faith for faith

It has been several years, but I do vaguely recall going to see Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. I personally had no desire to go, but some zealously thoughtful person had assumed that his friends would naturally want to go see the film shortly after its release and presumptively bought tickets to the show for me and some other of my close compadres. We went (since we were then financially obligated), and we experienced what was likely a common experience for those who went to see the movie, namely the gasps, the turning away of heads, the silent sobbing, the wails, and the somber departure from the theater. We had all witnessed the same things–a man flogged in excruciatingly gory detail, and we left as all did–utterly speechless.

If I recall that night correctly, it was quite a while before any of us dared to offer any commentary on the movie. It were as though we felt that we were obligated to keep silent after the film though the man in the movie was certainly not Jesus, and the movie was created and directed by a man who is unabashedly Catholic. Yet after the obligatory silence was lifted, a common thought about the message behind the story presented in the movie was, “So what?” Sure, the movie did what I believed it aimed to do, namely present the sufferings of a man in such a vivid and unapologetic way so as to drive its onlookers to deep pity and sorrow, but for what reason? The movie gave no explanation for the man’s sufferings, save it came through the betrayal one Judas Iscariot, yet in the context of the movie his suffering was terrible and pointless.

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Repost: As I told a friend when speaking to him concerning the subject of images and their place in Christian life and worship, I told him that I am a man of strong convictions. Upon things that I believe to be certain in life, I believe on them strongly and fight opposition to them strongly, and, upon things that are not so certain, I tend to let those things slide as matters of opinion until it is demonstrated to me otherwise. For living in such a manner, I have been called by some to a legalist, by some to be divisive, and by some to be nitpicky and overbearing. Despite this, I pray that in this particular matter at least you will see in my discourse the same love that you see in yourself when you in tears tell a beloved person of their future judgment and desserts in hell. For of the Ten Commandments, there is but one that carries with it a particular judgment, and it is a weighty judgment indeed. Therefore, for the sake of your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren, I pray that you take heed to what I write in this post, because whether or not you affirm it, your failings with regard to this commandment will surely as the Lord lives affect all of them.

By and large the subject at hand, expressly images that are supposed depictions of Jesus Christ, is relegated to the realm of opinion rather than to the realm of certainty. I am not sure why there is such lack of questioning with regards to this subject, but I suppose is greatly based upon the Catholic influence on the church, to whom images are not merely decorations but aids for worship and have been so for centuries. Also, visual depictions of Jesus Christ might very well fall into the same realm as notions such as regarding the church as a building, tithing, and taking the communion elements off a silver platter—such things have been practiced so long that no one knows differently and therefore assume that they are proper notions. I therefore challenge you in this matter, as I would in all matters, to allow a bit of doubt to creep into your religious practices and to test them with the declarations of Scripture. Do not merely say to yourself, “I do not see in the Ten Commandments a command that specifically says, ‘Do not draw pictures of Jesus Christ,’” but ask yourself, “How can I glorify God more with my practices?” “How can demonstrate the glory of God in face of Christ better to world that spits on images of him?” (cf. 2Cor. 4).

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Contrary to popular belief, indifference with regards to politics in the United States is not an easy position to hold. For if you express your position as thus to the non-Christian you are labeled as “un-American” and “ignorant,” and if you express it to a Christian you are labeled as “uncompassionate” and (gasp) “liberal.” And despite your greatest efforts to point your position to what you believe is its Scriptural foundation, you will be charged with misapplication since the United States is not governed by a dictator or a monarch, but it is “governed by the people.” And since citizenship in the United States means that the people are the government, then everyone, including Christians, are obligated to be actively and outspokenly involved in the political system.

And while I can sympathize logically with the sentiment that every American citizen ought to be involved in politics if indeed the American government is controlled by its citizens, I cannot help but wholeheartedly believe that the American government is not the government we believe that it is. For we are spoon-fed from the time we are old enough to hear that we live in a democracy–a government by the people and for the people. We are bombarded with the ideals of the Founding Fathers expressed over two hundred years ago, and we are taught to believe that what they expressed in ideals existed then when they first spoke them, and they exist today in our present government. And regardless what might happen on Capitol Hill or what might be signed into law in the Oval Office, we hold fast to the belief that the process at its core is democratic (i.e. citizen driven) and it is for the sake of each person’s inalienable rights (whatever that is).

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Yahweh is not only a faithful God, he is a shockingly faithful God. He is zealous in keeping the covenants he makes despite the character of those with whom he makes his covenants.

This was the only conclusion to which I could come in studying Joshua 9 concerning the deceitful manner by which the Gibeonites spared themselves from the sword of Yahweh and his people. It is to me one of the most dumbfounding narratives with regard to God and his promises, for though a covenant is certainly made, it is made wholly on pretense by the Gibeonites.

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To those who know me, it is scarcely a secret that I have been in a valley of sorts, spiritually speaking. And lest it be misunderstood as of what I am speaking, my communion with God has been lacking, my desire for the things of the God has been quelled, and my life has been consumed with things that are passing instead of with things that are everlasting. And there is little mystery behind why these things have been so (namely arising from and perpetuated by a lack of beholding Christ in his Word and communing with his people), and yet I have done little to remedy my state. I have been till recently content to feed myself with the fleeting things of this age instead of feasting upon riches of God and his glory in his Son.

Yet to be honest, content is much too strong a word. For I have found little contentment in the those things which deterred me from beholding Christ, and I have found no rest for my soul in those fleeting things. And despite this, the Adversary had convinced me that the things of God were laborious and that there was little reward for chasing after them. And so he (being the slick devil that he is) convinced me, figuratively speaking, again and again, meal after meal, that it was better for me to drive across the street to eat off the Wendy’s value menu than to drive a few miles down the road to dine at the Ruth’s Chris.

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I wish that there were some righteous reason as to why I have not posted on Faith for Faith since January 15, but I am afraid there is not. I wish that I could say that I was so engaged with activities of greater significance that I had not found the time to write, but that is simply not true. The reality is that my spiritual life has become so smothered by the minutiae of day-to-day living that I have lost sight of the greater Picture of Christ and his Kingdom. I feel that I have been slowly groping my way through a dense fog of busyness and labor and have slowly realized, like a man in a drunken stupor, that somewhere along the way I dropped my faith and have had difficulty tracing back my steps to where I lost it. I have fallen, much as Christian did in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, into the Slough of Despond, and in it I have become thoroughly reacquainted with the man who I am capable of being apart from Christ.

And it is not as though in this time I have become slothful and have ceased to work, but quite the contrary, I have been working as hard as I ever have. And that, it seems, has been my problem. I began our present journey with a righteous course–to free ourselves of debt for sake of the Kingdom–and yet have, through my labor, lost the chief goal of righteousness. I have forgotten in practice, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and these things will be added to you,” and have adopted a “work now, ask questions later” attitude with regard to achieving that which I believe God has laid on our hearts to accomplish instead of waiting on him to provide as only he can provide. Therefore, since September of last year, I have been practically working seven days a week to fill the gaps in our needs, rather than seeking provision from God so that he, not I, would receive the glory.

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As long as there have been men on the earth, there have been fools who have believed in a simple god who acts more like a vending machine than he does a Great and Benevolent Judge. We find these scattered throughout the Scriptures in those like the friends of the afflicted, yet righteous Job who sought to discover Job’s sin so that they could validate his plight by their theology, and likewise in the question of the foolish disciples concerning the blind man at Siloam, asking, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (Jn. 9:2). And these men with simple theologies have not ceased since that time, seen more recently in the “elucidating” commentaries of the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons concerning 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and, most recently, the great earthquake in Haiti. These view God as a cosmic vending machine who dispenses wrath when evil is put in and dispenses blessing when righteousness is put in.

Yet despite such claims, these fools have no answers as to why the righteous must suffer in this age (cf. Rm. 8:17-39) and why the wicked prosper. They have no answers for the affliction of the martyrs (chief of whom being Jesus Christ), and they have no answers for the prosperity of the Las Vegases and the San Franciscos. Nevertheless, these idiots come out like clockwork after every great disaster giving “inspired” commentary upon those disasters.

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When I had begun writing this post the day prior, I began by poking at it jeeringingly as I am often sinfully predisposed to do. Many of us must admit that we have joked around the matter of the Most Holy Building Fund and its ubiquity in American churches (especially in Baptist churches), but if we were to step back take the rein of our humor, we would realize that this present matter is not one to be joked about. For, the insistence of leaders in the church to build bigger and bigger barns is not some benign pimple on forehead of the American church, but it is a branch of the deadly cancer that has wrapped itself around the throat of the church from its overexposure to prosperity and Capitalism. The church has become thoroughly American and Western in her practices, and her leaders have whole-heartedly embraced the methods and ideologies that brought this country to its present wealthy state. And while men can debate till they are blue in the face over political and economic theories for the state, this is not a matter for debate in Christ’s church. For the cry of Christ through two millennia has ever been, “I will build my church” (Mt. 16:18), and it is not for men to think up new strategies and to test new models of church growth.

And if we were to step back and survey how we in the church have strayed so far from the biblical teachings concerning Christ’s church and its practices and growth, we would surely have a daunting task before us. We could certainly step back to the Medieval church and see the remnants of its thoughts and practices in our own thoughts and practices, and we could follow it through the Reformation and through the Enlightenment and cap it with the business models of the twentieth century, yet in doing thus we would see nothing but from where we have come. In order to understand where we need to be we must become like the Wise Man who holds the seams of the Scriptures together who meditates on God’s Word day and night so that he might not be conformed to the world but transformed by the renewal of his mind (cf. Josh. 1:8; Ps. 1; Rm. 12:2). We need to come back to the Source of our faith, and we must not wander from it, for in it lies what the Lord our God deems as prosperous.

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Upon the post on Why I am a Reformed Baptist and not a Presbyterian, the question was raised, viz. “If we as Reformed Baptists, because of our understanding of the covenants and Covenant Theology, do not baptize infants, when then is the covenant sign of baptism rightly administered?” An excellent question, I might add, and I promise you that if you were to gather together a group of Baptists and ask them that same question, the result could be likened to that of UFC fight. Believe me, I have seen it before.

To appreciate the differences of opinion within Baptist circles on the proper time to administer the sign of baptism, you would have to understand the diversity within those who are labeled Baptists. To put it succinctly, imagine it this way: If you were to throw all of the Methodist denominations and all of the Presbyterian denominations into a single denomination and labeled it Paedobaptists and were to force them to work together and to throw money into a single pot, you would begin to see a bit of the diversity that exists among those who call themselves Baptists. Anyone who believes in believer’s baptism is a Baptist, be he a Calvinist or an Arminian, Reformed or Dispensational, an advocate of an elder-ruled church government or of congregation-ruled, alcohol connoisseur or teetotaler, etc., and it is for this reason that nobody cares to go to the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention unless it is known beforehand that something like Calvinism or alcohol is going to be discussed, and then members flock to it by the droves. It is sort of like looking at a wreck; you know that you shouldn’t, but you just can’t help yourself.

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Why is a new year so alluring? Is it because some miraculous event takes place when the clock strikes midnight and January 1st chimes in? Is it because there is some fundamental shift in our thoughts and actions that characterize the change from the previous year to the next? Does nature subject itself to man’s calendar and thereby spring from one season to the next? The answer to all of these questions is an obvious “no,” and if it were not for the dropping of light-colored balls and the ticking of second-hands on clocks, we would scarcely know that anything had happened from one moment to the next.

Why then is a new year so alluring? It is so, I believe, because of the desire ingrained in every human being for renewal, for a second chance, for a do-over. For the end of every year is a natural call for retrospection on that year, and everyone of us, being the imperfect creatures that we are, are filled with happiness for the good things accomplished and, more significantly, regret for the things that we did not accomplish and the things at which we failed. And since all of us fall short far more than we succeed, the end of the year marks the end of a failed chapter in our lives, and the new year marks the beginning of a new chapter filled with possibility for change.

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