"If It's Just a Symbol..."

Looking at something else, I happened on a Youtube of Jonathan Roumie, the actor who portrays Jesus in "The Chosen," addressing the Catholic National Eucharistic Conference.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7iZEOxAWoE

 

I bookmarked the video to watch later, but what struck me was that he was wearing a tee-shirt

with a quote from Flannery O'Connor about the Eucharist: "If it's just a symbol, then to hell with it."

 

Googling to find out more about her quote, I ran across an article in the National Catholic Register which suggested the same might be said of baptism.

 

     https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/flannery-o-connor-s-to-hell-with-it-applies-to-baptism-too

 

But I was totally gobsmacked to read there that (my emphasis)

 

     "We have an obligation to baptize because Jesus told us to.

      And we have an obligation in obedience and love to baptize

      correctly.  Given that the non-Catholic media does not

      believe in sin or in the divine authority of Jesus, it is

      no wonder they are befuddled."

 

Not to charge Catholics with brain-dead insularity.  The Register seems to be some kind of hyper-"Conservative Catholic" publication; and not to be confused at all with the National Catholic Reporter out of Kansas City, which is respected (even among the Church' hierarchy, of which it's independent) for honest, penetrating, coverage of Catholic news and issues.

 

In contrast, the Register's writer seems to think no one can be considered honest except those who believe exactly as he does.  Jesus IS "The Truth," he evidently reasons, so obviously no unbeliever (including, in his view, "non-Catholic media") can possibly tell the truth.

 

That self-blinding attitude is hardly unique to Catholics.  It's the same prideful solipsism that underlies "Evangelicals' " contempt for "the liberal media," science, historians, etc., etc.  And at root it is, itself, unbelief; denial that "The Truth," Jesus, in actuality rules anywhere except in our self-chosen little group.

Thinking Like Jesus

"...our goal should be to act like Jesus. The primary reason people do not act like Jesus is because they do not think like Jesus. Behavior stems from what we think – our attitudes, beliefs, values and opinions."

-- https://www.barna.com/research/a-biblical-worldview-has-a-radical-effect-on-a-persons-life/  Barna's 2003 study concluded that only 4% of American adults base their decisions on a "biblical worldview."

 

These twenty years later, Barna and other pollsters find that 75-80% of self-described "Evangelicals" unswervingly follow a politician whose manifest character is lies and violent contempt for others (Jesus' definition of "murder" in Matthew 5:21-22).

Jesus told some His followers they were "children of the devil," loving lies and "murder" (John 8:44).

Do today's proudly self-proclaimed "Evangelicals" think like Jesus ?  Obviously not.

Blasphemy

"Blasphemy" is a word we hear thrown around a lot: usually with only a sketchy idea of its meaning.

 Here's a good basic definition: blasphemy is "...insulting, or showing contempt or lack of reverence, for God."

If our God, I AM, is Creator of all things, Life itself, ABSOLUTE in all His Being and ways, our reverence toward Him must be circumspect, fearful, humility.  Our "every careless word" will be required of us in the day of judgement (Matthew 12:36), and doubtless none moreso than those which demean God's Being, His works and His ways.

Is any word more irreverent of God than making Him subservient to man's thoughts and man's ways, which He has explicitly told us are not HIS (Isaiah 55:8) ?  Were God's thoughts and ways, for example, embodied in the Nazi gospel of "National Socialist Christianity," which Bonhoeffer so fiercely opposed ?

Can there be an irreverence more insulting to the King of Creation than making Him "spiritual" adjunct of man's nationalism; and tribal "god," indeed, of a nation's most evil "patriotic" faction ?

What then should we say of the "gospel" of America's current "Conservative Christian" faction ?

 

God, we praise You that You deal with blasphemers according to Your righeous judgement.

AMEN !!

You were formerly darkness

Ephesians 5:8 makes an interesting statement: "You were formerly darkness."

This is not a warning against doing the "deeds of darkness," as v.11 does.  Verse 8 is a statement of identity, who we formerly were: darkness itself.

Milton captures the idea in the speech he puts in satan's mouth when he recognizes the reality of his fall:

"Which way shall I fly Infinite wrath and infinite despair ? Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell..."

 

False Palm Sunday

Today we celebrate Jesus' entry into Jerusalem amid crowds acclaiming Him God’s Chosen One, Messiah and King.

So it's a good time to remember Jesus' warning in Matthew 24:5, that "...many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,' and will mislead many."  Christians in the end-times Jesus' prophesied must beware the "many" deceivers who present themselves as false Messiahs.

For example, when the ex-president re-tweeted a misled follower’s praise that Israelis today, like the crowds at Jesus' Palm Sunday, "...love him like he’s the King of Israel...like he is the second coming of God.”

Trump tweets claim Israelis ‘love him like he is the second coming of God’

 

The Untouchables

In the 1987 movie, the tough Irish beat-cop Jim Malone (Sean Connery) on Elliot Ness' squad arrives home one night, unaware an assassin is lurking outside, watching for an opportunity.  But when the mafioso sneaks up behind the seemingly-oblivious cop with knife in hand, Malone turns to thrust his gun in the man's face, disgustedly saying, "Ain't that just like a wop, bringing a knife to a gun-fight ?"

I often notice the cars in my church' parking-lot with combative pro-gun bumper-stickers of the "cold, dead hands" variety.  A few other cars sport the "Gadsden Flag" vanity license-plates--a rattlesnake and "Don't Tread On Me" motto--sponsored by my state's Rifle Association.

I have to shake my head.  Ain't that just like a "conservative Christian," bringing a gun to a spiritual fight ?

"The pursuit of Happiness"

The Declaration of Independence claims so, but I'm skeptical that all men are "...endowed...with certain unalienable Rights" by "their Creator."  I don't have Jefferson's deistic qualms about naming God as Who He IS: but the question is if He actually guarantees every human being is entitled (for what else is a "right" ?) to "...Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

It's stirring political rhetoric.  I doubt it's sound theology, as does A. W. Tozer.

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"You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier."          --2 Timothy 2:3-4.

That we are born to be happy is scarcely questioned by anyone. No one bothers to prove that fallen men have any moral right to happiness, or that they are in the long run any better off happy. The only question before the house is how to get the most happiness out of life. Almost all popular books and plays assume that personal happiness is the legitimate end of the dramatic human struggle.

Now I submit that the whole hectic scramble after happiness is an evil as certainly as is the scramble after money or fame or success....

How far wrong all this is will be discovered easily by the simple act of reading the New Testament through once with meditation. There the emphasis is not upon happiness but upon holiness. God is more concerned with the state of people's hearts than with the state of their feelings. Undoubtedly the will of God brings final happiness to those who obey, but the most important matter is not how happy we are but how holy. The soldier does not seek to be happy in the field; he seeks rather to get the fighting over with, to win the war and get back home to his loved ones. There he may enjoy himself to the full; but while the war is on his most pressing job is to be a good soldier, to acquit himself like a man, regardless of how he feels.

"Oh Lord, redirect my focus. Help me today to be a 'good soldier of Jesus Christ.' Amen."

"The Truth Shall Make You Free"

In John 8:31-2, Jesus tells “Jews who had believed Him” that “the truth will make you free.”

They began to argue with Him, saying they were children of Abraham, and have NEVER been anyone’s slaves.

They knew it was a lie.  Each Passover they recited how they were slaves in Egypt.  They also knew that their people had been carried off to Babylon as captives.  They knew that Israel had been conquered and ruled by the Persians, and then by Alexander the Great.  Even as they argued with Jesus that they were free, they knew Roman conquerors were their masters.

They were angry that Jesus challenged the lie they told themselves.  So angry He knew they wanted to kill Him: which He said showed they were actually children of the devil, loving lies and murder as satan does. By the end of the conversation they proved Him right, picking up rocks to stone Him.

“Conservatives” today have a chip on their shoulder about being “FREE AMERICANS:” and follow a liar who promises he'll save them from their own "tyrannical" government, and “Make America Great Again.”  What if Jesus told them that following those lies makes them slaves…and shows they are children of the devil ?

Jesus was right.

Jesus is still right.

Proverbs 4:23

 "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life."     --  Proverbs 4:23 

Proverbs 23:7 puts it another way: in our usual slight misquotation, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."

I remember a quote from a pastor, who credited it to Harry Truman: "What's down in the well comes up in the bucket."  (Trying to track down that saying's origin, I find it's been ascribed to numerous people besides Truman, including a slightly different form by evangelist Vance Havner.)  That puts Proverb's wisdom pretty well.

But I didn't realize until I started pondering and studying Proverbs 4:23 how often Jesus alludes to its wisdom:

 "...how can you, being evil, speak what is good?  For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart."

                                                                                                                                       --  Matthew 12:34

"But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man." -- Matt. 15:18

"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts."  --  Mark 7:21

^"The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart."  --  Luke 6:45 

Proverbs' take on man's spiritual identity is exactly that of Jesus: man's identity is always in God's moral terms...and shows in all that a man does, as either righteous or evil.

John puts that wisdom even more succinctly: "By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious (my emphasis: other translations say "manifest"): anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother." (I John 3:10).

The set-up of the old joke is profoundly right: "There are only two kinds of people..."

Prayer

C.S. Lewis pointed out that prayer seems to be "hard-wired" into human beings.  It's totally in character for Him Who created us that He'd make us innately pray-ers, so fiercely does He desire our intimacy with Himself.

Lewis also pointed out that all who pray report the same experience.  Buddhists, Sufis, and Hindus as well as Christians say that prayer gives them a sense of "peace" or "transcendence."  Like those who embark on a voyage...whether tourists, sailors, pirates or merchants...the experience is the same for all who sail; land falling from sight below the horizon, the vessel's pitch, and the smell of salt-air.

"Departures are all alike," Lewis wrote, "It is the landfall that crowns the voyage."  In this, he wrote, Christian prayer is unique.

It seems too that Christian prayer is unique in that it is "traveling hopefully"...with expectation.

Jesus told us to have that expectation when He said "...whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive..." (Matthew 21:22).

Christian readers surely noticed that I omitted Jesus' qualifying words: "...if you have faith."

In Jesus' context, it seems "faith" means (as it always must) believing what Jesus says, and doing it...expect that our Father will honor prayer in Jesus' name.