Purpose of Church

    I am not sure if you have noticed, but there is a problem with church. I do not mean the worship style or the service itself, but the attitude that pervades church and how we approach it. It is like for us, church is just a club that we belong to. We go to our meetings once a week, pay our dues, and get great side-benefits like education, healthcare, and, oh, eternal life on the side. Aside from possibly paying tithe and offering, and usually this happens only when we are feeling especially generous, we really have no investment in church. Ask yourself, "If I stopped going to church today, would it really drastically affect my life?" If you are honest, you will probably say no.

    Is this really what Jesus had in mind when he established the church before he left? Whether Jesus intended to start a church or a religion is debatable and also moot. He did. But did he create the church to be some sort of social club for the spiritually elite? That does not sound like the Jesus recorded in the Bible. So what did Jesus have in mind when he created "church"?

    To answer this question, my friends and I have been studying the Bible to see what the Bible says about church. I hope they do not mind me posting the some of the results of our study here. There is, of course, a balance between our studies and my own personal thoughts. The two kind of run together so, if I have twisted your words on accident, I am sorry. At any rate, the first step we decided was to discern the purpose of church, answering the why.

    "Why" is problem the most important question to ask. Once you know the motivation, the purpose behind something, the how, what, and so on fall into place fairly easily. "Why" is the starting point. So that was our task first: discovered the purpose and function of church.

    The answer to that question is found in Acts 1. Acts is the sequel to the book of Luke, both written by the doctor who accompanied Paul on his travels and it picks up right after Jesus has been raised from the dead. In this first chapter, Jesus dispenses his last minute advice to his disciples. The theme? The kingdom of Heaven, which the Bible equates with the group of believers, what has become synonymous with church. As Jesus is talking church, he gives the purpose.

    His disciples, still thinking of a temporal power, ask when Jesus is going to reestablish Israel. Jesus shrugs off the question as largely irrelevant before giving his mission statement. Jesus says that his disciples purpose is to be his "witnesses" first in Judea, then Samaria, and finally to the whole world.

    What does this mean, be my "witnesses"? In Greek, the word is martyr (basically), from which we get the word "martyr" to refer to someone who is persecuted for what they believed. The reason the word has been morphed into what it is today is because the early Christians took this concept of being Jesus' witnesses to almost to an extreme. For them, to be publically executed was the highest form of witnessing.

At any rate, a person who can attest the truth of something and testifies to that truth is a martyr or witness. A witness is there to confirm the truth of something. The concept of "witness" was central to the Hebrews. In Deuteronomy, the book of the Law, no conviction could be made without at least two witnesses (19:15-21).

    This is what church is here for; to be witnesses of Jesus. What this means is that we testify of the truth of Jesus message to the world. By our experience and our words, we confirm the reality of Jesus from our own experience. This echoes what Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 28:18-20, where he commands his disciples to tell the world about him.

    In the Old Testament, sometimes this concept of witness took the form of a monument (example Genesis 31 and Joshua 22). The church is a monument to Jesus and what he has done. Monuments are meant to be seen, to be shown. Like Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, we are his light to the world. Cities on hills cannot be hidden. Our collective purpose is to demonstrate the message of Christ to the world. Anything that does not fit that purpose is not of Christ.

    There is a secondary purpose to church: support. Jesus did not pull the wool over the eyes of his disciples; he told them exactly what they were getting into following him. Repeatedly he warned them that they were going to be hated, derided, persecuted, and probably killed for following him (Matthew 5:11,12; 10:17,18; 24:9 just to give a few examples). If left to stand alone, they would not last. Most would quit after it got hard.

    But together, they had each other to lean on. Something that the Bible preaches from beginning to end is togetherness and unity. In Ecclesiastes (the doom and gloom book) 4 it says that "two are better than one" because they can support each other when times get rough. Acts 2 paints a picture of the early Christians pooling their resources to help those that have been attacked.

    Church is not just some sort of social club for the spiritual elite. It is not some place for us to strut our stuff to each other. We, collectively, have a purpose that goes beyond just the service on Sabbath morning. Together, we are to be a witness to Jesus every moment of everyday. Church is to pervade every aspect of our lives. Secondly, we are on the same team working together for this purpose. We all have struggles that we face and as members of the church, we are to provide each other with the support we need. This is why we are here.

    Ask yourself, "What is my attitude when it comes to church?" "Why am I part of church?" "Is my church following this purpose? "Do I have this purpose?" Then do something about it.

Conservative, Liberal, and Sane

    A couple of weeks ago in Personal Evangelism, we chased a rabbit. Of course I do not mean a literal rabbit, but we went off on a tangent that had very little, if anything, to do with the subject matter of the class. This was "how to make yourself more hirable as a pastor." The context of this was that the Michigan Conference was here at SAU interviewing seniors to perhaps pastor in that conference. During the course of our discussion it was repeatedly mentioned that Michigan is a self-declared "conservative" conference. In other words, they have consciously decided to be conservative and look for conservative employees. This is, of course, their right and I cannot dispute that. Other conferences (Southern California Conference, I am looking at you) have purposely chosen to be "liberal" conferences. And again, they have that right.

    Their right to do so is not my question. Rather I question the wisdom of that. You see, there are inherent problems with both conservative and liberal points of view. These musings led me to post an apparently intriguing comment on Facebook, "Conservatives do not use their brains. Liberals rely too much on them. Wise men use their brains with a grain of salt." That is an accurate assessment of both conservative and liberal viewpoints; however it piqued people's interest and led some to point out that it was a rather stereotypical judgment. Hence the blog post to clarify what I meant by that statement.

    I would like to being by pointing out it was not an indictment of people per se, though people certainly are guilty in this. But even those that are, this does not mean they are bad people. Most of the declared liberals and conservatives I know are good, decent, and dedicated people. I merely think that they are wrong, not bad. It was rather a comment about the two opposite, but equally wrong, points of view that most people ascribe to. Indeed, I have met very few people who do not describe themselves as liberal or conservative. Most people consciously chose to fit themselves into one category or another. I simply think that they being foolish, not necessarily fools themselves. Neither do I consider myself particularly wise, for I am not; nor that am I even guiltless in this, because at times I have certainly vacillated between both ditches.

    First, conservatives get my critique. Essentially what the conservative school teaches is that you do not question, you do not accept anything new or different, you do not explore ideas; in short, you do not think. Thinking belongs to the establishment. You do what they tell you to do. You say what they tell you to say. You teach what they tell you to teach. You believe what they tell you to believe. Rules are king in the conservative mind because rules tell you how to live your life. Thus the conservative tries to find out exactly how to follow every rule in the Bible. As such, the conservative has a rule for everything in life. For example from the Adventist point of view, one cannot go swimming on the Sabbath. However, you can wade up to your knees (this is not a made up example).

    Conservatives preach right and moral living. But they preach their version of moral living. They teach applications and rules as universal, which they are not, instead of the principles that are. Of course the appeal of this is obvious; it is easy. Sure, the rules and regulations may be restrictive, but at least you know where you stand. You do not have to think about how to apply a principle, merely follow a rule and you will be alright. Everything from how to keep the Sabbath to what to wear is governed for you by the rules. Thinking is no longer necessary. In fact, it is discouraged because you might think of a different application than what the establishment has said. This, the conservative fears, will cause chaos.

    Certainly you see the draw backs to this point of view. To begin with, what if the establishment is wrong? The establishment, whatever it is for you, is made up of people, flawed, sinful, people. This does not make it bad; indeed Jesus left an establishment when he left earth, merely flawed. But if we do not think for ourselves, we will never know that they are wrong. Incidentally, we will never really know if they are right.

    As a result of this, when something new and different comes along, the conservative rejects, at least until the establishment accepts it. New is usually bad to the conservative. The way things are is the way things should always be. Whether or not the way things are is correct or not is basically irrelevant; it is simply the way things are done and that is the way it is. One could also say that conservatism considers its authority is tradition.

    Think back to the Middle Ages. Back then, the Roman Catholic Church was the establishment and to be frank, they were wrong about a lot of things. But no bothered to contradict them for the longest time. No one questioned them. No one dared to. Instead people literally just did as they were told and they were led further and further down the wrong path.

    But then someone did question the establishment. He started thinking outside of the establishment and discovered that it was wrong. This man's name was Martin Luther and we owe to him the Protestant Reformation. Without him, so many of the truths that we take for granted (sola scriptura for example) we would not have. But it required him not accepting the establishment and think and question. Luther was not a conservative. Had he been, the Protestant Reformation would never have taken place.

    Does this not take place in our church today? Do we not see people going around telling others how to live and if they do not conform, they are anathematized? This is where conservatism heads, sooner or later. While not every, indeed even most, conservatives are nearly as extreme as I described above, that is the path they are on. And it is a path.

    Lest you think the liberals are getting off the hook, it is their turn. As I said in the Facebook post, liberals rely too much on their brains. A conservative accepts what they are told unquestioningly; the liberal questions everything. The conservative denies reason; the liberal relies solely on it. Conservatism accepts that there are things that cannot be explained; liberalism does not. On the contrary, liberalism believes that everything can be, some way, somehow reasoned out.

    However, for the liberal things are explained to make sense from their frame of reference. In other words, they rely on what they know to understand what they do not. The use of the scientific method, which is fine in its own field, is used here. Things are examined in terms of the tangible; what can be seen, felt, touched, smelled, experienced, and so on.

    The problem with this is obvious; not everything can be reasoned out. There are things, many things, in fact that are beyond our ability to reason and out understand. What do you do when you come to things like the resurrection? Or the Red Sea crossing? Or water into wine? The liberal finds himself having to prove things that simply cannot be proved. They are beyond our experience. And so, because it cannot be "rationally" or "empirically" proved, it must be rejected as fact. The great realities recorded in Scripture are demoted to allegory or fantasy. The "intellectual" liberal has suddenly found herself with no legs to stand on.

    We have seen this before. Think back the era after the reformation. People started having to "prove" things and explain what the Bible said. People started questioning its authority and validity because there were things that simply could not be empirically proven from it. God became regarded less and less as the involved person that he is, but more of a removed idea from this world. Eventually, philosophers like Voltaire declared the Bible would soon disappear from the earth. Historians erroneously call this era the Enlightenment.

    Like conservatism, few liberals are at this point. But if anyone follows liberalism, this is where it leads. Like conservatism, it is a path that one follows further and further until this is where one ends up. And like conservatism, it leaves isolated from the God who so longs to be with us.

    I am not going to bother with telling which is worse because that is a waste of time. Is it not enough to know that both are bad? If that is not enough of a deterrent, then telling you which is "worse" would be a waste of time. Indeed, we are not thinking in terms of bad and worse; just bad. Both are equally bad. As C.S. Lewis said in his book Mere Christianity (and I am paraphrasing), "One of the devils tricks is to get us thinking in terms of bad and worse, instead of good and bad." He cares little which ditch you end up in, so long as you are in one.

    But there is a good in all of this. That is the way of sanity, which is really quite simple to explain and quite difficult to live. The sane man realizes that he has been given a brain for a reason. He realizes that God fully intends him to reason and think. Towards that end, he seeks to know the principles that God has revealed to us in his Word, understanding that principles are not applications. Those he will have to reason out moment by moment; situation by situation.

    At the same time, the sane woman also realizes the limits of her powers of reasoning. She accepts what the Bible says, even if she cannot explain it. The resurrection happened, she says, not because I can explain it, but because I am told that it did and I trust the source that says so. When the Bible says the seventh day is the Sabbath, she follows that not because it makes rationale sense, but because it is what God is telling her to do.

    Do you see the balance here? Sanity is using your brain, but not relying on it. It is seeking to understand what you can, but accepting what you cannot. This is what faith really is about: trusting that God will give you the wisdom to deal with life as it comes to you and trusting that he knows what he is doing.

    There is a road moving forward amongst the ditches. May Yahveh stand with you as you walk the way of sanity, his way, to the Celestial City.

An Idea on Salvation

    WARNING: What I will be writing here is mostly speculative, not doctrinal. While what I have to say is based, I believe, on what the Bible has to say on the subject of salvation, it is merely a model for the salvation process that has helped me understand Yahveh and his idea for my life a bit more. The facts are that Jesus has died for our sins and that belief in him and acceptance of that forgiveness is the only way to be saved. How that works is more of a guess than a fact, so take the rest of this post with that large grain of salt in mind.

 

    For the vast majority of my life, I have been taught that the reason Jesus had to die for us was that somebody had to die for God's wrath to be appeased and for us to be forgiven and only Jesus could do it. It was like that because we have sinned, we are sentenced to death. But Jesus took our place on the cross and so now we are off the hook.

    But these concepts never really made a lot of sense to me. I mean, if a governor pardons a man on death row, it is not like he sends someone to take the man's place. Or if someone is given parole or sentenced reduced so that they are set free long before they have completed their sentence, no one sits in their cell for them. And if someone were convicted of a crime, we would not let someone serve their sentence in their stead. Such notions are so ridiculous as to be laughable. It defeats the whole point of justice and order, which by the way are two of the central tenets to who Yahveh is. If someone is given grace, we let them go with no question; the guilty are punished, not the innocent. Why can we not go to God and say that we are sorry and we will try to do better next time and then move on? What is up with this someone having to die thing? It makes no sense.

    If Lucifer and his cohorts repented after having fallen, would someone have needed to die for them? In her monumental work Patriarchs and Prophets, Ellen White strongly suggest that no, that would not have been the case. Instead, had the angels repented, they would have been immediately restored to a relationship with Yahveh (pg. 40). So what makes our situation different? Why did Jesus have to die for us?

    What if God is not the one who demanded someone to die for us? What if it was rather Satan? I know that sounds a little crazy at first, but bear with me as I explain.

    Let us go back to before the very beginning, before the concept of sin had entered anyone's mind. All anyone ever knew was Yahveh's way of doing things. Then Lucifer rebelled and became Satan and sin was introduced to the universe. Suddenly there were two ways of doing things, two ways that are diametrically opposed to each other.

    Satan is not, contrary to popular belief, Yahveh's antithesis. Sin is. Sin is everything Yahveh is not. Yahveh is a person: sin is not. Yahveh is creation: sin is destruction. Yahveh is love: sin is hate. Yahveh is existence: sin is non-existence. Yahveh is joy: sin is misery. I think you get the picture. At any rate, sin found personification and a medium in the being of Lucifer, more accurately known now as Satan.

    So we have these two systems: Yahveh's way and sin's way. This brings us down to earth where Yahveh creates a paradise for us humans. In the middle of this paradise are two trees which are symbolic of the two ways. One tree is the Tree of Life, which is representative of Yahveh's way. The other is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, what is symbolic of sin's way. Yahveh laid out things pretty straightforward: eat from the Tree of Life is to choose me as your Lord and King; eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is to choose sin (through Satan) as your Lord and King. Something very important to note here is that Yahveh gave us the freedom to choose.

    Most of us know the story. After an undisclosed period of time, our wonderful parents decided to try out sin's way. There was one slight catch to all this. Remember how we said that sin is Yahveh's antithesis? Well that means that if Yahveh's way is freedom, then sin's way is tyranny. The reason that there were always two trees is that we always had the freedom to choose. But once we swore allegiance to sin, we lost the freedom to choose Yahveh's way. Sin, through Satan, became the Lord of both us and our world.

    Since that time, the culture and kingdom of sin (also, but somewhat inaccurately called the kingdom of the world) has dominated this planet. Everything about this world is soaked almost to the core with sin's system. This is the kingdom and culture we are born into. This is the people that we are.

    Now because sin and Yahveh are so opposed, the two cannot coexist, at least not for any significant amount of time (you may think 6000 years is significant, but compared to eternity it is not). Neither can be contained: Yahveh in his expanding creation and sin in its expanding destruction. Inevitably, one must destroy the other.

    In order for peace, harmony, joy, love, and all the things that make the Kingdom of Heaven what it is, the Kingdom of Sin must be destroyed. This means that all the people in the Kingdom of Sin must be destroyed. That means us. As the allegory Pilgrim's Progress alludes to, this world is the City of Destruction, one that will, sooner or later, live up to its name.

    So to sum up our situation, we are members of the Kingdom of Sin. We have no choice in this matter, for sin cannot allow that choice. The Kingdom of Sin, whose territory happens to be this earth, is scheduled for destruction. To put it succinctly: we are screwed.

    This is the part of the story where Jesus comes in. Instead of simply destroying us, he offers instead to let himself, Yahveh/God, be destroyed. If he does this, then the Kingdom of Sin must allow us the same choice Adam and Eve had all those millennia ago: the choice to follow Yahveh or to follow sin. It is like we are being held for ransom. This gives sin what it truly wants, the destruction of its enemy and its victory.

    So Jesus came and, ironically, died on a tree thereby giving us the second Tree of Life; the Cross. He paid our ransom, satisfying sin's claim and giving us the freedom to choose his path. The one thing that sin did not take into account is that Jesus' creative nature could not allow him to remain destroyed, raising him from the dead to life everlasting, giving those of us who choose him the same.

    This means that salvation is more than just having our sins forgiven and getting a sort of "get out of jail free" card. To be saved Paul says in Romans 10 is to "confess with your mouth that 'Jesus is Lord' and to believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead". Jesus is now our Lord, not sin. Salvation is changing our citizenship from the Kingdom of Sin to the Kingdom of Heaven.

    From this then comes a change in culture which results in a change of who we are from the inside out. We become different people, better people, people who live out what the Kingdom of Heaven is all about. The Kingdom of Sin is so ingrained in us that this change happens slowly, but it does happen. But we must also want it. Part of being saved is truly desiring a change. This is not salvation by works; this is the works of salvation.

    So then the death of Christ was not necessarily to take our place, but to ransom us from the culture of sin, a culture that did not allow the freedom of choice. Thanks to Jesus Christ, we now have that choice. So, who is your Lord?

Radiance

    One of my favorite relationships in the Bible is the relationship between Moses and Yahveh. They had such a close and genuine relationship, one that I am not ashamed to say that I envy. A story that epitomizes the kind of relationship between the two is found Exodus 33:12-34:35. In this story, Moses is back on the mountain talking with Yahveh just after the Golden Calf incident. While they are talking, Moses asks Yahveh for a favor; he wants to see Yahveh's glory. This seems like a rather odd request, but up to this point, Yahveh had been speaking to Moses from a cloud that veiled his presence. But now, because they have gotten so close, Moses wants to see Yahveh as he is, which is more than a little dangerous. Yahveh consents, to a degree. Moses can see Yahveh's backside, but not his face for no one can see Yahveh's face and live. It is too glorious. So Yahveh passes by and proclaims his name, or his character and identity, which is his glory (another subject). That is when Moses sees the glory of God.

    After spending over a month on the mountain, Moses comes back down from the mountain with a new copy of the Ten Commandments on stone. When he does come down, he terrifies everyone because he is radiant (Exodus 34:30). By radiant, I do not mean like really happy radiant. I mean he was literally glowing so bright that the people could not look at him. In order for him to deal with the people, they made him wear a veil so that they could look at him.

    What made him radiant? The answer is pretty obvious: he had seen Yahveh's glory and that purity had caused his face to literally glow. But there is something deeper than that that was the cause of his radiance. His relationship with Yahveh was so deep and so genuine that he could see the glory of the God of the universe. To my knowledge, Moses is the only one besides Christ who truly saw the glory of Yahveh. (Many have seen visions of Yahveh, but this was seeing the real thing without a veil). There was such a closeness between the two that Yahveh felt comfortable enough to remove the veil that masked his glory. Moses was radiant because he had basked in the radiance of Yahveh; because he had been with Yahveh.

    Are we radiant?

    Do we glow?

    Can you pick a Christian out of crowd?

    Should we not be able to?

    We are Christians, are we not? Did not Jesus call us the light of the world? Why are we not glowing? We have talked in previous posts about spiritually this world is like a place that is covered in a dense, gray fog making right and wrong so hard to decipher. There are millions in this world who are begging for lights to lead them. We are supposed to be those lights, but we are not. Why?

    Could it be because we are not seeing Yahveh? Could it be because, unlike Moses, we do not pursue that deep relationship with Yahveh? Yet for that we have no excuse. In Jesus, we have the clearest revelation of God than before in history. But how much do we devote to cultivating that relationship? What are we willing to sacrifice to stand in the presence of Yahveh and soak in his glory? I think for most Christians, the honest answer is not much.

    But that is what it takes. It is time to step into the light of Yahveh's glory and reflect his character. It is time to devote ourselves to getting to really know him. It is time that we took off the veil, like Paul says in 2^nd Corinthians 3:13, and let the radiance of Yahveh glow around us. It is time we become the light of the world to show the people who are in the fog the way home. It is time for us to shine.

How to be a Watchmen

    A couple weeks ago I broke one of my personal rules in that I told you some of the struggles in my personal life. Today I am going to break another personal rule: I am going to tell you how to do something. I hate the question how, as it is probably the most useless question there is. The questions "what" and "why" are so much more vital to understanding and life. Those are the questions that help us distinguish between the black and white through the gray. Those are the questions that lead us to discovering the principles for living life. "How" only deals with practically applying principles into our daily lives. With that is important, too often people try answering the "how" question before answering the "what" and "why". An example of this is the Jews of Jesus day. They answered the "how" of the Sabbath quite thoroughly with some 39 general prohibitions for the Sabbath. Yet, as Jesus repeatedly pointed out, they never bothered with "what is the Sabbath?" and "why is the Sabbath here?" Had they delved into these issues, they probably would have discovered the beauty of the Sabbath and made it a joy, instead of a burden. Alas, they did not.

    Another reason that I disdain the "how" question is that how a principle is applied varies greatly from person to person. Principles are universal; applications are not. Of course I answer the "how" question in my life all the time; I must if I am going to grow as a person or even function as a person. But how I apply one principle or another will probably vary from how you apply the principle. Neither is necessarily wrong nor even better. Different strokes for different folks, as they say. This is something that is important to remember as a watchman: be careful to distinguish between principle and application. Alas, the only advice I can give you on accomplishing that task is to study and internalize the principle, ask questions, and pray for the Holy Spirit to give you discernment. Easier said than done, I assure you. The point is that I cannot easily tell you how to apply these black and white principles because you are different than me.

    But today is different; I am going to tell you how to be a watchman, at least as I understand it. These are more principles than a checklist of things to do, but very practical, at least according to my experience. Understand this one point very clearly though: being a watchman will not endear you to people. Most people will get irritated, annoyed, or even angry because people do not like being told that they and their actions are wrong. Being a Christian, which I would equate with being a watchmen, will not win you any popularity contests. The ancient Israelites killed their watchmen (the prophets). The 1^st New Testament watchman was killed by a woman who could not stand being called out (John the Baptist). The Jews crucified the ultimate watchman (Jesus). They then began to relentlessly persecute that watchman's followers (the apostles, all but one of whom met an unsavory end). Throughout history, watchmen have been derided, persecuted, and murdered (see Foxe's Book of Martyrs). We are not here to be liked; we are here to change the world and the world does not like change. This is simply the way it is; if you cannot handle it, then you may need to seriously reconsider your loyalties and your faith.

    So for those who are up to the challenge, here are the principles of being a proper watchman. The first and most important thing about being a watchman is relationship. In order for people to listen to you, you need to have a good relationship with them. You need to know and accept them for who they are for two reasons: first, if you know them well, then you will be better able to discern between whether they are applying the same principle differently than you or if they are simply disregarding the principle entirely. Secondly, and more importantly, if you have a good relationship with someone, they are much more likely to listen to you because they know that you care. This is probably the most crucial aspect of being a watchman: making sure that people know that you care. As my wise mother is fond of saying, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." I have no idea if she came up with that or not, but here she gets credit for it. Of course you must actually
care about said person. If you do not, then you are not the right person to be their watchman for you will have no chance at a positive effect.

    How you confront someone is also greatly important. Here the principles that Jesus laid forth in Matthew 18:15-20 are quite useful (the man was rather intelligent). Unless absolutely necessary, never call people out in public. If you are unsure, do not. Very few, if any, will respond positively to being called out and humiliated in front of their peers. While there are times for this, public confrontation is as a general rule unadvisable. When you do confront someone privately, make sure that they know you are doing this because you care about them, not because you are interested in being right. If you were offended, let them know by discussing your feelings, not their actions. This puts you in the defensive position, not them. Above all, speak the truth in love, as Paul says (Ephesians 4:15). You do this by being gentle, though there are times for a harsh rebuke, and above all communicating that you are concerned about them, not about getting your way.

    Next, you must listen. As someone, probably several someones whose names escape me at the moment, have said, "God gave us two ears and one mouth. Therefore we should to twice the listening as we do the talking." Some of us have a harder time with that than others. Hence I have a blog where I can "talk" merrily way to my heart's content and somebody is probably going to hear. However, when being a watchman ironically requires that you do more listening than talking. After presenting your concern, let the other person talk. Often they know that what they are doing is out of line, but are hurting inside for some reason or another and need someone to talk it out with. Other times they are confused about something and have questions that need answers. Be the listening ear that need; that alone is often enough to turn people around. Look at Jesus: he listened to people's pain and answered their questions. He was, as a general rule, a rather quiet individual who did more listening than talking. The only times he was loud was with the Jewish leaders who needed it. Even then, he still listened. Part of listening is asking questions. This puts both of you on the same page and also makes the other person feel heard. Being heard is probably one of the most powerful things for a person to experience because it makes them feel valued and cared for. One other thing that is important about listening is that you give the other person a chance to explain. It very well may be that they are simply applying the same principle in a different way. That is okay and now you know that they are on the straight and narrow still. Even if you are wrong, taking the time to check up on someone still builds up that relationship because you are demonstrating that you genuinely care about them. The vast majority of people will appreciate and respect that.

    Finally, let them go. After you have talked, you let them go. Either they will listen or they will not, but ultimately it is their choice and there is really nothing more we can do. A watchman cannot truly force someone inside the walls, a fact that is all the more true in the Kingdom of Heaven. The only person's fate we control is our own. If we have warned, then we have done the best we can. We have to accept people's right to choose their own path. This does not mean that we stop loving or caring about them; but it does mean that we do not force them. It also means that we do not blame ourselves for their choices. This is the hardest thing for a watchman to accept: non-responsibility. All we can do is warn and nothing more. It is a big and frightening task, but it is ours nonetheless. Some will listen, most will probably not, but that does not change our mission. We are the watchmen.

The Watchman

    After my most recent post, a wise young woman asked a very pertinent question: what is the line between taking a stand and imposing your morality on someone else? What is the difference between being a concerned friend or relative who sees an important person in their life going down the wrong path and someone who is harsh and judgmental? Are we are brother's keeper?

    Of all the prophets in the Bible, the one with the most bizarre ministry is without a doubt Ezekiel. This guy went through some really strange stuff. Ezekiel was an exile to Babylon who prophesied from about 592 B.C. to 570 B.C. (Robert K. Mciver; The Abundant Life Bible Amplifier, Ezekiel). Most of his prophecies were direct either at the Jews living in Babylon or remaining in Jerusalem. Of course all of his prophecies were eventually directed at the Jews in Babylon after Jerusalem was destroyed in 586.

Despite preaching the word of the Lord for years, no one listened to him; or rather no one took him seriously. They people continued to keep on doing the same stupid stuff day after day, year after year. In despair, he watched his people continue foolishly down a path that he knew would lead only to their destruction. Ezekiel got tired of saying unpopular things and having it do no good and he probably wanted to just quit. That is when Yahveh told him about the "watchman" in Ezekiel 33.

A watchmen, Yahveh tells Ezekiel, is responsible for his people's lives. If he sees an enemy army coming, he has a duty to sound the warning trumpet and tell everyone to get inside the walls and prepare for battle. Let us say he does that; anyone who hears that warning trumpet and ignores it, then their blood is on their own heads. They had been warned and ignored the warning; therefore the watchmen cannot be held responsible for that. However, let us say that the watchman sees the army coming and then does nothing. Anyone who is killed, which is likely to be most everyone, those peoples blood is on the head of the watchmen. He takes the blame for their deaths because he did not warn the people. He did not do his job.

"Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel," Yahveh tells Ezekiel. The point is clear: I have a message and a warning for you to give to the people of Israel and you are responsible for it. If you give that message and they ignore you, then that is their choice; you are not responsible for their choices. But if you say nothing and do nothing, then you are also held responsible for their choices because you could have warned them but did not. They might have averted disaster if you had warned them but because of your silence, they came to a ruinous end. This does not excuse the actions of the wicked, but rather does not excuse the messenger from giving his message.

We are all watchmen of each other; this part of what it means to be part of the Kingdom of Heaven. It means that we look out for each other's spiritual lives, as well as the spiritual condition of those that are not in the Kingdom of Heaven. Paul asks how can people believe if they have never been told (Romans 10:14, 15). In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does admonish us to take the plank out of our own eye, but then tells us to remove the speck from our brother's eye (Matthew 7:3-5). We are not to leave our brother hanging. How many times did Jesus say, "Go and sin no more"? Did Jesus not constantly try to warn, rebuke, and correct the Jewish leaders? How often did the apostles call each other out when they were going astray? Paul tells us that Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. Obviously rebuking and correcting is something that we are to do to each other when we see our brother or sister going down a dangerous path.

As we progress on our journey through the gray fog of ethics to the clarity of Yahveh's morality, right and wrong become more and more apparent. Where others can only see gray, we see black and white. That knowledge carries a responsibility to inform people of the black and white. What they do with it is their choice; some will listen, others scoff, most will probably ignore. No one ever said being a Christian was easy or pleasant. A read through of Pilgrim's Progress should convince you of that. Isaiah was told right at the beginning of his ministry that the vast majority of people would completely ignore him. They would be "Ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving." Truth is their response is not our responsibility; rather ours is to give them a chance to have a response, one way or another.

How is this different than judging? Simple, judgment demands that others reach a certain level of "holiness" before you will accept them. Judging is telling people they are not good enough to make the journey to begin with, as if you were. Warning accepts people and then pushes them to become better; judging demands that you become better to be accepted. Think of the Pharisees: in order to associate with them, you had to be a "good" person. They reviled Jesus because he spent time with "sinners" (Matthew 9:9-13), people they would never be with. Judging sees yourself, intentionally or not, as God. What you understand right and wrong to be is the absolute standard; you leave no room for the possibility that there might be more that you do not understand. It is refusing to admit you are messed up; it is ignoring the "plank" in your own eye. You do not want to help people; you want to exclude them to preserve your own "purity." Judging is standing at the door of the church and filtering the people coming in based on their dress, occupation, type of Bible they carry, state of lucidity, and so on. This does not call people to a better life nor does it warn them of their own wickedness; rather it tells them that salvation is not for them so don't bother. This is the watchman taking a person and throwing them outside the gate.

Jesus accepted everyone, even the Jewish leaders, for who they were. But because he is perfect and he is the law-giver, he knew of the best life possible for people. So he told people about this life in the Kingdom of Heaven, something that was available for everyone. He accepted people where they were at yes, but he also did not leave them there. He told people that he knew of a better life that they could have. Jesus pushed and prodded the people around him to see that they could have so much more than this. Some accepted his message, others did not, some even crucified him for it. That did not (through his disciples) stop him from still being the watchman. While the rejection saddened him, he did not love or accept those people any less. But importantly, he respected it as their choice, not his (see story of rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-30). If the God of the universe who could control men's choice can respect them, then so must we.

We are to tell people about life in the Kingdom of Heaven, which means we warn and rebuke. But it also means that we must let people make their own choices and deal with the consequences. We warn, not control. Yahveh has gifted us with free choice, something we cannot take away from others. Guards we are not. Watchmen we are.

Black, White, and Gray

    This morning I was sitting in New Testament, half-listening to the professor describe the facets of John's epistles when he said that for John, everything was in black and white. Scanning through the epistles, you see he is right (not surprising given his PhD in New Testament studies). The letters are filled with images of light and dark; perfection and sinfulness; friends and enemies of God. John makes it seem that everything is either good or bad and there is no middle ground. This, of course, got me thinking. An oddity is that the class that I consider the most boring keeps stimulating my mind, but I digress.

    Is life really that black and white where there is a definite right and definite wrong? My friends who would say absolutely not; life is not black and white, but gray. "Everyone has different beliefs that work for them and are sincere about it," they tell me. "These people sincerely believe they are following god of some kind. You're telling me that God doesn't accept that because it isn't exactly in the way he prescribed?" My more conservative relations would disagree, claiming that there is an absolute truth and therefore an absolute right and wrong. "If there isn't," they argue, "then what's the point of anything? How do we know whether or not we are following God? Why bother trying to follow God if it doesn't matter what we do or believe? That's chaos."

    I say they are right. Who is right, you ask, the postmodern mind or the traditional mind? Yes. As in yes, they are both right. Allow me to explain.

    There is such a thing as absolute truth. This is because Yahveh is absolute: he, and only he, is the source of everything (Genesis 1:1, Exodus 20:11, Job 26:7, Psalm 33:6, John 1:3, and so on). As the creator, he makes the rules and has the right to make the rules; indeed he must for without rules there is only chaos. By rules of course I mean a certain way things ought to run, like my car has the rule of running on gasoline. If I tried to use diesel, things would not turn out so well. Therefore Yahveh is the lawgiver as well as the life-giver and he does not change (Numbers 23:19, Hebrews 13:8). If you break the rules, i.e. live in a way that disharmonious with the way you are designed to live, there are definite consequences, namely death. Look at Adam and Eve: they choose to go against what Yahveh had commanded and there were immediate and long-term consequences. There was a big, black line that they had crossed and there was the result, one we all live (and die) with. It was black and white; do what Yahveh says and live a happy, joyful life; rebel and die.

    Because there is an absolute creator, there is therefore an absolute law-giver. Because there is an absolute law-giver, then there is an absolute law. Because this law-giver is unchanging, then so is his law. Therefore there is an unchanging, absolute law, one that determines the best possible way we are to live our lives. Anything, anything, that is not in harmony with that law is bad. We would call it wrong, or even sinful. Hence there is an absolute morality.

    What are not absolute are ethics. Morals and morality are the ideal standards that we live by. In other words, if all was perfect in the world, this is how we would live. I am sure by now you see the catch to all of this: we do not live is such a world. This is where ethics come in: the practical application of morals in our day-day life, at least as I understand the terms. Instead of living in a place that nothing bad ever happens, we live in a place where bad is the norm. As such, we have to make judgments about what is right and what is wrong. For example, the Bible says do not take a human's life, but does that mean I allow one person to kill another because I should not take a life? Is there a difference? Is it wrong to steal money so that I can pay a medical bill to save someone's life? While we will probably never be faced with such issues in our lives, we do face issues like that, simply on a much less dramatic scale, all the time. We ask ourselves do the ends justify the means? Or do the means justify the ends?

    The more relevant issue we deal with is that so many people have different ideas of what is right and what is wrong. In our culture, it is completely appropriate to have sex with virtually whoever you please before (and sometimes during) marriage. In an Islamic culture, you would get stoned for it (and I do not mean with drugs). In this culture, women can wear whatever they like, as long as it something (though that does depend on your job); in Islamic culture women are strongly encouraged to cover-up. Who is right? Or is everyone right?

    This is where things become gray. What should be crystal clear (Yahveh's law) is not. The law says love Yahveh with all your heart, soul, and mind and your neighbor as yourself. How do I do that? To be honest, I do not always know. I know it looks like Jesus, but how do I apply the principles of his life 2000 years ago into today's life and society. It is not like we all walk around wearing bathrobes and have the Roman government sitting on our heads.    The fact is that we live in a world where the black of sin and the white of Yahveh have collided, resulting a gray fog that makes telling the difference between the two very difficult.

    During the American Revolution, the British and the Americans fought over New York in the Battle of Long Island. The Americans were soundly beaten and in danger of being destroyed, which have relegated the Revolution to a mere footnote in history. General George Washington had to retreat, which he did. During his retreat, which was near perfect, there was a thick fog that obscured the Americans from the British who were nearby. It was so thick that one American claimed you could barely discern a man six yards away. The last Americans could say that they heard the British soldiers digging their trenches, they were so close, but the British did not know the Americans were gone.

    Life is like that. We are caught in the middle of this dense fog between two sides. The closer we get to Yahveh, the clearer and clearer the picture becomes, but it is still a shadow or silhouette. So is there an absolute morality? Yes. Can I, in good conscience, claim to know it? No. Rather understanding right and wrong is a process that takes a lifetime to figure out through the fog. Some days I am nearing the enemy's side and so what appears to be right is really wrong and vice-versa. Other days I come closer to Yahveh's side and the gray of life becomes more black and white. But this does not mean that I can impose my sense of morality on anyone because I might be wrong. This is a personal journey that each of us must undertake for ourselves. To be sure there are things that we discover together and if we see those we love veering wrong, we try to help them. In return, we must be willing to admit that we may be wrong and need to correct ourselves. But in the end, the search for absolute truth is an individual journey that we must make and cannot impose on anyone else. Therefore, morality is black, white, and gray.