Not So Irrelevant

The subject of the first few chapters of 1 Corinthians is Paul’s concern about divisions in the church. It takes him only nine verses of introduction to jump right into it, and because it is the first of many different church-related exhortations in his letter, we may reasonably infer that the apostle viewed the matter as very significant.

The fact that the churches down through the centuries have pretty much entirely failed to process the lesson he was teaching and put it into practice in no way diminishes the importance of what Paul said or the clarity and intensity with which he wrote about it. Expressing the unity of the body of Christ in every possible way on every possible occasion is a mark of mature Christian faith. More, please!

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (21)

You will not find the expression “day of the Lord” in the Old Testament prior to the books of the prophets. Joel turns the phrase more frequently than anyone else, but Isaiah also uses it, as do Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Malachi and, of course, the prophet we are currently studying, where it appears exactly once, introducing the final chapter.

Naturally, that’s not all the Bible has to say about the day of the Lord. Not by a long shot.

Too Hot to Handle: Evolving Christianity

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

Billions of blue, blistering barnacles ...

Erik Jones asks the question “Was Christianity Designed to Evolve?”

Tom: Now, Jones is Church of God, the Sabbath-keeping sect out of Texas that originated with Herbert Armstrong, so we’re certainly not going to find ourselves in agreement with their particular emphasis on law-keeping and Jewish holy days, a hint of which bleeds into Jones’ article.

We will also be unsurprised to find Jones’ answer to his own question is a resounding ‘No’.

Three Reasons to Get Going

“Jesus said … ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’.”

Ah, these little sayings that sometimes escape our notice.

I don’t know about you, but I always find it very exciting, and yet also not a little embarrassing, when I come to realize a verse I’ve known all my life has waaaay more to it than I ever realized.

This is one of those verses. Let’s break it down.

Idealism and Realism

A couple of blog posts and a recent sermon have me thinking again about the idea of perfection in the Christian life.

Sinless perfectionism is a minor heresy in the Christian community — not minor in the sense that it is an unimportant error, but minor in the sense that far too many of us can see the inherent impossibility of such a pursuit to be deceived into believing Christ-like impeccability can be attained in this life. Accordingly, the doctrine’s ardent proselytizers are few.

If you go around asking “Which one of you convicts me of sin?” long enough, somebody is bound to step up.

Faith Lost Pointlessly

It always saddens me to hear stories of young men and women from Christian homes who have gone off to university and purportedly “lost their faith”. The all-too-common phenomenon strongly suggests two things: (1) it wasn’t much of a faith; and (2) the students who truly abandoned the faith over intellectual difficulties placed more trust and confidence in their secular professors, textbooks and the mythical gods of Science and History than in the Bibles they had been reading their entire lives.

We can’t do much about the first problem.

Anonymous Asks (305)

“Does the Bible predict an EMP attack?”

Early on a Friday in mid-April this year, Israel allegedly attempted a missile strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. News services documented multiple explosions, and some reported a successful strike. The Iranians claimed their high tech air defenses had done the job for which they were designed, and that whatever the Israelis had launched in their direction had been summarily shot down. End of story, for now at least.

The comparatively small scale of the attack prompted internet speculation about an EMP.

Flirting or Fleeing

Blog & Mablog is currently playing host to a back and forth on the subject of concupiscence, commonly known as illicit desire, the occupation with that which is intrinsically sinful. I link only to the most recent two instalments, which are beginning to skew a tad too technical for me. When a debate veers into Reformed tradition, “internal” and “external” temptation, sin vs. sinfulness, justification, sanctification, Augustine, John Owen and Ed Shaw’s book on same-sex attraction (reviewed here), Christians with little interest in theological minutiae eventually glaze over.

I plead guilty to being among them.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (20)

In chapter 11, Zechariah is either living out an object lesson in real time or else telling a parable in which he is a character. By no means is his illustration a simple, obvious analogy, and commentators are all over the place in trying to parse out its intended meaning. The parable concerns two shepherds and a flock doomed to slaughter, and it’s chock full of symbols, familiar and unfamiliar. If we can’t unpack it to everyone’s satisfaction, at least we can make a few sensible suggestions consistent with other prophetic scriptures, and eliminate the more absurd possibilities sometimes offered.

The parable spans Israel’s history, starting in the distant past and ending in the future.

Too Hot to Handle: Rules of Combat

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

Okay, I’ve got one for you, Tom.

I was having a discussion with a Christian academic over Calvinism. He leans toward it, though in a rather unorthodox way, and I … don’t. Here’s his perspective on the fact that doctrinal disagreements exist:

“I’ve been blessed by teaching and worshiping in schools and churches which take no stand on the [controversial] divide, all my life. I have become convinced that agreement on this will never be reached. As a Calvinist, I posit that this is the way God wants it. It is apparently best for the church and the world that there be both [sides], but that we find ways to love one another and to work together, without suppressing our different biblical understandings.”

Immanuel Can: Is it like that, Tom? Is an I’m-okay-you’re-okay attitude the way to deal with major doctrinal controversies in the local church?

Inbox: Was Christ Actually ‘Good’?

I’m going to share with you a short exchange I had with a couple of philosophers, because it was interesting to me, and helped me think through a few things more carefully. The issue it raises might be something you’ve thought about as well.

A short aside: for the most part, I have reproduced my partners’ conversation mostly verbatim. I’ve only altered a couple of punctuation glitches, and made a couple of small line changes in my response. I’ve also inserted a few lines after-the-fact to help you track and to make it work as an article. But the substance is pretty much exactly as it really happened.

What Does Your Proof Text Prove? (30)

Refunds generated by charitable donations documented on tax returns have always been a source of disagreement between believers. The churches I attended growing up were so determined to do their giving on the sly that they practiced something informally referred to as the “brethren handshake”, in which a little envelope full of cash was passed from hand to hand under cover of the traditional greeting.

It wasn’t as hard to detect as they thought, but you have to give them points for trying.

Law and Perfection

Would you like to live under the Law of Moses? Think about that for a while. A surprising number today would not. Some may even be Christians.

I have great admiration for the Old Testament law, more and more so as the years pass and the defects in the ever-changing modern legal systems under which we live in the West become increasingly apparent. Compared to the long-term effects of any modern or historic system, God’s law always comes out ahead.

Anonymous Asks (304)

“Are some words better than others when describing people who are not Christians?

I recently had a fellow believer give me a thirty-second lecture about my use of the word “unsaved”. He was technically correct in the sense that, of all the English translations currently available, that word appears only in The Amplified Bible. To the extent that I was using an extra-biblical term, he had a point, though I’m not sure his preference was better in all contexts.

But some words are indeed better than others. Let us consider …

Higher Learning

I drove past a local college campus the other day. Out of the blue, the thought hit me that I’m at a point in my life where I will never be obliged to walk the halls of an institution of higher learning again. I was hit with a wave of relief. That was an excellent feeling.

It’s not that I dislike the learning process. Not at all. I’m constantly seeking out information about this, that and the other. I just never liked doing it in a classroom.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (19)

Israel has a problem today, and it’s not a new one. It’s a leadership problem.

I’m not talking about Mr. Netanyahu specifically, though there are many who object to his policies and those of all his predecessors going back to David Ben-Gurion in 1949, when Israel became a nation again for the first time in 1900 years. All politicians take a certain amount of flak from the critics. That’s normal. Some are objectively better than others, but all have their limitations.

Too Hot to Handle: Get Happy

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

Shocked at the plethora of mental health issues she discovered among her students while eating with them daily, Yale University professor Laurie Santos developed a popular new course about the nature of happiness which Yale now offers free online.

Tom: Santos says it’s not bigger houses or better spouses that make human beings happy. It’s little things like “making a social connection, or taking time for gratitude, or taking time to be in the present moment”. What do you think, IC: might she be on to something there?

Inbox: What’s Right with It?

In response to an earlier post on Christian moral issues in our weekly Too Hot to Handle post, David B. writes:

“I am always reminded of a question from a youth group speaker of years gone by when he said, ‘The question you should be asking isn’t what’s wrong with it, as in how close to the edge can I get, but what’s right with it and does it bring me closer to the Lord.’

Do you feel that’s a fair question, or does it just set you up for someone to say, ‘Well, you could make that argument about anything you choose to do or not’?”

Hmmm. A very good question, Dave.

That Wacky Old Testament (16)

Fewer Western women today are interested in marriage than ever before.

Becoming sexually active between the ages of 15 and 19 is considered “normative”. One UK study fixed the “ideal” number of sexual partners for a woman to have before “settling down” at twelve, usually through high school, university and the early career years. By age 30 or so, many women have lived through enough bad relationships to sour on the idea of long-term commitment. Even among those who still want to be married, few have cultivated the habits of faithfulness necessary for marital success. Many prize autonomy above almost all else.

Among millennial women, interest in marriage is the lowest ever measured.

Deconstructing Romans 9

A recent letter to another Christian blog writer referenced this bleak little video, in which a young woman who formerly professed faith in Christ shares with her audience why she no longer calls herself a believer. In her video, she quotes and attempts to dissect five passages of scripture that she says “caused me to lose my faith”.

“Losing her faith” also inspired her to start her own YouTube channel debunking it, which currently has 76 videos mostly devoted to “deconstructing” scripture. Jezebel Vibes has over 54,000 subscribers. Naturally, this self-styled “Jezebel” has monetized her apostasy. Viewers are invited to buy one of her deconstructionist T-shirts to share their non-faith with the world.

Hey, it’s YouTube. Why wouldn’t you?