The Real Issue at Heart

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. Proverbs 14:12

After a crazed man shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, the issue of gun control shot through the minds of many. The Aurora shooting in Colorado still rings in our ears. And now the death of 12 citizens from a slaughter in the Washington DC Navy yard puts a bullet in our hearts.

I’m not writing a heated argument on why the government should or should not control our guns (although I might in a later musing). I am going to simply take this issue from a different angle. What better way to start than with a Bible verse: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Guns kill people to the same extent as pencils make mistakes and cars break the speed limit: the instrument does not play beautiful or ear-splitting music, but the player who performs determines the outcome based on instruction, practice, and a steady hand. “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:21-23).

The depravity of man is not a new thing. God flooded the world because “every intention of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). We’re shocked at the baseness of the shooters, yet it is what we would do in our natural, sinful state without Christ. It’s the reason why we need a Savior.

The problem lies in mankind’s sinful hearts, not the means of destruction used by corrupt men. Take away our guns, give us more guns... that will never completely resolve the real issue. Only Christ can fix the true heart of the matter.

Instances like the shooting in DC should not merely cause us to consider gun control. As Christians, we should not hear these tragedies and ruminate on how dreadful a hole the world is sliding into, but how much the world needs Christ, how much we should share the good news, how much more we need to live like lights in the midst of this darkness.

“…children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life…” (Philippians 2:15-16, NIV).

~Klipsie

Also check out Haiku’s article “Why Bad Things Happen.”

All Scripture references are ESV unless otherwise indicated.

The Parable of the Loving Father

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.”

–Luke 15:20b NIV

We all know the story of the “Prodigal Son” from Luke 15:11-32, don’t we?  This summer, however, I had the opportunity to hear the story told from another point of view – from the view of the prodigal son’s father.  In a time where there are countless “prodigal sons” and where the idea of a “father” is often viewed negatively due to the large number and the normality of dysfunctional families, most people tend to read this parable and relate to the prodigal son instead of looking deeper.  But what if the focus of the story wasn’t as much about the failure and redemption of the son, but of the great and unfathomable love of his father?

The story starts with the younger of two sons going to his father and asking for his inheritance.  Those of you who know much about inheritances and the like know that this kid was essentially saying, “Dad, I wish that you were dead or would at least act like it.  I don’t care about you in the slightest and I really don’t want to be here, so just give me my stuff.”  Even if his father was a jerk (if you’d never read this story before, you wouldn’t know anything about the character of his father at this point of the story), it’s pretty obvious that this young man was not being very respectful at all.  Anyway, the father, being the type of man that he is, gave both his sons their allotted inheritance and the oldest stayed with him while the youngest took everything he owned, went to a far away country, and pretty much partied all of his possessions away.  He learned the hard way that all too often, friends are only around for as long as you have something to offer them.  All his “friends” deserted him when he could no longer give them anything they wanted.  He had used up all his money and had nothing left to use to pay for things other than to hire himself out for work in the countryside where he ended up feeding pigs, wishing that he could eat even the slop they were given.  Not only did he not have enough to eat due to a famine, but his job of feeding pigs was just about the lowliest position that a Jew could take.

            During all of this, chances are that his father heard stories from others (merchants, traders, people who had visited these distant lands and heard the stories through the grapevine) about his son.  When he found out about what all his son was doing, he could’ve forced him to come home.  Instead, he allowed him the dignity of choosing for himself when he would return, even after he had lost all other dignity.  He didn’t track his son down when he came to the end of himself and rub his situation in his face by saying, “Told you so!”  Knowing his son and what was best for him, he let him finish his rebellion.

            When the father saw his son finally coming home, he was filled with compassion for him – compassion, not pity.  Pity is a bit condescending, giving an attitude of, “I’m right, you’re wrong.  I’m big, you’re small.”  Compassion, on the other hand, is loving, showing genuine sympathy even relating to the pain or sorrow felt.  The difference is all in how the action is played out.  The father was loving in his sympathy, not condescending.  The very next thing he did was to run to meet his son, throw his arms around him, and kiss him.  Now, it may seem like a semi-normal greeting for that time, but in that community and in that situation, the things he did had a meaning.  For all of the things he’d done, the son could’ve been cast out of the community, and they would even have been within their rights to stone him.  The father, however, didn’t want that to happen to his son, so he raced to be the first to get to his son.  In his hurry, he was even willing to suffer public embarrassment and loss of dignity by lifting his robe to his knees so that he could get there faster.  When weighing his own dignity next to his sons, he chose to take the “walk of shame” in his son’s place.  When the father threw his arms around his son and kissed him, he was as much greeting his son as he was protecting him from the townspeople and claiming him as his son, despite the things he’d done.

            Now if you’ve read the story, you know that the son wasn’t intending to return to take his place again as this man’s son, but instead to become one of his servants.  He had finally recognized that the things he had done were wrong, and he came back with an attitude of humility and repentance.  But the father, without a doubt in his mind and without even letting his son finish the speech he’d prepared, sent his servants back to the house to get the best robe to put on him, a ring for his finger, and sandals for his feet.  They were also supposed to kill the fattened calf for a party in honor of the son’s return home.  Oh, and he told them to do all of this, “Quickly!”  He wanted to publicly reclaim the son as his own before the townspeople could do anything to him.  Again, the things he sent for had meaning.  The robe symbolized reinstated sonship, the ring symbolized reinstated authority, the sandals distinguished him as a master and not a servant, and the fattened calf was saved for use at the best party.

            Does any of this sound familiar to you?  Jesus took the “walk of shame” in our place, sacrificing his dignity for our salvation (Isaiah 53:5).  God puts a robe of righteousness around us (Isaiah 61:10) and calls us his children (1 John 3:1).  The angels throw a party when even just one sinner repents and turns back to The Father (Luke 15:10).  Hmmm . . . so maybe this isn’t just a story about a prodigal son (us) who makes the journey home again, but about a loving father (God) who allows his rebellious son to make a mess of his life because he knows that in the end, his son will return to him all the better for it.

            But wait!  We’re forgetting one crucial character in this story – the older brother.  He was out in the field while his dad and younger brother had their joyful reunion, but when he found out about his brother’s return and the feast thrown in his honor, he wasn’t glad that he was back; instead he got quite angry.  Not the reaction you would think of for someone who thought his brother was dead and just found out he was alive.  He had been obedient and stayed with his father, doing everything he was asked, but he felt like he was never rewarded, and then his rebellious brother returns home and is thrown the ultimate party; how was that even fair?  I know I can relate to that feeling.  If you think about it, there are two types of prodigals: rebellious prodigals, and performance prodigals.  There wasn’t just one prodigal in the story; there were two.  But the father’s response is beautiful: “My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.  But we had to celebrate and be glad, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:32)  For those of us who relate more to the perfectionist prodigals, God reminds us that we share in His wealth and have already received everything.  For those of us who are the rebellious prodigals, or new Christians, how amazing is it to know that God says this over us!  “This child of mine was dead but is now alive, and they were lost but now they are found!”

Comma Queen

Sources:

The majority of this article is based off of notes I took at a lecture at TeenPact National Convention 2013 by Bob Chambers entitled “The Parable of the Loving Father.”

Misquoting Scripture

Every Word of God is flawless, He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.

Do not add to His words, or He will rebuke you and prove you a liar.

Proverbs 30:5-6

     The Bible is pretty clear on the shall's and shall not's regarding scripture; you say it as it is, add nothing and don't take anything away (aka add an omission). "Interpretation" stirs up huge debates, a strictly literal reading, a deeper historical reading and so on all can result in radically varying viewpoints and opinions on what a text says and means. But I'm going to keep with the easy stuff; don't mess with what the Bible says.

      Why? It's quite simple. "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). God, using human writers, gave us His words (and sometimes, such as in the case of the Mosaic law, He wrote it down Himself). The scriptures are what we needed to know about Creation, Fall, Flood, Israel, Christ, and the Early Church. From this He also gives us codes of conduct and gives us clear differentiation (in most cases) from right and wrong. Frequently, however, we don't like what's in the Bible. So we... modify it to better suit our desires. Misinterpret a verse here, ignore a passage there, add the book of Opinions and suddenly being a Christian got a whole lot easier (there is no book of Opinions, and if your Bible has one I'd suggest getting a new Bible). But it doesn't work that way. The Bible God gave us is the one we are to live by. Not with an addendum (i.e. The Book of Mormon, the Quran and so on).

      But how do we know we even have the Bible God originally wrote down? Number one: if God is as powerful as He claims to be in the Scriptures, He would have very little trouble maintaining the fidelity of a series of words in a few documents. Second, the Christian Bible has more archaeological and historical evidence than any other major work in or before its time period, COMBINED. Don't believe me? Here's a nice little chart that outlines it all: http://carm.org/manuscript-evidence .

     This article is really short, mostly because there isn't much I can add to the issue. Christianity is incredibly unique in the completeness and accuracy of its text. The Bible doesn't need to be changed to suit history, the Bible shouldn't be changed to fit our moral wants, and Scripture is clear that the Bible is what it is, and God intended it to be that way.

Leaping Lizard

To Do, or Not To Do

"Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'"

Luke 17:9-10 (emphasis added)

We all know that sin is bad. Stealing is bad. Hating your brother is bad. Coveting is bad.  We were taught, “Don’t do this or that, because that’s a sin.” And I’m not trying to downplay sin. Doing something that God forbids is horrendously detestable.

However, were we ever taught, “Do do this and that, because if you don’t, that’s a sin”? That’s when it gets a little more complicated. Or actually, it’s not that complicated; we just like to complicate it so then we can excuse it.

“But if I spend an hour doing devotions and Scripture memorization, I won’t get math done in the morning when I can think best, and then math will take longer, and then I’ll get behind in all my other school subjects, and then I can’t go to volleyball tonight, and my whole day will be behind. Yeah, so I’ll just skip devotions today. It’s better this way.” (That’s all very hypothetical, by the way.)

Or maybe we downplay the matter. “Should I wipe down the counters? They’re really not all that dirty… They’ve been worse, so this isn’t too bad, really. They’ll be fine.” “I really don’t need to go make things right with that person. It wasn’t too mean, and they didn’t look that hurt.” “It’s just a three-minute cat video. My chores can wait three minutes.” (Still very hypothetical.)

Sometimes we like to over-complicate issues, and sometimes we neglect “little” factors, but either method, it’s sin. “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17, emphasis added).

We can commit, and we can omit. And both are vile in God’s sight.

Because the sin of omission is deceiving, we often wave it away. But look at the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:30-37. Were the priest and Levite condemned because of something they did? No, it was because they didn’t do anything.

What’s the best way to wreck a relationship? Abuse? Angry words? Or is it… neglect?

I often (and I think this applies to most of us) think I’m doing fairly well because I’m not stealing anything, I’m not lying, I’m not watching X-rated movies. I have my little checklist of “Not’s” and I like to think of myself as “pretty good” because most of them are checked. But how worn is the checklist of “Not not’s”?

Now some may think, “Well the verse says, ‘Whoever knows the right thing and doesn’t do it, it’s sin,’ but what if I don’t know I should be doing this or that?” I would say that’s where sanctification comes in. As you study Scripture and understand God more deeply, you learn to realize what is good and what is bad, what you should do and what you shouldn’t. God gave us the Bible for a reason!

Now some may think even more, “Well, if I don’t read the Bible or listen to sermons, I can claim ignorance, because I didn’t know the right thing to do, so therefore I never failed to do it!” To that, I would question your salvation. The reason we do good is because we love Christ. Paul addresses this issue in Romans 6:15-18:

“What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”

And slaves of righteousness, redeemed by Christ’s blood, would endeavor to be obedient to God in all things.

A sermon on James 4:17 put it this way: “Most people have the idea if they don’t do certain things they are good Christians. If that were true then my dog is the best Christian I know. He doesn’t steal, he doesn’t drink liquor or any of the things we would consider bad.”* We should not look like dogs. We should look like Christians because of not only the sinful things we don’t do, but also the righteous things we do do out of a motivation of love.

~Klipsie

All Scripture references are ESV unless otherwise indicated

Sources:

*“The Sin of Omission” sermon by Melvin Shelton

            http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-sin-of-omission-melvin-shelton-sermon-on-growth-in-christ-60372.asp