The New Bereans

In reading through Genesis 46 today I again ran across one of those great scriptural themes, division.  And it struck me because I’ve never thought of it as a major scriptural theme like faith or love, but it most definitely is.  Joseph instructs his father and brothers to tell Pharaoh they are just shepherds, because “every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.”₁ This is quite important because their very livelihood caused a deep and immediate rift with their Egyptian hosts.  They were completely separated from the world around them.  This kept them from eating with or marrying, the Egyptians; it kept them from being absorbed into Egypt.

The world as in the Tower of Babel is always emphasizing unity but God wants no part of it.  He is always dividing, separating and creating disharmony, case in point . . . the Jews.  Out of the entire world God chooses one man, and from him, he builds a new nation, through which he will reveal himself to the world.  He didn’t work through an existing nation he separated one man from his nation; He is a God of separation.

Jesus put it this way . . .

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.  And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.  Matthew 10:34-36

If we are his disciples, we should expect division to follow in our wake.  If no one hates or maligns us we should be quite worried, for Christ promises us that these are the natural fruit of following him.  We are not to go out of our way to pick fights and be Jerks for Jesus, but need to realize that if we are living for Him, opposition and division will always follow.

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.  John 15:18

1. Genesis 46:34

“The word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying fear not, Abram: I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.”  – Genesis 15:1

To be one who would seek the eternal king only for the blessings he can procure, would be nearly criminal.  The trial of which would be held before the very creation that groans, as only earth, space and stars could groan.  Such things groan, shatter, collide and quasar, in eager expectation of one solid permanent edifice of reality to protrude beyond the limitations of itself.  That thing is the revelation of God’s Sons.

The sons of God will be those who, like their Father Abraham, recognize and believe that their heavenly father is far more than just being some cosmic blessing dispenser.  Our Lord told us that the very definition of eternal life was to, “Know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” John 17:3

In Hosea 7:13-14 God laments, “Woe unto them! For they have fled from me: because they have transgressed against me: though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me.  And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me.”

Do we gather to ask of the Lord for mere provision of the things of the flesh?  Or do we gather that his kingdom would come?  That his will be done?  In earth as it is in heaven?  And from this right posture of desire do we then recognize that the purpose of our daily bread is to bolster and follow the desire for every word that proceeds from the mouth of God?

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  Colossians 3:2

We are here instructed to set our minds on things above, this implies 2 truths.  1. Our minds are not naturally set on things above.  2. If our minds are to be set on things above i.e. heavenly things, we must set them there.

This is not an idea, or a suggestion, it is a command.  Notice Paul does not say “God sets the minds of his elect on things above when, and where, and to the degree he wishes.”  No!  He commands us to set our minds on these things.  This is no monergistic act of God; it is either a willful or synergistic act of ours.  This is not something we wait for God to do; this is something he is waiting for us to do.

Now herein lies the challenge for 21st century Americans,  there are innumerable things vying for our attention, attempting to draw our eyes away from the eternal and onto themselves.  We must intentionally separate from these things in order to focus on the eternal.  What am I getting at?  Merely listening to contemporary Christian music, praying before meals, or reading a 5 minute daily devotional will not give you an eternal mindset or perspective.

So how do we set our minds on things above?  Reading your Bible and prayer are a good start but there’s more to it than that.  In the following verses Paul lists sins to put away, and godly things to replace them with, this is getting closer.   Then he adds the final piece of the Puzzle, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you . . .“ To have a heart for God you must have a heart occupied by God.  Without His indwelling, a heavenly mindset is impossible to gain or maintain.  If we desire to be his disciples, and see things as he does, we must have a relationship with him.

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…

“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?

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. . . I Corinthians 1:3

When talking about the Corinthians spiritual immaturity and their inability to handle the meat of the word, all Bible teachers seem to handle it the same way; The Corinthians couldn’t understand deep theology, or had no interest in it, therefore he couldn’t give it to them. I am starting to think that this interpretation may be missing Paul’s point completely.

What if his point was this, I cannot give you the meat scripturally because, you will become more inflated with pride and distort doctrine to your own ends. I have seen many of us theological types take doctrine and distort it by magnifying one truth and explaining away another A theologically astute fleshly Christian, can often do far more damage than an ignorant fleshly Christian.

Concerning the doctrines of Grace I like the way Spurgeon puts it.

“No man ever learns anything aright, unless he is taught of the Spirit. You may learn election, and you may know it so that you shall be damned by it, if you are not taught of the Holy Ghost; for I have known some who have learned election to their soul’s destruction; they have learned it so that they said they were of the elect, whereas, they had no marks, no evidences, and no works of the Holy Ghost in their souls. There is a way of learning truth in Satan’s college, and holding it in licentiousness; but if so, it shall be to your souls as poison to your veins and prove your everlasting ruin.”₁

I agree with him thoroughly, doctrine in the hands of a fleshly man can wreak havoc. I have a personal theory that divine sovereignty and election may have been the very doctrines Paul avoided with the Corinthians for this very reason. When we zealous young Calvinists believe it is our God given duty to explain TULIP to every carnal Christian, and heathen we can find, and insist on working it into every presentation of the gospel, we often do more harm than good.

1. A Sermon (No. 5) Delivered on Sabbath Evening, January 21, 1855, by the REV. C. H. Spurgeon at New Park Street Chapel, Southwark

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. II Timothy 2:15

We live in a speedy shallow, superficial age. And I am beginning to realize much of our Christian conduct has been infected by our attitudes. If we are content to go to church only as long as the pastor doesn’t talk too long, or dig too deeply into our lives, we are in trouble. I see a parallel between us and the TV Guide channel. When I was young it was just a scrolling list of what was on TV. A few years later they added advertisements to the top half of the screen, and a few years after that they started playing their own mini shows in between the advertisements.

Now, these programs on the entertainment industry and its performers are brief and superficial, but bright and boisterous enough to occasionally keep your attention on them and prevent you from finding out what’s coming on after M.A.S.H. Sadly our Christianity is often as shiny, short, and shallow as these show’s. Most people watching a 5 minute bio on Gilbert Gottfried would never presume they know everything about him, yet we do this with doctrine constantly. Many of us Calvary Chapelers are guilty of thinking or saying “Chuck said it; I believe it, that settles it.”

Where past generations labored in the scriptures and doctrine to find the truth, we will accept offhand pastor’s comments as gospel truth, and feel no need to search the scriptures or study theology on our own. Until we begin to study the word, wait on the lord, and pray, we should expect little more than TV Guide channel fruit in our lives.

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” James 1:22

I love discussing doctrine as much as anyone I know, but there is an inherent danger therein; when we assume that by agreeing with a truth, we must be obeying it. Putting most of our energies into knowing and little into doing is dangerous indeed.  We are sometimes more zealous for being right than we are for being righteous. I will include an obligatory disclaimer here, we are not saved by doing good works, but we are called to conform to the image of Christ, and obey his commandments.

I have nothing against pouring over scriptures and theological writings, in order to rightly divide the word, it is one of my favorite activities; but we cannot stop with knowing, we must proceed to doing. Why? For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.1 Make no mistake, this is no mere thought of mine. James explicitly warns us of the danger of learning the truth but forgetting to obey it, forgetting to examine ourselves, and forgetting to do it.

When Jesus was ministering he never told anyone to merely understand the truth. He commanded them to act on the truth. His message was consistently “repent and believe”2. We need to take his warning seriously, for “blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”3

1. James 1:23-24

2. Mark 1: 15

3. Luke 11:28

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.  And God said,  ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.  And God saw that it was good.  And God separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light Day, and the darkness he called night.” -Genesis 1:1-5a

Why must the Spirit of God deem it noteworthy to tell us that light came out of darkness?  Is this a physic’s technicality?  Is this merely history? Should we even care?  It seems to me that light cannot be defined apart from darkness.  Light, from the first few verses of Genesis, was set in contradistinction to darkness.  God then separated the two into phases of night and day.  We can hardly understand light except by its absence.  Surely we also know now that darkness is really nothingness, for it is simply the lack of light.  This is a common way the bible defines words that are hard to understand.  The physics of light is amongst some of the most difficult concepts in nature to grasp, being both a particle and a wave, many physics students have groaned when trying to grasp this antimony, I know because I was one of them.  In its most simple terms however, darkness is the absence of light.

Peter used this same tool of contrast to define another complex word, “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it.  For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer.  But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”  I Peter 3:10-12.  Righteous here is defined through its contradistinction to, “those who do evil.”  In essence, they will be the opposite of this.  Do you do evil?  Then there may be a question as to whether or not you are among those to whom the Lord looks.  Is God’s face hidden behind a veil of mystery for you?  Is he lost amongst the conflagrations of your sins?  Surely saints do sin, we fail, but we are not defined by a life of sin.  The apostle John boiled these two concepts of light and righteousness together to present a wonderfully simple statement.  “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” I John 1:7

Remember, the next time you see the sun rise out of the darkness of the deepest night, the Son of God has commanded, by the life he lived, for you to come out of darkness and walk in the light.  May the Day Star arise in your hearts.