(considering) 8:28

Implications of the Sovereignty of God

recent posts

  • God is a Care Bear?

    It’s interesting how some people characterize the Gospel. We all know that “gospel” means “good news” (or at least we all know it now), and Christians know this is somehow central to their religion. The problem is that there are a lot of different gospels out there, and people need to think a bit on a given formulation of the Gospel before they know how close to the actual gospel we see in scripture.

    One of these permutations of the Gospel is the “God is love” camp. Of course, the statement that God is love is true. We have it on scriptural authority that it’s true (1 Jn 4:16), God reveals himself as love. When we think a little, though, we recognize that the statement on its own may be a little questionable. After all, we live in a society that thinks “love” includes everything from sexual attraction to a particular fondness, to sentimentality. God thus becomes either a freaky stalker boyfriend (really freaky for heterosexuals like me) or a giant amorphous care-bear. This is definitely not good news, especially if one notices that we humans are quite adept at evil. It also assumes that the only object of God’s love is me.

    tenderheart_bear_large.gif

    The camp that focuses on God as love as the Gospel tends to minimize the problem of evil in the world. It seems to them that whilethe world is messed up, we ourselves are mostly okay. That’s simply not true from a scriptural perspective (Rom 3:23), and its manifestly not true if we reflect a little on how we treat others and think about them in our hearts (of course, maybe you, dear readers are far more noble than I…… I am a sinner, and become more convinced of it daily).

    There’s something in me that wants the wrongs righted, that wants to see evil punished and justice prevail. The Bible promises us that God will do this, but that means there’s a problem for me, and anybody else who sins. If God is not just love, but also just and righteous, to fix the world and punish evil, he’s going to have to punish me somehow. I get the feeling my sin is a far bigger deal than even I imagine. If I am to come to God as I am, for God to be just to those I have wronged (including himself) I need to be punished. If God loves justice, and loves righteousness, and loves the people I have wronged, I cannot go unscathed before the throne of His glory.

    The good news is that a just God has found a way to deal with my sin, taking the punishment on himself in Christ. That is true love, but it is neither a care-bear or a nutty sexual thing. Nor is the wholeness of that Gospel contained in the (true) phrase, God is love.

  • Funny how no one wants it.

    Being single as a 33 year old Christian man is usually a good gig. The Lord blesses me greatly in giving me good solid prayer time, and the ability to study scripture and read, and to have friendships with few restrictions. I’m available to people at a level that most men my age simply can’t be, because I have no family to take care of. I wouldn’t often be able to blog at midnight were a wife expecting me to come to bed, or if I had a child who wasn’t yet sleeping through the night (as I’d be grasping sleep wherever I could).

    Often, when I think about it, I enjoy my life as a single poverty-stricken pastoral wannabe. That doesn’t mean I don’t keep my eyes out for Christian women who might be good marriage potential, but it’s not the controlling factor in my life.

    I have to say that because the Christian climate is often hostile to being a single Christian guy, especially when I date selectively (I only ask out people who I believe would be good wives and mothers, and for whom I would be a positive part of their lives… the last time I even asked someone for a date was a year or so ago). But the story I get from around me is that men my age should be married. People point to the overwhelming preponderance of women in the church, and how I have no reason to be single. I’ve even had people tell me how I should find a wife soon. And I would, but I really don’t know anyone who’d meet my expectations who is also single. Additionally there’s the fact that I want to be a pastor, and most Churches see a single pastor guy as a danger of sexual sin, so my chances of work are actually diminished by the fact that I’m not married.

    If all that weren’t enough, many single Christian women seem scared I’m going to get interested in them and ask them out. It makes some uncomfortable, and others go so far as to preventively tell me they aren’t interested, whether there’s any danger of me actually asking them out or not. I try to offset this by self-depricating humor about my understanding that women aren’t interested in me, but then people worry that I’m sitting in a corner at night bewailing the fact I’m not yet wed.

    And then there’s the fact that I have parents who like to wonder when I’m going to “settle down”, and start producing grandkids for them.

    All of this is before we add in the sexually charged culture, and the fact that I do sometimes succumb to the pressure and talk about my own singularity.

    I don’t think my bride is around the corner (if indeed I ever marry), but I don’t think the pressures on me from both within and outside the Church are going to let up either.

    Yet singleness is a gift, and a valuable one. The Lord has provided me a time to think and pray for others, to study his word, and to put to death the deeds of the flesh in my own life without worrying that the shrapnel of my spiritual battles will harm my family. And I know that whatever reason God has for not putting a wife into my life, it’s a good one.

    Because in the end, contrary to some people’s thinking, my life isn’t about the propagation of the species, but about glorifying God. I pray that the Lord will strengthen me to glorify Him more, whether single or married.

    G’night and God bless!

  • The Strength of an Argument

    A friend in commenting on my argument about the objective beauty of people asked whether the argument would be all that convincing to somebody who honestly believed they were ugly.

    To be honest, I’d have to say no. When it comes to the strength of an argument, the objective truth of the argument does not determine a person’s ability to believe it. There are a number of things that interrupt a person’s ability to believe something.

    1) Trauma – People sometimes have mental blocks created by past hurts or present addictions. So, for example, telling someone with a low self concept that they are beautiful won’t work.

    2) Desires – Sometimes people don’t want something to be true, and so choose not to believe it if they at all can. In normal situations that’s why some people refuse to see when their boyfriend or girlfriend (or even spouse) is bad for them. The reprecussions are too extreme, and so they simply do not want to believe it.

    As an aside, most atheists claim that this is the reason people like me believe that there is a god. Though I’m not sure about this, as if there is no god, I can do whatever I can rationally convince myself is moral, and I’m trained to twist words, I can make a lot seem ethical.

    3) Paradigms. Sometimes people have a method of interpreting the world around them that simply cannot conceive of the truth of anything that is opposed to their point of view. The most common example is an overly self-centered person.  They can’t imagine the needs of other people simply because they are so centered on themselves. Where some choose to believe things in opposition to truth, some cannot even see the truth. The evidence contrary to what they believe simply does not register.

    All of this is important to remember when in argument, as the person you’re talking to may actually be more knowledgable than you even if you know that they’re wrong in some way, or conversely they may actually see things more clearly than you do, despite the fact you have more knowledge than they do.

  • Online Reading (November 5, 2007)

    Books: John Polkinghorne reviews some books on atheism.

    Emergent Church: John Stackhouse refutes some claims about him in a book by D.A. Carson.

    Theology: Is Charismatic doctrine the reason for some of the nuttiness in the movement?

    Polytheism: Though Albert Mohler reports that some think all the “religion” problems are only because of monotheism.

  • Online Reading (November 1, 2007)

    Weather: Looks like rain…..Darn, and I was hoping for a BBQ this weekend….

    Travel: Sex is discouraged on Singapore Airlines in the new full sized beds.

    Fundamentalism: John Piper thanks God for Fundamentalists, even after they censure him. (note: from this story, it seems I’m not a fundamentalist. Who knew?)

    Books: Gary Shavey interviews Alister McGrath on his new book, Christianity’s Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution – A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First.