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To Mask? Or Not to Mask?
In our current climate of sickness, lock downs, re-openings, and “new normals,” we also have new questions to think through—especially in terms of how we relate to each other now that there are many different opinions about the issues COVID-19 has created. Just to highlight two: Must people wear masks all the time? Should Christians insist on meeting together when the virus is still out there?
The other day Chris Lieberman texted me:
“Is Romans 14 going to become a really important passage in Christian circles soon? Re: Masks, etc…”
I responded that it was a great point he had made. Then I suggested he write about it for the blog. I recommend you go read that passage. In fact, all of Romans 14:1-15:13 is important territory for us in these times. Chris is right, and this is a perfect example of one way the bible gives us guidance. At the end of his letter to the church in Rome, Paul addresses some issues that Christians were debating and disagreeing about. The issues themselves aren’t relevant to our situation at all—they’re not the things we’re debating. But the directions Paul gives about how the church was to handle the issues are supremely relevant. They distill scripture’s teaching about how brothers and sisters are to disagree about things on which God hasn’t given explicit directions, and they give us easily applicable instructions for our time.
Chris agreed to write the post, and below are his thoughts. I recommend them for all of us to consider.
Thoughts on Romans 14 as it applies to our current situation…
As our nation debates issues of reopening and public health, naturally the Church is also facing tough questions about where to go from here. Is it biblical for us to stop meeting for this long? Should we gather in defiance of government orders? Is it okay for us to meet in one another’s homes right now? When we do meet, should we hug one another? Should we wear masks? Limit gathering sizes? Exclude those who are at risk?
Unsurprisingly to anyone who’s been paying even slight attention for the past 4 years, the national conversation is polarized, politicized, and contentious (it’s hard to remember the last national conversation that wasn’t polarized, politicized, or contentious). Those on the “re-open” side are accused of valuing money over human life and endangering the public, while those who want to exercise more caution are told they are living in fear, buying into hysteria, and allowing tyranny.
This behavior is to be expected of the world, but the Body of Christ should be different. Yet even among genuine Christians seeking to be biblically faithful on this issue, there’s disagreement. Both groups want to do what’s right and honor the Lord. Both look to Scripture and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to guide their convictions. But some come to the conclusion that we should follow the guidance of government and health officials, while others believe that the Church should, at least in part, defy these commands in order to be faithful to Christ. Both groups act out of a genuine conviction that what they are doing is right, with proof texts and justifications such as, “Love your neighbor,” “Don’t forsake gathering together,” “Submit to authorities,” and, “Obey man rather than God.”
When Christians disagree, there are two possibilities. The first is there is a clear teaching of Scripture on the matter, and one group has failed to obey it, due either to a misunderstanding of what the Bible is saying or a willful disobedience to the Lord. But the second possibility is that it is an issue that lacks clear biblical guidance. I would submit that many of the questions we are facing now fall under the latter category.
While unfortunately the Bible doesn’t give us step-by-step instructions on what to do if a global pandemic and ensuing government orders upend the Church’s ability to meet, it does have some teachings on what to do when Scripture doesn’t tell us what to do. In Romans 14, Paul addresses the issue of “doubtful things.” The early Church had disputes about a variety of issues, with faithful Christians on both sides passionately believing that their side was the biblical one. Now Paul was writing Scripture. God could have inspired him to tell them who was right and who was wrong, and that would have been the biblical teaching on these issues. But instead, Paul taught them how to handle issues when Christians disagree and there is no clear biblical answer.
Romans 14 is a rich text that I would encourage everyone to read and pray through as we navigate these tough issues. While there is no doubt much more that could be said, I want to highlight three key principles from this text:
1. When Scripture is unclear, do whatever helps you best honor the Lord with a clear conscience.
The two main contentious issues Paul brings up in Romans 14 are whether or not Christians should eat meat (possibly referring to meat sacrificed to idols, or perhaps a reference to keeping the Jewish dietary laws) and keep the Sabbath and other Jewish religious holidays. Rather than a simple yes or no, Paul tells them, “Let each be fully convinced in his own mind” (verse 5). In other words, Paul is saying that either choice is acceptable and that they should follow their convictions. He then clarifies in verse 23, “But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.” While in Christ there is liberty to act either way, Paul warns that for the person who is unable to exercise that liberty without conviction, what he is doing is sin.
A helpful guide to deciding what we should do is found in verse 6: “He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks.” For some Christians, religious holidays were a chance to set time aside to focus on the Lord. For others, there was no need to treat one day any different than others. Every day should be a day to worship. Some saw refraining from meat as an act of worship. Others saw meat as a gift from God to give thanks for (I know I do). Paul exhorted the believers to do whatever was most beneficial for their walks with the Lord.
For some of us, following stay-at-home guidelines and practicing social distancing is an act of loving your neighbor and submitting to the authorities God has placed over us. For others, meeting together as the Body of Christ and living without fear is a matter of being faithful to God’s command to gather, obeying God rather than man, and living out the Gospel message that Christ has defeated death and we need not fear it. Are you convinced that following orders and worshipping at home is the right thing to do for your walk? Then do that. Do you believe that you are best honoring the Lord by gathering with other believers and living out the humanity God intended? If you are able to do it in faith, then do so. Live according to your convictions in whatever way you can best glorify God.
2. Don’t judge others on their convictions. God will take care of that.
One of the reasons Paul wrote this passage is because both sides of these arguments were passing judgment on their brothers and sisters in Christ on the other side for their convictions. Those who ate meat looked down on those “weaker” Christians whose conscience wouldn’t allow them to partake. Those who refrained from eating meat passed judgment on those who they thought were living in sin with their indulgence.
To this, Paul responds that we all will give an account before the Lord for our actions (verses 10-13). We are all God’s servants, and it is for Him to decide whether the actions and motives of our hearts are right before Him. When a believer is in clear violation of the commands of Scripture, we have a duty to rebuke and correct. But in matters of “doubtful things,” we lack both the clear biblical directive and knowledge of the other believer’s thoughts and intentions to rightly give judgment. That being the case, Paul’s command is to entrust judgment to the Lord rather than take it upon yourself.
In all of this, the possibility remains that there is a right and wrong answer. Perhaps those who are meeting together are sinning by disobeying the authorities. Perhaps a pandemic is not a valid excuse for Christians to stop meeting. But absent of a clear command of Scripture or knowledge of the hearts and intentions of others, there is no room for fellow believers to judge one another on their convictions in such matters. All of us will stand before the Lord to give an account for our own thoughts and actions. Our job is to make sure we are honoring the Lord with our own lives and trust the judgment of others to Him.
3. Remember that the love and unity of the Body of Christ are more important than your opinions.
The issue Paul is really addressing in Romans 14 was not the disagreement itself, but the Roman Christians’ response to the disagreement. Those who were at liberty to eat meat were intentionally flaunting their liberty in front or those who felt convicted about doing so, causing them to stumble in their convictions. Likewise, those who refrained passed judgment on the believers who were exercising their Christian liberty. To this, Paul responds that convictions are great, but maintaining the love and unity of the Body of Christ is even more important, and in this regard he leads by example (verses 14-21).
Paul’s personal conviction was that it was fine for him to eat meat. However, to him it was more important to love his brothers and sisters in Christ, and so he had determined not to eat meat if it would cause someone with different convictions to stumble. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 8:13, he writes that he would never eat meat again if he knew eating meat would cause another believer to sin. He was willing to forgo his Christian liberty if it helped another believer in their walk. After all, the people on the other side were brothers and sisters for whom Christ (verse 15). Verse 20 really puts things into perspective: “Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.” Christian liberty is great, but it’s not worth disrupting the love or unity of the Body. Rather, he exhorts both sides to “Pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another” (verse 19).
For those who don’t believe in following the guidelines, there will be temptation to look down on those who do and perhaps flaunt your Christian liberty. Pride may cause some to revel in not wearing a mask or meeting together with fellow believers. Those who believe in keeping these rules may seek to distance themselves from Christians who violate government orders and accuse them of not loving their neighbor and risking public health. No one denies the importance of these questions, but one might ask if they are worth dividing the Body of Christ. The people on the other side are your brothers and sisters in Christ. Should we destroy the work of God for the sake of masks?
Perhaps both opinions exist because the Church needs both opinions. If everyone in the Church wanted to rush to meet again, we would potentially risk endangering others and defying God-ordained authorities without the proper biblical warrant. If we all thought we should wait to gather, it could have serious consequences on the spiritual health of the Church. By putting Christians of both persuasions side-by-side, perhaps the Lord is teaching us how to handle disagreement with Christian love and balance both views toward the best possible solution.
I don’t claim to know everything about this situation. I don’t know that all my views are correct, or that my solutions are best for the Bride of Christ. But I do know that when this crisis is over, we will still be the Church. We are all still brothers and sisters in Christ. As we navigate these issues as one Body, let us support one another in our convictions. Let us not pass judgment or use our liberty to stumble one another. Rather, let us work in Christian love and unity toward our common goal, to glorify Christ and see His Name magnified on earth.
Lions, and the Fear of Death
Consider the connections between these three proverbs:
The lazy man says, “There is a lion outside! I shall be slain in the streets!” (Proverbs 22:13)
The lazy man says, “There is a lion in the road! A fierce lion is in the streets! As a door turns on its hinges, So does the lazy man on his bed. (Proverbs 26:13-14)
The wicked flee when no one pursues, But the righteous are bold as a lion. (Proverbs 28:1)
One important connection is in the word “Lion.” What is the difference between the individual whom Proverbs is exhorting us not to be, and the one held up as an example to emulate? One is scared of lions. The other is a lion.
This connection can be very instructive for us, as the lockdown in Pennsylvania is in the middle of its 9th week. Just before it began, when it became clear it was coming, I posted these thoughts here at the blog:
“Men’s hearts failing them from fear.” That’s how Jesus describes the emotional state of global society, right before he comes back. Now, it’s clear from the context of this statement (Luke chapter 21) that we are not in that particular stage of history at this moment, and yet… it’s no profound observation that, at the time of this post, those words are not far off from describing the emotional state of our time as well.
What brought us to this place? For a long time now, many of us have allowed anxiety to live in our heads. Like a mold that’s just behind the wallpaper, we know it’s there—but we haven’t taken the necessary steps to eradicate it. Instead, we’ve maintenance it, but let it live and thrive in us. Working with young people for years, and now young adults, I would call it a true epidemic—a crisis of emotional health. The medicines we’re using don’t work, and so many of the habits we’ve formed actually feed it. Screens and everything that come through them, both technology and content, feed and drive our anxiety. And now, at last, like all diseases do, it’s broken out into the open. Anxiety, evidently, can’t stay hidden for long. And now, it’s ruling us, from the highest levels of society, on down.
As of May 13th, it’s still ruling. Many, of course, have begun to look forward and ask what the other side of this will look like. And it’s important to note that protecting the vulnerable and taking reasonable precautions have become the basic agreed-upon course of action for everyone, including those in the American Christian community. Any Christ-honoring Christian will support (and take) real action to help ensure that at-risk people remain safe. By all means, protect those whom COVID-19 threatens. That’s basic love of neighbor. Followers of Jesus will be motivated more by love for their neighbors than worry about comfort or entertainment or money. Of course, Christian love is also intelligent and informed by the word of God. And the word of God holds forth, not a steady stream of words from media, but God’s wisdom, embedded in creation and made explicit in his word, as the reality that should shape and direct our love. True love loves wisely. Mature love understands that if God’s wisdom does not inform love, then other, parasitic things will take over, and blunt love’s edge, or rob it of its power completely. Things like sentimentality, or panic, or ideology will take over and ruin everything, and all in the name of love.
So where does that leave a culture who has explicitly turned away from God’s wisdom? It leaves us here, in May of 2020. Our rulers have manifested, and continue to obey, what may be the core weakness of our society. In the modern West, because we have been taught that we are nothing more than physical beings, and that there is nothing on the other side of death, the fear of death rules us. It’s the only real option. Our culture kept it under for a while, but its undeniable logic has finally won the day.
R.R. Reno pointed this out, back in March:
There is a demonic side to the sentimentalism of saving lives at any cost. Satan rules a kingdom in which the ultimate power of death is announced morning, noon, and night. But Satan cannot rule directly. God alone has the power of life and death, and thus Satan can only rule indirectly. He must rely on our fear of death.
In our simple-minded picture of things, we imagine a powerful fear of death arises because of the brutal deeds of cruel dictators and bloodthirsty executioners. But in truth, Satan prefers sentimental humanists. We resent the hard boot of oppression on our necks, and given a chance, most will resist.
How much better, therefore, to spread fear of death under moralistic pretexts.
These are important insights into the things that beat at the heart of our Western culture. Think again about those proverbs. There is more going on than a simple condemnation of laziness in that scene of the man on his bed. These proverbs are part of the entire world of Biblical wisdom literature, which holds several characters up for our consideration who are all personifications of the person who rejects God’s wisdom. For instance, laziness may have nothing to do with someone who makes the same declarations about lions in the streets. It may simply be that this person has a really deep fear of lions!
Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke helps us think this through with some insight into how someone of that day would have read Proverbs 22:13. He says that the claim the speaker is making in the second half of the verse is that “the one forcing him into the streets will be guilty of murder.” But any reader from this time would have seen this as an absurd claim, Waltke points out, because, “in ancient times lions were plentiful in the forests. But they were not found in the streets of Israel’s fortified cities, and especially not in the fortified plaza area bustling with soldiers, merchants, administrators and common people…By absurdly claiming that there is a lion in the street that will kill him, he excuses himself from leaving the amenities of his home…to venture the hard work that builds a community…His life and his community are not in danger from his phantom lion in the streets but from his lazy lifestyle.”
Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I am not saying that we are being “lazy” by staying home and in quarantine. But the Proverbs speak to our situation in this way: What happens when a people allows fear to rule them, and it is fear of anything other than God? The inevitable result is that they become the opposite of “the righteous” who are “bolds as lions.” It means they may find themselves “fleeing when no one pursues.” And it means that they will constantly find reasons to avoid “the hard work that builds a community.”
But followers of Jesus are called to better things. And we have an unending source of strength to transcend the fear that holds so many down. The presence of God and the word of God give us all we need. And the presence of God in the word of God gives us life. For instance, when we leave our homes, and venture out into the world, we should do so with words like these in our ears:
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.” Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the perilous pestilence. He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge. His truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, Nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.
In other words, instead of fearing lions, we play the role of lions, facing every situation with boldness. Not afraid of the pestilence, not afraid of the destruction. Not afraid at night, not afraid at noon. Truly free, to love people in meaningful, helpful ways.
No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from Me,” Says the Lord.
So, when wisdom and love dictate staying home, out of a desire to do good to the community, we do so. But we do so with no fear. And we do so understanding that it is out of our fear of God, and not a virus, that we obey the dictates of love. This will keep us sane, and it will help us know when the time for other types of loving, fearless action has arrived.
CCTWF: Quick Help for Anxiety
Tonight, Lord willing, we’ll be discussing Philippians 4, including verses 6 and 7, which read:
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
I plan on mentioning this, but I wanted to post it here, for anyone who would like to make use of it.
One of the most helpful things I’ve found for combating specific personal issues is to find targeted scriptures which specifically address the issue, to memorize those scriptures, and then, to rehearse the scriptures whenever the issue rears its head.
It’s a way to use the Sword of the Spirit. It’s a way to depend on the Lord. It’s a way to force my thoughts to align with his thoughts. It’s a way to actively fight, instead of just passively hoping for the issue to resolve itself or go away. (How often does that work anyway? Very little in the Christian life is attained passively.)
So, since the passage we’ll look at on Monday leads us to think and talk about anxiety, I offer these five lines of Psalms for you to actively use in your fight against anxiety. For the first step, I suggest you memorize the acronym CCTWF. Memorize that, and then, use each letter to trigger your memory of each verse that follows:
C: Cast your burden on the LORD, And He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved. (Psalm 55:22 )
C: Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. (Psalm 37:5)
T: Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. (Psalm 62:8)
W: Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD! (Psalm 27:14)
F: My soul follows close behind You; Your right hand upholds me. (Psalm 63:8)
I recommend this: Work on memorizing each verse. Be able to run through the letters, and verses in your head. Maybe work on running through each word (“Cast, Commit, Trust, Wait, Follow”). And then, whenever anxiety strikes, go over these verses. Also, think about each verse, and turn it into a prayer. Something like:
“Father, this is burdening me. I throw it on your back Lord. I drop it in your hands. I don’t want to pick it up again. You carry it, Lord. Thank you that you want to bear the weight of all our burdens. Thank you that, if you strengthen me, nothing in this world can move me.”
“Lord, you know my future. I commit the path ahead of me to you, I acknowledge that you’re there, ahead of me, preparing the way, and that, when I get there, you’ll be there with me, to sustain me.”
“Father, you see the anxiety in my heart. Lord, whatever else I’m feeling, please here my voice and my heart–I trust You! Thank you that you are a true refuge!”
“Lord, I’m going to keep trusting and waiting for you. I know you’ll come through. Please strengthen my heart.”
“Jesus, I commit afresh to follow You. Spirit, uphold me!”
God governs the universe and upholds his people with his word. Where the word is, God is. He is present to us in his word. When we fill our thoughts and hearts with his word, God is filling our inner person.
So, friends, wherever and whenever you need Him—let God’s word be your strength.
British Christians Sing a Blessing Over Their Nation
Have you seen this?
1 Corinthians 4:12, 1 Peter 3:8-9. Peace…
In plenty, and in want.
Today I’ve spent some time looking at Philippians 4 in preparation for next week’s Zoom study.
I found this great passage from Chrysostom‘s sermons on Philippians, on the 11th verse of chapter 4. Figured it would be a great thing to share with you, especially in view of our current circumstances. So check out this helpful wisdom, straight from 1600 years ago or so:
“For I have learned,” says he, “in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content.”
Wherefore, this is an object of discipline, and exercise, and care, for it is not easy of attainment, but very difficult, and a new thing.
“In whatsoever state I am,” says he, “therein to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know also how to abound. In everything and in all things have I learned the secret.” That is, I know how to use little, to bear hunger and want. Both to abound, and to suffer need.
But, says one, there is no need of wisdom or of virtue in order to abound. There is great need of virtue, not less than in the other case. For as want inclines us to do many evil things, so too does plenty. For many, coming into plenty, have become indolent, and have not known how to bear their good fortune. Many men have taken it as an occasion of no longer working. But Paul did not so, for what he received he consumed on others, and emptied himself for them. This is to know. He was in nowise relaxed, nor did he exult at his abundance; but was the same in want and in plenty, he was neither oppressed on the one hand, nor rendered a boaster on the other.
“Both to be filled,” says he, “and to be hungry, both to abound, and to be in want.” Many know not how to be full (as for example, the Israelites “ate, and kicked” Deuteronomy 32:15), but, “I am equally well ordered in all.” He shows that he neither is now elated, nor was before grieved: or if he grieved, it was on their account, not on his own, for he himself was similarly affected.
“What should we learn from this?”
Many thoughtful Christians are generating helpful responses to the last month-and-a-half which model different ways Christians might think about what we’ve faced and are facing, from the sickness to the lockdown. For instance, here’s Carl Trueman [emphasis added]:
At some point…the COVID-19 crisis will be over, and the question for Christians will be simple: “What should we learn from this?”
And one thing seems obvious: The levels of general panic indicate that few of us have been properly prepared for the reality of our own mortality.
As a friend pointed out to me recently, when Jesus references the tower at Siloam and the murder of Jews by Pilate (Luke 13), he precludes a simplistic connection between death and particular personal wrongdoing. Yet he also asserts that such deaths should serve as a reminder that all of us are destined for the grave. And thence, in Christian theology, to judgment.
Modern Western culture has tried valiantly to domesticate and marginalize death, both by taming it through fictionalized representations in movies and TV shows, and by keeping the real thing out of sight. But as in the case of that other target of the modern culture of trivialization, sex, we have been mugged by reality. Earlier societies surrounded sex and death with sacred ceremonies, and for good reason: They cannot be trivialized, domesticated, or marginalized with impunity. They are simply too significant and powerful…
We have clearly become accustomed to remarkably comfortable lives. How else do we explain fights in supermarkets over toilet paper? Make no mistake, I regard bathroom tissue as a most wonderful invention, of greater importance than any cell phone or coffee machine, but it is hardly one of life’s absolute essentials. And I have often wondered about the significance of “saving lives.” “Delaying deaths,” while culturally tasteless, is technically more accurate. We are born to die. Death is inevitable, which is why each of us finds it so terrifying.
In this situation it is the task of the church to mug people with reality before reality itself comes calling… Efforts to fight the virus are important; but so is the church’s task of preparing us for death.
This was a point rarely lost on earlier generations of Christians. Take, for example, the Book of Common Prayer’s funeral liturgy. Rooted in biblical texts and suffused with biblical allusions, it speaks powerfully in a manner foreign to our own culture:
Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.
That is a liturgy at odds with today’s culture. It is worrying to speculate that it might also be at odds with the expectations of today’s church.
As Philip Rieff once commented, in past times people did not go to church to be made happy; they went to have their misery explained to them. If the [Anglican] Book of Common Prayer is a guide, that is understandable: Life in the sixteenth century was miserable, and it ended in death. People wanted the tools to face reality, not distractions to make them feel good about themselves. Our lives may be, on average, more comfortable than those of our ancestors, but that is a temporary state of affairs and our end is just the same as theirs. So, grim as it sounds, it is the task of the church to fight not so much against physical plagues, which come and go, but rather against…the age of analgesics.
The church is certainly to help people to live, but to live in the shadow of mortality.
She must set this earthly realm in the greater context of eternity.
She is to prepare people through her preaching, her liturgy, her psalmody, and her sacraments to realize that death is, yes, a terrible, terrifying reality we must all some day face, but that the suffering of this world—or indeed, this passing superficial prosperity many of us enjoy—are but light and momentary ephemera compared to the eternal weight of glory that is to come.
“In past times people did not go to church to be made happy; they went to have their misery explained to them…” What a searching quote, worthy of reflection. I believe at Calvary Chapel, our commitment to teaching the whole scripture is (at least partly) an effort to make sure both that we as believers are ready to die, and that our misery is explained to us. Otherwise, how are we prepared to face real life, much less the reality of life’s end?
Remember this, friends, when you think about what church is for, amid all the noise and media produced by much in the name of church today.
Help for Journaling through Scripture
Good to see everyone last night. Press on!
A lot of you know I’m always looking for tools that help us engage scripture with our minds at a deep level. So I wanted to share an article posted on the Crossway Books site a few days ago, called 5 Prompts for Journaling through Scripture. Here are the highlights:
… As you spend time reading and journaling through the Bible, consider these five prompts to guide your study and reflection.
1. Be honest. “Highlight examples in the Psalms and books like Lamentations and Job where the writers aren’t shy about telling God how they feel in their pain, confusion, exhaustion, and frustration…”
2. Learn about God’s heart toward those who suffer. “Read through large portions of books like Jeremiah and Job. How do the books end?”
3. Pray hopefully. “Use Scripture to pray for those who are hurting, sick, and lonely…”
4. Focus on what’s unchanging. “Reflect on what is unchanging about who God is when circumstances are shifting…
5. End with gratitude. “Record lists of the good gifts in your life and pray to embrace them fully…”
God decides what is normal.
What do you think, everyone—let’s not ever settle in to these screen-mediated pseudo-gatherings as if this arrangement could ever be described as “normal.” Right? God decides what is normal. We should always remember that. So far, it is only the resurrection of the crucified Christ that has ever ushered in a situation that can properly be described as “the new normal.” From the moment his death-defeating foot touched the ground, everything changed. Since then, normative humanity defeats sin and death, and anything else will be found to fall short, its days numbered. Search the scriptures–Christ is the “second man” and the “last Adam,” which means that, in him, the new humanity is born. Nothing is more progressive than rooting our hopes and anchoring our decisions in the kingdom that still lies ahead—his coming kingdom. Nothing is more “safe” than these words:
“Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come.”
Ultimately Zoom can’t fulfill Christ’s command for his followers to gather, or satisfy the need of the human soul. That said–I’ve enjoyed our times together on screen, and I think the Lord has been pleased to use them, as if we were together in the flesh—since as of now we have no other choice.
We’re still trying to tweak how we use the platform. (May we have very few more chances to improve!) For this coming week (meeting details will follow), the plan is to keep the scripture up on screen, and I’ll still highlight and note things right in the text, but we’ll take it in shorter chunks. This time around, I’ll make a few observations on five or six verses, then pause to discuss with the teaching group, and you can type in your thoughts or questions in the chat box then. We’ll pace it based on how the discussion flows. Perhaps we’ll cycle through that process a few times and cover the whole chapter, up to 4:1. Or maybe not. Maybe we’ll all get caught up in a deep discussion of one point and not get very “far” at all. We’ll try to let the Spirit direct our discussion.
To help you participate, I’m posting the passage of scripture here this time around:
Philippians 3 Passage for Zoom Study
This document matches what I’ll have up on screen. If you’d like, you can download it and print it out, and make your own mark-ups to organize your thoughts before the study. Or you can just follow along with what’s on screen.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, until we meet again.
Calvin v. The Stoics
This post might only appeal to those of you who know that Stoicism has enjoyed a little bit of a revival in interest among evangelical Christians in the last few years. It seems that John Calvin had some choice words for the old Greek philosophers in book three of his Institutes. Under the heading “The Christian, unlike the Stoic, gives expression to his pain and sorrow,” he wrote:
This struggle which believers when they strive for patience and moderation maintain against the natural feeling of sorrow is fittingly described by Paul in these words: ‘We are pressed in every way but not rendered anxious; we are afflicted but not left destitute; we endure persecution but in it are not deserted; we are cast down but do not perish’ [2 Cor. 4:8-9]. You see that patiently to bear the cross is not to be utterly stupefied and to be deprived of all feeling of pain.
It is not as the Stoics of old foolishly described ‘the great-souled man’: one who, having cast off all human qualities, was affected equally by adversity and prosperity, by sad times and happy ones—nay, who like a stone was not affected at all. And what did this sublime wisdom profit them? They painted a likeness of forbearance that has never been found among men and can never be realized. Rather, while they want to possess a forbearance too exact and precise, they have banished its power from human life.
Now, among the Christians there are also new Stoics, who count it depraved not only to groan and weep but also to be sad and care ridden. These paradoxes proceed, for the most part, from idle men who, exercising themselves more in speculation than in action, can do nothing but invent such paradoxes for us.
Yet we have nothing to do with this iron philosophy which our Lord and Master has condemned not only by his word, but by his example. For he groaned and wept both over his own and others’ misfortunes. And he taught his disciples in the same way: ‘the world,’ he says, ‘will rejoices; but you will be sorrowful and will weep’ [John 16:20]. And that no one might turn it into a vice, he openly proclaimed, “blessed are those who mourn’ [Matt. 5:4].
No wonder! For if all weeping is condemned, what shall we judge concerning the Lord himself, from whose body tears of blood trickled down [Luke 22:44]? If all fear is branded as unbelief, how shall we account for that dread with which, we read, he was heavily stricken [Matt 26:31; Mark 14:33]? If all sadness displeases, how will it please us that he confesses his soul ‘sorrowful even to death’ [Matt. 26:38]”
(Institutes, III.8.9)
So, whatever other insights the Stoics might have, we have an example of Godly emotion in, well, Jesus himself. If God in human flesh showed real emotion, then that is the measure of true and mature humanity, and not, as Calvin says, some “iron philosophy.”
Idolatry, The Chosen, and the Face of God
What’s the second commandment? You know it: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth…” No idols. Don’t try to image God. Don’t try to make something to look at, and then say, “There—that’s God. Finally, something I can see.”
It was a major problem throughout Israel’s history. A little while later the people of Israel were asking Aaron, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us!” And he, obliging them, “received gold from their hand, and fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf,” and then stood and made this speech: “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!” This is your God—this visible, easily located thing. This thing you can see is right here—right with you in all your troubles.
Because Israel was only human, and in fact, represented and recapitulated the story of all humanity, the people struggled, for their entire history, with this impulse to act on their desire to create a visible representation of God (at least up till the Babylonian captivity). God knows how human and normal this impulse is. In Deuteronomy Moses says this: “Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth.”
If you try to image God, you’ll totally ruin your ability to know him. You’ll settle for less than God, and put some thing in between you and God, and block yourself off from knowing him at all. Over and over again we see this temptation to capture God with some kind of image rear its head. It ruined Israel, and obviously, it dominated every other nation for most of history. In fact, it’s so normal and ubiquitous, I’m sure you’ve wondered whether it ever really went away. Sure, most of the people we’re around don’t literally bow down to statues or anything like that. But how do we “modern” people actually do the same thing? It’s at least worth thinking about.
With all this focus on the damaging evil of wanting to make idols, it’s reasonable to conclude that God never wants us to see him—that somehow, seeing God ruins his god-ness, or something like that. But then, something else emerges, right in the beginning of the Bible, that puts an interesting spin on all of this.
In fact, if you’ve missed it, it kind of smacks you in the face, right in the story of Moses himself. Just a few short chapters after Moses records God’s explicit command not to image him, we have the record of a conversation between God and Moses again. They were talking about some difficult topics, when all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, Moses said, “Please, show me Your glory.”
Moses asked God, to His face, if he could see Him. At this point, you might expect God to break in with some serious rebuke like, “Moses, are you serious? Haven’t I been clear that you aren’t to have a visual of me? That’s totally against who I am!” That’s the point of the laws against idols, right? Well, the answer must be…no. Why? Because God didn’t rebuke Moses for his desire to see God at all. In fact, he seems to be glad Moses asked. He replied:
“I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before you…” But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live…Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.”
And then, the next day,
“Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, and the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed before him…”
This is just fascinating. God knew that Moses had the (very human) desire to see him. And he granted it. It was a limited view—there was something about a direct look that Moses couldn’t handle, but it wasn’t wrong for Moses to want it. And God was all about it. And then, contemplating this, we might realize that God granted all kinds of these moments through the whole Old Testament. Consider:
Now the Angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. And He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai…” Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?” (Genesis 16)
Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him…And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” (Genesis 32)
Then Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity. But on the nobles of the children of Israel He did not lay His hand. So they saw God, and they ate and drank. (Exodus 24)
And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?” So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, “What does my Lord say to His servant?” Then the Commander of the LORD’S army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so. (Joshua 5)
Then the Angel of the LORD put out the end of the staff that was in His hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the LORD departed out of his sight. Now Gideon perceived that He was the Angel of the LORD. So Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord GOD! For I have seen the Angel of the LORD face to face. Then the LORD said to him, “Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die.” (Judges 6)
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple… So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts.” (Isaiah 6)
Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the River Chebar, that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. (Ezekiel 1)
There’s a lot there. And it begs the question—Is it wrong to want to see God? Well, it can’t be. It can’t be because Moses’ request to see God pleased God, and it can’t be, because God himself is not averse to being seen. It’s incredible, but the truth is that it is normal and right to want to see God. There’s something very human about it. And here is the amazing thing—God Himself wants us to see him. The warnings against idolatry, then, do not mean that we never will, or should never want to, see Him. They just mean that we must never make the image of God ourselves. We don’t know how. We can’t possibly do it right. But God knows how to show Himself.
I was thinking about all this recently after my wife and I finished watching the first season of The Chosen. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it. Maybe it’s the only thing I’d recommend you binge watch during this shutdown. (You can find it on YouTube for free right now. Just search for The Chosen, Global Live Stream.) I never thought I’d like a series about the life of Jesus so much, but there it is. And the most powerful part of it, for me, is the portrayal of Jesus himself. The conversations with him come across as very powerful, and they’ve left me thinking about why watching someone portray Jesus this way feels so gripping to me. (Other than, “props to the actor and writers!”) I’ve actually found myself wondering, is this wrong? Is it “making an image of God,” to enjoy seeing Jesus portrayed like this? What do you think?
Here’s where I’m at with it. It could be wrong. In other words, I could only love the portrayal of Jesus I see on screen. I could make that my image of Jesus when I pray to him. I could find the Bible boring and the show exciting. I could need the show to feel close to God. And that would be idolatry.
But I already know, from scripture, that we humans have powerful drive to see God, and that God desires to fulfill this desire. And actually, that’s what Jesus was all about, right? The Gospel of John admits that, in the same way God told Moses that he could not see His face, “No man has at any time seen God,” by which John (who knew all the scriptures I quote above) seems to mean, “no one has seen God directly, or seen His ‘face.’” But then, John says, when Jesus came, that’s exactly what they saw. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory,” he writes. And Paul completes the thought: “It is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” In other words, in Jesus, we saw what Moses didn’t see—we saw God’s glory, visible, in a face. A human face.
And what is the final word on why the new earth (“heaven,” as we usually say) is so great? Well, as Revelation says, “They shall see his face.”
You want to see God. And it’s right that you do. And you will.
You don’t see it when you watch The Chosen, but you will see it when you see Jesus—the face of God, looking out of human eyes.
One day, you’ll look him in the face.
Let that hope draw you forward, until the moment you do.
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