Law: A Quebec father who was successfully sued by his daughter after a grounding loses his appeal before the Quebec Superior Court.
Fasting: Christianity Today reviews Scot McKnight’s new book.
Piracy: An American Ship was seized by pirates off the coast of Africa. The crew then took back the ship.
Just a quick step away from the theological ranting.
So I’ve mentioned that I’m in one of the many transition times in my life. I’m selling off all the things that I’d thought kinda defined the person I was and am being forced to again put everything important to me in 2 suitcases and a carry-on (airline restrictions).
The result is that you get to prioritize things. As a result I came
to the conclusion that I’ve been very blessed with friends. Even today at work, I realized that the guys at work are good people to talk to, and I’m going to miss them. The same holds true for the many people who have come through my apartment to look at (and buy off) my books. Last night I had a really good chat with a few people from the local MUNCF chapter, and realized I’d miss the opportunity to chat with them in the future. The same with the guys I argue my own twisted theology with, and my friends who are just happy to let me rant off the things that make me mad, or make me happy.
Even as I’ve been here, many people have come and gone from the locality, but not from my life. Each one valuable and enjoyable in their own ways. As I slowly rid myself of possessions I can’t fit in my luggage, I realize that’s what’s been valuable has been the people God has placed around me.
The Bible says that love is from God, and that as we abide in love, we abide in God:
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (1 John 4:16)
Essentially the friends I’ve made in Canada while I’ve been here have been a clear and present reminder of the Love of God. In preparing to leave, I know that I will miss many, but the God who went before me here to prepare a place for me will continue to go before me. After all, to reference the title of this blog, “all things work together for the good of those who love and serve the Lord and are called according to His purposes.” (Romans 8:28)
Soli Deo Gloria
So if we’re all depraved, and none of us would seek God on our own, how does anybody ever become a Christian?
The simple fact is that God chooses people to save, not because of anything they are or do, but because of God’s grace.
This is a little different than what you may have heard from others. Namely, that God is waiting with baited breath, hoping that you will make the decision to come to Him, and if you don’t He’ll be utterly devastated.
Somehow, the modern west has gotten the idea that God is an adolescent schoolgirl, hoping upon hope that the object of His affections will come to Him. Now, to be clear, God desires that sinners turn from their wickedness and live and gets no joy from the death of a sinner (Ezekiel 18:23; 32); but God is still the Lord of the universe, not that annoying lovestruck highschooler unable to get up the nerve to ask out the person He loves.
In fact, a Christian would say that we love God because God first loved us (1 John 4:19), and that were it not for the work of God, we would be unable to love God or one another (1 John 4:7).
So what does this mean practically (in addition to the points from the last post)?
1) Christians need to take the power of God seriously, and see God as God, not someone who is in our debt because we deigned to come to Him. Our power to come to God is because of God’s choice.
2) we need the kind of the fear of the Lord that makes us understand that the only thing keeping us from the just wrath of God (because we’re depraved) is the choice of God to save us.
3) We need to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10), by displaying the works that are in keeping with being elected of God, including love of both friend and enemy.
Oftentimes I find myself having to explain my understanding of Christianity. This is mainly because my theology doesn’t quite fit most of what I see operating here in Newfoundland. It’s quite common in some parts of the world, just not here.
Last weekend was one such instance. Somebody asked me after Church to explain “calvinism”, which for me means an explanation of the doctrines of grace. When I explain these ideas, some people hear it with joy, others respond as I did when I first heard it (what an evil understanding of salvation).
For the sake of clarity, though, I’m going to go through the five points, why i believe them and what that means practically.
The first point is that I believe people are depraved. I am included in that “people”.
This means that i think people do not in themselves seek to do the right thing, and even when they do the “right thing” as seen by outsiders, it’s for the wrong reasons. This means that while I think people stumble into “good” acts from time to time. people cannot be good in and of themselves.
Of course, I see that the Bible teaches this. Just 2 examples:
“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10b-3:13).
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Psalm 51:5)
More importantly, with very little reflection on my own motivations at any given moment, even as people praise me for doing something good (and even as I do things that are seen as good), I can tell that my heart is not really aiming for the good of others, much less the glory of God. In and of myself I am really not a good person.
So what does this mean?
1) Christians are not in themselves more righteous than unbelievers, or even people who openly embrace their sin. We are in ourselves on an equal footing. This means that when we tell others who do not believe that they are evil and going to hell, we need to be careful that we don’t get (or give) the idea that because we are saved we are any less evil in ourselves. We could not embrace God any more than the unbeliever could, and we were saved by God while we were still enemies of His.
2) Christians need to pray for unbelievers that we talk to, as much as preach to them. Conversion is an act of God, not of ourselves. This means that the goal in evangelism is to make the Gospel clear, not to make them believe it (we can’t do that). they are depraced and incapable of coming to Christ unless God leads them.
3) Christians need to be thankful to God for our salvation. Not in a lip-service kind of way, but because we actually are completely dependent on God for our salvation, not on our superior intellects, reasoning skills, superior faith ability, or indeed anything else. In ourselves we are depraved. We are saved by Jesus at all levels.
4) Finally, Christians should be freed from the silliness of pretending that we are righteous. We should not embrace sinful behaviour, but since we are depraved, we shouldn’t be surprised when once in a while sin creeps up in ourselves or others, and we shouldn’t be shaming when it does. We simply need to call one another to repentance and act in grace, not because we are better than those we call to repentance, but because we are saved by Christ.
In the end, the realization that we are in ourselves not good, and incapable of coming to God on our own is not simply a downer, but a fact that once remembered avoids the pride that so easily ensnares Christians, and reminds us that in Our faith we do not ask people to look at us for the ultimate value of our faith, but to Jesus Christ.
soli Deo gloria
One of my more thoughtful co-workers was talking about the advantage of the world ending by a zombie outbreak. The reason that he thought it a good way for the world to end was that he thought that the world would do a heck of a lot better without us humans, and there’s something poetic about our civilization ending as it’s destroyed by us going insane ourselves and destroying it. Heck, as zombies we’d only be going quicker than we are now.
Pretty bleak point really, but not one without merit. Watching the news doesn’t really engender a lot of hope in our race, and when I look in the mirror, I realize that in many ways I’m not much better. There is something seriously wrong with the world, and we humans seem to be at the centre of it. While people blame politics (liberal or conservative), religion, ideology, technology, or even stupidity, I really think the problem goes deeper, perhaps to our very core.
So what does that have to do with Christmas? A lot.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Matthew 1:20-21
Joseph, facing the soon birth of a child to his fiancee (despite his not having had relations with her), is told by God that this apparent example of something going wrong in the world, was actually the beginning of an answer to that problem at the centre of the universe, we humans and our sin.
So as we watch a world in failing economics, and with wars and rumours of wars, may we see hope, not in the coming extinction of humanity, but in the salvation God works through unlikely methods.
Happy Advent dear readers.
(considering) 8:28 