God bless my parents for reading books. Not just because it fostered in me a love for the written word, not just because reading leads to understanding more of how people behave, feel, and think, but because reading made my parents good teachers. Both of my parents teach inside and outside of the church, so throughout my life I would hear them quote from the books piled up on the sofa end table. I made this connection early, "Reading makes you smart. Smart enough to tell other people stuff they don't know. Stuff they want to know. And when you know stuff they want to know, they'll listen to you. They'll like you." And of course, most of our lives are spent trying to get people to like us...
But really, I'm glad my parents read because I could never buy all of those books on my own. Every time I visit Michigan, some of their books vanish while others mysteriously reappear where mom kept looking all those months. During one visit, I thumbed through a book called "A Third Testament" by Malcolm Muggeridge. He covered writings from several respected Christian authors and gave it this hilariously exaggerated title. I wonder what Lewis or Bonhoeffer would have thought about it...
But I'm getting off topic, and Sarah won't read anything too long on here. The point is, I think my mom bought the book because it contained selected writings of Soren Kierkegaard. That guy wrote more in his life than most people read, so I can understand why mom wanted bite-sized portions. Admittedly, the only Kierkegaard I know I first heard from a Swedish girl commenting on Jon Acuff's Blog. But seriously guys, read this slowly, openly, and questioningly:
"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obligated to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?
"Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close."
It's almost disheartening to think about how true those words are, isn't it? So I wonder, does the underlying motivation of Christians to deny Biblical authority and inerrancy come from the fear Kierkegaard describes? What does that say about us as Christians if we tell people, "Read the Bible, but don't take it too seriously"?
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Saying It And Doing It - A possible super-theme of Nehemiah.
Through most of high school, I worked at a Marathon gas station down the road from my home. The law in Michigan at the time would only allow me to work 18 hours a week. Because of my schedule with school and church, I took most of the Saturday morning opening shifts.
Okay, so, it's high school. Getting up at 5:30 on a Saturday morning took a little effort, so I had to come up with ways to motivate myself. One routine involved playing a James Brown's Greatest Hits cassette I picked up at a truck stop. I'd sing every one of the songs while sweeping the floor, brewing the coffee, and filling the soda fountain ice dispenser. One morning, while singing For Goodness Sakes, Just Look At Those Cakes into the broom handle, I turned around to see an ancient old woman standing at the door. Admittedly, I gasped a little out of fright. This old lady wanted her very special brand of cigarettes at 6 in the morning and watched my Mr. Good Foot as she waited for me to unlock the door. From that day on, we had an understanding: if she didn't tell anyone about my stiff, suburban "dancing", I'd open the shop early and sell her cigarettes whenever she came to the door.
Well, all that to say, I listened to that cassette a lot. One of the songs had a chorus I especially liked (although I only today learned it was a cover song), Sayin' It An' Doin' It. I like that mentality. Do what you say. Talk the talk and walk the walk. Integrity. But it's a hard thing to decide sometimes, are we always willing to live by what we say we believe?
I think Nehemiah had this conviction. He seems to have demonstrated not only biblical knowledge, but also the courage to follow through on what he knew was right. People often talk about the book of Nehemiah in terms of leadership and serving. I wonder if all that can come under an over-arching theme of following through on what the Bible commands.
What about you, what do you think? Do you sometimes have trouble following through on doing things biblically even when you know the truth? Do you make excuses or say that it was only for a certain time and a certain place? How thin do you slice that slice?
Okay, so, it's high school. Getting up at 5:30 on a Saturday morning took a little effort, so I had to come up with ways to motivate myself. One routine involved playing a James Brown's Greatest Hits cassette I picked up at a truck stop. I'd sing every one of the songs while sweeping the floor, brewing the coffee, and filling the soda fountain ice dispenser. One morning, while singing For Goodness Sakes, Just Look At Those Cakes into the broom handle, I turned around to see an ancient old woman standing at the door. Admittedly, I gasped a little out of fright. This old lady wanted her very special brand of cigarettes at 6 in the morning and watched my Mr. Good Foot as she waited for me to unlock the door. From that day on, we had an understanding: if she didn't tell anyone about my stiff, suburban "dancing", I'd open the shop early and sell her cigarettes whenever she came to the door.
Well, all that to say, I listened to that cassette a lot. One of the songs had a chorus I especially liked (although I only today learned it was a cover song), Sayin' It An' Doin' It. I like that mentality. Do what you say. Talk the talk and walk the walk. Integrity. But it's a hard thing to decide sometimes, are we always willing to live by what we say we believe?
I think Nehemiah had this conviction. He seems to have demonstrated not only biblical knowledge, but also the courage to follow through on what he knew was right. People often talk about the book of Nehemiah in terms of leadership and serving. I wonder if all that can come under an over-arching theme of following through on what the Bible commands.
What about you, what do you think? Do you sometimes have trouble following through on doing things biblically even when you know the truth? Do you make excuses or say that it was only for a certain time and a certain place? How thin do you slice that slice?
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Drawing A Clearer Line - Some thoughts on the difference between a Christian and a person who talks about Jesus.
When I began to write this series on basic Christian living, I knew I would primarily address those who attended church or claimed to believe in Jesus, calling themselves Christians. For some, I hope this series gives them understanding on why Christians do and believe certain things like the Bible, the effectiveness of prayer, etc. I began with another goal for these essays, to draw lines between those who admire Jesus as a spiritual teacher and those who worship Him as God the Son.
Something stirred during the last few weeks while I continued to live in a home without internet access. A person left an anonymous comment on Back To Boardgames using language I have heard from people who believe in Universalism or what Francis Schaeffer called "Paneverythingism". It looks like a continuation of an earlier comment that for one reason or another isn't available.
But there you can see why I chose to draw these lines. This kind of thinking denies Jesus as God and His work of redemption, the foundation of Christian belief. In Romans 1, Paul introduces himself as one who lives to tell the gospel and defines it as the gospel promised through the Bible. He also makes clear this gospel deals with God's son, Jesus. In verses 18-20, Paul talks of evil men suppressing truth made known to them by God. Then, in verses 21-23, we read why wicked people denied the truth of God. "Although they know who God is, they do not glorify Him as God or thank Him. On the contrary, they have become futile in their thinking; and their undiscerning hearts have become darkened. Claiming to be wise, they have become fools! In fact, they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for mere images, like a mortal human being, or like birds, animals, or reptiles!"
One great definition of sin says we do so by worshiping, or glorifying, anything but God. It is to place anything above God. To think of something as more beautiful, trustworthy, or ultimate than God is to sin against Him. Satan's downfall came when he said to himself "I will make myself like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:14). He then planted the same lie in Eve's ear when he told her in Genesis 3:5, "you will be like God". Some claim that man's consciousness (whether the power of an individual mind, collective, vaguely defined spiritual "force", etc.) or thinking need only be corrected in order to achieve enlightenment. This kind of belief, and others like it, in one way or another conclude that we are, or are like, God. This kind of thinking is the very core of sin.
But these people who deny the God of the Bible must also deny the doctrine of sin. If we are our own gods, or if god is an impersonal force, than we have no outside standard from a perfect and unchanging God to which we must answer. If there is no sin, then Jesus had no need to die as payment.
My objective at this moment isn't to debate the existence of the biblical God, the reality of sin, or the redemptive work of Jesus. I want people to realize that they may sit in a church meeting next to people who agree with the kind of things said by my anonymous critic. They might sing the same songs of worship, recite words from the Bible, or help with community outreach.
But do not be fooled. Jesus did say He was God the Son. The Jews recognized this in John 5:18. He also made it clear that people had to believe in Him in order to gain eternal life when He said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me" (John 14:6). Jesus talked about Hell more than anyone else in the Bible, He said He was the Messiah (meaning He knew He would pay the price for man's sin), and He believed in the authority of scripture because He quoted the Tanakh (Old Testament) as such. Some people can say they believe in Jesus and yet miss His whole message.
If a person believes in Jesus as God the Son, then he will live a life of repentance and worship the God of the Bible alone. If he merely calls Jesus a spiritual teacher or a "good guy who set an example for us all", he should stop pretending to agree with Jesus and never refer to himself as a Christian.
I'm glad the person leaving the comment chose to remain anonymous because I want to attack the thought and not the person. My response to people like my anonymous critic, Wiccan neighbor, and Jehovah's Witness co-worker is to pray for them. I believe the Holy Spirit can turn their hearts to repentance by revealing both the ugliness of their sin and the goodness of God's grace. It's the reason I never addressed the critic directly. I do have an adversary, but he's not flesh and blood, and he's the reason I draw the line.
*Believe it or not, this experience has encouraged me to next write on why Christians need the Church. See you next month.
Something stirred during the last few weeks while I continued to live in a home without internet access. A person left an anonymous comment on Back To Boardgames using language I have heard from people who believe in Universalism or what Francis Schaeffer called "Paneverythingism". It looks like a continuation of an earlier comment that for one reason or another isn't available.
But there you can see why I chose to draw these lines. This kind of thinking denies Jesus as God and His work of redemption, the foundation of Christian belief. In Romans 1, Paul introduces himself as one who lives to tell the gospel and defines it as the gospel promised through the Bible. He also makes clear this gospel deals with God's son, Jesus. In verses 18-20, Paul talks of evil men suppressing truth made known to them by God. Then, in verses 21-23, we read why wicked people denied the truth of God. "Although they know who God is, they do not glorify Him as God or thank Him. On the contrary, they have become futile in their thinking; and their undiscerning hearts have become darkened. Claiming to be wise, they have become fools! In fact, they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for mere images, like a mortal human being, or like birds, animals, or reptiles!"
One great definition of sin says we do so by worshiping, or glorifying, anything but God. It is to place anything above God. To think of something as more beautiful, trustworthy, or ultimate than God is to sin against Him. Satan's downfall came when he said to himself "I will make myself like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:14). He then planted the same lie in Eve's ear when he told her in Genesis 3:5, "you will be like God". Some claim that man's consciousness (whether the power of an individual mind, collective, vaguely defined spiritual "force", etc.) or thinking need only be corrected in order to achieve enlightenment. This kind of belief, and others like it, in one way or another conclude that we are, or are like, God. This kind of thinking is the very core of sin.
But these people who deny the God of the Bible must also deny the doctrine of sin. If we are our own gods, or if god is an impersonal force, than we have no outside standard from a perfect and unchanging God to which we must answer. If there is no sin, then Jesus had no need to die as payment.
My objective at this moment isn't to debate the existence of the biblical God, the reality of sin, or the redemptive work of Jesus. I want people to realize that they may sit in a church meeting next to people who agree with the kind of things said by my anonymous critic. They might sing the same songs of worship, recite words from the Bible, or help with community outreach.
But do not be fooled. Jesus did say He was God the Son. The Jews recognized this in John 5:18. He also made it clear that people had to believe in Him in order to gain eternal life when He said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me" (John 14:6). Jesus talked about Hell more than anyone else in the Bible, He said He was the Messiah (meaning He knew He would pay the price for man's sin), and He believed in the authority of scripture because He quoted the Tanakh (Old Testament) as such. Some people can say they believe in Jesus and yet miss His whole message.
If a person believes in Jesus as God the Son, then he will live a life of repentance and worship the God of the Bible alone. If he merely calls Jesus a spiritual teacher or a "good guy who set an example for us all", he should stop pretending to agree with Jesus and never refer to himself as a Christian.
I'm glad the person leaving the comment chose to remain anonymous because I want to attack the thought and not the person. My response to people like my anonymous critic, Wiccan neighbor, and Jehovah's Witness co-worker is to pray for them. I believe the Holy Spirit can turn their hearts to repentance by revealing both the ugliness of their sin and the goodness of God's grace. It's the reason I never addressed the critic directly. I do have an adversary, but he's not flesh and blood, and he's the reason I draw the line.
*Believe it or not, this experience has encouraged me to next write on why Christians need the Church. See you next month.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Back To Boardgames - Why Christians need the Bible's authority
About a year ago, when I figured out I was probably more of a Calvinist than I ever wanted to admit, I wrote an essay on the Bible's authority. It would probably do for me to include this topic in the Basics Series. Instead of coming up with an entirely new analogy, though, I've decided to revise and repost the original.
My friend Joe has a sick sense of humor. He told me one day to read a particular post and the subsequent comments. This post dealt with a line in 2 Peter 2:7 calling Lot "righteous". Of course, you had the people who talked about justification versus sanctification. Others rejected the passage as "a misunderstanding", because how could God call Lot righteous when he offered his daughters to gang rape, then later got drunk and committed incest with them? Eventually, and Joe intended this, the conversation came to the authority of the Bible, its inerrancy, comparisons of Old to New Testament, and Universalism.
One man created a sub-argument about a supposed misquotation in Mark where the writer "quotes" Isaiah, but actually quotes both Malachi and Isaiah. I wonder if it would do any good to tell him that ancient Greek writing didn't have quotation marks or that they used indirect quotations. For example, if Joe tells me "Dinner is at six tonight. Come over with the guys and join us." I might tell my friends, "Joe wants us to be at his house for dinner at six." Even though I didn't directly quote Joe, I correctly communicated what he said.
For most of my life, people outside of the church have told me the Bible is just a book full of contradictions and inconsistencies. When I was seventeen, I wondered if these people were right. So I read the whole thing, looking for a contradiction or inconsistency. I think my Bible teacher knew what I was doing because he invited me to challenge the Bible's authority and inerrancy openly in class whenever I thought I had found proof. Believe me, I tried. But he always had answers that both cut through my cynicism and satisfied my questions. Soon enough, I began to ask him to explain hard passages because I wanted to know more of how the Bible truly was authoritative and without error. By the end of the school year, I knew without a shred of doubt that the Bible is God's book. To disbelieve or disobey the Bible meant I disbelieved or disobeyed God.
If any of you ever want to take a poke at me the way I did my Bible teacher all of Senior year, please feel free. I'm certain that, given time, I could find a sufficient answer for you. For now, I want to set a foundation for the Bible's authority with a few scriptures. Hebrews 1:1-2 says, "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world." This sums up the Old Testament writings and the words of Jesus. Whatever the prophets said in the Bible, God said through them. That's not to say they themselves were always infallible. Even if Moses thought the world was flat, he never said so in the Bible because God oversaw every word written in scripture and kept it truthful. Going back to 2 Peter, it seems the writer shared Joe's intentions. 2 Peter, 3:1-2 says, "This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles." This adds the writings of the Apostles into the category of "Authoritative". In the same chapter, Peter equates Paul's writings with scripture and calls those who distort Paul's teachings "untaught and unstable". Paul refers to Luke's and Matthew's gospels as scripture in 1 Timothy 5:18 "The laborer is worthy of his wages."
The whole controversy over Biblical authority and inerrancy reminds me of board game tantrums. You know what I'm talking about. We've all played Monopoly and accused the banker of cheating before flipping the whole board into the air. My favorite checkmate in chess was the one where I swept all the pieces to the floor with my spindly arm. I get the same feeling every time I hear arguments for or against the ultimate authority of anything.
While studying Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology, I read, "It is one thing to affirm that the Bible claims to be the words of God. It is another thing to be convinced that those claims are true. Our ultimate conviction that the words of the Bible are God's words comes only when the Holy Spirit speaks in and through the words of the Bible to our hearts and gives us an inner assurance that these are the words of our Creator speaking to us." Then he quotes 1 Corinthians 2:14, "The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (Grudem's translation)."
Essentially, what Grudem said was this, "If you don't believe the Bible, it's because God hasn't revealed it as truth to you." And think of this, if we claim that the Bible is our absolute standard of truth, then we can't appeal to another kind of standard to validate it. To do so would put the outside standard on par or greater than scripture. So what difference is there between us saying the Bible is true because it claims to be true and the claims of ultimate authority for an Atheist who supremely values science or historical accuracy? They think science is authoritative because it's scientifically proven. They think history is accurate because of the accuracy of historical documents. If you think about it long enough, you want to kick the game table, knock over the pieces, and shout, "No, I'm Sorry!"
The difference I can see comes from what I said long ago about Xerox copies. We are not ultimate beings. We're limited. Blaise Pascal had this realization and said that man was merely a point on a line. We can't comprehend the extremes of anything in nature, and yet those extremes exist beyond our comprehension. From there, he explains that a being must comprehend those extremes and only God is ultimate enough to do so.
So where else but the Bible could I find a standard of truth? I can't base my standard of truth at all on myself. My perception, my logic, my experience, it's all limited. And I can't base my standard on other men because I recognize their limitations as well. The Bible, with the Holy Spirit's instruction, convinces me of its own truth. I believe its truth to such lengths that I allow the words of the Bible to offend my reason and change the way I think.
Some people might think that I worship the Bible rather than God when I say these things. Let me assure you I do not. God reveals Himself to man through the Bible. God also says that He reveals Himself to man through nature. In fact He reveals Himself to us in all things. But God doesn't want us to worship nature or any other means of revelation. There can be no other gods before Him, not even His book. My point is that the Bible is a complete, though not exhaustive, way in which God revealed Himself.
Cornelius Van Til said that in order for us to truly know God, He would have to reveal Himself truly to us. If the Bible were not the absolute, authoritative, perfect standard of truth, then my understanding of God would be incomplete. No one could truly know God. If the Bible contained any falsehood, the pluralist claim of all religions worshiping the same god might have some merit. God would be subjective to our perception. So if you claim to be a Christian, you absolutely must recognize the authority of the Bible.
Have you thrown the game table yet? I know I've seen and thrown enough board game tantrums to wonder if I should even bother playing in the first place. But it wouldn't do any good if I surrendered by saying, "It's a Christian thing, you wouldn't understand," or, "Just take a leap of faith," or, "We don't ask those questions." The Bible I claim to believe makes it clear I should still work to understand my faith and reason with people. But 1 Corinthians 2:14, as well as other verses, tell me I don't need to convince anyone. I can leave that up to the Holy Spirit and find comfort in knowing He'll do a much better job.
My friend Joe has a sick sense of humor. He told me one day to read a particular post and the subsequent comments. This post dealt with a line in 2 Peter 2:7 calling Lot "righteous". Of course, you had the people who talked about justification versus sanctification. Others rejected the passage as "a misunderstanding", because how could God call Lot righteous when he offered his daughters to gang rape, then later got drunk and committed incest with them? Eventually, and Joe intended this, the conversation came to the authority of the Bible, its inerrancy, comparisons of Old to New Testament, and Universalism.
One man created a sub-argument about a supposed misquotation in Mark where the writer "quotes" Isaiah, but actually quotes both Malachi and Isaiah. I wonder if it would do any good to tell him that ancient Greek writing didn't have quotation marks or that they used indirect quotations. For example, if Joe tells me "Dinner is at six tonight. Come over with the guys and join us." I might tell my friends, "Joe wants us to be at his house for dinner at six." Even though I didn't directly quote Joe, I correctly communicated what he said.
For most of my life, people outside of the church have told me the Bible is just a book full of contradictions and inconsistencies. When I was seventeen, I wondered if these people were right. So I read the whole thing, looking for a contradiction or inconsistency. I think my Bible teacher knew what I was doing because he invited me to challenge the Bible's authority and inerrancy openly in class whenever I thought I had found proof. Believe me, I tried. But he always had answers that both cut through my cynicism and satisfied my questions. Soon enough, I began to ask him to explain hard passages because I wanted to know more of how the Bible truly was authoritative and without error. By the end of the school year, I knew without a shred of doubt that the Bible is God's book. To disbelieve or disobey the Bible meant I disbelieved or disobeyed God.
If any of you ever want to take a poke at me the way I did my Bible teacher all of Senior year, please feel free. I'm certain that, given time, I could find a sufficient answer for you. For now, I want to set a foundation for the Bible's authority with a few scriptures. Hebrews 1:1-2 says, "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world." This sums up the Old Testament writings and the words of Jesus. Whatever the prophets said in the Bible, God said through them. That's not to say they themselves were always infallible. Even if Moses thought the world was flat, he never said so in the Bible because God oversaw every word written in scripture and kept it truthful. Going back to 2 Peter, it seems the writer shared Joe's intentions. 2 Peter, 3:1-2 says, "This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles." This adds the writings of the Apostles into the category of "Authoritative". In the same chapter, Peter equates Paul's writings with scripture and calls those who distort Paul's teachings "untaught and unstable". Paul refers to Luke's and Matthew's gospels as scripture in 1 Timothy 5:18 "The laborer is worthy of his wages."
The whole controversy over Biblical authority and inerrancy reminds me of board game tantrums. You know what I'm talking about. We've all played Monopoly and accused the banker of cheating before flipping the whole board into the air. My favorite checkmate in chess was the one where I swept all the pieces to the floor with my spindly arm. I get the same feeling every time I hear arguments for or against the ultimate authority of anything.
While studying Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology, I read, "It is one thing to affirm that the Bible claims to be the words of God. It is another thing to be convinced that those claims are true. Our ultimate conviction that the words of the Bible are God's words comes only when the Holy Spirit speaks in and through the words of the Bible to our hearts and gives us an inner assurance that these are the words of our Creator speaking to us." Then he quotes 1 Corinthians 2:14, "The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (Grudem's translation)."
Essentially, what Grudem said was this, "If you don't believe the Bible, it's because God hasn't revealed it as truth to you." And think of this, if we claim that the Bible is our absolute standard of truth, then we can't appeal to another kind of standard to validate it. To do so would put the outside standard on par or greater than scripture. So what difference is there between us saying the Bible is true because it claims to be true and the claims of ultimate authority for an Atheist who supremely values science or historical accuracy? They think science is authoritative because it's scientifically proven. They think history is accurate because of the accuracy of historical documents. If you think about it long enough, you want to kick the game table, knock over the pieces, and shout, "No, I'm Sorry!"
The difference I can see comes from what I said long ago about Xerox copies. We are not ultimate beings. We're limited. Blaise Pascal had this realization and said that man was merely a point on a line. We can't comprehend the extremes of anything in nature, and yet those extremes exist beyond our comprehension. From there, he explains that a being must comprehend those extremes and only God is ultimate enough to do so.
So where else but the Bible could I find a standard of truth? I can't base my standard of truth at all on myself. My perception, my logic, my experience, it's all limited. And I can't base my standard on other men because I recognize their limitations as well. The Bible, with the Holy Spirit's instruction, convinces me of its own truth. I believe its truth to such lengths that I allow the words of the Bible to offend my reason and change the way I think.
Some people might think that I worship the Bible rather than God when I say these things. Let me assure you I do not. God reveals Himself to man through the Bible. God also says that He reveals Himself to man through nature. In fact He reveals Himself to us in all things. But God doesn't want us to worship nature or any other means of revelation. There can be no other gods before Him, not even His book. My point is that the Bible is a complete, though not exhaustive, way in which God revealed Himself.
Cornelius Van Til said that in order for us to truly know God, He would have to reveal Himself truly to us. If the Bible were not the absolute, authoritative, perfect standard of truth, then my understanding of God would be incomplete. No one could truly know God. If the Bible contained any falsehood, the pluralist claim of all religions worshiping the same god might have some merit. God would be subjective to our perception. So if you claim to be a Christian, you absolutely must recognize the authority of the Bible.
Have you thrown the game table yet? I know I've seen and thrown enough board game tantrums to wonder if I should even bother playing in the first place. But it wouldn't do any good if I surrendered by saying, "It's a Christian thing, you wouldn't understand," or, "Just take a leap of faith," or, "We don't ask those questions." The Bible I claim to believe makes it clear I should still work to understand my faith and reason with people. But 1 Corinthians 2:14, as well as other verses, tell me I don't need to convince anyone. I can leave that up to the Holy Spirit and find comfort in knowing He'll do a much better job.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Bringing It Back To Basics.
A few months ago, I helped train a kid who quickly made it known he'd just come out of rehab. He told me some of his story during our lunch break. A relationship with a girl soured, he found himself deep into substance abuse, and he couldn't always control his anger. When I asked him what changed, he told me about the progress he made with AA. He used the phrase "God as you know Him" at several points. I casually asked him what he meant. "Well, I believe God's real, but we all recognize him in a different way. Whether it's Allah, Buddha, Jesus, or whatever."
"I don't think Jesus would agree with you. He made it pretty clear He was God and the only way for people to have a relationship with God." I kept my gentle, friendly tone. The kid didn't seem upset. He acted as if I had somehow agreed with him.
On December 10, the Tennessean printed an article full of quotes similar to my trainee's. A concerned Methodist pastor discovered how many of the people attending his church also claimed to be Buddhist and Wiccan. "Spirituality has become so individual," he said. "We can no longer assume that people embrace even the basics." Later in the article, Alan Cooperman, associate director for the research at the Pew Forum said, "It is as much now the norm as it is the exception for Americans to blend multiple religious beliefs and practices." According to the Pew Forum, a significant number of church-goers believe their interests in reincarnation, astrology, pantheism, necromancy, etc, don't conflict with Christianity. For a while now, I have thought about another quote from the Methodist pastor regarding his attitude toward the situation. "We spend a lot of time talking about the basics," he said.
Nashville has a lot of churches, Christian publishers, Christian musicians, and historically Christian colleges. Having lived here for a few years, talking to locals, and reading articles like the one in the Tennessean, I wonder how many people going to churches know about the basics. The trinity, the death and resurrection of Jesus, sin, salvation, the person and work of the Holy Spirit - some people growing up in the church don't know anything concrete about these simple Christian truths.
I feel like God has put it on my heart to learn how to explain the basics of Christianity. I'm not talking about all the details of a specific theology. I think every Christian should agree that Jesus is God, the Bible is true, stuff like that. So I guess this post in the Press has two purposes. One, I'm going to study on some basics for upcoming essays. Two, I wonder what Press readers think about some of these basics. 1 Peter 3:15 instructs believers to remain "always ready to give a reasoned answer to anyone who asks you to explain the hope you have in you - yet with humility and fear." If someone approached you and asked how you knew the Bible was true, or why you thought Jesus was God, what would you say? That's why I want to know more of why I believe what I believe. At the same time, I want to approach this with humility and fear. That is, I want to allow for grace toward others while keeping full respect toward God.
What do you all think about this? Have you ever felt trapped by questions about the basics of your faith? Have you thought maybe agreeing with a universalist mentality would make it easier to "deal" with the confrontation of people who don't understand these basics? I expect the next few months will do a few things. First, people who don't know Jesus will have answers to questions and come to know Him. Second, Christians who didn't know the foundation of their faith will grow into greater love and trust for Him. Third, nominal, no-faith church-goers will get called out on trying to blend or dilute Christianity.
We'll see you all next month.
"I don't think Jesus would agree with you. He made it pretty clear He was God and the only way for people to have a relationship with God." I kept my gentle, friendly tone. The kid didn't seem upset. He acted as if I had somehow agreed with him.
On December 10, the Tennessean printed an article full of quotes similar to my trainee's. A concerned Methodist pastor discovered how many of the people attending his church also claimed to be Buddhist and Wiccan. "Spirituality has become so individual," he said. "We can no longer assume that people embrace even the basics." Later in the article, Alan Cooperman, associate director for the research at the Pew Forum said, "It is as much now the norm as it is the exception for Americans to blend multiple religious beliefs and practices." According to the Pew Forum, a significant number of church-goers believe their interests in reincarnation, astrology, pantheism, necromancy, etc, don't conflict with Christianity. For a while now, I have thought about another quote from the Methodist pastor regarding his attitude toward the situation. "We spend a lot of time talking about the basics," he said.
Nashville has a lot of churches, Christian publishers, Christian musicians, and historically Christian colleges. Having lived here for a few years, talking to locals, and reading articles like the one in the Tennessean, I wonder how many people going to churches know about the basics. The trinity, the death and resurrection of Jesus, sin, salvation, the person and work of the Holy Spirit - some people growing up in the church don't know anything concrete about these simple Christian truths.
I feel like God has put it on my heart to learn how to explain the basics of Christianity. I'm not talking about all the details of a specific theology. I think every Christian should agree that Jesus is God, the Bible is true, stuff like that. So I guess this post in the Press has two purposes. One, I'm going to study on some basics for upcoming essays. Two, I wonder what Press readers think about some of these basics. 1 Peter 3:15 instructs believers to remain "always ready to give a reasoned answer to anyone who asks you to explain the hope you have in you - yet with humility and fear." If someone approached you and asked how you knew the Bible was true, or why you thought Jesus was God, what would you say? That's why I want to know more of why I believe what I believe. At the same time, I want to approach this with humility and fear. That is, I want to allow for grace toward others while keeping full respect toward God.
What do you all think about this? Have you ever felt trapped by questions about the basics of your faith? Have you thought maybe agreeing with a universalist mentality would make it easier to "deal" with the confrontation of people who don't understand these basics? I expect the next few months will do a few things. First, people who don't know Jesus will have answers to questions and come to know Him. Second, Christians who didn't know the foundation of their faith will grow into greater love and trust for Him. Third, nominal, no-faith church-goers will get called out on trying to blend or dilute Christianity.
We'll see you all next month.
Monday, April 27, 2009
A Question Of the Bible's Authority - Or, board game tantrums
My friend Joe has a sick sense of humor sometimes. He told me one day to read a particular post and the subsequent comments. This post dealt with a line in 2 Peter 2:7 calling Lot “righteous”. Of course, you had the people who talked about Justification versus Sanctification. Others rejected this passage as “a misunderstanding”, because how could God call Lot righteous when he offered his daughters to gang rape, and so on? Eventually, and Joe intended this, the conversation came to the authority of the Bible, its inerrancy, Old Testament versus New Testament, and Universalism.
One argument was about a supposed misquotation in Mark where the writer “quotes” Isaiah, but actually quotes both Malachi and Isaiah. I wonder if it would do any good to tell him that ancient Greek writing didn’t have quotation marks or that they used indirect quotations (for example, If Joe tells me “Dinner is at six tonight. Come over and join us”, I might tell my roommates, “Joe told me to be at his house for dinner at six”. Even though I didn’t directly quote Joe, I correctly communicated what he said).
I don’t plan on writing my whole argument for why the Bible is completely accurate and true right now. I will, however, point out a few scriptures for you to think about in the meantime. Hebrews 1:1-2 says, “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.” This sums up the Old Testament writings and the words of Jesus. Going back to 2 Peter, it seems the writer shared Joe’s intentions. 2 Peter 3:1-2 says, “This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.” This adds in the other writings of the Apostles. In the same chapter, Peter equates Paul’s writings with scripture. And he calls those who distort Paul’s teachings “untaught and unstable”.
But like I said, I don’t want to get into all that stuff right now. I want to talk about board game tantrums. You know what I’m talking about. We’ve all played Monopoly and accused the banker of cheating before flipping the whole board into the air. My favorite checkmate in chess was the one where I swept all the pieces to the floor with my spindly forearm. I get the same feeling every time I hear arguments for or against the ultimate authority of anything. Like the Nada Surf song says, “I talk to missionaries when they’re standing at my door. They tell me what I should be reading. I still can’t see what for. We both stand there politely trying to change each other’s core.” Only it’s not always polite.
While studying Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, I read, “It is one thing to affirm that the Bible claims to be the words of God. It is another thing to be convinced that those claims are true. Our ultimate conviction that the words of the Bible are God’s words comes only when the Holy Spirit speaks in and through the words of the Bible to our hearts and gives us an inner assurance that these are the words of our Creator speaking to us.” Then he quotes 1 Corinthians 2:14. “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (Grudem’s translation).”
Essentially, what Grudem said was this, “If you don’t believe the Bible, it’s because God hasn’t revealed it as truth to you.” And think of this, if we claim that the Bible is our absolute standard of truth, then we can’t appeal to another kind of standard to validate it. To do so would put the outside standard on par or greater than scripture. So what difference is there between us saying the Bible is true because it claims to be true and the claims of ultimate authority for an atheist or universalist? If you think about it long enough, you want to kick the game table, knock over the pieces, and shout, “no, I’m sorry!”
The difference I can see comes from what I said about Xerox copies. We are not ultimate beings. We’re limited. Blaise Pascal had this realization and said that man was merely a point on a line. We can’t comprehend the extremes of anything in nature, and yet those extremes exist beyond our comprehension. From there, he explains that a being must comprehend those extremes, and only God is ultimate enough to do so.
I can’t base my standard on truth at all on myself. My perception, my logic, my experience, it’s all limited. And I can’t base my standard on other men because I recognize their limitations as well. I must have an absolute standard of truth outside of myself. The Bible, with the Holy Spirit’s instruction, convinces me of its own truth. I recognize its truth to such lengths that I allow the words of the Bible to offend my reason and change the way I think.
Some people might think that I worship the Bible rather than God when I say these things. Let me assure you that I do not. God reveals Himself to man through the Bible. God also says that He reveals Himself to man through nature. In fact, He reveals Himself to us in all things. But God doesn’t want us to worship nature or any other means of revelation. There can be no other gods before Him, not even His book. My point is that the Bible is a complete, but not exhaustive, way in which God revealed Himself.
Cornelius Van Til said that in order for us to truly know God, He would have to reveal Himself truly to us. If the Bible were not the authoritative, perfect, ultimate standard of truth, then my understanding of God would be incomplete. No one could truly know God. If the Bible weren’t perfectly true, the universalist claim of all religions worshipping the same god might have some merit. God would be subjective to our perception. So if you claim to be a Christian, you absolutely must recognize the authority of the Bible.
Have you thrown the game table yet? I know I’ve seen and thrown enough board game tantrums to wonder if I should even bother playing in the first place. But it wouldn’t do any good if I surrendered by saying, “It’s a Christian thing, you wouldn’t understand.” The Bible I claim to absolutely believe makes it clear that I should still try to reason with people. And 1 Corinthians 2:14, as well as other verses, tell me I don’t need to convince anyone. I can leave that up to the Holy Spirit and find comfort in knowing He’ll do a much better job.
One argument was about a supposed misquotation in Mark where the writer “quotes” Isaiah, but actually quotes both Malachi and Isaiah. I wonder if it would do any good to tell him that ancient Greek writing didn’t have quotation marks or that they used indirect quotations (for example, If Joe tells me “Dinner is at six tonight. Come over and join us”, I might tell my roommates, “Joe told me to be at his house for dinner at six”. Even though I didn’t directly quote Joe, I correctly communicated what he said).
I don’t plan on writing my whole argument for why the Bible is completely accurate and true right now. I will, however, point out a few scriptures for you to think about in the meantime. Hebrews 1:1-2 says, “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.” This sums up the Old Testament writings and the words of Jesus. Going back to 2 Peter, it seems the writer shared Joe’s intentions. 2 Peter 3:1-2 says, “This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.” This adds in the other writings of the Apostles. In the same chapter, Peter equates Paul’s writings with scripture. And he calls those who distort Paul’s teachings “untaught and unstable”.
But like I said, I don’t want to get into all that stuff right now. I want to talk about board game tantrums. You know what I’m talking about. We’ve all played Monopoly and accused the banker of cheating before flipping the whole board into the air. My favorite checkmate in chess was the one where I swept all the pieces to the floor with my spindly forearm. I get the same feeling every time I hear arguments for or against the ultimate authority of anything. Like the Nada Surf song says, “I talk to missionaries when they’re standing at my door. They tell me what I should be reading. I still can’t see what for. We both stand there politely trying to change each other’s core.” Only it’s not always polite.
While studying Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, I read, “It is one thing to affirm that the Bible claims to be the words of God. It is another thing to be convinced that those claims are true. Our ultimate conviction that the words of the Bible are God’s words comes only when the Holy Spirit speaks in and through the words of the Bible to our hearts and gives us an inner assurance that these are the words of our Creator speaking to us.” Then he quotes 1 Corinthians 2:14. “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (Grudem’s translation).”
Essentially, what Grudem said was this, “If you don’t believe the Bible, it’s because God hasn’t revealed it as truth to you.” And think of this, if we claim that the Bible is our absolute standard of truth, then we can’t appeal to another kind of standard to validate it. To do so would put the outside standard on par or greater than scripture. So what difference is there between us saying the Bible is true because it claims to be true and the claims of ultimate authority for an atheist or universalist? If you think about it long enough, you want to kick the game table, knock over the pieces, and shout, “no, I’m sorry!”
The difference I can see comes from what I said about Xerox copies. We are not ultimate beings. We’re limited. Blaise Pascal had this realization and said that man was merely a point on a line. We can’t comprehend the extremes of anything in nature, and yet those extremes exist beyond our comprehension. From there, he explains that a being must comprehend those extremes, and only God is ultimate enough to do so.
I can’t base my standard on truth at all on myself. My perception, my logic, my experience, it’s all limited. And I can’t base my standard on other men because I recognize their limitations as well. I must have an absolute standard of truth outside of myself. The Bible, with the Holy Spirit’s instruction, convinces me of its own truth. I recognize its truth to such lengths that I allow the words of the Bible to offend my reason and change the way I think.
Some people might think that I worship the Bible rather than God when I say these things. Let me assure you that I do not. God reveals Himself to man through the Bible. God also says that He reveals Himself to man through nature. In fact, He reveals Himself to us in all things. But God doesn’t want us to worship nature or any other means of revelation. There can be no other gods before Him, not even His book. My point is that the Bible is a complete, but not exhaustive, way in which God revealed Himself.
Cornelius Van Til said that in order for us to truly know God, He would have to reveal Himself truly to us. If the Bible were not the authoritative, perfect, ultimate standard of truth, then my understanding of God would be incomplete. No one could truly know God. If the Bible weren’t perfectly true, the universalist claim of all religions worshipping the same god might have some merit. God would be subjective to our perception. So if you claim to be a Christian, you absolutely must recognize the authority of the Bible.
Have you thrown the game table yet? I know I’ve seen and thrown enough board game tantrums to wonder if I should even bother playing in the first place. But it wouldn’t do any good if I surrendered by saying, “It’s a Christian thing, you wouldn’t understand.” The Bible I claim to absolutely believe makes it clear that I should still try to reason with people. And 1 Corinthians 2:14, as well as other verses, tell me I don’t need to convince anyone. I can leave that up to the Holy Spirit and find comfort in knowing He’ll do a much better job.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Is It Possible To Have Relationship With An Immaterial God?
In my first post, I presented the idea that many churches treat a "personal relationship" with God more like a membership to a fan club than anything else. Reading a Bible, going to a church, and praying heavenly voice mail messages doesn't make a personal relationship. The only way you can have a relationship with anyone is to talk with them and establish trust between the two of you. I've included the first chapter of Stark Raving Obedience to introduce how God spoke to individuals, why it's Biblical, and how it still happens today. Even to "uneducated and ordinary" men like me.
CONTACT
Signs of life
“One of the greatest blessings a true believer has is to hear and know the voice of God. It is possible to hear God’s voice today as certainly and clearly as did Abraham and Moses – as clearly as did Samuel and David – as clearly as did Paul, Peter, the apostles, and John on the isle of Patmos!” - David Wilkerson
It all began with a prayer, at a time when I wasn’t sure if I took prayer seriously. This particular prayer was in response to Psalm 42:1 “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God.” As I read about David’s thirst for God I realized that even though I belonged to “the Jesus Christ Club” of Christianity, and believed myself a sold-out disciple because I did all the correct “church” things, and had once read the Bible the whole way through, I did not feel a desperate longing for God.
People often tell testimonies like this, “My life hit rock bottom, and I didn’t know what to do. Then I found Jesus. Now I have all of this joy and peace and success.” Well, it was only sort of like that for the Kallmans.
We had come to a bad place as a family when I was eleven years old. My brothers Ben and James got burned by people in the church and it seemed like they decided to break every rule the church tried to place on them. The family business had struggled and we lived on the edge of financial failure. All of that strained mom and dad to heartbreaking points. I was intensely unhappy and hated myself. Once or twice I snuck into my brothers’ world and see if drugs would make me happy, and, you know, they didn’t. For me, faith was two parts habit and one part safety precaution. I knew I didn’t want to go to hell, so I became a Christian, but devotion to a religion didn’t seem to fix anything. I felt like I was living in hell already.
At the time, I didn’t know that my father, Ted, and I were in the same place spiritually. We knew that we had accepted Christ and tried to live our lives according to His teachings, but God was this distant being to whom we paid tribute with routine. Prayer, reading the Bible, attending church, helping with church activities, Bible camp, charity, mission trips that suspiciously looked like vacations. Witnessing never seemed to do any good back then because people could probably tell that I wasn’t so sure about God myself.
A part of our family’s routine was to spend time together on Sunday nights. Usually it meant pizza and a movie. One Sunday night, we didn’t have pizza or a movie. My brothers became angry and asked why we were just sitting around the living room with nothing to do.
“We’re going to pray,” my mother answered.
I figured that one of our family members or friends were in trouble, because that seemed like the only time we sat together as a family to pray. Dad said that nobody was hurt or anything. “We want to teach you children something that your mom and I have been learning together.”
Ben and James looked like they wanted to leave, but knew that it would cause more trouble than they were willing to make. My sister Etta, often hiding silently behind our couch, took it all in. I remember feeling confused and intrigued. I knew how to talk to God. Every Sunday school kid knew what prayer was, but mom and dad had just explained that we could listen to God talk back. It sounded like a thought, but the thought was sometimes God talking to us.
So this is usually the part of that testimony where God changes our lives and everything gets better. The family magically alters into this perfect home and all of us get along and sunshine pours out of our fingertips.
That didn’t quite happen. God began to show us the areas in our lives that needed to change, and there were a lot of areas that needed change. Over time, God sometimes asked us to do strange and uncomfortable things. But when we met on Sunday night and asked God to talk to us, all of the problems we faced couldn’t diminish my excitement. I had actually met God, and He met me.
The Preacher in the punk band had it right
My pastor used to have a rock and roll band called Big Fil. Their “big hit” was a song called “I’m Not Your Grandpa”. In the song, God spoke to His people, asking them when they would realize that He was right in the middle of their lives. He wasn’t some crazy old man that lived in the attic with flowing white hair. It’s a great song. I own all of their records.
But I digress.
The point is that God wants a personal relationship with us. You’ve heard that before, right? I mean, He wants to be able to walk with us in the cool of the evening and talk with us, just like He did with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He wants to be able to meet with us on mountains and talk directly to us like He did with Moses. This same God tore the veil in the temple from top to bottom when Jesus died. Man and God can interact freely, no priest required.
I’ve told lots of people that this book is all about prayer, but it’s really about knowing God. When we hear His voice and obey, then see amazing things come from that obedience, we learn to trust Him. We can approach God with confidence, we can seek Him and actually find Him.
I’m going to talk about sheer madness. I’m going to talk about the best thing that ever happened to me.
Henry Ford once said whether you believe you can or cannot, you are correct. Despite it’s self-centered bent, there is some truth to it. Before we begin anything here, you have to understand: If you don’t believe that God can or will speak to you, then you are absolutely right. This isn’t a case of mind over matter, that the more affirmation you give something the truer it becomes. I’m saying that anyone can hear, but you have to make it a point to listen.
If you’re somebody who really believes that the Bible is the true Word of God, that the Word is unchanging, that God is the same “yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), why wouldn’t you believe He still speaks?
The book The Lives of the Desert Fathers gives a record of miracles, healings, signs, and wonders that were prevalent in the lives of monks along the Nile from about 100 AD to about 450 AD. It includes a direct translation of The Historia Monachorum In Aegypto, which tells the stories of these men and their intense pursuit of God. Listening while in prayer was a significant part of their walk. In his book Surprised by the Voice of God, Jack Deere details instances in where the early Reformers heard direction from the Spirit and acted in obedience, and how God moved miraculously. This book also cites Jonathan Edwards and Charles Hadden Spurgeon with similar instances. A.W. Tozer in his classic book The Pursuit of God describes the ongoing speaking nature of God in the chapter “The Speaking Voice”.
The problem I have in teaching people about hearing God’s voice comes in the matter of incontrovertible proof. I’m not sure I could come up with a list of bibliographical sources that would satisfy critical minds. I can only present the best information that I have and give accounts of experience.
But they aren’t all just my experiences, or my family’s, or of people unknown to the public. I’ve already mentioned Jack Deere’s book, Surprised By the Voice of God. At the beginning of the book, Deere tells a story of God supernaturally speaking to him. A student came to speak with Deere about a paper, and the Holy Spirit told Deere that this student struggled with pornography. Deere describes his reaction. “What is happening to me? I thought. There is no way this student is into pornography. I must be making this up. But why would I make up something I thought to be an impossibility?” When Deere asks if the student is struggling with pornography, the young man begins to confess and repent of many different sins, including his addiction to pornography. Later that night, the student found Deere and exclaimed, “I’m a new person!”
I believe this all began with Deere relentlessly seeking God’s voice. “For months, I had been praying for God to speak to me like this, asking him to impart to me supernatural knowledge about people so that I might minister to them more effectively.”
A high school Algebra teacher had an annoying habit of saying the same two phrases whenever I asked him a question, “it’s in the book” or “it’s in your notes.” I used to wonder why, then, I had a teacher at all. I should have just been able to read the book and look at the notes and understand how to find “X”. But I didn’t understand. I needed him to sit down with me and go over whatever impeded my comprehension. I remember muttering to myself, “No, it’s in your head.”
Growing up in my church, Sunday school teachers and youth pastors told me that God said everything He needed to say in the Bible, so He doesn’t have to talk anymore. I don’t buy that. I don’t think they were lying to me. They just didn’t know how to listen to God, so they assumed He had finished talking. I do believe that the Bible is God’s word, and that it is fully true. I don’t believe that it’s exhaustive, though, because that would mean the eternal God limited the whole of his being to a book with a beginning and end. John said it himself in his gospel, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25)
In John 16:7-15, Jesus tells His disciples that the Holy Spirit will come to guide them after He has gone. He says that the Holy Spirit “will guide you into all truth”, and that the Spirit “will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment”. The guidance of the Holy Spirit was not exclusively for the apostles, and there was a need for guidance beyond the words written in the scriptures. Otherwise, Jesus would have left His disciples with Abraham’s words from the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:29, "But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.'” In other words, “It’s in the book. It’s in your notes.”
But even if that were the case, the Bible has no life apart from the Spirit’s illumination. In Greek, there are two different words for “Word”. The first is logos, which refers to the written and spoken word. The other is rhema, which refers specifically to the spoken word. Now, I have only studied a little bit of the Greek language (very, very little), and I don’t claim to have scholarly credentials, but I take it to mean this: When I read the Bible, I read words (logos), but when that word takes on personal meaning, and I feel the Holy Spirit speaking directly to me through the words, that’s rhema. Logos is written and rhema is spoken or breathed. I read logos, but hear and understand rhema.
In the Catholic Church, some believers follow a practice of praying the scriptures aloud and meditating on them. There are two ways that this form of prayer is practiced, one good and the other highly suspect, but I’ll talk of that later.
Even with the Word of God we need to hear His voice to gain true wisdom and understanding. If we study the Bible apart from the Spirit, we can have knowledge of the Word, but not wisdom. Wisdom can only come from having a relationship with the living God. No rhema, no wisdom.
In a letter to one of his closest friends, Francis Schaeffer discussed the “moment by moment” reality of God and how it applied to their faith and mission. “I am not thinking of this in some ‘mystical’ area where God becomes an abstraction, but in the strenuously practical areas of history in which we walk. If we would only allow the Agent of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, to lead each individual instead of living in the areas of rules which are man-made and quite apart from the absolutes laid down in Scripture. If only we would be willing to have Christ be the true Head, and be willing for the exotic leadership of the Holy Spirit in our individual and corporate lives – rather than stagnifying the Holy Spirit’s leadership of yesterday, as seen in the lives of other men who lived in different historic circumstances, when the infinite eye of God would see today’s history as requiring a slightly different or radically different approach; or even stagnifying how the Holy Spirit’s leading of us today be what it was a year ago, when our historic circumstance is always in a flux?”
Here, according to Schaeffer, to claim that God has no need or desire to guide us in our present day is to “stagnify” the Holy Spirit. It renders His power ineffective, and if it were true, would make me wonder if His love for me were secondary.
So what am I saying?
First, God still communicates directly to people. There are examples of this throughout the Bible, Christian history, and our present day.
Second, our belief impacts our ability to hear God.
Third, as the Word says in Jeremiah 29:13, that if we pursue God with our whole heart, He will be found.
CONTACT
Signs of life
“One of the greatest blessings a true believer has is to hear and know the voice of God. It is possible to hear God’s voice today as certainly and clearly as did Abraham and Moses – as clearly as did Samuel and David – as clearly as did Paul, Peter, the apostles, and John on the isle of Patmos!” - David Wilkerson
It all began with a prayer, at a time when I wasn’t sure if I took prayer seriously. This particular prayer was in response to Psalm 42:1 “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God.” As I read about David’s thirst for God I realized that even though I belonged to “the Jesus Christ Club” of Christianity, and believed myself a sold-out disciple because I did all the correct “church” things, and had once read the Bible the whole way through, I did not feel a desperate longing for God.
People often tell testimonies like this, “My life hit rock bottom, and I didn’t know what to do. Then I found Jesus. Now I have all of this joy and peace and success.” Well, it was only sort of like that for the Kallmans.
We had come to a bad place as a family when I was eleven years old. My brothers Ben and James got burned by people in the church and it seemed like they decided to break every rule the church tried to place on them. The family business had struggled and we lived on the edge of financial failure. All of that strained mom and dad to heartbreaking points. I was intensely unhappy and hated myself. Once or twice I snuck into my brothers’ world and see if drugs would make me happy, and, you know, they didn’t. For me, faith was two parts habit and one part safety precaution. I knew I didn’t want to go to hell, so I became a Christian, but devotion to a religion didn’t seem to fix anything. I felt like I was living in hell already.
At the time, I didn’t know that my father, Ted, and I were in the same place spiritually. We knew that we had accepted Christ and tried to live our lives according to His teachings, but God was this distant being to whom we paid tribute with routine. Prayer, reading the Bible, attending church, helping with church activities, Bible camp, charity, mission trips that suspiciously looked like vacations. Witnessing never seemed to do any good back then because people could probably tell that I wasn’t so sure about God myself.
A part of our family’s routine was to spend time together on Sunday nights. Usually it meant pizza and a movie. One Sunday night, we didn’t have pizza or a movie. My brothers became angry and asked why we were just sitting around the living room with nothing to do.
“We’re going to pray,” my mother answered.
I figured that one of our family members or friends were in trouble, because that seemed like the only time we sat together as a family to pray. Dad said that nobody was hurt or anything. “We want to teach you children something that your mom and I have been learning together.”
Ben and James looked like they wanted to leave, but knew that it would cause more trouble than they were willing to make. My sister Etta, often hiding silently behind our couch, took it all in. I remember feeling confused and intrigued. I knew how to talk to God. Every Sunday school kid knew what prayer was, but mom and dad had just explained that we could listen to God talk back. It sounded like a thought, but the thought was sometimes God talking to us.
So this is usually the part of that testimony where God changes our lives and everything gets better. The family magically alters into this perfect home and all of us get along and sunshine pours out of our fingertips.
That didn’t quite happen. God began to show us the areas in our lives that needed to change, and there were a lot of areas that needed change. Over time, God sometimes asked us to do strange and uncomfortable things. But when we met on Sunday night and asked God to talk to us, all of the problems we faced couldn’t diminish my excitement. I had actually met God, and He met me.
The Preacher in the punk band had it right
My pastor used to have a rock and roll band called Big Fil. Their “big hit” was a song called “I’m Not Your Grandpa”. In the song, God spoke to His people, asking them when they would realize that He was right in the middle of their lives. He wasn’t some crazy old man that lived in the attic with flowing white hair. It’s a great song. I own all of their records.
But I digress.
The point is that God wants a personal relationship with us. You’ve heard that before, right? I mean, He wants to be able to walk with us in the cool of the evening and talk with us, just like He did with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He wants to be able to meet with us on mountains and talk directly to us like He did with Moses. This same God tore the veil in the temple from top to bottom when Jesus died. Man and God can interact freely, no priest required.
I’ve told lots of people that this book is all about prayer, but it’s really about knowing God. When we hear His voice and obey, then see amazing things come from that obedience, we learn to trust Him. We can approach God with confidence, we can seek Him and actually find Him.
I’m going to talk about sheer madness. I’m going to talk about the best thing that ever happened to me.
Henry Ford once said whether you believe you can or cannot, you are correct. Despite it’s self-centered bent, there is some truth to it. Before we begin anything here, you have to understand: If you don’t believe that God can or will speak to you, then you are absolutely right. This isn’t a case of mind over matter, that the more affirmation you give something the truer it becomes. I’m saying that anyone can hear, but you have to make it a point to listen.
If you’re somebody who really believes that the Bible is the true Word of God, that the Word is unchanging, that God is the same “yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), why wouldn’t you believe He still speaks?
The book The Lives of the Desert Fathers gives a record of miracles, healings, signs, and wonders that were prevalent in the lives of monks along the Nile from about 100 AD to about 450 AD. It includes a direct translation of The Historia Monachorum In Aegypto, which tells the stories of these men and their intense pursuit of God. Listening while in prayer was a significant part of their walk. In his book Surprised by the Voice of God, Jack Deere details instances in where the early Reformers heard direction from the Spirit and acted in obedience, and how God moved miraculously. This book also cites Jonathan Edwards and Charles Hadden Spurgeon with similar instances. A.W. Tozer in his classic book The Pursuit of God describes the ongoing speaking nature of God in the chapter “The Speaking Voice”.
The problem I have in teaching people about hearing God’s voice comes in the matter of incontrovertible proof. I’m not sure I could come up with a list of bibliographical sources that would satisfy critical minds. I can only present the best information that I have and give accounts of experience.
But they aren’t all just my experiences, or my family’s, or of people unknown to the public. I’ve already mentioned Jack Deere’s book, Surprised By the Voice of God. At the beginning of the book, Deere tells a story of God supernaturally speaking to him. A student came to speak with Deere about a paper, and the Holy Spirit told Deere that this student struggled with pornography. Deere describes his reaction. “What is happening to me? I thought. There is no way this student is into pornography. I must be making this up. But why would I make up something I thought to be an impossibility?” When Deere asks if the student is struggling with pornography, the young man begins to confess and repent of many different sins, including his addiction to pornography. Later that night, the student found Deere and exclaimed, “I’m a new person!”
I believe this all began with Deere relentlessly seeking God’s voice. “For months, I had been praying for God to speak to me like this, asking him to impart to me supernatural knowledge about people so that I might minister to them more effectively.”
A high school Algebra teacher had an annoying habit of saying the same two phrases whenever I asked him a question, “it’s in the book” or “it’s in your notes.” I used to wonder why, then, I had a teacher at all. I should have just been able to read the book and look at the notes and understand how to find “X”. But I didn’t understand. I needed him to sit down with me and go over whatever impeded my comprehension. I remember muttering to myself, “No, it’s in your head.”
Growing up in my church, Sunday school teachers and youth pastors told me that God said everything He needed to say in the Bible, so He doesn’t have to talk anymore. I don’t buy that. I don’t think they were lying to me. They just didn’t know how to listen to God, so they assumed He had finished talking. I do believe that the Bible is God’s word, and that it is fully true. I don’t believe that it’s exhaustive, though, because that would mean the eternal God limited the whole of his being to a book with a beginning and end. John said it himself in his gospel, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25)
In John 16:7-15, Jesus tells His disciples that the Holy Spirit will come to guide them after He has gone. He says that the Holy Spirit “will guide you into all truth”, and that the Spirit “will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment”. The guidance of the Holy Spirit was not exclusively for the apostles, and there was a need for guidance beyond the words written in the scriptures. Otherwise, Jesus would have left His disciples with Abraham’s words from the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:29, "But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.'” In other words, “It’s in the book. It’s in your notes.”
But even if that were the case, the Bible has no life apart from the Spirit’s illumination. In Greek, there are two different words for “Word”. The first is logos, which refers to the written and spoken word. The other is rhema, which refers specifically to the spoken word. Now, I have only studied a little bit of the Greek language (very, very little), and I don’t claim to have scholarly credentials, but I take it to mean this: When I read the Bible, I read words (logos), but when that word takes on personal meaning, and I feel the Holy Spirit speaking directly to me through the words, that’s rhema. Logos is written and rhema is spoken or breathed. I read logos, but hear and understand rhema.
In the Catholic Church, some believers follow a practice of praying the scriptures aloud and meditating on them. There are two ways that this form of prayer is practiced, one good and the other highly suspect, but I’ll talk of that later.
Even with the Word of God we need to hear His voice to gain true wisdom and understanding. If we study the Bible apart from the Spirit, we can have knowledge of the Word, but not wisdom. Wisdom can only come from having a relationship with the living God. No rhema, no wisdom.
In a letter to one of his closest friends, Francis Schaeffer discussed the “moment by moment” reality of God and how it applied to their faith and mission. “I am not thinking of this in some ‘mystical’ area where God becomes an abstraction, but in the strenuously practical areas of history in which we walk. If we would only allow the Agent of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, to lead each individual instead of living in the areas of rules which are man-made and quite apart from the absolutes laid down in Scripture. If only we would be willing to have Christ be the true Head, and be willing for the exotic leadership of the Holy Spirit in our individual and corporate lives – rather than stagnifying the Holy Spirit’s leadership of yesterday, as seen in the lives of other men who lived in different historic circumstances, when the infinite eye of God would see today’s history as requiring a slightly different or radically different approach; or even stagnifying how the Holy Spirit’s leading of us today be what it was a year ago, when our historic circumstance is always in a flux?”
Here, according to Schaeffer, to claim that God has no need or desire to guide us in our present day is to “stagnify” the Holy Spirit. It renders His power ineffective, and if it were true, would make me wonder if His love for me were secondary.
So what am I saying?
First, God still communicates directly to people. There are examples of this throughout the Bible, Christian history, and our present day.
Second, our belief impacts our ability to hear God.
Third, as the Word says in Jeremiah 29:13, that if we pursue God with our whole heart, He will be found.
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