Hazardous Hubris

The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.

-- Psalm 25:9

Nietzsche considered the "will to power" to be the most basic human drive. Our culture implicitly agrees. Having the high hand in any conflict is to feel secure. In all realms of current life, such as finance, law, science, politics, and social relationships, tremendous energy is expended to maintain this upper hand.

This natural desire is no doubt important. It always has been. Cain sought power, his descendant Lamech sought even more. From the wicked kings of Israel to the present moguls of business and politics, the driving force of history seems to be the quest for power.

We who take seriously the coming of God's Kingdom need to be careful about this. It is one thing to claim culture for Christ, it is quite another to do it with a high hand. Arrogance, even in the name of God, is unlikely to garner his favor. In 2 Kings 10, Jehu's zeal in slaughtering the house of Ahab, although commended by God, was not grounded in faith. He "took no heed to walk in the law of the LORD God of Israel with all his heart." v. 31. Because Jehu exalted himself, Hosea ch.1 tells us the kingdom of Israel was to cease.

But the soul that doeth aught with a high hand, whether he be home-born or a soujourner, the same blasphemeth Jehovah; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.

--Numbers 15:30 (ASV)

As always, there are significant controversies bubbling in the so-called world of reformed Christianity. I have strong opinions on some of them, indifferent opinions on others. Where one has a strong opinion, I think it is important to express it clearly and with reason. But I've been around long enough to know that how you fight makes all the difference. When the counterattack involves name-calling, sanctimonious smugness, and back-handed dismissal, the battle is over. The important thing is not to blow it by responding in kind.

So it goes in all of our conflicts. The battle is the Lord's. A brief review of the word "meek" in the Bible produced this interesting nugget:

Seek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD'S anger.

-- Zephaniah 2:3

The word for "meek" here in the Hebrew, (ענוי) (transliterated "anavee") means lowly or humbled. But what is interesting is that these meek people "have wrought his judgment." And Zephaniah equates meekness with righteousness, which itself means being in the right both morally and legally.

There is something important here. Being right involves being meek. Meekness, in other words, is not for wilting wimps. It is for those who look to God for protection and seek to glorify only God in their rightness. How difficult it is for us to hold to that while we are tempted to bash our opponents. May our zeal be grounded in meekness. May it not be the zeal of Jehu.

For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation.
--Psalm 149:4:

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
-- Matthew 5:5

The Inkhorn Man

And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brasen altar.

And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side;

And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.

And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:

Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. . . .

And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as thou hast commanded me.

Ezekiel 9:2-6, 11

I learned this afternoon that a reformed man, whom I had corresponded with from time to time, had abandoned the Protestant faith and converted to Catholicism. I consider this a disaster, but it is in God's hands. Others I know are playing with the strange fire of neo-legalism. A war is going on and casualties are falling on all sides.

In our days of moral relativity, ambiguity is the rule. Degrees of grey define our ethics.

These amorphous standards are perhaps Satan's master stroke for our era. They comprise a false two-edged sword: the doctrine of the image of God is perverted by denying virtue; the doctrine of total depravity is neutered by assuming that everyone is good.

A steadfast person fulfilling his calling is a terrifying thing.

The Inkhorn Man had no such problem. He was given a terrible and clear-cut duty: identify by a mark those who weep at abomination. He knew full well the consequences because God told him and the five others what was to happen. Everyone without the mark -- man, woman, or child -- was to be executed.

Ezekiel had just been shown how the elders of Judah were worshipping idols. The women were weeping for the Babylonian fertility god Tammuz. Priests were worshipping the sun. Yet, in public, they all pretended to be faithful.

The Inkhorn Man was not distracted. He walked quietly through the city evaluating each person he met. One step after another, one mark here, no mark there -- no appeal and no second chance. When done, he reported without self-congratulation, "I have done as thou hast commanded me."

We also have been given commands from our King. We are to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. We often tell ourselves that compliance is impossible. And so it is. But this should not keep us from emulating the single-mindedness of the Inkhorn Man. We walk one step at a time, read line by line, and pray.

Every day we are bombarded by distractions, rumors, false doctrines. Wolfish teachers beckon from the internet and from the streets. Vanity Fair is doing brisk trade and hundreds are drawn to its gates. Some of them are friends going astray. Yet our duty is to warn them and walk on. "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." We are to keep our eyes on the prize, the Word who sustains us.

It is a frightening thing to be His servant. It is also frightening to see professing Christians drift toward shipwreck. His yoke is easy yet they find a way to make it chafe. Playing games with the gospel is deadly and serious. We are to walk in sobriety and with a single eye.

God be praised that he keeps his own.

Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

Hebrews 13:5.

Double Entendre and Double-Speak

The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD. Proverbs 16:33.

And he cast for it four rings of gold, to be set by the four corners of it; even two rings upon the one side of it, and two rings upon the other side of it. Exodus 37:3

I took my last LLM tax final for the quarter last night. As I left the building after the three hour exam, I thought to myself, "The die is cast."

Then I noticed the delightful double entendre. When you toss a die, as in one of a pair of dice, you are doing what Proverbs 16:33 describes. The outcome is determined and out of your control. It is in God's hands.

But as an amateur foundryman, I've cast molten metal into dies. There again, I'm reminded of God's working hand. He formed me in the womb. He casts the outcome of all things as if pouring his will into his handcrafted mold.

Perhaps overdoing it, I thought of how machinists can use a die to stamp metal into a certain shape. Again it reminded me of God's hand: he casts the handle to the die-press which forms me by force and some violence to conform to what he has determined.

So the die has been cast, my first quarter of the tax program is behind me. God has been gracious in sustaining me.

Now for something completely different:

As I mused about double entendres, I noticed another example of double-speak in the news. Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota apparently had a form of brain hemorrhage yesterday. He has undergone surgery and his doctors are optimistic. It is big news among the political types because he is a Democrat. If he has to step down, the Republican governor of South Dakota decides his replacement. If the replacement is a Republican, the Democrats lose control of the Senate.

So while a man is in critical condition recovering from surgery, the political vultures are hovering over the outcome. Shades of Jude 1:9, perhaps, but neither side is aligned with Michael.

But the double-speak was this:

"A person familiar with Johnson's condition said the 59-year-old senator's underlying condition caused the stroke-like symptoms and doctors will be watching him closely for the next 24 to 48 hours. The person spoke on condition of anonymity out of respect for the senator's family."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061214/ap_on_go_co/johnson

The person claims anonymity out of respect for the senator's family? Not likely, if the family wanted privacy. No, the gossiper (which is what he is if the family wanted privacy) spoke on the condition of anonymity out of respect for his own fear of being exposed.

I've written about this sort of thing before. It's a plague on our language and our thinking.

Dignities and the dishonorable

But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.

But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption.

2 Peter 2:10-12.

I come from a big-time political family. My "godfather" was a U.S. senator. My Dad was his field aid. My grandfather was Attorney General and later a Supreme Court Justice in Montana. My great-grandfather was instrumental in getting Harry Truman on FDR's ticket. Our family was steeped in the old-time Democratic Party tradition of back-room politics presenting itself as populism. I grew up among the sausage makers: lobbyists, news broadcasters, greater and lesser politicians, the behind the scene wheeler-dealers with bloodshot eyes and hangovers who mastered the art of patriotic spin. I even tried running for office myself but couldn't pull it off. I was too introverted. It made me very tired.

And I committed the greatest act of family rebellion by occasionally voting for Republicans.

From that background I naturally developed a cynicism that plagues me still. I am sorely tempted to rail against "dignities". I am tempted to rationalize that because they are so undignified, I get a pass. Peter tells me otherwise.

Calvin considers the civil magistrate to be ordained by God:

The Lord has not only testified that the office of magistrate is approved by and acceptable to him, but he also sets out its dignity with the most honorable titles and marvelously commends it to us.
. . .

This amounts to the same thing as to say: it has not come about by human perversity that the authority over all things on earth is in the hands of kings and other rulers, but by divine providence and holy ordinance.

Calvin's Institutes, 4.20.4, McNeil Edition, Westminster John Knox Press, 1960.

So I am reluctant to gratuitously attack our leaders. I do believe I have warrant to point out their errors, but that is for another time.

Happily, I feel no such constraint concerning a former leader, Mr. Contract with (on) America, Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. He is considered (perhaps only by himself) to be a potential presidential contender. He is notorious for his wit and somewhat less well-known for his callousness.

But he is adding new foundations to his notoriety. Two months ago he advocated initiating war with practically every country in the Middle East. A couple of days ago he clearly called for the government to reconsider the First Amendment. He wants to monitor what Americans say and how we say it:

"Gingrich Says Free Speech Helps Terrorists"

Ironically, Mr. Gingrich claims to want to expand free speech in one realm: the activity of giving money to politicians. He apparently thinks that civil liberties are something to be distributed by the government to its friends.

Mr. Gingrich is a history professor; he understands the purpose and spirit behind the First Amendment. He clearly thinks the time for such things has passed. Of course, the First Amendment is not limited to speech, but addresses religion and assembly too. In a few years your website might be shut down. In a few more years, perhaps your assembly will be too. In Mr. Gingrich's world, it will all depend upon how loyal you are to the cause du jour.

My suggestion: keep an eye on Newt and his friends. They came on the scene masquerading as conservatives. Whether by the corruption of power or by original design, the so-called new conservatives are looking more and more like old fascists. The old true conservatives have been licking their wounds since Goldwater's defeat.

Calvin, in his Institutes, ended his discourse about the civil magistrate with these words:

The Lord has declared his approval of their offices. Accordingly, no one ought to doubt that civil authority is a calling, not only holy and lawful before God, but also the most sacred and by far the most honorable of all callings in the whole life of mortal men.

Id.

Would that God would send men who realize this truth, and keep us from the judgment of being ruled by those who don't. God directs us to honor the dignities. May God be merciful to grant us dignities who are honorable.

Left Behind

Thank God I am not a dispensationalist. Otherwise, I would have been a bit startled at seeing more than 100 abandoned cars on the side of the freeway in a three mile stretch of my morning commute.

It was not the rapture. Instead, people encountered snow and just gave up. It was an odd sight for this Montana native. Many Puget Sound drivers literally freeze in panic when it snows.

Those who didn't give up found that it took 3 hours to go 30 miles, even in the early morning:

I'm glad that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven. He willed a few more to fall this morning.

Spinning for Secrets, Reflections from a Lord's Day Journey

Gnosticism (nŏs'tĭsĭz-m), dualistic religious and philosophical movement of the late Hellenistic and early Christian eras. The term designates a wide assortment of sects, numerous by the 2d cent. A.D.; they all promised salvation through an occult knowledge that they claimed was revealed to them alone. . . .

(The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.)

Although many definitions can be found for Gnosticism, the basic idea is that there is some sort of secret knowledge that will lead to a better state. The prospect entices. We, as fallen beings, want to get ahead of the other guy. We mitigate our competitiveness by convincing ourselves that we would bring everyone else along after we have figured it out. But we do want to be first.

The mystery religions rehash an old story. Satan offered the mystery knowledge to Eve in the Garden. "You will not surely die" was as plain a lie as any ever was. Yet it was accepted, and is accepted in our day, on the ungrounded and greedy belief that we can bootstrap ourselves to the better place. Adam and Eve did not die immediately for their disobedience. But they did surely die. We do too.

I once calculated that a typical undergraduate curriculum requires approximately 1,600 actual hours of lecture time. I recall that during the Reformation, and on through the history of the Protestant church up to the 19th century, it was common for church members to hear three hours or more of tight and logical sermons every Lord's Day. They'd then spend the rest of the day talking about the sermons. Not counting catechism as children, most church goers had the equivalent of two undergraduate degrees of lecture time by their late-twenties. Unlike today's courses, the content was solid. People knew how to think. It shouldn't be so surprising that statesmen from the colonial and revolutionary war period were smart. The pool of thoughtful people was relatively large in those days. Some no doubt were not Christians, but they still had deep wells to draw from.

Even so, that old enemy, self-absorbed Gnosticism, lay in wait. Perhaps the shock of the industrial revolution and the accompanying explosion in scientific knowledge distracted people from their lessons. It became easier to tinker than to think. The improvement in the standard of living was very good. Yet the decline in thinking, in no small part due to the decline in good preaching, opened the door for old and well-crafted deception.

Gnosticism now pops up in strange places: conspiracy theories about sinister people in the know who control things; New Age meditation techniques to heal the world from disharmony; human potential, biofeedback, genetically modified intelligence, etc. All of these things have a ring of plausibility, but only if we are naïve enough to trust our instincts or our feelings.

Of course there are conspiracies, but the ones made up by foolish men with secret knowledge are vanity. Of course the world needs supernatural healing, but our will-power is utterly powerless to accomplish this. And of course humans had potential, but sin snuffed that out. As with a car stuck in the mud, the faster the wheels spin, the deeper goes the rut.

A professor I knew reportedly once said, "there are many ways to do it wrong." Being a Gnostic herself, she probably has not yet realized the import of her observation. The real conspiracy is in how man is distracted from the truth by the mad pursuit of the secret.

Our church's own Lord's Day worship took about three hours yesterday. We considered the total conflict of worldviews, the futility of disbelief, the epistemology of true knowledge, and the glorious sovereignty of God. None of this information is secret knowledge. It is revealed plainly in Scripture. Gnostics hate plain knowledge because it doesn't give them a private advantage.

"Thus saith the LORD: Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." Jer. 6:16.

Lord, I pray to be kept on your old paths.

Bumper Sticker Theology

Seen on a car bumper this morning: "Eve was framed."

The driver was a burly man in a baseball cap. I spent more time than was wise trying to imagine the scenario that resulted in this strip of paper being affixed to his car. Of all the philosophical or political statements one could choose to purchase, this one struck me as a remarkably succinct expression of theology gone bad.

It also exhibits precisely Eve's error. If we can believe Eve was framed, that means that we can determine what is right and wrong for ourselves. By trying to do that, God tells us, we become blind--and dead.

The burly cap-man probably wants to defend Eve because he hopes to defend himself. But even Eve did not seek such a defense.

"He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool," Prov. 28:26, and, "But the fool rageth, and is confident." Prov. 12:10.

Lord protect me from such confidence.

Providential Justice

A Lunchtime Vignette.

A while back I was sitting in a little eating area at Pike Place Market in Seattle. I was reading over some notes and eating a hotdog. Tourists crowded the pig statue for pictures. The fish mongers were tossing halibut for the cameras. Natives were grabbing a quick bite.

I like bicycle messengers in principle. Some of them, however, are jerks. One such jerk pushed his bike through the crowd, plopped down on a bench, and leaned his bike against the table so that it pretty effectively cut in half the capacity of the narrow corridor. People struggled by. One middle-aged woman asked if he would move his bicycle. He responded, "hey, f--- off. I'm only gonna be here a few minutes."

Just as my blood pressure started to rise, I heard a crash. A blind man, very startled and confused, had bumped into the bike. He was unhurt, but a bit distraught. Kind people assured him not to worry and guided him away.

Meanwhile, the bike messenger was picking up the front of his bike and looking at it like kid with a broken toy. The front wheel had "tacoed", that is, it was folded over like a taco shell because some of the spokes had broken. He gathered up his bag, his bike, and left his sandwich. It was unlikely his bike would be making any deliveries that afternoon.

We aren't to seek vengeance, but I think it is quite all right to delight in God's providential judgments.

"Vengeance is mine, and recompense, at the time when their foot shall slide: for the day of their calamity is at hand."

Deut. 31:35