Evil rears its head: so what is the god of the philosophers doing about it?

I comment on a fine speech by John Lennox at Pepperdine University in 2013:

Epicurus starts with the 'god of the philosophers' not the creator God of the Bible. As do most who enter this type of discussion. So we ask the wrong question, we misunderstand the Creator God and we under-estimate ourselves. We prefer to think of God as the puppet-master fairy god mother god and we as the poor waifs that he will wipe the nose of.

The first thing people do in questioning evil is to distance themselves from it: we fail as people to recognize that however 'good' we think we or others are, we are full of evil: selfishness, pride, and disdain for others. We match the 'evil' of this corrupt world perfectly as the corruption is the outcome of Adam's rejection of 'god-ward-ness' We continue on the path Adam identified. Thus Paul in Romans 8:18ff (compare Psalm 115:16).

This is so because we are in God's image (Genesis 1:26: ponder on it) and our words and actions have real meaning; but without 'god-ward-ness' our words and actions are corrupt and as the stewards of the creation, our corruption drags it down as God, like Elvis, has 'left the room'. Yet he stays to seek our good by our repentance; our rejection of 'not-god-ness'.

So, the world is a broken place, given over to futility and corruption. Why?

 

    1. Because we could not 'fit' as corrupt people if the cosmos was uncorrupted: the would be an unbridgeable existential rift that would make life impossible.

 

    2. That we have enough of God's imageness to understand that the world is broken and we can detect that it ain't right, even though we are part of the not-right-ness.

The benefit of this is that our being out of synch with the God of life (Jesus: the way, truth and life) who is love, rubs us up the wrong way at every turn. We are reminded of the disjunct in everything we do, think and hope. We all face death all the time: it looms at our end. Thus, when Jesus was asked about the Siloam construction accident (Luke 13:4) he said: repent, lest this also happen to you (that is, die without repenting?). That's how we deal with 'the problem of evil', repent! Turn to Christ for new life.

Now, that's how the Bible leads us to think about evil: we experience it because our 'mannishness' is 'god-like', and that is the constant alarm siren that things are not as they should be. But pastorally, we don't handle it this way: we share the other's grief, we listen kindly, we be with them, we give any practical support and succor we can. We show our love by our actions and seek to bring peace to them.

 

Here's my addendum, a comment to a question to Frank Turek:

 

God can't just forgive all sinners? He has, but its up to sinners to take up the forgiveness by repenting of their rejection of God and so rejoin his family. God does not impose himself on sinners (God is not a Calvinist!).

 

Its about life transformation, and doesn't work with people who want to remain in rejection of God. Too much moralism which characterizes much of US evangelicalism. It under-does the gospel and misleads people. Sin is at base our willful alienation from God: it is us saying "no, God, get gone" The gospel is about being in fellowship with God and having new life in Christ to enable this.

 

And it is something we must come to realize: that we are cut off from such by our corruption in a corrupt world. The scheme of Salvation is about fellowship, God over-restoring the world if Genesis 3:8a where he was in fellowship with Adam and Eve. The 'over-restoring' is the new creation, with this veil of tears 'rolled up' and superseded.

Woman conducting an 'Outpost' of Stand to Reason

This is my thinking on a question asked by a woman on a talk-back podcast questioning her congregation's limit on her ambitions to convene an apologetic 'Outpost' for Stand to Reason.

Dear G,

I was fascinated by your discussion with the sister who wanted to organize an Outpost.

It is sad that her congregation won't support her desire; doubtlessly a godly desire, given her humble demeanour and evident motivation.

Her 'pastor' seems to be the gum in the works.

His role, along with the other equipping ministries (Eph 4:11-12) is to equip the saints for the work of ministry. I'm sure our sister aforementioned had in mind taking some responsibility to convene a work of ministry, which would also be part of the 'equipping of the saints' activities within the congregation.

Now, we run into two things:

1-      1 Tim 2:5-8 where Paul is taken by some to issue a blanket prohibition on women teaching or 'usurping authority' over men and

2-      Modern–post-reformation–congregational organization that make a minister or ‘pastor’ the authority giver, rather than the overseeing shepherd: to coach, instruct, counsel, encourage.

 

Together, these play merry hell with our practice with respect to our sisters in our congregations.

Note I use Coverdale’s translation of ekklesia, rather than the Jamesian usage ‘church’. I do so to make a point, and the point is that our understanding of the gatherings of Christians has been skewed away from a NT vision of an orderly charismatic (not in the modern popular sense) community of the holy ones, to an inherently authoritarian vision that comes to us via the un-reforming Reformation from Rome.

This plays out under the impetus of that strange Greek word authentein. Seemingly to endorse that men qua men have authority over women! I don't think that ‘authority' is given to any elder/presbyter/teacher/evangelist in this blunt terminology. The language used (hupeiko) suggests dialogue not command.

Before we start, we must set the scene with Paul's relevant general statements: Gal 3:28, 1 Cor 11:11 and 11:13-15, where there is no sex-based distinguishing of gifts. Put this alongside Joel 2:28/Acts 2:17 and the numerous unqualified mentions of Paul's female teachers and helpers/apostles (Junia) and we are in difficult hermeneutical waters. Our general hermeneutic policy is to use the less specific passages to interpret and modify the more specific.

On this basis, as well as the study of the word authentein, we must conclude that Paul’s Timothean statement is circumstantial. I mean specific to circumstances. Both the word itself, albeit translated in the NT on the basis of second and third century usage, rather than its earlier usage, and the immediate context with reference to the order of creation. Here he seems to be correcting something that was contradictory to scripture in the content of the women’s assertions of an 'authority' over men. That is they were putting the female as generative to the male rather than in the creation order. Paul also touches this theme in 1 Cor. 11:12

With the nature of the Ephesian setting that Timothy was in, Kroeger (1979, "Ancient Heresies and a Strange Greek Verb" Reformed Journal) hypothesizes that the Creation reference is there to overturn pagan-inspired heresies that attach women to the superiority of the goddess Diana, to the detriment of men: thus the 'authority' of women over men being taught. An 'authority' like no other teaching reference in the NT and one not aligned with the words of prophesy (in its various forms) that women are gifted to deliver.

But the church we are discussing also seems to have elevated the 'pastor' to a rank that exceeds that of an overseer who is to guide, and as we would say today to mentor the other sheep. The pastor as modern role bears more resemblance to a Roman (Catholic) priest than a biblical elder/overseer. But then if we do apply the surface and I must say anachronistic reading that seems to be popular in the modern church, it would prohibit all women from teaching or any appearance of exercise of 'authority' over a man. Paul does not limit this to the gathering of the church as we might characterize it today.

A little excursus here. Our modern conception of the church gathered: as a liturgical spectator ceremony, has nothing to do with the early church gatherings, which were informal, multiply communicative, community-edification gatherings. Firstly, they were constituted when (at least) two or three were gathered in Christ's name; so, any faith-oriented gathering should come under the Timothean rubric. Out go women university lecturers, seminary teachers, study group conveners, skills trainers, or Christian workers of any andragogic manner: conductors of any discussion group in a Christian gathering, offerer of opinions on STRAsk...a whole lot of permitted practices of the saints are out the window. Although I'd guess that one might place this as an action under the President of the organization. Still, a bit of a long bow, perhaps in this modern restrictive usage.

My conclusion is that as long as women don't assert over men a disordered creation of a 'goddess-earth-mother' that prioritizes the female over the male, to the disparagement of the male contra Genesis 1-2 and Gal 3:28, that they are free to exercise their gifts, irrespective of any dubious 'authority' of a male. And the NT is full of women doing just this, arguably! Titus 2, for example.

And even if one wanted to apply a rigid misreading to the Timothy passage, one could argue that the 'pastor' (or better, the board of elders) provided the umbrella for our women's work.

 Either way, Let's call the enquirer and tell her to 'get cracking' and start her Outpost and set aside the casuistry she has been subjected to.

God could have used evolution!

I've heard it, you've probably heard it: modal logic to the rescue as a way out of the direct sense of Genesis 1.

Disregarding the propositionally self-revealing God, with no commitment made, no evidence or argument required, he just could've. So there!

But what are the implications?

    1. an indeterminate god without a nature or declaration of 'scope'

    2.  recourse to an old pagan tale (the eternal or 'self-making' global biota)

    3. not the God of the Bible, the self-declaring God.

The first seems to prefer a non-communicating god, a god to whom can be attached any mode of operation and interaction with the creation, indeed, merged into the creation without distinction. The unknown God, perhaps the one lauded in Paul's Athens. Not the God who created definitively!

The second: ancient Epicureanism to the rescue. It's a self-making material world after all, with an inexplicable tendency to 'self-improve' on the graves of millions of 'failed' creatures. Oddly, we seem to still have millions of 'lesser evolved' creatures, so what gives with that? This is the god disappeared into the land of illusion. On this implication god ceases to be removed from the creation and his words about it leave the real world: reality collapses to illusion.

The third is the worst. It changes who God is from who he reveals and declares himself to be in the terms of the creation he has made (e.g. using the days that pace our life, and the contents of each day), the God who shows us relationship and rationality, who is present and active in our world, the God who acts in concrete history to frame our relationship with him and his creation, and the reality of that creation.

It changes this God into a cypher-god. Anonymous, or the deist god, or the incommunicado god. This makes God the god of an exilic religion where reality is illusory, or a mimetic religion where human actions 'act out' religion. Flipping between similarity to Eastern religions or Ancient Roman paganism.

Either choice is not good. No longer the creator God of the Bible, the covenanting God who speaks in reality, in whose image we are made for fellowship with him. It makes the incarnation a side-show where Christ is reduced to some sort of 'guru': not God at all.

De-historicizing the creation by moving it out of our world, symbolicising it or mythologizing it or abstracting it, severs the synchoronal and commutative nature of the relationship shown in God's creating in the days of our life-world, of him thereby positioning us and him in communion (from Genesis 1:26ff, 3:8). He thus underscoring the reality of our fellowship with him in time and space, in history, in the real time-bound material world where propositions are meaningful and relationships objectively real. All gone in any maneuver which serves to obliterate God's participation in our world through creating in our history and in the terms of our real, concrete life-world, from his loving hand.

(see Westphal, God, Guilt and Death, for explanation of religion types.)

The Trinity in Summary

A nice summary from Google's AI

The Trinity is the belief that God exists as three persons in one Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Bible establishes the basis for the Trinity through references to these three persons.
Biblical evidence for the Trinity

    Matthew 28:19: "In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"
    John 10:30: "I and my Father are one"
    2 Corinthians 13:13: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all"

History of the Trinity

    The Trinity emerged around 33-34 AD/CE, during or shortly after Jesus's death and resurrection

The Nicene Creed established the official Trinity belief for Christians at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD/CE 

The word "Trinity" comes from the Latin word Trinitas, coined by the early Christian writer Tertullian

The Trinity is used to defend the church against charges of worshiping two or three gods. It's also connected to the sacraments, which believers receive to enter into the divine life.

Evolution, evil and the way out.

Comment I posted to a Frank Turek question time.

The kid has spotted the problem in theistic evolution, and even 'long age' views of earth history: Evolution is 'kill or be killed'. He's right, death is the engine of comparative advantage in evolution. Happily Darwinian Evolution is a bunch of nonsense and has explained nothing.

But, on to the main topic.

Every one of these arguments begins with the fantasy 'god-of-the-philosophers', not the creator God who reveals himself in history and through history seeking restoration of us in his fellowship.

Nor is it good to discuss 'free-will'. The point of departure is that God has created this cosmos for us to enjoy him in, and to 'steward'. We, in Adam, have disavowed God's way and chosen our own: as we are in God's image our choices are real and are significant and carry all of creation with them.

Turned from our Creator we are living out of synch with the way things should be. The only 'good' in this is that the corrupted and decaying cosmos is an alarm bell of our plight. We know things are bad. More bad for some than others, but still bad for all: we all die!

The only way out is the way in: restored connection of love with the creator. We have this in turning to Christ, being filled with his Spirit in new life. Not for a life in heaven, this gives the wrong idea, but for life in a renewed creation. Like this one only immeasurable better. Paul tells us, better beyond our imagination or comprehension. So far far better, this life will fade to insignificance. Especially after the first 30 billion years when we've gotten to know everyone (HUMOUR!!)

Nor does God 'create people for suffering'. It is we who bring people into the world under the terms of the creation mandate. God is not the puppet-master god, he is not the fairy-god-mother god, he is not the distant God., he is not the over-defined god-of-the-philosophers. He is the living eternal creator. You want to respond to the alarm bell? Turn to Christ and the world is in a different light. He then is with us in our struggles because we are in him.

He works through the corrupted history that we make and pilot our way in, because this is our place--remember, we are its stewards--and his incarnation in Christ is part of the rescue program: he entered history to overcome death, did so in his resurrection and invites us to join him.

As Jesus pointed out when asked about deaths in a construction accident: repent unless this also happens to you (death before repentance). That's his theodicy: we are all in the tank, its only the depth that varies, so catch the line from the rescue helicopter before you sink to the bottom. Any speculation about suffering bringing good in a utilitarian fashion is misplaced and offensive: it is the alarm bell. Sure God works all things together for good for those...called according to his purpose, but Jesus indicated the only good from suffering is a call to repentance, not: "thankfully, this helped the construction industry in Galilee improve is OHS standards."

Just who's a skydaddy?

The village cynic will from time to time deploy his or her full force with the witty originality of  a moronic quip that Christians believe in a 'sky-daddy', or worship the 'flying spaghetti monster'.

Now, both make two errors.

1-They place their cardboard cutout conception of the creator-God within the cosmos, enclosed by the system of doom we are all currently caught within; that's not who the creator-God is. He is prior to and beyond this doomed system of decay and frustration which he offers rescue from.

2-The other error is that their mocking unbelief is an unbelief that has produced nothing for anyone. It rebounds on them, because their ultimate point of reference, the point that would show why our lives are truly meaningful, is dust; they start as worm dung, get reorganized into a bunch of cells made of dust, which then, shortly after, become a banal pile of dust once more. And nothing is really of value or significance.

Yet, they live as though their lives, even their puerile quip, has some real meaning.

It doesn't; on their grounds.

So: my 'sky-daddy' beats your 'dust-mammy' any day. If you don't like 'dust-mammy' substitute: dust-bug.

Atonement?

Penal Substitution theory seems to have topped the conservative evangelical world in recent decades. Due, at least in part, to the parlous influence of Calvinism. (ref. 1 Cor. 1:11-13)

Here's a list of reference to the atonement compiled by Hal Chaffee:

Jesus--

    Died for our sins -- 1 Cor 15:17

        Gave himself for sins -- Gal 1:4

            Purged our sins -- Heb 1:3

                Suffered for sins -- 1 Pt 3:18

                    Put away sins -- Heb 9:26

                        Bore our sins -- 1 Pt 2:24

                            Made propitiation for sins -- Heb2:17

                                Was sacrificed for sins -- Heb 10:12

                                    Took away our sins -- 1 Jn 3:5

                                        Washed us from our sins -- Rev 1:5

                                            Forgives us our sins -- Eph 1:7

BUT NOT

Paid for our sins -- ???

DO or DONE?

I recently tuned into a Christian radio station, only because my regular was being objectionable.

The new station had some less than skilled announcing going on (oh why cannot a Christian art-like activity pursue excellence relentlessly?). Then came the dreaded made-up story about a pastor visiting a wealthy parishioner on his yacht, where there was a cluster of other wealthy people. The pastor didn't make much headway, and soon and with great relief left the yacht.

Whew, I thought, almost over; now just to get through the corny denouement.

But...BUT, the end was 'fired for effect' and right on target.

Incoming was "Hey, pastor, tell me what Christians believe." from the wealthy end of the yacht.

Return fire was on target, sustained, and mission accomplished.

He said. It's a matter of spelling. Man-made religions are spelt DO: you do this ritual, you say these set prayers, you say these special things, the priest says these things...it's all Do, Do, Do.

Christianity is spelt DONE. All done by Christ; the choice is ours to say yes to his offer of life.

I turned back to 80s pop music very pleased. Just a split second decision landed me in the Forward Observer's dugout.

Remember this line next time you speak to a Muslim, a JW, a Mormon, a Scientologist, a...well, any other religious devotee.

Religions are what we do, and that just stays in the system of doom; Christianity is what God has done to place us on the way of life.

Are you 'accountable' or just in a cult?

The speaker at my church gathering recently was urging us to be 'good neighbours' and to have 'gospel conversations' with them.

Of course, one should be able to follow naturally from the other, and one hopes people are equipped to answer the 7 basic questions asked of Christians.

To urge us on to success his talk had 'three points' (drawing our attention to the fact that it had three points).

They were:

1. Pray
2. Prioritize loving your neighbours
3. Go and love them

This read moire like a recipe than an approach to the normal Christian life (not a reference to Watchman Nee, BTW)

But there was a surprise. He really had four points, and the last was:

Be accountable.

This was like hiring a parish spy to lean on you.

Paul's only use of this word is in Romans 3:19 (NASB), in relation to God.

In the body of Christ we edify, encourage, teach one another.

Cults is where 'accountability' occurs (Scientologists use it frequently).

Rather than the love your neighbour recipe, a talk to encourage conscious participation in community and local life and to encourage each other in this would have struck many more Christian chords than an enforcement regime for this mechanistic program.

Not just confirmation bias (in fact, not confirmation bias at all)

A comment to a comment on an NT Wright video which asserted that NTW's rationale was 'confirmation bias.'

No it is not 'just confirmation bias'. Confirmation usually proceeds on the basis of partial reference to observations or arguments.

Christians are OTOH, convinced as they consider their position (consider, not 'guess') on the basis of evidence that Yeshua is the creator incarnate. He explains why there is human sin/suffering, and death; why we live lives of teleological impulse but end in a box. Why we detect that all is not right with the world.

BTW, Christians, except maybe Calvinists, who are a bizarre sub-group) do not think that people are born with sin, but with an unavoidable propensity to sin; thus the church considers infants who die before they can be accountable are blessed with eternal life with their creator.

Other beliefs are deficient, not because they are devoid of specific belief, but because they fail to give a good explanation for the human dilemma, and our experience of a world that 'ain't right'.

Exilic religions place all in an impersonal ethereal 'spirituality) into which all are absorbed and loose their individuality.

Mimetic religions think the material world ( and some usually impersonal and mythically defined spirit entities) is all that is and we are part of it merged into a sort of Hegelian 'life but not spirit'.

Naturalistic 'religion' (modern atheist of both 'village' and philosophical varieties presume everything is dust in various arrangements and there is no real significance.

All these see the cosmos as all that is and we and our 'dilemma' are completely defined by and inescapably captured within it.

Covenantal religions, led by Christianity and Judaism see history as the real story of the external aseitic creator ( who showed himself present and active in the created world in the Genesis creation account, and finally, for Christians incarnated in Yeshua. Life here occurs in history, but is not fully defined by it or has it as the point of resolution.

There are a few covenantal type religions that are not really so: Mormonism, Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, are such; they have a superficial covenantal presentation, but lift the lid and they tend to be mimetic in character.

So, before you start your analysis of the religious landscape, consider the manner in which religions present their structure of reality, and their means of resolving the universal human dilemma of suffering and death.

Keep silent in the ekklēsia

This passage in 1 Corinthians 14:34 is often interpreted to mean that women are not permitted to speak in the 'church'. Implied is 'in the building on Sundays when the church gathers'.

However, ekklesia is not a building, but a community gathered...this extends it to any gathering of the community (and not 'as' community only, as our faith fills our entire life).

So, it cannot mean that in any and every gathering of the saints, women saints are to be mute. That would contradict both Acts 2:17 and the wider statements about the gathering in 1 Corinthians 11 to 14.

Given that the word sigaō has a wider meaning than 'silent', including being translated as 'hold one's peace' it sounds like Paul is seeking 'good order' as he is elsewhere in the 'gatherings' segment of 1 Corinthians.

The Bully

Kent Smith, in a video with Tom Wadsworth related a tale from his youth.

The school bully came to him, at age 17, when a young Christian, and asked "Do you believe in God?" 

Kent replied in the affirmative. And the bully responded:

"Then why did God let my brother die in Vietnam [the now forgotten war of the USA and allies against communist incursions into South Vietnam, See David Hackworth About Face]?" Kent had no answer.

How would you have responded in short form to this? At age 17?

Yep, not!

I'm sure you as I, were not taught to answer the 7 basic questions people have of Christians, and in the three forms: elevator pitch (short), a couple of sentences (medium), and a conversation (as long as you like).

Here's what I would have liked to have been able to say:

Yeah, man. That's bad. You know why its bad? We all die, and that's bad too.

We are part of the world that has cut off from its Creator. We don't want him. So here we are in a world of corruption and decay cut off from its Creator: its degraded and we think we love it!

There's only one way out of it and that's to re-unite with our Creator.

Tough call eh? Our pride won't do it for us. It's got to come from the Creator.

[maybe he asks a question here, but you need to get to:]

That's why he came to us in Jesus of Nazareth.

So you want a renewed life? You, like me. We do one thing: Reject our pride and flip to Jesus.

He's the only way out (of hell), because he's the only way in (to life).

Maybe that would start a conversation, maybe it would provide food for thought, maybe it would 'put a stone in his shoe'. But that's how it is.

Worship: let's do it, but how?

In a recent Stand to Reason podcast a caller asked about his disenchantment with 'worship'. He appeared to connect 'worship' with the emotional result of singing and sticking hands in the air!!

Let's look at the New Testament.

John 4:23-24 and Romans 12:1-2 are useful.

John: 'worship in spirit and in truth.'

"worship" here translates proskyneō

proskyneō is roughly to do homage in physical prostration. Not 'worship' as translated. The word that better sits with the translation 'worship' is possibly thrēskeia, but see below.

We are called to do this in 'spirit' and in 'truth'. Jesus is seemingly harking back to the Discourse on the Hill ('sermon' on the mount...it ain't a 'sermon' tho.) where internal disposition underlies all our actions.

Now, the Romans

Paul tells us to present our "bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship"

"sacrifice" translates thysia which is the act of ritual sacrifice and harks back to the Jewish cult. Sacrifice is thus all encompassing now, it is our bodies, ourselves, a living sacrifice: constant.

"service of worship" translates latreia. This is service and worship of God according to the requirements of the Levitical law as per the LLX (Strong's, Thayer is more detailed, but same point). This was the general sacrifice offered by other than priests.

This passage echos important 'present and serve' passages from the OT: Ex 20:5 and Dt 4:14 and then in the NT Mt 4:10. This typically reads 'worship and  'sacrifice/serve' in English translations, but the words should be translated 'prostrate/present and sacrifice'.

The thrust of the NT is that our entire lives are now 'worship' if we want to use that word; they are entirely lived in recognition of the presence of God. 'Prostrate' and 'Sacrifice/Serve' are used metaphorically.

This unfolds in Rm 12:2: "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." ('acceptable' reminds us of the 'acceptable' sacrifices in the OT).

And, I daresay in the fruit of the Spirit: Gal 5:22.

Similarly: Eph 4:23f: "and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, ²⁴ and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth."

Eph 4:17: So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind"

Phil 2:2-3; Col 3:2.

James takes this further in 1:27: "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. 

He uses thrēskeia which is translated 'religion' here. And that's it: our 'worship', our 'religion' is service to the needs of others AND unstained by the world: Roms 12:2 and the 'fruit of the spirit' spring to mind in this connection.

The word itself denotes: "ceremonial observance:—religion, worshipping." (Strong); its root is: thrēskos  which is translated "ceremonious in worship (as demonstrative), i.e. pious:—religious." 

This specific 'worship' word and those often translated worship, as above, are not used in connection with the gatherings of the congregation of saints (I stick to Coverdale's usage rather than the one we inherit from the megalomaniacal king James: 'church'). 

Worship is not about how we gather together, in what we call 'church services' or even worse 'worship services'. For Christians the words 'service' and 'worship' are wrong in reference to the gatherings of the saints.

In our gatherings

What do we do here, then?

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11-14, but the big thing is that these gatherings are not to 'prostrate' or 'sacrifice'; they are to edify one another. They are where we build up one another.

1 Cor 14:12: "So also you, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church"

1 Cor 14:17: "For you are giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not edified."

1Cor 14:26: "Let all things be done for edification."

And singing? Nor is this 'worship'.

1 Cor 14:15: "I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also"

Eph 5:18-19: "be filled with the Spirit, ¹⁹ speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord"

Col 3:16: "admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God."

What we do in the gathering

 Over the centuries, the gathering of the saints for edification, sharing their lives, teaching each other and growing in maturity (Heb 5:12) has collapsed into a brief spectator encounter with (usually) one man at the front doing all the work: a 'liturgical' performance and rarely edifying. We get 'readings' we get 'prayer' and sometimes pray formulaic prayers ourselves, we get a 'sermon' which is rooted in Greek rhetorical grand-standing as a form of liturgical ceremony, not the earnest discussive teaching and learning we see in the NT.

The gathering is for 'one-anothering' by sharing our gifts for the edification of each other. Not for attendance as spectators at a performance.

No wonder many Christians find 'church' unsatisfying, thinking they are the problem in 'not getting something out of it'. They are not. They are not 'getting' anything out of it because it is performance from which there is nothing to get. It is not mutual gifted edification.

Further on this:

What early church assemblies were really like.

The real meaning of 'worship' in the Bible.

The early church didn't 'worship' God in their meetings.

Some of Darryl Erkel's articles touch on aspects of gatherings of the congregation.

Read here how our gatherings might play out. and

Be like a NT church.

BTW: Nowhere do we find mention of what one does in the congregation with one's hands!

Three steps to escape sin.

My post "Is this about sin?" was perhaps too long for a quick read.

Here's the short version

1. Sin is separation from our creator-God and ends in death.

2. Christ, God in human form, defeated death in his resurrection, and evidenced his divinity.

3. He offers us to benefit from this and accept new life in him.

We gain the new life (re-generation, or 'born again') by accepting his offer and following him.

Is this about 'sin'?

Most people, and I'd think some Christians, think of sin as a set of actions.

When we talk about it in public, I think we allow this misapprehension to continue.

Thus the place of 'sin' in the 'economy of salvation' and the whole structure of reality is left untouched both conceptually and explicitly. See Romans 8:19-23.

Sin is not only in our actions, but in our entire disposition towards life, in a corruption of our being as made in God's image: i.e., 'like God' as it is in Genesis 1:27.

Sin results from rejection of God, of repudiation of the fellowship with him we were made for.

So, this is not simple 'moralism' or 'doing the wrong thing'. It is woven into us at a deep level and with that we are cut off from God, the source of life.

Christ: God incarnate in human form, bore the consequence of our rejection in his death, but to not succumb, as we would do. Rather, to defeat it and enable our 'de-separation' from God to come about.

He evidence the defeat of death, the defeat of sin in his resurrection.

From the resurrection flows the offer of new life 'in him'.

This is a complete spiritual re-generation of our inner being, to bring us in to the family of and fellowship with God our Creator.

We are thereby restored to that fundamental life connection and are enabled to be in God's family and know him in Christ, by his indwelling Spirit.

It's not just 'about sin', but by virtue of it, about our separation from God and the path this leads to the natural conclusion of separation: separation devoid of the presence of Christ. Death.

The Man Who Judged God

I was fascinated by a recent podcast conversation (by Stand to Reason) with 'Dan in Colorado' who wanted to know about God's killing babies.

He was referring to the war against the Midianites in Numbers 31:17-18 and the punishment of Ephraim for apostasy in Hosea 13:16.

I appreciate you didn't have the time available for a lengthy discussion with him, but it got me thinking. How would I respond to his questions?

The first observation I would hazard is that Dan takes an a-historical view of the texts coupled with, perhaps, a deterministic view of God's acts being the source of human/historical acts.

Yet, God's action is in history within its context, as is man's, and the texts report on this. They show God in historical interaction; that is his action is in, through and by history: in a manner, God uses the unfolding of the history of human depravity to achieve his good ends despite the depravity of man which produces a history of degeneracy.

In his 'a-historical' view Dan seems also to have missed the entire point of the OT. It is not merely a collection of narratives, but it lays out the flow of history bringing the Messiah and delineates the historical man in desperate need of the Messiah. It is about the formation and choosing of Israel, itself delivered from slavery, as the base for the Messiah who will deliver us all from slavery to sin and death.

God, rather than being stifled by the reversal in death that man brought upon himself, uses the history marked by it to advance his long game to bring eternal life to all who believe.

Dan seems to take a 'sentimental' view of death. Everyone killed in these judgements, wreaked in the normal course of ANE warfare, itself constrained by the circumstances of the times (more on this below) would have died anyway: as do we all. Death is never 'special' in the history of man. It is condition-normal in our corrupted state and from which we are to be rescued...the great love of God is that he uses the progression of the state of horror we are in to retrieve a people through the coming of the Messiah. He is not finally frustrated by it!

The point of history is not the terminal undoing of mankind in dissolution and death, but in salvation and life. Dan seems to have not considered this.

Dan also seems to bring God wholly into the cosmos with a Euthyphroean option: that 'right' is external to and at least logically, prior to God. Whereas the scriptures teach that all value and ethical judgements flow from God's nature: being that he is love, as John tells us. 'Moral' is what marks our choices because we have the frightening choice: to choose or reject repentance! God, oddly, does not have such a choice: he is who he is, and cannot 'un-be' himself.

Nevertheless, 'love' is also a long game in a world that is full of hate and decay (moral, physical and spiritual) resulting with all this being overturned and put right in the New Creation. God has no 'blood on his hands'.

Moreover the evil done by those who visit it on Ephraim will itself be repaid, as is Moab experiencing, being punished for its rejection of  God and its clear and present danger to the mission of Israel for the rescue of the world. God responds to and uses the evil of Moab and Shalmaneser respectively; he does not cause it, yet is working by it his ultimate Good for those who love him despite the blood-thirsty waywardness of mankind. Working in and by (Romans 8:28) the 'warp and  woof' of human history, because the world is given to man (Ps 115:16) wherein man makes significant choices which must play out, yet will not and cannot frustrate God's ends.

Dan also seems to misunderstand death. I can't remember who stated this, but death is a change of location, not annihilation. Any babies killed would, I think we expect from the scriptures, not be excluded from the love of God, but be saved from the course they would have otherwise gone on. Death in these terms is not the offense of murder.

The practicalities of the ancient world also must be taken into account. They would be twofold: who would look after surviving babies, bearing the financial burden in a very small and fragile economy, to succour the children of the enemy? Moreover, any surviving children would soon enough learn their history and plot to retaliate: who is going to preserve a future guerilla force of angry young men who would be expected to seek their destruction? We see the sentiments of young Arabs in Gaza: perhaps this would be the picture of the adolescent Midian children!

'Evil' is not merely a set of actions that can be abstracted to a particular moral category, but is actions that are 'not-God' or in denial of who God is. This seems to not be fully grasped by Dan. Thus it has no utility apart from sounding the loudest possible alarm that all is not right with the world.  That we detect it (as you say, something is not right with the world), says that we have a transcendental connection to a more basic reality-structure than the world exhibits, by virtue of our imageness of God, I daresay.

The evil in which is the history of the establishment, preservation and preparation of Israel for the Messiah's coming is what life post-fall is, entirely. Dan picks and chooses his 'evils' in some sense. To side-step the evil would be to overturn the fallen world, meaninglessly, as the fallen-ness would continue. Thus, this can only truly be done in the New Creation.

2) God and temporality (the following podcast from the one mentioned above)

I liked the segment in the more recent podcast about God and time. I tend to agree with you, but would fine-tune my own statement of position to recognize that God explicitly  engages with his creation temporally. I've no idea how an a-temporal being would 'work', of course given our experience is of a creation both separate from God, per se, but also congruent with who God is.

Nevertheless, God shows that he is temporally 'synched' with his creation in that he created in the specific cadence of the days that give the tempo to our own experience of the creation. God thus couples with us temporally and substantially in his acts of creation (the ground of fellowship: the parties in the same place and time). He thus sets the context for his other acts within the creation, culminating in the Incarnation.