LET THE OTHER COME TO EXAMINE

Proverbs 18:17 - "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him."

When it comes to various beliefs and doctrines within the Christian faith, I am a proponent of plenty of debate and cross-examination.

As the church currently operates, though, local and denominational leadership are almost universally guilty of saying to the congregation, "Here's what you need to believe. Case closed."

If you grew up in church, who knows how many doctrines you hold onto based on the first (and likely only) interpretation you were exposed to. You may not even know which doctrines are debated, why there are disagreements, or how far back the arguments go. 

• If you believe hell will be eternal conscious torment, are you also familiar with the alternative interpretations of Scripture?

• If you believe the creation account of Genesis must be read literally, do you know the pros and cons of alternative readings?

• If you believe in penal substitutionary atonement, have you heard the alternative models of how Christ's death accomplished our salvation?

A few weeks ago I ran into a woman who was bemoaning the state of American culture and earnestly hoping she would soon be raptured from the earth. I am guessing her church has never discussed the fact that no Christian ever believed in "the rapture" before the 1800s. Or that this belief is based solely on the misreading of two short passages in the New Testament. 

It would serve the Body of Christ well for us all to be a little more inquisitive and quite a bit more hesitant to bang the gavel and announce "Case closed!" 

And if church leadership won't acknowledge these various debates, the lay people should be investigating for themselves ... and then peppering their leaders with questions. 

GOVERNMENT ON HIS SHOULDERS

In Isaiah 9:1-7, the prophet's famous words regarding the birth of Christ employ a term that is used twice here and nowhere else in the Old Testament: misrah, "government".

 6  For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given,
and the government will be upon His shoulders.
And He will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7  Of the increase of His government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on the throne of David
and over his kingdom,
to establish and sustain it
with justice and righteousness
from that time and forevermore.

Misrah means "rule" or "dominion". I'm no Hebrew scholar, but as far as I can tell "government" is a fair and accurate translation. 

The problem is that "government" is kind of a dirty word in modern American culture. It is a punchline, a term conjuring the opposite of respect. Even back in the 80s, I remember my dad cringing at government officials being called "public servants". 

But government is necessary. And it can be done well.

To govern simply means "to rule over by right of authority". 

This is a large part of what Jesus came to do. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Isaiah saw it clearly. 

But it's certainly not an aspect of the Christmas story we tend to highlight. 

4 CONVERSATIONS

(A short post tonight - it's been a crazy few days.)

Somehow, opportunities arose this week for me to speak with four missionaries. Three current and one former. 

These four conversations had some things in common:

• None descended into small talk.

• Each was longer than my normal day to day conversations. (The longest was several hours.)

• If time had allowed, all could have gone much longer.

• Each wrestled a bit with how to recognize God's will and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

• Any discussion of other people was done with nothing but compassion.

• Each challenged me and stoked a desire to go deeper into my own experience of faith. 

• And finally, each gave me hope.

Maybe I should make this a regular habit!

PLAGIARIZED THEOLOGY

Before the advent of AI, plagiarism was the English teacher's reigning "bane of existence".

I spent hours warning students against plagiarizing the work of other authors. 

From a lawyer's perspective, plagiarism is theft of intellectual property. And it carries a penalty. 

It is not illegal to steal ideas, of course - those are there for the taking - but one cannot "borrow" someone else's words or even their sentence structure. (You don't avoid a charge of plagiarism by using a thesaurus to swap out a few of the original words with their synonyms.)

I would often push the possibility of legal consequences of "copying and pasting" to instill a bit of fear in my students.

But my real concern over any student copying his source was that it proved the student had been lazy and had not really gained understanding of the concepts under review. 

This is the reason English teachers repeat the refrain "Put this in your own words". It is proof of comprehension.  

So the first problem with plagiarism is that the student has not actually learned anything at all.

A second and related problem sometimes occurs: With no understanding of his own, the student has no way to judge his source's expertise or veracity. He can only hope it is valid and relevant information. Every English teacher heaves a great sigh at finding Wikipedia in a student's bibliography. 

I say all this to draw a parallel to how theology and doctrines are conveyed and "learned" by most Christians: 

• Being able to parrot your sources - books, podcasts, or your own preacher - does not prove you have true comprehension. You will not be able to fool the Teacher. 

• Worse yet, if you possess no independent, firsthand understanding of Jesus or Scripture, how do you know you can trust your sources? 

CAN YOU EXPRESS IT?

“The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.” - Mortimer Adler

If this happens in the context of Christian beliefs, it's a sound bet the person conceives of faith as primarily a mental assent to various propositional truths. 

He can repeat "what" he has read in books or heard from the pulpit, especially if it has been repeated often. 

But if you ask him the "how" and the "why", you will get nothing but stammering or shrugging. 

In the best case scenario, that momentary embarrassment becomes the impetus for digging into Scripture with a genuine desire to gain a firsthand faith. 

In the worst case scenario, the status quo of the American church is preserved at least one day more. 

WRITING TO LEARN

This is true and it's one of the main benefits I have discovered from writing daily:

"Writing is the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about. Of course, you can learn a lot about something without writing about it. However, writing about something complicated and hard to pin down acts as a test to see how well you understand it."

From The Farnam Street Blog

Every believer would benefit greatly from daily journaling, even if nobody else ever laid eyes on it. 

NEEDING TO BE CONVINCED

"Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!"

Peter almost ended his relationship with Jesus before it got off the ground.

He listened to Jesus' teachings for a short time, and then Jesus caused Peter's fishing net to overflow with fish after being lowered into waters where the experienced fisherman knew there were no fish to be had. 

A miracle.

And then?

Overwhelmed with the sense of his own sinfulness, Peter wanted to put distance between himself and the Son of God. 

It's almost as if Peter, anticipating God's rejection, decided to beat Him to the punch. 

Preachers and evangelists are always saying "People have to hear the bad news before they're ready for the good news".

By this they mean "I need to convince unbelievers they are God-haters, incapable of good, and unworthy of God's love." 

Worthy, in fact, only of death and hell. 

(I can't imagine a better foundation for a close, lifelong relationship with God!)

What if the thing people really need convincing of is that God has not rejected them?