Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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Martyn Lloyd-Jones on True Christians and the Sermon on the Mount

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Martyn Lloyd-JonesIn the introduction to Martyn Lloyd-Jones‘ Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, he writes this:

I suggest to you that [the Sermon on the Mount] is the best means of evangelism. Surely we all ought to be urgently concerned about this at the present time. The world today is looking for, and desperately needs, true Christians. I am never tired of saying that what the Church needs to do is not to organize evangelistic campaigns to attract outside people, but to begin herself to live the Christian life. If she did that, men and women would be crowding into our buildings. They would say, ‘What is the secret of this?’

He goes on to compare Christianity with communism (a serious threat in the 1950’s) and how Christianity, when lived out, provides in reality what communism promises but fails to provide.

While communism may not be the largest challenge to the church today, the need for living out the Christian life is still more urgent. We have the answer to what ails society but our failure to display it in our lives prevents the answer from being accepted.

Mr. Lloyd-Jones calls us to face up to our failures in this regard, repent and begin really living the life of faith.

Teaching Evolution in the Church?

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This post is in reaction to an article written by Paul Wallace that I read in the Huffington Post. In it Mr. Wallace writes about his efforts at teaching evolution in the Church.

What the author seems to assume is that belief in evolution is the only reasonable response to the question of origin. If evolution is the only reasonable explanation of what we see, then it would be foolish to deny that claim.

I will set aside the difficulties inherent in evolutionary theory because there are many voices more qualified than I to enumerate them. Even if we granted that evolution is an adequate explanation, it is not the only reasonable explanation.

My point is that those who hold that evolution is the only reasonable explanation of origin do so because of their fundamental assumption that there could not be a creator or intelligent designer. They do not find a creator because they assume that he cannot exist and therefore ignore any evidence that he does. The first wrong assumption is that God cannot exist and therefore he could not have created.

The second wrong assumption in this article is that there is a dichotomy between faith and reason. This is the “if you don’t pray in my school, I won’t think in your church” fallacy. God, in Scripture, does not ask us to suspend our reason, he asks us to allow him to transform it. Paul tells us in Romans 12:1-2 that this transformation is the most reasonable response to God. In fact the word translated reasonable (NKJV) is logikos from which we get our word logical.

We do not suspend our reason in order to believe, but we do open ourselves to the possibility of God having acted in the past, present and future of human history. Without this possibility we do not have Christianity. The whole focus of Christianity is Jesus Christ who is God in the flesh who came specifically to intervene in human history on our behalf.

My question for those who would teach evolution in the church is why would you seek to undermine the foundational truths of Christianity and still try to call it Christian? Why call it Christian if you don’t want Christ? Call it whatever you want but it is not Christianity.

Perhaps the drive to undermine Christianity lies in the demands that Christ places upon us. Jesus doesn’t bid us come and evaluate his philosophy, he bids us come and die with him. He does not offer neatly packaged explanations of reality, he offers mystery. He does not offer transcendent conquest of life’s difficulties, he demands surrender and contentment.

At the core, I suspect that this evolution vs. creation debate is more of a submission issue than an intellectual one. If there is a God who is powerful enough to create what we see than it would be foolish to refuse submission to him.

Therefore since we refuse to submit, it is much easier to pretend God doesn’t exist. If I don’t look at him or acknowledge his presence, perhaps God will go away and leave me alone.

But then oh, how alone I would be.

Grace, Truth and Difficult People

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Grace and TruthIt may not be a universal experience, but most of us are forced to interact with a difficult person in either our personal or professional life.

There are a variety of sources for the difficulty.

  • Some are difficult because they don’t perceive feedback about how they impact others. This is the person who continues the story when all the people in the room give indication of being bored or hostile. This is the guy who thinks he’s doing well in the presentation when all the attendees are checking their smart phones, chatting or sleeping.
  • Some are difficult because they are so worried about offending others that they are amorphous, it is hard to discern the real person inside them. These are so tuned in to feedback that they often overreact to it. They are hard to interact with because anything you say might prove overwhelming to them.
  • Some are difficult because they are self-absorbed; it is indeed all about them. The self-absorbed take every difficulty that arises as a personal attack. If a friend is distracted for an unrelated reason, the self-absorbed will take that as evidence of rejection. The self-absorbed will latch on to any sympathetic ear and fill it with a catalog of injustices done to him.
  • Some are difficult because they are unabashedly selfish. These are similar to the self-absorbed, but this self-absorption is intentional. These will do whatever they think they can get away with to get what they want.

I’m sure there are other categories of difficult people but these four come immediately to mind.

Jesus tells in Matthew 5:44 that we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. John 13:35 tells us that love is to be the mark that identifies us as Christians. In Ephesians 4:15, Paul tells us we are to speak the truth in love.

Nowhere in my Bible does it give me any indication that this is easy to do, nor does it give any indication that love is optional. I am called to love difficult people, people who often do not want, or struggle to receive that love.

How do we go about this then? I think that the evangelist gives us a clue when he describes Jesus as “full of grace and truth” in John 1:14. In his dealings with mankind, the difficult and the loving, Jesus was both gracious and truthful. He always told the truth but the truth was softened with grace and acceptance.

Jesus’ ability to do this is directly attributable to his being God. His divinity and sinlessness gave him the power to maintain this balance perfectly. I, on the other hand, do this imperfectly at best and often do not maintain the balance at all.

In our imperfection and based on our personality, we will tend to err on one side or the other. Some of you are more likely to err or the side of truth. “He had it coming to him” may be your motto after imparting a dose of truth to someone who you thought desperately needed it. Others, like myself, will try to avoid the difficulty, erring on the side of grace.

Grace without truth leaves the difficult person in his difficulty with no-one to guide him out. Truth without grace often makes the truth-giver feel a little bit better but the lack of grace can impede reception of the truth.

The two combined, grace AND truth, as we see it modeled by Jesus can be used by God to positively impact the difficult person. We love best when it is done with both grace and truth.

Question 1: What other types of difficult people have you encountered?
Question 2: Do you have any stories of how the combination of grace and truth positively impacted the situation?

Confessions of a functional atheist

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GraveyardOne of the accusations against Christians is that we have a psychological need to believe a fantasy. In other words, the atheist thinks that we make up a belief in God to provide comfort against the unknown. Our belief in God is like whistling as we pass through the graveyard. It doesn’t provide any real benefit but it makes us feel better.

Honesty (the premise of this blog) requires that I get something out in the open. There are times when I don’t want God to exist. It would be oh so much more convenient if he did not and I could do whatever I want. There are times when I want to be god and I don’t want anyone telling me what to do.

This is the atheist position. The position that does not want God to exist and refuses to see any evidence that would point to God. I see this as more of a will issue than an intellectual one. My intellect tends to go where my will leads it. I often remember a line I heard a long time ago,

“a man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still”

God tells me to forgive, even when I don’t want to forgive. God tells me to love when I would rather hate. God tells me to respect when I feel disdain. God tells me to give when I would rather take. God tells me to value others above myself. All of these commands are difficult and I sometimes do not obey them. In those moments when I refuse obedience, I become a functional atheist; I act as if God does not exist.

Too often we see this in the church. Pastors and elders have to deal with people who write off Scriptural commands with the magic words, “it’s all in the interpretation” or “not everyone agrees with such a literal understanding.” Jesus predicted that some would fall away because of the demands of the Christian life (see Matthew 13:3-9). At one point in Jesus’ ministry his disciples referred to his teaching as a “hard saying” (John 6:60). When you examine Christianity in its entirety, it is sometimes very inconvenient.

We serve a God who does care how we behave. We do not serve a semi-senile grandfather God who always pats us on the head and says, “that’s nice.” We serve a God who demands holiness, a demand so important to him that he sent Jesus to provide for us the means of obtaining holiness.

Every moment of the day, I must choose to live according to my belief or to deny my belief in God. By God’s grace, most of the time I choose correctly and move toward deeper relationship with him. Yet, there are times when in my pride and stupidity I choose badly. When I choose badly, I am then given the opportunity to repent and choose well (1 John 1:9).

I believe in Jesus Christ because he provides the best explanation of the world I see around me. I believe in him because I think that he is indeed the truth (John 14:6). Sometimes, it is a very inconvenient truth and I do not live up to it, yet it remains the truth.

You may choose to disbelieve but please make that choice based on an accurate understanding of Christianity. Too often those who oppose God present a caricature of Christianity, a straw man easily knocked down. The real thing is far more elaborate and far more beautiful than the caricature.

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