Archives for February 2025

On Political Panic, Part 1

February 27, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

I don’t very often post political things on social media or on this blog. There’s plenty of noise out there already, and I’m no more qualified to speak on political issues than the next guy. I also find that in the current polarized environment, taking a public political position results in half the country refusing to listen to anything you say for the next forever, and my effectiveness at carrying out the Great Commission, and at ministering to hurting people in other ways, is infinitely more important to me than my preferred candidate’s winning in this or that election.

Some years ago I began a political-sounding post on Facebook with this statement:

This is not a political post. It’s a discipleship post.

The rest of today’s post is offered in that spirit.

We all know that the US appears to be polarized, angry, and intolerant, across the political spectrum, and that this polarization is particularly evident on social media. Pretty much every post that takes a political position is soon followed with a string of comments filled with anger, name-calling, and invective, rehashing the same ideas that are in all the strings of comments on other posts. Some people seem to thrive on that, even to live for it. Eventually many others try to avoid it, either by unfriending or blocking certain people or just staying off Facebook or Twitter/X entirely.

I’d like to offer a few observations on the situation, for what they’re worth.

First, I try not to see comment threads as statistically significant. (That’s what my first post on this blog was about.) I have a lot of FB friends, plenty enough, and across the political spectrum, to be a statistically reliable database. And I note that my friends—and I do count them friends—who are making the most noise are relatively few; for a certain subset of my friends—and I do count them friends—I know what position they’re going to take, and how emotionally laden they’re going to be, before I read what they say. And I note, importantly, that not everyone making the most noise out there is an empty barrel. (Here’s looking at you, Paul. And Bob. :-) ) But most people stay out of the fray, I assume because they’re spending their time on efforts they view as more valuable for them. I conclude that the polarization and rage are not as pervasive as they appear.

I’d also suggest some biblical insights that could help all of us find a higher degree of peace.

Everybody’s a combination of two deeply powerful and effectual characteristics. First, everybody is in the image of God. Everybody. Including all the people you and I disagree with on social media. That means that everybody should be heard and respected. Taunting is a violation of this principle. So is posting something just to irk somebody else, to “stick it to the” whoevers.

Respect.

Secondly, everybody is an imperfect incarnation of God’s original design for humans. More commonly we say that everyone is fallen, is broken, is a sinner. We call that “original sin.” That includes me, and it includes you—and if the truth be told, we are the ones mostly likely to know how deeply that brokenness goes in us. We need to tell the truth to and about ourselves.

Now, that means that every political candidate is a mixture of great good and great evil. Sometimes he (or she) is right, and sometimes he (or she) is wrong. Everybody’s like that.

The tendency of political fans is to denounce everything “the other guy” says or does, and to affirm (or excuse, if you have to) everything “our guy” says or does. That’s unbiblical, and because it’s unbiblical, it’s foolish and doomed to make one look foolish in the long run, if not immediately.

Next time, one further thought on the apocalypticism of it all.

Photo by Usman Yousaf on Unsplash

On Retiring, Part 1: Why

February 24, 2025 by Dan Olinger 35 Comments

I’ve made the decision to retire.

Over the years I’ve thought about when would be the best time to do that. My university turns 100 at Commencement 2027—just a couple of years away—and that would make sense. Shortly after that, after the fall semester in 2027, I would reach 50 official years of service, and that would make sense too.

But in the last few years I’ve noticed that my ability to produce is declining. I have increasing difficulty hearing my students’ questions, especially when the air circulation fans are going, even though I have hearing aids—good ones—and wear them all the time. My eyesight is also getting fuzzier, even with glasses, and I have trouble recognizing my students even at a middling distance. I also have difficulty looking toward a light source—I noticed it first at night, and I even got a pair of those polarized yellow “sunglasses” that they advertise to people my age on social media. They help—at night—but they don’t really solve the problem. The other day a student greeted me in the hallway; he was standing in front of a window on a sunny day, and I called him by another student’s name, based on his blond hair; I couldn’t distinguish anything about his face.

So my effectiveness as a teacher is being affected. I think my work is still good enough, but I can see the handwriting on the wall—if it’s big enough and isn’t right next to a window. Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.

As I’ve been meditating on these things, this year my university is needing to reduce its faculty count—which means that if I retire, that’s one less younger, highly qualified faculty member they’ll have to let go.

My family’s financial situation is appropriate for retirement.

I’m 70.

It’s time.

That decision brings with it a lot of contemplation and rememberizing, of course. I’ve been on the same campus for 52 years, and virtually every location brings back specific memories.

Four years as an undergraduate, first in humanities (because I had no idea what I was doing) and then in Bible. Then I left, expecting to have to work for a year or two to earn money for graduate school. But exactly in the middle of the summer, I got a letter from the famed and sometimes feared Dr. Guenter Salter, Dean of the College of Arts and Science, offering me a grad assistantship in English. (That actually makes more sense than it may sound. Freshman English was 2 semesters of grammar and composition, and as a Greek minor, I had more grammar than the English majors, who spent a lot of their time in literature.)

So five years as a GA, learning the terminology of English grammar rather than Greek—I learned that a “gerund” is just a substantival use of the participle—grading freshman themes, doing some lecturing, and taking 90 hours of Seminary work for a PhD. Then 19 years on staff at the University Press, as an editor (thanks to all those freshman themes), then an author, then an authors’ supervisor, and finally, briefly, manager of strategic planning.

Toward the end of those 19 years I began to get restless. I was using the PhD skills to some extent, but not to their fullest; my responsibilities included a lot of other stuff too. The Bible faculty was solid and stable.

One day I thought, maybe I should go teach someplace else.

The next day Dr. Bob Bell, the Seminary’s curriculum rabbi, stopped me at lunch and asked if I was interested in teaching.

Sure was. So 25 years on the faculty, eventually settling into 18 years as the chair of the undergrad division, working under and alongside remarkable, godly, competent men and women.

That makes 53 years here, with 47.5 years of official employment. (Undergrad doesn’t count, and GA years get half credit.)

It is enough, in the most positive sense of that clause. The Lord gives good gifts to his people, and he gives them abundantly.

So what’s next?

Don’t know. I’ve done some thinking about it, but I haven’t finalized my priorities yet. Here’s a start:

Enjoy a more flexible time with my wife, and stay out of her way :-) when appropriate.

Spend time with our grandson, who lives in town.

Exercise faithfully.

Offer my skills at BJU and at church, as desired and appropriate.

Leverage my flexible schedule for other kinds of service as they may come up.

Keep the mind sharp, as much as possible. My Dad presented with dementia at 85, so I’ll be keeping an eye on the passage of time. I suppose I could do that in a couple of ways—

a. Read, read, read. Especially long reads. And stuff I’m not already familiar with. New things.

b. Write. Got a few ideas, but nothing firm. FWIW, I do intend to continue the blog on its current schedule.

I even told ChatGPT to read my blog site and suggest possible retirement activities. It came up with a few ideas that I hadn’t.

So we’ll see how it goes, and we’ll revel in the flexibility.

Hallelujah, in its original sense.

Part 2: How

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How to Begin a Life of Praise, Part 2

February 20, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1

Psalm 1 begins Israel’s book of praise by setting forth the way to think and walk in wisdom (Ps 1.1-3). But there’s another choice, a second stanza, and David makes the choice and its consequences clear. Parallel to his first stanza (see Part 1), he describes the person who chooses badly—though his description is brief (Ps 1.4)—and then he identifies the outcome of the choice.

⁴The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. ⁵Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous (Ps 1.4-5).

Those who choose not to walk in wisdom, he says, are like chaff, or the worthless husk on grain. Chaff protects the grain during its development, but once you get to the eating stage, it’s just in the way. Every Israelite would be familiar with the process of harvesting grain: cutting, sheaving, threshing, winnowing. You cut the stalks and gather them into bundles for transport to the threshing floor, which is a flat stone surface. Using oxen, you pull a threshing sledge, constructed of heavy wooden beams in which perhaps bits of stone or metal are embedded, across the stalks until the straw is separated from the kernels.

But now you have the husk problem. How do you get rid of them? Using a shovel or fork, you toss the grains into the air, where the breeze blows away the lightweight husks, leaving the kernels to fall back to the ground.

Good riddance.

That’s how David describes the ungodly. His son Solomon will later use a similar metaphor, describing all of life under the sun as “vanity and vexation of spirit”—or perhaps “chasing the wind” (Ec 1.14).

There is, of course, a wrinkle here, one that David doesn’t state outright but that the rest of Scripture makes abundantly clear.

Metaphors typically have just a single point of likeness; the thing you’re talking about and thing you’re comparing it to aren’t alike in every respect.

And so, in the contrast between the wise and the ungodly, huskhood need not be permanent. The ungodly can turn and choose to walk in the way of wisdom. Later in Scripture we learn that that’s called “repentance,” which, accompanied by faith, turns the sinner into a saint, the runaway into a child of God.

For now, David’s not expounding on that. He lays out the two paths and thereby encourages us readers to choose wisely.

In verse 5 he describes the end of the persistently ungodly. Judgment is coming, and it will not be pleasant. Again his implied appeal is just under the surface: don’t be a fool; don’t choose the evil path; turn and walk with the godly, whose end is glorious.

David ends the psalm with a summarizing statement:

⁶For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish (Ps 1.6).

There are two paths in life, with very different thinking and very different outcomes. One leads to life with our Creator; the other leads to destruction.

Choose life.

The next 149 psalms will develop this theme, as will Proverbs and the other Wisdom Books. Wisdom doesn’t require intelligence or good looks or money or a trophy wife.

All it requires is noticing something that should be obvious.

Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash

How to Begin a Life of Praise, Part 1

February 17, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In recent months I’ve been working on memorizing key Psalms, those that seem particularly to speak to me. So far I’ve memorized 11 of the first 30, and I’ve found it exhilarating.

We all know that the biblical book of Psalms is Israel’s hymnbook, consisting of 150 poems written by several authors, of whom David contributed the most. We also know that while we have the words, we don’t have the tunes; for some reason, ancient Israel didn’t see fit to record any of them, and I guess they didn’t have a music notation system—at not one that survived. And further, if you’ve memorized the words in English, it’s pretty certain that even if we knew the tunes, they wouldn’t match words that we could sing.

But the words, which are inspired, are enough.

The hymnbook begins, of course, with Psalm 1. Biblical scholars are all but certain that the Psalms were collected by later worship leaders, who organized them in ways they saw fit—they’re in 5 volumes—and many scholars think that Psalm 1 was placed first because it encapsulates or summarizes the following 149 pieces. It’s the place to start.

The Psalm is pretty clearly organized into 2 stanzas, so I think I’ll cover it in 2 posts.

The first 3 verses speak of the life of the godly person. Verses 1 and 2 describe him negatively, then positively, and then verse 3 identifies the consequences of his wise decisions.

Who is the wise person? What is he not like, and what is he like?

¹Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. ²But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night (Ps 1.1-2).

Well, he’s not like the ungodly. He doesn’t take their advice, nor hang out with them as though a companion, nor plant himself square in the middle of their worldview. Many students of Scripture have seen a progression in verse 1, and I think they’re right. He begins by walking alongside them, then stays with them when they get where they’re going, and eventually just grabs a chair and gets comfortable.

We use the expression “He’s hanging out with the wrong crowd.” That’s this guy. And that’s not wisdom; it’s a foolish way to live. The wise man is not like that.

Well, then, what is he like?

He immerses himself in “the law of the Lord.” Now, to David that pretty clearly meant the Torah, the 5 books of Moses, which we call the Pentateuch. That’s nearly all the Scripture that David had in his day.

He wanted to hear what God had to say, and to know it well—obviously, so he could do what it said.

Now, I don’t think I’m abusing the text when I say that our wise thinking should include immersing ourselves in the Word that God has given us since David’s day. That’s why pastors urge us to be in the Word daily; that’s not a direct biblical command, but it certainly follows the mindset David sets forth here. Immersion, meditation, delight.

In my experience, the Scripture is self-motivating: it may seem uninteresting in places—or even pretty much entirely—at first, but the more you invest in it, the more delight you find, and the more you love it.

Most people don’t think that way. And that’s the point.

So what happens when we do that?

³And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper (Ps 1.3).

We are nourished; we are stable; we make a positive difference in this world, and that influence endures—it lasts longer than the typical fad.

What does “whatsoever he doeth shall prosper” mean? Well, it clearly doesn’t mean that every godly person will be rich; the Scripture presents plenty of poor godly people without any sense of awkwardness or embarrassment. It doesn’t mean that all our dreams will be fulfilled; David himself evidences that.

What is biblical “prospering,” anyway? It’s fulfilling God’s purpose for us as individuals—finding our providentially ordained place in this world and filling it well. With divine empowerment, we can do that.

Next time: what if we choose the other path?

Part 2

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In the Image of God, Part 3: One Last Thought

February 13, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: What It Means | Part 2: So What?

One last thought.

Christ perfectly images God. 

In whom [i.e. the lost] the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them (2Co 4.4).

[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation (Co 1.15).

[Christ] being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high (He 1.3).

Those who have seen him, he said, have seen the Father (Jn 14.9).

And God is making us like Him. We are being sanctified into that image.

²⁸And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. ²⁹For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren (Ro 8.28-29).

We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2Co 3.18).

And He will certainly take us all the way there; we will one day be glorified into that image. 

As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly (1Co 15.49).

[Christ] shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself (Php 3.21).

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is (1J 3.2).

As surely as the sun came up this morning, God will finish His work in us. He will conform us to the perfect image of His Son. In this life you will never image God as you should; you will never image Him as He deserves to be displayed. But your Savior, the God-Man, has always imaged Him perfectly and completely, and because of His work for you and in you, the day will come—will certainly come—when you image Him in a way that you can’t today. 

And in that day, with a numberless throng of people who don’t look like you, but with whom all of you radiate the image and glory and mercy and grace of God, you will sing His praise: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” 

Take His hand, and follow Him through the trials and the challenges by which He is sanctifying you. 

He promises you that you will love where He’s taking you. 

Image God today. You’ll be better at it tomorrow. And every tomorrow after that. 

Photo by Ilia Zolas on Unsplash

In the Image of God, Part 2: So What?

February 10, 2025 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1: What It Means

We’ve thought about the fact that humans—all of us—are in the image of God, and what that means. We turn now to what difference it makes in how we live on a Monday in February.

For starters, we’re not animals. We’re not just a fortunate combination of mutations that allows us to survive, even prosper, in the place where we find ourselves. God created us by direct action, and in a way distinct from the way he created all the living organisms that preceded us. We are fundamentally different from amoebas, and slugs, and snakes, and trout, and robins, and even chimpanzees. 

You are not an animal. You are not controlled by your impulses. You don’t have to do everything that occurs to you. You can make choices. You can rise above the evil that screams in your ear. You can be a man. You can be a woman. You do not have to be a victim. 

Yes, you’re a sinner, and there are some things—many things—you can’t do without divine enablement. But you are not a brute beast. 

Further, we’re worth something. Humans—all of us—are valuable. Those of us who are “process people” rather than “people people” need to remember that as we wend our way down crowded hallways or sidewalks. Those bodies around us are not simply obstacles to be navigated around as efficiently as possible; they are eternal beings with stories and histories and loves and struggles and cares. They are worth infinitely more than whatever has us in such a hurry to Get Somewhere.

And all of them are valuable in that way. People who are not like you. People who look different. People who act differently. People who think differently. People you know, and people you don’t. People who take the name of God in vain. People who are arrogant. People who voted for Trump, and people who voted for Harris, and people who voted for somebody who didn’t have a chance, and people who didn’t vote at all.

People who have no money. People who have no home. People who live under an overpass. People who smell bad. People who have disabilities. People who are dying of AIDS. Muslim refugees. And Muslim terrorists. People who make you really, really uncomfortable. And yes, people who are still in the womb, and can’t speak for themselves.

All of them are in the image of God, and all of them are worth infinitely more than all the bank accounts of all the rich people in all the world. 

All humans are valuable.

One more thing.

Everything you love about the people you love should move you to praise and worship God, who is the perfect originator of all of it. 

You are surrounded, right now, with thousands of reasons to worship. 

All day, every day, you should be driven to your knees at the glory of this magnificent Creator. 

And you know what? If we were to live that way, the sin that so easily besets us would not seem so appealing. We’d be living for something worth far more than the shiny little trinkets that distract us. We’d start to see victory instead of regular, frustrating defeat. 

Next time, one last thought.

Photo by Ilia Zolas on Unsplash

In the Image of God, Part 1: What It Means

February 6, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In my previous post I mentioned that God’s Spirit is working in us to conform us, eventually perfectly, to the image of the Son. I’d like to follow that up by thinking more deeply about our standing as in the image of God.

It’s the first thing God tells us about ourselves. After He tells how He made everything else, He describes the last act of the Creation Week: 

²⁶And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. ²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen 1.26-27). 

You and I are made in the image of God. What does that mean? And what difference does it make?

What is the image of God? Interestingly, the Bible never tells us directly what it is. But there are some clues:

It distinguishes the human from the animals, who immediately precede man in the creation narrative.

It characterizes both male and female (Ge 1.27).

It’s something like the way a son resembles his father (Ge 5.1-3).

 Over the centuries there have been a lot of suggestions. I’ve gone into more details about this in a previous series, but let me summarize the views here:

It’s something we do: Dominion (Ge 1.28)

It’s something we are:

Morality (Ep 4.24)

Relationship (male & female; social health)

Sonship (Lk 3.38; Ge 5.3-5)

It’s something we have:

Creativity (Ge 1.1)

Immortality

Or maybe it’s all of the above. 

You were created to radiate the love and mercy and grace of God. 

 Now, we need to note a critical point:

We’re not the way God made us.

We’re not the same as the Adam that God created. Something significant has happened to us. Adam chose to sin, and now we’re busted. 

The image in us has been marred. But it has not been destroyed.

After the Flood God told Noah,

Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man (Ge 9.6).

Here we’re told that the murder victim, though fallen like everyone else at this time in history, is in the image of God.

Further, James writes,

Therewith [with the tongue] bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God (Jam 3.9). 

 The word similitude here is the word Genesis uses for “likeness.” And it’s spoken of a time when there’s cursing going on—so it’s after the fall.

So we sinners are still in the image and likeness of God.

Toward the beginning of this post I asked two questions: what does it mean that we’re in the image of God? and what difference does it make?

Next time, we’ll get to the second question.

Photo by Ilia Zolas on Unsplash

On Sound Speech, Part 8: Closing Thoughts

February 3, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Well, we’ve covered some ground here. The Bible has a lot to say about sound speech. We have a lot of things to consider before we go shooting our mouths off.

Recall that we began this series by reviewing, briefly, how God speaks, under the assumption that as in other things, we ought to pattern our behavior, as much as possible, after his.

God is slow to wrath; we should be too.

God cannot lie; we should speak the truth.

God is love; we should speak that truth in love.

God has spoken in his Word; we should speak as though imbued with it.

God speaks as one way of his caring for us; we should speak thankfully.

God blesses; we should bless.

God is gentle; we should speak gently.

God speaks in ways that reflect who he is at heart; we should as well. And unlike God, we should conform our hearts to the right, something he has never needed to do.

Let’s cap this series with one more passage:

⁷In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, ⁸Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you (Ti 2.7-8).

I’d suggest that we’re more likely to damage our reputation by our words than by our actions. Of course, we’re susceptible to doing bad things reactively, without much thought, in the heat of the moment; but words—the words come so easily. Good behavior is a laudable goal; but sound speech is the ultimate testimony to a godly heart.

It could go without saying—but it won’t—that we can’t reach this goal without supernatural empowerment. The Spirit of God, indwelling us, works in us day by day, moment by moment, bit by bit, to conform us to the image of God the Son (2Co 3.18). And one day, no matter how far short of perfection we fall, God will bring us to completion, to perfect conformity to Christ:

We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1J 3.2).

But sanctification is a synergistic process; God works, but so do we, in cooperation with him. Let’s not just sit back and wait to be whanged in the head with glorification, as if by a faith healer on TV. Let’s take part in the process, seeking aggressively and thoughtfully to follow the biblical injunctions.

What would your world be like if your friends and acquaintances always spoke to you like that? 

What would your world be like if you always spoke to your friends and acquaintances like that? 

Can you imagine the growth? The spiritual strength? The peace? The joy? 

Can you imagine a world where we can speak kindly, yet with conviction, to people with whom we disagree? Where we can come to understandings, even agreements, instead of canceling people, one after another, for as long as time endures? 

Can you imagine? 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay