Evil & Suffering III: God's Good Purposes

Paradoxes: Sin-Evil-Suffering-Pain and God’s Good Purposes

So...if sin and evil are ontological parasites of good and are the opposite of holiness we need to assume that pain, suffering and evil in general are not holy in and of themselves and are also possibly a by-product of ontological parasitism? This was a mouthful so let me explain. God did not directly create sin, evil, suffering or pain but they are allowed to exist now that they are already here and because God is all-powerful he can work through all things including the evil actions of men (Genesis 50:20) or a sequence of events in a fallen creation. Because of this we also have to assume that evil actions can sometimes have good end results as in the case of Joseph in Genesis 37-50. It is in these circumstances that we as Christians begin to get a clearer picture of just how powerful God really is. Until we begin to see God in these terms we cannot truly understand His sovereignty and purposes.

Yes, God is that powerful. He can actually find ways to work through the pain and suffering to produce and end result that is good and dare I say holy. Why would God work through the actions of evil men such as Joseph’s brothers? We know the answer to this because of how the story of Joseph ends up. Joseph is exalted to the second highest position in the land of Egypt. There were a few reasons for this but the foremost was Joseph’s faithfulness and obedience to God. In his obedience we see him early in life often driven down and subjected to suffering but God lifting Him up and rewarding towards the end of his life seems to outweigh the bad. Again I ask the question, why? God is glorified. God lays down the rules people obey and they are rewarded. People disobey and they inevitably are subjected to punishment. If the punishment is in this world it is done to humankind to hopefully produce a positive affect I the person.

We see this same paradox and its culmination in Jesus Christ and the Kenosis in Philippians and it is the pattern for believers and believer’s suffering. It is also here that we see suffering of a humbled innocent man in stark contrast to the backdrop of injustice. In the closing verses of the kenosis we see the reason why and for what purpose and its impact when fully understood is striking.

The Humble Innocent:
“…being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” (MacArthur ESV, Philippians 2:8-9)

The Purpose:

“and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:11)

Within this passage we can see the example of an innocent suffering. When the world says that God shouldn’t allow suffering of an innocent they clearly fail to understand God’s purposes in His actions in history. It was only through an innocent's suffering that sin could be forgiven. The sacrifices of the Old Testament which were shadows of the once-and-for-all perfect sacrifice or Jesus Christ, the unblemished sacrifice-a holy sacrifice to gain the forgiveness of God. All so humankind could be restored to the relationship they had first had with God in the beginning.

This paradox or “lowering to exalt” or “suffering to gain” usually stops people dead in their tracks because it goes outside the scope of “reasonable” outcomes for most human minds. It is the paradox of being torn down so that we can be lifted up or emptied so that we can be filled. It is a catharsis or purging of the self and a refilling of God or the Holy Spirit. To the sinful or reprobate human mind it is counterintuitive. How can a negative + negative + negative = a positive? Having been presented with this second paradox we can begin to see that even though God is not directly responsible for evil and did not create it, because He is abundantly merciful and full of grace he is patient with mankind giving them every opportunity to repent he allows evil and suffering to exist for sovereign purposes and can work through it or use it. Again I will revert back to the example of Christ, this time at his crucifixion. We see in Jesus’ crucifixion the most horrendous and evil miscarriage of justice and example of brutality towards an innocent man in history. Not just any man but the God-man. In Christ’s crucifixion we see the most supreme example of a sovereign God working through evil providentially. Working through an evil that He did not create to exact a redemptive transaction that ultimately glorifies Him, the Son of God. It also glorifies anyone that will believe in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection as it was prophesied in Scripture.

I have only addressed one aspect of theodicy and it is the aspect or one angle that deals solely with humankind and its relations to God during the experience of evil, pain or suffering. To surmise, it would suffice to say that sometimes, to be able to fly, man needs to be driven to his knees. This only scratches the surface of man and his suffering subsequent to The Fall of Genesis and its direct aftermath: Humanity’s damaged relationship with God. There is more and it will be elaborated on further posts.

Evil & Suffering II: Snapshots of Suffering & Pictures of Pain

Since much of my thesis in some cases came across as a clinical examination of the logistics of evil and suffering’s existence in a world created by God the reader may lose sight of the reality of evil and suffering. To temper and humanize the tone of this paper I will lead it off with personal interludes.

Interlude #1: An elderly man nears the end of his life and is stricken with cancer and through ailing attrition, over a period of months and years he deteriorates until he is a shadow of his former self. He suffers from nausea after everyone of his chemotherapy treatments. The doctors insist that his chances of survival are better than not getting treatments. After a 6 month remission the cancer relapses and within a month, this elderly man dies a painful death. Why did God allow this man to suffer through chemo only to die a painful death anyway? Where was God when this man suffered?

Interlude #2: A 30 year old man, previously in perfect health is traveling down an interstate highway in his Jeep on his way home to his family. A delivery truck carrying steel "I"-beams blows a tire and crosses over the median strip colliding with this man’s car causing a pile-up. He survives the accident but is paralyzed from the waist down. Incapable of doing things to his satisfaction compared to his former self, he goes into depression. This affects not only him but also his wife who is also traumatized by the drastic and irreparable change in their lives. Unable to recover psychologically from this accident this man eventually takes his life in a fit of desperation. The woman is left as a widow at 28 years old to raise two young boys who have lost their father. Where is God’s compassion?

Interlude #3: A woman, mother of four and once held in high esteem for her mental acuity and quick wit slowly succumbs to Alzheimer's disease gradually losing the ability to manage her own life. Over time she slowly begins to forget who the people are in her life, her sisters, brothers and friends are first. As the disease progresses she begins to forget the names of her children and husband and towards the end she forgets who they are completely. People that once were in this woman’s inner circle are now complete strangers that live in her house. They wash her and change her clothes for her because she has become incontinent and soiled herself. Why are these strange people in her house? Who are they? This woman has become a prisoner in her own mind. Where is God?

Interlude #4: A child is playing ball in a neighbor’s driveway. The mother of the child has gone into the house to check dinner that she is cooking for her husband. She is only in the house for a minute. The ball that the child is playing with rolls out into the street, quickly followed behind by the child chasing it. It is rush hour and the road is a main route between Pottstown and Phoenixville. The child is hit by a car doing 55 miles an hour and is killed instantly. The body of the child is barely recognizable as human due to the impact. Where is God in this situation?

These are some of the more traumatic scenarios that could confront people in life and are the type of events that cause people to seriously reconsider or abandon their faith. The sad fact is that three of these have happened to people or families that I know. There are other scenarios that I did not even include here but the list could go on. These are horrible images and tragic events but they happen. They probably happen more frequently than most of us are aware of. We as Christians (or any worldview for that matter) need to have a reasonable answer to these types of tragedies or there will be little hope for those who are left behind to suffer the loss of the loved one. It is the people still alive and left behind that continue to suffer, the dead feel no pain. Sometimes, even with an accurate and consistent worldview these tragedies can put people in situations where they cannot recover mentally. When approaching evil and suffering (theodicy) we need to be as compassionate and as accurate as possible in our explanation to even come close to justifying why people can suffer as mentioned above. Christianity and Jesus are messages of hope, even in situations like this. Even then…sometimes answers are not enough but we must offer hope to people who have none. Needless to say we must fully understand that this is God's creation and nothing happens in it without His knowledge or allowance of it. He is sovereign and omnipotent...and clearly values humankind...so why evil and suffering?

Evil & Suffering I: Reconciling Evil With A Holy God

I am going to try and break pieces off my thesis on theodicy and make them into intellectually digestible chunks on SoulJournaler. If this gets too ugly I will abandon ship but this will be the first post. Please understand they are meant to be read as small components of a much larger whole. I will try to make them as compatible with a short format as possible but there may be loose ends that do not quite make sense in the individual post but when you have finished reading all of them as a whole the loose ends will make sense. Like suffering, this series will be a process that may not all make sense while it is unfolding but in the end you can see why certain things were necessary.

Due to the complexity of some of the philosophical concepts underlying theodicy I will avoid posting them in detail except where they help move this series along (i.e.: Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, etc). Because these posts will be in abbreviated forms compared to the ones in my paper I may occasionally need to elaborate on some points more. If I need to embellish for the sake of clarity I will do so in the Reader's Thoughts section.
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So why does God allow the evil and suffering we see in the world? Why is it possible for evil to exist if God is an all-powerful and loving God?

When asking these questions we need to wrestle with questions of existence that have plagued humankind since the time of the ancient philosophers. Every believer at some point in time has also wrestled with this dilemma as has a secular world that may or may not have a God to explain it or blame it on. There is a Christian response to the evil and suffering in the world, a world that is within the sovereign territory of a sovereign God, it is called theodicy.

Theodicy reconciles or tries to reconcile the evil of the world with a holy and righteous God. How an infinitely holy and just God can allow evil to exist and in some cases thrive in His creation. In doing so it implicates and draws in the idea of God’s justification and justice. As Christians we are to view God as the sovereign Creator. In so doing Christians relinquish the right to be the final say in judgment of ourselves and give this over to Him. By doing this we acknowledge that we have imputed sin as a product of Adam and the sin in the Garden (Enns 319, 323). Although created holy, humankind chose to disobey God and sin and thereby gained for himself a penalty of death. Death not only physically but also spiritual unless we accept Christ’s redeeming/atoning work on the cross and repent. There is a price to be paid for sin since “the wages of sin is death”. Christ sacrificially put himself up as the ransom or a substitution to free man from the bondage to sin which is the source of the ills of this world or what many view as evil. Christ also abrogated the ceremonial law instituted by the Mosaic covenant (Enns 89).

Knowing what I have stated above, Christians should then truly understand their irreparable position in relation to a holy and perfectly just and righteous God that must judge sin (or He wouldn’t be God). The response by Christians is to submit to the One who judges and is merciful and full or grace to forgive…if we accept His sacrificial offer and repent. God is unique, incomparable, sovereign, holy and a just God. He is worthy to judge all of humankind based in the attributes that He Himself contains and exudes. It is God that is worthy to determine where they (His creation) stand in relation to what He has already dictated as the acceptable minimum level for being rewarded eternal life. It is also God that has established what it will take for each individual to get to that eternal life on an individual basis. In some cases it may require suffering and enduring pain. In other words: We are reprobates and only He can save us. It is only by the grace of God we can be redeemed. Believing involves and act(s) of repentance in faith. Faith is the vehicle that gets you to the destination or the eye that sees. The Lord Jesus has done that work for us already (Enns 97-98).

Part of the process of being redeemed, sanctified and growing in faith requires us occasionally to live both individually and communally in a world system that contains evil, suffering and pain and endure these evils and suffering both individually and communally. It also requires us to become more dependent on God. It is in the communal aspect where we learn that it is easier to endure the suffering by sharing it. When the load is evenly distributed over a wider swath of people it seems to be easier to bear. It is in the communal aspect of compassion for others and the love for those suffering that we see a glimpse the Kingdom of God.

Customarily, humankind and his entanglement with sin are viewed as the direct consequence from the fall of man in the world. Humankind is created holy but falls choosing to sin, Adam seems to have sinned knowingly, and as such this sin distorts and casts doubt upon all knowledge. Because human nature was so damaged by the Fall no person is capable of doing spiritual good without God’s help (Marino 256, 259). God being perfectly just cannot ignore sin as it is an affront against His holiness. In needing to respond to the sin of disobedience the world is under a curse and/or being punished for sin. Man will die, for the wages of sin is death. The world is now also at odds with God and/or anything divine. As converted justified believers, we are at odds with ourselves or our flesh that is still “of this world”. The best example of this is in Romans 7 and what appears to be Paul suffering from a multiple personality disorder. In actually he is talking about the tension between the spiritual good and the sinful flesh. He ends up doing things he doesn’t mean to do, and not doing things he should. (Enns 324-326). As we live our lives in this world system we are confronted with the “fallout” from the fall of humankind in the form of evil, suffering and pain (among other things). Consequently, this evil, pain and suffering are more easily endured when done so communally because of distribution of the burden.

Man has no concept of how repulsive evil is to God. If humankind would truly understand this they would not be so quick to judge the Almighty Judge. If we really sit down and analyze the depths of evil that humankind sank to in the 20th Century we begin to see how messed up things can get. The world had just come through the Gilded Age and just been exposed to the Utopian philosophies of the 19th century philosophers. The world then descended in the hellacious mechanized warfare of World War I. Technology had finally caught up with the killing pace of depraved evil in the human mind and the results were horrific. All involved swore it would never happen again and within a generation another war, World War II would make the death toll of the first look like a Sunday picnic. Man would create a single bomb that could vaporize an entire city instantaneously and leave tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands to suffer slow painful deaths due to radiation poisoning. Just when humankind thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. It had been a long road since Biblical times but the evil never left and the end result of evil left unchecked manifested itself in the most horrific of ways in the mostly godless vacuum of the secular 20th century.

In this view evil is rebellion against God. The final measuring stick against evil is God Himself. There is no darkness in Him (1 John 1:5), He is upright and just (Deut 32:4), He will not be blamed for peoples evil (James 1:13). In other words sin and evil are an absence or disordering of the good created by God (Marino 273). I have personally deemed evil (and sin) an “ontological parasite”. They are an absence of good or can only exist in a host-parasite relationship with what God has already made good. I will elaborate more on this later (see Augustine: Modified Rationalistic). Regardless, humans often view suffering, sickness and death (the effects of the Fall) as bad or evil. Christians should view it as justice exacted against a sinful humanity. If we repent we will eventually be glorified in Christ and restored to our previous state (after death) anyway.

Biblical Femininity VI: God & Femininity

We see God referred to as every imaginable representation of honorable and righteous masculinity but not often feminine. If God has created everything and everything includes feminine beauty we encounter the paradox of a God that is predominately described in masculine terms but also embodying what is feminine allure too. If there is something in this universe it had to come from God or God's creative being. It is at this time my mind turns to the fact that God is indeed a genderless Spirit. Let me be clear, God is never referred to directly with feminine pronoun such as “she,” her,” and “hers” or given a feminine name that I am aware of. This doesn't mean He is male though either. God is God. God is Other.

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:24

When He came incarnate in the space of creation in the fullness of time as Jesus-He did so as a man. Yet...the source of masculinity AND femininity finds its origin in God.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. ~Genesis 1:27

God is the epitome of masculine strength and power but isn't He also the epitome of beauty and does He not give the essence of what it is to be a woman to a female? Is God not tender to His children? Is God not the ultimate creator of everything and everything has its source in Him? He is the Creator of lightning and thunder yet he is also the Creator of azure sunsets and wings of the butterfly. The Creator of the flower and also the thorn. The love of our lives, our spouses or future spouses are to be an inkling of what is to come when we meet our True Love face to face. Male and Female alike. This is why the marriage is so sacred. It is an embodiment of what will be in Heaven with God. If we actually maintain the proper relationships here on earth they should already reflect a mutual symbiotic type relationship between our spouses and God. God, your spouse and you. Sexual relations between a married couple as defined by the Bible can constitute a form of worship. Any use of anything in the Creation as defined in the Bible constitutes worship but the unity in marriage is especially glorifying to God. By maintaining it and upholding it as outlined in the Bible we are maintaining a covenant relationship with not only our spouse but also God. What is the usual statement in a marraige vow when one is married?

"Do you, __*YOUR NAME HERE*___, solomnly agree before Almighty God and these witnesses to..."

And then later in the vow...

"...and I do promise and covenant, before God and these witnesses to be your loving and faithful ________..."

Male and female. If both are made in God's image shouldn't both man and woman reflect God's character in their lives? If so then we should expect to see aspects of God's character reflected in each other's lives, male and female...shouldn't we?

We do not often think of feminine aspects when dealing with God (I don't), but to fully understand Him we must understand that beauty and the essence of what it is to be feminine also comes from God. Otherwise we get an unbalanced image of Him in our understanding. Anything that is less than the best understanding that we can possibly have of Him is just another step away from Him, not towards Him. As far as I'm concerned we are all already too far from Him already and it is only through His grace that we can and do come close to Him.

The allusions are in Scripture and are unavoidable. I realize many are for the point of illustration for mankind but the fact that God would allow these types of statements says something of His mindset or being since all Scripture is inspired by God/Holy Spirit.

As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. Isaiah 66:13

For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor; I will gasp and pant. Isaiah 42:14

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! ~Matthew 23:37

God (Jesus) is not saying He is female but he is willing to gather His own like a hen. He will comfort his own like a mother comforts her own. He is portrayed predominately as masculine and is referred to by masculine pronouns but the idea that femininity or attributes attributed to females just pop out of thin air is ridicuolous and ignoring the obvious. They have an origin and their creation lies in God. Where else could it have come from?

He Is The Holy Spirit

But as it is written:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. ~1 Corinthians 2:9-14

The Holy Spirit. Unseen but comes in power to empower. Unseen but an enabler of truth, knowledge, wisdom and revelation. Unseen but intercedes for believers. Unseen but brings spiritual understandings. The Holy Spirit, the comforter or Paraclete/παράκλητος promised by Christ.

Until now, I have tread rather lightly dealing with the Holy Spirit. For me He has been an enigma but this is changing to a glorious partnership. I am aware as others are that He is a person of the Trinity with Jesus and the Father. This obviously makes Him Deity. But much of what He is and what He has done and is doing in my life as a Christian remains shrouded in mystery. This is a shame because the Scriptures speak volumes about this person of the Trinity. Paul speaks of the spiritual discernment that is not natural for man in the passage above. Because of our fallen condition we cannot know. We are not by our nature spiritual beings but...but...we can be made alive to Spiritual things. This is where the work of the Spirit of God comes in. It is in the Spirit's work of rebirth in use that allows us this discernment. We can intellectually acknowledge the Spirit's existence but to know Him requires a personal relationship just as we have with Jesus and the Father. Personal...as in person or should I say Person. A Person of the Trinity. Often glanced over since He is not visible but the outcroppings and outgrowths of His work are visible. We see the manifestations of what the Spirit does in lives but we do not see Him.

He is like the forgotten member of the Trinity in some respects. He is mentioned a lot especially by Jesus and yet we barely grasp Him. Please note I have referred to Him as a personal pronoun(s): He, Him. The Bible does the same and I must follow suit. We also see Him refer to Himself as "me" and "I".

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." ~Acts 13:2

Jesus refers to Him as a person or "whom" and "He" that can respond to an instruction or at least is cognizant or sentient unlike the Jehovah Witnesses who see the Holy Spirit as an identity-less "force".

“When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me." ~John 15:26

First, the word Helper in this verse is parakletos/παράκλητος and the ος is singular/masculine. Although in the Greek the word Spirit (pneuma) is neuter and not masculine, according to grammatical rules the pronoun must agree with the noun but there is an intervening clause in this passage, "the Spirit (pneuma) of truth who goes out from the Father" in neuter is then immediately followed by the masculine form of "that" in the Greek (ekeinos/παράκλητος) or "He that will testify about me" in the literal translation of the last clause. It is obvious from this that the writer (John) meant to refer to the Spirit as a HE, not an IT or unidentifiable force.

We then get another undeniable proof one chapter later that brings this thought home for us in a way that is exactly what John intended. The word ekeinos/παράκλητος is again used to refer to the Spirit.

"But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. "He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. ~John 16:13-14

The Holy Spirit is just as busy was the Father and Jesus was/is. The Holy Spirit does a lot but it often goes “under the radar” so to speak. He works to help believers perform certain tasks or in some cases performs tasks on a believer’s behalf (ex: Romans 8). Often what the Spirit does we take for granted. The things He does we can and often do associate to other persons. What does He do? He comforts believers. He guides (John 16). He encourages. He will also convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment (John 16:8). He will and does guide us in a personal way that is most advantageous to our eternal well-being. To be able to guide someone individually and communally for the individual and communal best interest requires an intimate knowledge or both and individual and an a community, not unconscious assumptions by a lifeless “force”. This are done premeditated and according to the will of the Father. The Holy Spirit intercedes for and with us. By the Spirit and Christ we have access to the Father. When we know not what to ask or pray for the Spirit intercedes.He was involved in the creation of the Creation. He brooded over it and bringing it to life. He was the active agent in the divine conception of Jesus, He generated or begat the incarnational attribute of Jesus Christ. Please note I said begat not began. He is the inspiration of Scripture in some form. It is He who anoints Christ to ministry, drives Jesus into the wilderness and even even continually filled Jesus with the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 11:2, 42:1) during His life. The Holy Spirit even plays a role in Jesus' death and resurrection. Romans 8:11 tells us explicitly that it is the power of the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. It is this Spirit that also dwells within us. That my friends...is powerful assurance of our ability as believers to walk towards holiness.

He is referred to or depicted as many things in the creation but is none of them. They are symbols or emblems. When the Holy Spirit descended at Christ's baptism he descended "like" a dove. If it was a winged bird it was only a representation of the Holy Spirit. To say God is a bird is to make Him part of the creation. God the Holy Spirit is not the creation, He is wholly "other". The spirit is represented as clothing (Luke 24:49), a pledge (not the furniture polish) in 2 Cornithians 1:22. Pledge in Greek is arrabon/ἀρραβών or means a "first installment" or "down payment". The Holy Spirit is also compared to fire at Pentecost (Acts 2:3), the Spirit as oil is all over the Old Testament (Exodus 27:20, 40:9; Leviticus 8:30, 14:17) and in the New (Acts 1:8, 1 John 2:20, Romans 8:2-3) just to name a few. He is symbolized as a seal (as in wax on letters not sea mammals), water (Zech 14:16-21). His most natural representation is wind, pneuma (Greek) and ruwach (Hebrew). He indwells believers. He restrains sin (Genesis 6:3), He gives us spiritual gifts for use to build up and edify the body (I'm not gonna list them, go read your Bible).

We are to believe in the Holy Spirit and he is part of the baptismal sacrament in Matthew 28. He is the recipient of prayer. We are to have a relationship with Him. We are told not to sin against the Holy Spirit. The unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:22-30). He can be offended. Does that sound like any lifeless person-less force you know? Me neither. The Holy Spirit can be loved, adored, grieved, and sinned against…among other things. Sure sounds like a person to me.

He has many titles all of which emphasize an attribute of the Holy Spirit. Some of these titles and attributes are: Eternal Spirit-His eternity, Spirit of Glory-His glory, Spirit of Life-His vitality, Holy One/Holy Spirit-His holiness, Spirit of Wisdom/Counsel/Knowledge/Understanding-His omniscience,wisdom and counsel, Spirit of Strength-His omnipotence, Spirit of Grace-His grace and the list is endless but you get the picture.

For an overlooked or a "less visible" member of the Trinity (no pun intended) He is integral to nearly all aspects of Christianity. To consider Him just a lifeless, nameless force is and insult to the Spirit and underplays His immense importance just like that of the Father and Jesus.

Christian Chain E-mailing and Christian Spam

Please understand this post is predominately tongue-n-cheek but there is a hint of truth in some of these comments. So laugh first and ponder second.

Is it just me or are Christian chain emailing totally demeaning to God and His sovereignty? "Pass this email on to 10 people or God will not bless you and your family" ...delete...Delete...DELETE! I cannot get these things into the electronic trash bin fast enough. They usually have glittery purple angels resting their heads in the hands while drifting along on puffy white clouds. What is even funnier are the these cherubim mailings with badly animated mechanically articulating wings that are spastic in their movement. Do we really suppose that God had problems reaching people before badly animated chain emails? Does anyone suppose I, single handed, could postpone the End times or fail the Great Commission because I have not sent Thomas Kindkadian Angels to my friends? I'm a guy for goodness sakes! Even though my friends are Christian they would probably still beat me up or smack me for sending them an email with pictures like this in them:


As a guy, what am I suppose to do with that other than send something like this to my wife or mom? I'm figuring even my wife would beat me up for sending a picture like that and it was okay to send to mom...when I was 6 years old! Even if I sent it to my wife and mom I would still need at least three other people to send it to that wouldn't show up at my house to heckle me. What's worse is they are insidious. They usually always come from our friends with the best intentions. They are usually to spread "Peace on Earth" but usually only end up spreading a virus. Some are very convincing and they target human foibles and flaws. The human brain is easily influenced, once the message is read you will start to unconsciously act upon the prediction or threat in the mail. It is a process similar to hypnosis. All it takes is those few little words, "Do this...or else God is gonna zing or zap you"

Getting edifying Scripture is nice...getting it in an email that takes Scripture totally out of context and misinterprets it is not. What is sad is I know the email has been through dozens of inboxes before it ever reached mine. In the process it has been harvesting email addresses in the body of the email and everyone that forwarded it has probably had a hand in propagating bad doctrine/poor interpretation and illegal address harvesting long before it ever reached my inbox. If people are not sure that the Scripture in an email is being used correctly, it should not be sent on because it amounts to nothing more than a false teaching or misappropriation of God's word. What is particularly mind boggling are the Scripture or Inspirational mailings that have what amount to threats of bodily harm at the end for not passing them on. "Pass this email on to 10 people or God will zap you with a lightning bolt"

Say wha???

Hear that banging sound? That would be the sound my head banging against the wall.


The other computer age anomaly is bulk mailing or Christian spam. Recently I was the recipient of an invitation to join a Christian singles website and this mailing came from a person connected with Facebook. Anyone within half a solar system of my profile can see that I am married. A "Christian" organization essentially promoting adultery by not paying closer attention to peoples profiles...lovely. Something is soooooooo wrong with this and I do not even need to read to Bible to realize that it is wrong.

Then we have a solicitation for aid for a recovery project for an Inuit tribe in the Arctic tundra due to restricted whale hunting season. It is a place I have never heard of and I am not even sure it exists. I Google it and it does get any hits/results. I must assume this is a scam. Nuninuvik... in some polar region so far north it is higher in latitude than the North Pole and Santa Claus. You could probably see elves in your front yard.

Then we have the requests for money to benefit some Mission or charity in France...and its in French. "Yeah. I'd love to give you money but I don't know for sure where to send it or who it's really going to because I CAN'T READ FRENCH! or Russian or Chinese or Korean." So please, if you send me email solicitations, at least put them in English, Spanish or Greek. At least I'll have a better chance of understanding who is taking my donations other than some unidentifiable person in France, Russia, China or Korea.

The Good Ol' Days

I have heard it said recently by quite a few people that we should go back to the way things were done in the 1st century church. We need a revival that takes us back to the good old days of the early church. My first response to the is usually, "Are they insane?" and my second response is, "Haven't they ever studied Acts, or early Church history or one of Paul's letters? From day one in the church there were conflicts and debates concerning doctrine. In Corinth we sexual immorality, lawsuits against other brethren and these types of sordid story lines. As a matter of fact 1 & 2 Corinthians literally recite a litany of erroneous Christian behavior that borders on bad taste and outright apostasy.

The early Church seems as if it was attacked nearly constantly in its infancy with false doctrine and heresies such as Gnosticism, Arianism, Pelagianism, Marcionism, Docetism, Sabellianism which is the father, son, and holy ghost are three modes, roles, or faces of a single person-God, and so on and so on. Only by the grace of God and His sovereignty could Christianity have survived. The satanic onslaught was vicious and unending.

We had infighting of how things needed to be done. One argues for circumcision the other no circumcision. Paul rebukes Peter about how he treats the gentiles. While we are on the topic of Paul we can reiterate his list of abuses at the hands of non-believers and their ilk.

"I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?" ~2 Corinthians 11:23-29

All but one (John) of the disciples died a premature and tortuous death. They were stoned, beheaded, crucified and other horrible death sentences. The early Christians other than Church fathers may very well have been treated even worse. Slaughtered wholesale and en masse. Woman and children (and men) basically fed to ravenous wild animals in arenas.

So you want the Church to be like it was in the "good ole days" of the early church. I could make two comments about this in a facetious manner and both would be pertinent and both would be true.


(1) Are the people saying this nuts? Get back to the way it was in the early church? Really? Lions too? Anybody ever subscribe to Voice of the Martyrs? Has anyone seen how Christians are treated in non-Christian nations especially Muslim ones that contain fundamental extremists or even over zealous Muslims?

(2) Isn't many of the aspects of the modern Church already like it was in the 1st century? Heresies, false teachings, infighting, backbiting. Worrying about things that do not matter and not worrying about things that do.

We of course are not being fed to lions...yet. But the infighting never really stopped since the time of Christ. I think what would really be unique is if the Church stuck to the truth and essential salvational doctrines and actually got along with one another. Now THAT would make for some really great "Good Ol' Days".

Biblical Femininity V: Power Struggle

I figure it was no small feat to be the older sister of Moses. Miriam was a woman that delivered a lot of messages. God deeply talented this woman but she needed to realize that the talent she had was to be used in the way God wanted it used not they way she wanted to use it. A stubborn bullheaded intent to see things through your way when God has other plans always, always ends in disaster. Our arms are too short to fight with God.

Although she is not called by name it is possible that it is Miriam orchestrating the discovery of Moses in the basket of bulrushes. She pretty much delivered Moses up to the Pharaoh's daughter. Moses is then raised in aristocracy and educated as such. He kills an Egyptian at 40 and then flees and lives in Midian until he is 80 tending his father-in-laws sheep. He does not reunited with his family until he is literally confronted by God in the form of a Burning Bush that was not consumed. God orders him back to Egypt much to his dismay. Withing these 80 years we see a mention of Miriam in Exodus 15 after the Song of Moses.

"Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron..." Exodus 15:20

It appears Miriam became a prophetess. A speaker and deliverer of God's truth. Being a prophetess and sister of a notable person like Aaron made her a person of prominence. At this point in time Miriam would've been more closely linked to Aaron not Moses. That would not come until later after Moses return from Midian. As we move though the story of the Exodus we reach the part where the Israelites have successfully navigated the narrow escape route through the Red Sea. Moses breaks out in song and Miriam? She whips out her tambourine and leads the women of the camp in in her own song, "“Sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea.” La la la....has an nice ring to it (the la la la is my addition, its not in Scripture). She is clearly energetic and full of charisma and a born leader. And perhaps this is what leads to later problems with Moses and by proxy-God.

The power and prestige of Moses ministry was extremely powerful. Probably one of the most powerful of the entire Bible as it is the institution of the Law. This apparently didn't sit well with Miriam after a while. Having been a leader once it is often hard to move back or be demoted especially if is not of your doing. Miriam's strong suit was leadership, humbleness was not. More specifically it looks like servant leadership was the issue here. She didn't seem too willing to be a servant of the servant of God which is what all Christians are called to do to some extent. Miriam appears to have nursed this irritation for a while because it doesn't come to a head until Numbers 12:1-2:

"Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” And the LORD heard this.

We see hints of slander here and that is a no-no in God's world. Slander is a murder of one's character is a serious sin. The real heart of the issue with Miriam's resentment of Moses position is in the words "Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?" It is the issue of a strong woman challenging a meek man. What do we read in the very next verse about Moses (which by the way is a direct quote of the Holy Spirit; it is referring to Moses as the second party in the narrative)?

Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth. Numbers 12:3

The idea that the Lord does indeed only speak through Moses with the Spirit is reinforced by the previous verse which actually questions who the LORD is actually speaking through. “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?" The whole point of verse 3 is to not only countermand the previous statements by Miriam and Aaron, within the context of the Scripture it is showing that God does indeed speak through Moses. So the Bible establishes for posterity the Moses is indeed God’s mediator at the time and shows Miriam is not by afflicting her with leprosy for a week.

Lesson? Don't assume to know the mind of God in situations that clearly speak otherwise AND clearly have the mark of God's approval all over them. What are those marks of approval? They are biblical and they do not conflict with what God has already said. They are confirmed by other spiritually discerning people through prayer and supplication to the Lord.

The sad thing is Miriam and Aaron assumed this was Moses arrogance of need for the leadership roll that put them in a roll of subjugation to him. this is clearly not true. We need only look back to the fact the Moses only reluctantly returned to Egypt after Aaron agrees to speak or be the spokesman for God at first. Moses also desired death over continuing to be the sole leadership role that judged people against the Law. The Israelites (some) had become as petulant children and were driving him nutty so his power was delegated to the 70.

Well as the story goes Miriam is struck with leprosy temporarily. We see God's mercy on a woman that dare to question God through proxy via Moses. What she deserved and what any person in this situation deserved is death. Mercy and grace. She wasn;t even struck permanently ill but only for a week. Lucky woman. I guess Miriam's biggest sin was pride or a inflated self-importance. It is clear God gave her the gift of prophesy because God's purpose was to serve a prophetess, it was not her purpose to begin to meddle in and try and hinder of frustrate God's plan when it came to leadership. This had nothing to do with whether Miriam was a woman or not or whether she was capable of doing the job of leadership. Who knows, she probably could've, that's not the point. Our culture today would try to make that the point but its not the issue. Miriam's disobedience and indirect questioning of God by questioning His choices in leadership are. If we learn anything we should learn that Miriam shouldn't have done what she did and her gender had nothing to do with it. Do you suppose that God cared that Miriam was a woman sinning as opposed to a man sinning?

The next time we hear of Miriam is 40 years later and it is to highlight her death. Her roll after the questioning of God is diminished. We see what a lack of faith does to even one that is devoted to God. We really should see the question for what it was...a lack of faith. God cannot use you as much if you lack in faith. How much He can is in direct proportion to your faith. Miriam was definitely a woman of messages. In the end it was a story of mixed messages, some good and some bad. Both can serve as good examples of what to do and what not to do as a believer.