Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places?

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“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,” (Ephesians 1:3, NASB)

Spiritual blessing in the heavenly places

When I read this verse, there is something that haunts me. Paul tells me that I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. The verb is past tense, so it has already happened. Why then do I often feel so unblessed?

It seems that if I were to appropriate this promise that my life would be lived differently. This is what haunts me.

The question then becomes, “what inhibits me from appropriating this promise?” The truthful answer is that I don’t really know what holds me back.

Perhaps it is because I am unable to imagine what “every spiritual blessing” looks like. It must be independent of my circumstances, but it doesn’t feel that way. Often my circumstances cause me to look to the heavens and ask “what happened?” This is in spite of the fact that I’ve had it easier in life than many. Yet, I struggle to look beyond the stuff that is in front of my and see beyond.

Perhaps it is because my understanding of God is too small. As a result, my trust is too small. If I really understood God and his expectations for me, I might live differently. I might be more inclined to act and less inclined to wait until the opportunity is passed.

I do not know whether to admire or pity those who seem so presumptuous in appropriating all the blessings in the Bible. Yet, when I read those promises, there is a nagging sense in the back of my mind that perhaps these who pursue with such reckless abandon are the ones who have it right after all.

Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places has been my blessing. Perhaps I will start living that way.

How about you?

Miles Stanford on Christian maturity

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Miles Stanford
Miles Stanford

“It is a mistake to measure spiritual maturity merely by the presence of gifts. By themselves they are an inadequate basis for a man’s lasting influence for God. They may be present and they may be valuable, but the Spirit’s object is something far greater – to form Christ in us through the working of the cross. His goal is to see Christ inwrought in believers. So it is not merely that man does certain things or speaks certain words, but that he is a certain kind of man. He himself is what he preaches. Too many want to preach without being the thing themselves, but in the long run it is what we are, and not simply what we do or say, that matters with God, and the difference lies in the formation of Christ within.”

– Miles Stanford

That pesky sense of oughtness

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Science has done an admirable job of exploring and describing the processes and functions of the things I see around me. I am not an astrophysicist but because of advances in science, it is possible for me to know more about the composition and operation of stars than the best scientist of several hundred years ago. We have made tremendous progress in our understanding of the physical universe.

Is and oughtSimilarly, we have also progressed in our understanding of the human body. Medical science has improved our quality and length of life. For advances in medicine I am grateful.

Yet what science does not do very well is tell us what ought to be and why. So many of the people I meet and talk with express disappointment with the way things are. We are not satisfied with who we are and what we have. There is often a sense that something is missing or that something is wrong with the world. They express a sense that the world ought to be different than it is.

If the material world is all that there is, where does this sense of oughtness come from? If our life is determined by our genetics, why do we strive to be something different? Where do we get a sense of beauty? If everything we see is the product of chance, why would a mountain be considered majestic or a sunset considered sublime? Why should loving my neighbor be better than hurting him? If survival of the fittest is the rule by which we live, why should I care about posterity or the environment? On what basis should I value tolerance of others if I make my own rules or if my life is determined by my DNA?

I cannot find adequate answers to these questions from within the materialist viewpoint. But I have yet to find a person who does not have some sense of oughtness. What is the source of a longing for something better?

I believe it was C. S. Lewis who first pointed out to me that not only does man not live up to God’s standard, he does not even live up to his own. Most men would acknowledge that lying is wrong, but the honest ones will tell you that they have uttered falsehoods. Most men would say that it is wrong to steal but would then turn around and admit that at one time or another they have taken something that does not rightfully belong to them.

What becomes apparent is that those who proclaim morality as being fluid and relative are selective in which morals they treat this way. I assume that those who take this philosophical position will call the police if they are being robbed. How is it that those who say there should be no constraints on expression of sexuality get upset when their partner “cheats” on them?

That pesky sense of oughtness seems to keep creeping in, even in those who say it doesn’t exist. This is the dilemma of the materialist. It is this sense of right and wrong that has caused many to explore the claims of Jesus Christ.

Jesus did, after all, claim to be The Truth (John 14:6).

Does the church bring freedom or coercion?

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Freedom or Coercion?A common perception of Christians is that we are a bunch of people who want to impose our form of Sharia law on the rest of the world. In other words, we are viewed as people who use coercion to get people to conform to a set of laws to which they would rather not be bound.

Yet what I find in Scripture should cause the Church to be perceived as a group of people who strive for freedom in response to the spiritual freedom that the Gospel has brought into our lives. Consider the following:

  • Jesus came to provide freedom – In Luke 4:16-21, Jesus reads Isaiah 61:1 in the synagogue and applies that Scripture to himself as one who brings release to the captives and freedom to those who are oppressed.
  • In Galatians 5:1, Paul reiterates Jesus’ claim that the gospel sets us free.
  • The History of the last 2,000 years supports the idea that Jesus Christ brings freedom. The countries in the world where freedom is currently experienced can tie that freedom to a Christian heritage.

We do have to admit that the Church has not had a perfect record in the area of coercion. My own experience lends support to the idea that the church can be coercive in her tactics. This is a point that the church needs to face up to and change.

In too many congregations, there is pressure to conform to a standard of behavior. In some cases the coercion is overtly proclaimed from the pulpit, in other cases the pressure is more subtle. When someone does not live up to the standard of behavior he is either directly chastised or the subject of gossip.

When I read the Gospels, I see no coercive tactics used by Jesus. Jesus told people where they went wrong, using the law as his guide, but loved them through the entire process. In reading the story of the woman at the well in John 4, it is difficult to imagine that the woman felt shamed or coerced. One gets the sense that she already felt ashamed and Jesus offered her love, hope and a way out of her bondage.

What can the Church do in response?

  1. Live out the claims of the Gospel – demonstrate by changed lives that the Gospel is indeed true. We need to allow God to “will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Phil 2:13)
  2. If we are yielded to God we can then love like Jesus loved – those outside the church community must feel our love before they will be willing to hear our message. In reading the accounts in the Gospels where people came to faith in Jesus, it is obvious to me that they felt Jesus’ love and were drawn to him by that love.

We do not need to impose any standard of behavior on the world around us. Paul wrote his letters to communities where moral decay and depravity were rampant, and I find no hint of an assertion that the church should work for a legislative response to that decay.

Coercive tactics should find no place in the church. We are called to speak the truth in love (Eph 4;15), not bully people into conformity.

God does not like bullies any more than we do.

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