Thinking-Christianly

Not satisfied with stories about the past, The History Channel is taking aim at the future. Taking a bit of the role of a prophet, the series Life After People speculates about what would happen to the planet after the self-destruction of the human race.

One must give credit to the developers of the series for their ingenuity. They look at the processes that are at work in the world today and forecast how they would operate if mankind were not here to sustain the structures and systems that we have created. It’s a bit like watching the weeds grow in a crack in a driveway and wondering what would happen if that process were not interrupted. Or it’s akin to speculating about the decay if you encounter an abandoned barn or farmhouse on a drive through the rural areas of most states.

The premise that mankind will become extinct while the world continues is totally divorced from the future plan of God as revealed in scripture. That is not the ending the Bible promises. Instead of dealing with those conflicting scenarios, I’d like to focus on what the Bible and this series have in common—they both recognize the reality of decay.

We now live in a universe where things fall apart. Over time, energy becomes more random and less useful. Given enough time, every star we see would grow cold. Here on earth, unattended gardens become choked with weeds. Even swimming pools of foreclosed homes fill with algae and begin to reek. Business founded by men or women with a clear vision and passion pass on to people who may be mindless of the ingredients that made it successful. If they replace those values with layers of management and bureaucratic structures, the odds of the enterprise retaining its vibrancy are slim. On the human level, neglected relationships do not become better. Where there is no energy put into affirmation, communication, reconciliation, or conflict management, the quality of the relationship ultimately suffers.

Decay in this world is inescapable. In the absence of ongoing initiative houses fall into disrepair, businesses drift into obsolescence, relationships suffer, and nations crumble.

The Bible depicts these realities from Genesis onwards. But instead of yielding to some measure of despair over the inevitability of such things, it offers a solution. The physical decay will give way to the creation of a new heaven and earth, including God’s gift to his redeemed children of new bodies that will not be subject to the forces that affect us today. But even now there is a response to the moral decay that all too often touches our lives.

After describing God’s promises, Peter writes, “through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” (See 2 Peter 1:4.) The promise is not that we would avoid the presence of moral corruption. It’s a promise that we can fight the infection of that corruption. Those who have a relationship with Christ as their savior are given divine promises to hold on to and believe in. The dependability of God to keep these promises can empower us to embrace moral and holy choices when the temptation to yield or compromise is great. Though we may be touched by the decay that comes with moral corruption just as we are touched by the realities of wind erosion and rust, it need not get inside our hearts. Those who are Christ followers need not resign themselves to moral compromise as inevitable. Where we succeed, the credit goes to God, because success is not the result of our determination or our own perseverance. It is only through the appropriation of His grace and power that we can resist the seductions of our time. But the good news is that we can aspire to successfully battle moral corruption here and now. It’s one of the tremendous consequences of the power of the living Christ toward those who serve him.

Some skeptics fault Christians in the West for celebrating the birth of Christ on December 25. They assert that this was near the winter solstice, or that it was confused with other ancient festivals—either the Roman natalis solis invicti (“birth of the unconquered sun”) or the Iranian birthday of Mithras. They argue that December 25 therefore has pagan roots and therefore Christmas as we know it is more grounded in paganism than Christianity.

What do we make of these charges?

First of all, it is unlikely that the date was chosen because it was the day of the year reflected in the Bible. The Bible does not tell us precisely which day of the year Jesus was born. There was not a widespread celebration of Jesus’ birth until 336 under Emperor Constantine. Church fathers speculated about various dates, including May 20, April 18, April 19, May 28, January 2, November 17, November 20, and March 25. The choice of December 25^th in the Western church was arbitrary. So it’s not an issue of biblical accuracy.

Secondly, the day was probably chosen to challenge the pagan festivals that occurred in the empire. It was a way to set the true hope of deliverance against the false hopes of the culture. It would be like American Christians today selecting July 4^th to commemorate spiritual independence while the nation was focusing on political independence. Though we have scant records of the rationale behind the decision, there seems to have been some attempt to contrast the truth of Christianity and the deliverance through Christ with some of the pagan celebrations common in that day. The celebration did not find theological significance in the pagan festivals. It sought to contrast the hope in the messiah with the claims of those other faith systems.

The religious leaders could have equally chosen another day on the annual calendar that did not compete with common festivals. The Eastern Orthodox Church and some other groups celebrate in January because they follow the Julian calendar. A determined skeptic could probably find fault with any day in any month of the year. An annual celebration of Christ’s advent is not significant because of the day chosen, but because of the uniqueness and mission of Jesus.

Others fault the celebration because it includes traditions from other peoples—from greenery and lights to Yule logs and charitable giving. But the test for authenticity in faith is not originality. It is its adherence to the teachings and/or writings of its founders. Circumcision existed in the ancient world before it became a sign to Abraham and his descendants. Animal sacrifice existed outside the Jewish culture when the sacrificial laws were given at Mt. Sinai. One of the two primary schools of Judaism baptized Gentile proselytes before John came along preaching a “baptism of repentance.” The Christian community is free to use symbols and types from the culture to declare the truth of its doctrine to the faithful and to the world. That practice does not mean that everything associated with the former practices was endorsed and approved.

Have there been times and places where meaning has been lost in the Christmas symbols? Certainly. Any practice or tradition can lose its link to its genesis if we are not careful. Why, for example, do we often bless someone who sneezes? It’s become a cultural ritual isolated from the past. Though it can be argued that the message may be lost in the traditions as they have evolved over the years, it is not legitimate to maintain that the potential for corrupting these practices makes them valid from the start.

A postscript to those of you who follow Christ and check in on this blog: My thanks to you and my wish that this Christmas season will be a time of reflection, gratitude, and appreciation for the gift God gave the world in Christ!

Human beings tend to prize authority. We are inclined to value it because we associate authority with the power to do things our way, achieve our objectives, and gain the respect of others. Though there may be times when we do not cherish the responsibility that comes with a position of influence, the authority itself is something much sought after.

The pursuit of authority is unavoidable. Chasing after authority or power starts on the playground or in the classroom. It infects the pre-teen and teen years as the pecking order in the family and school produces cliques, constantly changing friendships, and categories of peers who are socially “in” or marginalized. Couples who cohabit or marry wrestle with authority as they define their roles. University students enter a campus where tiers of authority on campus (from the student body to the faculty) are clear and strongly protected from day one. Authority issues are daily challenges in the marketplace.

It’s natural to mishandle authority and see it all about me—to leverage my authority for my own ambitions and goals. The congressional elitism that plagues the American republic reflects this malady. But it also infects each of us individually.

In Matthew 8 we meet a remarkable man who had great authority, but who was apparently not corrupted by it. He did not let the authority he had corrupt him. In fact, God worked in his heart to produce an uncommon spirit—one of humility.

The centurion we meet in Matthew 8:5 commanded between 70 and 100 men. He was part of the occupying Roman army that most Jews detested. He found himself in the remote outpost of the Empire in Israel, surrounded by a strange culture that was most likely very foreign to his upbringing. It would be easy for a military man like this to be harsh, resentful, and impatient—waiting for the time he could return to the place he called home.

This centurion comes to Jesus with a request. It is not about him. It’s about his servant. We don’t know the nationality of the servant. He may have been Jewish. We don’t know what he did for the centurion, but this soldier valued him nonetheless. The centurion tells Jesus that this servant is paralyzed. This was presumably the result of some kind of accident. It would be unlikely that a paralyzed man would ever rise to the role of servant in that culture. He would more likely be a street beggar. What would most centurions do when faced with a valuable slave who was now paralyzed? I suspect the normal response would be like our reaction to a defective alarm clock. We would scrap it. It’s not worth any further investment. But instead of abandoning this servant, the centurion goes out of his way to seek out Jesus. That is remarkable in itself.

But more remarkable is the centurion’s attitude when he meets Jesus. First, he expresses true compassion for the state of his servant. It’s not simply his services that he misses. He is distressed by the suffering that the servant is experiencing. He asks for Christ to intervene and heal his servant.

Jesus consents, and offers to go and effect a healing. At this point the centurion does something unexpected. He asks Jesus not to come to his home. His reasoning is that he is unworthy of such a visit. Can you imagine how easy it would have been to accept Jesus offer? The one that everyone wanted to be around would be your guest. You and others your home could spend time with him. You might be able to see a miracle right before your eyes. No matter how humble you might feel, it would be a very difficult choice to forego this opportunity. And Jesus had already given an unqualified “Yes” to your request. All you have to say is, “Yes, Lord.”

But the centurion is not temped even by the gracious words of Christ to seek anything for himself. Somehow, in the midst of the Roman war machine, God has reached into his heart and produced an uncommon humility. The centurion holds power and authority, but not for himself. Standing face to face with his Lord and redeemer, he truly understands who he is.

What would the community of born-again believers be like if we understood our place before Christ and the use of authority as the centurion did? I suspect it would revolutionize the face of the church and multiply our effectiveness at the direction of the Holy Spirit. As we celebrate the advent of Christ this week in the Western church, let us ask him to grant us a greater understanding of our role as his servants, so that our influence can be used like that of the centurion to reflect on Jesus’ greatness.

Cultures sometimes act like arrogant teenagers. Impressed with their own virility, they sometimes tackle life as though their understanding outdistances that of every generation that preceded them.

We live in an age where the wisdom of the past is largely regarded as worthless. We regard our forerunners as inferior thinkers because they did not have the technology to create a microchip, laser level, or a vaccine for polio. How could those who lived in an age without plastics, digital media, and cell phones ever be regarded as equivalent to the generations living today? Their understanding of government was primitive. They enacted laws prohibiting business on Sunday, spitting on the sidewalk, and gambling. They had no understanding of the human genome, the science of psychology, or the sociological studies that we have come to accept as the foundation of human behavior. They were oblivious to the environment, chauvinists, and primitive in their understanding of the scope and complexity of the universe.

This kind of assessment fuels the pride of the modern mind and grounds modern thought in a swampland of dangerous assumptions. It assumes that technology is equivalent to wisdom. In reality, technological advancements demonstrate our ability to pragmatically manage the tangible stuff of life—from silicon to blood chemistry. It does not measure our ability to wisely manage ourselves. This thinking also tends to make normative statistical observations about human behavior in the fields of psychology and sociology. Measuring what we tend to do is not the same as determining what we ought to do. That is the classical “Is…ought” logical fallacy. But at the root of this thinking is a rationalism that views mankind thorough a materialistic lens. If people live longer and more comfort, we believe we are making progress. Such thinking ignores questions related to meaning and purpose that have to be answered before we can begin to understand what “progress” really is.

This history of human thought reflects our tendency to enshrine the wisdom of the moment and disregard what has gone on before us. In one of the earliest books of the bible, the book of Job, the central character of the book reflects on wisdom. Job states that wisdom cannot be found in the land of the living. (See Job 28:13.) After describing it as being more valuable than gold or precious stones, Job asks, “Where then does wisdom come from? Where does understanding dwell?” (Job 18:20) He notes, “God understands the way to it and he alone knows where it dwells, for he views the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens.” (See Job 28:23-24.)

One advantage of the Christian world view is that it puts us in touch with the living God, who brings into our pursuit of wisdom a perspective we cannot generate ourselves. As creatures created by him for a purpose of his choosing, we have a way to measure progress that is more enduring than the cultural whims that prevail in the days in which we live. We have a standard that wrestles with issues of the heart rather than the superficial stuff that future generations may regard as primitive advancements in human evolution. And we have a perspective that sees us as significant because we are products of God’s design. Why we exist and how we are to function flows from unchanging realities that are hardwired into each of us. Though we deny some of these realities or try to mask them, God knows that any deviation from them is destructive to us—for it undermines the purpose behind our existence.

The wisdom reflected in the Bible is timeless because it connects us with realities that no cultural consensus can trump. Job was right. A life of significance starts and ends with God. His last words in chapter 28 put it bluntly: “The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.”

I recently heard of a situation where someone found a way to use the legal system to obtain more than $10,000 from a widow’s estate. The settlement may have prevented a long legal fight that could have been won. But the costs of such combat often leave law firms the only winners.

The next day after hearing about this settlement I heard about a friend who was newly employed by a small business leader. He worked diligently to expand the business. But once the owner had benefitted from his expertise and understood his techniques, he dismissed him.

How should we respond when we feel that people we care about and respect face injustice? What should we do when we are the victims of selfishness, greed, arrogance, or vanity?

One natural response is anger. God does not mince words about evil. Psalm 97:10 declares, “Let those who love the LORD hate evil.” Proverbs 8:13 states, “To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.” There is nothing noble in justifying wrong doing or pretending that love somehow negates the disgust we ought to feel when we see evil in our world. The bible does not promote indifference or acceptance of evil.

But what do we do when we cannot rectify the wrongdoing of others? Some behavior is legal, yet immoral. Other acts are wrong, but do not rise to the level of criminal action. And then there are the nasty attitudes, words, and manipulative techniques that can invade any kind of relationship.

The natural tendency is to become embittered, pessimistic, sarcastic, or disenchanted. We can become very vocal about the offenders and launch a verbal crusade against them. We can trash the legal or law enforcement systems that guard some injustices and perpetuate other injustices. We are called to stand up for righteousness, but we may not win all such fights, and even when we do, the victories may take some time. William Wilberforce’s fight against race-based slavery is an example.

One of the great reassurances in scripture is the reality of universal accountability to God. 1 Peter 4:5 states, “But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.” There will come a day for every human being to stand naked and without excuse before a perfectly holy God. No one who has ever lived will escape this reality. We will not be able to justify our evil choices on the basis of birth order, temperament, imperfect parenting, poverty, wealth, our social environment, circumstances, or the influence of others.

The Christian need not yield to frustration in the face of evil. Though justice may be in short supply at times in daily life, there will be an accounting for every decision of every person for all time. 2 Corinthians 5:10 warns, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” God reserves his unmated wrath for all sin. Those who do not take advantage of the substitutionary atonement available in Christ will suffer for all their evil choices. Instead of being embarrassed about the doctrine of God’s judgment, Christ-followers can take great comfort in the fact that no one will elude God’s justice. It’s a sobering reality when we apply it to ourselves, but reassuring when we or those we know taste injustice.

Some words and phrases in the Bible have become part of the language of the American culture. We have “Good Samaritan” legislation that protects people who help others in times of distress or disaster from incurring massive legal liability for their unselfish or heroic acts. We speak of someone who is valued as being the “apple of your eye,” which is an oblique reference to the description of the value of ancient Israel in the mind of God.

One teaching of Jesus that we sometimes label as a nice idea has been dubbed the “golden rule.” It is often paraphrased, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The English NIV translation puts it this way: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (See Matthew 7:12.) Looking at the original language, it starts out saying something like “everything that you desire other men to do to you, you do to them.”

It is instructive that Jesus starts with our self-interest. He gets us thinking about what we want from others. But then instead of validating that selfishness, he turns it upside down. Jesus challenges us to see ourselves in others, and proactively respond to them as if they were us.

In my mind that creates an interesting picture. What would happen if we were to see our faces superimposed on the persons around us? Imagine that the older teenager who takes our order at the fast food restaurant looks like you. Picture the octogenarian who ambles to the checkout counter in as you years from now. If we could place ourselves in the life situation of others and ask, “How would I want others to respond to me?” the change in our perspective might be amazing.

When you interact with people, try to picture them as clones of yourself. They may have different physical attributes, but imagine that they are a reflection of your own desires, hopes, and needs. You might be surprised at how that would change the way you respond.

One of the phrases we use to describe an opportunity is the picture of an “open door.” This image pictures a set of favorable circumstances that make a choice an easy or inviting one.

Sometimes things seem to fall into place in a way that makes a decision relatively easy. For example, some gracious friends could not go on a trip to Branson, Missouri. It was too late for a refund, and they asked me and my wife to take their place at no cost to us. I had vacation time and a schedule that I could adjust to accommodate the trip. It was a classic “open door” opportunity that we said “yes” to. Someone encounters a strange medical condition and calls for a doctor’s appointment. They discover that a fresh cancellation makes it possible for them to see their physician within hours instead of days. The choice is simple.

God seems to sprinkle some of these kinds of circumstances into our lives as a sign of grace. Factors converge that make a decision easy. No great deliberation is required. And often the choice is a pleasant one rather than a gut-wrenching one.

It is true that God is a master at opening doors of opportunity to do kingdom work. To the church in ancient Philadelphia God states, “See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.” In response to prayer God can remove roadblocks. Paul asks for prayer in Ephesians 6:19 that he would “make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.”

Evangelical Christians sometimes take the “open door” principle one further step. They elevate an “open door” to the level of a divine directive. If a door is open, they reason, God is definitely leading in that direction. This can become a way of spiritualizing any desired outcome as something God desires.

If my vehicle is adequate and fully functional, but not as new as I desire, I can embrace a “cash for clunkers” program as God’s way of telling me to get a new one. If a more lucrative job becomes available 500 miles away from home, a husband can argue that he must take it to follow God’s will—despite the impact on his wife’s extended family, the children, and their engagement in church. If a blizzard maroons a guy at his girlfriend’s apartment overnight, the couple can rationalize that God wants them together or wants them to increase their intimacy beyond that which is morally proper. Our desires tend to find all kinds of open doors. And having found them, we can conclude that these options are a clear and unambiguous sign of God’s leading.

There is a wiser way to process life’s “open doors.” Paul models it for us in his second letter to the church at Corinth. He writes, “Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said good-by to them and went on to Macedonia.” (See 2 Corinthians 2:12-13.)

After traveling to Troas, Paul found that this place was rich with opportunities for the gospel. He affirms that this opportunity was an open door and that the Lord himself had given him these circumstances. In verse 12 Paul confirms that some favorable circumstances are the result of God’s grace in our lives. But Paul did not equate an open door with the absolute will of God. It was a sign of his grace. It was not necessarily a sign of his direction.

Titus was not in Troas. For reasons he does not explain, that was a critical issue for Paul. There were other important factors to consider besides the circumstances that Paul metaphorically describes as an “open door”. He apparently wrestled through the possibilities before him. And in the end he decided that the wisest course of action was to leave Troas and move on to Macedonia.

Paul’s model is instructive in that it avoids equating favorable circumstances with the will of God. Even when these factors are the result of God’s action, they are not the sole dictator of what we should do. The obvious solution to the fertility issues Abraham and Sarah faced was for him to use Hagar as a surrogate wife. Sarah reasoned that this was how God would empower Abraham to become the father of many nations. It was an open door that God did not close—either through Hagar’s refusal to participate or infertility on her part. But the results were far from what God desired.

(We must admit that the easy solutions the culture puts before us are not always the right ones. There are a lot of open doors to choices on what Jesus described as the broad road. The choices on the moral narrow road are often much harder and more costly.)

The Bible urges Christ-followers to cultivate a wisdom model in their spiritual pilgrimage. We are not to be blind to opportunities, but to assess each one of them—even the God-given ones—on the basis of what we know from Scripture and what we can discern will be the wisest choice we can make. Open doors are not enough in themselves to give us direction. Paul demonstrates that they must be combined with prayerful, thoughtful, biblically informed thinking.

Advocates of a religious free public square argue that we should strip any shred of religious language, practice, or thought from what takes place in normal social situations. Some would ban citizens from wearing certain clothing that marks their affiliation with a certain religion. Others would exclude some books from a public or school library because they deal with religious content or address a social issue from a Christian perspective. Some call into question moral viewpoints that are deemed to have religious roots. Still others regard self-identification of personal religious convictions by public officials as improper. They are to filter all their remarks through a secular screen and leave any trace of their religious worldview at home. Other worldviews are surprisingly exempt from this demand.

All of this is an attempt to push religion—especially Christianity—into a private room where it will not bother anyone. This effort to marginalize faith is not morally neutral. It operates on an arbitrary notion that religious values are harmful in a pluralistic society. But that principle is an arbitrary moral value itself, grounded in the preferences of the person who advocates it. Its claim to be something that is right or good for society is wholly subjective. The privatizing of Christianity is largely an attempt to replace moral values that flow from our Judeo-Christian heritage with a set of arbitrary values that a group of political, social, or academic elitists consider superior. This desire to privatize religion does not fit into the fabric of the historic forms and freedoms of our republic, and is fraught with danger.

But there is a kind of privatization of religion that is good. It is not imposed on the Christian community by the pressure of a secular elite. Instead, it is voluntarily embraced by those who follow Christ. Jesus illustrates this in Mathew 6:16-18. In this context, Jesus is contrasting the kind of behavior that religious practices often produce with the kind of behavior God desires from those who seek him.

Jesus says, “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

This is a call to Christ-followers to practice spiritual disciplines in a way that does not draw attention to these acts. This privatization is good, because it makes God the audience of our piety rather than others. It seeks to please God and cultivate intimacy with him rather than display our religious fervor to those around us.

It has been said that character is what you do when no one is looking. Here Jesus seems to say that piety is what you do when only God is looking. Just as it is foolish to hide our devotion to Christ in public because we might be censured or criticized by some, it is foolish to parade our habits before the religious community in order to demonstrate our devoutness.

Christ calls his followers to live out their faith before a watching world—as Daniel, Nehemiah, and Paul did. At the same time he calls us to pursue our Father along the quiet paths of life that are more conducive to intimacy and transformation than to publicity and recognition. The great temptation is to reverse these two, attracting attention when among Christians but avoiding recognition when mixing with skeptics and critics.

With the ongoing budget crunch, an increasing number of universities are abandoning their land line phones completely. Most of the students don’t use them because cell phones have become as common among collegians as backpacks or MP3 players. I was speaking with a friend whose 14-year-old was the only student in her class who did not have a cell phone—until a few weeks ago.

For the emerging generation in America, the cell phone is a device that is a normal part of life. It’s something they use for texting and occasional conversations without thinking about the amazing technology that links them to the world. It’s a bit of a picture of the way modern man relates to God. We live in a world that is carefully balanced and intricately created. We benefit from the mechanisms God put into place without thinking about how they got there. How did the information-rich structure of DNA come to be? What caused the earth’s orbit, size, and rotation to fit within the narrow parameters necessary to sustain life? Why is one moon critical to the perpetuation of life on the planet? (See the book The Privileged Planet for a look into these mechanisms.)

Skeptics will attribute such things to chance, assuming that randomness can somehow create complex order. An analysis of some of this explaination using principles of mathematical probability has not demonstrated that the “chance solution” is viable given any kind of time frame postulated so far. It would be easier to assume that cell phone evolved on its own without an intelligent designer involved in the process.

The secular person can assume they can master life apart from God because they don’t see him in the world. But those who seek to follow Christ can stumble into a similar kind of thinking relative to understanding the God they serve.

Christians can assume that they can fully comprehend God’s truth in scripture apart from God. A Christian can slip into the thinking that if we try hard and study well, we can figure out God. This leads to a kind of rationalistic Christianity. God becomes the sum total of the facts that we acquire. We learn about his attributes. We document his response to Abraham or David or Job. We outline the commands of Exodus 20 or the expectations of the sermon on the mount.

While I wholeheartedly endorse careful study of God’s self-revelation in Scripture, I’m increasingly convinced that we will never understand him as we could if we stop there. We need to remember that we are finite people attempting to understand an infinite God. We can never comprehend God fully, but we can know him accurately. But doing so requires his help to supersede our erroneous perceptions, flawed assumptions, and distorted logic. He is more than the sum total of facts we can conclude about him.

1 Corinthians 2:12 states, “We have not received the spirit of the world, but he Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” [Italics mine.] The grand goal of comprehending God accurately starts with study and reflection, but only the Spirit can help us break free from the preconceived ideas and mistaken assumptions that distort our understanding of God. Only He can bring a depth to our reflection and our study that moves us toward a clearer knowledge of God’s heart, his mind, and his purposes.

The Spirit’s leading will not conflict with the objective teaching of scripture. He will not disclose a “personal” truth that contradicts his revelation to other serious students of the Bible. (We may all be flawed in our understanding of something, but no two people can come to differing correct conclusions when led by the Spirit.) We do not have the freedom to attribute innovative or heretical teaching to the third person of the Trinity.

At the same time, we must in humility acknowledge that our understanding of God will always be deficient if we rely solely on our personal research and wisdom. In quiet, solitude, and contemplation of the word, we must cultivate the mind that allows the Holy Spirit to put the pieces of God’s truth together in our minds. He alone can show us the interconnections between the words and ideas that we find in the biblical text. He alone can show us how to bridge the cultural gap between the time of Abraham or Jesus and our own. And he invites us to that partnership where we allow him to frame and shape our thinking according to his complete understanding of the Father. (See 1 Corinthians 2:11.)

It’s difficult for us busy Americans to let the Spirit tutor us in this way. It conflicts with our “get-er-done” mentality. When my teaching is deficient, it is often because I’ve tried to draw conclusions without depending on the ministry of the Spirit. Give yourself permission to wait on the Spirit, listen, ponder the Bible, and pray. You might be surprised at the quality of insight that He will give you.

One of the most widely used words in our culture today is “crisis.” We don’t simply face problems. Calling a challenge a “problem” is not adequate. It does not grab the attention of people effectively until it is called a “crisis.” Whether the issue is economic, political, social, international, or personal, it has intensity only when it is described using this kind of language.

The word “crisis” brings with it a sense of immediacy. Problems, in contrast, might not need resolution right now. It might be possible to ignore a problem for a season. There may be consequences, but they will not be monumental. You might be able to squeeze 9,000 miles between oil changes or deal with that chip in the windshield months from now. Maybe you could live with that cavity for a while or settle that smoldering argument with your spouse in a few weeks.

The word crisis, though overused, calls us away from procrastination to action. It implies that inaction is deadly. We must face reality and do something now.

In that sense, I would suggest that we have a crisis of hope in our culture today. In many cases, the human spirit lies battered and bruised under the rubble of humanism’s broken promises. Optimism about the future gives way to doubt, apprehension, and gloom. We start to expect major problems to invade our lives on a regular basis. We feel vulnerable, insecure. Bitterness and self-pity start to mark our conversation. Our world gets smaller, and the forces arrayed against us feel greater.

None of the world’s prescriptions do much good. They offer band-aid relief, but do not deal with the inner angst that seems to bubble up whenever a fresh threat appears on the horizon of our lives.

The apostle Paul, who experienced more suffering than most of us will face, was an ambassador of hope to those he met. This was not the kind of superficial hope built on positive thinking. Its roots were in the revelation of God. Paul wrote, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (See Romans 8:18.)

Paul’s realism does not run from the challenges of life in a fallen world. But he views those challenges in light of the future that he has in Christ. He did not face a crisis of hope because he kept his focus on the future restoration that he would see because of the redemptive work of Jesus. Paul understood that not all the benefits of salvation are tasted in this life. Many more are part of the age to come. And what we experience now is but a shadow of all that is ours as heirs of the kingdom of the Father.

If you follow Christ as Lord and mature in your faith, you have the opportunity to share this grand perspective. Jesus gives you a way to see through the problems of the moment to the glorious consummation that awaits the children of the King. As he opens your eyes to these realities, he sets you to free to sing a song that can dispel the gloom of a world stuck in the grey fog of crushed hopes and faded dreams.