A Study in Contrasts

“There is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”

If the COVID era had a defining passage, surely it was Romans 13. To say that large numbers of Christians employed verses 1-7 to justify passivity under pressure of government mandates and/or fear of negative opinions from our neighbors, families and friends is no exaggeration. While no small number of believers balked at the extended closure of church buildings and seemingly arbitrary health-related rules of conduct enforced on us, others simply submitted to any and all restrictions, no matter how bizarre or ineffective, as “God’s will”.

Romans 13 was their evidence. “Rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.” Of course, they were also letting our rulers define “good” and “bad” for us.

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“What does an eagle signify in the Bible?”

Birds of prey are majestic, beautiful, horrible creatures. If you’ve ever watched a winged predator drop out of the sky to pluck a smaller bird out of the air then calmly shred its screaming victim to pieces, all the while brazenly meeting the gaze of horrified onlookers through the glass pane of a full length 21st storey office window, you will know exactly what I mean. You may taste your own lunch a second time.

Eagles soar with mesmerizing elegance, then eviscerate mercilessly in a matter of seconds. You do not mess with such creatures.

Making Connections

For all the good they do, the English Bible’s chapter divisions often break up the text in ways that don’t much help the interpreter in his task. One of the things I have learned to do over time is to back up from the first verse of the chapter I am trying to understand to the beginning of the “scene” in which it takes place, which may be a chapter or more earlier. Then I continue from the end of the passage to the end of the “scene”.

Sometimes these fall on chapter divisions, and that’s great. Often they don’t.

119: Sin and Shin

The penultimate letter of the Hebrew alphabet has two different names, though it’s technically the same letter. Jews pronounce it Shin [שׁ] when it has a dot over the right side, symbolizing kindness, and Sin [שׂ] when it has a dot over the left, symbolizing judgment or severity. Its three vertical lines (or fiery branches, depending on the font you read it in) denote will, intellect and emotions, although a host of more obscure ideas are also associated with the letter. (The tefillin sports a rare four-branched version of shin.) Shin’s numeric value is 300. Written in full, the five letters of Elohim (aleph-lamedh-he-yodh-mem) also total 300.

Make of that what you will. I’m not sure I can do a lot with it. As with much Hebrew symbolism and numerology, I just file it under “interesting” and move on.

Too Hot to Handle: See You in Court, Brother

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

Wow. Christians going to court with one another.

You’d think this issue would be put to bed speedily by even the most cursory glance at Matthew 5:25-26 or 1 Corinthians 6:1-8. But no, believers are keeping their lawyers on speed-dial in significant numbers. It used to be the primary reason was child abuse, but last year it was something new: property rights.

Tom: Here I thought we’d all be meeting in cell groups in homes sooner than later as a result of lawfare trial balloons from the transgender, feminist or gay lobbies. But no, this is even stranger: we’re doing it to ourselves, Immanuel Can; not just as individuals, but whole congregations. And most of it involves issues related to church buildings.

Just Church (17)

We’re continuing our exploration of what Social Justice ideology does to the church. We began by looking at the scriptural pattern for fellowship, a higher vision for the church. We’ve now shifted to looking at the counter-offer, the kind of dynamic Social Justice produces.

It’s not a pretty picture. Instead of the “fruit of the Spirit” (love, joy, peace, self-control and such), we find that Social Justice thinking opens up a Pandora’s Box of nasty character qualities that issue in a suspicious, mutually-hostile and unloving environment. When we last left off, we’d just introduced the realization that advancing this program inevitably means resorting to the use of some sort of compulsion or force. Let’s build on that.

The Building Blocks of Reality

The Old Testament is full of hints, winks and nudges. Or so it seems to me.

For example, I cannot read Abraham’s words to Isaac, “God will provide for himself the lamb,” without marveling at the subtlety of the wording. It works as a double entendre in either Hebrew or English. Was Abraham a straight man or a prophet? I can’t tell you, but I love that line. From thousands of years down the road we look back and say, “He certainly did.”

That’s not a comment on our cleverness, of course.

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Assurance of salvation and eternal security are not identical concepts. The former describes my level of confidence in my relationship with God, while the latter refers to what God has actually done, whether I fully understand it and benefit from that knowledge or whether I quiver in terror of eternal damnation every time I catch myself sinning yet again.

Which I will, and so will you. One may feel confidence with no scriptural basis. One may also feel fear for which there is no biblical reason.

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“How do you feel about prayer in public schools?”

My family returned to Canada from overseas when I was due to enter grade 4, resulting in the school system bumping me into grade 5 a year early. Awkward and shy, I pretty much accepted everything the way it came, at least initially. Each morning at school started the same way: with the day’s announcements, preceded by rising for the national anthem and a rote recitation of the “Lord’s prayer”.

How did I feel about it?

Emotions and Emoting

The verb “to emote” derives from “emotion”, but with a slight change in emphasis. Merriam-Webster says it means “to express emotion,” then adds “in a very dramatic or obvious way”.

That gets to the root of it. Emotions are spontaneous. Emoting is calculated. Emotions are genuine. Displaying them for others may easily become just a pose.

We’ve all seen actors or singers apparently in the grip of deep feelings of angst, joy or sorrow. A moment’s consideration reminds us they are only doing a job. The singer has probably performed this tune hundreds of times. It is impossible she’s feeling the lyrics the way she appears to be, as she might have the first time she sang them. She’s selling the song for the benefit of her audience, and may feel nothing at all.

119: Resh

The Hebrew letter Resh [ר] signifies poverty or need. Scholars say it looks like a man bent over. It’s appropriate, then, that in these eight verses the psalmist most acutely expresses his awareness of his need and inability to help himself. If you are keeping track, he asks for help in seven different ways.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” said the Lord Jesus, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Significantly, resh (spiritually impoverished) transforms into rosh (head or leader) by swapping out a single vowel. There are no vowels written in the Torah, so this ambiguity is part of the package. The last shall be first.

Too Hot to Handle: ‘Apostles’ and ‘Prophets’

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

Everybody’s looking for greater certainty these days it seems, even Christians. Our own Immanuel Can has written at length about how the resurgence of Calvinism is evidence of it, and I’ve recently done some reflecting on how Christians often speak about the “call of God” to bolster their confidence in what in most cases are just their own decisions.

Tom: This, though, might take the cake, IC. A new and rapidly-growing charismatic movement mostly off the radar of other Protestants. Independent Network Charismatics (or “INC Christians”) find their certainty in alleged “prophetic” voices and the pronouncements of “super-apostles”.

It’s big-bucks too. Christianity Today notes that the Asuza Now conference in the LA Coliseum drew 50,000 people in the rain, and almost nobody knew about it outside the INC movement.

How’d you like to have the apostles and prophets back, IC?

Just Church (16)

When we left off last week, I was laying out for you the plan for fellowship that we find in the Bible. Our purpose was to get a clear sense of what God is aiming at in creating the church, and how we are to respond to that vision. A key element of this was the Christian response to guilt. We noted that Christians are uniquely vulnerable to the recognition of sin in human nature, including their own, but they aren’t to wallow in misery and self-abasement as a result, but rather to use their realization of their own fallibility as an incentive for humility, obedience, compassion, restoration, gratitude and new unity — a “repentance without regret”, remember?

Chapter 5: A Higher Vision (continued)

A Healthy Reminder

Am I only telling you what you already know? Surely you’ve read these passages, no? But it’s still good for us to remind ourselves of who we are and what we’re aiming for, because we can forget; especially since the world is so busy trying to produce its own kind of unity, but without Christ. The calls for unity from the world cannot fail to penetrate the ears of the church; and if we are going to be fortified against those false doctrines, as Paul hoped, then we are going to have to keep the biblical pattern before us with perfect clarity. As we wade into some of the more sordid details of the world’s errors and illusions (as we shall do later in this chapter), it is going to prove positive, encouraging and healthy for us to take a firm mental grip on God’s pattern for unity.

The contrasts will prove stark.

On Millennial Lifespans

Back in November of last year, our own Immanuel Can recommended a relatively short study guide from Regular Baptist Press entitled Why Dispensationalism Matters. The guide is based on a commentary by George Gunn and edited by Alex Bauman, and I’ve been working my own way through it during the last week in between trips outside to shovel the most recent 3-4 inches of snow piling up around my car.

Having just finished it, let me add my recommendation to IC’s.

Into the Wood Chipper

Christianity Today’s Emily Belz worries, “Is This the End of USAID?”, before launching into a list of all the wonderful things the biggest humanitarian agency in the world does for the poor, sick and uneducated in the Third World. Her article’s title is a reference to Elon Musk’s remarks that certain government organizations would probably be going “into the wood chipper”, USAID among them. Belz quotes a former USAID employee who says, “Pray for what’s happening. People are dying every day because of this.”

Perhaps. It will take a little time and investigation to determine that. At this stage, it’s worth the risk to do the due diligence.

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“Was Jesus a pacifist?”

As defined by Merriam-Webster, pacifism is “opposition to war and violence as a means of resolving disputes”, often manifesting in a refusal to participate in military action. Extreme pacifists even exclude self-defense as an option when under attack.

Ready for one of my infamous yes-and-no answers? Okay, here we go …

Five Ways We Deceive Ourselves

Self-deception may be the worst kind of deception there is.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of ways to be deceived, and all can result in grievous errors and long-term consequences that cannot be undone. The lies of a family member, partner or close friend can be exceedingly painful to discover. The lies of religious leaders or respected teachers can be devastating to one’s faith and deeply discouraging to deal with.

No, it’s not the degree of pain it causes that makes self-deception so awful, it’s the difficulty we have exposing it.

119: Qoph

Hebrew sources say the letter Qoph [ק] represents the number 100, the eye of a needle, the back of the head, and possibly … a monkey.

Yes, you read that correctly. Monkeys are not native to Israel or any of its neighbors and scripture mentions them nary a single time. Why ancient Hebrew even had a word for monkey is a bit of a mystery probably related to the commonalities between Hebrew and other Semitic languages (or possibly related to historians and linguists thinking they know more than they actually know about ancient languages).

Either way, I think we can safely say we will not find monkeys in Psalm 119 no matter how long and hard we stare at it.

Too Hot to Handle: Bad Reasons to be Nondenominational

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

Christianity Today reports that about one in six Christians now refer to themselves as “nondenominational”, which is about double the number who did so as recently as the turn of the century.

Tom: Gallup says:

“Increasingly, Christian Americans … prefer to either identify themselves simply as Christians or attend the increasing number of nondenominational churches that have no formal allegiance to a broader religious structure.”

What do you think about that, IC? It’s not all good news, is it?

Immanuel Can: No, probably not. Some of it is.

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Chapter 5: A Higher Vision

“… we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of people, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, that is, Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”

Ephesians gives us a picture of a congregation unified by a single reality: the dynamic attachment of the entire body to Christ, who is the Head of the Church, through whom life flows to the Body. All members “abide” in the same “Vine”, in constant connection with him; and for that reason, all in connection with each other, too. As you can see, all are growing, becoming mature, walking in the truth, using their gifts and helping one another. This also fortifies them against all winds of bad doctrine, so their unity is not only dynamic but durable as well. This is church unity as God intended it to be.