They're Both There

While my theological excavations have been somewhat lacking of late, I came across a recent post by Steven Furtick, from the middle of his church-wide undertaking of the entire New Testament in 30 days. He is talking about how often opposing theological viewpoints are both to be found in Scripture. He says,

The sovereignty of God…
and the free will of man.
They’re both in the Bible.

God’s promise to prosper and bless His children…
and the certainty of hardship and suffering in the life of a believer.
They’re both in the Bible.

The mandate to preach the Gospel…
and the responsibility to care for the poor.
They’re both in the Bible.

And he's right. While as a reformed individual, I would like to take the more conservative of each of these viewpoints, I cannot deny the prevalence of seemingly contradictory opposing viewpoints in scripture.

I am often tempted to smooth over those that support free will or social gospel, to explain them away while consolidating and re-affirming the validity of Ephesians 1-2 or Romans 8.

Why do I do this? Easy as pie: because I'm a prideful, arrogant pr*ck. Why do so many people do this? Because pride is #1 favorite pastimes of those who claim humanity as their species of choice. I want to be right, you want to be right, we all want to be right. Except for Jesus, because he is right.

I have been coming to a prolonged epiphany that there is more to God than I used to know. (Surprise, surprise!) Now, I still hold firmly to reformed theology, but I am beginning to see how an unyielding grasp to doctrine often results in an unwillingness to do God's work--namely, loving people.

...more to come in this train of thought at a later date.

Serious Skubala

Today on 22 Words, Abraham Piper put up this post:

To believe that all swearing is wrong, you also have to believe that our culture is right.

Social customs define what’s taboo. Therefore, saying taboo language is uniformly sinful implies that our social customs uniformly align with God’s will.

Now I have heard plenty of people getting really ticked on both sides of this argument. There is the fact that Paul used the Greek for shit, skubala in Philippians 3:8. But does that mean God condones or advocates the use of foul language?

I think Abraham brings up a good point here. We cannot disavow all cursing just because it is socially wrong. That would mean that our society has precedence over God's Law, which it doesn't.

By the same merit, we would need to accept the sexual license our culture advocates, and while the church's members have seemingly done that anyway, no one is going to start saying it is an honest, good idea.

I like absolutes, a lot of people do (even though the good postmodernist in them will say they don't), but I do not think that cursing is one place where you can form an absolute. It is definitely a matter of the heart and personal conviction.

I know many times, I am cursing out of anger, with impure intent. Sometimes, I am not. Is one wrong, and the other right?

One person commented on the 22 Words post with this quote: “He who forbids what God allows will soon allow what God forbids.” – R.B. Kuiper. I am not sure how that is exactly applicable, because I know for a fact that God didn't say "Go say whatever f*cking word you want!" or something similar. I suppose he could be referring the passage by Paul I mentioned earlier? I'm not sure.

I think there needs to be some universal dialogue in the church on this matter. More on this topic later.

Summer Conference Notes--Ezekiel 37:1-14

Two weeks ago I was at RUF's Summer Conference in Panama City, Florida. These are the notes I took at the first night's large group session.

Driving image for the rest of conference: The Word of God is like an untamed, uncaged, fearsome lion, and we need to surrender ourselves to it and quit trying to put it in a cage or act like it's a kitten.

Scripture for the Night: Ezekiel 31:1-14

The Word of God comes in different types of "buckets:" Proposition, story, poetry--each a different mode of revelation.
--Ezekiel's bucket is a visual revelation, or apocalyptic prophesy.

It is important to note that it begins with God, God's hand sweeps Ezekiel off like a barrel over Niagara Falls.

We don't need better quiet times or another great truth to apply to our lives, we need our hearts to be reached.

Ezekiel was taken to a valley, not a mountain. Mountains were traditionally where heaven and earth met, but he valley was desolate, filled with bones.

The answer to God's question "Can these bones live?" is the point of the passage.

In the ancient Middle East, covenants were made between weak and strong nations.
--If the weaker nation broke covenant, they were destroyed and their bodies/bones were tossed into a valley, a symbol of the broken covenant. This was an image Ezekiel's audience would have understood.
-->Likewise, our hearts are dry and cast out, "Our bones are dried up, we are cut off," because of our own pursuit of sinfulness, our own covenant breaking.

Sometimes, this dry-bone-ness is manifested in a sort of depression, sometimes in a pressure, like we are carrying a huge weight on our shoulders: everything: our relationship with God, everything with school, etc.

When we feel left for dead, like dry bones lying in a valley, then the Lion roars the loudest.

Illustration: In the movie Defiance, [which was an excellent movie] Tuvia was crushed under the weight of all those people relying on him.

At the end of yourself, change happens on the spot. God spoke, and immediately the skeletons came together.

God appeared to Ezekiel when he is in Babylon, not Canaan, which means that God went into exile with Israel. God followed his people into an exile that He himself imposed on them.