Eternal Perspectives

Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as a wind will blow out a candle, and blow in a fire.” - Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680

The dry times in the lives of Christians are enlightening and revealing. Those who, like a candle, have but a casual and comfortable relationship with Jesus Christ tend to flame out once the winds of adversity come.

In contrast, those whose passions are fueled by an unquenchable fire deep within are driven by the same winds to seek the face of God and pursue him even though it seems futile. Though the winds may blind us, God remains faithful to give us sufficient vision for the next necessary step.

Rabbi Zusya said that on the Day of Judgment, God would ask him, not why he had not been Moses, but why he had not been Zusya.” - Walter Kaufmann

We know, as Christians, that God has predestined us to be conformed to the image of Christ, but in our quest to facilitate that we often focus on an esteemed believer and try to be like him or her. Some of us may even create a visual image of what we imagine Jesus must have been like and pattern ourselves after it.

But this is not what God desires. Each of us is to be a unique display of what God originally intended a person to be; that is, as Christ is formed in us we begin to reveal Christ in a manner impossible for anyone else. It is not that Christians should be the same but that each of us should be reflecting who we might have been had sin never been a part of our lives.

Let advertisers spend the same amount of money improving their product that they do on advertising and they wouldn’t have to advertise.” - Will Rogers

There’s a message here for local churches. If we were to spend as much energy - and even money - on doing church as Scripture tells us to do church, we wouldn’t have to advertise or have special programs or promotions to get the attention of the lost. We would be so attractive that they would be drawn to us without us having to go out of our way to make them notice us.

The church needs to go to the lost, but she needs to go in ministry and mission, not with marketing and machinations. We need to show them our love for God, one another, and them, not just talk about it.

Bad artists always admire each other’s work.”
- Oscar Wilde

It is tempting, of course, to think of Hollywood and their fawning all over one another’s work, but this mirror works for Christians, too. How often are we guilty of blindly praising or defending pastors, teachers, or theologians of our own denominational or doctrinal ilk? Not only would the world hold us in higher regard if we were graciously honest in disagreeing with our friends, but our theological opponents would also take us more seriously.

Sometimes our heroes are just wrong, even about important things. Ryrie, Piper, Calvin, Wesley, Stanley, Swindoll - you name someone and they’ve had their errors. Why pretend otherwise?

No Comment:

We talk about the American Dream, and we want to tell the world about the American Dream, but what is that dream, in most cases, but the dream of material things? I sometimes think the United States for this reason is the greatest failure the world has ever seen.” - Eugene O’Neill

The control man has secured over nature has far outrun his control over himself.” - Ernest Jones

It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.” - John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

The real danger is not that computers may begin to think like men, but that men may begin to think like computers.” - Sydney J. Harris

I recently received a rather terse, condescending, and snide comment at my page at Theologica that came in response to what - I must confess, even as I repent in sackcloth and ashes - was my own terse, condescending, and snide comment to this same individual’s blog post. I had suggested that perhaps the reason this individual had never received a response to his ask-and-answer, three-proof-texts, casual-and-casuistic dismissal of dispensationalism was that people could tell he wasn’t interested in learning but only in revealing the meager contents of his own mind. (I didn’t say “meager” in the comment I left: I just added it here to be clever.)

Now, honestly, I could care less about dispensationalism as a system: it didn’t die for my sins and I won’t be rewarded in heaven one day for being dispensational. What triggered my untoward response (if that is what is was) to this individual was the hubris that had produced such an aggressive, unloving, and arrogant post.

I was told by the individual that I am not mature or, at least, that he will shield me so that I might appear to be more mature than I really am - or than I seem to be. I don’t know: it’s all rather confusing.

But here’s the thing: why is it that we feel compelled to demolish the studies and theological belief systems of others when the gospel or anything critical is not at stake? And here’s another thing: why is it so difficult to ignore the provocations of someone who seems to be a puffed up fool troll?

I long ago gave up the former quest (to disprove others) and determined instead to understand their positions . I did this in the hope that I would thus be less inclined to diminish the sincere efforts of others to develop a belief systems that they believed to be true. I don’t see how tearing something down can be edifying.

More importantly, I don’t think God is nearly so concerned - if he is at all - about our theological systems as we are. Oh, I suppose one could say that Jesus attacked the belief systems of the Pharisees - except he really didn’t. Jesus was angered not by their beliefs but by their behaviors, not by their arguments but their attitudes.

Perhaps we feel superior to others if we can convince ourselves that we can successfully demolish their positions, even if it might mean undermining some of their confidence and stability at the same time.

But more troubling to me, I suppose, is why I cannot spit out the hook that some self-righteous trolls bait with obvious venom. It is obvious to me that they only want to debate, not learn, and that they get all lathered up by arguing ad nauseum over things. Nevertheless, I get sucked in time and time again, perhaps operating under the delusion that I’ll forewarn someone else of the insidious - or insipid - vitriol they’re about to encounter.

But, hey, am I my brother’s keeper?

Well, yes, I suppose I am, but most of my brothers at Theologica as well as here are quite capable of taking care of themselves and eschewing the adolescent, mendacious nonsense that such posts reflect.

I know all the proverbs that address such provocations; why is it so difficult for me - and, perhaps, for you - to ignore it and keep seeking Christ? Why do the heavy stones and weighty sand keep pinning me down?

Or, as my critic might say, why am I so immature?

At Theologica, Michael Patton’s theological discussion community and superb waste of time, Rom 7.14-25 has been tossed around as a proof-text for contradictory arguments. Some say the passage proves that Christians do and will struggle with sin during our time on earth; others say that it proves that Christians do not sin but a foreign, ego-alien entity within them is responsible for the sin.

Here’s the passage in the NASB:

14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.
15 For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
16 But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.
17 So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.
19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.
20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.
22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,
23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

Of the two interpretations mentioned above - the interpretations of this passage are, indeed, legion - I hold to the former: Christians wrestle with and often subdue, by the grace of God and the Holy Spirit within, the sin nature or sin principle within them. Contrary to the teachings of David Needham, Dwight Edwards, Neil Anderson, and others, we are responsible for our sins and we are the culpable agent in the perpetration of our sins.

In a discussion at Theologica regarding Christian sins, a young man who has taken the humble screen name of Seraphim declared, “My question is, is it YOU that is sinning after you are saved?” (shouting with all caps in the original). He follows the misguided theology of others in absolving himself of responsibility for sin, adducing vv. 18-20 as support for his position.

The errors and absurdities of such a position are too numerous to address here - or any place else, if stewardship of one’s time is important - so allow me to target one thing: the notion that because we do not willingly do something we are therefore not responsible for it.

To cut to the chase and restate the title of this post, sin as presented in Rom 7 can best be understood as a compulsion or, in everyday language, an addiction.

Those who have suffered or are suffering from any type of compulsion will understand what I am saying. Compulsions, by definition, are repeated behaviors designed to meet some perceived need and are neither willed nor intended by the individual. Such addictions are ego-dystonic: they are not desired by the individual and are experienced as intrusive, i.e., as originating from within but not as a conscious decision that one has made.

This, I think, is the facet of personal, indwelling sin that Paul discusses in Rom 7. Sin can have the quality of being an unwanted but seemingly irresistible power, whether obsessive (thoughts) or compulsive (deeds). Many sins are volitional, of course, and we sadly but willingly accept full responsibility for our choice. Sins born out of our addiction to sin, however, feel foreign and as though we are not responsible.

But we are responsible, even as a drunk driver is responsible for the destruction that might be birthed by his addiction to alcohol. Addictive sin is our sin and no one else’s. We have an addiction; it is our addiction by virtue of our previous connection with Adam’s race even though we are now members of the Second Adam’s race. We have been born again but, as Paul says, we have this experience or life in a physical body not suited for the task. Our bodies are psuchikos, not pneumatikos, as will be the case in our future, glorified state.

Our psuchikos or soulish bodies are the traveling clothes handed down from Adam, not Christ, and as such they continue to possess the consequences and tendencies of Sin - not “sin,” which is an act - but “Sin,” a principle that remains within us. We are whole beings, not divided up like some sort of living pie into various functions and forms. And as long as we remain in this soulish bodies, our struggle with Sin will continue.

Happily, there is no condemnation for those of us in Christ Jesus, for he has saved us from the consequence of Sin: eternal death. And even in this lifetime God has given us his Holy Spirit so that, even though Sin remains within us, we might be freed from the intractable pull of our incorrigible addiction to Sin.

Baseball is eternal.

That is, in baseball you never run out of time, you never run out of hope, it never leaves you feeling helpless or without a chance to make a final, dramatic difference. Unlike most other sports, where the clock runs out or you run out of holes or frames, baseball defies death: there is always hope, however unrealistic it might be. Tennis and other similar sports share this timeless quality, but they are boring by comparison.

Baseball is the perfect game. What other sport is there where the offense never touches the ball? How cool is that?

It is not surprising that I would use baseball as a metaphor for my own life: I was the son of a baseball player, raised to be a baseball player, and schooled to be a baseball player. My father had been a semi-pro player before shrapnel from WWII slowed his wheels and required 4 1/2 years of his life. Intending to live vicariously through his only son’s abilities, he planned on me being able to finish what he had barely had an opportunity to start.

Once I overcame my crippling birth defect (bilateral club feet, the sight of which prompted my father to crawl inside a bottle for seven or eight years), I seemed to have been inexorably drawn to the diamond. Baseball was easy for me: blessed with good eye-hand coordination, the ability to nail a curve ball, a strong right arm, and a hobbit-like inability to know when I was outmatched, I was able to garner attention and become known as an all-star caliber player. Not major league all-star caliber but an all-star in whatever league I happened to find myself. I could play any position well, hit for power and average, and run the bases skillfully. Whatever physical shortcomings I might have had I made up for with a natural feel for the game.

I might have been able to fulfill my father’s life dreams, but my own life got in the way. That is, my own foolish choices - I fell in “love,” rebelled against my father - squandered away baseball opportunities until I was too old to go back and pick them up. It is one of the regrets of my life, albeit a pretty minor one.

There is another growing regret, however, that is anything but minor to my way of thinking and mirrors the game of baseball. It has to do with ministry, foolish choices, and a lack of opportunities - at least, a lack from my vantage point.

To state my situation within the metaphor of baseball, I don’t know whether I am Crash Davis or Roy Hobbs.

Crash, you will (hopefully) remember was the anti-hero in Bull Durham, that great Kevin Costner vehicle that gave people a glimpse into the psyche - if not the actual experience - of baseball players. Crash had the dubious distinction of holding the record for the most career home runs by a minor league player. That’s like being the best-looking eunuch in charge of the harem: nobody really wants to be in that position.

But that was Crash’s life. He had had his opportunity to play in the Major Leagues - the “show,” as he called it - but hadn’t been quite good enough to stick. So he was sent down, destined to be a useful but disposable player-to-be-named-later. He was good, very good, but not quite good enough.

Crash loved the game; more, he respected the game. And when the time came for him to face the reality of his limitations, he did it. He admitted to himself what he was capable of and what he was not, and committed himself to being in the game in a different capacity. Not the fulfillment of his dreams, perhaps, but an acceptance of what could be instead of a futile quest for what could never be.

Roy Hobbs, however, was another baseball player altogether. In terms of talent, he was everything Crash wanted to be: he was The Natural, the title character of Robert Redford’s fictional movie of baseball. He had all the tools: great defense, great arm, and the ability to hit a baseball exactly where he wanted to. He was A-Rod, Manny, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Ted Williams rolled into one ideal player.

Roy Hobbs was everything anyone whoever laced ‘em up could dream of being.

Continued below . . .

Roy Hobbs was simply the best baseball player that ever was or ever will be.

His story begins when he is 19 years old and an incredible young pitcher - no, an incredible pitcher, period. While en route to tryouts for a professional team, he proceeds to strike out a Babe Ruthian character on three pitches. Pure smoke: the Babe winds up looking foolish, unable to even come close to hitting one of the pitches. Roy was untouchable, unbelievable.

But Roy made a bad choice before he ever got to the tryouts. Lured by the sirens of young love, he takes a bullet to the midsection and his opportunity to play slips away along with his consciousness. With a typical mistake of youth, a future that once seemed inevitable transforms into one that is impossible. The dream is gone.

Fast forward twenty years. Roy has finally made it to the major leagues, an old rookie for a struggling New York team with a hard-nosed, no-nonsense coach named Pop Fisher. Feeling as though he is being mocked by management and the owners of the team, Pop refuses to allow Roy to play or even to take batting practice.

After Roy’s latest stint on the bench, Pop announces to Roy that he is sending him down to the minors without having ever seen him field, throw, or swing a bat. A heated exchange ensures until Roy finally says he won’t play the stupid games he’s being asked to play: “I won’t do it,” he declares. “I can’t.”

He can’t do it because of respect: respect for the game but mostly respect for himself. He has worked too long, suffered too much, paid too high a price for this one shot, this one opportunity to find out if he really can be whatever he has always believed he can be.

It is at this point that The Natural becomes unbelievable: Pop changes his mind and decides to give Roy his chance to play in the show. Roy turns out to be The Natural, the best baseball player in history.

Crash got his chances and, when he discovered he wasn’t as good as he thought he was, accepted the facts and adjusted his vision and dream accordingly. Despite being deprived opportunities due to bad choices and a resentful coach, Roy got his chances and proved himself.

But what if you’re stuck in between? What if you’ve never had the shot of a Crash Davies or a coach that finally gets out of the way of a Roy Hobbs and gives him a belated - but not too late - chance to play?

Then you are left to wonder: Am I Crash Davis or Roy Hobbs?

Continued below . . .

I am old.

Or, at least, it seems that I am old. I feel old at times, older than I think I should at age 58. Too old to be chasing old dreams, still hoping that they might come true. Too old to expect different outcomes from repeated behaviors. Too old to think that people are going to be any way other than what they always have been. Not specific people, just people in general.

But how do you hang up your spikes when you feel like you’ve never really had a chance to get in the game?

I said earlier that baseball was an ideal metaphor for my life, and so it is. In particular, it is especially apt for my oft-thwarted, start-and-stop, sputtering ministerial career. At this point I feel much more like Roy Hobbs than Crash Davis: Crash, it would seem, did things right and got his chances; Roy, not so much.

But before going any further let me say that, also like Roy, a great deal of the shape and course of my life is due to my own foolish and now-regrettable choices. No one forced me to get a Masters Degree from Denver Seminary in Counseling; I could have gotten a Masters of Divinity for one more year of study. I made that choice, not anyone else.

I made the choice I did because, very unlike Roy, I didn’t believe in myself. I had convinced myself that I would never be able to learn Greek or Hebrew and so chose to try to do an end-run into ministry via an M.A. in Counseling. Only later did I learn that a high aptitude in math was strongly correlated with the ability to learn foreign languages; math has ever been my highest aptitude. In fairness, I did have a very strong attraction to and talent - gifting? - for psychology, but I could have gotten an M.Div. with a concentration in counseling. Some of my friends did; I didn’t believe I could.

Nor was I forced to earn my Doctor of Ministry degree from a school not accredited in the United States. Such a degree doesn’t carry a lot of weight, it seems, with the denominational powers that be when it comes to being considered for a position. But that’s their prerogative: they have their own stewardships and need to make the choices that are best for them. I made my decision based on my life situation and what was best for my family. I don’t hold anything against any institution that didn’t give me a second look.

Trinity was not (and is not) a degree mill, as some might imagine. There was considerable reading, hours and hours of lectures, and volumes of writing required for the degree; an internship was also part of the degree plan. A decade earlier, in my confused pre-Christian days, I had done a semester or two at Ivy Tech; Ivy Tech (basically a trade school) is regionally accredited while Trinity is not. Trinity is harder. A relative term, granted, but the point remains.

So I am where I am to some extent because of the choices I’ve made; the choices have turned around to make me. I can accept that, no problem.

But not all of my life can be attributed to my own choices. Many times others made the decisions that resulted in a door slammed in my face. Sometimes it easy to see how, in retrospect, their choice was what was best for me; at other times, it seems like a mistake or ignorance on their part has wound up being paid by me.

And that’s OK, too, for the most part: if I’m going to forgive myself my own stupidity, can I withhold the same from others? I don’t think so. There are other times, though, when the decisions made by others were not the result of ignorance or poor judgment but were instead motivated by sinful desires. Maybe it was a desire born of envy or fear, maybe it was due to mommy or daddy issues. It doesn’t matter what motivated them: the outcome was the same.

Still, OK: that’s 1 Pet 2.20b, if I’m not mistaken.

That leaves me, however, with that gnawing question: Crash or Roy?

But there are other baseball movies.

Concluded below . . .

Kevin Costner completed his baseball trilogy with 1999’s For Love of the Game, an utterly forgettable and predictable story of an over-the-hill pitcher who has to choose between the game he loves and the woman he loves.

This being a Kevin Costner movie, he of course gets both and everyone is happy. The relevance here, though, is merely the choice he has to make.

Now, every Christian man who has been paying even a modicum of attention in Sunday School should be able to blurt out the right choice. I certainly can. But sometimes it isn’t as clear in the messiness and glacier-like pace of the overlooked facets of life.

I confess with no amount of relief or pride that I have sacrificed my family on the altar of a ministry-that-never-really-was. From the beginning, my wife of 28 years has competed against a mistress for whom she - or any other woman - was ill-equipped: the church. Until recently, she has never had my heart: when an idle moment or unscheduled bit of time appeared, my heart and mind raced into the arms of the church. I was in hot pursuit of a mistress both enticing and unattainable.

Worse (in my mind), I did the same thing with my daughters: the bare minimum. I was there on all the right occasions but rarely more than that. And I am sure that they felt or knew that even though I was physically present my mind was often elsewhere, daydreaming about a ministry opportunity that would never materialize or some theological study that wound up being of absolutely no value to them. I was an adequate father, but not much more.

I am amazed that my wife and daughters still speak to me; why my wife smiles at me as often as she does is some of the clearest evidence I have of the mercy and grace of God.

But this isn’t a woe-is-me, poor-Mike kind of post. This is rather a description of the next fork in the road coming up in my life.

When I bought my first motorcycle in February of this year, my wife and I discovered a concrete, tangible activity (in addition to the obvious one) that we both loved to do and that we both love to do together. Realizing that this was something that we wanted to do a lot of, and to do as safely as possible, I bought a bigger bike that is capable of lasting for as long as we are likely to want to keep riding.

But at about the same time, we found ourselves part of a church plant. Along with four other men, I was called upon to be part of a formation committee to develop the core values, mission statement, and vision for our church. You can read about all of that here and here. A few months later, three of us became the first elders in the church; additionally, I began to assume more of the teaching and preaching responsibilities.

I’m not wild about being an elder - it’s too much like coaching and not enough like being in the game - but I have always enjoyed teaching and, based on feedback and results, seem to be pretty effective. So, too, with discipleship (a part of being on the elder board at our church): I’ve done it and been used by God to change some lives. (Assume that I’ve stated all the appropriate caveats and humble declarations.)

What I’ve wondered about but not fully had a chance to discover, however, is how I am as a preacher. I’ve long suspected that I could be a good preacher, my experience and training contributing to that belief:

I won some awards as a journalist.

My undergrad degree is in communication theory.

I was unofficially tabbed by my fellow seminary students to be the most likely to land a swell job (I was actually one of the last).

Preaching is, to my mind, simply a verbal form of communication; the gift has to do not with mode or medium but with the results: does it impact people’s lives and does it illuminate God’s revelation? I’ve been a communicator all my life, from my days as a creative writer in high school to my days as a journalist with a daily newspaper, up to the present time as I communicate with clients and try to facilitate growth and change.

I like preaching. It seems easy and natural. Oh, I spend a lot of time preparing sermons and work hard at making the delivery as unobtrusive as possible, seeking to be merely a conduit for God the Holy Spirit to work. It’s just that I thoroughly enjoy the time spent studying and preparing.

Last night, though, my wife said something that I didn’t want but needed to hear. She told me that she really likes my preaching but hated my preparation: “It’s like you’re not even here.”

And my motorcycle sits in the garage, along with my cleats. I need to put one or the other away for good.