On God's Grace, Anger Fantasies, and a Bad Muffler by Chris White

Actual Car not pictured

"Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life"

                                                                                    --Proverbs 4:23

The constraints of my situation prohibit me from elaborating, but I do have an enemy.   It's not the devil (although he certainly does appear on my list as The Enemy!) nor is it someone who is or ever has been a member of the church or on the church staff.  Thus, no need to guess or try to figure out who this person is as it really is not important.  My point in bringing this up is I was out walking (as is my custom) the other night and thinking what Pastor Rick has often referred to as "anger fantasies" about this person.  It started out as prayer but, to be honest, it quickly degenerated into thinking incoherent thoughts like "God, if you are going to forgive this person, I'm not sure I even want to be in heaven."  In that moment I heard back from God and thankfully it wasn't "okay Chris, I'll bear that in mind and judge you accordingly!"  So how did God speak to me and what did he say?  In that moment a car drove by me on this quiet street.  It's muffler was noisy enough that it caused me to look up as it went by.  On the back of the car in 10 inch letters were the words " Jesus said love your enemies!".   I wish I could say a warm rush of God's love enveloped me in that moment and that I was immediately quickened by the Spirit to actually love my enemy, but that is not what happened.  But my heart did stop its tirade and was, as the song goes, "sweetly broken" by the truth sent to me from God.  For I knew the message on the back of the car was for me and was shorthand for larger passage of scripture:

 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?  You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. " (Matt. 5:43-48)

It's a hard truth, especially if you have been grievously injured by another person, yet we are not called to have warm feelings for our enemies, but to return to them the same grace God has given to us.  Its easy to forget that in the face of our rebellion and enmity towards God, God showed us His favor and grace.  He asks us to extend the same and in the doing of that we reflect in a small way His likeness and so prove to be His sons.

Lessons from the Tabernacle of the Wilderness Pt. 1 by Chris White

 “And let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them.  According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it.”

                                                                  Ex. 25:8-9

I would like to begin this series on the Tabernacle of Israel with a question: why would learning about the tabernacle make me a better Christian?  In a general way, the tabernacle illustrates the fullness of our relationship with Jesus.  The tabernacle teaches us how God has approached man and how man is to approach God.  In the coming weeks this divine portrait of Christ will become more vivid as we take a closer look at its many furnishings.  We read in Exodus 25 that the tabernacle was a temporary sanctuary that was the center of Israel’s worship until Solomon built a permanent temple in Jerusalem 647 years later.   The tabernacle in the wilderness was most importantly not something Moses or the people initiated, but something God initiated.  Moses received the work order, the specific design, even the names of the building supervisors (Ex. 31) directly from God.  Moreover, the resources to fulfill this work had been provided by Him through the Egyptians as gifts to the Jews as they left following the final plague.  This tabernacle when finished was to be in the center of Israel’s massive encampment and would travel with them.  As this pertains to Jesus Christ let me point out three important things: first, Mt.1:23 tells us that Jesus will be called Immanuel or “God with us”.  God came to where is people were living and dwelt in the middle of them.  Second, the Israelites were tent dwellers and so God lived among them in the same fashion.  This points to Jesus’ incarnation, that He would dwell among us and live as we live, that He would redeem our existence.  Third, like the Tabernacle, Jesus is God’s provision and exclusive means of reconciling man to Himself (see 1 Tim. 2:5).  Our salvation begins and ends with God.  We cooperate with Him to be sure, but ultimately it is through His instrumentality that anyone is saved.  Next time: The Ark of the Covenant.

The Canon of Holy Scripture: History, Heresy, and Hearsay Pt. 4 by Chris White

In part four of this series on the Canon of Scripture I want to continue with the theme of precipitating factors that led to its development.  In my last installment we talked about false teachers who wanted to add to and take away from the scriptures based on their theological excesses.  Certainly another factor in this was the government persecution of the church.  Christians weren’t persecuted in every place and everywhere at once, but the first three centuries of the churches existence was marked by a series of 8 major persecutions.

One of the widest persecutions of the Church came from the rule of the Emperor Diocletian.  Christians enjoyed many years of peace under Diocletian who more or less treated “the Christian issue” with benign neglect.  But something happened along the way and in February of 303, Diocletian issued an edict that all copies of the Christian scriptures must be turned into the authorities on pain of death.  Prior to this, leaders and individual Christians had been punished for their faith, but never had their literature been confiscated.  If your life were at risk for hiding a portion of the scriptures for your church to use, wouldn’t you want certainty that it was a canonical book?

As an aside, it is illuminating that Diocletian attempted to destroy the Church by destroying its Scriptures.  It shows the power of God’s Word and the truth of the Gospel that it was considered subversive by the Roman government.  Today, reading in general is down but especially Bible reading among Christians.  I wonder if persecution were to come today whether this strategy would even be viable?

From this persecution came another problem:  what to do with the traditores or “hand-overs” of scripture?  In North Africa, those who cooperated with handing over scriptures to the government were considered apostates unworthy of communion or fellowship with the Church.  But what if all they handed over was a Christian book that was non-canonical.  Were they still outside the pale?  This persecution created an interesting situation where having a definitive statement on the canon would have been helpful.  In point of historic fact, this actual controversy led to a nearly 100 year schism in the North African church.

Beyond persecution, perpetuation of the faith was also an important factor in the development of the canon.  For many reasons, the Early Church was very aggressive in their doctrinal training of its members.  In some instances a convert could not be baptized until they had undergone three years of training.  A canon would regulate which books would be used in this period of spiritual formation.  The flip-side of this coin is Bible translation and mission work.  The sine qua non of the Christian faith has always been  missionary endeavor.  Missionary work in turn necessitated the scriptures be translated as the faith left the Greek speaking world.  With translation and copying being such a difficult and expensive proposition, a canon would clarify which books were essential.

False prophets, persecutions, and forward progress of the faith were some of the “on-the-ground” issues that necessitated a canon be clarified for the entire church.  But how did that happen?  Was there a clear, straight forward process that was applied somewhere?  The answer to that in my closing essay.

Was the Church Lady Right? by Chris White

Many years ago comedian Dana Carvey had a regular sketch on Saturday Night Live called "Church Chat".  "Church Chat" was a mock television show where news of the week and cultural developments would be reviewed from the perspective of a buttoned-up, judgmental, Bible-thumping character called the Church Lady.  Of course the punch line of the sketch invariably led to her regular evaluation: "I don't know who inspired that….could it be….SATAN!"  It was irreverent, mocking, and of course quite hilarious and even as I write, I'm smirking in remembrance of her sketch with Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker or was that Jim and Tammy Baye Faker?  Memory seems to fail me.

It was all in good fun and the Church Lady is definitely a caricature of a type of Christian who sees the devil behind everything even when there is an obvious explanation that would be to the contrary.  There is an equal but opposite type of a Christian as well who sees every little thing that happens as God's direct benediction upon their lives.  If a person like this had been in the passenger seat during my commute to work this morning they would have said "oh, praise the Lord!  He's given us favor with hitting all green lights this morning!".  The reality was that I was purposefully speeding and maniacally weaving in and out of traffic on wet pavement and in the fog.  So if God was blessing me, it was not his favor towards my sin, just mercy on my stupidity.  But these extremes aside, I do want to go on record as saying Church Lady not completely wrong in her assertions about the Prince of Darkness.

I believe in the person of Satan.  I  reject the position that the devil is a human fabrication to explain why decent human beings make really bad choices.  I equate such thinking with the belief that the stork delivers babies to people and that Santa Claus and his elves live at the North Pole and only come out at Christmastime (even these symbolic images are accretions on some serious facts).  Satan is also not an impersonal force of evil exerting influence on humanity like gravity or barometric pressure.  There are plenty of people who believe such things and as C.S. Lewis would say, nothing would delight the Enemy more than we don't believe he exists.

If the polls are true, Satan must be do a happy dance every time he thinks about America .  Belief surveys tend to show a clear majority of Americans (55-57%) do not believe that Satan exists.  The  Barna group who polled only Christians on this question several years ago showed that 59% didn't believe in the person of the devil.  So, if Barna is to be believed here, those people who self-identify as Christians believe even less in the devil than the general population does.  Brilliant.  Once again, I'm certain nothing delights the devil more and I guess I must identify with the minority of self-professing Christians who believe the Bible should be taken literally.

Satan as he appears in the scriptures is at great variance with the devil of public imagination.  He is described as quite beautiful in appearance and not the least bit red or having horns, tail, or a pitchfork in his possession.  What is taught about the evil one is that he is an angelic being created by God who became so arrogant that he attempted to oppose his Creator and in so rebelling became the devil.  His complicity in the occasion of Original Sin reveals something of his nature and his own rebellion against God.  He appears to the parents of the human race as some form of attractive creature and through subtle suggestion leads them to believe God has been less than good to them and that they should take control of their own destiny.  Such a plan had a serious plausibility factor built into it, but when acted upon was quite disastrous and in the end delivered none of its promises.  Beguiling people with stellar appearance, promising them a glorious future and then delivering them to a diminished existence is not a strategy that is limited to American politics alone.  It is the essential core of Satan's standard operating procedure.

Two of the names ascribed to Satan are a dark angel "masquerading as an angel of light" (2 Cor.11:14) and the "accuser of the brethren"(Rev. 12:10).  There are many other names or descriptions for the devil given in the Bible, but these two give insight his strategies against Christians.   The principle effort of Satan is to deceive a person in such a way as to disconnect them from God.  Please listen carefully here.  I am not saying Satan can disconnect God from you.  I am saying he will do most anything he can to get you to sever your ties with the Lord.  Surprisingly one of his best tools for this is religion.   What makes religion good is that it elevates the human mind and soul with an insight that is greater than ourselves about how to live, think, and treat others.  By the same token, this is what makes religion so dangerous as well.  Not all religions are true (unless of course you believe that logical contradictions are logical) which means that if the light you get from it is not true, you find yourself doing things like flying airliners into New York skyscrapers or committing group suicide when you spot a comet in the sky.  The Devil very obviously cloaks himself in religious light to appeal to man's spiritual bent, but what he speaks from behind the masquerade is anything but the truth.

Where I live (the state of Oregon) religious people are much fewer and most people shy away from the spiritual.  What I have long observed here is that Satan has another plan for the more secularized which leads them to give ultimate value to very temporal things.  I'm not saying there is anything wrong with recreation or family or hobbies, but for too many this has become the thing of supreme value which means for all intent and purposes, God's place has been usurped by snowmobiling or worse yet, a new iphone (I have watched people in airports gaze at their smartphones with expressions that border on worshipful ).   Then of course there is the chemical pathway to meaning.  Drugs and alcohol are horrible addictions which I would not make light of, but in a sense they artificially produce many of the same things people would find in religion.  Drink enough merlot or smoke enough weed and at least for a while there is peace of mind and even a mild sensation of transcendence.  Of course it’s illusory and never ends well for the person, but that was exactly the point.

What is so devilish about all these things is people are lured in (rarely against their own wishes) and once they are in deep enough, Satan finishes his work of destruction.  If you are trapped in a false religion or are an atheist, secularist, or drug addict, he’ll nurture you along until you die separated from God like he is.  If you belong to Christ, once you’ve been lured away with his temptations and are trapped, he will do what he can to discredit you and render you completely neutralized.  He is the accuser of the brethren because he knows God is holy and just and wants us condemned and punished even as he is going to be in the future.

In this matter,  Satan is right.  God is holy and just and does condemn and punish sin.  If He didn’t do so He could hardly be considered holy or just.  But this is where the good news of the Gospel needs to be taken to heart.  God is able to remain perfectly just and holy while at the same time show mercy and grace to sinners because He sent His son Jesus to die and take our judgment upon Himself.  This was a costly thing done for us but if He who is creator and judge assumes our penalty, then truly are no longer guilty or condemned by God.   Satan may accuse us before God all he wants, and in every regard it could be said those accusations are not without warrant.  We are all guilty as charged.  But the penalty is already paid by Jesus, which effectively leaves you not innocent, but forgiven in the eyes of God.  This is why Christians say we are not perfect, just forgiven, unless of course you are the Church Lady.  She is perfect.  Now, isn’t that special?

Andrew Murray, Oswald Chambers, and the Authors Behind Their Writings by Chris White

Andrew Murray

Although it’s been 78 years since its initial release, My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers remains in the top-ten bestseller list of Christian devotional books.  Add this to the legion of fans who follow the dedicated Facebook page, You Tube features and other social media that are all based on this book, and you get a small picture of the total impact of this book on the spiritual lives of millions.  What is surprising to most people is that while Oswald Chambers is certainly the mind behind the book (if we don’t account for the Holy Spirit’s influence), he never wrote a page of it.  Oswald was a gifted preacher and teacher and known for his great spiritual insights from the Bible.  During World War I he sensed the call of the Holy Spirit and the call of duty to become a YMCA chaplain to his fellow British soldiers stationed in Cairo Egypt.  Although his efforts were scoffed at by the military establishment when he started, his ministry gained a lot of traction with the soldiers and eventually the respect of the local command.  Unfortunately, Oswald Chambers died suddenly at age 43 while in Cairo because of complications related to an emergency appendectomy.  During his lifetime he did have a few books in print but Utmost was published by his wife 18 years after his death.  In God’s providence,    What is really remarkable was that Biddy was so fast she could record nearly 250 words per minute which is 100 more than most people can speak in that space of time.  Chamber’s wife was able to record for posterity most of her husband’s sermons which in turn was the wealth of material she was able to mine to produce this beloved devotional.  Biddy lived until 1966 when their only daughter Kathleen took over Oswald Chambers publishing until her death in 1997.  Both women blessed the body of Christ throughout the world with their labor of love.  Utmost for His Highest is available in print and electronic versions in 39 languages today.

Oswald Chambers

Oswald Chambers married Gertrude “Biddy” Hobbs who just happened to be a shorthand stenographer.

Another author we might never have known today except for the efforts of his wife was Andrew Murray.  Murray has 240 published works most of which are still in print today.  Probably the most beloved of his works are Abide in Christ, Absolute Surrender, and Humility all of which have become devotional classics.  Like Oswald Chambers, Andrew Murray was known as a great preacher and teacher and although he lived and ministered in South Africa during the 19^th century (which was hardly the center of human civilization at the time), he was in demand as a platform speaker in Britain and America as well.  His huge parish and daunting responsibilities conspired to keep him exhausted and often feeling underprepared to preach which he did often several times a day.  Unlike Oswald Chambers, Murray did live a long life (86 years) and did actually write some of his material, but it was at the insistence of his cultured and highly literate bride Emma that Andrew Murray began his writing career.  What’s more, you might say it was a little sibling rivalry that got this dimension of ministry started.  Andrew had an older brother John who was also a preacher and teacher (he and Andrew went to seminary together).  John had written several books and they were becoming quite popular and selling well.  When Emma saw this, she insisted her husband write for she considered him to be far more insightful (if not intelligent) than his older brother.  Andrew had been weakened from nervous exhaustion in the early years of his ministry and found it difficult to write (all books were in long-hand at the time) and so his wife Emma would help him with the writing and served as an editor and literary consultant of sorts.  Without the help and encouragement of his wife, most of us today would probably have never heard of Andrew Murray much less have been enriched by his devotional books.  Through the efforts of Biddy Chambers and Emma Murray, if I might paraphrase Hebrews 11:4, “though dead, by faith their husbands still speak today” and do so with great spiritual clarity.