When the Truth Bites You!

The above title isn’t in the text of the devotional, but that’s how it struck me…

Today we’re back with Stephen and Brooksyne Weber at Daily Encouragement. This couple have been faithfully producing their devotional material as a full-time job, combined with workplace chaplaincy. I was reading their work long before C201 started. As usual, click the header below to read this at source, where you’ll also find a picture of a relevant church sign, and a link to a worship song, Worship Forever, which was new to me.

When Truth Hurts

Listen to our message on your audio player.

“Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?”  (Galatians 4:16).

“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31,32).

As we’ve mentioned often on daily encouragement we are genuinely blessed by the messages we read on church signs and private yards throughout Lancaster and Lebanon County. We see a lot of them here in rural Pennsylvania. They can be thought-provoking and even humorous. Last week we passed the church sign in our lead photo in Bethel, PA which states, “If The Truth Hurts, Then It Is Working”.

For many years during the time I served as a pastor I had a small placard attached to the pulpit facing me as I preached with these words, “Sir, we would see Jesus”. It was visible as I stood in front of God’s people and preached every Sunday reminding me that it’s not me that the people came out to see, but Jesus, whom I solemnly represented. This is an extremely important truth for all ministers of the Gospel to keep in mind as they break forth the Word of Life.

The venerable J. Vernon McGee also used this phrase on his pulpit reminding him of his serious duty but he writes:

“There is another verse I wanted to place on the audience side of the pulpit, but I never had the nerve to do it. It is these words of Paul: “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” As you know, many folk today really don’t want the preacher to tell the truth from the pulpit. They would much rather he’d say something complimentary that would smooth their feathers and make them feel good. We all like to have our backs rubbed, and there is a lot of back-rubbing from the contemporary pulpit rather than the declaration of the truth.”

McGee died in 1988 so it’s no telling how long ago he wrote this and it is even more true today in the age of “seeker-sensitive” churches where a cardinal rule is “don’t say anything that might offend someone”.

Bible teacher A.T. Robertson quipped, “It is always a risky business to speak the truth, the whole truth. It may hit and hurt”.

The phrase “truth hurts” means that the truth can be painful or uncomfortable to hear, especially if it conflicts with our beliefs, expectations, or desires. It can also increasingly conflict with popular culture.

In the daily text Paul is addressing a drift away from the truth among the Galatian believers. A few verses earlier he wrote,

“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?” (Galatians 4:8,9).

Truth can hurt when it challenges our beliefs. These Galatians had been exposed to false teachings. They had been persuaded of certain beliefs by false teachers, hearing something, even something true, that contradicts those beliefs can be difficult to accept.

It can feel like a personal attack, and we may resist it because it threatens our sense of identity. This will be the case as our society becomes increasingly Biblically illiterate and rejects God’s ways and many become ignorant of God’s truths.

Earlier in the book of Galatians Paul writes,

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6).

Our sinful nature makes us prone to exchanging truth for a lie. In Romans 1:25 Paul wrote of those who “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator“.

Today let us receive the truth, primarily the Gospel truth, even if it does hurt! Let us hear and heed our Lord’s words, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31,32).

Daily prayer: Father, just as Paul wrote that he was astonished when Your followers were so quickly deserting the gospel of Jesus Christ and turning to a different gospel, we too are astonished and grieved when we see those who have walked with You in righteousness and truth turn to a counterfeit gospel, one that says Jesus is a way, not the way; another that says we are saved by our good works, by our name recognition, by how much money we give to charitable works and on and on the list grows.

We thank You for Christian friends, preachers, and Christian leaders who speak the truth even when it hurts. They don’t just go along to get along, but they stand on principle not seeking to be contrary but to be Christ honoring and obedient to that which is established in Your word. We want to abide in You so that we will abide in Your truth and do not fall prey to erroneous teaching. Keep us faithful, Jesus. Amen.

 

 

The “Otherness” of God, and Ourselves

‘In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord’ (1 Peter 3:15).

A required textbook in one of my university Philosophy courses was The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto. (Let me say at the outset that in taking a brief refresher this morning on its content, I am in no way giving it a wholehearted recommendation, although some Christian bookstores do carry the title.)

My four-word takeaway from the book would be “God is wholly other.” There’s no room there for a “What if God were one of us?” type of speculation because God, being God, is not even remotely like us. I thought I’d share a brief summary offered by a reader, “Bruce” on GoodReads:

The thesis of this book is that a sense of God’s presence, with its attendant emotions of sacredness, wonderment and awe, is the fundamental starting point of genuine religion. Everything else — doctrine, ritual and theological speculation — are reliant upon, and derived from this experience. Otto coined the word numinous (from the Latin numen, meaning sacred presence) to describe it. This does not mean that chronologically in a person’s life other experiences, such as intellectual curiosity, may not occur first; merely that the numinous apprehension of God is, ultimately, the one thing needful.

So the starting point has to be a wonder or awe at something which is so far beyond humanity, so (if I may repeat it) wholly other. (If you missed it, check out the devotional from 9 days ago, The Ability to Withstand God’s Presence.)

In the last few days I have been struck by this equation

holy = set apart

and how, in the case of God, it could be read

holy = set apart = wholly other

and thereby, if we are to take on Godly character, we will be increasingly demonstrating our “otherness” when compared to the fallen world in which we currently live.

“Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the LORD today…” —Exodus 32:29

Here’s a quote from Dr. Charles Price, longtime pastor of Peoples Church in Toronto. This was titled, On Being Set Apart (link no longer available):

To be holy does not mean to be perfect, but to be ‘set apart’. That is the meaning of the word. It does not equal being perfect.

In my wedding service, I said to my bride as part of my vows: “Forsaking all others, I take you only unto me.” What I meant was, “I’ll never look at a girl again the way I look at you. I’ll never develop a relationship with another woman in the way that I have a relationship with you.” I had become ‘set apart’ exclusively to her. I was entering into a ‘holy’ relationship with her, one in which we are set apart exclusively to each other. That did not make me a perfect husband overnight!! (I think that took a week!) No, I will never be a perfect husband, and that was not the expectation on my wedding day (certainly not my wife’s!), nor was it the meaning of setting myself apart to her. I am repeatedly needing to say ‘I am sorry’. We are always learning new things about each other, and the journey of growth will never end – ‘till death do us part’.

One thing that has greatly reinforced this to me is the lyrics of the Brian Doerksen song, Refiner’s Fire.

I choose to be Holy
Set apart for you, my master
Ready to do your will.

Many years ago here, I wrote about being separated from the world, and compared it to how the Amish people live among us, but are very much set apart from the rest of the world. In the world but not of it.

Our key verses in that devotional were Romans 12:2

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (TNIV)

1-2  So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (The Message)

and because this will involve a transformation, II Cor 5: 17:

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (NLT)

Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! (The Message)

Here’s more from Charles Price:

Being called to be ‘holy’ is to be set apart to Christ, and involves no expectation of perfection – for that is neither offered nor promised to us in this life. Rather, in our frailty and the everyday fumbling of our lives to walk in harmony with the Lord Jesus, there is a fundamental attitude that says, “I am set apart to the Lord Jesus”. That is what it means to be holy.

For the people of Israel it meant that even God’s name — or maybe we should say especially God’s name — was not to be pronounced. I know people, and you might as well, who in their personal correspondence or online postings will write “L-rd” instead of Lord, or “G-d” instead of God.

Yet increasingly among Christians, we’ve adopted the world’s casual use of phrases like “Oh, my God” — or its abbreviation, “OMG” — without considering the holiness; the otherness of that name. Eugene Peterson renders the 3rd Commandment as “No using the name of God, your God, in curses or silly banter; God won’t put up with the irreverent use of his name.“ (Ex. 20:7).

Our approach to God should be one of reverence. Some interpret that to mean that children shouldn’t be allowed to playfully run around the sanctuary, though children were present at the time of Christ’s ministry and he embraced the interruptions. But in the modern church, it’s normative to arrive for services in casual dress and sip coffee during the sermon.

To be clear, I don’t want to go back to suits and ties for men; in fact, that actually leads to other issues. But we should remember that the church building itself (if you’re not meeting in a home or rented facility) is indeed a place which ideally has been “set apart” for worship.

So in speech, in our weekend worship, and in many other ways, we should seek to emulate that “otherness” that God desired for Israel, and reinforced by giving them some guiding laws that would allow them to stand out from the people of surrounding nations. To me there’s a third equation lurking in the background here:

holy = set apart = distinct identity

Our manner of living should be such that we clearly identifiable. It means you intentionally take on character and practices

^{NIV.Phil.2.15} so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky ^16a as you hold firmly to the word of life.

 

If you haven’t already done so, a recommended book is The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges; widely available.

This Cultural Moment

“Now when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed.– Acts 13:36 (NIV)

I’m not sure if it was in their speaking or their writing, and I’m not sure if it was Mark Sayers or John Mark Comer who I first heard use the phrase “this cultural moment” in reference to the church being ready, willing and able to speak to the wider surrounding culture. What I do know is that the phrase has stuck with me.

A conversation is continually taking place among church leaders as to how we respond to the general direction of the society around us. Do not be mistaken. Some confuse this with speaking to specific issues that make up our headline news.

We do need to be aware of the world in which we live. Esther 1:13 is a great verse on this subject:

Since it was customary for the king to consult experts in matters of law and justice, he spoke with the wise men who understood the times. (NIV) He immediately consulted with his wise advisers, who knew all the Persian laws and customs, for he always asked their advice. (NLT)

But we have to be careful not to immerse ourselves in the minutiae of specific issues at the expense of (a) keeping the much larger cultural landscape in view and (b) being true to our calling as citizens of another world.

No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. 2 Timothy 2:4 (NASB)

Do you see the need for balance?

Paul — the very same Paul who wrote that advice to Timothy — also offers a textbook example of how we should be aware and in touch with the people around us when he delivers a famous speech (sermon) to a crowd gathered at the marketplace in Athens.

So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Acts 17:22-23a (NASB)

Did he write his speech weeks in advance? No, his remarks are prefaced with a remark concerning something he saw when he arrived in the city. He then uses that as a springboard for the point he wants to make. It’s brilliant. But it’s not something he could have done if he’d been whisked to a hotel in a limo with tinted windows, and hadn’t had time to look around.

He doesn’t have to immerse himself in their culture to have a conversational familiarity with it. And as such, he’s able to speak to their cultural moment…

…Years ago I remember attending an ordination service where the young man being ordained was encouraged in this very thing. He was told to be sure to have a newspaper subscription — before the internet — to which in hindsight he might have added, a local newspaper subscription and a national newspaper subscription. It’s important to stay in touch with our surrounding communities and our world.

Today there’s another way that “this cultural moment” might be used, and that’s in terms of the time and place that the church now finds itself. If a person is selective, I see no reason why they can’t have a Twitter account consisting of other Christian leaders and follow the issues which are important today to the modern Church, or the Evangelical movement, or whatever sector of the capital “C” Church is important to them.

Finally, “serving the purposes of God in His generation” means not trying to serve the Church and the people the Church serves as if it’s 50 years ago, or 150 years ago. The content of our message is unchanging: redemption through the cross of Christ. However the presentation of our message should reflect the cultural moment.

Let’s make it personal.

How are you serving the purposes of God in your generation?

 

 

Keeping Moral Purity

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
 – Jeremiah 17:9

For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness.
– Mark 7:22-23

For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.
 – Romans 1:21

Once again we’re back with Arnold Reimer, for many years the pastor of Bayview Glen Alliance Church in Toronto, and his blog titled Finishing Well.

Moral Purity

The news and the courts seem crowded with disturbing cases of sexual impropriety involving people of all social levels of wealth, fame, power and commonality. The number of women who have been violated is staggering. One wonders how so many have been so vulnerable, and where their parents, siblings, friends and associates were while all this was happening? It is not a happy commentary on family and social responsibility. After all, we really are our brothers’ (sisters’) keeper!

One thing is very clear: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?” Jesus spelled it out bluntly, “The things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man (or woman), for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile . . .”

Painful is the number of clergy and those of Christian profession who are found among the reprobates. Nothing reveals the depths of human depravity more than a person who proclaims the Word of God with its clear commands, calls for obedience to its truths, and warns of the consequences of disobedience, while living in moral hypocrisy. Great harm has been done to the cause of Christ because of it. No place on earth should be safer to be, nor persons safer to be with, than the church and its leaders. Thankfully, for the most part that remains true; but that is little comfort to the abused.

…I wish to underline some Scriptural/spiritual principles that bless and protect one’s moral purity. In a world that is increasingly becoming a cesspool of moral failure, misinformation, indecent dress and selfish unrestraint, we need biblical disciplines with boundaries strong and true. So . . .

1. KEEP YOUR HEART – with all diligence for out of it come the issues of life. Our Creator has set the standards and fixed the values governing sexual behaviour. Moral purity is suppose to be the norm. To aid and abet that, marriage is a sacred and exclusive relationship between one man and one woman. Sexual acts outside that bond are wrong. It is critical that we fill and guard our mind with truth. Learn the biblical principles and illustrations that teach and enable purity, loyalty and faithfulness. Meditate on them day and night. Listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and obey Him, while making no provision for the flesh. The Word of God, the work of Christ and the voice of the Holy Spirit are sufficient protection and guidance for every temptation we face.

2. KEEP YOUR EYES – Our eyes feed the thoughts which motivate our body. What and who we allow our eyes to look at indiscriminately will make a huge difference in how we think and what we do. A life informed by Scripture and yielded to the Spirit bears the fruit that starts with genuine love and ends with the strong disciplines of self-control. God wants us to see others as those He values and loves. No one is a commodity.

3. KEEP YOUR SPOUSE – Next to God, Himself, our relationship with our spouse is critical to all we are. There is a reason why God has instructed us to leave father and mother and to cling to our wife/husband in order to become one flesh. That takes time, love, togetherness, forgiveness, communication, trust, commitment, wisdom and understanding – a lot more, but nothing less! No one else is half as valuable to our well-being, and certainly not to the maintenance of moral purity. Nurture, build, protect, value and reward the spousal relationship.

To a large degree we are living with the consequences of a society that places little value on purity. Our laws, educational systems and social values have increasingly looked the other way as immorality infiltrates behaviour, especially among vulnerable youth. It is taken for granted in sex education that immorality will occur, to the point of aiding it in the hopes of limiting pregnancies or STDs. Little emphasis or consideration is given to the serious physical, psychological and social consequences of unleashed sexuality. The acceptance of homosexuality as normal behaviour has hugely complicated the issue. Its influence and demands are spreading at an alarming rate

Only a profound revival of biblical influence into our culture will save us from the devastating consequences of rampant, moral impurity. Critical to that will be strong, godly marriages and faithful churches committed to teaching and living the whole counsel of God. We desperately need to put on the whole armour of God, holding firmly the shield of faith to protect us from every flaming missile hurled at us. Sorely needed are prophetic voices warning of the consequences of moral impurity, and a multitude of saints demonstrating what it looks like.

Set Apart

“Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the LORD today…” —Exodus 32:29

Today, as yesterday, we begin with Dr. Charles Price, pastor of Peoples Church in Toronto.  Though Charles was never my pastor, this was the church I grew up in, at a time when it was Canada’s only megachurch.  This was titled, On Being Set Apart.

To be holy does not mean to be perfect, but to be ‘set apart’. That is the meaning of the word. It does not equal being perfect.

In my wedding service, I said to my bride as part of my vows: “Forsaking all others, I take you only unto me.” What I meant was, “I’ll never look at a girl again the way I look at you. I’ll never develop a relationship with another woman in the way that I have a relationship with you.” I had become ‘set apart’ exclusively to her. I was entering into a ‘holy’ relationship with her, one in which we are set apart exclusively to each other. That did not make me a perfect husband overnight!! (I think that took a week!) No, I will never be a perfect husband, and that was not the expectation on my wedding day (certainly not my wife’s!), nor was it the meaning of setting myself apart to her. I am repeatedly needing to say ‘I am sorry’. We are always learning new things about each other, and the journey of growth will never end – ‘till death do us part’.

Being called to be ‘holy’ is to be set apart to Christ, and involves no expectation of perfection – for that is neither offered nor promised to us in this life. Rather, in our frailty and the everyday fumbling of our lives to walk in harmony with the Lord Jesus, there is a fundamental attitude that says, “I am set apart to the Lord Jesus”. That is what it means to be holy.

The alternative to holiness is that we are available to anything that happens to attract our attention at the time. To be available to whatever is convenient, comfortable and compatible with our own selfishness is to live an unholy life. We are called to holiness, called to live in step with Jesus, called to unite our interests with His and our agendas with His. As Peter wrote, ‘In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord’ (1 Peter 3:15).

~Charles Price

I never really thought in terms of holiness meaning being “set apart” until I got deep into the lyrics of the Brian Doerksen song, Refiner’s Fire.

I choose to be Holy
Set apart for you, my master
Ready to do your will.

A few years ago here, I wrote about being separated from the world, and compared it to how the Amish people live among us, but are very much set apart from the rest of the world. In the world but not of it.

Our key verses in that devotional were Romans 12:2

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (TNIV)

1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (The Message)

and because for some of us, this will involve a transformation, II Cor 5: 17:

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (NLT)

Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! (The Message)

Let me end by reiterating a line from Charles Price, above.

Being called to be ‘holy’ is to be set apart to Christ, and involves no expectation of perfection – for that is neither offered nor promised to us in this life. Rather, in our frailty and the everyday fumbling of our lives to walk in harmony with the Lord Jesus, there is a fundamental attitude that says, “I am set apart to the Lord Jesus”. That is what it means to be holy.

What is Man?

Today’s thoughts are from Glory To God For All Things, the blog of Father Stephen where it appeared on May 30th.  We have much to learn to from our Orthodox brothers and sisters.  I encourage you to read this at source — where there are also over 120 responses — and then explore his blog further.  I’ve added a video related to his theme verse here..

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? (Psalm 8:4).

The question, “What is man?” written perhaps a thousand years before the coming of Christ, is the bedrock of true humanism, the only form of dignity that can sustain human life. Our modern world continually re-imagines our nature, but God alone sustains it. I can think of nothing more assuring that the speculation, “What is man?” in a heart of wonder. I can think of nothing more terrifying than the same speculation in the cold calculus of the modern state.

Human dignity is among the youngest thoughts on earth and far from universally subscribed. We are daily exploited, murdered and used for unworthy ends. Individuals fail to see their own worth and give themselves over to evil ends. “What is man?” indeed, and why should we consider ourselves to be of any particular value?

To declare that I am valuable because I am myself – is simply a statement of  self-interest – an instinct shared by most living things. To acknowledge the value of another because it helps preserve my own value is the same instinct extended through a community. This instinct, surely a part of human life from its beginning, has never demonstrated the ability to lift man above his basest desires.

The question, “What is man,” is an echo or a corollary of the question, “Is there a God?” For if there is no God, then the question, “What is man?” has only the emptiness of an echo for an answer. Human dignity is not self-evident. With reference only to our biology we can say that we are carbon-based life-forms that have self-awareness. We cannot assume that other life-forms do not have self-awareness. The question, “What is man?” is thus no more interesting than the question, “What is a bacterium?”

But the question is itself an inherent part of our self-awareness. We want to know if there is anything of transcendent worth in our existence or is it as simply one thing among the many that exists. The question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” is similar. Does that which exists have any transcendent meaning – anything beyond the ephemera of its ill-fated billions of years (“ill-fated,” for regardless of how you run the numbers, it will cease to exist).

There are many ways to answer the question, “What is man?” All religions do this in one way or another, and the answers are not at all the same. In Buddhism, self-awareness is simply one of many ephemera – having no bearing on the meaning of existence itself.

But the Christian answer is the primary claimant of the modern world’s attention, whether the modern world acknowledges the source of the answer or not. That we are created in the image and likeness of God, and that God Himself has become man in the person of Jesus of Nazareth is the basis of all thought of human rights – the language of consensus in the human community. The assertion of human rights is commonly made today without reference to God. It is thus nothing more than assertion. Human beings have rights because we say they do. Such unsupported assertions only have force when they are asserted by the strong to the weak. This is very much the state of human existence in a secularized world. Rights exist only because a controlling authority enforces such rights. Rights which are denied by a controlling authority have no existence.

Assertions by the West of various human rights, when heard by some non-Western cultures, do not sound like truth claims, only like cultural imperialism. Should women be allowed to drive cars in Saudi Arabia? The answer depends solely on who is speaking.

World culture at present is not grounded in a civilization. There is no consensus of transcendent values, no true common agreement. The secular triumph of a common Europe, the post-War’s version of the tower of Babel, presently stands ready to collapse as the Eurovision confronts the reality of the Euro. “We share a common currency and a bureaucracy in Brussels,” is an insufficient answer to the question, “What is man?”

Modern, secular culture is derivative. Its values are largely drawn from the treasure of earlier Christian values, regardless of their present distortion. Human rights are contingent upon human dignity, itself contingent upon the creation of man in the image of God. Remove the source and the contingencies collapse (in time). Human rights have already begun their collapse. The concept of rights remain, but they exist only as those in power define them. Thus the rights of women (as defined by the state) or the rights of those with minority sexual orientations (as defined by the state) or other state-defined groups have rights that frequently supersede those of other groups. These rights are arbitrary and represent nothing more than the present state of political reality. As such, they do not represent rights, but assertions of power.

The language of rights continues to have the cachet of the earlier imago dei, but one in which the deity is no more than a function of government bureaucracy (of which the courts are but an arm). The great weakness of our present cultural existence is its lack of foundation outside the bald assertion of power. The two most distorted examples of such power-based cultures were Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union. These two cultures continue to strike most moderns as distorted when they are compared to our cultural memory of the imago dei.  But their distortions were justified in the same manner as today’s secularist assertions. Only the present direction of the winds of power stands between modern culture and state terror. The slightest change in that wind can revisit the world with a renewed holocaust. The regime is the same: only the victims change.

The belief that man is created in the image of God yields its own corollaries. As the image of God, human beings are endowed with infinite worth. A human life has value derived from its very Divinely given existence. Our value is not a gift of the state or the result of our own assertions. No one life has greater value than another. Neither usefulness nor talent add value to that given by God.

States (as well as the quasi-states of ecclesial institutions) have sought to reduce these corollaries over the course of the Christian centuries. Thus some have been given greater rights by reason of birth, wealth, race, gender, creed, etc. Each of these assertions of greater rights represent departures from the givenness of the imago dei and a distortion of the Christian faith.

If one human being exists in the image of God, then all human beings exist in the image of God. None of us is more fully the image than another. In Christian teaching, Christ Himself is the definition of the image of God. To the question, ” What does it mean to be human?” Christ is the answer. In Christian understanding, Christ as incarnate image of God is celebrated from conception (the feast of the Annunciation) to His ascension to the right hand of God. No quality of Christ (sentience, wisdom, volition, race, age, gender, etc.) defines or establishes His place as imago dei. He is the image of God. In the same manner, our own unqualified existence establishes us as the image of God.

Only in this fully Christian understanding of man are the value, and thus rights of each human being guaranteed. Only in a culture in which this understanding is agreed and accepted is such value safe and secure. It is perhaps the greatest treasure given to us by God.

There are many modern Christians who have been lulled to sleep by the language of the larger culture, accepting that those who speak of “rights,” actually accept the imago dei. Many Christians have abandoned the public defense of man as God’s image in exchange for a place at the bargaining table of the state’s assertions of power. The state’s ability to assert various perceived rights is not a defense of our humanity – it is its destruction. Our acceptance of the state’s assertion is a capitulation of the gospel. Nothing less than the Divine value of every human life is worthy of the Christian gospel. Those Christians who do not accept such a value have departed from the faith and made common cause with those who would destroy us.

O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the moth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightiest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou maddest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! (Psalm 8)

~Father Stephen

Looking at the Amish

Somewhere near the end of our vacation, we were in a town where suddenly a horse and buggy appeared in the opposite traffic lane.   Not knowing if my wife had noticed, I simply said; “Amish;” to which she replied; “Oooh!  Let’s look at them.”

The strange remark — which I got right away, but you may not have — is a reference to people we know who say they are going to go to Pennsylvania to “look at the Amish.”   Not shop in their stores and buy jams, jellies or crafts from them.   Not spend a week helping out on one of their farms — the way one might volunteer on an Israeli kibbutz — as much of an adventure as that would be.   Not attending one of their worship services.

No… just “looking at the Amish;” the way we might visit a town if everybody there had two heads.

But maybe, just maybe, we should take a minute to ‘look at’ (in the sense of ‘consider’) the Amish.

While everybody else in Christendom has suffered the fate of slowly being dominated and shaped by the spirit and culture of the world, these people have managed to truly understand what it means to be “set apart;” what it means to not ‘give in’ to the dominant culture and its ways of seeing the world.

And isn’t that part of what defines ‘holiness?’

Brian Doerksen, the writer of the song “Refiner’s Fire” saw this connection:

What got my thoughts going in this direction is waking up this morning and realizing the extent to which my thought processes have been slowly shaped and conformed to the ‘spirit of the age;’ the world’s way of looking at everything. I’ve been absorbed into the dominant culture’s way of seeing the world.

Instead of simply ‘staring’ at the Amish, we should be engaging them; asking them, “Hey, what’s the secret to all this?”  “How do you manage not to be trapped into the contemporary mindset?”

I think Romans 12:2 is the key:

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.  (TNIV)

But I especially like the way The Message Bible handles this:

^1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Much of the “pattern of this world” is molded within us by media.   It may mean tossing the DVD player or the internet.   The Amish simplified things by rejecting electricity altogether.   Are they any worse off for that decision?

For some of us, this may involve a bit of “unlearning.”  While searching for an appropriate translation of II Cor. 5:17, I found it interesting that The Message Bible makes a reference in verse 16 to the very thing the whole “looking at the Amish” thing is about, physical appearance.

^16-20Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it!

Changing our worldview is going to involve major transformation.

…

Want to read a daily devotional that originates in “ground zero” of Amish culture?   Check out Daily Encouragement, always bookmarked in this blog’s blogroll at the side.   While not every post is Amish-themed, if you scroll back you’ll find various pictures and stories relating to the area around Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Photo is from Daily Encouragement by Stephen & Brooksyne Weber.