Rethinking some stuff

So last night I went to a youth rally with Josh McDowell and Superchick in Rapid City. I'm usually hesitant by these things 'cause I know that I'll probably get disappointed. I really need to stop being so critical. I guess that the major problem that I observed that I observed wasn't really with Josh or Superchick per se; but rather, I'm just getting frustrated at the little "Christian" pop culture that we've created.

I grew up in a pretty strict Baptist church that was always condemning secular pop culture as evil and "worldly." This church also taught that "Christian" forms of pop culture were just as evil. So when I was a teenager, I couldn't listen to rock music of any kind--Christian or secular. As I grew older, I started noticing a tendency in our fundamentalist background of isolating ourselves from the world. We talked alot about separation and holiness. We were so separated that we were completely cut off from lost people.

So I started getting really interested in Christian rock and how these guys were reaching folks for Jesus. Yet the more I started listening to pop Christian music, the more I noticed how trite it all seems. A few months ago, I watched Saved! Unfortunately, for the most part, the movie nailed our little Christian sub-culture that we're created. We are often that trite and that cliche. In fact, it was hard to tell the difference between the satirical mc on that movie and the mc from Josh McDowell's deal last night. And just like my fundamentalist Baptist church, we have isolated ourselves from the world.

I never saw that one coming. By focusing on making little Christian pop substitutes for everything in mainstream culture, we cut ourselves off from influencing society and culture at large. We need Christians that start working out our faith in every aspect of culture. Redeeming culture. When guys like Bach and Handel wrote music in their day, they were the very best at what they did. And they didn't worry about just writing music that would be played in church. Sure they wrote music that ended up in the hymnal, but they focused on doing everything to God's glory. Someone can write a love song to the glory of God and at the same time it should be a good enough song for the majority of our culture to enjoy it. It's good to see some Christians starting to do this. I have in mind folks like U2, Switchfoot or even POD. We won't redeem culture by creating our own little pop sub-culture. We need to think bigger than that.

Here's Shelley again.

They did "Antigone" back in February. She just received her pictures back. This last week she just finished acting in Arsenic and Old Lace. Both were great plays.

Shelley in her CSC play "Antigone" 

Romans 9: Part Three

A Second Look
Had indeed God's Word failed? Does God's declared purpose of blessing Israel still stand? According to the Jewish objector, Paul's gospel nullifies the Word of God concerning His promises to Israel. If the majority of Jews had rejected Christ, then God's promises were impotent. Thus, Paul's message must be wrong. So how did Paul respond to this objection?

"But it is not as though the word of God has failed for they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants" (9:6-7a).

Paul's answer is clear. Not every Israelite is entitled to the promises spelled out in the Word of God. Not all of ethnic Israel is a part of spiritual Israel. The privileges listed in v. 4-5 were not for every Jew. In fact, God's promise to bless Israel was never meant to include every Jewish person. In other words, Paul is saying that having Jewish blood doesn't guarantee you that God is going to bless you. Of course, this idea didn't fit very well with 1st century Judaism. Alan Johnson writes, "Most Jews believed and taught that all circumcised Israelites who have died are in paradise and that there are no circumcised Israelites in gehenna" (174).

The Proof Is in the Pudding
Then Paul gives two illustrations (or types) to demonstrate that not every physical descendant of Abraham is a recipient of God's promises. Before we examine these illustrations, we should first make some preliminary observations about their role in his argument.

It's important for us to remember that most illustrations are never perfect. What I mean is, that they don't always have a direct correspondence. For instance, CS Lewis' work The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was intended to be an illustration of the New Testament story of redemption. However, while Lewis' story has many similarities to the gospel, there are many other areas that do not correspond with the story of Jesus. After all, Jesus isn't a lion. Satan isn't a witch. And Jesus was never tied to a stone. So illustrations are never intended to have complete correspondence to the author's main point. They are only meant to bring clarity to the author's thesis.

I propose that the same is true here. These two illustrations that Paul uses are only intended to build a Biblical precedent to his argument that not every ethnic Jew is entitled to God's promises as expressed in God's Word. This, of course, means that the gospel is true even if the majority of Jews reject Christ. However, while his argument deals with the eternal salvation of the Jews in his lifetime, Paul is not necessarily discussing the salvation of the individuals that he mentions in his illustrations. In his ICC work, Cranfield says concerning v. 12,

"It is important to stress that neither as they occur in Genesis nor as they are used by Paul do these words refer to the eternal destinies either of the two persons or of the individuals members of the nations sprung from them; the reference is rather to the mutual relations of the two nations in history. What is here in question is not eschatological salvation or damnation, but the historical functions of those concerned and their relations to the development of the salvation-history" (479).

We must remember that in the Old Testament, life-after-death was somewhat of an unknown subject. God had not clearly revealed the concept of heaven or hell. Thus, the promises in Genesis from which Paul gets his illustrations deal primarily with physical blessings (land, family, and prosperity). So we shouldn't stretch the illustrations too far in trying to find a direct correspondence between Paul's illustrations and his thesis.

Paul did not intend to prove from these illustrations that God had damned Ishmael or Esau. With the possible exception of Heb. 12, the Biblical record is quite silent concerning the eternal futures of either of these individuals. This is not the focus. Paul is only illustrating that in the past not every physical descendant of Abraham was selected to be a recipient of God's temporal blessings. This means that now God is not obligated to give eternal blessings to every Jew regardless of their rejection of Christ.

Both of these examples come from the families of the early patriarchs. Let's examine one by one.

"Nor are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants, but: through Isaac your descendants will be named. That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. For this is the word of promise: At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son" (9:7-9).

Abraham had several children from several different wives: Sarah, Hagar, and Keturah. And yet God only considered one of these children to be the son of promise, Isaac. Not Ishmael, not any of Keturah's sons. Only Isaac. Now this is important to Paul's argument. Here is an example from the Old Testament that shows that someone can be a physical descendant of Abraham, and yet not entitled to the privileges that God promised Abraham.

Hold On a Second...
But now Paul's imaginary opponent has a possible objection. Couldn't that be just because they had different mothers? So Paul brings up a second illustration: Jacob and Esau. Not only did they have the same parents, but they were twins, conceived at the same instant.

"And not only this, but there Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our fatherIsaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, 'The older will serve the younger.' Just as it is written, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated"" (9:10-13).

If we look back at Genesis 25, we would notice that after the initial conception Rebekah began to worry about the fact that the babies were fighting within her womb. So she asked God about what was happening. Then God made an unusual announcement. The older twin would serve the younger. This was contrary to their cultural expections. Normally the elder son held the position of prominence as the firstborn.

Thus the timing of God's announcement is of vital importance. First, it demonstrates that God is not obligated to bless everyone of Abraham's physical descendants. Secondly, it shows us that God's declared purpose of blessing Israel is not dependent upon human works. As we read through Genesis, it becomes pretty evident that both Jacob and Esau were scoundals. God did not chose to bless Jacob because he was a better person than Esau.

Unbelievable

Last night I ran across an amazingly creative marketing scheme. This is too cool to be true. Check this out. It's about saving this rabbit named Toby. I guess that Toby is sort of walking the green mile. PETA is enraged about the whole deal. It's hilarious. I sure hope the poor guy lives.

Can you believe it? That's Nebraska!

Last month we had a CBC youth retreat at Camp Norweska. The camp is just a few miles south of Chadron here. We had a great time. The snow was really a blessing. But by the end of the weekend, Shelley and I were completely exhausted. And Easter was the next day. That morning the hymn "Up from the Grave He Arosed" had new significance to me.

It was a great time to build relationships with students. Dan Williams, our senior pastor, shared with us about making important decisions based on God's Word. We had some great group interaction.

I'm kicking some major Risk butt! 

"Tell me that's not playing cards you have there!" 

Here I'm hard at work. 

Chadron Berean Youth Retreat 

Movies

So other night some H.S. senior guys and I watched this movie called What the Bleep Do We Know!? Kalen has been telling me about it for some time. It's part story, part documentary, part religion. It supposedly based on quantum physics, but Kalen and Lane, who already know far more about that sort of stuff than I'll ever know, told me that most of the "scientists" on this film aren't really even authorities on the subject.

The main idea of the film was that we really don't know anything and we can't be certain about anything. You know, it's basically David Hume. Since life doesn't have any grand purpose, life is what you make of it. Create your reality. Be your boss.

The real funny part came when the "spiritual advisor" JZ Knight was bestowing wisdom. Knight claims that she's channeling some ancient warrior by the name of Ramtha. Knight tells us that "god" is infinity and "god" is so great and wonderful that us tiny little beings could never sin against "god." Why would "god" care about our moral actions? After all, we're just the combination of random quantum particles in a random infinity. She reached her conclusion by saying that each of us is our own god. "You're a god. I'm a god." Hurrah, we can all be happy. There's no such thing as right or wrong. There's no real God to hold us accountable.

It's all so foolish. As Psalms 14:1 says, "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no god.'"

Jars of Clay

Ever since I was fifteen, I've been a huge fan of Jars of Clay. However, within the last ten years I've never had the chance to hear them. But I just found out this morning that they're scheduled to play at Hills Alive in Rapid City this summer. This so rocks.

Romans 9: Part Two

Paul's Teaching Methods
Ok! Back to our study. The longer that I'm a youth pastor the more I have come to expect that certain objections to come up when we discuss certain subjects in youth group. I can almost predict their questions. This helps me to have a better handle on the class. And as we study Paul's writings, we should notice that he'd had a great deal of experience facing objections and questions about the gospel. At this point in his life, Paul had spent up to twentysome years proclaiming the message of Jesus Christ. Throughout the book of Romans, we can observe this dialogue between Paul and an imaginary objector. Paul will present a point and then he anticipates a possible objection from his imaginary opponent. Then Paul gives his argument to answer that particular objection or question.

The Map
Throughout Romans 9, we can see this technique. By pointing out these objections, we can map out Paul's argument to see where it's heading.

• But it is not as though the word of God has failed (v. 6).
• What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? (v. 14).
• You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" (v. 19).
• What shall we say then? (v. 30).
• Why? (v. 31).

So as we follow these questions, we can have a guided tour of where Paul is going.

The Word =The Purpose
I want to bring an important observation to our attention from the get-go: the connection between v. 6 and v. 11b-12a. In v. 6, Paul says, "It is not as though the word of God has failed." And in v. 11b-12a, Paul writes, "In order that God's purpose according to his choice might stand not because of works, but because of Him who calls." Here we must realize that in v. 6 Paul says negatively what he says positively in v. 11. As John Piper says in The Justification of God, "The remaining of God's electing purpose is the opposite of the falling of God's word (49).

In other words, Paul uses these terms in ch. 9 interchangeably. God's word is identical to His electing purpose, since God's word is the verbal expression of His purposes. Now what is this purpose? The answer is the privileges promised to Israel that are listed in v. 4-5.

• The adoption as sons
  
• the glory
  
• the covenants
• the giving of the Law
• temple service
• the promises
• the fathers
• the lineage of Christ
  

The problem is that these privileges seem to guarantee the salvation of Israel. And yet, at the present time, the majority of Jews continue to reject Christ. Has God's Word failed? Does God's purpose in electing Israel still stand? That is the question of Romans 9.

Dunk it, Chris!  

Romans 9

In the Beginning....
Recently I've been doing some thinking about Reformed theology since I've been reading a blog called Semper Reformanda. The very heart of Calvinism is built around a particular interpretation of Romans 9. This interpretation holds that God unconditionally elects some people to go to heaven and unconditionally determines that some people go to hell. Personally, I find this theology very troubling.

However, I also know that my personal feelings don't determine the meaning of God's Word; rather, I should try to understand what the author intended with his words. So I've decided to spend some time studying Romans 9 to see if this interpretation is exegetically justified. I should start by saying that I know that any student of the Bible brings into the text baggage: personal feelings, certain theological convictions, etc. However, our goal as faithful Bible students is to set aside our baggage and hear the author out. Admittedly, this is difficult; nevertheless, it should be our goal.

The Problem: Has God's Word Failed?
When starting our study of Romans 9, we must consider how this pericope fits into Paul's argument as a whole. Paul writes,

"I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen" (NASB).

This paragraph brings up the problem that Paul will discuss in the next three chapters of Romans. Throughout his ministry, Paul often faced the most intense opposition from his own people. By and large, the Jewish people had rejected Christ. Instead of embracing the gospel of grace, the majority of the Jews continued to rely on works-based religion for salvation. Salvation was to be merited by circumcision and observing the Law. And for the most part, the Jews stood as enemies of the gospel of Christ (11:28). So according to Paul's gospel, the majority of Jewish people were under the anathema of God.

So ultimately, God's reliability was at stake. As Doug Moo writes in his NICNT volume, "Paul could not jettison these promises, for to do so would be to jettison the gospel" (550). If Paul's gospel nullified God's promises to Israel, then, to the Jewish objector, Paul's message was obviously not from God. After all, the O.T. promises seemed to guarantee the salvation of Israel. If God couldn't be trusted to keep His promises to the Jewish people, then how could others trust Him to keep the great promises found in the gospel? Remember that this section comes right off the heels of Romans 8 where Paul proclaims that nothing can separate God's people from His love. And yet the Jews might object that if the gospel was true, then, in fact, the majority of Jews, "God's chosen people," had been separated from God's love.

This is the objection that Paul spends the three next chapters answering. And in the coming weeks, we'll continue to look at his argument.

I Suck at Tennis

So a couple of summers ago when I first moved to Chadron, I picked up tennis. There were several guys in our church that played and at the time it seemed like a great way to meet friends and get some execise. Now that I've played for a couple of years I am getting better, but not as fast as I want to. Today my friend Kelly worked me. He beat me 6 games to none. It was horrible. After all, he is really good! Hopefully I'll get better. I have been winning a few games against some of the other guys. But sometimes, I'm just impatient. I want to improve and I want to improve now! Oh well.

Painting

So recently I've been planning on painting our house. We've been renting from a guy here in town. I'm hoping that he's willing to trade some rent money for the paint job. It would be a pretty cool part time job 'cause I kinda enjoy the manual labor. It will be a great temporary change of pace from my life as a youth pastor. Shelley is planning on helping and I might get some more help from some of our students.

Pastors' Retreat

This week I went to Camp Maranatha in North Platte, NE for a Berean Fellowship Pastors Conference. It was really cool and a great time to hang out with other youth pastors and get ideas. I also got the chance to hang out with my senior pastor Dan Williams. That was fun.

One of the most encouraging parts of the conference was hearing about what God's doing in India through the Berean fellowship. Over the last 4 years or so, the Berean fellowship has been sending pastors to India to train former Campus Crusade workers. These Indian nationals work at showing the Jesus film all through India. Now the fellowship is providing Biblical training to these nationals in order that they can plant Berean churches all over India. It's amazing that now there are more Berean pastors in India than in the States.

Atheism?

The other night I was invited to a bbq by my atheist professor friend named Dean here at Chadron State. During the dinner, I came to a quite funny realization: have you ever notice how much atheists like to talk about God? Dean was joking around about the vulgarities in a certain South Park epistle. I guess that this epistle was poking fun at Christian rock music in a very sacrilegious manner. Then Dean shocked me by saying, "Now I'm an atheist, but I know that those guys are so going to hell." He cracked us all up. But in the midst of the laughter, I had a sneaking suspicion that deep down even Dean knows that there's God.

Check out some of these quotes that I found in this book by Paul Copan that I've been reading. It's called "That's Just Your Interpretation."

Aldous Huxley writes, "I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning, consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption....For myself, as, no doubt, for most contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom."

Then Thomas Nagel says, "I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear [of religion] myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want want the universe to be like that."

And physicist Freeman Dyson writes, "As we look out into the Universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together for our benefit, it almost seems as if the Universe must in some sense have known that we were coming."

The Theology of Luis de Molina

Molinism is a view named after the counter-Reformation scholar Luis de Molina. Molina's views have recently been advocated by the likes of Christian philosophers William Lane Craig, JP Moreland, and Alvin Plantinga. Molinism is an attempt to reconcile God's sovereignty with human responsibility.

Here's a real brief explanation of Molinism. If you want a better one, check out Paul Copan's "That's Just Your Interpretation." Molinism is primarily a view of God's omniscience and providence.

The Molinist believes that God knows not only what will happen in this world, but would have happened in other possible worlds. So before God created this world, He knew all of the possible worlds that He could have ordained. He knew of all the possible persons that He could have created. (Just think about all the genetic combinations between just your parents and this is mind-staggering). Besides that He knew what every single person would freely do in any single situation. This is called a counterfactual. We talk like this all the time. For instance, if it is a nice warm day tomorrow, I will decide to play tennis. A couple Biblical examples of counterfactuals can be found in Matt. 11:20-24 and 1 Sam. 23:1:12.

Then the Molinist postulates that God degreed which world He would create. Therefore, He ordained which circumstances would come into our lives and He knows how we will freely response to these circumstances.

Why did God choose to create this world? Well, ultimately this world gave God the most glory and the most creatures that would freely and fully enjoy His glory.

Just thinking

How do we know what we know? What is foundation of our knowledge? Well, most folks will answer this question in one of two different ways. First, someone might say that the basis of knowledge is sense experience. The things that I can taste, touch, feel, see, or hear form the framework of my knowledge. This is probably the most popular answer today. This position is called empiricism. The study of science operates on this assumption.

The second alternative that is frequently offered is that all knowledge is based on reason and logic. This theory is called rationalism. Math is a field that relies on this position. Rationalism teaches us deductive truths such as "All bachelors are unmarried" or "Triangles have three sides." In their most simple form, these statements are just equations. A equals B. B does not equal C. Therefore, A does not equal C. The problem is that rationalism can't tell us anything new about the world. Logic can't tell you that the grass in Nebraska is green in April or that some birds fly South in the winter. This sort of thing must be learned inductively by empirical observation.

Today the most common theory of knowledge called foundationalism. Foundationalism is a combination of these two theories. In the other words, all knowledge comes from sense experience or logic. The problem here is that this statement in of itself can't be known by logic or by sense experience. It's self-refuting. So this seems to lead us to radical skepticism of David Hume. How can we know that we actually know anything? We can't, if we adopt foundationalism. Therefore, we must mistrust knowledge of any kind.

But the problem is that we actually do know stuff, sometimes by observation, sometimes by reason, and sometimes by mere intuition. Maybe the answer is we admit that we know stuff, but we don't necessarily know how we know it. For instance, I know that torturing babies is morally wrong. I know that there is a God. I know that human life is of the upmost importance. And yet, I don't always know how I know that. Nevertheless, that does not diminish the fact that I still know these things.