Don’t Turn Away

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Apologetics, Bible, Doubt, Faith, God, Jesus Christ, Life, Truth

Back in May there was a small stir in the Christian mediasphere surrounding the rejection of Christianity by a former Christian (?) musician named Jon Steingard, who apparently led a band called Hawk Nelson. While this was overshadowed by much more culture-shaking events, I do wish to come back to it, because Steingard’s departure from the faith and the responses to it raise a number of interesting issues. It would be quite a long essay to go through all of the issues, so I’m going to start with a couple, and hope to pursue it further in future posts.

To begin, it is always a tragedy when someone turns from the faith, and we should pity him. Apostasy does merit stern words, but such should come from a place of love towards the erring and desire to protect the flock–not from bitterness or anger. God’s compassion reaches out even to those who turn from Him; so should we. Faith is a gift from God, and we have no excuse for looking self-righteously upon others.

Nonetheless, the most significant thing that needs to be said in such situations is that turning away from God is a very grave matter, it is hazardous to a man’s soul and harmful to Christ’s church. It is not something we should gloss over. Some of the responses to Steingard seem, to me, to have failed him and the church in their unwillingness to treat his apostasy as the terrible thing that it is.

We see this in the book of Hebrews, which has some of the most terrifying passages in all of Scripture:

“We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.  For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment,  how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?” (Heb. 2:1-3, NIV)

“See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” (Heb. 3:12)

“It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit,  who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age  and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.  Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God.  But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.” (Heb. 6:4-8)

Turning away from God is dangerous. We should pray that God will continually strengthen our faith, and will give faith to those who doubt, so that they will not be hardened beyond repentance. These words are severe, but like all warnings in the Bible, they are there so that people will run to the cross and find God’s mercy. No one should ever think they are beyond the reach of God’s grace; but no one should ever play around with unbelief.

In all our unbelief, as in every other sin, we have that same hope, the offer of the gospel of love in Jesus Christ our Savior:

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.  Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Heb. 4:14-16)

Don’t turn away. Turn to the cross.

Tuesday Tea-ology, 06/30/20

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Compassion, Forgiveness, God, Grace, Hope, Life, Mercy, Peace, Salvation, Tuesday Tea-ology

Tuesday Tea-ology is here, about the grace and compassion of God.

Hard Words

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Forgiveness, God, Jesus Christ, Kindness, Love

Over at Medium, I’ve posted a reflection on Jesus’ call to love your enemies. Important for Christians to bear in mind, in these days of strife.

Consolation of Providence

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Christianity, Comfort, God, Hope, Peace, Providence

I’m experimenting with blogging at Medium; it looks like I can get ad-free without having to pay for it or be hidden by a paywall. Anyway, here’s my first post over there, a brief meditation on the comfort that comes from knowing God’s providential control.

With Drawn Sword

Tags

Faith, God, God the Son, God's Will, Kingdom of God

When Israel had crossed the Jordan River into the promised land, God directed them to revisit some of the central characteristics of their special relationship with Him. They renewed the circumcision symbolic of their identity as God’s covenant people (Joshua 5:1-9) and observed their first Passover in the land, receiving the produce of their inheritance (vv.10-12). Then Joshua had an encounter with God resonant of Moses’ experience with the burning bush, for, like Moses, Joshua is told “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy” (v.15, ESV).

In this encounter, God’s manifestation to Joshua is described: “a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand” (v.13). Joshua greets this martial figure with the question of whose side he’s on: “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” He receives the wonderful response, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come” (v.14).

God is no one’s instrument. God is Master. He is not a tool for man’s machinations; His Name is not a password for our own ends; His Word is not a prop. He is accomplishing His purpose, and we should ask not so much if He is on our side as if we are on His side.

Because He will come with drawn sword to destroy His enemies (Rev. 19:1-16). God’s victory is certain. For all the discouragement of things going on in this world, Christians should have a total confidence in the triumph of their cause–because it is God’s cause, to which they have given themselves. The cross advances. If we have faith, we have nothing to fear. Our God is near.

Missing Justice

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Celebrities, Christianity, Cultural Engagement, Culture, Culture War, God, Justice, Paganism, Race, Righteousness, Secularism, Society

I said, in a previous post, that a secular or pagan society does not have the resources to deal effectively with the issues facing us, without collapsing into chaos or cementing into control. I want to elaborate on what some of the gaps are in the secular worldview, and how these become evident as a pagan society grapples with injustice. Two elements in particular come to mind, both of which are found in the passage I looked at yesterday, Colossians 3:1-11.

The first is that the pursuit of justice is properly holistic, and a partial pursuit of justice is easily twisted. The Christian worldview understands justice in the context of God’s righteousness, and therefore promotes a holistic justice in line with the character of God. But a pagan culture takes a subjective approach to justice, built on a confusion of philosophies and social theories. Thus we see the same people calling for justice in one area, while they promote wickedness in another. Exhibit A is the American celebrity class, who call for economic justice (while enjoying lavish lifestyles), even as they frequently advance the cause of abortion; exhibit B is the Black Lives Matter organization, which calls for racial justice even while they zealously advance sexual immorality.

In contrast, the Christian worldview calls for a holistic embrace of righteousness; racial unity comes in the context of the entire mortification of the flesh, including “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires…greed…anger, rage, malice, slander…filthy language” and lying (Col. 3:1-9, NIV). Our culture would like to pursue racial justice, while holding on to most, if not all of, the rest of these sins. Justice will not be the result. That is one of the lessons of the past weeks. It seems that the same cultural currents running against retributive justice for criminals have turned suddenly warm to unjust and indiscriminate retribution towards the innocent. That is a consequence of having an understanding of justice untethered to divine righteousness.

The second crippling gap in the secular worldview–and it is connected to the first–is the gross inadequacy of its anthropology. They seek racial justice, but they have rejected the truth about humanity. A culture that does not grasp the logic of human dignity will find new ways to denigrate people. A culture that doesn’t know what men and women are cannot advance human flourishing. This shows itself in the strikingly naïve call to disband police–in an area that has just been ravaged by horrifying rioting, arson, and looting–with the rosy prediction that peace and mutually supportive community will spring up in the absence of any law enforcement. Such policies can only be advanced by people who are ignorant of human fallenness, and think that sin can be remedied solely by education, psychology, housing, and community.

The Christian worldview, by contrast, recognizes that human dignity transcends all differences between us, because we are created in the image of God. This is why there is retributive justice, and not indiscriminate retribution. We also recognize that humans are fallen and now have a sin nature, and that laws (and their enforcement) are necessary. And we recognize that the hope for true and supportive community, for love that transcends all boundaries, is found in a new humanity in Jesus Christ, who died and rose again to save us from sin. The hope for racial reconciliation is found in a Christian anthropology, which proclaims that in Christ, “Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (v.11).

Hope of All the Earth

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Bible, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Fear, God, Grace, Hope, Life, Mercy, Pandemic, Power

Psalm 65 begins extolling the kindness and mercy of the Lord: “Praise awaits you, our God, in Zion; to you our vows will be fulfilled.  You who answer prayer, to you all people will come.  When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions” (Psalm 65:1-3, NIV).  God is loving to the undeserving, gracious and good.  We can look to Him in our need.

Indeed, He is our only hope.  We are confronted with dangers and uncertainty, and we cannot save ourselves.  Where should we look for hope, for forgiveness, for life?

“You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds, God our Savior, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas” (v.5).  God is able to save, to heal, to forgive.  When situations seem beyond help, God is able.  When all others fail us, God is able.  In the depths of our sin, God is able to lift us up in His mercy. Let us remember that we serve the Almighty God.  He is strong to deliver anyone who looks to Him.  He is “the hope of all the ends of the earth.”  He is our hope, and we can trust Him.

Tuesday Tea-ology, 06/02/20

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Coronavirus, COVID-19, Crisis, Eternity, Faith, God, Hope, Nature, Pandemic, Resurrection, Scripture, Theology, Tuesday Tea-ology

Grab yourself a cuppa and rest for a minute in the eternal hope of the gospel.

Transitions

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America, Coronavirus, COVID-19, God, Mercy, Pandemic, Prayer, Race, Reconciliation

Well, a lot has happened since my last blog post.

As a word of explanation, my family has undergone a major transition: new town, new home, new church. All of this has been wonderful, but it’s remarkable how much things have changed in the past couple of months.

Of course, this coincides with a major transition our whole nation and our whole world has been going through. The coronavirus pandemic has brought horrible death and suffering, and dealt an economic blow to people’s livelihoods that will perhaps not be fully realized until this is over.

On top of that, our nation has been grappling with the evil of our long legacy of racism, and the dark consequences of that, which show up in a number of ways. The horrible injustice done to George Floyd has led to unrest and destruction that will surely increase the suffering of the poor in these communities. If this, too, is a transition, we cannot see from here what the end result will be.

May God have mercy on us. May He, the great Healer, lift our world out of the grip of this disease. May He, the great Reconciler, grant us the mercy of repentance, reconciliation, justice, peace, and a brighter future to come. May He, the Lord of life, stir revival in our nation so that we will have His love for one another.

May He turn this dark transition to our transformation.

Easter Tuesday

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Christianity, Crucifixion, Easter, God, Grace, Hope, Jesus Christ, Mercy, Praise, Redemption, Resurrection, Salvation

I bless you, God Most High, for this day to declare your glory and the resurrection hope. Wonderful you are, and wonderful are your works for our redemption. Thank you for the love that sent your Son to the cross; thank you for the power that raised our Lord from the tomb. For your mercy and kindness, your majesty and strength, be forever praised, God Most High—Amen.