Jigsaw Bible

I was thinking today about the way in which bad Bible teaching is passed from one generation to the next. The problem (or part of the problem) seems to be that we don't question enough of our theological upbringing. This would apply to those raised outside the Christian faith as well as those within it.

Those of a non-Christian family, as well as those who choose not to believe, have certainly heard things about the Bible and what it teaches, but whenever I hear them talk of these things it is painfully obvious that they don't actually have any idea what the whole Bible teaches. Most of them never even read the parts they try to quote! They have only a small snapshot of one part of a passage. To build a theological perspective based on these snapshots of the scripture is similar to looking at five pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and stating that you know exactly what the finished product will look like. It is an idea that speaks of insanity, yet if you will take time to talk with non-believers about their perspective of the Bible you are going to find that they most likely have major misconceptions which they hold to be truths simply because they haven't ever questioned them. With these misconceptions in hand they claim to have a picture of what the Bible teaches, and that picture becomes the focus of their dislike of Christianity (of course the hypocrisy exhibited by us Christians doesn't help).

The other side of the coin is the division among Christians which is caused by a lack of Biblical education. More properly, I suppose the problem goes back to questioning the education we have.

When a follower of Jesus becomes a part of a local church they will most certainly begin to absorb the teaching of that church, as they should. It is proper for those who are more mature in their faith to raise up new believers, whether they are children or adults. The problem we run into is that each church, or group of churches, will have certain distinctions that give them a certain “flavor”. That is not to say that the differences themselves are bad. We need variety in our worship so that all Christians may find a place that they are comfortable. The problem comes from us calling those distinctions “Biblical truth”.

Many differences, such as choices of music, styles of prayer, and method of baptism are truly irrelevant. There is nothing in the Bible to give us a concrete direction on these and many other things, but churches and denominations will declare that their way is the right or proper way, thereby creating an “us versus them” attitude. To make matters even worse, the members of a church will have a tendency to simply believe what they are told without ever searching the Scriptures on their own. We take what we are taught as if it were a Biblical truth and the pass it on to our children who will then raise their kids according to how they were brought up, and so the confusion continues.

Sadly, very few Christians will take the time to study the Bible well enough to actually know what it says. I mean the “Big Picture” here. Most of the small things don't really matter, but there is a cohesive plan that God has shown us that actually begins to make sense when we look at the whole thing in a balanced way. Sometimes we need to throw out what other humans have told us and just read our Bibles to see this plan!

I would never say that all Bible teaching is bad. Truth does come to us through past teachers, but this truth can become horribly distorted because, just like non-believers, we may only be holding a few pieces of the puzzle, which is fine. God is probably not going to reveal more to you than you can deal with at this moment (I can picture Jack Nicholson screaming, “You can't handle the truth!”). But we cannot take the pieces that we are holding and try to morph them into the entire image. This causes the area of focus to become more important than the part that may not have been revealed to you as an individual yet. Then, when later faced with more of the puzzle pieces, you are forced to change your perspective or ignore the new pieces. The first prospect is painful and humbling, the second perpetuates bad theology.

I wish that I had a solution to all of this. The problem has been around for a long time and people do not want to back down from their theological positions long enough to consider a different perspective. Maybe we Christians can find common ground in how Jesus loved people and do the same in our own lives; after all, we call ourselves His followers.

Atheists

It's interesting that Christians (or people of any religion) are accused by atheists and agnostics of being ignorant because our faith is based on an unseen reality.  We are told that since it is unseen that it must be subjective at best, and a complete fantasy at worst.  The idea is that no amount of evidence which might support our beliefs is credible because the core, or foundation, itself is not something that can be physically experienced.  This thought process goes back to philosophers such as Nietzsche, Kant, and Descartes who, of course, based their ideas on those expressed before them. The truth is that this is in no way a new idea.  There will always be people who don't believe in anything that can't be measured.

This really makes sense, at first glance.  Anything that is within our experience must be in some way measurable, right?  We can measure distance, sound, various forces, as well as many other things within our universe.  If there is no way to measure a thing, then the thing must not exist...right?  If I follow this line of thought all the way out I must come to the logical conclusion that spiritual entities such as God, angels or demons couldn't possibly be real.  Only the physical, measurable universe would exist.

How sad would such a world be.  A world without love, a world without beauty, a world without hope.  A place with no fear, or excitement, or pleasure, because none of these things can truly be quantified.  No truth.  No justice.  These are all subject to our whims and opinions with no foundation in reality.  Even reality has no measuring rod to determine its substance (how real is it?).  Everything that makes life what it is would cease to be in a world of no spirit.

The truth is that much of what we go through as humans is experienced in the spirit realm, a place we don't "go to", yet we are there anyway.  I won't try to tell you "what" or "where" it is because far more brilliant men than I have been unable to do so, but it is there.  It's there in the beauty of a spring day and the playing of our children, as well as the loss of a loved one.  It's the place where the intangible becomes tangible.

When a person denies the existence of God, they are denying that there is a spiritual part of our world.  Likewise, when one says that there is no spirit realm, they are saying, "there is no God".  Both approaches seem a very sad way to live.

God's Love Is Bigger Than I Think

I've become convinced that my understanding of God's love is like that of a man who stands on the shore, waves lapping at his toes, and thinks he knows the ocean.  He can obviously recognize that it is the ocean.  He may even know something of the ocean; its depths, tides, and temperature could all be know by a man who stands on the shore.  In the end, sadly, he still hasn't experienced the ocean in its fullness.  We can never really understand the power of the tide until we are in over our heads, rolling in the waves.  The depths are incomprehensible until we realize that the bottom is out of reach and the safety of the shore is too far away for our tired bodies to swim.  That is when a person can experience the enormity of the ocean; just beyond the edge of control.

That's when I know God; just beyond the edge of control.  As long as I have control He doesn't.  Whenever I am manipulating the situation and arranging life according to my will I am not allowing the omnipresent love of my creator to guide me.  My prideful arrogance says, "I can handle my own life.  I can make my own rules".  But God says, "only as long as you stand on the shore".  If I truly want to know (that is, experience) the depth and power of God's love, I must jump in...over my head...and swim very far from the safety of shore.  A place where the only thing saving me is the buoyancy of the very thing I fear.  Only then can I understand what it is like for God to control my life.  When I give up control.

Am I Simple Yet?

The Lord preserves the simple. - Psalm 116:6

The psalmist says that simplicity leads to salvation.  The simplicity of the childlike faith that Jesus spoke of.  Knowledge can make us arrogant, but faith acknowledges that we know nothing.  If we ever feel that we are in control and can rule our lives, we are not in a place where God has control.  When I am strong and powerful, God has no place in my life.  When I am weak and abased, God must be my life.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

How many times have I seen what I want and set out to achieve it, only to fail miserably?  And how many times have I submitted to His will, only to find my wildest dreams coming true?  The more I study theology the less I realize I know.  Just when I think that I could be coming to an understanding of God and who He is, I turn the corner into another mystery or paradox.  What I do know is that all my effort to do the right things is wasted.  Only when I simply rest in Him do I find peace as well as success.

Christianity 101

 A horrible misconception about the life of Christ-followers is that everything is about rules and regulations. So many people will never walk into a church building or engage in open dialogue about spiritual matters because they think that we will tell them to “clean up their act” or “get it together” so that they will be acceptable to God. There are two huge problems with this; first, nobody can make themselves clean enough to be acceptable to God; second, we actually are acting like we can!

Imagine that. The Bible we claim to believe states very clearly that all of our righteous behavior is meaningless (see Isaiah 64:6 and Romans 3:10), yet we try to tell the world to get righteous before they can meet God. No wonder people won't listen to us! The modern church is full of double talking Pharisees just as Israel was in the time of Jesus.

The sad truth is that we all are sinful humans who cannot come near to God without Him calling us. When sin entered the world through the disobedience of Adam, the relationship between man and God changed (see Genesis 3). Originally made in God's image, mankind is now a distorted image of Him. Left to our own devices, we will eventually succumb to our earthly nature which is at odds with God's divine nature (see Genesis 6 and Romans 8:7). What this means in practical terms is that a human is unable to be righteous in the eyes of God unless one of them has a change in nature. God does not change (see Malachi 3:6 and Hebrews 1:10-12), so we must.

Paradox v. Contradiction

One of the most common problems we run into when trying to understand the Christian faith is the apparently contradictory nature of God presented to us in the Bible.  When studying the Scriptures it is hard to not become confused by conflicting ideas.  God is one, yet we know Him as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  He wants us to tell the truth and be faithful to our spouses, yet the Hebrews were assisted in taking the city of Jericho through a lie told by a prostitute named Rahab.  Jesus taught us to "turn the other cheek" and later told His disciples to carry swords as they went out into the world.  From our perspective these all seem like contradictions.  If we knew the whole truth, we would see that they are merely paradoxes.

The real issue at hand is our perspective.  When we finite humans attempt to understand something complex, we will quite often try to simplify it for the ease of comprehension.  There is really nothing wrong with this defense mechanism; it's just how we function.  We want to understand, so we shrink the incomprehensible to fit the framework of our understanding.  If two ideas do not seem mutually possible, then one of them must be wrong; according to finite humans.  When approached with the intellect alone God will always seem contradictory because our intellect is limited, yet God is unlimited, infinite, and incomprehensible.  Just as an ant's limited perspective keeps it from truly understanding the full truth of a foot stomping in the middle of its home, our limited perspective keeps us from truly understanding God and how He works.

Montana

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways – I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.

-Socrates, according to Plato

Montana died in a small town in Texas. Montana was nine or ten years old, depending on whose report you read. Montana hung himself in the boys' restroom at school. A very rare occurrence, it seems, because an expert in the study of suicide (nice job) said that self-inflicted death happens in young children only about five times a year in the U.S. This particular death struck close to home for the simple reason that it happened in my home town, in a school where I used to work. I didn't know the child or his family, but we don't need to know someone to grieve at their departure from this world. We certainly don't need to know someone to feel the stab of pain that his parents must be feeling (I have three children of my own). We don't even need to know someone to have an understanding of the pain that they must have experienced just before murdering themselves. I can still remember clearly the emptiness and agony that went hand-in-hand with my earliest suicidal thoughts.

I was only slightly older than Montana when I realised that death would be a relief from life. I had been bullied at school (some feel that bullying led to Montana's death), but that was not a reason to die. I was failing in most of my classes even though it was obvious to everyone involved that I knew how to do the work, but that was not a reason to die. The arguing and inevitable divorce of my parents was not a reason to die. I was very familiar with alcohol at the time and had begun to play with supposedly harder drugs, although I have no idea what makes pills and herbs worse than fermented vegetables. Still not a reason to die. The one-two punch of puberty and my first junior high dance was more devastating than any of these things, yet we all go through that. So why did I want to die?

I don't know.

Maybe it was because I was dealing with adult issues too early. Or it could be that I felt that quick, easy solutions are better than patience and perseverance. Maybe I was just a blamer and finger-pointer and, when I realised that no one was truly to blame, I simply turned on myself. Or maybe I was born with a dark, spooky psyche and death fascinates me. Does it really matter why I wanted to die? I tried to murder myself and failed. Several times.

The problem is that not everyone fails. A boy of ten decided that an unknown death would be preferred to the life he knew and hung himself. Now the finger-pointing begins.

Some will rant at the school for not recognising and dealing with the problem. Some will blame the parents for the very same failures. According to some, he was simply weak-willed and would have never succeeded anyway... I feel fine sharing that view because the same was said of me. Is “self-indulgent wimp” actually a medically valid diagnosis?

The truly sad part of all of this is that while we look for someone to pin the blame on we are continuing to allow children to die. You see, “they” are not the problem. We are. As a society we fail our children, and we perpetuate the issue by blaming everyone else.

We Americans have to wake up to the fact that what we value in our society is what kills us as people and individuals. We claim to believe in free speech, whatever that really is, yet we kill people over the words they say. We glorify sex in our art, literature and entertainment, yet act appalled when our children are aware of and active in their sexuality. We give money and possessions a dominant role in our lives and then wonder why the next generation is so materialistic and self-centered. Through video games and film we make the violence of combat out to be some grand adventure (I've been there, and it's not). Then, for some reason, we don't understand why kids are violent towards one another. And we cannot fathom why, in a society that acts as if there is no God, children grow up with no hope and turn the violence upon themselves. Of course, not every American behaves this way, but as a society...

The suicide of a child in America does not surprise me. It saddens me, but it doesn't surprise me. We adults act like children, and our children grow up too fast. We spend so much time chasing the "American Dream" that our kids are being raised by schools, daycares and video screens. Instead of fathers teaching boys to be men, and mothers teaching girls to be women, schools teach them to be androgynous nobodies. We let TV and Nintendo dictate morality rather than take that responsibility upon ourselves. And then we blame everyone else for the way the world is. We want the quick, easy solution. Unfortunately, raising kids, like changing society, requires patience and perseverance.

So, another child has fallen through the cracks. No one person or group is to blame. We all are. If you could go back in time and ask a Viking why he enjoyed going out to burn, rape and pillage, he would probably shrug his shoulders and say, “It's what we do. We're Vikings”. He would not understand that there might be something wrong with the way he lives. Why do we live the way we do? Because we're Americans. It's what we do.

Divine Economy

Mat 6:14 "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”

The Lord informs us very clearly here that being forgiven by God is contingent upon our forgiveness of other people. This does not mean that we somehow earn His love or grace, but that it is His love and grace flowing through us which allows us to show forgiveness to others. When I am aware of how God has shown me mercy I am able to pass that on to people around me. If I don't realize how I have been blessed I can't pass it on.

It's like trying to give someone a million dollars. I don't personally have a million dollars, so I can't give you a million dollars. No matter how hard I try, it is impossible for me to give away that much money. Likewise, if I have never apprehended God's forgiveness, it can't flow through me. If I don't know that it is there, I can't give it away.

But, according to the verse above, if I give it away, I get more. In chapter 19 of Luke Jesus says that those who use what they have will receive more, but those who do nothing with what God has given will lose what they have. That's how the divine economy works. Give it up and you get more. Hold on to what you have and you lose it all!

If each one of us realized this, on something more than an intellectual level, it would transform the entire world. Possessions and money would become tools for good instead of measures of greed. Our thoughts towards other people would be focused on their needs instead how they might serve our needs. Grudges and resentment would become historical footnotes in a society driven by benevolence.

Firewood

There is something about cutting firewood that makes a person feel alive.  Maybe it's the knowledge that without firewood the winter will be very uncomfortable.  Or, maybe it's being immersed in natural elements that we modern Americans try to avoid.  Falling snow and bitter, cold wind are not our chosen companions most of the time.  Our whole way of life seems to be about the avoidance of discomfort, yet it is the discomfort that helps us to remember that we live.  Comfort brings complacency; discomfort brings awareness.  Given a choice between warm, snugly numbness and raw experience most of us would opt for oblivion.  It seems that many people would rather be dead than uncomfortable.  I would say that it is preferred to feel alive than dead.