Sanam Doctrinam

Why do people believe in God? This is what a study from Oxford is going to spend $3.7M trying to figure out. An article regarding this appeared on foxnews.com February 19th and explained the whole deal. I have been wanting to post abut it ever since, but time has not allowed.

The most striking part of this is the reason behind it. To quote the article, “Academics have been given a grant (remember $3.7M) to try to find out whether belief in a deity is a matter of nature or nurture.” To compound things, this “study” is being conducted by a scientist who claims to be a believer.

How are they going to accomplish this? “(T)hey will examine evidence to try to prove whether belief in God conferred and evolutionary advantage to mankind.”

What does the father of evolutionary theory have to say about this? This is a quote from Charles Darwin’s autobiography,

“…During these two years (March 1837 – January 1839) I was led to think much about religion. Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come by this time (i.e. 1836 to 1839) to see the Old Testament, from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rain-bow as a sign, &c., &c., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian….

….Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so, the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished.

And this is a damnable doctrine…”

Would Darwin have found this study helpful? I can’t say for sure, for he cannot answer for himself. But it seems he had already drawn his conclusions.

While one psychologist states that he believes it is more on the nature side of things, he also goes on to say, “It’s easy, it’s intuitive, it’s natural. It fits our default assumption about things.” In some ways this is verified by Scripture Romans 1:19 states, “because that which is known about God is evident within them;” the rub comes in with the last part, which reads, “for God made it evident to them.”

The causal agent of why it is even “within” them is the One who is in question. Here is the intrinsic problem with this, even if it is nature, who or what is the cause of the natural. This study, if it is honest with itself, must come back to the question of origins. Even if it they come to the conclusion it is nurture; who nurtured the first symbiotic beings?

They say they are not trying to tackle “does God exist”, but this is the question that must be answered, in order to answer their “main” question.

In my opinion, this effort goes to prove once again, what God has said in the rest of Romans 1:19-21,

“that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

I will be waiting to see what futile speculations are hashed in this most recent suppression of truth.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

1 John 4:11

I have a confession to make: I can be pretty unlovely sometimes. If I may be so bold, I’d like to hazard a guess that’s true of most of us who are reading this. If it is true that we can be unlovely, we certainly have a profound reason to be grateful for God’s unchanging love toward us. To be sure, it is hard to understand the love of God. His love is so steady and unchanging, it makes our love seem fickle in comparison. God loves us in a way that is not contingent upon our worthiness. Isn’t that wonderful? It would be tragic if God’s attitude toward us fluctuated with the regularity of our attitude toward Him. Imagine God’s love in that light—one day He would love us, another He wouldn’t. We would find ourselves the equivalent of the little girl picking the petals off a daisy, saying, “He loves me. He loves me not.”

God doesn’t love us like that. We can always count on His love. Valentine’s Day just passed. For many of us, Valentine’s Day reminds us of grade school attempts at soliciting someone’s love by giving little cards in white envelopes with a couple candy hearts included for good measure. We never have to seek His love. It’s freely bestowed on us, even when we’re unlovely and even when we’re not aware of it.

With these thoughts about love as background, it might be a good point to consider the Apostle John’s words about love in the fourth chapter of his first letter. His central thought was that God’s love for us is the motivation and model for our love for one another—for fellow believers in Christ.

To really understand what John says in 1 John 4:11 is saying, we need to look at verse 10. There we read: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Verse 11 is built on the foundation of verse 10. John in essence says, “Look at the way God loves us. Now let’s love each other because of the way He loved us.” God’s love for us is a love that came despite our lack of love for God. We were not lovely, attractive, and certainly not loving toward God in our unbelieving state. But God loved us, nonetheless. We’re not loving toward God in our believing state. God goes on loving us.

God loves us in spite of our unworthiness of His love. That’s the model for our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Will they hurt us? Will they use us? Will they say unthinking, unkind things to us? Yes on all counts. Yet we’re called to continue loving them as God does us.

God’s love gives us a reason to love others. We have been loved and so we love. We may not “feel” love for others, but today’s verse tells us to make the choice to love, as we attempt to contemplate the extent of God’s love for us.

Our love for others is based on His love for us.

In all of my rambling about family integrated vs. family oriented, I do not want to forget the importance of Family Discipleship.

While I do not see Deuteronomy 6:4-10 as a mandate for home schooling (we do personally home school for other purposes than Deut 6) nor do I see it as the “death” verse to youth ministry, and although I do see it as a particularly pointed verse to Israel (not the Church), I also do see it as a practical way of applying what God wants us to do when he tells us in Ephesians 6:4 to “bring up our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

There is to be this sense (regardless of our educational choices) that we should be able to have formal and informal times of instruction with our children about the Lord. The question isn’t about the manner in which we do this, but if we do it at all. Are we taking the opportunities to “insert” the Lord into our everyday lives. By this I don’t mean a forced conversation, but if we ourselves are being saturated by the Word of God, this will occur from the overflow in our lives.

The informal aspect of this comes in the daily conversations, the times of conflict, the times of hurt or confession. It also occurs in the times of questions and at bedtime. Again, the question isn’t the manner in which we are doing it, but if we are doing it at all. Do we take the time, when there is no time, to seize those opportunities to teach something about God into the lives of our children?

The formal aspect is what we might call Family Devotions or Catechism. We have done both. We are currently going through a catechism. I see this as beneficial, because it asks and answers the questions that children are generally thinking about, if they are being raised in a Christian home (and maybe some questions they’ve never thought about.) It is a good way to systematically go through doctrine and explain why we believe what we believe. I would suggest one with Scripture references so you not only give them a reason biblically to believe, but it is good for you to know as well, and it gives you something to go over beyond just the question and answer, whenever during the day you decide to do this. f you decide to go with the Family Devotion route, I would encourage you to go through at least the Proverbs. The wisdom there is extremely applicable to young forming minds (and obviously good for you and I as well!) Here is a good catechism resource.

In my next post, I want to speak to the importance of the churches input into the lives of our children and young people as well. I do think it is a vital part of the raising of our children in a godly and biblical manner.

Trying to stick with my theme of theology for the everyday man, let me encourage you to read.

One of the hardest things, that I have had to learn, is to read. I am not speaking from a literate stand point, I can read, I just had to learn how to “love” to do so. I’ll admit, it is still sometimes a struggle.

Now, before you get the feeling I may just speaking of reading your Bible, that’s not the end of my reading list. It is the beginning, and I think you and I could both spend a lot more time doing just that. Familiarizing ourselves with the texts of Scripture is of most importance, and for me that needs to take on the shape of getting much deeper into the OT than what I have previously.

What I mean to say beyond this, is read good books and occasionally read bad ones too. Here’s what intend by that. Get good Biblically based books (not the pablum that lines the shelves of most Christian book stores.) You need to read guys like, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, David Wells, John Piper, James Boice, Steve Lawson, James White, and older authors like, J.C. Ryle, Jonathan Edwards, John Owen, Jeremiah Burroughs, etc. These are the kind of extra-biblical books that can really lend themselves to good thinking and challenge you to dig deeper into theology.

Then from time to time, it is good to challenge ourselves by reading books we know we will disagree with. This will also challenge you to be a critical thinker. It’s not that I agree completely with Sproul or MacArthur or any of the guys listed above, but 80 -90% of it is where I stand. I’m talking about challenging myself with some of what others are saying who I will probably largely disagree with. I should obviously always have a critical eye in whatever I read, but I know I will have to do battle with certain books and authors, because their stances are less than orthodox.

All that is said to encourage you to read. Please don’t think you are going to be challenged by the “10 ways to be a better you than you previously have been and hey God loves it when you do that sort of thing!” kind of books. You know what kind of books I am speaking of.

So get out and read!

Here is a list of books recommended by our elders.

But love your enemies,
and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return;
and your reward will be great,
and you will be sons of the Most High;
for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

Luke 6:35

We are never more like God than when we give and get rejected.

Those words have the roughness of sandpaper to them, don’t they? But no more than the harshness of Jesus’ radical words in today’s verse.

As we encounter Jesus’ instruction to His followers in Luke 6:35, we’re immediately struck with His challenge to “business as usual” in our world. Jesus calls us to love our enemies. That’s hard. There is nothing remotely easy about loving those we’d rather hate. The law of the tooth is an ancient guideline that is still consistently followed today. It’s faithfully followed, I might add, because it comes so naturally to us.

Jesus’ words in today’s verse cut across the grain of popular convention. He beckons us to a transformed lifestyle that treats enemies the way we would treat friends. But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He continues by admonishing us as His followers to do good deeds and to lend without an expectation of anything in return. Jesus is not calling His disciples to make risky financial investments here. Rather He’s calling us as His followers, in the context of our interpersonal relationships, to show kindness with the sort of reckless abandon that never looks for a return on our investment. It’s the embodiment of Jesus’ instruction that we are to give without one hand knowing what the other is doing (Matthew 6:3). Jesus, in today’s passage, tells us that the one hand shouldn’t even care what the other is doing.

We should probably pause here and come up for air. Jesus has just shaken up our natural way of dealing with people with a dramatically different idea. Jesus just beckoned us to give without any hope of getting. Almost.

When we give without an expectation of return, we wind up with nothing, or so it would seem. Jesus, however, in His characteristically paradoxical fashion, tells us that when we give without getting, we end up getting anyway. If that seems confusing, we can gain a bit of understanding by reading Jesus’ short phrase “and your reward will be great.” Jesus promises something not here and now to those who give without getting anything in return, but something infinitely better and more lasting in the future. A reward awaits those who give without calculating a return—in eternity.

If a future reward isn’t great enough, Jesus tells us that giving to people who don’t give back results in us bearing a distinctive moniker: “sons of the Most High.” Is Jesus saying that a person becomes a child of God by means of giving without expecting anything in return? To think that the case would certainly seem to contradict the words of John in the first chapter of his gospel. There he said that those who believe become children of God (John 1:12). No, there is no contradiction here. What Jesus is saying is borne out by the rest of Luke 6:35. When Jesus tells us we will be sons of the Most High for giving without getting, He’s saying that when we do this we reveal ourselves to be the children of God. Jesus is appealing to the fact that children bear the likeness of their father. Consequently, those who show the kind of reckless generosity Jesus extols in today’s verse end up emulating their Father’s character.

The last part of today’s verse contains a penetrating phrase. Jesus says that by giving without getting in return we will emulate our Father. Why? Because He is constantly giving without a return.

I’ve often heard the theological saw that grace is God’s undeserved favor, and I would suspect you have, too. I’ve come to much prefer an alternative definition a theology professor once gave our class: God’s grace is His goodness shown to the loathsome and repulsive. While such a barbed statement might not exactly warm the cockles of our hearts, I’d suggest it’s a bit more accurate than the usual dog-eared definition we so often hear. God constantly extends His hands in common grace to a world largely filled with ingrates—wicked ingrates, at that.

Can’t we simply be a little more like our natural selves and a little less like the Most High? Jesus hasn’t left that option open to us as His followers. He calls us to love with no return. He calls us to show kindness and generosity and tenderness and compassion to those who, in our estimation, deserve it the least. Our God has done—and continues to do—nothing less.

Do you show kindness to a surely, spiteful neighbor who wouldn’t give you the time of day? That’s being a child of the Most High. Do you continue to invest emotional energy in an unbelieving friend who seems to do nothing but drain you? That mirrors the Father’s love. Do you faithfully teach the Bible without a shred of gratitude from your students? We’re emulating a God who is generous to the ungrateful.

We demonstrate the greatness of our God when we emulate His character in this world.