Alan Jacobs has re-cycled an excellent essay he wrote ten years ago as a column for the late lamented Books & Culture. He found what he had to say then particularly apropos to the present day. I don’t recall reading it 10 years ago, so maybe I missed that early edition of Books & Culture; but I’m very glad Jacobs decided to reprint this essay on his blog. Give it a read here.
Category: Christian Living (Page 5 of 8)
I’m writing this on November 25. There is just enough time to get an Advent calendar to use for yourself or with your children to work your way through the Christmas season with daily reminders of what it means to us as followers of Jesus.
For children, the idea these days is that you get a “calendar” that is actually a picture of some sort with little doors that you open one per day on the 25 days leading up to Christmas day. If you choose a Christian Advent calendar, there will be something behind each door that takes you through the Christmas story leading up to Jesus’ birth. Our two youngest grandchildren are into Snoopy this year, so I ordered the Peanuts Calendar from Amazon. There are two Peanuts Advent calendars. One is completely secular and the other (the one I ordered) tells the story of Jesus’ birth in a way that may remind children of the original Peanuts Christmas special.
There are many other Advent Calendars available. ChristianBook.com has many, for example.
I recommend Wikipedia for a bit more in-depth explanation of Advent Calendars.
Often, theologians divide revelation into general and special, and mean by “general” what can be known of God through nature. By “special” they essentially mean biblical revelation or at least the explicit gospel. So the question comes down to “can a person turn to trust God through general revelation”?
I think that’s exactly the wrong question. Biblically, no one turns to Jesus unless God draws them through either general or special revelation (by these definitions). This is the beginning of the Calvinist idea no one comes to God on their own. In Calvin’s understanding, God chooses some to be saved and draws them irresistibly to Jesus (or himself). No one turns to God on their own. Quakers agree that no one turns to God on their own, but believe that God draws all people to his son (or himself) at some time or times in their lives. This draw is resistible; humans must choose to trust God as he draws them. If they believe and trust Him, they are saved by grace.
Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. That’s the biblical idea. So, instead of phrasing the question into whether or not general revelation can be sufficient in the absence of special revelation, we would say that general revelation is never enough for anything beyond making people “without excuse” (as Paul says in Romans 1) and that God reveals himself and one’s need for Him to each human being on one or more “days of visitation” in which he makes it clear that we are insufficient in ourselves and that he is calling us to trust Him for purpose and direction in our lives at some level of understanding appropriate for the context. Then, we submit to him or we do not. Salvation begins when we submit to Him and trust Him as He reveals Himself to us. The explicit gospel is powerful and intended by God to be used in drawing many to Himself, of course. It is his will that we know it and spread it. But like Abraham, we must respond with belief to a time when God makes himself known to us. That can take place in the absence of anything but a human in the world and God reaching out to that human. It often takes place in the spiritual realm when the gospel is presented through apparently human means.
Further, no one is saved on the strength of their own reasoning through the words of scripture or logical argument. Rather, God speaks to a person, perhaps while he or she is reading scripture (actually, very often while they are reading scripture – at least where it is available!) It is God speaking that is both necessary and sufficient to produce a context in which a human being can say “yes” in belief and it be credited to that human being as righteousness (or right relationship with God), and that human being be “saved”. It is God that must be present, gracious, and active, and nothing less.
See John 6:44 (No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them) in addition to the many instances of Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. To be justified is to be in right relationship with God. That is the issue. Are we in right relationship to God? God initiates the relationship. We hear him, change our thinking (repent) to trust and to agree with what he says, or we do not. God calls us to trust, enables us to trust, and empowers us to believe and change without overpowering our will. Once we have moved in trust, he calls us to move some more – again and again, toward maturity, for the rest of our natural lives. It is God’s plan that this takes place in and through serving Him and representing Him in Christian community. We are a part of a body – not the body by ourselves.
Love is the hardest lesson in Christianity; but, for that reason, it should be most our care to learn it.
-William Penn
I heard Jeffrey Greenman, President of Regent College say, in a talk on ethics:
You grow in the direction of what you ask questions about.
My corollary: It’s when I think I’ve got it figured out that I stop asking questions. Life is a good corrective to such an attitude. God isn’t complacent about our complacency.
Quoting Miroslav Volf:
We are in a major crisis of legitimacy and trust. No better time to renew commitment to trustworthiness, as individuals and communities.
Well said.
[Jesus] demands of his first followers a living witness to a simple life on the edge, because once you are at the visible center, once you are on the top, you have too much to prove and too much to protect… The only free positions in this world are at the bottom and at the edges of things. Everywhere else, there is too much to maintain – an image to promote and a fear of losing it all – which ends up controlling your whole life.
– Richard Rohr, in Dancing Standing Still; Healing the World from a Place of Prayer
Judah got in a lot of trouble for depending on Assyria to protect them from the Israel/Aram coalition. And then Judah got in a lot of trouble for looking to Babylon to protect them from the Assyrians. Later, Judah got in a lot of trouble for depending on Egypt to protect them from the Babylonians. And so it goes.
People of God, vote for whomever you can vote with a clear conscience and then stand by without shame as a leader without being an embarrassment to God. But remember: #WeDontNeedEitherOne
There is no candidate running who will usher in the kingdom of God or prevent its coming.
Finally, Isaiah 30:1-3 is apropos:
Woe to the obstinate children,â€
declares the LORD,
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
heaping sin upon sin;
who go down to Egypt
without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection,
to Egypt’s shade for refuge.
But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame,
Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace.
[NIV]
In The World is not Ours to Save, Tyler Wigg-Stevenson recommends for those who follow Jesus
“enduring, kingdom-oriented activism grounded in the faithfulness of vocation instead of the anxiety of a broken world.”
Some paint the issues surrounding the place of women in the family and the church as an issue of autonomy; that is, Man seeks to decide for himself and not let God be God. The issues are bundled with other contemporary issues of sex, life choices, materialistic goals, and so on. However, what I argue is not for an expansion of human autonomy, even though some see it that way. It is no argument for allowing Christians to move into what the Bible defines as sinful behavior. Rather, it is standing against human systems of oppression that oppose God and His purposes. My goal is not to free humans to choose their own way. My goal is to remove human oppression that stands against what God has created and that attempts to thwart what God is doing in the lives of women. It is to open the way for women and men to be who God created them to be, exercising the gifts he gives them as he calls without interference from other humans who hold up old traditions or ways as being God’s ways when in reality they were ways born in the curse.
No one should seek place or prominence in the body of Christ. We should all follow the example of Christ, humbling ourselves to serve in whatever manner He determines. If God lifts one into leadership or a place to exercise a spiritual gift, who should oppose Him? No one. But if God does not lift one to such a place, who should presume to take it on their own ambition or will? No one. The way I am advocating is to avoid ruling out a particular direction that God might lead. It is undeniable that God has used women in positions of leadership among his people in scripture. Some claim this was because the men were falling down on the job. Some say this is because God does not intend for women to be restricted to certain roles. Either way, if one opposes what God does for whatever reason he does it, one is opposing God. I caution Christians about proclaiming what God cannot or will not do with women, or standing legalistically on what we will allow God to do with or through women. We are not talking about a license to sin; we are talking about not standing against God when he leads or teaches through a woman when that is what he chooses to do. I believe God creates women and gives them gifts of teaching and leadership to be exercised at his calling for the benefit of the body of Christ as a standard part of life in his kingdom. However, even if you disagree that this is a normal path for women in the body of Christ, it is very dangerous to argue that we should stand against what God has demonstrated he may do when he sees fit – even if you think he only leads through women to shame sinful, distracted men!
For the women, though, there is a caution here. It is never safe to take on service in the kingdom of God just to prove that you can do it. The church is not the place to prove women are capable for the sake of human pride. God calls his people and arranges the members of the body as he sees fit. The essence of sin is to ignore God and seize autonomy to do what we determine in our own hearts and minds is “best”. Eve demonstrated the folly of that approach. Paul’s words in Philippians 2 apply to women, too. The church is not first a battleground for women’s liberation; it is the kingdom coming among us.
Every local church has to make a decision about how it will approach this issue. Either there will be limitations placed on women in the church or there will not. Either women will have the opportunity to lead and teach and preach, or they will not. There will be women as elders and pastors or there will not. God can organize us as he chooses. God can move us to change as he chooses. There is a practical issue of how each local church will approach this issue. Let us make our best attempt at faithfulness and move forward to do the work of the church without apology and also without antagonism toward brothers and sisters who choose a different approach. As much as it is in our power, we should be at peace with others who decide differently than we decide on this matter. And yet we must speak the truth in love when God says to speak.
We should want nothing more and nothing less than to allow Christ to lead us according to his priorities for his kingdom in a particular time and a particular place. What is helpful to communicate the gospel? What is helpful to advance the kingdom of God? What blesses the church? I believe that God will move his people to release women from the bondage resulting from the Fall that is reflected in human societies and cultures around the world. The timing is in God’s hands. Truth spoken in love, as God leads, is in our hands. God will move his people to change human society in the direction of his will. God’s enemies will oppose this movement.
I earnestly sought for God to guide me in this issue. In His time, He spoke, and said, “You shall have no other gods before me.” The other gods are falling. Traditions of men and false spiritual powers are being disarmed. His kingdom is advancing. Good news is preached. Prisoners are freed. The blind recover sight. The oppressed are released. It is the year of the Lord’s favor.
“to the pure, all things are pure”
– Titus 1:15, NIV