Category: Christian Doctrine

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 1

What is the battle going on? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I want to thank Dr. Matthew Bates for sending me a copy of his latest book in electronic format. He and I have had a good relationship since my podcasting days and I consider him a friend. When he has a new book coming out, he contacts me and several others and I always make sure to help him out.

Something I really like about Bates is how easy he is to read and also how needed he is. He writes about doctrines that the popular audience needs to hear and he also writes about them in a way that they can understand. He is an excellent scholar, but he speaks on the popular level. As one in PhD work myself now, it is one of my goals to make sure I never get so academically inclined that I leave the average person behind.

Anyway, his latest book comes out today is Beyond the Salvation Wars. In it, he talks about issues between Catholics and Protestants on the nature of the gospel and the doctrine of salvation. Much of what is said about Catholics could apply to Orthodox Christians, but for many of us in America at least, the former two groups are the most prominent. This is not a criticism. It’s just the way the situation is.

He starts off this first chapter taking us back 500 years in time to the killing of Ulrich Zwingli. This is something I suspect most Catholics today would look back on and not see as a good move. What is interesting for us today is how the two accounts we have of his death go.

The Catholic one talks about the praise given to God for delivering the wicked men into their hands so he could die at their hands. The Protestant one talks about how he looked to God alone and rejected the aid of a priest. It talks about how Zwingli was told to call on the Mother of God and the saints, but Zwingli rejects any help but Christ.

Today, we find all of this strange. I meet regularly with several Catholics on a Zoom call to discuss Aquinas. We get along fine. We know we disagree, and it’s cool. We would never think of excluding one another from salvation and especially never taking up arms and going to war against one another.

So why did they?

For them, this was all about salvation and these people were keeping people from salvation. Catholics and Protestants both thought the other side was doing that. In that case, some of them did think it was acceptable to stop people using violent force if necessary to ensure the eternal salvation of souls. We don’t agree today for the most part, but we can see that for them, it made sense.

As Bates says:

We nod our heads “yes” on Sunday

morning: Jesus is indeed worthy. But we have more pressing concerns: Can you believe what Khloé Kardashian just posted on Instagram? Can Patrick Mahomes orchestrate another comeback win? What’s on Netflix tonight? We declare our passion for the gospel but then wear out our couch cushions. Meanwhile, Catholics and Protestants of the sixteenth century were willing to die for a correct understanding of salvation.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 193-196). Kindle Edition.

And this is Protestants and Catholics both.

Bates then goes on to list reasons for hope in unity eventually and then says:

Protestants cannot responsibly say that Catholics believe an individual is justified by good works instead of God’s grace, for they certainly believe no such thing. Grace is required all along the way by both Catholics and Protestants. Grace, however, is configured differently by each.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 319-320). Kindle Edition.

What is good to see about this is a book of critique like this from a Protestant perspective, would likely list all the things the author thinks the Catholics get wrong. Bates does list those, but he lists the mistakes of those of us who are Protestants as well. He then lists one major problem seeing as a lot of debates hinge on justification and sanctification.

(“ faith/ fidelity”) to the king from the ground up. The individualized distinction between justification and sanctification within classic Protestantism is false. That is, the division between a person’s justification and sanctification has an insufficient scriptural warrant and obscures how Scripture actually describes the salvation process.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 432-434). Kindle Edition.

No. He won’t leave that hanging. He will defend it throughout the book. Bates wants us to be clear on what the gospel is and why it matters. It is only when we know what we are talking about that we can reach unity.

Next time, we’ll look at the second chapter to see what he has to say about the gospel.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Pauline Paradox Chapter 2

Who was Paul? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, 119 Ministries seeks to introduce us to Paul. In looking at Acts 15, they say:

As scholar J.K. McKee explains: The yoke being placed upon these non-Jewish Believers in the Messiah was a legalistic perversion of the Torah which demanded that if you do not observe it and convert to Judaism (perhaps according to the particular sect represented) you cannot be saved. It is a yoke that keeps people out of God’s intention, rather than one that welcomes them in.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 19). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Like me, McKee does not have a PhD yet, so while I can respect his educational prowess, I hesitate to use the word scholar yet. No. I would not describe myself as a scholar either. I remain consistent. That being said, I do agree that the Council decided to not make everyone follow Judaism to receive salvation, but I go further saying that they never have to follow Torah at all.

The Jerusalem Council passe down four requirements for the Gentiles. That means no necessity to follow the Law. Right?

Right?

No, according to James, the Gentile believers were to be welcomed every Sabbath at the synagogue, where they would learn the rest of the commandments (Acts 15:21). So, rather than abolishing the Law for Gentiles, the Jerusalem council actually reinforced Yeshua’s teaching that the Law is perpetually relevant and is to be taught to “all nations”—just not as a means to salvation.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 20). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

The believers were to be welcomed in the Synagogue every Sabbath? Is that what it says?

Let’s go to the Complete Jewish Bible.

Ya‘akov broke the silence to reply. “Brothers,” he said, “hear what I have to say. Shim‘on has told in detail what God did when he first began to show his concern for taking from among the Goyim a people to bear his name. And the words of the Prophets are in complete harmony with this for it is written,

‘“After this, I will return;
and I will rebuild the fallen tent of David.
I will rebuild its ruins,
I will restore it,
so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
that is, all the Goyim who have been called by my name,”
says Adonai, who is doing these things.’

All this has been known for ages.

“Therefore, my opinion is that we should not put obstacles in the way of the Goyim who are turning to God. Instead, we should write them a letter telling them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from fornication, from what is strangled and from blood. For from the earliest times, Moshe has had in every city those who proclaim him, with his words being read in the synagogues every Shabbat.”

All the text says is that Moses has been read every Sabbath. It says nothing about the believers worshipping on the Sabbath. Not so fast, says 119 Ministries!

After the Jerusalem council, we see that Paul continued to teach in the synagogues on the Sabbath (Acts 16:13). In fact, Scripture says this was his “custom” (Acts 17:2). He did it “every Sabbath” (Acts 18:4).

That clinches it, does it not? Paul was in the synagogue every Sabbath.

Sad that one has to explain this so frequently.

If you went to a Middle Eastern country and you wanted to speak to Muslims, you would go to your local mosque on Friday. Why? Not because you specifically observe Friday, but because Muslims do. IF 119 Ministries wanted to speak to evangelical Christians at churches about this, they would find them at church on Sunday. Why does Paul visit the synagogues on Sabbath?

Because his intended audience goes to synagogue on the Sabbath!

By contrast, look in Acts 20 again at the Complete Jewish Bible.

On Motza’ei-Shabbat, when we were gathered to break bread, Sha’ul addressed them.

That phrase refers to the ending of the Sabbath, on Saturday night. If the new Christians worshipped on the Sabbath, why did Paul start this service on the night of the Sabbath towards the ending of it? We know this marked the start since he went on to preach so much that someone fell asleep and Paul had to revive him when he fell from a window.

The writers also talk about how Paul took a vow that fits the description of a Nazarite vow in Acts 18:18. What of it? Paul never condemns following Jewish Law. He condemns the idea that Gentiles have to follow it. Much like the circumcision of Timothy, this could be an act done to not offend the Jews he wanted to reach.

They then quote a later part of the passage:

When they asked him to stay a longer time with them, he did not consent, but took leave of them, saying, “I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem; but I will return again to you, God willing.” And he sailed from Ephesus. (Acts 18:20-21, NKJV)

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (pp. 20-21). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

I decided to look this up when I read it and strangest thing, I couldn’t find a reference to the feast in most translations. Fortunately, as a seminary student, plenty of professors come by who know this and the head of our textual research department came by just then. He looked it up and did say it was a textual variant, which one needs to ask why 119 Ministries did not mention this.

Not only that, look at what the Complete Jewish Bible says:

20 When they asked him to stay with them longer, he declined; 21 however, in his farewell he said, “God willing, I will come back to you.” Then he set sail from Ephesus.

No feast mentioned.

Strange.

When Paul comes before the high priest, 119 Ministries explains it saying:

The high priest, Ananias, ordered Paul to be struck on the mouth. Paul reacted by calling out Ananias as a hypocrite: Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” (Acts 23:3) Interestingly, Paul appeals to the Law of God, which says only someone found guilty can be beaten (Deuteronomy 25:1-2), as his basis for calling Ananias a hypocrite. If the accusations that Paul taught against the Law were true, why would he appeal to the Law?

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (pp. 23-24). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Followed by:

Notice that Paul did not try to justify his evil speech against Ananias, the high priest. Rather, he agreed with the Law of God and acknowledged his mistake. It wouldn’t make sense for him to appeal to the Law of God in his acknowledgment of his error if he believed the Law had been done away with.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 24). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Why indeed? How about this?

Paul shames the high priest for violating the law in doing this. He takes the authority that he knows the high priest holds and points out his violation of it. In making an apology for it, Paul in essence says “I am being more faithful than you are even though you are the one who claims to be under the Law.” Paul would have certainly recognized the high priest after all!

So far then, 119 Ministries has presented nothing strong backing their case.

We’ll continue next time asking why Paul is so confusing.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

The Bartering God

Did God seek Abraham’s Advice? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In Genesis 18, after the Lord meets with Abraham and his wife and announces the birth of Isaac, we find this curious exchange take place.

16 When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. 17 Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18 Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

20 Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

22 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. 23 Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

26 The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

27 Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”

“If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”

29 Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?”

He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”

30 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”

He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

31 Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?”

He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”

32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”

He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

33 When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

What is going on here? Does God not know what He’s going to do? Why is the Almighty God having a bartering exchange with a mere mortal like this? Is Abraham changing God’s mind?

Not at all. Early in the passage, God states what will happen to Abraham in the future. He has said earlier in another passage to Abraham about how long his children will be in bondage in Egypt and they will come up again. God knows what is going to happen. Before this whole exchange starts, God knows the city will be destroyed anyway. He doesn’t get new information.

So why is He doing this?

He’s showing the way the covenant will work. He still wants people to interact with Him. He still wants them to make their requests known. God knows what we want even before we ask as Jesus says, but He still wants us to ask. This covenant is not going to be “I make all the decisions. Sit down and get in line!”

Pascal once said prayer gives us divine causality. God takes everything into account from eternity past, even our prayers. It could be what happened would not have happened had we not prayed for it. God did what He did in advance knowing what our prayers would be. Confusing? Yes. Can you get a headache thinking on that one too long? Yes.

Yet it is fully true and stays consistent with Scripture and the Lord who is sovereign over space and time and not limited by them in any way.

Come to Him. He wants to hear from you. He takes your requests seriously.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Did God Think Mankind Was A Mistake?

Did the Almighty have second thoughts? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

While this examination of if God can change His mind will start with Scripture, it will be impossible to avoid tradition and reason along the way. Let’s start with a big example in Genesis 6:6-7.

6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”

To many, the text seems clear, God repented. Yet what does this mean? If God does something wrong, does God need forgiveness? And if God needs forgiveness, who is above Him that can give it? If God needs forgiveness, how can He be good? If it just means regret, what else does God regret that we might not even know about? Could He regret having us in eternity one day?

Tertullian says about this that:

In this way it was that even then He knew full well what human feelings and affections were, intending as He always did to take upon Him man’s actual component substances, body and soul, making inquiry of Adam (as if He were ignorant), “Where art thou, Adam?”—repenting that He had made man, as if He had lacked foresight; tempting Abraham, as if ignorant of what was in man; offended with persons, and then reconciled to them; and whatever other (weaknesses and imperfections) the heretics lay hold of (in their assumptions) as unworthy of God, in order to discredit the Creator, not considering that these circumstances are suitable enough for the Son, who was one day to experience even human sufferings—hunger and thirst, and tears, and actual birth and real death, and in respect of such a dispensation “made by the Father a little less than the angels.”

Thus, God asks a question, but not as if He was ignorant. He repents, but not as if He doesn’t have foresight, and on and on. The language is here for a reason. Tertullian ultimately thinks it’s meant to show us something about Christ when He comes.

In a later account said to describe a debate between Simon Magus and Peter, we read that:

“Therefore also Adam, being made at first after his likeness, is created blind, and is said not to have knowledge of good or evil, and is found a transgressor, and is driven out of paradise, and is punished with death.  In like manner also, he who made him, because he sees not in all places, says with reference to the overthrow of Sodom, ‘Come, and let us go down, and see whether they do according to their cry which comes to me; or if not, that I may know.’  Thus he shows himself ignorant.  And in his saying respecting Adam, ‘Let us drive him out, lest he put forth his hand and touch the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever;’ in saying Lest he is ignorant; and in driving him out lest he should eat and live for ever, he is also envious.  And whereas it is written that ‘God repented that he had made man,’ this implies both repentance and ignorance.  For this reflection is a view by which one, through ignorance, wishes to inquire into the result of the things which he wills, or it is the act of one repenting on account of the event not being according to his expectation.  And whereas it is written, ‘And the Lord smelled a scent of sweetness,’ it is the part of one in need; and his being pleased with the fat of flesh is the part of one who is not good.  But his tempting, as it is written, ‘And God did tempt Abraham,’ is the part of one who is wicked, and who is ignorant of the issue of the experiment.”

I do not think this is historical at all, but i do think it is a representation of Christian thought at the time. The arguments made today by some to show God changes His mind were those made by heretics in the past.

Augustine in the City of God says:

For though God is said to change His determinations (so that in a tropical sense the Holy Scripture says even that God repented), this is said with reference to man’s expectation, or the order of natural causes, and not with reference to that which the Almighty had foreknown that He would do.

And he says:

The anger of God is not a disturbing emotion of His mind, but a judgment by which punishment is inflicted upon sin.  His thought and reconsideration also are the unchangeable reason which changes things; for He does not, like man, repent of anything He has done, because in all matters His decision is as inflexible as His prescience is certain.  But if Scripture were not to use such expressions as the above, it would not familiarly insinuate itself into the minds of all classes of men, whom it seeks access to for their good, that it may alarm the proud, arouse the careless, exercise the inquisitive, and satisfy the intelligent; and this it could not do, did it not first stoop, and in a manner descend, to them where they lie.  But its denouncing death on all the animals of earth and air is a declaration of the vastness of the disaster that was approaching:  not that it threatens destruction to the irrational animals as if they too had incurred it by sin.

It wasn’t just the fathers who thought this language wasn’t literal. John Calvin said the same thing:

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth The repentance which is here ascribed to God does not properly belong to him, but has reference to our understanding of him. For since we cannot comprehend him as he is, it is necessary that, for our sakes he should, in a certain sense, transform himself. That repentance cannot take place in God, easily appears from this single considerations that nothing happens which is by him unexpected or unforeseen. The same reasoning, and remark, applies to what follows, that God was affected with grief. Certainly God is not sorrowful or sad; but remains forever like himself in his celestial and happy repose: yet, because it could not otherwise be known how great is God’s hatred and detestation of sin, therefore the Spirit accommodates himself to our capacity. Wherefore, there is no need for us to involve ourselves in thorny and difficult questions, when it is obvious to what end these words of repentance and grief are applied; namely, to teach us, that from the time when man was so greatly corrupted, God would not reckon him among his creatures; as if he would say, This is not my workmanship; this is not that man who was formed in my image, and whom I had adorned with such excellent gifts: I do not deign now to acknowledge this degenerate and defiled creature as mine.’ Similar to this is what he says, in the second place, concerning grief; that God was so offended by the atrocious wickedness of men, as if they had wounded his heart with mortal grief: There is here, therefore, an unexpressed antithesis between that upright nature which had been created by God, and that corruption which sprung from sin. Meanwhile, unless we wish to provoke God, and to put him to grief, let us learn to abhor and to flee from sin. Moreover, this paternal goodness and tenderness ought, in no slight degree, to subdue in us the love of sin; since God, in order more effectually to pierce our hearts, clothes himself with our affections. This figure, which represents God as transferring to himself what is peculiar to human nature, is called anthropopatheia

And Keil and Delitzsch:

The force of ינּחם, “it repented the Lord,” may be gathered from the explanatory יתעצּב, “it grieved Him at His heart.” This shows that the repentance of God does not presuppose any variableness in His nature of His purposes. In this sense God never repents of anything (1 Samuel 15:29), “quia nihil illi inopinatum vel non praevisum accidit” (Calvin). The repentance of God is an anthropomorphic expression for the pain of the divine love at the sin of man, and signifies that “God is hurt no less by the atrocious sins of men than if they pierced His heart with mortal anguish” (Calvin). The destruction of all, “from man unto beast,” etc., is to be explained on the ground of the sovereignty of man upon the earth, the irrational creatures being created for him, and therefore involved in his fall. This destruction, however, was not to bring the human race to an end. “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” In these words mercy is seen in the midst of wrath, pledging the preservation and restoration of humanity.

At this point, one could say that all of these people, from the fathers to the Reformers, were wrong about how they saw God. It is entirely possible that they could be. However, to argue that, one needs to make a better case than just “I think God literally has these emotions in Him.”

From a perspective of reason, one has to deny to some extent that God knows the future and did not know what people would do. With that, I do not know how He could be the God of all truth since He would not know all truth but would merely be discovering all truth. There is no way all knowledge could lie in Him since He would be always learning something new.

Many times when I encounter atheists who like to put God on the same moral plane as us as if God has to follow a moral law out there, I say that their argument is not against God, but against Superman. God is on a whole other plane than we are. We should not be surprised if we cannot describe Him entirely with our language and must use what Aquinas called analogical language. A God that would be easy to understand would not be the God of Scripture.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Approaching The Question Of God Changing His Mind?

How shall we go about discussing God changing His mind? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Now that we’re doing going through The Widening of God’s Mercy, it’s time to look at the question of if God can change His mind. In doing this, I have decided to use the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. This is where we look at knowledge in a chain of four different areas.

Scripture.
Tradition.
Reason.
Experience.

I will not be looking at every single Scripture that can be used in this, but I hope to touch the major ones. In the same way, I cannot claim to know the church fathers exhaustively so much of my information will be just using online databases to look up what they say. Those who know the fathers better are fully encouraged to join in and contribute their own ideas.

I am also going to come into this discussion with some underlying assumptions that I won’t bother defending in here because this is an in-house discussion among Christians. Questions of if God exists and if Scripture is reliable are not the issue that I have here. I have written plenty on those in other blog posts so feel free to look those up if you want to know more. However, if in this look we come across anything that could be a textual variant that is relevant to the discussion, I will bring that up.

Another assumption I am going to make is that all truth is God’s truth, which right at the start I think presents a problem for those who think God can change His mind, but I will get to that later. If something can be shown thoroughly to be a truth of reason, Scripture will not contradict it nor will the overwhelming tradition. There is no double-theory where something can be true in the area of Scripture, but the opposite can be true in the area of reason.

Experience is the only aspect that I do not see at this point how it can be used in this question. One could say the experience of the figures in the Bible, but then that falls under the category of Scripture. While I do think God could hypothetically reveal something today, someone who claims to have a message on the authority of God better bring up some really good evidence to show that they are speaking the truth.

Also, as fascinating as they could be, when we look at this, discussions of Arminianism, Calvinism, and any other related ism to questions of salvation and free-will will not be closely examined. Readers of this blog know that I choose to not debate those issues. If you want to in the comments, that is fine, but I will leave it to others to discuss those with you.

I cannot say how long this will take, but I hope in the end there will be a better informed position for all of us on the issue. Reading my book review, there is no question where I stand so I admit that upfront and it would take tremendous evidence to change my mind based on years of studying this issue. If all goes according to plan, we will start that tomorrow.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Are You Memucan?

Who? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

You might be surprised to learn Esther is my favorite book in the Bible. As a young man going through the text (I am unsure if I had hit my teenage years yet), I got to this book and knew nothing about it. As I started reading it, I could not put it down. It was like reading a modern adventure novel. I read through the whole thing in one sitting.

Something else fascinating about the book is that it never mentions God one time. That’s actually an added appeal to me. It’s not because I am opposed to God obviously, but because by this, you get to truly see how God is working behind the scenes. You know that some of the events that just seem to happen, are really the work of a divine hand.

I also wrote yesterday on your part in the story of God. At night, I go through a book of the Bible and read just one verse. This allows me to think on the text slowly. Right now, it is Esther.

If you had come to me knowing that I love the book of Esther and asked me who Memucan was, I would not have known. Who? Is that a video game boss or something like that?

No. He actually is a character in the book of Esther. At the start of the book, Queen Vashti refuses to do what King Xerxes bids so he has her banished from his presence. Then the question is asked what is to be done. Memucan comes up with the idea for this.

He gives a case why this is so and the king likes the idea and has Vashti banished. Thus, the king has no queen and it is because of the idea of Memucan. After all of this, what happens to him?

Nothing. His name never shows up in the rest of the book or anywhere else in Scripture. He is one of those bit characters that unless you were looking for him, you would not know he was there. He leaves the story just as quickly as he enters.

But it is a good thing that he entered it.

You see, if Memucan had never entered the story, then we would never have had the search for someone else to be the bride of Xerxes. We would have never had Esther be chosen then and she would never be queen. When Haman decides to go after all the Jewish people, that has nothing to do with what happened with Vashti earlier. Had Esther not been the queen, there is nothing that she could have done to stop it. It could be that help would come from another place, but we don’t know what would have happened. All we know is what did happen.

It depended in part on Memucan.

For many people, if they read the book of Esther today, they would say “I’m Esther!” or “I’m Mordecai!” No. More likely than not, if you’re anyone, you’ll be Memucan. It will not be a part that has a lot of glory here to it, but it is an essential part anyway. It is in part because of Memucan that the Jewish people were saved.

But really, shouldn’t any part you play in God’s story be a part that you are honored to play?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Is God Relational?

Does God really care about me? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Something people ask me when they think I don’t think hearing the voice of God is normative today is if God really cares about them. Is God relational? Does He really love me?

It’s always interesting to see that we have 66 books and the coming of Jesus and yet we still ask about that. One can read the Old Testament and see praises of God even before the coming of Christ. One of our most popular hymns, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, comes from quite likely the saddest book in the Bible, Lamentations.

It’s also strange to me to say “Well, if God isn’t interacting with me the way that I think He should, does He really love me?” God loves you the way that He loves you. Who are we to say that the way He loves us is not sufficient?

That being said, let’s look at the question. For one thing, it would have to be explained what is meant by relational. If you mean God brings about a change in me and I bring about a change in God, then no, God is not relational. You cannot change God. You will not make God better if you live a perfect life. You will not make Him worse if you live a life of sin and rebellion. You cannot bring Him more joy than He has in the Trinity. Your sin cannot destroy the joy He has in the Trinity.

It is true that many times, the Scriptures describe God as emotional, but they also describe Him as physical too. Many Christians rightly see that the description of God as physical is not to be read literalistically, but suddenly switch when it comes to the descriptions of God’s emotions. I read them both as anthropomorphic language. I’m consistent.

Some will also point to Christ as being emotional, and He was and is, but He is also fully man. The Father and the Spirit are not human at all. However, Jesus’s emotional responses can still show us the kinds of things God loves and the things He hates.

However, God loves you. In fact, God cannot love you more than He does right now. That would be impossible. You will never increase His love for you and you will never decrease it either. Not only that, but God is outside of the timeline and is eternal and unchanging, so His love for you has always been and it will never cease. It is the most active love of all.

That being said, love does not mean everything will work out the way you want. We dare not set up standards to test the love of God to say “Well, if God really loved me, then He would do XYZ or He would not do XYZ.” It would be easy to say “If God really loved me, He would not let me go through divorce.” It would be easy to say, but it would also be wrong.

Could it perhaps be that our modern thinking has led us to have a sort of entitlement mentality with God Himself? “Well, I see the way God spoke to all these great saints in the Old Testament and surely God cares about me just as much to speak to me.” Evil has always been a question for Christians, but could it be worse in a time when people think they are entitled to live a good life? If God loves them, surely He would not let them suffer in such a horrible way!

You have no claims on God. The only things God owes you are things He has promised you in covenant. God does not owe you a moment of existing. God does not owe you a good life. He could have sent us all to Hell and He would have been just and right to do so. That means all He gives you is grace ultimately.

In any case, however you imagine God loves you and however I tell you that God loves you, it is still inadequate to describe it. No words can ever fully describe such because God cannot be contained even by words. The question we should ask is not if He really loves us, but if we really love Him.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Did God Reveal That To You?

Is it safe to say that God revealed X to you? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I am going through a book by an advocate of Black Hebrew Israelite teaching. I know some students here at the seminary who asked me about it and so I figured I would get a book on the topic and see what I thought seeing as I had never really looked at that area. The book is full of nonsense and most every conspiracy theory out there.

Today, I am reading and I come across this quote:

God revealed to me things that were hidden from us; the truth about our history in relation to the bible and the Ancient Hebrew Israelites.  The theories I had about black people, the Curse of Canaan and the Curse of Israelites were right all along.  God also revealed to me how Satan is covertly deceiving mankind and we have no clue as to what is going on.

Dalton Jr, Ronald. HEBREWS TO NEGROES: Wake Up Black America (p. 1002). G Publishing LLC. Kindle Edition.

The problem I have with a quote like this is so many of my fellow evangelicals use the exact same language. It would be easy to say “Yeah, but what this guy is revealing is crazy. I am not saying crazy stuff.”

Maybe you’re not, but your language is the same and why should I discount what he has to say and immediately accept what you have to say? The point is I discount him already because where I have looked at what he’s talking about that I already know something about, it’s nonsense. If I can’t trust him on the areas I am sure of, why trust him in the areas I am not.

But both of you speak the exact same language and both of you attribute your thoughts to God giving them to you.

Stop back and think about what you are saying.

“Friends. I want to tell you that this bit of information I am saying, this comes from God Himself.”

If you are saying that, don’t you think you had better make sure that you are right?

On my Facebook post where I discussed this, I was pleased to see one of my friends say that at their church, if someone says “God told me” publicly and they are wrong, they have to apologize publicly. That’s a good start, but isn’t that the problem? If this friend lived in Old Testament times, they wouldn’t just apologize. They would be stoned to death.

Yeah. God took it seriously.

Are we to think that God says “In the past, I took that seriously, but today, it’s no big deal.”

We can say God seems more gracious in the New Testament, which is false, but also, God can seem much more serious about sin on the other hand. The Old Testament says very little about Hell. The New Testament says a lot about it. The first two people to publicly lie to God in the early church were struck dead immediately.

Claiming God said something when He did not say it is a serious matter and we treat it all too casually.

Also, if you say that God told you something, unless it is something that is indisputable that could not be know any other way, I will not take it seriously. If anything, it makes your position look incredibly weak. It’s as if you’re saying, “I have no reason for you to really believe this, so I’ll just tell you that God told it to me.”

“But the prophets of the Old Testament spoke that way.”

Yes, and you are not them. Also, once again, if they were wrong, they paid for it with their lives. Are you willing to do the same?

If you say no, then don’t claim God revealed it to you or told it to you.

Sadly, I am convinced that many who speak this way do not really take the fullness of God seriously. I am convinced we have more of a concept of Buddy Jesus. God is not our king, but He is more of our friend instead. As a result, we treat Him in a way that is far too casual.

Again, I am NOT saying that God cannot do X. I am saying I do not expect it to be normative. I also hope that even if you disagree with me on that, you will still agree that we need to take such claims extremely seriously. God expects to be honored and spoken truly of in everything.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Hearing The Voice of God Chapter 7

Are you in the right position to hear from God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So Newton gives a lot of the usual steps to hearing from God such as spending time in Scripture so you can better discern God’s promptings. (Geez. Maybe you could just study the Scripture so you can know what God has already said.) One step he takes is to say that if you need an immediate word, spend extra time in Scripture, prayer, and quietness. He then cites Psalm 46:10 with “be still and know that I am God.”

Which says absolutely nothing about hearing from God.

The passage is instead describing Israel being at war and when their tendency is to rush headlong, they are to wait. Be still. God is God. God will defeat their enemies.

He also says if you are unsure if God is speaking to you, ask for confirmation. Never mind you could just as well ask “How do I know the confirmation is from God?” The only person I can think of right off in Scripture that needed confirmation is Gideon and he’s not the best example. One could say Hezekiah, but that is because Hezekiah was told he will die and then told he would live. He needed to know for sure which word was going to take place.

If anything else is saddening in this, it’s that when you get to the end, you find out that Newton is a bishop. I cringe at the thought of what people in high authority are actively teaching in our churches. The idea of hearing the voice of God has become such an evangelical creed and it blows my mind as this is taught nowhere in Scripture.

Instead, what we have is a list of things you can do and not a list of how you can study the Scriptures and know them better. When this happens, people take their own impressions and ideas and dreams as if they have divine authority and wind up building a little canon in their own selves that is based on their experience. There is enough self-centeredness in our churches. We do not need any more of it.

For those who still think this is in some way even remotely biblical, I urge you to return to Scripture and do a thorough look and ask yourself some questions about what you are reading.

While God did speak to people, was it ever the majority of the people?

If not, then why do I think I am one of those exceptional people that

Why do I never see this commanded by Jesus or Paul?

Why do I not see anyone in early church history talking about this?

Why do the medieval thinkers stay silent on this?

Why did the Reformers say nothing about this?

To claim that God is speaking is a serious claim and I fear too many of us are making it far too lightly. It won’t affect our salvation from what I see, but we will be judged for it. Remember in the Old Testament that if a prophet wasn’t from God, they were to be stoned.

Should we take His word any less lightly?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Hearing the Voice of God Chapter 6

How else does the Spirit allegedly lead? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In a recent post, I said I goofed with chapter numbering. Turns out, I didn’t. I gave the benefit of the doubt to Newton. Instead, take a look at how the book is laid out from my Kindle app on my laptop.

Yep. Newton has chapter three listed twice and no chapter 5. Yes. That also extends to the chapter headings themselves.

So there is no chapter 5 review. There is one for chapter 6.

Newton starts by taking us to Acts 16:6-10 and notes that Paul was led by a vision to go to Macedonia. Therefore, God can speak to people in a vision. With that, there will be no disagreement. However, does that mean that we should expect that?

If we go to Acts 28, Paul is bitten by a viper and the people of Malta think he is a murderer because he survived a shipwreck and yet justice came to him. However, Paul simply shakes it off into the fire. Nothing happens. The people then decide he is a god.

Since Paul suffered no ill will from a viper bite and went about his day normally, this shows that God can save us from a viper bite. Therefore, if you find yourself bitten by a viper someday, there is no need to get to a hospital. Just follow the example of Paul.

Or maybe you should realize you’re not Paul.

Newton says if we study the Bible, we will find that God led many people through visions and He still does for He is not the same. I do not rule out all dreams and visions. I certainly think they are happening in the Muslim world. I do think that these are for getting people to salvation and not personal decision making.

Also, saying God is the same doesn’t matter unless Newton is going into his backyard at night and offering animal sacrifices because God is still the same. Hebrews says that in the past God spoke in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken by His Son. Why is it that Newton is so eager to return to those past days instead of the days where the Son is how God has spoken?

Also, Newton will spend time talking about his personal experience. The problem with these people often is that they go to their personal experience and say “This experience must match what is happening in this passage.” Then they will interpret the Scripture in light of that experience and say “Therefore, this is normative today.” Instead of interpreting Scripture in light of our experience, we should interpret our experience in light of Scripture.

Newton also says some matters about prophets claiming to speak for God and there’s an easy way to avoid falling into believing a false prophecy. Unless you hear someone say something that is absolutely from God and can be shown, such as if someone called out a secret sin you weren’t telling anyone as a possibility, then don’t believe them.  Go about your day the normal way.

Next time we’ll see what Newton say about positioning yourself to hear from God.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)