Category: Christian Doctrine

Book Plunge: Discerning the Voice of God Chapter 6

Does God communicate personally? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Shirer again opens up the chapter with Scripture. This time, it’s Isaiah 45:3.

I will give you hidden treasures,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the Lord,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

This is a moving passage isn’t it? Doesn’t it feel great to know that God calls you personally by name? It would sure be nice if we knew what those treasures in secret places were. Let’s see if the surrounding context can help us out.

“This is what the Lord says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:
2 I will go before you
and will level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
3 I will give you hidden treasures,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the Lord,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
4 For the sake of Jacob my servant,
of Israel my chosen,
I summon you by name
and bestow on you a title of honor,
though you do not acknowledge me.
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
6 so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
people may know there is none besides me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other.

Well, this is awkward. It looks like the passage is dedicated to someone named Cyrus. Not only that, the person spoken of is someone who does not acknowledge God, something God says twice. If Shirer thinks this applies to us, does that mean she thinks we’re Cyrus and that we do not acknowledge God?

Interesting.

Shirer says the Bible doesn’t address every situation that will come up in our lives directly, and this is true. There are many issues that we struggle with today that were unheard of in the times of the Bible. For this, she says, we need a personal message from God.

Or we could, I don’t know, use the wisdom that He gave us and make a sound judgment and go to places like Proverbs.

Shirer thinks we have to have a message from God for so many decisions. It’s a wonder to me how she even gets out of bed in the morning and decides what to wear. That might sound pedantic to you, but what if someone’s salvation depended on Shirer dressing a particular way, such as to appear professional or not cause a man to stumble?

Shirer says God has mapped out a path that is distinctly ours.

If God had done that, I can easily say that every single one of us has already blown it. If this is the case, then God’s plan for humanity has already utterly failed. Fortunately, I don’t buy into this kind of thinking so it’s not a problem for me. For Shirer, I think this would only lead to one having perpetual anxiety over decisions.

When a message or inner voice you are sensing makes you feel condemned or burdened by a cloak of guilt, then it is probably not from God. If the foundation of the conviction you are feeling or the direction you are sensing stems from fear or condemnation, then you can be sure the Enemy is behind it.

Shirer, Priscilla. Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When He Speaks (p. 98). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

So apparently, not only is God speaking to us, but the enemy is speaking to us as well. This kind of thinking makes God and the devil practically counterparts. Not only this, sometimes, if God was speaking to us, we should hear things that lead to guilt. The Scripture says if we are in Christ, there is no condemnation, but that does not mean there is nothing that can be condemned. We do wrong things. Are we to think only those good and positive vibes are messages from God?

Pretty sure David had guilt after being told by Nathan, “You the man!”

Shirer tells us that we will know the Spirit is speaking to us about sin when we don’t have a feeling of despair, but rather we have a fresh desire for holiness and purity.

And the Scripture to back this is? Oh, that’s right. It’s not there!

She also says we can tell God’s voice by His loving personal tone.

For a Scripture reference for this, she goes to….

Nowhere.

Why can’t you go to Scripture for something like this? Because it is not in there. It’s a dangerous movement the church needs to abandon entirely.

Next time, we’ll hear what Shirer has to say about the voice of God and peace.

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

 

Book Plunge: Discerning the Voice of God Chapter 5

Is God a baritone or a tenor? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Shirer begins this section with Scripture. Yay! Let’s see what she says!

Psalm 62:11-12

11 One thing God has spoken,
    two things I have heard:

Wait. That’s only one verse you quoted! Indeed, because that’s all that Shirer quotes. Now why would she do that? Let’s look at the rest of it and see if we can figure it out.

“Power belongs to you, God,
12     and with you, Lord, is unfailing love”;
and, “You reward everyone
    according to what they have done.”

If you look at the passage, this is not about God speaking to an individual person. It’s about the Psalmist trusting in what he has heard about God in his difficulty. This is the way Hebrews talk, but it looks like Shirer doesn’t care about that. Just look for where it says God has spoken and throw a personal idea on to it.

She says Revelation 3:20 can be applied as a call to salvation, but these are people who already trust in Jesus. Fair enough, but at the same time, she misses the point. She says it is about persistence, and it certainly is, but the persistence is apparently that God is trying to speak to you individualistically and you need to hear it.

Which is why this is in a letter read to churches from someone taking the role of a prophet. Got it.

Never think that the circumstances in your life have nothing to do with God’s will. They have everything to do with it! When you’re seeking His guidance, you should always reflect on the events the Lord is allowing to occur in your life. Persistent, internal inklings matched by external confirmation is often the way God directs believers into His will.

Shirer, Priscilla. Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When He Speaks (pp. 81-82). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

This piece of advice is backed by the Scripture of….

Oh wait. There’s nothing here.

Nope. Shirer thinks that every single bit of events in your life is arranged in a specific way because God is trying to give you a specific message. I am not denying that God works everything according to His will, but I am against trying to approach reality with a decoder ring.

Here’s my suggestion. Try to interpret Scripture as what God is telling you instead of your circumstances. For your circumstances, see how according to Romans 8, they can be used for your good if you love the Lord. They’re not about God trying to give you a message.

She then quotes Ecclesiastes 5:1 asking where this verse had been hiding all her life. I dealt with it before, but I will do so again.

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.

This is about going to a worship service or to offer a sacrifice and to be stingy with your words. Heed what your priest says. Speak too much and you can bring judgment on yourself. If this was about God speaking individually to you, why do you need to go to the House of God? Can’t He do that just as well anywhere else?

Even when you hear incorrectly, God knows your heart well, and He honors the person whose sincere desire is to know and do His will even in their imperfection. “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God” (John 7:17 ESV).

Shirer, Priscilla. Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When He Speaks (p. 88). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

So if you think you heard from God and you heard wrong, God knows you are trying to do right. Look! There’s a Scripture to back it!

Except this is Jesus talking about Himself and how people can know His teaching is from God and that He is from God.

How reliable can a teaching be if you have to mishandle Scripture so often to get to it?

So in the end, I still see nothing here. Next time, Shirer will tell us how God communicates impersonally. We’ll pick this up next week.

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

Book Plunge: Discerning the Voice of God Chapter 4

How does God speak? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was pleased to see this short little part toward the start of this chapter from Shirer:

Often the Bible doesn’t tell us exactly how He chose to speak, only that “the Lord spoke,” and those who heard Him weren’t in any doubt about who was talking or what He was saying. Whether He spoke to reveal His character or to give specific direction, His voice was clear. Unmistakable. From the very beginning of time, and no matter what the method He chose, He has spoken in ways that could be plainly understood, revealing His deep desire to make sure that communication between Himself and His children was possible.

Shirer, Priscilla. Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When He Speaks (p. 64). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Yes. In the past, God spoke in these ways. People knew for the most part that it was Him speaking. We don’t know how, but it was clear and it was specific. Now, He has upgraded to…

Speaking through emotions, feelings, and an inner voice that is hard to discern from the voice of the devil or your own voice, but that’s how He’s chosen to speak…

Of course, we all know this is Scriptural. As Hebrews 1 says, in the past, God spoke to our fathers in various ways but in these last days, He has chosen to speak to us by the voice of the Holy Spirit…

Wait a second…

It says He has chosen to speak by His Son.

Maybe Shirer missed that part.

Instead, she says that after the Son departed, the Father has spoken by His Spirit and has attempted to reveal God to every saint who has been willing to listen. We can certainly agree that the Spirit is to be a fixture in our lives. We cannot agree on the idea that He has been trying to speak throughout history.

When the early church held their councils on the doctrine of Christ, we do not see anyone standing up and saying “God has told me that XYZ” and that that settles everything.

We do not see Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas claiming divine revelation for the knowledge they shared with the church.

We do not see Martin Luther standing up and saying “God has told me that the RCC has it wrong!”

If Shirer wants to say this has been going on throughout church history, it would have been nice to, you know, quote church history.

Shirer later says:

But consider this. While we often wish we had what the people of God enjoyed in Old Testament days, I think they probably would have preferred what we have today—the special blessing of the Holy Spirit. They had no choice but to rely on prophets and visible signs since they did not experience the Holy Spirit as fully as we do in this age of the church. We possess a blessing they could only hope for—direct, personal contact with the living God. Even though His voice may sometimes be hard to discern without careful, deliberate discipline and self-denial, it’s a gift that ages past would have envied. That’s why we find the psalmist pleading, “Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11 NLT).

Shirer, Priscilla. Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When He Speaks (p. 68). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

I do not doubt they would have wanted the Spirit that we have today, but not for the same reason. They would relish knowing that by that, they were part of the covenant people of God. They were certainly not thinking about individualistic questions. For instance, most of their marriages were arranged before they were even born. It’s also so fascinating that Shirer misses that in the past the message was clear, but today, it isn’t.

To top it off, this is not what is being talked about in Psalm 51. In Psalm 51, David has realized his sin with Bathsheba and is in repentance. He is not saying “Please don’t take away my source of guidance.” Nathan was the one who told him what God wanted him to do. He was saying “Do not take salvation from me.” It’s a shame that Shirer takes the giver of salvation and turns Him into personal guidance.

Shirer later tells a story about going to a new Bible study and the leader saying to her that he was just thinking so much about her and that God had given him this message. She told Shirer she believes God wants to do something new in her life. She needs to embrace it and then referenced Isaiah 43 with saying to forget the things of the past. Something new is coming.

Problems. First off, this is so generic it could apply to anyone and how do we know this guy didn’t say this to most every new person who came in? Who wouldn’t want to hear a message like this? The problem with generic messages is like reading your horoscope and taking it seriously. You can interpret anything as a fulfillment.

Second, this isn’t even what Isaiah 43 is about. Isaiah 43 is not about forgetting an individual’s hard past, as wise as that might be at times. (Not only that, but I think when the Bible speaks about forgetting and remembering, I think it is not about mental states but focus. To forget the past is to not dwell on it and to remember is to dwell on something again.) God is saying in Isaiah 43, remember all that stuff I did when I led you out of Egypt? You haven’t seen anything yet! Forget that stuff of the past! Don’t focus on that! I’m about to do something even greater!”

But for Shirer, who cares about context as long as it makes you feel better? The problem with this kind of material is that it really only serves to feed the ego. “Dear reader! Look at this story! God had a personal message for me!” One wonders what happens to all the people who are going through hard times and saying “Wonderful. Where’s my personal message?”

She also quotes Romans 8:14 saying all who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God. Paul is not saying “All who are guided in personal decision making are the sons of God.” The leading by the Spirit is righteous living in contrast to sinful living. Just look at the surrounding context.

12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

This is not about decision-making aside from the decision of living holy lives or not. This is about being children of God. This is about putting to death wicked desires. You don’t need a personal message from the Holy Spirit to know about that.

Next time, Shirer will start looking at how to recognize the voice of God. We’ll see if she has anything concrete.

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

Book Plunge: Discerning the Voice of God Chapter 3

What role do desires play to Shirer? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When students come to the seminary post office and don’t know what they plan to do with their lives entirely, I start with a simple question. “What do you want to do?” Most people start off with “What do you feel like God is leading you to do?” Since I reject that premise, I instead go with what their desires are. What really drives them? What makes them want to get out of bed everyday?

People like Shirer instead think you have to get into some blueprint written before time for you that is known as “God’s will for your life” and you must find out what this will is. I use a simple illustration to show how this is problematic. If God has a will for your life, and that includes marriage, don’t you think that that would include the person you marry?

So you marry someone and lo and behold, you have not married the one person that was right for you.

Well, now the person you married hasn’t either, and then the two people that you married can’t marry the person that was right for them. Now you have four people married to the wrong person. Now, those four people can’t marry the right people and so it goes on and on and on.

By someone making the wrong decision, the plan is screwed up forever.

No. Here’s the deal. Scripture gives you criteria. Must be a Christian. Must be the opposite sex. (Although that is included in the definition of marriage.) Can’t be a close family member. Then it can give you criteria you should consider like being able to care for one’s self, handling money well, good moral character, etc.

Then, here’s the hard part, the question is “What kind of spouse will you be?” That’s where the walk gets hardest.

When the Bible talks about knowing God’s will, it is more often than not talking about knowing God’s moral will in the kind of life you are to live. It is not talking about knowing a blueprint plan.

Shirer goes to Philippians 2:12-13:

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

For her, this is saying that God has a will for you to find. You will be transformed in your emotions, mind, and will, to fulfill it. The problem is that first off, the letter is written to a community and not individuals. I contend that this passage is saying that the community will come together to follow the will of God. Note: I also think it’s wrong for Christians to use Philippians 1:6 individualistically also. Second, the will is as I said earlier, the moral will. These people are to know how to live holy lives.

Immersing ourselves in the Word, actively listening for the Spirit’s voice within, watching for His activity around us, and living in obedience to His directives—these are the ways we participate with the Lord’s work in us.

Shirer, Priscilla. Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When He Speaks (p. 54). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Now silly me, I would just say to read and study Scripture and know it better and heed what it says. Shirer goes to the idea of looking within, which I still contend is a dangerous idea. I am also cautious about watching for His activity around us. There are some things that are certainly often the work of God, such as miracles done specifically in response to Christian prayer. For many other day-to-day activities, I recommend not trying to divine the voice of God.

My ex-wife would wonder about her dreams. She wanted to know what God was trying to tell her at times. I told her it would be far better for her if she studied Scripture, which she knew came from God, and less time studying dreams, which could be just from eating too much pizza the night before.

She also turns to Psalm 46:10, the “Be still and know that I am God” passage and realized she needed to stop her personal strivings. She got a personal feeling of peace and knew the Lord was working to remove her burden. The problem is this verse is not about personal feeling. It’s about the city being at war and trying to hold on and God telling them to stop what they’re doing. Watch. He’s going to win the battle for them. Trust in Him instead.

She talks about wondering if a man she had considered a friend should be someone she should marry. Then as she prayed about this, she started developing feelings for him. That must be the sign that she was to marry this person!

Look. I don’t want anything bad to happen to Shirer’s marriage. I think many marriages today start off this way, but it is not because it was a divine appointment. It’s because the couples work at it. Many marriages start out with strong feelings and end in divorce. You do not want to base a lifelong covenant on feelings alone.

She also says Paul struggled in Romans 7. I have written about this prior. This is more of Shirer reading her individualism into the text.

The next chapter asks what’s better than a burning bush. We’ll see how badly Shirer treats this topic next time.

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

Book Plunge: Discerning the Voice of God Chapter 2

How do you allegedly listen to God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Oh boy. Here we go again. One valuable part of all this is the ways that Shirer is upfront. She says that if you want to hear the voice of God, you have to listen within.

I know Shirer is not part of the New Age movement, but when I see something like that, that’s what I start thinking immediately. It is saying that God speaks to us somehow internally. Where do you see this in Scripture? Nowhere. It is an idea that we read into the text.

She then points to conscience. The problem is she has an understanding of conscience foreign to the Scripture. For them, the conscience wasn’t in the individual, but in the group. You acted in a way to make sure you did not violate the standards of the group. Ancient Pinnochio would not have understood “Let your conscience be your guide.” He would have understood “Let their conscience be your guide.”

Shirer goes further and says the conscience becomes the mechanism God uses to guide you in the direction He wants you to go. The problem is that our “internal voices” can be highly fallible, and yet Shirer wants us to think that something in them is infallible. This can only set us up for neuroses. Instead, we have guides in Scripture telling us how to live and how to make wise decisions. That is the infallible guide that exists.

Not too far after this, Shirer will talk about how you feel inside when God is speaking. Again, making decisions like this based on how you feel is highly dangerous. There is no Scripture that says how you feel is an indication that God is trying to tell you something. Your feelings can come from any number of places.

One indication she says is a green light of peace and permission. Unfortunately, there are many times you can make a decision you should make and you won’t feel peace. Many people are awfully scared on their wedding days. I sure was. I also am right now preparing for PhD work and I have been told that everyone who walks into their first class in this area struggles with impostor syndrome.

Feeling peace about a decision is not a sign that God has approved that decision. This is taught nowhere in Scripture. You can feel great making the wrong decision and you can feel terrible making the right decision.

As we get closer to the end of this chapter, Shirer tells us to turn our thoughts inwardly as we seek God and about the inner leading of the Holy Spirit. This is a disaster area. If you want to know the mind of God, go to Scripture. If you are a Christian and you think Scripture is insufficient, that tells more about you than it does about the Scripture.

She ends telling us that the next time we’re shopping and we hear a voice say “No”, it’s probably God. The next time we want to eat something more and we hear a voice say “No”, it’s probably God. This is a mindset that will keep Christians infantile. God is not meant to be your babysitter or nanny. He’s not supposed to tell you to keep under budget or to watch your waistline. If you say you are an adult, but you need God to tell you to do basic things, I have to wonder if you’re really an adult.

Next time, we’ll look at desire.

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

Book Plunge: Discerning The Voice of God Chapter 1

Should we expect to hear the voice of God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

My boss at the Post Office was surprised when I told her that hearing the voice of God is not a part of normative Christian living. It hasn’t been for centuries. It’s only been in more recent times that Christians have been convinced they are hearing the voice of God and that this is what everyone is supposed to do.

Someday, I would like to know where it started.

So when I’m browsing Kindle books and I see one about hearing the voice of God, I figure for the sake of argument, I’ll get it. It’s by Priscilla Shirer and it’s called Discerning The Voice of God. Who knows? Maybe it will give me something substantial on this.

Instead, I saw more and more how dangerous this idea is.

One of the big problems you find is that when you go through this book, you’ll find you learn a lot about the author. You won’t really learn a lot about God. She regularly says God was telling her XYZ and yet, we just have to take her word for it. But hey, having someone say they heard from God has never led to any problems before has it?

Did I mention I’m reading a book on Islam now and I’m reading something on Mormonism?

Now to be fair, Shirer would say that they disagree with Scripture, so they’re false, and I agree, but the point is they do claim to hear from God.

Early on, we are told by Shirer that God wants to tell her things, but she’s too busy talking to listen.

Remember all those times in the Bible when the people are speaking so much that they can’t hear the voice of God?

Neither do I.

At this point, she has a sidebar referencing Ezekiel 3:10. (At least it looks like a sidebar on Kindle.)

And he said to me, “Son of man, listen carefully and take to heart all the words I speak to you.

Let me just state something obvious.

You are not Ezekiel.

This is one of the problems with this kind of thinking. People who hold this always look and say “Look at Abraham or Moses or Habakkuk.” Yes. Those people heard from God. You’re not them. We always look and say “If I’m anyone in Scripture, I’m one of the great people.” No. You and I are far more likely to not be Moses but to be Joe Israelite wandering around the wilderness just trying to survive.

She says Isaiah 55:3 tells us to incline our ears to Him. Indeed, it does, but notice that of those ears, only one set of ears was hearing directly from God. Those were Isaiah’s.

She says to go to the house of God to listen is found in Ecclesiastes 5:1. Indeed, it is, but these were not individualists. These were people going to hear the word of God being given out by the priest. They were essentially going to church to hear a sermon. If God was always speaking anyway like Shirer thinks, why do you need to go to the house of God? If it’s a sermon, then it’s clear why you go to the house of God.

She says that it shows up fifteen times that if anyone has ears to hear the message, they must listen. Indeed! But that’s also given in Revelation and the message they are hearing is a letter that was written. It is not a personal message to them.

Seriously, with this bad of interpretation, I wouldn’t blame a reader if they stopped the book there. I would hope most would. I’m not such. I keep going to make sure and because I read bad books so you won’t have to.

The next reference is James 1:25:

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

Forgetting what they heard refers to the Law. It does not refer to a private revelation. Most people could not read so how will they know what the Scriptures say? Through hearing.

Later in the chapter, Shirer says she often feels led to get down and prostrate before God. Look. If you want to worship God that way, go ahead. I have no problem, but where on Earth does Scripture tell us that God leads us by our feelings? So many churches treat it like a staple and an obvious given. If we are people who claim to be Sola Scriptura, we’d better back what we say with Scripture.

Next she talks about how prayer used to be one way and she felt no closer to God at the end.

Let me stress this so much because so many people struggle with this.

Your relationship with God is not dependent on your feelings.

You can feel God is mad at you or feel He is pleased with you and all that means is that that is what you think at the time. There have been plenty of people who have had joy in doing what is wrong because of their feelings. There have been plenty of people who have suffered for doing something that is not wrong but they were convinced it was. All of it was based on feelings.

You can be feeling miserable and still be alright with God. Being a Christian does mean living on cloud nine all the time. Every single one of us will be sad at times. If the very Son of God could not avoid sadness on this Earth, I would be extremely arrogant to think I can.

Then she says Paul wrote about praying with his mind as well as with his spirit in 1 Cor. 14:15.

And?

That means that Paul was telling you to stop and listen to see what God says back?

Notice no one does that in Scripture. When Jesus gives us the Lord’s prayer, nowhere does He say “Now stop and hear what God says to you.” Paul wrote plenty on prayer. He never told us to listen to hear a voice from God in prayer.

She talks about Bible study and how perhaps God brings a Scripture to mind and is leading me there. It’s like God is a gamemaster dropping hints for you or something. Could it just be that you thought of that passage yourself because you know Scripture well? The danger with saying God led you to a passage is that you are starting to treat yourself as infallible. After all, if God did it, who are we as mere mortals to question that?

But it comes down to, did God do that, and if all you have is a strong feeling, that’s not enough.

She then quotes 1 Cor. 2:11 with saying the thoughts of God no one knows but the Spirit of God.

Again, I wonder “Why are you quoting this? How does this make your case?”

This quote shows up later:

First, it is “me and Him.” I come to prayer conscious of myself, my need, my desires. I pour these out to God. Second, prayer becomes “Him and me.” Gradually I become more conscious of the presence of God than of myself. Then it is only “Him.” God’s presence arrests me, captivates me, warms me, works on me. —Stephen Verney

Shirer, Priscilla. Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When He Speaks (p. 33). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

I did some looking and I don’t know much about it, but he did write a book called Into the New Age. It will take some further looking to see if that is just a bad title or if he was in that movement to some extent. It wouldn’t surprise me because the above statement is honestly pantheism. I could be misunderstanding it to be fair, but I find it a highly concerning quote.

Edited to add: After writing this, I did speak to Marcia Montenegro who is my go-to person on the New Age movement and I am quoting her from our Facebook conversation with permission:

Actually, what you quoted from Shirer I’ve heard from others like John Mark Comer, I think, and maybe Tyler Staton, and other contemplatives. The Trappist monk Keating said you can’t think of God when you’re praying and the goal is that there is no subject-object distinction. I’ve been trying to warn about this stuff for over 20 years but hardly anyone paid attention. Now the contemplative stuff is all over the church. Shirer was influenced by Jan Johnson who likes Rohr. Johnson also is the president of the Dallas Willard Foundation. They are all on the same page which I consider to be a counterfeit of Christianity. So I would call it is more Contemplative than New Age because New Agers don’t really pray. Some Christians who are really into New Age beliefs might pray but prayer makes no sense in the New Age. So I would call this Contemplative. I’ll look up Verney.

I then asked that many Christians might think contemplative prayer sounds good. We are to pray and we should contemplate on our prayers. Right? So what’s the problem? She has several articles on the topic and recommended this as a start.

We now return to what I originally wrote.

The favorite passage is always “My sheep hear my voice” in John 10. Question. Who in the audience that day heard Jesus speaking?

Answer: Everyone.

So all of them were Christians?

No.

The voice is the call to salvation and it is not a literal voice. It is a hideous misuse of Scripture to take the call to salvation and turn it into personal guidance everyday.

That’s all we have for this chapter. We’ll see what happens in later chapters.

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

Book Plunge: The Lazy Approach To Evangelism

What do I think of Eric Hernandez’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Meh. I don’t feel like writing this now.

Okay. Maybe I should.

First, this is a sort of introduction book. I would consider it an advanced form of Tactics combined with I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist. If you’re been familiar with apologetics for awhile, you won’t find much new here, which is okay. If this is your first go at learning and you want to go do evangelism, this is a great start.

To begin with, Hernandez critiques how we do evangelism. Our evangelism is often based on our experiences and our emotions. “Go out there and tell them what Jesus has done for you!” “Go out there and tell them about the joy you have in Christ!”

What’s the problem with this? Consider that one day you are at your house and your Ring tells you you have visitors at your door. You see these two nice looking men in black paints and white shirts with name tags on. They ask if you have some time to talk about God.

You agree and invite them in and before too long, they tell you that the Holy Spirit has spoken to them and given them a testimony that Joseph Smith is a prophet and in these last days God has revealed His will through the Mormon Church. They know this because they prayed and God gave them a burning in the bosom. They tell you you can have the same experience by praying with a sincere heart to see if the Book of Mormon is true.

You say you already have a relationship with Jesus and you talk about how your life has changed because of Jesus.

“Wonderful!” they reply. “We don’t want to take that away from you! We just want to offer you something deeper!”

Now if your argument here is just your experience, on what grounds can you deny them theirs? Especially since they haven’t denied you yours. They have even affirmed your experience!

There are other groups you could encounter. You could encounter Sufi Muslims who tell you about the joy of Allah. You could encounter New Agers who tell you about finding out about their past lives and that they are really gods and they are one with the universe. The problem with your experience is it is yours and everyone else has one as well.

Hernandez rightly points out that we need to have reasons for what we believe. We can’t just go on an emotional high. Besides that, many of us make horrible decisions both when we’re feeling great and when we’re feeling awful. You shouldn’t say “This left me feeling great, therefore it’s true!” It could be true, but it is true on other grounds.

From here, Hernandez goes on to deal with other worldviews. He focuses on atheism, agnosticism, skepticism, scientism, postmodernism, and naturalism. I would have liked to have seen interaction with other religions and new age beliefs, but one cannot cover everything. He gives you some brief information about the worldviews and then tells about general replies.

He calls his approach the lazy approach because it is more a method of asking questions and letting the person who makes the claim back the claim. It is not really lazy at all. It just seems like you don’t have to do a lot of studying. On the contrary, you do, but with this method, if you don’t know about something, you can just ask and see if it logically holds up.

At this point, Hernandez starts giving arguments for God. I really didn’t find this section convincing as most of these arguments I reject from a Thomistic perspective. While I do think the universe had a beginning, classically, the Kalam did not depend on that. Also, I disagree on the moral argument when we are told that the good is God’s nature. That doesn’t really explain anything. If I want to say “Hernandez’s book is a good book” what does good mean? “Hernandez’s book was a book like the nature of God?” All you have done is given me the phrase good, which hasn’t been defined, and replaced it with God’s nature, which also hasn’t been defined. When we say God is good, what do we mean? That God is His nature? It becomes meaningless.

A Thomist like myself would say the good is that at which all things aim such as Aristotle told us and then show the correlation between goodness and being. God is good because He is the fullness of being and has all perfections in Him. Something is good insofar as it fulfills the nature of what it has and since God’s nature is to be, then He fulfills what it means to be.

But I will be fair. These are starting points. They’re good ones. They’re where I started.

Finally, he ends with the resurrection argument largely using the minimal facts approach. I know some people criticize that approach and I’m not interested in that debate, but it is effective for evangelism and I think most of us would agree that if someone comes to Christ through the minimal facts approach, we should rejoice.

So in the end, this is a good book if you’re starting out. It is one I would encourage for a church small group or Sunday School class on evangelism. I would also recommend it for college and seminary students studying how to do evangelism. Give it a try.

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

 

 

How To Treat Enemies

How do we treat our enemies? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters.

If anything has been disturbing about the assassination attempt I wrote about last time, it’s been the response from many on the left about how disappointed they are that the shooter didn’t miss. There is a saying that when people show you who they are, believe them. What we have seen from multiple people is who they are and how they view their enemies.

What happens if you become their enemy?

As a Christian, I know Christ told me to love my enemies. Isn’t it interesting that He never denied we will have enemies? The Old Testament didn’t, even within the community of Israel. Exodus 23:4 told the people of Israel that if they come across the ox or donkey of their enemy wandering off, return it. This would be within Israelite territory most likely.

I hope many of you have known on this blog that I try to treat my enemies fairly. I have not held back in saying that I am a conservative Christian. Thus, I view people like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as enemies. I have some extremely strong viewpoints about both of these people.

However, when I have seen something false being shared about them, I have answered it. I used to get email blasts from someone who would talk about the latest horrible thing Obama had done when he was in office. I would spend a few minutes researching it, find out it was false, and then send out an email response to everyone back documenting the claim.

Yes. Conservative Christians share fake news also.

Some of these people who were getting these emails were liberals. I know that some of them came to respect me even though they disagreed with me because I cared about getting facts right. I have often chided Christians, even on this blog, for sharing information that can easily be shown to be false by a five-minute web search. If you want people to believe you on a claim about what happened 2,000 years ago, they need to be able to believe you on what happened two days ago.

Some of these responses have been public posts. Consider when Reclaim America shared a claim about Hillary Clinton. Another one was about Muslim apologist Zakir Naik. Now if I oppose these people ideologically, why would I write posts defending them?

Because truth matters. I will not take down my opponent with a lie. If they are as bad as I think they are, the truth about them is sufficient.

Let’s talk about present realities. You might be surprised, but I pray for the Biden family every night. I pray our president will have long life and health while he’s in the office. At the same time, I think he has done great damage to this country and the world and I do pray for justice, but that will come at God’s hands, not mine. I also realize we both have to answer to the same God one day.

If anything, the person I think has the roughest time in all of this in that family is Ashley Biden. Think about this. How many of you ever kept a journal or a diary where you would write down your most private and intimate thoughts. It wasn’t meant for everyone to see. Her diary was meant to be that, but now it’s public. Anyone can see it.

Would you like yours being open for everyone to see?

Now let’s get even more personal.

I have an ex-wife. I’ve spoken about my divorce. Does it hurt? Yep. Every day. Is it tempting to speak ill of her and even to think ill of her? Yes. I can easily say no other person on Earth has hurt me as much as she has.

I still pray for her well-being every night.

I challenge you even to come to campus and see if you can find anyone who has heard me speak ill of my ex-wife. If anything, I try to avoid doing that. I don’t even think you could find someone on Facebook who has seen that happen. That’s a bold claim, but I’ll make it.

Christ told me to love my enemies. That is unconditional. There are no exceptions to that rule. He didn’t say “Love your enemies, except that person who hurt you more than anyone else ever has. It’s cool to hate them.”

This is something I wrote about years ago in a post asking if your murderer will be in Heaven. I love how someone in the comments said that Stephen and Paul are together right now. That is the kind of radical love and forgiveness Christ calls us to.

Sometimes I see people on my Facebook feed say awful things about their exes. Every time, my thinking is the same. “I don’t know much about that person, but I sure know a lot more about you.” There are a lot of people I suspect in this election season who are seeing the reactions and saying “I wasn’t sure where I stand on Trump, but seeing how you all are reacting, I think I’ll stand with him.”

One tip I offer you all for your enemies is to pray for them. I mean real prayers for their well-being. It’s easy to say you will pray a Psalm of judgment on them. I have said before we often ask justice on our enemies and mercy on us. We hardly ever if ever reverse that and ask for mercy on our enemies and justice on us.

The way I see it anyway, if I live with anger and hostility towards my ex-wife, she wins. She’s still controlling me. She’s still dominant in my life. The more I let my hostility go, the more I am free.

Will I continue to pray for the Bidens every night? Yes. While I think Trump will win, if by some chance whoever the Democrat nominee is wins, I will pray for them every night too. I won’t pray for their agenda to succeed, but I will pray for them as a person.

When Obama was in office people used to ask me if I could meet with anyone in the world who would it be, and I said it would be him. Why? I would sit down and tell him the gospel. I would say the same about Trump when he was in office. I would say the same about Biden now. Something all of us have in common is all of us need the gospel.

Pray for your enemies. If not, you are more likely to become that which you condemn.

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

 

Is Jesus A Friend With Benefits?

Do we treat Jesus as someone who is just there for us? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I don’t remember what it was I had been thinking about, but the thought that came next was so startling that that was what stuck. I think it was something I have been thinking about lately where people like to say what God is doing in their lives, when I want people to tell me what they are doing in the life of God. After all, when we say “This is what God is doing in my life”, many times that’s our opinion of what’s going on. We could be wrong. However, we do know what it is that we are doing and we have to ask if we are serving or not.

We often talk about what it means to love someone and if you love them, you want to know them more and more. If you aren’t really invested in the relationship, then you don’t care about learning more about the other person. You’re just in the relationship for what the other person can do for you.

Many marriages are falling apart because people go into the marriage not thinking “What can I do to build up this relationship with this person?” but rather “What can this person do for me?” To some extent, we all seek our own good and it’s unavoidable and not always wrong, but when we do it at the expense of others, we have a problem. When we treat people as objects while denying their personhood, there is an issue.

Yet this is often how we treat Jesus. Do people really want to learn more about Jesus? It’s easy to figure that out. Think fast. When was the last time you heard about a church service offering a course on the doctrine of the Trinity? If you’re like me, your answer will be, “I can’t remember such a thing.”

Now think about this. When was the last time you heard a church offer a course on improving your marriage, getting your finances straight, being a better parent, etc. I am not saying those are wrong. The church should be offering those things. We should not be ignoring the weightier matters of knowing who Jesus is.

Dare I say it, but if we knew more about who Jesus is, maybe we would actually need less of the other seminars.

I remember as a child who didn’t go on overnight trips seeing kids in the Methodist Church come back from a big youth event and they were on fire for Jesus! They were super-excited! They wanted to go out and spread the gospel!

For about two weeks.

Here’s another question to ask. What did your pastor preach on yesterday? (If you are not reading this on Monday, just think to the last Sunday you were in church.) Honestly, many of you might have forgotten by the time you got home on Sunday what your pastor preached on. Could it be because it wasn’t anything new? Have you heard it before? Now think about that TV show you’re watching you really enjoy. What happened in the last episode? I’m sure you can tell me that.

We live in a culture where the church doesn’t really know who Jesus is. We just speak about what Jesus does. Sadly, the person no longer matters. This is one reason groups that come with anti-Trinitarian ideas can easily demolish Christians. Christians tend to only know Jesus by what He does instead of who He is.

Going back to the title, this is where it comes in. What do you call a relationship where you go to the other person just for what they can do for you and you don’t invest in them? You claim to love them, but your commitment is based on what they do for you. In modern terms, we think of this as friends with benefits.

Dealing with depression and anxiety? Come to Jesus. Want to get some extra money coming in? Come to Jesus. About to have a painful operation? Come to Jesus. Need to learn to crucify yourself and die to the world? Let’s not be hasty.

The Jesus we have that is rooted in being all about us will not change the world. The good news we will share is the good news that will feed narcissism rather than crucify it. We can talk about a relationship with Jesus, but too often, it is a one-sided relationship. If your walk with Jesus is all about what He has done for you, then when the so-called benefits stop, so will you. If your walk with Jesus is built on who He is and His death and resurrection, then you will have a much easier time. You will have a true covenant relationship, a marriage if you will.

Bottom line is either Jesus is your king and you serve Him, or it’s the other way around.

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

Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 5

Does Jesus just represent the Father? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this section, Perry claims that the best way to speak of Jesus is as one who has the name of YHWH not because He is YHWH, but because He is representing YHWH.

The best sense for ‘included within the divine identity’ is representative identity – i.e. where someone
represents (acts for) someone else.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things
under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is kyrios, to the glory of God
the Father. Phil 2:9-11 (KJV revised); cf. Rom 14:1

First off, it’s noteworthy that in this passage, everything bows down to Jesus and to God, meaning that there is a differentiation going on between Jesus and everything else save the Father. Some of you astute readers will be thinking that Paul is quoting Isaiah here. We are about to get to that.

The name given to Jesus that is above every name is not the common Jewish name of ‘Jesus’ but that of
‘Yhwh’. As we have noted above, the type for this is the giving of the name to the Angel of the Lord.
This framework of name-bearing is indicative of representation (acting/speaking50 in someone’s name).
This is clear from the example of the Angel of the Lord where God instructs that the people were to obey
his voice because “my name is in/with him” (Exod 23:21). The identity here is representative, one in
which someone represents the authority and the will of another. As such, it does not confuse the persons
of God and the Angel of the Lord. We can, if we want, gloss this kind of identity as an ‘inclusive’ identity:
the representative is part of the identity of the one represented.

Nothing is said of what if someone does think the Angel of the Lord is the preincarnate Christ and actually an appearance of YHWH? There are numerous occasions in the Old Testament where someone talks to the Angel of the Lord and it is as if they are speaking to God. There are also times the Angel speaks as if He is God, notably in Exodus 3. Perry in a footnote says the prophets represented God, which is true, but no one ever confused Isaiah for YHWH.

Paul quotes Isa 45:23 in Phil 2:9-11 which, while ‘anthropomorphic’, is quite specific in its personal
language: ‘my mouth’ and ‘unto me’ – this singular language doesn’t seem to offer much room for others
to receive obeisance.
I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return,
that unto me (yl yk) every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. (Isa 45:23 KJV)
Commentators assume that bowing ‘at the name of Jesus’ is equivalent to bowing before Jesus alone. It is
as if their exegesis drops ‘the name’ from their consideration of what Paul is saying. However, if you bow
‘at the name’ and that name is ‘Yhwh’, then Yahweh is involved as an indirect recipient of the obeisance
when the one being bowed to is a representative.

Absent is any mention of “I will not share my glory with another” from Isaiah 42:8. However, if Philippians says everyone bows at the name of Jesus and everyone is to bow to YHWH, it’s easy to make that parallel. It’s practically hard to avoid it.

In general, insofar as Christ does the same thing his Father does, the same action predicates are applied to
them both. For example,
To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. 1 Thess 3:13 (KJV)
…and kyrios my God shall come, and all the saints with thee. Zech 14:5 (KJV)

Yet this is not saying Jesus is doing the same action of YHWH. YHWH never comes to the Earth except at the end of Revelation and then it is the marriage of Heaven and Earth. It is Jesus that is coming to the Earth. Again, Paul is making a one-to-one parallel.

This allusion is an example of Yhwh texts that describe God acting on behalf of his people in the land.
The language of Yahweh coming in the person of another is seen, for example, in the case of the Arm of
the Lord (Isa 40:3; 10; 51:9; 53:1; John 12:38). This is God being manifest in the flesh (1 Tim 3:16) and
fulfilling his own declaration, ‘I will be who I will be’ (Exod 3:1460). That God is manifest in someone on
the ground is indicated by the prediction that ‘his feet’ would stand on the Mount of Olives. As Adey
observes, “A Biblical criterion of being the true God is that God’s identity can be depicted by another”.
The predicates of action are equally applicable to Yahweh as they are to the person on the ground.
There are criteria of application for these predicates which are satisfied by Yahweh and the person on
the ground. The point here is not that the person bears the name ‘Yhwh’, nor that they necessarily
represent Yahweh (pace foreign potentates brought against Israel), though this may be true: the point is
that God is manifesting himself in someone through the Spirit – their actions are the actions of God. In
this sense, that person is included in an identity with God (and vice-versa) but without any confusion of
persons.

The fact that some people can possibly have a confusion of persons shows why Paul wrote the way he did, regularly saying theos for the Father and kurios for the Lord Jesus. Of course, it would be difficult to describe in many ways, but the solution is not to change the doctrine, but to change the language the best we can. Yet what happens if someone says contrary to what Perry thinks about this?

Fletcher-Louis states, “Time and again we find divine action or functions ascribed to Christ in a way that
now makes sense if Christ belongs within the divine identity and if he fully participates in the divine
nature.” What we need to question here is the ‘fully participates in the divine nature’. This sounds like
theologically motivated eisegesis designed to support later church doctrine.

Unfortunately, Perry doesn’t question it. It is fine to question what it means and that would be a great discussion to have, but his response is “It sounds like theologically motivated eisegesis designed to support later church doctrine.” Obviously, Perry is free from any theological motivations whatsoever. Suppose I said “Perry’s writing sounds like theologically motivated eisegesis in order to avoid a doctrine he disagrees with.” Could I be right? Sure. Is that an argument to reject Perry? Not at all. The motivations don’t matter. The data does.

The framework for understanding the same divine action being attributed to God and to Christ is
representative. This is clear from the use of ‘parentheses’ in Paul,
Now God himself and our Father, (even our Lord Jesus Christ), direct our way unto you. 1 Thess
3:11 (KJV revised); cf. 2 Thess 3:5
The singular verb ‘to direct’ is attached to the subject ‘God’ as shown by the emphasis ‘himself’, but the
guidance is through the Lord Jesus, as shown by the ‘even’ sense of the conjunction. Paul uses the same
construction for emphasis in 1 Thess 5:23, “May the God of peace himself (Auvto.j de. o` qeo.j) sanctify you
wholly”, and 1 Cor 8:6 makes the relationship clear: spiritual things are of the Father but through the Son
(see below).

When I look at 2 Thess. 3:5, it’s hard to find a translation besides the KJV that translates it this way. The majority don’t have a problem. Looking at the other translations, it looks that Paul is asking that the audience be directed to qualities of the Father and of the Son, but it would not be as if these were mutually exclusive to one or the other. Consider this for an example:

May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.

Are we to think that if you want love, you go to the Father, but if you want perseverance, you go to the Son? Now granted, the Son is the only one who has been incarnate and persevered in suffering, but we are also told that God is patient with us. I doubt Perry would also question that the Son has love for us.

As for from the Father and through the Son, I agree with this. This is because I see Jesus as God’s Wisdom. This does not remove Jesus from the divine nature.

The singular verb attaches to the emphasized subject, God the Father, but the parenthesis provides a
substitution for the reader, a device which therefore does not contravene the normal grammar of noun-verb agreement.66 Fletcher-Louis’ grammatical analysis is therefore wrong “two persons grammatically
expressed as one acting subject”. It is rather, two grammatical subjects (one primary, one secondary)
available for one action verb.

And Perry can win this battle and lose the war. I don’t have a problem with this in my view of Jesus. It’s also something that really makes sense to me seeing as I don’t hold to unipersonalism.

Next time, we will discuss typological identity.

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