Thinking-Christianly

Exasperated parents sometimes find themselves mediating conflict between their children in ways that make little sense. It’s usually on a day filled with stress and busyness. Life is in a whirl and the last thing the father or mother need is to have one of their offspring acting in an unusually nasty way toward their sibling. But that’s often the time when one child will come to the parent bawling because they were struck or offended by the meanness or selfishness of their brother or sister. You’ve likely seen or experienced a situation where, for example, a brother hauled off and slugged his older sister, who comes running to you or their parent. (I’m assuming we’re the parent in the following scenario.)

Full of frustration and fatigue, you yell for the offender to come. They walk in slowly, head down, avoiding eye contact. “I want you to apologize for hitting your brother and I want you do it right now!” you demand.

“Sorry,” your son mumbles in a barely audible voice.

“I didn’t hear you!” you insist.

He looks up at you, but just for a second, then back. You can tell from his expression he just wants to get this ordeal over with so he can return to his life without your interference. “I’m sorry,” he says in a louder voice.

“Do you really mean it?” you ask. You doubt that he does, but for some strange reason you figure that if he says “yes” you’ve won some kind of moral victory.

“Yeah,” he responds without any serious emotion.

“OK, then,” you add. “I want you both to play nice with each other. I don’t want to have this conversation again! Understood?” Both nod their heads and go off to play apart from one another until the threat of retribution lessens. There is no real resolution, just the appearance of it.

God is not interested in phony repentance. He doesn’t play those kinds of games that frustrated parents can sometimes slip into. In Jeremiah chapter 3 God speaks to the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The northern kingdom of Israel defied God and embraced pagan ways much more readily than did the southern kingdom if Judah. God summons both nations to abandon their folly and return to him. One of the nations seems to, but the other stubbornly does not. Which pleases God more? You may be surprised in God’s reaction.

God describes the northern kingdom’s defiance this way in Jeremiah 3:9, “Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood.” The nation readily dumped worship of the invisible God for the idols of the surrounding nations. God brought drought and economic stress on the nation as a result, but the southern kingdom did not learn from this experience of their sister nation. God adds in verse 10, “In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return tome with all her heart, but only in pretense.”

Like the family scenario pictured earlier, Judah said she was sorry for what she had done, but without conviction. It was a paper apology that meant nothing.

God adds in verse 11. “Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah.” God gives greater credit to the northern kingdom that admits they prefer their rebellion than to the southern kingdom that pretends to dislike it but continues on as before.

Sometimes we can slip into patterns where our misbehavior and independence from God run smack into his truth. We realize in that moment that we are fighting God, opposing his expressed moral will. And our awareness of our wrong can prompt us to apologize. But when the apology is in words only, it does not impress God in the least.

When public officials who break trust through financial or sexual misdeeds apologize on camera, their constituents look for some kind of attitude and behavior change. If none takes place, they assumed that they’ve been lied to one more time, and their distrust for the official only grows.

God is not fooled by fake repentance. When our remorse leads only to words, we might as well keep them to ourselves. We cannot build a healthy relationship with God my muttering, “I’m sorry” on occasion. He wants us to disengage with the rotten things we sometimes find appealing and engage with him in the pursuit of righteousness. Real reconciliation is always available, but it requires the painful step of changing our attitude toward some of the destructive things we tend to love and jumping over to God’s side in living righteously. Anything short of that is a vain attempt to deceive God and ourselves.

It’s easy to assume that the greatest battles for the truth Christ gave to the church are external. Many of the challenges the modern church faces do come from the materialistic and secular mindsets that permeate the classrooms, halls of government, and other institutions that have power and influence in our society.

Christ-followers must be careful to guard against internal challenges as well. If we are not carefully grounded in a clear understanding of the revelation of God in the Bible, we can find ourselves passionately preaching a ‘gospel’ that is different from the one Jesus entrusted to the disciples. The believers in the church in Galatia had fallen into this error. Paul emphatically denied the possibility of competing sets of core truth within the church. He states, “As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” (See Galatians 1:9.)

Paul is not advocating the establishment of a thought police designed to enforce conformity on secondary and tertiary issues. Legalistic Christians try to demand absolute agreement on all kinds of issues, both biblical and cultural, in order to preserve their flavor of Christianity. What Paul does argue for is conformity on the central doctrines of the scripture related to the person and work of Christ, his mission, the character of God, and the principles of living in the kingdom in obedience to Jesus. These are non-negotiable.

If our understanding of the Bible is vague and fragmented, we will not be able to distinguish between our own spiritual preferences and the eternal truth of God. We our biblical illiteracy may lead us to unwittingly abandon central teaching or embrace as absolute ideas that are not prescribed or taught in scripture.

In Acts 20 Paul meets with the Ephesian elders for the last time on his way to Jerusalem. The church in Ephesus was a joy to him, a place of great growth and spiritual transformation among many. But even that church is not exempt from the temptation to drift from the truth. The leaders in the church are to be watchful about the message. Paul predicts, “Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.” (See Acts 20:30.) In a similar vein he warned Timothy to “guard the gospel.”

What does this mean for us? It reminds us that we must saturate ourselves with the scriptures so that we can clearly understand the timeless revelation of God. We must battle the trend toward sound-bite theology and study to learn the symphony of the Bible, in both its major and minor keys. No ripping verses from context. No proof-texting. No deconstruction of the text. No converting the direct teaching of the Bible into psychological reflections of inner struggles of the soul of the writer. No creation of doctrine from the white spaces between the lines. No neglect of the principles of sound hermeneutics and clear thinking.

Throughout history, those churches that have lost their appetite for truth as found in scripture have drifted into the foggy swamps of uselessness. No fellowship, denomination or movement we can name today is safe from that fate. As Christ-followers commit themselves to learning and teaching the Bible, they chart a healthier path for their churches and themselves. Devotion to the word is not an option—it is essential.

Shirley is in her early 60′s. She tragically lost her father at the age of 17. He was shot in a dispute between himself and another farmer that presumably had something to do with several cows. A grand jury did not bring charges against her dad’s alleged assailant. Shirley went on to obtain advanced degrees and become an influential voice for justice for the oppressed. About ten months ago Shirley took on a new job with the federal government. A federal official misunderstood something she said about her past and promptly fired her.

The airwaves have been hot with this story because the supervisor is Tom Vilsack, head of the Department of Agriculture. And commentators from many perspectives have sought to leverage the events to fuel their own brand of political and social commentary.

Underneath all the rhetoric is the reality that we don’t respond to unfairness well—whether the issue involves a dispute with a third grade student and your daughter, a wrong price on an item at the supermarket, or an unreasonable termination in a government bureaucracy. Our first response is often characterized by bitterness, anger, and recrimination. We threaten, we name call, we play the victim card, we speak of legal action, we slander, we vilify, and we bemoan how something evil can happen to someone as perfect as ourselves.

God hates injustice of all kinds. His prophets foretold the doom of his own nation because of such things. Amos decreed, “For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.” (See Amos 2:6.) He calls his followers to fight for justice and to live righteously themselves. It’s the second challenge—living righteously—that we often struggle with when unfairness touches our lives.

When God is absent or at the margin of our thinking, we can easily respond with the kind of bitterness and acrimony that you can see in a near miss at a parking lot or in a dispute about tee time at a golf course. We convince ourselves that we’re fighting for justice. But often the real issue is that we’ve come to expect perfect treatment from others, and someone will pay dearly any time that expectation is not met. The consumer mentality that puts me in the center of the universe breeds zero tolerance for anything I would deem unfair treatment of me.

To fight against evil while cultivating a spirit of grace when issues are personal is a massive challenge. It’s impossible on our own strength. It’s the last thing we tend to do. It’s easier to vocalize our resentment and our outrage. It’s more natural to complain and threaten those who treat us unfairly. But grace is one of the qualities that Jesus wants to build into the hearts of his disciples. It’s not a call to moral passivity. It’s a call to character in the fight.

Grace embraces the truth of 1 Thessalonians 5:15, where God instructs us, “Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.” This unnatural response does not fit in a secular culture. It never will because it requires a trust and confidence in God that are alien to a materialistic society. But it reflects the same kind of grace that God shows us daily when our choices, values, priorities, and attitudes fall short of his perfection. Christ followers have the opportunity to choose the uncommon response as we deal with unfairness. In doing so, we point to one who endured all kinds of evil so he could offer eternal life to those who would surrender to his rule.

Sometimes our natural instincts can get us into trouble. An impulsive spirit can bring adventure to life. But it can also tempt a driver to push it once too often at a yellow light, resulting in a ticket or a collision. A cautious spirit, on the other hand, can bring us a feeling of safety. But it can produce a life that is very small and guarded. A joyous spirit can bring laughter and lightheartedness to others. But if it is not tempered, it can feel superficial, afraid to deal with grief and other harsh realities of life.

Each of us has unique components of our personalities that become assets when we listen to the wisdom of friends. The advice of others can help us avoid the problems that come when our natural tendencies (good or bad) go unchecked. This even happened for a man as mature in his walk with Christ as Paul.

In Acts 19 Paul is discipling members of the new church in Ephesus. The impact of the message about Christ transforms many lives, and is the talk of the town. Many lives are transformed as the old values of many in the culture are abandoned out of loyalty to Jesus. This positive development threatens one local industry—the silversmiths and others who made idols for the shines in the region. One leader, Demetrius, attempts to preserve his business. He calls together those in his guild. (See Acts 19:25.) Then he and his fellow craftsmen instigate a riot. They don’t articulate their primary concern, which is income. Instead, they put forward baseless charges that the traveling companions of Paul have attacked the local deities directly. The message is that these foreigners are trying to mess with our culture and we won’t stand for it.

Paul desires to speak to the crowd and inform them of the truth. He’s eager to expose the propaganda and falsehoods that fuel the false rumors swirling around in the crowd. Two things prevented Paul from acting on his desires. In Acts 19:30-31 Luke records, “but the disciples would not let him.” They uniformly resisted his inclination to insert himself in the mob and change minds. Luke adds that some of his friends who were officials send a message “begging him not to venture into the theater.” God used the love and compassion of a host of people to dissuade Paul from doing what he instinctively would do in such situations. He could have sent an angel with a message, but in this case he spoke through two groups of mature, caring people.

The Christ-follower who always dismisses the counsel of others is in a dangerous place. He or she forgets that God sometimes shows us wisdom through the words of mature, loving, and courageous friends. Pride can easily masquerade and spiritual insight, so we must be prudent like Paul and be willing to listen in those times when our natural tendencies need to be tempered with an outside perspective.

Many religions offer power in the proper use and pronunciation of special words. The words can be special words that are personalized for the worshipper. Find your word and use it and you will be powerful. Or it can be a mantra that is chanted that helps you connect with the invisible forces that can purify your soul and link you to Nirvana. Old Testament Jews had certain prayers constructed from texts in the Pentateuch that males were expected to pray morning and evening. In the traditional branch of the Roman Catholic Church there are words and phrases that the faithful are sometimes expected to repeat that aid in forgiveness for sin or other spiritual endeavors. Protestants sometimes recite the Lord’s Prayer or a confession of faith as part of a formula for what they consider to be orthodox worship.

Sometimes Christians assume that certain words or phrases have power in themselves—in the very syllables that make up the words. In the early church some men discovered that this assumption was false. In Acts 19:14 we are introduced to the sons of a Jewish chief priest named Sceva. He has seven sons living in the region around Ephesus. God empowered Paul to both preach the gospel and do occasional miracles. Paul’s reputation grew and became the talk of the town. These sons wanted to get in on the action, so at one point they tried to mimic Paul in exorcising a demon. They sought to evict the demon “by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” On this particular occasion, the possessed person replied, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” He proceeded to beat them and drive them from the house. (See verse 16.)

Their mistake was assuming that using the syllables that comprise the word “Jesus” was all that was needed. They thought there was magic in the name. They believed that if their incantation was right, everything would work out. We can find ourselves smiling at their approach. But modern Christianity sometimes uses the word “Jesus” almost like an incantation. We can toss it around without reverence, like they did, and assume that our language will honor God. But when “Jesus” appears on pencils, refrigerator magnets, and bumper stickers, one wonders if we haven’t simply taken those five English letters and changed them into something they were never meant to be.

Sceva’s sons forgot that the power that God gave Paul flowed from the relationship he had with his risen Lord. It was not simply the byproduct of a phrase or a catchword that Paul had learned to skillfully use. Paul was not the master of incantations. He was mastered by his relationship with the risen Christ.

Those of us who take up the name of Christ in our skeptical age need the empowerment of God’s Spirit to live holy, humble, and winsome lives. This comes not from our use of Christian language, but from the depth of our relationship with the one we call savior and Lord.

News over this past weekend included reports of the capture of Colton Harris-Moore, who was dubbed the “Barefoot Bandit”. He had been on the run since escaping from a Washington state halfway house in 2008. In the interim, he is accused and suspected of multiple crimes, often restoring to burglary and theft of transportation—including cars and a plane.

One of the news outlets captured a clip from Colton’s mother. She was bragging about his intelligence, comparing his IQ to Einstein. Even in the wake of his criminal record, flight, and capture, she seemed oddly proud of his intellect.

Intelligence is a wonderful thing. But without character, intelligence counts for nothing. There are many who have fallen victim to the intelligence of self-centered, unscrupulous individuals who have used their natural abilities to deceive, outsmart, and manipulate others. Intelligence is a tool men and women can use to seduce partners of the opposite sex, take what they want from them, and toss them away when they are finished. Intelligent business, religious, academic and political leaders can fool followers into giving them money and power to fulfill promises they have no intention of keeping. Though the con-artist with the smile, featured in Catch Me If You Can or The Music Man makes good entertainment, the reality is different for those victimized by another’s sharp thinking.

It takes intellectual ability to create programs that can exploit security weakness in personal computers and steal the identity of unsuspecting people. It requires thought to con a retiree out of their life savings. Bernard Madoff used careful thought to develop a Ponzi scheme that would sidestep regulators and take $65 billion from investors.

God speaks of the value of righteousness in the hearts of leaders. In 2 Samuel 23:3-4 he says, “When one rules over men in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God, he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth.” But as Psalm 143:2 laments, no one is righteous by nature. Though each of us can do morally good things, we are universally plagued with a moral brokenness that can corrupt us in small and large ways.

The training of the intellect of a nation is useless unless there is growth in virtue—and an empowerment to want to be good. Christianity teaches that the desire to use our intelligence for righteous ends and the ability to do so is best found in a dynamic relationship with Christ. We are so prone to deception that we cannot consistently overcome our inner moral failure apart from that relationship with Christ.

A world of relativism and values clarification is unduly optimistic about our human potential. Both history and the daily news remind us that there has to be more to progress than knowledge and IQ. Without a transcendent perspective and loyalty to a higher purpose, those abilities that we can take pride in can be used for great evil as well as great good. And without God’s help we have no sure way of even determining which is which.

There is increasing pressure in government circles to silence those who would utter the name “Jesus” in a governmental setting. This excludes the occasional epithet that uses his name.

One odd dimension to this trend is that the pressure to silence any reference to Jesus is sometimes applied to those who supposedly have devoted their careers to declare to others what Jesus did and said. A FOX news story from July 9^th offers a recent example.

The North Carolina state house of representatives invited Pastor Ron Baity to serve as honorary chaplain of that body for a week. The House clerk asked to see the prayer, which included prayers for the military, state lawmakers, and a petition that God would bless North Carolina. The clerk objected to the fact that the name Jesus appeared in the prayer, arguing that someone might be offended. Pastor Baity did not want to remove the reference to Christ. The clerk contacted the Speaker of the House, who did not want Jesus name included. Pastor Baity was relieved of his honorary role.

The article reported the clerk’s rational that the name “Jesus” be deleted as, “We have some people here that can be offended.” Such an argument defies all logic. If the potential that someone might take offense at the mentioning of a name, then there can be no rational debate in legislative bodies. Avoiding the possibility of offense would stifle the entire process. Yet such forums are routinely filled with intense disagreements about taxes, spending, the role of government and the rights of the governed. Controversy and conflict over ideas, values, priorities, and agendas fill the records of legislative sessions. How is it that the politicians who constantly engage in the rough and tumble of debate that often looks more like war than deliberation must somehow be protected from hearing the word “Jesus” from the lips of a minister? Would it inflict some kind if irreparable trauma to their fragile egos?

The real conflict is not in the name, but in the claims that Jesus made about his authority. Jesus used the third person to speak of the authority the Father gave him in John 5:27 “And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.” Jesus claims that all are accountable to him. Some may hear that claim and reject it. Others don’t want to hear it at all. If it is true, then we can’t shape the world after our own image. And that is simply a challenge some don’t want to face.

Different world views handle the contrast between good and bad in different ways.

In Chinese philosophy the polar and contrary forces that are interconnected and interdependent are pictured as the yin and the yang. This is part of the Taoist world view that views all that exists as natural and complementary.

Buddhism, for example, is world-denying in relation to evil. This approach was imperfectly popularized in George Lucas’ Star Wars movies as a force that had a good side and a dark side. To accommodate Western values, the good side was supposed to win in the end. Victory of good over evil is not essential to classical Buddhism, however.

In Buddhist thought, both evil and good are inherently part of reality. Both are ultimately of little importance. Attaining a personal state of perfection supersedes them both. The personal goal is not to fight for any kind of moral good, but to shed all desire and attain a state of Nirvana, where even the self eventually disappears like a droplet in an ocean.

Christians sometimes unwittingly incorporate bits and pieces of Eastern thought into their understanding of good and evil. We can question whether the words themselves are artificial and unnecessary. We might be tempted to discount the use of the word evil. We may even view attempts to fight evil as foolish. If evil as an essential part of reality, perhaps opposing it is as foolish as attempting to fight gravity or declaring war on the color blue. How dare we criticize anyone’s moral choices? Maybe genocide and the degradation of women is right for another culture.

Some in our culture seek to hold to a difference between good and evil, but reduce the conflicts to a small of a scope as possible. Some of the zeal to redefine most behavior as legitimate follows this line of thinking. If there are few things that are truly wrong or immoral, then the conflict between good and evil is less of an issue. Legalizing drugs, removing speed limits, lowering the drinking age, legitimizing all kinds of sexual relationships, and erasing as may restrictions on personal choice as possible becomes attractive. The battle with evil is easier because there is now less to fight. And the island of non-compromise loses more and more real estate to the waves of relativism with each passing day.

The Bible insists that evil is not a natural part of the world. It is a consequence of the historic fall and a broken relationship between God and man. Human rebellion not only impacted the personal relationship between God and the human race that was created in his image, but it also changed the order of the created universe. Romans 8:22 states, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth together until now.” The fall thus brought mankind and the physical world into an unnatural state.

From a biblical perspective, evil is not an essential part of reality, but an intruder. Therefore we have good reasons to resist it, combat it, and deal with those who would perpetuate it. And because of the revelation of God we can understand the trans-cultural principles that define God’s prescriptive moral decrees. We are not to accommodate evil as one would adapt to less oxygen in a city 6,000 feet above sea level. We have a mandate and an obligation to fight the flawed ideas, values and practices that devalue and damage the human race and the world in which we live.

Sometimes enthusiasm can cloud good judgment. It’s wonderful to celebrate the ways in which God encourages, affirms, and empowers those who dare to walk with him. But if we’re not careful that celebration can distort the way we read scripture. We can turn a clear promise of God into an extreme triumphalism that the text does not warrant.

For example, take the statement of Paul to the Philippians when he writes, “I can do all things, through Christ who strengthens me.” (See Philippians 4:13.) Christ-followers occasionally use this statement as “You CAN do it” mantra. Are you experiencing a difficult time in your marriage? Remember Philippians 4:13. Is money tight? Remember Philippians 4:13. Did you fall from your bike and break your forearm? Remember Philippians 4:13.

The words of scripture were not designed to function as a magic elixir to deal with the challenges of life. The prescription is not to swallow a phrase and feel better in the morning.

What does this verse state in context? The word everything is not unqualified. It’s not a promise that we can reverse the body damage in an auto accident, grow a missing finger, or change the outcome of an election after the votes have been counted. Paul is not arguing that we have the capacity as children of God to reorder the universe or erase all the consequences of evil moral choices. When you look at verses 10-12, you discover that Paul has been discussing living in various states of poverty and affluence. He is talking about how he has found contentment with God despite the circumstances that God has sovereignly surrounded him with. The do
everything in this context is the same as “be content in every kind of circumstance.” He is confessing that God will strengthen him to face any kind of circumstance with an attitude that is God-honoring and strengthened by God himself.

In a similar way, God does not promise to give us supernatural power to achieve the goals we strive for. He does give us strength to face whatever circumstances come our way and find contentment in him and his guidance. He is sufficient for every circumstance because he is sovereign over all of them and loving toward his children.

Every discipline and specialization has its own particular language. Back when I was cutting meat we would break beef. That was slang for taking a half of a carcass that had been delivered to the locker area, placing it on a cutting block, and transforming it into steaks, roasts, and ground beef. Soccer coaches have a specialized vocabulary, as do plumbers, finish carpenters, software developers, flooring salesmen, and nurses.

When you find yourself in the middle of a conversation with two people talking about their specialty, it can be difficult to understand what they are saying. Some of the special terms, slang, and abbreviations, can be like Swahili to the uninitiated. Unfortunately, Christians sometimes slip into code language when talking with other people. Without thinking, Christ followers can use terms that they hear constantly, but mean little to others.

If our goal is to communicate clearly, we must consider what we are saying. This is not a call to politically correct language, which is an attempt to filter out ideas that others may find offensive. It is not self-censorship. It is a call to think about how we can communicate the key messages of scripture without dropping into the language of an evangelical subculture that is not tied to scripture nor to the world around us.

For example, there are common evangelical terms that we use in presenting the invitation in the gospel to embrace Jesus’ claim to be our Lord and savior. Modern Christianese often uses the metaphor of “asking Jesus into our heart.” It’s difficult to know where this particular phrase came from, but it’s relatively new. The phrase doesn’t occur in scripture. Some would link it to Jesus’ words to the church in Laodicea in Revelation chapter 3. But the metaphor there is a door, not a heart. In 2 Corinthians 6:22 and 13, Paul uses the metaphor of an open heart to describe a welcome attitude, a transparency, a sense of favor that he feels toward the Corinthians and wishes them to reciprocate. In Colossians 1:27 Paul describes the mystery of redemption as “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” In Romans 8:9 Paul reminds the believers that one of the consequences of their relationship is the indwelling presence of the Spirit. He speaks of the “Spirit of God” in the first part of the verse, and equates that with the “Spirit of Christ” in the second half of the verse.

None of these realities demand that we describe the process of salvation as “asking Jesus into your heart.” In the right context—with the proper explanation of the metaphor—it may be useful. But it some cases it has become a modern shibboleth—a sign of authentic evangelical belief rather than an effective communication tool of the good news of Jesus.

There is a subtle pride in enforcing Christianese within evangelical circles. It presumes that the language of scripture is inadequate to communicate the gospel today. It pushes Jesus message of the kingdom of God into a mold that fits our preferences. There is no ambiguity in the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ in the New Testament. There is an absence of “canned” or stilted language—the kind of-verbiage we refer to when we want to reduce the message of life in Christ to a one-size-fits-all formula.

If Christ followers are going to communicate in a way that is effective in our modern culture, we must present the challenging truth of the New Testament without apology. But that also requires the kind of clarity that comes from avoiding insider language that is more a product of evangelical conformity than careful thought.