Kindness and Mercy
Posted by thetenthleper in Devotions & Meditations on January 28, 2012
“‘Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.’”
-Luke 6:36
The mercy that Jesus calls us to is not isolated acts of mercy, but “to a merciful disposition of heart, to lovingkindness.” (Dave Harvey, When Sinners Say ‘I Do’). Kindness is a posture.
God’s kindness leads to repentance (Rom.2:4), meaning he is kind toward us before we ever repent of our sins (Rom.5:8). In all our relationships, be it our spouse or other friends, we sow kindness with every little act of love and grace, regardless if it’s “deserved” or not. As Dave Harvey writes, kindness is not a personality trait but rather a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal.5:22; Col.3:12). Thus, kindness in our relationships (and by implication, their flourishing) is dependent on both parties growing more desperately dependent on the God who alone can grow that fruit in them (John 15:4-5). Mercy counter-attacks the poison of bitterness.
“‘You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.’”
-John 15:16
Seven Ways that Satan Attacks Believers
Posted by thetenthleper in Demonology, Doctrine & Theology on January 26, 2012
I might pump out some entries in the near-ish future concerning spiritual warfare, so I wanted to put up some basic info now. This list is courtesy of Joel Beeke, and I believe it’s a very good summary of the methods that Satan frequently uses in his attacks upon believers in Christ. Stuff like this is important to know, because if we know how our enemy plans to attack us, we will know how best to defend ourselves.
Satan puts blasphemous thoughts into your mind, and then whispers that you cannot be a child of God if you have such thoughts.
Satan gets you to question the truth of the promises of God and the mercy of that God who has never treated you ill.
Satan seeks to persuade you that you have no part in the matter of salvation, for you have only begun with the Lord and not he with you.
Satan argues with you that no child of God could be like you: so weak in faith, so corrupt, so hard and prayerless, so foolish and vain.
Satan comes as your accuser, leading you to despair, or as an angel of light, leading you to presumption.
Satan presents the world to you in fair colours, attempting to move you back into worldly customs, friendships, and vanities.
Satan presses you to indulge in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
-from Striving Against Satan
What Kind of Mountains Does our Faith Move? (Learning to Interpret Scripture Well)
Posted by thetenthleper in Bible, Interpretation & Text Criticism on January 24, 2012
“‘Honey, maybe God didn’t mean a literal flood. Maybe he meant a flood of knowledge, or emotion, or awareness.’
‘If that’s true, I’m going to be SO pissed.’”
-Evan Almighty
That’s one of two totally awesome lines I remember from an otherwise “meh” film. If I remember correctly it comes as Evan Baxter and his family are standing on a huge ark that he built amidst much despair and persecution, waiting for a flood that doesn’t seem to be coming. (Though it eventually does.) His wife is the one who suggests that maybe the flood that God (played with uncanny resemblance by Morgan Freeman) promised Evan would come was more of a metaphorical one.
Sometimes we find ourselves in similar predicaments when reading Scripture. For those of us who uphold the Bible as God’s inspired, infallible word to man, some verses just sound awkwardly extravagant. Acting on the belief that God wouldn’t lie though, we say: “Maybe it’s a metaphor.” But then we place ourselves in this awkward position: “Well if this is just a metaphor, what else might be?” If the Bible is God’s word, we can’t just “metaphorize” the passages that make us uncomfortable.
Here’s an example verse:
[Jesus] said to them…’For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.’ (Matthew 17:20)
What do we do with this? Is Jesus being literal or metaphorical? In the past I’ve had an almost ultra-conservative approach to Scripture that might have looked at verses like this and determined that the plain reading of the text must the right one. If Jesus says that our faith can move mountains, you better believe he means that our faith can move actual, literal mountains. If he means anything less than that, you’re tampering with God’s word and are thus a jerk. Any attempt to say that moving mountains refers to moving the mountains of trial in our lives sounded a bit too fluffy for me and was the first step down the liberal theologian road where Scripture means whatever you want it to mean.
It’s worth saying at this point that this entry isn’t really about Matthew 17:20 per se. Rather, I’m using that verse as an example of how to (and how not to) approach and interpret Scripture. Today if you were to ask me how I interpret that verse, I’d say that Jesus was being metaphorical. (“What!!! Burn the witch!!” -Eight years younger version of me.) How do I believe this and still maintain my belief in the divine inspiration of Scripture?
You have to remember that nothing in the Bible was written to you. What I mean is that while the Spirit of God moved through humans to write Scripture that is authoritative and instructional for us today, Scripture was written with a specific, then-alive audience in mind. So when Paul commands believers to “[s]ee to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ”, while he would certainly command every believer for all time to follow the same rule, in the Bible he’s specifically saying this to the Colossians.
This is so important to remember when reading Scripture. When you realize that books like Colossians were written to a specific first-century audience, you’ll be mindful of the fact that the author will use terms and phrases that were familiar to them, not you. For example, if you were to read the statement “The man was gay” in a book, how would you interpret it? Depends on when the book was written, because how that statement is used today is very different from how it would have been used two centuries ago.
When we get to Jesus telling the disciples that their faith can move mountains, he’s saying it to specific people at a specific time in a specific context. In fact, he’s actually using a Jewish idiom while he’s talking to these first-century Jews. ”An idiom,” writes Robert Plummer, “is an expression whose nonliteral meanings have become customary in a language.”* So as D.A. Carson says: “Removal of mountains was proverbial for overcoming great difficulties.” Relevant verses throughout Scripture include Isaiah 40:4; 49:11; 54:10; Zechariah 14:4; Matthew 21:21-22; Mark 11:23; Luke 17:6; 1 Corinthians 13:2.
Jesus is not preparing his followers to work for coal-mining companies- moving the tops of physical mountains. Rather, through faith in God, Jesus’ followers will overcome seemingly impossible obstacles.
-Robert Plummer
This is far from being a loose interpretation of Scripture. It is in fact the most faithful interpretation of what Jesus meant, making it the interpretation we must cling to. And though the idiom he used was a first-century Jewish one, his message is one that has relevance for believers of all eras as they make their difficult pilgrimage through this world to the gates of heaven.
So be encouraged by the meaning of Matthew 17:20. But also be encouraged in your study of Scripture to widen the scope of your study when you encounter difficult or unclear passages. The more I study the Bible, the more convinced I am that one of the best defenses of Christianity is simply understanding it better. While critics will bring up alleged inconsistencies, I have always found reasonable explanations by widening my search to include contextual evidence.
Homework
For the first time ever on my blog, I’m issuing you, the reader, some homework. And if you don’t do it, I can’t really do anything about it. But it would be a good exercise in what I’ve been talking about in this entry. Here ya go:
Some critics of Christianity say that the Bible never claims that Jesus was God. How does Philippians 2:9-11 refute this claim?
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*Plummer gives the English example of telling someone to “hit the lights.” To “hit” them means to turn them off, not to literally strike them. (from 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible)
The Cross Frees You From Trying to Forgive Yourself
Posted by thetenthleper in Counseling on January 23, 2012
In my recent post entitled God Doesn’t Want You to Forgive Yourself, I argued that the concept of “forgiving yourself” is not only unbiblical but counterproductive to growing in your faith. In this follow-up, I wanted to address the pain and guilt that leads people to feel like they must forgive themselves even though they know God has already forgiven them.
What I do appreciate about encouraging hurting people to forgive themselves is that there’s a recognition that something is not right. If after you’ve confessed your sin to God and to others you still feel a paralyzing guilt, an ingredient is missing. But if that ingredient isn’t forgiving yourself, then what is it?
A passage from Matthew’s gospel I think gives us a good answer. Matthew 9:1-8 is the famous story of the paralytic who was brought by his friends to Jesus in the hopes that he would be healed:
…And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.’ And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, ‘This man is blaspheming.’ But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, “Your sins are forgiven, or to say, “Rise and walk?” But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’ -he then said to the paralytic- ‘Rise, pick up your bed and go home.’ And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.
What exactly is going on here? While Matthew only writes that the Pharisees called Jesus a blasphemer, Luke (and Mark for that matter) fills out the picture a little more about why Jesus was accused of blasphemy: “And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, ‘Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’” (Luke 5:21) As I wrote in the previous entry on this topic, since all sin is ultimately against God (Ps.51:4), only God can offer forgiveness of sins. The Pharisees understood this well, which is why they accused Jesus of blasphemy when he claimed to forgive the paralytic’s sins. He was claiming the ability to do something only God could do.
But there’s more to the story than this. Any nut can claim to forgive a person’s sins. So Jesus backs up his claim by healing the paralytic. Why is this relevant to him claiming to be able to forgive sin? Michael Green explains:
There was a deeply rooted conviction in Judaism that all suffering was a result of personal sin, and that nobody could be cured until he or she was forgiven. For instance, Rabbi Chija ben Abba said, ‘No sick person is cured from sickness until all his sins have been forgiven him.’ Rabbi Alexander agreed: ‘The sick does not arise from his sickness until his sins are forgiven.’
The scribes and Pharisees felt that since Jesus had blasphemed God, he would not be able to heal the man. So by healing the paralytic’s illness, Jesus was proving his authority to cleanse the man’s deepest and most difficult paralysis: sin. It was his moment of vindication.
So what does this story have to say to those who struggle with lingering guilt?
First, it serves as a reminder that only the one sinned against can offer pardon for sin. Jesus has authority to forgive sins, and he promises to permanently wipe clean the sins of anyone who comes to him (John 6:37). He promises to cleanse us of our sins when we confess them (1 John 1:9), and as a child of God he separates our sins from us as far as the east is from the west (Psa. 103:12).
Secondly, in light of this it also reminds us of a huge truth: You are who God says you are and nothing less. If you know that God forgives you but you struggle to forgive yourself, you need to start looking in a new mirror. You’ve too long been looking in a mirror that reflects a failure, an addict, a pervert, a drunk, a whatever…. It’s a false mirror though. It’s the mirror Satan wants you to look in. But God holds up a different mirror. Looking into it, you see Christ. You see sinlessness, perfection, holiness, and a royal child of the Most High God. Yes, I know you still sin. And God knows and is grieved by those sins you still commit. However, when it comes to your eternal salvation, God is judging you by the perfect life lived by Jesus.
Third and finally, I think this passage illustrates well the missing ingredient that people are looking for when they feel like they have to forgive themselves. The greatest need of the paralytic was the same as ours: forgiveness for the sins which have made us enemies of a holy God. Jesus provided this ultimate need for the paralytic, and if you’re a believer in Christ he did the same for you. But he didn’t stop there. He healed the man’s paralysis, and commanded him: “Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” And the guy freaking did. If you have truly confessed your sins to God, you’re forgiven. And now Christ is commanding you to live in light of your new-found freedom.
God has forgiven you, and now you must rest in his forgiveness. Instead of trying to forgive yourself, rise, pick up your bed, and start walking like a forgiven person. Stop lying down on your bed dwelling on your former paralysis after Jesus has commanded you to rise, and accept the fact that you have new freedoms. Every command that Christians are given in the New Testament stems first from who we now are because of our union with Christ. For example the first three chapters of Ephesians are all devoted to reminding believers of what God has done for them and what is now true of them as a result of his work. It isn’t until the last three chapters that all the commands start. The point is that we can only ever do anything of worth for the Lord by first comprehending what he has done for us. (Eph.2:8-10) As a child of God, the Bible says far greater things about you than you would ever dare believe about yourself. And it’s belief in those things that’s the missing ingredient when you feel the need to forgive yourself. Stated positively, when you accept who God says you are, you won’t feel the need to forgive yourself.
“‘I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.’”
-Isaiah 43:25
Learning to Hate Your Sin
Posted by thetenthleper in Counseling on January 20, 2012
If you’ve ever listened to a John Piper sermon, you’ve probably heard him talk about fighting sin by replacing sinful desires with superior pleasure in the glory of God for his supremacy manifested through Christ to the nations for his global cause. (If you’ve listened to him, you get the joke. If you haven’t, that didn’t make sense. Keep reading!) Basically, we grow in Christlikeness and experience victory over the sins we’ve been enslaved to by learning to find more joy in God than in sin (a process called “sanctification”).
A huge ally in the sanctification process is hatred of sin. And while many Christians struggling with habitual sin know that they should hate their sin enough to forever flee from it, the reality is that a part of them still loves it. And that can be confusing. How can you love God so much, read his Word all the time, go to weekly accountability meetings, and still be enslaved to this sin? Ultimately, I think it’s because we still love that sin deep down. And I think the reason we still love it deep down is that we don’t hate it deep down. (Did I just blow your mind??) So why don’t we hate it?
A big reason hatred for sin is lacking could be that we don’t see it for the cosmic treason that it is. We give it less-than-horrible names and thus treat it lightly. Or to say it another way, we just don’t call our sins for what they are, because to do so would be to face the ugly truth about ourselves. Here are some examples of ways I’ve typically heard myself or others describe sin.
1. “I screwed up last night.”
2. “I’m struggling with anxiety.”
3. “I’m having a hard time getting in the Word.”
4. “Prayer hasn’t really been consistent.”
The problem with these phrases is that none of them sound that bad. They succeed in getting across a “This isn’t ideal” vibe, but also a “Oh well no one’s perfect” one, and that’s the problem. They don’t capture the magnitude of the fact that your sin cost Jesus his life. Here’s the same list again, in the same order, worded now in such a way to capture what’s really going on:
1. “I looked at porn and masturbated.”
2. “I don’t trust in God’s goodness and provision.”
3. “Other things are just more important to me than God.”
4. “Prayer has no value to me. I feel like God’s either not there or doesn’t care.”
Things like these are a lot harder to say. The more specific we get with our sin, the more uncomfortable it becomes to confess it, because we’re starting to see it for what it really is. The lines in the first list aren’t untrue. But I don’t feel as terrible saying them since they’re sugar-coated. When I go deeper though and say the words in the other list, I’m far more ashamed and disgusted. It’s a lot more jolting.
Sin says something about how we view God. When you’re anxious, you’re not really “struggling with anxiety.” You’re struggling to believe that God loves you and is guiding your life according to his purposes. When you’re “struggling” with inconsistent time in prayer, you’re struggling with a consistent arrogance that makes you feel like you don’t need God. The tricky thing though is that we’re not always aware of these deeper heart issues. Rather, things like praying to the almighty God of the universe are talked about in terms of personal discipline rather than personal obedience. So when we’re not praying, we think the problem is our schedule (external) and not our hearts (internal). And when we fail to pray, we feel like we’ve been defeated by something external rather than taking ownership for our own sin. Jerry Bridges says it this way:
When I say I am defeated by some sin, I am unconsciously slipping out from under my responsibility. I am saying something outside of me has defeated me. But when I say I am disobedient, that places the responsibility for my sin squarely on me. We may, in fact, be defeated, but the reason we are defeated is because we have chosen to disobey.
If we’re not calling sin for what it is and owning up to it, we’ll never learn to hate it. Sin is personal, not abstract. For example, if a wife catches her husband looking at porn, she’s going to take it personally. What he’s doing says something about how he views her, in this case her desirability. Similarly, sin says something about how we view God. Struggling to find time to get in God’s Word isn’t primarily a discipline issue. It’s an issue of you not finding God desirable enough to spend good quality time with him.
The process of sanctification is a long and painful one. But it has an end, and it’s joyful along the way. For the purposes of hating your sins and enjoying God, get good at calling sins for what they are. And remember that the presence of the God you’ve offended is a safe place for doing that.
“Oh you who love the LORD, hate evil!”
-Psalm 97:10
God Doesn’t Want You to Forgive Yourself
Posted by thetenthleper in Counseling on January 19, 2012
I’ve heard it. And you’ve heard it. ”Yeah I know God forgives me. I just can’t seem to forgive myself.” One time I even heard a pastor counsel a friend of mine to forgive himself as he was burdened with the guilt of some recent sin in his life. Is there any merit to this? No, there’s not. Not only that, I believe that harboring this kind of mindset is very dangerous in that it completely undermines the gospel.
I don’t want to be insensitive to the feelings that make one believe that they need to forgive themselves. I’ve been there a million times. You confessed your sin to God, asked him to forgive you for those sins, and yet you still feel horrible. You can’t shake the guilt you feel over that sin. It grips you and won’t let go. What are we supposed to do with this? Forgiving yourself not only won’t help you alleviate that guilt. It will actually push you further away from comfort, because saying “I know God’s forgiven me, but I can’t forgive myself” is a form of pride. Here are five reasons this statement is misguided:*
1. It makes you a bigger judge than God.
You say “I know God forgives me…” If you acknowledge this much, then you’re acknowledging that the highest judge in the universe has looked at you and declared you innocent. Paul writes, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.” (Rom.8:33) In other words, if the highest judge justifies, who is going to contradict him? You? Fact: the highest court always overrules the lower ones. If what God says about you isn’t the final word, then he’s not the highest court in your heart. You are.
2. It shows that you’re trusting in something other than God for justification.
Sometimes what feels like guilt over sin is in actuality guilt over failing to achieve a goal you’ve set for yourself. Timothy Keller, in his excellent book Counterfeit Gods, writes:
When people say, ‘I know God forgives me, but I can’t forgive myself,’ they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important to them than God’s. Idols function like gods in our lives, and so if we make career or parental approval our god and we fail it, then the idol curses us in our hearts for the rest of our lives. We can’t shake the sense of failure.
So you’re a seminary student, heavily involved in your church, a model of personal piety, and everyone looks to you for guidance. Then one night you go a little too far with the godly woman you’ve been seeing. You’re devastated. You’ve confessed it to the Lord, but that doesn’t seem to be enough. It could be that the guilt you feel isn’t from sinning against the Lord. It could be that you haven’t lived up to who you have built yourself up to be in your mind: a super-godly person who would never do what you did. In the words of David Powlison: “So often when people feel remorse for what they’ve done wrong, it is a remorse against their idealized self-image, a remorse in their own eyes, and a remorse against what other people think about them…” None of which is remorse against God.
3. It means that your sin is a bigger deal to you than it is to God.
All sin is ultimately against God. (Ps. 51:4) He above all is the one offended by your sin. Your sin cost him his Son, and as a result of his sacrifice on the cross God now forgives you. If you’re still trying to forgive yourself after he gave everything to forgive you, then that just means that your sin didn’t offend God as much as it offends you. Mike Wilkerson notes that “[i]t is the height of self-centeredness to think your sin somehow offends you (or anyone else, even) more than it offends God.”
4. It could be a refusal to honestly confess your sin.
It’s worth considering that you may still feel unforgiven because you haven’t actually turned to God to confess and repent of your sin. Plagued by the guilt of what you did or said, you figure that God is too mad to listen to you. It’s “safer” instead to console yourself by distracting yourself from the guilt. So instead of going into God’s presence you turn on the TV. Instead of reading his Word, you read gossip articles online. God = conviction = discomfort = finding something that won’t make you feel horrible.
“Without confession I will remain unforgiven,” Miroslav Volf writes, “not because God doesn’t forgive, but because a refusal to confess is a rejection of forgiveness. Refusing to confess, I refuse to make forgiveness my own through confession of wrongdoing and joyful gratitude over it not being counted against me.” (my emphasis)
5. It could be a form of works-based salvation.
We as Christians have a strange tendency to want to punish ourselves more than God wants to punish us. We know that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1), but there’s just a really good feeling we get when we condemn ourselves anyway. It feels…noble. Humble. Righteous even. The more we punish ourselves for our sins, the more righteous we must be since righteous people hate sin, right?
But God doesn’t want us to do penance for our sins. It’s one thing to mourn our sinful condition while keeping our eyes on Jesus and the fact that we’re getting credit for his life and not ours. It’s something else entirely to feel like God will accept you more as you punish yourself more for sin.
“Jesus frees me from trying to impress God or others because he has impressed God on my behalf.”
-Jonathan Dodson
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*I’ve adapted this list from Mike Wilkerson’s book Redemption: Freed by Jesus From the Idols We Worship and the Wounds We Carry, pages 78-80.
Brian Regan, Mitt Romney, a Gay Veteran, and the Art of Bad Arguments
Posted by thetenthleper in Philosophy, Politics/Culture on January 17, 2012
“I’m trying to learn how to play chess. That game’s not right. That game does not end properly. You’re just looking at the board and your opponent goes ‘CHECKMATE!’
‘I thought you said you were supposed to take my king.’
‘Yeah but no matter what you do in the next move I take the king in the following move, so it’s a checkmate.’
He’s in the car headin’ home.
No other game lets you do that. You never see a quarterback walking up to the line…
‘TOUCHDOWN! The way your corner is playing we’ll do a slam pass underneath the coverage. Too much of a cushion. 6 points! Touchdown!’
Don’t just announce that you’re going to win.”
-Brian Regan, stand-up comedian extraordinaire
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about arguments and how so often people give just flat-out bad arguments for their positions. This led me to blog about theological debates that are often crippled by bad arguments, and I’ve got about fifty more blog ideas in this same line of thinking. This one was inspired by an article I read last month about Mr. Mitt Romney.
Apparently Romney was confronted by a gay Vietnam veteran named Bob Garon at an event in New Hampshire who asked whether or not he supported gay marriage. Saying he did not, the conversation got pretty awkward. Garon proceeded to say, “It’s good to know how you feel…That you do not believe that everyone is entitled to their constitutional rights.”
BOOM! Checkmate, you unconstitutional jerk!
Look, this entry is not about Mitt Romney as a political candidate nor is it a statement on whether or not gay marriage should be legal. Rather, it’s an example of how bad arguments hinder understanding and thus any hope of progress. Comments like the one above made by Mr. Garon are about as pointless as the quarterback in Brian Regan’s joke just declaring “touchdown” without ever running the play. You can’t just declare yourself the winner in a debate without ever even debating your opponent. And that’s exactly what this veteran did.
His claim is that Romney doesn’t believe everyone’s entitled to their constitutional rights. But the debate on gay marriage isn’t about whether or not we should give gay couples their constitutional right to marry. The whole debate is about whether it even is a constitutional right. Garon’s comment, whether he realized it or not, assumes a universal agreement that gay marriage is a constitutional right, thus making Romney unfit for office for wanting to deny homosexuals that right. But since such agreement doesn’t exist, comments like the one Romney received are weightless. It’s like asking someone, “Why do you love bad music?” No one loves bad music. They simply love music that they deem “enjoyable” and you deem “bad.” Besides, until there’s a universal agreement on what constitutes bad music, it’s impossible to truly condemn someone for loving bad music. (Remember…Nickelback does have fans, guys.)
To pull back and add another dimension to this whole incident, Bob Garon never actually made an argument at all. Rather, he made an unfounded claim. I still lump that under the umbrella of “bad arguments” because so often in our culture simply declaring your beliefs seems to take on a role that should be reserved for intelligent debate/dialogue. A huge part of intelligent debate is describing your opponent’s views in a way they would be happy with, so when no attempt at understanding is made, what should be two people debating becomes two people mocking each other’s views. Internet comment boards are flooded with this to the extent that I’m not even sure we understand the difference between “mockery” and “debate” anymore.
So when Richard Dawkins for example says that faith “is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence” and that it “is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence”, he’s calling out “Touchdown” without any intention of even snapping the ball. Not only is he defining “faith” in a way that no theologian would define it, he uses his perception of faith to further reinforce the thought held by many that it is opposed to science, which does think and evaluate evidence. Dawkins’ definition of faith demonstrates a great reluctance to truly understand those he disagrees with. And as I said already, when understanding isn’t present, mockery will be.
Another fine example of this is Ricky Gervais’ article “Why I’m an Atheist.” Gervais, like Dawkins and Garon, declares his victory throughout without ever really giving a substantial argument. With mockery taking the place of intelligent debate, I personally feel like atheistic comedians get away with a lot.
“The Bible truly is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. … It was written thousands of years ago, when people were even dumber than they are today. … It’s absurd to believe in that s***.”
-David Cross
The REALLY Cool Thing About Tebow’s Game Against the Steelers…
Posted by thetenthleper in Devotions & Meditations, Politics/Culture on January 16, 2012
A week ago, Tim Tebow led the Denver Broncos to victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Of course the real story was how the chosen one threw 316 yards, averaging 31.6 yards per completion, on a televised game with a rating of 31.6, an eerily obvious allusion to the area code of Wichita. And some are also seeing something of a connection between those numbers and John 3:16, a verse that Tebow wore on his face in his final game with the Florida Gators.
I’ve never really understood why people have felt the need to have such a strong opinion (whether positive or negative) about Tim Tebow. It’s almost as confusing to me as why the Kardashians are famous (something I’ve Googled and still don’t have a clear answer on). Some look at his 316 stats above and feel like it was God’s blessing on him. The skeptical see the stats as nothing more than coincidence. I’m of the mind that those stats are actually really amazing. Why?
Because “coincidence” or not, those stats put “John 3:16″ at the top of all Google and Yahoo! searches for a time. That means that the number one search on both search engines yielded this: “‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, who put up an ad on Google to appear when people searched for the verse, reports that 8,000 people clicked on peacewithgod.net. And they are also reporting 150 people placing faith in Christ as a result of reaching the site.
Are Tebow’s stats proof that God’s hand is on him to bless him and the Broncos with Super Bowl rings and a Hallmark channel original movie about the 2011-2012 season that almost certainly would have followed? Well, in the words of Isaiah, “it was the will of the LORD to crush” the Broncos in the Divisional round. So no. But if some “random” stats in one playoff game spread the most concise statement of the Gospel far and wide, leading to the eternal deliverance of at least 150 people, then you better believe God’s hand was directly responsible for every single one of those passing yards.
“The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.”
Proverbs 16:33
Around the InterWeb (1/10/12)
Posted by thetenthleper in Around the InterWeb on January 10, 2012
This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, both as a way to share the love of things I’ve read/been blessed by online as well as a way to store good articles without creating a million bookmarks on my computer (something I am prone to do).
Women, Stop Submitting to Men. Great article by Russell Moore that corrects many of evangelical culture’s misunderstandings about submission. It also serves up the much-needed reminder that submission isn’t a calling on women only but that all believers are called to submit to someone.
We Three Kings of Orient Aren’t. David Mathis does a nice job sharpening our vision concerning who the magi were who visited Jesus, breathing new life into these characters of the Christmas story we’re all too familiar with. (Side note: they weren’t at the manger!)
If You Want to Be a Writer You Have to Be a Reader. Stephen King via Justin Taylor (two names I never thought I’d use in the same sentence except to say that those are two names I would never expect to use in the same sentence), reminds any would-be writers out there (me! me!) of the importance of reading being a regular joy and discipline. There’s also an excerpt of King’s memoir On Writing in which he reminds his audience of the great effect even terrible books can have on the writer.
How (Not) to Be Relevant
Posted by thetenthleper in Devotions & Meditations on January 9, 2012
This passage from an old dead guy named Charles Bridges was on my mind today, and I felt it was worth sharing. With all the talk and debate over the last several years about how, as Christians, we are to relevant in a post-modern world (beer, UFC, and vinyl records for the glory of God, baby!), it was refreshing to read this from a guy writing in the first half of the 19th century:
The importance of studying urbanity of behaviour in our intercourse with the world, is sometimes pleaded as an excuse for avoiding the direct offense of the cross. But let it be remembered, that God never honours a compromising spirit…
‘Doubtless’ (as Archbishop Secker reminds us)- ‘we should endeavour to make religion agreeable; but not to make ourselves agreeable by leading our company to forget religion.’
Since “religion” is a four-letter word these days, just substitute the word “gospel” for it in that quote. The point is made though: some attempts to make the gospel relevant have the exact opposite effect. It is God’s making us different from the world that makes us attractive to the world. If your message to non-believers focuses more on how similar you are to them rather than on how different you are, you’re conforming to the world and hindering your effectiveness. Remember: no matter how cool you are, you still believe that a dead man rose again. God spreads his kingdom through preaching things that the world will find ridiculous (1 Cor.1:23).
