The New Bereans

I have come to the conclusion that no matter what denomination you find yourself in, the way you study God (theology) falls into one of two camps Equation Theology or Revelation Theology.

Equation Theology is a theology which attempts to flatten the revealed Word of God into a mathematical formula which can be proven true, all conflicting scriptures are usually explained away, contextualized away, or ignored. Let me emphasize that Equation Theology is not one particular branch of theology; rather, it is an approach to understanding the scriptures.

Revelation Theology is a theology which strictly adheres to all clear teaching of scripture without attempting to resolve every nuanced tension.  A theological structure which fights to the death for orthodox doctrine, but doesn’t quarrel over matters where the scripture is unclear.

I have spent time in both camps but I am joining the latter camp for good.

As I’ve considered these distinctions one thing has really struck me.  Men seem to fall the most easily into equation oriented thinking, yet if we were asked to create mathematical equation or algorithm which perfectly explains our wives, which would anticipate every action, and fully define them in every way; we would never attempt to undertake so foolish an endeavor.   Who are we, who cannot fully understand women, to think we can fully understand God?

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. Deuteronomy 29:29

“…hope that is seen is not hope.”  -Romans 8:24b

Every day it is there, lurking behind every turn of a corner, hiding under every spoken syllable I hear, whispering with every breath of a shifting wind.  Behind the promise of every rainbow, and at the flailing capitulation of every weary, summer spent leaf.  Every time an exultant and radiant sun erupts against the atmospheric, crenellating wave of a blackened storm front.  Every conversation, every glance to the distant side, every time my daughter raises her arms in expectation of my lifting her into my embrace, when I feel, yet again, awkward in a social setting, and with my insatiable desire to direct even the most mundane of every single conversation I have in life toward something deeper and more meaningful.  Whenever I see the sunlight reflect off of my wife’s beautiful hair, and every time she looks at me with her deep love, even when she asks me what I am thinking, and love compels me to put my morass of complicated thoughts into a tangible linear string of verbal sense.  If I read a news article, or hear some lament, it is always there…

It is an insatiable, ravenous, all consuming, and unrelenting hope, and the things which I do see are constantly reminding me of its presence echoing beyond every instance.  All these things and many more are reminding me, by the very nature of how they make me see past them, to something I cannot explain with words, something that I desire with such a hunger that there is no simile with which to describe it.  For if I was to put it into words by analogy or metaphor that would be to limit it.  To attempt to quantify the depth of, weight of, width of, or consistency of this desire would also limit it, or place bookends on it, if you will.

It is this hope, in that which none of the things I can visually comprehend are capable of satiating, that can only be matched by what will eventually satisfy that hope.  Just as the hope within me cannot be measured, quantified, or rationalized, neither can that which I am hoping in.  For whom I am hoping in is the immeasurable, infinite, immense, and eternal. He that is so far beyond even the vastness of our known universe, which is nearly irrational to our minds in its own scope, yet His hand spans it with ease.

And yet, beyond all imagining, that inexhaustible, maddening-to-comprehend vastness condensed Himself into an infinitesimal and displayed to all history, humanity, and creation just how vast he really was on a simple, unimportant, dusty, sun-baked hill, in an annoying, back-water nuisance of a Province with nails in His hands and his blood splashed all over the place.

It is Him that I hope for; it is His eternal presence, and the radiance of who He is…

James Cameron’s newest film Avatar is taking the world by storm literally.  It tells the story of a future corporation’s pillaging of a planet and the resistance they encounter from the pantheistic alien population (The Navi).

In considering the success of Avatar, one thing strikes me; it’s success illustrates man’s hunger for an authentic solid connection to a real and powerful God. This generation is not hungry for ethics, apologetics, or theories. They want spiritual reality, and they don’t expect to find any of that in church, so they look elsewhere. The Church, who’s job it is to display authentic spiritual reality to the world, has largely become a Christian country club.

The Church’s response to James Cameron’s jaw-dropping, breathtaking, and dauntless sci-fi epic will mainly fall into one of 2 camps.

1. Some will denounce it as evil, say it is opening people up to demon possession, or teaching them Gaia worship. 2. Others will try to put a Christian spin on it , making Angeltar comics, having “How to be an Avatar for Jesus” conferences, or some such nonsense. But neither of these addresses the real issue, the church has drifted far away from true spiritual communion with God.

I can almost guarantee that our response will not be the correct one. Which would be to return to authentic spirit filled Christianity. To stop imitating the world, or finding ways to increase attendance. Instead the church needs to pursue, seek, and serve God. To live lives of simplicity, humility, and prayer. To live a passionate life of love for God and our neighbor. Pouring ourselves out as an offering to God.

Here is the gauntlet that lays at the foot of the Church . . . The fake world and religion of the Navi appeals to people because of their passionate pursuit of, and relationship with their fake God. Which looks much more real and appealing than our fake pursuit of, and relationship to the true God.

“Whoever loves transgression loves strife.” -Proverbs 17:19 (ESV)

The tendency to want to argue, strive and debate with people about things is symptomatic of a direct linkage to the love of transgression.   All throughout the scriptures, the word transgression is linked to the idea of sin, but it is more specific.  Transgression is to purposefully rebel.  In other words, when we know something to be the right thing to do, but instead we rebel against that and do the opposite, we are transgressing.

So when Solomon says that those who love transgression, in turn love strife, what can we then say about our strife?  I love how the bible does not bandy about with words, or make excuses.  Instead it just simply says that if you love to strive and argue and wrangle with people, you love transgression.  Is there anything simpler to understand?

Love of Argument = Love of Transgression

It amazes me how people, Christians especially, can find all sorts of justification for arguing their pet doctrines in such a manner that they are only manifesting this exact problem.  It is no wonder John the Apostle spent so much time telling us to love one another.

I guarantee you, if God has not done a true changing of your heart through the power of his Spirit, and you are not changed from the inside out, you will find every justification you can possibly find in the bible to be a total jerk.  Jude admonishes us in his Plutonium-charged weapons-grade epistle that the false prophets are the kind of people who, “Speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.” (Jude 10) We know a tree by its fruit, and we are to discern that.  I am finding more and more that debating and wrangling over petty doctrinal issues it is a huge distraction.  The fundamental issue’s are a persons character, and the way they think they are representing Christ, far more than the specificity to which they adhere to every jot and tittle of correct doctrine.

If you have the love of Christ in you, by all means, correct, exhort, preach and certainly call a spade a spade.  But if you are false in your character, so also will your words be false.  Even a true word becomes wormwood in the mouth that is rotten . . . I have finally understood a false teacher for what a false teacher is.  He/She is simply a person who in themselves is false.   And you do not have to be a pulpiteer to be false in your representation of the true Messiah.   Look at Ananias and Sapphira, they never uttered a false doctrine that is recorded, but they were slashed from this life through their wicked falsehood.

One of the reasons that people will not inherit the Kingdom of God will be because they love “Emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, and heresies…” (Galatians 5:19-21) and I think the order there is important.  Oh we love to talk about how adultery is bad, how fornication is bad…but how many hate it when Christians strive and be seditious and cause division over things that are unimportant?

“Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever.”

-Psalm 125:1

A mountain is strong, and no mountain more strong than the mountain the Spirit says will abide forevermore.  Solid with the ancient rock and dust sifted through the movement of the creation.  If God cares deeply about the mount of Israel, the mount of Zion whose steeps David conquered, whose rocks housed the temple of Solomon, where many have called it the navel of all creation.  To this sturdy lasting edifice, one must look no further than see an illustration of what value trust in God has.

This mountain has been trampled by the feet of many men.  Its humble peak been redolent with the fragrance of crushing throughout the tests of weathers time.  Hammer upon her, pave her, build foundations upon her…she will not be moved.  Neither will those whom trust in God.

Oh but how the wicked one would desire to ascend above her, scale the sides of the north and exalt himself above the most high…The Lord shall prevail, he will cast down and annhilate all hope of such wicked imaginings.   By God’s grace we will be more than conquerors, through faith…be as a mountain, be sure, be steady.

Ohhhh the desire to live a crucified life…may God wake us up to this truth as if we were waking from a dream of death into a world of life and true color.  For the life uncrucified is not a life raised into true life, but only a paltry shadow of wraith-like existence.  May God grant his church more men and women of this life.  Thank you Bravehearted Gospel and Art Katz Ministries for this clip.  This is one sermon everyone needs to listen to.