Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Quest for Relevance

An interesting interview with Os Guinness on the White Horse Inn, regarding the developments within American Evangelicalism within the past 50 years or so.

Here is the link.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Revelation 3:20 Examined

One of the most famous passages in the Bible, especially among those who support a libertarian free will, is found within Revelation:
"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." [Rev 3:20; KJV]
Much of its popularity came from a famous painting by Warner Sallman (see left), featuring Christ at a door knocking to enter. Many people have rightly noted that an outside handle is visibly missing on the door. Not a mistake by the artist, but rather an idea that Christ can only enter if we let Him in (at conversion), and hence be with Him. This motif has been repeated in other artistic depictions of this passage, so much so that perhaps many people coming across this passage simply accept it at face value as meaning such. They use this passage as a general call to everyone to allow Christ to enter. Many times I've noticed that this passage is cited almost entirely in isolation, without any consideration of what came before or after it.

I would like to take a moment to examine this passage. Let's begin by looking at the entire section of this chapter in context, with verse 20 highlighted in bold:
"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this:

'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'" [Revelation 3:14-22; NASB]
Under the dictation of the Lord, the apostle John is writing Christ's warnings and encouragements to the seven churches. Previously in the same chapter, He had spoken to the church in Sardis (v. 1-6), and then to Philadelphia (v. 7-13). This particular section is addressed to "the church in Laodicea" (v. 14). As He did with the other churches, he warns them of His omniscience regarding their sins: "I know your deeds" (v. 15). Having seen their deeds, He finds them lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, and so He will spit them out of His mouth (v. 15-16).

The nature of this lukewarm faith is illustrated in the following passages, showing that their theology is entirely man-centered. They believe themselves to have "become wealthy, and have need of nothing," when in fact they are "wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked" (v. 17). This latter point is entirely spiritual in context: though materially wealthy, they are lacking in the treasures of heaven (Matt 6:19-21); though before men they are adorned in fine garments, before God they are naked with all sins exposed (Gen 3:6-8); though fully able to see around them, they are spiritually blind (John 9:39-41). Christ's solution is entirely sourced to Him, and the spiritual remedies are as follows: He tells them to seek from Him "gold refined by fire" to be rich; "white garments" so that the shame of their nakedness may not be revealed; and "eye salve" so that they may anoint their eyes and see (v. 18).

Speaking from this same context, Christ says: "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent" (v. 19). It is a command for the church to repent and return to the spiritual life. After this request, He now states the famous verse, which is an explanation of why they should repent: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me" (v. 20). Christ is coming - a common theme throughout Revelation, and partially the reason Revelation was written. Believers are expected to be ready, just as the servants had to be ready for their master's return (Matt 24:43-44; Luke 12:37). Our Lord adds an additional promise: "He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne" (v. 21). Finally, the oft-repeated command found throughout the first few chapters of Revelation: "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (v. 22). This again establishes that the audience being spoken to are the churches of God.

Seen in context, what do all these passage mean?
  • Christ is speaking to the Christians who have yet to be judged. Unlike the popular belief that this is a general statement to everyone, this is a statement to believers and supposed believers. At least two verses illustrate specifically that this is addressed to the church (verses 14 and 22).
  • The immediate concern is for those who are "lukewarm," claiming to be for God yet clinging to the ways of man.
  • He commands them to be zealous repent, for He is coming. Those who are attentive and ready will open the door when He knocks, and thus He will enter and eat with them (v. 20), and they will be glorified with Him and the Father (v. 21). Hence on the return of Christ, they will find themselves a Day of Eternal Life, as opposed to a Day of Judgment for those who do not repent and are not ready when He knocks.
To summarize: Revelation 3:20 is a warning to Christians to be ready for the arrival of Christ.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Gospel: Good News or Good Advice?

Michael Horton and others at White Horse Inn talk about the modern tradition of "living" the Gospel instead of preaching it.

Link to broadcast.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

A Simple Review of the ESV App

About two months ago, I purchased an 8GB iPod Touch. At first I had great buyer's remorse coming from the sense that I was now $200 poorer, but eventually my remorse turned to joy as I found all the different ways I could use the device in my day-to-day life. As soon as I had formulated my iTunes account, I went about what I'm sure every person who buys an iPod Touch or iPad or iPhone does...scavenge the free apps! Yes, free. There are a ton of free apps that are quite helpful if you know how to look for them. I have a free app that keeps track of what I eat, another that allows me to read PDF documents, and another that can play police radios from most places in the world. There isn't an end to the possibilities out there, if you don't mind taking a few minutes to scour the iTunes search engine.

Of course, the big thing for me was finding a good Bible app. I wasn't looking for a walking library like e-Sword or Bible Desktop offer for your computer, but rather something that could be simple and easy to use at a moment's notice. That's when I came across the ESV app, designed and released by Crossway. It was free, it was well rated by users, and I already loved the ESV. Oh yes, and it was free. So I downloaded it.

The first thing that I noticed about the app was the immense ease at which one can browse God's word. Tapping on the screen will present the option to "Browse," and clicking on that button will give you the list of books in the Bible, which you can easily scroll by sliding your hand across the screen. Click on the book you want, and it will expand to all the chapters. Click on the chapter number you want, and it will bring you to the first verse. From there you can scroll with your fingers to the verse you want to see. You can either read it in page format (the iPod held up) or landscape format (the iPod held on its side, obviously).

As I said, this is an amazingly quick and easy way to browse. I often show this fact off to people by asking them to pick a random Bible verse for me to go to (this is usually uneventful because almost everyone picks John 3:16). One time I was on the phone talking to my good friend Steven on a biblical subject, and he said, "Go to this verse." Literally within seconds I was there - a few flicks of my finger and I was ready for him to continue. This was definitely an improvement over a paper Bible, which would have required me to flip several pages, find the book, then go to the verse, all of which would have taken several seconds more. Keep in mind I'm not condemning the use of paper Bibles (I still have all of mine), only that, if you're looking for something useful for quick referencing, then this app is helpful in that regard.

Other options are included besides merely reading the Bible. The ESV app also includes the ability to highlight verses, fave a verse, and write a note. Highlighting literally creates a yellow highlight around the verses you want to stand out, and the fave function adds a verse to your favorites. My only complaint regarding these two functions: when you go to the list of highlighted verses you'll see they're placed in chronological order; the favorite verses are not. Hopefully a later update of the app will improve on this.

The note function is helpful for those moments when you want to jot down something really quickly. I've often used it during church when the pastor said something edifying regarding a verse. Like the highlight and fave functions, the app saves a list of all your notes, and, like the highlight function (thankfully), it stores them in chronological order. My only advice: make sure people at your church know what you're doing, and in this regard I have a funny story. When I first went to the church I am now attending, I took out my iPod and started recording something interesting I had heard from the pastor. When I was showing off the ESV app to church members at the pot luck, the pastor's wife commented, "Oh! I thought you were texting someone!"

In terms of bugs or common errors, this app is solid for the most part. The only thing I did notice was a start-up crash: if you're holding your iPod sideways when you load the app, the app itself will crash. If you turn the iPod on its side after loading, then the app does not crash. Otherwise, the program runs perfectly fine.

What's the greatest thing about this? All that I have discussed is available offline. That's right - no internet connection is required to use this great app and all it's quirks. This makes it an excellent program for on the go or for those times when the world has been thrown into chaos and internet is not accessible any where. During my recent trek from Savannah to Kansas City, I kept my iPod Touch close at hand and used the ESV app to study scripture while stopping for lunch.

Overall, it's a free app that comes with many good qualities. I highly recommend this app to anyone with an iPod, iPhone, or iPad and looking for a good Bible software. Just remember what I said: make sure others in your church know what you're doing before you use it during service!

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Praying for the Enemy

This was something on my old blog that I thought I would repost here, as it is very fitting.

Those who know me personally know that September 11 is a personal day for me, and those who have followed my blog for a while know why. On September 11, 2001, I was in high school and watched on TV as the twin towers went down and saw the Pentagon aflame. My father worked at the Pentagon at the time. Needless to say, it was the scariest moment in my life.

By the grace of God I found out later my father was still alive, but the day still remains personal for me because of my experiences. I think they reflected how many felt that day. We were attacked, and watched in horror as commercial and military structures were destroyed or damaged by something we apparently couldn't stop. On top of this, it was a faceless enemy. We didn't know at that time who had attacked us. We only knew that they were evil men. We only knew that we were under attack from evil.

Now we have a face for this evil, and we have seen them commit more evil deeds. I made the unfortunate mistake some years ago of finding the Nick Berg beheading video and watching it. For the rest of that day I could not engage another human being in normal conversation - so great was my horror at what a man was capable of doing to another man. So great was my horror at watching Cain slay Abel.

Some years I entered an interesting conversation with a woman at an old church. The topic of the beheadings and terrorist attacks had come up, and she was pondering aloud to me if it was still necessary to pray for these men. They seemed so full of evil and so remorseless for their deeds that they seemed beyond salvation. It seemed that there was no hope for them to turn their ways, and everything they did and believed in was drenched in wickedness. The question ultimately boiled down to not only should - but could - we pray them? Could we find it in our hearts?

I answer emphatically: yes.

There is always a constant temptation in our life, and such evil men are nothing more than tools for our own temptation. Yes, these men had their own temptation, and they have succumbed to it wholesale, yet just as good works can result in further good works, so can evil deeds result in more evil deeds - this is why Paul warns regarding fasting: "if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble" (1 Cor 8:13). What better way to sow wickedness than to plant and nurture wickedness? Dandelions are reliant on letting the wind carry its seeds across the grass to spread the flower population; so too is sin reliant on the wind of temptation to spread demonic influence.

There is no doubt that part of the goal in the devil's creation of worse and worse men in our midst is to tempt the righteous into causing sin themselves, for a righteous man who falls to pride will err like the Pharisee and not become justified as the Publican. We will hate these men for who they are, and we will hate them even more for what we do. We will despise them. We will wish them dead. We will cheer at their death. We will glorify it when their people suffer. All because we believe we are righteous.

There is, however, no righteousness in pride, and no love in hate.

What these men do is wrong, but we must remember evil did not originate with them: it originated in the fall of mankind, and that fall is what begets the disease of the mind known as sin. These men do their deeds because of who we are, not who they are. They sin because it is human nature to sin, and we are all sinners and guilty before God (Rom 3:10). The sum of all sins are equal, and there is truly no such thing as "minor" or "major" sins, for all sins separate us from God. He who violates one commandment violates them all (Jam 2:10). This is why God loves all men equally: because all men are equally as guilty. God loves the righteous and the wicked - the only difference between the two is that the righteous man loves God back. Through extension, the righteous love the wicked as well.

Should we pray for these men? Yes, because they more than any one need our prayers. Can we? That depends on our love for God.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Remember: Jesus is your friend

Sometimes...

Sometimes you just have to find a chance to laugh...

He is like a Mountie - He always gets His man
And He'll zap you any way He can...ZAP!

Friday, September 3, 2010

The Stench of Universalism

A Pew Forum poll showed that 70% of Americans believed that many religions led to God. This factoid was brought along with the revelation that a large number of Americans still considered themselves nominally Christians. This means a large number of Americans (and likewise western Christians in general) follow a religion that claims to be an absolute truth and yet do not think it is so. They in essence follow a type of salvific theology known as universalism - in other words, all roads lead to heaven, and everyone can be saved so long as they're "good enough." This theology is, unfortunately, dead wrong.

How clear is scripture on this subject? I was accused recently of denying universalism only because of my Reform theology, and yet I have never done anything but quote scripture. Scripture, in this case, is very clear on our means of salvation:
So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. [Matthew 10:32-33]

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. [John 1:12-13]

"Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." [John 3:18]

Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die..." [John 11:23-26]

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." [John 14:6]

"This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." [Acts 4:11-12]

"The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." [Acts 17:30-31]
Scripture continually beats the drum of, "Christ is our salvation! Christ is our salvation! Christ is our salvation!" There is absolutely no other way to conclude it. In fact, one would be be hard pressed to read through the entire Gospel of John alone and sincerely come to the conclusion that there was another way beside Christ. Just as the old covenant sacrifices were made to atone for the sins of God's people (Israel) and not the pagan idolaters outside the nation, so too is the new covenant sacrifice of Christ made to atone for the sins of the children of God, and not those "children of wrath" (Eph 2:3) who reject their God.

Universalists declare that the idea of a God who judges based on unbelief creates a cruel God. I would propose that universalism creates a God who is a sadist. Why do I say this? For the simple reason that Christ was, according to this theology, made to endure the most horrific torture of His time, followed by the most horrific and embarrassing crucifixion for a Jewish man of that time, as well as the jeers of all political and religious leaders and citizens of that time...and all in front of His family and closest friends...and He did not have to do it.

What purpose, then, did Christ's sacrifice have? That is the biggest crime of universalism. Many have asked why I am so passionate about this, and I can give a simple answer: for the very fact that it is an offense to the teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection of our Lord.

Christ says He is the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him - yet the universalist would tell you that a person can be saved by other ways, other truths, other sources of life, and that they don't need Christ to go to the Father. That is an insult to our Lord, His word and His divinity.

Christ said, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die." He identified Himself as the very embodiment of the resurrection, in which believers will rise and enter into the presence of their Lord. Yet the universalist tells us that Christ isn't the resurrection and the life, and in fact millions of people out there have never needed Him to have eternal life. That is an insult to our Lord.

The apostle Peter, speaking of Jesus, said, "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." Yet according to the universalist, a person can be saved under Mohammad, Vishnu, Buddha, or any other number of false prophets and gods all because "they don't know any better" or "that's just how they perceive God." That's not only an insult to the sovereignty of our Lord, but the apostle Peter.

The apostle Paul, speaking of how men used to unknowingly follow false gods, said, "The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed..." Yet the universalist tells us that, in actuality, God will keep overlooking that ignorance because it would simply be unfair to judge someone in that regard. That makes the apostle Paul a liar and a deceiver.

I have been told my theology is inconsistent, but there is nothing inconsistent in the theology, "God desires all men to be saved, and has brought about this salvation through His Son, Christ Jesus." What's inconsistent is teaching people, "There's salvation in Jesus...um, unless you don't know any better. I mean, He's the only way to the Father, but you know, there are other ways if you just don't read your Bible well enough." There is nothing inconsistent with saying, "God desires to bring His sheep together, and has sent His apostles throughout the world so that all believing in Christ would be saved." What's inconsistent is teaching people, "Christ sent out his disciples to preach Jesus, but um...they didn't have to, I mean, if someone doesn't know Jesus they'll still be saved..." That is all inconsistent. That is the kind of theology that is, quite simply put, heresy. It is a heresy that, if mixed with worship, is a stench in the nostrils of our Lord.

This is why even those who would propose "divine loopholes" to salvation - such as postmortem repentance and the like - are in just as much error as universalists, preaching what amounts to semi-universalism. Many of them still believe that they can uphold beliefs such as "salvation in Christ alone" or "the importance of evangelism," yet to uphold these beliefs with semi-universalism is even more heretical and paradoxical than straight universalism itself. One ignores the word of God; the other mocks it.

Many many years ago, I myself was a universalist. Until maybe about two years ago, I transformed into a semi-universalist. I have since rejected the very notion altogether, because of the clarity of scripture through the words of our Lord and His apostles altogether on this. I recognize that this is hard for many to accept, but the reality of why we preach the message of God to others becomes clear when the need to do so does as well. Just as doctors and physicians rush to a scene of disease because they know their services will be needed, so too do Christians who understand the terrible consequences of sin rush to those who are lost. Many might say, "I have friends who aren't Christian - they're atheists/Jews/Muslims/Hindu/simple unbelievers." Then give them the gospel, not out of force but out of love. Just as God had mercy upon you, become His tool of mercy to those around you. It will not be you who causes the growth, but God, for He knows His sheep and His sheep know Him. If they do not believe, then you will have done your role as an ambassador for Christ, and they will be judged accordingly. If they come to believe, it is to the glory of God, and you will not be judged for not having done your duty.

This will still make many more uneasy, especially in this post-modern world where "live and let live" has gone beyond its original context. To those still nervous and would rather forget the words of scripture which clearly condemn the idea of universalism, I simply end with the words of our Lord:
For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. [Luke 9:26]