My First Bible Memory Verse

Posted on August 4, 2010 by me

I recall rehearsing for my first Christmas pageant, though I don’t recall the pageant itself.  I don’t have any idea how old I was, but I was possibly three or four. All of us in my Sunday school class had speaking parts; that is, one line Bible verses. We simply were to take turns walking up to the microphone, saying our line, and walking back to our seats. I was naturally quite nervous, and I can recall sitting on my bed while my parents helped me to rehearse my line, over and over:

“God loved us and sent His son. First John, four ten.”

Obviously my practicing worked, as I still remember it.  The full version is this:

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (NIV)

This verse, coincidentally, makes a point that I made previously: It is not our emotions concerning God that is important so much as knowing the truth that God – not just Jesus, but God the Father – loves us. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not inappropriate to display or vocalize our emotions. However, our emotions are capricious; they change quicker than the weather in Oregon and are, therefore, a notoriously bad gauge of truth. The fact that we feel love for God tells us absolutely nothing – the fact that God loves us tells us everything.

Many people have the mistaken belief that Jesus is the “good God” who loves us and the Father is the stern, hard to please God who is just one sin away from zapping us. In truth, while knowing the Father and the Son are separate persons within the Trinity (more on this later), the purposes and emotions of Jesus and the Father cannot be separated. As Jesus so aptly put it, “The Father and I are one. (John 10:30)” Jesus also said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14:9)” We know what the Father is like by knowing Jesus. When we see Jesus reaching out to children, the poor, the sick, and the sinners, we see the true heart of the Father.

This means that the God of the Old Testament – the one who obliterated Sodom – is the same God who is revealed to us in Jesus. How can this be? The writer of Hebrews put it like this:

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. (Heb. 1:1-3a)

In the Old Testament, God was revealed through men. In the New, we finally see the “exact representation” of the God of the Old Testament. As the New Century Version puts it, Jesus “shows exactly what God is like.” If we know God’s love as expressed in Jesus, we can then begin to see that same God in the Old Testament. Really.

Putting it another way,  reading the Old Testament is like looking at God through a dirty, distorted piece of old glass. Seeing Jesus in the Gospels provided an unobstructed view of God as he really is, a God motivated by love, compassion and grace. If we are shown two photographs of the same person – one faded, dirty, and blurry, and the other in high resolution color – which one would best tell us what the person looks like? There may be some details in the faded photo that are missing in the good one, but first we’d see what the good photo shows us and then look for that person in the old photo. We should start with what is clear, and then use that to understand what is unclear.

What is clear about God is, as my first Bible memory verse said, “God loved us, and sent His son.”

Questions:

  1. What is the first Bible verse that you memorized? At what age?
  2. What has been your image of God, as expressed in the Old Testament?
Posted in This I know | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

“Don’t Touch the Lord’s Anointed”

Posted on August 4, 2010 by me

One of the first things I saw this morning was an e-mail update from a LinkedIn group I belong to discussing how to address issues with a certain well-known leader in the prosperity/faith movement. For whatever reason I clicked on the link and read some of the comments, and was shocked to see two or three people raising the “don’t touch the Lord’s anointed” defense.

More at TheGospelUncensored.com.

Posted in The Gospel Uncensored | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

From Luther, With Love

Posted on July 31, 2010 by me

Growing up Lutheran, I was well acquainted with Martin Luther. As I’ll talk about a bit later, he has always been one of my heroes. Luther, like many Roman Catholics of his day (not to mention most contemporary evangelicals), was heavily influenced by St. Augustine, with his doctrines of man’s total depravity, original sin, and inherited guilt.As anyone who has seen the movie Luther knows, Brother Martin struggled with his sin, his guilt, and the need to know that he was forgiven.

The torment of his guilt was such that when he finally saw that God operated by grace and love and not by our ability to live pious lives or follow men’s rules, he was willing to die rather than retract his teaching. At the Diet of Worms in 1521, Luther responded to the demand that he recant with these words:

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.

Like Luther, the reformer John Calvin was also greatly influenced by Augustine, and we can see Calvin’s Augustinian influence throughout much of the contemporary evangelical church, even in groups who do not identify themselves as Calvinists. However, Luther discovered what Calvin seemed to miss: The primacy of God’s Love. It was the knowledge that God was motivated by His love for us – rather than the need for God to assert His holiness, vengeance, or glory – that finally set Luther free.

I have no doubt that Luther’s beliefs were firmly founded on his reading of Scripture, as he stated at Worms, though I suspect his own personal experience of grace and God’s love that accompanied his theological breakthrough reinforced his commitment to the Gospel. Luther wrote,

“Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through an open door into paradise. The whole of scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the ‘righteousness of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven . . . .”

Having this revelation of God’s love, Luther was able to make such bold statements as, “Love God and do as you please” and the oft-quoted and often misunderstood, “Sin boldly.” Anyone who has read Luther will know that by no means was Luther encouraging licentiousness or sinfulness. Rather, Luther was convinced that we did not need to become holy before we can approach God; furthermore, he knew that we couldn’t if we tried. Being human, we will fail – however, that should not keep us from drawing near to God. As the writer of Hebrews said, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb. 4:16 KJV)”

How else can we ever hope to boldly and with confidence (Heb. 10:19) enter God’s throne room, unless we are first convinced of God’s love for us? Even if we fully believe in the mechanics and legalities of our salvation, without being confident of God’s love, walking into God’s presence would give us a moment of pause. Is He perhaps just a little angry that we got in? Should I have given a dollar to that homeless man yesterday, or tithed more regularly? Will I be one of those to whom God will say, “I don’t know you?”

The true legacy that Luther gave to the Evangelical movement (which later became known as the Lutheran Church) is this certainty that we are indeed loved by God, the Creator of the universe.

It was, then, this rich heritage into which I was born, and for which I am eternally grateful.

Questions:

  1. Do you have a sense of having received a spiritual legacy, either personally, or in the church group you belong to?
  2. How does this flavor your present spiritual experience?
Posted in This I know | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Problem with Pietists

Posted on July 30, 2010 by me

Some of us who attended Sunday School as children will recall the song that goes,

Be careful little eyes what you see
Be careful little eyes what you see
The Father up above is looking down in love
So be careful little eyes what you see

Although I sang this song as a child, I don’t recall having any particular thoughts about it. However, I know people for whom this song brings back feelings of dread, and you can see why. While it presents itself as a nice, sweet little song and even says that God looks down “in love,” it has very ominous overtones, akin to Sting’s “Every Breath You Take.”

The message is clear: Don’t screw up, because God is watching and He’d be very, very disappointed. The song presents itself as loving, but it’s really intended to produce a sense of shame – and as many have unfortunately discovered, shame can be controlled (the reason behind anyone saying, “Shame on you!”).

Why do we do this to our children? For that matter, why do we still do this to ourselves? Here’s a dose of reality: If the only reason we aren’t doing something is because we know someone is watching, then we’re not really any holier than if we just went ahead and sinned. Wasn’t this Jesus’ point in Matthew 5? It’s not our actions so much as our desires. Certainly our actions have earthly consequences (which is reason for curbing certain damaging behavior), but spiritually speaking, it really doesn’t matter. If I hit you, I’ve both hurt you and committed a crime, and you could have me arrested for battery. If I only want to hit you, I can’t be charged with anything, but I’ve still committed a sin.

Pietists think that by managing sin-deeds, we become more holy. The truth is, when we let God love us, we become holy, and we don’t want to sin (or at least a little less than we did in the past; it is a process). Sin management doesn’t make people holy, it only makes them hypocrites.

Now, this doesn’t mean that what I will call “holiness reminders” aren’t helpful; holiness reminders are like the advice that Paul always gave in his letters – things like, “submit to each other” and “love is patient and kind, not arrogant or boastful.” These things remind us of our goal, that state of perfection that God is taking us to (and also make living with each other a lot easier), so we can do an internal check to see where we need to ask for God’s help.

Holiness is an act of grace, not of our will. As Paul wrote to the Galatians, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Gal. 3:3 NASB)” Our holiness comes to us through grace, through God’s empowering presence in our lives. In other words, it is the by-product of God’s love for us.

Questions:

  1. What were your experiences with guilt and shame as a child?
  2. What is your experience now? Are you still dealing with residual shame, or is someone in your life using religion to add to your shame burden?
Posted in This I know | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments