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

Chair, Division of Biblical Studies & Theology,

Bob Jones University

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On Thinking Like Christ, Part 1: The Most Important Thing

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Here we are at another New Year. And as is the routine, we’re thinking about resolutions, bettering ourselves. And that task has us thinking about priorities: what’s most important? What’s the best use of our limited time and resources?

It’s good to do this kind of thinking.

For Christians, the Most Important Thing is to be on God’s side, to be devoted to his plan(s) for us. And that involves a lot of things.

But most especially it involves God’s work of sanctifying us, making us to be more like His Son.

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren (Ro 8.29).

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit (2Co 3.18).

In the process called sanctification, God is changing us, over time, to be more like his Son.

That ought to be our Most Important Thing.

New Year or not.

In light of that, I’d like to spend a few posts meditating on that classic Christological passage in Philippians 2:

5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Php 2.5-11).

The passage begins by telling us—that’s who Paul is addressing—that we ought to be thinking the way Jesus is thinking here. And that thought pattern, as we shall see, ought to be surprising, given who he is.

The paragraph has a very clear two-part structure. Verses 5 through 8 describe the way Jesus thought, and how he acted as a result. We can call that his humbling, or his humility, or perhaps his humiliation.

The rest of the passage, verses 9 through 11, describes the Father’s action in response to Jesus’ humble way of thinking: his exaltation.

It’s worth noting at the outset that Jesus did not humble himself in order to be exalted; he was already exalted, as verse 6 makes clear. He humbled himself, first, in obedience to the Father’s plan, and second, to rescue those he loved as his creatures in his image. The exaltation unavoidably followed.

So when Paul tells us that we ought to think like Jesus, he’s not saying that we should be all about the exaltation; the command is focused on verses 5 through 8.

We’ll spend several posts considering this passage. Perhaps these thoughts can inform and animate your resolutions, whatever they may be.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

The Myth of the Super Christian, Part 6: Pray. Hard.

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Part 1: No Such Thing | Part 2: Eternal Values | Part 3: Healthy Distrust of Self | Part 4: A Clear and Uncontested Goal | Part 5: All In. Every Day.

There’s one more element in Paul’s description of his spiritual walk that tells us volumes about his success as a believer.

In the last letter he wrote that’s been preserved, Paul is in prison in Rome. This is the second time for him. Last time, he was upbeat about his prospects—

  • In his letter to Philemon, likely written early in that 2-year imprisonment, he expects to prevail in his appeal to Caesar (Ac 25.10-11) and thus to be released; he tells Philemon to prepare him a place to stay when he comes to visit (Phm 1.22).
  • When he writes to the Philippians, likely toward the end of the imprisonment, he still expects to visit the church there in Philippi (Php 1.25; 2.24).

But this time is different. Rather than being under house arrest in rented, and relatively comfortable, residential quarters (Ac 28.30), Paul is now in a prison—traditionally the Mamartine prison, a dungeon—and is clearly not expecting to be released (2Ti 4.6-8). He is largely alone (2Ti 4.9-11) and in need of supplies (2Ti 4.13). He is settling his affairs (2Ti 4.14-15).

But he is not discouraged or depressed. He expects the Lord’s work on his behalf (2Ti 4.18) and eventual eternal reward, in the Lord’s timing (2Ti 4.8).

Victorious to the end, regardless of the challenging circumstances.

And in this context, in this epistle, in these circumstances, we find one more clue.

I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day (2Ti 1.3).

He prays.

He communes with his Father, drawing spiritual strength to thrive in all those challenging circumstances, ones that would very likely do us in.

He’s really serious about this; he prays “without ceasing … night and day.”

I’d have trouble with that—especially the night part. In those times, I fall asleep.

I’m not the only one—right?

And I note something further here, something that sheds more light on his outlook.

He doesn’t speak of praying for himself; he asks others to do that (Co 4.3; 1Th 5.25; 2Th 3.1). He prays for others, for Timothy, his “dearly beloved son” in the faith (2Ti 1.2). Even in extremity, his thoughts, his concerns, are for others.

He follows his Lord’s example in this. Jesus prayed for long sessions (Mt 14.23), sometimes all night (Lk 6.12); and in his greatest extremity, he prayed for others, for those who believed in him (Jn 17.6-26).

This kind of prayer is hard work, both because it is lengthy and because it is on behalf of others. Paul describes such prayer—in this case the prayer offered by his coworker Epaphras—as “labor”—

Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God (Co 4.12).

The Greek word rendered “laboring” here is agonizomai, which we all recognize as the etymological origin of our word agonize. It’s used of athletes in competition, on Game Day, who are leaving it all on the field (1Co 9.25). Specifically it’s used of boxers (1Ti 6.12, 2Ti 4.7). And more significantly, it’s used of soldiers (Jn 18.36), who are fighting for their lives.

We’re not often called up to fight like that. And we don’t often pray like that.

Paul prayed “without ceasing … night and day.”

This was not formal prayer, grace before dinner, after which someone at the table asks, “Did we pray?” It’s constant, mindful, effortful communication with God.

The Christian life is not easy for anyone; there are no “naturally gifted athletes” in the Christian race. It means rejecting your natural self and renewing the battle every day. It means staying in constant communication with “headquarters.” It’s a tough battle.

There are no Super Christians. There are just people who fight the battle every day.

Re-enlist.

Photo by James on Unsplash

The Myth of the Super Christian, Part 5: All In. Every Day.

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Part 1: No Such Thing | Part 2: Eternal Values | Part 3: Healthy Distrust of Self | Part 4: A Clear and Uncontested Goal

There’s another element in Paul’s spiritual life that we non-super Christians should seek to emulate.

Paul was into his relationship with Christ for the long haul, and he knew that reaching the end of that road meant staying on it every day, every mile.

He was all in.

That shouldn’t surprise us. Jesus made it clear that following him is no casual commitment. After he had fed the 5000 men and their families—something that brought out of the woodwork a whole lot of uncommitted hangers-on (Jn 6.22-66)—Jesus warned his disciples that hard times were coming, including official rejection and even execution (Lk 9.22), things that were not for the faint of heart. It was at this moment that he told them,

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me (Lk 9.23).

Following Jesus means dying to self—that’s what “taking up a cross” means—and doing that every day. Commitment. Discipline. Reliability. Without fail.

This daily faithfulness is hard.

I teach an undergraduate systematic theology class that requires a lot of Bible memorization. I tell my students on the first day that I know they’re intimidated, but that pretty much anybody can do the memorization—but there’s only one way to do it, and cramming is not it.

Memorization requires Regular. Spaced. Repetition.

You go over the material every day. Doesn’t have to take long—just a few minutes—but it has to be every day. Over time, as you pull the material out of your brain at constant intervals, it becomes yours. In the end, it’s not really an intellectual or intelligence problem; it’s a character problem.

Every day.

When a student is doing significantly worse on his verse quizzes than the other material, I ask him to tell me how he’s studying for those quizzes. Are you doing what I told you on day one? Well, no, but I’m really busy.

Well, this is how cramming turns out. You have the time—just 5 minutes a day. But every day. It works.

Right now I’m memorizing lines for a play. I was hesitant to accept the role, frankly, because I’m 68, and the old brain ain’t what it used to be, and I’ve blanked out on stage before, and that’s a really unpleasant experience for me and all the other actors trying to work with me to present something intelligible and esthetically pleasing.

So I know I need to go over the lines. Every day. If I miss a day, I’ve set myself back more than just a day.

Thinking about that feeling of blanking out in front of an audience is a powerful incentive to be faithful.

Now, this play is a farce, and its long-term value is negligible.

How much more seriously should my students take the task of memorizing God’s Word in a way that will plant that theological database in their heads for the rest of their lives?

And how much more seriously even than that should Christ’s followers, all of them, take the daily task of taking up our cross and following him?

Jesus didn’t say this just once.

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. 27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple (Lk 14.26-27).

Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple (Lk 14.33).

No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God (Lk 9.62).

Nor did Paul.

For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward [man] is renewed day by day (2Co 4.16).

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me (Ga 2.20).

Reenter the battle. Every day. All in.

Follow Jesus.

Part 6: Pray. Hard.

Photo by James on Unsplash

The Myth of the Super Christian, Part 4: A Clear and Uncontested Goal

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Part 1: No Such Thing | Part 2: Eternal Values | Part 3: Healthy Distrust of Self

We’ve seen two characteristics of the spiritual life of Paul, who was not a super Christian, that led to his spiritual success. As we read his personal reflections, we find another, one that shouldn’t surprise us: he was going somewhere, and he knew where that was.

In his brief autobiography in Philippians 3, we find that Paul had accomplishments that many people would be proud of:

  • He had observant Jewish parents, who had him circumcised on the 8th day after his birth, in accordance with the Mosaic Law (Php 3.5; cf Le 12.1-3). He was “an eighth-day one,” as the Greek literally says. He was no late-blooming proselyte with wasted early years. From his very birth, he was in a God-fearing home, with both parents cooperating for his spiritual benefit. He had the most auspicious of beginnings.
  • He was “of the stock of Israel” (Php 3.5)—no Gentile blood in him. His people were God’s chosen, the ones God held close to his heart.
  • He was of the tribe of Benjamin (Php 3.5). He knew his ancestry, all the way back to the patriarchs. And he was related to Israel’s first king, the tall one, the one God’s people had chosen from among all their people. Indeed, he was most likely named for him. During the civil war following the death of King David, Benjamin was the only tribe to join with Judah on Rehoboam’s side (2Ch 11.1). He had an enviable pedigree.
  • He was “a Hebrew of the Hebrews” (Php 3.5). Commentators suggest a couple of things that this phrase might mean:
    • He was not a Hellenist, one open to the customs of the Greek culture that surrounded Israel; he was no compromiser. (I’m not inclined to this view; Paul seems familiar with Hellenistic thinking in his writing.)
    • He was able to read the Hebrew Scriptures in the original Hebrew—without vowels, which meant essentially memorizing the text—and to speak the related language of Aramaic; he didn’t need to read it in the Greek of the Septuagint. He had access to all the sources available, including the original Hebrew words of God himself.
  • He was a Pharisee (Php 3.5), the strictest of the Jewish sects, absolutely devoted to the keeping of the Law in the minutest detail. The Pharisees even tithed their herbs (Mt 23.23; Lk 11.42). No one was more pious than Saul and his friends. Indeed he was so zealous a Pharisee that he set out to arrest and kill the followers of the lunatic heretic Jesus, who had been executed as a criminal.
  • He was, by his own testimony, blameless before the Law (Php 3.6). That’s an astonishing claim; it had to involve endless washings, endless sacrifices, endless arduous journeys from Tarsus to Jerusalem, endless climbing to the Temple Mount to present his offering to the priest whose course was on duty that month. He was focused like a laser on the endless picayune requirements.

And then, in blinding flash of heavenly light, he abandoned it all (Php 3.7). He viewed it as sewage, reeking of corruption (Php 3.8).

What could possibly cause that kind of turnaround? What would it take for you, or me, to toss aside our most cherished goals and accomplishments?

For Paul, it was a vision of Christ (Ac 9.1-9).

Decades later, writing to the Philippian church, he speaks of “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” (Php 3.8)—that’s the same sentence where he speaks of his former accomplishments as sewage. A sentence or two later he says, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Php 3.10).

Paul’s goal was to know Jesus. It drove everything else out of his mind and off his radar.

As he meditated on this idea, he realized that knowing Christ came with other infinitely valuable benefits—

  • Unity with Christ, being “in Him” (Php 3.9)
  • The righteousness that comes from God through faith (Php 3.9)
  • Having the kind of power that Christ displayed in his resurrection (Php 3.10)
  • Being like him (Php 3.10)
  • Being resurrected when the time comes (Php 3.11)
  • And the prize: the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Php 3.14).

We live in a day when some of those who profess to follow Christ have much lower goals: personal recognition, or temporary political power, or rhetorical victory over those who disagree with them—who are, incidentally, the very people that their professed Master has sent them to reach.

What sewage.

We can know Christ.

Nothing else matters.

Part 5: All In. Every Day. | Part 6: Pray. Hard.

Photo by James on Unsplash

The Myth of the Super Christian, Part 3: Healthy Distrust of Self

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Part 1: No Such Thing | Part 2: Eternal Values

So Paul begins his walk with God by reorienting his values away from those of the world—what we might call his culture—and toward things of eternal value, specifically the kingdom of God and his own calling to devote himself to it.

What’s next?

I began the previous post with a list of passages in which Paul confesses his own sinfulness. Bible students have often noted that these statements span almost the entire length of Paul’s ministry: 1 Corinthians is written relatively early during his traveling ministry, while Ephesians is written from prison, and 1 Timothy is written after his release from prison, during his later travels. The same students have noted that these statements seem to crescendo—that Paul’s estimation of himself early in his ministry (“I am the least of the apostles”) is less severe an indictment than his estimation years later (“I am chief of sinners”).

Paul began his ministry with a distrustful view of himself, informed by the kind of person he had been before he met Christ; and as he served, he seems to have grown increasingly distrustful of himself, despite the fact that the Spirit of God was working in him, through time, to conform him more and more to the image of Christ (2Co 3.18).

Someone has said that the closer the Christian comes to Christ, the more he is illuminated by Christ’s glory, and consequently the more easily and clearly he can see his own sins. If you think you’re doing pretty well, then you probably need to turn on the light.

I’m amused when I hear someone on the news say that their friend simply isn’t capable of whatever disgusting thing he’s been accused of. Of course it’s appropriate to consider evidence of a person’s good character and reputation when deciding whether an accusation is credible or not, but the fact is that under the right set of circumstances, pretty much anybody is capable of pretty much anything. I’ve found myself surprised—shocked—by my own reaction to various kinds of stress, and I suspect you have too. This human condition is the stuff of all sorts of literary plots. As the prophet Jeremiah observed more than 2500 years ago,

The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jer 17.9).

Paul was not self-focused; he didn’t spend his days beating himself up mentally for his failures and shortcomings. But he did have a healthy distrust of his own inclinations, and he saw to it that the circumstantial doors to those inclinations were kept closed.

If you think about it, this kind of healthy distrust is liberating. It destroys frustration, for we realize that any expectations we have of ourselves are overblown. We’re no longer puzzled by our failure.

And more importantly, we’re driven by this distrust to the things that lead to our prospering. When we stumble into sin, we seek forgiveness, cleansing, restoration, and empowerment from the One who loves to give it, thereby restoring and refreshing our relationship with a loving heavenly Father. And when we face ministry challenges, we don’t waste time trying to proceed on the strength of our own ability and wisdom; we take time to seek strength and wisdom from the Father, who pours it out abundantly, thereby delivering ourselves of the wasted time and effort that would yield, at best, only mediocrity.

Paul describes times in his life when he was under the burden of his own mediocrity. He tells the Corinthian church of a time during his ministry that “we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life” (2Co 1.8). His response? “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead” (2Co 1.9). Another time he pleaded with God to remove a “thorn in the flesh” from him, and heard Jesus say, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2Co 12.9).

We’re broken and unreliable. We don’t solve that problem by patting ourselves on the back and repeating positive affirmations about how good and strong we are. We solve it by recognizing the truth and then going to the One who is unbroken and infinitely reliable, relying on his wisdom, strength, and grace to bring us through to ministry success.

Part 4: A Clear and Uncontested Goal | Part 5: All In. Every Day. | Part 6: Pray. Hard.

Photo by James on Unsplash

The Myth of the Super Christian, Part 2: Eternal Values

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Part 1: No Such Thing

Paul was no super Christian; that’s obvious from his descriptions of himself:

For I am the least of the apostles, that am not [fit] to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God (1Co 15.9).

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Ro 7.24).

[I am] less than the least of all saints (Ep 3.8).

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief (1Ti 1.15).

But throughout his epistles he scatters observations about his heart, his thinking, and his spiritual life—observations that help us understand how a person with a sinful nature can be as successful spiritually as he was. It’s worth taking a few posts to thumb through them and consider how they might help us even as they helped him.

I think it makes sense to begin with Paul’s autobiographical words in Philippians 3. He describes his spiritual condition before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, and the picture is complicated. There’s a veneer of accomplishment and respectability, but there’s emptiness and corruption at the very core:

5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; 6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; [as to] the righteousness which is in the law, blameless (Php 3.5-6).

By ordinary standards—and by that I mean according to the values of the average joe—Paul was highly successful. He was a local boy with a pedigree and respectable parents, who had followed the local customs at his birth, doing everything the right way. And as a young man he had excelled in his keeping of the Jewish traditions and Law, to the point where as an adult he was a member of an exclusive boys’ club, highly respected in the community.

He had it made.

But in the middle of that we find a problem: he was a persecutor of God’s people. Now according to the standards of the day, this only increased his respectability: he was so devoted to God that he set out to eradicate heretics, those who believed that the One True God had a Son, who had become man and—what absurdity!—actually died as a criminal.

These are people who ought to be persecuted.

But then, as we all know, Paul (Saul) met Jesus. Or rather, Jesus confronted him, identified himself with the very people he was persecuting, in the process both blinding him with his glory and opening his spiritual eyes to see Truth as the corrective to his twisted tradition.

Saul spent several days in physical darkness, with nothing to do but to think—to think about all the ways he had been wrong, about how everything he thought he knew was entirely backwards from the way things actually were.

A worldview upheaval.

And when Saul emerged from his darkness, he was a new man, with new values.

All those accomplishments? All that respectability?

“Those I counted loss,” he writes, “for Christ.” Indeed, “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Php 3.8).

“Dung” is the King James word. It means what it says. That’s how he thought of the culture’s values, its standards, its respect.

Waste.

Flush it.

In short, he got his priorities straight.

Like Moses, he reckoned the things this world values most deeply as essentially worthless, transitory, trivial.

He stopped devoting time to such things—which freed up a whole lot of time to devote to things of eternal worth, things like worship and ministry and mission and evangelism.

Like us, he didn’t stop sinning. But like Paul, we can excel at the things we devote ourselves to. And if we devote ourselves to the right things, we can make a difference and enjoy victory, even though we’re not super.

Part 3: Healthy Distrust of Self | Part 4: A Clear and Uncontested Goal | Part 5: All In. Every Day. | Part 6: Pray. Hard.

Photo by James on Unsplash

The Myth of the Super Christian, Part 1: No Such Thing

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Most of us think that other Christians are having a better go of it than we are. We think that we are alone in our secret temptations—that other Christians don’t find the same difficulty resisting temptation that we do. In particular, we hold a few people in particularly high esteem; we think that they enjoy consistent and daily victory and fellowship with Christ at a level higher than we’re able to maintain.

Maybe it’s a pastor or youth pastor, or a teacher, or a coach. I thought of someone that way (he’s now with the Lord), and some years later he and I were members of the same church. Working more closely with him, I never found that he had feet of clay, but I also came to realize that if he had known that I thought of him as a “super Christian,” he’d have laughed incredulously.

Some theological positions promote the idea of super Christians. The holiness movement, for example, posits a “second blessing” in which the old nature is eradicated. Wesleyans prefer to call this concept “entire sanctification.” Charles Wesley was thinking of this when he wrote,

Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heav’n, to earth come down;
Fix in us thy humble dwelling; all thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesus, thou art all compassion; pure, unbounded love thou art.
Visit us with thy salvation; enter ev’ry trembling heart.

Breathe, O breathe thy loving Spirit into ev’ry troubled breast.
Let us all in thee inherit; let us find the second rest.
Take away our bent to sinning; Alpha and Omega be.
End of faith, as its beginning, set our hearts at liberty.

Come, Almighty, to deliver; let us all thy life receive.
Suddenly return, and never, nevermore thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing, serve thee as thy hosts above,
Pray, and praise thee without ceasing, glory in thy perfect love.

Finish, then, thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee.
Changed from glory into glory, till in heav’n we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love and praise.

Interestingly, John Wesley never believed that he had attained “that second rest,” though he did think that a younger friend, John Fletcher, had. I’m not aware of any historical record of Fletcher telling anyone what he thought about that.

In Scripture, however, you don’t find that God’s people have experienced this. There are only two significant people in Scripture of whom God records no evil (Samuel and Daniel)—yet we know that they were sinners, for all of Adam’s descendants are (but One). And the greatest of God’s leaders, we find, had great struggles with their own sinfulness. Moses, for example, was kept from the promised land for disobedience. David lost his family and his kingdom because of his sexual sin. And even Paul recorded the darkness of his own heart:

18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Ro 7).

There are no super Christians. There are only wicked people who, by the grace of God, are regenerated through faith and then find and fulfill God’s plan for them. Interestingly, the Bible tells us enough about Paul’s spiritual life that we can learn how he did it, however imperfectly.

To be continued.

Part 2: Eternal Values | Part 3: Healthy Distrust of Self | Part 4: A Clear and Uncontested Goal | Part 5: All In. Every Day. | Part 6: Pray. Hard.

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On What You Put into Your Head, Part 3: Toto, We’re Not in Eden Anymore

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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.

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On What You Put into Your Head, Part 2: All the Trees of the Garden

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Part 1: Strategic Exposure

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

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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