1 John 2 What Is Vanishing

For a couple of months now I have been translating the first letter of John from Greek into English. In the second chapter there is an intense focus on the contrast between what is passing away, vanishing or disappearing and what is remaining, abiding or not vanishing. It has been difficult to keep this focus when translating into the English, but not impossible. In the NIV this is lost.

Bondage of the Will

It has been argued, particularly recently among Evangelical Christians, that God made us with Free Will. We have argued that this was for the possibility of Love. For without Free Will we can never Love, so the argument goes. If you were to force someone to Love you, would they indeed Love? We cannot imagine this in our world of intense Individualism. It is possible, though, that our culture is so entrenched in this attitude, perhaps self-delusion, that we have all become myopic.

I raise this issue in response to a reading of Martin Luther's Bondage of the Will. In it he says:

"For I have shown before, that 'Free-will' cannot be applied to any one but to God only. You may, perhaps, rightly assign to man some kind of will, but to assign unto him “Free-will” in divine things, is going too far. For the term 'Free-will,' in the judgment of the ears of all, means, that which can, and does do God-ward, whatever it pleases, restrainable by no law and no command. But you cannot call him Free, who is a servant acting under the power of the Lord. How much less, then, can we rightly call men or angels free, who so live under the all-overruling command of God, (to say nothing of sin and death,) that they cannot consist one moment by their own power." [tr. Henry Cole; Discussion, First Part, p. 60]

Of course, Luther indicates that his treatment of Free Will is in particular toward "divine things." He does not clearly indicate what these are or the nature of them so that we could distinguish them from undivine things. Is there in fact anything in all of the Cosmos or in Life, which is larger and longer lasting than the Cosmos, which is not a divine matter? So then, when you apply Luther's start at a definition you find that people in fact have no freedom in anything whatsoever. Yet, that is his very point.

We must serve a master. Whether our masters be sin and death or the Lord Jesus and His heavenly Father, we cannot but serve one or the other. Do we then have Free Will?

Perhaps our Freedom of Will is confined to orientation only. We are free to choose toward which master we will orient our hearts. Anything beyond that follows as a consequence of this orientation. Perhaps this is what Luther had in mind from his reading of the Scriptures.

While the preacher is speaking I am thinking about other things that are more personal and important to me

It is true that many preachers deliver uninspired sermons. It is also true that the atmosphere may battle against the spirit's willingness to stay awake. It is also highly likely that we have come to church for other reasons than to FIND God's words spoken in the service.

Short attention spans are a modern illness. Many of us also chose occupations, hobbies and personal activities that hinder us from overcoming this pathology. Prayer could help, but it is one of the worst battlefields itself. Reading the Bible could help as well, but it might be the second worst battleground. Journaling may be our only hope. Write your prayers, your dreams, your insights from Bible reading, and insights from the preaching at church. Journaling can assist our souls in learning how to focus, while searching for the spiritually significant in life.

I cannot help thinking criticisms about others at the gatherings

This is quite normal, is it not? It is not the same as comparing ourselves to others. Instead, we somehow transform ourself into some omniscient judge who is perfect in knowing perfection. It is a strange attitude when describe overtly, but it is quite dangerous.

The other thing we do in order to create this situation is extend our sphere of influence beyond its established boundaries. We are each given legitimate boundaries within which we can judge without evoking the wrath of God for starting to encroach on His territory of being the all-knowing Judge of all. He is not jealous for this, but we are injuring people when we try to do something for which we lack the capabilities.

There is a difference between knowing that we should not criticize others in our hearts and actually being able to refrain from doing so, and herein lies the rub. When we are sitting in church noticing all the blemishes, what can we do to stop these thoughts?

If you take the Protestant approach to church then you can remind yourself that the church is full of redeemed saints who are heaven bound. They are not yet perfect and some of them might get a little confused along the way, but Christ is with them in as much as they are willing to be with Him, and even sometimes when their hearts are somewhere else. The point is to look at how much more good there is in the people than augmenting the blemishes that disturb you.

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Required Reading

The following is required reading for any serious seeker, but especially for any serious Christian.

James Houston's The Transforming Power of Prayer, In Pursuit of Happiness, and The Heart's Desire. They form a fine trilogy on the life of the searching soul and the Christian faith (not associated with any specific denomination, but grounded firmly and broadly in the Christian heritage). These books will challenge anyone who doesn't rush through them or gloss over them, but approaches them personally, examining themselves through the challenges posed therein.

I'm just finishing the trilogy for maybe the fifth time. Every couple of years I come back to these and read them. There is a depth not found elsewhere outside of the the Christian classics and the Bible itself.

Holy Spirit Ransomed to Pastors

Holy Spirit Found in Area Man's Basement made me laugh as well as scratch my head. At first I wondered why these various ministers to whom he tried to ransom the Holy Spirit did not contact the authorities to verify whether the man was taking his meds or not. But by the end it appeared to be more a story of fiction than insanity. I now wonder how many headlines are built likewise about religious leaders. I've just browsed through more failings of spiritual leaders in the Christian churches.

We must remember that being a religious leader does NOT mean you are more like Jesus. That's unfortunate that we cannot have leaders like Him today. Perhaps the fault starts with us though, for failing to take Paul's command seriously to pray for our leaders. It would be nothing short of fantastic if our leaders could have the Holy Spirit in the way that Jesus did. Of course, that is exactly what He, John the Batist and Paul all promised.

Remember this as Pentecost arrives! Pray for your leaders and look for the Holy Spirit!

I feel like I am expected to perform when I go to a service, especially during worship

This may or may not be an apparent issue at church in your culture, but it might manifest itself in another nefarious way. American churches are populated with people who feel a pressure to perform, while personally rejecting that pressure. So there is a second layer of pressure in the battle to reject the very pressure they themselves feel and do not understand why they feel. Consequently, much time is wasted in a worship service for the individual as they attempt mind maneuvers to avoid this pressure. Not only do they not want to appear to others as if they were performing, but they also do not want others to see them even trying to get to a place of not feeling the need to perform. There must be no external trace of this struggle - which introduces a whole other pressure. It is quite complicated for an American to worship in church.

This performance, though, can take a different form in a different culture. For example, you might be highly self-conscious about what you do while in the church building, such as whether you wear a hat or not, whether you wear jeans or slacks, how your hair looks, if you are sniffling, how to hold your hands or where to place your gloves and even how loudly you are reciting or singing. You might feel like you must behave specific ways for those who see you and who you know. This is a way of performing as well.

In one sense, we feel this pressure whenever we go to public places. At school we must behave certain ways and other ways are unacceptable. When we are at work there are even stricter social guidelines about our dress and behavior. We also have to actually perform there for our boss and co-workers. In a government office we must behave ourselves and address them with appropriate respect. So we see that this social pressure is quite normal.

We feel the pressure in church, though church really should be a friendlier and more natural place. However, there is the question of how much of the atmosphere and social arrangement should impart a feeling of holiness to the visitor. Yet, this kind of holiness is rather superficial, though awe-inspiring. Holiness should be felt from the Holy Spirit's presence rather than any tricks of social behavior we adhere to. It is not the social behavior that is a problem, but the pretense of holiness that we instill in these mannerisms.


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It is one more commitment in my already overly busy schedule

There are two mistakes we make that lead us down this pathway in life. The first is to prioritize based on goals we have set utilizing our internal educational resources, but ignoring our spiritual life. The second is to quit believing that the devil is a real spiritual being who wants to keep you away from God's love. Together, these two mistakes prevent us from entering God's true rest, which is given to those whom He loves. For those whom He loves He works in their hearts to do what He loves. Yet, He respects us and never forces us to do what we do not want to. Otherwise, we would not be able to love. Freedom is a necessary context for love, but the proper use of freedom is the true expression of love.

I will deal with the second one first, regarding the devil. We may think that the devil is just some fairy tale made up to scare little children into being good, but the devil is portrayed in many religions. In the Christian faith the devil was not a late development of theology. In fact, the devil appears at the beginning of the oldest writing we have in the Bible, the book of Job.

He comes to God and persuades Him to let him test Job's faith. The devil appears at the end of the Bible as well, in the book of Revelation. The archangel Michael and the angels in heaven war with the devil and his angels who are rebelling. The devil loses and he and his angels are cast down to the earth. They are angry and decide to make war with the saints of God, here it means those who trust Jesus, as the book says.

These are elements that occur in the invisible, spiritual realm of existence. Keep in mind what Shakespeare penned in Hamlet after one of his characters saw the ghost of a dead relative, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophies..." Also, remember that there are some things that we cannot see that we believe in based on what we have been told, like love, trust, belief, etc... However, I am afraid we interpret these terms in our imagination to mean the actions or the immediate feelings themselves and lose the real essence of them, which can only be seen over a longer period of time in our lives. Yet why do we not believe so easily in the devil? There is no doubt the ancients believed. Although he does not figure significantly throughout the Bible, there are particular passages that reveal his importance with regards to the Christian's walk with God. Try reading Ephesians chapter 6 and then tell me that the devil does not really exist, if you are really a Christian who believes what the Bible says.

This brings us to the first point concerning prioritizing. Our priorities reflect that we are actually atheists in our trust, even if we believe God exists. What I mean is that the real battle is not about whether God exists. The book of James tells us that even the demons believe He exists and shudder at the fact. If demons believe and we do not then we look like real fools, do we not? There is no serious question about whether God exists, but about what He is like and what His intentions are toward us. This is what the devil, in the form of the serpent (see Revelation for the equivalence that is made between the Serpent, the devil and the dragon) first argued with Eve in the Garden of Eden (see Genesis).

The real question is whether we trust Him or not. The demons were lied to by Satan when they were angels in heaven and convinced to quit trusting God. This turned their hearts away from Him and they made their priorities to reflect a rebellion against God. Now they are wandering the earth as lost beings, angry andwicked, with one main priority: to harm those who trust God. We must set our priorities to reflect and reinforce the trust we have in God before it is too late and that trust withers away.

I have to tolerate and even get along with others who I may not like

Where don't we have to do this? Why would we expect it to be different at church? Perhaps you think that everyone else in church must tolerate you and your cynicism, but that you don't have to put up with anyone's quirks. Give me a break! Grow up!

Whenever you get more than a hundred people together for one purpose you'll have conflicting perspectives, desires, drives and attitudes and differing expressions of all of these. The trick is to measure how humble you are and how serious you are about the purpose for being there. Of course, this implies that you know what the true purpose of being at church is in the first place.

I once asked a history professor of mine why he had a Bible on his shelf in his office, since I hadn't known that he was a Christian. He said that he wasn't a Christian in the way that I was (I was a high-profile leader among the college Christians), but that he took his little son to church regularly because he wanted him to learn morals and he said he thought the church was the best place for him to learn this.

Is that the reason to go to church? It's certainly not a bad reason, except that there are many people in church who may or may not know what morality is and there are as many who do not practice morals very well. So church is not really about morality.

Morality has so very little to do with church, contrary to what many think. In fact, the Protestant Reformation repositioned this issue, originally (see Luther and Calvin). They said that church is where the sinners (those who fail in morality) come to be forgiven and to worship God in the light of their thankfulness for this forgiveness. Obviously, their lives should also be redirected through the worship of God so that the outcome is an increasingly moral life. They did not say that any Christian must or even can achieve a morally perfect life, but that each Christian should be wrestling against the immorality. This includes transparency with Christ about your failures, confidence in His forgiveness and dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit given to us to fight the good fight.

Conflicting personalities and expectations at church should be patiently tolerated. Your focus must remain on your worship of God.

Easter is time for sorrows turning to joy

I hope everyone's going to church for Easter. Probably most everyone here in Poland will. Try to set aside any irritations or complaints you might have about how things are done or what people say and do this weekend. This is a time to focus on the one who raised from the dead and is seated at the right hand of God.

Not everyone will be able to focus on the joy of Christ, due to tragedies in life. I hope that those of you who are blessed with a good path in life at this time, might comfort those who are suffering around you. Sometimes the social barriers against reaching out to our fellow human being seem tremendous! Remember that one of the major points of Christ's ministry on Earth, which we as His body are to continue, was to reach out to those who are suffering and in need, physically or spiritually. Let us do the ministry of the Lord Jesus as long as we have breath and life in us!

In Christ,
R. Craig

I am judged based on the reputation that others have amassed

As a member of any group I am judged based on the reputation the previous members have gained in the eyes of the outside world. It is no less true of membership in any church. As soon as someone outside that church knows that I am attending it they will cast me in light of what they think about members in general in that church.

Consider, for example, a cult group which is considered not to be Christian, though it originated from a member of a Christian church. Consider the Jehowah's Witnesses. There is a general reputation about their members that they are overly assertive, to the point of being pushy at times. They are thought of as either dangerous or deceptive and at least out of touch with the world around them. This is not my judgment, but only what I have surmised from conversations with people regarding that group.


If I were to become a Jehowah's Witness, as soon as anyone in the outside world found out they would recast their opinion of me based on what they think of Jehowah's Witnesses. This is true likewise of denominations within Christianity. Being Catholic carries with it a reputation, for better and for worse, as does also being Baptist or Orthodox.

Is this a good reason to not choose and attend a church? What is the alternative? If someone were to ask you whether or not you were a Christian and you said you were, then they were to proceed to the next natural question of where you attend church, you would place yourself under the reputations amassed by other Christians before you who did not go to any specific church. You are caught in the same trap!

As you can see, it is inevitable that you will be judged based on the reputations of those who have preceeded you in choosing the same course in life as yours. So this is not an adequate reason for refusing to attend a particular church, is it?

It requires I mold my thinking to someone else's

"It requires I mold my thinking to someone else's" is a pretty interesting excuse. Wherever we work we must do this to a greater or lesser extent. All throughout our academic lives we have had to do this to a greater or lesser extent. Within our own family circle our thinking is molded to others', whether we like it or not. Because of these other arenas where it happens and is even forced on us by either sociological phenomena or by practical necessity, we claim our right to freedom from this same apparent tyrrany when it comes to so-called voluntary associations such as religious gatherings.

There certainly are spiritual values that weigh in when seriously considering these dynamics. One measuring stick we should use is that of pride-humility. Could our desire to be fiercly intellectually independent be an expression of pride? What is pride, afterall? Maybe we have only a vague emotional feeling about it as if it were the mask of some villain.

Pride is best seen in the spiritual story that is passed over when John 3:16 is so famously quoted, "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever shall believe in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life." But what happened to the words of Christ? For this quote is from the mouth of our Lord. Yet, he immediately preceeded it with a choice reference from the Old Testament, that without which the quote is left rather hollow.

Read John 3:12-15 and then Numbers 21:4-9. In Numbers, it says that the Isrealites spoke against God and Moses when they complained about earthly matters of bread and water. Jesus said in John 3:12 that the Jewish leaders have not understood earthly matters that He had spoken to them of and therefore would not understand heavenly matters. Yet He emphasizes that He has come down from heaven. Moses was able to pray to God on behalf of the people, but Christ is able to actually go into heaven on our behalf!

According to Numbers, Moses was commanded by God to fashion a bronze serpent and lift it on a pole in the middle of the camp. Anyone who had been bitten by a poisonous snake could look at it and live. Jesus referred to this by saying in John 3:14-15, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life."

What does this mean for us? We who know that we have been bitten by poisonous snakes (sin) need only to look on Christ as the anti-venom, as an act of belief, and we will live. This is why he was lifted up.

What does all this have to do with pride? Christ tells us in John 3:18, "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." Some Isrealites must not have looked at the snake. They must have refused to and died. How difficult was it to look at the snake? God did not ask them to crawl over to the pole, climb it and kiss the snake! He simply asked them to look at it as an act of belief in His authority, but in His authority both to heal and to guide their lives through correcting their actions. Some of them were fiercely independent. They refused to prove God's power to heal and kept their head turned away from the snake. Likewise, many of us refuse to prove God's healing power in our lives by refusing to go to church to look on Christ. God lifted Him up in the desert so we all might be healed and live. Yet it is pride that drives us to refuse even the simplest and most powerful healing in our lives.

It takes effort

The most important things in life deserve our effort even when we are drained of energy. After all, we would never dream of calling in to work and telling them that we will not be in today because we are drained of energy, would we? One could argue that while our job demands this, God does not. A similar argument might state that we need our job to earn a living, but we do not need to go to church to earn our salvation. While it is true that we cannot earn our salvation by our attendance at church, it does not mean that God does not require we attend. There is more in the faith than salvation. Salvation is the beginning to the vast adventure of faith in Christ. Going to church is one of the products of a fellowship with the Holy Spirit, who speaks the power of God into our hearts during both good and bad times.

Should we go to church out of gratitude to the Holy Spirit? Why not? If we can see what the Holy Spirit has been doing in our lives lately then we will feel gratitude toward Him. This may inspire us to muster up enough energy to get to church.

Affiliation with Institutions

Here is an article published regarding Americans' increasing resistance to be affiliated with religious institutions. This has been a hot issue for a long time. In fact, it may even be seen as a given in many circles of Americans that one would believe in God and even consider oneself a Christian, but openly attack the institutions of Christianity.

Let us ask the question and see where it leads. What is wrong with belonging to a religious institution?

• It takes effort even when I am drained of energy.
• It requires I mold my thinking to someone else's
• I am judged based on the reputation that others have amassed
• I have to tolerate and even get along with others who I may not like
• It is one more commitment in my already overly busy schedule
• I feel like I am expected to perform when I go to a service, especially during worship
• I cannot help thinking criticisms about others at the gatherings
• While the preacher is speaking I am thinking about other things that are more personal and important to me

These are some realistic reasons one might avoid affiliation with a religious institution. Now comes the hard part: reflecting. Let us think about these and return to them in the next post.