Deeper Waters

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.

I deal as you know in the area of Christian apologetics. Our goal in Christian apologetics is to show the world that the message of Christ is true. I have many reasons why I believe it is and I believe I can refute those who contradict as Paul tells us to do in Titus. However, there is a concern among Christians and I know it because I’ve shared it myself. Christianity is true, but what if I am not?

This hits hard in our emotional culture. We live in a society where we say “Well, I prayed that pray, but I’m really not sure,” or “I don’t really live the kind of life that I ought to live.” I doubt there are few of us who have never asked these kinds of questions. Gary Habermas spoke on this at an apologetics conference I was at last year and when he asked how many people have doubted their salvation, several hands went up, and that includes mine.

We live in a world where our feelings dictate us more than they should. A personal doubt can be a gnawing cancer that eats away at us. For many of us, we can’t just say “Ah, that’s nonsense” and get rid of it. Instead, we have to analyze it and see if it could be true. Odd that we never learn. That analysis never does any good.

Instead, we often make ourselves feel worse. We get into the case of the tail wagging the dog where we have a belief and it’s not based on evidence but instead, the belief produces evidence that is not true but due to our emotional turmoil at the time, we take it as if it is the truth.

Of course, we don’t just stop there. Once we accept one false belief as a fact, we are ready to deduce other “truths” from this one “truth.” The whole belief is flimsy and people looking outside can usually tell us that it is, but we tend to not share that with them. After all, in the church, that goes against the good church image.

My solution to this? We need to learn to realize that what we are going through is common and I would encourage the church to be a place for doubters. Too often, we fear in the church that we can’t confess our sins and questions. If we can’t do such, why should we expect the world to?

Also, we need to learn to ignore our feelings at times, especially if we’re melancholy individuals like myself who are analytical to the core and quite obsessive. Our friends can often give us good feedback. It might be painful, but they always have our best interests at heart.

Lastly, we need to learn truth, and this is the truth about the gospel as well as the truth about health and psychology and other fields related to this. The best way to counter an error is with the truth. It works with apologetics and it works with our own personal lives.

Dear friend, if you are doubting, it is more likely a sign that you are true. After all, we only doubt what matters to us. Rest assured. You are in the truth and that truth will set you free.

I have been in a discussion with someone over the VTech shootings. I have been shocked seeing as I’m debating with an atheist that they are hesitant to call the shootings evil. Any word is being used to describe it that can be used except evil. Of course, I expected this from moral relativism, but it is still fascinating to see.

It makes us realize why we have so much evil here. We just don’t have the guts to call it evil. If we live in a society where good and evil are so blurred that we cannot call evil evil or good good, then why should we be shocked that man who tends to lean towards evil naturally brings about more evil?

We can speak of social conditioning all we want. Call it evil. We can speak of an abnormality in someone. Call it evil. We can speak of this one as being psychologically ill. Call it evil. Yeah. There were multiple factors involved, but let’s get to the bottom line. This action was evil.

In fact, in this situation, most people don’t even know what evil is. Ironically though, many of them do see other things as evil. When Christianity teaches that you ought to avoid sex before marriage, well that’s evil. When political parties want to denounce homosexual marriage, well that’s evil.

After all, in our society today, the worst evil and most likely, the only evil, is intolerance. I am getting set to respond to an editorial tonight where someone wrote a letter to the editor and in answer to someone said “That’s an intolerant argument.” Odd thing isn’t it? He never mentioned if it was true or not but the word intolerant is meant to be a sting to show the falsity right off. Why isn’t this arguer though tolerant of intolerant arguments?

Ultimately then, moral relativists I find don’t like to call other actions evil that clearly are, but when someone invades their turf. It’s evil. You better not speak about my right to an abortion or my viewing pornography on the internet. No. Evil is only a term used to promote their welfare.

In response, the moral objectivist must speak of all evil. I must even speak of my own evil. I am not totally good after all. There is evil in me and if I’m going to argue against what the relativist does, I’d better live by my own doctrine and say, “Yes. I need to repent of the evil in my own life.”

Our benefit is, at least we have the guts, or should, to recognize it.

I came back from my lunch break today to find a co-worker of mine playing with a water wiggler. I had never seen one before and at that time, I didn’t even know the name. They’re these little plastic things that contain colored water and they move so fluidly in your hands. It’s not easy to describe, but she saw that I was easily fascinated by it.

Indeed, I was, and before too long, she’d brought another one over still in the package and I bought it. It was a worthwhile spending of 88 cents. I just could not get over the whole night this thing moving up and down in my hands and how it’d fall to the ground sometimes and I’d just scramble for it.

What point am I making? My first point was simply in explaining my fascination to people is that I am easily fascinated. The things everyone else considers corny and childish, I can so often love. I find it quite difficult to lose wonder in something once I start to have a love for it. (Assurance there for who ever my Mrs. is one day.)

I ponder that in contrast to our society of mass consumerism. Of course, we all buy new things every now and then. However, I believe we live in a society that more and more believes that you have to keep buying new things in order to be happy. I even saw on a TV gameshow today a quote that someone had calculated that happiness costs 4.8 million. A lot of us somehow made it without that much money.

I was discussing this with a friend of mine yesterday. Since being in my own place, I’ve found I’ve had to cut my budget a lot on the things I always wanted to buy before. However, I’ve actually found that I’ve never been happier. This friend of mine buys new stuff constantly and has often called me to tell me that he’s bored.

Could it be we’ve lost sight of old joys? I grew up in the video game age. When I see children buying the latest Zelda for instance, which I do want to play someday, I tell them that they missed the golden age. You want to play real Zelda? Go home an download the original Legend of Zelda. I played that in the late 80’s. I have the Nintendo Collector’s edition disk with that game and 3 other old ones on it and I can thoroughly enjoy putting that one in still.

It’s those past joys that I find myself returning to again and again. Those are the ones that give true satisfaction. I’ve looked through the strategy guide for Twilight Princess, the new Zelda game, and I keep saying “Wow! This enemy was in the original! This one was in Ocarina of Time!” It’s those connections that bring the joy.

Maybe instead of buying so much new, we should rejoice in what we already have. Let us look to the good of the past and celebrate it. Let us also remember that there is one who has ceased creating since day 6 and his creation should not have lost its wonder on us. If God finds pleasure in creation and God is easily fascinated by it, so should we be.

And even more, let us be delighted in him.

I was reading the Prologue to 1 John last night. I was stuck mainly on the first verse. There are times you will read a text of Scripture that you’ve read so many times before but then, you will return to that text and you will notice new things that you had never noticed before and be struck in ways you never had before.

That was what happened to me.

It’s the simplicity of the text in many ways. You can picture the demeanor in which John would say this. He’s not angry. He’s speaking in a gentle tone with a group of people he loves. What amazes me about this is that this is the same John who was called a Son of Thunder by Jesus.

In Luke 9, Jesus is wanting to go through a Samaritan village and they refuse. What do James and John say? “Lord. Do you want us to call down fire from Heaven and burn them?” They wanted to be Elijah. You don’t want our Lord? Fine! Then BURN, BABY BURN! That was why they were the Sons of Thunder. They had quick tempers.

Do you see any of that in 1 John? No. I believe this is simply the transforming power of Christ on John’s life. John refers to himself in the gospel as the disciple whom Jesus Loved. It doesn’t mean Jesus didn’t love the others. It means that John is just so amazed that Jesus loves him. Especially when you consider who Jesus is!

And what does the prologue say? That which was from the beginning. This should utterly shock us as we get into it. The eternal. The reality that always existed. Yes. That reality. That is what we are talking about. The eternal has united with the temporary. Heaven has intersected with Earth.

Then he says that that is what we have heard. Consider what happened in Israel during the Exodus. Israel told Moses to not have God speak any more to them or they would die. Hearing was something, but hearing was not enough to reveal the awesome truth of the one they followed.

Then that which we have seen. Seeing is better than hearing in a way. If you can see and hear something, you know it better. Yet consider the case of Isaiah. He saw YHWH, the Lord of Hosts, and it did not show him yet the immense love of the one he was with. People who saw YHWH always feared that they would die.

Then though, things get personal. It becomes that which we have looked at and touched. This is a good counter to the docetic heresy that said that Jesus did not actually take on a physical body. For the ancients, the idea of deity taking on physical nature permanently was anathema. They wanted nothing to do with it.

Yet that is how intimate that Word became, and that is when it was revealed to us the intense love the Father has for us. The love so intense that as John says in 3:1, that we should be called children of God and then adds, “And that is what we are!” The news is almost too much for us.

And as I think about the use of the senses, I think of other tools we use and I ponder.

How often do I use my eyes to see the unholy instead of the holy?

How often do I use my hands to touch the unclean thing instead of the clean? (Or we could say the clean in an unclean way. Sexual intercourse is good, when done in marriage for instance.)

How often do I use my ears to listen to the unholy instead of the holy?

While my mind could think on matters that fit Philippians 4:8, how often do I use it to think on things that don’t fit?

While my heart could love the good, how often do I use it to hate the good and love the bad?

While my mouth could praise God, how often do I use it to destroy men created in his image?

All of these I ponder.

I can only pray God will transform me better to be in his image. I pray that you’ll pray that for me also as I remember to pray it for you.