Anonymous Asks (427)

“What is the Sermon on the Plain?”

Everyone who has spent any time at all in the Bible knows the Sermon on the Mount. The fifth through seventh chapters of Matthew describe the Lord Jesus taking to an impromptu “pulpit” on a mountain in Galilee, leading to three full chapters of teaching that began with his disciples and expanded to the crowds that followed him. Most Christians are well acquainted with it, and most Bibles with chapter headings commence Matthew 5 with the title “The Sermon on the Mount”.

What else would you call it? If there’s a better idea, nobody seems to have come up with it.

Anonymous Asks (426)

“Are black people mentioned in the Bible?”

Today, we often hear words like “Canadian” or “American” applied to people who manifestly were not born in those nations and have no ancestral history there. The media deliberately conflates legal citizenship or mere residence with ethnic identity, so that it’s not uncommon to see headlines like “Canadian man arrested in France” written about people whose “Canadian identity” is summed up entirely in their possession of a passport and access to our health care system, and who actually spend most of their time abroad. It is a matter of convenience rather than allegiance or shared history.

One hopes a few of these folks also pay taxes, but even that is not always the case.

Anonymous Asks (425)

“What do Jews believe about the afterlife?”

That’s a complicated question. At no point in Israel’s history has belief in the afterlife been ubiquitous, unanimous or easy to pin down. A survey of Old Testament history shows even genuine Israelite believers had different concepts of death. The Law of Moses, to the best of my knowledge, did not address the subject at all, and there are no OT “Thus says the Lord” passages in the prophets to explain what happens after men die. A single passage in Daniel comes closest to that.

Anonymous Asks (424)

“Does a wife have to submit to her husband?”

The way we frame a question tells people quite a bit about the assumptions that provoked us to ask it. Moreover, in seeking to answer an anonymous question, the reader finds himself making assumptions about the person asking it that are hard to avoid and may well be entirely wrong. For example, the way today’s question is framed immediately sends my brain down a particular track. I am already making assumptions about the writer — female, issues with authority, chip on the shoulder, etc. — all of which may be complete rubbish.

Anonymous Asks (423)

“Why didn’t Jesus write any books of the Bible?”

If we’re going to be pedantic, there’s an argument to be made that he did. The Bible refers to the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of Jesus”. It also tells us that same Spirit superintended the writing of the Bible. “Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” and “All scripture is breathed out by God”, literally in-Spirit-ed.

If we accept what the Bible says about the process by which it came into existence, then technically speaking Jesus didn’t just write one book of the Bible, he wrote them all.

Anonymous Asks (422)

“Where would you call ‘home’?”

Many of the Bible’s great men were strangers, living in places they didn’t truly belong.

Abraham is a fine example, among the earliest. God promised him the land in which he sojourned, but Abraham never possessed that territory during his own lifetime. He lived in tents among people he did not know and with whom he had little in common.

When his wife died, he described himself to the Hittites as a “sojourner and foreigner among you”. He had to solicit a place to bury his dear Sarah because he possessed no real estate of his own.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Anonymous Asks (416)

“What’s the difference between faith and belief?”

As far as the Bible is concerned, there is absolutely no difference between these two concepts. The same Greek word (pistis and members of its family) is translated both “faith” and “believe”. You may be surprised to find that the word “faith” does not appear in most English translations of John’s gospel. Yet he writes, “To all who did receive [the Word], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

That is unquestionably saving faith John is talking about, and he’s using the word “believed”. As far as salvation is concerned in scripture, the two words mean the same thing.

Anonymous Asks (415)

“What does it mean that Christ died for our sins ‘in accordance with the scriptures’?”

The phrase “in accordance with the scriptures” comes from two verses in 1 Corinthians, a letter Paul wrote to a church he established during his second missionary journey. The year was probably AD55, making it likely the fifth book of our New Testament chronologically. When he wrote it, the word “scriptures” meant what we now call the Old Testament, no more. None of the gospels existed, so Paul certainly didn’t mean them.

Later, “the scriptures” would come to include the four gospels, many of Paul’s letters and a number from other pillars of the early church, as it does today.

Anonymous Asks (414)

“Should Christians be tolerant of other people’s beliefs?”

Some questions have no easy answers, not because the Bible is unclear, but because we cannot be sure what is really at issue. Provided we are paying attention, answering today’s question requires asking several more:

• How do you define tolerance?
• Which beliefs?
• Under what circumstances?

If we cannot first answer these secondary questions, we will not be in any position to answer the primary question.

Anonymous Asks (413)

“How should Christians react to doomsday predictions?”

You know what’s worse than nuclear Armageddon, for me at least? The prospect of ending life in an old folks’ home while succumbing to Alzheimer’s just slowly enough that I occasionally notice my mind’s merciless and inexorable deterioration. Of the various fates that might turn me into a quivering bag of Jell-O if I allowed myself to indulge in hysterics, that’s the mother of them all. Loss of independence and autonomy are right up at the very top of my personal anti-bucket list. Any form of speedy, absolute obliteration I don’t see coming is vastly, vastly preferable.

Yeah, as I have said about a few of the questions we’ve handled here over the years, I might be the wrong guy to ask. I’m not exactly the median respondent in any survey you might conduct.

Anonymous Asks (412)

“I believe our pastor is trying to introduce teaching and practices inconsistent with our church’s statement of faith. Should I respond, and if so, how?”

It’s not at all uncommon for Christians to attend a church whose statement of faith they disagree with in small ways. I’ve yet to fellowship with any congregation that was monolithic in its faith and practice. Doctrinal differences are to be expected, and our Lord anticipated them in his letters to the seven churches in Revelation. To the church in Pergamum he twice says some among them held teachings contrary to the faith.

Quietly holding a doctrinal error is a problem, but not as big a problem as being in a position to teach it. Being in a position to teach it weekly is worst of all.

Anonymous Asks (411)

“I recently came to faith in Christ and am living with an unbeliever. What should I do?”

An excellent question. A couple that attends our church’s Sunday morning service recently answered it: they got married. The man, definitely saved and growing in Christ. The partner of many years, possible. She comes out to the meeting. She looks, listens and lingers, but no definitive evidence of regeneration. Maybe she will follow her new husband’s lead. Maybe she will decide to turn back to Sodom and end up the spiritual analog to Lot’s wife. Nobody knows.

Come now, smart guys (of whom I used to be one): Why is there no easy, black and white, definitive answer for couples with one partner on each side of the line between heaven and hell?

Anonymous Asks (410)

“What does God say about avoiding sin just because we are scared of the consequences? Is resisting temptation meaningless if fear is the only reason we are godly?”

Jesus taught that love is the best motive for obedience, though he wasn’t the first to do so. Even the Law of Moses has the correct motive built right into it. When asked about the most important commandment in the Law, Jesus quoted two commands to love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” and (in second place) “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Then he said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Love and avoiding sin go together better than chocolate and peanut butter.

Anonymous Asks (409)

“What is the great deception of the end times?”

The Bible portrays the final years of our present age as a period characterized by lies and deception, one in which truth will be very hard to find. Sometimes I wonder if we are getting close.

In Matthew 24, the disciples asked Jesus what signs will indicate the end of the age has come, and that the Lord Jesus is returning to earth as king. Among other things, he replied, “Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray”, including deceivers who claim to be the Christ. Paul would later write to Timothy, reminding him that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons. Numerous other passages say similar things.

Anonymous Asks (408)

“Why are missionaries obsessed with getting everybody else to go to the ends of the earth with the gospel?”

If you’ve never had a missionary to another country visit your local church while on furlough, let me tell you what to expect. You will not get a nice little forty-minute message from scripture. You will definitely not get deep exposition that will help you to grow in Christ. You’ll get a rousing, urgent call to join the missionary out in the world somewhere preaching the gospel to the lost.

If you’re like me, you’ll end the meeting feeling slightly guilty and a little annoyed. I guess I’m saying I can relate to this question, and maybe you can too.