ANNOUNCING ....

A NEW SERIES

The blog series on spiritual advice for new Christians has finished, and has now re-edited and made available as an E-book on Amazon under the title "Colostrum : spirituals antibodies for new Christians".

I am now starting a new series for helping believers grow in their faith.

I found personal testimony of what God had done in people' s lives helped me. So now it is my turn to tell some of the things God has done in my life.

Coming soon: "My Adventures With God"

Ah, but just whose interpretation of the Bible do we believe?

(PS I have just returned from holidays. Although I said I would look at the Ten Commandments next, while I was away I worked out that there are a few more preliminaries I need to work through first!  So here goes...)

This is a serious problem. To re-phrase an old joke: “ask two Biblical scholars what a text means and you will have three opinions!” Matters get even worse with platform speakers and church leaders whose main claim to fame is having strong opinions. Even ordinary people generally have a pre-formed notion of what they would like the Bible to say. All these can and regularly do make the Bible out to say just about whatever they want!

Making the facts say anything we want is not confined to Bible study. For those who entered debating competitions at school you will remember that after the subject was given one often tossed a coin to decide which team would have to try to prove the statement true. The other team then had to prove the statement wrong. It is surprising how many convincing arguments you can invent in favour of a proposition even when you actually believe it is wrong.

All this has led many people to throw their hands up in despair and in effect say “It is simply impossible to be certain about anything”. Of recent decades it has seemed to me that churches have been swamped by clergy who at least in their preaching have said that there are no certainties, even about God. (Of course it is often these same people who have the greatest degree of certainty that their own group's views – from theology to politics – are right.)

On the other hand I have up to this point been making a case that God is our ultimate moral reference, and the Bible his official exposition of his character and purposes. So although I can see the problems I am not advocating that we should give up attempting to use the Bible.

To put it another way: on one hand I am against the idea that every moral problem can be answered and all argument settled by simply quoting a few Bible verses. On the other hand I am against the opposite notion that nothing can be settled from the Bible.

Let me give an example of a possible way forward by looking at how we humans have dealt with a similar conundrum.

Take the criminal law courts. Their role is to convict (and subsequently punish) the guilty and to acquit the innocent. Successfully carrying out this role is close to essential for their society to function. But courts face two problems in reaching a verdict. Getting at the “Truth”; and the effects of making a mistake.

The Truth is out there. Suppose Joe Blow is accused of killing Fred Nerks, either he did kill him or he did not. That is history, it happened how it happened. But this Truth is not generally accessible – the court can't go back in a time machine and watch everything that really happened. They have to weigh the evidence that the two opposing counsel have presented and make their decision.

The other problem the court faces is effects of making a mistake in what they think that truth is.

Punishing wrongdoers is, among other things, a practical necessary in order to maintain any human society, but the society will survive if occasionally wrongdoers escape. However punishing an innocent person is a thing evil in itself so it aught always to be avoided.

How do courts deal with these problems

If courts took the view: “the prosecutor says he did it, the defence says he didn't. We can't go back in time and see for ourselves so we can't decide” our criminal justice system would collapse, and society with it.

The social necessity for punishing wrongdoers is so pressing that we do not throw up our hands and say “It is simply impossible to be certain about anything”. We aim for the best 'certainty' that is in practical terms possible, and work with that. We formulate rules of such things as procedural fairness and of evidence because these have been found to reduce the incidence of wrong verdicts. We allow for the possibility of error by such things as allowing appeals and by giving the accused person “the benefit of the doubt”.

There are several points of similarity between the courts and moral philosophy where the courts point the way forward.

A justice system is essential to human society, so courts make ways to function despite all difficulties. Moral rules just are a fact in any human society. So we need to find ways to make good ones, despite all difficuties.

For moralists there is a truth out there: God's moral character is what it is and in relation to a moral question it does provide the standard by which to judge. But like the courts, deciding what that truth is in relation to a particular question may be hotly contested. We need to accept the idea of having to evaluate the evidence, possibly from several opposing or at least conflicting sources and make our best decision. Like the courts: we do may not have certainty, we just have “beyond reasonable doubt”.

In criminal justice, false positive results are more damaging than false negatives. This may apply t moralists. There is a famous dictum by one Judge Blackwell “I would rather acquit ten guilty murderers than hang one innocent person”. History has many tragic examples of religious zealots causing suffering by their rules. Biblical moralists need to consider that they may err, and make sure that if so, they err on the least deleterious side!

Courts have found it necessary to introduce rules as to how they operate. For instance gossip and rumours are frequently inaccurate, so there is a rule against hearsay evidence being admitted. One side of an argument often sounds right until the other side is heard: so accused persons have to be given a chance to answer the allegations against them. Biblical moralists will also need rules of interpretation to reduce the likelihood of making mistakes. I the next post I hope to say something about this.

1 Timothy 2 : Sept/22/2013

1 Timothy 2. Women in authority over men, flaunting one's wealth at church and God wanting everyone to be saved made this sermon quite exciting to prepare. I think I have produced a counter proof to the view that the prohibition on women teaching and having authority is a blanket rule for all time on earth.

Having been trained at Moore Theological college in Sydney, I have heard the 'proof text' 1 Timothy 2:11-15 expounded by theologians who did believe it was a blanket rule for all time in this creation. The lynch-pin of their argument was that Paul did not merely give a command, but drew it from the creation narrative in Genesis, which made it universal in its application. I think I have managed to prove that this thesis cannot be correct. That then leaves the field open for the other main position held by scholars who take the Bible as authoritative, namely that Paul was addressing a particular problem in the church in Ephesus, so the command is not universal.

Ten Commandments No "Use By" Date

 The Ten Commandments, as I said last time, are more of the nature of treaty obligations than law code. They are also of the form of treaty where the Great King has shown signal kindness to the prospective vassal and puts the treaty obligations more in the light of something the vassal should do in response to the kindness shown rather than fear of punishment. Having said this of course for vassal kings, performing their treaty obligations out of love was the “easy option”. If that did not work human overlords would not be slow to resort to force!

So this tells us something about God. It's very personal. God has a relationship with say ancient Israel as his chosen agent. He has a very personal relationship with the 'Kingdom of Heaven' inaugurated by Jesus. He has a personal relationship with the individual people who are members of it. The terms of the treaty (as I am describing the Ten Commandments) set out our obligations towards him, and how he requires us to act towards each other. So if a person wants to be in a 'treaty relationship' with God, they must subscribe to and obey the Ten Commandments. What if a society – even a 'multi-faith' one where not all members are in relationship with the real God – wants to enjoy the general benefits of God's overlord-ship. Going back to the vassal kingdom analogy, the prohibition against one king going to war against another and so forth meant that they all enjoyed peace and stability. Similarly for societies: if they adopt even just the treaty obligations of how people act towards each other, they will be better off.

My first conclusion is that even in a pluralistic society we should adopt the Commandments which deal with person-to-person interactions.

There is a second thing about the Commandments as treaty obligations rather than law code. Law codes are continually becoming outdated. As situations change old laws become obsolete, and new laws have to be drawn up. If the Bible presented us with a law code, it would have been obsolete millennia ago! (Coveting our neighbour's ox or ass is not much of a problem in the modern world … but coveting his or her car … that can be). But since the Commandments show the basis of a relationship with God and how people need to relate to each other for the common good, they are now timeless principles. Situations can change, technology can change, the world can change but the principles of this treaty obligation can still be carried out.

My second conclusion is that the Commandments have no 'use by' date. The flip-side of this is however that the principles have to be understood well enough that one can flesh them out into law code to meet these new situations and social conditions.

Next Post I will begin to work through how to understand the principle and then how to flesh it out, using the “No Murdering” Commandment and modern situations. That should be fun!

Philemon

Philemon 8/Sept?2013. A beautiful cameo. When the run-away slave of his old friend and convert Philemon meets Paul in prison and becomes a Christian How does Paul bring about a reconciliation. He persuades Onessimus to go back, but that is only one half of the relationship. Philemon is an important man, and the church meets at his house. Can Paul teach him the new Christian way to act and yet let him save face?

Hebrews 13

Hebrews 13 - Sept/1/2013. After the great picture drawn of faith, the letter ends (much like the other New Testament letters) with a call to live the sort of lives God approves of. But maybe that is the point: the proof of our faith is in how we live. And as a congregation of God's people, how we help and encourage each other to live for God is really important.

Advice About Churches

This part is not about heresies but about practical application of what I have covered so far to your local congregation and the group of congregations to which it is linked.

There are some churches that do have serious problems. If you go to one of those you will have to take care not become infected yourself!

Some will be infected with one of the heresies I have discussed. As long as you can keep yourself from absorbing that heresy God might want you to stay part of it because it is otherwise a good church for you to go to for the present: this side of heaven there is no such thing as a perfect church.

Others may in fact be harmful to an extent that you aught to leave.

A classic is the church that was at one time thriving, growing and effective for God. Then somewhere along the line they have taken the wrong road. In any one of a multitude of possible ways they have followed the dictates of sinful human nature instead of obeying Christ.

I have seen cases where people have let their church “brand” has become an idol: their motivation has changed from doing things because they are pleasing to God to doing things so that their church will survive or grow big or become famous.

Another dysfunctional church type is where the minister or “the leadership” (If people talk about “the leadership” of their church treat it as a danger signal!) become control freaks. Remember the quote “In essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty; in all things charity.” Well these churches allow no personal “liberty” and soon “charity” or Christian love is strictly reserved for those who slavishly obey “The Leadership”. Yes! There really are churches like that. They will seem friendly, welcoming, even kind and loving at first – but you will begin to see that this is conditional on your doing, thinking and believing everything you are told. Get out while you can! Your devotion and obedience belongs to God, not to any human – we humans, even the best intentioned of us, are all fallible sinners!

However, assuming the church you start to go to is a normal, ordinary but healthy church my advice is this:

First: be prepared to cut them a bit of slack!

This may sound strange but it is applying what the Bible calls “humility” which is a really important and really good attitude, and it is also being “kind” which is another action the Bible says we should always do.

The people in the church we go to will be “sinners” like us. They are also (mostly) God’s adopted sons and daughters like us. They will still have their annoying sides just as we do. Hopefully they are trying to let God change them day by day into someone that acts like Jesus just as we are.

So we need a tricky balance of being tolerant of things that we just happen to find annoying or that look a bit silly to us on one hand; and of helping each other to recognise and live up the behaviour God wants from his children on the other. It is a tricky balance, but at the start it is better to emphasise the “tolerance” bit.

I have pasted below an extract from C. S. Lewis’s book “Screwtape Letters” about what a new convert is likely to think when they first go to church. This is an “opposite sketch” supposedly written from the devil’s point of view – but Lewis is using this form to try to say some serious things:

  “MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

      I note with grave displeasure that your patient has become a Christian. Do not indulge the hope that you will escape the usual penalties; indeed, in your better moments, I trust you would hardly even wish to do so. In the meantime we must make the best of the situation. There is no need to despair; hundreds of these adult converts have been reclaimed after a I brief sojourn in the Enemy's camp and are now with us. All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still in our favour.

     One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do riot mean the Church as we see her spread but through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes I our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather in oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like "the body of Christ" and the actual faces in the next pew. It matters very little, of course, what kind of people that next pew really contains. You may know one of them to be a great warrior on the Enemy's side. No matter. Your patient, thanks to Our Father below, is a fool. Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous. At his present stage, you see, he has an idea of "Christians" in his mind which he supposes to be spiritual but which, in fact, is largely pictorial. His mind is full of togas and sandals and armour and bare legs and the mere fact that the other people in church wear modern clothes is a real—though of course an unconscious—difficulty to him. Never let it come to the surface; never let him ask what he expected them to look like. Keep everything hazy in his mind now, and you will have all eternity wherein to amuse yourself by producing in him the peculiar kind of clarity which Hell affords.

      Work hard, then, on the disappointment or anticlimax which is certainly coming to the patient during his first few weeks as a churchman. The Enemy allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavour. It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted in the nursery by Stories from the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing. The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His "free" lovers and servants—"sons" is the word He uses, with His inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals. Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to "do it on their own". And there lies our opportunity. But also, remember, there lies our danger. If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt.

      I have been writing hitherto on the assumption that the people in the next pew afford no rational ground for disappointment. Of course if they do—if the patient knows that the woman with the absurd hat is a fanatical bridge-player or the man with squeaky boots a miser and an extortioner—then your task is so much the easier. All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question "If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?" You may ask whether it is possible to keep such an obvious thought from occurring even to a human mind. It is, Wormwood, it is! Handle him properly and it simply won't come into his head. He has not been anything like long enough with the Enemy to have any real humility yet. What he says, even on his knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believes he has run up a very favourable credit-balance in the Enemy's ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these "smug", commonplace neighbours at all. Keep him in that state of mind as long as you can.”

(from “Screwtape Letters”)

The Bible puts it this way in Colossians 3.12

¹² Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.¹³ Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴ And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

The other thing we need to extend to our fellow church members is the principal :

“In essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty; in all things charity”

So forget that you and they are on opposite sides in politics, or support different football teams. Look at Jesus disciples: one was a Zealot the other a Tax Collector. That is: one had been a resistance fighter trying to kill soldiers of the foreign army controlling their country; the other was an active supporter of this “enemy”. They would not have got far if they started talking politics to each other (unless of course each of them had left their previous politics behind once they met Jesus). But there they were both members of Jesus’ inner twelve.

Forget that they and you have different ideas on any of the many things devout Christians differ on, as the Bible says in Romans 14 which I quoted a bit from earlier:

 ¹ Accept those whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. ² One person’s faith allows them to eat everything, but another person, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. ³ The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted that person. ⁴ Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master they stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

 ⁵ Some consider one day more sacred than another; others consider every day alike. Everyone should be fully convinced in their own mind. ⁶ Those who regard one day as special do so to the Lord. Those who eat meat do so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and those who abstain do so to the Lord and give thanks to God. ⁷ For we do not live to ourselves alone and we do not die to ourselves alone. ⁸ If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. ⁹ For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

 ¹⁰ You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat your brother or sister with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.

Lastly remember that you are God's beloved "baby". Yes he wants to see you grow to maturity in Christ, but that will take the rest of your life. In the meantime so long as you desire to remain his child, you can count on him holding you safe in that relationship. As Paul says at the end of Romans 8: 

"I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. .... No power in the sky above or in the earth below - indeed nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

(final post in this series)