Posts filed under 'Theology'
June 30th, 2010
This entry in the June 22nd Our Daily Bread was so profound that it bears repeating here.
———
In a commentary on Ecclesiastes 9:15, Martin Luther cites the story of Themistocles, the soldier and statesman who commanded the Athenian squadron. Through his strategy, he won the Battle of Salamis, drove the Persian army from Greek soil, and saved his city.
He by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that same poor man. Ecclesiastes 9:15
A few years later, he fell out of favor, was ostracized by his countrymen, and was banished from Athens. Thus, Luther concludes, “Themistocles did much good for his city, but received much ingratitude.”
The crowd, for some reason, seems to ignore or quickly forget the good that the poor and humble man accomplishes through his wisdom. No matter. “Wisdom is [still] better than strength” even if “the poor man’s wisdom is despised” (v.16). It’s better to be a quiet, honest sage who, though forgotten, leaves much good behind, than a swaggering, strident fool who, though many applaud him, “destroys much good” (v.18). Accordingly, what matters in the end is not the recognition and gratitude we receive for the work we’ve done, but the souls of those gentle folk in whom we’ve sown the seeds of righteousness. Put another way: “Wisdom is justified by all her children” (Luke 7:35). Whom have you influenced through your wise and godly wisdom? – David Roper
Help me to walk so close to Thee
That those who know me best can see
I live as godly as I pray,
And Christ is real from day to day. —Ryberg
A wise person sets his earthly goals on heavenly gains.
October 14th, 2009
 |
“I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only that I see it, but by it I see everything else.” — CS Lewis |
October 5th, 2009
| Part 2 of the series on self-deception, on SharperIron.org. This one covers group-think and group-deception. |
 |
October 5th, 2009
This article on individual self-deception, part 1 in a series on SharperIron.org, is excellent and a clear mirror for self-examination.
October 2nd, 2009
One thing that stands out crystal clear in Paul’s articulation of the gospel in his epistle to the Roman church is that the gospel that he preaches begins, and is founded on, a very complete and careful explanation of condemnation – the righteousness of God and the unrighteousness of mankind. Not only does he say in the early chapters of Romans that great masses of people will face the judgment of God and be condemned for their sin, he says that each individual will stand utterly alone in rendering an account for their life and their sin, and that each individual will face, alone, the full brunt of God’s personal offense and anger at their sin and rebellion.
The clearest statement of this and the fact that condemnation and judgment are fundamental to the gospel, see Romans 2: 16, “…on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.”
The questions one should ponder are these: What gospel do I believe and trust in? What gospel is being preached nowadays? Is it a complete gospel? Is it the gospel of Paul? Is it a gospel that can save? Or is a gospel of therapeutic help that just helps people to stop feeling bad?
The true gospel cuts and it hurts, long before it offers redemption and hope. It must do so to scrape away and remove the blinders of self-deception we all maintain with loving care and attention. Don’t rush it. Don’t rush to show the beauty of salvation to a person still blind. The beauty won’t be seen and it won’t be appreciated.
September 4th, 2009
Here is a great story about a Lebanese Christian family who worked positively through the years against bias against black customers who just wanting to eat some great BBQ.
But it raises a question for the thinking, biblical Christian,,,
Our modern American culture is increasingly embracing the message that racism is wrong. As followers of Christ we know that is it wrong to be biased against anyone based on their “racial” background, and it is right to care for people regardless of that background (see the story of the Good Samaritan, for example). Here’s the problem as I see it: Biblically, there’s no such thing as “race”. Or more accurately, we’re all one race, sons and daughters of Adam and Eve out first parents. The idea of different “races” comes not from a Biblical worldview, but from a naturalistic view of origins that has crept into and pervaded our thinking. So racism isn’t just morally wrong, the idea itself is bad anthropology, a categorical error, and I think that error is the rotten root producing the poison sap of what we call “racism”. The term itself is wrong-headed because the concept is flawed. Race as a valid term can only apply to differentiate between kinds of creatures, like humans, cats, dogs, horses and earthworms. We ought to all be racists in the proper sense of the word, since we should distinguish and discriminate in our behavior to these different kinds. We should not marry cats and we should care for dogs and horses as good stewards of the creation. If I have to choose between the worth of a human and worm, I ought to choose the human.
The concept of race is itself a non-real, categorical deviation from the truth, the term itself doesn’t properly apply to human beings, and we ought to recapture and stand that category upright again: we’re all one race, one blood, with wonderful variations of height, skin tone, hair, etc. Diversity within unity according to God’s creative power.
We really should use different terms than “racism” and “racist”.
September 16th, 2008
Would it make sense to lock your house and its contents carefully before you left, and then turn around and hand your keys to a thief to hold? It would seem that Christians have been doing that for years with… knowledge. Paul Henebury, shows in The Frame of Knowledge article just how that happened and how to get the keys back out of unsafe hands.
August 17th, 2008
A couple years back I experienced a weeklong bout of severe and debilitating vertigo, caused by a virus that attacked my peripheral nervous system. I awoke one morning to a world that was spinning so fast that all I could do was screw my eyes shut and half-crawl, half stagger to the bathroom where I clung to the fixtures in wave after wave of nausea. I’m a fairly strong, can-do guy and this experience left me weeping and helpless. It was such a terrifying and intimidating ordeal that it left me with a deep and abiding sense of compassion for anyone suffering from the condition.
Do you sometimes experience “spiritual vertigo”? What I mean is, are you sometimes knocked out of a sense of balance (shockingly so) in your walk with God in faith? Do you find that your response to a situation, or the inner workings of your thinking and feelings toward God and His ways is just out of kilter with what you know it ought to be? This instability, or disconcerting onset of vertigo, sometimes stems from the lack of a sense of assurance of our salvation. We think we need to perform to a certain standard to merit or deserve God’s approval and in so doing we fail that standard and lose our sense of assurance, and the spinning times of doubt, indifference and anguish begin. We fight all the harder to regain our balance, which often seems to make the problem worse.
Here’s some reading you might find encouraging, and a way out of the vertigo trap. It’s a gathering of short articles written by some careful Biblical thinkers around the world, and it’s called the Imperium Testamentum collection on Eternal Security (Vol 1). You can find the whole collection here. Also, scroll down on that page and find the article, #71, An Anchor for the Soul Hebrews 6:13-20, written by Eric L Peterman , or you can link directly to the article here. Do let me know what you think and may the Lord help you to regain your stability, in His grace.
December 27th, 2007
Have you ever wondered what Christmas was really all about? Tired of the call to “keep Jesus in Christmas”? Here’s a fresh look at the ageless question in a new podcast/sermon recording, The True Meaning of Christmas (click here for MP3).
February 26th, 2007
The cat is out of the bag. The tomb and remains of Jesus and his wife and son have been found in a burial cave in Jerusalem. That’s the end of historical Christianity, or so film director James Cameron (of Titanic fame) would have us believe. You can read about it here.
Of course, just because a man who loves to tell a good story and who is in control of cameras and editing teams and a marketing budget says so doesn’t make it so. But it does raise an interesting and very helpful question: What would it take in the way of negative evidence for you to abandon the Christian faith as historically unreliable?
In fact, if the historical Christian faith is not falsifiable (ie, if there is no foundational claim that it makes that if proven unquestionably false would cause its proponents to walk away from it as demonstrably false), then Christianity is not the true worldview at all. A non-falsifiable claim cannot be a true claim.
The apostle Paul clearly saw the historical event of the physical death, burial and bodily resurrection as the falsifiable sine-qua-non, the absolute bottom-line of Christianity (see 1 Corinthians 15). In short, he said that if these things did not actually, really, historically happen, then Christianity was to be thrown away as a worthless tale. Worse yet, he said that the holy God still exists, but His wrath at rebellious and sinful man was not atoned for, not propitiated by the death of the Son… not put away, and there would be no forgiveness of sins and mankind would wallow in utter hopelesness in the face of the well deserved Divine judgment to come.
Paul wasn’t afraid to say it, and neither should we. Christianity, since it makes unique historical claims, must be falsifiable! If incontrovertible and unassailable proof was discovered and validated* that the Jesus of Nazareth of the Bible did not in fact rise from the dead and ascend into heaven, but rather remained in a grave as ordinary men do, then we must walk away from Christianity as a pious fraud.
So far, no one, including Cameron, has even come close. What has been discovered (or should we say, uncovered) is that the unbelieving mind and heart will grasp at any straw, however unreasonable, to unseat God from His throne and authority over “autonomous” man.
*Just because some archaeologists or other specialists might assert such a thing would not make it so. The level and quality of the proof would have to be clearly and obviously incontrovertible, be well vetted over time, and persuasive to a broad range of conservative scholars in order to be persuasive.
Previous Posts
