Mom’s Well-Worn Bible (September 25, 2005)
Quite by accident today I spotted my mother's Bible on one of my bookshelves. I thought I had lost it. I looked for it months ago when I wanted to use it in a sermon illustration, but somehow I must have scanned right past it. Maybe I missed it then so that God could spring it on me today when I was most in need of a token of his grace.
Mom's Bible is well-worn and full of marginal notes, and leafing through it reveals a thousand insights into a life spent pursuing the wisdom of God. Here are some notes from a single opened page:
- Proverbs 18:12: Haughtiness comes before disaster, and humility before honor. Mom noted, "Hindu word for humility is 'the dust' - Their proverb - 'You can walk on the dust forever, and it never answers back.'"
- 19:6: Many will entreat the favor of the liberal man, and every man is a friend to him who gives gifts. Mom quoted from Harry Ironside, former pastor of Moody Church: "How different the Spirit of Him who was charged with receiving sinners and eating with them, who sought not the smiles of the great nor feared their frown!"
- 19:11: Good sense makes a man restrain his anger, and it is his glory to overlook a transgression or an offense. Mom personalized this verse, crossing out "a man" and "his" and replacing them with "me" and "my."
- 19:13: A self-confident and foolish son is the multiplied calamity of his father, and the contentions of a wife are as a continual dropping of water through a chink in the roof. Mom wrote, "A foolish son and a contentious wife are very likely to be together - wife dismissing her husband's authority and taking sides with children in opposition to his proper discipline. Children will despise father's authority and defy mother's correction when she does attempt it."
- 19:17 He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and that which he has given He will repay to them. Next to this Mom wrote "Jehovah - patron of the poor. Fred and Gloria - R & G $100." I'm pretty sure she was remembering a charitable gift from her friends Fred and Gloria to my sister and brother-in-law.
- 19:25: Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence; reprove a man of understanding, and he will increase in knowledge. Mom commented, "The truth itself is of greater value in the eyes of him who has understanding than his own dignity."
- 20:3: It is an honor for a man to cease from strife and keep aloof from it. Mom jotted down "2 Chron. 35 Josiah's slip" - a reference to good King Josiah's ill-advised foray into King Neco's war.
So it is on page after page as Mom took the Scriptures to heart by commenting on them, posing questions, quoting from literature and sermons, cross-referencing other verses, rebuking herself(!) and matching Scriptural wisdom to current experience. How many people have had the privilege of being raised by a parent with such a godly
devotion to the Word?
I know that Mom wrote those notes for herself, not for me. But by his mercy God used those notes to help me recover today from a mostly sleepless night and a morning steeped in melancholy. I find that grief still hovers about me, and threatens to render me forgetful of grace and contemptuous of duty. But God nudges me with reminders of the goodness I have known, the holiness I have seen, the spiritual
benefits I have tasted. May he do the same for you, and gladden your heart with glimpses of goodness on days that loom dark.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Sunday, September 18, 2005
“You Fill My Cup” (September 18, 2005)
My sister Grace held a Bible study in her home last week with about a dozen women from her church. They all had to bring a mug that meant something to them, and the theme had to do with the filling of our spiritual cups. At one point Grace (whose name, like Jacob or Nabal in the Bible, is providentially matched to her character) told each of the women present how they filled her cup.
Mary does it by talking to Lilliet, Grace's adopted Down Syndrome daughter. Grace said to Mary, "I know that Lilliet is not easy to talk to, but every Sunday at church you go up to her and greet her and ask her how her week was. That fills my cup."
Beth does it by making sure Grace is not alone on a day of grief, like Annie's birthday. Annie was Grace's other retarded adopted daughter who died a year ago of heart failure. "Beth, you visited me on Annie's birthday. That fills my cup."
Jane, Ruth and Nancy do it just by coming to church! Jane has a 6-month old and a 2-year-old, and Grace knows from experience how hard it is to get little ones ready for Sunday worship. Ruth has scoliosis and lives in constant pain, but somehow that does not keep her from church. And Nancy has been hit so hard by life's woes that it is a wonder she can stand at all. She is 23, was raised by foster parents, and has three children - the oldest of which is 4. Seven months ago Nancy's step-father-in-law murdered three people before taking his own life. Three months ago Nancy's husband also committed suicide, and so she moved back in with her foster parents. Grace said, "When you walk into church on Sunday mornings, that fills my cup."
A characteristic that I share with my sister is that I too draw spiritual sustenance from those who persevere in the Lord despite grave sorrow and setback. Like my friend Hosea (not his real name). Some time ago I emailed him the following quote from C. S. Lewis:
"The husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what Christ is to the Church. He is to love her as Christ loved the Church...and give his life for her (Ephesians 5:25, emphasis original). This headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is - in her own mere nature - least lovable."
What I didn't know at the time was that Hosea's own marriage was "most like a crucifixion." His wife has run up $74,000 of credit card debt, she curses him and the children with unspeakably foul and hostile language, she has threatened to kill him, she has alienated their mutual friends. And yet Hosea continues to serve the Lord, honors his vows, seeks to do what is right, has ministered frequently to me with words of wisdom and grace in the midst of my own pain. That fills my cup.
A few days ago I turned off a local Christian radio station in disgust as some idiot (forgive me) bragged about the methods he used "to make my good marriage a GREAT marriage." Yeah, right. Look, moron, how hard is it to have a great marriage when your wife is pleasant and godly and loves the Lord? You don't have anything to say to me, and you sure don't fill my cup. Hosea does.
My sister Grace held a Bible study in her home last week with about a dozen women from her church. They all had to bring a mug that meant something to them, and the theme had to do with the filling of our spiritual cups. At one point Grace (whose name, like Jacob or Nabal in the Bible, is providentially matched to her character) told each of the women present how they filled her cup.
Mary does it by talking to Lilliet, Grace's adopted Down Syndrome daughter. Grace said to Mary, "I know that Lilliet is not easy to talk to, but every Sunday at church you go up to her and greet her and ask her how her week was. That fills my cup."
Beth does it by making sure Grace is not alone on a day of grief, like Annie's birthday. Annie was Grace's other retarded adopted daughter who died a year ago of heart failure. "Beth, you visited me on Annie's birthday. That fills my cup."
Jane, Ruth and Nancy do it just by coming to church! Jane has a 6-month old and a 2-year-old, and Grace knows from experience how hard it is to get little ones ready for Sunday worship. Ruth has scoliosis and lives in constant pain, but somehow that does not keep her from church. And Nancy has been hit so hard by life's woes that it is a wonder she can stand at all. She is 23, was raised by foster parents, and has three children - the oldest of which is 4. Seven months ago Nancy's step-father-in-law murdered three people before taking his own life. Three months ago Nancy's husband also committed suicide, and so she moved back in with her foster parents. Grace said, "When you walk into church on Sunday mornings, that fills my cup."
A characteristic that I share with my sister is that I too draw spiritual sustenance from those who persevere in the Lord despite grave sorrow and setback. Like my friend Hosea (not his real name). Some time ago I emailed him the following quote from C. S. Lewis:
"The husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what Christ is to the Church. He is to love her as Christ loved the Church...and give his life for her (Ephesians 5:25, emphasis original). This headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is - in her own mere nature - least lovable."
What I didn't know at the time was that Hosea's own marriage was "most like a crucifixion." His wife has run up $74,000 of credit card debt, she curses him and the children with unspeakably foul and hostile language, she has threatened to kill him, she has alienated their mutual friends. And yet Hosea continues to serve the Lord, honors his vows, seeks to do what is right, has ministered frequently to me with words of wisdom and grace in the midst of my own pain. That fills my cup.
A few days ago I turned off a local Christian radio station in disgust as some idiot (forgive me) bragged about the methods he used "to make my good marriage a GREAT marriage." Yeah, right. Look, moron, how hard is it to have a great marriage when your wife is pleasant and godly and loves the Lord? You don't have anything to say to me, and you sure don't fill my cup. Hosea does.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Suicide And Hell (September 11, 2005)
Do people who commit suicide go to hell?
I was asked that twice last week, so I thought I'd use a Pastor's Page to respond. My short answer is "Not necessarily." My long answer is more complicated.
Suicide is sin because it is murder, a violation of the commandment "Thou shalt not kill." The Bible does not specifically condemn self-murder, but that should not surprise us because the Bible often connects its rules with penalties for their infractions. Suicide renders those responses moot. You can execute a man who has killed someone else, but there is not much you can do to penalize the corpse of a suicide.
There are several suicides in the Bible, and they tend to involve privileged men who went bad. Samson was the original suicide bomber (or rather, suicide building-collapser - Judges 16:28-31). King Saul fell on his own sword to keep from being slain by Philistines (1 Samuel 31:1-6). Ahithophel took his life when Absalom would not take his advice (probably assuming that Absalom’s rebellion against David was doomed to fail - 2 Samuel 17:23). Zimri burned his house down around him (1 Kings 16:18). Judas hung himself after betraying Christ (Matthew 27:3-10). In all these cases the Bible just tells what these men did without telling us whether it was wrong. Of course, they all did wrong things that led to their suicides.
Though suicide is a kind of murder, I think it is the least bad kind. In fact, I actually recommend it to hell-bent fiends who would otherwise kill the innocent - like mothers who smother, drown, or stab their kids (Marilyn Lemak, Susan Smith and Tonya Vasilev, respectively). In such cases I wonder, "Why couldn't you just kill yourself, you demon freak?" Think how many lives could be saved if sick murderers and murderesses would just direct all their lethal hostilities inward.
Does suicide damn the soul? Not by itself, I would say - though suicide is the kind of thing that damned souls do. We are saved by faith in Christ, and no sin but apostasy can take that away. Some believe that suicides go to hell because they die with unconfessed sin (unless, I suppose, they die slow and confess before losing consciousness), but that argument never convinced me. We all have unconfessed sin, all the time, and will die with a million of those on our record. I've already sinned today by not loving the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, and it's only 9 o'clock in morning.
I imagine there are good and faithful servants of Christ, who, in moments of weakness, or suffering from brain chemicals gone haywire, take their own lives. I see no reason why God, who knows the end from the beginning and who takes all things into account, might not have mercy on their souls and receive them into his presence. A friend of mine, a Korean War vet who suffers from tinnitus, told me that one time the ringing in his ears suddenly blasted louder than a freight train for several seconds before dissipating back to its normal level. He said that if that ever happened again, and the noise did not stop, he would definitely kill himself. I thanked him for telling me. If I ever have to conduct his tragic funeral I can tell people what probably transpired. But whatever happens, I know my friend is a believer whose name is written in the Book of Life.
I was once asked the suicide-and-hell question by someone who (I did not know at the time) was suicidal. That is where the question is really dangerous. The last thing I want to do is encourage a depressed person to think, "If I kill myself I get to go to heaven." Heaven forbid. Though it is true that even murderers and adulterers can get to heaven - King David did - we still don't want to encourage murder and adultery. I don't ever want to be guilty of tempting a depressed person with the promise of a happy hereafter. If you are suicidal, (A) Don't do it, and (B) Get help. Take that as an order from God.
Do people who commit suicide go to hell?
I was asked that twice last week, so I thought I'd use a Pastor's Page to respond. My short answer is "Not necessarily." My long answer is more complicated.
Suicide is sin because it is murder, a violation of the commandment "Thou shalt not kill." The Bible does not specifically condemn self-murder, but that should not surprise us because the Bible often connects its rules with penalties for their infractions. Suicide renders those responses moot. You can execute a man who has killed someone else, but there is not much you can do to penalize the corpse of a suicide.
There are several suicides in the Bible, and they tend to involve privileged men who went bad. Samson was the original suicide bomber (or rather, suicide building-collapser - Judges 16:28-31). King Saul fell on his own sword to keep from being slain by Philistines (1 Samuel 31:1-6). Ahithophel took his life when Absalom would not take his advice (probably assuming that Absalom’s rebellion against David was doomed to fail - 2 Samuel 17:23). Zimri burned his house down around him (1 Kings 16:18). Judas hung himself after betraying Christ (Matthew 27:3-10). In all these cases the Bible just tells what these men did without telling us whether it was wrong. Of course, they all did wrong things that led to their suicides.
Though suicide is a kind of murder, I think it is the least bad kind. In fact, I actually recommend it to hell-bent fiends who would otherwise kill the innocent - like mothers who smother, drown, or stab their kids (Marilyn Lemak, Susan Smith and Tonya Vasilev, respectively). In such cases I wonder, "Why couldn't you just kill yourself, you demon freak?" Think how many lives could be saved if sick murderers and murderesses would just direct all their lethal hostilities inward.
Does suicide damn the soul? Not by itself, I would say - though suicide is the kind of thing that damned souls do. We are saved by faith in Christ, and no sin but apostasy can take that away. Some believe that suicides go to hell because they die with unconfessed sin (unless, I suppose, they die slow and confess before losing consciousness), but that argument never convinced me. We all have unconfessed sin, all the time, and will die with a million of those on our record. I've already sinned today by not loving the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, and it's only 9 o'clock in morning.
I imagine there are good and faithful servants of Christ, who, in moments of weakness, or suffering from brain chemicals gone haywire, take their own lives. I see no reason why God, who knows the end from the beginning and who takes all things into account, might not have mercy on their souls and receive them into his presence. A friend of mine, a Korean War vet who suffers from tinnitus, told me that one time the ringing in his ears suddenly blasted louder than a freight train for several seconds before dissipating back to its normal level. He said that if that ever happened again, and the noise did not stop, he would definitely kill himself. I thanked him for telling me. If I ever have to conduct his tragic funeral I can tell people what probably transpired. But whatever happens, I know my friend is a believer whose name is written in the Book of Life.
I was once asked the suicide-and-hell question by someone who (I did not know at the time) was suicidal. That is where the question is really dangerous. The last thing I want to do is encourage a depressed person to think, "If I kill myself I get to go to heaven." Heaven forbid. Though it is true that even murderers and adulterers can get to heaven - King David did - we still don't want to encourage murder and adultery. I don't ever want to be guilty of tempting a depressed person with the promise of a happy hereafter. If you are suicidal, (A) Don't do it, and (B) Get help. Take that as an order from God.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Forgiving A Drunk Driver (August 28, 2005)
Two weeks ago a drunk driver careened down the street where I live, knocking down two curbside mailboxes (including mine) before plowing across my lawn and into the attached garage of my next-door neighbor. Then she backed up and sped off. Thankfully another neighbor gave chase and got her license plate number, and the police caught her shortly afterward. This happened about 5 in the afternoon.
My initial reaction was that I wanted her to spend a good long time in jail. Not because I lost a mailbox but because I really, really hate drunk drivers. They kill and paralyze and leave human vegetables in their wake. (I'm sure everyone reading this page knows at least a "friend of a friend" who is now dead or disabled due to some idiot's drunkenness.) I can sympathize with a wretched soul who just wants to drown his sorrows in booze for a bit (Proverbs 31:6: "Give wine...to those who are deep distress"), but if a guy drinks and then beats his wife, or drinks and then turns his vehicle into a deadly weapon, well then he can just rot in sewage-filled dungeon for all I care. Serves him right.
But I am a Christian and I am supposed to forgive, so after I settled down and thought about it I wrote the lady a letter saying I'd forgive her for destroying my mailbox, and pay for it myself, as long as she wrote me a letter of apology and promised to go to a church on Sunday. "What you did was dangerous and if there were any kids playing on that sidewalk you could have killed them," I wrote. "It is important for you to confess to God and stop drinking and get your life together." And I told her my prayers were with her and that I had many good friends who had stopped drinking and turned their lives around and found God.
Thank God she wrote back and sincerely apologized for her actions, and said she would go to (I think it's a Catholic) church that she and her family attend every Sunday. I wrote back saying the mailbox was all forgotten and I wished her and her family well, and that I'd keep praying for them.
We preachers like to draw lessons from everything (it's a habit, as well as a calling and a duty), so here are a few from my mailbox incident.
(1) We're supposed to forgive, but full forgiveness is conditional upon confession and repentance. If the mailbox mauler had not apologized, I would have filed the insurance claim and offered no more grace. Though our forgiveness should be immediate and aggressive and bounteous, it comes attached with a string of accountability that insists on penitence. My sister, for example, graciously forgave the young man who murdered her son (he wept in court and apologized in
person), but she has not forgiven the foul adulterous son of hell who abandoned her after 25 years of marriage, and who remains the world's biggest jerk. Her attitude is exactly as it should be.
(2) We can only forgive that over which we have jurisdiction. I can't forgive that lady for taking out my neighbor's mailbox or for damaging my other neighbor's garage. And she is still answerable to the law for multiple infractions. But I can forgive her for the small part of sin concerning which I was a victim. If I went beyond that (as Jesus did when he forgave people the sins they had committed against others), I'd be claiming to be God. See Mark 2:5-7. I think about this whenever I am asked to "forgive" someone who has done wrong but who has not really wronged me. The answer is, "I can't. It would not be right. I’m not God.”
(3) Finally, and trivially, try not to run over a pastor's mailbox. You might get forgiven, but you'll probably wind up as fodder for his sermon illustrations and "Pastor's Page" columns. That could be embarrassing.
Two weeks ago a drunk driver careened down the street where I live, knocking down two curbside mailboxes (including mine) before plowing across my lawn and into the attached garage of my next-door neighbor. Then she backed up and sped off. Thankfully another neighbor gave chase and got her license plate number, and the police caught her shortly afterward. This happened about 5 in the afternoon.
My initial reaction was that I wanted her to spend a good long time in jail. Not because I lost a mailbox but because I really, really hate drunk drivers. They kill and paralyze and leave human vegetables in their wake. (I'm sure everyone reading this page knows at least a "friend of a friend" who is now dead or disabled due to some idiot's drunkenness.) I can sympathize with a wretched soul who just wants to drown his sorrows in booze for a bit (Proverbs 31:6: "Give wine...to those who are deep distress"), but if a guy drinks and then beats his wife, or drinks and then turns his vehicle into a deadly weapon, well then he can just rot in sewage-filled dungeon for all I care. Serves him right.
But I am a Christian and I am supposed to forgive, so after I settled down and thought about it I wrote the lady a letter saying I'd forgive her for destroying my mailbox, and pay for it myself, as long as she wrote me a letter of apology and promised to go to a church on Sunday. "What you did was dangerous and if there were any kids playing on that sidewalk you could have killed them," I wrote. "It is important for you to confess to God and stop drinking and get your life together." And I told her my prayers were with her and that I had many good friends who had stopped drinking and turned their lives around and found God.
Thank God she wrote back and sincerely apologized for her actions, and said she would go to (I think it's a Catholic) church that she and her family attend every Sunday. I wrote back saying the mailbox was all forgotten and I wished her and her family well, and that I'd keep praying for them.
We preachers like to draw lessons from everything (it's a habit, as well as a calling and a duty), so here are a few from my mailbox incident.
(1) We're supposed to forgive, but full forgiveness is conditional upon confession and repentance. If the mailbox mauler had not apologized, I would have filed the insurance claim and offered no more grace. Though our forgiveness should be immediate and aggressive and bounteous, it comes attached with a string of accountability that insists on penitence. My sister, for example, graciously forgave the young man who murdered her son (he wept in court and apologized in
person), but she has not forgiven the foul adulterous son of hell who abandoned her after 25 years of marriage, and who remains the world's biggest jerk. Her attitude is exactly as it should be.
(2) We can only forgive that over which we have jurisdiction. I can't forgive that lady for taking out my neighbor's mailbox or for damaging my other neighbor's garage. And she is still answerable to the law for multiple infractions. But I can forgive her for the small part of sin concerning which I was a victim. If I went beyond that (as Jesus did when he forgave people the sins they had committed against others), I'd be claiming to be God. See Mark 2:5-7. I think about this whenever I am asked to "forgive" someone who has done wrong but who has not really wronged me. The answer is, "I can't. It would not be right. I’m not God.”
(3) Finally, and trivially, try not to run over a pastor's mailbox. You might get forgiven, but you'll probably wind up as fodder for his sermon illustrations and "Pastor's Page" columns. That could be embarrassing.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
When To Give Up (August 21, 2005)
When does the virtue of steadfast perseverance become the vice of fatal stubbornness?
Perseverance is a virtue, generally. God has put it in our hearts to admire those who stick it out in the face of adversity and refuse to give up. We cheer Winston Churchill's exhortation to students at the Harrow School in 1941: "Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
Never?
Jesus recommended yielding to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy when he said that if you've got 10,000 men and your opponent has 20,000, seek peace (Luke 14:31-32). That's conditional surrender.
He commanded his disciples to give up preaching the gospel when they encountered hostility: "When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another" (Matthew 10:23).
He commanded his followers to give up on people who continually rejected the grace of church discipline: "Treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector" (Matthew 18:17).
And the Apostle Paul commanded giving up on a marriage when an unbeliever abandons the Christian partner: "If the unbeliever leaves, let him do so" - 1 Corinthians 7:15 (The Greek verb is imperative - it is literally a command to let go.)
So not all perseverance is good - not even perseverance in a self-denying cause. Perseverance that results in disobedience to God's Word is simple stubbornness, and must not be allowed to flaunt itself as virtue.
But perseverance that is neither disobedient nor foolish remains a worthy goal. I have been asked once or twice if, because of grave family sorrow, I would like to take a leave of absence from (temporarily give up on?) the ministry. It is a fair question, but my answer (which I hope springs from perseverance rather than stubbornness) is, "Absolutely not." I am commissioned by God to peach the Word "in season and out of season" (2 Timothy 4:2) - and though now the season is one of hurricanes, my house should be able to stand if it is built on the rock and made of stone. How dare I flee inland now? What kind of testimony would that be? If ever there were an hour to stand my ground, this is it.
At the same time, I acknowledge that "standing one's ground" is only good when God commands it. May God give all of us the grace to persevere in that to which he calls us - and the wisdom to know when we are merely behaving like stubborn fools.
When does the virtue of steadfast perseverance become the vice of fatal stubbornness?
Perseverance is a virtue, generally. God has put it in our hearts to admire those who stick it out in the face of adversity and refuse to give up. We cheer Winston Churchill's exhortation to students at the Harrow School in 1941: "Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
Never?
Jesus recommended yielding to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy when he said that if you've got 10,000 men and your opponent has 20,000, seek peace (Luke 14:31-32). That's conditional surrender.
He commanded his disciples to give up preaching the gospel when they encountered hostility: "When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another" (Matthew 10:23).
He commanded his followers to give up on people who continually rejected the grace of church discipline: "Treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector" (Matthew 18:17).
And the Apostle Paul commanded giving up on a marriage when an unbeliever abandons the Christian partner: "If the unbeliever leaves, let him do so" - 1 Corinthians 7:15 (The Greek verb is imperative - it is literally a command to let go.)
So not all perseverance is good - not even perseverance in a self-denying cause. Perseverance that results in disobedience to God's Word is simple stubbornness, and must not be allowed to flaunt itself as virtue.
But perseverance that is neither disobedient nor foolish remains a worthy goal. I have been asked once or twice if, because of grave family sorrow, I would like to take a leave of absence from (temporarily give up on?) the ministry. It is a fair question, but my answer (which I hope springs from perseverance rather than stubbornness) is, "Absolutely not." I am commissioned by God to peach the Word "in season and out of season" (2 Timothy 4:2) - and though now the season is one of hurricanes, my house should be able to stand if it is built on the rock and made of stone. How dare I flee inland now? What kind of testimony would that be? If ever there were an hour to stand my ground, this is it.
At the same time, I acknowledge that "standing one's ground" is only good when God commands it. May God give all of us the grace to persevere in that to which he calls us - and the wisdom to know when we are merely behaving like stubborn fools.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Do We Always Benefit From Suffering? (August 14, 2005)
Do all bad circumstances work out for our personal good?
Some Bible verses lead Christians to believe so. St. James writes, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything" (James 1:2-4). So trials help us to persevere and be mature. St. Paul writes, "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). My mother always insisted, rightly, that "the good" of Romans 8:28 is defined in the next verse, "being conformed to the likeness of his Son." So in all circumstances, even bad ones, God does the good work of making those who love him to be more like Jesus.
I believe this. One qualification I would like to make explicit, however, is that it is not always our personal good that our trials and woes are bringing about. Maybe our bad circumstances are chiefly benefiting someone else.
After Joseph was nearly killed by his brothers, sold into slavery in Egypt, falsely accused of attempted rape and thrown into prison, he met up years later with these same brothers who had tried to ruin his life. By then Joseph had recovered, and, working as Pharaoh's right-hand man, administered a government food program during years of drought. He spoke graciously to his bad brothers, saying, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives" (Genesis 50:20). It is fitting that Joseph did not say, "God intended it for my good - now I'm rich and powerful because of what you did to me." That part seemed incidental. The main thing was that through the injustice he had experienced, starvation of the masses had been prevented.
Someday you may go through something profoundly unpleasant and it will be hard to conceive how it could ever be good for you - even in some ultimate, eternal sense. Let me encourage you to remember then that the good things that God is accomplishing in the world are not all about you. Your woes may leave you devastated, but still benefit other people in ways you could never imagine.
Missionaries Jim and Angela Beise are raising a severely handicapped child, Michael, along with their three "normal" children. But their three other children are not normal at all - they're exceptional. Angela writes, "My children are among the most unselfish people I have ever known. Brian, 19, Melissa, 17, and Rachel, 13, have made
sacrifices, too many and too big to count, for their disabled sibling. One would think that this would have made them bitter and discontented. Amazingly, it has done exactly the opposite. They are thankful, giving, and tolerant to difficult and unlovely people."
I do not know what good things God is doing in the soul of handicapped Michael. But I'll take his mother's word for it that through Michael's limitations God is perfecting his siblings. It works that way sometimes. Trials and sorrows and limitations that seem to do us no good at all might be God's perfect tools to do great good in others. We can thank him for that.
Do all bad circumstances work out for our personal good?
Some Bible verses lead Christians to believe so. St. James writes, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything" (James 1:2-4). So trials help us to persevere and be mature. St. Paul writes, "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). My mother always insisted, rightly, that "the good" of Romans 8:28 is defined in the next verse, "being conformed to the likeness of his Son." So in all circumstances, even bad ones, God does the good work of making those who love him to be more like Jesus.
I believe this. One qualification I would like to make explicit, however, is that it is not always our personal good that our trials and woes are bringing about. Maybe our bad circumstances are chiefly benefiting someone else.
After Joseph was nearly killed by his brothers, sold into slavery in Egypt, falsely accused of attempted rape and thrown into prison, he met up years later with these same brothers who had tried to ruin his life. By then Joseph had recovered, and, working as Pharaoh's right-hand man, administered a government food program during years of drought. He spoke graciously to his bad brothers, saying, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives" (Genesis 50:20). It is fitting that Joseph did not say, "God intended it for my good - now I'm rich and powerful because of what you did to me." That part seemed incidental. The main thing was that through the injustice he had experienced, starvation of the masses had been prevented.
Someday you may go through something profoundly unpleasant and it will be hard to conceive how it could ever be good for you - even in some ultimate, eternal sense. Let me encourage you to remember then that the good things that God is accomplishing in the world are not all about you. Your woes may leave you devastated, but still benefit other people in ways you could never imagine.
Missionaries Jim and Angela Beise are raising a severely handicapped child, Michael, along with their three "normal" children. But their three other children are not normal at all - they're exceptional. Angela writes, "My children are among the most unselfish people I have ever known. Brian, 19, Melissa, 17, and Rachel, 13, have made
sacrifices, too many and too big to count, for their disabled sibling. One would think that this would have made them bitter and discontented. Amazingly, it has done exactly the opposite. They are thankful, giving, and tolerant to difficult and unlovely people."
I do not know what good things God is doing in the soul of handicapped Michael. But I'll take his mother's word for it that through Michael's limitations God is perfecting his siblings. It works that way sometimes. Trials and sorrows and limitations that seem to do us no good at all might be God's perfect tools to do great good in others. We can thank him for that.
Sunday, August 7, 2005
“He Probably Deserved It” (August 7, 2005)
Being a Christian involves abandoning what I call the "justice instinct."
The justice instinct is the assumption that life is ultimately, cosmically fair. It is reflected in the speeches of Job's friends, who knew that somehow Job had to be responsible for the horrors visited upon him. It is seen in the question of the disciples concerning a blind man: "Who sinned, this man or his parents?" (John 9:2). It is seen in the attitude of the crowd in Luke 13:2-4 that believed that victims of disaster and slaughter must have been "worse sinners than others." It is seen in the reasoning of Maltese islanders, who briefly thought that the Apostle Paul was a murderer because a snake bit him. (They changed their minds when he lived - Acts 28:3-6.) It is seen in the rapture of Captain and Maria Von Trapp, who in The Sound of Music sing to each other, "Somewhere in my youth, or childhood, I must have done something good." It is touted in the Buddhist doctrine of karma, which extends Newton's third law of motion to the moral realm: "Every (good, bad) action has an equal and opposite (compensatory, punitive) reaction." In Buddhism you get what you deserve. Even the Dalai Lama has credited his personal happiness to the karma he has accumulated through good deeds.
The justice instinct is a terrible mistake and must be renounced, but I think I can see why it has universal appeal. First, because it is just too painful to acknowledge that life is unfair. We feel no grief when a villain dies, but we feel terrible when a good man does. So our minds work hard to reduce the sorrow, and one method of anesthetizing the mental pain is simply to assume that the sufferer got what he deserved.
A second reason the justice instinct appeals to us arises from the moral intuition God has placed in our hearts that we ourselves ought to be fair. We should judge justly, rewarding good and punishing evil. But many make a logical jump and assume that the way we should behave correlates directly to way Nature itself in fact behaves. Such thinking either projects our morality onto Nature, which is silly, or projects Nature's cruelty onto our morals, which is evil. In the former, we dupe ourselves into thinking that Nature is as pleasant and as kind as we ought to be. (It isn't; as Tennyson noted long ago, Nature is "red in tooth and claw.") In the latter, we find Nazis concluding that since Nature rewards the fit and weeds out the feeble, it is our moral duty to give allegiance to powerful tyrants while killing off the retarded and disabled.
However "natural" it might be to expect Nature to mirror our moral sense of fairness, a few moments' careful reflection should be enough to show that it does not. Therefore, for truth's sake alone, we must discard the justice instinct and actively resist it. But let me suggest a few more motives, beyond mere Reason, for getting rid of it.
1) The justice instinct kills compassion. It mutes mercy by permitting the strong to think, "That sufferer must be getting what he deserves (though perhaps I don't know exactly what he did to deserve it). Who am I to oppose the faultless judgment of the cosmos?"
2) The justice instinct creates false guilt. The sufferer compounds his own misery by succumbing to Satan-inspired self-accusation, and perhaps is tempted to lie against the truth by confessing sins he is not guilty of.
3) The justice instinct encourages pride. When a man who has prospered attributes his good fortune not to God's grace but to some cosmic reward for goodness, then he is closer to the gates of hell than he is to the kingdom of heaven.
4) The justice instinct slams the door on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Something that has always made Christianity a "hard sell" is the fact that its hero was executed. If you assume universal fairness, then he must have done something terribly wrong to deserve death. But the Bible insists that he "knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21); that he "committed no sin" (1 Peter 2:22); and that "in him is no sin" (1 John 3:5). Jews and Gentiles alike found the doctrine of crucified Perfection a contradiction in terms. It was a piece of foolishness, a stumbling block - who would ever dream of worshipping a God who gets crucified?
Only one who has disabled his justice instinct could manage to worship a crucified Lord. Those who persist in regarding present reality as "fair" will continue to stumble over the cross, and they will sin by judging people who are merely unlucky even as they praise people who are merely fortunate.
Being a Christian involves abandoning what I call the "justice instinct."
The justice instinct is the assumption that life is ultimately, cosmically fair. It is reflected in the speeches of Job's friends, who knew that somehow Job had to be responsible for the horrors visited upon him. It is seen in the question of the disciples concerning a blind man: "Who sinned, this man or his parents?" (John 9:2). It is seen in the attitude of the crowd in Luke 13:2-4 that believed that victims of disaster and slaughter must have been "worse sinners than others." It is seen in the reasoning of Maltese islanders, who briefly thought that the Apostle Paul was a murderer because a snake bit him. (They changed their minds when he lived - Acts 28:3-6.) It is seen in the rapture of Captain and Maria Von Trapp, who in The Sound of Music sing to each other, "Somewhere in my youth, or childhood, I must have done something good." It is touted in the Buddhist doctrine of karma, which extends Newton's third law of motion to the moral realm: "Every (good, bad) action has an equal and opposite (compensatory, punitive) reaction." In Buddhism you get what you deserve. Even the Dalai Lama has credited his personal happiness to the karma he has accumulated through good deeds.
The justice instinct is a terrible mistake and must be renounced, but I think I can see why it has universal appeal. First, because it is just too painful to acknowledge that life is unfair. We feel no grief when a villain dies, but we feel terrible when a good man does. So our minds work hard to reduce the sorrow, and one method of anesthetizing the mental pain is simply to assume that the sufferer got what he deserved.
A second reason the justice instinct appeals to us arises from the moral intuition God has placed in our hearts that we ourselves ought to be fair. We should judge justly, rewarding good and punishing evil. But many make a logical jump and assume that the way we should behave correlates directly to way Nature itself in fact behaves. Such thinking either projects our morality onto Nature, which is silly, or projects Nature's cruelty onto our morals, which is evil. In the former, we dupe ourselves into thinking that Nature is as pleasant and as kind as we ought to be. (It isn't; as Tennyson noted long ago, Nature is "red in tooth and claw.") In the latter, we find Nazis concluding that since Nature rewards the fit and weeds out the feeble, it is our moral duty to give allegiance to powerful tyrants while killing off the retarded and disabled.
However "natural" it might be to expect Nature to mirror our moral sense of fairness, a few moments' careful reflection should be enough to show that it does not. Therefore, for truth's sake alone, we must discard the justice instinct and actively resist it. But let me suggest a few more motives, beyond mere Reason, for getting rid of it.
1) The justice instinct kills compassion. It mutes mercy by permitting the strong to think, "That sufferer must be getting what he deserves (though perhaps I don't know exactly what he did to deserve it). Who am I to oppose the faultless judgment of the cosmos?"
2) The justice instinct creates false guilt. The sufferer compounds his own misery by succumbing to Satan-inspired self-accusation, and perhaps is tempted to lie against the truth by confessing sins he is not guilty of.
3) The justice instinct encourages pride. When a man who has prospered attributes his good fortune not to God's grace but to some cosmic reward for goodness, then he is closer to the gates of hell than he is to the kingdom of heaven.
4) The justice instinct slams the door on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Something that has always made Christianity a "hard sell" is the fact that its hero was executed. If you assume universal fairness, then he must have done something terribly wrong to deserve death. But the Bible insists that he "knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21); that he "committed no sin" (1 Peter 2:22); and that "in him is no sin" (1 John 3:5). Jews and Gentiles alike found the doctrine of crucified Perfection a contradiction in terms. It was a piece of foolishness, a stumbling block - who would ever dream of worshipping a God who gets crucified?
Only one who has disabled his justice instinct could manage to worship a crucified Lord. Those who persist in regarding present reality as "fair" will continue to stumble over the cross, and they will sin by judging people who are merely unlucky even as they praise people who are merely fortunate.
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