There’s no “I” in Help-Meet

Back in college, I remember friends who spent long hours debating whether or not, in a wedding ceremony, the individual candles that were used to light the unity candle should be blown out after lighting said unity candle. They wanted to make sure the symbolism was just right. It was a few years before all the uproar caused by the “S” word – submission.

When the whole “Wives submit to you husbands” thing was big, I was about to be a newlywed in a military community in Germany. My about-to-be-husband and I attended a non-denominational home church made up of military families, and it seemed to me that the preacher spoke on that subject all the time. He had a phrase that he would use almost every time he spoke on the subject. I think he’d say it to try to dispel some of the tension rising in the room because I don’t remember him ever moving on to the husband’s part of the equation. Anyway, he’d smile and say, “You know, ladies, the man may be the head of the household, but you ladies are the neck…you tell us which way to turn. *chuckle, chuckle*”

It was usually at that moment I felt like punching him. Submission is hard for me to begin with but don’t be condescending while you’re telling me I have to do it. In retrospect, though, I realize what that pastor as well as many other well-meaning pastors of that era were talking about was not submission, but subjugation. There’s a huge difference. The problem is that even the dictionary overlaps the two words.

“sub·mit  [suhb-mit]
1. to yield oneself to the power or authority of another: to submit to a conqueror.
2. to allow oneself to be subjected to some kind of treatment: to submit to chemotherapy.
3. to defer to another's judgment, opinion, decision, etc.: I submit to your superior judgment.”[1]

“sub·ju·gate  [suhb-juh-geyt]
1. to bring under complete control or subjection; conquer; master.
2. to make submissive or subservient; enslave.”[2]

For me, the main difference is that you choose whether or not to submit, but you don’t have any choice about being subjugated. The enemy works really hard to make sure that when pastors speak on submission in the marriage relationship that we hear subjugate. It doesn’t help that often pastors dwell on the wives’ side of the texts and kind of zip right through the husbands’ part of the deal.

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,  that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” Ephesians 5:22-33

Paul spends a lot more time describing the husband’s responsibility to love his wife than the wife’s submission. The problem is that we live in a sinful world and most of us are afraid that if we submit to someone, they’ll subjugate us – and that’s not the relationship that Paul was talking about.

We forget that our example is Jesus. Yes, Jesus asks us to submit to Him, but look at what He’s done with us in mind. 

“The world’s Redeemer was treated as we deserve to be treated, in order that we might be treated as he deserved to be treated. He came to our world and took our sins upon his own divine soul, that we might receive his imputed righteousness. He was condemned for our sins, in which he had no share, that we might be justified by his righteousness, in which we had no share. The world’s Redeemer gave himself for us.” (E.G. White, The Review and Herald, March 21, 1893)

It’s just my opinion, but it seems like we spend quite a bit of time worrying about getting what we deserve. Advertising really pushes that button hard – that somehow we all deserve more than we’re getting. When we worry about what we think we deserve, we can’t submit to God or anyone else. But when we remember that Jesus gave up everything He deserved because we were more important to Him, we can see and begin to understand what a loving relationship should look like.

When God created Eve, He was giving Adam someone who could be equal – someone with whom he could share every experience. It was a relationship that was supposed to have demonstrated how God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are One and yet Three. God never intended that Adam should push Eve around or make her to feel “less than.” He never intended for Eve to fear or resent Adam because she had to quit doing the things she liked, to do what he liked. God made Adam and Eve to work as a unit with two equal parts. Each part was complete on its own but could only be fully successful when firmly bound to its other half. Two individuals joined so tightly together that each person’s first thought is not, “How can I get what I deserve,” but “What can I do for this person to show them how much I love them.” How did Jesus show us how much He loves us?

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.” Philippians 2:5-7

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[1] submit. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved February 22, 2013, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/submit

[2] subjugate. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved February 22, 2013, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/subjugate

Plate-Spinning

Do you remember that old circus trick? The performer would have about 5 sticks standing up straight and he’d put a plate on the end of each of the sticks and start it spinning so that the centrifugal force would hold the plate up and on the end of the stick. As long as the plate kept spinning at a reasonable speed, the plate stayed up, but if it slowed down too much, it would fall off the stick and break on the floor. Keeping on plate spinning at that minimum speed was no “problem. Even two wasn’t too hard, but by the time the performer had four or five plates all spinning at the same time, it had become a real challenge. The performer had to hurry back and forth between all the plates making sure they kept spinning fast enough to keep them on the stick. The performer had to be in constant motion or his whole act would fall apart.

Playing a simulation game on the computer feels like very much the same principle. In a simulation (sim) game, the object is to build or create a specific community or civilization. There are sims for zoos, amusement parks, cities, high rise buildings, families, whole worlds – anything you could possibly be interesting in. Setting up your simulation is relatively easy, but pretty soon you’re getting notices from the game that you need more access to water for the plants in the north of your sim to survive while too many squirrels are causing tree damage in the east. Meanwhile, you have to maintain a certain amount of attention on the beings of your sim to make sure they remain ‘happy’ – That’s sim code for alive and well.

You’ll probably be able to maintain things for a while, but then, something out of the ordinary will demand all of you attention for a few extra seconds and your sim world is overwhelmed by entropy and falls apart. Entropy is what will finally get the spinning plates too. The performer will eventually have too many plates spinning and one will begin to slow down, wobble and fall to the ground.

When God created our world, it was perfect. There was no entropy to degenerate and weaken. When Adam and Eve sinned, though, everything began to die, slow down, and fall apart. It became God’s job, then, to keep it all going.

When you’re playing a sim game the whole operation becomes an exercise in maintenance. But in real life, God goes further than just maintenance to sustenance. What’s the difference, you ask? Let’s find out.

“ main·tain  [meyn-teyn]  verb (used with object)
1. to keep in existence or continuance; preserve; retain: to maintain good relations with neighboring countries.
2. to keep in an appropriate condition, operation, or force; keep unimpaired: to maintain order; to maintain public highways.
3. to keep in a specified state, position, etc.: to maintain a correct posture; to maintain good health. …
7. to provide for the upkeep or support of; carry the expenses of: to maintain a family.”[1]

“sus·tain  [suh-steyn]  verb (used with object)
1. to support, hold, or bear up from below; bear the weight of, as a structure.
2. to bear (a burden, charge, etc.).
3. to undergo, experience, or suffer (injury, loss, etc.); endure without giving way or yielding.
4. to keep (a person, the mind, the spirits, etc.) from giving way, as under trial or affliction.
5. to keep up or keep going, as an action or process: to sustain a conversation.
6. to supply with food, drink, and other necessities of life.” [2]

In spinning plates or playing sim games we maintain the momentum, but we don’t sustain anything – non-living  things really only need maintanence. On the other hand, God sustains every living thing on this planet while he also maintains all of the mechanical and physical properties of the universe.

There are those who believe that God created the universe and then sat back to watch what happened – that He’s no longer actively involved in what is going on with the universe, the planet or us. He’s just observing.

The problem with that theory, though, is that humans have proved, inadvertently, that that approach doesn’t work.

“Biosphere 2 was an attempt to set up an isolated living environment that would supply all the factors necessary for sustaining life. It was to be a self-contained microcosm of life on earth, containing soil, air, water, plants, and animals.
Biosphere 2 originally consisted of an air-tight enclosure covering 3.15 acres in Arizona. Despite an investment of about $200 million from 1984 to 1991, a multi-million dollar operating budget, almost unlimited technological support and heroic effort, it proved impossible to sustain eight human beings with adequate food, water, and air for two years.
“Just 1.3 years after enclosure in 1991, oxygen levels had fallen to the point that oxygen had to be added from the outside. Nineteen of twenty-five vertebrate species placed in the unit became extinct. All the species that could pollinate the plants became extinct, as did most insects. Water and air pollution became acute and temperature control was a problem.
“With all the intelligence put into the design of Biosphere 2, it couldn't be made to work, yet the wonderfully integrated ecosystems of Earth supposedly just happened without intelligent design!”[3]

True, Biosphere 2 is a powerful argument for intelligent design, but I believe it’s an even stronger argument for a God who is not only the Creator, but also the Sustainer of live. It proves that we are dependent on God for our every breath and every heartbeat.

“If He should set His heart on it, if He should gather to Himself His Spirit and His breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.” Job 34:14-15

I am so thankful that God holds each of us, and miraculously, all of us, in the palm of His mighty hand. He’s not some disinterested diety who watches the progress of His creation from a distance, but a God who is deeply interested and involved with every single one of us…to the extent that we allow Him access.

Let our constant prayer be that we invite Him into every part of our lives so that we will be sustained until He comes to take us home.

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[1] maintain. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved February 15, 2013, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/maintain

[2] sustain. (n.d.). Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. Retrieved February 15, 2013, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sustain

[3] "Lessons from Biosphere 2," Creation Ex Nihilo (June 1997), p. 8; submitted by Aaron Goerner, New Hartford, New York

Stickers, Thorns and other Blessings

I’m not sure what you call them in your neck of the woods, but where I grew up they were called sticker burs – little globes of pricklies that can cause large amounts of pain to the barefooted and the four footed. I’ve heard them called sand burs. They’re not like the polite but troublesome burs that are like Velcro, sticker burs are just mean.

I’m a barefoot person. My shoes come off at the earliest possible second after I’ve walked through the door and don’t go back on again until the last moment before I leave the house – summer or whatever passes for winter in Texas. I learned painfully that venturing outside without shoes is not a pleasant experience because of sticker burs. What I never expected was to have to learn that same lesson inside of my house. This year, however, I have found walking through my house almost as painful as walking in my yard. Why? Well, apparently sticker burs attach themselves in the fur of long haired dogs until they walk onto carpet and then somehow the stickers come out of the dogs’ hair and stick in the carpet. That is, until my foot finds one and then it sticks in me. I know, if I were wearing shoes, I wouldn’t have a problem … I've been ignoring that advice for fifty-some years.

Anyway, this problem led me to ask the question, “Why do we have sticker burs … or thorns, … or mosquitos, … or any other inconvenient, painful or bothersome thing you can think of?

The answer that all Christians know is, “Because Adam and Eve sinned.” OK, but why does their sin mean that I have to step on sticker burs stuck in my carpet? For a long time my answer would have been that at the moment that Adam and Eve sinned, entropy and genetic anomalies entered all life forms. I still believe that, but that doesn’t answer the why part of the question. “Why?”

But then, I noticed something I had never noticed before.

"To the woman He said: 'I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception;  In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.’ Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, “You shall not eat of it”: Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.'" Genesis 3:16-19

Did you catch it? “Cursed is the ground for your sake; …” Think for a minute. What are do you usually mean when you make a statement that includes the words “for your sake?” Are you going to help or hurt that person? Well, if you’re doing something for another person’s sake, you’re trying to help that person in some way, right?

So, how does making Adam work harder benefit him and by extension, us?

Consider this: 

“Only one professional football team that plays its home games in a domed stadium with artificial turf has ever won the Super Bowl: The St. Louis Rams in 2000.
“While a climate-controlled stadium protects players (and fans) from the misery of sleet, snow, mud, heat, and wind, players who brave the elements on a regular basis are disciplined to handle hardship wherever it's found. The Green Bay Packers were the 1996 Super Bowl champions, in part, because of the discipline gained from regularly playing in some of the worst weather in the country.
“Endure hardship as discipline. ... No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it’ (Hebrews 12:7),(Hebrews 12:11).”[1]

Challenges make us stronger, but that’s not all. If we allow them to, they can help us focus on what’s really important. Many of us know that Beethoven, the great composer was deaf for a large part of his adult life. He was, in fact, completely deaf by the time he turned 47. The process of going deaf had taken 16 years. Can you imagine being aware that the sense most needed for your chosen occupation was leaving you and you couldn’t do anything to stop it?

Beethoven was severely depressed and actually admitted to thinking of suicide. But he never quit composing music that he could only hear in his imagination.

The best know piece that Beethoven wrote during the time he was completely deaf, is his Ninth Symphony. It’s one of my all-time favorites. Anyway, several years ago, my sons and I had an opportunity to hear the whole symphony performed in person. It was spectacular. As we discussed it on the way home, my oldest son made an observation that has changed my way of thinking about limitations.

I made some comment like, “Imagine if Beethoven could do that when he was deaf, what he could have done if he could still hear.” My son, a senior in high school at the time, and a musician, quickly disagreed with me. He pointed out his belief that Beethoven’s deafness had focused him more completely – so much so that my son felt that the Ninth Symphony was based on the one thing Beethoven could still “hear” – his heartbeat. See if you can’t hear it the next time you’re listening to the Ninth Symphony.

Why did God introduce struggles and challenges after the Fall? Well, for one thing, have you ever met a child who has no limits? Challenges teach us discipline. Like for Beethoven, they can help us block out the trivia and noise around us and help us focus on what’s important.

And, as Paul reminds us, learning to live within our limitations teaches us humility and our need for a Savior.

“And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

And finally, there’s this:

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” James 1:2-4

Why do I have sticker burs in my carpet? Probably because I need to vacuum more. But God gave us thorns  for our sakes, because He wants us to stay close to Him

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[1] Greg Asimakoupoulos, Leadership, Vol. 17, no. 3

Captive

In his book, The Three Edwards, Thomas Costain tells the story of three kings of England from 1272 to 1377 all of whom were conveniently (and confusingly) named Edward. Anyway, according to a well-used illustration from Costain’s book, in the mid to late 1300s, there was a Duke Raynald III. He was extremely overweight. (How fat was he?) Well, he was so fat that people didn’t call him by his name anymore (that might not have been so awful since his name was Raynald), the called him by the nickname, Crassus, which means fat in Latin. So essentially everybody just called him fatso. Ouch!

His younger brother was one of the Edwards (the third one, I think), and somewhere along the way, Raynald and Edward had a huge disagreement and Edward led a revolt against Raynald. In most stories like this, the overthrown person was killed or, at the very least, locked away in some dungeon or tower never to be seen again. Edward had a better idea – he had a room built around Raynald, inside Raynald’s own castle. Edward told Raynald that he could take over his castle and his property just as soon as he could leave his new room.

There were no locks on the doors or windows…so what held Raynald in his room? Why didn’t he just walk out and take his castle back? Well, when Edward had the room built, he made sure that all the doors and windows were smaller than normal. They were big enough for someone who was thin to go in and out, but Raynald was too fat to get through the door. The only way he could leave the room was to lose weight.

So, why didn’t he do it? Well, I’m pretty sure every morning he woke up and said to himself, “Ok, today I’m going to only eat a little bit.” And maybe he could have done it, except that, every day, his brother, Edward made sure that all kinds of delicious and tempting food was sent into Raynald’s room. And Raynald got fatter and fatter all the time.

Some folks told Edward that he was being cruel to Raynald but Edward said, "My brother is not a prisoner. He may leave when he so wills."

Raynald only got out of that room after Edward died in battle in 1371. By then it was too late for Raynald. His health was gone and he died later the same year.[1]

Raynald may not have been a prisoner, but he was held captive…not so much by his brother, but by his appetite.

If you think about it, we’re all a lot like Raynald and Satan is like Edward. Whatever our individual weaknesses are, he makes sure to keep those temptations coming so that we won’t be able to escape.

Unlike Raynald, though, we have Someone on our side who is willing to help us escape.

“The Word does not say that we are to count it all joy when we fall under temptation, but when we fall into temptation. It is not necessary to fall under temptation, for temptation comes upon us for the trying of our faith. And the trying of our faith worketh patience, not fretfulness and murmuring. If we put our trust in Jesus, He will keep us at all times, and will be our strength and shield. We are to learn valuable lessons from our trials. Paul says, “We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope ...” (Romans 5:3-5).
“Many seem to think that it is impossible not to fall under temptation, that they have no power to overcome, and they sin against God with their lips, talking discouragement and doubt instead of faith and courage. Christ was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. He said, “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30). What does this mean? It means that the prince of evil could find no vantage ground in Christ for his temptation. And so it may be with us....” (E.G. White, That I May Know Him, p. 279)

If, as Mrs. White says, “It is not necessary to fall under temptation …,” why do we continue to give in? Why is it so difficult to withstand temptation?

My theory is that we fall because our first thought when we’re tempted isn’t, “Help me Jesus,” but “Oh, that’s interesting.”

When Eve walked past the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden, her first mistake was that she didn’t keep walking. She stopped to look at the tree. She may have already been thinking about how delicious the fruit looked and had the off-hand thought, “This fruit looks so good, I wonder why we can’t eat it,” even before the serpent spoke to her.

Was that thought, by itself, a sin? Could she have still walked on by at that point and everything be ok? Yes, I think so. But as she was thinking those thoughts, she stood by the tree admiring the fruit for just a little bit too long and then, with just a few words, the serpent had her.

In the C.S. Lewis book, Perelandra,  (2^nd book of the Space Trilogy), Lewis explores the power of evil and temptation. The book takes place on newly peopled Venus. The innocent woman is pursued by someone who is trying to get her to commit a sin. The hero, named Ransom, tries to come between the woman and the evil presence and keep her from sinning. The pursuit goes on for days and Lewis is able to discuss the complexities of the conflict between good and evil. My only problem with the book (even though it’s one of my favorites on many other levels) is that the innocent woman comes off as clueless … and I don’t believe that Eve was that unaware. I believe that she knew she shouldn’t be around the tree…but she just wanted to look at it. And once she let that thought become an action, the next thought, “That fruit looks really yummy” becomes a question of God’s authority, “I wonder why we can’t eat it.” So that when the serpent showed up and asked her the same question, she had already fallen. Taking and eating the fruit was just the outward sign.

The battle is fought in our minds. That’s why Paul says, 

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,” 2 Corinthians 10: 3-5

With the help of the Holy Spirit we must take every thought captive and turn it over to God so that the temptations we experience all day every day don’t get caught in our minds and become something more.

Let’s not become captives of temptations like Raynald. God is just waiting to send each of us the help we need every single moment.

“No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” 1Corinthians 10:13

[1] Thomas Costain, The Three Edwards, Buccaneer Books

S.of the F. v. the G. R.

(Survival of the Fittest versus the Golden Rule)

Where does morality come from? How do humans decide how to behave? As a Christian, I would say that moral behavior is a product of my belief in a Creator God. But what if a person does not believe in God? What dictates his morality?

That’s a huge question. If people reject the Creatorship of God, then, if they’re honest with themselves, they also have to reject God’s pronouncement of what’s right and wrong. Some folks try to have it both ways by claiming that morality is a natural evolutionary step, but macro evolution, to my knowledge, says little about absolute rights and wrongs but quite abit about the importance of survival.

Terry Mattingly, senior fellow for journalism at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, quotes from a sermon by Phillip E. Johnson called “Evolution and the Christian Faith.”

 “‘If there is no Creator who has a purpose for your life, then there is no such thing as sin, … ‘Sin would mean that you are in a wrong relationship to your Creator. Well, you can't be in the wrong relationship with the particles. They don't care. So you don't need a Savior to save you from the consequences of your wrong relationship with the particles.’”Mattingly then concludes, “When you give away creation, you have given away everything.”[1]

That’s a pretty harsh conclusion, isn’t it? But I don’t believe we can deny the truth of it when we look around at what has happened in society since the theory of evolution has become the popular way to explain the existence of our world.

Evolution teaches that only the strongest, healthiest, and smartest survive, a concept that is completely incompatible with the concept of the Golden Rule.

“Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:12

Surprisingly, I’ve found that the Golden Rule is harder to teach than you might think. I mean, out of context, many people wouldn’t immediately assume that it was a text from the Bible. You could say it was just a good rule to live by. But in 20 plus years of teaching in one capacity or another, without the opportunity to back that statement up with a belief in God, it has little impact on individual behavior. The response I most often get when I try to explain the Golden Rule to one of my students is, “Why?” In fact, they often completely turn the whole concept around, “They’re not going to treat me the way I want to be treated, why should I be nice to them?”

You have to admit that by today’s standards, the Golden Rule is counter-intuitive.

The Golden Rule says, “Share.”

Survival of the Fittest says, “Take yours first and let the rest fend for themselves.

The Golden Rule says, “Lend a helping hand.”

Survival of the Fittest says, “If you can’t keep up, get out of the way.”

The Golden Rule says, “Look out for one another.”

Survival of the Fittest says, “Every man for himself.”

Counter-intuitive or not, our Creator has both told and demonstrated to us how we should behave as we represent Him.

“Your relation to God and your fellow men demands a change in your life. In the Sermon on the Mount the injunction of the world’s redeemer was: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” These words are of the highest value to us, a golden rule given us by which to measure our conduct. This is the true rule of honesty. Very much is comprehended in these words. We are here required to deal with our neighbors as we would wish them to deal with us were we in their circumstances.” (E.G. White, Testimonies of the Church, Volume 4, p. 359)

But without God, there are no such requirements. Facing each day without the belief that each of us is a special creation of the God of the universe, leaves each of us to find meaning and truth in our own way. And that has led to moral relativism and situational ethics – the belief that there is no absolute truth, no right and wrong and no consequences for poor choices.

Where does that leave us?

Well, according to William Watkins, it leaves us with ten core beliefs that govern the lives of those people today who claim there are no absolutes. (Try to wrap your brain around that!)

Anyway, here are The New Absolutes.

“(1) Religion interferes with freedom and must be banished from the public square.(2) Human life is valuable only as long as it is wanted.(3) Marriage is a human contract made between any two people, and can be terminated for any reason.(4) Family is any grouping of two or more people.(5) Sexual intercourse is permissible regardless of marital status.(6) All forms of sexual activity are moral as long as they occur between consenting adults.(7) Women are oppressed by men and must liberate themselves.(8) People of color should receive preferential treatment.(9) Non-Western societies and other oppressed peoples and their heritage should be studied and valued above Western civilization.(10) Only viewpoints deemed politically correct should be tolerated and encouraged to prevail.”[2]

Call me old fashioned or simple minded, but I prefer God’s Absolutes. God absolutely created each of us, loves each of us and wants to spend eternity with each of us. You know where I’m going with this:

“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life. For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.” John 3:16-17

Now that’s an absolute, I can live with!

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[1] Terry Mattingly, senior fellow for journalism at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, from his column "Phillip E. Johnson”

[2] William Watkins, The New Absolutes (Bethany House, 1996)

The Revisionist Bible

Thoughts on the Sabbath School Lesson fr 1.19.13

Once upon a time, the world happened, possibly with the help of some Higher Being. Finally, men and women came along. They began to worship the Higher Being and to tell and to write down stories about It (the Higher Being). In some of the stories, the Higher Being was called God. One of the stories described how some of the people thought God created the world and all the animals and people in six days. Another story was about a flood that God sent when the people weren’t paying enough attention to Him.     After that the stories were about lots of people who tried to do the right things to make God happy but they kept messing up so He gave them a set of rules that they had to follow. There are stories about wars and people who were good and people who were not.  The people wrote some poems to God. Some people wrote about things they said God told them were going to happen in the future.

After a long time, a baby named Jesus was born and he grew up and was a good man. He made some of the people who believed in God so angry that they killed him. But some people thought he was sent by God and they worshiped him and wrote about the things Jesus said and did while he was on Earth. Finally the people wrote a book about how God would get revenge on all the people who didn’t follow His rules. The End.

I just found out that Thomas Jefferson actually put together his own version of the Gospels. He called it, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. What he did was, he took six bibles – two in English, two in French and two that were in Greek and Latin. Then he actually cut passages out of the Gospels and pasted them back in another book, in chronological order. He put the same passages in English, French, Latin and Greek next to each other so he could compare them.

The final book, called The Jefferson Bible, is 86 pages long and is still around. The Smithsonian bought it from Jefferson’s great-granddaughter in 1895 for the huge sum of $400.

Pretty cool, right? Well, it was a good idea. But what Jefferson actually did while he was cutting and pasting was take out everything except 

“those parts that can be identified through reason and thought, … So out goes [sic] the miracles, out goes [sic] the resurrections and what remains is what he thinks is the life and morals of Jesus, the true teachings."
Jefferson even changed the grammar at one point. “On one page, he apparently didn't like the number of prepositions in a verse from Matthew that started, ‘For as in the days that were before the flood ...’ He cut out the word ‘as,’ changing the scripture to ‘For in the days that were before the flood ..."[1]

Here’s the whole text: 

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” Matthew 24:36-39

I don’t know, maybe leaving out a word here or there isn’t that big of a deal, but leaving out anything that can’t be “identified through reason and thought?” (Well, right off the bat, I object to the assertion that things that require faith exclude both reason and thought, but that’s a whole different article.)

What was Jefferson really trying to do though? The same thing people have been trying to do since just about right after the Fall. He was trying to take the “Godness” out of God.

If God is just a social construct (something that humans made up) and Jesus was just a really good guy, then we don’t have to believe in anything hard like a real six day creation, a catastrophic flood, a virgin birth, or a resurrection. If we can look at the Bible as a compilation of some really good stories that teach some good lessons, then we don’t have to believe anything that makes us uncomfortable like the Ten Commandments or a final accounting for the way we’ve lived our lives. We don’t have to be changed by a relationship with the God who made us … because, “if we admit that He made us,” as a friend of mine said, “we have to admit that He can tell us what to do – He has a right to be interested/involved in our lives.” That makes a whole lot of people really uncomfortable.

The truth is, whether we like it or not – whether we can understand it or not, the Bible is true. God created the world in six days and rested on the Sabbath. If we discount the Genesis account of Creation, then what’s to stop us from discounting any other part of the Bible that we can’t understand? And, once we start cutting and pasting only the parts we can understand, we’ll find that we’ve cut out God. After that, there’s nothing left.  

“God is the foundation of everything. All true science is in harmony with his works; all true education leads to obedience to his government. Science opens new wonders to our view; she soars high, and explores new depths; but she brings nothing from her research that conflicts with divine revelation. Ignorance may seek to support false views of God by appeals to science; but the book of nature and the written word shed light upon each other. We are thus led to adore the Creator, and to have an intelligent trust in his word.” E.G. White, Christian Education, p 196

"In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. He was present originally with God. All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men.  And the Light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness has never overpowered it [put it out or absorbed it or appropriated it, and is unreceptive to it]." John 1:1-5AMP

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[1] Sally Holland, “Saving Thomas Jefferson's scrapbook Bible,” CNN, http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/11/thomas-jeffersons-scrapbook-bible/

Chicken vs. Egg?

I can remember really puzzling over that question, wondering how a person could actually know which came first. I believe I was well into my teens before I realized that, for a Christian who believed in the six days of Creation, it was a no-brainer.

The God Who created the world in six real, twenty-four hour days did everything in a carefully ordered way. He didn’t just start creating things willy-nilly – He followed a meticulously thought out plan. How do I know? Because 7,000 plus years since the Fall of Adam and Eve, the world is still so orderly that almost every part of it can be described in mathematical formulas.

Do you realize that almost everything in our world can be described by a single set of numbers? They’re called the Fibonacci numbers and the visual equivalent, the Golden Mean and is a sequence of numbers, starting with 0, 1 and continuing 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13. Each new number equals the two numbers before it. This is only the first few numbers – they go on forever, but the ratio is 1.618033988749895… The whole concept gets pretty math heavy and I get pretty lost, but when I can see that rose petals wrap around their stem using that pattern, sea shells follow the Golden spiral, and so many things in nature contain the same ratio over and over again, I’m led to the conclusion that God laid out our world along very strict guidelines.

“John Polkinghorne, a theoretical physicist and a minister, claims that the equations that guide physics point to a Creator. Polkinhorne said, ‘Physicists are deeply impressed with the order of the world. It is rationally beautiful and structured, and the feeling that there is a mind behind it is a very natural feeling to have …. I think the feeling of wonder, which is fundamental to the experience of physicists … is fundamentally a religious experience, whether people recognize it or not.’”[1]

In Genesis 1, God worked from general to specific. He didn’t create an living thing until He had created a place where it could survive.

“Then God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear’; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
“Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth’; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day.” Genesis 1:9-13

The whole Genesis account of Creation shows a thoughtful and concerned Creator who carefully built a beautiful home for His creations. Not even a blade of grass was created until the system to keep it alive was in place.

On the other hand, we have the theories of Charles Darwin built around his research on the Galapagos Islands. His ideas involve natural selection and don’t describe any logic or purpose just an on-going struggle for survival. If God were to use a theory like the one described by Darwin, He would have to be described as careless, wasteful and cruel to just pitch ideas for creatures out into the planet and see which ones survived.

That would be like me deciding to plant a garden in my backyard so I just gathered up a whole bunch of seed of all different kinds and just pitched them out into the yard. Then I just watched to see what would come up. I didn’t prepare the ground for the seeds or make sure the seeds went into the right kind of soil or in the right amount of sunlight. I didn’t worry about whether or not the seeds could even grow in my area of the country. If the plants made it, great, but if the weeds took over and none of them made it, that’s ok too. In my backyard, that would mean I’d end up with very little of anything edible, just Johnson grass and sticker burs. I would have wasted a lot of seeds.

Anyway, how would you feel about God if He was so indifferent about how things went on His planet? Would you be interested in worshipping Him? or praying to Him?

I believe that the way we picture Creation has everything to do with the way we picture God.

“Some theologians argue that God is not indifferent to natural evil, but, rather, God is limited in His very nature so that He is good but limited in power. Hence, while He desires to do something about the pain and suffering in the world, He is unable.
“A second option offered asserts that while God is all-powerful, His greatest desire is the complete freedom of the cosmos to self-create and self-determine. This freedom is said to be more important to God than imposing some kind of order or design on the universe. Advocates of this view tend to express God as being in a power-sharing relationship with the universe, with the universe participating in its own creation.
“A third option is Deism. In this view, God launches all the natural processes and then absents Himself like a disinterested, absentee landlord. While this God may have all power, He shows little or no personal interest in the affairs of humankind. In this construct, God is highly unlikely to personally interact or intervene with any particularity in the affairs of earth’s history.”[2]

What a blessing to know that our God is not limited in any way, that He maintains His control over the universe, and that He cares about each and every one of us.

I know I end with John 3:16-17 often, but I just don’t believe we can be reminded enough of how involved God wants to be in every aspect of our lives and that, more than anything else, He wants to spend eternity with us. Take just a couple more seconds and really read and think about every word. Each one was written just for you and for me.

“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.
“For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.” John 3:16-17AMP

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[1] Pallab Ghosh, "Historic Hunt for 'God Particle,'" BBC News (9-10-08)

[2] Stephen Bauer, PhD, The Lesson in Brief and Learning Cycle, Lesson 2, Origins-Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide