So...What ?

 A Sunday-school teacher 40 years ago told us about the "So...what ?" principle of studying.  Read the Bible, he said, with the question "So...what ?"  Scripture's words have immediate personal applications for our lives: ask yourself what those are.

The verse of the Bible always in the forefront of my mind is John 14:6, where Jesus proclaims He IS Himself "...The Way and The Truth and The Life."  Believing He is Who He said He IS  has absolute, total, implications: that in every situation of life we must follow truth, for there is no other way of following Jesus

Truth not just propositional: Truth in its fully-"Life" context, what we'd call reality.  Or rather, since Jesus IS All of it, "Reality."  Every unreality offers us "alternative facts" (as Donald Trump's press-secretary put it) that all things in heaven and earth are other than the way God created them: and offers us, as satan offered Eve, a different way than His.

"Truth in the innermost being" (Psalms 51:6) must pour out in all our "issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23): it is the measure Jesus set for His followers.  Any who love Truth will pursue Truth, obey Truth, and live Truth in every way.

The question for the American Church today is why Truth is not every Christian's criteria in ALL things ?  How can a Christian ever follow the lies of consumerism, or the empty deceit of fame and wealth, or the propaganda of the world's myriad false ideologies and "life-styles" ?  How can any Christian ever follow politicians' lies...as so many do ?

Jesus is The Truth.  He promised the Spirit will lead us into All Truth...if we will follow Him... and The Truth will make you free indeed.

Amen.

"Hard to Know Truth" ?

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

It's not the first time I've heard it.

To something I'd posted on facebook, about some idiocy the current president or his faction had
said or done, a supposed-Christian "friend" of a "friend" opined that it was hard to know for sure
what was true.

I think it was the kind of response that was intended to signal disagreement, when a supporter
of the current president can't really DENY the stupid thing he said or did.  A lame answer, but one
by which a "conservative" can keep his ideological credentials unsullied.  (For "conservatives" well
know that the rest of the pack will eat them alive the minute they deviate from the True Faith.)

I've heard it before . . . but for some reason it particularly enraged me this time.  I'm afraid I let the
gentleman have both barrels.  I responded to his comment,

"Can't agree.  Jesus said "I AM...The Truth..." (john 14:6). Jesus said satan is "...the father of lies..."
(John 8:44). I John 2:21 says "no lie is of the truth," There's NO possibility of confusing lies and Truth:
God is not a God of confusion (I Corinthians 14:33)."

In the past, I'd always thought the "hard-to-know-what's-true" folks were speaking honestly: that they
wanted to know what's true, but weren't sure how to find out.  So some years ago I'd put together a
list of a half-dozen reliable fact-checking websites where people can begin their own research, and
I'd pass it on to anyone who complained it was hard to know what's true, and any friend who'd been
deceived to post or e-mail an untruth.

With the blessed exception of one long-time friend who's a pastor, I don't think anyone I provided with
those fact-checking tools bothered.  From their subsequent and continuing facebook-posts and e-mails,
it was clear they did no fact-checking of the memes and opinions they put forward as true, and wanted
their "friends" to believe were true.  I have to conclude they had no real desire to know what's true.

I have to conclude the complaint that "it's hard to know what's true" is exactly what the facebook "friend"
intended, an excuse...for being too lazy to find out truth, or for not loving truth enough to seek it out, or for
believing a lie instead of truth.

The latter I think is rather frequent.  When Jesis says "I AM The Truth," it means He IS...if I may so put it...
the Reality in which we live (and He also says He IS "The Life.").  It's hard to miss Him.  Believing Reality
is other than He IS...a lie...can only be a deliberate choice-of-will.

God harshly judges those who "suppress the truth in unrighteousness," because "God made it evident to
them" and within them (Romans 1:18,19).  They are consequently "without excuse" (v. 20).  It's not merely
God's righteous judgement on those who worship idols, but on all who self-will to believe what is not true:
the climate-change deniers and  Holocaust-deniers of our time, and those who claim the current president
is a Christian.

Even in the simplest terms of human discourse, why should we believe the much-(self) vaunted "Evangelicals"
who claim to "know Jesus," and from the other side of their mouths excuse their believing lies because "it's
hard to know what's true."  God says they are "without excuse."

God promises His most furious and harsh judgement on those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
I quite doubt coronavirus is that: at least yet, or completely.  But whatever, and whenever, God determines,
His judgement is always righteous, and entirely right.  And none can argue that he was unable to know what
was Truth.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Defining

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

The great teacher Derek Prince once did a series of sermons he called "Agreeing With God."
It's stayed with me over 40 years.

His point was, as scripture says, that none of us can walk with God, except we agree with God
(Amos 3:3).

Agree, first of all, in His Authority to choose the path.  Which is where we all first stumble, and
in different ways and forms, keep stumbling.

His sermons talked about how to get past that: and they all came down to thinking as God thinks.

One sermon I remember was about thinking in God's categories.  But the one that most shaped
my thinking to this day was about thinking in God's definitions: latching on to the certainty (as I
always put it) that "what God says anything is, it absolutely is."

We've all had the frustration of talking with someone at seeming cross-purposes, to eventually
discover what they meant by (for example) "mercy" was entirely different than what we meant
by that word.

If we don't want to talk at cross-purposes with God, we have to adapt His...not our own, not our
nation's, not our faction's...meanings.  Disciplining our thinking in that way is why we read the
Bible: that's where God tells us His definitions.

Some are straight equivalencies.  Because God made truth a central part of my thinking, I have
worked to train my mind in Jesus' affirmation that "...I AM...the truth" (John 14:6).  There couldn't
be a more absolute statement of what...of Who...truth is.  It's seldom I hear the word "truth," in
any context, without reflexively thinking "Jesus."

I John 3:4 is just as clear in defining sin: "...sin is lawlessness."  That's one I'm still working to
make my automatic and immediate definition.  And that process, I should say, convinces me that
knowing God's definitions doesn't end our thinking about a matter so much as it focuses and
greatly deepens our understanding of what God's saying.

But not all the Bible's definitions are presented in straight equivalences.  Reading with a desire
to know His definitions, God shows them to us in various ways.

One I'd call inferential.  It takes a little meditation, for example, to understand that Isaiah 53:6a
is a definition of sin: "All we like sheep have gone astray, Each of us turned to his own way..."
But if we consider that "gone astray" is a common Biblical trope for sin, we can readily see that
God says sin is "turning to our own way."

The bonus-points for working through this verse to God's definition is that it underlies His prophecy
of Christ, His remedy for sin.  And Isaiah broadens and deepens our understanding of how"lawless-
ness" operates in our own lives, by our choice to "turn to our own way."

I recently came across another of God's definitions: one I've read hundreds of times, and didn't "see"
as a definition.

"Wisdom" is another of those key concepts God's impressed on my mind over the years.  I can still
remember the Sunday afternoon I was laying on my bed, reading James 1, when the reality of verse 5
smacked me HARD: "...if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and
without reproach, and it will be given to him."

I remember the excitement of knowing that verse applied to ME...and that God guaranteed He'd
give me wisdom...and all I had to do was ask.  So I did.

The years since, I've had to come to a working definition of "wisdom"...how else would I recognize
it to thank God for it ?  With apologies to Spike Lee, I settled on "wisdom is knowing how to do
the right thing."

Close.  But scripture's definition is better, once I saw it in Ephesians 5:15-17:

" Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time,
because the days are evil.  So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is."

Wise men show wisdom by making the most of their time.  The most we can ever do is please God:
and we please Him when we do righteousness ("the right thing").  We are foolish, and our lives are 
futile, if we do not"understand what the will of the Lord is."  Wisdom is understanding God's will.

I'm sure God has more to say about what wisdom is.  If I pay attention, I can look forward to learning
more of His counsel.  Meanwhile He's working this portion of His meaning into my operative under-
standing, so I can better, more deliberately and with less stumbling, walk with Him.

I agree with God that that's what we both want.  Amen !


                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Bill O'Reilly and Truth

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Disgraced Faux “News” commentator Bill O’Reilly has just come out with a biography of the current
president.  An interview in which he called the man "brilliant" probably gives some idea of what
readers can expect.

O'Reilly also described the current president's political success as “hardscrabble.”

It's the first time I’ve heard the success of a multi-millionaire’s son called “hardscrabble.”

It's interesting to look at political figures O’Reilly disparaged as "elitists" during his career on
Faux "News."

     There was the biracial son of a single mother, raised by his grandparents;

     the daughter of a small businessman in Chicago;

     the son of a Jewish immigrant paint-salesman in Brooklyn;

     and the daughter of a janitor in Oklahoma City.

It looks like "elitist" is O'Reilly's sneer at people who succeed by being smart and working hard.

In what O'Reilly calls “The United States of Trump," it looks like "truth" is what you get by turning
every fact about America inside-out, and standing it on its head.

God, THANK YOU that You will not abide lying tongues, false witnesses, and those who spread strife
among brothers.  God, judge them in Your righteousness and call Your people back to your Truth.  Amen !

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Faith Without Works Is Dead:

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I think it's self-proclaimed "Calvinists" who get rabid about faith being more central to Christianity than "works."  What I've read of John Calvin's Institutes, he seems much truer to scripture than those who call their teachings with his name.

But it raises the question why some self-identify pre-eminently as followers of a particular man's interpretation of Christ's teachings.  Doing so seems to effectually make "their" man's interpretation of greater importance than Christ's teaching.  I have to think that's exactly the sort of thing Jesus had in mind when he rebuked His listeners for following the "traditions of men" (for example in Mark 7:8, where He calls them "hypocrites" for doing so).  What is more a "tradition of men" than interpretations identified by mens' names ?

It's certainly not just "Calvinists" who fall into that trap.  Wesleyans are another example; who, if I remember right, are either strongly pro-Arminian or strongly anti-Arminian...and so position themselves as a second-generation human-interpreter doctrine.  There are others: and the map of such doctrines seems too tangled to make any sense of whatever.

Needless to say, controversies about those doctrines give satan tremendous opportunities to divide Christians, and set them at their brother' throats.  Satan doesn't miss the opportunity

But for anyone who becomes apoplectic at the title of this blog (probably chip-on-the-shoulder "Calvinists"), I'll just point out those words are taken from James' discussion of faith and works.  Dogmatic controversialists can (and do) work their heuristic sophistry on James 3:14-26 to "prove" that James meant the opposite of what his words say.  But I'm quoting his words because they seem to me to mean exactly what they say.

I quote James because I've been reading Jimmy Carter's most recent book, Faith, and one of his early chapters is "Demonstrating Our Faith."  His discussion of "faith" and "works" seems scriptural, and not at all about the supposed controversy.

Indeed, everything Carter has to say seems informed by his life of commonsense Christianity.  His life is what makes his words worth listening to; and no doubt some who read his book because they admire his life will gain insight into the faith he lives.

For most convinced Christians, what he says about faith is probably preaching to the choir.  But some of the quotations he uses to open each chapter contain striking insights.  Those he used for the chapter "Demonstrating Our Faith" particularly struck me.

Emil Brunner sums up James 3:14-26 better than anything I've ever read or heard: “There is no such thing as Christian faith apart from Christian conduct.”   Faith is real-world stuff: it's what we do, not a theological construct for controversialists in-fighting.

Karl Barth too put James' truth in terms of everyday reality: “You should read the Bible in one hand and your newspaper in the other.”  Faith is what we do in terms of daily reality.

I've said it before, many different ways.  I say it here in terms of living faith manifest in Christian conduct.  In 2018 America, there is a very prominent anti-"Church," a faithless body.  A body of people who claim to love Jesus, "The Truth," but instinctively follow and revere the lies of their politics and nationalism.

May God open their eyes.  And may they choose to see, when He does.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Calvin on Evil Rulers

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I very definitely have no dog in doctrinal disputes about Calvin's teachings.  I'm not even sure what anti-Calvinists are called, beyond "anti-Calvinists."  It's never really seemed a necessary part of my life in Christ to research and decide and declare if I'm a Calvinist or an anti-.

The formal theology associated with Calvin's name is doubtless flawed: that's only what we should expect of anyone's theology, including our own.  Believing any human mind can substantially encompass the reality of God is a first step toward idolatry...taken in pride.  None of us can, and none of us do.  So I'm also pretty sure the theology of Calvinism's opponents is just as flawed.

It seems a mistake to follow either to the extent we identify by one "side's" name, or by the other's.  Taking "sides" in theology is the same as taking "sides" in politics, football, nationalism, or any of the other human constructs to which men give their allegiance: that is to say, idols.

"Taking sides," or "factions," is not a fruit of Christ's Spirit any more than idolatry is.  Galatians 5:20 says "dividings" or "factions" grow from our flesh.  The Greek word there for "dividings" is haireseis, from which we get our English word "heresy."

The rhetorical question in I Corinthians 1:13 affirms that Christ is not divided.  Since Jesus identified Himself as "the Truth" (John 14:6), Christians, above all other people, must believe that "the Truth" is not divided.  There are no "sides" in Truth, no "your Truth" and "my Truth:" and the only "anti-" connected with it is denial of Truth.  The latter is what Jesus said is the distinguishing character of "the father of lies" (john 8:44).

Quoting Calvin here has nothing to do with identifying as a Calvinist or an anti-Calvinist.  I cite Calvin because I consider he speaks scriptural truth.

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"We are not only subject to the authority of princes who perform their office toward us uprightly and faithfully as they ought, but also to the authority of all who, by whatever means, have got control of affairs...that whoever they may be, they have their authority solely from him....they who rule unjustly and incompetently have been raised up by him to punish the wickedness of the people; that all equally have been endowed with that holy majesty with which he has invested lawful power....a wicked king is the Lord’s wrath upon the earth...thus nothing more would be said of a [wicked] king than of a robber who seizes your possessions, of an adulterer who pollutes your marriage bed, or of a murderer who seeks to kill you. For Scripture reckons all such calamities among God’s curses. But...In a very wicked man utterly unworthy of all honor, provided he has the public power in his hands, that noble and divine power resides which the Lord has by his Word given to the ministers of his justice and judgment. Accordingly, he should be held in the same reverence and esteem by his subjects, in so far as public obedience is concerned, in which they would hold the best of kings if he were given to them.”

                                   --  John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 20, Section 25

 
"He now commends to us obedience to princes...that the Lord has designed in this way to provide for the tranquillity of the good, and to restrain the waywardness of the wicked...for except the fury of the wicked be resisted, and the innocent be protected from their violence, all things would come to an entire confusion...

For since a wicked prince is the Lord’s scourge to punish the sins of the people, let us remember, that it happens through our fault that this excellent blessing of God is turned into a curse.”
 

                                  --  John Calvin, Commentary on Romans  (Chapter 13, vv. 3-4)

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Heart Problem

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of Mormon kids.  (In fact, my high school graduation was held in the nearby RLDS temple, where that branch of Mormons supposedly believe Jesus will return to earth).  I was a pretty superficial Baptist Sunday-School believer (and had a string of Baptist Sunday-School attendance pins to prove my superficial faith was of long standing . LOL).

I had as little theological understanding as it took to get by.  Even so, when I learned what Mormons believed about God, I can remember thinking, "HOW CAN THEY BELIEVE THAT CRAP !?!?"

That bothered me a lot.  It's always seemed to me that (in the words of a much-later TV show) "the truth is out there:" manifest, and impossible to miss.  So that incredulous question stayed in mind.

I refined the question a bit during Watergate, when my parents were obdurately convinced that Richard Nixon hadn't done anything wrong, and everything was the result of his enemies' maneuverings to "get" him.  (That mindset has been dusted off and pressed into service by Trump's followers.)  But the question became a bit more focused, and a bit more personally tormenting in those circumstances: "why do my folks believe those lies ?"

Chewing on that question was like chewing on beef-jerky; it got larger.  It wasn't just my folks, and not just Nixon's lies.  There was a distinct period when the one question about life that I couldn't escape, and always seemed to come back to, was "why do people believe lies ?"

I really can't say that finally getting the question right was the reason I finally got an answer: but the two seem roughly contemporaneous in my memory.  "Why do WE believe lies ?" seemed the only honest question.

Taking a philosophical perspective on life and its questions has its value.  It also feeds our tendency toward a flattering self-image ("Look at me, I'm a philosopher").  Worse, it gives us a bit of safe personal detachment from life and its questions.

By the time I got to "the right question," I was, and knew I was, a Christian...not a philosopher.  I'm sure that fact had something to do with getting the question right, since Jesus identifies Himself as "the Truth," and the Spirit of God as "the Spirit of Truth."  Any question about truth, especially about the absence of Truth, is Personal with Jesus.

As a Christian it seemed dishonest to frame questions safely, to not involve me personally; and to look for safe answers.  Jesus didn't.

 The answer I ultimately came to was not at all what I'd call "satisfying:"  But I'm certain it's the hundred-percent true one, and the only one there is : "because we WANT to."

Believing lies isn't really a problem of our cognitive processes, our intelligence and knowledge.  It's a heart problem, that we DESIRE to believe lies.  Jeremiah 17:9 says our heart is desperately wicked: that would explain why we want to believe lies.  It also says our heart is "deceitful above all things:" our heart makes us desire lies...and itself lies to us.