer is just the product of random processes operating by chance over a long period of time.
However, the explanation for this is fairly simple. And, of course, it is in the Bible.
Paul states in Ephesians chapter four that those whom Christ has not regenerated by His Spirit “walk in the emptiness of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. . . .” And in Romans chapter one, he says that Adam’s race once knew God, but did not like Him, and did not want to retain him in their system of knowledge. For this reason, God handed them over to this ignorance, and, while they (and we) profess to be wise, they (we) have become morons. Morons who will nevertheless face the wrath and judgement of God because, in the face of the evidence to the contrary, namely the majestic, infathomable complexity of all that can be observed, we insist that this God does not exist or that He is irrelevant, and refuse to worship Him or to believe on His Son Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of crimes against the Creator. All of Adam’s race is guilty corporately and personally of discounting God our Creator in some way. We are all guilty of volunteering to be morons. We are all, in our natural state, volunteer criminals against the Living God.
Jesus Christ said to all us morons, “I am the light of the world. He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but he shall have the light of life.”
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Our Bounden Duty
Day before yesterday (actually it was night before yesternight) one of my patients asked me to bring her Communion, since none of the pastoral staff of her church had been to visit her during her long hospital stay. In preparation, I was attempting to determine the Gospel reading for that Sunday, since I use the Anglican liturgy when I do weddings, funerals, and Communion.
The Anglican Church is not to be outdone by anyone for making the simple absurdly complicated. They have fancy names for regular things. For instance, the janitor is called the Sextant. Now you could throw your chest out and say you are a Sextant by profession, and non-Anglicans would think you to be a navigational expert.
Well, it was kind of like that, trying to figure out the Gospel reading for this Sunday. I wasn’t in church because it was a work day. So I began going through all the tables in the front of the BCP (Book of Common Prayer), the book that contains prayers, collects, ceremonies for every occasion imaginable, and maybe including Elizabethan imprecations to pronounce on your children when they “get to be too much.”
The Anglican Liturgical calendar starts with Advent Sunday, which is usually the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Then there are the Sundays of Advent, then Epiphany, then St. John the Evangelist Sunday, and Holy Innocents Sunday then in the spring are the Gesima sisters, Septuagesima, Sexigesima (she’s the bad girl in the family) Quinquagesima, and their little step-sister, Ash Wednesday. Then there is Lent (or Lint, depending on what kind of filter you have), and Easter, and then the rest of the year is the first Sunday after Easter, the Second, etc., until Advent comes back around.
Well, I finally ran out of time and guessed that this was the 427th Sunday after Easter. Using this bit of divination, and reckoning that, since last Sunday the Gospel reading was the last part of Luke 16, this Sunday, it might be the first part of Luke 17. So I chose that for the Gospel portion to read when I said the Eucharistic Liturgy for my patient.
In Luke 17, Our Lord tells a parable of a man who has a servant. He asks if the man should thank his servant for doing his job. “I trow not,” he said. “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our duty to do.’“
In the Eucharistic Liturgy there are a couple of passages which resonate with this passage from Luke.
One is , “It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God.”
Another is “And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice unto thee . . . .”
My point is this, that it is our bounden duty to give thanks to God for His goodness to us and to offer up our selves, our souls and bodies in His service, even to the point of death. But even if we should do these things perfectly and to the letter (which we don’t), we would not give back to God any surplus on His investment (this is the meaning of unprofitable). We would only have done that which is right and “our bounden duty” to do.
Which brings me to the bare truth of the matter which is stated in the prayer of confession: “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed . . . provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.”
We haven’t even done that which is our duty toward God to do. And we engage in that which it is our duty not to do.
And yet, we can pray that, through the substitutionary merit of Jesus Christ, God would receive us and forgive us, “not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Thanks be to God! Amen.
The Anglican Church is not to be outdone by anyone for making the simple absurdly complicated. They have fancy names for regular things. For instance, the janitor is called the Sextant. Now you could throw your chest out and say you are a Sextant by profession, and non-Anglicans would think you to be a navigational expert.
Well, it was kind of like that, trying to figure out the Gospel reading for this Sunday. I wasn’t in church because it was a work day. So I began going through all the tables in the front of the BCP (Book of Common Prayer), the book that contains prayers, collects, ceremonies for every occasion imaginable, and maybe including Elizabethan imprecations to pronounce on your children when they “get to be too much.”
The Anglican Liturgical calendar starts with Advent Sunday, which is usually the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Then there are the Sundays of Advent, then Epiphany, then St. John the Evangelist Sunday, and Holy Innocents Sunday then in the spring are the Gesima sisters, Septuagesima, Sexigesima (she’s the bad girl in the family) Quinquagesima, and their little step-sister, Ash Wednesday. Then there is Lent (or Lint, depending on what kind of filter you have), and Easter, and then the rest of the year is the first Sunday after Easter, the Second, etc., until Advent comes back around.
Well, I finally ran out of time and guessed that this was the 427th Sunday after Easter. Using this bit of divination, and reckoning that, since last Sunday the Gospel reading was the last part of Luke 16, this Sunday, it might be the first part of Luke 17. So I chose that for the Gospel portion to read when I said the Eucharistic Liturgy for my patient.
In Luke 17, Our Lord tells a parable of a man who has a servant. He asks if the man should thank his servant for doing his job. “I trow not,” he said. “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our duty to do.’“
In the Eucharistic Liturgy there are a couple of passages which resonate with this passage from Luke.
One is , “It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God.”
Another is “And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice unto thee . . . .”
My point is this, that it is our bounden duty to give thanks to God for His goodness to us and to offer up our selves, our souls and bodies in His service, even to the point of death. But even if we should do these things perfectly and to the letter (which we don’t), we would not give back to God any surplus on His investment (this is the meaning of unprofitable). We would only have done that which is right and “our bounden duty” to do.
Which brings me to the bare truth of the matter which is stated in the prayer of confession: “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed . . . provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.”
We haven’t even done that which is our duty toward God to do. And we engage in that which it is our duty not to do.
And yet, we can pray that, through the substitutionary merit of Jesus Christ, God would receive us and forgive us, “not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Thanks be to God! Amen.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Understanding the lovingkindness of the LORD
“Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the LORD.”
This is the last line from Psalm 107. This Psalm gives examples of different ways in which the LORD is kind and loving toward Adam’s race. I have written previously about expressions of God’s wrath in Nature, and that it really is no surprise, once the truth about man’s natural emnity toward God, and God’s righteous indignation about it is grasped. The only surprise about things like devastating storms and fires and such is that they don’t happen more often.
The real shocker is in this Psalm where God’s acts of kindness to His ungrateful enemies are set out by several examples. Yes, God does express His wrath, but more often, He expresses His lovingkindness in the ways that He makes things “Turn out alright.”
And yet the point of the Psalm is that God’s lovingkindness toward us, His enemies, is taken for granted. It is not recognized as a mercy and a kindness, a lovingkindness from the Sovreign God. We usually just act like it should be that way. The fact is it should never be that way. The point of the refrain in this Psalm, “Oh that men would praise the LORD for His wonderful works to the children of men!” -- is that they almost never do.
Nevertheless, God goes on thanklessly, both chastening man in His wrath, and at the same time wooing us toward repentance through His lovingkindnesses.
This is the last line from Psalm 107. This Psalm gives examples of different ways in which the LORD is kind and loving toward Adam’s race. I have written previously about expressions of God’s wrath in Nature, and that it really is no surprise, once the truth about man’s natural emnity toward God, and God’s righteous indignation about it is grasped. The only surprise about things like devastating storms and fires and such is that they don’t happen more often.
The real shocker is in this Psalm where God’s acts of kindness to His ungrateful enemies are set out by several examples. Yes, God does express His wrath, but more often, He expresses His lovingkindness in the ways that He makes things “Turn out alright.”
And yet the point of the Psalm is that God’s lovingkindness toward us, His enemies, is taken for granted. It is not recognized as a mercy and a kindness, a lovingkindness from the Sovreign God. We usually just act like it should be that way. The fact is it should never be that way. The point of the refrain in this Psalm, “Oh that men would praise the LORD for His wonderful works to the children of men!” -- is that they almost never do.
Nevertheless, God goes on thanklessly, both chastening man in His wrath, and at the same time wooing us toward repentance through His lovingkindnesses.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
A Hot Stake or a Cold Chop
The other day my friend John (www.cowart.info) and I were having breakfast, as we are wont to do about every other week or so. Then we went back to his house and had a pretty interesting discussion. I have had to think about it for some time. John, I know you are reading this. Set me straight if I misstate something.
John expressed concern that the way the Gospel is presented is without hope. He said, moreover, that even the way I present it offers no hope. (Imagine! This is the cost of friendship -- having to hear an honest assessment about one’s self.) He went on to say that it distresses him that the miraculous moves of God we hear about always seem to take place somewhere else, at some other time. We discussed the possibility that some of these reports, the extra-biblical ones anyway, may be overstated. We also talked about fake miracles that seem to abound these days. We considered the Billy Graham Crusade that took place here a few years ago. The promo was that Jacksonville would never be the same. But it’s just about like Mr. Graham found it -- unchanged -- well, except for an increase in local government corruption. John said it was really nothing but a Republican political rally with some Christianity sprinkled in.
More about hope: by hope, John appeared to mean hope that God is going to help me with the rent, or heal my child, or fix my toothache, etc., if I believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I listened to John and tried to process what he presented. After leaving and thinking about this conversation for days, it appeared to me that our discourse moved around three ideas:
1. That God ought to do more miracles since there are so many people who need them, if He is really good.
2. That if He would, we would not have to rely on faith. We could see some miracles for ourselves.
I have struggled for two weeks now trying to think how to write this. I seem unable to express my thoughts without becoming over-complex. In outline, they are these:
1. There is an assuption that if God is really good, He will do as I think He should about my and others’ problems. This in turn assumes I am good and my goodness is the measuring rod of God’s goodness.
2. It also assumes that we do not deserve God’s unbridled wrath. But according to the Bible, we are criminals against His law, we hate Him by our inherited nature, we are willing participants in the kingdom of His enemy, Satan, and we want nothing to do with Him (God). We make up fake gods who are like us (see #1).
3. It ignores that hope only has meaning in the face of despair. If we understand our true condition before God, we should be in the depths of despair. We should not expect to have any hope.
With these in mind, I contend that the Gospel as it is presented in Scripture is that God has made an arrangement in the form of a covenant to forgive anyone who will believe on His Son, Jesus Christ as his or her substitute. This implies an admission that what happened to Jesus should happen to us. So the point of hope is that God will forgive us. I don’t see any other kind of hope presented in the New Testament except that God will forgive us on these terms, and as a result will not torture and then exterminate us in the world to come, as we deserve. I have not seen anything in the preaching of the Apostles that involves getting a new refrigerator, or even a good used one, God giving me money or anything else. He may do these things. But the presentation of the Gospel does not include this, and for many, believing on the Son of God has meant a cold chop or a hot stake, or imprisonment or poverty, or persecution. What is offered is the promise of resurrection from the dead (which all will experience) and that, at the judgement, those who belong to Christ will be passed over for judgement, and therefore will enter into eternal life.
Regarding miracles to confirm my faith: No amount of miracles is enough for those who are dependent on them. For those who recognize that the miracles that have occured in confirmation of God’s revelation in history and have been recorded in Scripture, no more are necessary, whether God ever does another one or not.
John expressed concern that the way the Gospel is presented is without hope. He said, moreover, that even the way I present it offers no hope. (Imagine! This is the cost of friendship -- having to hear an honest assessment about one’s self.) He went on to say that it distresses him that the miraculous moves of God we hear about always seem to take place somewhere else, at some other time. We discussed the possibility that some of these reports, the extra-biblical ones anyway, may be overstated. We also talked about fake miracles that seem to abound these days. We considered the Billy Graham Crusade that took place here a few years ago. The promo was that Jacksonville would never be the same. But it’s just about like Mr. Graham found it -- unchanged -- well, except for an increase in local government corruption. John said it was really nothing but a Republican political rally with some Christianity sprinkled in.
More about hope: by hope, John appeared to mean hope that God is going to help me with the rent, or heal my child, or fix my toothache, etc., if I believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I listened to John and tried to process what he presented. After leaving and thinking about this conversation for days, it appeared to me that our discourse moved around three ideas:
1. That God ought to do more miracles since there are so many people who need them, if He is really good.
2. That if He would, we would not have to rely on faith. We could see some miracles for ourselves.
I have struggled for two weeks now trying to think how to write this. I seem unable to express my thoughts without becoming over-complex. In outline, they are these:
1. There is an assuption that if God is really good, He will do as I think He should about my and others’ problems. This in turn assumes I am good and my goodness is the measuring rod of God’s goodness.
2. It also assumes that we do not deserve God’s unbridled wrath. But according to the Bible, we are criminals against His law, we hate Him by our inherited nature, we are willing participants in the kingdom of His enemy, Satan, and we want nothing to do with Him (God). We make up fake gods who are like us (see #1).
3. It ignores that hope only has meaning in the face of despair. If we understand our true condition before God, we should be in the depths of despair. We should not expect to have any hope.
With these in mind, I contend that the Gospel as it is presented in Scripture is that God has made an arrangement in the form of a covenant to forgive anyone who will believe on His Son, Jesus Christ as his or her substitute. This implies an admission that what happened to Jesus should happen to us. So the point of hope is that God will forgive us. I don’t see any other kind of hope presented in the New Testament except that God will forgive us on these terms, and as a result will not torture and then exterminate us in the world to come, as we deserve. I have not seen anything in the preaching of the Apostles that involves getting a new refrigerator, or even a good used one, God giving me money or anything else. He may do these things. But the presentation of the Gospel does not include this, and for many, believing on the Son of God has meant a cold chop or a hot stake, or imprisonment or poverty, or persecution. What is offered is the promise of resurrection from the dead (which all will experience) and that, at the judgement, those who belong to Christ will be passed over for judgement, and therefore will enter into eternal life.
Regarding miracles to confirm my faith: No amount of miracles is enough for those who are dependent on them. For those who recognize that the miracles that have occured in confirmation of God’s revelation in history and have been recorded in Scripture, no more are necessary, whether God ever does another one or not.
Friday, October 5, 2007
A Broken World
I was sitting at a club I belong to the other day. I was reading, as I frequently do there. A woman came up pushing a stroller with a child too big to be in a stroller. She told us she was waiting for her daughter who was attending a religion class.
But I was interested in this child. It was clear that he had some kind of congenital brain damage. He reminded me of a cousin whom I have not seen in many years. She had a similar distorted facial expression, undirected eyes, and spastic, unpurposeful movements.
When I see something like this, as we all do from time to time, it sets me to thinking about the nature of things -- of the Universe and of God. What pricks my interest is that when I saw this child, I knew something was wrong. This can only mean that I know that something is right and that this is a breach of it. A skeptic could argue that my concept of right in this sense is just based on my perception of normal, or on a social construct that is longstanding but only arbitrary.
But if I go back hundreds of generations in my thinking, I must conclude that somewhere there were some people who did not have this tradition behind them, and yet knew from within that something was wrong, implying that they also knew something was right and this is a breach of it -- that something is broken here.
The Bible says there is a God. Common sense demands there is a God, the pratting of Athiests notwithstanding. Either the Universe has always existed, which it obviously has not because it would have run down by now; or it created itself, an absurdity; or there is an all wise God of unlimited intelligence and ability who made it.
The Bible states this is the case and then goes on to say that when He made it, He said it was good. But it is clear when I see things like this poor child and his poor mother that something is broken. What was good, what I inately know to be “right”, is no longer good. Somehow it is broken. And I know it is even if no one tells me so.
So when I see things like this, I know that we live in a world that is no longer good as God made it. It does not mean God is not good. It means that man in his sinful nature, acting according to his free will, has ruined it starting with the original disobedience recorded in Genesis chapter three.
The Bible says that Christ came into the world to bear away the sin of Adam’s race and to eventually put everything back right. He will impose righteousness on people who have been forgiven by believing on Him for forgiveness of sin. He will destroy all those who chose not to, putting them out of existence, so that God may be all in all. Then God will be glorified in His creation.
But I was interested in this child. It was clear that he had some kind of congenital brain damage. He reminded me of a cousin whom I have not seen in many years. She had a similar distorted facial expression, undirected eyes, and spastic, unpurposeful movements.
When I see something like this, as we all do from time to time, it sets me to thinking about the nature of things -- of the Universe and of God. What pricks my interest is that when I saw this child, I knew something was wrong. This can only mean that I know that something is right and that this is a breach of it. A skeptic could argue that my concept of right in this sense is just based on my perception of normal, or on a social construct that is longstanding but only arbitrary.
But if I go back hundreds of generations in my thinking, I must conclude that somewhere there were some people who did not have this tradition behind them, and yet knew from within that something was wrong, implying that they also knew something was right and this is a breach of it -- that something is broken here.
The Bible says there is a God. Common sense demands there is a God, the pratting of Athiests notwithstanding. Either the Universe has always existed, which it obviously has not because it would have run down by now; or it created itself, an absurdity; or there is an all wise God of unlimited intelligence and ability who made it.
The Bible states this is the case and then goes on to say that when He made it, He said it was good. But it is clear when I see things like this poor child and his poor mother that something is broken. What was good, what I inately know to be “right”, is no longer good. Somehow it is broken. And I know it is even if no one tells me so.
So when I see things like this, I know that we live in a world that is no longer good as God made it. It does not mean God is not good. It means that man in his sinful nature, acting according to his free will, has ruined it starting with the original disobedience recorded in Genesis chapter three.
The Bible says that Christ came into the world to bear away the sin of Adam’s race and to eventually put everything back right. He will impose righteousness on people who have been forgiven by believing on Him for forgiveness of sin. He will destroy all those who chose not to, putting them out of existence, so that God may be all in all. Then God will be glorified in His creation.
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