Another excerpt of a letter. The personal content has been removed and this is the actual Theological debate:

I think at the heart of your point about arguing is a question “why is the argument taking place?” This is everything. Most people argue because they know they’re right and someone else is wrong, they throw out their arguments in an attempt to prove their own superiority. Often these discussions are fruitless and benefit no one. I don’t like them and I certainly don’t want to be a part of them. However, the more important and certainly more profitable form of argument is the argument to enhance learning. When I enter an argument I’m entering it to learn. Whether or not the other person agrees makes no difference to me. It was an incontrovertible fact that people can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus Christ is Lord and still turn aside out of stubbornness. Arguing with people to prove a point is a pointless waste of time. There never were days when raw argument won converts to Christ and I doubt there will ever be those days. Occasionally a theologian, like C.S. Lewis will say that he became a Christian because he “ran out of arguments,” but note that those were arguments with himself not with another person.

Christians, on a whole, seem to forget that they have nothing to do with someone else’s salvation. No matter how hard you try you cannot win a single convert unless God had already made up his mind to save them. All of us would be nothing more than rebellious blind fools but for the mercy of a loving creator. If you rely on your own strength to save someone you care about than this statement should fill you with unbearable fear. On the other hand, if you rely on God realizing that fear is a sin that statement should fill you with hope. Why should man’s salvation be in the hands of man? Why would we want such a responsibility? Our job is to do what God says. Sometimes that means preaching the gospel, sometimes that means making tents so we can live above reproach (speaking of the apostle Paul of course).

So what am I getting at? I believe that missionary work is vital and necessary if God has called someone to it. I believe that God does unfathomable good through it. I also believe that empathy and argument are both part of God’s desire for his people. The glory of God is to hide truth, and sometimes to find that truth we need to subject our own view to scrutiny. Not everyone is gifted with a silver tongue, but you don’t need one to listen, to ask, and to learn.

In speaking on the gift of tongues I think you raise an excellent point, and my question would be: what do you value more: an overemphasis on the proper use of gifts that, at its worst, prevents them from being exercised, or an overemphasis on the allowance of gifts that, at its worst, allows them to be exercised improperly? My own convictions on tongues aside I don’t think the improper use of tongues is going to send anyone to hell. I also don’t believe that Christians are crippling themselves if they don’t want them practiced.

I actually attended another church this morning. The teaching was bible-focused and the worship seemed spirit-led. In addition the ages of the congregation were much closer than my own and this church was only three miles from my house. I still think I’ll attend the college group on Sunday nights as well as the Jr. High group on Wednesday (more on that later). I hate the drive, but I can’t place enough value on being around other believers.

I actually have a friend who lives an hour from campus, I go see him every few weeks. He and his wife are probably my closest friends in terms of relationship and distance. Unfortunately, that’s still quite a drive when I’m trying to network with people in the town at churches. Even without those friends though, God has been good about sustaining me and keeping me from feeling lonely. I stay busy; I get out in the evenings and go to coffee shops. This week I’m going to an improv comedy theater on Tuesday. I’ll have to let you know how it is.

The Jr. High group is where I’ve been choosing to minister lately. I was reading Isaiah and I’m struck at how much of an active hand believers are supposed to have at building God’s kingdom. They are called to clear roadways, build walls, call on God ceaselessly, and bring everyone back to the rebuilt kingdom. God really convicted me that I needed to get my hands dirty and keep in ministry even though I wasn’t at Hume Lake. I went the first week and they paired me up with a 60-year old ex-atheist academic. We had a group of about five kids and the topic was prayer. It’s amazing how much I missed it. I think that Christians need to realize that their spiritual life is the purpose of their existence and that everything else needs to support that. I’m not reading my Bible to survive law school (and thus allow skipping devotions for study), I’m going to law school so I can afford to study the Bible for the rest of my life. On that note, it is so important that I give God the first fruits of my time. The time when I’m most alert is when I should be spending time with God. Ministry is the same way, if I’m sacrificing ministry to work on a job I need to rearrange my priorities. (I believe the same thing would be true if I was raising a family. I have the job to support the family not the family to support the job). Too many people seem to forget this fact and that goes to a lot of the church’s problems.

Ah yes the doctrines of an eternal hell. I had a friend who believes that God would redeem Satan someday and he would enter paradise with God’s forgiveness. I just don’t believe this is true; angels have already gotten their chance. It is amazing when you read the prophets at the end of the Old Testament, just how much it can change your views of sin and how God views it. God doesn’t stop being angry at sin, he just directs it elsewhere. One word I’ve been trying to stamp out of my vocabulary is “hate” because for me I equate “hate” with desiring that particular object to exist in hell. If I really stop to think about it, I know that object probably does deserve it, but I certainly don’t want them to go there. The world is full of horrible people and we all deserve God’s wrath, but I think it should break our heart that the world is so dark and corrupt. The Bible talks about men of God living fearlessly and interceding for those who have no voice. All too often the view of the Christian man is the pasty white guy afraid of a conflict. What a travesty.

I think that the world is dark and dangerous and when it comes to our own lives we must submit to God, but I think that the world would at least have a more positive view of Christian men if they didn’t just feel bad about the mugging or the rape, but they would intercede for people who are victims when they see such things occurring. As a Christian our occupation is spiritual war, and this war is dangerous. It has consequences in the physical realm and the spiritual realm. We put on the armor of God, our equipment, and we go forth to do battle with spiritual forces and with the effects of those spiritual forces in the physical realm. As a Christian man we should beat our bodies and make them our slaves and train for combat. Not because we can increase our chances one bit of success, but because we honor God by being good soldiers. At the same time we have the opposite extremes of Christian men who do this and forget their duty to be loving, compassionate, sensitive, and sacrificial towards all others. They go on a macho he-man kick and forget the reason they were given their strength. Christian men and men in general need a wake up call. They need to prepare for battle and remember that they are called to emulate Christ who sacrificed himself to save others, loved all, and was never afraid to condemn sin while granting forgiveness to the sinner.

In response to Jeremy’s comment. I agree with him and that was a point I raised. In the conversation however, he explained that what he defined as “the law” was any commandment given to man by God.

“Abel” Sacrifice to God.
“Noah” Build an ark. However, where Jeremy is right on I think is that even before God told Noah to build an ark Noah was living justly before God. We take for granted God gave him no commands at that time or that God did. It’s a good point and definitely a valid one. Good thinking Jeremy.

This is an excerpt from a letter to Anna-Beth telling her about a discussion I had with the college pastor of a local church. It was nice to hash things out after spending so much time in the word. Even if I’m wrong on many of these points it only helps to talk to people about these things.

“The pastor talked about the purpose of Christ’s salvation. He made a comment, however, that made me raise an eyebrow. He conjectured that without the law we would be unable to glorify God and therefore neutral. I disagreed because I believe that without the law we would be unable to glorify God and therefore wicked. We had an interesting discussion about spiritual neutrality and I’ll give you some basics here. He argued that animals, who cannot glorify God, are not punished for their wickedness and are neutral. I argued that animals have no souls but bear the burden of our curse on earth and are wicked because of our actions. He argued that the law had always existed as a means to glorify God. I argued that was correct but without those means we wouldn’t be neutral we would be wicked. Even without the law we either exist as God desires or as God doesn’t and without knowing what God desires we live as he doesn’t not in some middle-ground and would be punished in the same way. To me, if we say we can be neutral we deny that God exists, God didn’t create the standard of perfection he is the standard of perfection. People are either with God or not. To say there’s a third option denies God’s absolute nature. So…long story short…I argued that neutrality is only applicable if there is either no God or God is not absolute. Then we got into another interesting tangent (a third person came up) and argued that neutrality is not being given a choice (ie the 1000 year peaceful reign before Satan is released). The pastor and I argued the same point from different views. I argued that because God is outside of time and has foreknowledge that the choice they are making will happen, is happening, and has happened for him so there is no one who does not have a choice. The pastor took the approach that choice is irrelevant and cited Romans and how God chooses people to understand his message of salvation. That people will hear and not go to heaven does not decrease God’s mercy but increases it. God is praised in eternity through the enaction of his justice (hell) and mercy (heaven). And if God’s justice is being enacted in hell than it is a right end for all who go there. People who say this is unfair Paul says “Who are you to talk back to God?”

This is a scary thought, in believing this we must accept that God could send anyone to hell he desires regardless of what they want. The answer, its Biblical. So that was an interesting evening, I think I’ll go back next Sunday but keep shopping for churches on Sunday morning. There is something very valuable about taking my theological study (currently in Hosea, Psalms, Proverbs, and Luke) and hashing out points with other believers.”

As an addendum to the end of this I think that in the absense of the law we can be created in perfect unity with God as well. That would be the state of creation before God gave commandments to us. Creation was neither inherently wicked or neutral after being created before the command was given so my idea needs modification. I affirm that there is no such thing as spiritual neutrality, but deny that without a given law we are innately wicked. God decides where we go in that case.

This is a story about revival and a guy named Hezekiah. There isn’t really a spiritual truth so to speak here as much as a picture of what incredible revival looks like. This guy Hezekiah is twenty five and right when he becomes king he decides to set Israel back on the right path. So he repairs the temple and brings in all the priests and tells them to make everything holy. He says he wants to renew the covenant with God. So these priests go and carry everything unholy from the temple and destroy it. Then they consecrate everything, all the tools, walls, everything (and themselves of course) When they’re finished Hezekiah takes the priests and city officials into the temple and they offer sacrifices and consecrate the altar. They spend a long time just praising God before they even begin. They offer so much that there’s not enough priests to handle it all and they have to wait until they can consecrate more priests. That’s amazing enough considering the history of Israel and Judah, but it gets better. Hezekiah sends letters all around Israel and Judah telling them to come celebrate Passover (it’s a month late, but who cares they weren’t ready the first time and a year is too long to wait). Most Israelites laugh at him, but some come and ALL of Judah attends. All of them, that in itself should be a pretty awesome picture. So many people show up that the priests have to consecrate the people with the Passover lamb. The people are so eager (but have been out of practice for so long) that they eat the Passover feast without consecrating themselves. Hezekiah asks forgiveness of God for this and God forgives them and blesses the ceremony. They spend the next seven days singing, praising, and hearing encouragement from Hezekiah. Then, they get to the end of the festival and they’re having so much fun they extend it another seven days. Hezekiah brings in 8,000 animals and the princes bring in 11,000 animals for sacrifices. They praise and sing and the Bible says that there wasn’t a time like this since David and Solomon.

Christians, if you want revival, this is what you want. This is more radical than anything I ever pictured when I heard the word revival. I can only pray that I live to see something like this, and if not well I’m sure the party in heaven will beat this one.

This deep theology in Hebrews is fascinating to me. Especially the distinction between the old and new covenants and how they differ on key issues as well as the philosophical argument for why the new covenant is superior to the old. This is from sunday afternoon.

Today I went through Hebrews 8 and there’s a lot of good material in there about the conduct of God’s believers. Most of Hebrews, from what I have seen, is divided into a description of the Old and New Covenants and how they are different. Hebrews talks about how the old priesthood was a shadow of what was to happen in heaven and that Jesus became a priest in eternal life because the earthly priesthood was already set up (and after Jesus obsolete). Hebrews tells us that God saw the old covenant as wholly inadequate it says that God went to his people and gave them the law. They had people to teach them the law and he would be their God. Then, they rebelled and God turned on them. The second covenant God did not write the words on stone but in the hearts and minds of His people. Hebrews says that under these circumstances there was no longer a need for teaching the law because each man least to greatest would know it and God would forgive them their sin. It makes it very compelling for people to study God’s word and be changed by it. God will imprint it on your heart if you seek his knowledge and wisdom.

One final caveat, God told his people to write the commandments on their heart after being taught them. People being left to their own devices tend to fail at this. Now in learning about God, he does the writing. That’s a much more promising way to go about it, at least in my opinion.

Some thought from this saturday in the evening sometime.

The book of Isaiah, particularly the 62^nd chapter, appeals to me because of its call to action. God says that he wants watchmen put in place to give no one rest until God’s kingdom is restored in its glory. As Christians we are those watchmen. How often do we forget our duty to keep all of God’s people in prayer and uplift those believers around us? Christians have a specific duty to make the highway straight and clear it of stones (again from chapter 62). It says that God wants to delight in us as a bridegroom over his bride. As I am not married, nor will be in the foreseeable future, I can only imagine. I know from what I’ve seen at weddings that the pride that the bridegroom feels about his bride is truly spectacular. If you are a Christian begin serving the church and serving others. Invite your Christian friends with few connections to believers to get involved. Let them know that you love them; you cannot simply let them go through life without reaching and taking them with you. They are your brethren (and sestren? I have no idea what the word would be), keep them close and remember that you are here to build the kingdom of God and that doesn’t mean packing them in at altar calls though that is important. It is a comprehensive duty to build yourself and the people around you.

Proverbs 9 has a comparison between two paths, the path of light and of darkness. These are some passing thoughts;

I am continuously amazed at the huge dichotomy between the path of light and the path of darkness. Both paths are led by women. Both paths call to the same sorts of people: people who lack sense and are simple. They both claim to be teaching the truth. However, the path of the foolish leads to death and becomes daker the farther you walk. The path of light gets brighter and leads to life. Even more interesting is the difference in proverbs 9 about the character of these two women.

Wisdom prepares everything, there is food and strong shelter. She sends out her servants and goes out herself calling to bring people in.

Foolishness prepares nothing, but tries to lure the same kinds of people. She has gain for following her path but it is emptiness and ends only in sorrow and death.

I find this interesting in light of my studies in Hebrews and Isaiah where the recurring theme is the same. God wants his people to follow him. God wants his people to live wisely and act justly. God will return and will “reward” based on the path chosen by his people. For those who suffered in life yet clung to God, they receive their full reward. Even under the old covenant, those people who were undesirable (foreigners and eunuchs) receive recompense greater than any gift they could have had in life for their disability. How often do we as Christians focus on what happens after salvation. Getting on the path of righteousness is just the beginning, we are called as believers to live that life with excellence and justice. To obey God’s laws and treat all courteously. I think “Pilgrim’s Progress” is an excellent allegory for the believer but it misses out on the real key of how a person’s character develops after they find Christ. Maybe one day I’ll write my own allegorical tale.

P.S. On a side note, the Bible says if you share wisdom and reproof with those not on your path (wicked, foolish) they will hate you for it. Maybe Christians wouldn’t have such a bad name if they worried about themselves and realized that the Bible says to be a good witness for Christ but not share wisdom that is reserved for Christians (ie. how to live). Keep that in mind before you leap to share all the wisdom of proverbs with someone who doesn’t love God.

This is several days late, but it is the first of several little snippets of reflection gained from what I read each day. Feel free to comment on what you think.

As I read through the book of proverbs I am struck by the underlying irony of it. First, that wisdom desperately tries to teach those simple people the proper way and laughs when they fail. Proverbs says that wisdom was the first thing created by God and personifies it as a woman (proverbs 8 I believe). There is a distinct personality to wisdom that I think is much more in-depth than we would believe. The second irony is that proverbs describes two paths the path of the wise (the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom) and the path of the fool (the fool scorns knowledge and instruction). Throughout Proverbs these two paths have nothing in common despite a mutual hostility. Viewing my own life and friends through this lens has some interesting results, but more on that at another time. The final irony of Proverbs is how the result of our actions is counterintuitive. Most people view righteousness and sin as an action that has an eventual payment and this is true. Christians hope in Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sins and resurrection when Christ returns, but the temporal results of our actions are often contained in the actions themselves. In Proverbs 1 wisdom says that she laughs when we fail and that we will eat the fruit of our own actions when we fail to listen to her. How might Christians act differently to sin if they realized that the punishment of the sin is the sin itself? Whatever pleasure is to be gained is the punishment for acting contrary to God. That is the crux of proverbs and why we, as Christians, need not to just be forgiven but to live in a way that is God honoring.