Nate Pyle over at From One degree to Another has written about the man's responsibility in the lust problem.  Find it here.  He is spot on right.

Authority

How do we know that Scripture is “scriptural”? 

February 9, 2012

Among the range of various local evangelical church’s statements of faith is usually – perhaps even first – some affirmation about the perfection of Scripture.  The National Association of Evangelicals places it first in their list of seven essentials:

We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.

From my own home church, an EFCA body, is this:

2. We believe that God has spoken in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, through the words of human authors. As the verbally inspired Word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for salvation, and the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged. Therefore, it is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.

These representative evangelical statements both assert the infallibility of the Bible (as long as it is confined to the 66 Canonical books only, and does not include the so-called Apocryphal books).  While the NAE leaves the implications of its statement as inferences one must draw, the EFCA’s draws those implications out more concretely.

Leaving aside the differences in form, function, and priority, I am shocked into a question about the assertion itself.  From whence comes the authority to make these declarations about the Bible?  How do we know such things – how do we dare assert such things – about ancient manuscripts?

To borrow a bit from the ancient Scribes who questioned Jesus: “Who gave this authority?”

Is there Sex in Heaven?

This title is a line borrowed from the brilliant philosopher, Peter Kreeft.  But it's not the subject of this post.  Sex is.  Heaven is not.  What about sex?  It is both everything and nothing, all at the same time.


"We live in such a relentlessly consumer-driven culture that we begin to see ourselves as products on display." - Frederica Mathewes-Green


There are few social critics and theological thinkers are wonderfully poetic as Frederic Matthewes-Green.  She does well with the written word, but she also does well with the spoken.  Her talk on the meaning of sex at the Veritas Forum in February 2011, is relentlessly engaging and consistently thought provoking.  

What Must I Do to Be Saved?

I am a big fan of Professor Scot McKnight ever since I saw him speak at a Youth Specialties conference awhile back.  I love his "The Blue Parakeet" and "Jesus Creed".  Both of them are challenging, thought-provoking works which will lay assault to sleepy spiritual apathy.  Now he's written "The King Jesus Gospel" and he is blogging about questions his readers are asking.


The question of what comprises the gospel and how we are compelled to respond to it hits us where we live and concerns questions I have been asking quite a bit recently.


I was taught that salvation comes only after reciting the so-called Sinner's Prayer.  McKnight says that this prayer "emerges from the soterian gospel which has for years invited people to pray a prayer to 'receive Christ' or to 'ask God’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ' etc."  His answer is worth reading.

It's everyone else's fault

Man's inability to understand his own role in his troubles has been part of our character makeup ever since Adam blamed Eve.  It must be someone else or something else outside of me which caused this.  And while there are always exogenous factors which affect our circumstances, they only tell part of our tragic story.  This can be especially true in relationships, where misheard words and misinterpreted motives are the stuff of situation comedies and Lifetime movies.  We do not always recognize the role we play in the relational hurricanes in which we find ourselves.

"All I said was" and "I didn't do anything to deserve that" come to our lips, first, last, and always, it seems.

This came home to me quite recently in a conversation with a friend I love.  In discussing his younger brother's involvement with a group of the elder's friends, the elder told me, "It's just that I can't stand him.  He rubs me the wrong way.  He is so annoying.  If he were only like So-and-so (another of the younger set, whose own older brother is a friend of my young friends), it would be fine.  So-and-so is cool.  My brother is so disagreeable."

And that got me thinking.  Not just about sibling loathing (somewhat common in teenage years).  But also about the role that peers, associates, and culture plays on our own character and tendency toward loathesomeness.

Here's the thing that stuck me.  So-and-so and his older brother get along great.  The older brother genuinely loves and likes the younger.  He protects him.  He edifies him.  He encourages him.  Moreover, the family dynamic seems to be one of mutual admiration, respect, and love.  It's no wonder that So-and-so is "cool" (as my young friend said).  He is surrounded by people who lovingly guide him, encourage him, respect him, and like him.  Affection and mutual respect rule their house.  What else would result from that brew (absent mental disorder) than a well-adjusted kid who's cool?

So my young friend, blithely ignorant of his active role in his younger brother's loathesomeness, turns up the heat on the sauce by being consistently disagreeable toward him.  It must be the younger brother's fault.  After all, I have tried to be nice.  I did nothing wrong.  It's not me.  It's him.

And our ever-nagging, ever whispering pride, sitting alertly on our shoulder, tells us to be teflon, to not let correction abide, to resist any thought that we ourselves may bear some (most?) of the responsibility for our own relational hurricanes.  May our God have mercy on us!  And I think of DC Talk's words as I try to bring my own sickness under control,

Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves

There's an old expression, "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations".  This is an American form of a Lancashire proverb, “there’s nobbut three generations atween a clog and clog.”  Our changing fashion sense may have rendered this old proverb less meaningful in the day of business casual and casual casual (even the CEO is called "dude" and "buddy" and everyone goes by his first name).


So, what does it mean?


The expression captures the waxing and waning of family wealth, the hardworking grandfather who rises from working class drudgery (i.e., wearing working class shirtsleeves) to leave a successful enterprise to his son, who squanders it (after all, the son had it handed to him and did not know the toil and sacrifice of the grandfather).  By the time the grandson comes along, they are back to the working class (or shirtsleeves by the third generation).  The Scottish render this proverb as "The father buys, the son builds, the grandchild sells, and his son begs."  


Like all proverbs, this is not necessarily an ironclad rule so much as it is an observation.  It happens, but it does not ALWAYS happen.  Beyond the world of work, are there lessons this proverb can yield for the American church?


Barna (and others) often report on church-raised kids who wander from the faith.  Why?  And perhaps the more salient question is, if this is undersirable, how can we as parents prevent it?

Amnesia

Why do children raised in the church walk away from it when they hit college?  A crucial question which has no simple answers (though Barna takes a shot at answering it).  And asking the kids who have turned away from the faith of their fathers why they have turned will yield useful answers.  But how certain should anyone be about self-reported motives?


One of the wandering youth, in explaining why he "got rid of church" explained:  "I would ask questions, and they would just say it's not important, or have faith."  Really?  His parents, pastor, and youth leaders really said his questions were not important, that he should just have faith?  Hmmm, I suppose it's possible.   But I know lots of parents, and I know lots of youth leaders.  And I do not know any of them to be the sort to dismiss questions in this way.  It's just not in their character.


So, is the kid lying?  Not exactly.  But memory is a tricky, tricky thing.  Especially our subjective memory.  We can seldom remember with any degree of accuracy the events that happen to us.  Does anyone remember the M*A*S*H episode where Hawkeye is Court Martialed for punching Frank Burns?  It's one classic example of subjective memory errors (played with comedic affect).  The brilliant Nassem Talib calls it "retrospective distortion".  Chris Nolan made an entire movie with memory as the theme.


So what do we make of kids leaving church once they leave the nest?  Are there questions which are not answered.  Perhaps.  But could it also be that these kids have been conditioned to expect certainty and satisfaction of all desires?  Let's face it.  Since the Baby Boomers moved to the Baby Busters and beyond, we have become an "instant gratification" culture.  We no longer seem able to cope with disappointment, ambiguity, and delayed gratification.


The poor kid probably did not get satisfactory answers to his questions.  But that may have more to do with the nature of the questions than with the answers themselves.  Some questions simply do not have good answers this side of the veil.  And we do a grave disservice to our kids by leading them to expect that every little question they whine at us will be answered by the end of the show.


So, what's the 


Christian parents who attempt to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the LORD are understandably concerned with wayward sons who choose different paths than the ones on which their parents set them.