5 Ways to Be Thankful (Even When You Don't Feel Like It)

How do we give thanks even when we don‘t feel like it?Christians are supposed to be thankful in every situation, which sounds nice on paper but is much harder to live out.Still, not only should we give thanks in all circumstances, the Bible promises that it‘s actually possible. Here are five simple suggestions that should help you and me give thanks, especially when we don‘t feel like we have anything to be grateful for.

1. Give thanks because God is good, period.

The Lord is good, always and everywhere?it‘s part of his nature. So, it‘s always appropriate to give thanks to God just because of who he is.

• The Lord caused the sun to rise this morning, just because he is good.
• The Lord gave you life, just because he is good.
• The Lord created giraffes, just because he is good.

We cheer when the slugger hits a home run because home runs should be cheered.We smile at babies because babies should be smiled at.We are in awe when we stand at the Grand Canyon because the Grand Canyon is awesome in the full sense of the word.And we give thanks to God just because of who God is. Period. ?Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. (Psalm 118:1.) 

2. Give thanks that it‘s not as bad as it could be.

In every circumstance, it could always be worse. This fact is brought home to me every time I visit the Children‘s Hospital?I always leave thinking, Compared to what some of these people are going through, I don‘t have any? Whatever you think your problems are, it could be worse.

• If you have cancer, give thanks that it‘s not a worse form of cancer.
• If you?re married but can‘t have children, give thanks that you?re married.
• If you?re single and want to be married, give thanks that you?re not in a bad marriage.

Your circumstances may be bad, but praise God they aren‘t worse. 

3. Give thanks that out of a bad situation, something good can come.

I'm writing this on the plane after being at a family funeral all week. Death is not good, but the fact that a funeral brings family together is a good thing; it‘s something to be thankful for. A good question to ask is, What does this now make possible??

• Your time in the hospital gives you time to pray that you didn‘t have before.
• Your recovery allows you to experience the kindness of friends.
• Your financial struggles give you the opportunity to trust God for your daily bread.
• Your suffering makes you more empathetic toward others.

Many times what we think is a bad turn of events either makes something good possible, or brings about an unexpected blessing. Give thanks for that. ?What you intended for evil, God intended for good. (Genesis 50:20?Joseph speaking to his brothers years after they sold him into slavery.) 4. Give thanks that your situation allows you to experience a small taste of Christ‘s suffering.Christ not only physically suffered, but he was also humiliated and betrayed. The New Testament writers continually tell us that our suffering gives us the opportunity to be more unified with Christ.

• If people are lying and saying ugly things about you, they did that to Jesus.
• If you are in acute physical pain, so was Jesus.
• If you feel totally alone, so did Jesus.

No one wants to suffer, but in suffering we have the opportunity to draw closer to Christ in ways that would not be possible if everything were okay. That‘s something to be grateful for. ?For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well. (Philippians 1:29.) 

5. Give thanks that The End is good.

The Bible ends with a future promise that everything sad will become untrue,? to quote Sam Gamgee. (See Revelation 21.) The Resurrection of Jesus is the sign of what God is going to do with all of history?he will redeem all that he allows? in Jim Denison‘s great phrase. So, even when your circumstances seem hopeless?and each of us is going to die, sooner or later?we Christians can give thanks that God is ultimately going make everything new. This fact enables Christians to give thanks even in the midst of death.?He will wipe every tear from their eyes.Death will be no more;mourning and crying and pain will be no more,for the first things have passed away. (Revelation 21:4.)Giving thanks when you don‘t feel like it is a mark of holiness?of spiritual maturity?and it is very difficult. But, as with other difficult things, we get better with practice, through the grace of God. So, start small. And start right away. 

Brangelina

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are getting divorced. Though I don't know them, I'm grieved at the news: divorce is always painful, and the thought of their 6 children having to grow up without a mom and a dad in the same house makes me sad. This news of yet another failed celebrity marriage has got me thinking. 

Our Deepest Problems Are Spiritual Problems

Our deepest problems are spiritual problems. If this were not the case, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie would not be getting divorced. If our deepest problems were merely material problems, then money would solve our problems. If money could solve our problems, then rich people would never get divorced.Our culture is obsessed with material reality. We've bought into the self-evident lie that the only reality that matters is that which we can see, taste, touch, and measure. But, this belief is self-evidently false, because material solutions don't actually fix our deepest problems. Spiritual reality matters. Our deepest problems are spiritual problems, and so they can't be solved with material solutions. Spiritual reality is just as real as material reality, but because we can't see, taste, touch, and measure spiritual reality, our culture pretends it's not real.Unfortunately, the effects of spiritual brokenness are quite real, and these effects are all around us:

• War is a result of spiritual brokenness;
• Divorce is a result of spiritual brokenness;
• Racism is a result of spiritual brokenness, etc.

Yes, these problems have material results, but the roots of these problems are spiritual.Again, if our deepest problems were merely material in nature, then we could buy solutions to our problems. This is the false god of wealth. If our deepest problems were merely material, we could solve our deepest problems through technological invention. This is the false god of progress.If our deepest problems were merely material, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie wouldn't be getting divorced. What about you? What is the spiritual brokenness in your heart producing in your life?Anxiety?Adultery?Anger?These come from our hearts, and their effects can be seen in the material world. But, they can't be fixed with material solutions.This is the human predicament: our problems all have spiritual roots, and we can't fix ourselves.But...This is the gospel:?the God who is Spirit entered into material reality and fixed our Problem himself. Do you understand?  

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The Hard Questions Have Already Been Asked

As I wrote on Wednesday, I believe strongly that Christians?do not need to?be afraid of hard, honest questions about the Faith. One reason is?because‘the hardest questions have already been asked, by Christian theologians themselves. Often, in fact, the people asking those questions were the theologians of the ancient church, people like Origen and Augustine. (Origen, to cite one example, took on the opening chapters of Genesis and wondered--15 centuries before Darwin--whether the biblical account was meant to be taken literally.) There are many good, hard questions that you and I haven't ever considered, but I guarantee you that someone else has considered them. So the?next time someone asks you a hard question about faith, don't panic, but say, "I don't know, but I'll find out." Then, hit the library and find out what the ancient church had to sat about the matter.  

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A Faith Unafraid of the Hard Questions

I believe very strongly that the Christian faith has nothing to fear from hard questions. If what we believe is True, then it can withstand even the most intense cross-examination. In fact, I think we ought to welcome hard questions, because hard, honest questions are often used by God to bring people to faith. This was certainly the belief of the great missionary and evangelist E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), friend to Gandhi and missionary to India. In his missionary work Jones often fearlessly debated with people who were hostile to Christianity, and in his most famous book he explains how he came to be unafraid of even the hardest questions about faith. Facts, he realized, are faith's friends. In his best-selling book The Christ of the Indian Road?(1925), Jones writes:

?I have found a good many nervous Christians since coming home who are afraid that this whole thing of Christianity might fall to pieces if someone should get too critical, or if science should get too scientific. Many of the saints are now painfully nervous. They remind me of a lady missionary with whom I walked home one night after a very tense meeting in a Hindu theater. She said, Mr. Jones, I am physically exhausted from that meeting tonight. When I asked her the reason she said, Well, I didn‘t know what they were going to ask you next, and I didn‘t know what you were going to answer, so I‘ve been siting up there in the gallery holding on to the bench with all my might for two hours, and I'm physically exhausted!? There are many like our sister who are metaphorically holding to their seats with all their might lest Christianity fall to pieces under criticism!I have a great deal of sympathy with them, for I felt myself in the same position for a long time after I went to India. The whole atmosphere was acid with criticism. I could feel the acid eat into my very soul every time I picked up a non-Christian paper. Then there came the time when I inwardly let go. I became willing to turn Jesus over to the facts of the universe. I began to see that there was only one refuge in life and that was in reality, in the facts. If Jesus couldn‘t stand the shock of the criticism of the facts discovered anywhere, if he wasn‘t reality, the sooner I found out about it the better. My willingness to surrender Christ to the facts was almost as great an epoch in my life as my willingness to surrender to him?. I saw that [Jesus] was not a hothouse plant that would wither under the touch of criticism, but he was rooted in reality, was the very living expression of our moral and spiritual universe?he was reality itself?.The only way to kill Christianity is to take it out of life and protect it. The way to make it shine and show its genius is to put it down in life and let it speak directly to life itself. Jesus is his own witness?.I am therefore not afraid of the question hour, for I believe that Jesus underlies our moral and spiritual universe deeper than the force of gravity underlies our material universe.

from?The Christ of the Indian Road, by E. Stanley Jones

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Why Is the Bible So Difficult?

Why is the Bible so difficult to understand? Anyone who has ever tried to read the Bible has probably wondered why God didn't just make the whole thing a lot clearer. The great Christian writer C.S. Lewis wondered the same thing, so you and I are in good company. Here's his answer. In his fine little book?Reflections on the Psalms, Lewis writes:

"We might have expected, we may think we should have preferred, an unrefracted light giving us ultimate truth in systematic form--something we could have tabulated and memorised and relied on like the multiplication table...."[However] we may observe that the teaching of Our Lord Himself [i.e., Jesus], in which there is no imperfection, is not given us in that cut-and-dried, fool-proof, systematic fashion we might have expected or desired. He wrote no book. We have only reported sayings, most of them uttered in answer to questions, shaped in some degree by their context. And when we have collected them all we cannot reduce them to a system. He preaches but He does not lecture. He uses paradox, proverb, exaggeration, parable, irony; even (I mean no irreverence) the "wisecrack." He utters maxims which, like popular proverbs, if rigorously taken, may seem to contradict one another. His teaching cannot therefore be grasped by the intellect alone, cannot be "got up" as if it were a "subject." If we try to do that with it, we shall find Him the most elusive of teachers. He hardly ever gave a straight answer to a straight question. He will not be, in the way we want, "pinned down." The attempt is (again, I mean no irreverence) like trying to bottle a sunbeam.Descending lower, we find a somewhat similar difficulty with St. Paul. I cannot be the only reader [He's definitely not alone in this, as I have asked this EXACT same question many times! --AF] who has wondered why God, having given him so many gifts, withheld from him (what would to us seem so necessary for the first Christian theologian) that of lucidity and orderly exposition...."Since this is what God has done, this, we must conclude, was best. It may be that what we should have liked would have been fatal to us if granted. It may be indispensable that Our Lord's teaching, by that elusiveness (to our systematizing intellect), should demand a response from the whole man, should make it so clear that there is no question of learning a subject but of steeping ourselves in a Personality, acquiring a new outlook and tempter, breathing a new atmosphere, suffering Him, in His own way, to rebuild in us the defaced image of Himself." [My emphasis. --AF]from?Reflections on the Psalms, by C.S. Lewis, pp. 112-114

In other words, the Bible is not so much to be learned as to be experienced. Perhaps the truth that the Scripture conveys can't be truly learned in any other way. Perhaps the difficulty is part of the point.So, the next time you stumble across something in the Bible you don't understand, don't give up: God is trying to tell you something important.    

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The Limits of Tolerance

Is there a limit to tolerance? A friend of mine put that question to me this afternoon, in response to last week's post on tolerance. My answer: No. Here's why. 

The Roots of Tolerance

Tolerance is simply the social recognition of a fundamental truth: all people are completely free to choose to believe and do whatever they want to believe and do. There are no exceptions to this principle. This truth is not dependent on whether laws and governments recognize it; this truth is simply true.Yes, governments and societies try to constrain the behavior of the people under their power, but they cannot actually remove free choice from their people--all they can do is make it more or less likely that people freely?choose this or that action.As I argued last week, tolerance has its roots in the character of God: God created us as free creatures and allows us to exercise that freedom, for good or ill.I don't think there is a limit to tolerance because I don't think there is a time when God takes away our freedom to choose.

But Actions Have Consequences

We are all free to believe and do whatever we choose, but we are?not free to choose the consequences of our actions. Actions have consequences. I'm free to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, but I cannot avoid the consequences of my freely chosen actions. Actions have consequences.

Doesn't God's Tolerance Have a Limit?

In the Bible, we read how God eventually allowed the Israelites to be conquered by their pagan neighbors as a consequence of their continued disobedience. I don't think this is an example of the limits of God's tolerance, however. Rather, I think God's tolerance never wavered: he always allowed the Israelites to freely choose to accept or reject him. But, although God's forbearance (a synonym of tolerance) never ran out, the Israelites' actions eventually caught up with them. Their actions led to the Exile. Certain actions lead to certain consequences, the way day inexorably follows night.

What About Human Law?

As humans, we seek to constrain certain behaviors precisely because?we know that people are always free to choose. When we lock up the serial murderer, we are not suddenly denying his freedom to choose, but acknowledging it: we know that if we do not lock him up, he may very likely continue to freely choose murder. Actions have consequences and human societies impose various consequences on various behaviors, but those consequences do not change the fundamental fact on which the principle of tolerance rests, namely that people are always free to choose.

Our True Limit

God's tolerance does not have a limit, but our lives are limited: we are limited by the choices of our actions, and we are limited by our?mortality. None of us can choose to be exempt from the consequences of his choices, and none of us can choose to be exempt from death.Sooner or later, all our actions catch up to us.

P.S. Why Does This Matter?

Tolerance recognizes that it's never too late for anyone--all people can choose to turn towards God or away from God up until their last breath. (And maybe beyond their last breath--who knows?) Because I can't take away someone's free will--even by force--it means that the pressure is off: I can't force anyone to believe what I believe. I can't make anyone believe anything, but I can persuade her‘through my words and actions to freely choose the Truth I've chosen.Which is a sacred privilege, when you think about it.   

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Is God Tolerant?

Tolerance is not just what we need to live peaceably together in an increasingly diverse society (though that's true): tolerance is much more important than that. In fact,?I think it's fair to say that life itself depends on tolerance, as does the fate of the entire world. 

False Tolerance

Tolerance is not, despite how‘the word is often employed, a vague sense‘that all beliefs and all religions are basically the same. This is a false idea, and this is a false definition of tolerance. In fact, it's the?exact opposite of what tolerance actually implies.

True Tolerance

Tolerance is about recognizing that all beliefs and all religions are?not basically the same. In fact, tolerance recognizes that many beliefs and religions are inherently contradictory, and no amount of hand-holding and attendance at diversity seminars will make inherently contradictory beliefs the same.Rather, tolerance is about making space for irreconcilable differences. Tolerance is not about agreement, but about?tolerating viewpoints with which you vehemently disagree.

Limits of Tolerance

It should be said that the one thing that we cannot tolerate is violence (which is not‘the same thing as speech, however ugly and hateful that speech might be), because violence makes tolerance itself impossible. But, with the exception of violence, tolerance makes room for all other actions and choices and beliefs.

A Theology of Tolerance

One of the main expressions of tolerance in the American Constitution is in our First Amendment: our right to religious freedom. (The First Amendment literally says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.") But religious freedom is not just a nice idea, codified into law. Rather, religious freedom is a principle built on the bedrock of reality, because it's a principle that is obviously true: all people are free to believe whatever they want to believe. You cannot force anyone to believe anything. God created us as completely free creatures, and we can use that freedom in whatever way we want. We are even free to believe ugly things and free to act in ugly ways, free even to reject God himself. And God permits this freedom.God, you might say, is tolerant.In fact, I‘think that the Lord is far more tolerant than I would be, were I in his place:?I'd never have allowed that evil man to massacre all those people in that Orlando nightclub.But then again, neither would?I have so loved the world that I would have given my only son for the world, knowing that the world (which I created) would reject and kill him. God's tolerance, you might say, made the Crucifixion possible.Which means God's tolerance also made the Resurrection possible.Which means that tolerance is part of God's plan to save the world.   

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Facebook, False God*

Facebook wants your worship. I know that sounds extreme, but?what if it's true? What if the thing Facebook most desires is to make you most desire it? Isn't that idolatry?

Worship=Attention

What has your attention is what has your worship. What you think about in your free moments, the topics and places to which your thoughts tend to go, those are your gods. By that definition, what many of us are worshipping is Facebook and the various other social media and infotainment sites. Click, click, click.And, in our naivet?, we have turned our eyes to a god-like entity that has its greedy eyes on our lives.Cal Newport, Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown, makes the?obvious (but rarely stated) point in his book?Deep Work?that we are fools if we think these Internet tools (that we find so addictive) were created to bless us without demanding something in return:

We no longer see Internet tools as products released by for-profit companies, funded by investors hoping to make a return, and run by twentysomethings who are often making things up as they go along.

from?Deep Work: Rules for Focused?Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport

Facebook makes MONEY off your attention. No wonder, then, that Mark Zuckerberg and his staff have worked so hard to make Facebook irresistible. Click. Click. Click.

And, not only does Facebook make money off your attention, Facebook doesn't care about you or what will happen to you, as long as it gets what it wants.

If you think about it, the world around us, including the world in our computers, is all about trying to tempt us to do things?right now. Take Facebook, for example. Do they want you to be more productive twenty years from now? Or do they want to take your time, attention, and money right now? The same thing goes for YouTube, online newspapers, and so on.

from Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind

So, Facebook is something that: 1. Makes money from our attention. 2. Doesn't care about the consequences but allures and tempts with each click, click, click.

Is Facebook a false god?

*I am aware that some of you will see irony in the fact that you actually accessed this post through Facebook. Rather than irony, I see it as an insurgency. I am also aware that many of you will want to defend your (and my) use of Facebook. Ask yourself, Why?

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Does Old Testament Law Apply to Christians?

Does Old Testament law apply to Christians? A large portion of the first 5 books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) is dedicated to laws governing how?Israel was to live, eat, and worship. Should Christians follow those laws?

The Old Testament is Obsolete, Right?

I've heard and read something like the following argument countless times:No sane person thinks that there is any problem wearing clothes made of?different fabrics [Leviticus 19:19], nor would any sane person‘think capital punishment appropriate for a child who curses his parents [Leviticus 20:9]. Since we don't abide by these or many other Old Testament laws any more, isn't it clear that modern Christians shouldn't?abide by ANY Old Testament laws?Unfortunately it's not that simple. Here's the problem:The Old Testament, while containing some laws that no longer apply to Christians, also contains the Ten Commandments and other components of the ethical foundation of the teachings of Jesus. For example, Leviticus, the book everyone loves to ridicule, contains beautiful ethical teachings:Did you know that "Love your neighbor as yourself" comes from Leviticus? (Leviticus 19:18.)Rather than being obsolete, the Old Testament contains much that is more relevant than ever for the people of God. But, it also contains elements that no longer apply. Which is which? How do we know which parts of the Old Testament law we should follow, and which are no longer binding on God's people?

The Epic of Eden

Sandra Richter, Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, has an excellent book on the Old Testament called?The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament, which?I highly recommend to anyone interested in learning more about the Old Testament. In the epilogue to the book she includes some Frequently Asked Questions, one of which is?What Role Does the Law of Moses Play in the Christian's Life?? (pp. 225-229) I found her answer so helpful that I publish it below, with permission from her publisher. I've added my own remarks throughout.

What Role Does the Law of Moses Play in the Christian's Life?

Most everyone recognizes that simply abolishing the entire Mosaic law contradicts the New Testament (what do you do with the Ten Commandments?). Most equally recognize that imposing the law in its entirety on the Christian also contradicts the New Testament (what of God‘s instructions to Peter in Acts 10 to embrace unclean foods as clean?). So most have concluded that there must a middle-of-the-road position. The most enduring approach to defining this middle-of-the-road position has been the attempt to somehow delineate the law according to moral? versus civil? (or ethical? versus ritual?) categories. The claim is typically that the moral/ethical features of the law are still in force for the Christian, but the civil/ritual features are obsolete and can be put safely aside. For example, some would claim that the Ten Commandments can be cataloged as moral? and are therefore still binding, but the law requiring tassels on the four corners of a person‘s garment is to be catalogued as civil/ritual? and is not (Num 15:38-39). The problem with this sort of delineation, however, is that in Israel‘s world, there was no distinction between the civil/ritual and moral/ethical aspects of the law. All of these laws were deemed as the imperatives of God‘s divine will. Moreover, to honor your father and your mother? (Exodus 20:12) was both a moral expectation and the civil requirement of a patriarchal society to provide for the elderly of one‘s clan. And proper worship in a theocracy was an expression of both a moral/ethical and civil/ritual expectation. So what to do??[Emphasis mine. One of the mistakes we make in reading the Bible is to put?our own categories on top of it. As Professor Richter points out, unlike us the ancient Israelites did not divide the world into the sacred and the secular, the religious and the legal: it was all one. --AF] ?In the end, most assume that the Mosaic law is generally annulled as regards the Christian but hold onto those aspects of the law that are either reiterated by Christ (a good idea) or those that generally just seem right? (obviously not a satisfactory response to the question). [We see this all the time: people decide what's right beforehand and bring that decision to the Bible. Here's the problem, though--Where and how do we decide what's right? What are the sources we use to decide what's right? Aren't we in danger of just blessing whatever feels good to us, or whatever the dominant culture tells us is right? The reason for the Mosaic Law in the first place was to give Israel a way of knowing right and wrong that was distinct from the surrounding pagan Canaanite cultures. --AF] Although I cannot offer a complete solution to the conundrum, let me at least contribute to an answer.First, it is important to realize that as covenantal administrations change, so do the stipulations of those covenants. So, yes, the rules can and do change. And they change according to the will of the suzerain. [The suzerain is the king making the covenant, as she explains earlier in the book. For the Israelites, their king was the Lord. --AF] Hence, the first question we want to ask is, how does Jesus (our suzerain and mediator) change the rules with the new covenant?? We find the answer to that question as we read through the Gospels. Here Jesus regularly calls his audience back to the intent of the Mosaic law. Was the sabbath created for man, or man for the sabbath (Mt 12:10)?? Is adultery the problem or unbridled lust (Mt 7:27)?? Is it more important that a person keep themselves ritually clean, or serve a neighbor in need (Lk 10:30-37)?? So one thing Jesus tells his audience is to look beyond a legalistic adherence to particulars and see the goal of the law. This is clearly articulated in interactions like Matthew 22:36-40:

?Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law??? And he said to him, ?You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.? This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.? On these two commandments depends the whole Law and the Prophets.

Galatians 5:14 says the same: For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.? Thus, whereas the detailed message of the Mosaic law embodied the love of neighbor and God in concrete, time- and culture-bound expressions, Jesus finds a way to articulate the transcultural and all-embracing message of that same law to a new audience. [Emphasis mine. I think this is a perceptive analysis of the ethical teaching of Jesus. --AF] Moreover, he makes it clear that this message is still binding upon us new covenant adherents as well.We also read that Jesus redefines the major institutions of Israel‘s theocracy: the temple and the theocratic government. The temple is first re-defined as Jesus?own body, and then as the individual believer and the church (Jn 2:19-21; Eph 2:19-22). Jesus is identified as the final sacrifice (Heb 9:24-26) and as the church‘s new high priest (Heb 2:17). Thus, with the new covenant we learn that Israel‘s temple cultus is obsolete. [A "cultus" is a system of worship. --AF] And if this theocratic institution is obsolete, I believe it is safe to conclude that the complex processes dictated by the Mosaic law that directed the function of this institution (e.g. the design and d?cor of the building, the cleanness of priest and worshipper, sacrifice, mediation and the calendar of cultic celebration) are now obsolete as well. This means that in the new covenant the specific Mosaic regulations regarding these issues are annulled: our buildings of worship are no longer required to bring sacrifice, the laws of clean and unclean? are abrogated, the mediation of human priests is unnecessary, and the holidays of Israel‘s cult have become a mere shadow of what is to come? (Col 2:16-17). [Emphasis mine. Did you get that? Because the Temple is obsolete for Christians (the entire book of Hebrews is essentially about this topic), then it follows that all the Old Testament laws pertaining to Temple worship are also obsolete. --AF]And what of Israel‘s theocratic government?? Keep clearly in your mind that Israel was a nation that was directly ruled by God. Yahweh was enthroned in the temple in Jerusalem, between the cherubim,? and carried out his ordinances by means of his officers, the prophet, the priest and king. Israel was a political entity with national territory. Its citizenry were, exclusively, the people of God. Foreign oppression, drought and famine were God‘s communiqu‘s that his people had somehow broken covenant; national prosperity was the sign that they had kept covenant. Thus the nation of Israel could justly go to war in the name of Yahweh, slaying Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites to defend the national boundaries of God‘s kingdom. But Jesus makes it clear that his only throne will be in heaven (Mk 16:19; Heb 8:1; etc.). And as we‘ve seen, the new citizenry of his kingdom will come from every tongue, tribe and nation. As opposed to the land of Canaan being the Promised Land, now all of the recreated earth is. Thus, in the new covenant there is no longer any single nation that can lay claim to being the people of God? nor any single piece of real estate that is promised to them.[Emphasis mine. This is HUGE. Whereas before Jesus you had to be a member of Israel to be part of the people of God, now the church--the new Israel--is open to people of all ages, nations, and races. --AF] There are new officers for this new kingdom too. Even a cursory glance at Ephesians 4:11, 1 Corinthians 12:28 or 1 Timothy 3 lets us know that apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, deacons and teachers have replaced the prophet, priest and king of the Mosaic covenant. The only title that survives into the new covenant is that of prophet,? but even this office is substantially transformed. Thus the very literal political realities of Israel‘s theocracy are abrogated by the new covenant, and I believe we can safely say that the complex list of laws and regulations that governed the theocracy are abrogated as well. [Update: This is why capital punishments for crimes such as blasphemy and sorcery, etc., no longer apply: those rules were part of the Old Covenant theocracy. The offenses‘themselves are still sinful, but now that we live under the New Covenant of grace and no longer under the Israelite theocracy, the way the people of God deal with those offenses has changed. --AF]?Then, of course, there are those aspects of the Mosaic law that the writers of the New Testament specifically address as being changed or terminated. A few examples would be the necessity of circumcision (1 Cor 7:19), the regulations of kashrut (Acts 10:15), the rabbinic restrictions regarding the sabbath (Mt 12:1-9) and even divorce (Mt 19:3-9).In sum, I think we can identify at least three categories of Mosaic law which, in their specific expectations, no longer apply to the Christian: those involving the regulations of Israel‘s government, those involving the regulation of Israel‘s temple, and those laws that the New Testament specifically repeals or changes. I would still argue that the values that shaped these regulations express the character of God and therefore must be attended to by the Christian, but the specifics of their application are no longer our responsibility. Thus my contribution to the conundrum named above is that rather than attempting to delineate the law of Moses based on categories foreign to that law itself (?more/ethical? and civil/ritual?), perhaps we should address the question through a lens that is more native to both Old and New Testaments?Jesus? redefinition of certain major institutions of the Mosaic covenant. And for all the Mosaic law, be it superseded or not, we need to recognize that we can (and must) still learn a great deal about the character of God through these laws, even if we can no longer directly apply them to ourselves in this new covenant. [Emphasis mine. Rather than being irrelevant to the church today, even those Old Testament laws that have been abrogated by the New Covenant have much to teach us about the Lord. --AF] So rather than thinking in terms of the Mosaic law as being obsolete except for what Jesus maintains (as has been the predominant view), perhaps we should begin to thing in terms of the law being in force except for what Jesus repeals.

Taken from The Epic of Eden?by Sandra L. Richter. Copyright (c) 2008 by Sandra L. Richter. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426. www.ivpress.com.

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"3 Words To Transform Any Relationship" [VIDEO]

I was interviewed on the front steps of my church a few weeks ago by Jane McGarry of Good Morning Texas, and the interview aired this morning on WFAA Channel 8 (ABC) in Dallas. We did the interview in one take, and the good folks at GMT aired it in its entirety. I'm grateful for the opportunity to share a message I really believe in: 3 words that can transform ANY relationship. [Click the link below to see the 3 minute video.]http://www.wfaa.com/entertainment/television/programs/good-morning-texas/soulful-stoop-munger-place-churchs-rev-andrew-forrest/224681060  

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A Framework for Understanding the Bible

I'll be the first to admit that the Bible is a difficult book. One of the reasons it's difficult is that it's not really even?one book, but rather a collection of books. (That's what "bible" actually means: a?collection of books.) Over and over again people will say to me, "I'd like to read the Bible, but I just don't understand it." I hope the following simple framework helps you get a little more clarity and understanding.

All of History in?3 Acts

The Bible tells the story of the great drama of History in 3 acts, with a prologue at the beginning and an epilogue at the end.

Prologue

Subject: Beginnings. Adam to Abraham. The Prologue tells us why the world is the way it is. After a beautiful beginning ("And there was light....") the story quickly becomes a story of blood and betrayal: Cain kills Abel, and we've been killing our brothers ever since.Scripture: Genesis 1-11

Act 1

Subject: Israel. The Lord's plan to save all of humanity begins with one man--Abraham--and it culminates in one of Abraham's descendant's: Jesus of Nazareth. Act 1 is about God's chosen people Israel, and Israel's slavery, exodus, kingdom, exile, and return.Scripture: Genesis 12-Malachi

Act 2

Subject: Jesus. Act 2 is all about Jesus, from his birth to his death to his Resurrection.Scripture: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

Act 3

Subject: The Church. Act 3 is about how the church is God's means to redeem the world. It begins with a small group of disciples in Jerusalem on Pentecost Sunday and?it's still going, right up to and including the present. We are living in Act 3.Scripture: Acts-Revelation 20

Epilogue

Subject: Forever and Ever Amen. The Epilogue is about History's culmination, when Jesus returns and all the bad things come untrue and evil is finally ended.Scripture: Revelation 21-22

Conclusion

I realize that the above doesn't answer most of our good questions about the difficult parts of scripture, but it does give us a framework within which we can at least get our bearings when reading scripture. Keep reading--it's worth it.   

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Saturday

What happened on Saturday?Jesus was crucified on Friday, and he was raised on Sunday.But what happened on Saturday?Nothing.Nothing happened on Saturday.In many ways, we live in a Saturday world. Saturday is about waiting. Saturday is about the promise of a better future that hasn't yet come. Saturday is about the hope that God will do something, but still not seeing it.We live in a Saturday world.But Sunday is coming.   

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Who Cares if Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? Lots of folks are asking that question these days, and though it is an important question (and one that I will not be answering in this post), I don't think the question is as helpful as other people seem to think.

Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

Some people say yes, and these people imply that Christians are therefore under obligation to show compassion to Muslims because of their theological commonalities. After all, aren't Christians and Jews and Muslims all "people of the book?" (That phrase comes from the Qu'ran.) And, since we are all people of the book, shouldn't Christians treat Muslims with compassion?I do not agree with this implication.

The Problem With Saying Yes

As Mark Tooley points out in Newsweek, if you stress that Christians are obligated to show compassion to Muslims because they are theological cousins, you are inadvertently implying that Christians are not under the same obligation to show compassion to other peoples with whom they don't have any theological commonalities. Hindus, for example, are not "people of the book," and yet that fact should not affect Christian treatment of Hindus (or Sikhs or Jains or Buddhists or atheist communists, etc.)A Christian's compassion for another does not depend on that other's theological commitments. Whether or not Christians and Muslims worship the same God is completely irrelevant to the issue of whether a Christian should show compassion towards his Muslim neighbor.Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? What if the answer is no--should‘that change how a Christian treats her Muslim neighbor?

Love Isn't Conditional

Christians are not required to only love people with whom we agree (or partially agree).Jesus, after all, told his followers to love their enemies.  

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In Death's Dark Valley

Our community was shocked last week when we heard the evil news that an 18 year-old young woman named Zoe Hastings was found murdered. What do we do in the face of this kind of loss? I don't know the Hastings family personally and I don't presume to have any idea of the hell through which they are walking. But, I have been thinking about loss, and I humbly offer the following thoughts to anyone struggling with the question, "What do we do in the face of evil, death, and suffering?"

We Grieve

When we experience loss, we grieve. It is appropriate and necessary to be filled with anger or dread or numbness. It's okay to scream and cry. When someone you love is taken away, anything less than grief would be an obscenity. And, because grief comes in all different forms and in different ways and at different times for different people, whatever you are feeling is fine. Don't analyze it. Just grieve.

We Resist

When we experience evil and loss we want to scream out "Why?" When evil comes upon us, it is always inexplicable, but for some reason we still feel the need to offer an explanation. Don't. One of the wisest things I ever heard my father say: "Resist the urge the explain." We don't know why Zoe Hastings was murdered. No one knows. "Why?" is a useless question, and do not attempt to offer an explanation or a platitude--however well intentioned--to someone grieving. Resist the urge to explain: it won't do any good.

We Hope

I may not have an answer to the "Why?" questions, but there is something else that I do have. Please know that I mean no offense in sharing the following, as I am aware that not everyone reading this shares my faith. But, as a Christian, in the face of evil, pain, and loss, I have hope.Now, Christian hope is not wishful thinking. It is not a vague sense that we should think positively or put a sunny gloss on our grief. Wishful thinking has nothing to offer to those who grieve.No, Christian hope is?certainty. Christian hope is based on the fact that Jesus is risen; Christian hope knows that the?Resurrection proves that evil will not win and that everything sad will become untrue. Christian hope is the certainty that God will ultimately right every wrong.That is the hope I have.So, in the face of evil, death and suffering, we grieve. And we wait until the day when God will make everything new.And we hope.Lord, help our unbelief. 

P.S. One of My Favorite Bible Verses

Jesus says, I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

Jesus is Not Running For President

Hypocrisy. "Hypocrisy" is the first complaint many people make against Christians. And you know what? They're right: we?are?hypocrites. Especially when it comes to politics.

Politics First, Faith Second

I‘ve noticed that many American Christians are shaped more profoundly by the political views of our respective tribes?liberal, conservative, etc.‘than we are by the Jesus we claim to follow. Recent polling of American Catholic views of Pope Francis are a good example of this tendency:

• Conservative Roman Catholics are in approval of the Pope‘s views on same-sex marriage and abortion (he‘s opposed to both) but they disapprove of his remarks on climate change and his critique of unfettered capitalism.
• Liberal Roman Catholics are the exact opposite.

I am not in any way implying that the Pope speaks for Jesus, nor that all Christians ought to think the same way as Pope Francis. My point is simply that it is troubling that American Catholic views of Pope Francis break down along partisan lines.And it‘s not only Roman Catholics who do this: Protestants like me do the same thing as well. And this tendency to put politics first and faith second is extremely problematic.

Jesus is Lord, Not Caesar

?Jesus is Lord, and not Caesar. For 2,000 years, Christians have made the claim that the ultimate authority is not whoever holds temporal political power, but that Jesus Christ is rightful Lord of the universe. Jesus is Lord, which means his place is first, and I (and everything else) am second. But when people who claim to follow Jesus take their identities from the Democratic or Republican parties first and from Jesus second, we are effectively saying, Caesar is more important than Jesus. We are saying our first allegiance is to our political tribe and we are only paying lip service to our Lord. Our tendency is to justify our political views with our faith, rather than beginning with our faith and then trying to work out our politics. In other words, we are hypocrites.

No, It's Not Wrong to Vote Red or Blue

I am not saying that if we all just followed the Bible then we would know exactly how to vote. I'm not that na‘ve. The Bible is not always easy to interpret or understand, and even if it were, this world is complicated and imperfect, so policy decisions are always going to require choices between lesser and greater evils and actions without certainty of outcomes. Life is complicated, and because of this, some Christians will believe that they can be more faithful Christians in the public square as Republicans and some will believe they can be more faithful followers of Jesus as Democrats, etc. It‘s not wrong to take a political position on this or that issue.What is wrong is to be a Republican or a Democrat first, and a follower of Jesus second. If you believe everything in your respective party‘s platform is 100% in line with the teachings of Jesus, you have a problem. It should be obvious that Democratic or Republican policies are uncertain attempts to work in a messy world‘they are not gospel, and we should not confuse them as such.

A Quick Self-Assessment

How do you know what you believe? If you are a Christian, do you believe what you believe because you have deeply wrestled in prayer and searched the scriptures over this or that issue, or do you believe what you believe because everyone in your political tribe thinks this way?So, with regard to the topics below, we need to ask ourselves, Why do we believe what we believe??

• Same-sex marriage
• Guns
• War
• Torture
• Drone attacks
• Immigration
• The Planned Parenthood videos
• The Death Penalty
• Welfare policies

Jesus is Not Running For President

We are going to have to pick a president next year, and that president will not be perfect. Christians will disagree over which man or woman running is best equipped to lead our country. That is okay. What is not okay is for me to transfer my ultimate allegiance to my political tribe. Jesus is not running for president, and political parties and partisan positions shouldn‘t be worshipped. Don‘t make the mistake of putting second things in the place of what ought to be First. That‘s called idolatry, and it never works out very well.Just ask the builders of Babel.  

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The Real Root of Our Dissatisfaction

"It's no wonder we often find ourselves looking for satisfaction in all the wrong ways. You and I are deluged from every side by advertising designed to foster dissatisfaction with our current lives. From what I've seen on television, my life would be much more satisfying if I were to eat Special K for breakfast, buy my car insurance form GEICO, and wear a Breitling watch. No one is impervious to advertising's influence....

The real root of our dissatisfaction goes deeper than our response to the blitz of media advertising. It resides somewhere deep in our souls and traces its origins all the way back to Eden. The serpent's question to Eve strikes home in all of our hearts: 'Did God really say, "You must not eat from any tree in the garden"?'Before this, Eve had delighted in God's provision, but now she wants more. She decides that the only fruit that will satisfy her hangs from the branches of the one tree God forbade her to eat from. But upon partaking of the fruit, she finds--as we all have--that living outside of God's boundaries and provision leads to fatal dissatisfaction. Once humanity crossed the threshold into a broken relationship with God, we've been dissatisfied ever since."

from?Simplify: Ten Practices to Unclutter Your Soul, by Bill Hybels (pp. 256-257)

What If Creationists and Atheists Are Both Wrong?

What if the way you've been thinking about God is all wrong? If so, you're in good company: according to Ric Machuga, both creationists and atheists also tend to think about God incorrectly, and both groups have been thinking about God incorrectly in the same way.Dr.Machuga is professor of philosophy at Butte College in Northern California, and the author of?Three Theological Mistakes: How to Correct Enlightenment Assumptions about God, Miracles, and Free Will. In a recent article in?Books and Culture, he argues that both creationists and atheists often make the same mistake when thinking about God. (The article is behind a paywall; I subscribe to the print journal.)

Is God Like a Divine Watchmaker?

Does God exist? Creationists say yes, and atheists say no. However, we need to more specifically define what we mean by "exist:"

[Medieval philosphers] Moses Maimonides (Jewish), Thomas Aquinas (Christian), and Ibn Rushd (Muslim) all understood that 'existence' was not a simple Yes/No matter. While God certainly 'exists,' they all insisted that God's 'existence' was fundamentally unlike everything else's 'existence.'"

Creationists, Atheists, and Even Isaac Newtown....

In our scientific culture, we tend to think of God as a divine craftsman, a heavenly watchmaker who made the universe and set it ticking. Creationists fight hard to defend the idea of God as divine craftsman (using Genesis 1-2), while atheists fight hard to discredit the idea of God as divine craftsman (using biology, cosmology, and paleontology). But what if God isn't like a watchmaker at all?[embed]https://flic.kr/p/5hMX2w[/embed]Professor Machuga points out that thinking about God as the ultimate craftsman is a logical mistake.

Watchmakers and watches both exist. And though they are very different in many ways--watchmakers are conscious, intentional agents; watches are not--their 'thingness' is precisely the same. Contrast this with the difference between Shakespeare and Hamlet. While both the author and his character 'exist,' they certainly don't exist in the same way. Shakespeare existed as a human being. Hamlet only 'exists' as the fictional character created by Shakespeare. Yet, the difference between Shakespeare's existence and Hamlet's existence is far less than the difference between God's existence and everything else"?[emphasis mine].

Isaac Newton thought that the physical laws he uncovered were "not only consistent with the existence of a supernatural Craftsman, but that they required such a God." Unfortunately, Newton, for all his brilliance, made a mistake in thinking about God:

Of course, in one sense, Newton knew that God and his creation 'existed' in different ways. Breadth, height, and weight are common to all material objects, whereas God is a pure spirit with neither breadth, height, nor weight. Nevertheless, to speak of a 'very skilled mechanic' [Newton's phrase] intervening to prevent planetary chaos?presupposes that God and the planets exist in the same way and in the same universe" [italics in the original].

But, God and the universe do NOT exist in the same way. God is not a just divine craftsman, and thinking of God in that way points us in the wrong direction. A better direction is to think of God as a divine playwright, because God's reality is utterly distinct from the reality of the universe he created. If this distinction seems confusing, just think about Shakespeare:

Because Shakespeare is not contiguous with the world of his creature, he can have a reality, endurance, stability, and 'otherness' that far exceeds Hamlet's. Without Shakespeare, Hamlet is literally nothing. But without Hamlet, Shakespeare is still something, even if his glory is slightly diminished."

God Isn't a Divine Watchmaker, but a Divine Playwright

God is not simply the largest, greatest, and strongest part of our reality; God is another reality, distinct from us. God is not a divine watchmaker who sets the universe ticking; God is a divine playwright who wills us into existence from his imagination.

We Can't Prove or Find God, Unless....

This means that the only evidence for God that can be found in our universe is evidence that God deliberately places here. It means that we shouldn't expect to be able to prove God's existence any more than Hamlet could prove the existence of Shakespeare. It means that unless God shows up, we can never ever find him.And it means that the Incarnation changes everything.

Did the Resurrection Really Happen?

Did the Resurrection actually happen? The Apostle Paul, writing in sometime in the 50's A.D., had this to say: "If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith" (1 Corinthians 15:14). In other words, Christianity rises and falls with the Resurrection of Jesus. But, the issue for many modern people is that though the Resurrection seems like a nice story, we know that dead people stay dead and that it couldn't possibly have happened. So, did the Resurrection happen, or not? I think it did, and here are three reasons why.

(By the Way: It Wasn't a Spiritual or Emotional Resurrection)

As a way around the difficulty of the Resurrection, some people say that what the Gospels report is some kind of spiritual or emotional sense that Jesus was still with his disciples after his death. This view does not at all match what the Gospels themselves say, namely that after the Resurrection:

• Jesus ate food (Luke 24:13-32 & John 21:1-14) and
• Jesus made physical contact with the disciples (Luke 24:36-43 and John 20:24-29).

The Gospels are very clear: the Resurrection was a bodily resurrection, and not a vague spiritual sense that Jesus was still alive.So, what reasons do we have to believe that the Resurrection happened?

Reason 1: The Women Witnesses

All the canonical Gospels agree that the first witnesses to the empty tomb and the Resurrection of Jesus were women. In our world, that detail doesn't surprise us, but in the ancient world this would have been a shocking detail because women weren't considered reliable witnesses in the ancient world.If you were making up a resurrection hoax in the 1st century Mediterranean world, you would never say that women were the first witnesses of your story. So, why do all the gospels insist that women were the first witnesses?The simplest reason for the inclusion of the women witnesses: because the Gospels are merely reporting what actually happened. The inconvenient truth of the women witnesses is a detail that argues for the plausibility of the Resurrection.

Reason 2: The Deaths of All Involved

Many people have died for lies that they believed were true, but groups of people do not die for what they know is a lie.Virtually all the disciples of Jesus were martyred for their faith in him. If they were making up the Resurrection, then they would have recanted their stories at the point of death. But they didn't.Chuck Colson, one of the Nixon men involved in the Watergate break-in, had this to say:

I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.

Chuck Colson

The martyrdom of the early Christians is a strong argument in favor of the truth of their claims.

Reason 3: It Was Testimony, Not Legend

Modern people will say that the Resurrection is a legend, a folktale that took shape over generations and that consequently grew in the telling, like George Washington and the Cherry Tree.The problem with this theory is that it doesn't fit the facts: the letters of Paul began to be circulated around 20 years after the death of Jesus, the Gospel of Mark within 40 years, and the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John within 60 years (at the latest). In other words, Christians were publicly talking about the Resurrection within the lifetime of its witnesses. Anyone who wanted to investigate the truth of the Resurrection merely had to talk to its witnesses.A legend takes generations to develop, but the Gospels (and other New Testament materials) were written down and circulated within a generation or two of the events of that first Easter Sunday, i.e., way too soon a time for a legend to develop.Rather than being a legend, the Resurrection was testimony.Testimony is a valid form of historical memory. People who experienced the events say, "I was there. I saw it." January was the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and there are thousands of people who lived through the Nazi concentration camps who can still testify today to their experience, 70 years later. One of the reasons Holocaust deniers have a hard time gaining a hearing is because there are people who can point to their blue tattoos and say, "No, it did happen: I was there."Just as the remaining Holocaust survivors' testimony is available to anyone wanting to investigate the Holocaust today, so the Resurrection witnesses' testimony was available to anyone wanting to investigate the Resurrection at the time that the New Testament was taking shape.

Conclusion: the Resurrection is Plausible

The Resurrection cannot be proved in a laboratory. But, we can examine the facts and decide that it is more plausible that the Resurrection happened than that it did not happen.Now, some people will accept the above and yet still insist: "We know that dead people stay dead, and therefore the Resurrection could not have happened." The problem with that position is that history is full of events that seemed impossible and that actually happened. I admit that the Resurrection is unique as an historical event, but that doesn't mean that it is necessarily impossible. In any historical inquiry, we have to look at the evidence and see where it takes us. In this case, I believe the evidence argues in favor of the Resurrection.The reason discussions like this are important are not because they can bring anyone across the threshold of faith (only God can do that), but because I've found that some people won't even approach the door of faith if they believe that the claims of the faith cannot possibly be true; arguments can't cause someone to believe, but they can knock down bad reasons for not believing.Here's hoping this little post might help someone somewhere come a bit closer.

40 Days of Dying to Yourself

How might you be different in 40 days of sacrifice and simplicity? Instead of excess, euphemism, and self-indulgence, I'd like to invite you to 40 days of sacrifice, simplicity, and self-denial. Join the 40 campaign. Take 2 minutes and watch the following video.[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvPad5PEfjo&feature=youtu.be[/embed]Today is Ash Wednesday, and it marks the beginning of Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter (not including Sundays). During Lent, we remember the privations of Jesus during his time of temptation in the desert, and that before the Resurrection, there was the Crucifixion. Many Christians prepare for Easter by observing a period of fasting, repentance, moderation, and spiritual discipline during Lent.

Join Me in the 40 Campaign?

Starting today, my church is embarking on our 40 campaign: a Lenten campaign of sacrifice and simplicity. Each week we have a different thing to give up and a different thing to take on:How might you be different in 40 days of sacrifice and simplicity?

3 Don'ts When Reading Genesis

Genesis is hard enough as it is; here are three things NOT to do when reading the first book of the Bible.

Don't Mistake "Is" for "Should"

Genesis is descriptive, not prescriptive, i.e., it describes the world as it is, not as it should be. Subsequent to The Fall described in chapter 3, every situation, family, and life is corrupted by sin. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are sinful men, and their families are a mess. Don't be surprised when great heroes of the faith turn out to be seriously flawed. And don't confuse descriptions of sin with approval of sin, even in the lives of the Patriarchs.The good news? God writes straight with crooked lines.

Don't Draw Conclusions Before the End

The Bible is not a series of disconnected stories; rather, it is one long drama in three acts, with a prologue at the beginning and an epilogue at the end:

• The Prologue: Genesis 1-11 (Creation, Fall, and the Flood)
• Act 1: Genesis 12 through the rest of the Old Testament (Covenant and Israel)
• Act 2: the Gospels (Jesus)
• Act 3: the book of Acts up through the present day (the Church)
• The Epilogue: the Book of Revelation (the End).

Each small story in the Bible fits into the larger whole. You wouldn't draw too many conclusions about the author of a story from the first page of a novel or the director of the movie from its first five minutes. In the same way, reserve judgment until you see how the story resolves. Yes, there are parts of the story that are troubling, but reserve judgment until you see where everything is going.

Don't Fill the Gaps with Suspicion

The Bible is filled with gaps. All we usually get are big broad strokes, and it's left to our imagination to fill in the gaps about why or how. For example, in the Genesis 4 account of Cain and Abel, why does the Lord God approve of Abel's gift but not Cain's? Isn't that rather arbitrary and unfair?Here's the true answer: no one knows why God preferred Abel's gift to Cain's. In the face of such a gap, then, we have to fill it with our own conjectures.Unfortunately, in the modern, cynical world, we are quick to fill gaps in the Bible with our own suspicions. But suspicion is a choice, and there is another approach:Don't fill gaps with suspicion; fill gaps with trust.It's true that deciding ahead of time to fill the gaps in the Bible with trust is a faith decision, but deciding ahead of time to read with a hermeneutic of suspicion is itself a faith decision. If you decide ahead of time that the Bible can't be trusted and that God is cynically setting up people for failure so he can punish them, then nothing you read will ever change your mind.A better way is to decide to fill the gaps in Genesis and elsewhere with trust and humility. Then, when you encounter things you don't understand, you'll admit what you don't know and assume that what you don't understand has a purpose in God's redemptive plan.

P.S. What About the Bizarre Stuff in Genesis 6:1-4?

If you ever tried to read through Genesis, chances are that Genesis 6:1-4 caused you some trouble.

When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them,‘the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose.Then the?Lord‘said, My spirit shall not abide?in mortals for ever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred and twenty years.?The Nephilim were on the earth in those days?and also afterwards?when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown."

-Genesis 6:1-4 [NRSV]

Here's the truth: nobody really understands this passage. Here's how Terence Fretheim puts is:

This brief segment is one of the most difficult in Genesis both to translate and interpret. Certain words are rare or unknown...; issues of coherence arise on many points. These verses may be a fragment of what was once a longer story, or scribes may have added to or subtracted from the text. The fact that the text presents ambiguity may be precisely the point, however: the mode of telling matches the nature of the message....

"Consistent with other sections in chaps. 1-11, this material reflects an era no longer accessible to Israel. [That is, the ancient Israelites who were the original readers of Genesis. --AF] The text does not mirror a typical human situation...but speaks of a time long past when God decreed a specific length to human life."

-Terence Fretheim, from?Genesis, in vol. I of?The New Interpreter's Bible

So, who are the mysterious "sons of God" mentioned in v. 2? Three options:

1. They are sons of Seth, mentioned in chapter 5, mixing with unbelievers.

2. "They may be royal or semi-divine figures who accumulated women in their harems" (Fretheim).

3. They are some kind of angelic beings. This seems most likely in context, and most troubling and bizarre to think about.

But, basically, as mysterious as this passage is, it fits with the larger context: before the Flood, things were going from bad to worse, spinning out of control.

The good news is that?Genesis 6:1-4 doesn't affect any important Christian doctrines or beliefs. (Which doesn't mean it isn't really strange.)