Living in the mystery

The world is awash in mystery. Science seeks it out. Religions dive in to explore it. And people both fear and desire interaction with things they don't understand. 

We have a lot of questions:

• Does my life have a purpose? If I didn't exist, would it matter?
• Why have people hurt me? How should I respond to them?
• How much free choice do individuals have? Does it matter if our choices harm others?
• The world became chaotic, just when I thought  was getting a grip on things. Is anyone in control?
• Nature seems to be going mad. How do I understand my place in my surroundings?
• Does it matter what path I choose or whom I worship? Does it all sort itself out in the end?
• How do I respond to (or explain things) I don't understand?

Everyone looks for meaning and comprehending these mysteries of life and more. Most people make excuses to find answers ANYWHERE except in the Bible and through belief in the Christian God. We may have various reasons to avoid the Mystery of becoming Christ-followers, including:

• We prefer to invent our gods. We don't want anyone or thing in authority over us. It's more appealing to pick and choose from religious traditions to imagine a perfect scenario of cosmic appeasement ... with our Self at the center.
• The Christian God makes demands on his adherents - to follow him, we must fall in with him and his expectations. He refuses to come alongside us as a magic genie who responds to cosmic manipulation. (i.e. "If I live well, he must bless me and do what I want/need/desire.") 
• Christians are a funny bunch. God has chosen "the weak things of the world" to show off the marvels of his universe and his generous love. We don't necessarily want to be identified as "one of those kooks."
• It's politically incorrect and intolerant to believe - never mind to say - "This is God's way. The only way to heaven." (And who even believes in a Christian heaven and hell anymore?) 
• We may have been disappointed with Christians or the Church in the past. We might have experienced an abuse of power, hypocritical believers, people who don't live up to our expectations, a church that gets off into weird sectarian doctrines, etc.

Don't look everywhere but God's offer! It's worth checking out the Bible's claims of God seeking us out, the Mysterious Creator wanting to connect with us, providing a way to know a God who is altogether holy, just, AND loving.

I'm encouraging those who are already in the faith to plunge in wholeheartedly. For those exploring their options to consider traveling the road of life, please open wide to the possibility of "GOD WITH US" in Jesus Christ. How?

• Read through the Bible. Not just once, but many times. Grab a Bible handbook and study guides along the way. There are many versions from easy to academic, authored by people who have thought deeply about the faith and can explain culture and customs that are confusing to readers. Or choose an online reader with research resources in it. Click here.
• Listen to podcasts about theology (thinking about God). One version: my husband's been a theology prof for 20 years and has a series on "Basic Christian Thought" here, including thoughts on heaven and hell, God and the angels, the Trinity as holy dance, creation, the place of humans, etc.
• Host or join a group that explores scripture. I like the range of groups here but a local church near you probably has groups as well. If they're kooky, don't give up. After all, you don't give up eating just because you hit a lousy restaurant!

The adventure of life is worth exploring to the max. The mystery of life is worth examination and interaction. Though we can't fully understand God and his ways, he invites us into relationship. That mystery is the deepest of all for me! Have fun on the journey and let me know how it goes.

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*Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span. Exodus 23:24-26 NIV

*We have heard with our ears, O God, our ancestors have told us, what deeds you performed in their days, in the days of old. Psalm 44:1

*Though you have not seen Him, you love Jesus Christ, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls. As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries. 1 Peter 1:8, 9-10 (NASB) 

*And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things
in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. Ephesians 1:9-10 NIV

Moravian Prayer: Lord, it is by faith that we know and that we are called. May we follow your call as strongly as those who walked side by side with you. We hear of your works and are led to do your work as well. Amen.

Round and round we go...

I don't often write theology and seldom publish what I write when I'm ticked off. Today I find myself very angry about ideas from a book circulating in the churches... again. Similar reoccurring heresies pop up every once in a while, deceiving believers with half-truths and outright lies. So here goes.

I recently was given Lew White's self-published "Fossilized Customs" as a go-to book on how to serve God better. "You'll love it. It will open your eyes." Well, it opened my eyes all right. I couldn't believe the nonsense I was reading. What goes around, comes around ... including heresies. What did I think? (Note: I checked my ideas with a few theologians before writing this.)

What rubbish. By the time I'd finished the second page, it was clear that this was a rant of legalism and church-bashing, not a scholarly work. Fanciful claims appear on photo captions as well as in the text. (For example, that archaeologists have discovered 3-4 meter skeletons, supposedly the Nephilim of Genesis 6:4, and hidden the evidence. Where are the studies to prove the claims? The photographic "evidence" is badly Photoshopped.) Most stridently, the book shouts that a Saturday Sabbath is commanded by God. Obviously the author gives no credibility to Galatians 5, Colossians 3, or Romans 14, where Paul forbids arguments over the day of the Sabbath.

When I got to page 7, deriding baptism as "dunking," church attendance, and tithes and offerings as "pay pay pay," I began to steam at the sarcasm. Then I read, "Arise, shine, for your light has come!" (i.e. "My book of exposes and facts is here!") The author adds: "Soon you'll know more than your denominational pastor does." I get nauseated by arrogance and anti-intellectualism that disrespects pastors who study scriptures and feed their flocks with solid biblical truth rather than sensationalism.

The pictures and choices of illustrations are aggressively offensive and insulting and some sketches look demonic (75). The book looks and reads like a National Enquirer mixture of fact and fiction: historical customs and traditions are viewed with a sick sexual bent. The Christmas tree or a civic memorial pillar? A phallic symbol of course. Santa Claus with kids on his lap? Clearly alluding to the idol Moleck and the custom of putting children "on his lap" to offer them as child sacrifices. A snapshot of a mayor cutting the ribbon for a new building? Symbolically cutting a hymen... OK, that's enough. But you get the picture. I was offended, grossed out, shocked, and mortified that evil syncretism caused by personal perversion was presented as God's caution for believers.

The author refuses to reference the scholars or studies he disses, making up some history or ignoring facts (i.e. the early NT church - including Paul - and second-century churches already celebrated "on the first day" or Sunday. That was not a new invention forced on Christians by Constantine, as White claims (7, 80, etc.)

God occasionally used rituals familiar to Israelites from surrounding contexts to help them understand worship. Building altars with burnt sacrifices, erecting memorial pillars, etc. are only a few. Missionaries today similarly contextualize the gospel into new settings. If the book's ideas were followed to their natural conclusions, we'd have to live in Israelite tents, worship at the temple on the Sabbath, and be bound up again in ceremonies that foreshadowed the Savior. I'm grateful that the apostles put no such burdens on Gentile believers (Jerusalem Council, Acts 15).

Eve's sin was trying to acquire "more knowledge" than God gave, discerning "good and evil" beyond God's instructions. She disobeyed God by going against his instructions to leave with God the "secret things." (Note the principle of Deuteronomy 29:29). When we warp our speculations and half-truths into "facts" and claim that God has spoken, we fall into original sin.

You've probably figured out that I really get mad when someone twists the truth and harms the flock of God. I say, "Stay away!" from ANY such pseudo-scholarship. May God have mercy on Lew White's soul and keep the unwary from falling into this snare of deception.

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*Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. Romans 14: 1, 5-9

*You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:26-29 NIV

*Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. Colossians 2:16-23

*I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding.

For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God. Philippians 1:9-11 NLT

Worshipping foreign gods

We would have thought they were mad. Utterly bananas.

When I was a kid, had anyone placed an idol in their living room or spent hours meditating on "nothingness" for peace of mind, we would have called them crazy. Seems everywhere I look, there's a buddha sitting on a tabletop. Decorators like to express a feeling of tranquility in a LR or bedroom by adding foreign gods as symbols. You can find out how to build a shrine or "meditation room" in the DIY section of the library. Any neighbor on my childhood street who would have checked out such a book would have been marked as an insane person.

Reading history, it's easy to see how the West abandoned their love of God, in whom souls find rest, for the frantic pace of capitalism and consumerism. We fell in love with stuff, and then found our souls empty.

"Want to be really empty?" asked priests of world religions. "We can show you how." In came the gods made by hands, subtly in music (via John Lennon and Yoko Ono, yeah we thought they were nuts when they first broadcast Eastern rites). Foreign gods came creeping in with decor (oh, it's just a pretty statue. doesn't mean anything to me.) They disguised their houses of worship as holistic wellness centers (check out the "meditation rooms" that used to be chapels in hospitals, catholic retreat centers, and airports). And slowly but surely idolatry pervaded our homes and thinking ("You know, I think this guardian angel on my keychain really makes a difference, don'tcha, Saint so-and-so?")

It's not like we were ever all Christians. But the church used to be a place of refuge, where you knew someone would listen, pray to God with you, and offer help in times of trouble. I doubt if most of my fellow Seattle-ites would turn to the church rather than a bar or social services. Few people notice church buildings: it's like we have blinders on when we drive by.

I was creeped out by this photo on the BBC news this morning. Clinton is in Myanmar (formerly Burma). When would the heads of state take Communion in a Christian church... or even attend worship services with our government leaders? Yet with a smile on her face, Mrs. C. pours a symbolic water sacrifice on the altar of a god who is no god, a representation of demonic forces and evil. Is no one thinking about the message such a ritual binds us to as a nation?

We have bowed our hearts in the high places. Israel was severely punished for such abandonment of God. Rich and poor, influencers and peasants... all were swept away by economic downturns and wars and natural disasters. What makes us better than they? (Or has God become blinder to the sins of our leaders?) We will suffer God's justice because he notices those whose hearts incline toward him and those who worship things made with hands.

Christ sacrificed himself, One for all, so that we might have access to God. "Oh, Lord, let us not turn away from the abundance, peace, and joy you promise." We no longer have to sacrifice as the Israelites did, but we must turn day by day with hearts wide open to the God who has saved us and loved us enough to die on our behalf.

What abundant life we celebrate in this Christmas season! Don't let it be lost among those you love. In this season, decorations and business, presents and feasting can consume our time for worship and meditation on the One True God, who made us and wants to call us his own. 

Lord have mercy! Christ have mercy! Lord have mercy... on us all! Let's pray together today... for our governments, neighbors, and others who do not yet worship the Creator. 

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*Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to keep the lamps burning continually. The lampstand will stand in the Tabernacle, in front of the inner curtain that shields the Ark of the Covenant. Aaron and his sons must keep the lamps burning in the LORD's presence all night. This is a permanent law for the people of Israel, and it must be observed from generation to generation. Exodus 27:20–21 NLT

*Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness;  come before him with joyful songs. Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. Psalm 100 NIV 

*While Paul was waiting in Athens, he was upset to see all the idols in the city. He went to the Jewish meeting place to speak to the Jews and to anyone who worshiped with them. Day after day he also spoke to everyone he met in the market. Some of them were Epicureans and some were Stoics, and they started arguing with him. People were asking, "What is this know-it-all trying to say?" Some even said, "Paul must be preaching about foreign gods! That's what he means when he talks about Jesus and about people rising from death."

They brought Paul before a council called the Areopagus, and said, "Tell us what your new teaching is all about. We have heard you say some strange things, and we want to know what you mean." More than anything else the people of Athens and the foreigners living there loved to hear and to talk about anything new.

So Paul stood up in front of the council and said: "People of Athens, I see that you are very religious. As I was going through your city and looking at the things you worship, I found an altar with the words, 'To an Unknown God.' You worship this God, but you don't really know him. So I want to tell you about him. This God made the world and everything in it. He is Lord of heaven and earth, and he doesn't live in temples built by human hands. He doesn't need help from anyone. He gives life, breath, and everything else to all people. From one person God made all nations who live on earth, and he decided when and where every nation would be.

"God has done all this, so that we will look for him and reach out and find him. He isn't far from any of us, and he gives us the power to live, to move, and to be who we are. 'We are his children,' just as some of your poets have said.

"Since we are God's children, we must not think that he is like an idol made out of gold or silver or stone. He isn't like anything that humans have thought up and made. In the past, God forgave all this because people did not know what they were doing. But now he says that everyone everywhere must turn to him. He has set a day when he will judge the world's people with fairness. And he has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death."

As soon as the people heard Paul say that a man had been raised from death, some of them started laughing. Others said, "We will hear you talk about this some other time." When Paul left the council meeting, some of the men put their faith in the Lord and went with Paul. Acts 17:16-34 CEV