Category: Bible

God: Our Greatest Tool?

Silva

Part I.

I was recently listening to a Christian radio station with my kids – safe for the whole family, you know – and the DJ was talking to his cohort about Lent.  As you may know, Lent is the time period between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.  It is 40 days (not including Sunday’s) in which, historically, new church converts prepared for their Easter baptism.  But later in history the church used the time to prepare itself for the celebration of Easter.  It is historically a time of deprivation, repentance, and fasting.  With Ash Wednesday past and several of us engaged in Lenten deprivation, I was curious to hear what this guy would say from his bully pulpit.

He started to explain that for him Lent wasn’t really about depriving himself of something nor was it about preparation for Easter.  Rather it was personal – about being more focused on what he’s doing.  His focus: personal devotions – Bible study.  He had not been too consistent or faithful, he said, and so Lent was when he was really going to buckle down and get ‘er done.  So, no deprivation, rather earnest focus and voila: he has his Lenten plan!  It was interesting to note that he saw Lent very personally as a time to buckle down and just do it!

I have two problems with this.  First, this is just what this guy should be doing year round.  Any college student engaged in some college ministry could tell you that we should be in the Word regularly.  Sure, Lent provoked this guy to return to this discipline and that’s probably a good thing.  But, shouldn’t it have provoked him to this discipline simply because he should be doing it?  And then provoke him still to a real Lenten practice?  Far from deprivation and preparation, this guy resolved to do what he should do – and he thought he was doing something praiseworthy.  Here in the American church we have forgotten that obedience is our obligation according to Luke 17:10; that’s another post….

Set aside for the moment that this guy’s observance of Lent looks completely different from the historic church’s intent with Lent going back centuries (our American penchant for re-writing history to make us look good here in the present is subject for another day). When did we in America begin to think that we were doing something extraordinary by simply doing what God commands?

Interestingly (and secondly), the radio-dude exemplifies something that we need to see about ourselves.  The way he presented himself on the radio, for him, Lent was really about him.  It was a tool that he was going to use for his own spiritual self-help.  He needs to be a better him, so Lent provides the opportunity for that to happen.  Sounds like a good plan, right?  Isn’t that a very practical and useful way to do things?  We underestimate that at some point, practical and useful can become ungodly – maybe even from the beginning.  The ungodly thought process goes like this:

  • I’ve not been reading the Bible; I need to start.  “God please help me.”

My problem + God’s help = my success.  You could substitute many things in for “my problem” like “my troubled marriage” or “my pitiful parenting” or “my harsh communication.”  In this line of thinking, God is our greatest tool; He is the best and strongest means to an end.

What end?  Typically that end is guilt-free or worry-free living.  For many of us, what’s the greatest trouble with our failures?  In other words, what’s our biggest problem with our failures?  Isn’t it usually how they make us feel about ourselves?  Unfortunately, we are most often content to moan about what our failures mean to us rather than how they may grieve the Lord.

One way to check ourselves is to ask: is God is really necessary to be more consistent in reading the Bible?  Can’t you just arrange your schedule so you have time?  Set an alarm?  Get accountability?  Pledge to teach a passage?  Take medication?  Seriously, do we really need God to read more consistently?  Here’s what C.S. Lewis said about this:

I haven’t always been a Christian.  I didn’t go to religion to make me happy.  I always knew a bottle of Port would do that.

Radio-Man Stan’s (not his real name) consideration of Lent and his use of the time highlights what so much of the American church thinks about God and Christ: tools for us to use to better ourselves.  I know, you’re thinking, “the guy was going to do Bible study – how’s that self-focused?!” Generally speaking, we tend to think in terms of “how can I get where I need to go?”  We think that way about our weight, our jobs, our communication, our use of money, our knowledge of Scripture verses, our marriage or our parenting.  Why wouldn’t we turn that kind of thinking to our relationship with God?  No one ever acts without a reason or even a point.  We are constantly using things to get other things.  How do we know that we haven’t somehow been doing the same thing in our spiritual lives?  Why wouldn’t we “use” God – the greatest of all powers – to get what we want?

Do you know?

Silva

In our knowing, do we know?

A problem may arise if we are not careful. It’s about “gospel.”  I’m afraid that in our knowing we might not know it.  This will look different for different people – at least initially.  Maybe some among us are not converted and that’s serious.  You may not ever have repented of your independence and rebellion against God.  You’d never considered Isaiah’s words when he said, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).  Think about that: if that’s true, then now is the time to turn to Jesus Christ and plead with God that He would credit Jesus’ perfection to you – and save your soul from the wrath of God.  If your parenting was changed because your heart was changed then Hallelujah!

For the rest, my fear is that familiarity with the gospel will breed contempt for it.  Maybe contempt is too strong; how about a passive kind of ho-hum attitude?  Do we believe that the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ was what we needed to be converted but, beyond that, we’re talking about something fundamentally different to actually live?  The Galatians did: 3:2-3.  If we hold this view, we may, in fact, not understand the gospel’s place in our lives.  If we misunderstand what it means to live in the gospel as converted Christians, then we risk living for the glory of something else.  The stakes are high!

We need to ask ourselves why we are interested in studying the Bible; say parenting, for example.  Let me oversimplify to make a point: are we more concerned about being equipped to parent or is our interest more about God?  Think about it.  I mean, clearly, parents need help parenting; no parent knows what in the world he’s doing while he’s doing it!  (The sheer number of parenting books published in the last decade (75K??) proves the hunger for help.)  But God apparently doesn’t believe that parenting-ignorance is our biggest issue (I know there are times when it feels like it!).  The fact that the Bible contains so few verses about such a significant subject proves that.

At the same time, it’s not as if God isn’t concerned about it either!  His message is different, even strange to us.  Paul preached this message to his churches.  We should take note because they were like us with pressing needs in every area of life: they were parents, employers, employees, children, friends, soldiers and artisans.  They all needed to know how and what to do.  They looked to Paul to provide help.  Yet, his message was:

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2)

Ask the Lord to reveal your interests here.  Do you want to know Him as Paul prayed for his Ephesians brothers (1:15-19)?  Or do you just want to know how to better parent?  Desire to be a better parent less than you desire to know Jesus Christ; that the details of His life, the gospel, become your preoccupation – and that in which you bathe your family.

Sooo…college is it?

Silva

The Bible says many things about many things.  It seems reasonable to believe that all the eternally important things ARE in the Bible.  The rest, though meaningful, is not in the same category of importance.  I have interacted with many confessing Christians who regularly elevate things not in the Bible to apocalyptic importance.  Like kids and careers.

What about goals for our children?  Into what should we be aiming our children?  Back in the day of my youth and exuberance, college was it.  I-T.  It was the goal, it was the done deal, it was what was expected, it was the topic of conversation, it was the object of ridicule etc., etc.  Few were the ones who did not go to college.  Fewer were the ones who admitted that they really didn’t want to go.

That was then.  This is now.  Now, I have children.  The conversations I have about college these days are far different than they used to be.  I remember talking to a friend who didn’t ever go to college but seemed to be fitting into God’s plan just fine and thinking, “whoa, she didn’t go to college.”  That was the beginning of a conversation that endures regarding my kids and college.  Now, I’m not quite there yet so even these musings are theoretical.

Here’s an interesting article: Is College the Only Option?

I guess the question is should we just assume that university is a done deal for our children?  “Of course he’s going to college!”  “Why, as soon as she graduates she’s off to college!”  That brings me back to how I started: the Bible and college.  Hmmm.  Strangely silent.  In fact, the silence is eerie.  The Bible does not tell me I must train my children to go to college.  It does not tell me that the key to my child’s future is college.

Instead, the world tells me that college is the place where 2/3 of churched children reject the faith they know.  If that is true, that’s a big deal.  There are surely many reasons for that tragic statistic but it isn’t necessarily reason not to send our kids to college.  God’s path for His children is often a valley that feels like death (see Psalm 23).

Parents are to prepare our children for the tasks that God has set before them.  That may mean sending them to college.  It may not.  We must certainly should ask  God if college is His plan for our children.  Of course, there are practical reasons to ask the question as the linked article tells us.  But, the greater question regards just to what is God calling our children?  We must pray and ask!