Month: March 2007

Faith & Black Holes (aka Random Ramblings)…

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My mind has been working overtime these days for some reason (too much caffeine?)
 
What is faith?
 
According to Hebrews 11:1 it is "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Seems simple enough. We hope for Christ’s return. We are certain that Christ is at the right hand of God, that Christ is God, although we do not see it. The brilliantly frustrating thing about the Bible is that it keeps you coming back; it re-engages you.
 
Here’s what I mean – you can take the verses above from the TNIV, an excellent translation and the work of many faithful scholarly Christian men and women. You can analyze it. You can understand it. You can form your life around it and move on. Then – you can go to the web and find another dozen or so translations that render the same verse differently.
 
Instead of faith being "certain of what we do not see" it becomes one of: conviction, convinces, evidence, sign, proof, confidence.
 
In the sense of faith being certainty of what we hope for then it is a quality of thought; a personal attribute that enriches the individual and pleases God. If faith is certainty/confidence/conviction of things unseen than the verse is doubly reinforcing itself. The first part of the verse essentially already says this – "sure/certain/substance of what we hope for…"; like saying "faith is the certainty of what we hope for and the certainty of things unseen."
 
So what do you do?
 
If you look at the text in the original Greek you see that the words are different. The word in the first part of the verse is translated typically as substance/foundation/certainty. The word in the second part of the verse is actually different and should be rendered differently. It can be translated as evidence/proof. Both words are adjectives modifying/describing faith, which is a noun…not a verb. This tells us something of the substance of faith.
 
I prefer the translation of the second adjective as evidence (kudos to the good ol’ King James translation). When translated this way than we see faith first as something that benefits the one who has it (certainty) and secondly as something that benefits those around the one with faith (evidence/proof of the unseen God).
 
How is faith evidence of the unseen God? This is where black holes come in. Black Holes are ridiculously dense collapsed stars. They are so dense that their gravity even traps light (hence the name black hole). Nothing escapes a black hole – except x-rays; massive amounts of x-rays.
 
There are two ways to describe x-rays:
 
1. X-rays are high-energy photons
 
2. X-rays are evidence of things unseen (black holes)
 
Definition one is descriptive of the x-ray itself. Definition two is what the x-rays point to – black holes. In the same way the verse tells us two ways to understand faith – as certainty of/in God and as evidence pointing to God and His existence.
 
To carry the analogy further, when astronomers encounter a great x-ray source they suspect a black hole; where people encounter great faith they suspect God, who is Himself the source of faith (and the spiritual opposite of a black hole – as He is the source of all light).
 
Hebrews tells us that faith is belief that God did, does and will do and God is, was and will be.
 
There is a great deal more to say about faith and these are merely my musings but I am tired now and need to hit th hay.
 
Ciao and blessings.

Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah

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WARNING – BIBLICAL LITERACY ALERT!!!
 
I was reading in Daniel last night and I have some questions/oberservations.
 
First – why is it that we afford Daniel the priviledge of his Hebrew name but when it comes to his friends – Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, we refer to them primarily with their Babylonian names – Shadrach, Mishach, and Abednego? Both sets of names are used in the book. Daniel’s Babylonian name was Belteshazzar but in my life I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him refered to that way by anyone (although the title of the book is Daniel which probably contributes to this).
 
Another observation: I love Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah’s response to the king when they are commanded to bow down to a golden statue:
 
"King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If the God we serve is able to deliver us, then he will deliver us from the blazing furnace and from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." Daniel 3:16-18
Can you imagine if we were to pray this way for someone? Imagine praying "God, if you are able, please heal this person, but even if you do not we pray that you would find them faithful."
 
For those who do not like the TNIV’s translation of this section of Daniel a prayer modelled after translations such as NIV, NASB, KJV would still be: "God, you are able (or if you are willing), please heal this person, but even if you do not…"
 
Somehow we often treat our prayers like incantations and are worried that if we don’t get the wording exactly correct they will fail in some way; as though God were in our control in some way. The other fear is that people might think we lack faith if we use the world "if".
 
Ultimately Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah’s response to the king is not about their hope for God to save them so much as it is about their humble obedience to Him (and perhaps the awareness that He has already saved them).
 

Jesus – Ecce Homo, Ecce Deus

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There are some good things going on these days around the world in terms of spirituality and a new openess to God’s work in the world. By good I mean that the seeds of the Gospel are no longer landing on barren rock. The soil of the human heart may be softening and allowing some of the gospel to take root.
 
It is a confusing time however as some who have chosen to re-embrace Jesus have done so by discarding His divine nature and embracing him solely as a great philosopher and thinker (which He no doubt is).
 
The danger in this is that Jesus as philosopher or great human being can save no one. Only the whole, complete Christ who is both God and Man offers salvation.
 
More on this later.
 
LATER: Well – I’m back. I’m not surprised that the world find Christ so compelling (and not simply the west either). There is no one like Christ in recorded human history.
 
Some things people have elected to keep in "their" Christ:
 
– pacifist, teacher, philosopher
 
Some things people have elected to discard:
 
– acceptance of the Hebrew Bible (aka Old Testament)
– resurrection
– deity
– teachings on morality
 
Christ is patronizingly seen as an intelligent guy worth setting up as an example. People selectively choose what they consider relavent about Him and then shove the rest into the category as historically and culturally irrelevant – essentially when something about Christ is found to be distasteful one simply needs to categorize that as part of ancient Jewesh culture and no longer relevant to me in the 21st century.
 
The effect of a selective reading of Christ is to neuter Him turning Him into a eunuch who serves our every emotional need but is essentially incapable of creating in us the new life which He has promised.
 
Our culture is rapidly stripping away the truth from Christ and transforming Him into Man and Myth. When this happens we are left with a toothless, memory hardly worth considering.
 
The living Christ is dangerous. A true encounter with Him leads to death. Death to self. Death to the world. But it also leads to new life and rebirth. Christ calls us to radical submission to His will against all our pride. One can serve Christ but one cannot serve a myth. A myth serves the culture that created it.
 
Examine your Christ. Have you stripped away His Godhood and created an idol? Is your Christ the Christ of scripture or of you own making? What difference does it make? All the difference in the world.
 

Everybody’s a critic!

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It’s not what you think – everything is fine.  😉
 
I never thought I’d find a review site that would match www.rottentomatoes.com in my small pile of movie reviewcompilation site favourites until I discovered www.metacritic.com. So far it’s a great site which not only has a movie review category but also has DVD, Music, TV, Book and Video Games.
 
I’ve already decided I want to check out Montreal band The Arcade Fire’s new CD Neon Bible (as well as their debut CD Funeral).

2 Samuel 22

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Today I decided to read 2 Samuel, chapter 22. A powerful psalm of David. Read it. Pray it.

What Must I Do…

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I have been dwelling on the doctrine of salvation (soteriology) lately.
 
I think it is important that every pastor (and every believer for that matter) know how to respond to the important biblical question – "What must I do to be saved?" In fact before one answers that question they must not simply compare their answer to that of Christ – they must abdicate their answer in favour of Christ’s. By abdication I mean that we must even avoid offering our "interpretation" of Christ’s word in favour of His plain, unadorned word trusting that the Spirit of God works the same now as on Pentecost.
 
I think it is also helpful for a believer to write out their answer to this question as though in response to a neighbour who might ask them. Then literally read their answer out loud as though Christ Himself we speaking the same words and ask the question – "are these Christ’s words?" Does our understanding and explanation of salvation deviate from the Word? Do our words sound strange on Christ’s lips?
 
Here are a few pertinent verses (by no means are these all of them and I urge you to look up the context within which they are written):
 
Luke 8:11-12 – (Jesus said) "This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.
 
Luke 10:25-28 – On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered, " ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’" "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."
 
Luke 13:4-5 – Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
   
Luke 18:18-27 – A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’ "All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God." Those who heard this asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus replied, "What is impossible with human beings is possible with God."
 

Acts 4:8-12 – Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is " ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved."

John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 10:7-9 – Therefore Jesus said again, "Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.

Mark 16:15-18 – He (Jesus) said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."  

Acts 11:11-14 – "Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’

Acts 15:6-11 – "Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."

Romans 10:9-13 – If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, "Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame." For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Ephesians 2:8 – For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God

1 Timothy 2:3-4 – This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Titus 3:4-6 – But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior

Engaging Unbelief

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So what is up? Mostly random thoughts mainly at my end. A need to write but not a theme really.
 
I grabbed a book off my shelf today called Engaging Unbelief: A Captivating Strategy from Augustine & Aquinas by Curtis Chang. So far it’s very good. The topic is a daunting one to take on but one that constantly enters my mind as we move to a post-Christian era. I can appreciate the premise which is to engage to of Christianity’s greatest thinkers in times of what Chang calls epochal challenge. The epochal challenge is the rise of a new system of thinking on a massive scale. For Augustine and the Holy Roman Empire it was the the rise of Christianity itself within the old Roman empire that was the new way of thinking that led to the erosion of centuries of Roman thinking that had held the empire together.
 
Augustine lived in a time when the priviledged intelligentsia felt that Christianity was incompatible with the "thoughtful citizen". A time when Christianity was being blamed for the woes of the empire. A time not unlike our own. Augustine’s response to the intellectual doubt about Christ was his powerful work – The City of God.
 
With Thomas Aquinas the epochal challenge was the rapid rise of Islam. Not only did Isalm bring with it a powerful military and religious challenge but it also re-introduced the long lost philosophy of Aristotle. Aquinas and culture were challenged by a complete and utterly different system of thought and with it came the inevitable violence – physical violence and intellectual violence. Aquinas, in an effort to respond to a missionary friend’s request for help in meeting the challenge of Islamic philosophy he wrote Summa contra Gentiles.  
 
Chang looks to Hebrews 12:1 which calls us to pay attention to "that great cloud of witnesses" as his justification for looking to our own spiritual ancestors as examples in dealing with our own epochal challenge – postmodernity. Chang’s perspective of the postmodern is in line with my own – a wholesale challenge to the West’s modernist way of thinking which is collapsing under its weight. I also agree with Chang’s perspective that while postmodernity is tearing down the modernist framework it has offered little to nothing to replace it – hence the vaccum which has formed is being filled with whatever can rush in. What you get is a pluralistic, chaotic, mess of conflicting ideologies battling for supremecy.
 
Chang is not an ivory tower thinker he’s engaging the culture where it is as director for Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship in Boston working on the campuses of MIT, Harvard and Tufts. His experience utilizing apologetics to debate a student on the validity of the Christian perspective while showing the invalidity of the student’s own logic taught him that even age-old rules of logic are being discarded. Having effectively shown the student the fallacies in his logic the response Chang was met with was "so what".
 
This is the increasingly loud response of our culture to the claims of Christ and His followers – a resounding "so what?" Our temptation to such a response is to smugly wrap ourselves in our modernist culture and claim the ignorance of this culture is too bad and it will be the culture’s own undoing. This, however is not the response of Christ to indifference and nor should it be ours.
 
Chang’s experience with the effectiveness of apologetics in our postmodern culture reminds me of Bonhoeffer’s own thought that apologetics was most effective as a tool within the church in the lives of lapsed or doubting believers than as a tool for evangelism.
 
So – I’m not done the book yet but I’ll keep you posted.