Chapter 9 Excerpt -- Justice

Excerpts so far from God with Ten Words:

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge (excerpt 1)
• Knowledge (excerpt 2)
• Presence (excerpt 1)
• Presence (excerpt 2)
• Immanuel (excerpt 1)
• Immanuel (excerpt 2)
• Good (most of the chapter)
• Parent (excerpt 1)
• Parent (excerpt 2)

_____________________

We know God is love (1 John 4:8). Scripture also tells us that God does what is right (Gen. 18:25). On the one hand, the “righteousness of God” leads to salvation (Rom. 1:16-7). We should be careful not to see God’s justice solely in terms of judgment or punishment because the Bible also connects it clearly with salvation. Paul in Romans is arguably drawing from passages in Psalms and Isaiah where God’s righteousness is especially shown by bringing salvation to Israel and the world (e.g., Ps. 98:2; Isa. 56:1).

At the same time, the other side of God’s righteousness is the fact that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and human unrighteousness among those who hold back the truth with unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18). Notice the reason for God’s action in such cases. It is to release the truth. We are prone to think of God’s wrath in terms of fire and brimstone, and we will come to those images in a moment. However, in Romans 1, God’s wrath mostly plays out by “letting go” of those who have gone astray (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28). God lets them experience the consequences of their conscious turning from him (Rom. 1:21, 27).

How do God’s love and justice (in its more prevalent English sense) fit together? I do not believe they contradict each other when properly understood, but it is very difficult for us as humans to hold them in proper balance. It seems that in the end one or the other must ultimately be made the primary characteristic. It seems that we must either locate God’s justice within his love or locate God’s love within his justice.

I believe it is most biblical to locate God’s justice within the context of God's love. God’s primary orientation toward the world is for salvation rather than condemnation. We see this dynamic in John 3:16-17. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” … “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world.” James 2:13 says that “mercy triumphs over judgment.” If indeed God would prefer for everyone to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), then God’s love and mercy must be the primary attitude of God toward the world, with a good but regrettable reason for justice to be an exception. Again, I am using the word justice here in its more prevalent English sense rather than its much richer biblical sense.

Another Chapter 7 Excerpt -- Good

Excerpts so far from God with Ten Words:

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge (excerpt 1)
• Knowledge (excerpt 2)
• Presence (excerpt 1)
• Presence (excerpt 2)
• Immanuel (excerpt 1)
• Immanuel (excerpt 2)
• Good (excerpt 1)

__________________________

What we can say for certain is that God is good. We can say for certain that God is love. We do not know exactly why God allows such things to happen. But we believe that God has a reason and that the reasons are good. We just don’t see the big picture.

You’ll notice that I said God “allows” such things to happen. There is an important distinction here. There are some Christians who believe that God directs everything that happens in the world. They believe God selects who will be saved and that every single event that happens is according to God’s intricately detailed plan.

The problem with this approach is that it makes God directly responsible for evil. On this understanding, every last detail of every murder that has ever been committed was planned by God down to the last, intricate detail. On this understanding, every last detail of every rape that has ever happened was planned by God down to the last, intricate detail. On this understanding, Satan and demons are but puppets through whom God tortures the universe. God becomes the author of evil on an astounding level.

This is untenable and incoherent. If God is responsible for all evil on that level, then Christianity is a farce.

When we say that God allows evil, we are saying that God has chosen—on God’s own authority—to give the creation some freedom in decision-making. There are likely many things that God makes happen in the creation, things that God determines. But Christians from my tradition believe that God has given some freedom to the creation to make its own decisions.

Chapter 7 Excerpt -- Good

Excerpts so far from God with Ten Words:

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge (excerpt 1)
• Knowledge (excerpt 2)
• Presence (excerpt 1)
• Presence (excerpt 2)
• Immanuel (excerpt 1)
• Immanuel (excerpt 2)

__________________________

... The classic answer is the second one. God is good. God could stop evil and suffering. But God has good reasons not always to do so, even though we often do not know what they are.

When I think of this question, I often think of the story of Abraham arguing with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18. God knows how the conversation is going to end. God knows how many righteous people are in Sodom and has since the creation of the world. But God walks through the conversation with Abraham for Abraham’s sake. Abraham is a creature in time. God is outside of time and knows exactly how it will turn out without forcing it to go a certain way.

“Will you save Sodom for fifty righteous people?”

“Sure,” God says.

“What about forty?” “What about thirty?” “Twenty?” “Ten?”

Again, God saw this conversation before the foundation of the world. God knew what Abraham would (freely) ask, and God knew what would be answered.

What I find particularly interesting about the conversation is one of Abraham’s questions. “Will not the Judge of all the land do justice?” (Gen. 18:25).

To me, this is an excellent picture of our situation. We know that God is good and will always do what is the best and what is right. The problem is that we do not always know what that is. God does, but we don’t.

Another chap 5 Excerpt -- Presence

Excerpts so far from God with Ten Words:

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge (excerpt 1)
• Knowledge (excerpt 2)
• Presence (excerpt 1)

__________________________ 

The New Testament goes further. While in the Old Testament, it might not be entirely clear that the Holy Spirit is a distinct person, the New Testament begins to talk about the Holy Spirit in those terms. In a famous blessing, Paul prays for the Corinthians that “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:13). The Great Commission instructs the disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). In these and other places, the Holy Spirit is treated as a distinct person from God the Father and Jesus.

Perhaps the most striking references are in the Gospel of John, where masculine pronouns are used in relation to the Holy Spirit. The word for spirit in Greek is a neuter word, pneuma. Accordingly, neuter pronouns are normal to refer to spirit: “it.” But more than once John uses masculine pronouns: “he.” “That one [masculine] will teach you all things” (14:26). “That one [masculine] will witness concerning me” (15:26). “I will send him to you” (16:7). “That one [masculine] will convict the world” (16:8). “Whenever that one [masculine] comes… that one [masculine] will glorify me” (16:13, 14).

The point is not that the Spirit has male anatomy. And someone might rightly point out that the word “advocate” is masculine, so the masculine pronouns, more than anything, are referring to the Spirit as the advocate. That is all true. But it does not change the fact that the Spirit in these passages is discussed in strikingly personal terms.

Chap 6 Excerpt -- Immanuel

Excerpts so far from God with Ten Words:

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge (excerpt 1)
• Knowledge (excerpt 2)
• Presence

__________________________

We are now halfway through the ten words with which we are trying to get a small glimpse of what God is like. But something very crucial is missing. More than one religion understands God to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present. The fact that mystery and holiness surround God would again be a common understanding. But from a Christian perspective, no sense of God could be complete without knowing that God came to earth as Jesus Christ. "The Word became flesh and tented among us" (John 1:14).

The 1600s saw the rise of the scientific revolution. That century saw the foundations of modern science laid in physics with great thinkers like Isaac Newton and Galileo. A shift had taken place toward seeing the world as something like a machine that operated according to certain rules or "laws" that God had built into the machine. Rather than see a thunderstorm as God or a demon trying to get me, these thinkers looked for patterns and laws in nature that God had put there--laws that we could discover with our human minds.

There is nothing wrong with this perspective. The inventions and technological developments of the last few centuries are obvious, including this laptop that I am typing on. Laws were discovered. As I write this chapter, the first space launch entirely made up of non-astronauts has gone into space. The achievements of science are astounding and undeniable, and they follow directly upon a shift of thinking that sees the world as something God has created to run to some extent "on its own." [1]

There is also a danger here, and that danger also reared its head in the 1600s. The danger is Deism...

[1] We can debate whether it really runs "on its own" or whether God is just pulling consistent and predictable levers on a deeper level.

Chap 3 Excerpt -- Power

Excerpts from a writing project so far, God with Ten Words

• Mystery
• Love

__________________________

Belief in ex nihilo creation fits very nicely with what physics currently believes. The landscape can change, but it is a very satisfying agreement at this moment in history. For one, physics agrees that the universe had a beginning point. Interestingly, most of the famous physicists of the mid-twentieth century did not like the idea that the universe had a beginning because it played too neatly into the idea of a Creator. The term “Big Bang” was originally a term of derision, not from Christians, but from scientists.

In the 1950s, the favorite theory among physicists was what was called the “steady-state” theory. Championed especially by a man named Fred Hoyle, it argued that the universe did not have a beginning but that matter was constantly “coming and going” from the universe, as it were. When a Catholic priest named Georges Lemaître pointed out that Einstein’s equations could support a beginning, his hypothesis was fairly strongly rejected.

Sometimes I hear Christians express a negative view toward the idea of a “big bang,” but I believe they are mostly opposing the atheistic version of the theory. The idea that God started the universe with a bang fits extremely well with the way most Christians understand Genesis 1:1 and creation out of nothing. In short, while we might debate about how long ago it was, the latest theories in physics of the universe’s beginning fit very nicely with our sense that God created the world out of nothing at a specific point in time in the past.

How to be a writer...

Hat tip to James McGrath for a link to this great article on being a writer. I have found a good deal of this article to be true for me. Here are the points where I "amen-ed."

• I have written some fifteen books in the last four years, in large part by blogging every morning before work as a discipline. I have not managed to do this with academic books, however, and have struggled even to get one book finished.
• I resonated with the sense that Deans and administrators had better write before they go to work. No matter what time I think I'll have during the day, whack-a-mole inevitably takes over.
• I agreed with the four hour hangover. I have attempted my fair share of "all day" writing ventures, including over Christmas break. But I only really have about four good writing hours a day, no matter how much coffee I drink. 

Two More Devotionals Published

I was happy to receive the two devotionals today (Wisdom and Witness of Jesus) that go along with my second book on Jesus (Portraits). The three make a set.



The Portraits of Jesus book focuses on special themes in the Gospels (as opposed to The Mission of Jesus, which focused on the basic mission of Jesus):

1. The Basic Story (Mark)
2. The Hidden Jesus (Mark)
3. The Virgin Birth (Matthew, Luke)
4. The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew)
5. The New Moses (Matthew)
6. Good News for the Poor (Luke)
7. Good News for the World (Luke)
8. The Book of Signs (John)
9. The Book of Glory (John)
10. The Second Person of the Trinity

The two devotionals go along with this volume. The Wisdom of Jesus is a six week devotional on the Sermon on the Mount. The Witness of Jesus is a six week devotional on the "I am" sayings of John.

I have been working on sermon outlines that go along with these devotionals so that a church can be reading through the devotional for six weeks and then the pastor preach a sermon each Sunday that goes along with what the congregation has been reading each day devotionally.

Two New Devotionals Out!

My two final devotionals in the Paul series are out!  One of them covers the Pastoral Epistles (Our Faith).  The other covers Ephesians and Colossians (Our Purpose).



I've written three books that are life reflections Paul's writings (links are on the right below):

• Paul: Messenger of Grace (over Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon)
• Paul: Soldier of Peace (over Romans)
• Paul: Prisoner of Hope (over 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, 1-2 Timothy, Titus)

Then I've written six, six week devotional books that go with selected portions:

• Our Joy (Philippians)
• Our Hope (1 Thessalonians)
• Our Righteousness (Romans 1-8)
• Our Relationships (Romans 9-16)
• Our Purpose (Ephesians, Colossians)
• Our Faith (Pastorals)

Philosophy book turned around...

Just now finally turned around the first round of edits to my forthcoming philosophy book.  I had finished it while in Germany, then the editor did a painstaking job of working through its imperfections... and leaving me with a massive amount of detailed homework, including some 75 instances where I needed further source information.  Most philosophy books are not very good at sourcing philosophers, it seems to me. This one will definitely be above average on that score.

What made my task even worse is that I had paraphrased everything but twentieth century works--even philosophers who wrote originally in English.  Philosophy textbooks often want to get people into primary sources but then the philosophers themselves are often incomprehensible to the uninitiated. My goal was to do a "Message" version of the philosophers when I quoted them--including Wesley. [by the way, I think it would be a fascinating project for someone to "translate" Wesley into contemporary English]

So I needed to hunt down the sources of the translations I paraphrased.  It was a righteous but painful thing to do.  But it's done (although it's possible I've still left some things that need fixed).

Depressing this morning to hear Pastor Steve Deneff describe the 45-50 year age stretch as a person's prime.  What have I been doing all my life???

Writing All Nighters...

All right, all right, I got about four and a half hours of sleep.  I'm a wimp.  I've been trying to get over the hump on the Romans 1-8 devotional I'm supposed to have finished a long time ago.

Sometimes thoughts just flow and sometimes it's like pulling teeth.  This particular assignment is hard because the format is fairly rigid and segmented.  But it comes out being almost like a mini-commentary with application every ten verses or so.  I was really happy with the ones on Philippians and 1 Thessalonians.

But after pulling teeth for weeks, I have been cranking out about 450 words an hour since yesterday afternoon, with a brief crash in the middle ;-)

LuLu Publishing

As usual, there are untold benefits to having your office next to Keith Drury. He put a bug in my ear the other day about LuLu Publishing, the future of publishing and the nemesis of the traditional publishing guild. Some of you may know that I have an old manuscript lying around that has never been published, Who Decides What the Bible Means? I logged on to LuLu publishing and within twenty minutes had it published, cover and all!

I unpublished it, made a few modifications, and then republished it the next morning. My perfect bound copy arrived by UPS today. I need to adjust the font and take care of a few details, so I have it so only I can buy copies right now. But when I'm happy with it, I can put it on Amazon and whooptie doo.

I have seen the future and it is me (because now any whacko can get published for the cost of paper, shipping, and handling...)