Deeper Waters

It’s been my day off, so my day starts off with being on my computer and since I like gameshows, I watch The Price Is Right and I usually watch Montel before that. Lo and behold, today on Montel they have a couple on there that is a playboy couple. They both have affairs outside of their relationship. (I say relationship. They’re not married yet.)

Someone in the audience decides to speak. I admire this guy’s passion, but he needs zeal according to knowledge. He immediately starts off by telling them that they’re living in sin and the Bible says that the soul that sins it will die. Yes. I agree with the message. However, I think most in the world today cast aside that message.

The guy in the relationship on stage responded though saying he was a Catholic and gave two passages with Jesus speaking telling where they were located. (Conveniently he leaves out those passages about sexual immorality.) I heard the remark of “I have a relationship with the Lord, and I’m glad you’re not his spokesperson.” (Apparently, this man was claiming a correct interpretation though to know the other man’s was wrong. I look back and note he never denied it was sin. It was simply, “Don’t judge.”)

Later today, I stop at a gas station to get gas. I’m paying and I put my book on the counter that I have with me. It’s J. Budziszewski’s work “Written on the Heart: The Case For Natural Law.” The girl at the counter asks me if that’s interesting. I tell her that it is and I decide to toss something out to see how far it will go and say “It’s about how man has some basic ideas of morality and how some things are absolutely right and some things are absolutely wrong and we all know it.”

She smiles and tells me that that’s true. Really good sign I think. So I say “It’s amazing how many people deny that though. I’ve had some people tell me that we can’t really call the VTech shootings evil for instance. They just didn’t like them.” I get the response then of “Yeah. We can’t really judge that though. That belongs to one person.”

I’m stunned. I want to scream and wonder if this lady recognizes the contradiction. If some things are absolutely right and some absolutely wrong and we know that, then surely we can have some distinctions. If what happened at VTech wasn’t evil, then could someone please tell me what is?

I got in my car with my friend and told him my lament. We in America have lost the idea of judgment. Tolerance has become the main virtue. The F word has been replaced to be Fundy and the S word has been replaced to be Sin. The only crime today is to not be tolerant. The only judging that is allowable is that of judging judgmentalism.

We have a right to judge, and we need to get back to that judging. Now I can’t judge some things such as motives of people unless I know them, but I can sure judge their actions. I can judge that what the VTech shooter did was evil. I can judge that a mother taking care of her child instead of aborting it is right.

If we can’t make these simple moral decisions, is it any wonder that our world today exists in such moral chaos? Is it any wonder we fudge on abortion and homosexuality and other issues? Is it any wonder that we become a people who live only by feelings and seeking the next best feeling?

This girl I spoke to was a theist seeing as she says judgment belonged to one person. But what is God judging? He’s judging good and he’s judging evil. If he is judging such, then they must exist. If they exist, then is there any reason we cannot know what they are? Especially since he tells us to pursue one and shun the other, surely he expects us to know the difference.

What do I say? Pray first. We need to pray the prayer of boldness that we will be willing to act and to speak. Act. That’s the second thing. We need to act. John 3:16 used to be the most quoted Bible verse. Today, it’s “Judge not.” We have switched from the love of God being the gospel to “Be nice to one another and don’t hurt their feelings” being the gospel.

It’s a disgrace to the gospel and it’s a disgrace to our neighbor. It is neither loving God nor our neighbor and it needs to be changed.

I was discussing with some co-workers today matters of theology and specifically Christology. We were discussing the response to Christ and someone said that the Jews tend to see Jesus as a good person. A lot of them do, but I pointed out that the Talmud was not too keen on Jesus and there are even writings I recall of seeing pieces of where Jesus burns in Hell in excrement.

I thought about what I had just said then. Of course, I disagree with it, but I also thought “That’s a very real response though.” I thought about how we might not be taking Jesus seriously in his claims and recalled the trilemma of C.S. Lewis. A good man would not go around claiming to be God.

It seems we have gone a long way when Jesus’s words no longer shock us. As Lewis reminds us, they were the most shocking words ever uttered by human lips, yet on the lips of Jesus, they seem appropriate. Of course, his opponents didn’t think so, but there were several who did.

Who is the one who really responds to Jesus then? Well, the proper response of course is to fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but I actually think a closer response today is to revile him as wicked and evil. I think such people are closer to the truth than the ones who merely see him as a good man. The latter ones do not even understand his claims so they do not understand him. The former at least understand the claims. They just disagree. It is simply a matter of changing the position on the claims.

To see him as a good man is to easily dismiss all that he said. It is to make Jesus being merely one who teaches us that we ought to love one another. The Pharisees and Sadducees knew better. None of them walked around saying “This Jesus is a wicked and evil soul, but I sure love his ethics!” Or “He is insane, but he has such a loving attitude!”

No. We cannot agree with how they handled it, but let us be sure of one thing, they took him seriously. It is a shame that we in the modern church do not do such. We hardly stop to think “Wait a second! This guy claimed to be God! What does that mean?” The truth of the earthquake of the gospel should still send us aftershocks and I think a good question to ask would be “Why doesn’t it?”

Indeed, it’s time we read the gospels and looked serious at what was said. The most amazing event ever happened. God came down. However, today, we treat it as if it’s a nice bedtime story. Sure. Read it to your kids at night and tell them the truth, but never think this is just kid stuff. This is stuff that is meant to change everything.

And if it doesn’t change everything for you, then something’s wrong.

I was in a debate tonight and we got to the topic of morality. Why does God allow X? What about the morality of such and such a situation? I think these are interesting debates, but I would encourage someone to go along one path when in this debate because it’s easy to discuss secondary issues before primary ones.

When discussing morality, it is often easy to talk past your opponent. I believe the first thing to settle is your opponent’s view of morality. You simply ask by what standard you differentiate between good and evil. This gets us to the first level of the topic and once that gets settled, you can discuss the secondary issues.

In fact, this is a great way to deflate a lot of atheistic arguments as I have yet to see an objective standard of morality in atheism. They may have a system of ethics, but I see no reason why I should follow such a system. It is best to take it back to the bare bones before discussing the OT slaughters and such.

I’ve written little tonight, but I was a bit inconvenienced tonight and just wanted to leave a quick apologetics tip. I hope to write more tomorrow night.

After talking to a friend last night, I went to bed with a lot to think about. I thought about how I want only the blessings of God. (Or should at least.) I thought about how the world can offer so much. For instance, if I wanted to and I mean really wanted to, I could go out on the streets tonight and lose my virginity.

I thought then about living in the path God has set for us. This is the way. Walk ye in it. Do not move either to the right or to the left. That’s so hard for us. We find it hard to trust God. He says that when we walk through the waters, they will not sweep over us, and when we walk through the fires, they will not burn us. It’s easy to say when you’re not suffering, but when you are, that’s a hard promise to believe.

So last night, I went to bed with this prayer. It’s not exact, but this is generally what I prayed.

I would rather have misery with God than happiness with Satan.

I would rather have poverty with God than wealth with evil.

I would rather be alone with God than in the company of several beautiful ladies in darkness.

I would rather be a fool with God than a genius apart from him.

I would rather agonize with Christ than thrive without him.

This makes me think about the temptation. All that Christ was tempted with were really good things, but he refused them. Why? He had to stay on the path. What does he do? He calls me to walk in that same path. He calls me to take his hand and go with him in trust. I am not to seek the easy way out. I am to walk.

I am to see life as it truly is. As the hymn says “This is my Father’s world.” If it is his world, why should I fear? I can either have the fear of the Lord or the fear of the world, and it would be better to have the fear of the Lord, for the Lord is greater than the world that he created.

Am I against the good things? Not at all! God created all things richly for our enjoyment as 1 Tim. 6:17 says. However, I would rather not have them and have God than have all of them and not have God. What does it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his soul?

Thus, I continue my goal to seek him more. Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness. He then gives me the blessing that all of these things will be added to me. God knows what I need and he knows what I want. Why not simply trust him with those by walking in the path that he has prescribed?

There’s no better place to be after all.

I was going to write on something else tonight, I developed a headache as the night went on and I really don’t want to do a lot of research at this point, so I’m writing on another topic. It came to me as I was listening to a modern scholar audio series on my car on the way home. (For the record, Modern Scholar is awesome and I find my drives have been far more constructive since listening to them.)

I’ve been listening to one called “He said/She said” and it’s on the way men and women tend to communicate differently. I find the topic fascinating and as an example, the professor used a scene from a documentary on the Loud family. Now I wasn’t around when this documentary was shot and I’ve never seen it, but I’m sure several have. It was just your typical family where they filmed their daily lives and made a story out of it.

I listened and I was intrigued and then realized that I was being intrigued by a simple conversation. This conversation was no different than one that might happen in many other househoulds. In fact, it might have happened in yours. However, I was an outsider looking in this time and got to see it from a new experience.

I thought about that and wondered about the shows we see on TV today. How many of our lives at home and at work could be turned into a sitcom if we wanted because real life itself is funny and we say and do amusing things? Your situations may not be exactly the same as those on a sitcom, but surely some similarities can be found.

Smallville is my show to watch. Now our lives most likely don’t involve supervillains and saving the world and stopping bad guys in town, but do our lives not have drama? Do we not have cliffhangers be they a doctor’s note or a possible job loss or a financial burden? Maybe from time to time, we do deal with a villain also be it a physical threat or maybe someone who is just insulting to us.

Perchance if we could see our lives from that perspective, we might see what is interesting and exciting. No doubt, our lives aren’t going to be perfect here, but they can be interesting and exciting. In fact, if we are believers in Christ, we should see that life is the great adventure he’s placed us in and to live it is a gift.

So what if you could see that video tape? What if the cameras were rolling? You might change some bad habits and such. We all probably would. However, you might sit back some and laugh at yourself. You might think that maybe your life is more interesting than you thought it was.

Take this to the next level also. Imagine viewing your life in Heaven and this time, getting to see all the ways God was working and you didn’t even know it. Consider the book of Esther. God is never mentioned once, but is it a mere coincidence that the king was troubled by insomnia?

Friend. Your life is interesting. Why? God is in control, and God is an author who enjoys his work. Look for the good. Correct the bad, but enjoy the good as well.

When I was in church Sunday, my mind wandered some. It’s amazing where your mind can go to, but my mind went back several years to the original Ninja Turtles game on my computer. I remember playing that with friends and seeing this stage with the goal of rescuing Splinter and every time a message came from April O’Neil, she’d end it and say “You have my support.”

My friends and I in our youthful ignorance laughed at that. Yeah. We’re here risking our lives while April is back safe, but don’t worry. We have her support. That’s a real comfort. It doesn’t matter that we could die out here, but April just always wants to say that as if it makes a difference.

It was ignorance indeed.

I look to where I am now and I realize what a blessing it would be. I’ve mentioned before the joy I have in receiving an IM or a message from someone saying “You know, I really liked that thing that you said.” It means a lot more to know now that someone says they’re praying for me. I think of my single life and a friend who said “I’m going to start praying every night that God send you a great wife.”

We sometimes tell people we’re praying for them and then follow that with “It’s the least I can do.” Nonsense. It’s the most that we can do. Of course, this does not deny that we should act on our own. We should. However, prayer is incredibly important. I find this is an area I lack in my own life as well.

Someone once told me that what I do can often be a thankless job. In many ways, it can be, but then you get that message from someone and you realize it isn’t. Would that we all did that? I went out for ice cream Sunday night with my Sunday School director. We just had a great conversation about the church and the class. In the end, my emotional problems I’d been going through seemed to have evaporated. I phoned immediately when I got home just to thank him for the conversation.

Does your shepherd need that? How hard is it for any of us, myself included, to go to someone we appreciate and let them know that we do. I sometimes try to end conversations with friends by saying “Thanks for being a friend.” I don’t do it everyday so that it will seem trite, but I try to remember it and when I pray at night, I try to remember each of my friends I spoke to during the day and ask God to bless them.

April O’Neil. You were right back then. It’s a shame that in our youthful ignorance, my friends and I missed it. Today, I give my great thanks for it.

There are two things that has been said that man ought to know. Man ought to know God and man ought to know himself. A couple of nights ago I thought about that. What does it mean to know God? Have you ever stopped to ask the question, “Who are you Lord?” Who is this one that we say our prayers to?

I thought about how we are to know God. God is just so far out and transcendent. He is the distant one. He has revealed himself I agree in creation and in Scripture and in the moral law, yet if God is so transcendent, how is it that we can get to know him personally? (Astute theologians who are thinking one thing, please wait as I will bring that point out.)

So I thought about knowing something local. What else but myself? Then I thought, if God is too far out for me to know, I’m too close for me to know. How can I look at myself and know what it means to be a human? So much of myself I don’t understand. I can understand why a lot of people do what they do, but I have the hardest time figuring out why I do what I do.

This then brings me to that great revelation of the Christian faith that I did not mention earlier. That revelation of Christ. In Christ, we do have deity as it is. Christ shows us who God is by his nature. If you want to know what God is like, you look to Christ and you will see no contradiction.

However, he also shows us humanity. If you want to know what humanity is like, you look to Christ. Christ is the unity that brings together the deity and the humanity. In Christ, we get to see what both are look. The deity comes close to us so we can see deity as it is and know it, and the humanity comes away from us so we can see how we are meant to be.

This strikes me as the miracle of the incarnation. Athanasius once said that God became man so that man might become God. God took on the human nature so that man could take on divine nature. Readers of my blog know that this means that I believe that we are to fully reflect the nature of God.

By the incarnation, God came near. Islam has always had the problem of a God who is fully other. The Greek philosophers were just grasping in the dark trying to find God, despite them saying a lot of awesome things. We can’t blame them. They didn’t really have the greater light.

Even the Hebrews did not want God to come near. They told Moses that they wanted him to speak to God. If God spoke to them, they would surely die. Is it any shock that when they saw God with skin on, they didn’t expect him to act like he did. We really should look at the shock that God came and did not come to condemn the world but to save the world. Why would John tell us such unless it was to counter what we would naturally think? (We’ve become so familiar with the gospel that this seems outlandish to think otherwise.)

Look at the God they saw on the mountain and imagine their terror if they had heard, “That God will dwell among you one day.” It doesn’t change after Christ even in the NT? What does the writer of Hebrews say? Our God is a consuming fire. This view of God was still true despite the coming of Christ! That same Christ who came is a consuming fire who will shake the Heavens and the Earth.

Dare we not take this God lightly! This God does punish sin! Let’s not take this God in the exact opposite way though, for he does not punish sin because he enjoys punishing sin. He gets no pleasure out of the death of the wicked. He would rather heal us. We should take our sin seriously, but we should not take it more seriously than his grace.

And how do we know we can take that grace seriously? He showed us. He did what is not done in any other religion. He lived among us and suffered the most humiliating death of all on a cross. In doing so, he showed his love, but he also showed how humanity was to be in that we are meant to love one another. Of course, this does not deny the penal substitution of Christ for our sins.

Dear friend, when you pray, remember who you pray to. He may seem distant, but he is near. He is all around you. Not in a pantheistic sense, but in a sense of immanence. He is there all around you. This God came near. See him as he is.

Last night, I’m watching an episode of Monk who has been called the defective detective. The guy is a mastermind at solving crimes as he notices every little thing that is off-kilter and is a walking encyclopedia of knowledge. However, he has extreme OCD which means sometimes his phobias overpower his logic.

So in last night’s episode, Monk is speaking before a class of students in Middle School most likely on his job and they all start aiming their laser pointers the last guest gave at him causing him to scream and go crazy. The villain in that episode he’s investigating then says Monk always flinches, and that’s why he’ll always be afraid.

How does it end? The villain is an astronaut about to test pilot a new plane and destroy crucial evidence at the same time. Monk gets in front of the plane and stands there while the military put laser points on him. This time though, they’re from actual guns. Still he stands and doesn’t flinch. The cops then arrive and the bad guy is arrested and everyone’s happy. (Well, except the murderer of course.)

This is something that always strikes me about Monk. Monk is the one the students laugh at, but at the end of the day, they applaud his bravery. He is what we call an unlikely hero. Another episode like this is when he comes down with the flu and his assistant tracks down the murderer. He finds out that she’s been captured by the murderer though and although Mr. Monk is sick with the flu and in his robe, he goes to a dump and fights the villain in bags of garbage. (For Monk, that’s a lot.)

Heroes can often be the unlikely ones. Think of how Jesse’s sons all came and stood before the prophet Samuel. Which one did God choose? The runt. This one became the hero of the people. How many soldiers were used to defeat the Midianites? 300. Who led them again? The runt of the family.

It seems God is always going against what our conceptions would be. We think God chooses the best of the best, but he chooses the least of the least. He revealed himself in the most obscure and unknown people of the time. “How odd of God to choose the Jews”, as the line goes, and then follows with “But odder still are those who reject whom God chose.”

And what of our savior? Yes. He is God incarnate, but not the way we expect. He came as a little baby into our world. Is that how we would expect God to show up? What about his life growing up? There is nothing in his appearance that we should desire him says the prophet Isaiah. Jesus would not stand out in a crowd, yet he’s the hero.

God continues this throughout the NT. A short and balding man who probably spoke with a lisp is chosen to be the greatest evangelist of all time. Paul then took a liking to a youngster named Timothy and because of him, we have two books of Scripture.

Throughout history, this continues. Aquinas’s fellow students made fun of him and called him a dumb ox, yet his teacher said that the world better watch out for when that ox bellows, he’ll be heard around the world. Martin Luther was a trembling man who lived in terror every day until he learned of the grace of God in justification through faith and ended up changing the world.

So what about you?

What’s stopping you from being heroic today? Now not everyone fights out in the battlefield. Some are more supporters, but everyone plays a part. In fact, not playing a part is a choice and you will be used by God for his glory anyway. Why not be wise and play a part so you can partake in the joy of God as well?

Go out today. Be a hero. The world may see you as unlikely, but remember the precedent God has already set as mentioned in 1 Cor. The weak shame the strong and the foolish the wise.

I don’t listen to a lot of music. I’m just really not a musical guy in that way. There is a lot of music I do like to hear though. I like the theme songs to some TV shows, such as having Smallville’s “Save Me” as my ring tone on my cell phone and I do like music from video games I’ve played for years.

When it comes to church, I’ll admit that I prefer the old hymns. A lot of what we listen to in CCM I consider fluff. Some of it, I consider outright heretical. I think it’s a same that Phillips, Craig, and Dean are sold in Christian stores when they deny the Trinity. The old hymns though had good music to them and good theology. I love listening to “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Especially when it says “God in three persons, Blessed Trinity.”

There are exceptions to CCM. This morning, I heard two of the girls at our church sing a song during the offertory by Casting Crowns. It’s called “Stained Glass Masquerade.” If Casting Crowns keeps producing stuff like this, I will be pleased. They are one of the rare “real groups” that I see out there. I’d heard this song before but seeing the words on the projection screens really hit home with me what was being said.

The song talks about us going to church and putting on these smiles because we can’t show everyone what’s going on inside. Why? Well, it’s church! Church is for good Christian people! Good Christian people don’t suffer like that. They don’t have doubts and problems and failures like that!

Casting Crowns is enabling us to take the mask off. We all go through that and the sooner we admit that, the sooner we’ll be able to face our problems and help one another. We’re told to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. You can’t really do that if you can’t share those burdens. For the record though, I do understand. I wouldn’t share my burdens with the church as long as we put up this attitude of spirituality.

Spirituality…That’s part of the problem isn’t it? Francis Beckwith has said that when Christians argue, if they can’t win with facts, they’ll trump with spirituality. How often have I heard in a debate with a Christian when they can’t refute my argument, something along the lines of “Well you need to read your Bible more.” or “You need to be more in touch with God.” On a moral issue, I’ll be told “You need to learn to discern the spirits.” Translation: I’m more spiritual than you so I’m right.

Casting Crowns has it right though. While we’re playing and putting on faces, people are suffering. It’s not just those outside. It’s those within the church. If we are to be Christ to those outside of the church, it’s going to start with being Christ to those in our midst who are suffering.

I encourage you to join me then in working to change the church. Maybe we can then end this stained glass masquerade.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been in a debate with some atheists on the VTech shootings. The debate is actually over whether we can really say the shooter did anything wrong. I find this simply amazing. We can say we don’t like it. We can say we wish it wouldn’t have happened, but call it evil? Certainly not!

One thing I keep seeing is that the atheist accepts that they are the one that determines if anything has value. Nothing is valuable in and of itself. It only has value insofar as it’s valuable to them. Meaning? It doesn’t exist either. Something is only meaningful if it brings meaning to the person. All non-physical properties then are arbitrary.

But friends, if nothing is valuable in and of itself, why should I treat it as such? If human life is not valuable, why should I treat it as valuable? If life truly has no meaning, why should I live as if it does? It seems that the reason for conferring value and meaning on things is to avoid the conclusion of atheism. Everything is meaningless.

This was what the Supreme Court indicated in the Casey decision. It said that one of our fundamental rights was to define life as we know it. Apparently though, that isn’t too fundamental. The shooter was defining life and we all saw how that turned out. He defined those lives and his own as unvaluable.

If the atheist is right, then I really do see no way we can condemn the VTech shootings. We can merely say “I didn’t like them” or “They seem evil to me.” One wonders why they shouldn’t be liked or why they seemed evil, especially if terms like good and evil are really meaningless terms.

However, this is a dangerous position. It turns each of us into a god, and we all know what can happen when man sees himself as God. What is to stop us from acting on this belief? If I believe all life is meaningless and there is no absolute right and wrong and there’s no judgment to come, then why shouldn’t I live the way I want to here?

Someone might say that it’s for the good of society. Why should I care? Someone might say “You could get caught and punished.” Let’s suppose I couldn’t and I knew that. Why shouldn’t I then? The action should be seen as wrong not because of what can happen to you, but because of what happens in the action itself.

My ultimate problem is that deep down, we really can’t live this way. Deep down, we do know there is such a thing as evil. We may not be philosophers who can define it, but we know what it is. It seems that if the only way to live in atheism is to construct meaning and value where they do not exist, then I will stick to theism, where I do have meaning and value and a basis for such. I choose to avoid a view that contradicts reality and the only way I can live with it is to deny the logical conclusions of it.