Youth Problems Part 2: Life in Suspended Animation

I grew up a Trekkie.

You remember that word? It was a nerd word. A “trekkie” was a person who loved the television show Star Trek. My daily ritual was to get home and plop myself down in front of the telly and catch whatever rerun was on that day. I think I saw most episodes of the original show a half dozen times or more.

I remember one episode called Space Seed, in which the crew of the Starship Enterprise discovers a ship loaded with sleeping men and women. They’re all in what’s called suspended animation: alive, but asleep and on life support, so that they can endure a lengthy trip through space. The crew revives one named Khan, and he turns out to be a kind of wild superman they’re unable to control. He’s more than a little agitated that he and his people have become the rejects of planet Earth.

Let Him Deny Himself

Yesterday, I proposed an alternative translation of Matthew 16:24-26 legitimized by Greek usage in the New Testament that applies a little more broadly than the standard interpretation of the passage. I’m not suggesting the “life/soul” distinction that most translators see as key to understanding what the Lord taught is incorrect. What I’m proposing is that we apply these few verses to a whole lot more of our lives than just the moment in which we are willing to die for the faith if called upon to do so.

After all, dying is relatively easy. You only have to do it once. Living for Christ requires dying to self every day and in every way.

Life, Soul and Self

The footnote to Matthew 16:25-26 in my ESV reads as follows:

“The same Greek word can mean either soul or life, depending on the context; twice in this verse and twice in verse 26.”

That’s probably as good an introduction to our subject as any. It’s certainly what got my attention.

Anonymous Asks (277)

“Will everyone in the lake of fire suffer to the same degree?”

Catholic theologians speak of mortal and venial sins, distinguishing between degrees of evil. Dante’s The Divine Comedy contemplated a hell divided into nine descending circles, with the worst sinners at the bottom, distinguishing between degrees of punishment in the afterlife. Greater sin in this life, greater punishment in eternity, or so goes the thinking.

“But much of Romanist theology has no basis in scripture,” you protest, “and Dante’s not the Bible.” Very true. If some Protestants view the lake of fire as a great equalizer, perhaps they are simply reacting to extra-biblical traditions proclaiming the opposite.

If the Catholics believe it, it must be wrong, right? Well, maybe not in this case.

The Leader You Know You Can Be

Rachel Zegler on the version of Snow White in Disney’s latest remake of a classic:

“She’s not going to be saved by the prince and she will not be dreaming about true love. She’s dreaming about becoming the leader that she knows she can be.”

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the leader of them all”? Meh. I wouldn’t have been lining up to see it in any case. If I spend another second in my entire life watching strong, independent women self-actualize onscreen, it will be several decades too much.

Mining the Minors: Obadiah (5)

What will the Middle East look like during Christ’s millennial reign?

Obadiah tells us seven distinct facts about the future division of the former land of Israel and the territory around it. Considering their number, we should not expect them to be comprehensive. They supplement the more detailed tribal division of the land described in Ezekiel. If you notice, as I did, that these details harmonize better in some places than others, bear in mind that any map drawn today based on ancient place names is bound to have considerable wiggle room. Some ancient locations are well attested; others are mere speculations. As a result, no two maps of Ezekiel’s tribal division of the land square exactly.

Both passages agree future Israel will occupy considerably more territory than at any point in its previous history, expanding north, south, east and west.

Too Hot to Handle: The Emperor’s New Clothes

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Christopher Dummitt is an Associate Professor of History at Trent University, and he has a confession to make: “I basically just made it up.”

Tom: He’s not the first, and he’s probably not the worst, but Dummitt is keen on taking either credit or blame (it’s not always clear which) for successfully swaying Canadian public opinion about sex and gender. He used to tell his students and readers that gender is entirely a social construct, not a biological reality. Today, the vast majority of Canadians believe him.

Problem is he was misusing his authority to deceive the public. The Emperor would go out tonight, but he doesn’t have a stitch to wear. Likewise, Dummitt had no substantive evidence of any sort to offer for his ideology-based position. As he now admits, his so-called “proofs” may legitimately be interpreted any number of ways. He used rhetoric and the “appeal to authority” fallacy to patch the gaping holes in his argument.

But we knew that, didn’t we, IC?

Youth Problems Part 1: Double Jeopardy

“I wouldn’t want to be a teenager today!”

I hear that a lot. And I suppose there’s something to it. It’s not easy going through those vulnerable transitional years today.

But then it’s never been.

It’s a really unnatural stage of life. Today, we may take it for granted; but we are losing touch with just how irregular, how unhealthy and how bizarre it really is. That’s because most of us were raised through a socialization process — including urban economic life, mass schooling, post-secondary training, late induction into adulthood, and so on — that took it for granted. We are out of touch with just how developmentally weird it really is.

Canadian Common Law and the Bible

Ancient laws didn’t come with definition sections.

When you see some of the lengthy, arbitrary and self-contradictory definitions in modern legal codes, this may at first seem like a feature rather than a bug, but it still leaves the modern reader of the Law of Moses struggling with certain ambiguities, not least the ones concerning marriage.

This was not a problem for the people who lived under the Law of Moses in ancient times. They understood the sociocultural environment in which the law was given well enough to obey God’s commands without the need for the endless paragraphs of legalese modern lawyers generate like spiderwebs.

The bad news is that understanding the background of the law wasn’t their problem; keeping it was.

When You Can’t Step Down

The secular world doesn’t require moral authority to lead. It helps, sure, but it’s not a stopper if you can’t manage to project it; more of a “nice to have”, really. Luck, slickness, charisma, raw power, a media propaganda machine, a dad with name recognition, or some combination thereof will generally get you into a leadership position even if you’re otherwise horribly unqualified.

Ask Mr. Biden if you doubt that one. If soundness of mind and coherent speech are not obligatory to serve as President of the United States, I doubt self-restraint is anywhere near the list.

Anonymous Asks (276)

“Should a Christian listen to secular music?”

Wow. I am SO the wrong guy to ask that question. Maybe IC will take a second crack at this one next week and do better.

I love the old hymns, by which I mean pre-1940. (There was a rah-rah kind of self-involved lyric-writing popular after WWII that I cannot stand, epitomized in the Gaither style that dominated the new hymnology from the mid-fifties on.)

From then on, in my humble estimation, popular Christian music has only gotten worse.

A Bulwark Never Failing

Around 1052 B.C., King David conquered a Jebusite stronghold in the hills and made it the capital of his kingdom. He repaired and built up the city that has come to be known as Jerusalem, Zion, the City of David and Ariel. His son Solomon enhanced it and made it truly world class, and the later kings of Judah supplemented and strengthened it. It has been attacked by history’s greatest empires, razed repeatedly but always rebuilt, and unlike many ancient cities of the East, it’s still there today.

The Sons of Korah called Zion “the city of our God”.

Mining the Minors: Obadiah (4)

History teaches many lessons … if we are paying attention.

The children of Esau treated the children of Jacob despicably. Their traitorous disloyalty to their brothers would come back to haunt them; this is the burden of Obadiah’s prophecy. But the judgment of Edom would also serve as a cautionary tale for other nations that had either mistreated Israel or would go on to do so. God made an example of Edom to teach others not to do what they had done.

It’s not as if Edom had not been put on notice. God promised Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse.” When Jacob obtained the birthright and the blessing from Esau, this promise and protection became his. Esau knew it, but apparently his distant descendants had forgotten it.

That’s one of those lessons it’s unwise to forget.

Too Hot to Handle: Nothing to Complain About

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Monty Python’s Eric Idle on their movie Life of Brian:

“Our movie is a kind of parody of a Hollywood biblical epic. And we realized we couldn’t really write about JC, because there’s nothing you can complain about. The man said, you know, ‘Blessed are the poor,’ ‘Feed and help people ...’ There was something more interesting about exploring what followers of a religion do, both to the religion and to the people they follow, and how unhealthy that becomes.”

Tom: Now, if we really wanted to be critical, IC, we could probably carp about Idle misquoting the Sermon on the Mount or being a bit flippant, but I found the point he was inadvertently making here much more interesting, and that is this: a troupe of comedians legendary for fearlessly spoofing everything under the sun drew a line in the sand at trying to make fun of Jesus Christ. And they did it themselves, not out of fear or respect, apparently, or even because of economic considerations, but rather because they came to the conclusion there were no legitimate laughs to be had at Christ’s expense. There really is nothing you can complain about in the life and character of God’s beloved Son.

Immanuel Can: No, indeed. It’s interesting that the Lord always seems to get a reaction nobody else ever gets, isn’t it?

Divorce: What We Don’t Know

I’ve been thankful to see a few posts from Tom on the subject of divorce, and I’ve been encouraging him to research and write more. We, in the church, need information about this.

I’m afraid we’re not very wise on this. Time was when divorces were rare. Back then, what tended to happen is that if a person got divorced, they just left the church — end of story. Maybe one of the partners hung around … especially if he or she was presumed “innocent” in the event. But for the most part, divorce was just an uncomfortable subject, a Pandora’s Box that churches just didn’t want to open.

When Nobody was Standing Around

Orthodox Christian faith declares our Lord was fully man and fully God. We can say we believe that, but getting our heads around it is another story. Speculating about the finer details of how his two natures operated together in specific moments of the Savior’s earthly experience can take us into perilous theological territory if we are inattentive to all that the scriptures say about him.

The apostle John writes that Jesus “knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man”.

The People Standing Around

“I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around.”

Sometimes Jesus said things he didn’t need to say. Sometimes he asked questions to which he already knew the answer, or asked to be given things he didn’t require. Once, he even went through a baptism of repentance when he had nothing whatsoever for which to repent.

He had to, on account of the people standing around.

Anonymous Asks (275)

“Should a couple be financially stable before getting married?”

Anybody who reads here regularly probably knows I have repeatedly encouraged young men to get their financial house in order not just prior to marriage, but prior to getting into any serious relationship with a young woman. The reason should be obvious: if you find yourself without sufficient self-control and employability to manage your own finances, what business do you have inviting someone else to share your life with you?

And that’s before we even consider the cost of bringing children into the world and raising them together.

In Which I Equivocate

Your local church is dull.

To be fair, they probably can’t help it. They wouldn’t know how to be any other way. It’s who they are: older, more traditional, kind of set in their ways, and it seems to suit them. Sure, the Bible teaching is sound and Christ-centered, but the singing is dreary and antiquated. You’re not looking for charismatic excess, but a little genuine emotion once in a while would be nice.

Shouldn’t true faith transform the heart as well as the head?

Mining the Minors: Obadiah (3)

When we read Bible history or doctrine, we take for granted that the tenses used by the writers are important. “Don’t do it” is different from “You did it”. However, when we come to Bible prophecy, that ordinary rule of thumb goes right out the window. Prophetic tenses are all over the place.

Even secular observers can’t miss this odd feature of the genre.

Too Hot to Handle: These Things Break Bones

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

In sharing Christ with others it is not unusual to come across an unsaved person who is honest, self-aware or willing to disclose where he is in his thinking. What is rare is to find all three in the same person.

Tom: I recently watched David Berlinski in a lengthy interview with Peter Robinson doing a very fine job of exposing the flaws in Darwin’s theory of evolution. The exchange prompted a whole train of thought on how subtle self-deception can be, and how easy it is to sidestep the most important questions a human being can ever ask.

Two Glories

It’ll soon be Sunday again.

Time to go and meet with the Lord’s people and think about him.

That’s good work, really. It’s just about the best thing we really ever do. The works we do here on earth end when the Lord returns. But some things continue into eternity. Paramount among those things is worship. It’s one of the few things we do that lasts forever. I think that makes it worth getting up for.

The Real Real Restoration of Israel

In yesterday’s post, we discussed Matt Littlefield’s view that the largely unbelieving Jewish nation occupying Israel today is not the fulfillment of Bible prophecy concerning the restoration of Israel that we are led to expect by Paul’s teaching in Romans 11 and corresponding OT passages. Unlike some students of scripture, Matt is not an abrogationist. He believes the promised restoration of God’s earthly people will indeed occur, only not until Messiah returns.

That would be fine so far as it goes, except it leads him to conclude that any return of Jews to Israel prior to the Second Coming of Christ (such as the one that occurred after WWII and continues apace) is therefore a cheat, a fake, a false fulfillment, an exercise in fleshly effort and/or a lie of the devil. He worries that Christians are being deceived by it.

I think that’s going too far, and I have tried to set out my own position concerning the largely secular Jewish presence in Israel. I believe we are looking at prophetic fulfillment in progress, just not yet fully realized. Only time will tell.

End Products and Works in Progress

Lately, like almost every other Christian I know, Australian pastor Matt Littlefield has been occupied with affairs in the Middle East. Premillennialists may find two of his recent posts worth a read for that reason. Both show evidence of a more nuanced position on modern Israel and its prophetic prospects than some evangelicals have historically taken, but while I find myself agreeing with much of what he has to say, I believe some of Matt’s conclusions are either doubtful or flat out wrong.

There are no end of opinions out there, and it doesn’t hurt for believers to get our ducks in a row about Israel. If you are out there engaging with either the church or the world, the subject is likely to come up.

Anonymous Asks (274)

“Are democracy and Christianity compatible?”

“Many forms of Government have been tried,” said Winston Churchill in the British House of Commons in 1947. He continued, “Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time …”

It’s admittedly backhanded, but that’s still a pretty strong commendation, and I’ve had it quoted to me by Christians when I complain about modern democracies and their failings.

I’m not sure I believe it anymore.

Jungles and Gardens

There is a big difference between a jungle and a garden.

Gardens have gardeners. Jungles do not. In the jungle, vines and weeds grow everywhere, sometimes strangling new growth and keeping desirable plants from blooming. Trees you don’t want block the sun from reaching those you do want. The root systems of vegetation that produces nothing useful suck up water needed by fruit-bearing growth. If you want a garden and not a jungle, it won’t happen naturally. Somebody has to tend it.

Eden was a garden, not a jungle. Those “somebodies” were Adam and Eve.

Mining the Minors: Obadiah (2)

C.S. Lewis called pride “the essential vice, the utmost evil … the complete anti-God state of mind”. Solomon wrote, “Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished.”

Obadiah is the shortest book in the Hebrew Bible, so it doesn’t take the prophet more than two verses to get to Edom’s problem. Yes, it’s pride. Pride that metastasized into hatred of their brothers. Pride that pulled the wool over their own eyes and made the Edomites believe they were untouchable. Pride that convinced them they could put one over on the God who had decreed “the older will serve the younger”. “Not so,” said Edom.

It was the word of God. Of course they were wrong.

Too Hot to Handle: A Sticky Situation

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Tom: A couple of posts back, Immanuel Can made this comment:

“I don’t think most people understand what ‘situational ethics’ means. What I find when I ask them is they have no idea of the theory, or even of who Joseph Fletcher was, let alone what he said: they just think that whatever it is, it allows them to do as they please, and still claim to be ‘ethical’ in doing it.”

I haven’t heard the term in a few years, but I remember it was regularly referenced when I was growing up. 83% of atheists claim to believe all ethics are situational. What does that mean exactly, IC? Maybe some of the atheists hurling the term around don’t know much more than your first year philosophy students ...

Old Guy with the Ponytail

I saw an episode of The Fresh Prince of Belair recently.

Don’t ask.

Man, remember that show? At one time it was all the rage. The jokes seemed so clever, so cutting-edge. It seemed like suddenly every kid on the playground was sliding his pants down, turning his ball cap around, and trying to talk like Will Smith.

“Yo, yo, Homes … whaddup? How you gonna play me?”

** Cringe **

The Problem with Progress

The thesis of Glen Scrivener’s most recent book The Air We Breathe is that Western societies have absorbed Christian values by osmosis. He suggests that even if we haven’t noticed it yet, our collective convictions about the importance of equality, compassion, consent, enlightenment, science, freedom and progress all come originally from the Bible and are a radical departure from both pre-first century views and those of most non-Westerners today.

Few of us Westerners are Christians, yet the faith of our fathers has subversively Christianized society in some respects at least. Even those who object fervently to the Christian faith often object for reasons only the Christian faith itself could ever supply.