Never tell God, what you will never be

 

Many years ago as a young atheist man, I remember coming out of my university library where a young man was giving gospel tracts who handed me one. I took it and gave it a quick glance, and I threw it on his face and said with so much confidence - I will never be like you. (You may not know, I could be a nasty slob).

What I said I would never do? I do. Nowadays, I give out tracts in the heart of my city each weekend that I get a chance. I am inspired by this man who was a soul winner himself. I get so much joy laboring with young people from other Christian groups handing out gospel reading materials that speak about Christ and the forgiveness of sins.

Why do I do this? It has no benefits for me. I won't establish a congregation by doing this. 

I do it because of stories like this...

You see while I and the others pass out tracts, There would usually be a young man from the team who would stand up on a milk box and preach. One day, after I finished handing out my tracts I went to stand around with some people to listen to the preaching. One lady with her dog decided to chat a bit with me as the preaching was about to end. We started talking to each other, and I detected she was using Christian terminology as she speaks.

I said "You sound like a Christian to me, are you a believer"?

"Yes, but you have to excuse me" as she pointed to her wobbling head. "My mind has been affected by methamphetamines". "I was addicted to drugs and one day in the height of my addiction I happened to walk by this street like where you guys are now". "One person handed me a tract, I took it and read it and read it. To cut the long story short yes, I believed and I became a Christian and I belong to a church", as she started to lead her dog out of my space. I accompanied her as she walked away, she said "God used that tract to change me". 

Processing this in my head, I marveled at this story. She looked well, her demeanor had no trace of walking the streets. She dressed well, not lavish, simple yet decent. I would have had a hard time believing this if not me witnessing her wobbling head whenever she spoke.

This is the reason why I give out tracts. I am expecting that God will use the words in those tracts as seeds to be sowed into good soil, hearts.

The Eternal Debate: God's Sovereignty VS Man's Responsibility

 

Another title for this debate is the so-called Compatibilism debate. A lot of Calvinists are into this debate in which it justifies God's double predestination of humans.

This debate actually extends many years before Christianity. This has been debated by Aristoteleans and Platonists. You do not have to be a Christian to talk about this because this has been a philosophical discussions by philosophers long before Christ came along.

For the first 400 years, this was not a debate amongst Christian, not until Augustine came along.

Augustine was a Manichaean before he became a catholic Christian. Manichaeanism started 300AD and Augustine was born in such an environment. It is a dualistic gnostic religion that combined many major religious teachings. To them, since man has a material being and since matter is evil, man is evil too. Another one of their beliefs is the notion of fatalism.

Needless to say, if you believe in unconditional election, then there is also unconditional reprobation and no one can change that, thus, eventually, life becomes a fatalistic conclusion and condition too.

In some sectors, there is a notion that the God of Scripture should conform to the God of Philosophy.

Though Luther can be dramatic and rhetorically forceful in his arguments he redeems himself when he said:

Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.

By reason, I take it he means philosophical reasoning.

When it came to man, are we a lump of sin? There should be some care in the way we use our language specially when Christians argue about words (which Scripture said we should avoid).

In a way, it is good that the Lutheran BoC authors tamed their Augustinianism and even spoke against over the top language that are clearly Manichaean in position. Read this on their Formula of Concord - Article I - Original Sin. Worth nothing the distinction they made of our nature and the sin that corrupts it.

Luther again redeems himself when he said that pursuing the inscrutable will of God is demonic and a distraction that leads us away from Christ, he said (thanks Alec, the Lutheran Librarian)

 “We should with all diligence guard against arguing predestination; for this, through Satan’s influence, leads men to pay no regard to God and the sacraments, and to look upon Christ rather as a cruel tyrant and hangman, than a Savior.”

“By no means dispute about predestination. Dr. Staupitz advised me and said: If you would argue about predestination, begin at the wounds of Christ and all disputation about predestination will cease at once. For if we give way to it, and argue about it much, Christ, His Word and Sacrament, must give way: I will forget Christ and God. By indulging in these thoughts I will regard God as wicked and cruel… . In predestination we will forget God — the cantate will cease and the blasphemate begin.”

From Columbus Theological Magazine, Vol. 3. “Missouri’s Infatuation By Rev. P. Eirich, Hoboken, N. J. Third And Last Article.”

Did Jesus Commend the Unjust Steward?

 The passage in Luke 16:1-13 we have these words of our Lord:

16 He also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was [a]wasting his goods. 2 So he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’

3 “Then the steward said within himself, ‘What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.’

5 “So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 And he said, ‘A hundred [b]measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ 7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ So he said, ‘A hundred [c]measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ 8 So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.

9 “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous [d]mammon, that when [e]you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. 10 He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. 11 Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?

13 “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

The Law, the Prophets, and the Kingdom

14 Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they [f]derided Him. 

------------------------

This is indeed a hard passage. I highlighted the passage that needs a lot of unpacking. In fact, in the KJV tradition, the word used is in v. 8 "for the children of this world are in their generation much wiser than the children of light". This can give the impression that Jesus is favoring the children of the world compared to the children of the light. What is at play here is the translation "master" too, did this refer to our Lord? This is why I took the NKJV to show how that word can be rendered "wise" to "shrewd". In my mind to understand this story, the key is v.14, that is why I included it here.

We must note the reaction of the Pharisees to this story, they recognized that it was about them, how they behave. Thus, this is another story against the Pharisee! The Lord was saying, this is  what they do. But to the disciples, this is exactly what you must not do. This boils down to ethics. The unjust steward used his influence to save himself from being mistreated when he is put out of stewardship. He did this by stealing more from his master, giving more away his master's possessions for his own advantage. Jesus is telling us the opposite, that we should be faithful to our work even if we are serving an unrighteous master. In this story, both the master and the steward had the same value and ethics. But for the Lord, it should not be so - we do not have the right to steal from our masters even if our master is unjust - in this case our employers. We do not steal from our employers even if the source of their possessions came from unrighteous means.  See v. 11-13. We do not follow the shrewd ethics of this servant, in fact, we do the opposite. We are to be faithful with another man's richest. The servant loved mammon and by his actions hated his master, who himself might be unrighteous. The Lord is saying to us, do not love mammon, but rather love God, for in loving God, we will put His principles first, ie honest and true dealing, we will not steal from our neighbor but will be faithful to what has been entrusted to us. That is our ethics - so, to answer the question, NO, the Lord is not commending, rather, he was describing the Pharisees' love for money that destroys ethics.

My kind of Lutheran Christian

 

Because He Lives

 

John 14:19 Yet a little while and the world will see Me no more. But you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.

I for one took this Resurrection Sunday celebration for granted. As I pause to think about this promise, I realize we cannot be indifferent about this tremendous statement of the Lord Jesus.

This destroys the treat of death which comes from the enemy of our souls. May this promise be a source of hope and joy that when we see our failing health and we know the day of our departing gets near each day, may this promise raise our spirits up and know that this promise is personal and true. The YOU there in that statement is me/you, personally.