Interview - J.P. Moreland

JM

J.P. Moreland is interviewed on the Converse with Scholars Program. CLICK HERE to download and listen.

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Wednesday Night - June 20th

Saxophones, 5 inch Floppies, and Training Wheels - 1 Corinthains 13:8-12 (Week 5)

by JM

I’ve sat down with a number of couples facing significant relational stress in their marriages. Often the man and/or women have invested considerable time, money, and energy in something regarded as important: usually, but not exclusively, a job or education. It can easily be a passion or a calling different from career: ministry or marionette making. Such endeavors are sometimes met with degrees, certifications, awards, or something like this. Now of course, these things are quite important for living a fulfilled life, yet as the counseling session soon reveals, these things occupy too much importance. Imagine with me such a session.

“So Bob,” I say “you have a degree in engineering?” “Yep.” Bob responds. I continue, “I bet that means you’ve read a ton of books on the topic?” “More than I wanted to” he sighs. I retort, “But probably no less than you needed.” “You’re right” he says, “in fact, periodically I’ll take night courses to keep up with the industry.” “Bob, I imagine you’re good at what you do?” Bob, with half-suppressed but glaring pride says, “Well, I consider my job my calling.”
At this point, the conversation takes a revealing turn.

“So Bob, how many books have you read on marriage?” Silence………. “They make books on that,” Bob says with inappropriate humor trying to alleviate the painful, glaring, and undeniable reality to which he was oblivious to up to the question. I prod. “You haven’t answered the question: how many books?” He turns to his wife and asks with desperation, “Honey, didn’t we read a book by John Dobson; you know that Families in Focus ministry, right before we got married? You know the one, ‘Men are from Mars, and Women are from Venus.’”

Now, certainly Bob would have admitted that his wife is far much more important than the job, and at some level we might even believe him. But he’s certainly not convincing his wife nor the counselor trying to repair years of dysfunction.

This little illustration isn’t a spring board for a discussion on marriage, but on all things that matter in life, including marriage. In keeping with Paul’s overall thought in 1 Corinthians. 13, I want to address the following problem: There are certain matters in life which are very important, but not most important. Due to some flaw in our vision, we gravitate towards elevating very important matters as most important matters, and most important matters as of lesser importance. In addressing this problem, I’m going to import the temporally important matters of life (e.g., car, credit, career, clout, comfort) into Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts in chapter 13. To illustrate Paul’s thought, I will use a Saxophone, a 5 inch Floppy Disk, and Training Wheels.

Saxophones

During a fundraising event at our church, one of our members donated a saxophone to be displayed and bid on in an auction. This seemed to be an ordinary saxophone: it produces sounds when you exhale into it in a certain way; it has knobs which when operated properly provide soul-stirring notes; it came with a case to be used, as it appeared to have been use before - for travel purposes. But when someone purchased it and brought it home for use, something wasn’t right. They tried and they tried to produce sound, but to no avail. It then became apparent to the new owner that there was an obstruction in the saxophone. They placed their hand into the instrument and pulled out a bag of marijuana. One can only image the reaction at this point: “I don’t think that this was in the bidding description at the church?” Of course, it wasn’t. In the exoneration of our altruistic member who donated the sax, it was from a time long ago when he knew not Christ. Nevertheless, it was no longer a secret that the saxophone was used a bit differently than it was designed to be used.

Paul says this in verses 8-13

1 Corinthians 13:8-13 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

If I may paraphrase the thought, Paul is saying

“One day you will shed your gifts. When they are removed, what will remain? Sure, they are on display now, and what they do is obvious. Oh, certainly, it appeared that your prophecies, tongues, and teaching were all meant to sound a glorious tune for God’s fame and love for neighbor. But not so fast, Oh Corinthians, you might have fallen into the trap of elevating the very important function of your gift above their most important function and God-designed intention: loving God and others. Are you blowing your own horn? Are you inhaling when you should be exhaling? What’s at the core of your instrument?”

Or take ones’ car, career, credit, clout - the important things of life: a person may keep telling others that all these important matters are pursued out of love and devotion to others, family, church, or God. “The reason I work so hard is for you…for them..for...” That’s the appearance; that’s the claim; that’s the supposed function of our lifes’ activities. But when these things are shed, will love remain, or self-love? Paul says that one day one’s motives will be revealed – will it be elating, or embarrassing?

5 Inch Floppy Disks

I imagine a man who had the inside scoop on the cutting edge technology of floppy disks. I also image that such a man might have believed this invention to be one which will have enduring affect and place in all future technology. “The Floppy disk is the wheel of the 20th century.” Of course, he invests heart and money into the budding technology, and when the 80s rolled around, all hopes and aspirations were confirmed beyond his wildest imaginations. “The plane, the wheel, the 5 inch Floppy disk!” was his cry of joy. By the early 90s, we find him mourning. You see, the burgeoning information technology roared passed the unsophisticated and clumsy floppy disk. One can no more retrofit the floppy to the new and ever-changing technology than one can retrofit a covered wagon with hydraulic breaks. The wagon, as well as the floppy, must be scrapped.

Here was his mistake. Certainly the man should have invested in the floppy, but he should have also positioned himself for long term success by putting his attention in the technology under girding the floppy. Put differently, he failed to see the difference between the temporary floppy-disk wave of technology, and the oceanic reservoir that would toss up other waves like CDs, Flash drives, and the like.

In addressing the church, Paul says,

1 Corinthians 13:8-10 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

Spiritual gifts, or those temporally important matters of life have a shelf-life; they are designed to become obsolete. Their present glimmer and shine makes one think that they will endure, yet as quickly as are born, they will die. “The world is passing away… (1 John 2:17). Love, on the other hand, is eternal. As such, I must discern the difference between the transient waves of love (be it prophecy, knowledge, or some human endeavor), and the oceanic reservoir of love that fuels every wave that rises and falls. If I master love, I’ll be prepared for whatever expression that God establishes in time or eternity. If I master temporary expressions or shells of love, and not the love itself, I’ll be ill-equipped for new and heavenly dimensions awaiting.

Training Wheels

My 4 year old daughter is under the delusion that she has mastered bike riding because she has training wheels. It’s the exact opposite. The fact that she has training wheels is powerful evidence that she has accomplished anything but mastery in bike riding. Because of her delusion, she attempts to handle her bike in ways unfit for bikes with training wheels. We all know that training wheels help, but they can easily harm. She’s safe so long as she rides slow and avoids dips into driveways, but as soon as she reaches a certain speed or drops into a drive way, the occasions are ripe for serious injury.

We all know that a little age will clear up her misperceptions of her bike-riding ability. Right about nine years of age, she’ll see her childish ways - her misplaced pride in training wheels - as well as her ‘mastery’ of bike-riding, and then shed the training wheels and truly experience the joy of the sport.

1 Corinthians 13:11 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Paul relates this chapter to a group of people who believe that they had mastered the Christian life because of their possession and use of spiritual gifts. Paul saw the absurdity of that view. The fact that the spiritual gifts were in operation was clear proof that they had not arrived. The fact that prophecy is in operation shows that we know very little of what we need to know. The fact that knowledge and tongues are in use shows that we only see faint glimpses of glory and perfection. Spiritual gifts are crutches, or training wheels for people who aren’t even remotely ready for glory. If we boast in the gifts, we glory in our deficiency.

Spiritual gifts are to love what training wheels are to a bike. One day we will shed the gifts. When that day comes, did we take advantage of the training wheels to learn some rudiments of love? Or will we have missed the lesson altogether to our embarrassment.

Let’s use the important matters in life as an application. How many people are under the delusion that if they get these things in life in place (e.g. cash, credit, car, career, comfort, clout) and are managing them well, then they have arrived? The fact that one would boast in such an accomplishment discloses the childish overestimation of earthly things. Success is rooted in how well we do in taking the important matters of life and wielding them in service of the most important matters of life: loving God and others. Life and its blessings are meant to hang on these two things:

Matthew 22:35-40 35 One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And He said to him, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' 38 "This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' 40 "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

The Offensive Truth: Relativism and Our Kids

from Townhall.com - BreakPoint by Chuck Colsen

I was dismayed a while back when I learned that a Barna survey found that “less than one out of every ten churched teenagers has a biblical worldview.” But a survey is just that, a survey. Things couldn’t be that bad, could they?

Listen Here: Original audio source 3 minutes

Is God Self Centered?

by JM

In an attempt to bring disrepute to the Christian faith, some have objected that the God of Judeo-Christian Scripture blatantly violates a moral law that his creatures are punished for infringing. God is thought of as saying “do as I say, not as I do;” an imperfect, though perhaps well-meaning paternal figure who prescribes to his children virtues noticeably absent in him.

The particular vice that allegedly plagues God is self-centeredness. God commands his creatures to practice selflessness; we are to treat others as better than ourselves; we should never look upon another as a means, but always as an end. We find numerous injunctions issued against self-centeredness and the exploitation of others. For the objector, however, the Most High seems to be the most prolific violator of this moral prescription. God is presented in Scripture as making everything for his own glory and pleasure. Consequently, it is thought by some that humanity is treated merely (and perhaps even cheaply) as a means to God’s end of self-gratification. His end is ultimately that all would worship him, eternally verbalizing how great God is and how menial we are. And what happens to those who refuse to “stroke” God’s ego? Eternal hell. For the objector, such a God deserves neither worship nor obedience.

How might a believer respond? One assumption found in this line of reasoning is that all morality is equally and categorically applicable both to God and his creatures. So that if God commands or forbids x to humans, it is necessarily immoral for God to do x. However, this assumption must be challenged. Don’t get me wrong, we would never want to say that what are vices for humans, God arbitrarily deems as virtues for him. The moral status of “taking pleasure in the torture of good men” isn’t relative to whether you are God or not. God always regards such things as heinous and vile. This raises two important questions: (1) How can one act be praiseworthy for one person and blameworthy for another? (2) How can self-centeredness be praiseworthy for God and blameworthy for humans? Let’s look at each in turn.

How can the same act be moral for God and immoral for a human without morality being either capriciously dictated or thoroughly relative? The answer is really quite simple, and everyday life furnishes plenty of examples. Life often illustrates that what may be wrong for one human may not be wrong for another given certain circumstances, though there are obviously other actions that are wrong for all humans at all times. Let’s say that a teenager protests to his father, “since you have commanded that I can’t have sex, it is necessarily immoral for you to have sex.” The flaw in the teenager’s argument is that the command universally applies to all beings at all times. The father would do well to respond, “you’re not old enough, mature enough, or married enough to have sex, and this is why it’s wrong for you.” “But I’m old enough, mature enough, and married.” “That’s why it is permissible for me.” The father is stating that it is immoral to engage in sex when conditions x, y, and z are missing. These conditions are missing from the teenager’s life and not from the father’s, therefore what is wrong for one human isn’t wrong for another. Notice, however, that the father could not make a similar case with something like “stealing cigarettes from convenience stores if one is low on cash is alright for me, but wrong for you.” This criminal activity is wrong to both son and father.

In the same way, given that God has certain characteristics that humans can never possess, it is proper for him to have the kind of self-regard that he does, and improper for us to have that kind of self-regard for ourselves. Put slightly different, pride and self-centeredness are some of those things praiseworthy for God and damnable for us precisely because he “meets certain conditions.” This will then answer question (2): How can “pride” and “self-centeredness” be praiseworthy for God and blameworthy for humans? Perhaps the best way to shed light on this question is to first present the reason why it’s improper for humans to display these traits.

When we say a child is self-centered, we mean something like he is adamant in keeping his toys to himself. If he’s proud, we mean that he’s haughty or arrogant about his possessions, reminding other children of what he has and what they don’t. Furthermore, we may even mean that he usually kicks and screams until he gets things his own way. When we say an adult is selfish and full of pride, these traits are often cloaked in garb far more acceptable to the public eye (perhaps the garb of altruism or ambition), for no one would tolerate a man who adamantly refuses all reciprocity in a relationship, or kicks and screams when he doesn’t get things his own way. But underneath this veneer, there is a drive within this individual to solicit an inordinate and unjustifiable honor from others.

At bottom, a selfish and proud person believes himself to be far more valuable than he is, and others less valuable than they are. In fact, his greatness makes sense in his own mind given the backdrop of others’ deficiencies. As a result, the proud person believes his ways to be right and insists on them being done. More often than not, his ways are neither the only way nor the best. Even if he knows his ways to be in error, he will insist on them anyways; for his person always trumps principle. In other words, he insists on his own policies or values for the often unspoken reason that they are His policies and His values, not because those policies or values are good in and of themselves. Furthermore, a proud person will use others as a means to his end, often at the expense of the happiness of others. People are regarded as opportunities to reach some goal, or obstacles to that goal. In either case, other peoples’ wishes or desires mean nothing, as the prideful person’s goal cancels out all others.

As we approach the question of whether God has the moral flaws of pride and selfishness, it seems quite clear that God does not fit the preceding description.

First off, God not only believes his ways to be right, they are right.

“The precepts of the LORD are right” - Psalm 19:8

Since they are right, it is right to insist on these things being done. So the image isn’t of a child kicking and screaming for ice-cream to be served for dinner, but of an upright magistrate insisting that the righteous law be upheld.
Also, though a selfish person would have his wish prevail at the expense of our happiness, God’s commands are quite different in that they result in the complete felicity of those obeying.

“In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” - Psalm 16:11

God’s ultimate end is his glory, but glorifying God doesn’t require the debasing of his creatures, but rather results in the elevation of those obeying creatures to their divine design. It’s when creatures operate according to God’s design that happiness results. What smoke is to fire, so is happiness to glorifying God by obedience.

Though a selfish person believes himself to be more valuable than he is and others less valuable than they are, this is not parallel to God’s own self-estimate. Scriptures affirm that we should not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to (Romans 12:3). The idea here is that pride is in part the sin of imagination in which we act and expect others to treat us according to our own grandiose and bloated evaluation of ourselves, not altogether different from a madman who demands all to worship him because he’s deity. So the charge of pride in the Most High would only stick if he was not “Most High;” that is, God had a bloated view of himself. However, we assert that God’s command to give honor and glory to him is the fulfillment of treating him in the way that he ought to be treated.

An illustration may be of use here. Compare a rock and a diamond. A rock has very little value; as such we may throw it, spit on it, or do with it as we please without the gasps of disgust from those around. A diamond, on the other hand, has far more value than a typical rock. Its value “demands” for it to be treated a certain way. The person who throws it, spits on it, or disposes of it is looked upon as failing to “grasp” the value of the object he is mistreating.

My point is that there are “gradations” of being, and as such different expectations as to how we should treat those beings. A caterpillar isn’t worth as much as a toddler, and so someone who treats a caterpillar as she would a toddler might be labeled “odd,” perhaps even “perverted.” Conversely, a person who treats a toddler as a caterpillar will be labeled “wicked.” In both cases, people did not treat subjects in the way they “ought to have.”

Just as there is a seeming infinite gap between the value of caterpillars and toddlers, there is an infinite gap between humans and God. A person who treats another human in a way reserved for God, or treats God as if he were a human has failed to treat both humans and God respectively in the way they should be treated. I suspect that the charge that God is “proud,” meaning that God has failed to do what he commands of his creatures, loses its steam as we consider the respective value of God and humans. God is infinitely worthy, and so deserves attention commensurate with his value.

“Ascribe to the LORD, O sons of the mighty, Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength. Ascribe to the LORD the glory due to His name;” - Psalm 29:1 & 2

Some might agree that God is far more valuable than humans, but protest that God is overly vocal about it. “He keeps bringing it to our attention.” So a man who has justly worked for his new car (therefore deserving it) seems in the wrong when he constantly tells everyone else about what he has and what they don’t have. However the situation isn’t the same. The analogy may be more appropriate if people were negligent around his car, perhaps by continuously throwing a hard ball over it. Or, what if they are even deliberate about trying to devalue it by throwing rocks at it? In these cases, we don’t fault the owner in bringing to their attention the value of his new car, his own efforts spent to procure the car, and perhaps the reminder that they’re not in a position, nor do they have the right to debase the value of his car. This is what one might expect.

In this, I think, we can see the numerous injunctions by God to be careful and cautious with what is his only. The Ten Commandments were posted in a world which grossly violated them. The command to worship God only was one given in a world engrossed in idolatry. A person wouldn’t post a sign “do not trespass” unless some have trespassed, or it is likely that some will trespass without it. In short, the numerous injunctions to give God his just due are given in a background where we have consciously maligned what is his.

So, is the Judeo-Christian God the most notorious violator of pride and self-centeredness? At the beginning of our journey I asked two questions which were relevant to answering this allegation: (1) How can one act be praiseworthy for one person and blameworthy for another? (2) How can “pride” and “self-centeredness” be praiseworthy for God and blameworthy for humans? The answer to the first question revealed that there are clear cases in which the same action is right for one person and wrong for another. This is due to certain conditions that are met (or characteristics that are possessed) by one person and not met by another. In answer to the second question, I affirmed that God possesses the following characteristics that make the kind of self-regard he possesses not only appropriate, but necessary. So, God’s ways are right, and his insistence on the right thing being done is the right thing to do. Also, God’s ways do not necessarily mean the pain or debasing of others. In fact, a creature who acts according to God’s will ultimately experiences joy. Lastly, given that God is infinitely worthy, it is only proper for all other conscious beings to treat him the way he “ought to be treated.”

Footnote

1 I will use “self-centeredness” as being closely related, though not necessarily identical to pride. It may be the case that although all proud people are self-centered, perhaps not all self-centered people are proud. For example, someone who battles with depression related to low-self esteem might be considered someone who is self-centered, though not haughty or arrogant.

True Martyrs: Victims of Radical Islam and Political Correctness

from Townhall.com - BreakPoint by Chuck Colsen

For years radical Islamists in the Philippines have been attacking Christians. In late April seven Christians were murdered on the southern Philippine island of Jolo.

Listen Here

The Boundaries of Love - Week 4 - Small Group Study

The Boundaries of Love: Love isn’t a Doormat, but it may be a Stepping Stone

by JM

Is “Love” masked exploitation?

Upon reading verses such as “Love is patient, love is kind…it always protects, trusts, hopes, preservers. Love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:4 & 7), some have concluded that the contents of this chapter are not so much a recipe for a good marriage or healthy relationship, but for exploitation. Friedrich Nietzsche more than once made statements like this:

"I regard Christianity as the most fatal and seductive lie that has ever yet existed--as the greatest and most impious lie…”

Nietzsche’s rationale for this scathing declaration was rooted in what I perceive in the following areas. The Christian ethic, namely, the Christian notion of love is:

•foreign to nature
•an assault on individual expression
•an assault on personal fulfillment
•an endorsement and reinforcement of the slave ethic.

The believer readily admits that agape love is foreign to nature; nature here being clearly defined as creation in the throes of a curse - a curse that moves humans imprinted in the image of God to bite, kick, scratch, harm, maim, and murder like their animal subordinates who have no divine imprintation. Nietzsche has got us on this one.

The Christian readily admits that agape love is an assault on individual expression; it tells them to stop biting, kicking, scratching, harming, maiming, and murdering when you want to give vent to your “nature.” Nietzsche has got us on this one too.

Now, we’re a little bit more cautious to conceding to Nietzsche the third accusation: agape is an assault on personal fulfillment. Certainly we would admit that turning the other cheek doesn’t pay immediate dividends of pleasure. However, Nietzsche would be the first to concede that within his own experience, there are certain pleasures that may be immediately experienced and enjoyed by someone, yet that same pleasure may be an obstacle to a greater pleasure that yields greater satisfaction that is gradual, not immediate. I derive immediate pleasure in watching TV. However, to turn off the TV and discipline myself to practice an instrument or read a book sets the stage for great satisfaction - a satisfaction that may be delayed. In the same way, agape is an assault on the pleasure of personal fulfillment. But agape says that pleasure of self-absorption is inferior to the pleasure experienced in communal engagement - a pleasure that pays dividends gradually.

Lastly, the believer refuses to accept the last charge: the Christian ethic of love is pure exploitation that those in power wield to paralyze their subjects. True love, Paul insists, is zealous about fairness and truth.

Love Delights In and Upholds Justice and Truth

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”

- 1 Corinthians 13:6-7

Paul declares to the Corinthian church that Love is Zealous for:

•Right Living (Justice) – the opposite of evil
•Right Thinking (Truth) – the opposite of falsehood.

Which is to say, whatever “patience, kindness, trusting, believing, hoping, enduring” mean, it can’t be taken to exclude notions of justice and truth. I would even suggest that it is quite likely that the Corinthians believed that Love somehow excluded the emphasis on right living and right thinking. Paul seems to be referring to something that this church is doing which they suppose to be loving, pure, holy, right, good, but upon apostolic examination, they are delighting in evil and rejecting the truth.

Corinthian Love: Delighting in Evil and Rejoicing in Falsehood.

In some chapters earlier, Paul sharply rebukes the church for tolerating the sexual immorality of a particular member of their church. Paul says that they had become arrogant and boastful about this matter. At first this seems odd that a church would boast in the clear violation of Scripture in their midst. But upon further examination, it is easy to see how the church settled for pseudo-love believed to be biblical. A love that

•Celebrates individual expression, no matter what it is.
•Embraces and does not challenge wrong living
•Embraces and does not challenge wrong thinking
•Is non-judgmental
•Is non-confrontational
•Is intolerant of intolerance

This is a notion of love prevelent today. It’s a love that labels Jerome Pinn “unloving" and "intolerant”:

“Graduate student Jerome Pinn checked into his dormitory at the University of Michigan to discover that the walls of his new room were covered with posters of nude men and that his new roommate was an active homosexual who expected to have partners in the room. Pinn approached the Michigan housing office requesting that he be transferred to another room. Listen to Pinn's own description of what followed: "They were outraged by this [request]. They asked me what was wrong with me--what my problem was. I said that I had a religious and moral objection to homosexual conduct. They were surprised; they couldn't believe it. Finally, they assigned me to another room, but they warned me that if I told anyone of the reason, I would face university charges of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation." Click Here

The Intolerable Compliment: Loving People Enough to Confront

Paul pays the Corinthians the Intolerable Compliment. For Paul,

•Love doesn’t celebrate individual expression no matter what
•Love challenges wrong living
•Love challenges wrong thinking
•Love is compelled to make judgments about moral issues
•Love is compelled to confront.

C.S. Lewis coined this the Intolerable Compliment. He explains:

“When people talk about the goodness of God these days, they almost exclusively mean his love. And by love, we almost always mean his kindness – the desire to see others than the self happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, ‘What does it matter so long as they are contented?’ We want, in fact, no so much a Father in heaven as a grandfather in heaven - a senile benevolence who, as they say, ‘liked to see young people enjoying themselves,’ and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, ‘a good time was had by all’”

Later on he would say that kindness, on its own, is somewhat indifferent about whether the object loved is good or evil. As if to say, “if embracing evil and rejoicing in false hood makes you happy, then embrace it.” Love peers beyond this false happiness and sees that if evil and falsehood are embraced, it will lead a person to their utter misery. Love confronts with a person’s well-being in mind.

Lewis would illustrate this facet of God for us by using the illustration of how an artist feels for an artifact:

An artist working on a sketch merely to please a child is content to leave it as it is, even though it isn’t exactly how he wants it. An artist working on his magnum opus will take endless trouble - and give endless trouble to the picture if it were alive. “One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and recommenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only the picture made for the child (a stick figure). In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but less love.

Loving People to Life

We are called to pay the intolerable compliment to one another – we love them so much that we will confront when necessary.

Proverbs 27:5 - 6 Open rebuke is better than secret love. 6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.

Psalm 141:5 Let the righteous smite me in kindness and reprove me; It is oil upon the head; Do not let my head refuse it, For still my prayer is against their wicked deeds.

To ensure that we’re not loving people to death by an unrestrained regard for truth and justice, we must answer these questions:

•Do I receive the intolerable complement when made by others. “I can give it, but not receive it?”
•Do I put much prayer and thought before confrontation?
•Do I know the person well enough?
•Do I have enough information?
•I’m I tethering truth with love and humility?
•I’m I being Punitive or Restorative?
•I’m I willing to go through the complete process of restoration?

Loving People to Life by Death

To love people to life, we are called to die. We are called to lay down our lives in paying the intolerable compliment. Sure, we’re not called to be a doormat, but sometimes we’re called to be a stepping stone for others. There’s nothing more difficult, nor more loving then bearing with someone’s dysfunction, sin, and character flaws as they make movements of progress, and relapse, and movements of progress, and relapses. But that’s precisely 1 Corinthian 13 love.

Tom Schreiner on Justification

Tom Schreiner on Justification - LISTEN HERE
~ C Michael Patton ~

Broadcast #26: Tom Schreiner talks about the Protestant doctrine of justification and the current state of the Evangelical-Catholic dialogue.

Source: http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2007/06/04/tom-schreiner-on-justification/

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Free Download: The Best of Jonathan Edwards' Sermons

If you use the code JUN2007 this month at ChristianAudio.com, you can download for free the 3.5-hour audiobook, The Best of Jonathan Edwards' Sermons.

The Jonathan Edwards trilogy includes three of the most important sermons ever preached on American soil. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is maybe the most important and well-known sermon of his, but also included is A Divine and Supernatural Light describing and illuminating what Edwards describes as a supernatural light imparted by God. His farewell sermon was given in June of 1750 and is a commendation to those who are in the Lord’s service, a plea to maintain unity, avoid dissension and false doctrine, and a call to devote themselves to prayer.

HT: The Man from Edinburgh

Here's the Link

The Grammar of Love (1 Cor 13: 4&5 - Small Group Study)

by JM

“ 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5).

To ignore basic grammar in speech or print is a recipe for serious miscommunications. If you start treating verbs as nouns, and nouns as adjective, you remove basic building blocks of language, universally accepted norms (at least universal within a particular language) that enable on mind to successfully interact with another.

I would insist that something like this is true of Love. There is a basic grammar of love; basic building blocks that enable one soul to successfully love another. Some of these are laid out in 1 Cor. 13: 5 & 6.

Before looking over the particulars of this passage, there are three basics of love that are suggested by a cursory reading:

1. Love is Verbal

“I want to point out something to you that you wouldn't know unless you were aware of the Greek. When you look at verses 4 to 7 in the English, it says: "Love is patient, love is kind, love is this, love is not that, and so forth." In the English, love is described with adjectives. But in the Greek, each of these descriptions of love is a verb...and verbs describe action. So, love is not something you describe with adjectives; love is something you describe with verbs. Love is only love when it acts” (John MacArthur)

2. Love is Relational

“Love is patience, love is kind, does not envy, does not boast… - Verbs that make sense only given a subject and an object.

3. Love is Oppositional

Again, “Love is patience, kind…” - Concepts that presuppose opposition or some form of resistance. Patience, of course is a virtue that assumes one coping with the delay or incompetence of another.

All this to say that 1 Cor. 13 isn’t written to instruct you so much what kind of feelings you can conjure up, or on how to act towards those that you find lovely and amiable, it’s written to us about how we are to act towards those who are quite irritating. This is merely a restatement of what Jesus had said a few decades before.

Matthew 5:44-48 44 "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 "If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. -

I detect three different kinds of challenging relationship

*One Way Relationships
*Top-Down or Bottom-Up Relationships
*Criss-Cross Relationships

I. One Way Relationships

What do One-Way relationships look like? A relationship in which people give very little and require much.

How does Love Respond to One Way Relationships?

“Love is patient, love is kind.”

Patience: Love Puts Up With A lot

A good natured tolerance of delay or incompetence of a person; bearing of provocation, annoyance, or pain without complaint or loss of temper…"It is the word which is used of the man who is wronged and who has it easily in his power to avenge himself but will never do it."

“A pearl is a garment of patience enclosed in annoyance.”

Kindness: Love Gives A Lot

II. Bottom-Up /Top-Down Relationships

How Does Love Act When I’m a Have-Not: When I’m on the Bottom looking Up

“It does not envy”

Envy Defined: Envy is a painful and resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another…accompanied by a strong desire to possess the same advantage. Envy wants to have what someone else possesses. Why? They don’t deserve it, but you do. The root word for envy, in the Greek, means "to boil." It refers to an inner boiling,seething, or steaming over something somebody else has.

Example:

1 Samuel 18:6-11 6 It happened as they were coming, when David returned from killing the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy and with musical instruments. 7 The women sang as they played, and said, "Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands." 8 Then Saul became very angry, for this saying displeased him; and he said, "They have ascribed to David ten thousands, but to me they have ascribed thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?" 9 Saul looked at David with suspicion from that day on. 10 Now it came about on the next day that an evil spirit from God came mightily upon Saul, and he raved in the midst of the house, while David was playing the harp with his hand, as usual; and a spear was in Saul's hand. 11 Saul hurled the spear for he thought, "I will pin David to the wall." But David escaped from his presence twice.

How Does Love I Act When I’m a Have? When I’m on the Top looking Down

“it does not boast”

Boasting Defined: The root word means “windbag.” Boastfulness is the empty verbalizing of accomplishments for the praise and adulation of others.

“Empty Trucks Make the Most Noise”

Envy and Boasting are forms of Pride

“it is not proud”

In his Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis contended that we can even be proud of our humility. Pride is a telescope turned the wrong way. It magnifies self and makes the heavens small.

III. Criss-Cross Relationships

What are Criss-Cross Relationships? All relationships include conflict over superficial irritations and not so superficial values. A Criss-Cross Relationship are those associations in which there is abnormal conflict with idiosyncrasies and values. 1 Cor. 13 Love will force you to wrestle with these two questions:

Do I Easily Offend: Am I Insensitive to other’s Sensitivities?

“It is not rude (inconsiderate) , it is not self-seeking,”

Am I Easily Offended: Am I Oversensitive to My Own Sensitivities?

“it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

Tempering Conflict: Living out Romans 14:1-19

Ultimate Issues Hour: Prager v. Hitchens Re: God

Prager H3: Dennis debates Christopher Hitchens, columnist for Slate and Vanity Fair and author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

Listen Here

David Livingstone - A Biography (Pt.2)

Taken from Missionary Talks Podcast:

"Missionary Talks 26: David Livingstone (part 2)

This episode and the next of Missionary Talks will be a biography of the life of David Livingstone, the great missionary explorer of Africa. After these two episodes have been released, I will make a single file download from which you will be able to hear the whole story in one audio file." Click Here to Listen

The Primacy of Love: Having a Love-Sided Community (1 Cor. 13 -Small Group Study- Wk 2)

by JM

I think that it is healthy periodically to ask yourself the following questions:

(1) What are my greatest talents?
(2) What am I weak at when it comes to relationships?
(3) How can I take my greatest talents and strenghten my relationships?

In turning to 1 Corinthians 13, it is clear that the church Paul addressed was tremendously talented while at the same time relationally dysfunctional. They were unable, or better yet, unwilling to build a bridge between spiritual gifts and spiritual community. So long as a person was functioning with frequency and intensity in their spiritual gift, cultivating godly relationships seemed unimportant. In fact, whenever the two were opposed (gift vs. bother or sister), the gift always won. With this philosophy of radical individualism, the result was a church content in being contentions and chaotic. It appears that they prided themselves in the contention and chaos, for that was thought to display to the world their ultimate value of individualistic expression, even when it meant corporate upheaval. For the Corinthians, Gifts were far greater than Love.

A Lop-Sided Church: A Gift-Sided Church

The unbalanced is striking: Here we have an immensely gifted and talented church who appears to lack in no spiritual gift. Here we have a unique church, in that we have no other example in the NT of a church operating with the fullness and intensity of the spiritual gifts than they. However, despite all the spiritual gifts, there was very little spiritual fruit; much charismata, little character

Wrong Measurements of Spirituality

The Corinthian Church prided themselves as having attained spiritual maturity. Their justification was grounded in the sheer enormity and expression of supernatural phenomena in their congregation. Their logic followed this course: If the presence and practice of spiritual gifts is the measure of spiritual maturity, and there are no other churches that function with the fullness and intensity of the gifts, then there’s no church as mature as the Corinthian church. To get a glimpse of this hubris, check out 1 Cor. 4:1-16.

Wrong Expressions of Spirituality

What did the typical Corinthian church service look like? I imagine it would make our Pentecostal brothers and sisters look Baptist in comparison. I envision tongue talking matches (or clashes), prophecy show downs, and “I have greater faith than you” displays('Oh, you moved a mole hill, we’ll I moved a mountain'). Regardless of the apparent exercise in madness, there was method behind it all. It was all quite reasoned out. If the intensity and quantity of your spiritual gift is the fundamental sign of spiritual maturity, then each service I must give full vent and expression to my gift - I'm displaying to myself and others the degree to which I’ve arrived. To refrain is to be unspiritual.

Bringing Balance: The Love-Sided Church

1 Corinthians 12:31 - 13:3 31 But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way. 1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

In this foray of poetic expression, I believe Paul to be saying that a spiritual person will display his maturity primarily in godly character, and in particular in a loving character. Love cannot or should not be classed with charismata (‘just another spiritual gift among others’). It is not one gift among many, it is the matrix in which all gifts are to be expressed and orchestrated; an all-embracing style of life that utterly transcends in importance the claims of this or that spiritual gift.

The irony of this passage is as striking as the chaos in the church: Paul is here declaring that the primary evidence of the Spirit working in one’s life is whether 1 Cor. 13 love is in operation in one’s life. As applied to the Corinthians, here we have the self-professed spiritually mature church (allegedly outranking all churches in their spiritual progress), lacking the primary evidence of the Spirit - Love. They have all the Gifts of the Spirit, and little of the Fruits of the Spirit.

Illustrating Love’s Primacy

With the opening volley of love, there’s a powerful image that is suggested.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

A spiritual gift (be it tongues or prophecy…) is to love what cymbals are to sheet music in an orchestra (though of course full-blown orchestras were non-existent). Imagine a full-fledged orchestra. Cymbals and gongs are the kinds of things that are expressed only a few times compared to other instruments; expressions that are directed by the sheet music. We’ve seen the images the few cymbalists who are intently focused in on the sheet music, turning page after page with little activity of their own, awaiting for the crescendo and climax of the piece. And finally, the music is building up and their grand moment has arrived. In a moment that arrests the audience, with all instruments are at their peak, the cymbals and gongs are unleashed and as quickly terminated in a breath- taking musical tour de force. Notice the following things:

• The expressions of the cymbals are relatively infrequent.
• The expressions of the cymbals are strategic and timely.
• The expressions of the cymbals are subordinate (they play a supportive role) – they accentuate other instruments and/or the whole symphony
• The expressions of the cymbals are not-lime light instruments – not like the piano; or the violin.
• The expressions of the cymbals reach their potential due to their relationship to the sheet music, which determines their relationship to other instruments.

I would suggest that Paul is saying that this is the kind of relationship that should exist between Love and Spiritual Gifts. Love is incomparable in its importance, and should serve to dictate how gifts are expressed. The analogy is suggestive.

•The expressions of gifts are to relatively infrequent.
• The expressions of gifts are strategic and timely.
• The expressions of gifts are subordinate (they play a supportive role) – the accentuate other instruments and/or the whole symphony.
• The expressions of the gifts are never to be lime light gifts
• The expressions of the gifts reach their potential due to their relationship to love – They are spoiled and profit nothing if they deviate from love.

Introspection - Are We Lop-sided People?

Signs that you are gift-sided: You equate spiritual maturity with spiritual activity. It is enough in your mind that you are doing; that you’re active; that you’re in movement.

Signs that you are love-sided:

•You realize Most gifts are easier to perfect than the character needed to drive them: Anyone can brandish a knife and harm, but it’s only the surgeon that can cut to heal; anyone can brandish a tongue or prophecy, but can they do it out of love.

• You realize that spiritual maturity involves movement, but you realize that there’s something fundamentally more important and more difficult to get right than movement or activity = motive. (movement w/o right motive = nothing). In fact, right motive will inform the specific way you ought to act or express your gift.

• You will find yourself asking these questions:

o I’m I expressing my gift?
o Why am I expressing my gift? Am I expressing it to primarily build others or myself?
o Who do I express my gift to? Am I consciously trying to build others.
o How do I express my gift? Do I express my gift in a way to divert as much attention from myself as it possible?
o When I’m to express my gift? Am I able to refrain from expressing it so as to bring the greatest amount of blessings to others?

For two great messages helping to understand the context of 1 Cor. 13, listen to C.J. Mahaney's two outstanding messages:

Deflating the Puffed Up Church - 1 Corinthians 4

Concerning Spiritual Gifts

Next Weeks Memorization Verses: 1 Cor. 13:4 & 5.

David Livingstone - Biography

Taken from Missionary Talks Podcast:

"Missionary Talks 25: David Livingstone (part 1)

This episode and the next of Missionary Talks will be a biography of the life of David Livingstone, the great missionary explorer of Africa. After these two episodes have been released, I will make a single file download from which you will be able to hear the whole story in one audio file." Click Here to Listen

No Spiritual “Monopoly” – A New Board Game For Pluralists

by JM

“A new board game by Enlighten Games Inc. (enlightengamesinc.com) takes players though six major in three historical/geographical categories. The goal? To be enlightened. Role the dice and you may just land on life’s “Rough Patches” – the only way out is to perform the Hindu spiritual rite of chanting om. Or you may land on the “Enlighten Path” and learn the true meaning of jihad. Does the winner become a pluralist” (Outreach Magazine May/June 2007)

Counter Cultural Love: Introduction to 1 Corinthians 13 - Week 1 (Outline of Small Group Study)

Pop-Culture on Love

by JM

One need only survey greatest hits to see that the American Culture has a love/'hate' affair with love.

First, you have pro-love songs vicariously sung by all love-struck lovers to each other:

I Will Always Love You/ Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston; Addicted to Love by Robert Palmer; The Power of Love by Celine Dion; Vision of Love by Mariah Carey; Endless Love by Lionel Riche and Diana Ross; All You Need is Love by John Lennon; Yummy, Yummy, Yummy by the Ohio Express.

When the couple breaks up, with ease they change their tune: shifting from singing the praises of love, to pronouncing curses on it. For Example:

Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benatar; Whats Love Got to Do With It by Tina Turner; Since You’ve Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson; Cry Me a River by Justin Timberlake; Don’t Wanna Fall in Love by Green Day; Love Will Tear Us Apart by Jose Gonzales

I could only imagine what a alien race oblivious to “love” would make of such shifting definitions. They might make the following conclusions:

Combine Riche & Ross with Gonzales: Endless Love + Love Will Tear Us Apart = Endless Tearing. Sounds painful.

Combine Houston and Clarkson: I Will Always Love You + Since You’ve Been Gone ('I can finally breath for the first time') = Love is an Allergy. We Get Asthma Everytime There’s Contact.

Combine Palmer and Green Day: Addicted to Love + Don’t Wanna Fall In Love = An addiction akin to Meth or Crank.

Combine Dion and Benatar: The Power of Love + Love is a BattleField = A scene from World War II – Saving Private Ryan from Dion and Benatar

Culture on Love

The kind of confusion trivially and humorously illustrated through pop-culture is illustrative of a fundamental misunderstanding and dilution of Love as originally intended. Here are some cultural perversions of Love:

1. Eroticism: How much sensual pleasure will I get?

Article - The New York Times: Children, Media, and Sex: A Big Book of Blank Pages

Article - The Baptist Press: FIRST-PERSON: Troubling stats about teen sex –

2. Conditional Covenant Making: How can I guard my interests in this relationship?

Divorce Statistics: Click Here

Causes for Divorce:

Extra-marital affairs - 27% (29%);
Family strains - 18% (11%);
Emotional/physical abuse - 17% (10%);
Mid-life crisis - 13% (not in 2003 survey);
Addictions, e.g. alcoholism and gambling - 6% (5%);
Workaholism - 6% (5%)

3. Narcissism: How can I mask self-love with my love for others?

Being Kind to others to ensure Kindness in return
When Kindness isn’t returned, I cease to be kind

4. Minimalism: What’s the least amount I can get away with giving?

5. Tolerance: What values will I comprise to ensure people love me?

Counter-Cultural Love

Paul’s Treatise on Love in 1 Cor. 13 was penned as a corrective to polluted notions of Love imported from their culture; a culture not much different from ours, and therefore a chapter that will do much to correct our own faulty notions of love. We’ll divide this correction in the following way.

1. The Primacy of Love (Vss.1- 3): The Measure of True Spirituality.

2. The Grammar of Love (Vss.4&5): Love is a Verb which has an Object and a Subject.

3. The Boundaries of Love (Vss.6&7): Love is Not a Doormat, but it may be a Stepping Stone.

4. The Expressions of Love (Vss.8–12): Spiritual Gifts are Love’s Temporary & Inadequate Expression

5. The Cultivation of Love (Vss. 13): Towards a Trinitarian Love (faith hope and love)

6. The Frontier of Love: Group Outreach

Incarnating Love:Three Challenges To Our Group

Memorizing 1 Corinthians 13 – Verses 1-3 this week

How To Memorize Scripture:Click Here

Weekly Campaigns of Love in the Workplace

One Group Outreach

Bible drawn into sex publication controversy

Wed May 16, 2007 8:24AM EDT

HONG KONG (Reuters) - More than 800 Hong Kong residents have called on authorities to reclassify the Bible as "indecent" due to its sexual and violent content, following an uproar over a sex column in a university student journal.

A spokesperson for Hong Kong's Television and Entertainment Licensing authority (TELA) said it had received 838 complaints about the Bible by noon Wednesday.

The complaints follow the launch of an anonymous Web site -- www.truthbible.net -- which said the holy book "made one tremble" given its sexual and violent content, including rape and incest.

The Web site said the Bible's sexual content "far exceeds" that of a recent sex column published in the Chinese University's "Student Press" magazine, which had asked readers whether they'd ever fantasized about incest or bestiality.

That column was later deemed "indecent" by the Obscene Articles Tribunal, sparking a storm of debate about social morality and freedom of speech. Student editors of the journal defended it, saying open sexual debate was a basic right.

If the Bible is similarly classified as "indecent" by authorities, only those over 18 could buy the holy book and it would need to be sealed in a wrapper with a statutory warning notice.

TELA said it was still undecided on whether the Bible had violated Hong Kong's obscene and indecent articles laws.

But a local protestant minister shrugged off this possibility.

"If there is rape mentioned in the Bible, it doesn't mean it encourages those activities," said Reverend Wu Chi-wai. "It's just common sense ... I don't think that criticism will have strong support from the public," he added.

Can Moses Have False Beliefs While Penning Untainted Truth: the Implications for Biblical Inerrancy?

by JM

Concerning someone like Moses, some may try to insist that the following principle must be true: In order for statement S to be without error when spoken by Moses, is it the case that Moses must not have any mistaken views about S. For example, let’s say Moses was a geocentrist (someone who believes the earth is the spatial center of the universe), and let’s say he uses the phrase “the sun is setting.” Does this mean that Scripture errors when the phrase “the sun is setting” is used by Moses? Conversely put, is S is inerrant (without error) only if Moses understands S correctly. On this view, it is a necessary condition that when the phrase “the sun is setting” is used, that Moses must understand this within a heliocentric paradigm (believing that the sun is the center of the solar system) and not a geocentric paradigm.

I think there are considerations that suggest that it is not the case that Moses must understand S either fully or correctly before S is considered inerrant. For example, when Moses declares that God is eternal, does he mean that God is timeless or temporally infinite (a debate raging presently)? I suspect that Moses would have no clue, or a very impoverished notion of time and eternity. Perhaps he is convinced by one position, even though it is wrong. Is then Moses incorrect in his declaration, seeing that his declaration is either impoverished or fails in full correspondence of the facts? When Paul gives his benediction by using a Trinitarian formula, does Paul need to have the philosophically precise language or understanding of the Athanasian or Nicene creed to infallibly make a declaration about the Trinity? In addressing this, there are a few options available to us:

(1) The authors of Scripture knew fully about the matters that they communicated and made no errors. For example, when Moses describes creation ex nihilo, Moses has in mind something like the big bang.

(2) The authors of Scripture had a vague understanding about the things they reported and communicated no error. For example, a person who did not major in physics may have an impoverished understanding of gravity. In a crass and crude description, they may say something like “gravity occurs when rocks are let go from my hand.” Though crude, it isn’t incorrect; it’s a phenomenological description that lacks refinement and detail. So when Moses includes bats with birds, the crass similarity of “flying” suits him for classifying this type of creature. In this kind of language, categories are somewhat fluid. The same applies to analogical language. When I say that my dog is “good,” I mean that he is potty trained. When I say that my wife is “good,” I don’t mean that she is potty trained (even though she is), but that she is kind, faithful, vacuums well etc…. When I say God is “good,” I don’t mean exactly the same thing as when this word is used to describe my dog or wife. However, I don’t fully grasp what I mean by “good” when I apply it to God. I have a vague understanding of “goodness” that is confined to my sphere of understanding. I infer that this goodness is somehow an analogy to God’s goodness. Crude and impoverished, I know. Incorrect? No.

(3) The authors of Scripture had an incorrect view on the things they reported but communicated no error. This can be taken two ways:

(a) The author believing S is true, in making the statement S, means to communicate that S corresponds to reality. So, Moses believing rabbits to be ruminants, in penning Leviticus 11:6, means to share his conviction with the world. Yet, somehow Scriptures do not error in this event (hard to swallow, I know).

(b) It is possible for someone to state S, and not intend to communicate that S corresponds to reality, even though they believe that it corresponds to reality. Imagine a scientist who is at a cocktail party with his colleges. The atmosphere is jovial, and he decides to tell a joke. Whatever the joke is, the content includes something about how light is created when electrons drop from a higher to lower energy shell. In the middle of the joke, a fellow scientist (who is also a dogmatic skeptic) inappropriately interrupts the joke teller by asking whether or not he believes electrons really “drop.” Notice how the question is inappropriate given the purpose of the joke teller. Let’s say that he really does believe that electrons really drop, however his declaration of this fact in the joke was not meant to be taken metaphysically. He pauses, a little shocked by the rude interruption, considers the question, and then declares, “I believe that electrons really drop.” Consider that the different conversational contexts determine whether truth value is relevant. The first should not be considered as an issue of correspondence and truth, but of jargon and nomenclature. The second should be considered as an issue of correspondence, and therefore is true or false given if this correspondence obtains.

In other words, there can be significant distance between what someone says and believes, so that a person may declare X, believe X, and not be wrong in this declaration, even though the declaration fails the correspondence test. Why? Because in making declaration X, P does not mean to convey either what she believes, or whether or not X is true.

(4). The authors of Scripture had an incorrect view on the things they reported and communicated error because of this report.

Given the possibilities of (2) and (3b), I feel reasonable in dismissing (1), (3a), and (4). All this to say that it seems reasonable to maintain that Moses communicated inerrant truth without requiring inerranency of all his beliefs.

King Herod's tomb may have been found

By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer
Tue May 8, 8:38 AM ET

JERUSALEM - An Israeli archaeologist on Tuesday said he has found remnants of the tomb of King Herod, the legendary builder of ancient Jerusalem, on a flattened hilltop in the Judean Desert where the biblical monarch built a palace.
Hebrew University archaeologist Ehud Netzer said the tomb was found at Herodium, a site where he has been exploring since the 1970s.

Netzer said a team of researchers found pieces of a limestone sarcophagus believed to belong to the ancient king. Although there were no bones in the container, he said the sarcophagus' location and ornate appearance indicated it is Herod's.

"It's a sarcophagus we don't just see anywhere," Netzer said at a news conference. "It is something very special."

Netzer led the team, although he said he was not on the site when the sarcophagus was found.

Stephen Pfann, an expert in the Second Temple period at the University of the Holy Land, called the find a "major discovery by all means," but cautioned further research is needed.

He said all signs indicate the tomb belongs to Herod, but said ruins with an inscription on it were needed for full verification.

"We're moving in the right direction. It will be clinched once we have an inscription that bears his name," said Pfann, a textual scholar who did not participate in Netzer's dig.

The fragments of carved limestone found at the sandy site are decorated with floral motives, but do not include any inscriptions.

Herod became the ruler of the Holy Land under the Romans around 40 B.C. The wall he built around the Old City of Jerusalem during the time of the Jewish Second Temple is the one that can be seen today. He also undertook massive construction projects in Caesaria, Jericho, the hilltop fortress of Massada and other locations.

It has long been assumed that Herod was buried at Herodium, but decades of excavations failed to turn up the site until now. The first century historian Josephus Flavius described the tomb and Herod's funeral procession.

Herodium was one of the last strong points held by Jewish rebels fighting against the Romans, and it was conquered and destroyed by Roman forces in A.D. 71, a year after they destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

Hebrew University had hoped to keep the find a secret until Netzer's news conference on Tuesday. But the university announced the find in a brief statement late Monday after the Haaretz daily found out about the discovery and published an article on its Web site.

The Morning I Heard the Voice of God

By John Piper March 21, 2007

Let me tell you about a most wonderful experience I had early Monday morning, March 19, 2007, a little after six o’clock. God actually spoke to me. There is no doubt that it was God. I heard the words in my head just as clearly as when a memory of a conversation passes across your consciousness. The words were in English, but they had about them an absolutely self-authenticating ring of truth. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God still speaks today.

I couldn’t sleep for some reason. I was at Shalom House in northern Minnesota on a staff couples’ retreat. It was about five thirty in the morning. I lay there wondering if I should get up or wait till I got sleepy again. In his mercy, God moved me out of bed. It was mostly dark, but I managed to find my clothing, got dressed, grabbed my briefcase, and slipped out of the room without waking up Noël. In the main room below, it was totally quiet. No one else seemed to be up. So I sat down on a couch in the corner to pray.

As I prayed and mused, suddenly it happened. God said, “Come and see what I have done.” There was not the slightest doubt in my mind that these were the very words of God. In this very moment. At this very place in the twenty-first century, 2007, God was speaking to me with absolute authority and self-evidencing reality. I paused to let this sink in. There was a sweetness about it. Time seemed to matter little. God was near. He had me in his sights. He had something to say to me. When God draws near, hurry ceases. Time slows down.........

To Read More, Click Here

Thousands of Volcano Cult Members Turn to Jesus Christ

Christian Post Reporter
Tue, Apr. 24 2007 07:00 PM ET

"Thousands of cult members who used to worship a mythical messiah figure they believed to dwell inside a nearby volcano are giving their hearts to Christ after viewing the Jesus film.

The people on the isolated South Pacific island of Tanna, in the country of Vanuatu, have long put their faith in John Frum, a figure they insist is a former American GI during World War II who will someday emerge from the volcano and shower his believers with wealth and knowledge.

Frum has been described as a combination of John the Baptist, Uncle Sam and Santa Claus.

Yet members of the cult quickly forego their volcano “god” after viewing the Jesus film.

“As they see the film, as they see the picture it became more real to them. It is like Jesus coming alive and being in their presence,” said Pastor Phil Wiwirau, part of the Scripture Union team in Vanuatu, in a recently released Jesus Film video.

“The Jesus film also touched a lot of lives …[at] the crucifixion part… People came forward with tears and repentant heart because they could realize why Jesus had to die on the cross…”

Among the 10,000 islanders who formerly adhered to the volcano cult, more than 4,666 people from Tanna have converted to Christianity, according to Wes Brenneman, director of Campus Crusade for Christ in the Pacific Islands..."

Six-Figure Income - A New Respect for Mothers

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - If the typical stay-at-home mother in the United States were paid for her work as a housekeeper, cook and psychologist among other roles, she would earn $138,095 a year, according to research released on Wednesday.

This reflected a 3 percent raise from last year's $134,121, according to Salary.com Inc, Waltham, Massachusetts-based compensation experts.

The 10 jobs listed as comprising a mother's work were housekeeper, cook, day care center teacher, laundry machine operator, van driver, facilities manager, janitor, computer operator, chief executive officer and psychologist, it said.

The typical mother puts in a 92-hour work week, it said, working 40 hours at base pay and 52 hours overtime."

Vicarious Hill-Climbing

by JM

Psalm 24

In the first two verses of David’s psalm, he’s unequivocal about to whom the world belongs. It doesn’t belong to men, kings, or even devils.

Psalm 24:1-2, “The earth is the LORD'S, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it. 2 For He has founded it upon the seas And established it upon the rivers.

Such is God’s rule of exhaustive power and scope that always all things are in God’s immediate possession to turn which way he wants. Even the “god of this world” is an unwilling accomplice in Yahweh’s plan.

Although the world is clearly described as the Lord’s, David also implies a significant separation between the Creator and “those who dwell” on earth. He would seem to declare that no earth-dweller is fit to be a heaven-dweller; no person may ascend into God’s favor. This is suggested by the third verse.

Psalm 24:3 3 Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? And who may stand in His holy place?

The flavor of the question is rhetorical, as if to say,

“Among the inhabitants of the earth, who has the strength to scale a mountain on top of which resides the celestial city?”

Or,

“what is this vanity of man that he thinks he has virtue enough to ascend to God.”

Perhaps this is the kind of vanity picked up later by the prophet Isaiah when he describes the quintessential bombast who said,

“‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. 14 'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High'” (Isaiah 14:13-14)

This first bombast is also the first Babel builder, setting the unholy precedent of the attempted circumvention of the glory of God, as well setting in motion the first of innumerable failed and frustrated building projects attempted by his sons and daughters (John 8:44). It is upon these children that God visits the iniquity of the father, even on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate the Lord.

To dispel all doubt of the futility of heaven-entry, David cements the answer implied by these questions with the impossible criteria needed for such ascension. Who may ascend into heaven?

Psalm 24:4-5 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood And has not sworn deceitfully. 5 He shall receive a blessing from the LORD And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

Who among earth-dwellers has the strength of untarnished hands to grab the clefts of God’s mountain, or the holy blood pumped by a pure heart to power such ascent, or who hasn’t been bowed and broken down in soul by deceit and falsehood?

Sometime before David’s answer, Job’s friend would answer correctly and emphatically, “No One!”

Job 15:14-16 14 "What is man, that he should be pure, Or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? 15 "Behold, He puts no trust in His holy ones, And the heavens are not pure in His sight; 16 How much less one who is detestable and corrupt, Man, who drinks iniquity like water!”

It’s at this point that the psalm presents both a baffling and exhilarating statement.

Psalm 24:5-6 5 He shall receive a blessing from the LORD And righteousness from the God of his salvation. 6 This is the generation of those who seek Him, Who seek Your face-- even Jacob. Selah.

Here’s the baffling part: Jacob is undoubtedly a man without the clean hands and the pure heart that is requisite for this heavenly rock climbing expedition. As to deceit and lying, the meaning of his name embodies the man and his life. Jacob means “deceiver.” Jacob means “one who has lifted his soul to falsehood.” Jacob means “one who swears deceitfully.” Yet, Jacob is presented here as both the man prohibited from heaven and the man permitted into heaven. So which is it? Either heaven doesn’t require these virtues to enter, or Jacob (and all those like him) will not enter.

This is also exhilarating. Psalm 24 tells us that there are those like Jacob, and those who are of Jacob’s generation, who although they are just as incapable of this heavenly ascent as the rest of mankind, nevertheless make it. This is potentially good news for the rest of impure humanity.

This then of course moves us to raise the question: how is it that those with sinful hands, impure hearts, deceitful and vile souls, are able to ascend the hill of the Lord when God says such a feat is audacious and humanly impossible? David cryptically answers:

Psalm 24:7-10 Lift up your heads, O gates, And be lifted up, O ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in! 8 Who is the King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, The LORD mighty in battle. 9 Lift up your heads, O gates, And lift them up, O ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in! 10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah.

Some commentators believe that these are the gates of Jerusalem. I want to suggest that David is referring to the gates of the New Jerusalem, heaven itself. It’s hard to believe that Jerusalem, which is established by David, would be considered by him as having “ancient” gates; it’s even more difficult to adopt this view if David meant what the KJV translators thought he meant when they render the term, “everlasting.” The gates, so it would seem, would have an antiquity much like the “ancient of days.” If I’m right, then we have someone not only opening doors of heaven that were bolted shut, but also someone extending the height of the lintel of these heavenly doors to allow for a grand entry. This is none other but the King of Glory.

At this point, we still don’t have the answer as to why it is that Jacob and his generation are ‘exempt’ from the qualifications in the action whereby the King of Glory passes through and expands of heaven’s gate. So what’s so significant about this passage?

Notice that this is a passage into heaven, not a departure from. This verse implies that the Lord had previously stepped outside of the gates of heaven and descended down the hill of the Lord; all of which without the expansion of her doors. Whatever feat the Lord accomplished outside of her gates (at the base of this hill), whatever battle in which the Lord was strong and mighty, as he makes way back into the heavenly city and His arrival has the corresponding effect of broadening it’s doors.

Now what feat of the LORD could the Psalmist possibly be referring to? I think the New Testament writers would say the feat of the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Messiah.

Ephesians 4:8-13 8 Therefore it says, "WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES, AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN." 9 (Now this expression, "He ascended," what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.) 11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

Again,

Hebrews 9:24 24 For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;

Again,

John 6:38-40 38 "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 "This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. 40 "For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day."

To further support this interpretation, as Paul describes the centrality of the cross of Christ as the sole means of the salvation of God’s people in 1 Corinthians 2, he links Christ with the “LORD of glory” referred to by David in Psalm 24.

1 Corinthians 2:7-8 7 but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; 8 the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;

In these passages, we have the Son of God, the LORD of Glory exiting heaven, descending in the incarnation, with a mission to rescue a particular people from eternal death unto eternal life by his own death. Some time shortly after his resurrection, Jesus ascends the hill of the Lord with clean hands and pure heart, with a soul not lifted into falsehood or deceit, in order to present a sinful people as righteous before God. On his back, he carries booty from his conquest; the sons of Jacob: all those who like Jacob who had be visited with unmerited grace. With his arrival, the doors must be enlarged to allow for the influx of souls into a heaven which previously banned them.

This psalm gives a fresh perspective of the “Footprints” story. David’s rendition is one of vicarious hill-climbing in which the Messiah carries a company of disabled people with the strength of his holiness and virtue.

Sola Dei Gloria!!!