Pastor Jay's Blog https://www.odfellowship.org A blog by Pastor Jay. This blog will be a weekly post of the musings of Pastor Jay that will touch on some theological, cultural, biblical, or practical matter from a biblical perspective. Through these blogs, you can learn about the pastor of Open Door Fellowship. Tue, 19 Mar 2024 03:07:30 -0500 http://churchplantmedia.com/ Allister Begg And A Second Level Admonishment https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/allister-begg-and-a-second-level-admonishment https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/allister-begg-and-a-second-level-admonishment#comments Fri, 23 Feb 2024 15:00:00 -0600 https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/allister-begg-and-a-second-level-admonishment The Christian world has been stirred up by a particular question Pastor Allister Begg answered on a radio broadcast that was recorded on September 1, 2023. In that interview Begg recounted counsel he gave to a grandmother about a grandson’s transgender wedding. Begg said because the grandson knew the grandmother’s opposing position on this kind of wedding, she should still attend the wedding and even bring a gift. Begg doubled down on this statement in a follow up sermon where he said he would not repent of this statement.

There has been a lot of discussion about this primarily focused on if it was right or wrong and subsequently what should be done with Allister Begg and his ministry. I would like to do something slightly different. I will first state my position on this matter up front, but I want to give most of the time to addressing the nature of this kind of error. Not all errors are the same, or of equal weight. Not only do we have to deal with different people in different ways, according to 1 Thessalonians 5:14, we also have to deal with different errors in different ways.

My Position

I do not believe there is any question about the rightness or wrongness of Begg’s counsel. It was clearly unbiblical counsel. Weddings are different than other events. Weddings are participatory. When you attend a wedding, you are a participant as a witness and a celebrant of what is happening. This is not the case in a funeral, a dinner, or many other events, but it is true of a wedding. To attend a homosexual or transgender wedding is to celebrate an idolatrous event that is not recognized in the eyes of God. To say it is ever acceptable to attend a homosexual/transgender wedding is a failure to understand the nature of marriage, the nature of love, the nature of truth, and the nature of separation.

The Issue of Application

Instead of filling out all of the reasons it is wrong, I want to turn our attention to the nature of this error. What we have here is a very public case of orthodox belief and wrong application. Everyone agrees that Allister Begg is a sound Bible teacher with clearly stated positions on biblical marriage and sexuality. So what has happened? Begg has fallen into an error of application.

The gospel can’t only be taught rightly, it also has to be lived rightly. The message and the method have to be in sync. This is the very place where many people and churches go wrong. They say that the message has to stay the same, but the method can change. Though that is true to a point, it is not absolutely true. The methods have to accord with the message. You can’t bring a holy message with unholy means. You can’t preach heaven’s hope with worldly tactics. Paul was insistent that he would not preach in “persuasive words of wisdom” (1 Corinthians 2:4) because to do that would make the cross of Christ “void” (1 Corinthians 1:17).

So, even as a person can hold orthodox teaching, how those teachings are brought to real life situations matter. This is not always easy because real life can be very complicated, very fluid and very uncertain. This is why wisdom is so important, and is the mark of Christian maturity. To be able to bring a host of biblical principles to bear upon a situation with a host of variables is no small task. This is why the Bible says there is safety in a multitude of counselors.

Two Comparable Biblical Situations In Galatians Two

There are two incredibly helpful passages of Scripture for this issue found in Galatians 2. We have an issue of circumcision in verse 1-5 and then an issue of Peter’s mealtime decisions in 10-14.

First, look at the issue of circumcision in Galatians 2. Circumcision in and of itself no longer has importance as an act. This is exactly what Paul says in Galatians 6:15. But situations in real life may change what we do for the sake of the gospel. According to Galatians 2:3, Titus was a Greek and was uncircumcised. False brethren were close at hand pushing for people to be circumcised in order to be saved. Paul and Titus resolutely refused circumcision for the simple reason that people were saying it had to be done. In verse 5 Paul says that the gospel was at stake in this matter. Paul and Titus applied the gospel of grace-not-works to their situation and refused to be circumcised.

It would be helpful to contrast this with Timothy in Acts 16:3. Paul found Timothy and wanted him along for ministry. Yet his father was a Greek and therefore Timothy was uncircumcised. Therefore Paul had Timothy circumcised “because of the Jews in those parts”.

So Paul refused to circumcise Titus, but allowed for Timothy to be circumcised. Why? Different situations demand different applications. If circumcision is a threat to the gospel, then you don’t circumcise. If the people see it as helpful but not necessary, then go head.

Secondly, in Galatians 2 we find a mealtime incident with Peter. Peter was orthodox to say the least. Not only was he an apostle, not only was he the leading apostle, but he led the way for Gentile inclusion in the church and the drafting of the decision of the Jerusalem council. Yet, Galatians 2:12 says that Peter feared the party of the circumcision and withdrew from eating with Gentiles.

That was an application decision. Peter knew the truth and was a faithful preacher of the truth. Yet in this moment of application of the truth, he went astray. And notice that Paul brought a stinging rebuke to him. Paul knew that the application much match the message. Peter was not living according to the gospel.

A Second Level Admonition

But let us notice that even the apostle Peter stumbled in this issue of application, and that application is where things get very real. It is also where things can get complicated. Therefore we need to extend an extra measure of grace. This is where there is often more time needed and more counsel needed. Therefore I do think there is a place to extend more grace for working through matters of application. Remember that the issue of Gentile inclusion was a difficult matter for the early church and it was the main issue in Acts 8, 10, 11, 15. They even had a church council on it in chapter 15.

The probability is that Galatians 2 happened right before the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 where the issue was hammered out. If that is right, then we notice that Paul still brought a rebuke to Peter even though this hadn’t been fully resolved in the church.

If Peter had been teaching a different gospel, he would have been a false teacher and that would be the end of Peter’s presence in the church. But Peter was teaching the truth. He had led the way in the gospel of Gentile inclusion. But at one point, due to fear, he misapplied the very truth he held. He was rebuked, but it is a different kind of rebuke. Paul didn’t bring an anathema upon Peter (Gal. 1:8). It was a second-level rebuke. Peter hadn’t abandoned the gospel, but he had misapplied. It.

What Do We Do With Allister Begg?

Allister Begg has not applied the truths of anthropology, marriage and love in a right way in this situation. As Peter was led into misapplication due to fear according to Galatians 2:12, I believe Begg also is led into misapplication due to fear. He stated in his follow up sermon “I was concerned about the wellbeing of their relationship more than anything else” (minute 22:25 in the sermon Compassion Vs. Condemnation). Begg has put the issue of “relationship” in a wrong place of priority. Begg seems to fear being labeled as “unloving” by the world. Being loving is vitally important. But when it is misapplied it actually becomes unloving. Begg’s concern for a loving relationship is too high and this has led to misapplication.

What makes this even more problematic is that homosexual/transgender marriage is not a new issue in the church. We have been thinking about this since it was given legitimacy by the Supreme Court in 2015. That was 9 years ago. Begg is not far removed from the highways of information, or in an obscure place of ministry. He should have this thoroughly worked out by now. Additionally, just has Peter was rebuked, so also Begg has been rebuked. But these rebukes have not been received in a serious way. As noted, Begg doubled down on his position and said he will not repent.

So what do we do with Begg? Since this is a matter of application and there is degree of grace that should be extended, yet because Begg should know better by now and has not heeded the rebukes given, I think people should consider Begg suspended. Let’s give some time to see if he comes around. Yet, in the meantime I think we should put his ministry to the side and pray for his reversal. How much time, I don’t know. This whole thing is very problematic, but it is not altogether ruinous for what has been a faithful ministry. He can come around. Let’s pray that he does.

]]>
The Christian world has been stirred up by a particular question Pastor Allister Begg answered on a radio broadcast that was recorded on September 1, 2023. In that interview Begg recounted counsel he gave to a grandmother about a grandson’s transgender wedding. Begg said because the grandson knew the grandmother’s opposing position on this kind of wedding, she should still attend the wedding and even bring a gift. Begg doubled down on this statement in a follow up sermon where he said he would not repent of this statement.

There has been a lot of discussion about this primarily focused on if it was right or wrong and subsequently what should be done with Allister Begg and his ministry. I would like to do something slightly different. I will first state my position on this matter up front, but I want to give most of the time to addressing the nature of this kind of error. Not all errors are the same, or of equal weight. Not only do we have to deal with different people in different ways, according to 1 Thessalonians 5:14, we also have to deal with different errors in different ways.

My Position

I do not believe there is any question about the rightness or wrongness of Begg’s counsel. It was clearly unbiblical counsel. Weddings are different than other events. Weddings are participatory. When you attend a wedding, you are a participant as a witness and a celebrant of what is happening. This is not the case in a funeral, a dinner, or many other events, but it is true of a wedding. To attend a homosexual or transgender wedding is to celebrate an idolatrous event that is not recognized in the eyes of God. To say it is ever acceptable to attend a homosexual/transgender wedding is a failure to understand the nature of marriage, the nature of love, the nature of truth, and the nature of separation.

The Issue of Application

Instead of filling out all of the reasons it is wrong, I want to turn our attention to the nature of this error. What we have here is a very public case of orthodox belief and wrong application. Everyone agrees that Allister Begg is a sound Bible teacher with clearly stated positions on biblical marriage and sexuality. So what has happened? Begg has fallen into an error of application.

The gospel can’t only be taught rightly, it also has to be lived rightly. The message and the method have to be in sync. This is the very place where many people and churches go wrong. They say that the message has to stay the same, but the method can change. Though that is true to a point, it is not absolutely true. The methods have to accord with the message. You can’t bring a holy message with unholy means. You can’t preach heaven’s hope with worldly tactics. Paul was insistent that he would not preach in “persuasive words of wisdom” (1 Corinthians 2:4) because to do that would make the cross of Christ “void” (1 Corinthians 1:17).

So, even as a person can hold orthodox teaching, how those teachings are brought to real life situations matter. This is not always easy because real life can be very complicated, very fluid and very uncertain. This is why wisdom is so important, and is the mark of Christian maturity. To be able to bring a host of biblical principles to bear upon a situation with a host of variables is no small task. This is why the Bible says there is safety in a multitude of counselors.

Two Comparable Biblical Situations In Galatians Two

There are two incredibly helpful passages of Scripture for this issue found in Galatians 2. We have an issue of circumcision in verse 1-5 and then an issue of Peter’s mealtime decisions in 10-14.

First, look at the issue of circumcision in Galatians 2. Circumcision in and of itself no longer has importance as an act. This is exactly what Paul says in Galatians 6:15. But situations in real life may change what we do for the sake of the gospel. According to Galatians 2:3, Titus was a Greek and was uncircumcised. False brethren were close at hand pushing for people to be circumcised in order to be saved. Paul and Titus resolutely refused circumcision for the simple reason that people were saying it had to be done. In verse 5 Paul says that the gospel was at stake in this matter. Paul and Titus applied the gospel of grace-not-works to their situation and refused to be circumcised.

It would be helpful to contrast this with Timothy in Acts 16:3. Paul found Timothy and wanted him along for ministry. Yet his father was a Greek and therefore Timothy was uncircumcised. Therefore Paul had Timothy circumcised “because of the Jews in those parts”.

So Paul refused to circumcise Titus, but allowed for Timothy to be circumcised. Why? Different situations demand different applications. If circumcision is a threat to the gospel, then you don’t circumcise. If the people see it as helpful but not necessary, then go head.

Secondly, in Galatians 2 we find a mealtime incident with Peter. Peter was orthodox to say the least. Not only was he an apostle, not only was he the leading apostle, but he led the way for Gentile inclusion in the church and the drafting of the decision of the Jerusalem council. Yet, Galatians 2:12 says that Peter feared the party of the circumcision and withdrew from eating with Gentiles.

That was an application decision. Peter knew the truth and was a faithful preacher of the truth. Yet in this moment of application of the truth, he went astray. And notice that Paul brought a stinging rebuke to him. Paul knew that the application much match the message. Peter was not living according to the gospel.

A Second Level Admonition

But let us notice that even the apostle Peter stumbled in this issue of application, and that application is where things get very real. It is also where things can get complicated. Therefore we need to extend an extra measure of grace. This is where there is often more time needed and more counsel needed. Therefore I do think there is a place to extend more grace for working through matters of application. Remember that the issue of Gentile inclusion was a difficult matter for the early church and it was the main issue in Acts 8, 10, 11, 15. They even had a church council on it in chapter 15.

The probability is that Galatians 2 happened right before the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 where the issue was hammered out. If that is right, then we notice that Paul still brought a rebuke to Peter even though this hadn’t been fully resolved in the church.

If Peter had been teaching a different gospel, he would have been a false teacher and that would be the end of Peter’s presence in the church. But Peter was teaching the truth. He had led the way in the gospel of Gentile inclusion. But at one point, due to fear, he misapplied the very truth he held. He was rebuked, but it is a different kind of rebuke. Paul didn’t bring an anathema upon Peter (Gal. 1:8). It was a second-level rebuke. Peter hadn’t abandoned the gospel, but he had misapplied. It.

What Do We Do With Allister Begg?

Allister Begg has not applied the truths of anthropology, marriage and love in a right way in this situation. As Peter was led into misapplication due to fear according to Galatians 2:12, I believe Begg also is led into misapplication due to fear. He stated in his follow up sermon “I was concerned about the wellbeing of their relationship more than anything else” (minute 22:25 in the sermon Compassion Vs. Condemnation). Begg has put the issue of “relationship” in a wrong place of priority. Begg seems to fear being labeled as “unloving” by the world. Being loving is vitally important. But when it is misapplied it actually becomes unloving. Begg’s concern for a loving relationship is too high and this has led to misapplication.

What makes this even more problematic is that homosexual/transgender marriage is not a new issue in the church. We have been thinking about this since it was given legitimacy by the Supreme Court in 2015. That was 9 years ago. Begg is not far removed from the highways of information, or in an obscure place of ministry. He should have this thoroughly worked out by now. Additionally, just has Peter was rebuked, so also Begg has been rebuked. But these rebukes have not been received in a serious way. As noted, Begg doubled down on his position and said he will not repent.

So what do we do with Begg? Since this is a matter of application and there is degree of grace that should be extended, yet because Begg should know better by now and has not heeded the rebukes given, I think people should consider Begg suspended. Let’s give some time to see if he comes around. Yet, in the meantime I think we should put his ministry to the side and pray for his reversal. How much time, I don’t know. This whole thing is very problematic, but it is not altogether ruinous for what has been a faithful ministry. He can come around. Let’s pray that he does.

]]>
Thankfulness Verses Contentment https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/thankfulness-verses-contentment https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/thankfulness-verses-contentment#comments Tue, 19 Dec 2023 15:00:00 -0600 https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/thankfulness-verses-contentment It is a wonderful providence for us that Thanksgiving comes before Christmas. There are few things we need more during the holiday season. We need the clear view that what we have has come from outside of us and therefore thanks must be raised to the Lord.

But even here we can go wrong. Thankfulness can become a pathway of deceiving ourselves. What do I mean?

Thankfulness can be very myopic. We are thankful for our family, for our jobs, for our health. We are thankful for our country or our friends or our car. We can be thankful for these things and think that we have checked the thankful box on the godly-living list. And that is true in a narrow sense. The thankfulness is real. But this type of thanks is not enough.

The Bible doesn’t just say we are to be thankful; it says we are to be thankful “in everything” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and “for all things” (Ephesians 5:20). Myopic thankfulness can be so deceiving. It is bringing a part but not the whole. It is like Ananias and Sapphira who brought part of the money for the land they sold, but then they said they were bringing the whole price (Acts 5). God doesn’t like it when people try to flim-flam him.

What do you call total thankfulness? What do you call holistic thankfulness? There is a word for that, and it is “contentment.” Thankfulness can be granular, but contentment is universal. Thankfulness can be specific, but contentment is generalized. Thankfulness can be precise and detailed, but contentment is broad and sweeping. Thankfulness can just be gratitude to God, but contentment is trust in God.

You can’t have contentment without thankfulness, but you can have thankfulness without contentment. That is the danger I am speaking about here.

Contentment is full strength thankfulness. Contentment is what happens when you obey the “all” and “everything” of the above verses in Thessalonians and Ephesians. Contentment is the goal. As Paul says in Philippians 4:11-13, contentment is what happens when Jesus strengthens you to believe God’s word about his sovereignty and his fatherly goodness in all the situations in which you find yourself and which you don’t understand.

So, evaluate your thankfulness this year. Are you looking over your whole life, or just at the good stuff that is easy to be thankful for? Like Jesus said about loving brothers, even unbelievers do that (Matthew 5:46-47). Unbelievers will have a kind of thankfulness for good things even if it doesn’t find its true target in the Lord. But what about you and how you are viewing the rest of your life? What about the hard stuff and the painful stuff? Can you say that the Lord has put you in that hard spot or given you that difficult thing and it is right for you to be there or have that? Can you be thankful for it all? Every bit of it? You don’t have to understand it. In fact, most of the time you will be kept from understanding it just like Job was kept from understanding. But if you can look at it all and then look past it all and say God is doing it all, and then say that God is good and this is wise, then thankfulness is going all the way into active trust and the flower that blooms is contentment.

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It is a wonderful providence for us that Thanksgiving comes before Christmas. There are few things we need more during the holiday season. We need the clear view that what we have has come from outside of us and therefore thanks must be raised to the Lord.

But even here we can go wrong. Thankfulness can become a pathway of deceiving ourselves. What do I mean?

Thankfulness can be very myopic. We are thankful for our family, for our jobs, for our health. We are thankful for our country or our friends or our car. We can be thankful for these things and think that we have checked the thankful box on the godly-living list. And that is true in a narrow sense. The thankfulness is real. But this type of thanks is not enough.

The Bible doesn’t just say we are to be thankful; it says we are to be thankful “in everything” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and “for all things” (Ephesians 5:20). Myopic thankfulness can be so deceiving. It is bringing a part but not the whole. It is like Ananias and Sapphira who brought part of the money for the land they sold, but then they said they were bringing the whole price (Acts 5). God doesn’t like it when people try to flim-flam him.

What do you call total thankfulness? What do you call holistic thankfulness? There is a word for that, and it is “contentment.” Thankfulness can be granular, but contentment is universal. Thankfulness can be specific, but contentment is generalized. Thankfulness can be precise and detailed, but contentment is broad and sweeping. Thankfulness can just be gratitude to God, but contentment is trust in God.

You can’t have contentment without thankfulness, but you can have thankfulness without contentment. That is the danger I am speaking about here.

Contentment is full strength thankfulness. Contentment is what happens when you obey the “all” and “everything” of the above verses in Thessalonians and Ephesians. Contentment is the goal. As Paul says in Philippians 4:11-13, contentment is what happens when Jesus strengthens you to believe God’s word about his sovereignty and his fatherly goodness in all the situations in which you find yourself and which you don’t understand.

So, evaluate your thankfulness this year. Are you looking over your whole life, or just at the good stuff that is easy to be thankful for? Like Jesus said about loving brothers, even unbelievers do that (Matthew 5:46-47). Unbelievers will have a kind of thankfulness for good things even if it doesn’t find its true target in the Lord. But what about you and how you are viewing the rest of your life? What about the hard stuff and the painful stuff? Can you say that the Lord has put you in that hard spot or given you that difficult thing and it is right for you to be there or have that? Can you be thankful for it all? Every bit of it? You don’t have to understand it. In fact, most of the time you will be kept from understanding it just like Job was kept from understanding. But if you can look at it all and then look past it all and say God is doing it all, and then say that God is good and this is wise, then thankfulness is going all the way into active trust and the flower that blooms is contentment.

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Why I Am Not An Abortion Abolitionist - Part 2 - Bible https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/why-i-am-not-an-abortion-abolitionist---bible https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/why-i-am-not-an-abortion-abolitionist---bible#comments Wed, 01 Nov 2023 10:00:00 -0500 https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/why-i-am-not-an-abortion-abolitionist---bible The last post took us to the theological reason that I don’t believe Abolition will not work. That theological reason is Common Grace. God is only partially restraining sin in the unbelieving world; therefore we can only expect a partial stop of abortion. It will be more or less in different places and different times. We must always strive for the fullest and most complete end of abortion that we can, but there is only so much that can be done in an unbelieving world.

Today I want to look at a few specific biblical texts. We are not going to look at what the Bible says about the value of life, the nature of humans as made in the image of God, the evil and guilt of shedding innocent blood and the like. Those are some of the many reasons every Christian must want to see abortion end immediately. But for this discussion, our focus will be upon the question of method. Is there anything in scripture that gives us indications about how we should deal with ending certain sins in an unbelieving world?

Incrementalism And Slavery

Probably the closest we can come to a similar sin that the culture embraced as normal was the sin of slavery. Even here there are some immediate differences. It is not inherently wrong for one person to serve another. Both the Old and New Testaments speak of ways that it could be done righteously. Paul wrote to slave holders in the churches and commanded them to be good slave holders. So that is a significant difference. There is no good version of abortion.

But there are clearly sinful kinds of slavery. Man-stealing is evil as well as all of the abuses that were often committed against slaves. The Bible commands that those things are to be immediately and totally stopped by Christians in the churches. But even more than that, the bigger picture of slavery was that it was still an inferior model. Paul counseled slaves that if they could attain freedom they should do it (1 Cor. 7:21).

So with all of that evil slavery happening in the Roman world, which included not only horrific abuse but also the taking of human life, what do we find as the Christian imperative regarding action steps to end slavery in the Roman world? Were Christians to demand that it all must stop immediately and all the slaves released? Not even close. What we find is the concept of incrementalism. The approach to end slavery was gospel brotherhood, and this is most clearly seen in the book of Philemon. Onesimus the slave was getting sent back to Philemon by Paul. Philemon was not abusing Onesimus but he hadn’t freed him either. What did Paul want to happen?

For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. Philemon 15–16

Paul wanted the gospel to transform people. It would be a transformation that turns a person first into someone to give our life for, and then into a brother or sister in Christ. This transformation would be one by one, and little by little. This incremental transformation was what would eventually be the end to an inferior, and often appallingly abusive, culture of slavery.

Without doubt, abortion is a greater evil with no positive features in any sense. But that also means that slavery would have been an even easier arena to bring cultural change. Unlike abortion, slavery could be done in ways that bless and honor people. If Paul didn’t issue calls to change, or even ban, slavery immediately, then why do we think Paul would support calls to do something even harder to achieve in a culture?

Incrementalism and a Cup of Cold Water

Jesus spoke a lot about rewards. Rewards for service are meant to motivate us to do what really matters. That forces us to know what kinds of service actually matters. If we do the wrong things we will lose the rewards that are promised. The Abolition Movement says that any service done to save babies that is not saving all babies is a service that will not only lose reward but actually be condemned by the Lord. They say incremental service is a compromised service, an illegitimate service. It is service that won’t be rewarded even though it has saved many babies from death.

However, this doesn’t seem to match the way Jesus spoke of service and reward. In one of the most surprising statements about reward Jesus said the following: (colon)

“And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.” Matthew 10:42

A cup of cold water isn’t much. Consider the needs that children in that day may have had: malnutrition, vulnerability, poor education, abuse. A cup of cold water is the smallest of acts. It is the smallest of steps toward any kind of total solution. But Jesus doesn’t scorn it. It is one little part and each part fits into the whole. This is incremental service and Jesus says it will be rewarded.

Incrementalism and Doing What You Can

Paul gives two chapters in 2 Corinthians (8 & 9) to speak about giving and meeting needs. The Macedonian church set the example of faithful giving for the Corinthians to follow. That example was one of eagerness and faithfulness, not an example of wealth and power. Paul made it clear over and over that in giving it is the attitude of the heart that mattered most. You must have joy, earnestness and cheerfulness. The amounts given did not matter. The reason that amounts don’t matter is because one’s level of ability to give is something that God is responsible for. God gives some people much and others little. That is God’s doing. What we are responsible for is our heart. Whether we have a little or a lot, is it given and used cheerfully?

The issue of ability is key to our point. When people do not have ability, God does not hold them responsible for doing or giving what is outside of their means. It would be good to look at a variety of verses that demonstrate this.

But now finish doing it also, so that just as there was the readiness to desire it, so there may be also the completion of it by your ability. For if the readiness is present, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. 2 Corinthians 8:11–12

On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come. 1 Corinthians 16:2

And in the proportion that any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brethren living in Judea. Acts 11:29

“She has done what she could; she has anointed My body beforehand for the burial. Mark 14:8

If Christians had the ability to end abortion today would we not do it? I am sure we would. But that is simply not the case. Paul did not heap reproach upon the churches because they were not demanding or effecting the immediate end to slavery in the Roman world. And why not? Because Paul knew they had absolutely no power or standing in the government. Paul himself was not issuing that kind of demand to government officials about the significant moral issues of the day. Why not? Because he had no power or authority to do such a thing either. All he had was the power of the gospel to change lives little by little.

There does seem to be a sense that Abortion Abolitionists have become so accustomed to democracy and the power of citizens to move our government that they have forgotten democracy is still new to the world scene. It would be interesting to know if Abolitionists make abolition demands upon Chinese Christians and North Korean Christians. Our voting power is a wonderful thing that we should steward well. But even with such blessed participation in governmental decisions, we simply do not have the ability to do what we want yet. Perhaps a nation-wide revival will give Christianity an ability to move culture once again. But currently we do not have it.

So what do we do? We do all that we can do. We make the most of the ability we have. Little by little we can save more and more lives. But we should not let all babies die until we can save them all. Let’s save the ones we can with the ability we have while we work and pray for total abolition.

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The last post took us to the theological reason that I don’t believe Abolition will not work. That theological reason is Common Grace. God is only partially restraining sin in the unbelieving world; therefore we can only expect a partial stop of abortion. It will be more or less in different places and different times. We must always strive for the fullest and most complete end of abortion that we can, but there is only so much that can be done in an unbelieving world.

Today I want to look at a few specific biblical texts. We are not going to look at what the Bible says about the value of life, the nature of humans as made in the image of God, the evil and guilt of shedding innocent blood and the like. Those are some of the many reasons every Christian must want to see abortion end immediately. But for this discussion, our focus will be upon the question of method. Is there anything in scripture that gives us indications about how we should deal with ending certain sins in an unbelieving world?

Incrementalism And Slavery

Probably the closest we can come to a similar sin that the culture embraced as normal was the sin of slavery. Even here there are some immediate differences. It is not inherently wrong for one person to serve another. Both the Old and New Testaments speak of ways that it could be done righteously. Paul wrote to slave holders in the churches and commanded them to be good slave holders. So that is a significant difference. There is no good version of abortion.

But there are clearly sinful kinds of slavery. Man-stealing is evil as well as all of the abuses that were often committed against slaves. The Bible commands that those things are to be immediately and totally stopped by Christians in the churches. But even more than that, the bigger picture of slavery was that it was still an inferior model. Paul counseled slaves that if they could attain freedom they should do it (1 Cor. 7:21).

So with all of that evil slavery happening in the Roman world, which included not only horrific abuse but also the taking of human life, what do we find as the Christian imperative regarding action steps to end slavery in the Roman world? Were Christians to demand that it all must stop immediately and all the slaves released? Not even close. What we find is the concept of incrementalism. The approach to end slavery was gospel brotherhood, and this is most clearly seen in the book of Philemon. Onesimus the slave was getting sent back to Philemon by Paul. Philemon was not abusing Onesimus but he hadn’t freed him either. What did Paul want to happen?

For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. Philemon 15–16

Paul wanted the gospel to transform people. It would be a transformation that turns a person first into someone to give our life for, and then into a brother or sister in Christ. This transformation would be one by one, and little by little. This incremental transformation was what would eventually be the end to an inferior, and often appallingly abusive, culture of slavery.

Without doubt, abortion is a greater evil with no positive features in any sense. But that also means that slavery would have been an even easier arena to bring cultural change. Unlike abortion, slavery could be done in ways that bless and honor people. If Paul didn’t issue calls to change, or even ban, slavery immediately, then why do we think Paul would support calls to do something even harder to achieve in a culture?

Incrementalism and a Cup of Cold Water

Jesus spoke a lot about rewards. Rewards for service are meant to motivate us to do what really matters. That forces us to know what kinds of service actually matters. If we do the wrong things we will lose the rewards that are promised. The Abolition Movement says that any service done to save babies that is not saving all babies is a service that will not only lose reward but actually be condemned by the Lord. They say incremental service is a compromised service, an illegitimate service. It is service that won’t be rewarded even though it has saved many babies from death.

However, this doesn’t seem to match the way Jesus spoke of service and reward. In one of the most surprising statements about reward Jesus said the following: (colon)

“And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.” Matthew 10:42

A cup of cold water isn’t much. Consider the needs that children in that day may have had: malnutrition, vulnerability, poor education, abuse. A cup of cold water is the smallest of acts. It is the smallest of steps toward any kind of total solution. But Jesus doesn’t scorn it. It is one little part and each part fits into the whole. This is incremental service and Jesus says it will be rewarded.

Incrementalism and Doing What You Can

Paul gives two chapters in 2 Corinthians (8 & 9) to speak about giving and meeting needs. The Macedonian church set the example of faithful giving for the Corinthians to follow. That example was one of eagerness and faithfulness, not an example of wealth and power. Paul made it clear over and over that in giving it is the attitude of the heart that mattered most. You must have joy, earnestness and cheerfulness. The amounts given did not matter. The reason that amounts don’t matter is because one’s level of ability to give is something that God is responsible for. God gives some people much and others little. That is God’s doing. What we are responsible for is our heart. Whether we have a little or a lot, is it given and used cheerfully?

The issue of ability is key to our point. When people do not have ability, God does not hold them responsible for doing or giving what is outside of their means. It would be good to look at a variety of verses that demonstrate this.

But now finish doing it also, so that just as there was the readiness to desire it, so there may be also the completion of it by your ability. For if the readiness is present, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. 2 Corinthians 8:11–12

On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come. 1 Corinthians 16:2

And in the proportion that any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brethren living in Judea. Acts 11:29

“She has done what she could; she has anointed My body beforehand for the burial. Mark 14:8

If Christians had the ability to end abortion today would we not do it? I am sure we would. But that is simply not the case. Paul did not heap reproach upon the churches because they were not demanding or effecting the immediate end to slavery in the Roman world. And why not? Because Paul knew they had absolutely no power or standing in the government. Paul himself was not issuing that kind of demand to government officials about the significant moral issues of the day. Why not? Because he had no power or authority to do such a thing either. All he had was the power of the gospel to change lives little by little.

There does seem to be a sense that Abortion Abolitionists have become so accustomed to democracy and the power of citizens to move our government that they have forgotten democracy is still new to the world scene. It would be interesting to know if Abolitionists make abolition demands upon Chinese Christians and North Korean Christians. Our voting power is a wonderful thing that we should steward well. But even with such blessed participation in governmental decisions, we simply do not have the ability to do what we want yet. Perhaps a nation-wide revival will give Christianity an ability to move culture once again. But currently we do not have it.

So what do we do? We do all that we can do. We make the most of the ability we have. Little by little we can save more and more lives. But we should not let all babies die until we can save them all. Let’s save the ones we can with the ability we have while we work and pray for total abolition.

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Why I Am Not An Abortion Abolitionist. Part One - Theology https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/why-i-am-not-an- https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/why-i-am-not-an-#comments Sat, 30 Sep 2023 23:00:00 -0500 https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/why-i-am-not-an- There is a new movement within the pro-life movement that is becoming more and more prevalent. It is called the Abolitionist Movement, and it is calling for the end of abortion. But calling for the end of abortion is not what is new; every pro-life person wants to see the end of abortion. What is new is how the Abolitionist Movement seeks to bring about the end of abortion. The key words of the movement are “totally” and “immediately.” Abolitionists will have nothing to do with any approach or method that is incremental. They call for all or nothing, right now. Anything that allows for a step-by-step approach over a period of time is considered an unfaithful compromise that sacrifices the lives of unborn babies on the altar of political convenience and/or political self-protection.

I feel compelled to address this because the charge of being an unfaithful compromiser is serious. That kind of charge is the last thing I want on my account. When it comes to defending the defenseless and being a voice for the voiceless, I don’t want to be a sucker for a compromised pragmatism. I don’t want to be in the ranks of those who do what is easy instead of what is right.

So what do I want? First, let’s talk about the goal of any truly pro-life agenda. The goal is important, and the goal must be the abolition of abortion. But this is the where terminology becomes problematic. Abolition is a great word. That is what the pro-life movement has been aiming for since the beginning. Because humans at every level of development, from fertilized egg to natural death, is a person made in the image of God we must fight for the end of every form of murder of humans. Any avowed pro-life person who doesn’t want the abolition of abortion is not truly pro-life. He may be a political opportunist who is grabbing more Republican votes, but he is not a person of conviction working to save lives. So abolition is what I want as the goal. In this regard, I stand united with the abolitionist. Our end point is the same.

So then, what do I want as the method of reaching that goal? How can we get to full abolition? This is where the paths diverge. As stated above, the abolitionist says all or nothing. The abolitionist says if you are not calling for the total end of abortion right now in every place then you are simply giving them a pass to kill more babies. There is certainly a logic to that. In their view, what possible support could someone have for an incremental approach? How could a little less murder ever be ok?

Regarding these questions, the biggest issue in my mind has to do with who we are dealing with. Where is the call being heralded out to? And the answer is: the world of unbelievers. We are not primarily dealing with a church issue or the people of God. We are speaking to and dealing with spiritually lost, spiritually blind people. That is huge; that changes everything.

If we were talking about the church and the born-again people of God, then our call would be different. Why? Because Jesus is Lord over the church, whom he has redeemed and transformed. He is the head and we are to obey in everything because we have the indwelling Spirit of God. Because his indwelling presence brings his empowering grace, there is no place for partial obedience. Yes, there is a slow growth toward maturity, but there is no place for tolerating rebellion. We do not encourage people to do a little less drugs, a little less pornography or a little less gossip. Where there is serious sin, we confront it all totally and immediately. The word confession literally means saying the same thing that God says about sin. This means calling sin “sin” and turning from it. Of course this doesn’t mean every Christian immediately stops their sin, but immediately stopping is still the call placed upon them. When they do not meet that goal, we confront that as sin and call them afresh to fight against that sin with all their might. When they do not have total victory, we come along side and bear them up for a full fight to put sin to death. But if they refuse to confess, repent and fight against their sin, if they want to delay or compromise, that is what unbelievers do and unbelievers cannot remain in the covenant community of Christ. This is when church discipline is begun. Church discipline is for people in the church who are living in significant sin outwardly and unrepentantly. And this includes abortion. If a church member had an abortion, supported an abortion, or defended abortion, and did so without then repenting of it, that would be grounds for church discipline. There is no incrementalism in the church regarding serious sin.

But we are not talking about the church. We are talking about the world of spiritually dead sinners who are living in conscious and continual rebellion against God. As such, what do we want them to do? The Bible says that they cannot obey God’s law (Romans 8:7) and they cannot understand or accept the things of the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:14). If we want them to do righteous and holy things like preserve life, something must happen first. What must happen first is they must be born again. That is the only hope for true change. This is our call to the world. We hold out to them the good news that they can be forgiven and made right with God. They can be changed from within and made new. The great commission is our grand effort. We speak the truth and as the Spirit brings conviction and grants saving faith, then we baptize and disciple.

But what do we do until that happens with a community of unbelievers? The answer to that rides upon a theological category called common grace. Common grace is the grace that God bestows on the world of unbelievers, giving them what they don’t deserve. He gives life and breath and all things (Acts 17:25), He gives rain and sunshine (Matthew 5:45), he gives fruitful seasons, food and gladness (Acts 14:17), and he restrains people from committing more and more sin (2 Thessalonians 2:7; Romans 1:4; Genesis 20:6). God is keeping people and civilizations from quick and total destruction through a variety of things the Spirit uses such as laws written upon people hearts, governmental enforcement, cultural morality, family traditions, the preserving influence of local churches and the natural proclivities that everyone has because we all are made in the image of God. Common grace is what allows morality to remain in a people to some degree to give life and blessing upon rebels bent on their own destruction.

Christians should take every advance in morality that is made possible by common grace. This is capitalizing on what God is doing to restrain a nation’s plunge into destruction. Because common grace is partial and incremental, our moral gains for life will be partial and incremental. Sometimes things happen in a culture that cause a large step to be taken toward morality. In 2015, multiple videos were released showing how Planned Parenthood was selling the body parts of aborted babies. The shock of this stirred things up for a while, but few lasting changes came of it. Perhaps another act of common grace will create another shock that will move our culture towards life. If that happens, we should take that step common grace has afforded. If we refuse to take that step and instead demand only a total abolition of abortion, it is not only theologically foolish and morally disastrous but it will be physically deadly for many babies. Refusing to take that incremental step is essentially saying “if all babies can’t be saved, then let none of them be saved.” This is a rejection of what common grace is doing and it is only going to speed a nation toward destruction. Common grace means we take what we can get and save all that we can save because God is restraining some sin yet not all sin.

However, when there is saving grace at work in a person, then our moral gains in that person will be total. This is what I spoke about above regarding the church addressing serious sin. But saving grace is not happening on a national scale. If perhaps we have a national revival, and saving grace spreads far and wide, then voting for total bans would work. To not vote for a total ban at that moment would be an act of satanic compromise. But as long as partial, incremental, common grace is the only thing at work in a culture, we do what we can, take what we can get, and pray for more and more common grace to preserve lives and the fate of a nation.

This is what we are working with when it comes to moving cultures. Common grace is something, but it is not everything. Common grace gives us some traction for moral advancement, but not much. In some places it will be more and in some places it will be far less. Regardless, we keep preaching the gospel. That is the only source of true changing power. As we continue in great commission work, we need to capitalize on whatever footholds we have in the culture. Democratic voting is a wonderful blessing. But if churches ease up in their gospel work and less and less people are truly saved, then our nation’s voting will simply become ungodly people voting for ungodly practices. Let us preach the gospel that brings total change in people, and as more and more people are changed, then our nation will be more and more changed.

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There is a new movement within the pro-life movement that is becoming more and more prevalent. It is called the Abolitionist Movement, and it is calling for the end of abortion. But calling for the end of abortion is not what is new; every pro-life person wants to see the end of abortion. What is new is how the Abolitionist Movement seeks to bring about the end of abortion. The key words of the movement are “totally” and “immediately.” Abolitionists will have nothing to do with any approach or method that is incremental. They call for all or nothing, right now. Anything that allows for a step-by-step approach over a period of time is considered an unfaithful compromise that sacrifices the lives of unborn babies on the altar of political convenience and/or political self-protection.

I feel compelled to address this because the charge of being an unfaithful compromiser is serious. That kind of charge is the last thing I want on my account. When it comes to defending the defenseless and being a voice for the voiceless, I don’t want to be a sucker for a compromised pragmatism. I don’t want to be in the ranks of those who do what is easy instead of what is right.

So what do I want? First, let’s talk about the goal of any truly pro-life agenda. The goal is important, and the goal must be the abolition of abortion. But this is the where terminology becomes problematic. Abolition is a great word. That is what the pro-life movement has been aiming for since the beginning. Because humans at every level of development, from fertilized egg to natural death, is a person made in the image of God we must fight for the end of every form of murder of humans. Any avowed pro-life person who doesn’t want the abolition of abortion is not truly pro-life. He may be a political opportunist who is grabbing more Republican votes, but he is not a person of conviction working to save lives. So abolition is what I want as the goal. In this regard, I stand united with the abolitionist. Our end point is the same.

So then, what do I want as the method of reaching that goal? How can we get to full abolition? This is where the paths diverge. As stated above, the abolitionist says all or nothing. The abolitionist says if you are not calling for the total end of abortion right now in every place then you are simply giving them a pass to kill more babies. There is certainly a logic to that. In their view, what possible support could someone have for an incremental approach? How could a little less murder ever be ok?

Regarding these questions, the biggest issue in my mind has to do with who we are dealing with. Where is the call being heralded out to? And the answer is: the world of unbelievers. We are not primarily dealing with a church issue or the people of God. We are speaking to and dealing with spiritually lost, spiritually blind people. That is huge; that changes everything.

If we were talking about the church and the born-again people of God, then our call would be different. Why? Because Jesus is Lord over the church, whom he has redeemed and transformed. He is the head and we are to obey in everything because we have the indwelling Spirit of God. Because his indwelling presence brings his empowering grace, there is no place for partial obedience. Yes, there is a slow growth toward maturity, but there is no place for tolerating rebellion. We do not encourage people to do a little less drugs, a little less pornography or a little less gossip. Where there is serious sin, we confront it all totally and immediately. The word confession literally means saying the same thing that God says about sin. This means calling sin “sin” and turning from it. Of course this doesn’t mean every Christian immediately stops their sin, but immediately stopping is still the call placed upon them. When they do not meet that goal, we confront that as sin and call them afresh to fight against that sin with all their might. When they do not have total victory, we come along side and bear them up for a full fight to put sin to death. But if they refuse to confess, repent and fight against their sin, if they want to delay or compromise, that is what unbelievers do and unbelievers cannot remain in the covenant community of Christ. This is when church discipline is begun. Church discipline is for people in the church who are living in significant sin outwardly and unrepentantly. And this includes abortion. If a church member had an abortion, supported an abortion, or defended abortion, and did so without then repenting of it, that would be grounds for church discipline. There is no incrementalism in the church regarding serious sin.

But we are not talking about the church. We are talking about the world of spiritually dead sinners who are living in conscious and continual rebellion against God. As such, what do we want them to do? The Bible says that they cannot obey God’s law (Romans 8:7) and they cannot understand or accept the things of the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:14). If we want them to do righteous and holy things like preserve life, something must happen first. What must happen first is they must be born again. That is the only hope for true change. This is our call to the world. We hold out to them the good news that they can be forgiven and made right with God. They can be changed from within and made new. The great commission is our grand effort. We speak the truth and as the Spirit brings conviction and grants saving faith, then we baptize and disciple.

But what do we do until that happens with a community of unbelievers? The answer to that rides upon a theological category called common grace. Common grace is the grace that God bestows on the world of unbelievers, giving them what they don’t deserve. He gives life and breath and all things (Acts 17:25), He gives rain and sunshine (Matthew 5:45), he gives fruitful seasons, food and gladness (Acts 14:17), and he restrains people from committing more and more sin (2 Thessalonians 2:7; Romans 1:4; Genesis 20:6). God is keeping people and civilizations from quick and total destruction through a variety of things the Spirit uses such as laws written upon people hearts, governmental enforcement, cultural morality, family traditions, the preserving influence of local churches and the natural proclivities that everyone has because we all are made in the image of God. Common grace is what allows morality to remain in a people to some degree to give life and blessing upon rebels bent on their own destruction.

Christians should take every advance in morality that is made possible by common grace. This is capitalizing on what God is doing to restrain a nation’s plunge into destruction. Because common grace is partial and incremental, our moral gains for life will be partial and incremental. Sometimes things happen in a culture that cause a large step to be taken toward morality. In 2015, multiple videos were released showing how Planned Parenthood was selling the body parts of aborted babies. The shock of this stirred things up for a while, but few lasting changes came of it. Perhaps another act of common grace will create another shock that will move our culture towards life. If that happens, we should take that step common grace has afforded. If we refuse to take that step and instead demand only a total abolition of abortion, it is not only theologically foolish and morally disastrous but it will be physically deadly for many babies. Refusing to take that incremental step is essentially saying “if all babies can’t be saved, then let none of them be saved.” This is a rejection of what common grace is doing and it is only going to speed a nation toward destruction. Common grace means we take what we can get and save all that we can save because God is restraining some sin yet not all sin.

However, when there is saving grace at work in a person, then our moral gains in that person will be total. This is what I spoke about above regarding the church addressing serious sin. But saving grace is not happening on a national scale. If perhaps we have a national revival, and saving grace spreads far and wide, then voting for total bans would work. To not vote for a total ban at that moment would be an act of satanic compromise. But as long as partial, incremental, common grace is the only thing at work in a culture, we do what we can, take what we can get, and pray for more and more common grace to preserve lives and the fate of a nation.

This is what we are working with when it comes to moving cultures. Common grace is something, but it is not everything. Common grace gives us some traction for moral advancement, but not much. In some places it will be more and in some places it will be far less. Regardless, we keep preaching the gospel. That is the only source of true changing power. As we continue in great commission work, we need to capitalize on whatever footholds we have in the culture. Democratic voting is a wonderful blessing. But if churches ease up in their gospel work and less and less people are truly saved, then our nation’s voting will simply become ungodly people voting for ungodly practices. Let us preach the gospel that brings total change in people, and as more and more people are changed, then our nation will be more and more changed.

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What's In A Name https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/whats-in-a-name https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/whats-in-a-name#comments Fri, 14 Jul 2023 15:00:00 -0500 https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/whats-in-a-name A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, Juliet tells us in the famous Shakespearian play. But roses aren’t made in the image of God. Names don’t really matter when it comes to plants, and that is why there are some really fun ones. Begonia Darthvadariana was the name given to a dark-leaved begonia. But names given to eternal beings who stand as the pinnacle of God’s creation are a different matter, and in this cultural moment it has become a matter of truth or lie.

Pronouns Verses Names

A lot is happening right now in the pronoun category. Those who never really cared about English grammar have had to catch up quickly on this one point. Pronouns are stand-in words for a person or thing. Instead of saying the name each time, which would become a burden very quickly, pronouns (i.e. he, him, she, her, they, it, this) speed our speech along nicely. For the English language, pronouns are one of the few instances that denote gender when applied to humans. And it is in that gender realm where our culture is waging its war on nature.

But this article won’t be dealing with the issue of pronouns for this reason: pronouns are easier to deal with than names. That doesn’t mean, however, that pronouns are always an easy issue. Gender is getting so confused today that it can be hard to tell if a person is a male or female, and that will make it difficult to know what pronouns to use! But the point is that pronouns are an objective reality; a person is either a male or female. There is no actual transitioning. There is no third category. While it may be difficult to figure out what is true about a person regarding their gender, there is something true about them whether they want to live according to it or not. Biology always tells the facts.

But names are a different animal. Names are conventions. Names are something given by man, not by God, and names can change. This means we are dealing with a far more difficult issue. This is a moving target in some ways and we need to give thought to it. Not only is this a more difficult issue, it is also a more pressing issue. There sometimes are work-arounds for the pronoun issue. Additionally, you normally only use a person’s pronouns when that person is not even around. But names are something you can’t really avoid, and they are an immediate necessity. You have to call them something, so what are you going to do?

The Spectrum of Responsibility

I do believe there is a principle that guides pronoun use as well as name use. That principle is this: the more knowledge you have of a person, the more responsibility you have to speak the truth concerning that person. That means there is a spectrum at play. The lowest end is when we have the least knowledge and therefore the least responsibility. The high end is where we have the most knowledge and most responsibility. In this article we will work our way up that scale.

       Least Knowledge and Responsibility

When you have just met someone, it is best to simply believe what they tell you. There is no reason to not trust them. There is no reason to challenge them. Even if you feel something is off, you have to start somewhere in the relationship. At this point you simply should use the name that is given and the corresponding pronoun. What else can you do? Make up a name for them? Refuse to call them anything? Just take what is given and start there. This is certainly true with names, but it also is true for pronouns. Even if you have a large muscular person dressing as a female or a small petite person dressing as a male, how are you going to know what is true about them? Is this large muscular person just a dude pretending to be a girl, or is it a girl that has been doing years of testosterone treatments and heavy weightlifting? You really can’t know initially. So just start with what is given and go from there.

        Increasing Knowledge and Responsibility

What if you know a person’s name through limited contact or acquaintances? You still have very little knowledge about him outside of his name, but now he wants to change it. People do change their names. Admittedly, this used to be very uncommon. Therefore, our suspicions are on the rise, and our suspicions are rising like a rocket if this is a name related to a different gender; but it would be the same even if it was a change to a gender-neutral name that could go either way. The problem for us is we still don’t have much knowledge of what is really happening. With such limited knowledge and limited contact what are you going to do? You don’t know the circumstances or the reasons for this change. What if they are de-transitioning and going back to their original name with their natural born gender? The point is that while there is more knowledge, there is still so little knowledge that it is dubious to make a fixed decision about what is happening. If questions can be asked and answered in some way then perhaps you can move the next step up the spectrum. But until there is more knowledge it is worth deferring to the other person.

       More knowledge and Responsibility

Here we have a person where more is known. You know that they were one gender and now it has become clear that they are trying to confuse their gender, distance from it or change it altogether. You know this from personal history and/or personal interactions. These things have become reasonably clear. They are changing their name to an opposite gender name, or to a gender-neutral name, in their effort to subvert how God created them. It is at this point that we cannot participate in the lie. We also cannot participate in the confusion. They will call it a “dead name” and take offense if you use it. But that “dead name” is the best way to hold onto the truth of who God made them. Maybe they are trying to keep it all ambiguous with a gender-neutral name. This is also sinful and damaging. Men are to act like men and women are to act like women within the various ranges of what that can be. To confuse genders by blending them or making them ambiguous is to fight against the glory of male and female made in the image of God. There can’t be opposition to the gender God gave them, which includes a confusing or blending of genders, without great harm. We need to call them the name that they have been called in their original gender if it is known. If that name is not known you may have to do something that highlights their true gender like saying “Mr. Jennifer.” This is the concerted effort to not participate in or reinforce the lie. We are reminding them of what is true, of what God is doing, and of where true life is found. You must be the person that they know will tell them the truth, especially if God begins to convict them and draw them to himself.

I anticipate that the name issue will be the point of greatest offense to people. Pronouns will have to be used and they won’t like that either. But you have to use names all the time and every time you use a “dead name” you are asserting that how God made them is still true.

It is also important to remember that this is a case of “how you say it is just as important as what you say.” If you have an attitude of disgust, anger, defiance or smugness that will be carried along on your tone and body/facial language, you are not acting correctly. When you are compelled to do this hard thing you should do it as gently, carefully and understandingly as you can. Most likely it won’t count for much, but at least you won’t add unneeded offense to an already difficult issue.

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A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, Juliet tells us in the famous Shakespearian play. But roses aren’t made in the image of God. Names don’t really matter when it comes to plants, and that is why there are some really fun ones. Begonia Darthvadariana was the name given to a dark-leaved begonia. But names given to eternal beings who stand as the pinnacle of God’s creation are a different matter, and in this cultural moment it has become a matter of truth or lie.

Pronouns Verses Names

A lot is happening right now in the pronoun category. Those who never really cared about English grammar have had to catch up quickly on this one point. Pronouns are stand-in words for a person or thing. Instead of saying the name each time, which would become a burden very quickly, pronouns (i.e. he, him, she, her, they, it, this) speed our speech along nicely. For the English language, pronouns are one of the few instances that denote gender when applied to humans. And it is in that gender realm where our culture is waging its war on nature.

But this article won’t be dealing with the issue of pronouns for this reason: pronouns are easier to deal with than names. That doesn’t mean, however, that pronouns are always an easy issue. Gender is getting so confused today that it can be hard to tell if a person is a male or female, and that will make it difficult to know what pronouns to use! But the point is that pronouns are an objective reality; a person is either a male or female. There is no actual transitioning. There is no third category. While it may be difficult to figure out what is true about a person regarding their gender, there is something true about them whether they want to live according to it or not. Biology always tells the facts.

But names are a different animal. Names are conventions. Names are something given by man, not by God, and names can change. This means we are dealing with a far more difficult issue. This is a moving target in some ways and we need to give thought to it. Not only is this a more difficult issue, it is also a more pressing issue. There sometimes are work-arounds for the pronoun issue. Additionally, you normally only use a person’s pronouns when that person is not even around. But names are something you can’t really avoid, and they are an immediate necessity. You have to call them something, so what are you going to do?

The Spectrum of Responsibility

I do believe there is a principle that guides pronoun use as well as name use. That principle is this: the more knowledge you have of a person, the more responsibility you have to speak the truth concerning that person. That means there is a spectrum at play. The lowest end is when we have the least knowledge and therefore the least responsibility. The high end is where we have the most knowledge and most responsibility. In this article we will work our way up that scale.

       Least Knowledge and Responsibility

When you have just met someone, it is best to simply believe what they tell you. There is no reason to not trust them. There is no reason to challenge them. Even if you feel something is off, you have to start somewhere in the relationship. At this point you simply should use the name that is given and the corresponding pronoun. What else can you do? Make up a name for them? Refuse to call them anything? Just take what is given and start there. This is certainly true with names, but it also is true for pronouns. Even if you have a large muscular person dressing as a female or a small petite person dressing as a male, how are you going to know what is true about them? Is this large muscular person just a dude pretending to be a girl, or is it a girl that has been doing years of testosterone treatments and heavy weightlifting? You really can’t know initially. So just start with what is given and go from there.

        Increasing Knowledge and Responsibility

What if you know a person’s name through limited contact or acquaintances? You still have very little knowledge about him outside of his name, but now he wants to change it. People do change their names. Admittedly, this used to be very uncommon. Therefore, our suspicions are on the rise, and our suspicions are rising like a rocket if this is a name related to a different gender; but it would be the same even if it was a change to a gender-neutral name that could go either way. The problem for us is we still don’t have much knowledge of what is really happening. With such limited knowledge and limited contact what are you going to do? You don’t know the circumstances or the reasons for this change. What if they are de-transitioning and going back to their original name with their natural born gender? The point is that while there is more knowledge, there is still so little knowledge that it is dubious to make a fixed decision about what is happening. If questions can be asked and answered in some way then perhaps you can move the next step up the spectrum. But until there is more knowledge it is worth deferring to the other person.

       More knowledge and Responsibility

Here we have a person where more is known. You know that they were one gender and now it has become clear that they are trying to confuse their gender, distance from it or change it altogether. You know this from personal history and/or personal interactions. These things have become reasonably clear. They are changing their name to an opposite gender name, or to a gender-neutral name, in their effort to subvert how God created them. It is at this point that we cannot participate in the lie. We also cannot participate in the confusion. They will call it a “dead name” and take offense if you use it. But that “dead name” is the best way to hold onto the truth of who God made them. Maybe they are trying to keep it all ambiguous with a gender-neutral name. This is also sinful and damaging. Men are to act like men and women are to act like women within the various ranges of what that can be. To confuse genders by blending them or making them ambiguous is to fight against the glory of male and female made in the image of God. There can’t be opposition to the gender God gave them, which includes a confusing or blending of genders, without great harm. We need to call them the name that they have been called in their original gender if it is known. If that name is not known you may have to do something that highlights their true gender like saying “Mr. Jennifer.” This is the concerted effort to not participate in or reinforce the lie. We are reminding them of what is true, of what God is doing, and of where true life is found. You must be the person that they know will tell them the truth, especially if God begins to convict them and draw them to himself.

I anticipate that the name issue will be the point of greatest offense to people. Pronouns will have to be used and they won’t like that either. But you have to use names all the time and every time you use a “dead name” you are asserting that how God made them is still true.

It is also important to remember that this is a case of “how you say it is just as important as what you say.” If you have an attitude of disgust, anger, defiance or smugness that will be carried along on your tone and body/facial language, you are not acting correctly. When you are compelled to do this hard thing you should do it as gently, carefully and understandingly as you can. Most likely it won’t count for much, but at least you won’t add unneeded offense to an already difficult issue.

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Do You Feel Bad For Demons? https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/do-you-feel-bad-for-demons https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/do-you-feel-bad-for-demons#comments Fri, 05 May 2023 17:00:00 -0500 https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/do-you-feel-bad-for-demons Have you ever wept for a demon? Of course not. Demons are the enemies of your body and soul, and are bent on your total and complete destruction. They want your destruction because they want God’s destruction, and you bear the image of God. There is nothing good in them and nothing to redeem. They are sold over, seared, and all consumed by every form of evil. And this is what you will be if you die in your sin.

Wait. What?

One of the common notions and questions that Christians have is how they will have unmitigated joy in heaven while knowing that loved ones are in hell. There are a number of ways to answer that. Very quickly we can say that we will be like God and know his holiness and righteousness in a way that accords with how God knows it. So just as God is not broken and agonizing about people in hell, so we won’t either. Additionally, angels do nothing but rejoice at the judgement that falls upon the wicked and this also is an indicator that they are seeing things differently than we do now.

But the answer I would like to focus on is what happens to people when they are sent to hell and how we will know them in a new way. There are a few preliminary realities to remember. First, they are judged perfectly for all their sin. Every single sin ever done or thought will receive a just accounting. Every factor of upbringing and experience and circumstances will be fully and perfect weighed. This will be a truly perfect judgment. Which is why Capernaum will have a hotter hell than Sodom. Capernaum had more light and more opportunity, which means their rejection has a higher culpability (Matt. 11:23-24). And just so the whole universe is sure, the final act judgment will be a double check that their name is not found in the lamb’s book of life (Rev. 20:12). They will see the blank spot in that book confirming that they rejected the grace of God and chose to bear their own consequences. Secondly, every sinner will receive a resurrected body. This will be a body that can bear the full wrath of God forever. Unspeakable agony will never be stopped by a failing body.

But what about the heart and soul of this condemned person? What will they be thinking about? What will they be doing? Will they be partying with their friends? That is a definite no. But will they be regretting everything? Will they be repenting of sin and crying for mercy? Now that they know without doubt Jesus really is Lord will they worship him? Many said in life that they would worship him if they knew he truly was God. Will the worship begin now that this is clear?

None of this is going to happen. Why? Because for any of that repentance and worship to happen it takes a work of grace upon the heart and there is no grace available in hell. There was grace given in a partial way while that person was on earth. God was lavishing the world with common grace that allowed them to recognize some evil and turn away from it. God’s grace gave them rain and harvests that provided them a measure of thankfulness,(comma) though they never fully directed it toward God. God’s grace allowed them to show some mercy, some generosity, some patience, some kindness, some selflessness and more.

But grace is what is no longer available in hell. Revelation 14:10 says they will “drink the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger…” That means God’s wrath is not mixed with one drop of mercy or one drop of grace. It is only justice, justice, justice. Righteous anger now is what fuels and directs God’s actions toward them.

Without one stitch of grace and mercy, what happens to people? Romans 9 speaks of people as clay that can be made either into a vessel of mercy or a vessel of wrath. But what about clay that is left on its own? We can say that the clay in hell, completely separated from the mercy of God, will harden completely. It will become totally sold over to sin and evil. Without the restraining grace of God that protected and preserved them all their life on earth, they will now be consumed by hate. Their conscience will be fully and actively condemning them relentlessly, but it will do no good. It will only enflame their fury as they agonize in moral and physical torment.

In essence they will become like demons. Hell was made for Satan and his horde (Matt. 25:41). And the fact that people are also sent to the same place means they now have the same nature. They become unredeemable, the same way that demons were from the moment of their fall.

I believe this is another reason why we will not agonize for our lost family and friends while we are in heaven and they are in hell. While we are still alive and on earth, we do agonize over them. They are partaking in the grace and mercy of God. They are still redeemable. They can see and recognize some features of God’s goodness and beauty. God himself loves them and is sustaining them and calling them to salvation; God takes no delight in the death of the wicked. But once death has happened, once they have rejected grace one last time, they are given completely over to sin and God is right to have nothing but anger for them. They have become like demons. In heaven we will know them as those completely separated from God and conformed to the grotesque and horrific vileness of total evil. We will recognize the full extent of evil, and how our loved ones now are totally given over to it and consumed by it. We will also recognize the rightness of condemnation. We don’t feel bad for demons and we won’t feel bad for family members.

But at the same time we will recognize the shock of grace. We deserved hell. We should have been given completely over. But we weren’t. God snatched us for no reason that we can see. He didn’t give us over to evil, he gave us to his Son as a bride and now we are offered back to God as a people for his own name sake. What amazing grace! What amazing mercy! May we hold that forth zealously to a world that needs to be saved from themselves.

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Have you ever wept for a demon? Of course not. Demons are the enemies of your body and soul, and are bent on your total and complete destruction. They want your destruction because they want God’s destruction, and you bear the image of God. There is nothing good in them and nothing to redeem. They are sold over, seared, and all consumed by every form of evil. And this is what you will be if you die in your sin.

Wait. What?

One of the common notions and questions that Christians have is how they will have unmitigated joy in heaven while knowing that loved ones are in hell. There are a number of ways to answer that. Very quickly we can say that we will be like God and know his holiness and righteousness in a way that accords with how God knows it. So just as God is not broken and agonizing about people in hell, so we won’t either. Additionally, angels do nothing but rejoice at the judgement that falls upon the wicked and this also is an indicator that they are seeing things differently than we do now.

But the answer I would like to focus on is what happens to people when they are sent to hell and how we will know them in a new way. There are a few preliminary realities to remember. First, they are judged perfectly for all their sin. Every single sin ever done or thought will receive a just accounting. Every factor of upbringing and experience and circumstances will be fully and perfect weighed. This will be a truly perfect judgment. Which is why Capernaum will have a hotter hell than Sodom. Capernaum had more light and more opportunity, which means their rejection has a higher culpability (Matt. 11:23-24). And just so the whole universe is sure, the final act judgment will be a double check that their name is not found in the lamb’s book of life (Rev. 20:12). They will see the blank spot in that book confirming that they rejected the grace of God and chose to bear their own consequences. Secondly, every sinner will receive a resurrected body. This will be a body that can bear the full wrath of God forever. Unspeakable agony will never be stopped by a failing body.

But what about the heart and soul of this condemned person? What will they be thinking about? What will they be doing? Will they be partying with their friends? That is a definite no. But will they be regretting everything? Will they be repenting of sin and crying for mercy? Now that they know without doubt Jesus really is Lord will they worship him? Many said in life that they would worship him if they knew he truly was God. Will the worship begin now that this is clear?

None of this is going to happen. Why? Because for any of that repentance and worship to happen it takes a work of grace upon the heart and there is no grace available in hell. There was grace given in a partial way while that person was on earth. God was lavishing the world with common grace that allowed them to recognize some evil and turn away from it. God’s grace gave them rain and harvests that provided them a measure of thankfulness,(comma) though they never fully directed it toward God. God’s grace allowed them to show some mercy, some generosity, some patience, some kindness, some selflessness and more.

But grace is what is no longer available in hell. Revelation 14:10 says they will “drink the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger…” That means God’s wrath is not mixed with one drop of mercy or one drop of grace. It is only justice, justice, justice. Righteous anger now is what fuels and directs God’s actions toward them.

Without one stitch of grace and mercy, what happens to people? Romans 9 speaks of people as clay that can be made either into a vessel of mercy or a vessel of wrath. But what about clay that is left on its own? We can say that the clay in hell, completely separated from the mercy of God, will harden completely. It will become totally sold over to sin and evil. Without the restraining grace of God that protected and preserved them all their life on earth, they will now be consumed by hate. Their conscience will be fully and actively condemning them relentlessly, but it will do no good. It will only enflame their fury as they agonize in moral and physical torment.

In essence they will become like demons. Hell was made for Satan and his horde (Matt. 25:41). And the fact that people are also sent to the same place means they now have the same nature. They become unredeemable, the same way that demons were from the moment of their fall.

I believe this is another reason why we will not agonize for our lost family and friends while we are in heaven and they are in hell. While we are still alive and on earth, we do agonize over them. They are partaking in the grace and mercy of God. They are still redeemable. They can see and recognize some features of God’s goodness and beauty. God himself loves them and is sustaining them and calling them to salvation; God takes no delight in the death of the wicked. But once death has happened, once they have rejected grace one last time, they are given completely over to sin and God is right to have nothing but anger for them. They have become like demons. In heaven we will know them as those completely separated from God and conformed to the grotesque and horrific vileness of total evil. We will recognize the full extent of evil, and how our loved ones now are totally given over to it and consumed by it. We will also recognize the rightness of condemnation. We don’t feel bad for demons and we won’t feel bad for family members.

But at the same time we will recognize the shock of grace. We deserved hell. We should have been given completely over. But we weren’t. God snatched us for no reason that we can see. He didn’t give us over to evil, he gave us to his Son as a bride and now we are offered back to God as a people for his own name sake. What amazing grace! What amazing mercy! May we hold that forth zealously to a world that needs to be saved from themselves.

]]>
Happiness Verses Joy https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/happiness-verses-joy https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/happiness-verses-joy#comments Fri, 28 Apr 2023 15:00:00 -0500 https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/happiness-verses-joy The other day I was driving down the highway when I found myself behind the most common vehicle on the road: an Amazon delivery van. On the back of this van I was presented with a surprising caution: “Warning: contents may cause happiness.” This got my gears turning and they quickly clicked into a common Christian refrain , that happiness is found in happenings but joy is found in Jesus. This refrain says happiness and joy are two different things. Happiness is superficial and temporary, but joy is deep and lasting. It has a ring of reasonableness but I don’t think it works biblically. Let’s work through the reasons.

The Bible Doesn’t Separate Joy and Happiness

It makes sense to distinguish the differences in what we feel and experience. Chocolate makes me happy, family makes me happy and Jesus makes me happy. But all of these are radically different. But can the difference really be contained and defined by having two words and forcing everything into them?

When it comes to the Bible, we simply don’t find this distinction in the words themselves. In the New Testament the word “joy” is commonly found, but the word “happy” is regularly translated “blessed.” It may surprise some that this word “happy” or “blessed” is used extensively for all kinds of spiritual good that a person rejoices in, e.g. the beatitudes. The word joy is also used for rejoicing in spiritual good, but it should be understood that it is also used for regular things. In Matthew 13:20, it is used for an unbeliever’s joy in the word that is receive but later latter rejected. In Matthew 13:44, is used in a parable of a man who finds buried treasure. In John 3:29, it is used for joy at a wedding when hearing the bridegroom’s voice. And in Acts 12:14, it is used when Rhoda heard Peter’s voice.

What is the conclusion? The word “happiness” can be used to speak of true spiritual joy, and the word “Joy” can be used to speak of happiness in worldly things. These are interchangeable words. There is no distinction between joy and happiness. They speak of our emotional experience of delight and pleasure.

So Where Is The Difference?

If these words are interchangeable, then how do we explain the difference between joy/happiness in chocolate and joy/happiness in Jesus? Indeed there is a difference, but it may not be as different as you think. The issue is not with the kind of happiness; happiness is happiness wherever and however it is found. The emotional experience is the same. The difference is in the object that causes that happiness. If I have my highest and deepest happiness in chocolate, then as chocolate goes so goes my happiness. And that is not good news. I may not have access to chocolate. I may develop an allergy to chocolate. I may get a bad case of Covid and not be able to taste chocolate again. If any of these things happen my real and true happiness is gone. The object that produced it could not continue to give it for a variety of reasons.

But Jesus is different. His glory and beauty and power and grace should cause a real and deep happiness. He is fairer than 10,000 and we should be overwhelmed by him. This happiness has no bounds. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. I cannot be snatched from the Father’s hand. Even in our sin, we can know the wonder of forgiveness and security.

So the difference is not between joy and happiness, the difference is between a capable source and an incapable source. If an object is subject to fading, destruction or separation, then so is my happiness. But Jesus is subject to none of that. Sin can disrupt our joy, but it doesn’t have to. And when it does we can find instant restoration in confession and repentance because God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

But What About Lesser Happiness?

Should we be wary of joy in chocolate and sunsets and family? The only wariness we should have is about our idolatrous hearts. These joys are true joys that should be savored in all their varied pleasures. The key though is to savor rightly, and that is what our hearts have trouble doing. If the focus remains on the item itself or pursuing it wrongly or at the wrong time, sin is working its destructive ways. Every idol is simply a good thing that is being treasured wrongly. How do you treasure things wrongly? “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) When we do not see that all good things are from the hand of God and show us his glory, we fall short of his glory and we fall into idolatry. That thing or person was meant to make us know God a little bit more. But instead we just wanted that thing and not the creator of that thing. Not only is this cosmic treason of the highest order, it is an unsustainable happiness. That created thing will fail in its joy-giving abilities. Only God can support our inexhaustible desires for awe and greatness because only God has inexhaustible joy-giving glory. When we know that all things come from God and are for God, then our pleasure in them is truly God-glorifying because it rejoices in the true source of the pleasure. As 1 Timothy says “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.” Therefore, 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “So whether we eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.”

So, yes, there may actually be happiness in that Amazon van. But if we are not able to see God’s wisdom and power and kindness and creativeness in and through those Amazon items, then our happiness is as transitory as the item itself. Every millionaire has had this reality crash upon them. Find your highest, truest, deepest happiness in Jesus. Not only can he sustain it, he will forever increase it in ways you never dreamed. No one and no thing will ever be able to take this joy from you.

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The other day I was driving down the highway when I found myself behind the most common vehicle on the road: an Amazon delivery van. On the back of this van I was presented with a surprising caution: “Warning: contents may cause happiness.” This got my gears turning and they quickly clicked into a common Christian refrain , that happiness is found in happenings but joy is found in Jesus. This refrain says happiness and joy are two different things. Happiness is superficial and temporary, but joy is deep and lasting. It has a ring of reasonableness but I don’t think it works biblically. Let’s work through the reasons.

The Bible Doesn’t Separate Joy and Happiness

It makes sense to distinguish the differences in what we feel and experience. Chocolate makes me happy, family makes me happy and Jesus makes me happy. But all of these are radically different. But can the difference really be contained and defined by having two words and forcing everything into them?

When it comes to the Bible, we simply don’t find this distinction in the words themselves. In the New Testament the word “joy” is commonly found, but the word “happy” is regularly translated “blessed.” It may surprise some that this word “happy” or “blessed” is used extensively for all kinds of spiritual good that a person rejoices in, e.g. the beatitudes. The word joy is also used for rejoicing in spiritual good, but it should be understood that it is also used for regular things. In Matthew 13:20, it is used for an unbeliever’s joy in the word that is receive but later latter rejected. In Matthew 13:44, is used in a parable of a man who finds buried treasure. In John 3:29, it is used for joy at a wedding when hearing the bridegroom’s voice. And in Acts 12:14, it is used when Rhoda heard Peter’s voice.

What is the conclusion? The word “happiness” can be used to speak of true spiritual joy, and the word “Joy” can be used to speak of happiness in worldly things. These are interchangeable words. There is no distinction between joy and happiness. They speak of our emotional experience of delight and pleasure.

So Where Is The Difference?

If these words are interchangeable, then how do we explain the difference between joy/happiness in chocolate and joy/happiness in Jesus? Indeed there is a difference, but it may not be as different as you think. The issue is not with the kind of happiness; happiness is happiness wherever and however it is found. The emotional experience is the same. The difference is in the object that causes that happiness. If I have my highest and deepest happiness in chocolate, then as chocolate goes so goes my happiness. And that is not good news. I may not have access to chocolate. I may develop an allergy to chocolate. I may get a bad case of Covid and not be able to taste chocolate again. If any of these things happen my real and true happiness is gone. The object that produced it could not continue to give it for a variety of reasons.

But Jesus is different. His glory and beauty and power and grace should cause a real and deep happiness. He is fairer than 10,000 and we should be overwhelmed by him. This happiness has no bounds. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. I cannot be snatched from the Father’s hand. Even in our sin, we can know the wonder of forgiveness and security.

So the difference is not between joy and happiness, the difference is between a capable source and an incapable source. If an object is subject to fading, destruction or separation, then so is my happiness. But Jesus is subject to none of that. Sin can disrupt our joy, but it doesn’t have to. And when it does we can find instant restoration in confession and repentance because God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

But What About Lesser Happiness?

Should we be wary of joy in chocolate and sunsets and family? The only wariness we should have is about our idolatrous hearts. These joys are true joys that should be savored in all their varied pleasures. The key though is to savor rightly, and that is what our hearts have trouble doing. If the focus remains on the item itself or pursuing it wrongly or at the wrong time, sin is working its destructive ways. Every idol is simply a good thing that is being treasured wrongly. How do you treasure things wrongly? “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) When we do not see that all good things are from the hand of God and show us his glory, we fall short of his glory and we fall into idolatry. That thing or person was meant to make us know God a little bit more. But instead we just wanted that thing and not the creator of that thing. Not only is this cosmic treason of the highest order, it is an unsustainable happiness. That created thing will fail in its joy-giving abilities. Only God can support our inexhaustible desires for awe and greatness because only God has inexhaustible joy-giving glory. When we know that all things come from God and are for God, then our pleasure in them is truly God-glorifying because it rejoices in the true source of the pleasure. As 1 Timothy says “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.” Therefore, 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “So whether we eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.”

So, yes, there may actually be happiness in that Amazon van. But if we are not able to see God’s wisdom and power and kindness and creativeness in and through those Amazon items, then our happiness is as transitory as the item itself. Every millionaire has had this reality crash upon them. Find your highest, truest, deepest happiness in Jesus. Not only can he sustain it, he will forever increase it in ways you never dreamed. No one and no thing will ever be able to take this joy from you.

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Book Review: The Kingdom of God Is Within You - By Leo Tolstoy https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/book-review-the-kingdom-of-god-is-within-you---by-leo-tolstoy https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/book-review-the-kingdom-of-god-is-within-you---by-leo-tolstoy#comments Tue, 07 Mar 2023 15:00:00 -0600 https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/book-review-the-kingdom-of-god-is-within-you---by-leo-tolstoy What we have in this book is another example of the irresistible magnetism of Jesus. There is simply no else like Jesus.  While other men have changed the world by use of armies, overthrows of governments, or surprising inventions, only Jesus has changed the world by the word of truth, the power of miracle, the shock of holiness and the sacrifice of love.

It is because of this that people everywhere want to have Jesus on their side.  It is not uncommon for people to recognize the impact of Jesus and want to have that kind of change-maker attached to their cause.  But in order to do this, Jesus has to be rebranded.  Jesus has to be tamed and domesticated in order to get with the program.  For the psychologist, Jesus becomes the great therapist.  For the revolutionary, Jesus is the insurrectionist.  For the wounded and victimized, Jesus is the sympathizing judge.  For the progressive, Jesus is the courageous and compassionate breaker of traditions.  On and on the list goes.  But for every one of those rebrands, Jesus has to be neutered, edited and reshaped. 

Tolstoy has done this very thing.  His rebranding of Jesus is just one more version of a Jesus who fits with what someone wants.  What does Tolstoy want?  Tolstoy was a man who witnessed the horrors of war and other atrocities of government.  He was appalled by these and found something he liked in Jesus’s teaching; that particular thing was the statement from his sermon on the mount about not resisting evil but turning the other cheek.  That was the statement Tolstoy built his philosophy upon.  Unfortunately, Tolstoy became another in a long line of those who make Jesus into a patsy for their own ideas.*  (See footnote below addressing Historicity)

The tragedy of this is that Tolstoy has missed the heart of the message of Jesus.  Tolstoy wants a utopia and that utopia will be attained by people practicing love, patience, forgiveness and the necessary non-use of force against evil.  On page 26, Tolstoy says that a new doctrine appeared and was attributed to Christ.  This doctrine denied all deities and all human institutions and called men to an inward perfection.  As this perfection of love and truth was pursued there would be greater and greater blessedness and finally the Kingdom of God.  How Tolstoy dreamed this up and attached it to Jesus we are never told.  This is the farthest thing from what Jesus taught.  Jesus taught the exact opposite.  Jesus taught that from the heart of man came every evil thing (Mark 7:20-23)  On his own, man is dead in sin.  The one hope is not trying harder for inward perfection, but trusting that Jesus alone, as the God-man, can pay for our infinitely large sin-debt and change us.  Jesus called us to repent of self-effort and come to him.  Jesus condemned those who were trying for self-righteousness (Luke 18:10-14).  Only through him could we come to the Father (John 14:6) and bear the fruit of love (John 15:1-5).

A Misunderstanding of Jesus’ Teaching on Non-resistance

One of the worst things a person can do it take someone’s words out of context.  Today it is called a sound bite.  To detach a sentence from its context can allow that sentence to mean almost anything.  The call in the Bible is to accurately handle the word of God (2 Timothy 2:15).  The greek word used there means to rightly cut or divide.  Cutting something rightly means keeping the parts together that belong together and not separating them.  Tolstoy has cut out Jesus’ statement from the rest of what Jesus taught about living in a fallen world. 

Jesus did call for non-resistance, but in a particular situation; interpersonal conflict.  In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chap. 5-7) Jesus was confronting a misuse of God’s law (Matt. 5:38-42) in Leviticus (eye for an eye) that people were using for personal retaliation.  That principle was a community justice principle for the judicial system in the nation of Israel.  Jesus was saying that to use it for personal vengeance is wrong.  The heart-level righteousness of God’s people should be so desirous for the good of your neighbor that you turn their evil against you as new opportunities to show them good and blessing.  This is what the OT law was aiming for, but it was being perverted. 

There is nothing in Matthew 5: 38-42 that indicates that Jesus was wanting non-resistance in interpersonal matters to be a principle for every area of life, in every area of social systems and governance.  In fact, the rest of Jesus’ teaching has a number of examples that show the opposite of what Tolstoy advocated.

  • Tolstoy held Adin Ballou as an example of one who taught and wrote about non-resistance to evil. On page 6 Ballou says that the OT prophets taught to resist evil with punishment, but that “Christ rejects all this.” And that “jesus forbids it.”  But this is setting Jesus against the Old Testament.  Jesus was emphatically not against anything in God’s word of the Old Testament.  Jesus upheld all of the OT law, including the ones that called for punishment of evildoers. 
    • Matthew 5:17 (NASB95) — 17 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
    • John 10:35 (NASB95) — 35 “If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken),
    • Luke 24:25 (NASB95) — 25 And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
  • On page 7 Ballou says one should not pay taxes to the government, but Jesus explicitly taught that taxes should be paid, even to Rome as was Jesus’ case.
    • Matthew 22:17 (NASB95) — 17 “Tell us then, what do You think? Is it lawful to give a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?” 21 They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” Then He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.”
  • Throughout the book Tolstoy speaks of how Christ teaching and true Christianity will destroy government and armies. However, in the scripture Jesus and others are never seen telling soldiers to leave but instead are given instructions for good service and are even praised for faith.
    • John the Baptist, the prophetic forerunner to Jesus was asked by soldiers what they should do in their repentance. Luke 3:14  Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, “And what about us, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.”
    • Jesus gave his highest praise to a soldier who had “great faith” Matthew 8:9–10 9 “For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” 10 Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.
  • Tolstoy is clear that there is no kind of forceful resistance to evil that accords with the teaching of Christ. While force is something that Jesus said should not be a part of interpersonal interaction, and even demonstrated that when he rebuked Peter for taking the sword against soldiers who were arresting Jesus (Matt. 26:51-52), Jesus did speak of a need of a sword.  In Luke 22:36 Jesus said “And He said to them, “But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one.”  What would be the reason Jesus told them to take a sword?  Because when Jesus sent his disciples on missions earlier he gave special divine supplies so that they weren’t even to take extra clothes or to take money bags (Mark 6:8).  But now things are changing.  Jesus is ascending back to heaven and they will not have supplies divinely given in this special way.  God will supply by normal ways of providence, not in special miraculous ways.  They are to be prepared and God will work through their preparations.  And one of the preparation is a sword.  There will be people who simply want to kill them and take their stuff.  Jesus is telling them to be ready for this and to protect themselves. 

The Old Testament and the New Testament on Government and the use of the Sword

Tolstoy is only interested in Jesus.  The only reference to Old Testament is a rejection of its key characters (pg 38).  This is another evidence that Tolstoy made a Jesus to his own liking.  Jesus believed the OT, preached the OT, quoted the OT, and most importantly fulfilled the OT.  If Tolstoy really wanted to hold up Jesus as the example, the OT would not be ignored.  And if the OT is examined, God makes many regulations about punishing people, warfare, and judicial issues.  But what is unique to the OT is that these are provisions for the nation of Israel.  In the OT God set up theocracy.  God was ruling over Israel with his very presence in their midst at the temple.  God mediated his rule through the priesthood, through kings, through prophets and through judges. Therefore this is a very different situation than we are in now.  We are not Israelites living in a theocratic kingdom.  Thus, there are many things prescribed in the OT that are only meant for Israelite people such as dietary laws, cleansing laws, temple practices and more.  Nevertheless, we still see that non-resistance to evil by force was not what God set up.  Evil was resisted by laws, by judges, and by kings and their armies.  Yet it is also true that in interpersonal matters there must be no violence or retribution. Leviticus 19:18  ‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.”  The same thing Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount was already taught in the OT law. 

Regarding the rest of the New Testament we have to remember that Jesus commissioned and sent out the 12 apostles to start churches and teach according to the divine direction they would be given.  Tolstoy rejects all of this and says that the insertion of made up miracles was propping up a system that Jesus didn’t start.  That is a big assertion and one that should be dealt with.  Suffice it to say, in the below footnoot I briefly addressed the authenticity and historicity of the New Testament.  If miracles were invented, it would have easily been exposed and shut down.  The early churches were insistent regarding the apostolic authorship of the letters and that they conformed to Christ and the OT.   The gospels and the letters of the NT were coming directly from the apostles who were teaching as commissioned by the risen Christ.  

As such, the NT does speak about the use of force and governments.  The summary word is as follows.  God is no longer working in a theocratic way in one nation.  God’s presence among his people is now in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each truly born again Christian worldwide, which is experienced especially when his people gather in biblically sound local churches.  In the world at large, evil is now held in check by all levels of government and done so by the just use of force.

  • Romans chapter 13 is the most significant teaching about government. Even evil governments are better than no government.  While the evil perpetrated by governments will one day be brought into divine judgment, they still restrain other evil and this is a necessary thing in this fallen world.  These are the key statements:
    • 1 every person should be subject to government
    • 1 God is the source of all legitimate authority
    • 1 Every government is from God as a restraining influence, even though it may do it poorly
    • 4 the government bears the sword and does so to bring wrath upon evil. This is a God-given right of government to deal with evil.
  • Paul recognized the right of government to bring the death penalty and when he was brought to trial for preaching the gospel he said that if he had done something deserving of death he did not refuse it. Acts 25:11  “If, then, I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die; but if none of those things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar.”
  • 1 Timothy 2 calls us to pray for kings and all in authority. Not to pray for their end but that they execute their authority wisely and in justice with the result that people can live quietly and peaceably.
  • 1 Peter 2:13-14 also calls for a submission to government and that it has the job of the punishment of evildoers
  • Titus 3:1 calls for submission to government

Just War Tradition

While the New Testament doesn’t speak of nations engaging in war, throughout the centuries the Christian church has applied the above verses to speak to what is called Just War Tradition.  This is the teaching that utopian ideas of peace and harmony are simply the dreams of the naive.  This world is a fallen world populated by fallen people who are truly evil.  If evil is not confronted and dealt with then it will overcome and destroy everything.  The restraining feature that God has instituted to stop that is governments.  But that is not to say that government should go to war whenever they want.  The Just war Tradition says that since government can bear the sword, they should only do so against another nation when several things are true.  1) War must be the last resort, after all reasonable alternatives have failed. 2) A lawful authority must authorize the military action. 3) Authority must be driven by an intention to establish a righteous peace--not to gain territory or claim the goods of another lawful nation. 4) Military action must be proportionate to the good that can be gained.  5) Care must be taken to protect civilians to the greatest extent possible. 

 

 (Footnote From Above)

* But how do we know for sure that Jesus was edited and reshaped by Tolstoy?  When we speak of rebranding Jesus and editing Jesus, this presupposes that we have his true words and a true historical account of his life.  But do we?  This forces us to deal with the historicity of the Bible.  Is it a trustworthy historical document?  Many say it is not, simply because it contains theological and spiritual statements and records of miracles.  But this is not a fair treatment.  When viewed as an ancient document, how does it stand?

  • It is unparalleled in its genealogy. The Old Testament contain extensive genealogies and the NT uses them as well.  These are actual people with actual history.  These would have been verifiable or falsifiable by those who read it. 
  • It is unparalleled in his archeology – There is no other book that archeologists turn to like the Bible. It is real places and real events that have been verified over and over again by archeologists in the field.
  • It is unparalleled in its textual accurateness – We have remaining ancient manuscripts of the new testament that date back to within 50 to 100 years of their writing. No other ancient copies get this close to the originals. That closeness in dates is key for knowing its authenticity.  The Dead Sea Scrolls proved the accuracy of the OT.
  • It is unparalleled in manuscript numbers. – We know we have what the originals contained because there are so many copies (over 5,000 manuscripts) that make clear what the source document said and they also show where the errors are and how the errors got there in the first place.  The science of textual criticism has done extensive work with biblical texts.
  • The appeal to verification – Paul appeals to eye witnesses of the resurrection, whom he says most were still alive (1 Corinthians 15:3-6); Luke says his gospel accords with the other accounts written from eye-witnesses (Luke 1:1-4); Peter appeals to his eye-witness account as opposed to clever tales (2 Peter 1:16-21); John the Apostle says that he has written about what he saw and touched (1 John 1:1-4). The writers of the Bible are emphatically wanting people to verify the historicity of what they say and write. 
  • The personal sacrifice of the authors – All the apostles died a martyr’s death, not simply because they were zealous, but because they held to an actual historical resurrection of Jesus. People do not give their lives for a lie or extreme exaggeration.

The Bible is written as historical fact.  Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, specifically wrote to make a clear, historical record that could be checked.  Notice how Luke starts his book by appealing to eyewitnesses, investigation, consecutive order, and to truthfulness. 

Luke 1:1–4 — 1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, 3 it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; 4 so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.

]]>
What we have in this book is another example of the irresistible magnetism of Jesus. There is simply no else like Jesus.  While other men have changed the world by use of armies, overthrows of governments, or surprising inventions, only Jesus has changed the world by the word of truth, the power of miracle, the shock of holiness and the sacrifice of love.

It is because of this that people everywhere want to have Jesus on their side.  It is not uncommon for people to recognize the impact of Jesus and want to have that kind of change-maker attached to their cause.  But in order to do this, Jesus has to be rebranded.  Jesus has to be tamed and domesticated in order to get with the program.  For the psychologist, Jesus becomes the great therapist.  For the revolutionary, Jesus is the insurrectionist.  For the wounded and victimized, Jesus is the sympathizing judge.  For the progressive, Jesus is the courageous and compassionate breaker of traditions.  On and on the list goes.  But for every one of those rebrands, Jesus has to be neutered, edited and reshaped. 

Tolstoy has done this very thing.  His rebranding of Jesus is just one more version of a Jesus who fits with what someone wants.  What does Tolstoy want?  Tolstoy was a man who witnessed the horrors of war and other atrocities of government.  He was appalled by these and found something he liked in Jesus’s teaching; that particular thing was the statement from his sermon on the mount about not resisting evil but turning the other cheek.  That was the statement Tolstoy built his philosophy upon.  Unfortunately, Tolstoy became another in a long line of those who make Jesus into a patsy for their own ideas.*  (See footnote below addressing Historicity)

The tragedy of this is that Tolstoy has missed the heart of the message of Jesus.  Tolstoy wants a utopia and that utopia will be attained by people practicing love, patience, forgiveness and the necessary non-use of force against evil.  On page 26, Tolstoy says that a new doctrine appeared and was attributed to Christ.  This doctrine denied all deities and all human institutions and called men to an inward perfection.  As this perfection of love and truth was pursued there would be greater and greater blessedness and finally the Kingdom of God.  How Tolstoy dreamed this up and attached it to Jesus we are never told.  This is the farthest thing from what Jesus taught.  Jesus taught the exact opposite.  Jesus taught that from the heart of man came every evil thing (Mark 7:20-23)  On his own, man is dead in sin.  The one hope is not trying harder for inward perfection, but trusting that Jesus alone, as the God-man, can pay for our infinitely large sin-debt and change us.  Jesus called us to repent of self-effort and come to him.  Jesus condemned those who were trying for self-righteousness (Luke 18:10-14).  Only through him could we come to the Father (John 14:6) and bear the fruit of love (John 15:1-5).

A Misunderstanding of Jesus’ Teaching on Non-resistance

One of the worst things a person can do it take someone’s words out of context.  Today it is called a sound bite.  To detach a sentence from its context can allow that sentence to mean almost anything.  The call in the Bible is to accurately handle the word of God (2 Timothy 2:15).  The greek word used there means to rightly cut or divide.  Cutting something rightly means keeping the parts together that belong together and not separating them.  Tolstoy has cut out Jesus’ statement from the rest of what Jesus taught about living in a fallen world. 

Jesus did call for non-resistance, but in a particular situation; interpersonal conflict.  In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chap. 5-7) Jesus was confronting a misuse of God’s law (Matt. 5:38-42) in Leviticus (eye for an eye) that people were using for personal retaliation.  That principle was a community justice principle for the judicial system in the nation of Israel.  Jesus was saying that to use it for personal vengeance is wrong.  The heart-level righteousness of God’s people should be so desirous for the good of your neighbor that you turn their evil against you as new opportunities to show them good and blessing.  This is what the OT law was aiming for, but it was being perverted. 

There is nothing in Matthew 5: 38-42 that indicates that Jesus was wanting non-resistance in interpersonal matters to be a principle for every area of life, in every area of social systems and governance.  In fact, the rest of Jesus’ teaching has a number of examples that show the opposite of what Tolstoy advocated.

  • Tolstoy held Adin Ballou as an example of one who taught and wrote about non-resistance to evil. On page 6 Ballou says that the OT prophets taught to resist evil with punishment, but that “Christ rejects all this.” And that “jesus forbids it.”  But this is setting Jesus against the Old Testament.  Jesus was emphatically not against anything in God’s word of the Old Testament.  Jesus upheld all of the OT law, including the ones that called for punishment of evildoers. 
    • Matthew 5:17 (NASB95) — 17 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
    • John 10:35 (NASB95) — 35 “If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken),
    • Luke 24:25 (NASB95) — 25 And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
  • On page 7 Ballou says one should not pay taxes to the government, but Jesus explicitly taught that taxes should be paid, even to Rome as was Jesus’ case.
    • Matthew 22:17 (NASB95) — 17 “Tell us then, what do You think? Is it lawful to give a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?” 21 They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” Then He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.”
  • Throughout the book Tolstoy speaks of how Christ teaching and true Christianity will destroy government and armies. However, in the scripture Jesus and others are never seen telling soldiers to leave but instead are given instructions for good service and are even praised for faith.
    • John the Baptist, the prophetic forerunner to Jesus was asked by soldiers what they should do in their repentance. Luke 3:14  Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, “And what about us, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.”
    • Jesus gave his highest praise to a soldier who had “great faith” Matthew 8:9–10 9 “For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” 10 Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.
  • Tolstoy is clear that there is no kind of forceful resistance to evil that accords with the teaching of Christ. While force is something that Jesus said should not be a part of interpersonal interaction, and even demonstrated that when he rebuked Peter for taking the sword against soldiers who were arresting Jesus (Matt. 26:51-52), Jesus did speak of a need of a sword.  In Luke 22:36 Jesus said “And He said to them, “But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one.”  What would be the reason Jesus told them to take a sword?  Because when Jesus sent his disciples on missions earlier he gave special divine supplies so that they weren’t even to take extra clothes or to take money bags (Mark 6:8).  But now things are changing.  Jesus is ascending back to heaven and they will not have supplies divinely given in this special way.  God will supply by normal ways of providence, not in special miraculous ways.  They are to be prepared and God will work through their preparations.  And one of the preparation is a sword.  There will be people who simply want to kill them and take their stuff.  Jesus is telling them to be ready for this and to protect themselves. 

The Old Testament and the New Testament on Government and the use of the Sword

Tolstoy is only interested in Jesus.  The only reference to Old Testament is a rejection of its key characters (pg 38).  This is another evidence that Tolstoy made a Jesus to his own liking.  Jesus believed the OT, preached the OT, quoted the OT, and most importantly fulfilled the OT.  If Tolstoy really wanted to hold up Jesus as the example, the OT would not be ignored.  And if the OT is examined, God makes many regulations about punishing people, warfare, and judicial issues.  But what is unique to the OT is that these are provisions for the nation of Israel.  In the OT God set up theocracy.  God was ruling over Israel with his very presence in their midst at the temple.  God mediated his rule through the priesthood, through kings, through prophets and through judges. Therefore this is a very different situation than we are in now.  We are not Israelites living in a theocratic kingdom.  Thus, there are many things prescribed in the OT that are only meant for Israelite people such as dietary laws, cleansing laws, temple practices and more.  Nevertheless, we still see that non-resistance to evil by force was not what God set up.  Evil was resisted by laws, by judges, and by kings and their armies.  Yet it is also true that in interpersonal matters there must be no violence or retribution. Leviticus 19:18  ‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.”  The same thing Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount was already taught in the OT law. 

Regarding the rest of the New Testament we have to remember that Jesus commissioned and sent out the 12 apostles to start churches and teach according to the divine direction they would be given.  Tolstoy rejects all of this and says that the insertion of made up miracles was propping up a system that Jesus didn’t start.  That is a big assertion and one that should be dealt with.  Suffice it to say, in the below footnoot I briefly addressed the authenticity and historicity of the New Testament.  If miracles were invented, it would have easily been exposed and shut down.  The early churches were insistent regarding the apostolic authorship of the letters and that they conformed to Christ and the OT.   The gospels and the letters of the NT were coming directly from the apostles who were teaching as commissioned by the risen Christ.  

As such, the NT does speak about the use of force and governments.  The summary word is as follows.  God is no longer working in a theocratic way in one nation.  God’s presence among his people is now in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each truly born again Christian worldwide, which is experienced especially when his people gather in biblically sound local churches.  In the world at large, evil is now held in check by all levels of government and done so by the just use of force.

  • Romans chapter 13 is the most significant teaching about government. Even evil governments are better than no government.  While the evil perpetrated by governments will one day be brought into divine judgment, they still restrain other evil and this is a necessary thing in this fallen world.  These are the key statements:
    • 1 every person should be subject to government
    • 1 God is the source of all legitimate authority
    • 1 Every government is from God as a restraining influence, even though it may do it poorly
    • 4 the government bears the sword and does so to bring wrath upon evil. This is a God-given right of government to deal with evil.
  • Paul recognized the right of government to bring the death penalty and when he was brought to trial for preaching the gospel he said that if he had done something deserving of death he did not refuse it. Acts 25:11  “If, then, I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die; but if none of those things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar.”
  • 1 Timothy 2 calls us to pray for kings and all in authority. Not to pray for their end but that they execute their authority wisely and in justice with the result that people can live quietly and peaceably.
  • 1 Peter 2:13-14 also calls for a submission to government and that it has the job of the punishment of evildoers
  • Titus 3:1 calls for submission to government

Just War Tradition

While the New Testament doesn’t speak of nations engaging in war, throughout the centuries the Christian church has applied the above verses to speak to what is called Just War Tradition.  This is the teaching that utopian ideas of peace and harmony are simply the dreams of the naive.  This world is a fallen world populated by fallen people who are truly evil.  If evil is not confronted and dealt with then it will overcome and destroy everything.  The restraining feature that God has instituted to stop that is governments.  But that is not to say that government should go to war whenever they want.  The Just war Tradition says that since government can bear the sword, they should only do so against another nation when several things are true.  1) War must be the last resort, after all reasonable alternatives have failed. 2) A lawful authority must authorize the military action. 3) Authority must be driven by an intention to establish a righteous peace--not to gain territory or claim the goods of another lawful nation. 4) Military action must be proportionate to the good that can be gained.  5) Care must be taken to protect civilians to the greatest extent possible. 

 

 (Footnote From Above)

* But how do we know for sure that Jesus was edited and reshaped by Tolstoy?  When we speak of rebranding Jesus and editing Jesus, this presupposes that we have his true words and a true historical account of his life.  But do we?  This forces us to deal with the historicity of the Bible.  Is it a trustworthy historical document?  Many say it is not, simply because it contains theological and spiritual statements and records of miracles.  But this is not a fair treatment.  When viewed as an ancient document, how does it stand?

  • It is unparalleled in its genealogy. The Old Testament contain extensive genealogies and the NT uses them as well.  These are actual people with actual history.  These would have been verifiable or falsifiable by those who read it. 
  • It is unparalleled in his archeology – There is no other book that archeologists turn to like the Bible. It is real places and real events that have been verified over and over again by archeologists in the field.
  • It is unparalleled in its textual accurateness – We have remaining ancient manuscripts of the new testament that date back to within 50 to 100 years of their writing. No other ancient copies get this close to the originals. That closeness in dates is key for knowing its authenticity.  The Dead Sea Scrolls proved the accuracy of the OT.
  • It is unparalleled in manuscript numbers. – We know we have what the originals contained because there are so many copies (over 5,000 manuscripts) that make clear what the source document said and they also show where the errors are and how the errors got there in the first place.  The science of textual criticism has done extensive work with biblical texts.
  • The appeal to verification – Paul appeals to eye witnesses of the resurrection, whom he says most were still alive (1 Corinthians 15:3-6); Luke says his gospel accords with the other accounts written from eye-witnesses (Luke 1:1-4); Peter appeals to his eye-witness account as opposed to clever tales (2 Peter 1:16-21); John the Apostle says that he has written about what he saw and touched (1 John 1:1-4). The writers of the Bible are emphatically wanting people to verify the historicity of what they say and write. 
  • The personal sacrifice of the authors – All the apostles died a martyr’s death, not simply because they were zealous, but because they held to an actual historical resurrection of Jesus. People do not give their lives for a lie or extreme exaggeration.

The Bible is written as historical fact.  Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, specifically wrote to make a clear, historical record that could be checked.  Notice how Luke starts his book by appealing to eyewitnesses, investigation, consecutive order, and to truthfulness. 

Luke 1:1–4 — 1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, 3 it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; 4 so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.

]]>
Clearing Some Fog On The Freedom Of The Will https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/clearing-some-fog-on-the-freedom https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/clearing-some-fog-on-the-freedom#comments Sun, 05 Feb 2023 08:00:00 -0600 https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/clearing-some-fog-on-the-freedom I want to attempt what feels like the near impossible with this post. We were talking about the freedom of the will in Sunday school and it became clear again that this is a sticky subject. There are multiple reasons for this, but I want to deal with the most problematic feature of it: confusing words.

We know that communication is hard. It is even harder when there are theological issues at play that don’t sit well with the sinful heart. But we are shooting a 12 gauge slug into our collective foot when we use words in poor ways. Words need to be distinct and words need to be well defined; and it’s unfortunate that neither of these needs are happening when we are talking about the freedom of the will. So I want to try to clear that up and hopefully give traction for better discussions.

What are the problem words? They are, sadly enough, the central words in the whole discussion: freedom and will. These have to be far more defined if any discussion is going to make progress. So let’s define what we are talking about.

There are three different ways that people talk about “freedom.” When using only the term freedom without any other qualifier, we are left struggling to know what is really being talked about. I will define freedom with qualifiers:

  • Freedom of choice – This is the freedom to make real and actual choices. These choices make a person culpable of sin because they are being made by a moral agent who is accountable for sin. Everyone has this freedom. Deuteronomy 30:19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,”
  • Freedom of Holiness – This is the freedom to choose righteousness. The born again believer can now do this because of a regenerated heart indwelt by the Spirit. Unbelievers do not have this freedom. They are slaves to sin and Romans 8:7 says the unbeliever “does not subject itself to the law of God and is not even able to do so.”
  • Freedom of Determinism – This is the ultimate freedom to make the decisive decisions concerning oneself. People claim that we don’t have true freedom unless we have this kind of unrestrained freedom. But the Bible does not give us this kind of freedom. Only God has this freedom. Believing and unbelieving kings alike, endued with all imaginable earthly power and ability, do not have this freedom. Proverbs 21:1 The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes.” Born again believers do not have this freedom. Philippians 2:13 “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” No one has this freedom. Proverbs 20:24 “Man’s steps are ordained by the LORD, How then can man understand his way?” Only the Lord has this freedom. Psalm 115:3 “But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.” This is where the sovereignty of God is seen in fullness and where mystery is felt in fullness. Somehow God is this totally sovereign, and yet man still has responsibility and accountability for choices for which judgment will come in perfect justice.

When it comes to our will, the difficulty has to do with what aspect of the will we are speaking about. When we talk about the will of man are we talking about its nature or are we talking about its actions?

  • Nature of the Will– When we are talking about the nature or the status of our will, we are talking about something that is locked in place. The will of a person is one thing or another thing, but not both. It is locked into one status, or it is locked into the other status. What are the two options? The Bible speaks of this in different ways: Christ or self; spiritual life or spiritual death; in the Spirit or in the flesh (Romans 8:5-8); light or darkness (1 Thess. 5:5). The will of the unbeliever is bound to sin. It is a slave of sin. It is dead. It cannot love the truth or obey in true love to God. The will of the believer is bound to Christ. It is a slave of righteousness. While sin can happen, it can never happen with fullness of joy. The believer has new heart, indwelt by the Spirit and will be in such a state forever.
  • Agency of the Will– When we are talking about the actions of the will we are talking about the active responses that the will makes, either of believer or unbeliever. The will of both believer and unbeliever makes choices that accord with the nature of their will. The unbeliever loves and acts according to its loves, but it loves darkness and autonomy ultimately. The unbeliever can love other good things only when he thinks they can be fit into his ultimate loves. The believer loves and acts according to its loves, but his love is ultimately to the Lord. The believer’s love for sinful things is done as an inconstancy arising out of his fallen state that will be one day be perfected in fullness to the conformity of Christ.

So when people are talking about these things, you never know which one of these they have in mind. And as you can see now, there can be a whole jumble of possibilities. Depending on which freedom you are talking about, it is going to affect things, but it will affect things differently depending on which aspect of the will is being spoken about. Perhaps a chart may be helpful.

 

Nature of the Will

Unbeliever

Nature of the Will

Believer

Agency of the Will

Unbeliever

Agency of the Will

Believer

Freedom of choice Yes Yes Yes Yes
Freedom of holiness No Yes No Yes
Freedom of Determinism No No No No

Let’s keep the discussions going with an open Bible, with patience and with zeal, but let’s also do it with an aim for precision. We will move ahead faster and farther when we are wise with our words.

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I want to attempt what feels like the near impossible with this post. We were talking about the freedom of the will in Sunday school and it became clear again that this is a sticky subject. There are multiple reasons for this, but I want to deal with the most problematic feature of it: confusing words.

We know that communication is hard. It is even harder when there are theological issues at play that don’t sit well with the sinful heart. But we are shooting a 12 gauge slug into our collective foot when we use words in poor ways. Words need to be distinct and words need to be well defined; and it’s unfortunate that neither of these needs are happening when we are talking about the freedom of the will. So I want to try to clear that up and hopefully give traction for better discussions.

What are the problem words? They are, sadly enough, the central words in the whole discussion: freedom and will. These have to be far more defined if any discussion is going to make progress. So let’s define what we are talking about.

There are three different ways that people talk about “freedom.” When using only the term freedom without any other qualifier, we are left struggling to know what is really being talked about. I will define freedom with qualifiers:

  • Freedom of choice – This is the freedom to make real and actual choices. These choices make a person culpable of sin because they are being made by a moral agent who is accountable for sin. Everyone has this freedom. Deuteronomy 30:19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,”
  • Freedom of Holiness – This is the freedom to choose righteousness. The born again believer can now do this because of a regenerated heart indwelt by the Spirit. Unbelievers do not have this freedom. They are slaves to sin and Romans 8:7 says the unbeliever “does not subject itself to the law of God and is not even able to do so.”
  • Freedom of Determinism – This is the ultimate freedom to make the decisive decisions concerning oneself. People claim that we don’t have true freedom unless we have this kind of unrestrained freedom. But the Bible does not give us this kind of freedom. Only God has this freedom. Believing and unbelieving kings alike, endued with all imaginable earthly power and ability, do not have this freedom. Proverbs 21:1 The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes.” Born again believers do not have this freedom. Philippians 2:13 “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” No one has this freedom. Proverbs 20:24 “Man’s steps are ordained by the LORD, How then can man understand his way?” Only the Lord has this freedom. Psalm 115:3 “But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.” This is where the sovereignty of God is seen in fullness and where mystery is felt in fullness. Somehow God is this totally sovereign, and yet man still has responsibility and accountability for choices for which judgment will come in perfect justice.

When it comes to our will, the difficulty has to do with what aspect of the will we are speaking about. When we talk about the will of man are we talking about its nature or are we talking about its actions?

  • Nature of the Will– When we are talking about the nature or the status of our will, we are talking about something that is locked in place. The will of a person is one thing or another thing, but not both. It is locked into one status, or it is locked into the other status. What are the two options? The Bible speaks of this in different ways: Christ or self; spiritual life or spiritual death; in the Spirit or in the flesh (Romans 8:5-8); light or darkness (1 Thess. 5:5). The will of the unbeliever is bound to sin. It is a slave of sin. It is dead. It cannot love the truth or obey in true love to God. The will of the believer is bound to Christ. It is a slave of righteousness. While sin can happen, it can never happen with fullness of joy. The believer has new heart, indwelt by the Spirit and will be in such a state forever.
  • Agency of the Will– When we are talking about the actions of the will we are talking about the active responses that the will makes, either of believer or unbeliever. The will of both believer and unbeliever makes choices that accord with the nature of their will. The unbeliever loves and acts according to its loves, but it loves darkness and autonomy ultimately. The unbeliever can love other good things only when he thinks they can be fit into his ultimate loves. The believer loves and acts according to its loves, but his love is ultimately to the Lord. The believer’s love for sinful things is done as an inconstancy arising out of his fallen state that will be one day be perfected in fullness to the conformity of Christ.

So when people are talking about these things, you never know which one of these they have in mind. And as you can see now, there can be a whole jumble of possibilities. Depending on which freedom you are talking about, it is going to affect things, but it will affect things differently depending on which aspect of the will is being spoken about. Perhaps a chart may be helpful.

 

Nature of the Will

Unbeliever

Nature of the Will

Believer

Agency of the Will

Unbeliever

Agency of the Will

Believer

Freedom of choice Yes Yes Yes Yes
Freedom of holiness No Yes No Yes
Freedom of Determinism No No No No

Let’s keep the discussions going with an open Bible, with patience and with zeal, but let’s also do it with an aim for precision. We will move ahead faster and farther when we are wise with our words.

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Words Speak Louder Than Actions https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/words-speak-louder-than-actions https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/words-speak-louder-than-actions#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2023 15:00:00 -0600 https://www.odfellowship.org/blog/post/words-speak-louder-than-actions Let me grant at the outset this this goes against conventional wisdom, so please hear me out. Today I want to tackle one of the most repeated proverbs of western language; “Actions speak louder than words”. I want to demote it from a proverb to a cliché. The challenge of doing this is that even a cliché has something true in it somewhere. But as Christians, we aren’t satisfied with something being kinda, sorta true. We want rock solid truth. And the only way we can have rock solid truth is to have it from the Scripture. And therefore I want to put our statement through the screening of Scripture. My conclusion is the proverb is only partially helpful, but gives more help when flipped backwards.

Why Words Matter More than Actions

How could this modern proverb be wrong? It is not that actions are unimportant. Actions are truly important. But they are not more important than words. They do not speak louder than words. Why? Here are two reasons. First and foremost, words matter most because words explain actions. Words give meaning to actions. Words are most important because without words we cannot know with certainty what an action is supposed to be or to supposed to mean. Any single action can have a multitude of reasons or motives behind it. How important are the motives behind an action? They are so important that an action can move from the category of evil into the category of righteousness simply because of the motive behind it. This would be easy enough to demonstrate from our everyday lives, but let me show you examples of actions in the bible that went from evil to righteous simply because of the words of explanation.

  • Leviticus 10:16-20 tells us that Moses was angry at Aaron for burning up the goat offering instead of eating it. Moses even considered it a breaking of his command. Was Aaron’s actions louder than his words? No. Aaron explained that the devastating happenings of the day had changed the situation. Moses realized this was not a disobedient action, but instead a rightful action. Words spoke louder than actions.
  • In Joshua 22, after the conquest of Canaan was complete, the two and half tribes when back to their land to the east of the Jordan. But before they crossed the Jordan they built an alter. Word of this got back to the other tribes and those tribes were indignant and gathered for war. But before they shot the first arrow they inquired of this action. Turns out the two and half tribes were not rebelling against the Lord and building a competing alter for worship, instead they were building an alter of witness about right worship for future generations. The western tribes when from a war posture to being quite pleased. Words spoke louder than actions.
  • In Luke 10:40 Martha was giving her sister Mary the stink-eye because Mary was not helping at all. Martha thought Mary was wrong for leaving her to do all the preparations. Since Jesus knows the heart, he was able to explain that Mary was not trying to get out of helping, she was trying to get into greatest blessing of sitting at his feet. Words spoke louder than actions.
  • In John 12, Mary, Martha and Lazarus are throwing a party for Jesus. To show their highest love for Christ they bring out a prized possession, an extremely costly alabaster jar of perfume. They broke it and poured it out over Jesus’ head and feet. The disciples were indignant with this, because they saw it as waste, but Jesus explained this was great act of love. Words spoke louder than actions.

Secondly, not only do words explain actions, God’s perfect judgment will be a three part judgment and two thirds of His judgment will relate to words. God is going to judge the deeds done in the flesh (2 Corinthians 5:10), God is going to judge every idle word (Matthew 12:36), and God is going to judge every hidden motive (1 Corinthians 4:5). While deeds certainly will be judged, it is the revealing of words and motives that will allow God to bring a perfect justice. The revealed motives of a person, with all the innumerable backstory features that produced that motive, is what makes God’s judgment perfect. He is able to know all the reasons that were hidden from everyone else. Words are so important because they articulate a person’s motive, which otherwise would remain hidden. This is why we are commanded to not judge motive in 1 Corinthians 4:5. We cannot know motives until they are spoken. Only until we have words can we judge a motive, and only when we have the motive can we judge the action in fullness. Our judgements have to wait till words are spoken. Even if an action is wrong, we can’t know how wrong it is until words are brought. While judging an action without knowing the motive sometimes must happen, it is a dubious judgment. But God’s judgment doesn’t have to wait and is never dubious. He know all the words of motive and reasons behind every action. This is the supreme importance of words.

One Exception That Isn’t An Exception

There is a reason that the proverb “Actions speak louder than words” is commonly used and it is because one of the most common and grievous sins is the sin of deception. Contradictory actions expose lying and deception. When someone says something and does the opposite, those opposite actions are telling us something. What are those actions telling us? They are telling us that a person is a liar or a hypocrite. It is in this case our proverb works and works well. But I would say that what is actually happening is the importance of words is still being shown again. Words are so important that being a deceptive person is one of the deepest of grave offences. It is one of the very worst things a human can be because speech is a defining quality of being made in the image of God. Speech is so important that to pervert it in any way is a reproach and smear upon God who made us like him. Actions that show one’s speech is deceptive rise in importance, i.e. speak loudly, because they are speaking about the worthlessness of that person’s words. That revelation about their words is so important. So while in this case our proverb works, the scenario is narrow enough that such a broad proverb isn’t appropriate, and additionally even this exception still displays the preeminence of words.

Verses that Speak of Action

There are a number of verses that speak to the importance of actions and these will sound like contradictions to what I am saying. What we will find in these passages is that the lying heart of sinful man is addressed several times in the scripture. God knows that when it comes to spiritual things, the deceptiveness of the human heart really shines forth. Let’s address these verses.

  • 1 John 3:18 says “Little Children, let us not love with word or tongue, but in deed and truth.” This sounds like deeds are the place where truth is going to be seen and therefore of more importance. What is actually happening here is lying is being exposed. If people are only loving in words, the absence of deeds exposes that their words were lying words. It is this situation that we acknowledge that our proverb works well. This person is a liar. Their words are worthless. This is the real tragedy.
  • In Matthew 21:28 Jesus told a parable of two sons told to go work in the vineyard. One said he wouldn’t but then did, and the other said he would, but then didn’t. Again, one son realized his sin and repented, but the other simply lied to get the Father off his back. When it comes to lying, deeds are the only way to expose it.
  • In Luke 6:46 Jesus said “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’, and do not do what I say.” Once again the heart of deception is exposed. The Title “Lord” is an all-encompassing word and the fallen heart cannot tolerate it. If it can buy some time by saying “Lord” then that is what will be done. And perhaps they can play the religious game just enough to earn some benefit of the doubt. But disobedience will eventually show his words to be lying words, and lying words are the tragedy.

What do we do with this?

So I think we would be better served to remember the extreme and preeminent importance of words. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. (Proverbs 18:21) Therefore, words speak louder than actions. However, because the church does have to deal with liars, there is a place for this proverb. But the proverb is too broad as it stands. It says too much. We need to modify it. Perhaps “Actions speak louder than lying words”. Whatever the case, let’s remember that lying is not the main thing we have to deal with. In the church, far more often than lying are the problems of judging motives, holding assumptions, hearing only one side of issues, and not being diligent to have all the conversations that need to be had. To confront those kinds of issues we have to do two things.

First, we have to embrace a deep and wide commitment to do the work of needful communication. Because the hearts of people are not only the most important issue, but also the most complex and hidden of all issues, we have to come to grips with the reality that a lot of talk usually needs to happen to the get to the bottom of things. Sure, there are people who are good at getting right to the point, or who are good at asking the right questions. These people make the best counselors. But for the rest of us, we just have to accept that we are going to have to talk over things for a while and have the determination to do it until it is done and we are back to greeting each other with a kiss.

Second, we really should strive to improve our communication practices. Are you too vague? Do you shy away from the hard topics? Do you try to make everything into a joke? Do you waste too much time with small talk? Do you speak before coming to a full comprehension of what the other person is saying? Do you move from one topic to another and never resolve anything? Do you always bring the conversation back to the same thing when there are other issues that are at play? Do you regularly exaggerate? There are a lot of ways to do poor speech and we need to eliminate those practices. In their place we need to put on the good practices of speech that is rightly motived, rightly timed, rightly mannered, and rightly placed.

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Let me grant at the outset this this goes against conventional wisdom, so please hear me out. Today I want to tackle one of the most repeated proverbs of western language; “Actions speak louder than words”. I want to demote it from a proverb to a cliché. The challenge of doing this is that even a cliché has something true in it somewhere. But as Christians, we aren’t satisfied with something being kinda, sorta true. We want rock solid truth. And the only way we can have rock solid truth is to have it from the Scripture. And therefore I want to put our statement through the screening of Scripture. My conclusion is the proverb is only partially helpful, but gives more help when flipped backwards.

Why Words Matter More than Actions

How could this modern proverb be wrong? It is not that actions are unimportant. Actions are truly important. But they are not more important than words. They do not speak louder than words. Why? Here are two reasons. First and foremost, words matter most because words explain actions. Words give meaning to actions. Words are most important because without words we cannot know with certainty what an action is supposed to be or to supposed to mean. Any single action can have a multitude of reasons or motives behind it. How important are the motives behind an action? They are so important that an action can move from the category of evil into the category of righteousness simply because of the motive behind it. This would be easy enough to demonstrate from our everyday lives, but let me show you examples of actions in the bible that went from evil to righteous simply because of the words of explanation.

  • Leviticus 10:16-20 tells us that Moses was angry at Aaron for burning up the goat offering instead of eating it. Moses even considered it a breaking of his command. Was Aaron’s actions louder than his words? No. Aaron explained that the devastating happenings of the day had changed the situation. Moses realized this was not a disobedient action, but instead a rightful action. Words spoke louder than actions.
  • In Joshua 22, after the conquest of Canaan was complete, the two and half tribes when back to their land to the east of the Jordan. But before they crossed the Jordan they built an alter. Word of this got back to the other tribes and those tribes were indignant and gathered for war. But before they shot the first arrow they inquired of this action. Turns out the two and half tribes were not rebelling against the Lord and building a competing alter for worship, instead they were building an alter of witness about right worship for future generations. The western tribes when from a war posture to being quite pleased. Words spoke louder than actions.
  • In Luke 10:40 Martha was giving her sister Mary the stink-eye because Mary was not helping at all. Martha thought Mary was wrong for leaving her to do all the preparations. Since Jesus knows the heart, he was able to explain that Mary was not trying to get out of helping, she was trying to get into greatest blessing of sitting at his feet. Words spoke louder than actions.
  • In John 12, Mary, Martha and Lazarus are throwing a party for Jesus. To show their highest love for Christ they bring out a prized possession, an extremely costly alabaster jar of perfume. They broke it and poured it out over Jesus’ head and feet. The disciples were indignant with this, because they saw it as waste, but Jesus explained this was great act of love. Words spoke louder than actions.

Secondly, not only do words explain actions, God’s perfect judgment will be a three part judgment and two thirds of His judgment will relate to words. God is going to judge the deeds done in the flesh (2 Corinthians 5:10), God is going to judge every idle word (Matthew 12:36), and God is going to judge every hidden motive (1 Corinthians 4:5). While deeds certainly will be judged, it is the revealing of words and motives that will allow God to bring a perfect justice. The revealed motives of a person, with all the innumerable backstory features that produced that motive, is what makes God’s judgment perfect. He is able to know all the reasons that were hidden from everyone else. Words are so important because they articulate a person’s motive, which otherwise would remain hidden. This is why we are commanded to not judge motive in 1 Corinthians 4:5. We cannot know motives until they are spoken. Only until we have words can we judge a motive, and only when we have the motive can we judge the action in fullness. Our judgements have to wait till words are spoken. Even if an action is wrong, we can’t know how wrong it is until words are brought. While judging an action without knowing the motive sometimes must happen, it is a dubious judgment. But God’s judgment doesn’t have to wait and is never dubious. He know all the words of motive and reasons behind every action. This is the supreme importance of words.

One Exception That Isn’t An Exception

There is a reason that the proverb “Actions speak louder than words” is commonly used and it is because one of the most common and grievous sins is the sin of deception. Contradictory actions expose lying and deception. When someone says something and does the opposite, those opposite actions are telling us something. What are those actions telling us? They are telling us that a person is a liar or a hypocrite. It is in this case our proverb works and works well. But I would say that what is actually happening is the importance of words is still being shown again. Words are so important that being a deceptive person is one of the deepest of grave offences. It is one of the very worst things a human can be because speech is a defining quality of being made in the image of God. Speech is so important that to pervert it in any way is a reproach and smear upon God who made us like him. Actions that show one’s speech is deceptive rise in importance, i.e. speak loudly, because they are speaking about the worthlessness of that person’s words. That revelation about their words is so important. So while in this case our proverb works, the scenario is narrow enough that such a broad proverb isn’t appropriate, and additionally even this exception still displays the preeminence of words.

Verses that Speak of Action

There are a number of verses that speak to the importance of actions and these will sound like contradictions to what I am saying. What we will find in these passages is that the lying heart of sinful man is addressed several times in the scripture. God knows that when it comes to spiritual things, the deceptiveness of the human heart really shines forth. Let’s address these verses.

  • 1 John 3:18 says “Little Children, let us not love with word or tongue, but in deed and truth.” This sounds like deeds are the place where truth is going to be seen and therefore of more importance. What is actually happening here is lying is being exposed. If people are only loving in words, the absence of deeds exposes that their words were lying words. It is this situation that we acknowledge that our proverb works well. This person is a liar. Their words are worthless. This is the real tragedy.
  • In Matthew 21:28 Jesus told a parable of two sons told to go work in the vineyard. One said he wouldn’t but then did, and the other said he would, but then didn’t. Again, one son realized his sin and repented, but the other simply lied to get the Father off his back. When it comes to lying, deeds are the only way to expose it.
  • In Luke 6:46 Jesus said “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’, and do not do what I say.” Once again the heart of deception is exposed. The Title “Lord” is an all-encompassing word and the fallen heart cannot tolerate it. If it can buy some time by saying “Lord” then that is what will be done. And perhaps they can play the religious game just enough to earn some benefit of the doubt. But disobedience will eventually show his words to be lying words, and lying words are the tragedy.

What do we do with this?

So I think we would be better served to remember the extreme and preeminent importance of words. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. (Proverbs 18:21) Therefore, words speak louder than actions. However, because the church does have to deal with liars, there is a place for this proverb. But the proverb is too broad as it stands. It says too much. We need to modify it. Perhaps “Actions speak louder than lying words”. Whatever the case, let’s remember that lying is not the main thing we have to deal with. In the church, far more often than lying are the problems of judging motives, holding assumptions, hearing only one side of issues, and not being diligent to have all the conversations that need to be had. To confront those kinds of issues we have to do two things.

First, we have to embrace a deep and wide commitment to do the work of needful communication. Because the hearts of people are not only the most important issue, but also the most complex and hidden of all issues, we have to come to grips with the reality that a lot of talk usually needs to happen to the get to the bottom of things. Sure, there are people who are good at getting right to the point, or who are good at asking the right questions. These people make the best counselors. But for the rest of us, we just have to accept that we are going to have to talk over things for a while and have the determination to do it until it is done and we are back to greeting each other with a kiss.

Second, we really should strive to improve our communication practices. Are you too vague? Do you shy away from the hard topics? Do you try to make everything into a joke? Do you waste too much time with small talk? Do you speak before coming to a full comprehension of what the other person is saying? Do you move from one topic to another and never resolve anything? Do you always bring the conversation back to the same thing when there are other issues that are at play? Do you regularly exaggerate? There are a lot of ways to do poor speech and we need to eliminate those practices. In their place we need to put on the good practices of speech that is rightly motived, rightly timed, rightly mannered, and rightly placed.

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