Parallel Truths

Parallel truths

 

God is really big. And by really big I mean unfathomably huge and complex and nothing that our minds could ever comprehend. Sometimes I feel like Christians put God in the box of their views. There are some things in the Bible that simply are hard to understand... For example, why was David God's beloved when his marital status was more like that of the Mormons? Why does God say that he "desires all to be saved" yet all are not saved? How can three people be totally different people and totally the same at the same time (I speak of the Trinity)? How can Jesus be fully God and fully man? And don't even get me started on baptism! 

Christians put God in their box by assuming that God has revealed the "correct" answer to all of these questions to us. The fact is, quite a bit of scripture is subjective. People will have different interpretations of different passages. We don't understand everything about the Bible and the way God works. 

For a long time I was very confused about the topic of election. It's a very confusing and almost contradictory subject. How can we be held accountable for sin that we have been willed by God to commit? That doesn't sound like a "just" God to me! Also, if God is the one "willing" things to happen, how can he say that he "desires all people to be saved and reach the knowledge of the truth"? To me it looks like he must not "desire" it too much! I mean, he's the guy writing the story! 

When I explained my quagmire to our pastor at our old church in San Diego, he said something very profound which I will never forget. He said, "I believe that sometimes we have to hold parallel truths when we are dealing with tricky subjects in the Bible. I believe that the Bible teaches that we have free will, and I also believe that the Bible teaches that God is perfectly sovereign." I absolutely agree with him. The Bible teaches that we are given free will. The Bible also clearly states that God is sovereign. How those fit together, he has not revealed to us in cut & dry, clear ways. 

I'm not saying we need to naively accept everything that seems to contradict itself. I have struggled with the concept of election for long enough that I now have a personal opinion of how this works. Struggle with issues. Try to wrap your mind around them. But, ALWAYS GO BACK TO SCRIPTURE with your ideas of how these parallel truths might fit together. If you don't go back to scripture with your ideas you can end up creating frighteningly unbiblical ideas. For example, at a recent bible study where we were grappling with the verse that speaks of God desiring all to be saved (1 Timothy 2) someone stated that "God can't save everyone because wouldn't be just if he saved everyone." This statement took me aback. This could not be farther from the truth. Christ's atonement took the price of the WHOLE WORLD's sins! Not just God's elect. However, some choose not to accept it. If the whole world were to accept Christ his blood would cover all and God WOULD NOT be unjust. These are the dangerous things that we can come up with when we don't take our analysis of how parallel truths fit together back to scripture. 

The best part about holding onto parallel truths keeps us from putting God in the box of our subjective views. Reformers put God in a box when they say that the gifts ended after the Pentecost and anyone who disagree's is wrong. Charismatics put God in a box when they say the gifts didn't end after the Pentecost. The truth is, there is evidence for both sides. We have to hold the truths of the passages supporting both sides and choose for ourselves the best interpretation of scripture.

There will always be disagreements in the church over the interpretation scriptures. . It's not wrong for us to have our own views as to the interpretation of these verses but we cannot be so arrogant to believe that we have these passages perfectly figured out and that anyone who disagrees with us is wrong. God is bigger than us and we don't have him figured out perfectly. Hold onto parallel truths.

One dies, millions cry... Yet approximately 3,700 of those millions commit legal murder everyday.

I'm not a very big fan of a popular image that has been going around on Facebook. On one side of this image is a picture Steve Jobs and text that says "One dies, million cry.". The other side is a picture of a starving African boy and text that says "Millions die, no one cries." As a disclaimer, I understand what they are trying to say. I understand that the children in Africa are not cared about near as much as the man who brings us the fabulous technology that some of you may very well be using to read this post. I also understand that the world should have more respect for Africa and be more concerned for what we can do to benefit the organizations that are working with the people living there, but I don't think that picture helps us to accomplish this at all. Playing on your emotions, it tries to convince one that he is somehow guilty of being saddened by Steve Jobs death. In my opinion, there are many problems with that...

1. Millions die in Africa everyday. While this is horrible and is something we not only should be aware of but also striving to change, to suggest that we should cry every time someone dies is ridiculous. We would be a very depressed world.
2. If your Mom dies, you are most likely going to be devastated. If the curbside trashman dies, you are not going to be devastated. Is that a sin? No, of course not! You had no emotional attachment to this person. On the smaller scale that this popular Facebook image refers to, we do not know millions of children in Africa. However, nearly all of us own a product that was designed by Steve Jobs. Hence, our emotional attachment to Steve Jobs would clearly be higher than our emotional attachment to children in Africa.
3. The picture doesn't specify that the "millions" that die and no one cries about are actually children from Africa. It just uses a picture of children from Africa to tug on your emotions. And with that said...
4. 1 out of 1 people die... that is a lot of crying that needs to be done if we have to cry for all of them. Just saying.



Anyways, I was sitting in the front yard of the church I attend this week taking the above picture of the memorial to the unborn children and for whatever reason I could not stop thinking about the logic of this photo. Seeing the crosses that represented the life of an unborn child in Kalispell, Montana made me think about that picture of Steve Jobs and the African children. Why does the world see it as a tragedy that millions are dying in Africa but not see it as a tragedy that we are killing thousands of our own? Is it because we aren't aware of what an abortion really is? Is it because the girls who are considering this don't realize that there is a living human in their body with a heart that beats? Why do they not know this? I think it is because everyday the world tells them that an abortion is their only option. That they have no hope and that they are all alone and have no hope of raising a child on their own. That what is in their body is not a human. This is a serious problem that we as Americans need to address. There are organizations that are trying to help this issue. In my hometown, Hope Pregnancy Ministries is at work in the community showing future mothers that their is a living person inside of them at Clear Choice Clinic, and helping them raise their child even after they have made the decision not to have an abortion. There might be other organizations like this in your area that you can donate time or money to.

My friend Collin has a sticker on his guitar case that I have always thought was interesting. It says (In essence... I might be misquoting this a teeny bit) "the Bible says that Mary was with child... not with a blob of tissue". If that is God's view of an unborn child, why would it not be good enough to be ours? Maybe the picture on Facebook should say, One dies, million cry... yet approximately 3,700 of those million commit legal murder everyday. That would be worth paying attention to. 

"God, if home is where my heart is, then I'm out of place! Lord, wont you give me strength to make it through somehow... Because I've never been more homesick, then now." - MercyMe

God's Beauty

God’s beauty is an attribute under which all the other attributes of God can be categorized. Many find this strange but it is only because they are looking at beauty in a different light than how I am describing it here. According to the dictionary, ‘Beauty’ is: “the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.” or in other words, a quality or attribute that is desirable or attractive. Therefore, since we are “pleasurably exalted” by righteousness, holiness, peacefulness, gracefulness, patience, mercy, love, truthfulness, faithfulness, wisdom, knowledge, and perfection in other people’s character, then we cannot deny that God is beautiful because God is all of these qualities to the fullest extent.

As humans, we naturally miss the beauty of God in the world around us so, in his mercy, God has demonstrated, through scripture, some examples of his great beauty. David marveled in Psalm 27:4 (“ One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.”) and in Ps. 73:25 (Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.”) at the beauty of God claiming that God’s beauty is the only thing that David wishes to gaze upon for all of his days. God is also beautiful because he is infinitely wise. Solomon, the writer of Proverbs, was the wisest man in the world. However, God gave Solomon his wisdom and God is millions times more wise than Solomon or the rest of the world could ever dream. God’s patience is another way His beauty is displayed. This is clearly stated in 2 Peter 3:9 when he says: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance.” God makes it quite clear that he is truthful in John 18:37.and Numbers 23:19 when he says: “I came to bring truth to the world. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”, and “God is not a man, that he should lie and he is not a human, that he should change his mind. Has he ever promised and not carried it through?” God states that He is the one who brought the beauty of truth to the world and that He therefore is infinitely truthful. In addition, there is nothing more beautiful than when God tells us in John 3:16 that “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” This is the best proof in the Bible that God is infinitely, wonderfully, and even fearfully beautiful.

Planet earth daily impresses and amazes me with it’s beauty. But I find that I rarely, if ever, think of beauty as being God’s beauty which shows me that my view of the character of God is wrong. If God created the world and created beauty, then everything that is beautiful is just a reflection of the beauty of himself. When I look at the colors burning in the sky during a beautiful sunrise I should marvel at how me how beautiful God is not at how amazing the photography is. Beauty is something that humans now think they know a lot about. People are on quests for beauty in photography, fashion, hair styles, etc. But the beauty they find is not original beauty... It is a reflection of God's beauty! That photograph above this essay shows us an aspect of God's beauty! The whole world does. If God can help me learn to think this way of all the things that strike me as beautiful, my view of God’s character will be much more complete.

Systematic Theology

Hey guys! If you actually read this blog you are my hero. You might think that I'm writing this because I'm organized and responsible and if you do then, once again, you are my hero. Because that's not the case. I have to write a post a week for school... But, I'm going to make the best of it and try to say something worth while in my posts :). I've been reading through a book with the other youth in the church called "Systematic Theology" by Wayne Grudem. It's a good read and I would recommend reading it. Grudem brings the theology down to a level that is easy to understand but still deep. These last few weeks we have been reading about God's Words. The part I've found most interesting so far is that the New Testament was excepted as Scripture or God's Words immediately after it was written. Even Paul's works (remember this is the guy who spent a major portion of his life as an "assassin" of Christians, so to speak) were excepted as God breathed (1 Cpr/ 14:37; cf. 2 Peter 3:2)!!! It's just cool, interesting stuff!

When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car. -JACK HANDEY

Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead.
~ Mac McCleary ~