Jim Wilson's Blog, page 52

Humanism vs. Christianity

 

The Bible is not a book that humanists can adjust to. It is too extreme. The humanist wants to be good now and then and here and there. His is the religion of random acts of kindness. The Christian must be kind to everyone (1 Timothy 2:24).

Humanists worry that people might have low self-esteem. The Bible says, "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you" (Romans 12:3). "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love" (Ephesians 4:2).

Unfortunately, many Christians prefer the humanist approach to the biblical standard. They judge Scripture in the light of our humanistic society. It is easier than judging society in the light of Scripture.

Are the people doing this not Christians? That would be a reasonable conclusion, except that these humanistic voices are coming from mainstream evangelicalism. Television, magazines, movies, schools, newspapers, and the government all inundate us with humanism, and we end up speaking the language of tolerance. We use the words gay, affair, and traditional values instead of homosexual, adultery, and biblical standards. We reflect the world more than we reflect the Bible. Start looking for extreme statements in the Bible. Do they bother you? Why?

Here are some expressions we should remove from our thinking and our vocabulary:

· Where do you draw the line? (Who is going to answer that question, if you refuse to get your answers from the Bible?)

· Nobody is perfect!

· I’m only human!

*Excerpted from Being Christian. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Cleaning Up vs. Confession: What's the Difference?

 

A euphemism is a pretend synonym. It puts a good face on a bad-sounding word. It indicates the same act, practice, or exclamation but does it in such a way that the thing it signifies does not sound bad. In fact, it might even sound good or at least innocent. Here are a few examples:

·       adultery—affair

·       homosexuality—gay

·       Jesus—Geez

·       taking the Lord’s name in vain—doggone it

·       damn it—darn it, dang it 

Some people think it is a virtue to soften words like adultery and homosexuality. They think it sort of cleans up the dirt. This kind of treatment does not succeed; it only has the appearance of being clean. Why? God cleanses those things which are confessed as sin. Cleaning up the words is not confession, and therefore the sin is not forgiven.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

God does not forgive mistakes. With love we can say to those who have sinned, “No, it was not a ‘mistake’; it was sin. If you want forgiveness, you must call it sin.”

*Excerpted from Being Christian. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Obedient Mouths

 

"Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving" (Ephesians 5:1-5).

Our speech should not contain obscenities, foolish talk, or coarse joking. The Bible commands us to avoid these things without defining them. The Apostle Paul assumed the Ephesians would know what he was talking about. Obscene and filthy words are not in most dictionaries, but we understand what they are. People use obscene language, not because they do not know it is filthy, but because they doknow. There is a certain delight in the use of something vulgar and unclean.

Some people like to quibble about definitions, assuring us that the words they use are not obscene: they’re just colorful, or poetic, or it is the hearer who has the problem or the dirty mind. Other people would not dream of saying anything dirty. They think they can be innocent and expressive at the same time, so they use exclamations which are euphemisms for the dirty words. Examples of such euphemisms are “Shucks!,” “Heck!,” “Shoot!,” and “Dang it!” Some euphemisms for using the Lord’s name in vain are “Dog-gone it!,” “Golly!,” “Gosh!,” “Gee Whiz!” and “Dag Nab it!” There are many others that I do not have the freedom to write. Innocent? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Here is what Jesus said about the words we use:

"But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted and by your words you will be condemned" (Matthew 12:36-37).

Do I have to walk around in fear because of this clear teaching about carelesswords? No. There is a preventative: "…and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5b).

When our thoughts are obedient to Christ, our mouths will be obedient, too.

*Excerpted from Being Christian. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Our Tongues as Messengers

 

"But what does it say? 'The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,' that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved" (Romans 10:8-10).

Romans 10 records the two greatest uses of the tongue. The first is confessing Jesus Christ and calling upon Him. It is our “part” in salvation:

"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13).

The second great use of the tongue is preaching Jesus Christ:

"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news'” (Romans 10:15).

The person who carries good news has beautiful feet even when they are dirty and dusty. The good news makes them beautiful.

Prior to regular postal service, messages were sent by courier or special messenger. That is the way the New Testament letters were delivered. The messenger would be on the road for months. In addition to the words he carried, he himself would also be a letter:

"You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts" (2 Corinthians 3:2-3).

Let us use our tongues as messengers of the gospel of Christ.

*Excerpted from Being Christian. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Voluntary Famine

“‘The days are coming,’ declares the Sovereign Lord, ‘when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it’” (Amos 8:11-12).

I have no idea whether this prophecy has ever been fulfilled in any specific sense, i.e., a particular time and place in history. It may have been fulfilled fifty years after Amos when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was destroyed. The Southern Kingdom had two revivals, both related to reading the Scriptures. One under Josiah (2 Chronicles 34:14-33), and the other under Ezra (Nehemiah 8).

The famine today is not in the unavailability of Scripture. In Josiah’s day, there was only one copy of God’s Word, and it had not been looked at for several generations. We have the Scriptures, and we do not read them daily. There is spiritual decay in the land.


This post coordinates with today's reading in the To the Word! Bible Reading Challenge. If you are not in a daily reading plan, please join us. We would love to have you reading with us.How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Wisdom & Folly

 

“'Let all who are simple come in here!' she says to those who lack judgment" (Proverbs 9:4, 9:16).

This quotation is from two different women, Wisdom and Folly. They say it from the same place, “the highest point in the city” (9:3, 14), and they say it to the same people, “those who lack judgment.” The difference is that Wisdom offers food, wine, and life, but openly asks for repentance (9:5-6). Folly offers a lie which she presents as a free gift: “Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!” (9:17).

Wisdom gives life. Folly offers immediate benefits, which are “sweet” and “delicious”…  "But little do they know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of the grave" (Proverbs 9:18).

*Excerpted from Being Christian. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore. 

This post coordinates with today's reading in the To the Word! Bible Reading Challenge. If you are not in a daily reading plan, please join us. We would love to have you reading with us.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

The Overflow of the Heart

 

In my eighty-eight years of life I have heard many dirty words. There were places I expected to hear them, like when I was working in the Omahastockyards as a teenager and in the U.S. Navy as an enlisted man. My memory focuses on the unexpected times I heard them. They came from the mouths of a four-year-old boy, a woman, boy scouts in the scout clubhouse, midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, and a cousin of mine when we were pheasant hunting as teenagers. All of these shocks happened before I was a Christian. I was idealistic. To me, women did not talk that way, boy scouts were clean, four-year-olds were innocent, midshipmen were the all-American boys, and cousins were part of my family where words like that were not used.

Early in my Christian life, my eyes were opened. I came to realize that my heart and the hearts of boy scouts, midshipmen, four-year-olds, women, and my family all started out overflowing with evil. Jesus gave an explanation of why people are this way:

"Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned" (Matthew 12:33-37).

Whatever is “stored up” flows out. The good man brings out good things from the good stored up in him. The evil man brings out evil from the evil stored up in him. If the tree is good, the fruit is good. If the tree is bad, the fruit is bad. What a tree is, is what a tree does.

The mouth is an overflow valve of the heart. We can try to watch our mouths. That might keep the stored-up evil inside for a while, but it is like blocking the safety valve on a pressure cooker. Sooner or later there is going to be an explosion.

The emphasis of the Matthew 12 passage is on the heart, not the mouth. If we store up good in our hearts, we do not need to watch our mouths. If we store up evil in our hearts, watching our mouths will not stop it from coming out.

When I talk with Chinese graduate students who come to the U.S. from schools that have been teaching atheism for generations, the word “God” gets a look of non-comprehension. However, if I mention a “dirty heart,” there are a lot of nodding heads.

There are two reasons for having a dirty heart:

1)    The heart has never been cleaned. It has been collecting crud since birth. The mouth spills out the overflow.

2)    The heart has been cleansed by the blood of Christ, but it has not been kept clean. Its owner has not been walking in the light. This is why Christians say things from their hearts that do not sound like Christian things.

The first reason is easy to understand. The second is a contradiction.

"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water" (James 3:9-12).

Where is your heart? Do you need to know the Father through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ?

*Excerpted from Being Christian. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore. 

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

God Is with Us

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20).

The way we send people on missions is very different from the way Jesus sent the apostles. We send others because we cannot or do not want to go ourselves. The one sent also goes alone; this is with mutual agreement, for why would you send someone else if you are going yourself?

That is not Jesus’ way. He sent the apostles, and He said, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Jesus sent, and then He came along. Isn’t that wonderful? But it was not the first instance of sending and coming along.

"Jesus answered, 'The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent'” (John 6:29). 

The Father sent Jesus, and then He came along, too. "The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him" (John 8:29).

God sends us, and He goes along with us. No matter where we are or what our mission is, He is always right there helping us to fulfill His plan. 

*Excerpted from Being Christian. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore. 

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Traditional American Values vs. the Bible

At the time of Christ’s coming, the Jews had 2,000 years of tradition. The Roman Catholic Church has had 1,700 years of tradition since Constantine. Evangelical Americans have two hundred years of “traditional American values,” and somehow we think it is a virtue and a grand heritage. Our traditional values include Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Norman Rockwell, Thomas Kincaid, Santa Claus, John Wayne, the Easter Bunny, and trick-or-treat.

Jesus said, “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men” (Mark 7:8). You may have another list of traditionalAmerican values than the list above, but they are still “traditional.” They are not biblical; they are not Christian.

I grew up in the 1940’s. The values then were decadent. Our current values are even more so. To solve this problem, let’s go back to the Bible, not to an era in our history that we worship as an idol. Let’s consider the phrase “traditional American values” a dirty expression.

*Excerpted from Being Christian. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

The Rituals You Follow

 

Every church has rituals, regardless of its denomination. Liturgical churches have a planned ritual; non-liturgical churches have a ritual by default. At their best, rituals are figures of the true; at their worst, they are idolatrous. In between, they become dead traditions. The rituals described in the Old Testament were meant to be figures of the true, but degenerated into idolatry. Hebrews 7-10 describes this.

The rituals of the Old Testament were meant to be fulfilled in Christ. Long before they were fulfilled, they had ceased to be merely figures. The Israelites thought that following the rituals was enough. They turned them into a substitutefor the real thing rather than a picture of it. When this happened, they were no longer acceptable to God.

"Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah! 'The multitude of your sacrifices—what are they to me?' says the LORD. 'I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. Come now, let us reason together,' says the LORD. 'Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.' For the mouth of the LORD has spoken" (Isaiah 1:10-20).

Judah and Jerusalemwere acting like Sodom. They performed God’s sacrifices and offerings but then proceeded to do whatever pleased them. They thought their sins did not matter as long as they had the rituals in place.

The bronze serpent Jesus used to explain the gospel to Nicodemus was one of the Old Testament rituals which symbolized a spiritual truth:

"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up" (John 3:14).

The bronze serpent, a symbol of sin and death, also pictured Jesus who was made sin for us. It was a figure of the cross, but it became an idol to the Israelites for seven hundred years until Hezekiah had it destroyed:

"He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)" (2 Kings 18:4).

Today the cross itself has become an idol and even a fetish. Whatever rituals you are following, do you know their significance? Do you know why you are following them, or have they lost that significance?

*Excerpted from Being Christian. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore. 

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships