Passing Thoughts On My Calvinist Proclivities

Contrary to popular belief, "Calvinistic" texts in the New Testament called for tenderness and patience with quarrelsome people, because the decisive work in them through the Spirit is God's. I have definitively found that the Lord's servant must not bicker but be kind to everyone, be a good teacher, long-suffering, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

It has been my experience that bludgeoning does no good and arguing people into the Kingdom never works. I've learned both through painful first-hand experience. It was a long painful learning process but…at least I am still willing to learn. When this ceases…so will my sanctification. I tend to lean Calvinist in my theology but I am not Calvinist. Because I even dare to lean in that direction I am faced with what every Calvinist (5 Point) is faced with…the stoic stick in the mud stereotype. It is a horrendously distorted image that is painted of us that is horribly unfair. It is a mischaracterization of the truth about what I believe. Just like the stereotype of the oscillating and indecisive Arminian.

It may be possible that God will allow that they (unbelievers) repent and come to know the truth. Where I can, I now avoid conflict and argument for argument’s sake. I politely decline and wait for a more opportune moment to lay out the truth of what I believe. As for the unbeliever we should have pity on them. For those young in the faith Christians adhering to poor theology we need to gently correct them. We need to care about influencing people with truth for their own good rather than winning debates and verbal fisticuffs.

Anglican clergyman John Newton once said:

"I am more of a Calvinist than anything else; but I use my Calvinism in my writings and my preaching as I use this sugar'—taking a lump, and putting it into his tea-cup, and stirring it, adding, 'I do not give it alone, and whole; but mixed and diluted.”

In other words, his Calvinism permeated all that he wrote and taught. Few people like to eat sugar cubes by the spoonful (except children) but they like the effect of sugar when it mixes in the right proportion with tea, coffee, etc. It is like the analogy of the salt shaker on the steak. Salt tastes good on steak…but would the entire salt shaker taste good on a steak? No. We need to sprinkle it on in rationed and measured amounts.

We need not beat people over the head with T.U.L.I.P./Five Points. Many when they are new or even in the faith for a little while are not necessarily concerned with Limited or Unlimited Atonement. Is this important? Yes. For a person just trying to walk the line with God and stumbling horribly? Please people, get a grip.

We need to blend our beliefs into everything we teach. When we speak of things it should be speaking through our theological view and interpretive grid that we see the world with. There needs to be a balance not a beat-down like a street fighter. We need to be rock-solid with spines of steel in our theology and tender as fresh grass shoots when we attend to others education, edification and when necessary…their correction. I have failed here often and that is exactly why I type this.

Do we strike this balance or speak like we are trying to strike someone over the head with a board? Our evangelism needs to introspective first and we must number ourselves among the transgressors before trying to categorize others in that camp. In this way we are less likely to sling mud in other people's direction.

I have often made it a point of criticism to lay into those that go soft on attacking error. Those that would treat error with kid gloves so not to drive off the offender or offend those looking. I believe now I could’ve been a little subtler and a little gentler on some people. Elders and leaders in error, no…they are in positions of major influence and their error can spread like deadly contagion but those in the general body and laity need a softer approach. We do not flog or beat our own newborns and young children…why would we do this to God’s? Mature believers is one thing, newbies and those finding their way…we must be tentative.

The best way to overcome error and demonic influence in a church is to establish truth through proper teaching which, in my opinion is the straight-up unadulterated expositing of Scripture. Ironically, this is exactly what John Calvin did during his life.

The First Christmas (1979) (Australian Film)

As the day that we celebrate Jesus' birth comes closer, I will continue to embed animations for this great time of the year. The older or more eclectic I can find them, the more I will post. Enjoy.

Drowning Man

When I was a teen, the song Drowning Man from the U2 album War used to be one of my favorite songs. I remember listening to it often on an old 33 1/3 LP. It was about being there for someone you love no matter what. It was being there for someone to help them when they couldn't help themselves. At least that is what I heard when I listen to it ad nauseam. As a seventeen year old I did not realize these feelings were a yearning for God that I didn’t even fully understand. In its strange way it is now a melancholic anthem to youth and those fleeting memories that are now just faded reminders of a former life. Yet the yearning for God has not abated. Instead it increases as life continues on. The longer I am without God's true presence in glory, the more the yearning grows. I believe it was set up this way intentionally since the Fall. The more we see of this fallen world the less it appeals to us and something beyond (God) draws us inexorably towards Him.

What I then realize is that this is Blaise Pascal's famous quote come to realization in my life...

“There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” ~ Blaise Pascal, Pensées

I also remember reading the story of Jonah about that time too (even though he really didn’t drowned) and somehow I inadvertently connected these two. Since then they’ve been inseparable in my mind. What does this have to do with this post? Only this, it’s about people drowning in the Bible and some of the significance of the events surrounding those who were drowning or drowned. We see God helping those who cannot help themselves (or destroying them). Since I’ve started with Jonah, I will elaborate more on him first.

Jonah 2:2-7 ~ “He said: “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit. “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.”

Jonah is sinking down after his unceremonious dump over the side of the pagan’s ship. He is both solemn and sinking deep into “depression”, both mentally and in terms of “physical” orientation. They parallel one another. Perhaps the experience of sinking in the water physiologically has affected him psychologically? He sinks in water and simultaneously sinks and drops away from God. There are also hints of Psalms 40 in the latter portions “But you, LORD my God, brought my life up from the pit” A glimmer of hope in the end. A hand that reaches down when we think we are going under for the last time. Suffocating and drowning in our sin as it inundates and engulfs us in our life. In this moment, the last before we lose consciousness...when life ebbs away, people reach to the last thing that matters and the only thing that matters in a last ditch effort…God. They very one we should've reached to first.

In this epiphany (which I believe is from God himself) we have enough sense to reach our hands to the sky. In this nearly unconscious repentance and acknowledgement of God, God then reaches down into our overwhelming adversity and saves us. This I suppose is not ironic when we consider than some of people’s most teachable moments are in their suffering and adversity when they have “reached the bottom”

“In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me.”

“From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry.”

“But you, LORD my God, brought my life up from the pit.”

“When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.”

Depressing but a true evaluation of sin and the tragic effects on a person’s life. The thing that gets Jonah into all this trouble is overt disobedience to the will of God. The very thing that begins to right the ship not only literally but also in Jonah’s life is an active obedience to the things God has willed and commanded. Curses for disobedience and blessing for obedience.

If we move to the Genesis flood account we see the end sum of sin that has raged unabated out of control.

Genesis 6:5-6 ~ The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 

So judgment arrives in the form of water…a lot of it.

Genesis 7:20-23 ~ “The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.

As I’ve said in other posts, the Flood is an excellent example of God’s hatred of sin and evil. The only greater example is the Cross of Christ and His crucifixion. It is through Noah’s obedience that the human line survives and through that linage the coming Messiah is maintained. It is therefore Jesus Christ Himself who will actively and passively obey the will of the Father on His way to the Cross and subsequently His Resurrection. Like the ark provided a means of escape for the righteous at the time of the flood, Jesus provides a means of escape from eternal punishment for those that will have faith in His escape from it through resurrection. Again, the only reason the human race survives here is because of obedience to the commands of God by Noah and his family. Disobedience and rebellion spells doom for entire remainder of humanity.

Lastly we run into the crossing of the Red Sea and Pharaoh and his men are in hot pursuit.

Exodus 14:26-28 ~ “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.”

There is an extremely telling passage just previous to this episode in Exodus 14…

Exodus 14:13-14 And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”

Just like Jesus on the Cross, we see that people will be freed permanently from an oppressive system and it will be by nothing they do with their own hands. The Israelites need only stand firm (persevere) just a bit longer and actually see their salvation come to fruition. They will then never be plagued by this oppression again. This is a direct parallel to sin and Jesus’ work of redemption. There is literally nothing that needs to be done by man nor is there anything they can do to affect their salvation in this situation. It is the same when it comes to believers and their break from sin. There is nothing one can do to initiate their salvation…they can only passively accept what is being done for them by Jesus Christ.

They had just passed through a type of death by walking through the “deep” or the Red Sea while being pursued by this oppression. A Christian does the same when they die to self and come out the other end a new creation. The parallels go further here and are very rich but you get the gist of it. Paul literally say the Israelite trek through the water on dry ground as a form of baptism in 1 Corinthians…

1 Corinthians 10:1-2 ~ “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea…”

The Egyptians pursue the slaves that have recently been freed from their bondage. This of course is parallel to sinners freed from sin by the death of Christ. Becoming Christian though does not stop a believer from sinning since sin pursues its victim. It will take us going through death to finally shake the indwelling sin permanently, but for now, when a believer dies to self and takes on Christ’s cross…smaller temporary victories are possible. In this baptism the Israelites are permanently identified with their Savior…just as Christians are identified with Christ by their baptism.

All of this is accomplished through obedience to God. In each of these instances of drowning people, the remedy to the issue is active obedience to God’s will. In every instance where someone is dying, their salvation is trusting it God and following God’s lead. By accepting God’s truth rather than rebelling against it gives man life. Rebelling and fighting God results in death.  This premise under-girds Scripture from front to back.

Brightest Night: The Story Of The Nativity (1952)

Another Birth of Christ narrative for the Christmas season from Church-Craft Pictures. Using their own nativity scene, a mother and father tell their children the story of Jesus' birth.

Excrement Flakes and Dung Bread

I am posting this because...sometimes, biblical ignorance is just plain funny. I laughed in spite of myself when I saw this in Giant Supermarket yesterday. Yes, it is a real bread marketed from California. Thanks to Chris Rosebrough over at Christian Pirate Radio for bringing to my attention this dandy of a product line from the Food for Life Baking Company. I am in no way attempting to criticize the wholesomeness or quality of this bread or cereal below.. only the interpretation of the Scripture emblazoned on their packaging. I have no doubt that this cereal is good for you as it was the recommended diet from God to Ezekiel during what could be considered a rationed diet meant to sustain a person during a lean or famine season. What makes this amusing is the full scope or context of the entire passage that Ezekiel 4:9 is drawn from.

Ezekiel visually acted out some of his prophecies for effect. In Ezekiel 4:1 through 5:4 we see the siege of Jerusalem dramatized. Of course it wasn't exactly Shakespearean and he wasn't going to win an Oscar for best performance but the point is carried across to those who observed well enough. The Lord commands Ezekiel to take a brick, set it in front of himself and draw Jerusalem on it. He was then to enact a siege on it by constructing a siege wall, ramp, pitched military encampments and battering rams against all sides of it. I imagine it probably looked like Iron Age version of green plastic army soldiers although a bit cruder. He was then to take and iron plate as an iron wall between himself and the city. He was turn his face towards it (symbolic) in an act of besieging the city. That was to be a sign to the house of Israel.

Ezekiel was then to lay down either on his right or on his left and bear the iniquity of Israel. He was to lay on his left for 390 days and his right for 40. These days represented years of iniquity or sin. He then was to turn his face toward the siege of Jerusalem with arms bared and prophesy against it. God would personally put cords on him until he had finished the days of his siege.

Now...knowing this context, let us read the full passage from Ezekiel...

Ezekiel 4:9-16 “And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and emmer, and put them into a single vessel and make your bread from them. During the number of days that you lie on your side, 390 days, you shall eat it. And your food that you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; from day to day you shall eat it. And water you shall drink by measure, the sixth part of a hin; from day to day you shall drink. And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.” And the Lord said, “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.” Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I have never defiled myself.  From my youth up till now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has tainted meat come into my mouth.” Then he said to me, “See, I assign to you cow's dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.”

So what we see during this enactment is that Ezekiel was to ration his food and water intake to represent scarcity of food and the severe nature of the siege. The food was to be prepared by cooking it over dried cow feces (in lieu of human feces v. 9-12). Lovely, I’m sure dinner smelled great. This was done to show the Israelites that they would be forced to eat their bread ceremonially unclean in other nations. It was also to show that bread/grain would be in short supply. So short that people will waste away because of their sin.

I don’t necessarily believe this is a great selling point for a box of cereal or loaf of bread. It is a starvation diet high in nutrition baked over a pile of poo.

Sorry folks, this is just plain amusing (and just a little sad).

Santa's Workshop (1932)

A copy of Silly Symphony's Santa's Workshop for your viewing pleasure. 

Tom and Jerry: Night Before Christmas (1941)

The Night Before Christmas

This was a 1941 one-reel animated cartoon. It was nominated for the 1941 Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons. It was released to theaters on December 6, 1941 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, one day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, making it the last Tom and Jerry pre-war cartoon.

The Walking Dead and The Dead Inside

At first the premise for the Walking Dead repulsed me. The premise seemed old, worn-out and playing to people's depravity and lust of violence. It at first seemed like glorified violence, dead people and the worst of humanity. But I got sucked in and began to see the show in a new, less legalistic light. 

In a way I was right...and in a way I was seriously wrong. In the AMC television show The Walking Dead I see two things that stand out at me in a striking manner (pardon the pun).

In the show it is not glorified violence so much as it is un-glorified violence. It is a violence that is perpetrated many times in the need of survival and dying in another’s stead to save another person’s life (John 15:13). In some cases they are sacrificial deaths. Of course many of the deaths are not "necessary" but the violence points us to some severely unsettling truths about ourselves, the viewers. It points to a latent indwelling evil that strikes a cord in us all.

There is of course the issue about the show's viewers. There will possibly be some that will not see past the violence to the underlying principles and will see the violence and nothing more. The one thing that troubles me about the show and still does to some extent is the possible effect it might have on weak minds prone to violence. In this show there is an overt violence that fills the screen. People can say the zombies are already dead or they are essentially monsters but this skirts the issue: They are humanoid / hominid in form. There is a potential here for devaluation of human sanctity by the blatant violence for those that cannot see deeper than the shell of skin on the zombie (if they have skin).

At times I believe graphic violence and malevolence dulls the edges of empathy, sympathy and compassion for a being that is strangely akin to a human being…dead or not. There are terms for people that do not have empathy for others, cannot feel for others or are self-consumed: Narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths. That being said, the only thing that separates these actors from people that could potentially be desensitized by this constant violence is a conscience. It is strange but I see the potential from this show for people in real life to act out in similar ways as the actors on the show following on motives or lack of them…just like the zombies. In this way I could see unstable or sinful people who have had the conscience seared or "deadened" (Romans 1) watching the constant violence becoming the exact type of people that we wince at watching week to week in the show. The root cause of both being a lack of conscience and deeper down...unrepentant sin.

We must never ever forget that humans are valued by God. God gives humanity its value not men. We must also realize that everything in God’s creation was instilled with value and it is only through the tainting of the Fall and the curse that things are capable of sinking to the level we see on The Walking Dead. It is therefore only God that separates us from the good and the bad of this show both in the show itself and in real life. The parallels between the show and our lives are…well…frightening.

Which leads me to my next point about the show and is even more morbidly ironic than the first point.

The second idea I kind of picked up from crownrights.org and the authors point that all of humanity could possibly be infected with a virus or disease that can overtake humanity turning them into monsters. In a roundabout manner the author goes on to state that if you are contaminated by one of those already affected by this mutation or disease you can become a host to said disorder. What is worse is the fact that when you actually die and have no cure, the virus being dormant within nearly all of humanity… will bring you back as part of the horde of walking damned or “Walkers” after death. It is the general premise for the entire television series.

What is ironic about this description and seems to be missed by the other article's author (or remains unstated) is that the above description is a perfect description of unrepentant sin in humanity. Let me re-phrase the above paragraph and put the word sin in place of disease, disorder, etc.

“All of humanity could possibly be infected with sin that can overtake humanity turning them into monsters. If you are contaminated or influenced by those that are sinful or those already affected by sin you can become a host to sin too. What is worse is the fact that when you actually die and have no salvation, because of the dormant (or not so dormant) sin within… you will become part of the horde of walking damned or “Walkers” after death.

The thing that is most frightening about this show is not the zombies. It’s the people that are still alive. When the restraints of civil society come down (and God’s mercy and grace) we see exactly where reprobate people are capable of going (Romans 1). Men and women given over to their sin find the greased slide to Hell and in this way, this show is more reality than science fiction or fantasy. Some of the places the psyches of the characters go (the Governor) is nearly evil incarnate, just like the real world around us. The actual evil and sinful nature of “living” characters in this show is where the true terror or horror lies. The zombies themselves are almost comical at times in their banality. True living humans are capable of much more horrendous evil. Deep in the heart of their sin we see true repulsive nature of natural man that’s had his sin given free reign.

I believe that is why we even Christians stare week after week in morbid fascination of the unspeakable dreadfulness exhibited on this show. Inside we tell ourselves that, “It’s only a show and this nastiness could never happen in real life.” In reality many of us know that not only are we lying to ourselves…we might only be one catastrophic societal event away from that which would put us into the world of this freak show and the nightmare would become real for us all. As a matter of fact, that actual event has been prophesied and foretold for the future, it is called the Tribulation. We need only look at places where societal restraints have come off in the past and either genocide, religious persecution or just plain old societal breakdown ensues to see the precursors to it…Khmer Rouge, the Holocaust, Somalia, the Balkans, Orissa/Odisha, New Orleans after Katrina, etc.

The truth is that, not only is there a risk of being influenced and affected by other sinful people which happens every day, we too are indwelt with the very disorder that would make us a monster of Satan's devising. We are all dead in our sin. Sin is death, because the wages of sin is death. We don’t need to be bitten or die. As a matter of fact, dying with this disorder of sin without the cure (salvation through the Gospel of Jesus Christ) not only condemns us, it forces us to walk in a damned state for eternity. 

Ephesians 2:1-2 ~ And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

Frankly, I find this scarier than being reanimated and stabbed in the head with a screwdriver or killed with a shotgun. Actually, I would prefer the shotgun demise over the doom of walking dead in Hell forever. The fact is that we will all be brought back from the grave. The question is: How do we want to come back? Do we want to come back in glory in a resurrection body in the presence of Jesus or do we want to be resurrected to torment similar to the zombies? 

Sometimes reality is scarier than a horror show could ever be.