A Touch of Humor - Obsessions

How should Christians deal with these obsessions in our culture? How might they distort our own attitude toward these things?

Old Erich Proverb - Rule Keeping

Strict rule keeping results in watering down the rules so we can keep them.

A Voice from the Past - Anselm

I pray. O God, to know thee, to love thee, that I may rejoice in thee. And if I cannot attain to full joy in this life may I at least advance from day to day, until that joy may came to the full. Let the knowledge of thee advance in me here, and there be made full. Let the love of thee increase, and there let it be full, that here my joy may be great in hope, and there full in truth.

Anselm, Prologium, 1033-1109, Chapter XXVI, (Proslogium; Monologium; An Addendix on Behalf of the Fool by Gaunilon; and Cur Deos Homo, translated by Sidney Norton Deane, Open Court Publishing Co, 1926,  p. 37)

Does this reflect the proper way to grow closer to God, knowledge of Him leading to love and joy? How might this affect my approach to God?

The Complexity of Reality

It is complained that the Christian idea of God is complex and hard to understand. But we need to realize that reality is complex, and the too simple solution is often the suspect one. It was once believed that there were four elements: air, fire, earth and water, and that everything was some mixture of them. Compare that to the variety of elements in the Periodic Table. It was once thought that atoms were tiny balls bouncing around or simple geometric shapes, like spheres, cubes, and pyramids. But they are really complex entities possessing various shells which it requires quantum mechanics to describe. It was once thought a cell was just a blob of protoplasm. We now know it is a miniature factory made up of complex elements.

Nor is reality always easy to understand. Take something as simple as light. It is both particles and waves at the same time. How this is possible is beyond our understanding. Or that there is a probability (on the subatomic level this is a meaningful probability) that a particle will pass through any barrier that is less than infinitely strong without breaking the barrier. Even Einstein's theory, that measurements of time, length, and mass change when objects are moving relative to each other, seems serendipitous. To refuse to believe something because we do not understand it is a denial of how the world really is.

Should we then really be surprised when God turns out to be three in one? If He becomes a man while still remaining God? If His death on a cross obtains our salvation? The very difficulties involved would argue this is something human beings would not make up. We like things we can understand. But we need to beware of too simple answers to difficult questions. For the world is stranger than we expect it to be.

Never Leave Us or Forsake Us - Hebrews 13:5,6

Between Scylla and Charybdis

Ulysses, on his journey home in the Odyssey, is forced to pass between two monsters, Scylla and Charybdis. They were on opposite sides of a narrow ocean channel, and to avoid one put you in danger of falling into the clutches of the other. I believe that our culture is in the grip of two monsters.
On the one side we have increasing conformity and depersonalization, and on the other increasing individualism and license.   

We are in danger of being seen as interchangeable cogs in a vast machine, pressed into shape to fit in with everyone else. We are seen as a something like play-doh, which can be molded into any shape and will take up every picture it is pressed on. This comes partly from a distorted view of equality. All people are valuable in God's sight, being made in His image (Genesis 1:26; 9:6; James 3:9). But this can be taken to mean we are indistinguishable and must all act alike.

On the other extreme there is total individualism. This sees us as completely independent and left unrestrained to follow every impulse. The problem with that is, we are sinners and there are impulses in us that are best not followed (Romans 7:14; Jeremiah 17:9; Isaiah 64:6). But there is the idea that restraint is an offense against the inner self, which is assumed to be good. And both of these ideas feed on each other, so that as people in our society begin to feel more and more like counters, they react by going to extremes to express their individuality.

I am convinced the only real answer is God's grace. We are told there is a real standard of right and wrong that transcends both the individual and society (Romans 7:12; 3:31; Matthew 5:18). But we cannot keep this standard, and God has offered us forgiveness in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 2:13,14; Romans 8:3,4) if we put our faith in Him (Romans 4:4,5; Ephesians 2:8,9; Philippians 3:9). Then having forgiven us, He begins to work in us to transform us (2 Corinthians 3:18; Titus 2:11-14; Ephesians 2:10). He also makes us part of a body, which is built on unity in diversity (1Corinthians 12:12-27; Romans 12:3-8; Ephesians 4:11-16). This allows me over time to be transformed, though often haltingly and imperfectly, into the person God really wants me to be. Which is the result of the grace and love of God that motivates me to love Him in return (1 John 4:19; 2 Corinthians 5:14,15; Romans 5:1,2). And I can grant grace to and receive grace from other Christians, knowing that we are all different and fall short of perfection (1 Peter 4:8; James 4:11,12; Hebrews 12:12,13). And having received it ourselves, we can offer it to those outside. For we are on a journey to Someone who is higher than self and society, and we have us not yet arrived (Philippians 3:12-16; Hebrews 12:1,2; 1 Timothy 4:7,8).

A Touch of Humor - The Alternatives

 

Do television preachers serve a useful purpose? What is that purpose?