Here’s my annual Thanksgiving post.
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On What You Put into Your Head, Part 3: Toto, We’re Not in Eden Anymore
Part 1: Strategic Exposure | Part 2: All the Trees of the Garden
While there’s great joy in romping through fields of wildflowers, we know that the pastoral scenes in novels and movies aren’t really accurate. There are ants at the picnic and snakes in the woods. The world is a broken place; it’s really not a good idea to follow my recommendation in the previous post—“learn all you can about everything you can”—without putting some sensible limitations in place.
We’re not in Eden anymore.
How do we decide which trees in the garden to sample?
Many Christians like to use the guidance in Philippians 4.8—
“Finally, brothers,
- whatever is true,
- whatever is honorable,
- whatever is just,
- whatever is pure,
- whatever is lovely,
- whatever is commendable,
- if there is any excellence,
- if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things.”
I don’t doubt that anyone who focuses his mental faculties on these things will be better for it.
But I note a few things about this list. First, it’s not presented as exhaustive; there’s no command to think only about things on this list. Second, there are times when the Bible itself tells us to think about manifestly negative, even sinful things—to consider the way of the fool, for example. Sometimes it tells us stories that are anything but lovely. And third, I would suggest that because everyone’s different, there are probably even some good things that I shouldn’t dwell on—and you’ll have a similar list, though it’ll probably be different from mine in the particulars.
Why do I say that?
Because the Scripture tells us that we need to make individual adjustments to our mental explorations based on our strengths and weaknesses and our personal characteristics, such as our consciences. Let me give some examples.
Paul says, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient” (1Co 6.12). In fact, he says it twice (1Co 10.23). What does that mean? It means that some things that others can do freely will not get me toward my goal, will not help me fulfill my purposes. I need to stay focused, give primary attention and time to the things that God has called me to do. For example, I’m called to be a teacher. But I’m fluent only in English. When I teach overseas, I often teach through an interpreter, which means I get in only half the content in the same amount of time. Every time I meet a new language, I’m really tempted to learn it so I don’t have to use an interpreter and can cover more material. But the time it would take for me to learn Kiswahili, or Bemba, or Afrikaans, or Xhosa (and those clicks!), or Mandarin, or Chamorro, or even Spanish, would severely limit the time I can spend on my primary calling, which is studying the material and thinking about the most effective ways to present it. It’s not a profitable use of my time, given the time required to gain fluency. It’s not expedient. It’s better to let someone else do that.
In the first verse in the previous paragraph, Paul also says, “All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” We’re all prone to give in to the allure of some activity or other—playing video games, watching TV, eating butterscotch sundaes. Most people can handle those activities in a balanced way, but for some it just becomes addictive. I’ve written about my decision to go cold turkey on caffeine. We need to make the firm decision to stay away from otherwise good things that pull us off balance.
In the second verse above, Paul says, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things edify.” Sometimes we have to decide whether something we’re free to do might get in the way of our spiritual growth—or someone else’s. We need to keep our eyes on the prize and set aside weights that keep us from running our best race (He 12.1).
So as we enjoy God’s good gifts, we do so thoughtfully and purposefully, and that means carefully and cautiously.
Be curious! But be careful.
There’s great freedom in that.
Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash
On What You Put into Your Head, Part 2: All the Trees of the Garden
I noted last time that God gave Adam and Eve free access to all the many trees in the garden, except for just one. God is lavish with his gifts, including his gifts for our thoughtful consideration and even our entertainment. There’s evidence for that all through his Word, and all around us as well.
- There’s much that glorifies God in the world around us—and beyond it. David, perhaps while watching sheep under a night sky, sang, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork” (Ps 19.1). Just as we learn a lot about a creative person, an artist, by studying his art, so we learn about God by studying his creation—its immensity, its precision, its design, its beauty, its reliability. That means that we ought to study science, at whatever depth we’re equipped to do so.
- Perhaps you’ve never thought about the fact that the universe has a design language. Its dimensions and proportions and relationships constitute what we call math (or maths, if you’re across the pond). I know a lot of people who don’t like math and didn’t do well in it in school. OK, it’s not for everybody. But math has beauty and order and precision just like the visible universe that it describes, and it declares the glory of God just as certainly.
- The Bible also tells us that God directs the affairs of peoples and nations, and that the heart of the king is in his hand (Pr 21.1). That means that the outworking of history tells us something about God’s mind—and the better we see how God’s mind works, the better we know him. Providence—history—is well worth thinking about as we seek to glorify God.
- At the end of the creation week we learn that the last creatures God made—Adam and Eve—he made in his image (Ge 1.26-27). Whatever that means specifically—and there’s a fair amount of debate about that—it means that we resemble God in some significant way or ways. And that means that we can learn about God by studying humans—
- Their languages
- Their literature
- Their art
- Their music
- Their speech
- Their dramatic productions
So the humanities and the arts are places we ought to settle down in and think about.
It’s pretty obvious that I’m talking about the elements of a liberal arts education. No surprise there; I teach at a liberal arts university, where I’ve spent my entire adult life.
I have friends who think college is a waste of money. Learn a trade, they say, and you’ll make more money while avoiding debt.
I think that’s reductionistic. College is just right for some people, and not for others. The trades are honorable employments, and we need people in our society who are good at them. But I shiver at logic that makes earning power the sole criterion for a career decision. And I think we’d all do well to remember that glorifying God calls for a wide variety of people, skills, and knowledge sets. The world is a better place because I’m not an electrician just as certainly as it’s a better place because good electricians exist.
So what’s the big idea?
Romp in as many fields as you like; smell the wildflowers, hear the birdsong, bask in the light and warmth of the sun. Eat from all the trees of the garden to which God has graciously given us access. Delight in what they tell you about his power, his wisdom, his grace. Get to know him better. Seek to become more like his attributes that you see in what you study. Gain knowledge and skills that will make you a better servant in his great plan.
Learn everything you can about everything you can.
Relish the abundant freedom he gives.
Part 3: Toto, We’re Not in Eden Anymore
Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash
On What You Put into Your Head, Part 1: Strategic Exposure
I get a sense that our culture doesn’t think much about what it consumes mentally. We scroll through social media posts, slowing down for something that suits our fancy. We scroll through the menus of streaming services, looking for something to watch: something we like, something that looks interesting, something with a cool thumbnail graphic.
Whatever.
But we all know better.
We’ve all had the experience of seeing or hearing something that we wish we could forget; the woods is full of people who desperately want to get old pornographic images out of their minds and just can’t. For all the talk about being unable to remember things, we find that our brains often remember things far better than we’d like. If we had any sense, we’d be a lot more careful about what we put in there.
We’d be purposeful, strategic about it.
Let me share some thoughts about that, something I shared in chapel at Bob Jones University way back on November 6, 2006.
Since what we put into our heads is going to be there forever, and potentially available for recall, we ought to direct our thinking, and even our entertainment, to things that are going to help us become what we want to become and accomplish what we want to accomplish.
I decided a long time ago that the wisest goal for my life was to heed the biblical admonition to “do all to the glory of God” (1Co 10.31). I had discovered that I didn’t have enough mass to be the center of the universe, and what I had experienced of God led me to believe that he would make a wiser investment of my life than anyone or anything else.
And what things would most effectively glorify him?
- Knowing him: “This is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).
- Being like him: “We all … are changed into the same image [of the glory of the Lord]” (2 Cor. 3:18); “whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Ro 8.29).
- Serving him: “That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2Ti 3:17).
So what things can we devote our thinking to that will further these goals?
The Scripture answers this question, as it does many others, with both freedom and caution. On the one hand, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it” (Ps 24.1). God pointed Adam and Eve to a garden full of all different kinds of trees and encouraged them to eat all different kinds of fruit.
Freedom!
But on the other hand, the world is broken and dangerous. There was one tree in the garden that was forbidden to them, and when they violated that prohibition, the whole garden became off limits. There are many things in the world today that we restrict our children from, and if we have any sense, there are things that we restrict ourselves from as well.
Caution.
In the next post I plan to share some observations about thinking with freedom, romping in broad fields of mental wildflowers; in the third post, I’ll have some thoughts about how and when to be cautious.
Part 2: All the Trees of the Garden | Part 3: Toto, We’re Not in Eden Anymore
Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash
On Valentine’s Day
This a time for romance. For love. For commitment. For loyalty.
Interestingly, God describes his relationship with his people in those terms.
We know that “God is love” (1Jn 4.8, 16)—that he has always been in relationship among the persons of the Godhead; he has never been alone. Love is natural for him; it’s part of who he is.
We know that “we love him because he first loved us” (1Jn 4.19)—that he initiated the relationship with us, even though we had wronged him (Ro 3.23). In fact, he lovingly anticipated that relationship before we even existed—before the earth itself existed (Ep 1.4).
We know that his most oft-repeated description of himself includes “lovingkindness” (Heb hesed), a far-reaching word not captured by any single English word, but including loving loyalty to a covenant relationship. It’s the attribute that keeps 60-year marriages together in spite of everything.
That’s the kind of relationship God wants with us.
We can imagine, then, how our sin must grieve his heart. In fact, he describes the sin of his people as adultery, violation of the marriage relationship.
I’ve been a believer for more than 60 years. Every day of those 60 years, I have fallen short of the glory of God. I’ve been unfaithful to the relationship.
That’s over 22,000 days of adultery.
How many would it take for you to give up on your spouse?
Yet God continues to welcome us back, to forgive our unfaithfulness, to restore the relationship.
Hesed.
God illustrates his love for us in a couple of stories he tells his people. One is in the book of Hosea, where he tells the prophet to marry a woman who will be unfaithful to him—as Israel has been unfaithful to their God.
It’s heartbreaking.
There’s another story, a less-well-known one, in Ezekiel 16.
Ezekiel is writing long after Hosea—so long, in fact, that Judah has now gone into captivity in Babylon, and Ezekiel is prophesying to them in the Jewish community there. He speaks God’s words to the community—
- One day God found an abandoned baby by the side of the road, newborn, unwashed, unwanted. He took her home and cleaned her up, and then he began to provide for her needs: food, clothing, shelter. For years he raised her—lavishly—as his own daughter.
- When she became an adult, a beautiful woman, his love for her led him to take her as his wife.
- But she was unfaithful. She went after other lovers, not merely being seduced by them but seducing them, and aggressively. She pressured them; she even paid them. She made Sodom seem mild by comparison. She broke his heart.
What a horrifying account.
But it doesn’t end in divorce, or retaliation, or expulsion, or murder, or any of the things we would expect from a human relationship of this sort.
It ends in restoration, reunification, love.
And not because the unfaithful wife pleads for forgiveness.
Because the maltreated Husband remembers and is faithful to the marriage covenant, to the permanence of the relationship:
60 Nevertheless, I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. 61 … . 62 Thus I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord (Ezk 16.60, 62).
O wondrous love that will not let me go,
I cling to You with all my strength and soul;
Yet if my hold should ever fail
This wondrous love will never let me go!
(Steve and Vikki Cook)
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
On Thanksgiving
How to Parallel Park
Seriously.
I know a lot of people who don’t know how to parallel park. Some of them won’t even try.
And as I observe my world, I realize that a lot of people I don’t know also don’t know how to parallel park. I have seen remarkable things.
Since I like to throw in a light-hearted post every so often, and since I really believe that I’ve discovered the way to parallel park accurately, first time, every time—and in remarkably tight spaces—I want to share my technique here. It really works.
The first thing you need to do is ignore what your driving instructor told you. He wanted you to look back over your right shoulder out the rear window.
As you well know, that doesn’t work at all. You can’t see what you need to see to be accurate.
Here’s what you need to do.
My instructions assume you’re driving on the right side of the road. This will work in former British colonies as well—I’ve proved it in South Africa, with a standard transmission, on a hill—but you’ll need to reverse left and right references, of course.
- Pull up beside the car parked in the space in front of yours, a foot or two from it. Actually, the distance is not all that critical; if you’re farther away, your angle into the space will be sharper, but that doesn’t prevent a successful and efficient park. The key is that your rear bumper is even with the other vehicle’s.
- VERY IMPORTANT THING: Look carefully around to ensure that the area is clear of things you don’t want to run into, including living persons. That liability situation is the whole reason your driving instructor told you to look over your right shoulder and out the back.
- Turn the steering wheel all the way to the right, so that the rear end of your vehicle will move to the right as you back into the space.
- SECOND VERY IMPORTANT THING: Don’t look over your right shoulder. Look instead in the outside mirror on the driver’s side (your left, in the good ol’ USA). This is the key to the whole operation. Note that when you’re looking here, you can’t see if someone is standing in the space you’re aiming for. That’s why you need to clear the area visually before you start.
- Put ‘er in reverse and coast slowly back. As the back of your vehicle moves rightward into the space, locate in the mirror the left rear corner of the parking space. Aim the back left corner of your vehicle just inside that corner.
- When the corner of your vehicle is properly aimed to hit that spot, turn the steering wheel back to the left until the front wheels are straight, and proceed slowly straight back into the space.
- When your left rear tire is inside the side line of the space, and your front bumper is clear of the car parked in front of you, turn the steering wheel hard to the left to swivel the front of your vehicle into the spot.
- When your vehicle’s entire left side is inside the lines of the parking space, straighten the steering wheel and stop.
- Amateur level: You may need to move the car slightly backward or forward to get it completely inside the front and back lines of the space.
- Pro level: Turn off the engine. You’re completely inside the space as soon as you straighten the steering wheel.
I’m telling you, this works. First time, every time.
You’re welcome. :-)
Photo by Adam Griffith on Unsplash
On Muddling Through
8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God (He 11).
I’ve heard a lot of people comment these days on the uncertainty of our lives. It seems unusual, they say, the degree to which things are in general upheaval. They tend to focus on Covid, of course, especially with the Delta variant and the looming return of restrictions of various kinds. But they note that there’s more to this feeling, especially in the significant societal and cultural changes that seem to be accelerating.
There’s a part of me that says there’s nothing new under the sun; I’ve always been skeptical of the constant claim that “young people these days have it harder than ever.” But it does seem that the pace of change is speeding up.
I know a lot of people who are pretty much in Full Bore Linear Panic over all this. At the risk of being accused of insufficient empathy, let me offer a few words of psychical stabilization. (And yes, I know that no one in the history of the world has ever been calmed down by being told to calm down.)
I’ve written before on the societal uncertainty that the pandemic has brought, but I’d like to share some further thoughts along that line.
There is a very real sense in the Scripture that we’re mostly blind and consequently just sort of muddling along through life. We’re constantly reminded that we’re not God—though by nature we’d very much like to be—and that our knowledge and wisdom are infinitesimal in comparison with his. Paul tells us that “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2Co 5.7), and the writer to the Hebrews develops that concept at considerable length in chapter 11, a portion of which appears above. Abraham, we’re told, went out, not knowing where he was going.
We all feel like that sometimes.
Maybe you know people who started life with a plan and executed it perfectly. My life, in contrast, began with making a plan and seeing it crash when I was 16, and then just sort of stumbling along as doors opened. At the time, it wouldn’t have impressed any career coaches. But in retrospect, it’s been a straight line and makes a lot of sense.
Life’s funny that way.
To one degree or another, we’re all Abraham. We come from somewhere else and are just resident aliens here, living in tents (most of us metaphorically).
Some immigrants cling tightly to their ethnic identity. When my people came over from the Rhine Valley in 1741, they settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, briefly but soon hiked down to a German colony in Newmarket, Virginia, where they helped start a Lutheran Church—that’s what Germans do, right?—and married other Germans. From my youth in Boston I recall fondly the Italian North End and Irish South Boston, and the clear cultural identity of those places.
But eventually, typically, immigrants blend in, intermarry, and assume the culture to which they’ve come. It happened to Judah in Babylon; it happened to the Olingers in America; and it happens pretty much everywhere.
In a spiritual sense, though, we don’t have that option.
We’re from someplace else, and we’ll always be from someplace else, and we can’t—mustn’t—make this place the determiner of our fortunes, our emotions, our spiritual health. The uncertainties that are part of living in a foreign place must not drive us to fear, because we have a Father who knows all and directs all, even though he often doesn’t clue us in to everything that’s going on. What looks like chaos to us looks like a beautiful fractal to him, and he’s doing something spectacular.
We don’t know what that something is, exactly, but we know whose work it is, and that fact gives us the ability to be calm in the midst of the storm, confident in the midst of uncertainty, joyous with anticipation in the midst of societal panic—not because we don’t care, or because we’re not empathetic, or because we’re just stupid, but because we know where it’s all heading.
In short, because we believe Dad—which, given his record, is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash
E Pluribus Unum
My wife and I were eating lunch in a restaurant yesterday when a girl walked by in a T-shirt that said “Lexington Soccer.” I caught her eye and asked, “Lexington where?” She said, “Massachusetts”—as I hoped she would. I smiled and said, “I graduated from Lexington Christian.” She said, “So did my Dad.”
Small world.
And that got me to thinking about all the places I’ve lived and people I’ve known—which leads me to recycle what follows, a minor reworking of something I posted on Facebook on September 4, 2016.
I spent the first half my youth in the Pacific Northwest (Spokane, to be precise), and the second half in greater Boston (Newton, mostly). (And when I say “half,” I’m being precise; we headed east 3 days after my 10th birthday.)
But I’ve spent well over 2/3 of my life in the American South. There are lots of things I like about the region:
- Barbecue. And to my friends in California, bless your hearts, you’re not “barbecuing”; you’re grilling. It ain’t barbecue unless you’re usin’ wood and takin’ more than 8 hours.
- Side note: in South Africa they “braai,” and they use wood, but they cook hot and fast rather than low and slow, so that’s not barbecue either. Though it is delicious.
- The way Southerners soften their insults with “bless your heart.”
- Biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast.
- Calling other adults “Sir” and “Ma’am,” even when they’re younger than you.
- Dinner on the grounds. And persimmon pudding. Preferably simultaneously.
- Fireflies.
- The good people in mill towns like Poe and Slater and Zoar and Lockhart. (RIP, Eunice Loudermilk.)
- The way everything’s sweeter here–cornbread and potato salad and of course iced tea.
- The sound of the kudzu growing on a dog day afternoon.
- Grits. Yes, really. Fresh and hot, with butter and pepper—and not a single crystal of sugar. What were you thinking!?
I am blessed for having lived in multiple regions. It’s helped me realize that despite our differences, we are all more alike than we think–that there really is more that unites us than that divides us. That reaching across regional boundaries and disbelieving stereotypes is good for the soul. And for the country. And that as polarized as we are in this country, “e pluribus unum” really is possible. But it starts with us, one at a time.
Our leaders, and our journalists, and social media are united in their efforts to keep us ginned up, angry and hostile toward the “other side.” They’re doing it almost entirely for the ratings, for the money, for the power. They’re posturing; they don’t believe half the things they’re saying, and you shouldn’t either.
Don’t buy it. You’re in the image of God; you’re not a beast. Think for yourself. And reach across the unbreachable boundary. Because they’re in the image of God too.
Photo by Joey Csunyo on Unsplash
It’s Not Martyrdom If You’re Being Obnoxious
There’s a lot of talk about Christians being persecuted these days.
I’d suggest a couple of moderating thoughts.
First, if you’re talking about in the US, then, no, they’re not being persecuted, relatively speaking. There are some instances of their being harassed, and that’s wrong. I think the well-known case of the Colorado baker is a pretty clear instance of that. But harassment, while condemnable on both ethical and legal grounds, is nothing like the persecution faced by the early church, or by the modern church in many places of the world. I’ve been in some of those places, and when American Christians cry “persecution,” it strikes me as just as inappropriate as calling an ID requirement for voting “voter suppression.”
Second, there’s some biblical wisdom that we can apply profitably to the matter of either harassment or persecution. To begin with the really big picture, God has designed the universe so that in general it rewards wise behavior and punishes foolishness. If you respect physical laws by not putting your hand into a flame or stepping in front of a city bus, you’ll live more comfortably—and probably longer. If you acknowledge the fact that your fellow humans are created in the image of God and therefore worthy of respect, courtesy, and care, you’ll have fewer interpersonal problems. Even in its pre-fallen state, the world may well have carried the potential of causing you pain if you didn’t pay attention. I suspect that if pre-fallen Adam had beat his head against an Edenic tree trunk for a while, he’d have decided not to do that anymore.
And in its post-fallen state, the potential rises exponentially. Now the world is broken. Creation groans (Ro 8.22), giving us earthquakes and tornados and tsunamis and pandemics. And we, as part of the broken world, engage in thinking and behavior that rejects the good God and denies his image in those around us. That kind of mistreatment and perversion of the designed order causes unfathomable pain. As Jesus’ half-brother James noted, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel” (Jam 4.1-2a).
All of this means that when Christians suffer, there are more possible reasons than just “suffering for Jesus.” Christians, individually or corporately, might be suffering because they’ve said or done stupid things, placing themselves under the divinely designed cosmic order, whereby life is tougher if you’re stupid (as John Wayne allegedly said). Or they might be suffering because they’ve engaged in sinful thinking or practices that have social or legal consequences.
I’m not making this up; the Bible actually warns God’s people against this very thing. Perhaps the most concentrated biblical teaching on Christian suffering is 1 Peter, which lays out the fact and causes of suffering and then applies it in the three major institutions of life: the home (1P 3.1-12), the state (1P 2.13-20), and the church (1P 4.7-5.11). As part of that instruction, Peter says,
14 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; 16 but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name (1P 4.14-16).
If you’re going to suffer—which is likely, he says—then suffer for a good reason. There’s no spiritual profit in suffering in itself—everybody suffers for one reason or another. So don’t suffer for stupid reasons.
Peter lists four behaviors here. Two of them are the specific sins—crimes, in fact—of murder and theft. The third item is a general term for evildoing. The fourth is a bit of a puzzle, what New Testament scholar Thomas Schreiner calls “one of the most difficult interpretive problems in the New Testament.” Because it’s a rare word, we don’t have much basis from usage for assigning it a meaning. Etymologically it’s “overseeing the affairs of others,” but what that means in a negative context isn’t clear. I’m inclined to read it as “being meddlesome,” “sticking your nose into other people’s business.”
Big sins will bring you trouble. So will little ones. I’d suggest that commenting on every passing social media post, whether or not you have any idea what you’re talking about, will bring you trouble. I’d also suggest that approaching people with a hostile attitude and confrontational speech will bring you trouble. And I’d suggest, finally, that blaming Jesus for your trouble in those cases is just wrong.
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash
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