Misconceptions About Christian Forgiveness

From Psychology Today, on the subject of forgiveness:

“Most psychologists recommend mustering up genuine compassion for those who have wronged us and moving on from the past, instead of allowing bitterness and anger toward others to eat away at us.”

Read that quote carefully and consider: is that the way you think about forgiveness? Would you conclude forgiveness is complete when the person who has been wronged is finally able to feel the prescribed emotions about their victimizer?

If so, what happens if despite best efforts you are unable to “muster up” the appropriate emotions? What if your feelings absolutely refuse to play along?

How Not to Crash and Burn (23)

“Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!”

They say there is no free lunch, but Wisdom and Folly are out advertising one. Their message is delivered in the same venues: the highest places of the town, where everybody can hear them and see the long-term results of responding to one or the other. They have the same ad campaign, and they target the same hungry demographic. They reach out to those in need of a set of principles by which they can order their lives. Both metaphorical “women” offer to meet that very common need, but only one can really do so, for reasons that will shortly become evident.

Solomon contrasts living wisely and living foolishly.

Too Hot to Handle: The New Atheists are Scared (or Angry)

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Untwisting God’s Words

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Forgiveness: This Age or the Age to Come?

“And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

Whew. Okay. I’m not going to talk about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit today. I have something else in mind entirely.

So here goes. There are two spheres in which God’s forgiveness operates: “this age” and the “age to come”. That’s a pretty important distinction for you and me to be able to make when we read our New Testaments, otherwise very likely we’re going to be doing a fair bit of squirming about our own personal situations.

Anonymous Asks (3)

“Is feeling same-sex attraction a sin? Is it even a choice?”

This is a highly relevant pair of questions. The Left, which includes most of our media, celebrates and unrelentingly promotes homosexuality. To the first question, most would answer, “Of course not!” This is primarily because they do not believe in sin in the first place, and those who do believe in it insist that intolerance is the worst sin of all. Homosexual attraction doesn’t even rate a mention on their list.

As to the second question, the Left, popular culture and the media offer us no consistent answer. Though many argue for the existence of a “gay gene” (for which solid evidence has yet to be produced but is felt to exist somewhere), others insist that at least for some, sexuality is fluid, and their choice in that area is a basic human right.

Apocrypha-lypso (7)

Even if you have grown up with email rather than snail mail as your primary means of personal communication, you are probably aware some bits of correspondence have more value than others.

The criteria change depending on your current needs. When you are feeling lonely, a love letter from your spouse probably means more to you than an old “Honey-Do” list. On a cold February night at 3 a.m., instructions about how to restart your silent furnace mean more than a list of upcoming summer concerts.

All these bits of correspondence may be equally factual. Accuracy is not the issue. The question is whether or not they contain something that really matters, and that matters to you.

Conditional Forgiveness in Matthew

Can we be saved if we refuse to forgive someone? Rose says:

“No, we cannot. The Bible tells us that unless we forgive, including ourselves, we cannot be forgiven in the Kingdom of Heaven, through Our Heavenly Father.

Forgiving is not to condone someone who has wronged us, but for our own salvation, so that we may be forgiven, saved.”

Now, this is certainly a response we might expect to hear from a young Christian (the “including ourselves” is a bit of a giveaway; our alleged moral obligation to forgive ourselves is a relatively recent fiction), but it’s not really the sort of answer you’d expect to find in an evangelical Bible commentary.

How Not to Crash and Burn (22)

The book of Proverbs was written almost three thousand years ago and preserves truth gathered well prior to that. It is genuinely ancient, and comes out of a cultural setting (or really, cultural settings, plural) with which we can only pretend to be even slightly familiar.

Thus, even if we study and research until the cows come home, we should not be the least bit surprised to find that there are occasional words and phrases in Proverbs that we just can’t parse properly. We can make educated guesses. We can eliminate ridiculous suggestions (of which there are more than a few). But in some cases we will have to content ourselves with being less than 100% sure what a particular word, phrase or sentence really means.

Too Hot to Handle: Facts and Opinions

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Failure to Launch

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Novelty for Novelty’s Sake

Everybody loves novelty — even Christians. Not infrequently, to almost everyone’s regret, Bible teachers feel compelled to give it to them. Nothing gets the attention of a jaded or even a mature audience like a new twist on an old theme, or flipping a well-known phrase so that it jars the ears.

Have you heard about the “Prodigal Father”? No prizes for correctly guessing which parable of Christ is getting a pair of truly original online treatments this time.

Yep, you nailed it.

Anonymous Asks (2)

“If your father tells you to kill someone and you say ‘no’, would that be considered a sin?”

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: It might be useful to consider some of the things the Bible says about authorities and how Christians are to respond to them. There are things your father could demand of you that are less obviously evil than murder. It might be interesting and instructive to consider an order from Dad like “You can’t date THAT girl!” or “We had you baptized as an infant. Don’t you DARE think about getting baptized again!”

Sound like fun?

Apocrypha-lypso (6)

The Old Testament is home to more than a few really long books.

Jeremiah (33,000+ words), Genesis, Psalms and Ezekiel stand out from the crowd. Exodus, Isaiah and Numbers form a second tier. At just shy of 20,000 words, Luke is the longest NT book, well down the list. And as far as apocryphal writings go, Ecclesiasticus weighs in at a staggering 26,741 words, longer than all but five canonical books.

“When words are many, transgression is not lacking,” wrote King Solomon. We rightly make an exception to that rule when we know a writer was carried along by the Holy Spirit.

The question is, was Joshua ben Sira “carried along”, or was he just unusually verbose?

Non-Negotiable Nomenclature

Jesus can be referred to many different ways.

It started before he was born. For example, one well-known prophet said, “call his name Immanuel.” During his ministry some called him Rabbi, as Jewish teachers were often known. Later, the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ?” As for his disciples, both before and after his resurrection they referred to him almost exclusively as Lord.

The list of his names and titles is lengthy and something significant would surely be lost if we dismissed even the least of them. That said, there are three without which we cannot possibly preach a complete gospel or maintain a balanced, accurate perspective on Jesus.

You might call them non-negotiable nomenclature.

How Not to Crash and Burn (21)

I will say this, and I will say it again: there is no substitute for the prayerful, meditative, daily reading of scripture. None. You cannot be the functioning, useful, growing, joyful, discerning Christian that God means you to be without it.

Sure, in every generation there are plenty of Christians around the world who can’t read, and there have been plenty throughout history who have had much smaller portions of God’s word to mull over and put into practice than are available to us today. But none of that matters to you or me, does it, because we CAN read.

And of everyone to whom much is given, much will be required. That’s our problem in a nutshell.

Too Hot to Handle: Story Time with Harmonica

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Saints and Ain’ts

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Anonymous Asks (1)

“The Old Testament is full of stuff that causes controversies and makes people who agree with it look bad: slavery, plagues, genocides ... an angry God. We’re Christians. We worship Jesus. Why not get rid of those books and concentrate on the New Testament?”

— Anonymous

Excellent question, touching on issues many struggle with. But as difficult as the Old Testament may be for some, there are at least three compelling reasons we can’t afford to overlook it, minimize it or reject it outright.

What Does Your Proof Text Prove? (10)

Disagreeing with other Christians online is a bit like pulling off a Band-Aid® stuck to the hairiest part of your arm.

There is what I call the “Big BUT” disagreement. This kind starts slowly, with a spate of complimentary disclaimers — “Now, I love this Bible teacher, he’s a great guy and I admire him immensely” — and always ends with a great big “BUT ...”

Or there’s the exquisitely self-effacing “We’re All Just Learning Here” disagreement, which makes every biblical issue a matter of opinion and gives you a convenient way of escaping with a few shreds of dignity intact if it turns out everyone thinks its your interpretation that’s out to lunch.