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I Cor 9: 19-27: "For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified."
I have a question to pose to any church, any pastor, any Christian: what are you saying about Christ, the Gospel, and your walk if you never change your practices?
Are you saying, "I've arrived, I don't need to change"?
Are you saying, "I'm better than everyone else, therefore they need to catch up to me before I advance"?
Are you saying, "I don't care about 'advancing', I'm satisfied with my progress"?
Or are you saying, "I am who I am, and I don't have to change"?
I am not an advocate of change for the sake of change.
I am not an advocate of change if means compromising Truth.
I will advocate EVERY change that BETTERS myself towards God, and that brings more people to His Gospel.
What does it say about a pastor, church, or individual Christian if they refuse to change to society, when that change does not affect their walk with God? What does it say about a pastor, church, or individual Christian when they won't listen to others who have Truth to convey, or who have received insights into God's Holy Word that they haven't yet?
Does it say that they are stubborn, and won't hear what others have to say, won't take the time to see if what they're saying is out of line with the Bible, won't come out of their 'comfort zone' because somebody else might know something they don't?
Does it say that they're staying with what they've become accustomed to that is in line with the Bible, but that they won't move away from that 'safe zone' because they're afraid they might do something wrong in the process?
Or does it say that they are stagnating in their walk and no longer advancing along their Christian walk? That they're happy enough with where they've gotten to; that they don't need to get any further along their walk because they're getting into heaven from where they are - and, after all, isn't being "a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord" better than a thousand days elsewhere? After all, why get any further into God's kingdom than I have to, because the world is fun? Why become a "choice servant of the Lord" if I can just be a servant?
The only belief system that must be right is that held by atheists.
It's the only logical conclusion to draw from the available evidence: they are among the most vocal, most argumentative, most defensive, most worried group of people on the planet.
If I, a Christian, am wrong about the existence God, what have I lost? Time on Sundays, time reading the Bible, time trying to convert my friends... but only time. If a Muslim is wrong about the existence of Allah all he has lost is time. If the Jew, Hindu, animist, Mormon, etc are all wrong about the existence of any god they've only wasted time.
But if an atheist is wrong about the non-existence of any God, he's in for a heap of hurt: eternal damnation, Hell, reincarnation as a rat, etc.
For the sake of the atheists in the world, I could pray there is no God. Of course, I don't know who I'd pray to. But for the sake of those who believe there is no God - of any kind - I could hope they're right, and that I've just been wasting thousands of hours of my life I could better spend on me.
I am convinced there is a God, though, so the only logical course of action I can take is to try convince others. After all, if I'm wrong, I just spent a bunch of time doing something that doesn't matter.
But if I'm right...
We're worried about peoples' feelings - and not about being honest and faithful to their souls. We all act like we're following Paul's directive: "in humility count others more significant than yourselves." And we all forget the first half of that verse: "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit".
We live in a false humility when we are afraid to speak to one another honestly. "Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father. Treat younger men like brothers, older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity." As Christians, we are a family - we are God's adopted sons and daughters. In almost every physical family I've ever seen, there is a dynamic of communication and honesty that is sadly lacking in the church of God.
The public face of American society has become one full of political correctness - make sure you never say anything that might be offensive, and spend massive amounts of effort in qualifying what you are about to say so that no one could possibly misunderstand what you are trying to say. Though Paul was writing to a fellow minister of the Gospel, we would all do well to heed his words to Timothy: "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus ... preach the word; ... reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." It is the duty of every Christian to be watchful of his brother: unlike Cain, we may not come to God and say, "am I my brother's keeper?" As members of the body of Christ, we must be concerned for every other member of that body - just like parents worry about their children and we are concerned that not only our hands, but also our ears and feet are healthy, we must be concerned for the other members of the church.
Jesus told us to "be innocent as doves but wise as serpents". It is a false humility - indeed a failing of the command of Christ - to 'only' be "innocent as doves". It is part and parcel of that command to likewise be "wise as serpents".
In writing to the Galatians, Paul certainly didn't hold back when he says, "even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed." Or when he called Peter to the floor for hypocrisy: "when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, 'If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?'"
The modern church has mostly lost this level of confidence and fearlessness to confront others when they are wrong.
I pray that if I have written or said anything amiss, that it would be forgotten and that I would be corrected. What I have written and said that is NOT wrong, though, needs to be taken to heart. On matters of opinion, I am happy to discuss, debate, and argue. But on matters of truth - there is no discussion. Truth cannot be argued with.
Indeed, "let God be true and every man a liar": God's Word as recorded in the Bible is unalterable and perfect. The modern church needs to come back to this and not be afraid of rumpling a couple feathers to present the Truth, to correct error, or to rebuke sin. Far better if a couple of your feathers are rumpled, but you finish the race of the Christian life and enter Heaven than if you're molly-coddled and end up in Hell.
Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.
God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.
If you have ever read the Westminster Shorter Catechism, you, no doubt, are familiar with these two questions, and their answers. Indeed, they are the 1st and 4th questions of that document, respectively.
Great. So, as mankind, our job is to glorify and enjoy this eternal, unchangeable, infinite, spirit that calls Himself God.
'Unchangeable' is pretty straightforward: it is immutable, permanent, unyielding, unwavering, unalterable, and unfaltering. 'Spirit' is also a relatively simple concept to understand: noncorporeal, ethereal, invisible. But what does 'infinite' mean? What does 'eternal' mean?
Eternal, quite simply means having no end point in time. And likewise, infinite means that there are no boundaries upon its existence. There is no measurable height, length, width, depth, or breadth. But, as creatures who exist in both time and space, the concept of eternality and infinity are difficult - at best - to understand: we, by definition, are finite. According to the Bible, men's souls will exist onward into eternity, but as an individual human, we have a definite start point. The Bible also states that God existed before time (from eternity past) and will exist forever (to eternity future).
The God that Christians worship, then, has no boundaries upon His existence, in time or space. And, if He has no boundaries in time or space, then certainly He could have no boundaries upon His power or abilities.
As good, and wonderful, and awesome, and amazing as all that is, humans can't understand it. I don't claim to have some higher understanding of God's infiniteness or His eternality than can be gained from His Holy Word. But I think that I might have a helpful construct in forming a [limited] understanding of His most unfathomable attributes.
Infinity is a concept that has many useful applications in our world and our minds. For example, from grade-school geometry, you recall that rays have a start point, but no end point. Lines, likewise, have no start or end. However, they have no start or end in only one dimension. "Lines", as such, by definition cannot exist in two dimensions. Basic geometrical figures, such as triangles, quadrilaterals, hexagons, circles, etc may all exist in two dimensions, but a line, per se, cannot. The math adage pops to mind: "two points define a line; three points define a plane".
A plane is an object which has a set up defining points, most typically represented by three X,Y,Z coordinates sets. And once those three points have been defined, the plane extends across all points in "straight lines" away from those points.
However, again by definition, a plane cannot exist in three dimensions: it has no "bottom" (or "top"). So, though like the line it is infinite, it can't exist in the world in which we live: we live in a polydimensional world. This life is made up of height, depth, width, length, and time. We can comprehend the infinite natures of planes and lines because we exist in a dimension above them.
Perhaps some of you have read the book Flatland. In it, Edwin Abbott follows the life and times of a square that lives in a land wherein there is no height. Everything is just flat - there are lengths and widths, but no height. As the tale wends its way through, a sphere appears in Flatland, and whisks the square off to see Lineland and Pointland, and then takes him higher into the world of three dimensions wherein the sphere resides. As established earlier, a square can't exist in three dimensions. Of course, a sphere can't exist, as such, in 2 dimensions. A sphere has a center point as defined by an X,Y,Z coordinate, and a radius: a way of establishing how far away from that center point, in all directions, the sphere extends. So, when the sphere appears in Flatland, he is visible as a constantly morphing circle, based on how much of himself he has "dipped" into the land.
We see in shadows. The shadow of a three-dimensional object is two-dimensional. If you don't believe me, go stand in front of a light near a wall: your shadow has no depth: it's flat. It has width and height, but no depth. (If it did, you would be able to grab it and move it, as it would exist in "our" dimensions.) The shadow of a two-dimensional object is a line or line segment - it has one dimension: length. Likewise, the shadow of a line is a point. It has no dimensions: just a point.
Because we exist in three dimensions, we can see the inards of two-dimensional objects. In Flatland, when the sphere descends into the square's realm, he claims to be able to see the square's "guts". And when the square is raised from Flatland into the sphere's world, he can now see the guts and inards of all of the inhabitant of his home world or Flatland.
In Flatland, you can touch and manipulate other two dimensional objects, because you are a two-dimensional "person". This is rational since we can touch and manipulate other three-dimensional objects in our lives. But near the end of the book there is an interesting line of reasoning exposed by the square that the sphere has chosen to enlighten: certainly, if there is Pointland, and there is Lineland, and Flatland, and the world in which the sphere lives, must there not be a land in which you could "see the inards" of spheres, because you would exist in a higher dimension. And, carrying that logic to its reasonable conclusion, there is a land of five dimensions, six, seven, all the way through the Nth dimension.
Perhaps God is infinite to us, and to all who interact with Him, because He exists above the dimensions we can experience. If a planar projection is the shadow of a three-dimensional object, could it be that we, as three-dimensional objects, are projections or shadows of the fourth dimension in which we exist, that of time? And perhaps, since God created time for us, He exists in a realm above that of time. Certainly, if He has existed - eternally - since before time began, and will continue to exists eternally into the future, He can't be bound by time (which would be irrational since He made it: you can't really be bound by something you create).
I propose that God can exist in infinitely many directions, with infinite power in each of those directions, and perfect control in each of those directions precisely because he is above time - he is outside of our existence, looking-in and down upon us as we do upon those geometric representations we call shapes and lines and points.
...it's what I'm for.
I've decided that denominations are a good thing - mostly. When they directly decribe a confessional or creedal standpoint, they're great. However, when they become a point to divide Christians over, they're bad. Very bad.
I'm a baptist because I believe that only true believers in Christ should be baptised. I'm reformed because I believe that the entire point of being a Christian is to become more like Christ - to be reformed to His perfect mold. And I'm independent because I think a better association for churches is for them to be autonomous units fighting Satan in this world; they can (and should, maybe even must) work towards that goal in a combined fashion, and should (perhaps must) build relationships and fellowship with other Christians in other churches in both their own and other areas of the world.
Any time I can join another Christian in doing good or promoting the gospel, I will try my best to do so. Where we do not disagree on fundamental issues of doctrine and belief, I will try to both learn from them and show them my views as backed-up by the Bible. When they are promoting a heresy, I will do my best to call them to the floor, and show them their error - and if they won't listen to words of Christ and the rest of the Holy Bible, I will do my best to ignore them and stop fighting - I'll let the Holy Spirit do His work in them, if He wills. But when our disagreements are on trivial, non-moral (or non-primary) issues, I will work with them to reach the lost, and to grow in my walk with Christ.
Drawing lines of battle over whether or not I'll even speak to you because you're a Presbyterian and I'm a Baptist, or you're a Southern Baptist and not Reformed - that's just idiotic. We're in this fight together. Where we can't reach agreement, I will attempt to pass peacefully by. But in those vast swaths where we do agree, that denominational title hanging over our heads just gets in the way of fellowshipping and accomplishing Christ's work on earth.
See my journal archives.