Family celebrations

I am pitiful.

Here I am hiding at the computer, trying to hide from a three year old to get a little bit of rest before the rest of my mom's side of the family comes over. We are going to have 28 people at our house in an hour and a half. Yes, that's right, 28. That's a lot of people for a big meal and then a present opening extravaganza. We had 11 people spend the night in our house last night, (including the three that are usually there.) So, this week has been interesting.

Have any of you noticed that it is much harder to spend time in the word and commune with God when you are at home and of of the routine that you can establish with your life? Because I really have had a hard time getting into the word this week. For one, I am never the first one up, like I usually am at the house. Going downstairs this morning at 7:30 made me the 10th one up, beating my sister by several hours. The whole thought of getting off quietly before the day starts doesn't work, because the day starts before I do. And when you have 7 guest staying with you, and more out of town family filing in and out on a regular basis all day every day, it just gets hard to get alone time. I guess I am whining about this, and making excuses for my own laziness, but lets just say that I will be glad to get back to Knoxville tomorrow morning when I can slip back into my routine of hitting Panera alone for 45mins - 1 hour every moring. Phew.

It's been good to see family again, some of whom I haven't seen in years, but I miss Knoxville, and the peace I typically enjoy. Got to go, more family will be arriving soon...

Thank You

I wanted to thank everyone who has prayed or even thought about praying for me after my last post a while back. Also thanks to the few of you who actually took the time to ask me about it and draw me out, and sorry I was so vague and that the conversations couldn't really go anywhere do to lack of detail.

God met with me this weekend. It wasn't directly related to what was discussed below, but I am really experiencing much of His grace, and it has helped me there as well.

I may post a more typical post for me soon.

Prayer

Could I ask anyone who is reading this to pray for me? There is a sin pattern in my life that I am trying to break, and am seeing little fruit. The battle here is is more intense than I have ever fought sin before, but I appear to be making very little ground. The struggle seems to be consuming a large part of my life and of my attentions and I have felt condemned quite often at my failures.

I spend much time preaching to myself and quoting scripture to myself, and have prayed for delvierance many times, but help seems to be tarrying. I know that the work is of the Spirit and I know that this sin does not and cannot change or alter my standing in Christ in any way. I am defined by my standing with Him and not by my failures. Yet, I sin.

Please pray for me. I need help.

VFC last night

Mike spoke last night at VFC about redeeming our time. He said that the average American spends 6 hours on leisure every day. 6 hours! Do we really need that much leisure time? i mean, of those 6, 4 of them were spent wtching TV. I definately know that I don't need to watch four hours of TV in a day.

But, as I was trying to think back on how I actually spend my time, I realized that I'm not doing tthat much better than average. I may not spend 4 hours in front of the TV every day, but I bet I find ways to waste 6 hours in a day. Except the occaisions that I get really busy (like Monday-Wednesday of this week and virtually the entire month of October,) I have a good solid amount of time to do what I please, and I am taking 16 hours of engineering and am working 10 hrs a week. What do you do before class if your class starts at 11? If you don't go to bed until 1 what are you doing from 10-1? (In my experience, unless you are cramming in homework, very little productive things happen after 10 for you night owls.)

So, here is my challenge. We don't need leisure. Leisure accomplishes nothing. If you have been saved by Christ you have the priviliege of being able to glorify him by how you live your life. Typically (not always) God is not glorified through leisure, through sitting on our butts and watching TV, or sitting down and surfing through facebook for the 100th time. Revolt against your lazy leisure-seeking self and glorify God through a proper use of your time.

Also, realize that I am preaching primarily to myself here, and I hope some of you guys get something out of this as well.

A tibet story

Ok, I have a biography of a missionary to Tibet named Victor Plymire. He was in Tibet up until the communists took over China. But the book opens with the account of a western skeptic who disguised himself to participate in a closed Tibetan ritual. This story was originally printed in the December 1937 Reader's Digest. It is an account of a real live man seeing some things that he never thought he would see. The book included it because "missionary tales are sometimes doubted." So this is not from a missionary. I hope you read through it. It is longer than a blog post usually is, but be patient, and realize the stories read quicker than theology does.

I SEE THE KING OF HELL
By Harrison Forman

When disguised as a Tibetan sorcerer, I walked into the sacred forest of Radka Gonpa with Old Sherap, he was plainly frightened. If I were unmasked, his brother sorcerers might slay us both.

"If there be trouble" I promised him, "I assure thee that I shall swear that I have never seen thee before."

The sun was setting as we came into the clearing where, in a circle sat a score of sorcerers, silent except for an occasional whisper. As unobtrusively as possible we took our places in the circle, exciting little more than a momentary glance from others. I could sense my old friend's sigh of relief. I studied the nearest sorcerer on my left. His face was ugly and dirty. His long snakelike coils of black hair looked as though they might be the nesting place for all manner of crawling things. His coal black eyes were intently fixed on nothingness as he sat in the clearing like one in a trance.

He and his fellows were followers of Bonism, a form of paganism which predates Buddhism in Tibet. The lamas of Buddhism intercede between the laymen and the benignant deities; the Nukhwas of Bonism propitiate the evil ones. It was the materializing of these evil spirits that I had come to see.

The rustling wind of dusk rustled through the trees as though announcing the dread arrivals which we were expecting, and which I the skeptic, was sure would not come.
Then through an opening in the trees a tall man of impressive mien entered the clearing and mounted a tall boulder. It was Drukh Shim the Grand Wizard. Squatting cross-legged on the top, he faced us in silence, his piercing eyes apparently missing nothing that came within their range. I noticed that a human thighbone rested on the rock at his right hand. The top of a human skull on his left. For minutes there was a deep silence as dark closed in. Then, as if at a given signal, though I saw none given, the sorcerers started to sway forward and backward, and in deep tone spoke one word three times, "Yamantaka Yamantaka Yamantaka."

So they called upon the King of Hell himself, to appear.

After the third repetition, the Grand Wizard lifted the thighbone to his lips. It was a horn and its low note rolled mournfully through the forest. Then he lifted the skull cup libatation bowl. Old Sherap had prepared me for this and I knew the meaning of this solemn drinking. In ancient times they had held human sacrifices - and what the Grand Wizard now drank was human blood.

The Grand Wizard replaced the cup, and the sorcerers resumed their chanting, "Yamantaka Yamantaka Yamantaka."

Heads were bowed. I bowed mine, but out of the corner of my eye I watched them, alert for trickery, wondering how it would begin. I did not believe in demons and devils, much less that they could be made visible to the eyes of men. It was my sincere intention to remain as much the scientific inquirer as possible through all of that ceremony.

Again the thighbone trumpet spoke, again Drukh Shim drank. Faster swayed the sorcerers. "Yamantaka Yamantaka Yamantaka."

Faster and faster I swayed and chanted with them. And something entered me - got into my blood. I do not know what that something was; but it was there. I began to be less the skeptic, more the Tibetan sorcerer I was pretending to be. I recognized this and began to rebel. I was not going to allow myself to be hypnotized into seeing something reason told me could not possibly be there.

I could be hypnotized, I knew that, and believed that hypnotism would prove to be the answer to whatever happened in the Sacred Forest. But what form of hypnotism? Mass hypnotism? Should we all see things created out of the mind of someone else? Or should we be subjected to autosuggestion, creating whatever we desired out of our own minds? Now there began a low, mumbling monotone, moaning voices pitched in the deepest of tones.
"How better could they begin," I asked myself, "if they wish to hypnotize someone else? How do I know that Old Sherap's reluctance was not a trick, that the sorcerers are not intent of hypnotizing me that I may take stories of their wonders to the world?"

The chanting monotone continued. Heads were still bowed. One could feel a drowsiness creeping over one's body. But I was not to be fooled. Hypnotism thus far. And rather simple too.

Then I realized that perhaps I was not playing the game fairly. How could I expect to find out anything about the weird ritual if I refused to see, hear, feel it? Demons, if there were demons, perhaps they could be called into being! Who was I to say that the Tibetans did not know what they were talking about?

I stirred, looked around me - puzzled. For something I'd never experienced before was beginning to fasten itself upon me like invisible hands, to possess me against my will. I tried to shrug the feeling away. And the scientific side of me looked about for some explanation, I looked at the chief Wizard, up there on the dais: a much feared and holy man. It stuck me that he was seeking to control me and all the others. I fought against him. I had a distinct sense of struggle, as though our spirits had moved from our bodies to the center of the clearing, to wrestle for the balance of power between us. I concentrated on driving back the will of the head one, I fought mightily but my thoughts kept fading strangely. The mumbling monotone of the Nukhwahs around us was mounting in a rumbling crescendo that crept into the blood, into the mind, into the very soul.

"Yamantaka Yamantaka Yamantaka”

The circle of conjurers began to sway softly from side to side. The chanting continued to swell. And I began to think of all that Old Sherap had told me of what I must see there, Yama, King of Hell and his satellite demons and devils. I watched the spot where the demons were supposed to appear, trying to see something where reason told me there was nothing.

I do not know what my camera would have seen. I only know what I thought I saw. Yama, King of Hell, was appearing little by little! He did not come in through the trees. He was not a Tibetan masquerading. One moment he was not there and the space empty. Then he began to grow before my very eyes.

All of the circle of sorcerers saw it at the same time. Wilder and wilder became their chanting. It was not like a dream. Beyond the Grand Wizard, all around us, I could see the poplars and the pines. I saw the sorcerers - noted their faces deliberately. I made special note of Old Sherap beside me, with his 12 feet of hair coiled like a black snake atop his head. But Yama was coming at our call. As fervently as any other Nukwah, I was intoning in the deepest voice I could manage, "Yamantaka."

It was the glaring bulging eyes I saw first. At the height of an average man from the ground they stared at us, filled with malevolence. To right and left of the eyes were strange mists, which shifted and began to take form until, like some evil flower bursting suddenly into bloom, they became all the thirty-four arms of Yama with thirty-four hands grasping some implement of destruction.

The main head grew into being about the eyes. Then appeared other heads, until there were nine all shrouded in transparent bluish flames, which danced and flickered about unceasingly. Then the shoulders, over which hung a garland of human skulls, which rattled horribly at the least movement.

I shivered. I glanced away. When I looked back I expected that Yama would no longer be there. But he was, staring at me with his bulging eyes, His lips were now visible, and they were huge and libidinous – and the teeth like the fangs of no animal on earth.
But Yama was only the beginning. After him, the hardest to evoke, the lesser devils came willingly enough. I recognized the demon of lust, whom Old Sherap had called Nguh Nukh – a writhing demon whose twistings were the twistings of lusting men and women in fleshly travail. He danced before us, and love became something obscene, lascivious, horrible. The demon of hunger was next, his ribs showing through his skin. The demon of anger followed, shapeless, with a face all twisted with passion, and a body like the snake-like pile of hair on the head of some Nukwa, writhing, out of control. Other devils and demons appeared and then, as though it were a grand finale of the ceremony, Yama himself began his dance macabre, the most horrible of all, its very movement mocking the miseries of mankind with the clanking of his necklaces of skulls. I could smell the odor of death.

What now if these sorcerers could not control the demons they had brought forth? The mere thought of it caused cold perspiration to bathe me from head to foot – for Yama and his minions had become as real to me as my own self. I knew that if he escaped, all the country would be doomed.

Suddenly I could feel the same tension among my brother sorcerers. The demons were attempting to escape their invisible bonds, and the Nukhwas were uniting their wills against them. Though I told myself that this was some trick of mass- or self-hypnosis, I found myself applying my will adding it to the others, to beat back the surge of those devils. I strained against them. I almost put out my hands to push them back, until I realized that my hands would be as nothing to Yama and his satellites.

Whatever I had pretended before, I was now a Nukhwa among Nukhwas, fighting demons. Would we win? It seemed ages before the answer came. When it did I had a fierce surge of exultation.

Yama began to fade. It was an age before he vanished entirely. Nguh Nukh went, and the demons of hunger and anger, and reluctantly all the other devils, until we were just the score of sorcerers facing Drukh Shim there of his boulder. And I felt that had there been one less, Yama would have prevailed against us.

I did not look at the others. I was shivering. I sat there numb with what I had seen, until the last sorcerer had gone into the Sacred Forest, each alone as he had come, into the gathering darkness. Only Old Sherap remained.

“And what now dost thou believe?” he asked in a strange voice.

“My friend,” I said, “I do not know. I think I saw Yama and his devils. Just now I am sure I saw them, and they were as you had described them to me. What I shall believe tomorrow, I have not the slightest idea…”

To this day the spectral things I saw in the Sacred Forest, the things I do not believe in – but saw at least with the eyes that were mine while the swaying mob held me – abide with me constantly. There was something in that twilight in the high Tibetan forest which I could not and cannot even now explain.

This is a dark place. Although I never saw any demons like Mr. Forman did, I could feel evil in different places that I went to when I was in Tibet. I have spoken to a Bon monk (Bon is the religion discussed in the above passage.) Bonism is not very present anymore, but it still exists in Tibet. However, Tibetan Buddhism is not so very different. Yama still holds the wheel life in Tibetan Buddhism. This place is not practicing a peaceful meditative religion like many in America would have you believe. It is simply not the case. It is evil. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed reading that account.

One thing about the men's conference

I was taught a lot of things at the conference. A lot of those things had an impact on me. However, there was one little thought that came across when Brent was speaking on courtship. He was giving his perspective on what he would be looking for in a guy who wanted to date his daughter, (who is already married, but he can still talk about it hypothetically.)

I set myself up in the following scenario. I'm going to pretend that I am now around 50, and am the father of the girl I want to court. There is some young stupid guy (who is me) that wants to court my daughter. Would I let him, knowing everything about maturity and sinful tendcies if that young man were me?

That thought gave me shivers. The standard for dating a girl with a godly father who will call you out about sin patterns in your life, and a girl who might not have this same type of protection should be the same. If Brent Detwiler wouldn't let me court his daughter, I shouldn't use the fact that a girl's father is not Brent Detwiler in order to start a relationship. That left me with a little work to do...

... phew...

A Kelfer question:

The following exchange occured on the Manspeak blog, and it raised a very vital question for our generation.

A curious and concerned man, Zachary Willis posed the following question to the epitome of manliness found at the VFC Manspeak blog.

My roommate, Jon Kelfer, suggested that we have a tickle contest in place of a burping contest. Is this manly?

That hero of all things manly, Jonathan Oldacre gave him this wise reply.

“Tickle Me” Kelfer–You are in a dangerous place my friend. You’re on the knife-edge of a slippery slope toward being a sissy. I charge those in your household to not let this go any further.

So, as a member of his household, I have been charged with this responsibility. But the question I want to ask you faithful readers, after my month of being AWOL is:

"Is Jon Kelfer a sissy?"

Homework Bites

The man of Steele has been very busy with homework over the last two weeks and has been unable to satisfy the mad theological cravings of his readers. He is very sorry.

Heresy?

For quite some time I have been thinking about the whole conflict between free will and God's sovereignty that is present in Christian thought. As I was thinking about it, all the sudden it made sense, (which was not what I was expecting.) So, I thought I would post this here where someone might read it and tell me if any part of this is heresy, or whether I just don't make sense.


Ok, let's start with two statements. First, God is completely sovereign over all things in his creation. He made everything, he plans how everything will come about. He knows our thoughts, and he forms our days. He knows what we will say before it comes out of our mouths. In Acts it says that Christ was delivered up according to God's plan. In Proverbs it says that the heart of kings is like streams of water to the Lord, that he turns them wherever he wishes. Read Psalm 139 and you will see some of these statements about his sovereignty.

The second statement is that the will of men is free. We have no outward compulsion forcing to decide to do this or that, that we do it of our own accord. This is especially true when it comes to sin. We sin because it is what we want to do. Essentially I am saying that man is free to do whatever it is that he wants to do in the circumstances that he finds himself in.

Now these two statements seem contradictory. But I believe they are (at least for the most part) Biblically accurate. (I'm not being extremely careful with my words, so I may have just said something heretical. Please check me.)

To me, one extremely obvious statement clears up the whole matter.

We are who God created us to be.

Well, duh, right? How could this be any different? God created me to be a male, so I am. God created me to be an American, so I am. I did not choose any of these attributes about me, He did. I didn't choose to be unable to draw, or to be more competent in math than most. Many times I wish I wasn't so flippin' analytical all the time, but I can't do anything about it, it is simply who I am.

Now based on who I am, I make decisions. I chose to be an engineer because I am good at math. That choice has put me into many situations that I would not have been in if I were instead an English major. Saying that God planned for me to be a civil engineer and put me in all the contexts that have resulted from that is not contrary to me saying that I choose to be a civil engineer. Here is the argument laid out.

-I choose freely in who I am

-God made me who I am and knew what I was going to choose.

-God cares about what we choose and uses our choices in His plans

-Therefore God made me to make the choices I have freely made.

The best objection that I have thought of to my argument that is from scripture is that this conception of God seems to put all of his creative action in our hearts at the time when He created us, and leaves no more room for Him to work in us. But I disagree here. Our being is found in God. We are who God says we are. If God changes us, like He did at conversion, we are something different, a new creation. If He says we are something else, then we ARE something else, and make choices from a completely different framework.

Now the question becomes, "If God changes us without our input, how can that be free will?" My answer is we are changed all the time without our input. In the Bible you hear, "Bad company corrupts good morals." So what is the bad company doing? Well, it is changing you. You had good morals, but the bad company corrupted them without you wanting them too. Is this a violation of your free will? I don't think so, because you were still with the bad company.

So, if this type of change is possible without violating free will, can an infinite, creator God not form you be giving you those things which He created you to repond to? We are not saved until we call upon the name of the Lord. Can the Lord not give you that which will make you freely call upon Him?

There is a question remaining though. In all of this, regardless of whether man if "free" or not, can man still be responsible if God created him to perform such and such actions. I like this question. I like this question because unlike most I can give you a direct and definitive answer, because the exact question is asked in the Bible, in Romans 9.

19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

So the answer of Why did God create me in such a way that I run headlong into hell of my own accord is, "How can you question God about why He made you in such a way?" God has His own reasons (His glory, which I promise I will get back to,) and He carries those out. Furthermore, how can you question who you are? You are who you are. You, the person running headlong into hell of your own accord, are running headlong into hell of your own accord. The person who is running headlong into hell of his own accord deserves to go to hell. God could have created you differently, but then you wouldn't be you. You would be something else. As you are though, you are yourself, you deserve judgment for acts you have freely committed. I am not God, so I don't know the full measure of His wisdom in creating men one way or the other, all I know is that ultimately it is for His glory.

So that covers all of my potential heresy for today. The only part of this entire post that I know you, the reader, can trust, is that part where I quoted the Bible. The rest might be crap.

If I am a heretic, let me know and tell me why. I'll shut up if I am and it can be shown.

The University of Tennessee

I can't stay away from posting while reading Proverbs. I found one that describes UT. No long-winded explanation this time, just check it out for yourself.

Folly is joy to him who is destitue of discernment, but a man of understanding walks uprightly. -Proverbs 15:21

Folly is joy. Folly is joy. I think that no better description can be given of this student body.

Proverbs 14:16

"A wise man fears and departs from evil, but a fool rages and is self-confident."
-Proverbs 14:16 (NKJV)


In some other translations, rages might be "is hotheaded" or "is reckless" or something like that.

Translation notes aside, I was quite struck by this verse. So much so that I left my comfortable chair in the library next to Kevin Harris and his hair which is now shorter than mine, and thought I would write a little bit about it. It struck me because I thought it was a perfect description of how we as Christians should handle temptation, and also how we fail.

First, the wise man fears. What does he fear? He fears God. He fears evil, but not the power of evil, but the consequences of evil. Have you read Daniel's attitude when he was first brought to Babylon in Daniel 1? He was so concerned about defilement from the king's food and wine, that he refused them. I would say that he feared the consequence of potentially being defiled by the food of so much because what was at stake was his soul. Is it appropriate for a Christian to risk defiling our souls over something so minor as food? He sacrificed choice food for vegetables and did not risk his soul and was rewarded by God for it. We, if we would be godly must also fear evil in this sense. We hold something of so much more value in our souls than we should ever risk defiling through any measure of evil. So we should fear evil.

The second thing that the wise man does is that he departs from evil. I don't think that there is a better (or funnier) example of this in the Bible than the example of Joseph.

Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.
7 And it came to pass after these things that his master’s wife cast longing eyes on Joseph, and she said, “Lie with me.”
8 But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand. 9 There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”
10 So it was, as she spoke to Joseph day by day, that he did not heed her, to lie with her or to be with her.
11 But it happened about this time, when Joseph went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the house was inside, 12 that she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside. 13 And so it was, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and fled outside, 14 that she called to the men of her house and spoke to them, saying, “See, he has brought in to us a Hebrew to mock us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. 15 And it happened, when he heard that I lifted my voice and cried out, that he left his garment with me, and fled and went outside.”

-Genesis 39:6b-15


Joseph was so committed to avoiding evil that he left his garment (his clothes) in his mistress’s hand and fled outside. This caused her to lie about it and cost Joseph many years in jail. When faced with the temptation to sin Joseph departed, like the wise man. Now Proverbs doesn't mention running around outside nude to escape the grasp of lusting women, but I guess if that's what it takes, that's what it takes. We are to flee temptation. Flee. The wise man departs. Depart. Flee. Get Away. Avoid at all costs. There is too much at risk, there is too much that can be forfeited.

But, if you dear reader, are anything like me, you are too stupid to run away. You are like the fool. You are self-confident. I say things like this. "I can watch an R-rated movie with several sex scenes without sinning. I'll just close my eyes during those parts. I mean, hey, it's a good movie, and I can control myself." But what am I doing? What am I doing? I am risking something so valuable (my purity) in order to be entertained for a couple of hours. Without even considering how much better that time could be spent than entertainment (reading the Word, studying, exercise, fellowship...) I am fulfilling an absolutely trivial desire at the potential risk of something so incredibly valuable that I have to call myself an idiot. What am I doing? Why do I do things like that? I linger around sin thinking I am strong. But what happens? I grow weaker if I stay around it long enough, and in my weakness I indulge my flesh. Why am I such an idiot? I am the fool in this verse so often that it scares me. Avoid evil, depart from evil, flee temptation, don't be an idiot, consider the cost. Consider the cost.

So, in an attempt to cultivate wisdom, I want to see this aspect of wisdom characterize my life. But I don't want to rage in self-confident that change will be effectual. I need the Lord for that.

Lord God, let me be wise. I don't want to be an idiot, I want to be pure. Help me to depart from evil before I am ensnared. You are God.

Universalism (pt. 1)

Last night I said I would start a series on God's glory. I am still planning it, but I've got something else for today. I believe that universalism, or even a slightly softer claim that people who are not Christians can still get to heaven through whatever religion they practice is contrary, not only to the Bible in places like John 14:6 and Acts 4:12, but also to the entire spirit and purpose of Christ's life and death.

There are several reasons why I believe that a Christian cannot believe in salvation outside of Christ. These are:
1. The Bible says there is no salvation outside of Christ.
If this isn't sufficent at least one of these things must be deined.
2. God is a just God.
3. All men are sinners.
4. Sin deserves punishment.
5. Christ bore our punishment.
6. Christ punishment for us is recieved by faith.

1. The Bible says there is no salvation outside of Christ.
This is the simplest reason logically, and it is very clear, so I won't spend too much time here. Look at these two verses.

I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. - John 14:6

Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved. - Acts 4:12

These two verses are clear enough. There is no salvation outsid eof Christ. However, this exclusivity grates at the moral sensibilities of many, so various creative interpretations for these verses are offered to try and get around the very clear intended meaning. I don't really want to deal with the interpretations but I would like to show the more signifcant truths that must be denied if any sort of universalism is accepted.

2. God is a just God
Logically, there is an easy out for someone who believes ina universal salvation. That out is to simply deny that God is just. God is a merciful God, so He won't hold someone's sin against them right? This past winter the speaker at a youth conference I went to (as a college leader) seemed to hold this position. She comforted a young man who's uncle was not a Christian with Phil. 2:10-11 "At the name of every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on Earth, and of those under the Earth, and that every tounge should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." She took this to mean that in the end, everyone will be in heaven worshipping God. I went up to her after the meeting and asked her why she said this, and bascially asked whether or not she believed in hell. She responded that she believed in hell, but this interpretation of the verse was her hope that eventually the mercy of God will overcome our foolishness, and in the end all would be forgiven. I didn't really want to lecture a speaker about theology then and there, so I left.

Think about her idea though. First, there is no support for her idea that in the end God will overlook our sin. Think about Hebrews 2:3, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation" God has promised that he will "by no means clear the guilty" -Exodus 33:7. Or think about Luke 16:26 where Jesus in a parable speaks about the seperation between heaven and hell. "And besides all this, between you and us there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us."

Imagine if in 5 years a judge in America granted a universal pardon for all of the convicts currently in jail and just let them go. Would that be a just thing for a judge to do? God's mercy is that He provided a way for us to escape His justice even though we were guilty. Does His mercy require Him to provide another because some missed the first one?

3. All men are sinners
This one is easy to see how a denail of would lead to universalism. If men are not sinners then men do not need to be saved. If we don't need to be saved, then Christ didn't need to die, and everyone can get to heaven. However, any reading of Romans 3:23 or of the Law should persuade a reasonable person that all men are sinners according to how God defines sin. This is extremely evident from experience.

4. Sin deserves punishment
Well, who cares if all men are sinners. What does sin matter anyways? Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." So, the wages of sin is death. Don't miss the meaning of the verse in a different way of stating something. A wage is something we merit from an action. Back when I was in high school, I reffed soccer games. My wages for a particular game would be around $20 for working that game. The work brought about the wage. It is the same way for sin. The payment brought about for sin is death. The Bible further speaks of us as dead in our tragressions and sins in Ephesians 2, and on many many occasions speaks of God's wrath against sin. I don't have a list of references in front of me, but they're there.

5. Christ bore our punishment.
Christ was the solution to our problem of being sinners in front of a holy God who punishes sin. But is the face of universalism, the key point here is that it was Christ who did this. Only Christ was the Son of God who came to bear your sins. There are not even any competing claims to this. Buddha does not claim to have borne your sins. Neither does Mohammed. If you are a sinner in front of a holy God, there is only one person who you can look to with the hope of having Him bear the punishment for you, and that is Christ. Think of the song in Revelation 5:9-10 "You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for you were slain, and have redeemed us by your blood out of every tribe and tounge and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign forever on Earth." It was Christ that did this. I don't think that anything else makes sense at all here.

6. Christ's punishment for us is recieved by faith.
This I think is the sticky point. Many people might suggest that Christ's bearing of our sins could be recieved even if they don't have a conscious faith in Him. CS Lewis even believed this, as is evident in his comendation of a servant of Tash (I think that was the God's name) at the end of The Last Battle. I have a class that starts in 15 minutes, so I won't be able to treat this in it's length here, but I will offer up one thought.

Christ, the man who bore our punishment, said "He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." -John 3:18. My proposal is this, if Christ was the one that made this way possible for us, should we not trust Him that the conditions that He set forth for recieving a gift that He gave are accurate? I mean, who are we to say that Christ is wrong and people can recieve Christ without believing in His name? Christ did the work, not you or me, should we not trust him about his own work? Furthermore, note how specific He is. We must believe in His NAME. I don't think this could apply to a "good" muslim who seeks God with his heart, but desepies the name of Christ, but only because he was brought up in Saudi Arabia and that is what his parents taught him to do. It just doesn't follow.

Anyways, Piper spends like 40 pages on this in Let the Nations Be Glad! and I may in a later post exposit some of his findings and references.

God's glory part one

I talked to Squatty tonight about blogging and realized that a cosmic shift had happened. I have not had a legitimate serious theological talk since I posted about Hudson Taylor on July 11. Squatty, on the other hand, has been full of theology of late. Go to his blog, http://www.squattywisdom.blogspot.com/ and check it out. But anyways, Squatty was like, "hey you should start a series." And I was like, "hey that sounds like a good idea." So I thought I would post a bit on God's glory. I don't really have a great and detailed plan about what I should talk about yet, but I figure that I'll get to that.

Well, in thinking about God's glory, many many things could be said. I am persuaded that God's glory is the chief and last end of God in the creation of the world. It is what every act in creation aims at, and what is eventually accomplished by every act of creation. It is also the explanation for why things happen on earth. (Why I was born, why Hurricane Katrina hit NO, why Shaun has red hair, why Jon is skinny, and why Squatty is squatty.) Everything points to and stems from God's glory. I also believe that God created this world in the manner to give Himself the most glory. No one problably remembers, but on March 8th, I posted about repentance. I postulated that repentance was the means God chose to give Himself the most glory. I also believe that God remaining hidden glorifies Him in the repentance of His saints.

But this is a late night post and it is the intro to a series. So, I am having fun not actually saying anything here. I will support one of the belief claims that I arbitrarily made here next time. I think I will begin with one or two posts showing that God's glory really is the ultimate end of the world.

It's my birthday

... and I'll cry if I want to. But really I'd rather not, although I do think my eyes were watering earlier today. I went to Famous Dave's with Plop earlier and ordered a beer for a late lunch. I liked it. I will have to get used to this whole "show your ID thing" though. My ID has never really been good for anything except telling people what I'm not allowed to do. I think I'll be able to handle the change.

School is starting

Phew, I didn't get much of a break. I got to go straight from outreach non-stop in Romania to outreach non-stop here at UT for the beginning of the semester. and now I hav ea class in a little less than two hours. (Yes, my first class is at 11:15 on Wednesdays.) I don't want to go to class.

We have contacts now for VFC. We made lots of friends with guys out playing ultimate. I don't know how Smoothie King went, but I'm sure it went well because we had faithful girls there to reach out. I'm excited about this year.

I'm excited that here at the Greene house we got a new roommate in Shaun O'Connell. Watching the simplicity and hunger of a new Christian will kick you out of any kind of satisfaction you have in your present experience with God. His hunger makes me hungry.

I want to be bold in outreach this semeseter. But not only that, I want ot be bold in prayer, asking of God in faith for things that I typically don't have faith for. I want to be bold in how I spend my time with Him, dropping typical ways of time wasting and instead reading His word, or worshipping Him. I want to be bold and courageous in my fight against sin. "Make no provision for the flesh, to fufill its lusts." Lastly, I want to be bold in all aspects of my life because I have a great God in heaven who is for me. He saved my life through Christ's sacrifice on the cross. This was a bold action. I want to live in a manner worthy of the salvation that I have been given.

I'm Back

Hey everyone,

I just got back from Romania. I finally got in at 1:00am on Monday morning. It was quite the trip. I have never been so active at sharing the gospel as I was there, which was really cool. Anyways, I met a lot of really cool people. Naomi and Cris both found their future husbands, (well, not really) and a lot of other fun and goofy things happened. (Never play any Romanian game that involves sticking your head between another guy's legs, it's kinda weird.)

There are thousands of pictures at this website.

http://homepage.mac.com/rachaelf/Menu21.html

So go check em out and have some fun.

Cap found a good article

Yes, I read the blog of cap stewart. Recently Cap linked to this article.

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001306.cfm

Go and read it. It is an article that answers the oft asked question by single guys, "How do I know if she's the one?" Read the flippin' article ok? It really challenged me in the way I think about girls and marriage and dating and well, all those things that are related. Yeah.

Blue Like Jazz part 2

Ok, so this will be a bit shorter, I just needed to qote this for all you Sovereign Grace folk. He is talking about romance.

"Elsewhere in this quandary is my friend Josh. When I first moved to Oregon I was befriended by this vibrant kid who read a lot of the Bible. Josh was good-looking and obsessed with dating, philosophies of dating, social rituals, and that sort of thing. He was homeschooled and trained to believe traditional dating was a bad idea. I travelled with him around the country and introduced him at seminars he would conduct on the pitfalls of dating. He wrote a book about it, and it hit the bestseller's list. No kidding. A couple of years later he moved to Baltimore and got married. I called him after the wedding and asked him how he got to know his wife without dating. He said they courted, which I took to mean he had become Amish. But he explaining courting is a lot like dating without the head games. He and his wife are also very happy."

The only thing I want to point out is that Josh Harris did date, and it was conviction stemming from his own relationships (well, and the Bible) that truly caused him to take his position, and not the training that he got from being homeschooled, (although that might have been there.)

But, anyways, I think I am going to become Amish.

Blue Like Jazz

I am reading a book right nowBlue Like Jazz that I had heard a lot about and wanted to read it primarily because I had heard a lot about it. Funny how that works. But something has surprised me about this book.

I like it.

Well, most of it at least. There are quite a few weaknesses, and I'm not done with the book yet, (there's around 100 pages left, so I might still get really ticked about something. Well, actually I already have gotten really ticked about something, and I'll talk about it later, but I have been very very surprised about how much of this book I have liked.)

Here's a quote that was the last thing in the world I expected from this book that I had heard was pretty much a postmodern EC type of book.

"A friend of mine, a young pastor who recently started a church, talks to me from time to time about the new face of the church in America - about the postmodern church. He says the neew church will be different from the old one, that we will be relevant to culture and the human struggle. I don't think any church has ever been relevant to culture, to the human struggle, unless it believed in Jesus and the power of His gospel. If the supposed new church believes in trendy music and cool web pages, then it is not relevant to culture either. It is another tool of Satan to get people to be passionate about nothing."

This sounds more like something I would expect to hear at New Attitude than something I would read in Blue Like Jazz. But it's there. Page 111 if you don't believe me.

Now, this new respect for the book does not lead me to totally recommend it. He says this on evangelism.

"He [Rick, his pastor] didn't really see evangelism, or whatever you want to call it as a target on the wall in which the goal is to get people to agree with us about the meaning of life. He saw evangelism as reaching a felt need."

This is what gets me red in the face. The gospel is not a solution to a felt need, it is the solution to an actual need, which may or may not be felt by whomever the person you are reaching to. We are to present the gospel to people not to get people to agree with us about the meaning of life, or to meet a felt need, but oh so much more! We are to preach the gospel because we love people and want to see their sin covered by the blood of Christ. We love them and do not want them to haveto stand on their own righteousness, because they will fail. We love them so we tell them about this way that has ben opened up to them in the incredible love of God.

The gospel is fuzzy in this book. I would endorse this book whole-heartedly if the gospel were moved from fuzzy to clear. Even that great quote above on page 111, the author does not make it very clear what the gospel is. Here is a gospel presentation he gives a little later in the book.

He is having a conversation with an non-Christian college student during an outreach (a really cool one at that) but this dialouge ensued.

"You said earlier that there was a central message of Christ. I don't really want to become a Christian, you know, but what is that message?"

"The message is that man sinned against God and God gave the world over to man, and that if somebody wanted to be rescuedout of that, if somebody for instance finds it all very empty, that Christ will rescue them if they want; that if they ask for forgiveness for being part of that rebellion then God will forgive them."

"What is the deal with the cross?" Jake asked.

"God says the wages of sin is death," I told him. "And Jesus died so that none of us would have to. If we have faith in that them we are Christians."

This presentation isn't great, but it isn't really wrong either. I mean there isn't a mention of the law, and only a very slight implication of God's justice by saying that he will forgive you. (Which implies that otherwise he won't,) and he never explained why Jesus' death makes it so that we don't have to die. But it at least you get most of the basics, asking for forgiveness to God for your sin will get you rescued because of the death of Christ. I guess that works.

Christmas in July?

Well, not exactly. I have doing some thinking lately about what our role as Christians should be in our culture. Sometimes I don't think we act as we should. The biggest question I have always had, (and should probably address it to someone like Al Mohler,) is what is the role of a Christian in a sinful society supposed to be?

Christians are active in society. Sometimes it is in an ardent defense of Biblical principles, like the stance being taken by conservative Christians against gay marriage. Other times it is of a more ridiculous nature, like the outrage over having a greeter at Target tell you "Happy Holidays" during the month of September. In both cases, so far, the Christian point of view has been respected by the government, (at least the federal gov.) and many of the retailers went back on their PC policies due to the stir Christians created. My question is, should we be making this kind of stir?

As far as the gay marriage issue, I think we should because we are a democracy, and essentially our form of government is that the people get what the people want. Since we are part of the people, we should make our voice heard. But in the retail world? Should we chastize a retailer because they made their greetings more PC to try to avoid ofending a Jewish customer? I don't really think so. However, the specific instances aren't really what I am concerned about.

We, as Christians, go around a lot, and tell people what they should do. We are trying to hold unregenerate sinners to life underneath a Biblical worldview. They don't like it, and Christianity then comes off looking like a judgemental system built up on a series of do's and don't's.

We should be trying to reach a sinful culture with the gospel. This comes through conversion of individual hearts to believe in Christ and His sacrifce on the cross for our sins. Then this person will live righteuosly. (Well, at least they will try not to sin.) This is the goal.

Does Christian legislation accomplish anything for the Kingdom? The church in the day of the apostles grew under persecution by Roman emporers who were doing anything but promoting godly living through their influence in their cultures. The church has grown to close to 100,000,000 strong in communist China where there is certainly no restraints on the government ot promote righteous legistlation. Over there they have government encouraged abortion, and penalties for having more than one child. Here, Christians would be up in arms about that, but is that doing anything to prevent the gospel from spreading? No!

Perhaps grief is appropriate for the children in China, but that nation that murders its infants is also where the most rapid expansion of the Kingdom of God is happening in the world today. I don't believe that we should sit down and let our government get as immoral as possible, but at the same time Christians need to realize that ultimately, whether or not America endorses gay marriage is irrevlevant. (Imagine that, a secular government in a secular nation passing a secular law. It shouldn't be surprising.) What matters is whether or not souls are coming to Christ. We are to be lights in our culture, not laborers trying to force our culture to be beacons of light. It just won't work.

An observation

You know, I've discovered something.

As a blogger, when you go three or four weeks between posts, people stop reading.

Oh well.

It's getting kinda lonely here at The Blog of Steele.

And I don't really have any good post ideas.

Well, actually, if anyone is curious and would like a copy of the book Blue Like Jazz, I can get one to you for free. I have access to around 30 of them.

That's about all for today.

That which makes me cry

Yesterday I read this account from Hudson Taylor. (Hudson Taylor was a missionary to China. You should know who he is. Knowing about Jim Elliot but not knowing who Hudson Taylor is, is like knowing all about Derek Jeter, but asking "Who?" when someone mentions Babe Ruth.) It is from Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret which is his biography. Well, anyways, when I read it yesterday, I cried. I stopped reading, opened the book up today, read it again, and cried again. I thought, "I should blog about this," looked down, read it again, and cried again. Eventually I got past it, and 10 pages later I started to think about it, and, surprisingly, started to cry.

So what is this story that causes me to tear up so much? Well, here it is.

"Last week I was at Taiping. My heart was greatly moved by the crowds that literally filled the streets for two or three miles, so that we could hardly walk, for it was market day. We did but little preaching, for we were looking for a place for permanent work, but I was constrained to retire to the city wall and cry to God to have mercy on the people, to open their hearts and give us an entrance among them.

Without any seeking on our part, we were brought into touch with at least four anxious souls. An old man found us out, I know not how, and followed me to our boat. I asked him in and iquired his name.

'My name is Dzing' he replied. 'But the question which distresses me, and to which I can find no answer, is - What am I to do with my sins? Our scholars tell us that there is no future state, but I find it hard to believe them... Oh, sir, I lie in my bed and think. I sit alone in the daytime and think. I think and think and think again, but I cannot tell what is to be done about my sins. I am seventy-two years of age. I cannot expect to finish another decade. "Today knows not tomorrow's lot," as the saying is. Can you tell me what to do with my sins?'

'I can indeed' was my reply. 'It is to answer this very question that we have travelled these thousands of miles. Listen and I will explain to you what you want and what you need to know.'

When my companions returned, he heard again the wonderful story of the cross, and left us soothed and comforted... glad to know that we had rented a house and hoped to soon have Chinese Christians distributing Bibles and Christian literature in that city."

What sweet providence! How amazing of God! He brought a man all the way from England to tell this seventy-two year old man the answer to the very question that had been haunting his soul. What mercy that God would give this man such insight to see that his sins are a problem and that there is a future state, and that he has a problem! I praise God for moment like this.

But accounts like this also grab hold of my heart like very little else can. There are men like this man alive today. There are people that have never heard the gospel, people who no one within 100 miles of them has EVER heard the gospel. Who could a seventy-two year old man in Bhutan ask this question to today? Or in Saudi Arabia? Or in the sothern half of the island of Sumatra in Indonesia? Or in the Maldives? Or in Laos? Or in Tibet? Or in Iran? Or in any othe rplace in the world with little to no active Christian presence?

Sometimes we can think that because guys like Yesupadam are in India, and that there are now nearly 100 million christians in China that somehow the world no longer has places that cannot be evangelized by people native to that area. But where are the native believers in so many Muslim and Buddhist countries of North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia? Many areas have some, but even more of these areas effectively have no witness. Which brings up a very important point. IF THERE ARE NO LOCAL CHRISTIANS, THERE ARE NO LOCAL EVANGELISTS.

Missionaries are still needed. Someone has to go.

Lord Jesus, I want to go, send me.

Would you want Jesus to serve with you in ministry?

I know I would. Apparantly Southern Baptists would not. At their convention this year, the the SBC passed a resolution prohibiting alcohol use. Steve McCoy goes through this issue at length as to why he is opposed to this extra-biblical resolution that the SBC has now imposed on its pastors. They passed a five part resolution which can be found here. Three of the five resolutions are good. But the first two are, well, extra-biblical.

RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina, June 13-14, 2006, express our total opposition to the manufacturing, advertising, distributing, and consuming of alcoholic beverages; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we urge that no one be elected to serve as a trustee or member of any entity or committee of the Southern Baptist Convention that is a user of alcoholic beverages


So, as a result, the SBC is in "total opposition" to some of the actions of Jesus, (turning water into wine is actually manufacturing an alcoholic beverage, just through an unusual process) and would urge that Jesus not serve with them on their committees.

I think a good rule of thumb is that if you make a "pious" rule that excludes Jesus, it's probably not a good one to have. We should follow Christ's example, not that of the Pharisees. It seems that the SBC has gotten a bit confused on this point of late.

Phew.

I'm glad I'm not a Southern Baptist.

Perseverance

Today I was running on the trail on Cherokee Blvd, and was met by God in a fairly strange way.

He enabled me to run when I couldn't anymore.

It was hot today. I started running, and I started fast. My first mile was in 6:20. When I am in shape, on a cloudy day at maybe 60 degrees that works, but it doesn't on a sunny day at 85 when I'm out of shape. So I lasted maybe a mile and a half, and took a walk break. I ran somemore, then took another break. Eventually I started sprintint up the hills and walking down them, because I couldn't move once I got to the top. With 1.5 miles left, I wanted to see whether I could just jog it the rest of the way in. I lasted 80 seconds. I really just couldn't move anymore. (I ran the hiils really hard, and didn't have any water until I could get back.) But anyways, with about a mile left, a quote entered my mind. It is "a godly man perseveres not on his own strength but on God's."

I don't know what happened, but I realized that this run could look a lot like the Christian life. It hurts. I had gotten to the end of myself. But I still needed to finish. So I stopped walking and ran that last stretch. It wasn't blazingly fast, proably around 7 minute pace, but I don't know of I mile I have ever ran that included that much pain. I repeated that quote through my mind the entire six minutes and sixteen seconds that I was running that stretch. I finished. I finished with a pretty good sprint at the end, but I didn't have anything left.

So I left realizing something. The run in and of itself mean very little. I ran. Big deal. But, I think God showed me something about the nature of Christian perseverence. God can enable perseverence, and as Christians we should have faith, and know that He can do it. I need to translate that into my fight against sin.

A godly man perseveres not on his own strength but on God's.

Lord, make me a godly man.

Philippians 2:13

I have come across a verse in the Bible recently that I already knew, but just realized how chock full of good stuff it is. The verse is Philippians 2:13.

"For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure."

Several things jump out about this verse and should be noted. First of all, it is a very interesting insance of the conflict between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. In verse 12, Paul tells us to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;"m yet, right after this he talks about how it is God who works in us both to will and to do. There is no attempt to explain how these both could be, but just like Mark Dever's "riddle of the OT" in Exodus 34:7 (those who went to New Attitdue understand) the apparant contradiction must be intentional, because Paul sets them right up next to each other.

Work out your salvation.
It is God who works.

Now wait a second here, if it is God who works, why am I supposed to work? Or even how can I work? Can't I just sit back and let God do the work? Hehe. I love the Bible.

Here's my arrogant attempt at trying to answer this mystery in part. First of all, I feel that one of hte reasons that Paul urges us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling is because God actively works in us to a degree that often times it is hard to discern Him working in us. I can be confident that God is working in me, leading ultimately to my salvation, but does that mean that I shouldn't fight sin, or that I shouldn't get up out of the bend in the morning to have my quiet time? If I do actually overcome a temptation, I can rightly conclude that it was God working in me to do so, but can you always tell that when you are being tempted?

Secondly, and this is related, I think that this is yet another verse tat shows how fundamentaly flawed the Arminian worldview is. Do you have free choice? Does God hold salvation up to everyone equally, so that everyone, in their own independant power chooses to accept or reject God? I think not. "For it is God who is in you both to will and to do for His good pleaure." If God is in you to will, can you say that your will is independant of God? God causes you to will to do something, and He helps you do it. He changes our will. That is how we are saved, He chacnges our will so that we can come to Him and accept the offer of the gospel.

Although this verse is written in a book to believers in the church in Phillipi, I think that this verse applies to every human, when it is coupled with Romans 9:22-23. Even unbelievers, who despise God and actively reject Him all their lives and will face the judgement seat of God and will be damned, I believe that God is in them both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

God has ordained the world as it is, by His good pleasure, in a way to make His glory known. Part of this act of making His glory known is in the just condemnation of sinners who did not exercise faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. Romans 9:22 talks of God "wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known." This is not the desire of a sadist, but rather a God who is showing forth His justice.

They were supposed to work out their salvation in fear and trembling. But it is God who needed to work in them, but didn't. Is the fault with God? No! "For He says to Moses 'I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whomever I wll have compassion.'" (Romans 9:15 quoting Exodus 33:19) God is not obligated to work in us, but again, works in us "for His good pleasure."

That is why we exist, that is why He has redeemed us that exercise faith in Him, that is why Christ died, that is why Adam sinned. All "for His good pleasure."

Now, I realize that I have been talking in circles this entire post, and did not actually gain the answers to anything. That is what happens when you explore an apparant contradiction. You can discover what the Bible says and how the Bible answers it, and I can come and present that. I can do no more. "Lord, my heart is not haughty, Nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, Nor with things to profound for me." (Psalm 131:1)

Part of faith is simply believing and accepting the Bible as true and accepting the God of the Bible as God and believing that the Bible describes Him accurately. CAn we correct Scripture if it seems to harsh? Do we omit parts of scripture because they are inconsistent with our own philosophical beliefs? (ex. Jesus being the only way, Man not having free will, man not being autonomous, God not saving everyone, homosexuality a sin, wives submit to husbands, or even, go and make disciples.) My desire is that whoever reads this submits to the Bible as truth if they are not doing so already.

McKay's

Ok, for all you people out there that think they have mastered the McKay's free bin, I just wanted to let you know that by the incredible providence of God, I am better than you. (Just kidding, but I WAS extremely fortunate.)

I picked up Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges from the McKay's free bin on Monday.

I just don't know if the free bin gets much better than that.

Growth

Thus ends the longest period of silence on "The Blog of Steele" since its inception.

Unfourtuntely, I still don't have time to post one of my trademark long, deeply theological reflections on life and everything in it, (by the time I get done with them,) so I have one simple thought I want to post.

Growing is painful. I feel like this summer has been (well, at least so fa) a time of growth for me, and it's been painful. It's like, "Hey, let's undergo massive heart surgery again! Yesterday's surgery and the one the day before that just didn't cut it."

Phew. I wish I could say that I get relief in sleep, but there have been at least twice this summer where heart surgery was done on me in my dreams. Have you ever been convicted of sin by your reactions to something in a dream?

But, this is a pain that I desire and continue to desire. Hopefully, it will lead to fruit.

Manhood

Ok, I have another very not masculine admission to make. I found a great article on Biblical masculinity. It was posted by Carolynn Mahaney on Girl Talk. Yes, if you remeber from a few posts back when I quoted a quote that Carolynn McCulley put on her blog a few weeks ago, you will see that my source for masculine resources have been two blogs entitled Solo Femininity and Girl Talk. Something seems a bit wrong with this.

Anyways, this link was posted at girl talk.

http://www.sbts.edu/resources/publications/magazine/2005Winter.pdf

Go there and read these articles. Carolynn Mahaney was referring to the first article, but I found the second to be particularly helpful as a tool for self-evaluation as a college guy. The third article is about what I woman should look for in a man for a husband, and well, I want to be that guy, so that was helpful too. Anyways, go and read that.

Maybe the worst picture of me ever

Ok, so during my abundant free time at work I was surfing facebook and found this picture of me that was so terrible I had to show everyone. I think it is worse than the Casey Holbrook taken picture from VQ '05. I think I ruined a good picture of Julie and Jennifer. wow. It's really quite scary. Yeah.

Romania

I just realized as I wrote the previous post that there are probably many of you readers out there that are not aware of a trip that I am planning on going on. Peter Hedger, Naomi Peden, Cris Chen and myself are all going to go to Romania to help a local church outreach to college students by teaching English at an English camp they do yearly. I will post more details about the trip later.

Leadership

I just told Dainel Jinks that I was going to blog like the wind, so I'm going to try.

Ok, two things have happened to me in the last 24 hours that have gotten me thinking a lot about what it would look like for me to hold more defined leadership roles. First, last night, I went to Will Kittrell's graduation party, which really didn't celebrate his graduation at all, but rather his engagement to Meg. So Will is going to get married. That made me think, "You know Paul, it might not be too terribly long before you are in a postition to lead a girl in a relationship, and potentially in marriage." How long, I don't know, but the fresh realization that "this could be me soon," hit me.

The second thing is that I was asked to be a family group leader at New Attitude. This means that someone that matters thinks that I should be able to lead a group of singles, most of whom I will not know, at this conference.

That got me thinking. "Am I ready to do this?" Sometimes I feel like a bag full of hot air. I have a lot more knowledge than I actually put into practice. I know things in my head that have not even come close to making the transition into my heart. There are times wher eI might be able to give someone very good advice out of some section of scripture that I know, but then I realize that I probably would not be able to follow my own advice.

However, I think that this is how leadership is supposed to be. Most of the time I'm not supposed to point people to emmulate myself, but rather to emulate Christ, because I don't have it all together. (I know, Paul said something like, "Immitate me as I immitate Christ," but I'm not an apostle so I don't think I'll be using that line very often.)

After my current ponderings have ended, I see that for a man with a godly perspective, offering one's self as a leader is truly one of the most humbling things you can do. I'm certain that a temptation to pride can come when you realize that people are paying attention to what you say because they esteem you worthy to instruct them, however, a godly man realizes just how little actually resides in his heart, and the offer of that as "leadership" really is a fruitless endeavor. Without the grace of God, no leader could be effective at communicating material that leads to growth in those that he is leading.

God enables growth, because leaders are unqualified.

No more classes!

YAY! Do you know what I'm doing right no to celebrate not being in class? I'm at work! YAY!

Actually, my job rocks. I feel special here in my own little workspace on the 8th floor of the First Bank building downtown.

Oh, and if anyone is looking to get rid of either a twin bed or a dresser, I know of a good home. (I need a dresser, Plop needs a bed.)

On a more serious note, I want to recommend something that I did yesterday. The gospel just didn't feel real, so I took up one of the gospel tracts, (I actually used one that I stole from Philly that we modelled the CCK tracts after but thats off the subject,) anyways, I picked up the tract and went through it slowly, reminding myself of the truth in the points it presented, and I tried to make the gospel feel real, because it IS real. God met me and blessed my effort yesterday. So, I guess my point is that really simple devotions can sometimes be valuable, and if you are struggling in preaching the gospel to yourself, pick up one of those tracts. The gospel is in that little thing.

A man who seeks God with his whole heart.

I was reading Psalm 119 this morning, and I began to meditate on what it would look like to be this guy in verse 2. "Blessed are those that keep his testimonies, that seek him with the whole heart."

As an exercise, I thought it would be helpful for me to write down what it would look like to truly seek God with all your heart. So, this is what I put in my journal, I thought it might be helpful to share.

He wants God. He wants to be with God. He is constantly longing for communion with God. This is more than a purposeful mind setting aside time for communion; the man who seeks God with all his heart LONGS for the time that he gets to spend with God. He doesn't have to focus his thoughts and affections on God, the thoughts and affections he has for God are vibrant and expressive, but just as much, they are also ever present. Just as a man gazing upon his bride has no problem producing right affections when he sees her approaching down the aisle on his wedding day, so the man who is seeking God with all his heart will not have to work up affections. They will already be there, and they will be ever-present. He will be able to pray Psalm 42:1 with all honesty.

He will keeps all the commands of God. For who against against that in which the whole of his affections are laid? He will wake up in the morning and thank God for all of the grace that he has poured out upon him, especially through his sacrifice of His son on the cross. He will go to bed at night with the same thanks streaming forth from his lips. Throughout his day he will not be able to keep the affections of his heart to himself. He will tell about them, he will sing because of them. God's praise will constantly be upon his lips, for what else can he talk about, when his entire being is fixated on only one object?

How would he suffer an occasion to sin? How could he? The man who seeks God with his whole heart would rather have both his arms torn off than offend that which all his affections are set upon. There is no analogy to describe how foreign it would be for this man to be swayed by the offer of pleasure present in sin. It would be more likely for a mother to pleasure in inflicting pain upon her own children than for this man to pleasure in sin. This thought is simply unheard of.

Rather, he would infinetly disdain all forms and all manners of sin. He would use all force and all means that he had at his disposal to destroy any sinful inclination present against his beloved God. His delight is in God, and his law, while sin and the offense against God are the single focus of his hate.


All I know is that this man is not me. I want it to be, but I am so far from this, and I realize that I will never get there while I am alive. Why do I not seek God with all my heart in light of what he has done for me? How in the world can I forget, or minimize the importance of the cross in my life? How can I sit down and watch a stupid TV show in the morning instead of getting up, leaving my apartment and studying his word? What is wrong with me? Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Interruptions

Ok, last post I admitted that I had done something really nerdy. This post, I'm going to admit I have done something really feminine. I went ot and read a few posts on Carolyn McCulley's blog for single women. I hadn't ever been there before, (so it's not a habit,) but on her blog, she had a quote from Douglas Wilson's Her Hand in Marriage. Now, I'm not familiar with either the author or the book, but since I like it and Carolyn McCulley said it, I figure this guy is fairly legit. But anyways, why I want to post it is that the quote was actually advice for guys, not girls, which Carolyn McCulley simple applied to girls. Anyways, enough of this self-defending babbling.

But boys must be trained to take risks, which means being confident in the midst of the unknown. As they do this on an immature level, fathers should work with them, and teach them, without destroying this masculine impetus.

Courtship reveals how necessary this masculinity is. Many modern young men approach a girl, and they are quite serious as far as their intentions go, but they are afraid of interfering with her life. "You know, she is going to graduate soon, but she wants to go to school at Notre Dame, and I don't really want to go to Notre Dame, and showing interest in her would really disrupt all her plans." But the whole point of courtship is to disrupt a young lady's plans. A godly young woman is not going to stand around waiting for marriage. Rather, she will be preparing herself for marriage. This means she will be heading in some particular direction, and not just marking time. A young man should not be afraid of disrupting, because marriage is by its very nature a disruption of her previous way of life.

Carolyn McCulley used this for girls to say that they should be "waiting to be interrupted," but for now pursue the plans that they have in front of them to support themselves if they never do get married. But for guys the advice is more clear. "The whole point of courtship is to interrupt a young lady's plans."

Now, first of all, this isn't why I'm still single. I have several other reasons that I'm not going to get into right here on my blog, but I have to admit that a sense of passiveness in how I want to pursue a girl has been present as I have thought and prayed about it. So, this was helpful to me, although I realize not to take it too far, and I personally think that it is more applicable to marriage than to courtship. Well now I'm off talking about a topic that I really know nothing about, so I'm going to shut up now, for it is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Professing to be wise they became fools...

Ok, I am a nerd. So is Jeff Moore, and so is Dave McCarthy. We are nerds. Why are we nerds you ask? Well, because the three of us decided to spend our Friday night attending a philosophy lecture than partying or whatever else it is that college students are supposed to do on Friday night. (I'm a nerd, so I wouldn't know.) I tell what he talked about for the first part of the post, so if you don't have time to read a long post, just skip to the end (Past the dashed line.)

The speaker for the night was a distinguished professor of philosophy that I think it would be smarter not to include his name considering how I attack his ideas. I don't know what else to say about him other than what he said. He asked us to look at the word God and seperate the name from the event. By that he meant for us to take what is really meant by the three letters G-o-d and analyze it without letting your perception be skewed by the name itself. He said that the event is what is actually going on in the word. Then he proposed that the event contained in the name G-o-d has been distorted in theology because it is caught in power and sovereignty. In other words, in viewing God as soveriegn and powerful we are viewing God wrongly because he isn't sovereign or powerful.

He then stated that people ask two questions wrongly when they think about God. the first is, Can't God do anything?, and the second, What about evil why doesn't God stop it.

While he was explaning the second question I actually had a flash of fury rise up in my heart. It was the only time during this lecture that my pity at their ignorance was replaced with fury. He started talking about the book of Job in relation to why God doesn't stop evil. He said something like, "Job was right all along. He was right. God had no right to do this to him. And look at the end of the book. What does God say? 'Where were you when I created the world?' What is that? Then Job blinked and admitted he was wrong. It kind of like you as a parnet when one of you kids starts annoying you by asking you a lot of questions that you say, 'If you ask that again, you'll pay for it.' There is no reason behind this other than a threat, and Job gave in under pressure." This prompted laughter from the audience at Scripture. I wasn't laughing. Jeff wasn't laughing. Dave wasn't laughing. I could not bear to hear God's word laughed at. But anyways, he moved on.

He moved on to two other statements that kind of irked me as well. First, he took the common quote, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" which is used of human rulers, changed it, and applied it to God and said, "Infinite power corrupts infinitely." Yeah, that didn't go over to well either. The second thing came right after that when he was talking about how God had power over everything, God over man, but then you had tiers. There was man over woman, man over animals, amn over plants, "there was a whole system of subjugation." I was with him right up until he said subjugation. I guess what I saw is that even in high academic circles, for one person to have authority over another means that the one who doesn't have the authority is being subjugated.

He then defined sovereignty as, "The ability to make an exception. The law holds unless I say it doesn't hold. It is the power to act unilaterally."

"Suppose we treat Jesus as the icon of God, that there is an image of God in Jesus. Jesus is unique among other religions not because he was a miracle worker or that he was incarnated in the virgin birth, but rather that he was executed. He was radical about the poor, he was radical about healing, but most of all he was radical about forgiveness." These are my notes of his description of Jesus. He then went on to say that he sees Jesus in the plea for sinners while he was on the cross, but not in the transaction, the substitutionary atonement. He sees that as a perversion. He thinks that Jesus is the icon of God, but doesn't ascribe to him the ability to get down off of the cross. He proposes that Jesus was unable to do that.

He stated, "Suppose that event that typifies the nature of God is weakness, and the cross is its emblem. Suppose Jesus' death was a great 'NO!' to injustice and unrighteous execution." He called this the "power of powerlessness."

At this point he apologized to the crowd because he had promised to be heretical but hadn't gotten heretical yet. Jeff and I both laughed at this. If that wasn't heretical, what is? Then we found out what he thought was heretical, and yes it was heretical. It is below.

If God is powerless then what is God? He started to answer this question. First he stated that God was not a being, nor was the source of all being, nor was he beyond being like "the Good" which was held by the philosophy professor I conversed with a few months ago. He proposed that the structure of God is an event of an unconditional answer. That God was an unconditional promise. The promise of a future life, a promise that this isn't all there is. You wouldn't so much say that God is, but that God promises. He said that God was also an unconditional memory. This memory of Jesus' death and the "NO!" to unjust suffering. He also said that God was an unconditional call. That we call God's existence into being. That we bring his power to bear.

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So I heard all of this, and noticed Jeff Moore's little note he wrote me in my notebook saying Romans 1:22, which simply says, "Professing to be wise they became fools." That was what had happened here. None of this, what I posted above makes any sense. I understand his points, but his points themselves don't make sense. He has no basis,no foundation for anything he says. It made me think of the end of the sermon on the mount where you have the builder who builds his house on the rock versus the one who builds on the sand. But I thought that the analogy of sand was a bit to generous to describe the situation. Perhaps trying to build a foundation in a cloud or in the middle of the ocean would be a better description. The sand at least holds up until the storms come. This thing never had anything beneath it. It is a theology built on air.

He is proposing that God is weak and that He is not sovereign, that he is not powerful. But what he is actually saying is that God does not exist, that He has been created by humans, but then he goes on to describe what this God is or isn't. Now, if God is defined as that which people accept God to be, how can God be something different from what people believe Him to be? Furthermore, how can this professor state that God is actually all about weakness, when all believers see him as strong, and then say that He only exists in the mind? How can he say that God is only a conception, but the conception of God is faulty? If the conception of God is God, how can it be wrong about who God is? Do you see why this is absurd? Not only is it untrue, but it is self-defeating.

I'm glad I went and heard him though. I got to hear a vary well presented postmodern view of God, and found it both to be completely wrong, and to be self-defeating. That's good enough for a night. But yes, I am a nerd.

Fearing God

Over Vision Quest, I had a prophetic word given to me about how the fear of the Lord needed to be more present in my life. I hadn't realized my lack. But really, I don't fear God in any wsy close to the capacity that I should. So, to help myself out, I picked up The Joy of Fearing God by Jerry Bridges at the bookstore before church this morning. I read the first two chapters this afternoon.

Bridges calls proposes that the most prevelant emotion in the fear of the Lord is that of awe, which he provides a definition of "an emotion in which dread, veneration, and wonder are variously mingled." I had wonder. I was pretty good at that. But dread? Veneration? These just weren't there. He then quotes John Murray who says, " it is the essence of impiety not to be afraid of God when there is reason to be afraid... The Scripture throughout prescribes the neccesity of this fear of God under all the circumstances in which our sinful condition makes us liable to God's wrath."
Now, because I have been justified, I am not liable to God's wrath, but that should by no means diminish my fear of him. The grace is a promise by a being who not only can destroy me, but if He did not save me himself, I would be destroyed. There is a respect for his wrath that must be maintained by a believer, if we are to live rightly before him.

My problem was that I felt like I had become his "buddy." The first couple of nights at Vision Quest, God was kind to me and filled me mightily with his Spirit, but it jsut felt like an experience to me. Yes it was great, but it's just one of those things that happens sometime. I had lost the sense of awe that this great being was dwelling in me,and filling me, nad ministering to people through me, by His power, through His strength, all made possible by His blood. The sense of the absolute impossibility of what was taking place was gone. God was my buddy, and he helped me out sometimes so that I didn't get disappointed. That's why I was amazed when I confessed this, that Matt Bowman, while he was praying for me said that he felt like the Lord wanted to impart a fresh sense of fear. That is something that I am missing, maybe it is the thing that I am missing most profoundly. I pray that God would use these next couple of weeks to really strengthen who he is in my eyes, so that I might fear Him properly.

Summer Plans

Hey everyone! Today I got a job offer for the summer from a civil engineering firm here in Knoxville! YAY! I will be able to stay here in the church. Also, from my very first contact with this company, this is exactly the job that I wanted to get. Thank the Lord for his provision! I have known for a while that Gresham Smith (the company) was going to offer me a job, but I had been told it was in Nashville. But then I was told that Knoxville is also an option and was able to get the job here. YAY!

Now I just need somewhere to live...

A close call

Whew, if I had know that all of our chances of beating Winthrop rested on this shot going in, I don't think that I would have been very confident in our chances. But it did indeed fall, and we escaped Winthrop, even though they had the whole-hearted support of Walt Alexander, into the second round of the NCAA tournament. If we can't play better than we did against Winthrop, Witchita State will kill us.


Oh yeah, Vision Quest is two days away. Forget basketball, I want to go worship God.

VQ....

...is just six days away. Only six more days until I crowd into a GMC Yukon that is NOT going to have the starter removed from it, WITH AC, and prepar efor hte best beach trip ever. There is going to be Harlen-bashing galore, and lots of Bowman music, so much Bowman music that I am currently asking for prayer for increased patience in my reaction to these unintentional offenses from Bowman. So, if you are going to VQ, take heart! I'm the one that has to endure Matt's music for eight hours, not you.

I'm super pumped, how bout you?

Repentance

I brought this up in my response to the philosophy professor, but ever since I wrote that, I have been a little challenged by a particular question that I raised in my response but did not attempt to answer. And that is, "What is it about the redemption of a lost soul that delights God so much?"

In Luke 15 there are three familiar parables that illustrate God's love for hte recovering of what was lost. These parables are the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal's son. You guys all know these. These last verses of each of these three parables show what I am thinking about.

v. 7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.

v. 10 Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

v. 31-32 “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’”

So, why is this? Why, in the eyes of God, is repentance so highly esteemed? I can think of a few reasons. First, a soul that was completely in bondage to sin looking to God and esteeming him as better than their sin glorifies him much. Secondly, (and obviously) It is because God loves sinners, and loves that they will be accepting Christ's sacrifice.

I believe that this is why God created the world as he did. I believe that creation as it is, is perfect in the sense that God has chosen the perfect means of glorifying himself. Is there a better way for God to be glorified in repentance than by slaves of sin turning from their sin and towards him? Is there a better way for him to show his sacrificial love than to actually become a sacrifice for us? Is there a better way for him to show the majesety of his justice and holiness than by justly punishing sinners?

I believe that you can tell a whole lot about this God of ours by looking at what he created and why he created these things. Anyways, this is fun to think about.

Vision Quest

It's just 11 days away now. I'm pumped. Are you pumped? You better be, because it's gonna blow your face into a trash heap somewhere if you aren't ready for extreme awesomeness. YAY!

A now pointless post

I forgot to put a title on the post below, so here is a title!

Conversation with a philosophy professor

Well, I think that this dialouge may be over, so I thouhgt that some of you guys might actually want to know what this professor and I talked about since I have mentioned the fact that I have been conversing with a philosophy professor about theology for a while. This conversation started when Julie K. began to witness to this professor in Borders nearly a month ago. He began to present intellectual reasons why he could not accept the gospel, so I conversed with him about these reasons. At the end of the conversation at the bookstore, he had stated several things that are simply unstated in the following dialouge.

First, he couldn't see how the following three statements could be true.
1. God is all-powerful, and whatever he wills shall come to pass.
2. God desires that all should be saved.
3. Some are not saved.

Secondly, he thought that God acting to glorify himself was vain..

Thirdly, he stated that rational beings were ends in themselves. When I asked him why this was, he said that that is the definition of what it means to be a rational being. A little while later, I emailed him, then he responded, and I responded to him. (He may still respond, but it has been 4 or 5 days since I sent him the email, and I'm not holding my breath.) I deleted all references to his name in case anyone knows him.




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Hi Dr. _____,

This is Paul Steele, I was the Calvinistic engineering student that you talked
to at Borders last week. I found links to two arguments that I thought you
would be interested in reading based on our discussion last week. The first
is that Jonathan Edwards argument about God seeking to glorify himself in
creation above anything else. That argument can be found here.

http://www.jonathanedwards.com/text/2D/The%20End%20chpt%201.htm

The second one is by a contemporary Calvinistic pastor and theologian named
John Piper about how God can not save everyone even though he states that it
is his desire to do so. It can be found here.

http://www.desiringgod.org/library/topics/doctrines_grace/2wills.html

I hope that you find these articles interesting, and I enjoyed our discussion
from last week.

-Paul Steele




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Hello Mr. Steele,
Nice to hear from you. I'm glad that you are still considering these matters.
Be careful not to take the easy way out, which would consist in going in search of answers which support what you are already committed to believing, rather than honestly asking yourself where the truth of the matter lies.

For our purposes, the dispute between the hard-line Calvinists and "the Arminians" -- that is, almost all other Christians who are not Calvinists, including other the vast majority of Protestants, all Catholics, the Orthodox, etc. -- is beside the point. The problem with Piper's essay is clearly revealed in the following quotation: "What are we do say of the fact that God wills something that in fact does not happen. There are two possibilities as far as I can see. One is that there is a power in the universe greater than God's which is frustrating him by overruling what he wills. Neither Calvinist nor Arminian affirms this. The other possibility is that God wills not to save all, even though he is willing to save all, because there is something else that he wills more, which would be lost if he exerted his sovereign power to save all. This is the solution that I as a Calvinist affirm along with Arminians. In other words both Calvinists and Arminians affirm two wills in God when they ponder deeply over 1 Timothy 2:4. Both can say that God wills for all to be saved. But then when queried why all are not saved both Calvinist and Arminian answer that God is committed to something even more valuable than saving all. "

The problem can be stated simple: The "two possibilites" that Piper "can see" are not the only two possibilites. A third possibility is precisely the point at issue, namely, there cannot be a situation in which God wills something AND that something does not happen. Clearly, few or no Christians will accept option (1) that there is another power which thwarts God's will. Hence, Piper opts for (2), that God is committed to "something more valuable than saving all."

What is it, then, that God values more than saving all? Piper's answer: "The answer given by Calvinists is that the greater value is the manifestation of the full range of God's glory in wrath and mercy (Romans 9:22-23) and the humbling of man so that he enjoys giving all credit to God for his salvation (1 Corinthians 1:29). "
This does indeed "solve" the problem to a certain extent, but it leads necessarily to the further proposition that:

"God values His own glory and humbling man so he can get credit for His gift of grace MORE that God values saving human beings from eternal damnation."

And this, speaking frankly, seems to make God into a vain monster, who acts primarily out of self-pride rather than self-sacrificing love. In other words, it seems to make God act indistinguishably from Satan.

The question, therefore, is whether this claim can be supported in the face of the competing claim that God is all-loving, or indeed, that God IS Love. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross would here be made into some sort of perverse act of self-glorification, rather than a self-sacrifice carried out out of pure love. One has to face the question squarely, and ask, is a doctrine which ranks God's love lower on His list of priorities than his pride (or glory, if you prefer) a genuinely Christian doctrine? This is, of course, a very old and very common argument against Calvin -- that Calvin makes God into a monster. The reason that this argument is made so often against Calvin is that Calvin does, in fact, made God into a monster -- at least so it seems to me, and also to the vast majority of non-Calvinist Christians.

So let's put the trilemma into other terms:
(1) God wills all to be saved but some other power thwarts His will.
(2) God "wants" all to be saved but he wills that most are damned because he is a monster who values His own glory over self-sacrificing love for His creatures.
(3) God wills all to be saved and (therefore) all are saved.
Piper takes his point of departure from the following: "We must certainly distinguish between what God would like to see happen and what he actually does will to happen, and both of these things can be spoken of as God's will." otherwise, expressed as the thesis of "two wills" in God.

One must ask whether this is theologically tenable. It would entail that God is not One, but is rather divided against himself. This seems right away to deny the perfection of God. Piper argues from Scripture that we must recognize two wills in God. However, one might argue that, on the contrary, "any reading of Scripture which forces to deny God's perfection is an erroneous reading." Piper's exegesis entails that God is not perfect. Therefore, Piper's exegesis is incorrect.

Similarly, we run across a problem whereby Piper, a Calvinist, places himself in a position to denying God's power (!) -- just the thing that, as a Calvinist, he least wants to do! His "solution" to the problem is to say that God "wants" X but values Y more than X and than having Y entails not having X -- so when God wills Y he also wills not-X even though he "wants" X. I ask: What is it that prevents God from realizing both X and Y? WHY does having Y entail not having X? Is it some other power that thwarts God here? Is God too weak to arrange the world such that BOTH X and Y are realized? Or does he lack the knowledge to do it? Or does he, after all, not really "want" X?

As I said in the bookstore, it seems that one must reject at least one of the following:
(1) God can realize whatever He wills (i.e. He is all-powerful)
(2) God wills all to saved (He is all-loving)
(3) Some people are damned for all eternity

Piper is set on holding (3), so he (like all consistent Calvinists) gives up (2) -- and then goes on to inadvertently give up (1) for good measure! Piper's "solution" is a fudge: he tries to give lip-service to (2) by saying "God wills that all be saved but not really because He will something else which is incompatible with this more." But that's simply trying to "have his cake and eat it too" -- and it forces him to introduce either a spurious distinction between "wanting X" and "willing X" (which distinction is untenable for an all-powerful being) or to posit the existence of two contradictory wills within God, which undermines God's unity and perfection. (We need to modify Moses here: "I AM THAT I AM ... EXCEPT WHEN I'M NOT" or again "Hear o Israel, the Lord your God is One ... except when He is Two".)

So we arrive at a "Christian" theology wherein God's love is feebler than His pride and desire for self-glorification, and He is not perfect because He experiences conflicting desires, and furthermore He is too impotent or ignorant to harmonize His conflicting desires or to realize all His desires (even though He wants all to be saved -- even if He "wants" it less than his own self-glorification). This is not at all a conception of God that I can harmonize with the Christian understanding of God (as I understand it). If I were persuaded that this was the genuine teaching of the Christian faith, I would be forced to see in Christianity a great evil and a curse on mankind, rather than the teaching of peace, God's love, and God's grace. "God is a monster" hardly seems like the substance of the "good news."

best,
_Dr. _____





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Afterwards I responded with this....


Dr. _____,

Sorry about the delay in responding to your last email. I had a busy week, and never had time to devote to an adequate response.

Before I get started I wanted to say two things. First, the Piper article I sent to you, I sent mostly because it poses a solution to the logical problem that you had, but I don’t believe that it is sufficient to prove philosophically that the Calvinistic solution is the only logically acceptable one. The article was originally published in a book called Still Sovereign, which was written as a response to Arminian doctrine. This is why Piper doesn
’t consider other possibilities as he is discussing 1 Timothy 2:4, he is merely concerned with the two most widely held views among Christians.

Secondly, I have received numerous proofs through apolegetics and experience of the existence of the God of the Bible, that I do not consider reading theology written that does prove that God exists as searching after that which I already held to be true. Two years ago I was an Arminian, when I was presented with a Calvinistic explanation of a few verses in the Bible. I recognized the argument as better than the Arminian explanation, and as I have studied, I have found the belief system to be more and more representative of what the Bible actually says. So although I do not start out with trying to prove the existence of God in every argument I read, I do not believe that I am guilty of only seeking out arguments that support what I already believe. (I will however, when presenting my own views, present articles that do support those conclusions that I hold.)

With that out of the way, I wanted to address your objections. First, I would state that if you feel that Calvin makes God into a monster, it is because Calvin is reflecting the clear teaching of the Bible which show that God acts primarily for his own glory. If that makes God into a monster, the source is the Bible, not Calvin. Perhaps the clearest text showing this is Isaiah 48:9-11.

"For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,
that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.

In these three verses, God references actions which will glorify himself six times. This passage is not alone in the Bible in showing this. There are others. I will cite a few. Look at Ezekiel 36:22-23, Malachi 2:2, John 12:27-28, John 17:4, 1 Corinthians 10:31 and 2 Thessalonians 1:9-10. This list is by no means all, but I feel that it is a sufficient enough sample to prove that this belief did not originate with Calvin.
So, the more pertinent question is this, “Does this make God monstrous in his vanity and desire for praise?” As you would expect, I would say no. What, other than God, could be the end of God? If God existed to serve man and do what was best for him, God would be an idolater. He MUST be at the center of his own affections. This sounds extremely vain, because this is a terrible quality for a human to possess. If I were at the center of my own affections, you would call me a self-centered jerk. So is it different for God?

Again, I would say that it is different for God, because he is perfect. Many times we, as people, view a life devoted to some ideal as a supremely righteous life. Perhaps someone who is ultimately devoted to the display (or glory) of compassion we would say is living very righteously. Or perhaps the same person might be living to display truth, or justice, and live they then their lives for those ideals. These most would consider righteous lives. But where is compassion and love and justice and truth and righteousness and every other good thing perfected? These things are perfected in God. So God, in living for himself, is in effect living for the perfect manifestation of everything that is good that we see in the world. This is not vain fancies, because it is not vanity to glory in the perfect.

I have heard it said that the essence of righteousness is to place supreme value on what is supremely valuable with all of the just actions that follow. Furthermore, it is the essence of unrighteousness to place supreme value on that which has little or no value with all the unjust actions that follow. What happens when a man values money more than human life? He may kill to get something as menial as money at the great cost of human life. I found that upon pondering this, it seemed to be true. And, if it were indeed true, having God set his highest affections on something lower than himself would be unrighteous.

I also don’t believe that God not saving everyone because he is acting for the sake of his name makes him impotent to fulfill all that he desires. Perhaps the best parallel that I can make to illustrate this is in the death of Christ. God ordained the death of his son. He foresaw it and planned it, but I don’t think that it would be possible to say that everyone of God’s desires was fulfilled during the entire course of events that took place. The sacrifice pleased him, but no father is glad to watch his son die, and I think that the same would have to be said of God. He doesn’t delight in suffering or take pleasure in death, but he uses those things to save sinners.

Is it logically required that God cannot ordain something imperfect to display his own perfection?

This doesn’t completely answer the charge of God’s impotence and I understand that. I have not delved into the mind of God to understand fully why he would seek to glorify himself through the redemption of the lost, rather than fellowship with pure and sinless beings. However, Christ said, “I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.” (Luke 15:7) Apparently, repentance glorifies God more than someone who is already just. Why, I don’t know. But knowing that, it becomes clearer why God might desire a system where sinners repent, and those that don’t are judged.

You said, "God values His own glory and humbling man so he can get credit for His gift of grace MORE that God values saving human beings from eternal damnation." I agree with this statement although I wouldn’t typically use these terms. God is worthy, men are not. One of your fundamental assumptions that you approach the idea of God with is that all rational beings are ends in themselves. In the bookstore I asked you why you thought this and the answer you gave is that that is the definition of what it means to be a rational being. But, how, may I ask, does rationality necessarily imply that we are ends in ourselves and not means to and end of something greater than we are? I believe that the reason your view is held about our end is that we are the highest beings here on Earth. We are rational, and no other being here is. Therefore, we must treat other rational beings as ends, because we are no different from them.

But, God is far greater than us. He created us. How does one create something that is an end in itself? Is a painting ever an end in itself, or is it created for the end that the artist created it? True, a painting is not rational, and I cannot make an analogy that would fit, because we, as humans, are unable to create rational beings. (We can give birth to them, but I believe you see the distinction. We do not mold them to fulfill a task, as an automaker does a car.) You might say that we cannot do this because we cannot create a rational being in such a way. We create animals to perform such functions, but it would be immoral for us to create a clone to fulfill the purpose of spare body part for example. But can God, who formed us, and is much higher and wiser than us, use us, his creation for his purposes? And if he can use us for his purposes, does this not make us ends of his will, and not ends in ourselves?

Acting in this manner may make God out to seem gross to you. It is gross if we have natural rights to autonomy as rational beings. However, I firmly believe that neither you nor I are autonomous beings. I believe that we were created by God to fulfill his purposes here on Earth, whether that is to glorify him through our joy at accepting his sacrifice of his son, or through glorifying him as he justly punishes us in our sin. Romans 9:22-23 makes it clear that both will glorify him. What is amazing is that God did send his son to die on the cross that we can be reconciled to him, and in our imperfection glorify the perfect one by rejoicing in his gift of life that he gave to us though we did not deserve it at all. The subject of the good news is not the God is a monster, but that this loving God has provided a way for sinners to be reconciled to himself, although he had to sacrifice and forsake that which was dearest to him in order to achieve it.

-Paul Steele