sanctification

How Not to Have a Civil War, Part 8: Beyond Tolerance

October 22, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

¹²So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; ¹³bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you (Col 3.12-13).

Having established a basis in who we are in Christ, Paul turns now to how we live that out. Because we’re chosen by God, because he has made us his treasured possession (“holy”), because he loves us (“beloved”), we respond to his grace toward us by extending grace toward others. Just as we “took off” the old, worn-out clothing of “the old self,” now we “put on” a “self” that lives in grace.

This grace, like a diamond, is multi-faceted:

“Compassion” is pity or mercy. Paul spends 11 chapters of Romans detailing how God saw our deep sin, and even though enraged, he responded with a plan to rescue us, making right what we never could, so he could “be just, and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus” (Ro 3.26). He accepted the sacrifice of Christ in our place, then sent the Spirit to indwell and teach us, and even to pray for us when we don’t know how to pray for ourselves. And Paul summarizes all 11 chapters as “the mercies [compassions] of God” (Ro 12.1). We’re called to treat fellow believers like that, even though they don’t deserve it. (That’s what mercy means.) And we’re to do that from our “heart”—in the Greek, our “guts.” We’re to feel this compassion from the very depths of our insides. That’s what God did for us.
“Kindness” is simply “goodness”—being good to people, treating them as we would wish to be treated. God has shown us kindness (Ro 2.4; Ep 2.7; Ti 3.4) when we had shown none to him (Ro 3.12).
“Humility” is valuing the welfare of others above our own, and serving them. We’re called to do that because, shockingly, even Jesus did the same for us (Php 2.3ff). God gives grace to such people while resisting the proud (1P 5.5).
“Gentleness” used to be called “meekness.” It means not using force even though you could. We’ve all see the way a large but loving father cradles his newborn child. We’re supposed to treat one another that way (Ep 4.2), even those who are at fault (Ga 6.1)—and even those who are not believers (Ti 3.2). Why? The not-so-surprising answer: because that’s how Christ has treated us (2Co 10.1).
“Patience” is bearing up under trials; it’s the endurance of the athlete, who knows that there is a trophy at the end of the competition. God is patient not only with us, but even with those who he knows will eventually and finally reject him (Ro 9.22).
“Bearing with” someone is to put up with him. It’s what we today call “tolerance”—you don’t like it, but you put up with it, for the sake of a greater good.
“Forgiving” is literally “extending grace to” someone, treating him graciously, marking the bill as “Paid” (Lk 7.42-43).

We talk a lot about “tolerance” today. I’ve heard some comment that “tolerance” really isn’t good enough, because it’s putting up with something that you don’t like, rather than accepting the person despite his problems. As we’ve noted above, our treatment of one another should include “putting up with” them, but this passage clearly calls for much more than that. In the end, not only must we not reject the brother who votes for the Other Guy—not only must we “tolerate” him—but we must receive him, care for him, embrace him as a treasured part of our Father’s great collection of images of himself.

Grace.

Freely we have received; freely give.

Part 9: Love | Part 10: Peace | Part 11: Encouragement | Part 12: Gratitude

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

How Not to Have a Civil War, Part 7: Breaking Down the Walls

October 19, 2020 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

¹⁰and [since you] have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him— ¹¹a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all (Col 3.10-11).

Paul bases his journey into the light not on what we do, or even what we should do, but in who we are. If you’re a believer, you’re not who you were born to be. That’s the old self, or what Paul consistently calls “the old man,” or “the natural man” (1Co 2.14). The old man is not who we want to be:

He’s been crucified, put to death (Ro 6.6).
We’re to “put off” that guy, like old, worn-out clothes (Co 3.9; Ep 4.22).

Now, “since Jesus came into [your] heart,” you’re not that guy anymore. You’re a new self, a “new man,” which “is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ep 4.24)—“created,” because it didn’t exist before Christ gave you spiritual life.

And what’s this “new man” all about? What kind of person is he? What’s he like?

Put bluntly, he’s like God. Our passage says he is “renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him”; God, the Creator, is the pattern, and we, the creatures, are in his image. That image has been marred by our sin, and God is in the process of restoring it, renewing it. Paul here mentions the specific part of the image that he’s focused on: knowledge, or accurate recognition based on personal experience, the way you “know” the face of your spouse or your children or a lifelong friend. In Christ, we know things as they really are.

And how are they? In Christ, “things” are completely changed. We “know” one another primarily as in Christ—as brothers and sisters in the most important family ever envisioned or formed. The ways we normally categorize people—ethnicity (“Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised”), cultural practice (“barbarian, Scythian”), socioeconomic status (“slave and freeman”)—fade into irrelevance in the blinding light of our common glory in Christ.

We’re family. We’re in Christ. That’s all that matters.

Christ is in me. He’s in you. He’s in her, and him, and those over there. And we are in him.

What can possibly drive us apart?

Disagreements over cultural differences? Over life experiences? Over politics? Over denominational distinctives?

Pssssshhhhhh. Trivia. Let’s not be ridiculous. Christ is a stronger adhesive than that.

I have friends who are going to vote to place in the most powerful human position in the world someone that I will never vote for, under any circumstances.

The most powerful human position in the world!!!!

Someone I would never vote for!!!!

Under ANY circumstances!!!!

We are in Christ. Together. And forever.

One election, or two, or a thousand, will never drive us apart.

No matter the temporary, earthly consequences of that election.

We’re in Christ.

Nothing else even comes close.

In the parallel epistle to this one, Paul writes that the “new self” is “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ep 4.24).

There’s the image of God again. And this time Paul speaks not of knowledge, but of righteousness—which, thanks to Christ’s sacrificial death, has been restored to us, as it was In the Beginning (2Co 5.21)—and of holiness.

My Christian brothers who vote badly—very badly—are righteous. They are bathed in the righteousness of Christ. That makes how they vote insignificant to my regard for them, relatively speaking.

My Christian brothers who vote badly—very badly—are holy; that is, they are the special possession and treasure of Almighty God—which puts them literally in a class by themselves. Their vote is not going to change that.

I’d better take care how I treat God’s treasured collection. And since I’m part of that collection myself—through no fault of my own—I’m going to treat them with the kind of delighted care that’s only appropriate.

What kind of church do you suppose we’d have if we lived that way?

And what kind of society do you suppose we’d have if its ragingly angry members saw the contrast between how they’re treated by their peers and how we treat our brothers and sisters?

Part 8: Beyond Tolerance | Part 9: Love | Part 10: Peace | Part 11: Encouragement | Part 12: Gratitude

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

How Not to Have a Civil War, Part 6: Turning Toward the Light

October 15, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Acknowledging the Divide | Part 3: “Great Is Diana!” | Part 4: Letting Hate Drive | Part 5: Pants on Fire

This series has been pretty dark so far, hasn’t it?

There’s a reason for that.

In this passage Paul begins by discussing the kinds of behaviors we ought to avoid, those than eventuate in division.

But now he turns toward the light: he lays out a course of behavior that lowers tension, that encourages people to live peaceably together.

It’s the way God’s people are supposed to live.

And as I’ve noted earlier, this lifestyle—what the KJV calls “conversation”—not only brings unity and peace to the family of God, who are empowered by the Spirit to live this way, but it brings ripple effects to the larger society by making God’s people agents of peace rather than turmoil.

Of course, the Truth of Christ does bring division; Jesus said so himself (Lk 12.51). But there is necessary division, and there is unnecessary, fleshly division, and the church need have no part in the latter when its members live out their new life in Christ.

So what is the lifestyle of light? What does it look like?

Paul lays out the specifics for us:

¹⁰and [since you] have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him— ¹¹a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.

¹²So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; ¹³bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. ¹⁴Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. ¹⁵Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. ¹⁶Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ¹⁷Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

There’s a lot to consider here. Let me suggest a rough structure to guide us as we do that:

The shared image of God serves as a basis for our unity across cultural divisions (Col 3.10-11).

The fact that God has forgiven believers serves as a basis for how we treat others, including those who have not yet received that forgiveness (Col 3.12-13).

Living out our unity as a body serves as a powerful invitation to those on the outside, who see the distinction between what we experience and what they do:
- Love (Col 3.14)
- Peace (Col 3.15)
- Encouragement (Col 3.16)
- Gratitude (Col 3.17)

We’ll begin to walk this brightly lit path in the posts to come.

There is no joy like the joy of walking in the light.

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

How Not to Have a Civil War, Part 5: Pants on Fire

October 12, 2020 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Acknowledging the Divide | Part 3: “Great Is Diana!” | Part 4: Letting Hate Drive

Paul has identified 2 ways that we bring division to our societies: 1) unrestrained sexual thinking and behavior (Col 3.5), and 2) unrestrained hatred (Col 3.8). He turns now to a third way: disregard for the truth.

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices (Col 3.9).

I’ve written on this topic before. It astonishes me—though it probably shouldn’t—how much falsehood is being circulated in our society by people who ought to know better.

The people I’m noticing ought to know better for several reasons—

They’re generally older and more experienced in life, and we used to think that age and experience brought wisdom.

They were educated in a day when the education system was less relativistic—that is, when educators generally thought that there was such a thing as “truth” and that it could be determined by careful observation and analysis. They were supposed to have learned how to do research and how to recognize unreliable sources.

Most important, these are people who claim—and I want to accept their claim—to have walked with Christ, who is the Truth, for many years; to have learned from his Word; and to have sought to follow it.

It’s not fair to expect such people, or any people, to be right all the time, but it is reasonable to expect them to take care to discern the truth, especially before they propagate it.

So why the misinformation?

I’d suggest several contributing factors:

Desperation. The loudest voices in our culture these days seem to be people who think we’re about to fall off a cliff culturally, and that it’s up to us to prevent that fall. While it’s certainly right to seek the welfare of the community where God has placed us (Jer 29.7), and to exercise our privileges when we live, by God’s kind providence, in a participatory governmental system, God’s people must do so in a way that trusts him for the outcome rather than living in fear of undesired results or in desperation to benefit at any cost. Desperation is a fundamentally unbiblical attitude.

Confirmation bias. We humans think we’re right—we would be acting insanely if we didn’t—and we enjoy having the rightness of our views confirmed. That’s natural. But if the Scripture tells us anything, it’s that “natural” is not a synonym for “good” (1Co 2.14). The Lord tells us to distrust our inclinations, to be suspicious of our natural ways of thinking (Jer 17.9). As we can easily discern when we consider anyone who disagrees with us, confirmation bias is just a form of pride: it’s our seeking for approval through the praise of our own thinking and conclusions. Admitting that you’re wrong is a humbling experience.

Tribalism. By this I don’t mean having a circle of like-minded people; we all do that, and it can be lived out in a healthy way. I mean the tendency to withdraw into such a circle and to exclude those outside. These days this problem is exacerbated by social media. The algorithms of Facebook and other social media platforms tend to shrink rather than expand the number of ideas we interact with. We get offered “friend suggestions” of people who think the same way we do. We’re channeled, like cattle, into herds that are capable only of reinforcing the ideas we express most passionately. In that situation, our ideas will likely not be challenged in any kind of thoughtful way, and the only expressions of opposing ideas will be simplistic and cartoonish, just so we can dismiss them without serious thought.

And so we express ourselves by passing on some claim that we got from someone who agrees with us, and we don’t check it because it’s obviously true. And within minutes scores of our “friends” congratulate us for being so brave and insightful and smart, and the rush of endorphins propels us like a Waikiki wave on to our next absurd oversimplification—our next lie.

Rather than sensing the quiet voice of the Spirit in conviction of our carelessness, we revel in the praise of “friends” we barely know, just because there are so many of them.

And the division spreads.

We sow, and we reap.

We have no one to blame but ourselves.

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

How Not to Have a Civil War, Part 4: Letting Hate Drive

October 8, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Acknowledging the Divide | Part 3: “Great Is Diana!”

Paul continues his description of the mindset that yields division:

But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth (Col 3.8).

These descriptors have to do with our relationships, or our social structure.

We all know what “anger” is. Sometimes it’s right to be angry; God is angered and is perfectly righteous. In this context, though, the anger is against another person, and it is clearly unjustified.
“Wrath” is intense anger. Now you’re not just angry; you’re headed toward losing control of yourself, blinding your decision-making capabilities, and responding—reacting—in ways that are not only unwise but sinful.
“Malice” is a feeling of hate, the kind of feeling that encourages you to harm someone in some way—with a word, with an action, secretly or openly.
“Slander” is simply the Greek word “blasphemy.” It’s most commonly used, as we all know, of saying something about God that isn’t true, but here it clearly describes one hurtful action you can take toward someone you hate: you can say something that damages him.
“Obscene talk” is any speech that is culturally disapproved; in our culture we can include scatological as well as sexual speech.

There’s clearly a progression here. You get angry at another person, and as that anger festers and ferments in your mind, it intensifies to the point that it begins to dominate your thinking, and you begin to fantasize about how justified you would feel if something bad were to happen to him. It’s a short step from there to thinking about how you personally might bring such a thing to pass. Not wanting to spend the rest of your life in prison, you begin by doing what you can without opening yourself to felony charges: you say things. You describe the person in dehumanizing terms; you call him a “libtard” or a “POS” or a “shrub” or “President Orange” or an “occasional cortex.” You reduce him to a single characteristic, and a bad one. You express your desire for disaster to befall him. I hope he gets COVID and dies. I hope he gets deported. I hope he moves to Venezuela and enjoys his socialism.

These days our natural tendency toward such things is encouraged by the fact that we all have a universal outlet for expressing ourselves. In the old days, publishing was expensive, and if you wanted to get your thoughts distributed, you had to go to somebody with a significant capital investment in publishing hardware and convince him that your message was worth disseminating—in other words, that he’d sell enough to recoup his investment. Nowadays, as we all know, you can self-publish to the entire universe, or at least to those who speak your language, with just a mouse click. No editorial gatekeeper, no censorship, no need to stop and think for a minute about the consequences of what you’re doing.

I can recall the optimism in the early days of the internet. No censorship! Power to the people! Tiananmen Square! Tahrir Square! Pop-up demonstrations! The end of smuggling! The end of dictatorship!

We’ve begun to realize that fallen humans do not always thrive in an environment like that. As with every other technology, a force multiplier can and will be used for evil as well as good—and often in greater numbers.

So in a moment we tell all the world what we think about that so-and-so.

Such thinking denies the existence and work of God. It treats human beings as objects—despicable, disgusting, repulsive objects, like scat—rather than creatures in the image of God, products of his hands, and objects of his love. It presents Jesus Christ as a fool, one who dies for things that are not worth saving. It treats God’s Word as worthless, its judgments and commands as so much verbiage.

It is deeply and fundamentally blasphemous.

And blasphemy, because it is at its core untrue and therefore unnatural, will always yield chaos.

What other outcome could there possibly be?

We sow, and we reap.

We have no one to blame but ourselves.

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

How Not to Have a Civil War, Part 3: “Great Is Diana!”

October 5, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Acknowledging the Divide

In contrasting the two ways of life, Paul begins with the one that inevitably yields division and fragmentation, characterized by “what is earthly” (ESV):

⁵Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. ⁶On account of these the wrath of God is coming. ⁷In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. ⁸But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. ⁹Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices (Col 3.5-9).

For efficiency’s sake, I’m going to discuss these characteristics in three groups: 1) unrestrained sexual thinking and behavior (immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry); 2) unrestrained hatred (anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk); and 3) untruthfulness (Do not lie to one another). One post for each group.

The characteristics Paul lists in verse 5 center in misdirected sexual passion.

“Sexual immorality” is a general term for any illicit sexual activity; it’s the root of our word pornography. It includes fornication, adultery, prostitution, and other disallowed sexual intercourse. The ancient Jewish writing Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus, speaks of such a person as one to whom “any bread tastes good”—he is so driven by his desires that “he will not leave off until he dies” (Sir 23.17).
“Impurity” speaks of defilement in general, and in the context of sexual sin it is the defilement that results from sexual immorality, which renders one excluded from followship with God and even with society.
“Passion” is the word more commonly translated “lust”; it’s a driving desire, and the term is almost always used of an evil desire.
“Evil desire” is lust on steroids (Rom 1.24, 26)—uncontrollable, a defining habit that takes over a person’s thinking and consequently his behavior. It’s what our society might call “sex addiction.”

The inclusion of “covetousness” here might surprise us, in that we don’t use the word solely of sexual sin. But it perfectly encapsulates the sexual sins that Paul has just listed. The person in question is driven by his desire for something he doesn’t have, something that doesn’t belong to him. He disregards his marriage vows—the most important promises he has ever made—and the resulting social disengagement in his relationship with his Creator and with his social circle. He counts it all as worthless in comparison to the driving madness of his lust, which grows more dominating and controlling every time he feeds it. He has turned the most significant social act imaginable into a completely self-focused one.

Paul concludes that what he has been describing is simply idolatry: the worship of—the giving of oneself completely to—an illegitimate power that will demand all one has and, like every other false god, will never be able to satisfy a divine creation. All because, in essence, he worships himself and denies the significance of the rest of humanity.

It’s a perfect example of what Paul describes elsewhere as “worshiping the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever” (Ro 1.25).

Any society thus dominated by its lust will do whatever it takes to satisfy it. It will break long-standing and deep relationships; it will act with violence; it will find deference to social and political bonds impossible.

Can you think of a society like that?

Our political and religious landscape is littered with leaders who exemplify this kind of thinking and action—so densely so that there’s no need to name any examples. And we have chosen to follow them. We have elected them, or we have joined their churches. We have rejected evidence that a problem exists, because this leader or that one is just too effective, too important, too necessary. We have made idols of our self-centered political and religious desires, and they have treated us the way false gods always do.

What other outcome of our complete social disregard should we expect, than the disintegration and fragmentation that we see all around us?

What other outcome could there possibly be?

We sow, and we reap.

We have no one to blame but ourselves.

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

How Not to Have a Civil War, Part 2: Acknowledging the Divide

October 1, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction

Paul writes a letter to the Christians in Colossae because he’s heard things that trouble him. There’s false teaching there, and some in the church are at least thinking about going that way—elevating the role of angels, embracing various restrictions in order to feel more godly. Paul, knowing that falsehood always brings division, writes to straighten things out with the truth.

He begins with the simple fact that Christ is all—he created all (Co 1.16); he maintains all (Co 1.17); he is the King (Co 1.13); and he is the source of our spiritual life (Co 1.14). He has first place in everything (Co 1.18). He is the one in whom all things are reconciled to God (Co 1.20ff)—and by logical extension, to one another as well. Christ’s cross is the basis for whatever peace there is in the universe.

As a result, all the world is divided into two groups: those who are “in Christ,” and those who are not; those who live for eternal goals, and those who are consumed with the present. It should be no surprise that the latter group will be in perpetual conflict, since temporal goals—power, wealth, prestige, resources—are in finite supply. Someone’s going to have the power—the privilege, if you will—and others aren’t—and those others are going to want it badly enough to fight for it.

But those living for eternity, and not merely for the next election—and the power and resources it will bring—are not inclined to live as combatants for those temporal things; they have other desires, and the fulfillment of those desires is guaranteed by divine omnipotence.

Given their different goals, desires, and levels of confidence, these two groups live in very different ways. While many passages of Scripture (e.g. Ga 5.19-23; Ep 4.17-32; 1Th 4.3-10; 1P 2.1-3) contrast these two lifestyles, Paul’s discussion in Colossians benefits from being based directly on the Christology he’s presented earlier in the letter. When he moves from the doctrinal disquisition to the application of those truths to lifestyle, he sharply contrasts these two ways of life.

In Colossians 3.5-9 Paul summarizes the old way of life, which is the standard lifestyle for what he elsewhere calls “the natural man” (1Co 2.14)—which is all of us, from birth. This is the default lifestyle in the US and everywhere else. It’s a lifestyle that naturally eventuates in division, and in certain circumstances, all the way to civil war.

But that’s not the way people with eternal priorities live. Those who are “in Christ”—through no merit of their own—live, or ought to live, in ways that not only avoid those disastrous divisions but often help to heal them even in the broader societies in which they reside. Paul lays those characteristics out in the next paragraph, Colossians 3.10-17.

On this passage one commentator remarks,

The outstanding feature of this part of the letter is the sharp contrast between the old life and the new … . It is salutary to ponder the characteristics of the one for a while, to sense its whole mood and style of life, and then to switch suddenly to the other. They are indeed worlds apart. In the one we find attitudes and behaviour that cause inevitable fragmentation in human society and even within individuals: in the other, a way of life which integrates both individual persons and groups of people. The former, in other words, steadily obliterates genuinely human existence: the latter enhances it (Wright, Colossians, Tyndale NT Commentary, 133-34).

“Genuinely human existence”—as designed by the human’s Creator, in his image (Gn 1.26-27), for a redeemed and righted world. That’s where our heads should be, even when the world we live in is still broken and fundamentally unsatisfying—in the most significant ways, still “unformed and unfilled” (Gn 1.2) but headed toward a glorious and certain future.

This is where we find ourselves. What remains is for God’s people to define, examine, and contrast the two lifestyles and to adopt the one appropriate to our spiritual state.

We’ll start on that in the next post.

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

How Not to Have a Civil War, Part 1: Introduction

September 28, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

It’s not news to anybody that US culture is highly polarized and has been for some time. This polarization shows up most readily in political disputes, and especially in presidential election years, when all the disputes come to a head and when the consequences of victory and defeat are most clearly obvious.

Presidential elections have always been rowdy affairs in this country, at least since Adams v Jefferson in 1796. Some are rowdier than others, of course—Adams/Jackson (1824), Hayes/Tilden (1876), and Nixon/Humphrey (1968) come immediately to mind. Anybody currently over the age of 40 knows that every election since 1992 has been “the most important election of our lifetime.”

Even so, it feels like this year is extraordinary. There’s been fighting in the streets that reminds us old-timers of 1968, combined with a general sense of being on edge due to all the coronavirus issues. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that with social media, now every nitwit can be a publisher, with no editorial constraints—and we all know nitwits who are taking advantage of the opportunity. And now there’s a third vacancy on the Supreme Court in just 4 years.

Polarization. Tribalism. And lots of fuel to pour on that fire. Historians know that a key cause of the Civil War was sectionalism, and to them all this is looking pretty familiar. Here the divide is not as clearly geographical as it was 160 years ago—which in some ways makes the situation even worse—but it’s still eerily familiar.

And so there’s open talk about civil war. Red vs blue. Urban vs rural. Liberal vs conservative. And unsurprisingly, the joke about one side having all the guns doesn’t ease the tension.

I’d suggest that the solutions most commonly bandied about aren’t solutions at all.

Force—and the unconditional surrender of one of the parties—isn’t a long-term solution, as World Wars 1 and 2 so clearly taught us. The simmering rage of humiliation eventually breaks out again, and the second time is often worse than the first.

Appeasement doesn’t work either—again, as the World Wars demonstrated. (Think Neville Chamberlain.) When two sides each see the other as the enemy of their aspirations, eventually they’re going to resort to force.

In our situation the problem is compounded by the sheer number of things that divide us. We’re divided by race; by economic status; by political philosophy; by sex. These divisions go to the very core of our perceived identity; we’re not going to compromise them.

We can avoid civil war only by finding some part of our identity that is more powerful than the things that divide us. For many years, our shared identity as Americans was enough to do that. Often it’s the existence of a common threat, as in World War 2 and again for a few months after 9/11. For much of my lifetime there have been those arguing for unity on the basis of our shared humanity—who usually are dismissed as dreamers in the image of John Lennon.

I’d like to suggest that the Scripture speaks repeatedly of something that breaks down the racial and sexual and political and economic barriers that persistently divide us—and, perhaps surprisingly, it is based, in a specific way, in our shared humanity. The Bible doesn’t just dangle this idea out there as a carrot to get the kids fighting in the back seat to finally get along (and, I suppose, to stop mixing their metaphors); on the contrary, it presents the unity of peoples across significant barriers as a central part of the plan of God—something that he not only desires but is applying his divine power to accomplish with absolute certainty: that “God [is] in Christ reconciling the world unto himself” (2Co 5.19), so that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, … slave nor free man, … male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Ga 3.28), toward the goal of “a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes” (Re 7.9)—a unity so spectacular, so unimaginable, and so unbelievable even by those witnessing it, “that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places” (Ep 3.10); that is, that even supernatural beings are taken by surprise.

Wow.

There are lots of places in the Scripture where we can read about these ideas. I’ve chosen a section of Paul’s letter to the Colossian church, where I’ve been studying this month. We’ll embark on that study in the next post.

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

On Retreating

September 21, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

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

On Being Like Jesus, Part 8: Closing Thoughts

July 16, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

You’re not going to be called on, like Christ, to die for the sins of the world. But wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, God has called you to be like Christ, to represent him well (2Co 5.20) by serving others rather than being fixated on yourself.

How can you live that out in your ordinary life?

You can notice when someone around you could use a hand. Hold a door; pick up what someone’s dropped; tell a friend there’s ink on his face.

You can decide to spend less time thinking about your own happiness, or success, or popularity, or grooviness,* and think instead about how you can help other people get those things. Pass the ball. Redirect the spotlight. Make somebody else look good.

You can think about the effect of your actions on people you don’t see right now. Clean up after yourself; pick up trash off the sidewalk. Don’t say every clever thing that pops into your head. Leave a loose end on the roll of toilet paper.

You can choose to obey regulations and laws you think—or know—you don’t need, because that helps everybody, in more ways than you can imagine.

You can take responsibility for your own actions instead of blaming your misfortunes on someone else. You got the grade you got because you didn’t study, not because the test was stupid. You got a speeding ticket because you violated a policy that you already knew about, not because the cop hates you.

You can think about the things you’re good at—everyone’s good at something—and figure out who you know that could use your help with that. Did you do well in school? How about tutoring someone who’s struggling? Are you tall? How about getting stuff off the high shelves for the rest of us?

You can walk circumspectly—looking around—watching for situations that could use your help, and do what you can, even if it’s not something you’re particularly good at. You can go out of your way, inconvenience yourself, be late to something, miss a bus, because somebody just needed a little help.

You can look for ways to be kind to someone you don’t like. He’s voting for that other guy. He advocates positions that are stupid. He’s a jerk. He’s nasty to you. Rather than unfriending him :-), how about watching his posts to see if there’s something he needs or wants that you can provide? How about encouraging him privately when he’s angry or afraid or sad? How about praying for him—grace, mercy, peace?

You can notice when other people are kind to you, or help you, or do things that benefit you, and you can thank them for it, specifically.

You may never be at the homecoming dance at Richmond High. You may never need to be a hero. But you can live every day in a way that benefits the people around you.

By God’s grace and with His help, you can be like Christ.

* I use a word that’s hopelessly outdated to make a point. Whatever the term for “popular” or “admired” is in the current culture, it will be outdated in a few years—so outdated that people will laugh when you use it, taking it as an indication that you are hopelessly behind the times and thus the very opposite of what the word used to mean. Public admiration is a transient and ethereal thing. We seek it as if it were a thing of value, and it isn’t.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

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