Anonymous Asks (421)

“Do nominally-Christian family members have a right to privacy when their behavior changes in suspicious ways?”

Here is an interesting and very modern dilemma. Do you remember the days before ubiquitous social media, online histories in our browser caches and the discovery of the occasional unlocked cell phone? Even if we felt we just couldn’t go on together with suspicious minds, there wasn’t a whole lot we could do about our discomfort beyond appealing to the suspect to open up and talk with us about what was really going on.

Today, Big Brother is watching not just you but everybody in your family, and he’s happy to share what he knows any time you’re willing to take a peek. Should you?

Tongue Like a Bow

“They bend their tongue like a bow.”

I have a dear friend who professed faith in Christ back in his youth, but in his twenties married an unsaved woman and wandered far away from the Lord … or maybe the process worked the other way round. Either way, raising a family in lockstep with the worldview of a woman who does not know Christ or the scriptures, he has grown comfortable subjecting himself to the propaganda of the leftist media on a daily basis.

Eager to please his wife, he now pays arguably more attention to her ideology than she does.

Somebody Else’s Mail (20)

The prophetic spirit moved David as he wrote Psalm 9. Of course, the Holy Spirit was upon him as he wrote all his psalms of scripture but, like many good authors, on plenty of occasions he simply wrote what he knew. Not all David’s psalms required that he peer into the future and write down what the Spirit showed him as he carried him along.

This one does, as we will see shortly. The “will of man” did not move David’s pen, and I wonder exactly how much he understood about the times and circumstances the Spirit of Christ in him was indicating.

Too Hot to Handle: How Do You Read It? (4)

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

Tom: Where commonly misunderstood Bible verses are concerned, IC, this one is a favorite, particularly south of the border:

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

To be fair, I’ve heard it prayed by Christians here too, beseeching the Lord that Canadians would suddenly and inexplicably vote to abolish abortion on demand, or oust Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal Ontario government, or whatever.

New, Improved, Advanced … You Need One

A few years ago I went on vacation in England. We had some special places to go, but of course there were a few of the obligatory touristy things as well.

We went to the Tower of London. It’s not a single tower, but a concentric castle formed of 21 towers. One of the main ones is called the White Tower. It was especially interesting to me since it housed a great collection of historical armaments spanning several centuries of warfare. Much of it is conventional stuff: swords, cannons, muskets, shields, chain mail and so forth. Some of the displays feature experimental weaponry, such as multi-barreled, repeating guns and so forth.

Cool.

Building Card Houses

I had an illuminative experience earlier today. My sons sent me a link to a sermon unlike any I’ve previously encountered and, believe me, I’ve had some interesting Sunday mornings over the years. This particular well-meaning culprit will remain nameless in order to protect the guilty. Hopefully, his more senior colleagues in his local church will encourage him to go a different direction with his next effort at expositing the word of God.

Hey, I’m proud of my boys. Far from being mean-spirited or hypercritical, they simply showed a little appropriate caution, discernment and a Berean attitude to the word of God. That will serve them well.

The Language of the Debate (14)

Christians who uncritically accept redefinitions foisted on us in bad faith by people with agendas are bound to end up confused and stymied in conversations about anything important. Our standard practice in this blog post series has been to identify and point out changes cleverly made to English words with the object of reframing divisive issues, shaping public discussion or circumventing debate entirely.

Today’s term is a little different. It’s not that it’s been conveniently redefined so much as it never had much meaning in the first place.

Anonymous Asks (420)

“Will we eat food in our glorified bodies?”

The glorified human body is very much on my mind these days. My mother is in her mid-nineties after decades of serving the Lord Jesus, and her mind and body are in the process of demonstrating the truth of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: things fall apart. Her inexorable deterioration may plateau, but it will not cease until the Lord returns for his Church.

When I’m praying for Mom, I sometimes wonder what that glorified body will look like.

Never Ceases to Amaze Me

“Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look and take note! Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her.”

As I study the scriptures, the magnitude of God’s grace never ceases to amaze me. This passage is just one in an almost-endless list of examples.

Somebody Else’s Mail (19)

Psalm 9 is the first acrostic psalm, a structural poetry convention in which each line begins with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. (Psalm 119 is the most famous example of this technique.) As others have noted, this one is an imperfect acrostic: some letters are missing. The pattern of starting each line with the next letter continues into Psalm 10, leading analysts to conclude they were originally two movements of the same psalm.

Jewish tradition suggests David wrote this psalm after his victory over Goliath.

Too Hot to Handle: How Do You Read It? (3)

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

God, cash & prizes: a winning combo! Or not.

Tom: How Do You Read It? is kind of a series within a series, in which Immanuel Can and I discuss common misinterpretations of some very familiar verses. IC, have you got one for me?

Immanuel Can: What about “Whatever you ask in my name …”?

The Can of Worms Opens

Tom: Whoa! That’s opening a can of worms. That one question might do for an entire topic.

A Church Without Wings

In one of the towns in which I lived as a child there was a church that called itself “Berean”. I’ve noticed quite a few such establishments, and I wonder if many people know what that word actually means.

It’s a reference to a group of ancient Jews who lived in a town called Berea, and who were among those who experienced the early ministry of the apostle Paul. They listened to the gospel Paul preached; and yet they didn’t just trust it. They checked it out for themselves, comparing his New Testament teaching with the word of God in the Old Testament. Acts says that they “received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true”.

Unacceptable by Today’s Standards

George Orwell was not a Christian.

His biographers describe him as agnostic or even an atheist. His dystopian classic 1984 contains the occasional anti-Catholic comment and a plethora of in-storyline lies and betrayals, not to mention a few (admittedly tame) sex scenes. Back in the day, it was required reading in high school, where I first came across it. I re-read it this week for the first time in years, and found it thought provoking and useful, not to mention scarily prescient. Orwell is also a deeply depressing read for those who believe his vision of the future was prophetic, and who don’t have the hope of Christ’s return to look forward to.

Bizarrely, 1984 is also (in some mysterious way I was unable to ascertain) “unacceptable by today’s standards”.

Losing Down Here

“Should we not consider that an eschatology that teaches ‘we lose down here’ is an eschatology that may have had something to do with why we are, you know, losing down here?”

The quote comes from Doug Wilson’s introductory comments to a recent round table discussion about Christian nationalism. In case it’s insufficiently clear outside of its original context, the point he’s making is that our expectations often determine how much we are able to accomplish.

Anonymous Asks (419)

“How should Christians think about making reparations for slavery?”

Scripture appears to give a qualified nod of approval to efforts to compensate one generation for the losses of another, but I’m not sure it’s the type of compensation any modern, Western government should feel terribly comfortable emulating. I’m thinking of the time the Gibeonite survivors in Israel raised a legitimate claim against Saul’s family for unsuccessfully attempting to exterminate them.

The “reparations” requested and received by the Gibeonites involved hanging seven relatives of Saul for the sins of their family.

Mercenary Motives

I’ve been thinking a little about why we do the things we do: low motives, high motives and every type in between. Sometimes we act for a multiplicity of reasons and with several different objectives in view.

For Christians, the goal is always to operate from the highest motives rather than the lower impulses, though even these may inadvertently produce what God is looking for. I think of Samson as an example of that. The Lord used his lust for a Philistine woman, a wholly inappropriate matchup, as an opportunity to judge Israel’s oppressors not once but twice.

At the top end of the motive spectrum, of course, sits love. When we do all things from a heart full of love, we have really come to know God.

Somebody Else’s Mail (18)

The sovereign God delights in delegating his own infinite power. We find the earliest scriptural instance of such delegation in Genesis 1:16-18 when the Lord makes the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night, then casually throws in the stars as a bonus. The Hebrew word translated “rule” in that passage is elsewhere translated “dominion”, “power” and “government”. The OT writers use it to describe God’s own sovereign power and authority.

Delegated authority is the principle on which God’s creation operates.

Too Hot to Handle: How Do You Read It? (2)

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

We had a good time with this last week, so Immanuel Can and I have agreed to revisit our growing list of commonly misinterpreted Bible verses and discuss three more examples.

Tom: How about this one?

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

How do you read that, IC?

Two or Three

Immanuel Can: I think the first question has to be “two or three whats”, or “two or three of whom”?

Mastering the Pastor Disaster

Her voice on the end of the phone was shaky. Clearly she was very, very upset about something. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell me what. Her words came out in a kind of extended groan that seemed to swell up from inside the depths of her heart, but could only leak past her lips. Something very bad had happened.

As our conversation continued, I gently drew more details out of her broken responses, and it became clearer. Not only she, but all her friends and her church, had been betrayed. A leader in their circle, much loved and widely admired, had turned the corner of a disastrous course. The first of the news had just broken; and she had called me less to tell me than to seek some kind of soothing for her aching soul.

Flyover Country: Obadiah

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.

Gradually, Then Suddenly

“I am the Lord; in its time I will hasten it.”

A friend and I were talking recently about societal decline and the speed with which it occurs. One writer at least has used the phrase “gradually, then suddenly” to describe it. It’s rather like years of erosion followed by an earthquake. First comes a long period in which the foundations are quietly destroyed one after another, then, with alarming speed, the entire house collapses at the tiniest temblor.

God sometimes accomplishes his purposes similarly: gradually, then suddenly.

Anonymous Asks (418)

“Is it wrong for a Christian to be an introvert?”

Introversion is one of those terms whose popular usage has become so inconsistent that you really need to agree on a definition before discussing it. I am an introvert by almost any definition, and in my case, it goes well beyond being reserved, quiet and comfortable alone, as some dictionaries have it. I’m also quickly worn down by too much conversation. I have my limits in social situations. I don’t imagine all introverts are socially awkward, but I am often that as well.

Some dictionaries link introversion with being inwardly focused or self-occupied. To me, that’s more a feature of narcissism or solipsism than of introversion.

Semi-Random Musings (51)

Does God’s will ever change in response to the actions of man? Mull that one over for a moment. I can give you at least one incontrovertible example to consider.

Ready? Okay, here we go. A young man wants to know the Lord’s will about the woman he has been dating. He belongs to Christ, while she is unsaved. I can tell him easily what the Lord wants from him, and so can you: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” It is never the Lord’s will that a young Christian man violate that command. We can be sure of that 100% of the time.

So then, he goes ahead and marries her anyway. What’s the Lord’s will for him now?

Somebody Else’s Mail (17)

Long before the Lord Jesus ever used the title “Son of Man” to describe himself, the concept had a history with which devout Jews looking for their Messiah were well acquainted. Ezekiel not only had the title before the Lord Jesus, he had it used to describe him many more times than the Lord Jesus, 93 in total. In fact, God himself chose to address his servant that way, as he did Daniel.

What can we learn from that? Not much, probably, except that the hermeneutical “Law of First Mention” is nowhere near as reliable as the law of gravity.

Too Hot to Handle: How Do You Read It? (1)

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

We’ve done maybe seventy of these exchanges now on various subjects, Immanuel Can. But what we’ve never done is a post on commonly misunderstood scriptures. Everybody does those. I’m feeling left out.

So why don’t we just do it like the Lord Jesus did with the lawyer and ask the questions, “What is written? How do you read it?” That’s a pretty solid precedent to work from.

Tom: I’ll start. Let me lob you a softball here, IC.

The Pastor of Disaster

Andrew sat back and stirred his tea. “What kind of church are you in?” he asked.

“Well,” I said, “I was in a conservative evangelical group, but it seems perhaps I’ve been kind of bumped out.”

“What do you mean?”

“We were in one kind of church, but we had to leave; now we’re sort of in-between, looking for what the Lord would have us do.”

“I will tell you why you left.” His voice was even and certain. He leaned forward. “It was because of … that man.”

It Was Necessary

The Greek language has a word we translate into English as “necessary”. It is anagkē, and Strong’s dictionary says it refers to some obligation “imposed either by the external condition of things, or by the law of duty”. It refers to a thing that had to happen. One example of its scriptural use is in Hebrews, where the writer says, “It was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.”

It was required. It had to happen that way. There was no other.

Pure Milk of the Word

From the Department of Very-Much-Intended Consequences, you may have recently read that AI companies are purchasing massive quantities of rare books, scanning the pages to “train” their algorithms, then shredding the original books. If not, you probably will soon.

If that sounds improbable considering the almost inestimable quantities of training data available to them free via public domain access on the Web, there is indeed a sort of twisted logic behind the ‘scan-and-destroy’ strategy.

Anonymous Asks (417)

“Should Christians take on mortgages?”

I’ve written on the subject of Christians and debt before in a number of different contexts (bankruptcy, school debt, credit cards, etc.) but to the best of my recollection, never at any great length about mortgages.

Okay, then. It’s well established in scripture that carrying debt is less than ideal.

Word Studies in Isaiah 52

The vast majority of chapter breaks in scripture are well considered. Still, once in a long while, you may find one that is less than perfectly helpful. Because tens of thousands of Christians daily read the Bible by chapter, the worst chapter divisions are the ones that break up content that really belongs together, interrupting the writer’s thought flow and making it difficult to follow.

What does that have to do with financial printing? So glad you asked.

Somebody Else’s Mail (16)

In his book The God-Shaped Heart, Timothy Jennings makes what I believe is a helpful distinction between two manifestations of divine rule in the world: design law and imposed law.

Design law includes things as disparate as gravity, love, motion, health, mathematics, friction, thermodynamics, authority structures, liberty, exertion, and so on — principles intrinsic to the proper functioning of our world and human society as designed by God. Do X, and Y will be the natural result, either for good or ill. Design law is just the way the world works.

Imposed law refers to both God’s commands and all other codes, rules, regulations and ordinances enforced with penalties, whether imposed by God or by men under his authority.