Jesus
Natural Law and Christianity
19/July/2010 12:30 Filed in: Oikos
Thoughts | Web News
Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and
to God the things that are God’s.
Mark
12:17, Matthew 22:21, Luke 20:25 ESV
Many years ago I was a team leader of a small group from our church that went out Monday evenings to call on visitors from our Sunday service. As we parked outside a small apartment in north Seattle, I couldn’t help making a stupid remark about the name of the person we were about to visit. Even with my ignorance, the visit turned out to be quite productive and the young woman became an active member of the congregation.
She moved away a year or so later and within a few years she returned for a visit. Through the course of events I learned at the very instant I was making a spontaneous remark that could be considered flippant, inside her apartment things were quite serious. Her remarks were much more prayerful, which went something like: “God I would like to believe you are real, but I am having a very difficult time. If you don’t show me some sign of your reality, I have no reason now to live and before morning I fear I will use this gun to commit suicide.” At that time, we a small group of, in the larger context, complete fools rang her doorbell.
When I learned the true events of that evening not only was I humbled, but I realized in our lost and dying world just how thoughtless is much of what Christianity and the church says and does. Put in the broader context of recent world events, the problems of the recent Great Recession, were not caused by the greedy money grubbers on Wall Street, financial institutions, and real estate, they knew no better, they were just sinners sinning.
The real problem that caused the current mess, was that Christians, as individuals and in community as the church, played religious games, and sought political power, while the world, as it should be, crumbled. The church of Jesus Christ has one calling, to proclaim the Good News of the redemption of the world found in Jesus Christ alone. Instead of proclaiming the gospel, and being the leaders of the common community, the church has attempted to become so earthly relevant that its of no earthly good. Instead of being a restraining force of evil, to use the words of Revelation 3, the post modern church has become tepid.
As I was watching Glenn Beck one day last week, he and Stephen Broden, a church pastor from Texas were talking about this very subject, when Glenn interjected a comment about church leaders needing to protect their nonprofit status. It was just a few, off the cuff words, and the conversation moved on. Those nonprofit status words however have stuck with me since that time and are the founding principle for this message today. Read More...
Many years ago I was a team leader of a small group from our church that went out Monday evenings to call on visitors from our Sunday service. As we parked outside a small apartment in north Seattle, I couldn’t help making a stupid remark about the name of the person we were about to visit. Even with my ignorance, the visit turned out to be quite productive and the young woman became an active member of the congregation.
She moved away a year or so later and within a few years she returned for a visit. Through the course of events I learned at the very instant I was making a spontaneous remark that could be considered flippant, inside her apartment things were quite serious. Her remarks were much more prayerful, which went something like: “God I would like to believe you are real, but I am having a very difficult time. If you don’t show me some sign of your reality, I have no reason now to live and before morning I fear I will use this gun to commit suicide.” At that time, we a small group of, in the larger context, complete fools rang her doorbell.
When I learned the true events of that evening not only was I humbled, but I realized in our lost and dying world just how thoughtless is much of what Christianity and the church says and does. Put in the broader context of recent world events, the problems of the recent Great Recession, were not caused by the greedy money grubbers on Wall Street, financial institutions, and real estate, they knew no better, they were just sinners sinning.
The real problem that caused the current mess, was that Christians, as individuals and in community as the church, played religious games, and sought political power, while the world, as it should be, crumbled. The church of Jesus Christ has one calling, to proclaim the Good News of the redemption of the world found in Jesus Christ alone. Instead of proclaiming the gospel, and being the leaders of the common community, the church has attempted to become so earthly relevant that its of no earthly good. Instead of being a restraining force of evil, to use the words of Revelation 3, the post modern church has become tepid.
As I was watching Glenn Beck one day last week, he and Stephen Broden, a church pastor from Texas were talking about this very subject, when Glenn interjected a comment about church leaders needing to protect their nonprofit status. It was just a few, off the cuff words, and the conversation moved on. Those nonprofit status words however have stuck with me since that time and are the founding principle for this message today. Read More...
Freedom from My Own Bondage
04/July/2010 07:00 Filed in: Oikos
Thoughts | Web News
Two hundred and
thirty-four years ago today, the seed of the United
States of America was sown when our founders signed
the Declaration of Independence. The national
holiday still continues to be celebrated as the
concept of individual freedom.
Those who give speeches today will phrase their remarks along two philosophical paradigms. The first is, “I am free because I can do what I want.” The other is, “I am free because I am protected from the tyranny of others.” Both of those concepts are present in the Declaration of Independence, but today we have pretty much redefined those freedom concepts in terms of selfish materialism.
As a founding principle, personal freedom was defined basically as I am free to be what I was created to be and no wrongly appropriated divine right of some foreign authority has any jurisdiction on my ability to pursue that goal. Today we have dumbed-down that concept to mean I am free to what makes me feel good about myself and I should receive external rewards to help me achieve those ends.
Those rewards might be a trophy, or pay just for showing up on a somewhat regular basis, or receiving a right to something such as healthcare, a pension, or other security, simply because I did nothing or very little to deserve those rewards. In other words, I have substituted my personal divine will, into, and over the lives of others.
However there is another underlying principle within the American Declaration that was part of the founding genre that we no longer are willing to understand. The principle came from a natural or common understanding of the human condition that resurfaced during the Reformation and that principle was and understanding of the human will to sin. Martin Luther’s most famous written work is entitled, “The Bondage of the Will.”
What we are no longer willing to believe is that the greatest freedom a human being can obtain in this life is to be free from the bondage to my own selfish desires. That is the central theme of historic Christianity. Succinctly stated, that means the sinless life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the propitiatory and justifying sacrifice that absolutely provides the freedom for me to pursue the eternal personality I was created by God to be.
In the broadest concept possible, we all seek security to the maximum extent. The external imputed righteousness of Christ gives me eternal security and in the process allows me to accept temporal security in this life on a more transient basis. In other words, I don’t need to secure my own security and future, because I know the source of my security and know He directs my future.
Over the last few weeks I have heard again in various forums that the decline in American excellence began when we took the Ten Commandments and prayer out of our schools. I have a good friend that states the school decline was just the simple result of taking the Ten Commandments and true prayer out of our churches — years earlier.
What this really means is we like to blame all the problems we face today on those bad guys, the greedy, the selfish, the exploiters, the them. Who is never blamed in the American religion is the church that has become a cloister of the Pharisees. As such, not only has that been responsible for the faux creation of a political righteousness, it has also created physical divide between the enlightened Christians in contrast with the enlightened sinful heathens.
Instead of stating, “There by the grace of God, go I.” the proper response should be, “There by the grace of God alone, can I find true freedom from my personal bondage.” That is a much different and more humble message, than, “I don’t, do this and that, because I can,” but rather, “Any ability I have to do anything other than the wickedly perverse, is nothing but a gift of God’s grace.”
On this Independence Day, this Sunday, what this means is that the focus should be on the redemption and justification found in Jesus Christ alone, and not the national debt, socialism, and a whole host of good or bad things. If the focus of Christians is on Christ alone, then God will provide the power to change the culture, just as he did during the Reformation.
That Reformation time was not without turmoil, it was truly a revolution of human understanding. The same can be said of the American revolution. The result of the American revolution was freedom from the bondage of the culture to a foreign monarch, but the more profound result was the freedom of the individual to more deeply appreciate the gift of life provided to all from the God of nature, who is the same eternal personality as the God of the Bible.
So today, most people in America will celebrate the concept to be free to do what we want to do. The really blessed will be those who understand that true freedom, is to not be in bondage to your personal desires, but rather to make your life a gift to others, by God’s grace.
Those who give speeches today will phrase their remarks along two philosophical paradigms. The first is, “I am free because I can do what I want.” The other is, “I am free because I am protected from the tyranny of others.” Both of those concepts are present in the Declaration of Independence, but today we have pretty much redefined those freedom concepts in terms of selfish materialism.
As a founding principle, personal freedom was defined basically as I am free to be what I was created to be and no wrongly appropriated divine right of some foreign authority has any jurisdiction on my ability to pursue that goal. Today we have dumbed-down that concept to mean I am free to what makes me feel good about myself and I should receive external rewards to help me achieve those ends.
Those rewards might be a trophy, or pay just for showing up on a somewhat regular basis, or receiving a right to something such as healthcare, a pension, or other security, simply because I did nothing or very little to deserve those rewards. In other words, I have substituted my personal divine will, into, and over the lives of others.
However there is another underlying principle within the American Declaration that was part of the founding genre that we no longer are willing to understand. The principle came from a natural or common understanding of the human condition that resurfaced during the Reformation and that principle was and understanding of the human will to sin. Martin Luther’s most famous written work is entitled, “The Bondage of the Will.”
What we are no longer willing to believe is that the greatest freedom a human being can obtain in this life is to be free from the bondage to my own selfish desires. That is the central theme of historic Christianity. Succinctly stated, that means the sinless life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the propitiatory and justifying sacrifice that absolutely provides the freedom for me to pursue the eternal personality I was created by God to be.
In the broadest concept possible, we all seek security to the maximum extent. The external imputed righteousness of Christ gives me eternal security and in the process allows me to accept temporal security in this life on a more transient basis. In other words, I don’t need to secure my own security and future, because I know the source of my security and know He directs my future.
Over the last few weeks I have heard again in various forums that the decline in American excellence began when we took the Ten Commandments and prayer out of our schools. I have a good friend that states the school decline was just the simple result of taking the Ten Commandments and true prayer out of our churches — years earlier.
What this really means is we like to blame all the problems we face today on those bad guys, the greedy, the selfish, the exploiters, the them. Who is never blamed in the American religion is the church that has become a cloister of the Pharisees. As such, not only has that been responsible for the faux creation of a political righteousness, it has also created physical divide between the enlightened Christians in contrast with the enlightened sinful heathens.
Instead of stating, “There by the grace of God, go I.” the proper response should be, “There by the grace of God alone, can I find true freedom from my personal bondage.” That is a much different and more humble message, than, “I don’t, do this and that, because I can,” but rather, “Any ability I have to do anything other than the wickedly perverse, is nothing but a gift of God’s grace.”
On this Independence Day, this Sunday, what this means is that the focus should be on the redemption and justification found in Jesus Christ alone, and not the national debt, socialism, and a whole host of good or bad things. If the focus of Christians is on Christ alone, then God will provide the power to change the culture, just as he did during the Reformation.
That Reformation time was not without turmoil, it was truly a revolution of human understanding. The same can be said of the American revolution. The result of the American revolution was freedom from the bondage of the culture to a foreign monarch, but the more profound result was the freedom of the individual to more deeply appreciate the gift of life provided to all from the God of nature, who is the same eternal personality as the God of the Bible.
So today, most people in America will celebrate the concept to be free to do what we want to do. The really blessed will be those who understand that true freedom, is to not be in bondage to your personal desires, but rather to make your life a gift to others, by God’s grace.
Why Me? The American Miracle
03/March/2010 09:35 Filed in: Weekly
Column
There is a historical interest article beginning to
make its rounds this week delineating a comparison
between the ship survivors on the Titanic and the
Lusitania. Probably the most interesting in the
free literature is the
Discovery article, but for those with ten
dollars to spare you can get the original from the
National Academy of Sciences.
So far, we might conclude the ships of nation states around the world are economically in a potentially perilous position of sinking. From our leadership we hear that such a catastrophe is impossible. So too were the passengers on the Titanic until that pesky natural iceberg forever altered their reality. Then just three years later, no one on the Lusitania believed that a man caused disaster, the small German u-boat torpedo, could sink the ship in just 18 minutes.
The problem with political leadership is that they have a vested interest in projecting the past into a rosy future. If our ship had a hole in it, we have now by our own ingenuity and skills fixed the problem and we are again full speed ahead. Of course if some might ask the question, “Where are we going?” they are met with scorn and ridicule for being a conspiracy theorist, or a primitive common human, not highly evolved to understand the pleasures of a fantastic ocean voyage.
At Wonder Springs we speak a lot about the world being afloat on an ocean of non-energetic debt money. Just as in the “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,” there is money, money everywhere, but none of it can you drink. Of course we are told that if we just have hope, someday a few drops of good money will trickle down to us, but just as with seawater, it is undrinkable and the salinity is such that it can’t be used to grow anything, or abstractly create wealth.
Read More...
So far, we might conclude the ships of nation states around the world are economically in a potentially perilous position of sinking. From our leadership we hear that such a catastrophe is impossible. So too were the passengers on the Titanic until that pesky natural iceberg forever altered their reality. Then just three years later, no one on the Lusitania believed that a man caused disaster, the small German u-boat torpedo, could sink the ship in just 18 minutes.
The problem with political leadership is that they have a vested interest in projecting the past into a rosy future. If our ship had a hole in it, we have now by our own ingenuity and skills fixed the problem and we are again full speed ahead. Of course if some might ask the question, “Where are we going?” they are met with scorn and ridicule for being a conspiracy theorist, or a primitive common human, not highly evolved to understand the pleasures of a fantastic ocean voyage.
At Wonder Springs we speak a lot about the world being afloat on an ocean of non-energetic debt money. Just as in the “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,” there is money, money everywhere, but none of it can you drink. Of course we are told that if we just have hope, someday a few drops of good money will trickle down to us, but just as with seawater, it is undrinkable and the salinity is such that it can’t be used to grow anything, or abstractly create wealth.
Read More...