In an article, ‘Faith’s Implacable Enemies’, in The Weekend Australian (November 4-5, 2017), Dyson Heydon, a former justice of the High Court of Australia, writes of the significant shift by society’s elites today away from the humble dependence on the blessing of Almighty God expressed in the ‘Imperial Act’ that brought ‘the Australian Constitution into being’.
Heydon comments that ‘the public voices of the modern elites are not humble. They conceive themselves to have entitlements and rights, not blessings. And they do not feel any gratitude to Almighty God for their entitlements and rights. Instead, they desire to exclude any role for religion in Australian public discussion, and perhaps any role for religion in any sphere, public or private. They instantly demand an apology for any statement they dislike.’
Furthermore, Heydon observes, ‘Indifference (towards religion) based on rising wealth can be insidiously damaging to religion… Religion inquires into the nature of humanity and the destiny of humanity… To those satisfied with the pleasures of this world, now so freely available, inquiry and search of these kinds is of no interest… But members of modern elites are moving away from mere indifference. They are embracing a fanatical anti-clericalism. Some want to destroy faith itself…’
‘Modern elites do not desire tolerance,’ Heydon notes. ‘They demand unconditional surrender’.
How will we respond? We need to keep before us the evidence of God in the existence of the universe. We also need to remember the evidence of God’s powerful work in history – especially in the life, death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Too often we forget and are silenced.
In 2 Peter 1 the Apostle Peter insists that his readers always rememberwhat they had been taught about the faith. I intend to keep on reminding you …, he says (verse 12); I will always make every effort to refresh your memory (verse 13); and, After my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things (verse 15).
His words, reminder and memory point to the fact that Christianity is a received truth. There is a body of information that can be learned and recalled – God’s good news.
Peter wants us to understand that all Jesus said and did was true: We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,…. (verse 16).
We often forget that Christianity was born at a time of hundreds of religions and philosophies — Paganism, Epicureanism with its rationalism, Stoicism with its moralism and ‘stiff upper-lip’; occultism, spiritism, mysticism, dualism, pantheism, animism, and a host of other ‘–isms’. Indeed the elites of the 1st century Roman Empire were hostile towards the followers of Jesus Christ.
How important is it that we remember the reality and trustworthiness of Jesus – God in the flesh, who lived amongst us, died for us, and was raised to life.
We need to keep front and center in our lives his words: “You are the salt of the earth,”he says. “You are the light of the world…”he continues. “In the same way, let your light so shine before others that they see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven”(Matthew 5:13-14, 16).
Furthermore, Jesus expects us to play our part in his wider mission to ‘the lost’ in a hostile world. His words to the Seventy, sent out in the course of his ministry, identify principles for us: “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep amongst wolves, so be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16).
Not all the seventy were preachers, but they were still sent. They were part of the witness to Jesus. In Colossians 4:5, Paul picks up the theme of wisdom: Conduct yourselves wisely towards outsiders… He calls his readers (including you and me)to speak graciously, looking for ways to introduce questions and comments that open up the larger issues of life. Our speech is to be seasoned with salt – not insipid, gossip (Colossians 4:6).
Dyson Heydon comments that the elites today, ‘By preventing any public expression of religious thought through ridicule and bullying, they tend to cause religion to wither away even in the private sphere. What can have no public expression will eventually cease to have any private existence…’
What we often overlook is that the followers of Jesus overturned the ancient Roman world, not by armed revolution, but through bold and confident prayer to the God ‘whose nature is always to have mercy’, and by the example of their lives and the testimony of their lips. Let’s pray for the grace, wisdom, and strength we need to serve Christ Jesus, the Lord.
Throughout my ministry, I have endeavored to find appropriate ways to hand on the light of God’s redeeming love to non-churchgoing people. Now at this time of aggressive and arrogant atheism, it seems to me that we need to revisit this task. The substance of the message of God’s gospel remains constant but the way we communicate it needs to be fine-tuned in every age. The reasoned apologetics of the twentieth century need to be re-cast for the twenty-first.
That said, in an interesting article in The Weekend Australian (October 28-29) entitled, ‘Idea of God is perfectly logical’, Greg Sheridan wrote: ‘…It is important to understand that there is nothing in reason that contradicts God. That our public culture so routinely suppresses this knowledge, mocks it and teaches the reverse, demonstrates just what a strange and dangerous cultural dead end we have wandered into. Yet even in our moment, in our society, there is already a nostalgia for God.
‘Reasoning from first principles, of course, is not even the primary rational way you can come to a rational knowledge of God. For it is one of the central realities of humanity, one of the deep mysteries of the human condition, that all truth involves a balance of truths. Rationality needs a context in order to be rational…’
Sheridan goes on to observe: ‘There are countless clues of God throughout the world and within humanity itself. There is the strange phenomenon of joy, the even stranger delight of humour, the inescapable intimation of meaning in beauty and music. There is the mystery of love, along with the equal mystery of our consciousness and our self-awareness…’
Once we get past the inconsistencies of the popular culture we often find that many will agree that God does exist but that he is unknowable – he is abstract, impersonal, and a mystery.
To return to words of Deuteronomy 6 that I have touched on over the last two weeks, we need to feel the sharpness and precision of verse 4: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
The words speak of the supremacy, the unity, the uniqueness and the personality of God. The Hebrew word translated ‘one’ here can refer to more than one person. Significantly it is the same word that we find in Genesis 2:24: Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
In the light of this meaning of the Hebrew word, one,it is consistent that in Genesis 1:26 and 27 we read, Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,…” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Furthermore, it is not surprising that amongst Abraham’s three visitors (Genesis 18:1-21), the supernatural figure Jacob encountered (Genesis 28:1-17), the fourth man in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3:24-25) was the pre-incarnate Son of God. We so often forget that the God of the Old Testament is the same as in the new. The one God exists in three persons.But I digress.
The God of Deuteronomy 6 is not an abstract being, without meaning or message. The language of Lord and unity (as we learn) implies personality – indeed, more than one person who enjoys a relationship and who speak. Deuteronomy 6 reveals the God who is Lord and who is passionately committed to being known and being loved by his people.
This theme is even more evident in the New Testament where we read in Philippians 2: At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, every tongue will confess him as Lord, to the glory of God the Father (2:11).
Every generation needs to hear these truths so that they come and live under them.
The French poet, writer, and aviator, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, once observed: If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
Given our task of handing on the light of God’s truth found in Christ, perhaps we need to start considering ways we can paint a larger picture of life, lifting people’s gaze from the ground to the reality of God who has not only given us our existence, but also the opportunity to experience life in all its fullness and joy.
How important it is that we keep before us God’s words to his people: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Parenting is not for the faint-hearted. A respected pediatrician was once asked by a mother when was the best time to put her children to bed. “While you still have the strength,” he replied.
Parenting requires time, patience and perseverance. One is never sure from one day to the next what issue we might have to deal with – helping children survive in a rapidly changing society; helping them safely through the trauma of growing years that can bring both laughter and tears; helping them with their successes and their failures; helping them with their decisions, especially their working through the moral issues of right and wrong, truth and falsehood.
We all know that there are some decisions that are more challenging than deciding what to wear or what to eat, for there are times when we have a sense of obligation, a sense of, ‘I ought to…’ or ‘I ought not to…’
It’s here that many people today are confused, for apart from the laws of the land, our secular society has not equipped us to determine what moral obligations we may have. So if we say to growing children, ‘You ought to do that…’ we get the response, ‘Why should I?’ Children will want to know if there is a reason for doing or not doing something.
Many parents have a problem here because they have rejected or ignored God and God’s moral authority over their lives. Ethics have become subjective, doing what feels right. This is one reason why people are ambivalent about sexual attitudes and behavior, or about honesty, theft, and compassion. Pragmatism has become the norm.
Children need to come to understand that morality rests on the authority of God, for we live in a moral universe where there is an ultimate accountability. Without God we all may as well do as we like. There will be no final justice.
Consider therefore Moses’ words: Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise (Deuteronomy 6:6f).
The command of Deuteronomy is that parents should talk about their own faith, creating an atmosphere of learning for their children – when sitting at home, going for walks, over meals and at bedtime.
The parent-child relationship is built into God’s pattern of life and parents are the most important influence on children. Children model themselves on their parents. As someone once observed, ‘Children are natural mimics: they act like their parents in spite of every attempt to teach them good manners.’
In his Second Letter to Timothy Paul told Timothy that he had a great advantage in life: Eunice his mother, and Lois his grandmother had, from his childhood, taught him the Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ (3:15).
This weekend we remember Luther’s action in nailing ninety-five theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Papal indulgences, designed to raise money for the renovation of St Peter’s Basilica, Rome, offered a pay-plan for the ‘satisfaction’ element in the church’s teaching on salvation. Grounding his theses on the supreme authority of the Scriptures for our knowledge of God and salvation, Luther questioned the pope’s authority and the abuses in the sale of indulgences.
In contrast to Timothy, Luther had not been brought up in a home or church where there was a clear teaching about God’s unique work of salvation. He had agonized over the assurance of his salvation. It was only when he came to understand the Bible that grasped all that God in his mercy had done for him. He was saved by faith alone, in Christ alone, through God’s grace alone.
The Scriptures set out clear principles for raising children – not just for parents but also for grandparents, aunts and uncles, family friends and for churches.
Furthermore, the Scriptures indicate that we should not just teach children but that we should be ready to answer their questions – especially about life and death issues, about God and the Lord Jesus Christ, about right and wrong (as set out in the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount). We also need to be prepared to tell our story of faith, explaining what Jesus means to us.
Parents are well placed to blend the demands of society and the needs of the child in a way that fully affirms the dignity of the child and yet also makes that child fully ready for society and not simply to be a self-centered little island.
So we need to keep God’s ancient words to his people at the forefront of our teaching and living: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Above all, whether we are parents, grandparents, uncles or aunts or cousins, we need to pray – pray for the children.
In a New York Times article (October 10, 2017), David Brooks commended Richard Thaler, the recent winner of the Nobel Prize in economics. ‘Thaler,’ Brooks commented, ‘took an obvious point, that people don’t always behave rationally, and showed the ways we are systematically irrational…’ He went on to observe, ‘Thanks to his work and others’, we know a lot more about the biases and anomalies that distort our perception and thinking,…’
Furthermore, David Brooks continued, ‘It’s when we get to the social world that things really get gnarly. A lot of our thinking is for bonding, not truth-seeking, so most of us are quite willing to think or say anything that will help us be liked by our group. We’re quite willing to disparage anyone when, as Marilynne Robinson once put it, “the reward is the pleasure of sharing an attitude one knows is socially approved.” And when we don’t really know a subject well enough, in T. S. Eliot’s words, “we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts,” and go with whatever idea makes us feel popular.
Brooks continues, ‘This is where Alan Jacobs’s absolutely splendid forthcoming book “How to Think” comes in. If Thaler’s work is essential for understanding how the market can go astray, Jacobs’s emphasis on the relational nature of thinking is essential for understanding why there is so much bad thinking in political life right now…’
And, I would add, this helps us to understand from a human perspective, why there is so much bad thinking when it comes to the matters of God and faith. Consider, for example, the way in which commentators and television shows constantly belittle and write off anyone who expresses a faith in God. People of faith are dismissed without any reasoned thought. We are tempted to remain silent because we want ‘the pleasure of sharing an attitude we know is socially approved’ (to paraphrase Marilynne Robinson’s words).
How important it is to keep the words of Deuteronomy 6:4-5 at the forefront of our thinking: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
The stress on the oneness of God and the need for us to be single-minded in our love of God and our loyalty to him is more important than we might at first think.
What these words are saying, and what Jesus himself re-iterates, is that behind all the diversity and complexity of the universe there is one God – one God who holds everything together and unifies it. We live in a meaningful, ordered world because everything that happens is all part of the one creation – all part of the one picture puzzle. Is it truly rational to say that the vast nature and complexity of the universe all came about by chance? Consider for example, what the very recent discovery of gravitational waves and neutron stars tells us about the fine-tuning of the universe.
Furthermore, the oneness of our creator God helps us begin to answer the question, “Who am I?” Like the hub of a wheel, he stands at the center of our very existence. Strip him from the universe and our lives, and we’re left with emptiness and meaninglessness.
Consider what has happened. Our Western world has cavalierly, and we could say irrationally, dismissed the idea of God, focusing only on the here and now. Issues such as security and peace, justice and the environment now dominate the conversation. While these subjects are important, they are not the be all and end all of life. As many New Yorkers commented to me over the years, ‘We know there is more to life.’
Sadly, because society has created a vacuum in people’s hearts, many use drugs and sex and social media in the attempt to fill the gap. This is a price we pay when we discard the core truth of Deuteronomy 6:4-5: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
So, what can we do to begin to reverse what David Brooks calls ‘the biases and anomalies that distort our perception and thinking’?
Towards the end of his article he makes the following observation: ‘But I’d say that if social life can get us into trouble, social life can get us out. After all, think of how you really persuade people. Do you do it by writing thoughtful essays that carefully marshal facts? That works some of the time. But the real way to persuade people is to create an attractive community that people want to join. If you do that, they’ll bend their opinions to yours. If you want people to be reasonable, create groups where it’s cool to be reasonable.’
Jesus himself taught: “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
During my childhood I was introduced to Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books as well as his well-known poem, IF,which begins: If you can keep your head when all about you; Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired of waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,…
Interestingly, the words of the third and fourth lines of the second stanza: If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two imposters just the same; … are found above the players’ entrance to the Centre Court at the All England Tennis and Croquet Club where the Wimbledon tennis championship is played.
Written in 1895 as a parent’s advice to a son/daughter, IF expresses the stoicism of Victorian Britain. Remarkable and highly esteemed though Kipling’s poem is, it makes us appreciate all the more, the deeper riches of the wisdom of Proverbs.
For example, in Proverbs 2:1ff we read: My son/daughter, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice of understanding, and seek it like silver and search for it as hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God…
I touch on these matters of wisdom because there are voices today that reject the wisdom of the past. Sadly history shows that people reap the consequences when they fail to learn from the past. So, in an age that thinks it knows best, we need to help one another view life from a bigger perspective.
Consider, for example, not just the wisdom, but the command of God given to his ancient people on the subject of family: “Honor your father and mother… that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you”(Deuteronomy 5:16).
These words introduce the second section of the Ten Commandments given to Moses some three millennia ago. As someone has observed, the Ten Commandments were something like the Bill of Rights for God’s people, setting out their relationships with God and with one another. The first four commandments concern the relationship of God’s people with him; the second six address relationships at the human level – with one’s neighbor.
If the Ten Commandments are like a Bill of Rights, then it comes as a surprise that the first of the human relationships addressed is the relationship with parents. We might have expected this fifth command to address our duty towards the State – be it the President or Head of State.
That this first command concerning our relationships, addresses relationship with parents, shows us that from God’s perspective, the family needs to be at the heart of our human relationships. Loyalty to family comes second only to our relationship with God. And significantly this is the only commandment that comes with a promise.
Now, you may think that this pattern belongs only to the Old Testament. But consider Jesus’ response when he was questioned on the subject of divorce. In Matthew 19:4-6 we read: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said: ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh?…’”
Furthermore, Paul the Apostle takes up the fifth Commandment in his Letter to the Ephesians where he writes: Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land” (Ephesians 6:2-3).
Now some will feel uncomfortable at this because they have had painful experiences of family. They don’t feel any responsibility to family. However, it is evident that throughout the Bible God treats family seriously.
Many today consider that human society is evolving from a primitive beginning to some future ideal. The Bible has a different view. It speaks of men and women having fallen from an original ideal and in danger of progressing to a future disaster. Moses, Jesus and Paul the Apostle indicate that family order is important for the well-being of society.
How important it is that we do not lightly dismiss the wisdom of the past, thinking we know better. Yes, we do need to respect those who have a different perspective, but we also need, to use Kipling’s words, to keep our heads, holding firm to God’s commands and the trustworthiness of his promise.
Why do appalling things happen? Why do events such as the massacre last Sunday in Las Vegas occur? Why do the seemingly innocent suffer?
For the professing Christian who says that God not only exists but that he is compassionate and all-powerful, it is one of life’s toughest questions. And I have to say that there are no complete answers. So what can we say about this profound and perplexing subject? As this is a subject that often crops up in conversations let me briefly touch on a number of points.
First of all, we need to express verbally and practically our compassion for those who suffer, and pray for them.
Second, at an appropriate time – and we need to pray for wisdom about the timing – it is good to be prepared to discuss this issue when God’s existence is questioned.
Many people use the following argument to say that a good and loving God cannot exist: ‘A God who is all-powerful and all-loving would end suffering and pain for his creatures. BUT, suffering and pain exist. Therefore a God who is all-powerful and all-loving does not exist.’
At first sight, this reasoning makes sense. And we should be prepared to acknowledge that when we are talking with others. However, it is useful to point to the response by philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga who conclude, not that God does not exist, but that ‘A God who is all powerful and all loving has a bigger plan’.
This, of course, raises another question: ‘Is there any evidence of a bigger planand if so, what is it?’ To answer this we need to explore themes we find in the New Testament.
God’s bigger plan. Colossians 2:13-15 reads: You, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having cancelled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him.
Captives. The Bible sees history as divided into two great eras. Before Jesus came there was the present age— the world. Now that Jesus has come a new era has begun—the age to come. For the present, this stands alongside the first era. Yes, God has always been in control, but the first era is in bondage to sin and evil. In it we are captive to moral laws we can’t keep. Even when God’s written law was revealed, we couldn’t keep it.
The accuser, satan, has power over us because he holds a catalog of our failures to present to God’s court of justice. God, being the perfect and just God he is, has no other choice but to condemn us to death because sin – treachery against him – is a capital offense.
C.S. Lewis captures these elements in his Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Edmund had betrayed Peter, Susan and Lucy, and Aslan himself. The white witch demanded Edmund’s life saying he had broken ‘the laws of the deep.’ “His life is forfeit,” she shrieked.
This is our natural condition. Alienated from God, we are in the power of spiritual forces we cannot defeat, and we are en route to a grave we can’t avoid. And so we are captive to the pain, suffering and evil that we have brought upon ourselves.
But then came Jesus. At a single stroke he smashed the bars of the spiritual prison of the first age. He wiped out the moral debt of laws we couldn’t obey and disarmed the demonic powers we couldn’t overcome. Furthermore, he abolished death whose clutches we couldn’t escape.
How is this extraordinary freedom achieved? Paul tells us twice: By the cross. For Paul, the first era has given way to the world to come. The cross is where Jesus Christ has potentially turned our captivity into a glorious liberty.
Having created us, not as robots but in his image, God gave us the capacity of choice and with it the potential to turn from him and experience the consequential suffering. The more we leave God out of the equation of life, the greater the darkness will be.
In an extraordinary act of generous love, God’s bigger plan has been to use his vast resources to destroy the enmity – our hostility towards him and towards one another, and the suffering and pain that follow – without destroying the enemy – you and me.
It’s a plan we would never have dreamed of – God himself providing the means of restoring us as the glory of his creation. No wonder Paul the Apostle wrote, The sufferings of this present age cannot be compared with the glory that is to be revealed (Romans 8:18).
