Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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Simple pleasures are a gift – consider the source

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Steaming Cup of TeaIt is Saturday morning and I woke up much later than usual. My waking was a result of our puppy reminding me that she cannot open her crate door and put herself outside. These tasks accomplished, I went to the kitchen to boil water for a cup of tea and a bowl of instant oatmeal. My sleep pattern was disrupted this week by a medical emergency in the family (which is resolving nicely) so the cobwebs in my brain were thicker than usual.

In my fog and stupor, as I poured the water over the tea leaves and oatmeal, the combined aromas provided a pleasurable moment. The smell of the white tea and maple brown sugar oatmeal was delightful. I am often moving too quickly to find enjoyment in such simple things, shame on me for this. I must be more observant moving forward.

As I experienced the aromas, I recognized that the aromas and my ability to enjoy them are both gifts from God. I read James 1:17 recently which says, “every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”

I assume that those who claim there is no God would explain about how our DNA has evolved so that we associate smells with food which gives us sustenance so that we can keep our biological machine running. I am sure that research has been done on which part of the brain is stimulated by food smells and what chemicals the stimuli release into my body to trigger the enjoyment response. The biochemical process of enjoyment can be explained but does the understanding of the chemical and biological processes adequately answer the question “why?”

I assume that those who claim there is no God would think that my enjoyment of the aroma could be explained as nothing more than a programmed response to these stimuli. The question I ask is “who did the programming?” Is it just chance that we find enjoyment in the small things in life? Is my pleasure only a mechanical reaction to a mechanical process?

Or, could the enjoyment of aromas and other simple pleasures be clues that God provides to remind us of his existence and his goodness? Is this enjoyment a gift? I choose to believe it is.

The Light that can be found – reflections on a lyric by 3 Doors Down

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3 Doors Down Logo

The song “When I’m Gone” by 3 Doors Down begins this way:

There’s another world inside of me
That you may never see
There’re secrets in this life
That I can’t hide
Somewhere in this darkness
There’s a light that I can’t find
Maybe it’s too far away…
Or maybe I’m just blind…

What struck me about this lyric is the comparison with light and darkness. The Bible uses this same image in describing the light of the Gospel (Gospel means “good news”) shining in the darkness of the world. In Matthew 4:16 it says, “The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great Light, And those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, Upon them a Light dawned.”

There are two problems identified which cause someone to not see the light. The first is blindness: “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:5). This is the starting point for all of humanity. We are all born in spiritual darkness. God shines the light of his love into that darkness and we have to choose our response to it. The difference between believers and unbelievers is that believers choose to respond to the light of the Gospel.

The second problem is willful blindness: “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). Some choose to reject Jesus Christ and remain in darkness. Often this rejection is in reaction to the behavior of some who claim to follow Jesus. I empathize with this reaction and would like to offer a response.

Even though believers have responded to the Light, Scripture teaches us that until death or rapture some of the darkness remains in us and we say and do things that are wrong. True believers do not think themselves better than unbelievers. Even the Apostle Paul, the writer of much of the New Testament, struggled with this. He writes, “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want” (Romans 7:19).

The only difference is that believers have accepted the love and grace of Jesus Christ. If we are changed, it is a result of that love and grace changing us; we can claim no credit. While our motives may be improved sometimes our results are not. Some of the cruelest things ever said to me were said by believers. That is the icky truth.

My point is that believers still hurt people, say stupid things, struggle with addictions, act in selfishness and generally struggle with the same stuff the rest of humanity struggles with. This does not make the Gospel less true.

The fact that we are changed at all is testimony to the power of the Gospel.

If you are an unbeliever, I would ask you to consider Jesus based on what He said and did. He is the truth and the light. We believers are sometimes good reflectors and sometimes poor reflectors of his light. Please do not reject Christ because of our poor reflection of him.

I can tell you that life with Jesus, in spite of our failures, is good. Paul follows his lament about his own struggles with this statement, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

No condemnation, peace, forgiveness. Life is good (not perfect) in the light. Please join us. The Light wants to be found and is always available.

The scandal among us – Thoughts on Matthew 1

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Broken HearIt reads like a boring genealogy, a long list of begats. Yet in the opening verses of his Gospel, Matthew is presenting the fact that there is scandal in the line of the Messiah.

I find it interesting that Matthew not only mentions four women in the genealogy (strange in a male dominated culture), he mentions four women with sordid backgrounds. Two were gentiles. One was a prostitute. One posed as a prostitute to seduce her father-in-law. One seduced or was seduced by the King while she was married to another. Four scandalous women were used by God to continue the line from Abraham to Joseph, Jesus’ legal father.

In this genealogy, God, through the pen of Matthew, is reminding us that he takes broken people and uses them to accomplish his will. This is consistent with the character of God as revealed in Jesus.

The story of the woman at the well in John 4 is another illustration. Jesus, knowing the woman’s turmoil and need for inner peace, turns the conversation away from physical thirst to spiritual hunger. He also identifies himself as the means of bringing that inner peace. He does not condemn her for her futile attempts at satisfying the hunger through illicit sexual encounters. Instead, he offers her something so much better. Jesus offers himself as the satisfaction for her longing.

How does this apply to us in 2012?

With the rejection of the Biblical moral code, many in society have accepted and practiced behaviors which are contrary to God’s design. As a result, they come to the church (if they come at all) broken and in need of love and acceptance. Yet often the organization that is supposed to be the Body of Christ fails to accept people where they are. We, who claim to speak for Jesus, sometimes act in ways that Jesus would not approve.

God ordained these women to be in the line of the Messiah as a reminder to us that He uses unlikely people to accomplish his will. He uses people like us. We were all outsiders looking in at some point in our lives. We are all in need of the infinite love and grace of God in the person of Jesus Christ.  We all come to Jesus broken. We are not valued because of our heritage or accomplishments but because we are loved by God and accepted by Him.

We, the church, the gathering of the redeemed, have sometimes done a poor job of accepting the broken when they come to us for help. We radiate disapproval so that the “sinners” retreat. Or sometimes we try to quickly patch them up so that they appear unbroken. We persist in trying to maintain the illusion that we have it all together by attempting to force others into the same pretense.

Can we stop the pretense? Can we allow people to experience freedom instead of bondage? Can we trust God to bring people out of their brokenness without pretending that it doesn’t exist? Can we deal with the fact that we are all hypocrites in that we don’t fully live out what we believe?

The answer is yes, we can do this. God will empower us to do this if we allow Him to subdue our pride. It is pride that stands in the way of such acceptance.

Love without qualifications

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John 13:35 – By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

No LoveJesus is here indicating that love is to be the identifying mark of the believer. We are commanded to love, not love if . . . our love is to be not conditioned upon the response of the object of our love. There should be no qualifications on whether we give or withhold love.

While all churches would claim that they practice unconditional love, this is clearly not the case. Too often, for one reason or another, love is conditioned on rule keeping, service to the church or some other qualification. When any conditions are placed on love, it is not the love described by Jesus.

Conditional love must be avoided because it sends the message that you have no value unless you are complying with the demands. People who come to this type of church may feel loved for a while, but that investment of love better pay off in the desired response or it will not continue.

James speaks about this type of value judgment in James 2:1-8. In this passage James identifies this behavior as sin and a violation of the second great command to love your neighbor as yourself. James pulls no punches. In verse 4 he says, “have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?” The root of this type of value judgment is evil.

The verb form of agape (selfless love) is used as a command 9 times in the New Testament. In only two verses was there a qualification on the love. In Ephesians 5:25, husbands are commanded to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Later on in verse 33, Paul commands every husband to love his wife as he loves himself. There are no further qualifications. And even these qualifications are not dependent upon how the object of love behaves. In all 9 commands to love, there is no out clause; there is no situation where it is appropriate to withhold love.

James tells us that to assess the value of a person based on their use to the church or their ability to keep rules is a sin. Paul tells us in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” We all have equal value before the Cross.

To practice unconditional love, we must acknowledge our dependence upon God and our own need for grace. Once we realize how much we have been forgiven, then it should be easy to forgive and accept others. Can we follow Paul’s advice in Romans 12:9 and practice “love without hypocrisy?”

A world starved for real love is longing for us to get this right.

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