When we moved to Philadelphia a year ago, Teresa and I had to pick a new church. Neither of us have had to do that in the last ten years, but it's probably not a bad thing.
When Christ died for the sins of God's people and rose on the 3rd day, He created the church of God. If we want to know the value of the church in God's eyes, we only need to look to the price He paid for it. Acts 20:28 says that the church of God was something Jesus “obtained with his own blood.” The infinite blood of Christ was used to secure the redemption of the church! Therefore, we ought to esteem the church as God esteems her. God doesn't take church membership lightly, and neither should we. At the get-go, we wanted to find a church where we could fully commit ourselves for the next few years while we're in seminary.
MENTORED MINISTRY
One factor that we had to consider was where we would be mentored. Westminster has a Mentored Ministry requirement. This means I have to do 400 hours of service (either paid or unpaid) under the supervision of a pastor. This could be done all at once (e.g. a summer internship or a mission trip) and it doesn't have to be done in your home church. For instance, we knew someone who attended one church Sunday morning but then served as a paid pastor at another church during the afternoon.
If possible, Teresa and I wanted to be members of a church where we could also do our Mentored Ministry. We felt the Lord leading us to go “all-in” with one church. This would be the church where we would worship God, hear God's Word preached, love our fellow brothers and sisters, serve others, and also be mentored.
FULL COMMITMENT
Spurgeon said, “The day we find the perfect church, it becomes imperfect the moment we join it.” Nobody claims to look for the perfect church, but when the rubber meets the road, things can be quite different. It's not uncommon to hear of seminary students who change churches every year or two and never become fully committed.
This can be all too common among churches in America. At our church back in Texas, we knew people who transferred to different churches for different reasons. Sometimes there are good reasons to leave a church. Yet in other cases, folks headed for the exits rather than staying committed to the body when things got tough.
If possible, Teresa and I wanted to commit ourselves to one church for the entire duration of our time in seminary. We wanted to pick a church for the long-haul. We didn't want to try out a church for a season and then switch to a different one. This required doing as much legwork up-front: researching options, reading about beliefs and ministries, talking to people, and listening to sermons on-line. Of course, despite all our advance in modern technology, we would still need to visit churches in person.
At the end of a 4-month process (which included a 10-week membership class), we committed ourselves as members of Covenant Fellowship Church located in a Philadelphia suburb. In the upcoming blog posts, I'll go into more detail on how God led us to Covenant Fellowship.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
A new type of love song
When I was younger, I loved broadway musicals more than anything. The first show I ever saw was in 7th grade and it was Miss Saigon. I just fell in love with the way you could mix music, which was big in my life, with a story about true love, faithfulness, and sometimes a teary-eyed sad ending. In these shows, my favorite parts would always be the big love song between the two lead characters where they declared their love for each other and you knew that they would always be together (All I ask of you from Phantom and Too Much In Love To Care from Sunset Boulevard come to mind as good examples of these). There was just so much emotion and love expressed in the words, and to boot they were set to a great melody that enhanced the experience and made you feel all tingly inside. In a way, you got to live vicariously through the characters and experience love and emotions my teenage self only dreamed of. In a way, though, I always felt I could never be a part of that love song, one, because I can't sing very well, and two because I was never sure that I could have that kind of love for anyone else, and furthermore that they could ever love me in that way. But listening to these songs and swooning with emotion gave me an outlet of beauty and a place where I could pretend that I was loved just as these characters loved each other.
In the past few years, I've seen God change that desire for love inside my heart. He has shown me that any kind of human love is a pointer to His perfect unfailing love. Any grace and mercy in love between two people is a picture of the infinite mercies that He shows us every morning, not because we deserve it, but because He chooses to have grace on us. Even more so, God has also changed my view of what a love song is. I used to think the perfect love song was between two people, but now I see that it is between a human and their God. Usually, in these musicals, something happens where they cannot be together, albeit a misunderstanding or some catastrophic event. But God promises that nothing can separate us from His perfect love.
I never thought I could ever sing a love song like those in my favorite broadway musicals, but God showed me that I can be a part of this magnificent love duet, not because I am a good singer (indeed, I'm glad that I'll never have to sing a solo in public), but because I am a partaker in God's love and grace. Christ saw me as the foremost of sinners, yet He chose to have mercy on me! Also, He knew that I could never love Him on my own, so He gathered me to Him and opened my eyes and brought me to sorrow over my sins. What greater example of love could there be? He gives us these wonderful songs to sing to Him that are richer and more beautiful than any love ballad between two people because they point to God's perfect love. He points our eyes heaven-ward, from the human love relationships to our love relationship with Him. God has so graciously blessed us with songs that can so powerfully express how great God is and how wonderful His love is to us; this is richer and more beautiful than any love story could be because it is THE love story of all time.
There are a lot of good songs out there. This one is the one that has always reminded me of His infinite glory and love towards us.
How Deep
You were broken that I might be healed
You were cast off that I might draw near
You were thirsty that I might come drink
Cried out in anguish that I might sing
How deep is Your love
How high and how wide is Your mercy
How deep is Your grace
Our hearts overflow with praise to You
You knew darkness that I might know light
Wept great tears that mine might be dried
Stripped of glory that I might be clothed
Crushed by Your Father to call me Your own
Based on The Valley of Vision prayer “Love Lustres at Calvary”
Words and Music by Stephen Altrogge
How Deep
You were broken that I might be healed
You were cast off that I might draw near
You were thirsty that I might come drink
Cried out in anguish that I might sing
How deep is Your love
How high and how wide is Your mercy
How deep is Your grace
Our hearts overflow with praise to You
You knew darkness that I might know light
Wept great tears that mine might be dried
Stripped of glory that I might be clothed
Crushed by Your Father to call me Your own
Based on The Valley of Vision prayer “Love Lustres at Calvary”
Words and Music by Stephen Altrogge
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Is there Value in Learing Biblical Hebrew? (part 2)
In the last post, I posed the question, "Is there value in learning the original languages of the Bible?" Sure, there are Bible translators and scholars who might need them. But how about us and the rest of the church?
Our Hebrew teacher at Westminster (Libbie Groves) made a very compelling case, and I want to flesh this out a bit more here.
1. AMBIGUITY IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT
God and His plan of salvation are very clearly explained in Scripture. No one needs to consult the Greek or Hebrew text to know that God requires all men to repent and place their trust in Christ because He has fixed a day of judgment for all. Yet, there are many places in scripture where there is some ambiguity. Words and phrases could have more than one meaning. In those situations, Bible translators have to make a decision on how to translate something with the knowledge that there are multiple options. When we were translating the verse Judges 3:23, we ran into such a case.
The ESV translates it this way: "Then Ehud went out into the porch and closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked them." (Judges 3:23)
Ehud was a judge of Israel who killed Eglon, the king of Moab, and freed Israel from foreign oppression. Judges 3 has a fascinating story of how Ehud gets into the evil king's private chambers with a concealed weapon, kills him, and then escapes by going out the porch. When we looked up the Hebrew word that is translated as "porch" in the ESV, we found this entry: "uncertain: vestibule, latrine, air-hole".
According to Hebrew scholars, the word has an uncertain meaning. It could mean "vestibule" (or "hall"), "latrine", or "air-hole". So, Ehud could have escaped out the porch, hall, or even sewage pipe. Maybe Ehud pulled a "Shawshank Redemption" type of escape (Andy Dufresne crawled his way to freedom through sewer pipe filled with human waste).
At any rate, we don't know for sure. In these ambiguous cases, we ought to tread lightly. For instance, it would be unwise (or even a mistake) for a preacher to base the main point of a sermon on something that's ambiguous. Someone who knows the original language would be able to avoid this kind of mistake and detect those who make it. The Bible warns us that there are plenty of false prophets and teachers out there. When there is uncertainty in the original text, a translation becomes an interpretation. And these interpretations should be treated with care. A pastor is more equipped to shepherd his flock and protect them if he has the tools to see where someone is drawing conclusions from passages that are ambiguous.
2. LOST IN TRANSLATION
We've all heard of the phrase "lost in translation". The Bible isn't immune from this. The authors of scripture often use grammar to highlight something. Using Hebrew grammar to make a point about something may not work in English because English has a different grammatical structure. WARNING - this point may seem quite dry, so feel free to skip ahead!
For example, Judges 1:21 says: "But the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites...." . In this verse fragment, the noun is "the people of Benjamin", the verb is "did not drive out", and the direct object is the "Jebusites".
Typical English order: Noun -> Verb -> Direct Object. Hebrew sentences typically start with the verb instead of the noun.
Typical Hebrew order: Verb -> Noun -> Direct Object.
Typically, we expect: [did not drive out] -> [people of Benjamin] -> [Jebusties].
Instead, the text has: [Jebusites] -> [did not drive out] -> [people of Benjamin].
The direct object (Jebusites) is placed first. This is not expected. It seems like the author is drawing to our attention the presence of the Jebusties, which should have been driven out of the land of Canaan. If you have read the book of Judges, you will know that the nation of Israel failed to obey God in driving out the inhabitants of Canaan and failed to worship God whole-heartedly. The presence of "Jebusties" at the beginning of the sentence is lost in translation. Not the end of the world, yet something the author wanted to say is lost.
Judges 3:6 was another example we looked at. The typical word ordering is changed when a verb and direct object are swapped. As a result, the reader cannot tell which nouns go with which verbs. This intermingling of words reflects the intermingling between the Israelites and Cannanites. Rather than being separate as God's people, Israel mixes with her pagan culture:
"And their daughters they took to themselves for wives, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, and they served their gods." This unexpected word order even crashed some Bible software when it was trying to process Judges for the first time!
Examples like these show how the Hebrew grammar may tell be telling us something that is lost in translation. Without knowing the original language, these important (yet subtle) points may be lost.
3. THE SUPREMACY AND PRIORITY OF GOD'S WORD
Some may argue, "So what? We might lose a few things here and there, but our translations give us all the important stuff." Yet, scripture itself always challenges us to take a higher (and never a lower) view of itself:
"For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished." (Matthew 5:18)
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." (Matthew 24:35).
God cares about all the little details in Scripture and they are there for a reason. Even the most seemingly insignificant dots in the Hebrew text are important to God and not to be treated lightly. Scripture was written by God through human authors in such a way that its ultimate source is God Himself and it is therefore completely trustworthy and authoritative.
"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." (2 Tim 3:16-17).
All of scripture is divine, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we must give careful and thoughtful attention to its details.
I'm certainly no Hebrew scholar, yet I am beginning to see (in new ways) that preaching and teaching God's word carries great responsibilities. Those who are given a call to do these things should strive to be properly equipped.
Our Hebrew teacher at Westminster (Libbie Groves) made a very compelling case, and I want to flesh this out a bit more here.
1. AMBIGUITY IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT
God and His plan of salvation are very clearly explained in Scripture. No one needs to consult the Greek or Hebrew text to know that God requires all men to repent and place their trust in Christ because He has fixed a day of judgment for all. Yet, there are many places in scripture where there is some ambiguity. Words and phrases could have more than one meaning. In those situations, Bible translators have to make a decision on how to translate something with the knowledge that there are multiple options. When we were translating the verse Judges 3:23, we ran into such a case.
The ESV translates it this way: "Then Ehud went out into the porch and closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked them." (Judges 3:23)
Ehud was a judge of Israel who killed Eglon, the king of Moab, and freed Israel from foreign oppression. Judges 3 has a fascinating story of how Ehud gets into the evil king's private chambers with a concealed weapon, kills him, and then escapes by going out the porch. When we looked up the Hebrew word that is translated as "porch" in the ESV, we found this entry: "uncertain: vestibule, latrine, air-hole".
According to Hebrew scholars, the word has an uncertain meaning. It could mean "vestibule" (or "hall"), "latrine", or "air-hole". So, Ehud could have escaped out the porch, hall, or even sewage pipe. Maybe Ehud pulled a "Shawshank Redemption" type of escape (Andy Dufresne crawled his way to freedom through sewer pipe filled with human waste).
At any rate, we don't know for sure. In these ambiguous cases, we ought to tread lightly. For instance, it would be unwise (or even a mistake) for a preacher to base the main point of a sermon on something that's ambiguous. Someone who knows the original language would be able to avoid this kind of mistake and detect those who make it. The Bible warns us that there are plenty of false prophets and teachers out there. When there is uncertainty in the original text, a translation becomes an interpretation. And these interpretations should be treated with care. A pastor is more equipped to shepherd his flock and protect them if he has the tools to see where someone is drawing conclusions from passages that are ambiguous.
2. LOST IN TRANSLATION
We've all heard of the phrase "lost in translation". The Bible isn't immune from this. The authors of scripture often use grammar to highlight something. Using Hebrew grammar to make a point about something may not work in English because English has a different grammatical structure. WARNING - this point may seem quite dry, so feel free to skip ahead!
For example, Judges 1:21 says: "But the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites...." . In this verse fragment, the noun is "the people of Benjamin", the verb is "did not drive out", and the direct object is the "Jebusites".
Typical English order: Noun -> Verb -> Direct Object. Hebrew sentences typically start with the verb instead of the noun.
Typical Hebrew order: Verb -> Noun -> Direct Object.
Typically, we expect: [did not drive out] -> [people of Benjamin] -> [Jebusties].
Instead, the text has: [Jebusites] -> [did not drive out] -> [people of Benjamin].
The direct object (Jebusites) is placed first. This is not expected. It seems like the author is drawing to our attention the presence of the Jebusties, which should have been driven out of the land of Canaan. If you have read the book of Judges, you will know that the nation of Israel failed to obey God in driving out the inhabitants of Canaan and failed to worship God whole-heartedly. The presence of "Jebusties" at the beginning of the sentence is lost in translation. Not the end of the world, yet something the author wanted to say is lost.
Judges 3:6 was another example we looked at. The typical word ordering is changed when a verb and direct object are swapped. As a result, the reader cannot tell which nouns go with which verbs. This intermingling of words reflects the intermingling between the Israelites and Cannanites. Rather than being separate as God's people, Israel mixes with her pagan culture:
"And their daughters they took to themselves for wives, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, and they served their gods." This unexpected word order even crashed some Bible software when it was trying to process Judges for the first time!
Examples like these show how the Hebrew grammar may tell be telling us something that is lost in translation. Without knowing the original language, these important (yet subtle) points may be lost.
3. THE SUPREMACY AND PRIORITY OF GOD'S WORD
Some may argue, "So what? We might lose a few things here and there, but our translations give us all the important stuff." Yet, scripture itself always challenges us to take a higher (and never a lower) view of itself:
"For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished." (Matthew 5:18)
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." (Matthew 24:35).
God cares about all the little details in Scripture and they are there for a reason. Even the most seemingly insignificant dots in the Hebrew text are important to God and not to be treated lightly. Scripture was written by God through human authors in such a way that its ultimate source is God Himself and it is therefore completely trustworthy and authoritative.
"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." (2 Tim 3:16-17).
All of scripture is divine, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we must give careful and thoughtful attention to its details.
I'm certainly no Hebrew scholar, yet I am beginning to see (in new ways) that preaching and teaching God's word carries great responsibilities. Those who are given a call to do these things should strive to be properly equipped.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Is there value in learning Biblical Hebrew? (part 1)
The spring term has been super busy, so we've been delinquent in keeping up our blog. I've been wanting to blog about a 4-week intensive Hebrew class at Westminster Seminary during January. So after much delay, here it is!
13 weeks were compressed into 4. Winter Hebrew was no joke. We were expected the clear the decks (of any work or ministry commitments) to focus on the class. The mid-term for the course has been described as the most difficult test at Westminster. Winter Hebrew is like full-time job where your employer expects you to work nights and weekends to meet a deadline because your project and your job depended on it.
Our professor told us a story about a guy who was a student during the Vietnam war. Full-time students were exempt from the military draft. Mid-way through the course, though, the student decided that he had enough. He dropped the class, enlisted, and then shipped off Vietnam. Apparently he thought the jungles of Vietnam were more bearable than Winter Hebrew.
It's kind of a funny story- well funny now that we're actually done. But it does raise some questions. Why would anyone subject themselves to 4 weeks of pain? Or to ask a slightly different question, "Why go through the trouble of learning Biblical Hebrew (or Greek)?" Aren't English translations good enough?
It is true that our Bible translations are sufficient for us to know God and His plan of salvation. The Westminster Confession captures this thought rather well:
Everything God wants you to know for His own glory, your salvation, faith and life, is either given directly or indirectly by Scripture....those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly given in scripture that no special training is needed to know what they are (paraphrased from Chapter 1, "Of The Holy Scripture")
I'm not advocating that everyone in the church must to devote years of their life learning Greek (the original language of the New Testament) or Hebrew (the original language of the Old Testament). Yet, I want to present a few reasons why studying the original languages is valuable and important for the body of Christ. I want to try and make a case for why there should be at least one person in your church (probably the pastor) who should know Greek and Hebrew.
Here are 3 reasons I'm going to give :
1. AMBIGUITY IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT. For instance, if you pick up the NIV and ESV (which are both faithful translations of the text), you'll notice some differences. As we've discovered, doing a translation means doing an interpretation. Different translations exist for different reasons. Some translations like the NIV do larger chunks of scripture at a time ("ideas") and aim for readability. Others like the NASB try to do smaller chunks ("word-for-word") and try to remain closer to the original text. Others like the ESV try to do something in between. These are broad generalizations, but you get the idea.
One is not necessary "better" or "worse" than another. By attempting a word-for-word translation, NASB or ESV has to do some awkward gymnastics to stick to its goal. Therefore, it's often less readable or clear than the NIV, which does more paraphrasing.
2. LOST IN TRANSLATION. Because languages are not identical to one another, things are lost in translation.
3. SUPREMACY AND PRIORITY OF GOD'S WORD. Imagine that you were given an important document- maybe a treaty between two countries, a crucial business contract, or a letter from a dear friend. But, it's written in a different language. Depending on how important it is and how much precision you need, you may not be content with a translation. In the same way, the words of eternal life found in God's eternal word may place a burden of responsibility upon some people to learn the original Biblical languages.
In my next post, I'll try to flesh out these reasons some more by going into some more technical details
13 weeks were compressed into 4. Winter Hebrew was no joke. We were expected the clear the decks (of any work or ministry commitments) to focus on the class. The mid-term for the course has been described as the most difficult test at Westminster. Winter Hebrew is like full-time job where your employer expects you to work nights and weekends to meet a deadline because your project and your job depended on it.
Our professor told us a story about a guy who was a student during the Vietnam war. Full-time students were exempt from the military draft. Mid-way through the course, though, the student decided that he had enough. He dropped the class, enlisted, and then shipped off Vietnam. Apparently he thought the jungles of Vietnam were more bearable than Winter Hebrew.
It's kind of a funny story- well funny now that we're actually done. But it does raise some questions. Why would anyone subject themselves to 4 weeks of pain? Or to ask a slightly different question, "Why go through the trouble of learning Biblical Hebrew (or Greek)?" Aren't English translations good enough?
It is true that our Bible translations are sufficient for us to know God and His plan of salvation. The Westminster Confession captures this thought rather well:
Everything God wants you to know for His own glory, your salvation, faith and life, is either given directly or indirectly by Scripture....those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly given in scripture that no special training is needed to know what they are (paraphrased from Chapter 1, "Of The Holy Scripture")
I'm not advocating that everyone in the church must to devote years of their life learning Greek (the original language of the New Testament) or Hebrew (the original language of the Old Testament). Yet, I want to present a few reasons why studying the original languages is valuable and important for the body of Christ. I want to try and make a case for why there should be at least one person in your church (probably the pastor) who should know Greek and Hebrew.
Here are 3 reasons I'm going to give :
1. AMBIGUITY IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT. For instance, if you pick up the NIV and ESV (which are both faithful translations of the text), you'll notice some differences. As we've discovered, doing a translation means doing an interpretation. Different translations exist for different reasons. Some translations like the NIV do larger chunks of scripture at a time ("ideas") and aim for readability. Others like the NASB try to do smaller chunks ("word-for-word") and try to remain closer to the original text. Others like the ESV try to do something in between. These are broad generalizations, but you get the idea.
One is not necessary "better" or "worse" than another. By attempting a word-for-word translation, NASB or ESV has to do some awkward gymnastics to stick to its goal. Therefore, it's often less readable or clear than the NIV, which does more paraphrasing.
2. LOST IN TRANSLATION. Because languages are not identical to one another, things are lost in translation.
3. SUPREMACY AND PRIORITY OF GOD'S WORD. Imagine that you were given an important document- maybe a treaty between two countries, a crucial business contract, or a letter from a dear friend. But, it's written in a different language. Depending on how important it is and how much precision you need, you may not be content with a translation. In the same way, the words of eternal life found in God's eternal word may place a burden of responsibility upon some people to learn the original Biblical languages.
In my next post, I'll try to flesh out these reasons some more by going into some more technical details
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Suffering and Refuge
Alex has shared a lot about Apologetics here at Westminster. Spring classes start tomorrow, and I've been assigned to talk a little bit about how being here at seminary has changed me.
I've benefited so much from just being here at Westminster for one semester. This fall, I took a counseling course called Dynamics of Biblical Change taught by David Powlison; it has been a blessing to me in so many ways, and the Holy Spirit has mercifully changed me in ways that I don't deserve. This past two years or so God has been giving me an interest in counseling that I never thought I had, and never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would be changed so much by it. But God gives gifts to His children that are so much better than anything we could ever ask for or imagine. Praise Him for that!
Since I'm not much of a writer, I thought I'd share some papers (essays, really) that I've written this semester in counseling class. The first one (this entry) is about Suffering and Refuge, and the second one (to come at a later time) will be about Sin and Grace.
This is an excerpt from a project that I did about mid-October 2010. Our task was to examine a period of significant suffering in our lives and to seek God as our refuge in the midst of suffering. The trial that I examined was my sleeplessness due to Greek tests during the summer and fall semesters.
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Summer Greek
This summer I began to have sleepless nights before each of our Summer Greek exams. If you know me, you'd know that I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime. I had never had any issues with sleeping before, and it was a huge shock when I began staying awake for hours on end. Each day before the test, I studied all day and felt fine about the test. However, when I went to bed, I laid in bed for hours and could not fall asleep.
At first, I told myself to calm down and that sleep would eventually come. Eventually the hours rolled by and I continued to stay awake. I told myself that this shouldn’t be happening to me. I repeated to myself that I needed to let it go, to surrender it to God, and that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Slowly as the hours passed one by one, I became increasingly frustrated. I tried a number of things to help me relax. Still no sleep. I wondered what was wrong with me that I couldn’t sleep as well, and thought perhaps that I had had too much caffeine. I also was jealous of Alex and Beni who were happily asleep and blissfully unaware of my angst.
The second time this happened, I tried my hardest to eliminate many of the contributors to insomnia that I thought I could control. I had no caffeine that day, bought curtains to keep out the light and the noise, wore earplugs, and retired early, all to give myself the best chance of falling asleep. Still, the result was the same. I got under two hours of sleep that night.
In desperation, I started thinking of how I could escape from the situation that was causing this suffering. I thought about dropping out of seminary so I wouldn’t have to take any more tests, and retiring to the “easy life” of starting a family. Anything, I thought, would be better than not getting sleep.
I NEED 8 Hours!
In my mind, I feel that I absolutely need to get eight hours of sleep or I won’t be adequately prepared for the exam. I get debilitating migraine headaches from time to time, and I really fear getting those because I can't function at all for the whole day. In my mind, if something happens to my sleep, it will lead to me getting a migraine, not being able to take the test, having to withdraw the course, and dropping out of seminary, which would separate me from Alex, who would excel and continue to take classes while I could not. My mind turns one small thing into a great potential disaster looming around the corner, ready to strike. I think that the right circumstances have to be in place in order for me to be successful.
When I am doing something that I have previously been good at in another context, I expect a certain level of perfection when doing that same thing in another context. As a result I get nervous even though in the first context I was calm and confident. In this case, my dilemma is partially, “Can I be a good student again after all this time out of school?” and also partially, “Am I as good as these other students in my classes? Am I smart enough for seminary?”
As the semester progressed, I became fearful about sleep in general, that I wouldn’t be able to sleep the next night or during the following nights. Actually, I still dread going to sleep the day before an exam. Through this sleeplessness, God took away, for a time, one of the things that I’d always counted on as a guarantee. I could always trust in the fact that I could sleep, and suddenly I couldn’t do something I’d never had any trouble with my entire life. It was earth-shattering. I felt helpless and like my body didn’t work anymore. I had to spend much of the next day recovering and was not as productive as I would have liked to be.
Who is God in all of this?
God promises He is in control. He has ordained every sleepless night for a reason. He is the creator of all things, including my body, Greek participles, and sleep. He promises to work everything to the good of those who love Him, even something that takes away the ability for me to function and think properly. He promises to be there when I walk through the long corridor of sleeplessness, and to lead my steps.
He gives me strength, not necessarily to happily pretend that nothing is wrong, but to persevere and trust Him through these trials. He both hears my cry and gives me strength to have peace during a troubling night of sleeplessness, and to persevere in my studies and be faithful to the task that he has called me to. He is worthy of praise because His character doesn’t change dependent on my circumstance. He is infinite, outside of time, and knows every single second of my life. He is infinite; the situation is not. He is all powerful; the situation is not.
More Greek Lessons
Through all trials, God is shaping us and showing us things in our lives that we need to change. First of all, the Lord has been challenging me to not run away from suffering. This sleepless has continued into the Fall semester. During the weeks leading up to the first test this semester, I thought a lot about the concept of sleep. I was challenged by the article we read on Psalm 119 where Dr. Powlison shared about his struggles with insomnia and how he learned to look forward to that time as a time to meet with and be in the presence of God. It really challenged me to think about my beliefs about who God was in the midst of suffering.
I slowly began to realize that God is with me when I cannot sleep. He is unchanging, so that means that He is still sovereign and still good even when I can’t sleep. God is by my side in my suffering. He is present, sustaining me, giving me strength to carry on when all human reason screamed to give up and go home. Most of all, He is my help, my refuge in times of need. I can cry out to Him, tell Him how I’m feeling, and He hears and gives me strength to persevere. Even if I don’t get to fall asleep, His hand is still completely sovereign over my entire life. I can trust in Him to have some purpose to my suffering, and to be the one who gives and takes it away.
The words of Psalm 62 have really become the cries of my heart during those moments of sleeplessness:
1For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
2 He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.
In those nights, God is the one who my soul waits for. He has saved me from my sins, and He will save me from this sleeplessness when it is time. He ONLY, not my grades or knowledge, is my rock and salvation, and I can cry out to Him and He will keep me from being greatly shaken. I may be slightly shaken from the insomnia, but my world is not the disaster that it once was in response to this suffering.
Secondly, I’m beginning to see that the issue I’m facing is more than wanting to get a good night’s sleep. Rather, it is an issue of surrender. Before seminary I had successfully completed a college degree, and was competent to handle engineering classes. I started class with unconscious pressures to achieve at a certain level.
I’m learning that I trust in my own performance. If I don’t do well, I believe that I have failed. I put my identity in my achievements. I’m not really taking the test for God, but to prove my own goodness and ability.
Slowly, I’ve begun to learn to say to myself, “This is the amount of time that you have been given to study, and this is the grade that God has given you. These are blessings from God, and not works of your own hands.” My focus in seminary is beginning to shift from having to prove myself to realizing this time is a gift and a blessing to study and to know God better.
Finally, sleep?
During the night before this past Greek test (about two weeks ago), I once again could not sleep. However, my reaction to the time dramatically changed. Instead of feeling utter despair, I was able to genuinely cry out to God and surrender my circumstances to Him. I found that the times that I was on my knees asking Him desperately to help me trust in Him were the times that I had the most joy that night, because it was in those times where I didn’t have to be in control. I didn’t have to will myself to relax. I admitted my inability to do anything on my own to God, and cried out to God as my protector and refuge. I knew my God was right alongside me, and that I wasn’t alone. I was able to ask Him for help in addressing these performance issues, and for asking Him to take my life and transform it for His glory. I asked Him to use these results not for my praise but for His.
Although I didn’t sleep normally that night, I did end up falling asleep for five hours, which was a huge difference from sleeping only 1-2 hours the nights before our previous two tests. I praise God that He has changed my heart about anticipating these times of insomnia as a time to cry out and surrender to God, to thank Him for loving me and for taking care of me, and for understanding and meeting with me during my time of suffering.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
All Men Know God but Supress this Knowledge (Apologetics part 5)
The blog posts the last few months have been about defending the Christian faith, a topic called apologetics. This post will be the longest and final one. It tries to put everything together and show how it could potentially work. The most recent post was about our ultimate source of authority. There are only two choices: God or man. God’s Word doesn’t answer to anyone else because God doesn’t answer to anyone else.
Assuming that Scripture reveals the crucified and risen Savior as the only hope for mankind (see “When Soliders Come in the Night”), we must know what the Scriptures teach about people. The Bible teaches us that all men know God. Like a son who has an indivisible bond to his father, we are creatures who have an indivisible bond to our Creator. We cannot escape it. But since man is in rebellion against God, he uses every bit of his intellect to suppress this knowledge.
The following passage is one of the most critical ones on apologetic method:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20).
In apologetics, we must start with the assumption that man knows God, though he tries to suppress this knowledge.
What does it mean that all men know God?
ALL HAVE PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
This is not just some vague concept that “a higher power must exist”. It is personal knowledge of the one true God. God makes His eternal power and divine nature clearly seen through everything He has created. God has pre-programmed each of us with clear and convincing knowledge of the following:
ALL TRY TO SUPPRESS KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
After the fall of mankind (in Genesis 3), man runs away from God rather than towards God. Scripture teaches that, "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.” (Rom. 3:10-11). Instead of using his intellect and reason in submission to God, man uses them in rebellion against God.
ALL ARE WITHOUT EXCUSE
Because all men willfully suppress their knowledge of God, they will be held responsible. Therefore, Scripture teaches that all are “without excuse.” This only makes sense if we have a personal knowledge of God. It doesn’t make sense to be held responsible to some entity you don’t know. In those cases, you plead ignorance (e.g. “I didn’t know that the speed limit was 55 mph”). But no one will be able to plead ignorance on the day of judgment.
How does this apply to apologetics?
Man has an innate sense of who God is, yet he chooses to suppress it. But, it can never be suppressed completely. It’s like holding down 3 beach balls under water with only two hands. You can push one or two down, but you can’t get all of them. One task in apologetics is to find out where someone has suppressed that knowledge of God and where he has not been able to suppress knowledge. This means that everyone who rejects God will be living inconsistently at some level.
Inconsistencies in life are seen everywhere. For instance, an animal rights activist who wears leather shoes lives inconsistently. One task in apologetics is to help someone see how their suppression of God leads to inconsistency. Dr. Edgar at Westminster calls this “Disclosure”
DISCLOSURE
Our two hypothetical characters are back. Mr. Believer is now meeting again with Mr. Skeptic. Mr. Skeptic doesn’t believe in God and believes that everything is left up to chance. Rather than being created by God, humans are the product of random mutations that take place in evolution. But Mr. Skeptic also has a sense of justice, what is right and wrong. He believes that this sense of justice is found in every human being. He knows it’s wrong to lie, steal, and kill. He also knows that since he’s only human, he hasn’t followed this perfectly.
After reading how Van Til applied Scripture in apologetics, Mr. Believer uses a different approach. He doesn’t appeal to Mr. Skeptic’s reason because he knows that his intellect will do its best to suppress knowledge of God (see “If you Start with Man, you End with Man”). Mr. Believer tries to disclose Mr. Skeptic’s inconsistency in his beliefs and then appeals to Mr. Skeptic’s innate knowledge of God.
Mr. Believer says, “If everything is left up to chance, then who is to say what is right or wrong? If we are just a bunch of highly-evolved molecules, who can say it’s wrong for someone to kill you, Mr. Skeptic, and take all your money? Evolution teaches survival of the fittest, right?”
Mr. Skeptic says, “I know it’s wrong to steal and kill, but I’ve never thought about it that way before”.
After disclosing this inconsistency, Mr. Believer can ask Mr. Skeptic to consider the Christian faith, which is the only way someone can truly live consistently. Dr. Edgar calls this step “Homecoming”:
HOMECOMING
Mr. Believer continues, “Consider where you get your sense of justice. At its very core, chance can’t produce morals. You have a sense of justice because you are a creature made in God’s image. You have knowledge of who God is. Therefore, you know that God is the ultimate source of justice and a day of judgment is coming. You will be held accountable for you sins just like everyone else, even if you don’t believe that will happen. Ray Comfort uses the following illustration: ‘If you step out onto the freeway and say, ‘I don’t believe in trucks’, your belief will not change reality.’”
Mr. Believer then pleads with Mr. Skeptic to get right with God by sharing the gospel (see “Contending for the Faith”). In a nutshell, Mr. Believer lovingly tells Mr. Skeptic: “Give up your sin and give up living for yourself. Give up any hope of earning God’s favor because you have nothing good to offer God. Throw yourself before your Creator and Judge and plead for his mercy. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved”.
This is a simplistic example, but hopefully it shows how it can be applied. Each person is different. Yet, before the gospel can make sense, each person must be gently and humbly reminded that God is Creator and Judge (something they already know).
Assuming that Scripture reveals the crucified and risen Savior as the only hope for mankind (see “When Soliders Come in the Night”), we must know what the Scriptures teach about people. The Bible teaches us that all men know God. Like a son who has an indivisible bond to his father, we are creatures who have an indivisible bond to our Creator. We cannot escape it. But since man is in rebellion against God, he uses every bit of his intellect to suppress this knowledge.
The following passage is one of the most critical ones on apologetic method:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20).
In apologetics, we must start with the assumption that man knows God, though he tries to suppress this knowledge.
What does it mean that all men know God?
ALL HAVE PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
This is not just some vague concept that “a higher power must exist”. It is personal knowledge of the one true God. God makes His eternal power and divine nature clearly seen through everything He has created. God has pre-programmed each of us with clear and convincing knowledge of the following:
- God is our Creator – we know that we are creatures made to worship the Creator
- God is our Lawgiver – we know what is right and wrong
- God is our Judge – we know that there will be a day of judgment where good will triumph over evil.
ALL TRY TO SUPPRESS KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
After the fall of mankind (in Genesis 3), man runs away from God rather than towards God. Scripture teaches that, "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.” (Rom. 3:10-11). Instead of using his intellect and reason in submission to God, man uses them in rebellion against God.
ALL ARE WITHOUT EXCUSE
Because all men willfully suppress their knowledge of God, they will be held responsible. Therefore, Scripture teaches that all are “without excuse.” This only makes sense if we have a personal knowledge of God. It doesn’t make sense to be held responsible to some entity you don’t know. In those cases, you plead ignorance (e.g. “I didn’t know that the speed limit was 55 mph”). But no one will be able to plead ignorance on the day of judgment.
How does this apply to apologetics?
Man has an innate sense of who God is, yet he chooses to suppress it. But, it can never be suppressed completely. It’s like holding down 3 beach balls under water with only two hands. You can push one or two down, but you can’t get all of them. One task in apologetics is to find out where someone has suppressed that knowledge of God and where he has not been able to suppress knowledge. This means that everyone who rejects God will be living inconsistently at some level.
Inconsistencies in life are seen everywhere. For instance, an animal rights activist who wears leather shoes lives inconsistently. One task in apologetics is to help someone see how their suppression of God leads to inconsistency. Dr. Edgar at Westminster calls this “Disclosure”
DISCLOSURE
Our two hypothetical characters are back. Mr. Believer is now meeting again with Mr. Skeptic. Mr. Skeptic doesn’t believe in God and believes that everything is left up to chance. Rather than being created by God, humans are the product of random mutations that take place in evolution. But Mr. Skeptic also has a sense of justice, what is right and wrong. He believes that this sense of justice is found in every human being. He knows it’s wrong to lie, steal, and kill. He also knows that since he’s only human, he hasn’t followed this perfectly.
After reading how Van Til applied Scripture in apologetics, Mr. Believer uses a different approach. He doesn’t appeal to Mr. Skeptic’s reason because he knows that his intellect will do its best to suppress knowledge of God (see “If you Start with Man, you End with Man”). Mr. Believer tries to disclose Mr. Skeptic’s inconsistency in his beliefs and then appeals to Mr. Skeptic’s innate knowledge of God.
Mr. Believer says, “If everything is left up to chance, then who is to say what is right or wrong? If we are just a bunch of highly-evolved molecules, who can say it’s wrong for someone to kill you, Mr. Skeptic, and take all your money? Evolution teaches survival of the fittest, right?”
Mr. Skeptic says, “I know it’s wrong to steal and kill, but I’ve never thought about it that way before”.
After disclosing this inconsistency, Mr. Believer can ask Mr. Skeptic to consider the Christian faith, which is the only way someone can truly live consistently. Dr. Edgar calls this step “Homecoming”:
HOMECOMING
Mr. Believer continues, “Consider where you get your sense of justice. At its very core, chance can’t produce morals. You have a sense of justice because you are a creature made in God’s image. You have knowledge of who God is. Therefore, you know that God is the ultimate source of justice and a day of judgment is coming. You will be held accountable for you sins just like everyone else, even if you don’t believe that will happen. Ray Comfort uses the following illustration: ‘If you step out onto the freeway and say, ‘I don’t believe in trucks’, your belief will not change reality.’”
Mr. Believer then pleads with Mr. Skeptic to get right with God by sharing the gospel (see “Contending for the Faith”). In a nutshell, Mr. Believer lovingly tells Mr. Skeptic: “Give up your sin and give up living for yourself. Give up any hope of earning God’s favor because you have nothing good to offer God. Throw yourself before your Creator and Judge and plead for his mercy. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved”.
This is a simplistic example, but hopefully it shows how it can be applied. Each person is different. Yet, before the gospel can make sense, each person must be gently and humbly reminded that God is Creator and Judge (something they already know).
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
We must start with God to end with God (Apologetics part 4)
In my last post, a hypothetical person (Mr. Believer) tries to reason with another hypothetical person (Mr. Skeptic). He tried to use human logic to prove God's existence, but human logic was turned against him.
Mr. Believer starts reading Van Til and is encouraged that even though he is not as smart as Richard Dawkins, He has something more powerful than human reason. God Himself has revealed His truth. Van Til teaches him that there are only two options: we start with man or we start with God.
STARTING WITH MAN
If you start with human logic, the best you can get is some “god” made up by the human mind. This is idolatry and not the God of the Bible. In the skeptical mind, god is rejected.
The Trinity is an example. Christians believe that God is 3 persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All three 3 persons are fully God. What does the unbeliever logically conclude? The answer is that Christians believe in 3 Gods. But, Scripture teaches that there is only One God. If human logic is in the final judge of what is true, then the Trinity must be rejected. Thomas Jefferson said, “Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra…” (Dawkins, 34)
STARTING WITH GOD
If human logic cannot lead us to God, the right starting point must be the Bible. If God is infinite and beyond our complete understanding, then we only know Him if He reveals Himself to us. Going on human logic is like 5 blind men feeling an elephant and coming up with 5 different conclusions on what it is. One thinks that the elephant is a tail, or a trunk, etc…
In Scripture, God speaks to us with complete truthfulness and authority. We can trust His revelation, even if our finite minds can’t completely understand certain things (e.g. the Trinity, the creation of the universe out of nothing, etc…)
GOD DOES NOT ANSWER TO MAN
Mr. Believer sees that human beings choose to follow one authority over another. The two options are God or man. For the Christian, the Scriptures are the final authority. God’s Word doesn’t answer to human logic, reason, or opinion.
Why must this be the case? Why does Scripture have to be accepted on its own authority?
The other option is to prove the Bible with our limited knowledge. For example, let’s say that I have 5 things that prove that the Bible is true:
These seem to work well. But what happens if archeologists find some counter evidence that destroys two of these? Now, we’re down to 3…does that mean that the Bible is now 60% as reliable as before? Archeology could find some other evidence to bring our total back up to 5, but, the next day, some of it could be rejected. I think you get the point. Human understanding is limited, error-prone, and is corrupted by sin. History and science are constantly being updated.
The best case is that the skeptic accepts all of these pieces of evidence. That doesn’t necessarily lead to believing in the Bible.
Van Til says that even if you prove the existence of the virgin birth, the raising of Lazarus, or the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that cannot convince skeptics that God exists. The skeptic’s reply is, “So what? You’ve shown us that strange and awesome things can happen in this world. Just because we don’t have an explanation for it doesn’t mean you can say a miracle has happened. That cannot be proven until you have exhausted all other possible explanations” (this is the argument presented by Dr. William Adams in God at Work, New York, 1933).
Van Til also says that even if you prove that God has made you into a different person, that cannot convince skeptics that God exists. Your religious experience could be from God, from drugs, or even something else. The skeptic’s reply is, “I can’t argue with your experience, just like I can’t argue with you if you feel hot or cold. If you are cold, the reason could be that you left your window open. If you say that Jesus has changed your life, you have given me a reason that your life is different. The reason could be right or it could be wrong” (argument presented by James Leuba in God or Man, New York, 1933).
So even in the best case, human understanding cannot be our final authority. God expects us to accept His authority and not our own. He is the Creator and we are the creation.
As we look through the Bible, we see countless reminders of this. "Thus says the Lord" is used 400 times in the Bible. Jesus says, "Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35).
Peter says that God's Word is more reliable and certain than what can be seen with the eyes and heard with the ears. Peter, James, and John had the opportunity to see the glory of Jesus Christ at the Transfiguration. Peter claims that God's Word is more reliable than what he saw and heard. The reason is that Scripture comes from God, not man.
"And we have something more sure [than what we can see and hear], the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." (2 Pet 1:19-21)
In future posts, I’ll go into detail on what the Bible actually says about unbelief and how to reason with skeptics.
Mr. Believer starts reading Van Til and is encouraged that even though he is not as smart as Richard Dawkins, He has something more powerful than human reason. God Himself has revealed His truth. Van Til teaches him that there are only two options: we start with man or we start with God.
STARTING WITH MAN
If you start with human logic, the best you can get is some “god” made up by the human mind. This is idolatry and not the God of the Bible. In the skeptical mind, god is rejected.
The Trinity is an example. Christians believe that God is 3 persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All three 3 persons are fully God. What does the unbeliever logically conclude? The answer is that Christians believe in 3 Gods. But, Scripture teaches that there is only One God. If human logic is in the final judge of what is true, then the Trinity must be rejected. Thomas Jefferson said, “Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra…” (Dawkins, 34)
STARTING WITH GOD
If human logic cannot lead us to God, the right starting point must be the Bible. If God is infinite and beyond our complete understanding, then we only know Him if He reveals Himself to us. Going on human logic is like 5 blind men feeling an elephant and coming up with 5 different conclusions on what it is. One thinks that the elephant is a tail, or a trunk, etc…
In Scripture, God speaks to us with complete truthfulness and authority. We can trust His revelation, even if our finite minds can’t completely understand certain things (e.g. the Trinity, the creation of the universe out of nothing, etc…)
GOD DOES NOT ANSWER TO MAN
Mr. Believer sees that human beings choose to follow one authority over another. The two options are God or man. For the Christian, the Scriptures are the final authority. God’s Word doesn’t answer to human logic, reason, or opinion.
Why must this be the case? Why does Scripture have to be accepted on its own authority?
The other option is to prove the Bible with our limited knowledge. For example, let’s say that I have 5 things that prove that the Bible is true:
- The Virgin Birth of Christ.
- The Raising of Lazarus from the dead.
- The Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
- The Testimony of the Disciples (11 out of the 12 died as martyrs for their beliefs).
- My own spiritual experience (Jesus has changed my life).
These seem to work well. But what happens if archeologists find some counter evidence that destroys two of these? Now, we’re down to 3…does that mean that the Bible is now 60% as reliable as before? Archeology could find some other evidence to bring our total back up to 5, but, the next day, some of it could be rejected. I think you get the point. Human understanding is limited, error-prone, and is corrupted by sin. History and science are constantly being updated.
The best case is that the skeptic accepts all of these pieces of evidence. That doesn’t necessarily lead to believing in the Bible.
Van Til says that even if you prove the existence of the virgin birth, the raising of Lazarus, or the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that cannot convince skeptics that God exists. The skeptic’s reply is, “So what? You’ve shown us that strange and awesome things can happen in this world. Just because we don’t have an explanation for it doesn’t mean you can say a miracle has happened. That cannot be proven until you have exhausted all other possible explanations” (this is the argument presented by Dr. William Adams in God at Work, New York, 1933).
Van Til also says that even if you prove that God has made you into a different person, that cannot convince skeptics that God exists. Your religious experience could be from God, from drugs, or even something else. The skeptic’s reply is, “I can’t argue with your experience, just like I can’t argue with you if you feel hot or cold. If you are cold, the reason could be that you left your window open. If you say that Jesus has changed your life, you have given me a reason that your life is different. The reason could be right or it could be wrong” (argument presented by James Leuba in God or Man, New York, 1933).
So even in the best case, human understanding cannot be our final authority. God expects us to accept His authority and not our own. He is the Creator and we are the creation.
As we look through the Bible, we see countless reminders of this. "Thus says the Lord" is used 400 times in the Bible. Jesus says, "Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35).
Peter says that God's Word is more reliable and certain than what can be seen with the eyes and heard with the ears. Peter, James, and John had the opportunity to see the glory of Jesus Christ at the Transfiguration. Peter claims that God's Word is more reliable than what he saw and heard. The reason is that Scripture comes from God, not man.
"And we have something more sure [than what we can see and hear], the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." (2 Pet 1:19-21)
In future posts, I’ll go into detail on what the Bible actually says about unbelief and how to reason with skeptics.
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