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Jun

2021

Food for the Soul

Man does not live by bread alone . . .

Feed me, O God. Feed me yourself, that I might know you more closely, love you more strongly, walk with you more constantly. I need to hear and to heed your words – not mine, not those of my friends or family or government or culture. I need to hear from you. How my soul thirsts for the living God and for a word from Him!

A growing boy needs to eat. When I was a child, I remember my mother saying, “Now eat your dinner. If you want to grow strong, you’ll have to eat.” And, of course, she was right. People who don’t eat, grow thin and weak. They are more prone to cold and sickness; they move more slowly and are often more irritable.

But when it comes to food, the message, “Eat” is incomplete, for growing boys need not just food but the right food. That’s why my mother would also say, “No dessert until you eat your vegetables,” for she knew that a healthy growing boy needed to fill his belly with healthy foods and not just any food. In fact, in America at least, we have all sorts of health problems not because people don’t eat but because they gorge themselves on cakes, chips, sodas, and fast food. If you eat too much junk, pretty soon your body becomes junk. You really are what you eat.

The soul is this way, too. Just as the body needs healthy food so, too, does the soul. But food for the soul is not beef or broccoli. Food for the soul consists in the thoughts you think, the ideas you read, the attitudes you see in movies or TV, the words you hear and speak – in short, the worldview you expose yourself to. And just as people often eat too many cookies and donuts, so, too, do people often feed their souls on too much junk food.

In the spiritual realm, healthy food is Biblical food, and junk food is everything else. Some of that junk food is spiritually neutral. It’s background noise – the cooking channel, a soccer team, your job. Everyone has such noise in their lives, and, like chocolate, it is not necessarily harmful in and of itself, but a diet consisting mostly of background noise will not move the soul toward God. Too many people cannot hear God through the noise. Other junk food is poison – sexual content in movies, celebrities who proudly mock Biblical teaching, peer pressure to think like your culture. These phenomena actively move the soul away from God. What you expose your mind and heart to affects how you think and live.

In the physical realm, the solution to too much junk food is simple. Eat more meat and vegetables and fewer pies and cakes. The same is true in the spiritual realm. The soul that feeds on the Bible grows strong, while the soul that neglects the Bible withers away. The soul with heavy exposure to the surrounding earthly culture and light exposure to God’s culture becomes thin, shallow, and distant from God. You really are what you eat.

This means that the Bible is essential for a vibrant spiritual life. The Bible is God’s message for the human race. It grounds people in ultimate matters and places their lives firmly on a solid rock, so that they can stand even when the waves of culture hit. Remove that rock, and people just bob in the sea, flowing back and forth wherever the waves take them.

The Bible points the soul to God. It shows us how God thinks, what He is like, and what He has done. It shows us why we are here and where we are going. It shows us our own hearts and what God wants those hearts to be. It shows us what a new life looks like and where the power comes from to live that life. The Bible is the meat and vegetables for a healthy spiritual life. It is where you go to renew your mind. It is what the soul must feed on. Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Most souls, however, do not consume the Bible, and a majority of souls that identify as Christian do not consume the Bible. I don’t mean that none of them ever reads the Bible at all. I mean that most people in the church pay such scant attention to the Bible that they might as well not read it. The lack of Biblical content in the average “Christian” is staggering. Most people who identify as Christians spend minimal (if any) time each day feeding on the Bible but hours a day on social media, viewing movies, or listening to pop music. In other words, they feed on junk food. And their consumption shows. They have difficulty standing against the culture they feed on, and their walk with God is shallow. They feed their souls large amounts of donuts and cupcakes every day but rarely eat healthy.

They don’t know how God thinks because they don’t take the time to find out. They grow weak, fat and spoiled, and they hurt themselves and the church.

If you want to walk with God, you have to set time daily to get to know what He has said in Scripture . . . to meditate on it from the heart . . . to yield your soul to its authority. If you have access to the Bible and choose to ignore it, you cripple your soul.

But if you devote yourself to it, you have something substantial to build your life on, for it will point you to Christ. You are what you eat. Even in the soul.

May

2021

Needing the Church

I mentioned in the previous blog that the church is necessary to your spiritual life. When I talk like that, I occasionally get pushback from people who feel they can walk with Christ apart from His body.

Here are some reasons people give for separating from the body of Christ.

The church is dysfunctional.

Of course it is. And so are you. Some churches are more dysfunctional than others, and some churches you should get out of, but let’s not throw away the church with the dysfunction. Trying to follow God all by yourself is dysfunctional. If you, thus, abandon the church because it is dysfunctional, all you are doing is trading one form of dysfunction for another.

We live in a fallen world. Dysfunction is everywhere, and dysfunctional people in the church give you the opportunity to learn patience, to show grace, to practice hospitality and forgiveness, and to help you see how you look to God.

The church has hurt me

I’m sure it has. I do not question the pain. If I could offer an apology on behalf of the church that hurt you, I would gladly do so, but I am aware that an apology coming from me isn’t the same. I want you to know simply that I sympathize. I, too, have been hurt by the church.

Likely the pain you feel has come from the dysfunction we just discussed. I do not question the dysfunction.

But the church is your family, and families are full of dysfunction, and often they hurt us, but they are still family. What I want to ask you to do is to look beyond the details of your pain and to Christ. You should then see that the specifics of your case were not likely a result of people following Christ.

So follow Christ. But understand that if you do follow Him, He will point you back to His church. He always does. It is His Bride.

If the specifics are such that you cannot return to the same church, then find a different one. But find one that honors Christ and Scripture.

I don’t need the church in order to worship.

That’s a deceptive sentence. It’s like saying “I don’t need a family in order to live.” It is technically correct on one level but completely off base for life.

You see, technically, I have had worship experiences by myself, and technically God can show special grace to an Iranian Christian imprisoned for his faith. In neither case, however, is the person choosing to separate from God’s people. Why then, would someone choose to separate from God’s people and use this reason for doing so?

The fact of the matter is that in normal life you do need the church in order to worship, for corporate worship is commanded. God desires not just individual praise but corporate praise, and you cannot do that by yourself.

In addition, this objection assumes that the only purpose of the church is to help you worship. But the church helps your spiritual life in so many other ways as well. It helps you know God’s Word, it helps you pray, it provides a need for you, it shows you how to give, it helps you walk with integrity, and more.

Now you could say that all of these are part of worship, and I will not quarrel with you, but I would say that if they are, then you need the church in order to worship.

I don’t need the church to walk with God

That is like one of your hands saying, “I don’t need the eyes.” Or a foot saying, “I don’t need the ears.”

Do you really think that by yourself you can provide all the wisdom, faith, generosity, teaching, evangelism, leadership, service, and compassion that you need?

The notion that Christians can intentionally neglect meeting together fits America quite well, but it does not fit the Bible at all.

May

2021

The Church Command

As iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another (Pr 27:17)

Lord, I praise you for your people. I thank you for surrounding me with them.

If you want to be good at something, it helps to see others who are good at it. Doctors do residencies so they can follow other doctors. They don’t learn medicine all by themselves. Instead, good doctors build good doctors. The Christian life is like this.

A basic principle of the Christian life is that it requires a church. You cannot live the Christian life all by yourself. You grow in Christ as you interact with a body of Christians. Christians need each other as soldiers need each other, as teammates need each other, as family members need each other.

Other Christians will pray for you, teach you, encourage you, rejoice with you, challenge you when you sin, and help you walk through a difficult problem. Other Christians understand the difficulties of living the Christian life. They know how hard it is to stand for Jesus in the midst of your culture. They can sympathize with your struggles. They’ve been there. Other Christians can talk with you on a deep level about the most important thing in your life – Christ. Non-Christians cannot do this. They don’t understand. You need Christians. You need a church.

Many people, however, talk about being spiritual without the church. In the West today, such talk is rampant. People want to follow God their own way. They live as if Christianity is merely a preference. You like roses, I like tulips. You like BMWs, I like Toyotas. You like yoga, I like Jesus. They live as if they get to decide what the Christian life is. They become the arbiter of how to follow God, as if God had nothing to say about the matter.

But God does have something to say about the matter, and one of the things He said was that His people should not forsake meeting together. God built the church with the blood of His Son. He loves the church. It is the bride of Christ, and the Christian who lives the Christian life loves the church and is committed to her.

The church is necessary for spiritual growth. One function of God’s people is to build each other up in the faith. Christians who put themselves in healthy churches become part of a community that will help them walk in Christ. Anyone who wants to follow Jesus needs a church. It is one of the tools God uses to sharpen our lives. You cannot follow Jesus by yourself.

And you can be by yourself in different ways. Some people are by themselves because they never attend a church. Others are by themselves in the midst of a church. They attend weekly, but they don’t know the people. They are part of the crowd on a Sunday morning, but they are not part of the life of the church. They listen to a sermon and go home, but they don’t know anyone. To belong to a church requires relationship and not just shoes in the room. When people lack relationship with the body of Christ, they fall away. Their walk with God grows weak, insipid. They become more like their culture and less like Christ. But they think they are spiritually fine because, after all, they are attending a church.

Being part of a church flows out of a desire for Christ. The people with the greatest desire for Christ are in a church . . . by choice. They surround themselves with the body of Christ . . . by choice. Because they have great passion for Jesus, they have great passion for the church. The two passions go together; in fact, you might say that the desire for a church is a visible expression of the desire for Christ. The church is the body of Christ. If you want Jesus, you want to be around those who have Him. This is rather basic.

God designed His people to be together. In heaven all His people will be together in unison. Church on earth prepares us for that day. Would you forsake God’s people in heaven? Then why would you do it on earth? The attempt to have Christian spirituality without Christian community is absurd.

Now I suppose I need to say a word about what a church is. This will be brief. If you want more, go here, here, and here. A church is not necessarily an official organization with a Christian name that meets in a building. You can attend many such meetings and not be with God’s people.

A church is a community of Jesus followers who fit the following criteria: they believe Scripture to be the Word of God and, consequently, adhere to the gospel of Christ; they meet regularly to worship Jesus, proclaim the Scriptures, and build one another up in the faith; they partake of communion and practice baptism of new believers; they share their faith, they desire to live a holy life and care for those who need help; they have elder leadership. These are broad parameters, and in the real world a church can look as different as a megachurch of 10,000 or a house church of four.

Whatever it looks like, this community is necessary for your spiritual growth. Life in Christ involves life in the church. When you intentionally put yourself outside the church, you harm your soul.

And many people today do just that. They harm their souls but have no idea the harm they cause. Let’s just get this straight. The church is not merely a nice addition. It is necessary for life — spiritual life.

Mar

2021

The Christian Life and the Christian Reality

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (I Cor 6:19-20)

Praise you, Father, for you have made me a dwelling place for your Spirit, unworthy though I am.

Christianity calls you and me to live a life that seems impossible, and, indeed, would be impossible if it was not for the fact that Christ makes us new and indwells us through His Spirit. He makes us new through the Cross and Resurrection, by canceling our sins, making us clean, crucifying our old sinful nature, and raising us to new life as new creatures. We are born again – to use Jesus’ term.

In this sense, we are now saints – that is, people who have been sanctified. This means that, in one sense, we are holy. Not “we shall be holy,” but “we are holy.”

Yet in another sense, we must put into practice our holiness, and this putting holiness into practice is a lifelong process and struggle. We do not always live up to who we are. Sometimes Christians still sin, even though they are already sanctified. This idea that we are holy in one sense but working on our holiness in another can be hard to grasp, so let me try to illustrate.

Scripture says that husbands and wives are one flesh. But sometimes they live as two, even though in reality they are one, and the fact is that they are still one even when they do not live that way. Their life does not change the reality of what God has done. Or try this picture. Sometimes citizens do not live as citizens ought, but the fact is that they are still citizens even when they do not behave as such. There is an intrinsic reality, and there is a life, and the life does not always align with the reality. This is how it often is with the Christian faith. In reality, those in Christ are saints, dead to sin, alive to God, born again, new creatures, sanctified, holy. This is the reality. Christians, however, often fail to live out this reality perfectly.

But the genuine Christian takes seriously the business of living in holiness. The genuine Christian pursues a life that matches his or her reality in Christ. The genuine Christian life changes and grows in the direction of the reality. Christians fall as they grow, just a toddler falls when learning to walk, but they walk the path that pursues a life that reflects who they are. They are learning to be who they are, just as a new graduate is learning to be a graduate. Before the Christian became a Christian, he took his imperatives from the world around him. But now that he is in Christ, he takes his imperatives from Christ. His imperatives must reflect the indicative of who he is. The life must match the reality. And the reality is foundational to the life.

To live the Christian life requires first the reality. You must be a new creature to live a new life. But even then, this living of the new life is difficult. We live in a fallen world, and while we may be dead to sin, we still listen to it.

But God does not leave the Christian to live this life all on his own. In addition to making us new, He gives us His Spirit. Now the transforming work of the Cross is essential for the presence of the Spirit, for the Spirit is holy, and holiness will not dwell with impurity. The mere fact that the Holy Spirit indwells the Christian shows that, in some sense, the Christian is holy. The work of the Cross in making us new paves the way for the presence of the Spirit. The work of the Cross builds out of us a home for the Spirit. The Cross makes us into a temple for God’s Spirit (I Cor 6:19-20). No Cross and no Resurrection equals no indwelling Spirit.

But in Christ, we do have the Spirit. This is the next essential piece to the reality of the Christian life. Not only are we new creatures in Christ, but we have God Himself, through the Spirit, living inside us. God has changed who we are, and God has come to dwell in us.

Stop.

Meditate on that.

God has changed who you are.

And God now dwells inside you.

Hallelujah! That is good news

Feb

2021

Not I But Christ

I am crucified with Christ (Gal 2:20)

Praise you, Father, for the grace of the Cross. I wrestle to live out the life of the Cross. It is hard. But it is real and powerful. As you have given me the grace of the Cross and Resurrection, give me also the grace to live out the Cross and the Resurrection in my life, resting in my Savior.

Living the Christian life does not begin with you. Christianity is not about you. It’s not about how good you are or how strong you can be or what wonderful deeds you could do if only you applied yourself or reached deep inside and seized your full potential. That’s Disney.

Christianity, however, claims quite the opposite. It says that on your own you are sinful and utterly incapable of living any kind of righteous life. It says not only that you sin but that you sin naturally. It’s not just that you violate God’s will; it’s that you can’t help but do so. Sin runs deep in your heart, and you can’t get it out.

The reason we do not live the Christian life is that we cannot live it. It is too high, and we are too corrupt. And yet people still think that normal human nature can be godly. They think this way because they want to, and they justify such thinking by lowering God’s standard of holiness and by flattering our corruption. I have seen hundreds of people who protest that they are not so bad, but I have never seen one of them actually live for God.

They say they are good and then explode in anger at their kids or reveal impatience or cut corners at work. They say they are good and then change Scripture so they can feel good about themselves. They don’t believe that their lust is adultery or that their greed is idolatry. They say they are good but then live for their own comfort or for a political end or for anything but God. No. They won’t live for God, and part of the reason why is that they think they are already good enough. They don’t need God, and when you don’t need God, you don’t go to Him or live for Him.

People who think they can live the Christian life on their own just by being good are not honest with themselves. They have sold themselves a pipedream, and unfortunately, if they persist, they will take their goodness with them all the way to hell. Heaven is for sinners who know they need God. Hell is for good people who rely on their goodness (Lk 18:9-14).

Christianity is simply not about you and what you can do. Christianity begins with Christ and what He has done. This different perspective is so fundamental to the Christian life that if you get it wrong, you get everything else wrong as well. Therefore, since the Christian life begins with Christ, let’s focus on Him and on what He has done to bring about in us the life He wants.

But before we see what Jesus has done, we must first see the real problem we face. Sin is the basic problem of the human race, the cancer in our souls. Thus, for Jesus to be of any real help to us, He must deal with our sin. He has done so through two works on one Cross.

The first work of the Cross addresses our sins – our thoughts, attitudes, words, and deeds. The second work of the Cross addresses our sin – the nature inside us that produces those thoughts, attitudes, words, and deeds. Think of it this way. A criminal produces a crime. In dealing with the criminal, one must address issues of justice as well as the damage the criminal’s deeds have caused. But if you stop there, you still have the same criminal who produced those deeds. You have dealt with his crimes, but you haven’t changed him. Now the Cross and subsequent Resurrection are God’s response to our sins and to our sin nature. They deal with our deeds, but they also deal with us.

Concerning our sins, the Cross serves justice and repairs the damage that our sins do to our relationship with God. The blood of Christ appeases the wrath of God (Rm 3:25), administers the justice of God (Rm 3:26), declares us righteous (Rm 5:9), cleanses us from all sin (I Jn 1:7), redeems us from the pit (Eph 1:7), brings forgiveness (Eph 1:7), and makes peace with God (Col 1:20).

Because of the precious blood of Christ, the penalty for our sins is paid. We are criminals for whom justice has already been served. When God looks at us, He does not see our sins. He sees the blood. Thus, we are clean in God’s sight. We are righteous in His eyes. We have peace with Him. We are forgiven. When by faith we are in Christ, we cannot outsin the reach of the Cross. The Cross covers all our sins – past, present, and future.

The Christian must hold onto this fact. We still sin, and if we are to live the Christian life, we must begin by holding onto the fact that in Christ our sins do not defeat us. God still loves us. God is still for us. God forgives us. Our relationship with Him is still intact. In Christ, none of that will ever change. The forgiveness of God is not an excuse to continue in sin. It is a comfort that our sins can never separate us from God. Never. The Cross makes us right with God. Forever. By dealing with our sins, the Cross gives us spiritual security, and this security is foundational to living a godly life. Resting in the blood of Christ and the forgiveness it procures is foundational to living a Christian life because we cannot live the Christian life without Christ, and when we sin, Satan uses our sins to drive a wedge between us and Christ. He wants our sins to separate us from Christ because he knows that if we pull away from Christ, we will fail to live the Christian life. We are then no threat to Satan. We have to hold onto the Cross because it is the Cross that pulls us back to Christ when we sin.

But the Cross does more than wipe away our sins. It also crucifies us. Here is how Galatians puts it:

I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet it is not I but

Christ who lives in me (Gal 2:20)

May I never boast in anything except the Cross of Christ. Through

it the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. (Gal 6:14)

Here is how Romans puts it:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may

abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ

Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with

him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised

from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in

newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like

his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the

body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer

be enslaved to sin. For he who has died has been set free from sin.

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live

with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will

never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the

death he died he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives he lives

to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive

to God in Christ Jesus. (Rm 6:1-11)

Here is how Colossians puts it:

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world . . . (Col 2:20)

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above,

where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on

things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have

died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col 3:1-3)

In Christ it is not just that our sins have been wiped away. In Christ, you and I are dead. We have been crucified with Christ. We have been buried with Christ. We have died and our lives are now hidden with Christ. Our old self has died. And all of this happened at the Cross.

In addition, we have been raised to a new life in Christ. We have been united with Him in His Resurrection. We are in Christ. When He died, we died; when He rose, we rose.

What all these Scriptures are saying is not just that we have forgiveness but that we have a new nature, a new life in Christ. In these texts, God is dealing not so much with our sins but with us. In Christ the old you is dead; the new you has come (II Cor 5:17). In Christ, you are no longer the same person. The Christian, thus, is capable of living in righteousness, not on his own but in Christ. I don’t mean that the Christian always does live in righteousness but that the Christian has in Christ the resources to do so. The unbeliever does not have these resources.

The Christian response to this second work of the Cross is to believe it and to set our minds on the things appropriate for the new nature. Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Rm 6:11). And the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Gal 2:20). Seek the things that are above . . . Set your minds on things that are above, not on earthly things (Col 3:1-2). If I could describe as simply as possible how to live the Christian life in steps, it would begin this way:

Step 1: The Cross and Resurrection. In Christ, you are clean and forgiven and nothing can come between you and God. In Christ, your old, sin nature is dead, and you are a new person. This step is what God has done in Christ. It has already been accomplished, it is grace, and without it you can do nothing to live the Christian life.

Step 2: Believe Step 1. Rest in Step 1. Live in Step 1. If you do not live in Step 1, there is no living the Christian life. Period. The Christian must know in the depths of the heart who Christ is, what Christ has done, and who He has made us to be in Him. This knowledge is not intellectual knowledge. It involves heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Step 3: Walk in Christ. You cannot walk in Christ unless you are first in Christ (Step 1) and know that you are in Him (Step 2). Walking in Christ then entails all sorts of specifics: hardship and suffering, speaking the truth, sexual purity, loving your difficult boss, freedom from greed, humility, joy, service, and more.

The biggest problem Christians have in living the Christian life is that they focus on the details of Step 3 instead of the foundations of Steps 1 and 2. They know that pornography is sin, so they grit their teeth and work on avoiding it. They then fail because they try to fight pornography in their own strength quite apart from the Cross and Resurrection. They are new creatures in Christ, but they rely on their old self to live a new life. They know what is good and simply try to do it.

But the Christian life does not begin with you. It begins with Christ who lives in you, who loves you and gave Himself for you (Gal 2:20). The Christian life is a life of “not I but Christ.” This is a much higher life to live than the life that says merely “go be good.” That life is cheap and shallow. That life wants to be good but can’t. That life cheapens godliness by lowering God’s heavenly standard to what we can do. That life eliminates Christ and the Cross. It rips all of the power and depth from life and then pretends to have substance. It has none.

The Christian life, however, requires Christ. It also requires a new nature. But because of the Cross and Resurrection, the Christian has Christ and a new nature. This is who we are. When we forget who we are, we have greater problems living how we ought. And quite often we forget because it is easy to take our eyes off of Christ.

The Christian life is hard. It involves struggle and work and hardship and persecution. But the Christian life is simple. It centers on Christ.

Jan

2021

A New Life

unless one is born again . . . (Jn 3:3)

Father, I praise you that in Christ you have made me new. By your grace, please set my eyes on your glory, your kingdom, and the work you have done through Jesus Christ.

I want to begin talking about the Christian life – what it is and how to live it. And right away, I need to say two things. The first is that the Christian life encompasses everything: your work, your money, your relationships, your family, your sex life, how you use your time, what you read or what you watch on TV, how you speak, how you think about government, education or your neighbor, what your purpose in life is, how you think about human nature or your own sin, where your hope comes from, who you trust, how your pray . . . You get the idea. Now obviously, when I talk about the Christian life, I can’t talk about everything all at once, so over time, I plan on talking about many different topics – one at a time. And when I am done, there will be many more topics that I will not have addressed. That’s just reality.

The second thing I need to say about the Christian life is that it flows out of Christians. I do not mean that all Christians always live the life they are supposed to live, nor do I mean that nonChristians never do nice things. I mean simply that a Christian life requires a Christian. If you understand what a Christian life is, this statement is a bit obvious, but many need the reminder, for too many people think that living a Christian life is merely a matter of how you live. Therefore, before we get into how you live, I want to focus on something far more important.

When a man or woman becomes a Christian, a new life begins. This is why we call conversion a new birth. But if you listen to many Christians talk, you would get the impression that conversion is the end of the road. We pray for God to save Ella, and when He does, we offer some thanks and move on, as if God is now finished with Ella. This thinking is grossly shallow and produces grossly shallow Christians.

We follow popular portrayals of Christianity instead of Biblical ones. We consider conversion to be a matter of saying some words and/or changing some ugly behavior – drinking or swearing or whatever. We do not consider conversion to be . . . well . . . a conversion. In the New Testament, a conversion is precisely what the word means. A convert was one person but is now a new person. Conversion is radical. It changes who you are. In the New Testament, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature (II Cor 5:17), his old self has been crucified and he has been given a new life in Christ (Rm 6:1-11, Gal 2:20, Col 3:1-4).

Conversion goes deeper than we think. It changes not just external words or deeds but cuts to the heart. It changes your very soul. Conversion makes a new man or a new woman. And when it does so, that man or woman begins a new life. Conversion does not change merely what you do. It changes who you are. And who you are is more important than what you do. God wants you, not just your works.

This is how Christianity operates. It does not focus on improving behavior. God wants to change your heart and soul and not just make you polite and nice. Christianity works from the inside out. God knows that when He changes you, your behavior will follow. When God gets the heart He gets everything, and God is quite insistent upon having everything.

We do not like this sort of talk. It is much easier to talk about social justice or sexual purity or reading the Bible. It is much easier to be a nice, kind person and claim that we are part of God’s kingdom simply because we are nice. That’s how most religions operate, and it is how much of the secular world thinks religion should operate. But it is not Christian. In addition, we don’t like to talk of God insisting upon having everything because then we are not the center of the universe; and if there is one thing we humans want, it is to be at the center of the universe.

Therefore, if anyone wishes to live the Christian life, he must not merely change his behavior. He must change his identity. The Christian life is not merely an old person doing new deeds. It is a new person. With a new heart. But you and I cannot change who we are any more than a sow can become a woman. In order for our identity to change, we need power from the outside. The Bible calls this power “grace.”

A Christian, thus, is someone whom God has changed. As we begin to talk about living a godly life, please understand that the foundation for such a life is a godly heart, and a godly heart does not exist until Christ changes it and dwells in it. You cannot have a Christian life without Christ.

For the Christian, this means that living a godly life is not a matter of gritting your teeth and grinding out good deeds. You know: “I will share my faith. I will stay away from sexual images. I will give more to the poor. This is because a Christian life is not primarily a matter of what you do. It certainly includes what you do, but it is so much more. It involves who you are.

Thus, for the Christian, the process of living the Christian life does not begin by focusing on being more patient or less angry. It begins by focusing on Christ. And being His. You cannot live a Christian life by focusing primarily on the life. Pursue patience and you will fail. Pursue a pure mind and you will fail. But pursue Christ and He makes you new. It is Christ who works patience and purity in you. But He doesn’t do this all at once. He does it through struggle, through forcing you to trust Him in the crucible of life. He wants you to see Him and to see who He has made you to be. If we do not believe who He is or who He has made us to be, then we will advance little in the Christian life. The real advances in the Christian life come by grace through Christ. And they come through our holding onto the person and work of Christ.

This holding onto Christ comes by faith. Therefore, the foundational work in a Christian life involves a real change in who we are. It involves Christ making us a new person. It then involves faith in the Savior who has made us new and faith in what He says about who we now are. We believe we are new or we don’t. If we don’t, then concerning this new life, we remain stuck in the garage. And you never get anywhere by staying in the garage.

Oct

2020

Racism: A Christian Perspective

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev 12:9-10)

Father, you are God of all peoples, for you made them. And people from all races and nations and languages will stand before your throne together and proclaim your excellencies. Hallelujah! May we your people see our oneness in Christ, even when we look different on the outside. Let us see race as you do.

God is the God of all peoples. Black belongs to God. White belongs to God. Hispanic, Indian, Chinese, Inuit – they all belong to God. All races belong to God because God made them and redeemed them. The blood of Christ makes worshippers of all skin colors, and one day, the redeemed of all races will stand together in one joyous throng and sing and shout and proclaim together that salvation belongs to their God and that there is no other.

This picture shows the end goal God has for all races. But right now, when you look at race, you do not always see such oneness. The picture in Revelation is of glory; the reality here on earth is broken and fallen. Racism is quite alive here on earth, and the reality is sad.

Talking about racism is extraordinarily difficult right now. Here in America when you look at the data – from income to incarceration rates to out of wedlock births to a host of other issues – racial inequities abound, and these inequities make racism a heated topic in America right now. In fact, the current conversation on race is not really a conversation. Conversations require two people to listen to each other in an intelligent way, but right now, people just want to shout. In the midst of the shouting, sometimes people excuse racist behavior and sometimes they wrongly accuse honest folks of being racist. This “conversation” is not progress, and it will not take us anywhere productive.

As a Christian, I believe we need to love the truth, and to discover the truth we need to listen. Whites need to listen to blacks, and blacks need to listen to whites. Listening doesn’t mean we accept everything everyone says, for there is a lot of nonsense out there, but we do need to understand what others are saying before we shout. America is not doing that. The irony of this situation is that if we want others to listen to what we say, we must give them the courtesy of listening to what they say – with an ear to truly understand and not just to offer rebuttal. Racial issues in America are complex, but we deal with them in sound bites. I will say this as plainly as I can: As long as America continues to deal with racial issues through sound bites, racism will get worse. If we want to heal racism, we must honor other people and not just shout them down.

I fear that what I have just said will turn some people off; they may be done listening. If that’s the case, that’s my point. Those people hurt the cause of racial justice in America.

First Grade Lessons

Let me begin with a personal story. I grew up in an America that was in racial upheaval. When I was in first grade, my teacher arranged our desks in groups of four, and in my group was a black girl. I don’t remember her name. I do remember, however, going home at night and seeing on the news images of blacks marching in protest and police beating them. I then would go to school, and here was this girl sitting next to me.

During math time, she and I would frequently talk math. I don’t remember if it was because we were both good at math and were comparing notes, or if I was helping her with math, but I know that during math time we often worked together. In addition, when the teacher gave assignments that required students to pair up, this girl was often the one I worked with.

I liked her personally and didn’t see how she was any different from the other six-year-old girls. Yet I sensed that the culture didn’t view her the same as the other six-year-old girls. Sometimes children sense things they don’t understand. I felt that within the culture broadly some kind of tension existed between blacks and whites, but when I interacted with this girl, I felt no tension at all. The undercurrent that I felt in the culture did not fit my experience.

This is my first memory of wrestling with racial issues in America, and I can remember as a six-year-old boy feeling “something is wrong here.” I did not yet know the word “racism,” and I couldn’t explain my feelings in words, but I sensed both the presence and wrongness of racism.

Today, I have a better understanding of the history than that six-year-old boy; I have had many more interactions with people of different races than that six-year-old boy; I can explain my feelings better than that six-year-old boy, but that childlike sense that began with that black girl hasn’t changed.

I don’t know what happened to that girl, but I am going to assume that she grew up and is my age, and lives somewhere in America today, and I am certain that she and her family has experienced racism in a different way than I have. I do not pretend to understand her situation. But if I could, I would like to thank her for being a normal six-year-old girl and talking with me about math and doing our projects together, for I believe she taught me something about race that I could not have learned from books or speeches, and she taught it to me without trying to teach me anything and when I was at an early and impressionable age. Believe it or not, that black girl was quite formative in my thinking on race.

A Global Perspective

Because I pastor an international church, I see the world – not just America. And one fact that is inescapable to me is that racism is not unique to America. It is an ancient and global problem. It is a pandemic of monumental proportions. Racism is more fundamentally a human problem than an American problem. Consider the following.

I have a friend here in Austin from the Karen peoples of Burma. He came to America as a refugee because of ethnic persecution of his people. That is racism. I have another friend in Austin who is Chinese-Indonesian and who also became a refugee because of the ethnic riots against Chinese that took place in his country. That is racism. I have a Japanese unbelieving friend who frequently blames the Jews for the problems of the world and who can’t accept the Bible in part because it was written mostly by Jews. That is racism. I have an Indian friend who has told me that racism is rampant in India, and a Malaysian friend who has said that he has personally experienced racism in his country.

The Bible relates racism. Between 1800 and 1400 BC, Egypt enslaved a single race – the Israelites. That was race-based slavery. Pharaoh gave orders to kill the male babies of only one race. Jonah preached to Ninevah, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t see Assyrian people as worthy. Haman exhibited what can only be called racial hatred. In the gospels you see racial tension between Jews and Gentiles, and Jews and Samaritans. One of the most divisive questions of the early church involved how to handle Gentiles who were converting to Jesus. Racial tensions are ancient.

In the Roman Empire of the first century, close to half the population was in slavery, and race was a large factor in determining whether a man was free or slave. Jews hated and looked down on Romans, and the Romans returned the hatred. They treated the Jews like dogs and eventually slaughtered about a million of them during the Jewish Revolt of 66 to 73.[1]

In more recent times, South Africa has struggled with apartheid. Persians and Arabs share a hatred for one another that may be surpassed only by their hatred for Jews. In Latin America, governmental and cultural systems have long practiced discrimination against indigenous, ethnic and tribal minorities. Chinese and Japanese have a long-standing animosity for one another. The Yihetuan Movement (Boxer Rebellion) in China saw Chinese people murdering nonChinese people simply for being foreigners. Many fled for their lives. Many did not make it. Today the Chinese prison camps for the Uigher people in Xinjiang province are racial oppression, and the fact that foreigners and ethnic Chinese must worship in separate churches is enforced racial segregation. In Nazi Germany, Hitler set out to form a state built on a superior race. In the process he massacred 6 million Jews. The pogroms of Czarist Russia displaced uncounted numbers of Jewish people, forcing many to flee the country. Australians have discriminated against the aboriginal peoples, and New Zealanders against the native Maoris.

Then we come to America. And we find race-based slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, segregation, racial inequities in the criminal justice system, suppression of voting, and so on. And that’s just with African-Americans.

We need to see a more global picture of racism than we do. Racism is universal. It is a toxic weed that grows in different soils and climates. It is not limited to specific economic, cultural, or political situations. Knowing this fact helps us approach racism with some hard realism. It helps us see how powerful a force for evil racism can be and how deeply it flows from and within the human heart. It reveals something of the depths of sin. It shows us that racism is stubborn and worldwide.

But isn’t this what Scripture says? “There is no one who does good, not even one.”

We must see that racism runs deep within the human race. Otherwise, we will think we can apply a uniquely American (or Indian or Chinese or wherever) band-aid to a cancer that flows from the human soul.

What is Racism?

Racism is a form of arrogance. All forms of arrogance share the belief or sense that one is superior for some reason – good grades, athletic ability, morals, lack of morals, popularity, politics, religion, lack of religion, education, social class, position at work, beauty, strength. Racism simply bases its arrogance on race. It is the belief or sense that a particular race is better than another. At the heart level, racism is like other forms of arrogance; it is ugly because arrogance is ugly.

In addition, racism is often a cultural sin. A cultural sin is a sin endemic to a particular culture such that the people in that culture consider the sin quite normal and often harmless. In the Old Testament polygamy was such a sin. In fact, sometimes godly men practiced it without thinking it a problem. Today in America divorce, premarital sex, abortion, homosexuality, or gluttony might be examples of cultural sins. In many places today, racism is such a sin.

Racist people are rarely aware of their racism. Sometimes this is a result of the fact that, for their culture, racism is a cultural sin. Sometimes it is simply because of the nature of sin itself. Sins are often invisible to sinners. The greedy man doesn’t see his greed. He sees only that he is being responsible and taking care of his family. The bitter woman doesn’t see the wrongness of her bitterness; she sees only the sin of the other person who needs to repent. Racism is much like this. Pharaoh sees only that he is protecting his country from a people who are dangerous.

Because racism is a form of arrogance, at its core, it is a heart issue, but when that heart expresses itself in behavior, racism can take many forms. It is a disease with many symptoms. When we see racism, we normally see the symptoms and not the actual heart itself. Jesus said a tree is known by its fruit. We see apples. We do not see the DNA that produces those apples. Racism is like this.

When secular culture talks about racism, it tends to focus on symptoms. It talks about social structures, political legislation, economic inequalities, or criminal injustices. These are all real issues, and we must address them, but we also need to see that these are symptoms of racism. These issues reveal how racism behaves when it has power, but at its root, racism is a spiritual issue and a heart issue. You can change social structures all day, but if you never change the heart, racism will rear its head in a new form. This is why America can abolish slavery and end up with Jim Crow. Why it can remove Jim Crow and still have Ahmaud Arbery.

If we never deal with people’s hearts, then we never deal with racism. A good doctor must treat the virus and not just the symptoms.

And yet a good doctor also treats symptoms. A virus causes a fever. The fever prevents the patient from getting rest. The doctor treats the fever so the patient can rest and be better able to fight the virus. Symptoms often exacerbate the problem. Racism is like this. Slavery, Jim Crow, inequities in the justice system, unequal opportunities, racial slurs, and more all exacerbate racism. Fighting these symptoms helps fight racism, but fighting only these symptoms is incomplete.

This is where much of the culture gets racism wrong. It is right and necessary to fight injustices. It is right even to think that fighting injustices helps fight racism. It is wrong, however, to conclude that changing only the outside solves the problem. In this, much of secular culture is naïve. If you want to change racism, you have to change people’s hearts. And that is much harder than changing social structures. The need to change hearts is also why the current shouting and name calling that is going on will actually hurt the fight against racism. You never change hearts by shouting people down. In fact, you only harden them more.

The fight against racism must include working on social structures, but it also must be a fight in the trenches that takes place a man and a woman at a time. It is in those trenches that you win hearts.

A Foundation to Fight Racism

If we wish to fight for equal justice, we need a foundation upon which to stand. The concept of equal justice implies two factors: humans have great value, and all humans have the same value. We don’t talk about equal justice for mosquitoes because, while we do see them as having the same value, we don’t see them as having significant value.

The Bible from the beginning addresses the question of human value.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen 1:26-7)

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. (Acts 17:26)

All races have come from Adam. Therefore, all races have the image of God and, thus, have great and equal value. This is the foundation for racial justice and equality in the world.

Martin Luther King saw this connection. Here is how he put it:

Our Hebraic-Christian tradition refers to this inherent dignity of man in the Biblical term the image of God. This innate worth referred to in the phrase the image of God is universally shared in equal portions by all men. There is no graded scale of essential worth; there is no divine right of one race which differs from the divine right of another. Every human being has etched in his personality the indelible stamp of the Creator.[2]

To King, the image of God provides the basis for racial justice. To King, God is the foundation for the entire house of civil rights. Remove the foundation, and the house crumbles. Too many people crying against racial injustice want King’s house, but not his foundation.

If there is no God . . . if we are not created in His image . . . if we are merely nonmoral, evolutionary byproducts, then I do not see where human value and equality come from. I see people assume it, but I don’t see them explain it. If you remove God from the fight for equal justice, you remove the rationale for equal justice, and a fight without a rationale will not get far.[3]

Throughout Scripture you find God loving different races.

God told Abraham that he would be a blessing to all nations.
God commanded Jonah to go preach to Ninevah because God had compassion on the Ninevites.
God spoke through Isaiah saying that the Assyrian and Egyptian would join Israel in worshipping God.
God commands the Israelites to treat well the foreigner in their land.
Jesus ministered to the Samaritan woman and spent several days in her Samaritan town preaching the kingdom of God to the people there.
Jesus healed the servant of the Roman centurion and the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman.
Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples of all nations.
God corrected Peter’s racial exclusivity by sending him a dream and then sending him to Cornelius’ house.
God told Paul He would send him to the Gentiles.
God gave John a revelation that included worshippers from every tribe and tongue and nation.

From beginning to end, God is for all races. His ultimate goal is one body made up of many peoples who worship Him. God wants to see black and white, Chinese and Japanese, Arab and Persian come together because of Him.

God intended the work of Christ to accomplish this unity. Here is how he describes it:

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh . . . were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:11-22)

Paul speaks of Jews and Gentiles – different races – and says that in Christ, both have been made one, both have been reconciled to God, both have access in one Spirit to the Father, both are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, both are part of the holy temple of the Lord, and that God dwells in both. He gives a picture of a building and says that these different races are like different stones that make up the same building. He says that in Christ God has made peace between these races, for Christ Himself is their peace. He says that the blood of Jesus has brought these races together and that the dividing wall of hostility is gone.

The Cross is God’s ultimate answer to racism. The Cross changes hearts. The Cross unites people of different languages, cultures and ethnicities around something far deeper than their differences. The Cross kills the virus and not just the symptoms. This fact is real, and I have seen it with my eyes.

Any attempts to fight racism that leave the Cross out of the picture are hopelessly naïve.

This does not mean that we just preach the gospel, but it does mean that we preach the gospel.

Fighting racism requires a multi-pronged approach, and preaching the gospel is an essential prong. The fight for equal justice flows out of the gospel. We must never pit it against the gospel. We must never say social justice OR the gospel. We must instead say both. If we care about the gospel, then we should also care about racial injustices.

Putting Feet to Justice

So what then do we do? Here are some thoughts:

1. We must first ensure that any words or action we take to fight social injustices genuinely flows from the love of Christ in us. The foundation for any fight needs to be Christ, not our anger. We are to build our actions upon the kingdom of God, not some desired political end. Two people can protest social injustice side by side but have very different reasons for doing so and a very different heart in the process. Remove Christ from this fight, and all you have is an angry, loud, hate-filled, power struggle. You just have a political game, and that’s not going to change the world.

Martin Luther King taught that the fight against racism must flow out of a heart of love because only love can drive out hate. The source of love is Christ. We can’t fight racism without Christ. We need Him.

2. We must listen. I said that earlier. Listening helps change hearts. When you genuinely listen, you show respect and honor, but you also increase the possibility of having others listen to you. If you will not listen, why should you expect anyone to listen to you?

3. As much as is possible given where you live, befriend people of different races. This fights racism at the heart level and fights it in the trenches – a man or woman at a time. You may not affect public policy, but if you change two hearts, that’s significant. What if 30 million people changed two hearts each? That would change public policy, and it would do so at the heart level.

In a small way, I think something like this is what happened to me in first grade. I interacted with an African-American girl up close and saw that she was much like me.

A more radical example today would be that of Daryl Davis, an African-American man who spends significant time hanging out with KKK members. He sits down with them, talks with them, has dinner with them, and invites them into his home. He gets to know them and lets them get to know him. In the process, over the past 30 years, he has helped more than 200 KKK members renounce their membership, including some who were high up in the system. Davis fights racism with friendship, and he has results to prove that that fight works.[4] Don’t underestimate the power of friendship.

4. But you ask, “What about the big news issues? What about criminal injustice or police brutality? Making friends with someone from another race doesn’t change these issues. We have to change systems.”

Before we talk systemic change, I suppose it is necessary to remind us of the obvious fact that systems do not pop into existence willy nilly. People create them, and when we change people, we change what they create; thus, we should never separate systemic change from attitudinal change. The road to attitudinal change will be harder and longer, but it will also be deeper, more long-lasting and more stable.

Nonetheless, we must change unjust systems even if people are not ready. Condemning innocent black men to death is wrong whether people see the problem or not. We act on the basis of what is right, and if we encounter an evil system, let’s do what we can to change it. Even if the people are not ready.

It is precisely at this juncture that we find the greatest shouting and disagreement. Are American police departments systemically racist? Or do they have a few bad apples that give the rest a bad name? Are economic inequities the result of racism or the result of other factors like, say, single parenthood? Should cities defund the police? Or would such defunding end up hurting minorities the most?

Typically, when people read questions like these, they feel they know the answer and have fairly strong opinions on one side or the other. Often they have difficulty imagining how someone can intelligently disagree with them. But when they stop and listen to what the other side says and begin to understand why, the conversation changes. They then begin to see something of the complexity of racial issues in America. They see that there are no easy answers.

If we are going to take steps appropriate to the reality on the ground, we need to take seriously the complexity of that reality.

I do not believe that my African-American brothers and sisters are calling for changes in the criminal justice system for no reason. I do not believe they are inventing grievances out of thin air. Nor do I believe that every police shooting of a black man is racist or that police officers are unjustified when they fear that mob anger may invoke changes in which innocent policemen go to jail simply for having the misfortune of being in a difficult situation. Both sides have real concerns that need to be dealt with. The solution isn’t simple. Instead it’s the real world. But what makes matters worse is that everyone with a thumb thinks he knows best and wants to sway public opinion, as if having a thumb somehow qualified you to make expert policy decisions in criminal justice.

Peaceful protests have perhaps brought attention to the need to do something, but violent protests have de-legitimized the position of the protesters in the eyes of much of the community and have merely fueled more racism, for if the people who disagree with you break windows, loot stores and burn buildings, why should you listen to them? They fit the stereotype you already had. They prove, so you think, that you were right all along.

I do not have policy answers for the difficult questions. In that respect, I am not as smart as the people on Twitter or Instagram. I do not know enough about law enforcement to talk intelligently about how to resolve a thorny issue that the experts struggle with. But I do believe that leaders in the law enforcement community need to sit down and talk with leaders in the African-American community about possible ways to move forward. Both communities need to listen to and understand the concerns of the other before they propose practical changes. And both communities would need to be willing to accept an imperfect solution. We live in a fallen world. A step in the right direction may be an improvement even if it is not perfect.

5. Concerning political action, it’s OK to pursue legislation if you know that it will improve the situation. This is America, and people have the right to speak and vote their conscience. I don’t want to take that from anybody. But I am not naïve enough to believe that honest Americans will agree on which legislation is best. So pursue what your conscience says but be willing to live with people who disagree. They may not be beasts.

6. God may call different people to different emphases. In Christ, we are a body. Not everyone is a hand or an eye. All believers should hate racism and be committed to fighting it wherever they find it, but this doesn’t mean that all believers fight it the same way. Some may march in protest regularly. Others may join occasionally, and still others may not be able to join at all. Some may write to congressmen. Some may speak. Some may preach the gospel. Some may confront racism in friends or relatives and graciously try to persuade them. Some may volunteer to help victims of racism. Others may be in positions at work or school where they can implement practices that respect all people. All should love.

What I have just said about racism is not unique to racism. All believers should hate abortion and be committed to fighting it wherever they find it, but that doesn’t mean that all believers fight it the same way. All believers should hate human trafficking and be committed to fighting it wherever they find it, but that doesn’t mean that all believers fight it the same way. And yet in all of these issues and more . . . all should love.

The things I have said here are incomplete. To do justice to racial issues would require a several-thousand-page tome, and even then, I’m not sure that would suffice. I don’t have that kind of time. I acknowledge that I may not have addressed the issue you wish I had addressed or that I gave it short shrift. For such sins I ask your forgiveness. I felt that I needed to say something, even if inadequately.

Yours in Him,

Mike

[1] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-great-revolt-66-70-ce

[2] King, Martin Luther. “The Ethical Demands for Integration,” A Testament of Hope. The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King. ed. James Melvin Washington. https://fliphtml5.com/scdb/duvn/basic/, pp. 118-119.

[3] I am indebted to James Spiegel for this discussion on Martin Luther King. Here is his article. Spiegel, James. “Celebration and Betrayal: Martin Luther King’s Case for Racial Justice and Our Current Dilemma,” Themelios, Vol. 45, Issue 2. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/celebration-and-betrayal-martin-luther-kings-case-for-racial-justice-and-our-current-dilemma/

[4] https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes

Apr

2020

The Bible and Homosexuality II

This blog continues the discussion on what the Bible says about homosexuality. We’ve already discussed Leviticus and Jesus. Today we will discuss what Paul has to say.

Jesus ministered in a Palestinian Jewish context. Within that context, homosexuality was almost nonexistent compared to what went on in the 1^st century Gentile world. Paul, however, ministered in that Gentile world, a context in which homosexuality was perhaps more common than it is today in the West. Paul had to deal with practicing homosexuals who became Christians, and Christians who lived in a culture that considered homosexuality normal. It, thus, makes perfect sense that Paul would address this issue. He had to.

When you read Paul, it is clear that homosexuality is not his main concern, but it is equally clear that when he does address the issue, he has nothing positive to say, and Paul would have been well aware of long-term, loving and committed homosexual relationships. They were common in the Gentile world Paul ministered to. So let’s look at the Scriptures.

Romans 1: 26-7

For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Before I discuss the Romans text in detail, I should note that within the broader context of Romans 1, homosexuality is not the main focus. Paul does not see homosexuality as the granddaddy of all sins. In Romans 1, the Gentiles have suppressed the truth of God by their unrighteousness (v. 18), exchanged the glory of God for idols (v. 23), and exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator (v. 25). In other words, these Gentiles have rejected God and chosen to worship idols instead. For this reason (v 26), God gave them up to their passions. Homosexuality is, thus, the consequence of their idolatry. The idolatry is the more foundational sin. The sins Paul lists in Romans 1 flow from rejecting God. They are symptoms of rejecting God, but it is the rejection of God and the worship of something not God that is the basic problem.

Enough context. Let’s talk about the text.

When you look at Romans 1:26-7, you should see two things right away: 1) God has set up a natural order for sex and 2) the text contrasts this natural order with an unnatural one. Notice: women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones, and men likewise. In other words, Paul is setting up a natural/unnatural contrast.

When Paul talks about what is natural, he is not talking about what feels natural to us. Sin often feels natural. Selfishness comes naturally. Anger is a natural feeling. Coveting, bitterness, arrogance, jealousy, greed, lust — these are all quite natural states of the heart. The alcoholic feels naturally inclined to beer, and the tyrant to power. The reference to natural relations is not a reference to feelings but to a created order God has set up. God made sex for male and female. This is the natural way God intended sex to happen. We see this in life simply by looking at anatomy. When you look at a wheel and an axle, a screw and a nut, a bulb and a socket, you know they were made for one another. Same with male and female. The mere plumbing of gender has a sexual design to it, and when you look at the plumbing, you see the natural order. In addition, the text plainly states that for men natural relations are “with women” and that when men give up such natural relations, they are consumed with passion “for one another” and they are committing shameless acts “with men.” Paul’s natural/unnatural contrast is a contrast between heterosexual sex and homosexual sex. Paul’s problem with homosexuality is that it throws away God’s natural design in order to express unholy passions. Unholy passions may feel natural, but they are unholy. They are unholy because even when they feel natural, they defy what God intended to be natural. The created order is objective. We don’t get to change it.

It’s rather obvious that in Romans Paul addresses homosexual forms of sex and that he condemns what he addresses, but some argue that what Paul addresses is merely exploitative forms of homosexuality. They claim that Paul is not condemning loving, committed relationships but male prostitution or pederasty or some such practice.

The evidence, however, doesn’t point this way. First, Paul doesn’t use the normal Greek words for male prostitution or pederasty. If he had wanted to condemn only certain forms of homosexuality, then his broad language is an awfully poor way of doing so. Second, look at verse 27 again. Here it is: “men gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.” Pay special attention to the phrase “for one another.” Paul equally condemns both parties in the relationship. As we saw in Leviticus, this means Paul is addressing something mutual. Both parties are guilty. Third, in verse 26, Paul condemns lesbianism, a fact that shows the universality of the condemnation. If Paul were condemning merely exploitative forms of homosexuality, he would have no need to refer to lesbianism.

Thus, to Paul, a committed, consensual homosexual relationship involves unnatural sexual relations and shameless acts.

In Romans, homosexuality is part of God’s judgment. The text says that these Gentiles refused to worship God, so God gave them over to their passions. In other words, homosexuality is not merely a sin God will judge but is itself part of the judgment. It is a plain sign that people are under God’s judgment.

Paul’s point in this text is that God created a natural pattern for sex. That pattern is male with female. The Gentiles in Romans 1 have exchanged that natural pattern to pursue their passions. Their passions may feel natural to them, but those passions violate what God set up. When you read the whole flow of Romans 1, homosexuality is merely a plain example of people exchanging God for their own desires. Thus, unrepentant homosexual behavior is the result of, among other things, the rejection of God.

I Cor 6:9-11

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

This text begins with a general statement: “the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God.” It then proceeds to illustrate that statement by listing specific sins that disqualify someone from the kingdom of God. Twice this text states that these people will not inherit the kingdom of God (vv. 9, 10). Finally it reminds the Corinthian believers that they used to be among those people, but in Christ they are now clean, holy, and righteous (v. 11). In other words, they will inherit the kingdom of God because they are now in Christ and live a different life.

1. Verses 9 and 10 are obviously a vice list. No one will argue that Paul views any of these behaviors in a positive or neutral light. They all disqualify someone from the kingdom of God. For our purposes, we need to focus on the words translated “men who practice homosexuality.”

Paul uses two words here. The first is malakoi. Literally it means “soft ones,” and in 1^st century Greek its range of meanings included male prostitutes, feminine men, and the passive partner in male/male sex.

The second word Paul uses is arsenokoitai. It comes from the Greek words arsen, which means “male,” and koitos, which means intercourse or bed. If you translated arsenokoitai literally it would refer to men who lie in bed with men. Of course, you should see a connection with Leviticus 18 and 20. In the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament Paul frequently quotes from), Leviticus 18 and 20 use the words arsen and koitos side by side when saying, “You shall not lie with a man as you would with a woman.” In other words, Paul is mimicking the language of Leviticus. Whatever Leviticus means is what Paul means. The New Testament merely repeats the Old.

When the words malakoi and arsenokoitai are used together, they represent the passive and active partners in a homosexual relationship.

2. Again, Paul condemns all forms of homosexuality. The reference to Leviticus suggests that Paul condemns “lying in bed with a man as you would with a woman,” and the fact that Paul condemns both parties in the relationship indicates that he includes mutual, consensual relationships in his condemnation.

3. The fact that Paul twice says that such people will not inherit the kingdom of God indicates how serious this issue is. The stakes are eternal. This is not an issue that Christians can agree to disagree on. In I Cor 6, homosexuality is like idolatry, adultery, stealing, greed, and all the other items in the same vice list, and unrepentant homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God. If I Cor 6 is true, then the teaching that God accepts homosexuality is not just a minor issue we can overlook but a teaching that leads people to hell. That teaching is no more Christian than the teaching that God accepts adultery, idolatry, or swindling.

4. Homosexuality is not stronger than Christ. Verse 11 says, “And such were some of you.” It is past tense “were,” not present tense “are.” The Corinthian believers who had practiced homosexuality no longer do so. They are now washed, sanctified, and justified in Christ. Jesus changed them. Their identity is different. The power of God has come upon them. To argue that homosexuals cannot change is to deny the power of God. Not only can they change, but Paul says they have already changed. He likely could name names.

And I could name names today. I won’t because I want to protect them. But I could. I personally know several Christians who used to practice homosexuality. Homosexuals can change. I don’t mean that change is easy or without struggles or failings. I mean simply that change does happen. In Christ the old is gone, the new has come. That is reality, and the world that denies it needs to open its eyes.

Mar

2020

Coronavirus and God

I will say to the Lord, “My refuge, my fortress, my God in whom I trust.” (Psalm 91:2)

Thank you, Lord, that we can trust you in the good times and the bad.

Who would have thought a few months ago that a virus would run rampant through the entire world, killing where it went, instilling fear in entire populations, and shutting down the economies of virtually every nation on the globe? I never would have dreamed this. You read a lot of news about this virus, but the people who tell the news, by and large, have no heavenly perspective on what they are talking about. Thus, it is easy for the Christian to overdose on the news and start believing things contrary to God’s Word. What I want to do is give a theological perspective on the events surrounding us. So here are some thoughts:

Coronavirus is the result of the Fall

When God created the world, He said it was very good, but when Adam and Eve fell, they brought calamity to God’s very good world. When they sinned, they corrupted the entire human race and the world system we live in. Here on Earth everything is now broken. The calamity that sin brought includes problems like sickness and death, pain and suffering, emptiness and sorrow. The current coronavirus is merely one small result of that Fall.

Coronavirus is God’s reminder that this world is not and never will be the utopia we want it to be. Coronavirus is God’s reminder that this Earth is broken and if you live for Earth, you get only brokenness in the end. Coronavirus is God’s reminder that this world is not our home.

God gave consequences for the Fall, and those consequences exist for a reason. Coronavirus is merely a small example of one of those consequences.

Coronavirus shows us that we are not in control.

This is the 21^st century. This is America. We have scientific knowledge. We have advanced technology. We have money and comfort and pleasure.

But we are not in control.

Coronavirus is a reminder that the human race is weaker than we would like to think. Past eras saw this fact more clearly than we do, for they were not sheltered from pain to the extent we are. They had no electricity, no central heat or air conditioning, no Tylenol for pain, no Netflix for entertainment. They did not need a major plague to know that they were not in control. Daily life told them that.

But we are different. We shield ourselves from everyday pains and get drunk on the elixir of entertainment or our own comfort. We have a thousand choices at our fingertips. Until something severe comes along, we pass the time thinking we are fine . . . we are in control. Our information, technology, and entertainment have built for us a house of cards that we put our trust in. Coronavirus tears down this house of cards.

Coronavirus is not bigger than God

Coronavirus shows us that we cannot put our trust in our own strength or this world system, but coronavirus cannot and will not harm God. To God coronavirus is a speck of dust in the universe.

What this means is that the proper spiritual response to coronavirus is to acknowledge our own sin and weakness and run to God. God is bigger than coronavirus.

On Sunday night our church met online, and several people shared that God had spoken to them through Psalm 91. Here is what it says:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
²I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”

³For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
    and from the deadly pestilence.
⁴He will cover you with his pinions,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
⁵You will not fear the terror of the night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
⁶nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
    nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

⁷A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
⁸You will only look with your eyes
    and see the recompense of the wicked.

⁹Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—
the Most High, who is my refuge—
¹⁰no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
no plague come near your tent.

¹¹For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways.
¹²On their hands they will bear you up,
    lest you strike your foot against a stone.
¹³You will tread on the lion and the adder;
    the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.

¹⁴“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;
    I will protect him, because he knows my name.
¹⁵When he calls to me, I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble;
    I will rescue him and honor him.
¹⁶With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation.”

God is our protector. God is our refuge. God is our fortress. God is our shield. God is our deliverer. God is our shelter. And God is bigger than coronavirus.

Psalm 91 does not mean that God’s people never suffer. Jesus suffered. Paul suffered. Peter suffered. Jacob, Moses, David, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednago, on we could go. Psalm 91 does not guarantee health, wealth, and prosperity in every instance. It is a statement of trust in God who takes care of His people. His faithfulness is our shield.

Psalm 91 also does not mean we abandon common sense. Satan quoted this psalm to Jesus to get Jesus to jump off the temple. We are not to tempt God by being stupid and then say, “God will protect me.” We are to use common sense and to trust God as we do. Concerning coronavirus, we will limit physical contact, wash hands, and all the rest, but we do not pretend that these practices are our refuge and fortress. God is. And only God is. Coronavirus should drive us to God. If it doesn’t, we have no understanding of what is going on or of God Himself. We see with physical eyes only.

God will work out good things in the midst of coronavirus

People are suffering and dying. Families have lost loved ones. Workers have lost jobs. Businesses are struggling financially. All of these situations are real, and I don’t want to minimize the pain people feel. Coronavirus has brought real suffering.

But in the midst of all the pain, God will do good. He is that kind of God. He turned Haman’s plan against him. He took Satan’s plan to crucify the Son of God and used it to save the world. Can there be a darker day on Earth than Good Friday? And yet Good Friday is called Good for a reason. God turned evil on its head and destroyed it with its own weapon. He will do the same with coronavirus.

God will use coronavirus for His good purposes. Coronavirus has already caused many people to be more open to God. It has caused some to see how shallow and empty Earth is. It has brought families together. It has given billions of people more time to seek God, and some have used that time to learn of God and seek Him in Scripture and prayer.

God does not see things the same way we do. Most people see only the physical and the right now, and if that is all you see, then coronavirus is a sad picture. But God looks at the spiritual and the eternal. His perspective is fuller and richer than ours. He sees things we don’t. If suffering causes people to seek God, then God will gladly bring suffering. He will trade the temporary in order to get the eternal, and suffering has this way of causing people to think on the eternal.

If you look at the news, all you will see is the suffering, but the heavenly news reports different things, and it is not all bad.

Is coronavirus God’s judgment?

That’s a complicated question. In one sense it is. In another sense it may or may not be. Let me explain.

We need to understand that the wages of sin is death and that the consequences of the Fall are God’s judgment on sin. In this sense all pain, suffering, sickness, and death is a judgment of sorts. God has judged sin to be worthy of such consequences. In this sense, God has woven judgment into the fabric of this world. Normal pains are judgments. Even when a baby dies, his death is a result of being born with a sinful nature into a sinful world, and death is God’s normal judgment on sin. In this sense, coronavirus is a judgment in the same way that the flu or cancer or an avalanche can all be judgments. This sort of judgment is generic and is part and parcel of living in a fallen world. I mention it because most people do not think of ordinary pains and deaths as judgments, but they are — even if they have no relation to some specific sin.

However, when people ask if coronavirus is a judgment, they do not have in mind this generic type of judgment. What they have in mind is whether coronavirus is a special and specific judgment of God on some specific sin or set of sins in the human race.

To this I have to say, “I don’t know.” In order to say that coronavirus is or is not some special judgment of God, I would need to receive some special revelation from God, and I have received no such thing.

Some people, however, may confidently declare that God would never punish anyone with such a plague, but those people have never read their Bibles. In Scripture, God brings special judgments for sin all the time. Consider Noah and the flood, David after he took the census, Jeremiah and the Babylonian captivity, or the book of the Revelation just to name a few. We cannot rule out the judgment of God as a possible explanation for coronavirus. Such judgment would be well within God’s character.

At the same time, neither can we confidently state that coronavirus is a special judgment that God has released upon the world. People who say this also need to consider their Bibles. In Scripture, God allows calamities to come upon the righteous and the unrighteous. Consider Job, the man born blind whom Jesus healed, the persecuted church in Acts, and the psalmists’ frequent cries of “How long, O Lord.”

It would not surprise me if coronavirus is a special judgment of God. It would also not surprise me if it is not. Therefore, given the fact that, apart from some special revelation, we simply don’t know, I think it best for the average believer to not overly concern himself or herself with the question. Be OK not knowing and focus on more fruitful questions like “How can I draw closer to God . . . How can I live a more holy life . . . How can I love and serve my neighbor?” Pursuing those kinds of questions will actually bear more fruit in your life.

Feb

2020

The Bible and Homosexuality

Last week, I gave a brief introduction to a Christian perspective on homosexuality with a focus on the fact that we are to show the love of Christ to homosexual people. This week and next I will briefly discuss some Scriptures that address homosexuality in some way.

Some time ago I was looking on the website of a gay-friendly church. This church hosted a seminar on how to deal with the Bible’s claims about homosexuality and introduced it with a quote in which a man from the church asked in essence: “How do we deal with what the Bible says about homosexuality?” The quote struck me because of what the man assumed the Bible seems to say. He recognized what everyone recognizes when he or she reads Biblical texts that address homosexuality. Namely this: the plain sense of the Scripture condemns homosexual behavior. If it doesn’t, the man’s question makes no sense. The website also recognized the same plain sense by using the man and his question as an example of why the seminar was necessary. Now obviously, the seminar likely gave alternate interpretations of the texts in question, but the fact that many gay people struggle with what the Bible says indicates that even they naturally interpret Scripture as condemning homosexuality.

They have to. The plain sense of Scripture on this issue is obvious. Therefore, if someone wants to give an alternate interpretation of the Scriptures that deal with homosexuality, then the burden of proof rests on the alternate interpretation, not on the plain sense. If I say, “You shall not bow to idols as you would to God; it is an abomination,” or “Do not be deceived, no idolater will inherit the kingdom of God,” and you want to claim that I am affirming idolatry, then the burden of proof rests with you, and you’d better have some clear and strong evidence that cannot be interpreted more than one way.

So what does the Bible say? Let’s look at it.

Leviticus

“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” (18:22)

“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” (20:13)

Leviticus 18 focuses predominantly on sexual sin. The chapter begins by saying in effect, “Do not do what the people of Egypt and Canaan do. Do not be like them. Instead, keep the statutes of the Lord.” (vv 3-5) The chapter then describes what Egypt and Canaan did sexually that God’s people are not to do. It reads something like this:

“Do not have sex with your mom. Do not have sex with your sister or your granddaughter or your aunt or your neighbor’s wife. Do not have sex with a man as with a woman. Do not have sex with an animal.” (1-23)

Both the context and the phrasing are sexual (e.g. look at verses 19-23). In Leviticus, God is condemning homosexual behavior, and the command refers to all forms of homosexual behavior, for it says, “you shall not do with a man what you would do with a woman.” Ordinarily, a man would lie with a woman within a committed and consensual marriage relationship. Leviticus says you shall not do that. The wording is comprehensive.

In addition, Leviticus 20:13 gives the punishment. It says that when a man lies with a man, both partners are guilty and both shall be put to death. The fact that God condemns both partners indicates that He is not referring to homosexual rape or pederasty. Leviticus condemns consensual and committed homosexual behavior for both partners.

Jesus

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person . . . (Mt 15:19)

Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. (Mt 19:4-6)

People often claim that Jesus never addressed homosexuality, and the claim is true in a strict sense. The words “homosexual” never cross His lips in the gospels. But Jesus does address sexual behavior and marriage. In Matthew 15:19 and other places He condemns sexual immorality. The word Jesus uses in the gospels is porneia, and it was a catch-all word for all types of sexual behavior outside marriage. Within His Jewish culture, it included adultery, premarital sex, homosexuality, bestiality, and a host of other sexual sins.

Suppose then that I say to you that dishonesty is evil. Have I condemned perjury? Technically, I never addressed perjury, but perjury is a type of dishonesty just as homosexuality is a type of sexual immorality. Both Jesus and His audience would have seen homosexuality that way.

In addition, Jesus does talk about marriage and states that marriage is built on male and female (Mt 19:4-6). For further discussion, see the blog “Marriage Is . . .” here.

Jesus is much more relevant to the contemporary discussion on homosexuality than many people think.

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