I am celebrating the end of year 2 of 3 of my doctoral program by sipping a bit of toasted coconut rum and not writing much on this blog.
I finished my 10 page paper just after lunch.
On Monday I will write my advisor and find out what the steps are for my dissertation. I think the first two months will be all about me reading as much as I can on my topic.
And taking notes.
I'm OK with that. In fact, I started yesterday.
I wanted to finish the final assignment of my doctorate program, a 10 page paper on integrating preaching with the other elements of a worship service.
My intention was to turn in my paper by midnight, no matter how lame it might be.
But a second option kept distracting me ...
Maybe I could just skip the paper altogether.
I did the math. Currently I have a high A, so even with a big, fat, complete ZERO on the paper, I wouldn't end the semester with a grade lower than a B-.
Tempting - Over and over again. All day long.
But in the end, neither my pride nor my sense of obligation would allow me to take Option B-.
Besides, I had already invested time in research.
Unfortunately, the drag on my focus throughout the day left me with an unfinished paper at midnight.
Tomorrow morning I WILL finish this paper. No turning back.
I want to be done.
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Psalm 103 is becoming one of my favorite passages in all the Bible. Here's verses 1 to 14:
1 Bless the LORD, O my soul; all that is within me, bless His holy name.
2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all His kind deeds—
3 He who forgives all your iniquities and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the Pit and crowns you with loving devotion and compassion,
5 who satisfies you with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
6 The LORD executes righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
7 He made known His ways to Moses, His deeds to the people of Israel.
8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion.
9 He will not always accuse us, nor harbor His anger forever.
10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins or repaid us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.
14 For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.
King David wasn't much of a Calvinist.
"Ignorance on fire is better than knowledge on ice." - Dr. Ivan Misner
I heard this quote today on a podcast and it stuck with me. Misner is the founder of BNI - Business Network International and so his audience is entrepreneurs.
But it seems applicable to one's spiritual life as well.
When it comes to theology, we really have no choice but to move forward in ignorance.
The other day I heard a pastor promoting a six-week study he had created for church groups called The Whole Truth about God.
In six weeks! Whatever the price tag is, if he can deliver, I want to buy it.
But I am not optimistic.
None of us knows the WHOLE truth about God.
If we wait until we have our theology perfect before we can call ourselves Christian, then none of us are Christians.
I love the story of "the man born blind" in John 9:
The Pharisees interrogate him - twice - about his miraculous healing and what Jesus exactly did to bring it about.
V.25 "Give glory to God by telling the truth," they said. "We know this man (Jesus) is a sinner."
And the formerly blind man shoots back, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"
What? He was healed without having all of his propositional truth ducks in a row?
Is that possible?
A quiz over a quote: "You were steeped in sin at birth."
Who said it? (Besides every Calvinist preacher you ever cared to listen to ... ad nauseum.)
An Old Testament prophet?
Jesus?
The Apostle Paul?
No, No, and No.
But it does come straight out of the Bible.
Correct answer?
A group of Pharisees - the bad guys of John's Gospel in particular and the New Testament in general.
In the 9th chapter of John, Jesus heals a man born blind and the man ends up in hot water with the local Pharisees. In the course of having the Pharisees grill him over his healing, he gets a little sassy, questioning their logic in rejecting Jesus out of hand as God's Messiah.
He tells them, "If this man - Jesus - were not from God, he could do nothing." (v.33)
This ticks off the Pharisees royally: "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out. (v.34)
You can hear the self-righteous condescension spilling out along with the words.
But surely we are not to see this "steeped in sin at birth" as being a faulty theology arising from the Pharisees' own hubris, right?
Couldn't this be sound biblical theology, but merely in the wrong mouths? A broken clock being right twice a day, and all that?
I suppose one could make that argument ... if Jesus had not already weighed in on the topic himself when he and his disciples first encounter this blind man at the side of the road:
John 9:2 His disciples asked Jesus, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus, "but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him."
True, Jesus is not saying the guy had never sinned in his lifetime, just that his blindness was not the result of some sin he or his parents committed.
Still, Jesus' focus was not on condemning the man and playing up this guy's experience of existing in some profound state of unrighteousness.
Jesus' focus was on restoring his sight.
Simple.
It's after midnight and we just got home from the airport. Travel days and packed weekends are both tiring, so I will keep this short.
We had an hour and 40 minute flight from Dallas to Indy this evening and since I didn't have anything downloaded to watch on my phone and I didn't want to turn a light on to read a book, I decided to read straight through the Gospel of John.
It's an interesting experience to read through large chunks of the Bible in one sitting. I try to put aside my assumptions and notice what is really there on the page.
And also what is not there.
Most significant omission that struck me tonight? Unless I missed it, in the entire Gospel of John, Jesus says zilch about hell. He talks about "perishing" apart from Him at least twice that I noticed, but nothing about fire or worms or gnashing of teeth.
I may be wrong. If you've seen it there, please point out the verses to me.
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Melissa, Samuel, Sarah and I are in Dallas tonight after spending a day in the Indianapolis Airport. We were up at 3:00 am to get to Indy for a 7:30 flight ... that became an 8:00 flight. Then 11. Then 3. And finally never.
Late in the afternoon we were able to fly to Austin and arrived in Dallas a little after 8 pm - 11 hours later than planned.
We are here for an awards banquet for Samuel's summer internship with Southwest Advantage. Fortunately it's to be held at noon tomorrow, so we didn't miss it.
We made the most of our time in Indy. Melissa had the foresight to pay for travel insurance so we had a topnotch lunch of shrimp and steak and fried calamari - on the insurance company.
Tomorrow should be more interesting...
A year ago today I received a marriage proposal.
I was in Ghana to see Mission Resource’s work firsthand and
to see if small loans really can make profound impacts.
Koko, I would learn, was a widow whose husband's death left her a single mother of
7 daughters and 1 son. Still, she radiated joy and good humor.
Minutes after our introduction, Koko - with a wide smile and
mischievous eyes - asked if I would marry her.
When I replied I was already happily married, she said she
was OK with that if my “first wife” was!
She was making light of a common mindset in the developing
world: "If only I could find someone to take me away from all my hardship." I knew young ladies who went home after a week in Haiti with 3 or 4 proposals - every one of them much more serious than Koko's toward me.
In reality, Koko knows the survival of her family can’t
depend on wishful thinking.
Each morning she is up by 6:30 getting her kids off to
school and preparing to spend her day either smoking fish or selling them in
the marketplace.
The challenge for women like Koko is NOT the willingness to
work hard, it’s finding the cash it takes to construct a smoking pit and buy
that first boatload of fish!
And that's why I returned from Ghana more enthusiastic than ever about the vital work Mission Resource is doing through microfinance. Our loans become a literal
godsend to so many people like Koko!
I love my work.
I know hypotheticals bring a whole set of problems to disagreements over ideology, but they can serve a purpose.
Calvinism starts to crumble once it steps away from abstract talk of the sinfulness of man and how every human deserves hell, and into hypotheticals representing millions of actual souls.
Recently I offered a Calvinist stranger online the hypothetical about a 7 year old Haitian girl dying of cholera after a short lifetime of absolute hunger and misery. If not part of the elect, isn't she off to hell in their systematic theology? And won't she spend eternity in conscious torment there? And doesn't she deserve such torment since she was a sinner who was detestable in God's sight?
My Calvinist friend replied that there is precedent in Scripture for an "age of accountability". Young children are sinners, but they are not held responsible for their sins. Thus, any infant or child who passes away gets a free ticket to heaven.
Well, that might fit well in other ideologies, but it surely doesn't fly in Calvinism.
As soon as an "age of accountability" is acknowledged, you no longer have Unconditional Election because some people are elected based on their age. That's a condition.
Irresistible Grace goes out the window as well because if God's regenerating grace cannot be resisted by humans in general, then it cannot be resisted at any age. You only need an "age of accountability" loophole if the Spirit is unable to irresistibly regenerate children.
I told him it sounded as if he couldn't bring himself to accept Calvinism's cold, hard conclusion regarding our hypothetical (that there was a good chance this little girl was predestined to be a reprobate and would suffer eternal torment after her short miserable life on earth ended) and so he was borrowing "age of accountability" from another theological basket.
In the end, if your systematic theology cannot account for difficult hypotheticals, it might not be worth keeping.
On the other hand, if your systematic theology DOES have an answer for difficult hypotheticals ... but you can't affirm that answer, then your trust in that systematic theology might not be worth keeping.
I was at a gathering of ministers the other day, planning a community Thanksgiving service. All willing local churches will gather together under one roof the week of Thanksgiving to express gratitude to our God.
It's an idea I am all for.
At one point in the meeting, a pastor asked the others what translations were permissible for the evening. Another asked him, "Well, what do you usually use on Sunday mornings?"
The man refused to answer, saying, "I don't want to offend anyone."
The group reassured this brother that nobody at the service would be offended by the use of any particular translation.
According to the pastor leading the meeting, there are some "King James Only" types in town, but they would not be joining us for the community service ... for that very reason!
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
As far as I am concerned - and this holds equally for online or in person - if you disagree with me on some theological matter, bring it on!
If you have a better rationale or a sharper exegesis of Scripture, I just might change my mind.
After all, I have been wrong in the past and the chance that my current theology is 100% accurate is zero.
Why would I want to hang on to a false belief about God or the Bible?
The best way to test my own stances is to put them in the ring. Any unable to stand friendly scrutiny should be further researched or refined or retired.
If brothers and sisters in Christ are really interested in moving ever closer to the Truth, a good argument can't be beat.
Plus, it would be helpful to our current national culture if the church was able to serve as a role model of critical thinking, respectful disagreements, and willingness to reconfigure viewpoints.
Maybe some day?
I don't just sit around criticizing Calvinists - certainly not as a whole. I think most Calvinists are honest people who are not aware they are captive to a flawed ideology.
(Now the leaders who have studied these things and still teach the flawed ideology - most often with incredible confidence - they are a different story. They are answerable to God.)
Like I said, I don't want to just criticize. I want to help.
So I devote some thought to ways to cure Calvinists. To get them to "snap out of it".
Some people say the cure is to encourage the Calvinist to keep reading. But that isn't necessarily going to break the hold which presuppositions exercise over the human mind.
Recently I have suggested that philosophical arguments may be helpful in jarring a Calvinist awake - if you can get a fair hearing.
But it occurs to me that even better than thought experiments would be real-world experience.
So I would like to create a mission agency that would recruit hardcore Calvinists - the ones always preaching how depraved and sinful humans are. Those who are quick to quote passages on how no one seeks God ... no not one ... and all of our acts of righteousness are like filthy rags in God's sight. And how your sin disgusts God and you are always trying to steal his glory. And all of that business.
Then my agency would ship them off to a third world country for a few months. It wouldn't really matter what kind of work they engage in, as long as they got to see extreme poverty up close.
And once they have looked into the eyes of a 7 year old girl who cries herself to sleep most nights because her stomach is empty more often than full, whose hair is orange from malnourishment, who never steps foot in a school because her parents can't afford food much less a school uniform, and who one night passes away after a short struggle with a treatable illness contracted through water contaminated with human feces because her parents can't afford a doctor's visit ...
THEN we bring them back to the States and ask the Calvinist if they would still maintain that there is a 50/50 chance (at best) that the little girl was one of the elect who was fated to escape conscious eternal torment in hell.
But if she DID end up in hell, it's only what she had coming to her.
If the Calvinist could still maintain that belief, he would not only prove himself an ideological prisoner, he would be a monster.
And, yes, I am saying that Calvinism is a first world problem.
Of all the justifications Calvinists have to make to fit their ideology into general Christian practice, the two topics which they tie themselves into knots over are prayer and evangelism.
If God has predetermined every last human desire, every historical event, big and small, and the position of every mote of dust in the vast universe, then why pray?
If God has a set of humans He has elected to salvation from before the foundations of the world and the current crop alive on the planet today are simply waiting for God's irresistible grace to be dropped on them and their hearts reborn, it seems like hearing the gospel is sort of an afterthought.
Heck, in a way, the life and death and resurrection of the Son of God is simply a foregone means to the ends of what God decided before creating this world. Thus, it's God's decision - the electing - that is the good news even more so than anything that Christ accomplished because the electing was primary.
Anyway, Calvinism in general is impossible to live out consistently and that is never more obvious than when it comes to prayer and evangelism.
I came across this "Calvinist Prayer" online and thought it drives this point home.
This evening as Melissa and I were walking, I noticed a minivan with an eye-catching window decal.
It said:
I don't know what to make of this.
Is "Pro God" meant to equal "believer" or "Christian" or "follower of Christ"?
Seems like it is at least one step removed from this.
It's like saying, "I am one of God's biggest fans."
It definitely seems to put faith on the same level as political beliefs - holding propositional statements as convictions and as a means of identifying which group you belong to.
This is a form of idolatry, as that term is explained by author and researcher James Fowler:
"Real idolatry, in the Jewish and Christian traditions, does not have to do with the worship of statues or pagan altars. Idolatry is rather the profoundly serious business of committing oneself or betting one's life on finite centers of value and power as the source of one's (or one's group's) confirmation of worth and meaning, and as the guarantor of survival with quality." - James Fowler, Stages of Faith (p.18)
And every idolater who has ever lived believes he has God all figured out.
I just submitted an 11 page exegesis paper, completing one of my two final classes in my doctorate program through Wesley Biblical Seminary. In the next 10 days or so, I will finish a project and paper for the second class and this semester will be over.
Thank God! (It's been a long semester.)
This will put me two-thirds of the way toward forcing everyone I know to address me as "Dr. Gross".
I am joking, of course.
I plan to require only my brothers and my wife to call me Dr. Gross.
These past two years of classes have been good overall, though often stressful.
I am starting to get excited about this final year, though. I think the dissertation will be kinda fun.
At least fun in the same way that self-directed study is always more enjoyable than taking a class.
The challenge will be setting and holding myself to my own deadlines. ( - I write as the clock approaches midnight after about 12 hours of last-minute typing!)
I am working this week with Philippians 2:5-11, one of Paul's most famous Christological statements:
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
It is striking that the cross here functions as a pivot. The verses directly before v.8 describe Christ's descent from the glory of heaven, the cross is the lowest point, and the result is Christ then being lifted to the highest place.
As "penal substitutionary atonement" has been on my mind recently, I can't help but notice that though the cross is central here, there isn't the merest hint of it being the locale of God's wrath being poured out on Jesus.
I know making an argument from silence has severe limitations.
Still ...
What is celebrated here is Christ's "mindset" which was one of humility and obedience. And it is this mindset which leads Him to His death - even death on a cross!
And then, according to this passage, it is Christ's humble and obedient death which results in God exalting Him.
No punishment from God's hand is evident here - only the opposite: Exaltation!
If you have ever googled questions about faith or the Bible, you might have noticed that one of the top returns is always gotquestions.org.
They have an answer for every question, delivered with confidence and conviction.
And the stink of Calvinism.
There should be a warning label. But there isn't.
Anyway, I looked up their description of penal substitutionary atonement. Their case for PSA is enlightening, for what you don't find.
Their description of PSA begins: "In the simplest possible terms, the biblical doctrine of penal substitution holds that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross takes the place of the punishment we ought to suffer for our sins. As a result, God’s justice is satisfied, and those who accept Christ can be forgiven and reconciled to God."
Notice they have already gotten you thinking past the sale; PSA is a biblical doctrine!
Yet if you look closely at their two paragraphs of proof texts, you might notice something interesting. I quote at length:
"Penal substitution is clearly taught by the Bible. In fact, much of what God did prior to Jesus’ ministry was to foreshadow this concept and present it as the purpose of the Messiah. In Genesis 3:21, God uses animal skins to cover the naked Adam and Eve. This is the first reference to a death (in this case, an animal’s) being used to cover (atone for) sin. In Exodus 12:13, God’s Spirit “passes over” the homes that are covered (atoned) by the blood of the sacrifice. God requires blood for atonement in Exodus 29:41–42. The description of Messiah in Isaiah 53:4–6 says His suffering is meant to heal our wounds. The fact that the Messiah was to be “crushed for our iniquities” (verse 5) is a direct reference to penal substitution.
"During and after Jesus’ ministry, penal substitution is further clarified. Jesus claims to be the “good shepherd” who lays down His life for the sheep in John 10:10. Paul, in Romans 3:25–26, explains that we have the righteousness of Christ because of the sacrifice of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:21, he says that the sinless Christ took on our sins. Hebrews 9:26 says that our sins were removed by the sacrifice of Christ. First Peter 3:18 plainly teaches that the righteous was substituted for the unrighteous."
There's something really fishy here.
The "direct reference" described in the last sentence of the first paragraph cited above is rather subtle in that the verse doesn't say who does the crushing!
(I am guessing that if questioned, 10 out of 10 eye witnesses that day would have said it was the Roman soldiers doing the crushing - not God.)
Yes, most of those verses which Got Questions offers speak of some sort of substitution. But irrespective of the claim of that one sentence, not one explicitly speaks of God the Father punishing God the Son on the cross. (Most do not even hint at it.)
Am I missing something?
Perhaps you only see the penal part of penal substitutionary atonement if you already have PSA goggles on before you start reading Scripture.
For years now there's been plenty of moaning and groaning among conservative evangelicals about progressive churches and their approach to faith.
Entire YouTube channels are devoted to calling out the unscriptural practices and teachings of liberal Christians. The apostasy of such churches is an assumed fact.
And, yes, much of what's going on in these congregations is pretty darn outrageous.
But lately I have been wondering how much blame conservatives themselves should assume for the growth of progressive Christianity.
How much of present day liberal church lunacy is a reaction against the conservative propensity for a more Calvinist-style Angry God and a religion abounding in judgment but lacking both depth and emotion?
(Not to mention Scriptural backing.)
Evangelicals are used to pointing at others and crying "That's unscriptural!"
But it might be time for us to go back to the Book ourselves and study it afresh.
Seems to me there's a pretty big log in the Evangelical eye that needs removing.
Director Tim Burton's 2003 fantasy film Big Fish is one of a handful of movies I can watch over and over.
Early in the film, elderly Edward Bloom is telling the story of a childhood encounter with his hometown's resident witch.
The witch had a supernatural power - anyone who looked into her false eye would see the means of his own death. When confronted with the opportunity to gain this knowledge of his future or to pass it up, Edward pondered for a moment and decided he wanted to know.
Fortunately for Edward, the eye revealed he would be an old man by the time his number was called.
Armed with this foreknowledge, throughout his lifetime Edward could face any suffering or fear that arose from his circumstances, dismissing them with a simple "This isn't the way I die."
Faith should serve the same practical function in the life of the believer.
But even better.
When anxiety rises, I can tell myself,
"This isn't likely the way I die. But even if it is, my death will be gain."
"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." Philippians 1:21
In Phil 1:21, the Apostle Paul writes, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."
It seems to me that modern American Christians tend to get this backward.
We spend our lives "making a living" and getting more and more stuff. Our highest goals involve making ourselves and our family members as comfortable as possible. The name of the game is accumulation.
Meanwhile, we assume that once we die - and are confronted with the reality of God's existence once and for all - suddenly we will develop a keen love for Jesus Christ and an interest in being with Him.
And so, unlike Paul, if we are honest, we would have to say, "For to me, to live is gain and to die is Christ."
I listen to a lot of various preachers online throughout a normal week - while I am making breakfast, as I drive to the office, while I walk the dog - and what strikes me most often is their confidence.
And how often it seems misplaced.
The pulpit could use more humility. Especially when the preacher is tackling some topic on which honest believers differ profoundly.
One phrase that always raises red flags for me is: "You won't find a single verse in the Bible that supports X from Genesis to Revelation" where X is some belief held by millions of people.
To me, that it just proof that the preacher is creating a strawman out of his opponents' beliefs.
And even if you are ultimately correct, knocking down strawmen is mainly an exercise in pride.
A thoughtless “I’m busy” once cost the life of a friend, inspiring Mohammed Qahtani to give serious thought to the incredible impact of words.
In 2015, Mohammed Qahtani put those thoughts together with his friend’s story in a speech which bested 30,000 other contestants to win a Toastmasters’ competition.
Although he doesn’t reference the Lord in his winning entry, Mohammed Qahtani's thesis does reflect the urgency of Paul’s command in Ephesians 4:29:
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”
His speech is well worth a listen, offering a compelling reminder of the influence of our words - for good or for evil. It can be found HERE . (7 minutes 40 seconds)
Ever the optimist, I am hopeful that our culture's pendulum might swing back toward normalcy and decency in the coming years.
I have become convinced that when and if it does, one sign by which we will recognize it will be an emphatic push to protect our children and young people from the disorders of our adult culture (especially the sexual confusion) - instead of rushing to indoctrinate them in those disorders.
One would hope that the pendulum has reached its nadir - or soon will. I see some signs that the momentum for exposing our young people to all manners of grotesque sexual ideology is encountering a growing resistance.
Perhaps a backward swing is not far off.
[It is only right for me to give you a warning up front about the subject of this post. It is what is commonly referred to as "adult content". And while I feel compelled to give you this warning, the local high school did not feel it necessary to give anything similar to students or parents.]
I guess I am still living in the past - the age when a parent didn't need to question the reading material the local schools were assigning for English class.
My youngest is a junior this year and taking Advanced Placement English Literature.
For some reason, I assumed the teacher would be assigning Dickens and Austen and Shakespeare.
Instead, we got Exit West.
Like me, you might be unfamiliar with this title and its author, Mohsin Hamid. Apparently Exit West is an "instant classic" dating all the way back to 2017.
This book didn't register on my radar until Sarah started complaining about being required to read it.
In the past, if students complained about a book assigned by their English teacher, like The Scarlet Letter, it was because it was "boring" or the vocabulary was unfamiliar.
Those were not Sarah's problem with Exit West. Her complaints had to do with characters dropping the F word and the graphic violence and descriptions of sex.
The lead female character - no Juliet to be sure - pressures her boyfriend to have sex, but he refuses until they are married. Her reply is "Are you f***ing kidding?" She has to settle for the two of them lying in bed "pleasuring" each other. There is also talk of anal sex practiced by the lead male's parents (his mother finds it "erotic" in case you were wondering) and an incident involving the sexual assault of the female character by an anonymous man taking advantage of a bustling crowd to "finger" her.
The story takes place in an unspecified city being torn apart by "militants". The lead male character's mother loses a "quarter of her head" to a gunshot. A man is beheaded and his decapitated body hung from a lamppost upside down by his shoestrings.
In the midst of his portrayal of the violence - as is common among authors of great literature - Hamid works in positive references to marijuana and psychedelic mushroom use.
Those are the highlights of the first 80 pages or so, anyway. I wish I had read it before Sarah started into it, but it never occurred to me. I would have suggested she ask the teacher for an alternative.
It makes me sick to think she has been exposed to such garbage.
Intentionally!
Today's adults sure are doing a number on this next generation.
I guess I need to pull my head out of the past ... but it causes more than a bit of anxiety about the future of our nation when I do so.
There's too much talk of God's forgiveness in Scripture for Him to act in a strictly unforgiving manner towards all of humanity ultimately.
(I am not suggesting universalism - I am saying that however we might conceive of it, Christ's death conceived as absorbing all of the Father's wrath as our substitution doesn't seem to fit the thrust of Scripture and the portrayal of God's character contained therein.)
For just one example, how do we make sense of Penal Substitutionary Atonement in light of Jesus' parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18?
Remember?
23 ... The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlements, a debtor was brought to him owing ten thousand talents. 25 Since the man was unable to pay, the master ordered that he be sold to pay his debt, along with his wife and children and everything he owned.
26Then the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Have patience with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’
27His master had compassion on him, forgave his debt, and released him.
That's what forgiveness of debt looks like. The original threat is what the wrath of God would look like. (Just because I am rethinking PSA does not mean I don't believe humans stand justly condemned before God!)
If you remember how that parable concludes, you'll recall that the aforementioned penalty is finally reinstituted for that servant, but only after he fails to express similar forgiveness to another servant who owed him money.
Forgiveness of the debt involves the "lender" letting go of his claim to payment.
And we are taught by Jesus specifically to forgive as we have been forgiven.
Where does that leave PSA?
Penal substitutionary atonement is the idea that when Jesus
went to the cross he carried on His back all of humanity's sins - past, present, and future. He did this, so the theory goes, to endure the wrath and punishment from God the Father that we ourselves deserved. So Jesus served as our substitute and He paid the debt that we could never pay.
In Jesus, our account is finally settled with God.
Sound familiar? It's pretty common, but PSA is far from uncontroversial and is widely debated.
Some embrace it unreservedly, some deny it vehemently, and others simply include it as one way among many to understand what happened on the cross.
I am just starting to look into it for myself, but I already find myself leaning away from PSA.
(And not just because Calvinists seem to embrace it wholeheartedly!)
The strongest philosophical argument against PSA I have heard so far - an argument that made me stop and want to dive in to the Scriptures - was this:
If Jesus "pays the price" for our sins on the cross and takes our punishment on Himself, then it is not accurate to speak of the Father "forgiving" any sins.
The Father transfers the debt to His Son.
Forgiveness is not on the table. There should be no talk of pardon for sins.
You see how that's a problem, right?
I have started reading Scott Adams' new book Reframe your Brain and it is proving to be worth the time invested.
The core idea is that all your core assumptions about reality have a huge impact on your thoughts, actions, and attitudes - and, so ultimately, the direction and outcome of your life.
Do you believe the universe is out to get you? Then your experience will likely affirm that notion time and again.
What we are really talking about then is "mindset".
There are plenty of books out there about mindset, but Adams' contribution is the assertion that your brain is fairly easy to reprogram.
Your mindset can be consciously revised and, when subsequently rerun, will provide different outcomes.
Adams calls it "reframing".
My own experience confirms this truth.
The earliest significant reframe in my own life was when, as a young teen, I read in a book that the author had struggled with shyness until he realized that there was a difference between shyness and quietness. He was both, but he came to understand that quietness was the way God had made him while shyness was a sin, in that it was a preoccupation with how other people saw him.
My eyes were opened.
For years I had lived with this frame of mind: "I was born shy and I just have to accept that discomfort."
But now the reframe became: "Being quiet is a gift. Being shy is a sin."
And there was no going back.
You might disagree that shyness is sinful, but Adams points out that a reframe doesn't necessarily even need to be true to work.
I didn't like being shy and that framing of shyness as something against God's desires for me made a profound impact over the next few years.
In fact, it still pops into my head forty years later when I catch myself withdrawing from other people out of fear.
The benefit I am finding in the book is a reminder of how powerful reframes can be and a new resolve to tackle ongoing problems by actively reframing my assumptions.
Life is about to get more interesting.
