Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

 

Retired Bible Professor,

Bob Jones University

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Baccalaureate, Part 3

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Part 1 | Part 2 

But you’re thinking (I hope) that those aren’t our greatest needs. They’re just the temporal ones. We have greater needs: forgiveness, relationship, grace, mercy, peace. Love. 

What do you know? They’re all free, too. 

Everything you need is free. 

God is so, so good. 

Yes, bad things do happen. Yes, the world is broken. Suffering is real, and injustice is real, and hate is real. 

But God has assured us, and the experience of millions of his people has taught us, that these evil things are not senseless or purposeless or permanent. Paul tells us that 

tribulation worketh patience; 4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope: 5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us (Ro 5.3-5). 

Every athlete knows that the workouts—the suffering, if you will—are what strengthens you so that you can win. The coach is not a sadist; he is wise, and he is good. Any of the athletes on BJU’s national championship teams can tell us that. 

God is good. 

Another poet, the American e e cummings, captured that thought artfully, though surprisingly: 

i thank You God for most this amazing 
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees 
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything 
which is natural which is infinite which is yes 

(i who have died am alive again today, 
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth 
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay 
great happening illimitably earth) 

how should tasting touching hearing seeing 
breathing any—lifted from the no 
of all nothing—human merely being 
doubt unimaginable You? 

(now the ears of my ears awake and 
now the eyes of my eyes are opened) 

God is indeed good. 

So where do we go from here? What’s around the corner at this pivotal point in our graduates’ lives? 

Back to the child’s simple prayer: 

God is great. 
God is good. 
Let us thank him. 

And, I might add, let us trust him, even in a chaotic and, for some, frightful world. 

The British lyricist Michael Perry captured this spirit perfectly, I think, in just one stanza in his great hymn “O God Beyond All Praising”: 

Then hear, O gracious Savior, 
     accept the love we bring, 
that we who know your favor 
     may serve you as our king; 
and whether our tomorrows 
     be filled with good or ill, 
we’ll triumph through our sorrows 
     and rise to bless you still: 
to marvel at your beauty 
     and glory in your ways, 
and make a joyful duty 
     our sacrifice of praise. 

May it be so for all of us. Let’s pray. 

24 The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: 
25 The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: 
26 The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace (Numbers 6.24-26). 

Amen. 

Baccalaureate, Part 2

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Part 1 

Another, very different perspective: 

John Gillespie McGee Jr., a British pilot in WW1, captured this concept more lyrically in his poem High Flight: 

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth 
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; 
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth 
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things 
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung 
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, 
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung 
My eager craft through footless halls of air …. 

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue 
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace 
Where never lark, or even eagle flew— 
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod 
The high untrespassed sanctity of space, 
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. 

A century ago another poet, an American college English teacher named Odell Shepard, in one stanza of a poem he called “Whence Cometh My Help,” wrote of the mountains this way: 

All the wisdom, all the beauty I have lived for unaware 
Came upon me by the rote of highland rills; 
I have seen God walking there 
In the solemn soundless air 
When the morning wakened wonder in the hills. 

The greatness of God is vividly apparent all around us, even to those who deny he exists. 

God is indeed great. Insuperably great. Unimaginably great. 

Years ago there was a commercial for Sherwin Williams paint. The opening shot was of the space shuttle on the launch pad, with a voiceover counting down: “3 … 2 … 1 … ignition!” And those two solid-rocket boosters kick in, and the screen fills with flame and then white smoke, until all you can see is white. And then, the white subtly changes. A door opens away from you, and you’re looking at a typical American bathroom. The voice says, “We developed the paint for the space shuttle. [Door opens.] Chances are, we can handle your bathroom.” 

I say this reverently: Chances are the God who “made the stars also” can handle the challenges of your life. 

God Is Good 

To his protégé Timothy Paul calls God 

the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy (1Ti 6.17b). 

Years ago it occurred to me that everything we really need—literally everything—is free. That’s the way God has arranged the universe. 

Don’t believe me? Hear me out. 

What do you need more than anything else in the world? If you lack it for 30 seconds, it will be literally all you think about until you get some. 

Yep, air. Or more specifically, oxygen. 

Free. 

We’re sitting at the bottom of an ocean of it—an ocean that God has kindly diluted with nitrogen so you won’t burst into flame at the slightest spark. God’s even given you a scoop on the front of your head so you’ll get your share of the stuff. Some of you he gave a larger scoop to, and you have the gall to be upset with him about that. Shame on you. 

What’s the second most necessary thing? Water. They say you can last 3 days without it—some maybe as much as 8 to 10 days under certain conditions. But not long. 

Most of the globe is covered with it. And that water mass feeds a delivery system that brings it right to your feet, purified, for free. (Unless you live in the Atacama Desert, which hardly anybody does.) And again, many of us complain when it rains. Especially at the beach. 

Granted, I pay a water bill, but I’m not really paying for the water; I’m paying for someone to clean it up and bring it to my house. But the water—it’s free. 

What’s next? Food. Grows right out of the ground, from plants that are already there. Free. Again, I pay for my food, but only because I don’t feel like growing it myself. So I pay somebody else to grow and harvest and deliver it; and sometimes I go out to a restaurant and pay somebody else to cook it and bring it to my table. But the food? The food’s free. 

And then there’s light, and heat, and all the other physical necessities. All free. 

God has been remarkably good to us. 

We’ll finish this thought—and the rest of the sermon—in the next post. 

Baccalaureate, Part 1

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The evening before I retired, I was privileged to be asked to deliver BJU’s Baccalaureate Sermon. I’ll publish the text here, in several parts.

__________

Theological students like to debate the complexities of theology: election and human will; theories and extent of the atonement; Trinity issues; the hypostatic union; the problem of evil.

These are consequential matters, and they should be debated. Such discussions and explorations are an important part of preparing the Christian student for whatever his divine calling may be.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found my appreciation increasing for the simple things, the basic things—the central things.

And it has occurred to me that these central things are perhaps best summed up in the simple child’s prayer:

God is great;
God is good;
Let us thank him.

The Apostle Paul began his magisterial epistle to the Romans by observing,

The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead; so that they are without excuse (Ro 1.20).

As you graduating students learned in your Bible Doctrines class, this concept is what theologians call “general revelation.” It’s most famously expressed in the opening to Psalm 19:

1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament sheweth his handywork.
2 Day unto day uttereth speech,
And night unto night sheweth knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language,
Where their voice is not heard.
4 Their line is gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
And rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
6 His going forth is from the end of the heaven,
And his circuit unto the ends of it:
And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

This is the concept that Paul used on Mars Hill, in presenting to the Athenians the basic things—the central things.

I’d like to attempt that here this evening.

God Is Great

Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, [that] the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? [there is] no searching of his understanding (Isaiah 40:28).

Evidences of God’s limitless greatness lie all around us in His creation.

The fastest any human has ever traveled is 25,000 mph (Apollo 10’s return from the moon, being accelerated by the earth’s gravity). Now suppose we start at the surface of the sun—some of you are thinking, we shouldn’t do that; it’s way too hot. Well, I’ve solved that problem; we’ll go at night :-)—and we head out toward the planets at that fastest-ever speed. How long will our journey take us?

  • Mercury: 60 days
  • Venus: 56 (more) days
  • Earth: 39 days
  • Mars: 78 days
  • Jupiter (assuming we safely navigate the asteroid belt): 567 days
  • Saturn: 700 days
  • Uranus: 1500 days
  • Neptune: 1650 days

We’ve been traveling for a total of 12 years and 9 months, and we’ve just reached the edge of the solar system.

Now, to Boomers like me, we don’t believe that, because we still think Pluto is the outermost planet, because our first-grade teacher, Mrs. Devlin, wouldn’t have lied to us about that.

But at any rate, we find that now we’re headed toward the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, visible from the Southern Hemisphere, just to the left of the Southern Cross. That’ll take us 155,333 years.

Once we get there, we find that we’re on one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy, pretty far out toward the edge. So we head for the nearest edge of the galaxy.

670 million years.

And we find that there are other galaxies. The closest, Andromeda, will take us 53 billion more years.

I hope you brought a book to read.

The astronomers tell us that there are clusters of galaxies out there. I have no idea how they know that, but we’ll take them at their word. Let’s head for the nearest edge of our galaxy cluster.

2.67 trillion years.

How about the edge of the observed universe?

131 trillion years.

After a while these numbers just become meaningless, don’t they? Fee, fi, fo-fillion, trillion.

And it’s not over; I suspect that when we reach the “edge” of the observed universe, we’ll just see more universe. How much farther? No one knows.

Now, these numbers are actually unrealistically low, for a couple of reasons:

  • They assume that the planets are all lined up perfectly on one side of the sun, which has never happened and is never likely to happen.
  • They also ignore a basic tactic of interplanetary travel, which involves the physics of sling-shotting the spacecraft around the heavenly bodies so you don’t have to keep the rocket engines firing constantly. In our example, you couldn’t possibly carry enough fuel to make the journey even to the nearest planet.

But the numbers speak for themselves.

God is great.

Now, I’ve said all that to say this.

Do you know how the Bible recounts God’s creation of what we’ve just described?

Genesis 1.16—“He made the stars also.” Five English words; two in Hebrew.

That’s just a side remark, almost a throwaway line: “Oh, yeah, he did that too.”

God is indeed great.

To be continued.

A Theology of a Morning Walk, Part 2: The Theology 

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Part 1: The Walk 

The previous post described a walk on the beach. 

What was I thinking about during that time? 

Let me tell you. 

God’s Power and Faithfulness 

The first thing you notice while walking on the beach is of course the ocean. It’s active, with the waves crashing a (reasonably) steady drumbeat on the sand. And it extends over the horizon, all the way to someplace far away. As I noted, this thing goes all the way to Perth. It’s unimaginably immense. 

And God says to it, “Thus far you shall come, but no farther; and here shall your proud waves stop” (Job 38.11). 

I see the moon, thousands of miles away, shining with the albedo of the reflected sun, even farther away, and Jupiter, farther yet, also reflecting the sun’s light, and a host of stars, exponentially farther. In a dark sky, a few of those “stars” would actually be galaxies, comprising millions of stars themselves. 

In the understatement of all time, Moses writes, “He made the stars also” (Ge 1.16). 

And this massive system runs like a clock. Or rather, our clocks attempt to run like it. We mark our years, and months, and days because God has created a system that is faithful, down to the second. So I knew before I started out that high tide was at 8:55 and sunrise at 6:38. Sure enough. 

God’s faithfulness is also evident in his provision for his creatures: air, and water, and food, and warmth. Life is everywhere, from the microscopic on up, and it thrives because God is faithful. 

Beauty 

The wisest man who ever lived said that God “has made everything beautiful in his time” (Ec 3.11). You see that beauty everywhere—in the sunrise, in the cloud formations, in the iridescence of the seashells, in the astonishing variety of size and color in just the scallop shells, in the sea oats holding the dunes together, in the people walking and running and cycling. And that beauty resonates with us humans, because we are made in God’s image; I’m not the only one out at the jetty to watch the sunrise. 

Human Stewardship 

God has given us the responsibility—and the privilege—to take the raw elements of creation and develop them effectively and wisely. I see that everywhere on my walk, from the ships on the horizon to the waterfront houses to the rock jetty—it’s not a natural formation—to the little signs asking passersby to please be careful of the turtle nests, and to the dog owners who have trained their best-friend canines not to go potty on the beach. I see it in the parking lot in all those cars that have come all those miles with gas-powered explosions in their engines and not breaking down while it all happens. I see it in the websites I consulted about the tides and the sunrise and the weather. (And thanks to those meteorologists, I knew to get off the island 4 days before Hurricane Debby showed up and flooded the place.) 

Brokenness 

Speaking of young Debby, my walk reminded me that my pleasant and enjoyable experience wasn’t actually in the world that the powerful and faithful God had created—or rather, that this world, which he did indeed create, is not the same as it was when he rested on the seventh day. It’s broken. 

I see evidences of natural death all around me: those horseshoe crab carapaces, and the little tiny holes in pretty much every bivalve shell, where a predator has overcome the poor creature’s defense system and made a meal of him. I’m not a fan of Jack London or of Darwin, but when the former describes nature—what the latter suggested operates for “the survival of the fittest”—as “red in tooth and claw,” he’s right. 

And those Marine recruits over on Parris Island are engaging in wise preparation because humans are broken, and they do bad things, sometimes on a global scale. 

But outshining all the evil is the greatness and goodness of God. 

That was a great walk. 

Photo by Hari Perisetla on Unsplash

A Theology of a Morning Walk, Part 1: The Walk 

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While vacationing on Hilton Head Island recently, I got up early one morning to do one of my favorite things. Up at 5, I headed out to the beach to walk a couple of miles to a favorite location for watching the sunrise. 

Leaving my beach shoes at the end of the boardwalk, I turn left to head northeast along the beach. On my right, still invisible in the early morning darkness, lies the Atlantic Ocean, but I can hear it “flushing and flushing,” as one child once said. Out on the horizon I can see the lights of 5 different ships, and to my left, a few lights in resort hotels and multimillion-dollar houses fronting the ocean. (I wonder what they pay for flood insurance?) 

Most people standing on a beach in the eastern US assume that straight in front of them is Europe, or maybe North Africa. Actually, from here it’s the eastern tip of Brazil, and the next landfall, believe it or not, is in Western Australia. 

I know the tide is still coming in—high tide is 5:55 am—so I keep to my left to give the water room to crawl up the beach, but down the beach enough to have packed sand, which I find easier to walk on. 

Above and slightly ahead of me, just on my right, I can see the moon, in waning crescent phase, with Capella at its ten o’clock and Jupiter at its two. There’s a long ridge of clouds to the northeast, at first reaching high enough to blur the moon, but within a few minutes the height of the ridge begins to recede. 

In those dark hours you’re typically alone on the beach, and the waves provide the only sound. But when I’m a mile or so down the beach, there’s a slight lightening of the sky in the southeast, and I begin to hear the calls of the sea birds, up and looking for breakfast. They soar, seemingly effortlessly, occasionally rising a few feet and then turning to dive straight down into the chop, aiming for a fish. Sometimes they get it; sometimes they don’t. 

I begin to see the rock jetty, dimly at first, but as I get closer, and the light increases, it comes plainly into view. And out come the other beach walkers, some for the exercise, others combing for seashells, yet others riding bicycles with fat, relatively low-pressure tires to maneuver well on the sand. 

When I arrive at the jetty, the cloud ridge is still obscuring the horizon, so I won’t be able to see the sun break the horizon and then rise to full glory. But I know exactly when it happens—6:38 am—because observers of the sky tell us these things. 

Sometimes I see Christians reading their Bibles out on the jetty, and others—perhaps New Agers, perhaps not—facing the rising sun with various poses, welcoming the new day. There’s none of that this morning; just walkers—some with coffee cup in hand—and bicyclists. 

I move beyond the jetty, following the shoreline to the left as it begins to turn the north end of the island. There are often horseshoe crabs here, and while I don’t see any live ones, I do come across four carapaces, one of them disarticulated. I also come across a good-sized sand crab, also disarticulated; I assume he made a tasty meal for some predator. 

Then further around the north end, to where I can see the low-lying Parris Island, where I assume the latest class of Marine recruits is having a far more strenuous morning than I am. I appreciate their willingness to do hard things for honorable purposes. And I find that I feel no irony in being thankful that their rigors are not those of this old, growingly creaky guy. God bless them. 

With that, it’s time to turn around. I like to time the turning point at sunrise, so I’m not squinting into the sun on the way back. 

After 7 am, the beach is getting busy. I see the beach patrol cart moving along the high beach as the staff check on the turtle nests; at one point they stop and deliver an impromptu teaching session to interested passersby. Several folks are fishing—I watch one young man pull in a 9-inch something-or-other as I’m walking by—and others are setting up tents and coolers and wagons full of folding chairs and beach toys in preparation for a full day on the beach, as the lifeguards are setting up chairs and umbrellas for the paying guests. Others are bringing their canine friends out for an early morning run, some tossing balls into the water for them to fetch. Dogs and beaches have a special relationship. 

Back at the boardwalk at 8; time to rinse off the sand and walk across the parking lot to the condo, passing cars from pretty much every state in the Southeast, as well as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Texas, Kansas, and even Montana. And Ontario. 

Now, what about the theology? 

Next time. 

Photo by Hari Perisetla on Unsplash

On What We Learn from Looking Around, Part 5: Closing Thoughts

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Omnipotence | Part 3: Omniscience | Part 4: TLC

There are other things we learn about the Creator by observing his creation. I’ve written before about a number of implications from the fact that God is our Creator. Here I’ll mention a couple of related thoughts in closing.

First, we know almost instinctively that when someone makes something, he gets to decide what to do with it. My father was skilled with his hands, and when I was a boy he made a workbench that he intended to use for working on automobile engines. The surface consisted of a long row of 2 x 4 beams turned sideways, so that the tabletop was 4” thick. As it turned out, I don’t remember him ever using it to work on engines; he did other things with it. He’s allowed to do that. It’s his table; he made it.

Similarly, the Creator has the right to govern his creation. We call that sovereignty. What he says goes.

Now, we’ve already established that he is powerful—able to do what he decides to do—and wise—able to determine the most effective uses of what he has created. We’ve also noted that he’s good; he doesn’t abuse any element of his creation, most especially us, but rather cares for us. I’ve written elsewhere about that fact that everything we really need is free.

All this means that his sovereignty over creation is no threat to us—unless we foolishly decide that we know better than he does. And unfortunately, the tendency to do that is part of our fallen nature.

A second thought derives naturally from the first. We ought to respect the Creator’s wisdom and follow his direction. Again, I’ve developed this idea elsewhere. You can use a chainsaw any old way you like, but if you reject the engineer’s recommendations for safe and proper use, don’t be surprised if you end up getting hurt.

Some years ago I recall seeing a commercial for Sherwin-Williams paint. The video began with a shot of the space shuttle on the launch pad, with a voiceover saying, “Sherwin Williams designed the paint for the space shuttle.” Then you heard the countdown, and at “Liftoff!” the screen went white as the exhaust from the solid rocket boosters obliterated the view of everything else, and the roar of those engines drowned out the voice. Then the image changed to a different kind of white, and as the camera zoomed out, you realized you were looking at a door. It opened away from you, and you saw a typical residential bathroom. Against the quiet, the voiceover said, “Chances are we can handle your bathroom.”

When I consider God’s heavens, the work of his fingers, I am driven to a simple confidence. He can handle my life: needs, wants, questions, doubts, sins, perplexities, griefs, all of it. I can trust his wisdom, his power, his goodness, for all that lies ahead, just as for all that he has brought me graciously through.

And, by his grace, I will.

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On What We Learn from Looking Around, Part 4: TLC

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Omnipotence | Part 3: Omniscience

There’s something else we learn by observing creation carefully. Despite its brokenness, it seems to fit our needs just perfectly.

Our planet is in the solar system’s “Goldilocks zone”: like the fabled baby bear’s porridge, it’s “not too hot, not too cold—just right!” Further, the temperature is finely tuned by the planet’s slant on its axis, which gives most of the inhabited areas seasons—whether 4 or 2—and furthers the thriving of plant and animal life. And unlike its sister planet Mars, ours has an atmosphere, an ocean of air, with just the right amount of oxygen to support human and animal life, and just the right amount of nitrogen to keep the oxygen from causing us to burst into flame at inopportune moments. (And from what I’m told, all moments are inopportune for that.)

The balance of the biosphere is a remarkable thing; as we breath oxygen, we exhale carbon dioxide, which the plants use to produce more oxygen. Helpful little critters, no?

And it turns out that the sun that warms us and lights our days is also something of an enemy; it sends out radiation at levels that are harmful to us from even more than 90 million miles away. But invisibly surrounding our planet are streams of charged particles, driven from the sun but held in place around us by the planet’s magnetic field, that serve as a shield to divert the lethal levels of that radiation away from us.

Let’s see; what else?

Well, areas of the planet feel really crowded, and sometimes folks in those areas wish there were more land. I grew up in the West, “big sky country,” where we didn’t feel that pressure so much—and preferred it that way. I note that the planet’s average density of humans per square mile is just over 39—though of course, much of the planet’s land surface is uninhabitable (think Antarctica) or nearly so (think Sahara). But the Creator was being kind to limit the extent of the land mass, because the rest of the surface—ocean—is a gigantic water purification system that collects, distills, and then delivers drinkable water right to our feet.

Now, our environment’s not perfect. I mentioned a few words back that the system is broken. Lions choke wildebeests to death—I’ve seen it happen, up close and personal—without mercy and without apparent regret. Some people are inclined to focus on the brokenness; Jack London made a living writing stories about a nature that was “red in tooth and claw.” I think it’s important to note the brokenness, first, for our own preservation, and second, for evaluating the brokenness that we’re causing and then remedying it. After all, the Creator has made us responsible for the care and preservation of the planet as well as its wise use.

But the obvious brokenness makes creation’s general kindness all the more impressive. We deal everyday with things, creations of fellow humans, that don’t work at all when any little thing goes wrong. That’s why so many people make such good money repairing and maintaining expensive systems.

But creation just keeps doing what it does so well—supporting life. It amazes me how desperately life wants to continue. You can be out in the middle of a lava field, and there’s a little weed growing up through a crack, clinging to a few grains of something resembling dirt, raising its tiny leaves to the sky and soaking up the sun, yearning to grow.

Of course it’s true that by foolish mismanagement we humans can interfere with the Creator’s systems and make life difficult or even impossible (think Chernobyl). But it really is astonishing that a system so complex continues to support life after millennia of inattention or even abuse.

Whoever made all this must really, really like us.

Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator (1P 4.19).

Part 5: Closing Thoughts

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On What We Learn from Looking Around, Part 1: Introduction

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The first thing God ever told us is that he’s the Creator. The main verb of the first sentence in the Bible is “created,” and “God” is the subject.

That’s the first thing. Not that he’s holy, not that he’s good, not that he’s infinite—though he is all of those things and much more.

He started by telling us that he’s the Creator (Ge 1.1). And he then continued by stating that everything we see in the cosmos—everything—is from his hand (Ge 1.2-31).

Given where I work, you won’t be surprised that I’m strongly committed to the primary authority of Scripture. My school’s creed starts with the line, “I believe in the inspiration of the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments.” I spend a lot of time thinking about, and teaching others to think about, what the Bible teaches about this or that. And “this or that” includes a LOT of things—I would say, in fact, that it includes everything we need to know about who God is, how we can know him, and then how we can serve him.

But the same Bible that I hold to be authoritative also says that it’s not the only place where can learn about God—or more precisely, it’s not the only form of divine revelation. The Bible famously says that “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps 19.1) and that “the invisible things of [God] are clearly seen through the things that are made” (Ro 1.20). In other words, you can see what God has to say by just looking around.

Since God made everything, what he has made—like the artwork any artist produces—tells us something about him. You can learn a lot about Picasso by studying his paintings (he did have toxic relationships with women, now, didn’t he?), and no one reading Hemingway will be surprised that one day he walked out into the Idaho woods and ended his own life.

You learn about an artist by studying his art. You learn about the Creator by studying what he’s created.

By looking around.

Of course, what we’re looking around at—what the theologians call “general revelation”—isn’t in the same category as the Scripture, for a simple reason: it’s not exactly what God created. It’s busted.

Since sin entered creation through Adam, all kinds of things about it have changed—most obviously death has come upon us all, and pain of various kinds, and frustration, and who knows what else.

So we have to temper our conclusions about the Creator by deleting from the original design what’s changed since it was executed. If somebody splashes bright pink paint all over a Picasso, you don’t blame Pablo for it.

Although, in this case the bright pink paint might actually be an improvement—but no analogy is perfect, especially when it involves God, who is unlike anyone or anything else.

Anyway.

Even if we have no Bible, even if we’ve never seen one or even heard of one, we can learn about God by just looking around—at the heavens, at the earth, macroscopically or microscopically.

That book of revelation is infinite and inexhaustible.

The Scripture helps us by repeatedly referring back to Creation and drawing various theological points from it. Some years ago my colleague Bill Lovegrove suggested surveying the Scripture for all of those references and noting what conclusions the biblical writers themselves draw. I can commend that study to you as well.

What I’d like to do is spend a few posts dipping a toe in the shallow end of that pool.

Next time—so what do we learn by looking around?

Part 2: Omnipotence | Part 3: Omniscience | Part 4: TLC | Part 5: Closing Thoughts

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On God’s Ongoing Speech

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The Reformers were well known for their battle-cry, “Sola Scriptura!”—“The Scripture alone!” They were battling the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that Scripture and tradition—as defined in the statements of the ecumenical councils and the papal encyclicals—were equally authoritative.

I’m a sola scriptura guy too. And so is everybody I work with at my school.

So my students are sometimes surprised when I tell them that the Bible isn’t the only place where God speaks—and that the Bible itself tells us that.

God speaks to us through his Word, most certainly. But he also speaks in other ways.

Theologians have long recognized two classes of revelation: special revelation, or divinely inspired prophecy, which used to happen in different times and different ways (Heb 1.1) but today is confined to his Word (Heb 1.2); and general revelation, or what he shows us through his works—most notably in creation (Ps 19.1ff); in his direction of human affairs, or providence (Dan 2.21); and in human conscience (Gn 1.26-27). God is still speaking today in those ways.

We should note, as we always do when teaching this principle, that general revelation is not authoritative or inerrant in the way special revelation is, because the world and everything in it is broken by sin; what we’re seeing today is not exactly what God created. But the heavens still declare the glory of God, and humans at their worst are able to be informed and moved by what they see all around them.

Paul is a good example of someone putting this to work in ministry. When he’s introducing the gospel to members of a Jewish synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, he references primarily the Scripture, because they know and recognize it. His sermon (Ac 13.14-41) focuses on the metanarrative of Scripture and Jesus’ fulfillment of the messianic prophecies. But shortly later, when he’s addressing pagan Greeks in Athens, he takes an entirely different approach. Rather than quoting the Hebrew Scriptures, which would mean nothing to this audience, he cites their own poets—Epimenides and then Aratus (Ac 17.28)—because anyone in the image of God is eventually going to say something worthwhile. And he argues not from biblical authority but from logic—because even imperfect images of God can be logical.

Throughout history people have found spiritual meaning in the beauties of nature. One of my favorite examples of this, because it’s both observant and deftly rendered, is a poem written by Odell Shepard in 1917. Shepard was a professor of literature at Trinity College in Connecticut and then served a term as Lieutenant Governor. In 1938 he won the Pulitzer prize for biography for his work on Bronson Alcott, Louisa May’s father.

“Whence Cometh My Help”

Let me sleep among the shadows of the mountains when I die,
In the murmur of the pines and sliding streams,
Where the long day loiters by
Like a cloud across the sky
And the moon-drenched night is musical with dreams.

Lay me down within a canyon of the mountains, far away,
In a valley filled with dim and rosy light,
Where the flashing rivers play
Out across the golden day
And a noise of many waters brims the night.

Let me lie where glinting rivers ramble down the slanted glade
Under bending alders garrulous and cool,
Where they gather in the shade
To the dazzling, sheer cascade,
Where they plunge and sleep within the pebbled pool.

All the wisdom , all the beauty, I have lived for unaware
Came upon me by the rote of highland rills;
I have seen God walking there
In the solemn soundless air
When the morning wakened wonder in the hills.

I am what the mountains made me of their green and gold and gray,
Of the dawnlight and the moonlight and the foam.
Mighty mothers far away,
Ye who washed my soul in spray,
I am coming, mother mountains, coming home.

When I draw my dreams about me, when I leave the darkling plain
Where my soul forgets to soar and learns to plod,
I shall go back home again
To the kingdoms of the rain,
To the blue purlieus of heaven, nearer God.

Where the rose of dawn blooms earlier across the miles of mist,
Between the tides of sundown and moonrise,
I shall keep a lover’s tryst
With the gold and amethyst,
With the stars for my companions in the skies.

Photo by Steve Carter on Unsplash

On Retreating

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I’ve just returned from the annual BJU Seminary retreat at The WILDS in North Carolina. The event made several impressions on me, all of them positive:

  • I drove one of the vans up, carrying 7 students, both graduate and undergrad. As it happened, mine was the “late van,” leaving well after the main vehicle surge, to enable students with late commitments to attend. The van was filled with chatter and laughter as the students interacted as friends and colleagues in this adventure called school. They know they’re having a good time, but they probably don’t realize to what extent these experiences, and especially the relationships and interactions, are formative, changing them in ways that will endure for decades. We have serious conversations as well, about doctrine and ministry and the questions that most young people in this stage of life wrestle with. If Jesus tarries, I’m confident that this generation will carry well the load that their times place on them. I’m especially sure of that when I recall that my generation grew up in the 60s, when our parents had every reason to despair of the future—the times, they were indeed a-changin’—and by God’s grace we carried our load as well.
  • The WILDS is a remarkable resource. It’s designed for its purpose—to enable fellowship with one another and with God—and it’s run by people who are committed to that purpose, who are competent, and who are as selfless as any I’ve ever met. Every time I go there I see some other activity or facility set up, ready to increase the overall strength of the program and reinforce the mission. I have lots of memories there—the record for terminal velocity hitting the post at the bottom of the land trolley is one that I’m particularly proud of—and all of them tied directly to experiences with God and with his people in ways that have influenced my thinking and direction in life. They have been an unmitigated blessing to me.
  • The Seminary is a grace-filled institution, with faculty who combine solid biblical scholarship with whole-hearted devotion. It’s good to see that balance maintained in the fifth decade after I studied there.
  • General revelation is indeed revelation. Every camp ministry knows that when you get people out into nature, their thoughts tend to turn Godward. All our senses are bombarded with evidence of the Creator’s greatness and goodness—the sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the textures all draw us back to our roots in him, to his ample and rich provision for us as inhabitants of this planet, and to the wonder of what he has done in creating a world at once complex, beautiful, and calming. In the artful words of Odell Shepard,

All the wisdom, all the beauty, I have lived for unaware
Came upon me by the rote of highland rills;
I have seen God walking there
In the solemn soundless air,
When the morning wakened wonder in the hills.

  • But these beauties are not gods. They are rather gifts from the One True God, to be delighted in, but not to satisfy apart from him. As we were reminded in the sessions by our former colleague Dr. Robert Vincent, Christ is all, and he is more than enough. To delight in his gifts, but to have no meaningful relationship with him, is to miss the whole point. To delight in him is to be fulfilled in the only ways that matter. By a kind providence, my personal Bible study during August and September is in Colossians, where Bob’s point this past weekend is precisely Paul’s point. We are offered many substitutes for Christ—the Colossians were offered angels—but he is before all, above all, over all, and he is Enough.

What a gift of 26 hours filled with reminders of God’s goodness and greatness. The surroundings, the people, the shared experiences, the worship, the time with God, all serve together to draw us to him, to extract our thanks, to strengthen us for the tasks that lie ahead.

God is great, and God is good.

Let us thank him.

Photo by Wes Grant on Unsplash