Happy about Reformation?

Yes - I'm still happy about Reformation.  That's because Reformation is very much an adjustment that needs to be made in a world spoiled by human sin. An analogy could be made between the Reformation and the drinking water purification process that we are all quite happy about!   

It used to be that you could dip your hands in a local stream and drink fresh water – but people ruined it.   This doesn’t mean we can no longer enjoy drinking water.  Thanks to the purification process, you can hold a clear glass of water in your hand that is pure to a microscopic level.  We do this all the time - every time we enjoy a glass of pure water.

It is a fact of life, since the Fall of man and the loss of the garden of Eden, that people ruin nice things.  But that does not mean they can’t be restored in some cases. 

But what about the person who argues that the reformation was not necessary back then and is certainly redundant today?   They are like people trying to argue that drinking water doesn’t need to be purified, but that the things we try to filter out should instead be welcomed as the “natural development” of drinking water (!).

As with so many things in modern Christianity the Reformation also is defined differently between conservatives and liberals.  For the “rebellious children” in the dysfunctional Christian family, the Progressive, the Innovator, the Reformation is the continuation of the evolution of the Christian religion.  Their twist on the concept of Semper Reformanda (perpetual reformation) is that religion is a part of human evolution, invented by humans and continually being updated by the same humans, contradicting, discarding and leaving behind past dogmas once believed. 

This is not to be confused with the Roman and Eastern idea that the hierarchy is bound to develop “doctrines of the faith” as the centuries go by, without contradicting the past, of course.  Dogmas unknown to the believers of New Testament times are simply being added by the same Spirit (so they say), working through Popes and Councils.  They then claim to be the parents, addressing the “compliant children” in the dysfunctional Christian family to submit to their judgment.

Nevertheless, whether it is reckless liberal evolutionary change or patronizing heavy-handed hierarchical change – it is still corrupting change and we should be happy for the re-pristinating, purifying spirit of the Lutheran Reformation – even today.  Human tampering is human tampering whether in the 16th century or the 21st century.

Conservatives Lutherans would argue that they are compliant children, too, but submit to drinking the water that has been purified.  For them, the Reformation is precisely the opposite of what the evolutionist pictures it to be.   Far from being explained as part of the “development of religion”, the Reformation is anti evolutionary – anti-development.  

In contrast to the humanists and more radical reformers of their time, the Lutheran Reformers were not jumping on the bandwagon of all change.  They were actually staking their lives on the condemnation of some of the changes they identified.   Luther, Melanchthon and the others were appreciative of improvements in technology (the printing press) and scholarship (renaissance learning) BUT they condemned the Papacy for the changes they called corruptions – pollution of the pure water that Christians deserved to drink.

They were not like today’s Muslim Fundamentalists – living in the past and trying to re-impose the dark ages.  Lutheran Reformers live in the present, but still recognize pollution in the water when they see it.

C’est la vie, really.    It used to be that humanity could live in the Garden of Eden, but people ruined it.

It used to be that you could dip your hands in a local stream and drink fresh water – but people ruined it.

It used to be you could hop on a plane, ticket in hand, without waiting in a long security line  - but people ruined it.

It used to be that you could telephone a home or business and a human being would answer back – but people ruined it.

It used to be you could have a chat with a child on the street -  but people ruined it.

It used to be that you could give money to needy people who stop by the church – but people ruined it.

It used to be that you could pick up any publicly available book, magazine or watch any TV show or film without any risk of being corrupted or scarred for life by what you see or read – but people ruined it.

It used to be that human beings knew the will of God and knew where they could find His word – but people ruined it.

As Jesus tells us – one of the things that people have been ruining for centuries is religion! Quoting from Isaiah, Christ condemned “teaching mere human rules as though they were the doctrines of God”  (Matthew 15.9).

So why am I happy for the Reformation?   For the same reason I am happy to be able to pour myself a pure glass of water:   People have ruined and continue to ruin religion through arrogant, rebellious, selfish, and stupid human tampering.  Thank God for the purification process as long as it is still needed.

"High Church", a poem based on "High Flight"

"High Flight" is one of my favourite poems.  You may have read it.  You may have seen the YouTube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qqVRBZO5gc

Now - read my version, written after a visit to the Washington National Cathedral for choral evensong.  I call it "High Church".

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew -

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untresspassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee

No 412 squadron, RCAF

Killed 11 December 1941  (aged 19)

High Church

Oh! I have left the vacuous hassled world behind.

And settled silently into Gothic-carved woodwork; 

Stunned I’ve knelt, and joined the transfixed multitude

Of ordinary people – caught up in a place

Unlike any other – echoing with soaring sounds

Bathed in a thousand stained glass beams of light

I’ve lost myself under lofty vaults of stone

Suspended between earth and heaven,

Up, up the high, lofty portals of beauty itself, 

I’ve felt the cosmic condescension of grace

Looked upon the faces of angels and with sacred, solemn elation beheld,

The exalted realm of divine worship;

With opened heart, I’ve bent my ears,

Listened to the choir and heard the voice of God.

Pastor Jonathan Naumann

Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod

Addicted to Cathedral services (aged 51)

Angels and the Gospel

The involvement of angels with the Gospel should be better known than it is.  Yet the story of that relationship between Angels and the Gospel begins with the creation of the material universe itself.   

ANGELS were witnesses to the creation of the visible universe and rejoiced at it (Job 38.4-7).

The first two chapters of the book of Genesis give us the biblical account of the six-day creation, but Job 38 informs us of something that Moses does not mention – namely, that the creation of the material universe had witnesses.   Yes, creatures created by God prior to us, and who inhabit a world that is invisible to us, were witnesses to what we call the visible (or material) world, and, furthermore – these creatures rejoiced to observe that creation.  

In Job 38.7 God asks that ancient patriarch:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me, if you have understanding.  

5 Who determined its measurements- surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?  

6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone,

7 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4-7)

Remember what the angels had been witnesses to so far – before they witnessed the creation of us.   Among other things, they had witnessed the banishment and eternal condemnation of those angels among them who sinned.  Everyone of them could say, as Jesus later said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” ( Luke 10.18).

In the punishment of the rebellious angels, the loyal angels witnessed the anger of God against sin.  They were witnesses to His righteous indignation and they were witnesses to God’s implacable justice in handing down damnation against sin.  The angels had witnessed what theologians call God’s “alien work” (Lat. Opus alienum) of destroying that which is imperfect.

But where and when would the holy angels witness the work that is more proper to God? (His opus proprium)  When would they witness Him creating something?  (Like us, angels can hardly enjoy  witnessing their own creation) So when would they witness Him creating something.  And, especially, when would they see Him redeeming sinners?  How would they see Him giving grace to the unworthy?  When would they witness His forgiving love?  Where would they see a demonstration of the mercy of God that adorns the pages of Scripture?

“ Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.  He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea”  (Micah 7.18-19).

“Let the heavens praise your wonders, O LORD, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones!  For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD? Who among the heavenly beings is like the LORD,  a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him?  O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O LORD, with your faithfulness all around you?” (Psalm 89:5-8).

All of those wonderful qualities of God were aspects of His character that He wanted those angels to see!  He knew they would rejoice to see it and spend eternity worshipping Him for it.  But, in order for His angels to witness God’s creative power and redeeming love, He chose to create another world: ours.  And He would create a creature ideally suited for this particular demonstration of love: us.

“For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.  Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:16-17).

HUMANS are special-featured-creatures

Now human beings, created “in the image of God” have a feature that God does not have that I would like to consider.  That feature is what I call the “double death” feature.

 

I find it fascinating to consider that we humans were created differently with regard to death than both animals and angels were. Animals, with no immortal souls, were created with only one death that awaited them – namely physical death.

 

Angels, although created to be immortal, could still face “death” if they sinned and that one death would be, although not physical, nevertheless final and eternal. That is their one and only death.  God’s word tells us that hell is

“…eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”  (Matthew 25:41).

Yet when God created humans, unique among all His creatures, He created us with the option of not one, but two deaths. These two deaths that humans can die, both physical death and eternal death each have a certain respective finality, yet they are still not the same and it is mercifully possible to experience the one, but not the other.

“Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.   Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.   And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire”. (Revelation 20:13-15)

 

You see, the option of two deaths, that humans have, gives us a built-in advantage that is not only advantageous to us, but also to God, who planned to use our physical death as the centrepiece of a grand demonstration of His love from the very creation of our world. I refer to the atoning sacrificial death of God’s son.

For God demonstrated His love for us in this way – that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5.8).

Had humans been like the angels, with only a single kind of death that was possible for us (the eternal kind), then for Christ to demonstrate His love for us by sparing us the punishment that we deserved and substituting Himself instead under the judgment of God, God’s Son would have to endure eternal death and be permanently separated from His Father – separating the persons of the Holy Trinity forever – hardly a practical option!  But, as we humans are capable of being punished for sin with two kinds of death, Jesus could experience one of them (physical death) and His demonstration would still serve its purpose.

Because Christ’s death successfully demonstrated that God was loving and merciful enough to redeem sinners at tremendous cost, both humans and angels benefited enormously and God is glorified eternally as a direct result.

1. Humans benefit, because we can be forgiven our sins and be spared from eternal death (a priceless benefit!).
2. Angels benefit, because only in our redemption could the they observe God, their creator, showing mercy and forgiveness toward sinners without compromising His perfect justice – something they could never have seen had humans never been created, fallen into sin and been redeemed through the atoning sacrifice of God’s Son.
3. And, ultimately God benefits, so to speak, because, as the result of what the crucified and risen Christ has done, both humans and angels join together to give Him endless praise for the perfect combination of righteousness and grace that the redemption of humanity displays.

St. Paul wrote,

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - He did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus" (Romans 3.23-26).

• Consider an historic bottle of brandy. It could be kept "eternally" in a museum or it could "die" by having its cork removed and its contents poured out. Yet, how foolish it would be for that bottle to resent it's "death". It was obviously designed to have its cork removed and its contents poured out. Even after its first "death", the brandy bottle would not have to have a second death (be trashed). It could live forever in someone's prized bottle collection. God seems to have designed us well to serve the purpose of His glory.  Seeing physical death this way almost rehabilitates it, or at least recognizes that human physical death serves a higher purpose by showcasing the surpassing love of God.
  

SALVATION is a grand demonstration “to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places”

Part of Christian faith is recognition of the cosmic scope of GOD'S eternal love.   God asked Job the haunting question, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? ...when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (38.7)

To that question we are left breathless. We have no answer because we were not there. But we are told who was there. God tells us who sang for joy to see our world created – it was His heavenly host, the “morning stars”, the “sons of God”, His holy angels!   Those same angels that are our guardians who always behold the face of our Father in Heaven  (Matthew 18.10).  Those angels who are sent to serve those who are inheriting salvation  (Hebrews 1.14).  Those same angels are watching the unfolding of our lives and the working out of God’s plan to save us through the sacrifice of His Son, ever since we were created. St. Peter tells us that “angels long to look into these things” (1 Peter 1.12).

For our salvation is

“the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the angelic authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:9-11).

 

HUMAN SALVATION is a tremendous source of delight to the angels

Scripture gives us plenty of glimpses of angels worshipping God in Heaven. But how often do we note that the worship which angels render to God is related to, among other things, their knowledge of the history of human salvation?

“…they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth." Then I looked, and I heard … the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" (Revelation 5:9-12).

Human salvation is ultimately the only salvation they have ever seen, for no salvation was offered to any fallen angel who sinned. Yet, although it is about the rescue from eternal damnation of another species (humanity), human salvation is a tremendous source of delight to the angels.  If the founding of the material universe itself made the angels shout for joy (Job 38.7), by the same token the repentance and salvation of every individual in that universe gives them great cause for rejoicing in praise of God’s love.

(Jesus said) “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance… Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Luke 15:7-10

THE ANSWER to the question of why we exist – the purpose of human existence

The angels’ joy at the beginning of our world possibly suggests that the whole material universe was made as a demonstration to them of His love. (A “Grand Demonstration”, as Dr.Jay Adams called it).

Jesus Christ is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (KJV) or, as the New Living Translation puts it. “the Lamb who was killed before the world was made”  (Revelation 13.8).

“…he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians 1:4).

“you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold,  but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.  He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for your sake” (1 Peter 1:18-20)

Knowing before He created the earth that God’s beloved Son would have to die for it, why else did He proceed?  Unless it was for a greater good, no father would make something that He knew would cost him the life of his beloved son.   He wouldn’t even bother to build such a thing.  So why did God go ahead and create us?   The angels may hold the answer to this frequently asked question.  

Why did God make humans capable of a double death?

I find it fascinating to consider that we humans were created differently with regard to death than both animals and angels were. Animals, with no immortal souls, were created with only one death that awaited them – namely physical death.

Angels, although created to be immortal, could still face death if they sinned and that one death would be, although not physical, nevertheless final and eternal. God’s word tells us that God created eternal hell for the devil and his angels – that is their one and only death.

Yet when God created humans, unique among all His creatures, He created us with the option of not one, but two deaths. These two deaths that humans can die, both physical death and eternal death each have a certain respective finality, yet they are still not the same and it is mercifully possible to experience the one, but not the other.

You see, the option of two deaths, that humans have, gives us a built-in advantage that is not only advantageous to us, but also to God, who planned to use our physical death as the centrepiece of a grand demonstration of His love from the very creation of our world.

As you can see, as we come to the culmination of the season of Lent, I have the crucifixion of Christ on my mind. For God demonstrated His love for us in this way – that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5.8).

Had humans been like the angels, with only a single kind of death that was possible for us (the eternal kind), then for Christ to demonstrate His love for us by sparing us the punishment that we deserved and substituting Himself instead under the judgement of God, God’s Son would have to endure eternal death and be permanently separated from His Father – separating the persons of the Holy Trinity forever – hardly a practical option! But, as we humans are capable of being punished for sin with two kinds of death, Jesus could experience one of them (physical death) and His demonstration would still serve its purpose.

Because Christ’s death successfully demonstrated that God was loving and merciful enough to redeem sinners at tremendous cost, both humans and angels benefited enormously and God is glorified eternally as a direct result.

Humans benefit, because we can be forgiven our sins and be spared from eternal death (a priceless benefit!).

Angels benefit, because only in our redemption could the they observe God, their creator, showing mercy and forgiveness toward sinners without compromising His perfect justice – something they could never have seen had humans never been created, fallen into sin and been redeemed through the atoning sacrifice of God’s Son.

And, finally God benefits, so to speak, because, as the result of what the crucified and risen Christ has done, both humans and angels join together to give Him endless praise for the perfect combination of righteousness and grace that the redemption of humanity displays.

St. Paul wrote, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - He did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus" (Romans 3.23-26).

Consider an historic bottle of brandy. It could be kept "eternally" in a museum or it could "die" by having its cork removed and its contents poured out. Yet, how foolish it would be for that bottle to resent it's "death". It was obviously designed to have its cork removed and its contents poured out. Even after its first "death", the brandy bottle would not have to have a second death (be trashed). It could live forever in someone's prized bottle collection. God seems to have designed us well to serve the purpose of His glory.

As I've said before, God created us, knowing that we would fall into sin and that, "from the foundation of the world", His Son would be offered as the Lamb whose sacrifice would make our pardon possible. This is how God's designing humans with a "double death feature" comes into its own.

Seeing physical death this way almost rehabilitates it, or at least recognizes that human physical death serves a higher purpose by showcasing the surpassing love of God.

Elemental, my dear apologist

Speaking of nature - in Psalm 19 - the Bible says "there is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard..." Is nature "telling the glory of God" on a molecular level? Jesus recalled the vivid image of speaking stones in Habakkuk 2.11, when he said the "stones would cry out" in praise of God, if man kept silent (Luke 19.41). To give the elements of the universe their God-given voice, I publish the following from Ted Naumann:

The Periodic Table

500 billion galaxies, each containing 100s of millions of solar systems is believed to have come from a minuscule "singularity". Did this singularity have an inherent periodic table within its mass?

Some believers in the "big bang" would say yes. If true, it would follow that each and every one of 107 potential atoms were already contained within that singularity. The quarks within the atomic nuclei would provide the attributes which would later determine what each potential atom will become.

Other big bang adherents may say that it is absurd to attribute any form of organized matter within the extremely dense mass of the singularity. Atomic structures would have to be formed during or after the big bang.

Either way, the existence of a periodic table poses some interesting conclusions.

1. All atoms are capable of combining with one another in order to form molecules which greatly exceed the usefulness of the individual atoms. For example, aluminum when combined with magnesium (which weighs only half as much) changes from a toothpaste tube material into an alloy useful for the wings of a large jetliner.

2. This ability of atoms to combine into useful molecules is hard to understand because their individual electrons are so active. Electrons revolve around their proton at more than 100 million billion times per second. It's tough enough to see how they avoid colliding with one another when circling their own nucleus, let alone when forced into combining with another atom (with its own electrons) to make a molecule. When several different atoms are combined into a molecule, the electrons of each atom often cross paths with electrons of other atoms and do it without colliding.

3. The hydrogen atom is unique. It is the most abundant element in the universe, yet a free hydrogen atom is almost never found on earth. It's the lightest of all elements (with only one electron), and it has combined naturally with oxygen (which has 8 electrons) to make H²O the most abundant molecule in the world, (covering 3/4 of the earth's surface) and one that is essential to all of life. The human body consists of 60% water. This third phenomenon brings us back to the periodic table. We are forced to ask one ultimate question, the answer to which will form a world view. But first, let's take a closer look at the periodic table.

The 107 natural elements are grouped by their characteristics into categories. Metals are an important category. They not only provide the material for most structures, but some like iron, have useful functions in the human body.

Iron (Fe) is the fourth most abundant element on earth. Significant quantities also have been found in meteorites. It is the main ingredient in steel and several hundred thousand tons of it are required to make one large naval vessel or cruise ship. Although a large number of them have gone to the bottom of the sea over the years; there is no danger of an iron shortage. It is obvious that iron ought to have been one of the most abundant elements in the periodic table.

Gases comprise another important category in the periodic table. The most important gas is oxygen (O) and it happens to be the most abundant element on earth. We have said that hydrogen gas is almost never found naturally on earth outside of the water molecule, yet there are twice as many hydrogen atoms than oxygen atoms in water. Oxygen makes up about half of everything on our planet and comprises 2/3 of the human body. Although It is continuously being consumed by people and animals, it is marvelously restored into the air by plants.

One of the atoms in the metal category is relatively rare and somehow there is little use for it anyway except for jewelry and dental work and, oh yes, money. The value of gold is almost entirely arbitrary since ceramics have become the material of choice for dental work. Our society could get along very well without it.

Aluminum is an extremely useful metallic atom. It doesn't corrode like iron and therefore is useful for weather sheathing, window frames and beer cans. When combined with magnesium, it becomes stronger than any other molecule of similar weight. Cars made of it become more fuel efficient, and airplanes of that alloy can carry heavier loads. As the most conductive of all metals, it has numerous electrical uses. Fortuitously the aluminum atom is the most abundant of all metallic elements and the third most abundant element of any kind. Over a million tons of it are produced in the United States every year and more is recycled.

Oil, coal and natural gas, those complex hydrocarbon compounds, have become essential for the survival of industrial nations. Highway pavements, massive amounts of fuels, scores of synthetics, all require it. Oil is abundant, but retrieving it is often limited by wars, environmentalists and the high cost of drilling. Large quantities are found in places where you would least expect it - under vast deserts, the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the North Slope of Alaska. It is plentiful all over the USA, South and Central America, etc. Yes, oil is abundant, but then it has to be.

The source of oil is a major speculation into which this article will not engage. We simply included it as another example of a type of matter which was made in great abundance apparently by dame fortune.

There aren't enough rubber trees in the world to supply the need for auto, plane and truck tires, flexible tubing, etc. But by polymerization of organic compounds, tires are being made from sugar cane and other sugar sources. There are more than 2 million carbon (organic) compounds useful for nylon, polyester, plastics, synthetic rubber, etc. in an almost unlimited supply because they are all made from renewable resources.

Silicon is the world's second most abundant atom. While it appears to be mere sand, it is enormously versatile and useful. It can be made into almost anything: building blocks, cement, semi-conductors, solar batteries, all kinds of glass, micro-electronics, photosensitive plates, and a new ceramic with mechanical strength ranging from 15,000 to 35,000 pounds per square inch and which is being used in the nose cones of spacecraft.

We said in paragraph 4 that the periodic table poses some interesting conclusions. Please note that the underlined conclusions in this article are made tongue-in-cheek. Thoughtful people will realize that the individual elements in the periodic table were made by a super intelligent being and that they were made in just the right quantities to enable an industrialized society to flourish.

Ted Naumann

--------------------------------

In Heaven we will be given the benefit of hindsight - to say nothing of more advanced intelligence than we now have on earth. Perhaps we will have to wait until we talk about it in Heaven to know for sure, but that does not stop Ted Naumann from giving us a fascinating twist on the "anthropic principle".

Does he know something the rest of us don't know?

I thank him for this extraordinary insight. I have not heard the periodic table of elements referred to in any other apologetic. Have any of you out there see this before?

Emails please to tednaumann@aol.com

Re-habilitating King James’ English

It’s nearly four hundred years old, not always easy to understand, yet more influential than any English translation of the Bible in history – and it is making an unexpected comeback in our lifetime. I’m talking about the “King James Bible” or, as it is called in Britain: “The Authorised Version”.

If you were following its usage over the past twenty-five years (the entire length of my career as a pastor), you would have said that King James’ English was on its way out. The LCMS’s 1982 hymnal systematically removed it, the synodical catechism switched to the “New International Version” as did the synod’s self-study Bible. “Thees and thous” were removed from all prayers and pastors were told that “Elizabethan English” was “no longer American language” (My Country ‘tis of Thee?).

Apart from Shakespeare and a few hymns like “How Great Thou Art”, that were excused from up-dating, “King James English could not talk to the un-churched world”. (I thought the un-churched lacked salvation – not language skills).

For pastors it was a time of crisis – not only was the version of the Bible that we memorized not to be memorized in the future, we could not see an end to the updating of it. One contemporary version followed another in an endless stream, each claiming to be the English standard for the future. Meanwhile we were being made to feel more and more embarrassed by any use of “archaic” and “outmoded” language among us. Yet what was truly embarrassing was the bowdlerizing of classic hymns in a misguided frenzy to update.

Finally (and still in my life-time!) the question of English for today seems to be “panning out”. Among the various indications that I detect of this happening are new recordings and steady sales of the King James Bible and the publication of the Lutheran Service Book with the original English within one of its Divine Services and many classic hymns.

Like the Church of England, which is doing the same thing in the 21^st century, the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod has decided to expect Church members to be “bi-lingual” – able to appreciate both the English of King James and contemporary English into the indefinite future. A collective sigh of relief may be heard from English – speaking believers the world over. Finally we have realized that it is “OK” to read the Bible and worship in old English!

Using the old English and understanding it do not always go hand in hand, unfortunately. But this presents the church with an exciting challenge for teaching.

For example, since 1982 users of “Lutheran Worship” have been singing “Holy God, We Praise Your Name”. Now in the LSB they will be going back to the original wording: “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name.”

This means we have to teach people that “thy”, “thee” and “thou” are pronouns that express a precious intimacy not found in modern English pronouns. They are not some “spiritual” form, but rather a “familiar” form, common in European languages, where one uses different pronouns for different people depending on how close you are to them in friendship. Like the German “du”, “thou” means “you – my familiar friend”.

Dr. Paul Grime, executive director of the Synod’s Commission on Worship, says the commission, in preparing LSB, strove to distinguish between archaic and obsolete language. “While we updated words that were hard to understand or which have dropped out of usage,” he says, “we kept others that made sense or which never needed to be changed in the first place.” Thanks be to Thee, O Lord!

Losing at the religion game

You know, when you are with a group of people - all set to play a danger game - it is not easy to opt out. It is difficult to cope with how you will feel unless, before you opt out of the game, you are really prepared – prepared with what you will say – with a reason you will give for not playing along. And it will be difficult for you unless you are prepared for the ridicule you may get from that group. It is not easy, particularly for young people, when something like that happens.

I wonder how prepared we are for the word that we proclaim to be denounced as folly by those who are perishing. How prepared are we for the rejection of our religious position by those who are prepared to dismiss us as foolish or worse for holding to the historic Christian Gospel and faith?

St. Paul certainly seemed to have prepared himself mentally and in every way for the inevitable negative reception that his religious views would receive by some, if not many of the very people whom he was trying to reach with the saving message about Jesus Christ.

But you might say, I don’t need to concern myself about that for either or both of two reasons: You may say, “people won’t be showing disrespect for my religious beliefs because people just don’t do that nowadays” or you may say, “I won’t get any flack for my religious beliefs because, as a matter of principle, I never discuss them (outside of the church)”.

Well, the first of those statements is naïve and the second is unacceptable – so there – your opinions have been denounced and by your own pastor to boot!

But seriously, as your pastor, I cannot overlook unrealistic or unacceptable opinions on the subject of speaking about Christ, any more than the apostles themselves could. Would I be a loving pastor if I stood idly by while people played “Russian roulette” with human souls?

But you say, “Things are different today”. In our permissive age, the rules of the game have changed. Now people won’t condemn your opinions on religion or anything else. People today will all politely nod in approval and positively affirm whatever position you have as being valid for you”.

Perhaps that is the fashion today, but it only holds true to a point. As soon as you state an opinion that you hold to be true, not just yourself, but for everyone, then you have violated the rules of the game and will soon find that the polite affirmations you expected are replaced by condemnation.

Yes, what has happened is that religion has been reduced from a serious life and death matter to a kind of listening game. I listen to you, you listen to me, but nobody really hears anything.

And, according to the rules of this listening game, you are not allowed to believe in error as well as truth. You are allowed to only speak of what is true for you – how you personally feel etc. nothing beyond that.

As soon as you state that you also believe in error or that some people are wrong, then you are out of the game and the very people who were, at first, willing to listen to you, now will not hesitate to cover their ears because the game is over and, since you have forfeited the game, they no longer have to play along and listen.

People were doing this in Jesus’ day. They were listening but not hearing. And they were treating religion like a game in which they called the shots and they made the rules. To them Jesus said, 15 He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
16 "But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates,
17 "'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.'

Don’t be surprised when those who claimed to be so tolerant, suddenly show the limits of their toleration. Paradoxically, they will demonstrate that can tolerate everything but intolerance condemning you as intolerant for believing in the existence of error as well as truth.

Yes, the rules have changed. The new rule is this: People will affirm your religious opinions – as long as you abide by the further rule that you won’t assert that your beliefs actually apply to anyone but yourself. You may speak for yourself, but that’s it. Don’t claim to have access to absolute or universal truth. If you do claim to have the objective truth, then what was politely received from you initially will be denounced as foolish, if not psychopathological.

This is the new “wisdom of the wise” in today’s age of disposable world-views and “drive-by religion”. Yet, however attractive they may seem on the surface, the new rules of religious debate make it even less likely that people who listen to what you have to say about your religious faith will believe it to be true for them, as well as for you, and even less likely to share with you a saving faith in Christ.

For that reason – for the sake of the eternal destiny of human souls - the “wisdom of the wise” , that foolishly reduces religion to a mere game, must be destroyed or at least replaced by the wisdom of God. This is why the apostle Paul tells us,
19 … it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
21 for since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom; it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

For this reason, you and I must, just as the church herself must preach and unchanging message in the midst of a changing world. Only a changeless Christ can truly serve a changing world. We must proclaim the word of God, Incarnate, the Wisdom from on high, the truth unchanged, unchanging, the light of our dark sky.

Only this lantern to our footsteps shines on from age to age.

Blind and Backward Science in High Definition

Determined not to pay for television programs as long as there are free ones that can be tuned in with “rabbit ears”, my family recently discovered that there are TV signals that we have never been able to receive until we acquired a high-definition TV.

Among the “new” programs now available to us are nature shows on PBS. In viewing these programs, it didn’t take long to discover that they are permeated with the views of those scientists who insist on ruling out certain scientific facts that seem to point to intelligent design and a Designer.

Blind to how they jeopardize their own claims to be scientific, these biased programs trot out the same old obsolete, incomplete data, and Darwinist mythology, but presented with more impressive computer-generated graphics and animation.

In one documentary, the presenter sat at his computer designing make-believe alien life as it might exist on other planets, while at the same time refusing to acknowledge the designer of the life forms that actually do live on our own planet. What a sad abuse of human creativity! In another TV nature show, the only time “religion” was mentioned was when the church of Galileo’s time was criticized for hindering his scientific work.

The Christian Church has “grown up” a lot since Galileo’s time, and our witness should reflect that fact. Thanks to recent scientific discoveries (that the current proprietors of certain television stations won’t show their viewers), Christians can refer people today to many convincing proofs that the universe has been designed – even if that design has been marred by sin and evil since it was originally created.

So, please, as you and I witness, let’s bear these thoughts in mind:

Christians DO NOT accept the argument that “science” has shown life to be nothing more than the result of matter attracted to matter, with energy added to it. We should know that real science has discovered genetics essential to life, based on code that is full of precise information, pointing to intelligent design. Life = matter + energy + information.

Most people accept the reality of this last discovery. So while we are witnessing, we can ask people to consider the question: where did that information came from? Ask too if it is possible that the designer -- who gave such detailed information to proteins that they could form every cell in our bodies -- couldn’t also give information to you and me, describing Himself and how He loves us and has a plan for our lives.

Christians DO NOT accept the argument that the process of “natural selection” explains all animal life. That process may explain some features in an organism, but not the organism itself. Darwin admitted that his theory would break down if an irreducibly complex creature could be found. Since his time, scientists have acknowledged that all creatures are irreducibly complex at many levels. By definition they would not exist at all unless they were fully functional as they are.

Christians CAN be bold in stating that some who claim to be experts in scientific knowledge are not correct about their scientific conclusions. Many times scientists themselves have been misled, especially in institutions of higher education, and have been kept from the truth by those who promote a “god-free” universe.

Golf course or Battlefield - where are you?

As fans of the award winning television series “House” will be aware, Dr. House, the main character, is a curmudgeonly, blunt, tactless but highly intelligent person and that is part of his appeal - and he always saves the day.

Yet viewers of a recent episode in the current series, built around the issues of rape, abortion and death will see that House is shown to be uncharacteristically at a loss to save the day, unless viewers reckon his “counseling” a frightened rape victim to have an abortion against her conscience was wise.

Singularly unprepared to deal with evil and sin both House and the rape victim (who initially believes in God) talk it out until he confesses that he was also abused in his life and that she should agree with him that all life is meaningless and there is no God (unless he is “unspeakably cruel” ).

People today don’t like to think about sin and evil as though we can delete them just by removing those words from our vocabulary or labeling them as “unenlightened”. We would like to deny they exist. But living in denial of these things only causes more problems than it solves. Sin and evil have to be factored in to the equation or else life does not make sense, or even worse, God (even if you believe in Him) does not make sense.

To illustrate this, let’s say you are on a battlefield, yet you imagine that it is some kind of golf course! You are denying and you are blind to the truth that there is a war going on and you choose instead to see the field before you as provided by a country club. So you go out in your colorful golfing clothes with your bag of clubs and perhaps an electric cart. Just as you are ready to hit your first shot, an incoming mortar shell blasts a big hole right next to you. But still you live in denial and you think this is just how they make those sand traps.

Meanwhile, as you see soldiers running across the field, shouting commands, crying out in pain, guns blazing, you merely curse the inept country club management for allowing such disruptive players on the course.

So you go back to setting up your ball and, just as you take your backswing, you yourself are hit with a bullet. Now you cannot deny that there is a war going on - but it is too late. You are a casualty. Sadly, your last conscious thought will probably be a bitter complaint against whoever made and runs this horrible golf course. What an “unspeakably cruel” golf course manager he must be!

In this way evil and sin destroy people – precisely what the enemy and accuser of humanity wants to happen. For, as God’s word warns us, our enemy, the devil has done this (Matthew 13.24-40). He is roaming around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5.8). As one hymn puts it, “The World Is Very Evil”.

Instead of being ignorant of the facts or even denying the facts, Christians are to be aware of the battlefield we are in as it really is. Ever since sin entered the world through human disobedience, evil has been waging war against us just as the devil, a fallen angel who sinned, has been waging a war against God, invisible to our eyes though that warfare may be.

The world may deny that sin exists, but we Christians should know better than that, lest we be like that foolish man on the battlefield who thought it was a golf course or Dr. House and his unfortunate client, for whom abortion will only add a further burden to her already ravaged life.

Far better to know the full picture as God reveals it. He tells us that sin and evil exist and He warns us of their power in this fallen world. At the same time, by sending his Son Jesus Christ to “take the bullet for us” when He was crucified and died for our sins, God shows us how He loves us and has provided a way by which sin may be faced and forgiven through trust in Christ as Savior.

People would not have to live in denial if they knew that sin, death and the devil had been convincingly conquered by One Who died and rose again from the dead and ascended into Heaven, from whence He came, offering us a share in His victory and everlasting life as well, in an eternity free from evil.

God's language skills

One of the main assumptions of "religious studies" is that God has little or no language skills. With all the contradictory, mutually exclusive religious “truths” and “faith stories” that are part of human experience, if He/she/it exists at all, “God” is not as good as humans are at getting a message across – a profoundly insulting and archaic assessment of the facts.

With the discovery of DNA modern science now knows that amino acids in living things don't organize themselves, but follow the orders given by means of genetic information.

Scientist and Author Dean Kenyon formerly thought in terms of mindless forces of attraction driving amino acids to form protean shapes constructed into the tiny machines we see functioning within living cells. He and all other scientists have now renounced "Chemical Predestination" and now know that the many various types of amino acids are like letters of the alphabet. Their sequences determine communication. Astoundingly, it would take many large volumes to contain that information used by even the simplest one-celled living thing.

An “information-rich system” such as we see in living things suggests both language and the Intelligence that is responsible for language. The evidence literally “speaks for itself”!

Yet many a lecturer in religious studies implies that God doesn’t have the language skills or the interest in human beings to get a clear message to us. Instead God has left human beings, the most complex objects in the universe and His crowning achievement in creation, to fumble about with the cerebral “wiring” to contemplate God, but no reliable information nor anything that is absolutely true.

Would God have made us as we are but failed to tell us the truth about Himself? Is it even logical that God would fail to give us the evidence we need to decide which of the innumerable religious claims out there is really the true one? Is it wrong to assume that a God who claims to love us would actually speak the truth to us?

Some biased scientists may look at DNA and refuse to see Intelligent Design - in fact ceasing to be scientists – but what is the religious studies teacher’s excuse for not seeing that God has spoken in love and revealed His truth to His human creation?

As they “compare” religions, don’t they see the huge “spike” in the data when they come to Judeo-Christianity? How can they see the historical basis of the biblical Faith and then refuse to distinguish it from all the myth-based religions? How can they teach that all religions are human-based and very much the same, when the message of the Bible has features in it which put it in an entirely different category from all other religions?

How can they accuse God of failing to offer His truth distinctly and unmistakably and unambiguously – when they know how unique on the religious horizon Jesus Christ is?

They are either:
A. Ignorant of the unique spike that Christianity makes amid all the religious data they have.
Or
B. They are deliberately concealing the spike in order to spare the feelings of people of other religions with whom they want to live in harmony.

If you are ignorant of the facts, then do your homework and you will see that it is simply inaccurate and wrong to place all religions on the same level of credibility. Myth and history are not interchangeable. Truth and feelings are not the same thing. Also consider that human beings are created with an eternal soul – and the destiny of their souls is at stake.

If you are covering up the truth – sacrificing it on the altar of human feelings – then you should know that you are not doing any favors for the human beings involved. God revealed His truth for a reason. He intervened in human history at great cost to Himself because He loves us and He knows that He must banish from His presence forever, those who do not receive His offer of mercy and forgiveness and are left in their sins, contaminated and condemned.

“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”— NIV John 1:12
“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son”. NIV John 3:18

There is far more at stake in religious studies than many are prepared to admit.

'Be holy... Be perfect...' impossible expectation or Gospel promise.

I'm sure I'm not the only Lutheran who has been taught that as we witness to unbelievers we should use Bible verses such as 'Be holy as I the Lord Your God am holy' and 'Be perfect, as Your Father in Heaven is Perfect' as 'law' designed to intimidate people into humility and repentance. (Then we can tell them the Gospel - "so they don't have to work at being holy" ?!).

Yet to take such verses out of context and teach that such statements are made by God just to cripple human spiritual ambition with an impossible standard is to fail to see the real meaning in those words, not to mention missing any real Gospel glory in them.

In His redeeming grace and mercy, God has provided for us to be both holy and perfect and, indeed, such holiness is already the gift of God to those in whom His Holy Spirit dwells as in a temple, surely.

Furthermore, those who teach that such statements are intended to assert the unattainable heights of divine perfection are reducing God to the level of a bully who towers over a small child and flaunts his superior height.

Lets stop using these statements as proof-texts for law, and start showing people the heights of undeserved privilege that God is offering to share with us with the words 'Be holy, as I the Lord your God am Holy'.

They describe the exaltation of those in whom God's Holy Spirit dwells as in a Temple. 'Be perfect, as Your Father in Heaven is Perfect' are words of promise to those who, through faith in Christ, have a righteousness imputed to them that exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees and a standing with God that is variously described as sonship and royal priesthood - a holy nation. *

*See Exodus 19.6, Leviticus 20.26, 1 Corinthians 6.19, 1 Peter 1.14-16 & 2.9,

“What kind of god am I?”

Blame it on "post-modernism" or "relativism", but being your own god is more popular than ever.

My question is, "why are people who insist on making it up as they go along so blind to the absurdity?"

If you could be both the examiner as well as the student, you would have a sure way to pass every test: ‘make up your own answers’. You get to pass every exam! But what kind of an academic exercise would that be?

If you are a musician in an orchestra, but you decide that ‘the right notes are the note I say are right’ you get to play any notes you want! But what kind of harmony would you produce?

If you are a mathematician, but you decide that ‘the right answer is the number I choose’, your equations are never wrong! But would the sums add up?

Despite the absurdity of it – there is a popular school of thought that says, ‘there are no right answers, but the answers I cook up’. Only what is ‘true for me’ is ‘true’. The ultimate judge of ‘right and wrong’ is me. You get to take the place of God! But what kind of god would you be?

Have you fallen into this absurd trap? It is possible to find out. Just ask yourself, “Do I ask ‘what is right’ – or do I ask ‘how am I going to define “right” in this situation’?”

If you are an ‘ethical person’ – a ‘moral person’ – in the classic sense, you would look for the answer in authoritative sources as well as your own conscience.

If you have fallen into the popular trap, adrift, with no anchorage, no absolutes and effectively no God but oneself and no authoritative sources but human opinions and your own conscience, you personalize or privatize ultimate questions and conclude that ‘only what is right to me is right’.

Pontius Pilate’s infamous question was ‘what is truth?’. Have you ended up with Pilate as your role model? Do we ask ‘what is “right”?’ and assume that question has no ultimate answer?

Double incentive for fighting evil

Fighting evil is both defensive as well as offensive.

As someone who is not aggressive by nature, much pious exhortation to 'fight' this or that evil within and without leaves me rather cold. What *will* put the sword in my hand, however is the realization that I should fight, not for the sake of fighting, but to defend the Holy Temple that the Holy Spirit has made of me when He came to dwell in me at my baptism. I need the double incentive of defense as well as offence, if I am to be a real fighter against evil. In this respect I am working in partnership with my guardian angel.

If a Christian gets injured or dies, has their guardian angel failed in his duty? Thoughtless persons may say 'yes', or even deny the existence of such angels. Yet, if one considers that the primary thing being guarded by an angel is not physical but spiritual, the proper perspective is gained. Yes, angels may guard the physical body (and do, lest we “dash our foot against a stone” Psalm 91.12), but just as important as “bearing us up in their hands” physically, an angel guards the Holy Temple that the Christian’s body is from spiritual threats to it. Threats that cause the Holy Spirit’s temple to be desecrated and/or defiled are as serious or more serious than any physical ones.

Evil is ultimately defeated by the forgiveness that is ours through faith in Christ. When a Christian dies in the Faith, even if violently, but enters Heaven through death, then a guardian angel can rejoice that, in that individual’s case, his work has still been a success

"Evil and Good" or "Tension and Relief"?

Socrates was recently quoted by a blogger to say that "good and evil are oddly united, because the pain he felt at having shackles on his feet was turned to pleasure when they were removed". If Socrates really put things in those terms, he was inviting confusion by associating the distinction between tension and relief (shackles and liberation in his case) with the duality of good and evil that are only features of a world fallen into sin.

There is no sin in the duality of tension and relief. What I mean is that, apparently, part of the matrix of *all reality* is this duality.

For example, reconciliation as the resolution of conflict is part of that duality. Easily recognizable as dynamics in both Theodicy and Soteriology, the duality of tension and relief takes on amazing importance as part of the biblical revelation of the person of God Himself. To the extent that God makes tension and relief part of His experience, and that of his incorporeal creation, this duality embraces both the spiritual as well as the material, the eternal as well as the temporal. As such, we are talking about a truly significant dynamic, perhaps unique in the universe for its all-pervasive involvement in everything that exists (including God!).

Tension and relief (T&R) is intrinsic to all of the most useful, creative and pleasurable experiences that exist. T&R is part of the creation of the universe before and after the Fall. Before God could conclude “it was good”, He had to tell us that the material world was “without form and void” (Genesis 1.2). The “tension” of an unfinished canvas or an un-carved block of marble characterized the world before God relieved that tension by forming “out of the ground” every living thing.

Most problematic for some is the fact that T&R always involves “discomfort” followed by “comfort”. Yet this is a rhythm of life for which we can and should praise God. There is discomfort in hunger and thirst, yet what would the gourmet be without both such “discomforts”? Who enjoys the food the most, even at the lamest restaurant, but the diner who hasn’t eaten all day? What is more delightful to look at than the “sight for sore eyes?”

Try enjoying a good night’s sleep when you are not in the least bit tired.

When God allows conflict, crisis, need, and passion it is all for the purpose of making the resolution of those tensions the more sweet and meaningful. Experiencing a T&R cycle can form mental associations that illustrate some of the most transcendent realities in our existence. This is admittedly part of the appeal of various philosophical explorations and interpretations of desire.

But, unlike Buddhism, the biblical solution for “suffering” is not the extinction of all desire, but the satisfaction of it. “and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8.23). The experience of Jesus Christ was shot full of T&R. Without T&R, he would not have cursed a fig tree when it had no fruit for him. Without T&R, Christ would not have “for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross” (Hebrews 12.2).

Will the afterlife include T&R? Apparently so, if we are going to be like Jesus. According to St. John, “now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3.2, emphasis mine).

Life without T&R (at least in this world) would be characterized by solutions without problems, achievements without challenges and products that appear without development or the rigors of the creative process. It would not be life as we know it, nor as we (or God) would want it. It would be like the human race living in harmony with God, but without any choice in the matter. What would be at stake would be more than the cliché “no pain, no gain”, but without T&R, the very realization of free will and the existence of true love would cease to exist.

Still the question may be asked, “Could not the sort of satisfaction we associate with ‘relief’ be enjoyed without the element of ‘tension’?” Yet, that question is like the question of whether we could appreciate the sort of experience we call “color” if we did not have “light”. Remove light and you have a uniform and not unpleasant experience (especially if you are tired), but you do not have color, and you live in darkness. Remove tension and you have a not unpleasant experience, but you have no climactic highs or thrills of achievement, only consistent and predictable sensations that could not be truly described as “satisfactory”, let alone excellent.