Tuesday, January 21, 2025

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.

Saturday, January 18, 2025

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, ²⁴and 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, ¹⁹speaking 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!

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

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.

Sunday, January 12, 2025

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.

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

7 Big Questions Seminar References and Resources

This page is devoted to supplementary material for attendees of a '7 Big Questions' seminar. This is a full day seminar for churches (generally, it can also be given in two half-day sessions) to encourage and assist members in being able to think through answers to the seven most commonly asked questions of Christians.

If you have not attended a seminar, naturally, you are nevertheless welcome to use this page.

If you want to organize a seminar or inquire about hosting one, please send an e-mail to 7BQ_Seminars@email.com, with the subject line "I want to organize a seminar" otherwise it will be filtered out.

If you attended a seminar you have access to a moderated discussion group (provided through your registration e-mail address).

Thanks to 'Watcher' for allowing this page to be hosted on his blog.

7 Muslims' Questions Seminar References and Resources page.

This page is devoted to supplementary material for attendees of a '7 Questions Muslims Ask' seminar. This is a full day seminar for churches (generally, it can also be given in two half-day sessions) to encourage and assist members in being able to think through answers to the seven most commonly asked questions of Christians or challenges made by Muslims.

If you have not attended a seminar, naturally, you are nevertheless welcome to use this page.

If you attended a seminar you have access to a moderated discussion group (provided through your registration e-mail address).

Thanks to 'Watcher' for allowing this page to be hosted on his blog.

Resources

Caveat: None of these resources, or their producers is necessarily wholly endorsed at all points. They all contain useful content but may have varying theological and philosophical stances that I or others might disagree with.