Maybe we should vote no? A Vision for what could be

The PCA has been presented with changes to our Book of Church Order that would disqualify men from serving as officers in the church if they identify as gay or same sex attracted, or if they are publicly known to be gay or same sex attracted. I think that this is the opposite of what is best for the church today. I will give a number of reasons in following posts, but here I would like to articulate what I think would be best for the PCA and for all churches that love Jesus and are committed to follow the Bible's prohibitions of all sex outside of a man + woman marriage.

I would like to see churches full of men and women who have honored Jesus as Lord and are obeying Him with their sexual desires. I would like to see churches full of men and woman who limit their sexual behavior because they decide to love Jesus more than they love the pleasures of sex. I would love to see gay and straight single people abstaining from sexual activity entirely because they have committed their lives to obey the God who became man and lived a celibate life of enormous sacrifice. I would love to see married people in man + woman marriages abstaining from all forms of sexual activity outside of their own marriages because they have been faithfully loved by the God who became man and gave His life in sacrificial love for His church. 

In our day, this is a big ask. It is difficult for all singles--gay and straight--to follow Jesus and the Bible's teachings on sexuality and sexual activity. It's also difficult for all married people to do the same--to keep unstained by the sexualized culture that surrounds us. As we begin to describe what we want for our non-straight family members, and what we want to invite our non-straight neighbors into, it's really important that we acknowledge how widespread straight sexual sin is in our world, and often in the church. It is really easy for straight people to pontificate on these matters in ways that feel hypocritical, because very often the church does not police is straight members with even 10% of the intensity that it policies non-straight people. 

I have had countless conversations with non-straight people. Many who love Jesus, many who don't. I have had the joy of watching non-straight people come to our church and experience Jesus and the gospel and their lives have changed as they've been brought into community. But then, when the subject of homosexuality comes up, they have walked away. It breaks my heart.

The biggest apologetic that I know of today is being able to point non-straight people to other non-straight people who are following Jesus and have made Him Lord over their sexuality. The testimony of someone who understands the sacrifice required and is making the sacrifice is enormously helpful. 

I would like to see churches full of people who identify as gay as an honest expression of the nature of the temptations they experience. I would like their testimony that yes, this is how they find themselves attracted, but they are committed to obeying Jesus instead of those attractions. I believe that these people, and their honesty, are an incredible source of hope for our non-straight neighbors, who would be encouraged to say, "Jesus isn't crazy. This is possible. Knowing these people shows me proof of this." Non-straight believers would also be an incredible source of joy and strength for our non-straight brothers and sisters in the church, who would be encouraged to say, "I'm not alone here. Maybe I can be more open about my own struggles with sexual sin and find deeper community and experience of the gospel in being known."

I would also like to see churches full of people who experience homosexual desires and temptations, but who do not identify as gay because for them sexuality is not (maybe is no longer?) a very important part of their identity. These are people who may continue to experience homosexual desires and temptations, but do not feel dominated by those desires and temptations to the point where they are important for that person to bring up. 

I would like to see churches full of these two kinds of Christians. I think that both of them are supernatural examples of God's grace and strength, and of the power of the gospel to believe and to live a life of sacrificial denial. I think that anyone today who isn't straight, but commits to Jesus and submits their sexuality to His lordship in obedience is a superhero that should be celebrated as the gospel miracle that he or she is. 

I believe that one of the most powerful ways that we can reach more of our non-straight neighbors is by honoring and celebrating our non-straight pastors, elders, and deacons. These are men who have sacrificed an enormous part of their feelings and desires. They are denying themselves something that no one today except for Jesus is calling for. If they choose to be publicly known as gay, then we should be thankful that their presence will encourage many of our non-straight neighbors that there is hope for them. Their presence will also encourage many of our straight brothers and sisters that our non-straight neighbors have a place of hope in our church, so they can more easily be invited. Instead of removing these men from office, I believe we should honor them and be excited that in them we have God's miraculous, gracious proof that there is something better than what the world is offering. 

For those non-straight men who are officers and who are not publicly known as gay, we should be thankful for them as well, because there are also many non-straight men and women who want to leave their gay identities behind, as part of their pre-Christian lives. The better we are able to honor those whose sexuality is known, the better we'll ensure that we provide safe harbor for those who aren't known--so they'll be sure that they have a place to go and are not isolated if they struggle. 

To remove officers from the church for being honest about this area of their lives I believe creates a culture where at least this one kind of struggle is not allowed. That forces people back into the closet and hurts our ability to be an open door to the world that we are trying to reach. 

Here are my posts that go further into the reasons to vote no on the PCA Overtures:
A Vision
Reason #1
Reason #2
Reason #3
Reason #4
Reason #5
Reason #6
Reason #7

The Time Is Now: A Review of Greg Johnson's Still Time to Care

            Still Time to Care, by Greg Johnson shows us how Jesus is both the Lion and the Lamb. Greg presents the withering critiques of the Lion of Judah against those who have burdened and abused His people. He also presents the gentle care of the Lamb of God who offers grace and compassion to the bruised reeds among His people. Still Time to Care addresses the intersection of non-straight people, Jesus, the Bible, and the church. Greg explains what the Bible teaches about sex, marriage, attraction, and orientation. He also provides leadership for people and churches to shepherd straight and non-straight people with the gospel. In Still Time to Care, the Bible’s teachings on sexuality are “settings of silver,” and the applications of those teachings in a community of care are the “apples of gold” (Proverbs 25:11).

Still Time to Care is written in four parts. Part one is “The Paradigm of Care.” Here Greg demonstrates that the “ex-gay movement” has not been the church’s main posture toward the gay community. The ex-gay movement began 40 years ago and died in 2013. But, prior to the ex-gay movement, there were leading lights from across the broad range of the church who had a very different posture toward non-straight followers of Jesus. Greg quotes extensively from C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, John Stott, and Francis Schaeffer, showing that each of them practiced and taught a Paradigm of Care. Nearly every Christian considers at least one of these four as a father in the faith. This Paradigm of Care manifested itself in compassion and patience and understanding toward Christians who experienced romantic attractions toward people of the same sex. These four were radically different from the ex-gay movement. They did not believe that a person's sexual orientation should be expected to change when someone committed to following Jesus. Greg shows that their posture and their practice was to be a deeply encouraging, “non-anxious presence” with non-straight people who were Christian, and with non-straight people who weren’t Christian. Their posture shows that the Paradigm of Care that Greg proposes in this book is not new. Greg's conclusions and pastoral approach are well-represented throughout the church. Still Time to Care is a call to return to the posture of a much healthier period of the church. This part of the book is powerful because many people don’t know that a significant portion of the church responded to non-straight people in this way.

Part two of the book describes the birth, history, and failure of the ex-gay movement. Greg describes the ex-gay movement as a Fall:  it’s a fall from the prior Paradigm of Care (Part 1) into what Greg calls the “Paradigm of Cure.” Prior to this Fall, the best of the church prioritized caring for people who follow Jesus and experience non-straight attractions. But the ex-gay movement changed it’s focus and prioritized curing people from their non-straight attractions. Here, Greg brings convicting exposure and clarity to the traumatizing damage that people suffered under this Paradigm of Cure. He also clearly exposes the inexcusable hypocrisy that characterized the ex-gay movement’s leaders. While he is critical because of the awful things done by the ex-gay movement, he also does acknowledge that some people experienced some positive things within it. Some non-straight Christians experienced vulnerable, honest community for the first time within the ex-gay movement, even if their attractions didn’t change.

But the majority of the ex-gay movement produced harm and abuse. It was guilty of heaping burdens on people that even its leaders weren’t able to bear. It was built upon the foundation of people with testimonies of “orientation transformation” that were untested. Leaders had little or no theological training, and most did not yet have proven character. These leaders had hands laid on them too soon. Their testimonies were platformed in front of a desperately hopeful community of non-straight people (and their despairing family members). These testimonies proved to be too simplistic and inauthentic. Audiences were left believing that orientation transformation was promised in the gospel and therefore should be expected. These testimonies in effect became a new law that produced 1) false hope that non-straight people could and should be “healed” of their non-straight attractions, or 2) condemnation for those who hadn’t experienced orientation transformation, because they didn’t believe enough or obey enough. It was similar to the way that people have felt condemned by ministries that teach that physical healing is available to any Christian who has enough faith. Greg’s analysis and critique is a warning to the church:  We should be wary against taking some peoples’ experience and universalizing them as the standard for everyone, especially when those experiences are untested.

Greg’s survey of the birth and death of the ex-gay movement also corrects another important misunderstanding in the church. Many Christians and non-Christians today believe that the church’s posture has always been ex-gay. Greg shows that this is not true. The view of the most prominent Protestant leaders was not ex-gay prior to the 1970’s. Greg’s paradigm of Care is not new. It’s a renewal of a time when the church’s response to non-straight believers was healthy.

In Part three of the book, Greg deals with the Bible’s teaching on sexuality. Greg’s analysis of the Bible is thorough and illuminating. He demonstrates that the Bible clearly teaches the traditional sexual ethic--sexual activity was designed by God for heterosexual marriage. He also demonstrates that taking the Bible seriously on sexuality also requires opposing the ministry perspectives and practices of the ex-gay church. You can humbly bow to the authority of Jesus expressed in the Bible while also rejecting ex-gay convictions. Greg explains what the Scriptures teach, and he applies it with love and care to people in the midst of ongoing struggle and confusion.

In Part four, Greg offers a path forward for individuals and the church. Here Greg describes how the church can remove the abusive thinking, practices, and culture of the ex-gay movement from the church. We can be free from the errors of the ex-gay movement, while still being faithful to biblical Christianity. The church can disciple people to maturity without making orientation change a requirement or an expectation.

This part ends with a chapter called “Celibacy and Hope.” Here Greg offers a path that will deeply minister to non-straight people and those who love them. This path includes a culture of acceptance and challenge that will help the church to minister to the non-straight community, and every other community that feels alienated by the church.

A debate has erupted within Greg’s (and my) denomination:  the Presbyterian Church in America. This debate is over whether pastors (or any follower of Jesus) should call themselves “gay Christians.” Some people want to remove any pastor from his ministry if he is publicly known to not be straight—even if he is committed to Jesus’ sexual ethic and is celibate. Greg paves the way for churches to welcome both sides of this debate. He believes God's family (and God's leaders) should include people who want to use this phrase and people who don’t. Greg’s view creates a church where both are worthy of honor and both are necessary for the church to be fully healthy. I hope that the PCA repents, and does not ratify its recent decision. I hope it embraces a position that embraces everyone who is committed to the way of Jesus, no matter what they call themselves.

Still Time to Care is a book for everyone—straight and non-straight, Christian and non-Christian. It is for anyone who wants to be a blessing to non-straight people. It is for anyone trying not to be guilty of the damage of the ex-gay movement.

This book is compelling, but what is more compelling than Greg’s book is Greg’s life. His testimony is beautifully told through the book. His humanity and the way he bears God’s image comes through as a demonstration of an indestructible life in Jesus. Greg has been committed to an extraordinarily costly obedience. He has taken up his cross to follow Jesus in a way that is heroic—especially in our day and age. Many people have rightly divided God’s word on the subject of sexuality, but in Greg’s life God’s word has become flesh. Anyone who knows him beholds the glory of Jesus shining through him. Our non-straight brothers and sisters who are committed to Jesus and His sexual ethic are super-heroes of the faith. They carry an incredible burden that is misunderstood by much of the church. They are ridiculed by the world for their commitment to celibacy. They deserve to be honored and followed. Many are qualified to lead and shepherd the church. There is still time to care for this community, and Greg’s book shows us how.

How We Got the Bible and Why We Can Trust It

INTRODUCTION

Some of you will be bored by this. But you need to either know this information or you need to know that this information exists—because your confidence in the bible is paramount in how you influence others. If you can know these things, you can speak with confidence to others about why you think the bible is trustworthy.

HERE’S WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS
OLD TESTAMENT
God revealed Himself to people in history through actions and then through spoken word. Through oral tradition, people shared the stories of what God did with each other. This oral tradition has been shown to be incredibly accurate, especially in cultures before books and the information age.


God then revealed Himself to Moses to re-adopt the people of Israel as His family. Moses was called to mediate the adoption ceremony. This is what happened when he made the covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai.

God spoke directly to Moses, and then inspired Moses to write God’s acts and words, starting from Creation. Moses’ words were God’s word. 

Genesis – Deuteronomy were written during Moses life leading God’s people (at least the first edition was). These 5 books of Moses revealed where Israel came from and who Israel was as a nation specially chosen by God to bring His kingdom to the world. These books also gave Israel wisdom and direction to live in relationship with God—through worship and obedience, seeking forgiveness and covenant renewal when they failed.


Joshua – Esther are called historical books. These books of history are theologically driven, meaning that they tell the history of Israel from their entrance into the promised land, through the time of the kings, the exile, and their return from exile. While they report selective events from Israel’s history, they emphasize the covenant relationship that Israel had with God, that Israel broke, and they set the backdrop for God’s prophets.

Isaiah – Malachi are called the Prophets. Prophets were like God’s “covenant lawyers,” confronting people with their violations of their family relationship with God, warning them of the judgment that the covenant promised would befall them for unfaithfulness, and calling them to return to God. The prophets reveal a God of extravagant grace—a God who doesn’t delight in judgment, but whose heart breaks over judgment and who takes on the judgment Himself.

Job – Song of Solomon are called the Wisdom Books. These books govern Israel’s life in the land, they explain how life is designed to work in relationship with God.  These books show that in all of life, the key to successful living (as God defines success) is through knowing, worshiping, and obeying God.

The 39 books that make up what we now call the Old Testament were collected together and were the accepted as God's Holy Scriptures at the time of Jesus. When Jesus came to earth, He made it very clear how He felt about the Old Testament:
                Every jot and tittle will not pass away—Matt 5:17-21
                It all speaks of Him—Luke 24:27; John 5:39
                It’s authoritative—Matt 5:17-21
                It’s inspired by God—Mark 10:3-9
Jesus endorsed the Old Testament. This doesn’t necessarily answer the question of the authority of the Old Testament we have today, but this is what Jesus thought of the Old Testament of His day. In His life, Jesus ministered with God’s authority. His authority was equal and even superseded the authority of the Old Testament.

NEW TESTAMENT
In the midst of his ministry, Jesus appointed 12 apostles to represent Him. Jesus gave them His authority. These 12 preached with the authority of Jesus in Acts. Then the 12 wrote with the authority of Jesus in what became the books of the New Testament. The 12 were inspired to write the words of God (2Tim 3:16-17; 2Pet 1:19-20; 2Pet 3:15). The New Testament is the written version of the God’s final word. It’s the written version of the authority that Jesus Himself gave to the apostles. The New Testament was written by the apostles. The books that aren’t named after the 12 are written by their secretaries (through dictation). Luke was Paul’s secretary, Mark was Peter’s. James was the brother of Jesus, leader of the Jewish church.

THE LIST OF NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS
The apostles writings were accepted as the written authority of Jesus.
There were false teachers who were identified as such. Tools were given to identify them as such. Initially there was no controversy over which books belonged in the approved list. Actually, there wasn’t a published list of authoritative New Testament books until after someone had published a false list. This is because there was no need for a list when no one questioned the books that were accepted as having the authority of Jesus. Marcion, in 180AD tried to steer the church away from Jesus. He believed that the God presented in the Old Testament was different from the God of the New Testament. He believed the Old Testament God was wrath, while the New Testament God was a different God, a. NT—God was love. Marcion believed that the Old Testament wasn’t for the church. More than that, he also believed that most of the New Testament books weren’t inspired by God. Marcion published a list of New Testament books that he said were the written authority of Jesus. There were 10 of them. They were the letters of Paul + Luke’s gospel.

The church responded to Marcion’s list, not by determining which books were supposed to be in and which books were supposed to be out. Instead, the church responded to Marcion’s list by re-affirming the books that were already accepted by the church. It was the 27 books that we have now.


So roughly 2000 years ago, there was an accepted Old Testament and New Testament.

But that was 2000 years ago. We still need to ask and answer the question:  Do we have now what they had then?

TODAY:  THE OLD TESTAMENT WE HAVE
For the longest time the earliest copy of the Old Testament that we had was from 1054AD. That’s about 1500 years after the last book of the Old Testament was written. That's a big gap.

Scholars would defend the accuracy of this copy of the Old Testament by appealing to the painstaking process that copyists went through:  how exact they were, the strides they went through to check and recheck the copies, how they would burn the copies that had even one error. It’s actually very impressive. But still... come on—1500 years of the written telephone game? There’s no way 1500 years could yield anything that we could trust.

Then, in 1947, a shepherd was throwing rocks into a cave. He found what became known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. This collection of scrolls had approximately 1000 documents—including copies of portions of the Old Testament from 200BC. That’s 200 only years after the last book of the Old Testament was written.

When these copies were compared with the copies from 1054AD, there was almost zero difference!

From https://www.probe.org/the-dead-sea-scrolls/  After years of careful study, it has been concluded that the Dead Sea Scrolls give substantial confirmation that our Old Testament has been accurately preserved. The scrolls were found to be almost identical with the Masoretic text (the copy from 1054AD). Hebrew Scholar Millar Burrows writes, “It is a matter of wonder that through something like one thousand years the text underwent so little alteration. As I said in my first article on the scroll, ‘Herein lies its chief importance, supporting the fidelity of the Masoretic tradition.'”{6} 

A significant comparison study was conducted with the Isaiah Scroll written around 100 B.C. that was found among the Dead Sea documents and the book of Isaiah found in the Masoretic text. After much research, scholars found that the two texts were practically identical. Most variants were minor spelling differences, and none affected the meaning of the text.

One of the most respected Old Testament scholars, the late Gleason Archer, examined the two Isaiah scrolls found in Cave 1 and wrote, “Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The five percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”{7}

Despite the thousand year gap, scholars found the Masoretic Text and Dead Sea Scrolls to be nearly identical. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide valuable evidence that the Old Testament had been accurately and carefully preserved.

3. Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago, IL.: Moody Press, 1985), 513-517. 
6. Millar Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Viking Press, 1955), 304, quoted in Norman Geisler and William Nix, General Introduction to the Bible(Chicago: Moody Press, 1986), 367.
7. Archer, 25. 

This means that Old Testament that we have today is an incredibly reliable copy of the original Old Testament.

TODAY:  THE NEW TESTAMENT WE HAVE
There is remarkable manuscript evidence. Thousands of manuscripts of the NT documents. We have more copies of the New Testament than any other historical book from the ancient world combined. It's not even close. If we are sure of anything we learn from ancient writings, we can be sure that the new Testament we have today is what was written by the followers of Jesus.

Plus, we don’t simply have an overwhelming number of copies of the New Testament, but we also have quotes of almost the whole New Testament in the literature that was written about the New Testament.

This means that the translations that we have today—they aren’t translations of translations of translations. Today we translate the OT directly from the Hebrew bible that Jesus affirmed. We translate the NT directly from the Greek in which it was written.

Seminaries teach Hebrew and Greek—so when I preach, I can translate the Hebrew and the Greek myself. I don’t mention this a lot in my sermons, but that’s because the English versions we use are fantastic translations.

The conclusion of all this is that the scientific data shows that Christians can trust the text of the Bible. The scientific data also shows that non-Christians should wrestle with its claims. It represents the authority of God on earth. Jesus believed the Old Testament came from God and represented His own authority through the New Testament. We all should humble ourselves and follow His authority.

Not all Christians are disciples--and that's by design

What if the gospels were designed to train disciples which were actually supposed to be future rabbis? And then the Epistles were designed to equip the saints? This would help explain why the word disciple disappears in the Epistles.

Jesus was training disciples--these are people who would become teachers in the movement that He was beginning. The epistles seem more focused on equipping the saints, rather than training disciples. The word disciple seems to be replaced with saints as the recipients of the literature of the New Testament.

Lots more could be said about this.

Children, Parenting, the Curse, Suffering, and the Pieta

I had a very disturbing dream that felt like an spiritual attack. The enemy's most powerful attacks against me come in the form of intimidation. I woke up at 3am and began to pray in part about my children. At 330am I began to journal and I wrote for 4 hours. I thought about a conversation I had with someone in our church about their child's desire to be a missionary and the fear that struck in the mother about the dangers of missionary work. 

I then connected Michaelangelo’s Pieta and the angels’ message to Mary in Luke 2:35. Both of these show that part of the role of mothers is to offer their children up to God, knowing that they will suffer. Fathers also must do this, but stereotypically mothers are more challenged by this. This is a “soul piercing” exercise that requires great faith from the mother, who has temptations to overprotect her children in order to keep them safe. Luke 2:35 is the warning beforehand that proper mothering means you will offer your children to God, knowing that their following Jesus will mean suffering because of the sin and brokenness of the world. The Pieta is a breathtaking masterpiece that shows the result of proper mothering and the soul-piercing grief that inevitably strikes the mother when she has to suffer through seeing her child suffer. 

As I was processing my dream in the hours before morning, I connected these ideas to Genesis 3 and made a connection I had not made before. Adam and Eve brought sin into the world and so the world was subjected to futility and cursed. The judgment on the woman was, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.” This clearly indicates that the process of being pregnant and the act of giving birth would be riddled with multiplied pain. But the new thought that occurred to me was that childbearing begins with conception, 9 months of preganancy, and delivery, but the end of childbearing (meaning childbearing’s telos/goal) isn’t merely a new, live human being. The telos of childbearing is a mature man or woman who is strong enough to stand against the evil in the world and to push it back as they exercise dominion over the earth. They are designed to exercise this dominion by reflecting the image of God and being empowered by God's Holy Spirit. This is what we aim to produce by preparing ourselves to parent and then through our parenting. And ALL OF THIS is riddled with multiplied pain.

So of course the pain that is multiplied includes everything leading up to delivery. But doesn’t it also include the realization of the mother that her children must leave the home and face the suffering of life and the evil that works against Jesus and His kingdom? Doesn’t it include their actual leaving and their actual suffering? So all the worry and anxiety of what might be in our kids’ lives are including in the mother’s multiplied pain. The Pieta is an image of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Luke 2:35. Mothers throughout history can know that they aren’t alone in the soul-piercing pain that their children’s suffering causes. Even the perfect Child caused the most acute pain to the heart of His mother as she was forced to watch him walk the Via Dolorosa and then to be nailed to the cross. The Passion of the Christ meant suffering for Jesus, and suffering for His mother.

Stepping back even farther, how much greater suffering did the Father of Jesus endure as He was moved to forsake His Son? The eternal Fellowship that the two enjoyed before time began (John 17:5; John 1:1) was broken as He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2Corinthians 5:21). Herein lies the reason why any mother (or father) would be willing to accept this pain, and continue to worship God. Herein lies the reason why any mother (or father) would humble themselves, and follow Mary, saying, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word”(Luke 1:38). It is because the suffering of the Son of God destroyed the power of death and the evil that wields it. It is because from the death of Jesus comes ever flowing streams of life to the whole world. It is only through the suffering and death of the Son of God that death may be swallowed up in the victory of resurrection life. The wages of sin is death, so the Son of God tasted death so that “through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who fear of death of death were subject to lifelong slavery”(Hebrews 2:14-15).

Mothers (and fathers) are taught to have a pain-filled faith that knows that when our children suffer and hold on to their faith, they too overcome the world (1John 5:4). God crushes the Satan under their feet (Romans 16:20). God’s kingdom comes and His will is done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). What a glorious victory that is ours when instead of over-shielding our children from suffering we instead strengthen them to head into it and stand against it, fully clad in God’s armor! (Ephesians 6:10-20).

So yes, there is multiplied pain in bearing and raising and releasing children. But isn't there a glorious justification for saying yes to such pain when we see that through the Spirit-empowered faithfulness of our children, they in small ways bring heaven and earth together in a foretaste of the new world (Matthew 19:28). In their lives they demonstrate Jesus' ultimate victory over sin and death. 

The glory doesn’t make the pain less multiplied. But it does lead us to conclude that the sufferings of this world cannot be compared to the glory that is to be revealed in us (Romans 8:18)!

  

May this encourage and inspire you to raise your kids as stewards, ultimately offering them to God and longing first for their strength, not merely their safety.

Burial vs. Cremation

There are some layers to understanding the Bible here. Here's my overview of the issue. 

1. The practice of people who followed God in the Bible was to bury, NOT to cremate. This seems to be for 2 related reasons:  1) Separation from other religious practices. 2) Expressing a belief about the body's future. Other religions cremated because they believed that in death, the good soul escapes the confines of the evil/plagued/unnecessary body. This is not the biblical understanding of the body/soul relationship, nor of the future that God has designed for people. 

God made human beings to be body+soul creatures. He designed us to flourish body+soul. Incidentally, this is why we enjoy food, sun, water, mountains, music, etc. Aesthetics are sensorial. They are aspects of the physical and embodied nature of our existence. To be embodied is not bad, but it's part of how we experience the glory of God. This one application of what Romans 1:20-23 says about how the invisible God has manifested His invisible attributes and His glory through what He has made. 

The incarnation of Jesus and His resurrection further prove that body+soul is good and is God's design for humanity. It's true that when we die, our souls leave our bodies and go into the presence of the Lord. But in the future, when Jesus returns, we will be raised beyond death and we will be given new, resurrection bodies (1Corinthians 15:35-55). We will inherit a physical+spiritual new heaven and earth (Revelation 21-22). Then for all eternity, we will be perfected body+soul beings in communion with God, others, and all of the physical universe. Because of this, Jews and Christians practiced burial as a declaration that the body is good and it was buried in hope that it will be raised and renewed in the future resurrection of all things (John 11:24). 

So Jews and Christians practiced burial because of their belief in image of God in the present physicality of the universe and the future physicality of the resurrected and renewed universe. They rejected the way that other religions discredited or repudiated the physical. It is true that it's possible to cremate for other reasons than to reject the goodness of the physical present and future. This leads to my next point.

2. I believe that the practice of burial in the Bible is DE-scriptive, rather than PRE-scriptive. This means that the Bible reports what God's people did, but does not say that this is the only way to do it. There is no command from God to bury. Burial is what they did because of what they believed about the present and future. I think that it's possible to cremate without believing in a pagan understanding of the "free-the-soul-from-the-body" or "reject the physical in favor of the spiritual" dynamics. Even if you do bury someone, that person will return to dust in a way that is not dissimilar to the ashes produced by cremation. Both ashes and dust reflect the undoing of the process of God bringing human life into the world (Genesis 2:7). 

Because people can choose to bury or cremate and still have a robust faith in the Bible's worldview of the body, I think this is an issue that is similar to the "Meat Offered to Idols" issue that the early Jew+Gentile church wrestled with. Paul addresses this issue thoroughly in Romans 14-15 and in 1Corinthians 8-10. His conclusion is that it's okay to eat or not eat as long as you are doing it (or not doing it) as an expression of your faith in Jesus. Along these lines, I believe it's okay to bury or cremate as long as you are doing either in faith--meaning that you believe in the goodness of the physical of the present creation (even though the present creation has been marred by sin and temporarily cursed) and you believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus and in your own future resurrection.

3. It's most important to make a decision based on your faith in the resurrection from the dead. If God will raise you to live beyond death, if God will give you a new body and have you live forever in a body+soul reality, then I think you want to make a decision that reflects your faith in that future. Many people just don't worry about it. They think--well, God can find the ashes or the dust wherever they are and just put it back together. I would suggest that people handle someone's remains in a way that shares with those left behind your faith about your future. So I would suggest (this is my best wisdom, but this isn't the only way) that whether you bury or cremate, choose a location for the remains. This honors your body and it honors you with a place. Your soul will be with Jesus from the day you die, but your physical remains will have a location that can be remembered and honored by those who you leave behind.

Intellect and Emotions are not at Odds? EVERYONE is emotional

Here’s a development of thoughts we began on Monday. I’m very excited about this. I’d love your thoughts and feedback.

Being emotional isn’t in tension with being intellectual. Intellectuals are emotional about their ideas and about being right.

The real question is what is producing the emotional reaction in people who aren’t moved by ideas and being right? Is it relational connection? Is it the closure of a good story? Is it a sense of rightness that is told in a narrative vs. propositional arguments?

In Exodus, the purpose of priestly garments was “for glory and for beauty.” Romans 2 says we are to seek for glory and honor and immortality. Psalm 8 says that being made in God’s image means that we are a little lower than angels and we are crowned with glory and honor. Maybe “beauty” is not only a description determined by characteristics that something has. Maybe beauty is in part indicated by the impact it has on others. Maybe beauty is a description that indicates that something is showing all who look at it or think about it that something is ideal in it. Maybe things that are beautiful actually show us something beyond the ordinary, maybe beauty is a reflection of God’s image In things. Maybe beauty is an indication of the glory of something. That It affects others, it impresses and amazes and it puts people in awe. They have to stop and stare, they are mesmerized. They worship. They devote themselves to it. Maybe that’s what beauty is and what it’s for.

JBP says that one of the personality trait is broken down into two different things:  apprecitation of ideas vs. appreciation of aesthetics. This dichotomy might be an indication of non idea driven (non logically driven assessment of –assessment of things. This would fit with the idea that there is something aesthetical or beautiful that “non-intellectual” or “non-logical” people are drawn to moves people very deeply. I also believe that these other aesthetical or beautiful things that move people are very logical and rational (meaning that when they are understood they both make sense and can be explained), but that many people feel the right-ness of it before they are able to explain it, and many times for various reasons they don’t end up getting explained.

The more I think about this, the bigger it gets. Appreciation of aesthetics doesn’t just have to be physically appealing things like beauty. This is important because when conflict happens in marriage, in friendships, in churches, in politics, etc. very often the conflict is the result of the two (or more) people valuing different things, or having a different order of priority for their values. This also relates to Jordan’s rule 4, which includes a discussion of the reality that what we focus on is what we see. So often in the church, conflicts arise because people thing one thing is most important and that one thing is different from what the leadership thinks is most important. For instance, which is more important—caring for people or theological accuracy? Obviously both are important.

So the thing that I would love to discuss further is this:

The issue is not Intellect vs. Emotion. The reality is the intellectual people get emotional about logic and ideas.

What is it that “emotional” people are getting emotional about? It’s not that they are emotional, where Intellectual people are not. Everyone gets emotional—intellectual’s peoples’ emotional commitment to ideas just doesn’t look like what an “emotional” person’s emotional reaction looks like. But I think that emotional reactions are actually what both sides have in common. So what is it that produces the emotional reaction from people on the “emotional” side of the spectrum? Understanding this would help us to create new categories for people and lead us to understand them much better. Here are some suggestions:

What moves non-intellectual people to become emotional?

Beauty—there are people who are moved by and committed to beautiful things, artistic things, things that are visually compelling.

Relationships—there are people who think that people and relationships are the most important things

Feelings—there are people who think that how you feel is most important

CASH VALUE OF THIS IDEA:

Knowing that people are moved by different things can help a lot when there are disagreements. Maybe the conflict is the result of different people valuing different things? Maybe the way to engage in conflict is to step back and ask yourself, “What is it that this other person is valuing? How is what they are valuing a reflection of something good? How can I affirm the value of what they are valuing? How can I share what I’m valuing in a way that is a ‘Yes, and…’ rather than a ‘No, but…’?”

This seems like it could really impact marriages, churches, friendships. It would lead to much richer conversations.

What do you think? What other things are there that move people to become emotional?