PAUL SOMETIMES FORGOT TO BE A CALVINIST

Remember Paul's famous lines about how intentional he is in making his presentation of the gospel as persuasive as possible?

19 Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.     - 1 Corinthians 9:19-23

As I reread this passage this morning, it occurred to me that the Apostle Paul can get away with language like this, but if I used similar wording in front of a Calvinist, I would surely be castigated.

What do you mean you change your approach to sharing the gospel depending on your audience? All you need to do is present the gospel and the Holy Spirit will take it from there. It is the Spirit who regenerates the sinner, giving him the faith that is necessary for his salvation. (While passing over all the unelect.)

Come to think of it, God does not even need you to present the gospel - we aren't synergists, for heaven's sake. You are only sharing the gospel because God has ordained that as the means for bringing about rebirth. 

(And that makes sense in a world where absolutely everything that happens is one big Kabuki show written by God before Creation began anyway.)

As R.C. Sproul was fond of saying, you are only sharing the gospel widely because you don't know which members of the public are the elect. If you did, you could focus exclusively on them. (And not waste your time speaking to all those individuals predestined to go to hell.)

So let's have no talk of "winning" anyone to Christ.

And, really, Paul - to speak of "becoming all things to all people" so that YOU "might save some"? What kind of Calvinist are you?

Are you trying to steal God's glory?

A STARK CONTRAST

In a short blog post entitled How Does "Dying for Our Sins" Work?, author Brian Zahnd raises some good philosophical questions which are hard to answer by those who hold to Penal Substitutionary Atonement 

(PSA is the belief that on the cross God the Father poured out His wrath against His Son who was carrying the sins of the world. Proponents of PSA hold that only after His wrath was satisfied could God forgive sinners.) 

Zahnd does a great job of contrasting what Scripture conveys about the work of Jesus on the cross with the main tenets of Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

A couple of quotes about this contrast:

Jesus does not save us from God; Jesus reveals God! Jesus does not provide God with the capacity to forgive; Jesus reveals God as forgiving love. 

The cross is not about the appeasement of a monster god. The cross is about the revelation of a merciful God. At the cross we discover a God who would rather die than kill his enemies. The cross is where God in Christ absorbs sin and recycles it into forgiveness.

The cross is not what God inflicts upon Christ in order to forgive. The cross is what God endures in Christ as he forgives. 

[DO NOT read the comments section at the bottom of Zahnd's post - unless you enjoy the spectacle of Christians insulting each other over "wrong beliefs".]

RESTING UP

While preaching these last two Sundays in a row about Sabbath rest, I ended up exhausted.

It wasn't exhaustion coming from work - it was all family fun, in the shape of Samuel's and Hannah's graduations and all the travel and activity associated with both.

Picking Caleb up at the Chicago airport late Friday night, followed by an early morning graduation ceremony, really did a number on me this past weekend. After preaching on Sunday, I grilled steaks for Mother's Day lunch and then Melissa took Caleb to the Indianapolis airport while I took a nap.

It was a THREE HOUR nap.

This morning, after I helped Melissa and Sarah get out the door for school, I went back to bed and slept another two hours.

After getting out of bed at 10 am and then getting some exercise, my mood was noticeably improved over the past week or so and my thinking much clearer. 

As a result, I think I learned a couple of things that I would like to add as a P.S. to my sermons on the Sabbath.

1) I don't suppose play and recreation was an issue for the people of biblical times, but I think for us even the enjoyable stuff - sports, family activities, camping, and the like - can be as much a distraction from resting in God's presence as work can be. 

2) The elevated mood after catching up on my rest reminds me that keeping a Sabbath of rest may result in all sorts of unanticipated good side effects. Most of which would be hard to quantify.

WHERE IS GOD'S ANGER AFTER THE FALL?

I recently reread Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

It's hard to imagine that many people, especially among Calvinists, speak of this sermon in glowing terms. I find it sickening.

In my preaching lately, we are taking a look at Scriptural themes which are first mentioned in the opening chapters of Genesis and then go on to be developed throughout the rest of the Bible.

Looking at God's response to Adam and Eve's famous misstep in the Garden of Eden, it is remarkable how "chill" God is in His reaction to their disobedience. He seems the very opposite of what Edwards described.

Now, He IS firm and uncompromising and there ARE severe consequences for the choices which were made. But He (rightly, in my humble opinion) takes the serpent to task first, holding him accountable for leading Adam and Even into sin.

Notice the serpent gets cursed and the ground gets cursed, but not Adam and Eve. 

They are booted out of Eden not because God is angry with them but because He does not want them to eat from the Tree of Life and live (in sin) forever. 

HANNAH'S AN OLIVET GRAD

This was our third weekend on a college campus and the second graduation. This time it was Hannah's turn. Her good friend from Haiti days, Haylee, flew from New Jersey for the occasion and - as a last minute surprise - Caleb flew in from Texas.

Melissa and I drove our mini van up to Olivet Nazarene University on Friday morning with Sarah and Grandma Trudy in tow. Our big task of the day was to move Hannah's ginormous sectional couch to her friend's apartment and then pack up the rest of Hannah's stuff to bring back to Indiana. (And then put where exactly? That's a worry for next week.)

The couch needed to maneuver an extremely tight corner at the bottom of a staircase and it took us over an hour to get it from the front step into the apartment. I honestly despaired of the possibility and then was ultimately proven wrong.

Afterwards, the packing of clothing and furniture and whatnot into the van gave me a challenge unlike any I had faced since our days of moving back and forth between Haiti and Indiana. (Hannah has a whole lot of whatnot!)

We did manage, though, and then had time for a nice sit-down dinner together. 

At 11:00 pm I left for the Chicago airport, a little over an hour away. In the rain. I don't enjoy big city driving but picking up Caleb was a relatively smooth process. We were back to the hotel before 2:30 am, I think. (Had to stop for a burrito.)

This morning brought a rush out of the hotel to get over to the chapel on campus by 8:30. The ceremony was meaningful and well-executed from start to finish.

Hannah now has a college diploma. Next up - a search for a position as an interior designer. (Mom and dad are praying it will be in Indiana!)

We made it back home a little after 8 pm and we are worn out. Hannah has to take Haylee to the Cincinnati airport first thing in the morning, I need to preach, then we get to celebrate Mother's Day over lunch before Caleb has to go to the Indianapolis airport. 

Exhausted but blessed. 

FAITH AND RISK

An experiment by York University psychologist Cindel White tested whether thinking about God made people more open to taking risks.* 

The answer was “Yes” … at least “slightly”.

Only slightly?

It is worth asking the question: Does MY faith result in greater risk-taking in my personal, social, and work life?

Some boldness in facing life’s challenges can prove very beneficial. The article reminds us that “people tend to be irrationally risk averse”.

It seems to me that when it comes to taking some calculated risks - as in all aspects of life - our faith should make more than a slight difference!

We definitely find encouragement towards great boldness and courage in the pages of Scripture. Here are a couple of good reminders:

Joshua 1:9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.

Psalm 27:1 The Lord is my light and my salvation—so why should I be afraid? The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?

Daniel 10:19 “Don’t be afraid,” he said, “for you are very precious to God. Peace! Be encouraged! Be strong!” As he spoke these words to me, I suddenly felt stronger and said to him, “Please speak to me, my lord, for you have strengthened me.”

[*You can read a summary of the study and its methods in This Article on the Nautilus website.]

DAYS OR LIMBS?

 Psalm 139 

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:16 is a key prooftext for the idea of Exhaustive Determinism taught in most Calvinist circles. The idea is that, from before time began, God ordained absolutely everything - every thought, word, and action - that would happen throughout time. 

R.C. Sproul famously wrote, “If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.”

This is nonsensical, of course, (literally!) but it's hard to argue that Psalm 139:16 isn't saying that God has predetermined our every action if all of our days are written in God's book before we live any of them. 

Well ... that's what the verse says in most English translations, anyway. 

Just yesterday I learned that there has long been a controversy about how best to translate this particular verse. 

This leaves me wondering - In all the debates I have listened to between Calvinists and non-Calvinists over the last 3 years, how have I never heard the simple fact that most Hebrew scholars lean toward the alternate translation based on the grammar of the sentence?

The JPS Hebrew-English TANAKH, for example, renders the verse this way:

16:Your eyes saw my unformed limbs;

they were all recorded in your book;

in due time they were formed to the very last one of them.

The original King James captured this same idea:

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

What is being recorded in God's book is the early unfolding of the embryo's limbs and features, not all the days of life to come! That is a HUGE difference in meaning. 

Here's another factoid worth knowing whenever this verse gets thrown around as an obvious prooftext for Calvinism: Want to take a guess as to who else recognized the validity of this alternate translation as being the unfolding of the embryo's limbs?

Yup, John Calvin.

STRIKING A POSE

In December of 1988 I had the opportunity to visit what remains of the concentration camp in Dachau, Germany. 

Most of the barracks had been torn down but a couple had been transformed into a museum containing artifacts and photos taken by the Nazis - now blown up poster-sized - documenting daily life and some of the inhumane experimentation they performed on the prisoners.

It literally made me sick. I had to step outside to get fresh air.

Another extant building was the furnace house where bodies were cremated, one after another. Visitors entered a door at one end of the long brick building and filed past several large iron furnaces in a row before exiting. 

Once inside, I paused and stepped back against the wall to let the reality of this place sink in. Before long an American family entered the space. My attention was caught by the teenage daughter in particular. I was amazed to see her walk the length of the building and out the opposite door without looking up from her compact mirror - as she applied fresh lipstick. 

I thought of that bizarre moment today while reading a recent email newsletter from one Dr. Todd Kashdan. He had written an article focused on this photo of a modeling session in progress:
(Sorry - the attribution of the photo's origin wasn't clear to me.)

Since the building in the background is part of Auschwitz and the model is striking a seductive pose on the railroad tracks which aided in the transportation of a million Jews into the deathcamp, Dr. Kashdan's comment on the photo was this: 

"A single picture that captures everything wrong with social media." 

But I have to wonder if "social media" is the right target for Kashdan's disgust.

His target could just as well be "young people", couldn't it?

Or, for that matter, human nature in general.

To paraphrase Jesus ... out of the overflow of the heart, the Instagram account speaks. 

I WILL GIVE YOU REST

A few months ago I saw a video where Dr. Ben Witherington reminded a crowd that Scripture was written to be read aloud. The original audience would have been hearing the words recited by another. While reading Scripture it's a good idea to keep this fact in mind.

This might be important when reading Jesus' famous lines in Matthew 11:28-30:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

A chapter break conceals a possible connection between the concept of "rest" at the end of of Chapter 11 and the first 14 verses of 12 all being concerned with Jesus' activities on the Sabbath. 

What is the connection between the rest which Jesus offers in 11:28 and the claim He makes in 12:8 - "The Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath"? 

UNPACKING

This is not my own analogy. I came across it this past week as I was looking into those first few verses of Genesis 2 where God is pictured as "resting" after 6 intense days of creation. I want to share it because I find it helpful and maybe you will as well.

I used to wonder what the Bible was trying to communicate about God here - was He exhausted after all those creative acts? 

That didn't make much sense if God is all powerful. No output of energy on God's part is going to make Him tired. If it did, that would demonstrate a limit to His power.

So the unpacking analogy clarifies God's experience of "rest". It pictures a move into a new house.

All of your boxes are piled in various rooms and you get to work unpacking. You put the pots and pans in the kitchen cabinets. You put the toiletries and towels in the bathroom. Your clothes go into the bedroom closet.

At the end of the process, everything is in its place and ready to function for daily life.

Now there are two ways to rest once everything is organized.

Either you plop down into the recliner exhausted from the effort. You must rest because you are spent.

Or you sit down in the recliner in order to enjoy your newly designed and organized surroundings. You can rest because everything is ready to function as intended. 

God's rest is the second kind.

But He doesn't rest in a recliner - He opts for a throne. 

ANOTHER COLLEGE GRAD IN THE FAMILY

Today was the first of two college graduations for our family this May. 

First up: Samuel's graduation from Ball State University. Next Saturday: Hannah's graduation from Olivet.

Melissa and I arrived in Muncie this morning a little after 9 with Hannah, Sarah, and Grandma Trudy in tow. 

Ball State does a large group ceremony outside on the Quad in the morning with a commencement speaker but no distribution of diplomas. 

Those are given at separate ceremonies throughout the day. I am writing this while waiting for Sam to walk the stage - among a "smaller" group of 700 graduates. This is the last ceremony of the day, having started at 7:30 pm. 

In between ceremonies we had plenty of time to eat, walk, pack up a dorm room, and take some pictures. 

A couple of Samuel's friends made a special trip into town for his graduation.

The big moment:

THE REST MOTIF

Starting with God's rest on the 7th day of creation, the concept of "rest" itself becomes a regular motif in both the Old and New Testaments.

Entering into rest with God is often portrayed as the entire point of life:

Exodus 33:12-14 - Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”

 The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Psalm 62:1-2 - Truly my soul finds rest in God;
my salvation comes from him.
Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

Jeremiah 6:16 - This is what the Lord says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’”

And then remember Jesus' offer in the New Testament?

Matthew 11:28-30 - "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

This is not the sort of resting you need a hammock for. You can tell because there is still a yoke involved (meaning there is still work to be done) - but it is Jesus' yoke. This is resting from all the striving and stress of life. This is resting from work, yes, but the efforts of working for God's approval. 

We are reminded by Hebrews 4:9-11 that "There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience."

This puts a different spin on what a Sabbath observance is all about. 

DIVINE REST

Since I have always read the short account of God's rest on the 7th day of creation fairly literally, it has always puzzled me.

Was He worn out? Did he need a tall glass of lemonade to sip while He reclined under one of the trees He created?

In reading up on Old Testament background recently, I came across an interpretation that makes a lot more sense to me. 

Some scholars take "resting" to be a divine activity reserved for temples. In other words, God creates the earth for the purpose of inhabiting it as a deity inhabits a temple.

So He isn't resting in a hammock. He's on a throne.

This would explain why days 1 through 6 end with "And there was evening and there was morning", but that phrase does not reappear for day 7. God continues to this day to "rest" in this deeper sense.

That makes sense. 

So that means the command to observe the Sabbath is more than the cessation of work. It's about humans joining God in His rest, acknowledging His presence and His rule. 

Intentionally.

At least once a week. 

SERENITY NOW

Most people know the Serenity Prayer, which these days is most often associated with Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the poem about knowing what can and cannot be changed in our lives.

If the internet can be trusted, the original Serenity Prayer was written in 1943 by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and went like this:

“O God and Heavenly Father, grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed, courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.”

For my money, a very similar sentiment is stated more concisely - and more memorably - (Although without the appeal to help from the Lord) years before in a tiny poem which Emily Dickinson scrawled on the back of an envelope: 

"In this short Life

That only lasts an hour

How much – how little – is

Within our power"

Dickinson sure knew how to pack a punch in a few words, didn't she?