Queue jumping

What if there was an eternal paradise the other side of death waiting for us to enjoy? Would that change the way we view things in this life? If someone goes to a better place would that lessen the tragedy of their passing? Surely it would. We would still grieve deeply the loss of a loved one but we would also rejoice in their gain. A life cut short would have jumped the queue to the fun fair. Would it make us more reckless knowing there is a bouncy net beneath us to catch us when we die?

But what if death was as bad as it seems? Or what if things got worse after death? What if there was a fire outside of the frying pan. Would we fight death with all means possible and endure even the worst that this world has to offer rather than fall into the torment of the next. Would we not hope for or search for some solution? Some salvation?

What if it was just more of the same? Would that be better or worse than it is now? What would it be like to live forever in a world like this one, experiencing at one time or another the best of it and the worst of it. Would we weary of it or find endless distraction and delights in it?

Or what if there was really nothing after death. Nothing at all. No consciousness, no existence, no being. What effect would that truth have on our lives now? Would it suck out all meaning. If I cease to  exist after death, what if we all one day will not exist, if even the universe dies in a slow heath death then what is the point? The only way forward would be to construct an assortment of temporary made up meanings because its impossible to live without any. We would live as if there was meaning but be haunted by the fact that there was none.

So is it better, worse, similar or nothing?  What if we didn’t know? Would we try to find out? How would we do that? A strategic investigation would surely start with one of the front runners in the truth game like Jesus. Going on an alpha course might therefore be a good idea. Or reading the bible, or calling out to Jesus to help you if he is there.

If paradise awaits us beyond the grave then the temptation is to get there as soon as possible. There are many wonderful things in this life but many painful things too. Who would not, at the drop of a hat, trade in this life for the next. The apostle Paul felt that but it was balanced by an understanding that there was good reason to stay this side of death for a little longer. Our love for Jesus makes us both homesick to be with him in the future, but zealous to serve him in the here and now.

Should we ditch the carrot and stick?

The book “Punished by rewards” argues that rewards and punishments can be counterproductive. The basic idea is this: If you give someone a gold star or even an iphone for doing their maths homework well, they are more likely to focus on the reward than the subject. Their eye will be on the prize and miss any enjoyment that numbers might have given them. Instead of diving deep, engaging with the problem and coming up with a creative solution, they will skim across the surface,  doing as little as possible in order to avoid the stick and get the carrot. What’s more when the punishments and pressies go away, so, more often than not, do a person’s interest and motivation  in the subject.

Sensing some truth in these claims I have been considering them in the light of the Christian faith and the truth revealed in the bible. I’ll start through with Richard Dawkins who argues that it is more of a virtue to do the right thing because it is the right thing rather than because someone else will reward you for it or punish you if you don’t do it. He says it like it sinks Christianity for good but he’s shooting at the wrong target. Christians do not act out of fear of punishment and here is why:

1) God is not looking for external conformance but internal affection

2) He knows that rules and regulations, punishments and rewards cannot change a person on the inside.

3) He therefore changes and motivates us by grace. Jesus took the biggest stick himself and gave the juiciest carrot to us for free.

4) Our hearts are changed in the context of God’s unconditional love for us in Christ. “We love because he first loved us.”

5) We obey Jesus because we love Jesus. “If you loved me you would obey my commands” says Jesus.

In the light of that I think one could make a case for obedience out of love being a greater virtue than obedience to an impersonal moral system.

There is a catch though. “God disciplines those he loves”. Isn’t that a kind of stick? Well, yes it is but it’s worth noting a few points:

1) God’s discipline is in the context of his unconditional love. When we mess up we do not lose our status in his family.

2) God’s discipline is often a closely related consequence of an action taken. If you pick up a red hot poker you are going to get burnt. If you lie or steel or cheat on your husband or wife then God may let you feel the consequences of that in some way. I guess he could rescue us from the effects but sometimes he chooses not to and in fact works out his discipline directly though the consequences.

The bible also talks about rewards. “great will be your reward in heaven”. So is there therefore a place for gold stars and detention in the class room and the kingdom of heaven?

Coincidentally, while reading “Punished by Rewards”  I was also reading another book called “Loving you kids on purpose”. While the former was a secular book the latter was written by a Christian and gives a helpful perspective on discipline that kind of joined the dots a bit for me.

The basic idea behind the book is that of parenting by presenting choices. Recognising that punishment and payment are largely unhelpful ways of bringing up children it presents an alternative. The idea is this: You present various choices and ensure the consequences are experienced, while staying in loving relationship. Punishment, anger, withholding love etc are removed. There is no external carrot and stick. The “carrotyness” and “stickiness” are intimately linked with the actions and come out of them as coherent consequences. That does not mean that the parent is not involved in enforcing them but that there should be a “natural” connection between the choice and the consequence. “You can clean your room or I will. Only thing is I charge for the service. To you £10 and hour!”.

Could this be a way of understanding God’s discipline? It’s not that the natural consequences of our actions are somehow out of God’s hands, rather he makes sure they happen. Yet, at the same time their happening is intimately linked with our actions and the way he has set up the world to work.

Going back to “Punished by Rewards”, a teacher who lets children experience the intrinsic consequences of their choices, both good and bad, will be more likely to produce greater internal motivation and engagement in a subject. Arbitrarily introducing unrelated extrinsic consequences merely muddies the waters and confuses our internal motivational compass. We will be torn away from the real relationship between our choices  and their outcomes and captivated by a momentary unrelated shiny thing. Any punishment or reward therefore, must come out of the very nature of the task.

Heavenly rewards could therefore also be intimately linked with our choices, rather than arbitrary gold stars or medals for our performance. Looking at the reward passages this could be the case. If I give up brothers, mothers, etc for Jesus I will get Brothers and mothers back…If I am responsible in small things I will be given responsibly in greater things. It’s not a water tight case but the rewards are strongly linked to the actions.

At the heart of it all though is relationship. God is our reward. We love Jesus and so obey him and as we do we get to know him better. If we disobey Jesus and do our own thing then we will not be enjoying our relationship with him. God will allow us to experience some of the natural consequences of that in various ways but ultimately it will be an internal thing. A lostness, a loneliness, a hole, a meaninglessness, an ebbing away of the fullness of life, joy, peace, etc…These are very natural consequences of a life away for Jesus who is the source of all these things. Ultimately if we are determined to go our own way we will experience the full consequences of that but if we seek God through Jesus then our reward is finding him.

Cameron’s Christianity

Just read a thought provoking article in the Guardian reporting David Cameron’s Christian faith and his support for a Christian “fight back”. His argument is based on values embodied by Jesus such as love, grace, humility, compassion, generosity etc. Values of course that can “be embraced by anyone of any faith or non.”

Something occurred to me though. If so much of what Jesus said and did seems self evidently true and good to us, that does then lend some weight to the other things that he said. Things that we have either overlooked or find harder to accept.  Things like his claim to be the only way to God the Father. Christianity is not simply a philosophy that embraces certain values, it is a personal faith that embraces Jesus and him alone, as Lord and saviour. It is not a moral code it is a relationship. A Christian does not just love truth and grace and compassion and forgiveness but the person and God who is those things. It is not so much that Jesus embodies these value but that we have disembodied and abstracted them from him.  See here for full article.

Another interesting aspect of the article was the way it contrasted his current statements with those made in 2008:

“I believe, you know. I am a sort of typical member of the Church of England. As Boris Johnson once said, his religious faith is a bit like the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns: it sort of comes and goes. That sums up a lot of people in the Church of England. We are racked with doubts, but sort of fundamentally believe, but don’t sort of wear it on our sleeves or make too much of it. I think that is sort of where I am.” Full article.

Sy Rogers

Never heard of this guy before but he is a good communicator and talks a lot of sense:

Sy_Rogers_Videos.html

The gist of a couple that I watched:

The American dream of health and wealth and prosperity in this life is not real and its not Christianity. God’s ways are higher than ours.

The insecure person needs to prove to himself and everyone else that he is valued. He or she is driven to prove their value through sex, business achievements etc. The secure person is a person at rest. They know they are valued.

He made reference to a verse I  don’t remember reading before:

 “If a woman vows a vow to the LORD and binds herself by a pledge, while within her father’s house in her youth, and her father hears of her vow and of her pledge by which she has bound herself and says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her father opposes her on the day that he hears of it, no vow of hers, no pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. And the LORD will forgive her, because her father opposed her”. Numbers 30:3-5 (ESV)

Sy applies this to healing memories as we bring them to God. I like the verse because it seems to address a problem that we have where we make a promise that is not a good one. Or someone tricks us into making a promise that binds us. “Promise not to tell anyone…”, “This is our little secret….” etc. I wonder if we can draw the principle from this verse that if we make these bad promises then we can be released from them by going to a higher authority in our lives such as  a parent, a leader. Frankly I think there is a case that sometimes they should be broken anyway (ethics often agonises over the lesser of two evils) but this verse could show that hunch has some validity.

 

Was Matthew’s exegesis dodgy?

How come Mathew quotes Hosea 11:1  as a prophecy of Jesus coming out of Egypt rather than God’s people coming out of Egypt? It’s to do with the nature of OT prophecy that applies to current situations at the time, but also picks up on repeating themes throughout history, that find fulfilment in Jesus. The prophets are picking up on threads in their own time that when followed come from Jesus’ jumper (so to speak!).

The real issue is not, Did Hosea intend this verse to be read messianically? but What did Hosea understand to be the nature of prophecy? In answer to this question, we must assert that Hosea, like all biblical prophets, saw prophecy not so much as the making of specific, individual predictions (which are actually quite rare among the writing prophets), but as the application of the Word of God to historical situations. In doing this the prophets brought to light certain patterns that occur repeatedly in the relationship between God and his people. These patterns or themes have repeated fulfillments or manifestations until the arrival of the final, absolute fulfillment. Thus, for example, the conquest of the land “fulfilled” the promises to the patriarchs but did not fulfill those promises finally or in their ultimate form. The inheritance of the “new earth” is the ultimate conclusion of this prophetic theme. All of the prophets were, to some degree, “like Moses” (Deut 18:5), but the ultimate prophet like Moses can only be the Messiah. Each of the kings of the line of David was a fulfillment of the promise that God would build him a “house” (2 Sam 7), but the Messiah is again the final fulfillment of this theme. Thus prophecy gives us not so much specific predictions but types or patterns by which God works in the world. We need look no further than Hosea 11 to understand that Hosea, too, believed that God followed patterns in working with his people. Here the slavery in Egypt is the pattern for a second period of enslavement in an alien land (v. 5), and the exodus from Egypt is the type for a new exodus (vv. 10–11). Thus the application of typological principles to Hos 11:1 is in keeping with the nature of prophecy itself and with Hosea’s own method. Understood in this way, we can regard the wording of Hos 11:1 not as fortuitous but as a work of God. Whether or not Hosea himself understood the ultimate fulfillment of his words, he knew that his words had significance that transcended his own time. ^[1]

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^[1] Garret, D. A. (2001). Vol. 19A: Hosea, Joel (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (221–222). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

The heart of the matter (How Spiritual are you? Part 10)

True Spiritually is knowing by the Spirit of God what we have been freely given in the son of God. At the heart of this definition of true spirituality is grace and its why we need so much help “getting it”. True spiritually is specifically about what Jesus has done for me. For some reason I have a tendency to think that spirituality must be about what I do. Certain practices, rituals, traditions, prayers, moral codes etc. These things have their place but they are not at the heart of true spirituality and not usually the things we really need help from.  In fact if we get the heart of the gospel these other things work out a lot better anyway. So what is it? The heart of true spiritually is what Jesus has done for us. What we have been freely given by God. It’s so simple but so hard to “get”. He died for us. He was punished in our place. We get his relationship with his father. We get his goodness and righteousness to us. It’s so outrageous and so “objectionable” to my natural mind that I desperately need God’s Spirit to see it for the glorious truth it really is. True Spirituality is knowing and focusing on and delighting in what Jesus has done for me on the cross. If you want to know if something is truly spiritual just ask if it comes from this source.

Characteristics of the Spirit’s empowering (How Spiritual are you? Part 9)

We get the gospel, the good news about Jesus, because the Holy Spirit helps us see sense. In closing this series I want to touch on a few others aspects of the working of God’s power through the gospel.

First, the message of the gospel is supposed to be backed up with clear demonstration of power. Power is a very convincing apologetic. When people get healed or raised from the dead, it puts the gospel in a whole new light. We need more of that do we not?

Second, there is the power of changed lives and deliverance from spiritual oppression. I know so many people who have found freedom from all sorts of unhelpful hurts, addictions and thoughts and have seen may lives transformed for the better.

Third, there is the experiential felt love of God. Of course we don’t just go on feelings but hear and believe the truth, but the word is living and active! God wants us to know his love, for it to be a living and tangible experience for us. That’s where joy comes from. Have you felt the embrace of your loving heavenly Father lately?

There is perhaps one more aspect of the empowering of the Spirit that is worth mentioning and it’s this: God’s power is worked out in weakness. True Spiritual power operates in the context of apparent weakness. Not strength. Paul came to the Corinthians in weakness. He went on to spend a lot of his life in prison. You would think he would command the prison doors to open in Jesus name. You can be sick yourself and yet be used to heal others. You can be imprisoned and yet set others free of oppression. You can raise the dead and yet be put to death yourself. True spiritual power this side of eternity will usually look week. There will however be nothing week looking about Jesus when he comes in to usher in the age to come.

Holy Spirit empowered (How Spiritual are you? (Part 8)

Have you ever wondered why there are really,  really cleaver people who do not believe in God and really, really, cleaver people who do?  I know of at least a couple of situations where there have been two brothers, same parents, similar upbringings I guess, both extremely intelligent, yet one loves Jesus and the other thinks that’s ridiculous. The late Christopher Hitches was as far as we know an ardent atheist to the end, while his brother Peter, is a believer. Christopher’s good friend was Larry Tauton. A Christian who leads one the world’s foremost Christian debating organisation. It’s not about intelligence. It’s about the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Second plumb line of true spirituality is that it is Holy Spirit empowered. My response to the gospel was not because I was inelegant (just read this typo but thought I’d leave it in! I meant “intelligent” ) enough to figure it out. It was not due to my upbringing or a preachers persuasive power. All these tings could be “just right” and I would have thought it foolish. But by God’s grace his holy Spirit opened my heart to see clearly and respond freely.

That does not mean that God does not work through words and thinking. He definatly does. The gospel is:

“words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words” 1 Cor 2:13.

So of course we need to think about it and investigate it and read about it, and go on alpha and read the bible talk to friends and listen to preaches and read blogs! The Holy Spirit works through arguments and apologetics but no one will accept those arguments without the Holy Spirit at work in them. God loves to open people’s hearts as they hear the gospel; The “testimony” about his son!

Jesus centred (How Spiritual are you? Part 7)

There is a lot of spiritual speak around these days so how do you determine the authentic from the counterfeit? The biblical test is whether it is Jesus centred. That doesn’t mean it has Jesus in the title or in there somewhere but right at the centre. When you are looking at a spiritual sounding idea or philosophy or belief you need to ask “is it all about Jesus?”. If Jesus was taken out of that idea would there be anything of any significance left?

Jesus was very exclusive in the things he said.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  (ESV) John 14:6

“Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers… (ESV) John 10:7-8

We should not be surprised at this. Truth is exclusive. That’s how it works. If A is true, then (not A) is not true. That is the nature of Reality. But is it unfair to have only one way to God?  Well, how many ways could we want? 1? 100? 1000? Actually the truth is actually “my way!”. What if there are a million and yet the one you want to be true isn’t? Would that be unfair? The fact is that God wants Jesus central to true spiritually and that means there is just one way. One door. One name and One saviour.

The mistake we sometimes make to confuse the exclusive nature of truth with the grace that should come in handling it. Jesus came full of  ”grace and truth” (John 1:4). The right valuing of tolerance should not muddle these two things up (see my blog on Carson’s latest book ). We look to love and respect people no matter what they believe, but we do not affirm things that are false. In fact, loving someone despite massive difference of opinion is what Jesus tells us to do. Your enemies usually affirm very different truths to yourself but Jesus says to love them anyway.

Jesus was the son of God. The vast majority of the people at the time did not believe this to be true but he died for them anyway. What many actually appreciate about tolerance is the grace bit and Jesus has lots of that bit! Of course, one day truth does have its day in court so it’s good to get it right now. But Jesus wants us to be gracious to one another as we try to figure it out.

And when we say “true spirituality must have Jesus at the centre”, that doesn’t mean any old Jesus. It means the Jesus of the bible. Jesus of Nazareth. The son of God. The Christ. The Messiah. Descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The virgin born Jesus. The incarnate Jesus. Jesus Immanuel, “God with us”. The Jesus that God sent because he loved the world so much. The Jesus that never sinned or put a foot wrong. The Jesus that died on a cross. The Jesus that rose from the dead three days later and showed himself bodily to lots of people. The Jesus at the Fathers right hand. The Jesus that will come again to judge the living and the dead…anyway you get the idea. That Jesus !-)

With Jesus at the centre of all our spiritual activity, our identity and connection to God is “in him” as a sons of God.

The real deal (how spiritual are you? Part 6)

What is true spiritually? What is the spiritual activity that really speaks of our true identity and actually connects us with the God who created us?

I think a good definition comes from 1 Cor 2: 12

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. (ESV) 1 Cor 2: 12

What have we been given by God? All Paul is talking about and thinking about is in verse 2

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (ESV) 1 Cor 2:2

God has given us his son, to be crucified.

True spiritually can therefore be defined as:

knowing by the Spirit of God what we have been freely given in the Son of God.

There are two aspects of true spiritually that I have been thinking about. First, true spiritually is Jesus centered and second true spiritually is Holy Spirit empowered.