It's a sin to call sin sin!

Once again the sin police are at it in the Sydney Morning Herald. A clergyman named Richard Lane apparently told Justice Michael Kirby that it's inconsistent to call himself an Anglican Christian and live in an openly homosexual lifestyle.

The article says that Jesus was on about love, not sin.

True, Jesus was on about love: and in being on about love, he called sin for what it is. He didn't let social mores define sin. The character of God did. This made Jesus so unpopular that they crucified him.

Is this the fate awaiting his follower Richard Lane?

Guidance revisited

Back in January I had a bit of a rant (here) about the pagan teaching that is passed off among Western Christians for guidance.

You know the drill: you pray lots and then you listen to the 'still, small voice' of God (a misquote of 1 Kings 19:12 (best in the KJV, for misreading anyway) which makes that verse say the opposite of what it really says).

And if the 'still, small voice of God' is convincing enough, you can do what you like... oops I mean you can do what the still, small voice of God told you.

Of course, the other sure confirmation that something is God's will is the opportunity. So, a woman has the opportunity to preach, and so that overrules any Scriptures that say women should not preach. Someone has the opportunity to have an affair, that proves that the affair is ok. Of course, the guidance pagans never really admit that this is the end-result of their dodgy theology, but if we answer the question, "Should I be a missionary" with "well I can afford the ticket" as 'proof' that this is God's will, then every time I get the opportunity to have an affair it must be ok, using this logic.

My rant about all that was blogged about way back in January. But on Sunday our systematic Bible reading was 1 Samuel 24. It occurred to me as I was reading it to the church that the 'opportunity' method of guidance is knocked out of contention by this passage. David is hiding in a cave. Saul comes in to do a shit. David has the opportunity to bump Saul off: his own troops take the "opportunity equals guidance" view. But David refuses to accept that opportunity equals guidance. His loyalty is to the Lord's anointed. Read it here in the excellent New Living Translation.

Of course, the New Testament conveys a similar notion. In 2 Corinthians 1 Paul speaks of his opportunities and how he did not follow them because they weren't the wisest way to go. Opportunity DOES NOT equal guidance. Bloody hell, every time someone rejects the gospel we'd give up sharing it if we took that view!

Christian joke for the larger man

Church is just over. What a buzz. We had 46 folk across 2 services: not our best and many regulars were away for legitimate reasons, but we also had some visitors, God's Word was proclaimed and I am feeling good about the world.

Then my 'friend' Malcolm sent this link. So deflating! Follow it here: http://www.reverendfun.com/index.php?date=20080222

But seriously, I know Malcolm isn't cruel, and I know his sense of humour, and I think it's funny, so despite my feigned offence, I took none really. And I'm not having a go at Malcolm by writing what follows, for I know Malcolm's theology is more robust than that which I am about to criticise.

As an aside (and this only makes sense if you read the link), the argument "Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit" is trotted out against smoking, being overweight, and anything that our culture thinks (or knows scientifically) is wrong.

And yet, we don't argue that way when it comes to legitimate drugs. I'm on Effexor/XR and some sort of cholesterol drug. Isn't that potentially abusing the temple of the holy spirit? What about my mate who is very thin, doesn't smoke, yet drinks coffee like it's going out of style. He is a drug-addicted pastor!

So the logic doesn't hold.

Furthermore, it's just really bad exegesis. We read in 1 Cor 16, 17: "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple." (NIV)

The 'you' in the original is really 'youse'.

In short (since I've just been called for lunch): the context is about destroying the church. Youse, collectively, when youse gather together to form the church (the body of believers), youse are the temple of the HS. If any of youse destroys the temple (ie does stuff that is hurtful or divisive to the church), youse are destroying God's temple and God will destroy him.

Context removes any proof-texting about health and fitness and reminds us it's about our responsibility to do everything humanly in our power to seek unity in the body of God's people, the church.

Guidance!

My blood is boiling and it is boiling because of the pagan teaching that 95% of the Western evangelical world purveys regarding the idea of knowing God's will.

You know the standard teaching (follow the link at the top of this blog for an example).

The 'standard' teaching is something like this:
1) If what you are seeking to discern is not against the Bible it's ok IF and only IF:
2) God "opens the door for you" AND/OR
3) Your prayer and fasting leads you to 'discern' God is 'telling' you to go that way AND/OR
4) Your church leaders and/or other leaders in your church affirm it for you AND
5) You try it and it 'works'.

I esteem Dr James Dobson highly but I remember watching a video he made where this (well-chosen) pretty blonde teenager asked with tears in her eyes how she might know God's will. "Well, the Bible tells you" Dr Dobson replied. Phew!

He quoted Psalm 119:105: "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet".

Clear as mud! The good doctor then went on to outline 5 or 6 ways to discern (or divine!) God's will based on anything but the Word of God.

What about those people who tell us to shut up and listen to the still, small voice of God (1 Kings 19:12)? As if we are somehow to be like quakers and we just shut up and wait until God speaks to us. Or, trying to read 1 Kings 19 in context, we go and camp at the foot of a mountain until God speaks in his still, small voice. And yet it is better rendered "the sound of thin silence" (cf. the NRSV)... the context is thus:

1. God threatened to wipe out his people after the Golden Calf incident in Exodus.
2. He wanted to start a new nation beginning with Moses.
3. Moses interceded.
4. Elijah runs to Mt Horeb (Mt Sinai of Exodus) to seek to take God up on the offer he made Moses.
   
5. There is thunder, lightning, earthquake, fire: but God is not in the fire. Then there is the sound of thin silence and (elipitically) God is not in the silence.
   
6. THEN God speaks to Elijah and, in summary, tells him to pull his head in: unlike Moses he is not the only one to remain faithful to God; there are 7,000 who have not bent the knee to Ba'al. So there, Elijah, go figure... there will be no new nation, no new revelation of God here chum.

In other words, 1 Kings 19 tells us the OPPOSITE of the popular reading... rather than seeking to hear the still, small voice of God, 1 Kings 19 tells us to pull our heads in and keep on being faithful to God.

Ok, so what about "Be still and know I am God" (PS 46:10)?

What about it? It's a Psalm about God being our strength and refuge in times of trouble. Contextually, God is shouting... the wars will be ended, the nations subdued. It's not the "still, small voice" of God: God is SHOUTING to all who rail against him to shut up and listen.

So, boy meets girl. Is she the one (another bugbear: where does God say there is only ONE TRUE LOVE for anyone? That's Harry meets Sally not Mary meets Joseph)? How do I know if I should marry her? Oh, my church teaches me to listen to the still, small voice of God.

Man, if you have a nagging doubt, then isn't that the wisdom God has put in your head telling you to call it off? Don't blame it on God when you break the woman's heart!

Here's a biblical view of God's guidance: The whole Bible tells us what God's will is: that people should be saved and live to his glory. If you are saved and living to God's glory then you are IN HIS WILL. Explicitly, he also tells us things like to be joyful, prayerful and always thankful, for this is the will of God for you in Christ (1 Thess 5:16-18). If you are doing those things then, brother, you are in God's will.

For everything else God gives us his biblical parameters and wisdom to distill them into life.

So, is the chickybabe a Christian? Is she not related to you? Does she love the Lord Jesus? Then to marry her satisfies God's will, ok! So if she is 'right' for you depends not on biblical characteristics but on wisdom... do you want to be a missionary in deepest, darkest Africa and she wants to minister to Muslims on the Left Bank in Paris? Maybe one of you needs to change or perhaps it's UNWISE to wed.

But to 'divine' God's will by means other than I've described is rank paganism. Young man, if your church leaders taught you that, pray for them, for they will be judged more harshly for being God's teachers.