Personal Thoughts

A metaphor is a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something thought unrelated, a comparison between two ideas as if these were synonyms, We use them in sharing the Gospel:

“That was the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world” [John 1:9].

Paul did not call Jesus our redeemer but our redemption [1 Corinthians 1:30] . He was the ransom price to free us from sin? But will these metaphorical or picturesque representations of our Lord’s crucifixion be misunderstood as gibberish among a peoples or tribal culture, for whom the words, themselves, have no immediate significance?

When Jesus declared, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” [John 6:53]  John witnessed “On hearing it, many … said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

“Western interpretations of the atonement,“ Philip Jenkins wrote in The Next Christendom, “ …can be traced to the writings of Saint Anselm around 1100. For Anselm, human sins were like grievous offenses committed against a great Lord, debts that required a ransom or restitution of great price, which, in Christianity took the form of the death of God’s Son. … The biblical Lord became a feudal lord” [Page 7].

Eastern Orthodoxy saw this interpretation for Jesus’ crucifixion as “overly legalistic.” To this we add that the word “atonement” itself was  brought into English by William Tyndall centuries later. The concept of “debt” was replaced by John Calvin and the Reformation with talk of criminality, punishment, and God’s wrath.

Religious training has given us a degree of comfort with the Biblical system of sacri- fices as representative (a type of) Jesus’ death, but to what extent should we consider this metaphor as explicatory in other cultures? How useful is it in a given cultural setting to evangelize a people?

• “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world” [John 1:29].
• “[Jesus], after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God” [Hebrews 10:12].

Catholic missionary, Vincent Donovan, asked in “Christianity Rediscovered” [page 21] “Just what was the essential message of Christianity?” He explained, “With Africans the purpose of words is not to establish logical truth, but to set up social relationships” [Page 22]. He went on to assert that “their culture is all encompassing and all important” [Page 23].

Philip Jenkins in his work, “The Next Christendom” said, which I take as a caution against confusing, diluting, or otherwise compromising the message of our Lord’s Crucifixion,

“Gradually Catholic clergy (as missionaries to Latin American in the 1700’s) succeeded in adapting the liturgy and sacraments to the native worldview and its customs, in a highly successful act of enculturation“ [Page 38].

Enculturation! Catholicism endeavored to inculcate the moral and spiritual message of the Cross as part of the cultural identity of Latin Americans but may have only succeeded in providing a modified religious ritual acceptable to both the Aztecs and Rome. How real was Calvary’s impact on their “faith”?

And how much should this truth impact the very culture it transcends? Don Richardson presented Christ to the Sawi people of the Netherland New Guinea [now: part of Indonesia] God’s “peace child” after their use of the term within their culture.

So how do we introduced to them salvation, grace, holiness, God’s love, in order that they might make these representative of their lifestyle and, in turn, promote the message without losing its emphasis, its inspiration, the “power of the Gospel”? After all, this is, indeed, the task before us!

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Africans, Indians, Nepalese, Indonesians, Argentinians, … Romans 1:16.

 

Today is Stephen Meyer’s birthday! When he was fourteen he started questioning the meaning of life’s achievements and trophies when death ultimately concludes all will be forgotten. His worrying—he called it— became eventually “a fear of a fear of a fear.” At fourteen, he concluded his life was over.

But enter the writings of the French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, who concluded “No finite point has any meaning unless it has an infinite reference point.” What is the value of this life unless there is a transcendent personal God? One good thing became apparent to Meyer: he was not going insane; he was becoming a philosopher.

Eventually he learned that many in his generation were thinking the same thing because they, too, were being informed by the most educated and respected minds that God didn’t exist. The most popular and brilliant scientific minds concluded a materialistic interpretation of reality in which God was not needed to bring anything into existence. They pushed this metaphysical worldview in the educational system. The philosophy of the day became existentialism: that every person is alone responsible for the course of their own life. There is no eternal plan, for, there is no God.

It gets worse: the empiricist, David Hume, then argued, that the laws of nature depend on inductive reasoning (we learn any natural law by repeatedly observing the same result for a given controlled condition or cause). “But how dependable is our perception of things? ” Intelligent minds wanted to know. Darwin, himself, in later years, confided in a friend,

“With me the horrible doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”

Maybe we all have “Boltzmann brains”. The theory says that at the time the universe was coming into existence there might have been a small fluctuation in the wave function from which the universe came [ψ] leading some of our brains to become Boltzmann brains instead of natural brains, in which our memories and perceptions were no longer reliable. [no joke!]

“I remember,” Meyer recalled, “looking at a windowsill in my bedroom and wondering if the impression of it in my mind accurately represented the actual object in the world.” It was inevitable that such a philosophy would come to question knowledge itself. “How do I know that my perceptions of reality are accurate?” he worried.

After teaching him to recognize an orange along with other fruit, I recall teaching our three year old son his colors. Pointing to the color “yellow” I asked “what color is this?” He responded cleverly, “Orange!” You see, oranges are naturally yellow in color; so, he was correct but we had some relearning to schedule.

Viktor Frankl, who, little doubt, amassed profound wisdom from his experience in a German concentration camp, and who, consequently, wrote his classic work, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” reminded us that such questions are okay to ask.

The real truth here is that we need God in our lives to get the answers.

Hebrews 11:6 [ESV] “Whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

We give up a lot when we give up a faith in God!

This is not a subject that interests everyone, but a few might find an encouragement to faith by reading Stephen C. Meyer’s “The Return of the God Hypothesis.” Meyer reviews some of the latest scientific discoveries in a number of fields, including, mathematics, astronomy, astro physics, physics, cosmology, and genetics, that challenge the supposition that the universe and then life came by chance rather than by design. Mathematician and philosopher William Dembski established a rigorous method for detecting intelligence: first what has come into existence must be calculated as extremely improbable by the laws of probability and, secondly, once it does exist it must serve a specific function. An example would be the creation of carbon-based protein out of hydrogen and helium, the basic building blocks of the universe. Carbon-based compounds, thus formed, are the basis of all life.

Cambridge theoretical physicist, Sir John Polkinghorne, came up with the “Universe-Generating Machine” to illustrate the fine-tuning of the universe which supports the theory that the universe was “designed” and not coming into existence by chance. He asked his students to imagine in your space travels coming across a universe generating machine with a eleven different dials and sliders and knobs all set to default values which if any of them where moved one click up or down would produce “catastrophic results.”^* Would it be unreasonable to argue that the machine was the creation of some “designer” and if we are talking about our universe, God?

Life on earth is carbon-based but how was carbon formed out of hydrogen? “The question of how carbon acquired its precise, favorable resonance turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg” says Professor Meyer. The formation of carbon depended on four fundamental forces:

1. The strong nuclear force which holds protons and neutrons together
2. The electromagnetic force that causes opposite magnetic poles (protons vs electrons) within the atom to repel.
3. The mass of an Up Quark produces a positive charge in the neutron and proton of an atom.
4. The mass of a Down Quark produces a negative charge in the neutron and proton of an atom.

The difference in masses between quarks in an atom cannot exceed one mega-electron volt—this is the equivalent charge of .0001 percent of the charge of the largest known quark—without producing an all proton or neutron universe where life could not exist. “Much more striking,” Meyer informs our faith, “the masses of “up quarks” and “down quarks,” the constituent parts of protons and neutrons, must have precise values to allow for the production of the elements, including carbon, essential for a life friendly universe.”

Meyer went on to say that,

If the Gravitational force strength were weaker, stars wouldn’t get hot enough for nuclei to combine to form carbon. A slightly lower value for the gravitational force constant would prevent the development of thermal layering inside stars. Such layering is necessary for producing so many different types of elements including carbon and oxygen, needed for life,

If the gravitational force were too strong, the temperature inside stars would get too hot and nuclear synthesis would produce only elements heavier than carbon and oxygen.

The strength of the strong nuclear and electromagnetic forces, the ratio between the fundamental forces, the exact kinetic energy of beryllium and helium (the two elements forms from helium which in turn unite to form carbon and oxygen), and thus the strength of gravitational forces inside stars as well as the excitation energy of carbon all had to be exquisitely tuned and coordinated within very narrow tolerances to promote the synthesis of large amounts of carbon inside stars. Yet without carbon life would be impossible.

^* The Universe-Generating Machine
1. Strong Nuclear Force – holds protons and neutrons together
2. Mass of Up Quark – positive charge in the neutron and proton
3. Mass of Down Quark – negative charge in the neutron and proton
4. Electron Mass – https://reasons.org/explore/publications/articles/testing-creation-using-the-proton-to-electron-mass-ratio
5. Initial Entropy of the Universe – How much energy would have been wasted in the creation of the universe. A maximum entropy would be a black hole that would swallow up everything.
6. Ratio of Strong Nuclear Force to Electro-magnetic Force – The SNF holds the atom together while the magnetic force pulls it apart because the positively charged nucleus repels the negatively charged electrons orbiting that nucleus.
7. The Mass of Neutrinos – a subatomic particle that is very similar to an electron, but has no electrical charge and a very small mass.
8. Gravitational (G) Force Constant – which Is needed to measure the true ‘G’ force exerted on a body. All stars and planets maintain orbits and distances based on this constant.
9. Expansion Rate of the Universe – Special relativity or the acceleration of heavenly bodies moving away from each other and the earth. This speed cannot be too fast or slow when the universe was created. Too fast, and stars, planets and moons would never be formed; too slow and the gravitational forces would cause the universe to collapse in on itself.
10. Cosmological Constant – a repulsive force required to keep the Universe in static equilibrium. Physicists are agreed that this constant is “fine-tuned” within 1 part in 10⁹⁰.
11. Electro-magnetic Force Constant – that holds electrons within the atom orbiting that atom.

We were watching Star Trek, The Next Generation, Season 6, Episode 9, “The Quality of Life” in which Data asked Beverly Crusher, the doctor, “How do we know something is alive?” He was referring to a small AI machine that was created to perform certain tasks. This “robot” was capable of “learning.” Data is, himself, an android—a fact that gives context to his question.

How do we define life? Data, on Star Trek, thought it had to do with the ability to learn and adjust to one’s surroundings or the ability to grow. Maybe, it is more about the ability to reproduce. All living things can do that.

Live beings, “think” according to Descartes. “Cogito ergo sum.” [I think, therefore, I am.] All living organisms have brains? But what about plants? Such questions, however, are generally ignored by those of us who have a life to live, but perhaps, we should take a moment out to “think about it.”[no pun intended].

Sherlock Holme’s Professor Moriarty, in episode 12, claims to be alive (even though he was a hologram). He claimed self-awareness. “I have consciousness!” he argued. Pickard, captain of the Enterprise, realizing Moriarty’s imagined sentience was dangerous, created for him a universe within the hologram that he thought was the real world. Pickard now could pilot his ship in his reality while Moriarty and his woman friend took a shuttle craft merrily though the darkness in theirs. “Who knows.” Pickard mused, “Our reality may be very much like theirs and all this [pointing to his ship] might just be an elaborate simulation running inside a little device sitting on someone’s table.”

The newest definition of life is that all living things have a genetic code. If this “genetic code” is considered in simplest terms a protein mix, chemicals, that somehow program us to function as humans, we might someday synthesize these proteins and, thereby, replicate that organic soup in which life allegedly began?

“But cells are not simple plasmic units of chemical reactions.” affirmed Stephen Meyer in “Signature in the Cell” (New York:Harper Collins Publishers. 2009), Chapter 9. “Cells are complex living units with at least 250 functioning protein clusters,” Meyer said. The organic soup has a cook!?

America is waiting on the latest Power Ball numbers to win 1.2 billion (with a ‘B’) dollars. The odds of claiming the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million. We understand that there is a 1 in 1,222,000 chance of death or injury from lightning in a given year; a 1 in 57,825 chance of dying from a hornet, wasp, or bee sting during your lifetime. Google it.

But

“The probability of producing the proteins necessary to build a minimally complex cell—or the genetic information necessary to produce those proteins—by chance,” Meyers calculated, “is unimaginably small.” His abacus ran out of colored beads. “That’s a ‘1’ followed by 41,000 zeros!” he wrote.

Has humankind evolved from monkeys or are we “made in the image of God”? The “monkey” theory reduces hope to nothing more than a religious placebo rather than actually talking to the God Who gives hope!. When there is no real reason for our life in relation to an eternal God, we can only dream within the limitations of this life in which death is inevitable; we are reliant on no one but ourselves, and life is invested in an evolutionary process that will “hopefully” bring in a utopia for our progeny.

For you are my hope, Lord GOD, my confidence from my youth. – Psalm 71:5 [CSB]

Not to believe in God? It makes more sense to play the lottery.

“The Greeks had a word for the feeling one has when one is happy: makarios. It is a feeling of contentment, when one knows one’s place in the world and is satisfied with that place. If your life has been fortunate, you should feel makarios. We use idioms in English to try to approximate this experience. We’ll say, “My life has really come together,”” … “In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that if you are a peacemaker, then you are makarios. Since English doesn’t have a word for this feeling, translators have struggled to find one. What do you call it when you feel happy, content, balanced, harmonious and fortunate? Well, translators have concluded, you are blessed. Thus our English translations say, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5: 9). Unfortunately, this introduces another problem. The English language prefers clear subjects for its verbs. So the missing puzzle piece in the Beatitudes is, How is one blessed? What goes without saying in our culture is that God blesses people. Consequently, we often interpret this verse to mean, “If you are a peacemaker, then God will bless you.” But this isn’t what Jesus meant. Jesus meant, “If you are a peacemaker, then you are in your happy place.” It just doesn’t work well in English. Alas, here is the bigger problem: maybe the reason we North Americans struggle to find makarios in our personal lives is because we don’t have a word in our native language to denote it.” [Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible by E. Randolph Richards, Brandon J. O’Brien]

This reminds me of Abram Maslow’s peak-experience of the self-actualized person.

1. A comfortable acceptance of life [Deuteronomy 29:29]
2. Acceptance of others (unprejudiced) [Zechariah 8:17; Galatians 6:2]
3. A love for nature. [Genesis 2:15; 1 Corinthians 12:22]
4. Single-minded, non hypocritical, natural and spontaneous [Romans 12:9; 2 Timothy 1:5; 1 Corinthians 5:8; 2 Corinthians 2:17]
5. People are not problems; people have problems [Ephesians 4:28; 2 Corinthians 12:21]
6. Increased desire for privacy to meditate, dream, “pray,” create [Psalm 1:1; 91:1]
7. Environment independent: can work, live, enjoy life anywhere in any cultural setting. Socially independent. [Philippians 4:11]
8. Fresh emotional responses to life, deep feelings, especially of joy. [John 4:14; 10:10]
9. A deep sense of belonging, family, part of something “big” or “important” [Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6]
10. A keen awareness of others: “empathetic understanding” to use Carl Roger’s phrase [John 11:35; Romans 12:15]
11. Meaningful friendships [John 15:15; 1 Corinthians 1:9]
12. Appreciative of the contributions, successes, and achievements of others as adding to their well-being. [1 Corinthians 12:24]
13. Strong ethical and moral principles [Exodus 20:1-17]
14. Non-defensive, not easily offended, but accepting of the opinions and feelings of others Non-hostile sense of humor. [Galatians 4:12]
15. Creative, active ministry [1 Corinthians 12: 7, 11]

I might not be the best person to raise this issue but isn’t it far time to challenge the use of the term “racist” when we are really talking about a prejudice, NOT based on skin color, but, ethnic differences?

Ethnicity is “belonging to a social group that has a common … CULTURAL tradition.” Different ethnicities means different languages; different foods, different rituals, including worship; different social values, a different importance placed on community and family …to name a few.

In America there was no legacy culture—unlike many other nations that have histories of traditions that define what it means to be who they are as a nation. We started with 13 colonies for that reason. We have always been a nation of immigrants or descendants of immigrants. We are, in all honesty, already multilingual. Our cuisine was borrowed from a global buffet. Our government is not parliamentary, as other democracies, though, many Americans don’t understand this and that is a constant political soreness.

If there is a common thread it has to be the belief that there is a FREEDOM in America to live unencumbered by a national mindset that restricts one’s dream of a fulfilling and “happy” life. The Declaration of Independence reads,

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men .. are endowed by their Creator with certain … Rights, … among these are … Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

And maybe in each one’s personal pursuit after this dream, we began to climb over one another on the way to the top [it’s called “hubris”]. Some are more inventive, more willing to take risks, to acquire that “freedom.” Prejudice is the idea that someone else because of their ethnicity is in the way and they should be pushed aside, or worse, exploited in order to reach that “top rung.”

The dictionary defines prejudice as “preconceived opinion that is NOT based on reason or actual experience.” There are a few things wrong with this definition. First, please don’t solicit “reason” to justify the notion that another person is “in the way” of your “happiness”! And second, prejudice profiles ALL persons of another ethnicity. There is an “individual” factor in how someone lives, and the values they place on experience—this should not be subject to the opinion of another!

Prejudice is, therefore, placing a personal value on someone else’s way of life which is based on opinion only [a judgment not based on knowledge] and NOT based on the other person’s own evaluation of themselves—not based on “getting to know them as a person, as American.”

“In Genesis 27:46, for example, Rebekah exclaims her frustration with Esau’s wives because of their ethnicity: “I’m disgusted with living because of these Hittite women,” she says to Isaac, her husband. “If Jacob [her other son] takes a wife from among the women of this land, my life will not be worth living.”

There are examples throughout the Bible of what ought not be! “[The] Jews do not associate with Samaritans.” John sadly wrote [John 4:9 ]. The Bible is alerting the wise to something that must be purged from Christian society. We don’t have to claim a friendship with every one living in America but when we do not, make sure it is not based on prejudice.

By the way: For the believer in Christ no other believer for any reason should be marginalized.

“Therefore accept (befriend) one another, just as Christ also accepted you, to the glory of God” [Romans 15:7].

Can there be an “up” without a “down”? A mountain peak without a valley? Do we recognize good only because it is not the evil we had known? Does happiness override sadness? Is love requited a sign that our loneliness is at an end?

What we are asking” Is it the bad that now serves to recognize the good for what it is? The greater the difference between opposites, the more pronounced that difference, the more we appreciate the change. “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection … becoming like him in his death,” Paul testified [Philippians 3:10]. God can even use the bad to develop the good in us. Paul noted that tribulation (stress, hard times, opposition) leads through patience, character, and hope to a recognition of God’s love [Romans 5:3-5].

The Lord never takes something away without replacing it with something else far better. [This is a wise practice counselors and therapists as well as medical professionals have discovered, that addictions cannot be starved to death without replacing them with more wholesome behavior.]

“Do not get drunk on wine,” Paul counseled, “which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit” [Ephesians 5:18]. Wine might be representative of all kinds of addictions from drugs, any entheogen, pornography, etc. Consider the exchanges God has made and will make in us that have transformed our lives:

• “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” [Ezekiel 36:26].
• “By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear” [Hebrews 8:13].
• “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” [Revelation 21:1].
• “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” [2 Corinthians 5:17].

Evil is not this way. With sin, things just get worse without any benefit in exchange. Satan doesn’t believe in filling an empty life with something better: “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.” [Luke 11:24-26]

We must not look on all the things we did that were self-destructive—before we knew the conviction of the Spirit and the forgiveness that is in Christ—as a worthless existence, irredeemable. A shameful past now serves to magnify what God has done and is doing for us and validates the change God is making in us for His glory [Romans 8:28].

We must reconcile with our past if it represents a life we no longer live thanks to Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer tells us in his work, “The Cost of Discipleship” that “…grace and discipleship are inseparable,” [Bonhoeffer, page 46]. In a phrase: Grace is costly, not only because it cost God His Son’s life on Calvary [1 Corinthians 7:23] but because it costs us, ours, as well [Luke 9:23]. A grace that saves us but does not change us: our perspective on life, our passions, our dreams or how we live, is a cheap grace since it has accomplished nothing for which Christ gave His life to provide.

We are called to “deny ourselves and carry our cross as we follow Christ. …and not on weekends or Sundays only but “daily” [Luke 9:23]. And what does it mean to “deny”? Its most basic meaning is “to say, ‘No!’” [Kittel, vol I, page 469]. Oh how demanding we are of self! How soft, selfishly soft, the comfort we seek and rationalize we deserve! Have we lost the ability to say, “No!” to ourselves, to sin and comfort, for the sake of our witness and God loving others through us [1 Corinthians 9:27]?

Forgiveness

---

Grace might be free but it is not cheap. We have always recognized the ‘e’ in the acrostic to mean “expense” And yet, that is not the whole story; for, in speaking of “cost” Jesus taught the parable about an unmerciful servant [Matthew 18:21-35] and his master’s absolute forgiveness of this servant’s debt which was not the result of risky investments or poverty but of swindle. This servant defrauded his master of what was his master’s rightful possession, which is a metaphor for our unfaithfulness toward the God Who loved us. We abused through sinning the gift of life God gave us while He made us for His fellowship. But what did Jesus emphasize in this story? Not His forgiveness but the need of ours toward each other and others [Matthew 18:35]. Grace is cheapened when we are thereby forgiven without any interest in forgiving. To forgive indeed we must forgive in deed! This incorporates a desire for reconciliation. A forgiving heart holds no bitterness or vengeance. The story of grace is a story of God creating in us forgiving hearts.  [It is not strange to discover that both words, grace and forgiveness, derive from the same Greek word, Ephesians 4:32.]

Followship

---

Jesus cannot become our Savior and not our Lord! The message of grace is cheapened if nothing is required of us to “come out and be separate” [2 Corinthians 6:17]. If so, if we seek to receive His love but not let it flow out to others, our experience is a stagnant religion rather than the witness of the living stream of eternal salvation Jesus spoke of [John 7:38]. Love is put in to flow out [Romans 5:5]. We are to love as He does [John 15:12]. Our thoughts may become so fixed on what He did for us we don’t take serious what He intends to do through us. The rich young man toward whom Jesus’ heart was warmly drawn is not really the story of liquidating one’s wealth for charity as it is relinquishing all personal ambition and interest for the glorious vision of following Him as one of His disciples [Luke 18:22]. Bonhoeffer calls fellowship, followship, and rightly so [1 Corinthians 1:9].

Grace, therefore, is more than forgiveness, it is God’s empowering to follow in our Lord’s footsteps. [Seventeen times in the Gospels we read Jesus instructing His disciples to “Follow me.”] Justification is a marvelous gift of God but the same word also translates “righteousness” [Kittel, vol II, page 202ff]. We should not claim justification if we do not live it! Grace is cheapened if it is only a declaration of righteousness without sanctification. As we can rightly maintain God’s gift of grace is working on us [“from glory to glory”] transforming us into the image of Christ [2 Corinthians 3:18]. Justification leads to glorification [Romans 8:30]. It has to! It is cheapened if it becomes mere religious duty or devotion or a Sunday morning habit.

Knowledge

---

Grace is cheapened if we continue in sin [Romans 6:1-2]. Cheap grace is a carte blanche to sin and is not what God offers! As Bonhoeffer, in other words, noted, “acquired knowledge cannot be divorced from the experience in which it was acquired” [Bonhoeffer, page 51]. “The call to discipleship,” the pastor affirmed, “is [the] gift of grace” [italics added. Bonhoeffer, page 51]. There is no biblical word for academic knowledge.

Faith

---

Cheap grace cheapens faith because it denies that the word “faith” includes “faithfulness,” the other side of the same coin, so to speak. And faithfulness is also an ongoing experience [“from faith into faith” Romans 1:17] …into Christ according to Paul [Philippians 1:29 says “into” as an activity (faithful) and not “in” as a condition (faith)]. Salvation is a deepening relationship with Him. Faith is faithfulness. Saving grace is God’s empowering us to follow in His steps as His disciples.

Here is where Bonhoeffer waxes eloquent and inspired. “Do we also realize that this cheap grace has turned back upon us like a boomerang?” he asked. “The price we are having to pay today, “he observed, “in the shape of the collapse of the organized church [I think not just a dwindling membership but the apparent absence of commitment to pastoral vision] is only the inevitable consequence of our policy of making grace available to all at too low cost. We gave away the Word … wholesale.” [Bonhoeffer, page 54] Bonhoeffer recognized with sadness the Church’s message being made more seeker friendly than challenging.

Discipleship

---

Bonhoeffer continued, “Our humanitarian sentiment made us give that which was holy to the scornful and unbelieving. We poured forth unending streams of grace. But the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way [Matthew 7:14] was hardly ever heard” [Bonhoeffer, page 54]. We need to relearn the relationship between grace and discipleship. Bonhoeffer concludes, “It is becoming clearer every day that the most urgent problem besetting [the] Church is this: How can we live the Christian life in the modern world?” [Bonhoeffer, page 55].

The encouraging thought is that Jesus gave us the answer in His “Sermon on the Mount” and added “it’s easy” [Matthew 11:30]. Jesus used the word, “Happy” [blessed] as He unfurled the scroll of such a revelation. There is a bit more to this truth than what is found in Matthew’s record but it is all good—excitingly good.

Bonhoeffer concluded, “Happy are they who, knowing that grace, can live in the world without being of it, who, by following Jesus Christ, are so assured of their heavenly citizenship that they are truly free to live their lives in this world. Happy are they who know that discipleship simply means the life which springs from grace, and that grace simply means discipleship. Happy are they who have become Christians in this sense of the word. For them the word of grace has proved a fountain of mercy” [Bonhoeffer, page 56].

The Sermon on the Mount

---

One cannot talk grace without studying discipleship and that is a study of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and primarily the Beatitudes. Here is where we find the gateway that opens to the way that is narrow that we are called to walk.

We take comfort in calling this life a “pilgrimage” in which our real home is in heaven (John 14:2-3) along with our true citizenship as believers (Philippians 3:20). Yet before we get there, it’s all about …“the journey.” The Scripture that comes to mind is Hebrews 12:2) which was written to the early Jewish believers who were holding on too tightly to their religious traditions to appreciate the changes happening in their experience as believers. We, as followers of Christ, have come to view suffering (1 Peter 5:9) as a real part of our worldview. Sometimes it hurts to be a Christian either because of some form of persecution or being marginalized by family or others, or perhaps, because we didn’t realize that life goes on—same job, same emotional luggage, same “headaches” are brought along with us on this journey. Our faith has not immunized us against pain or hurt.

Yes, God knows when this or that in our circumstance is a hinderance to what He is perfecting in us and He will remove it accordingly (Revelation 3:7), but somehow our humanity is very much a part of life as it always was. The temptations are just as real, sickness is just as real. We may become flummoxed about the paradoxical inconvenience of pain while knowing that God’s faithfulness and love were never more real as when we are hurting. Suffering on many levels remains a part of life as it did for the Savior!

What has changed? We have Jesus as both our example to follow and the One who will “perfect” our faith. Our trust in Him will be absolutely rewarded. He is irrefutably trustworthy. He didn’t save us to abandon us! That’s what “perfect” means.

But the gem of this verse is found in the word “for.” When Jesus was, Himself, looking at a level of suffering off the scale of human endurance, He knew that at the other end of what He must endure, there was a joy. Joy is what Mary Magdalene and “the other” Mary experienced when an angel told them Jesus was alive! (Matthew 28:8). Joy is what awaits us when He welcomes us home! (Matthew 25:21, 23).

Meanwhile we “endure,” we soldier on (is what it means)! And it makes a huge difference if we are looking at our tired legs or heaving diaphragm, or, instead, at that joy that is ours—to use Paul’s analogy from verse one—after this race is run! For some of us, the banner over the finish line is almost visible. It reads “Enter into the Joy of Your Lord.” And if we see it, it inspires us, or, as verse three reads, encouragingly, “so that [we] may not grow weary or fainthearted” when we are so close to that mark!

I had to run the mile in high school in 6 minutes to pass Physical Education. I was running far to slowly to make that clock until a friend of mine, realizing the shortfall, jumped on the track in front of me and yelled out, “Keep up!!” All I knew was I had to keep up with Carl as hard as it was to breathe (compliments of my asthma) or how my legs aches. I kept up … and passed!

Let’s keep up with Jesus!

The Church does not depend on its theology for its existence. The Church depends on the faithfulness of its parishioners, their devotion to God. I can say this confidently because most church-goers do not know what their church believes. Newcomers, who were not raised on its teachings, are less likely to be drawn to its doctrine than to friendships within its doors or the atmosphere it maintains for worship.

Young’s Literal Translation of 2 Peter 1:7 calls this “piety” [translated “godliness” elsewhere] and what the dictionary calls, “a belief … that is accepted with unthinking conventional reverence.”

But this is as it should be because as much as any church endorses discipleship, our knowledge of the Bible remains incomplete—a confession which should be an encouragement. A close friend who has been pastoring now for decades admitted with a soupçon of irony that if Jesus will grade his understanding of all Biblical truth at 10% when God calls on him, he will be humbly grateful for having had the opportunity to learn that much (1 Corinthians 13:12). He speaks for me, too.

Theology doesn’t save; God does!  It is not what you might know but Who you know, Jesus, Who saves.  We are not called “believers” for no reason. We trust Him, Whom we love, to save us! It is our faith in our Lord’s work on Calvary that is our salvation (Romans 10:9; Galatians 3:8), not our knowledge of the theological details. In Biblical days the cult of Gnosticism [after the Greek word, “knowledge” which based salvation on a supposed understanding of God’s revelation that to outsiders remained a mystery] was unequivocally rejected by the Apostles (Galatians 1:6-10).

That devotion, I speak of, is now being threatened in “subtile” ways [Genesis 3:1. The Hebrew word means “crafty”] through TV movies and series, talk shows and other media. All these are methodically introducing a narrative that compromises the Biblical message. I was interested to find out that the issues being discussed today where prevalent in their infancy in movies and TV series a decade ago. We have been the proverbial frog in the sauce pan of hot water and we haven’t hopped out yet! Church leaders have for the last half century been reevaluating church theology in the light of all this change.

This is a mistake, if the narrative being sold by the media is bought by the church to live below or outside the Biblical message! And that much we do know! It is Eve and the snake all over again! The Devil’s deception always begins with “Did God actually say.” The devil’s rhetoric is understood to mean, “God didn’t mean what you think He meant.” And yet nothing could be said in simpler terms: “this tree here, avoid it!” (Genesis 3:3)! The account begins with the devil spouting, “APH!” It is a rhetorical “yea,” ”really!” or “indeed!” It is an impassioned challenge to what we know all along about what God did say!

There is a lot of Bible to learn and some of us have had more time than others to learn it. But without our faith or an absolute devotion to our Lord, our faithfulness lived without compromise and without apology, the church ceases to be a spiritual force. It is our faith that has empowered our witness and message! We are “… God’s people … set apart by faith…” (Acts 26:18).