For your own good

God’s Laws

What do we think of when we hear the words “laws”, “rules”, and “regulations”? As a child I remember disliking the “rules” very much. I viewed them as restrictions which hindered me from attaining what I wanted. Rules shortened my recess times, regulated the amount of sugar I consumed, and forced me to go to bed when I didn’t want to. However, in retrospect, I can easily see that each supposed rule was indeed for my personal benefit so that I didn’t stay out playing all day, have poor health, and wasn’t exhausted the next day.

The Ten Commandments are also “rules”, or “laws” with the same purpose, except with much better consequences than merely good health. When the Israelites came out of Egypt, they were coming out of 400 years of not only slavery over their bodies, but also over their minds. Egyptian culture, religious beliefs, and law dominated the Israelite community. So when God led His people out of Egypt, He was leading out not the largest refugee nation of 2 million people, He was leading out a mass group of spiritual refugees as well.  When God gave the 10 commandments to His people, He was not only giving them laws, He was giving them an identity. God was making a covenant with His people to distinguish them among all of the other pagan nations that the Israelites were His people. God blessed them with laws which no other nation shared, a unique system of guidelines designed to fulfill the maximum blessings of freedom over the Israelites.  On the Ten Commandments, Plantinga writes:

“What God carved in stone at Sinai was a recipe for real freedom. I know it sounds paradoxical to say that we get freedom by obeying God’s commandments, but that’s actually the way things go. Sin traps people and makes them wilt; godly obedience liberates people and helps them flourish. The Ten Commandments are guides for a free and flourishing life…God’s commandments are all pro-life.”

Often the words “laws” and “Ten Commandments” connotes feelings of strictness, of an intolerably angry God pointing a finger saying “Do what I say!...Or else!”. However, we Christians need to remember the context for which God gave us those laws. God gave us those laws to obey because they would ultimately teach us to live in the purest and most righteous ways possible. God was actually giving us one of His greatest blessings when He gave us the Ten Commandments. In fact, when God commands us to obey them, not only is He commanding our moral righteousness, but He’s also commanding us to be blessed and to be a blessing. Fulfilling the Ten Commandments will only lead us along good paths, and those good paths will stand as examples to the other nations of the world and the glory of God will truly be known to others. Finally, as God’s people, it is our duty to live according to the good ways of God not only  to save ourselves, but to be a blessing to others as well.

“…Ten Commandments, a set of requirements that people have to fulfill not in order to be rescued by God from slavery, but because they have been rescued”.

Learning at War

In today’s reading, I was highly struck by what Lewis wrote regarding the integration of faith and religion into our daily lives. Ever since I left the mission field, I’ve been challenged in figuring out how my faith could be integrated into my new surroundings and circumstances. The environment that I lived in for two years was that of a highly concentrated focus on God, our priorities, time, appointments, and relationships all had a specific focus towards missions. In those types of environments, prayer is constant regarding every situation and God is much more highly depended on. However, leaving that environment of specific Christian focuses into an academic setting with different challenges and activities has left me scratching my head a few times as I’ve wondered on how to approach different situations such as dedicating my history papers to the glory of God. The focus on specifically Christian goals has not been as clear as it used to be. As a result of these challenges, I have been trying to dedicate each act towards the glory of God, which I believe is through a heart dedication of an act of worship to God. I agree with Lewis when he writes:

“It is for a very different reason that religion cannot occupy the whole of life in the sense of excluding all our natural activities. For, of course, in some sense, it must occupy the whole of life.”

Religion and faith do not constitute an absolute separation and incompatibility with the world. Rather,  each action and activity which we engage in must be an act of worship to God, it’s the way we keep close to Him and maintain our personal integrity. If we strive to work hard for any other priority than to give glory to God, and instead work in selfishness or pride, we commit sin. Lewis quotes:

“Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye, do all to the glory of God. All our merely natural activities will be accepted , if they are offered to God, even the humblest: and all of them, even the noblest, will be sinful if they are not.”

Though I do not agree that every act not committed to God is sin, such as the laying down of life for one’s friends is sinful, however I do agree that almost all of our actions should ultimately be dedicated to the Lord.

Falling

“Human life is not the way it’s supposed to be.”

“The glory of God’s good creation has not been obliterated by the tragedy of the fall, but it has been deeply shadowed by it.”

In Ch.3 of Plantinga’s book, he talks about the state of the world and of how the corruption of sin has deeply distorted the various functions and values of our society today. As I dwelt on this subject I immediately thought again of the discussion I had on abortion with my fellow classmates. We were discussing whether or not abortion should be made legal or not, and one point that was brought up was abortion should be illegal because it takes the lives of innocent children. However, because not everybody was “Christian” and did not all share the same morals or beliefs, those who were secular could still be given the option of aborting a child thus agreeing that abortion could be legal. I do not agree with this. I am guessing a distortion in human rights and the freedom to choose in today’s society has been confused with the Biblical standards of free will and rights. In today’s society, the rights of individual people have become confused with having a license to do whatever you want in self-centeredness. However, the Biblical view of freewill and equality was that of having the freedom to do what is right under the law of God(Plantinga, CH 2). We have not been given a license to engage in any act that may be convenient for us, for we must live according to God’s standards.

The reason I find this point so important is because living by God’s standards was the original plan for how all human beings were to live in the first place. Abortion should not be made legal not only because it takes the lives of the innocent way, but because it was never a part of our morality in the first place. When we defend this supposed “right” to choose on whether or not abortion should be made legal, we ignore the underlying fact that in this matter we were never given a choice by God in the first place, abortion is not an exception to God’s law on the basis that it takes away some peoples freedom of choice.  Remember, the way the world was originally supposed to be was a great world of God’s people. We’ve been corrupted, and we cannot now use our newly corrupted values to change the original morality which God has given us. We are God’s children, every single person, and that is our true identity, not the one we’ve made up for ourselves in this new society.

Something We Can't be Subjective Aboot

In "the Poison of Subjectivism", Lewis talks about and expands on the dangers of installing reason as the impostors for the Laws of Nature and morality. I agree with him. As I observe how much of our values, tendencies, and laws, all over the world are based on Laws of Nature such as courage and selflessness, an attempt to dethrone and completely separate ourselves from the Laws of Nature would not only be extremely difficult, but extremely foolish. Lewis gives a great example of the folly when he compares improving the Laws of Nature and attempting to replace them:

"You like your vegetables moderately fresh; why not grow your own and have them perfectly fresh? and a man who says "Throw away that loaf and try eating bricks and centipedes instead."

We should never attempt to step away from God's standards of morality because without these guidelines we would certainly deteriorate as a species.

Which draws me to my next point, in dicussions today we briefly touched on the subject of whether or not abortion should be made legal. I heard from one of my classmates that in most cases abortion should not be legal, however exceptions could be made if for example the child would be born into a very difficult situation of poverty, orphanhood, or handicap. I disagreed immediately with this idea for two reasons. The first reason was because at the heart of the issue, every human being is created in the image of God and that in itself places an instrically divine value on every single human being, no matter what no circumstances may put a life at risk by the choice of another human. The gift of free will from God is an unalienable right that no human being should be able to take from another. The second reason is that to take the life of a child due to keeping the child from unfavorable circumstances is to steal God's opportunity to be God in someone else's life. He is our Savior and to abort a child is to say we don't trust God enough to take care and redeem that child's life.

The danger of this type of thinking, of looking at the validity of each situation for abortion, is exactly what C.S Lewis warns us not to engage in, Subjectivism. We cannot be the judges of any situation that steals the gift of life from any individual. We do not even hold the rightful claim to our own lives for suicide is a sin. How much less can we commit someone else's suicide for them?

Human beings cannot be the judges of right and wrong, ethics, morals and principles for we will get it wrong. We do not have the capacity to create a true morality. If our morals change according to each situation, say in the case of abortion and we agree that each situation must be evaluated in order to abort, then who's to say that the Naziz were absolutely in the wrong? If our morals are so easily changed, we put into doubt every evil action that has ever been committed. Let's just keep to the Bible, shall we?

Mere Cross-Cultural Living

Since July of 2008, I’ve moved and slept in a different place every 3 months. It was in July when I left home at the age of 18 to pursue missions with Youth with a Mission (YWAM) in Perth, Australia where I would be trained for around 2 years. My missions training took me to a number of places all around the world and a result of that was I would constantly be staying at different places with different people for a prolonged period of time. Sometimes I didn’t even stay in one place for 3 months, sometimes my team and I would move every week between different houses during the course of a 3 month missions trip. Funnily enough, even here at Calvin I’ve already moved places, from the dorms to the apartments after one semester. Suffice to say, I’ve moved around a lot and lived with a lot of different people.

Though this type of lifestyle has been very exciting and I truly thank God for blessing me with these experiences, I admit that there have been challenges in which I’ve struggled to overcome. One particular challenge has been connecting to and getting along with a variety people from different backgrounds and cultures. When you stick a 19 year old Korean who loves to eat Kimchi with a 31 year old South African who despises the very thought of it and then add an islander from Vanuatu who adores sleeping outside in a hammock on the beach  all in one house, there are going to be misunderstandings and quarrels. Now especially as we were all Christians serving together in missions, we all strived to learn to cross-culturally accept and live with each other. We kept the Kimchi in a separate refrigerator to isolate the smell, the South African exposed himself to new foods, and our Vanuatan friend just chilled, for want of a better word.

Now the reason I write this is because when C.S Lewis writes on the “Law of Nature” and writes in the small and greater context of how we engage and communicate with people that think different from ourselves. C.S gives an interesting point when he writes:

“Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are.”

Basically, Lewis is saying that in order to make any progress in a discussion or argument, a common ground is primarily required to serve as the reference point for forming any judgments or conclusions. At the time when I was living with all of these colorful individuals, though our priorities were not to prove each other wrong, nevertheless establishing clear communication and understanding where each individual was coming from and what their reference points were for making judgments was essential for clear communication and peaceful living. Although our cultures and lifestyle habits were different, our ultimate reference points for making decisions was Scripture and so with this common ground we were able to solve our disagreements in humility and understanding.

This particular quote really stood out to me, for I found it to be very applicable for me as I’ve moved from place to place and especially as I learn to live here in Michigan. Blessedly, here at Calvin we share the same reference points in Christ and so the transition has been made easier. However, I know that I will not always be blessed to live around individuals who submit to God and I pray that I will be prepared to live in humility and love with them.

Where is the Safe Place?

Where’s the Safest Place to be?

Today in class we discussed the topic of complacency and how it affects Christians. We began with bringing focus on an excerpt from the Screwtape Letters where Screwtape is instructing his apprentice, Wormwood, on how best to keep Wormwood’s patient on a downward spiral in spirituality. The excerpt is as follows:

“For this reason I am almost glad to hear that he is still a churchgoer and a communicant. I know there are dangers in this; but anything is better than that he should realize the break it has made with the first months of his Christian life. As long as he retains externally the habits of a Christian he can still be made to think of himself as one who has adopted a few new friends and amusements but whose spiritual state is much the same as it was six weeks ago. And while he thinks that, we do not have to contend with the explicit repentance of a definite, fully recognized, sin, but only with his vague, though uneasy, feeling that he hasn't been doing very well lately.”

What stood out to me in this paragraph is where Screwtape encourages the continued church attendance of Wormwood’s patient. Screwtape suggests that the distractions which come from the excitement and eventual routine of entering into a new community will ultimately hinder any potential spiritual growth in the patient. I agree with Screwtape.

Any activity, thought, or emotion which distracts a Christian from the personal aspects of a relationship with God will hinder any further growth. The truth of this statement is extremely relevant to many Christians because many of them in actuality struggle with this exact problem. Even worse, the source of the distractions which ultimately blind these Christians come from the Church. Routine, a lack of challenge, even friends are just some of the many ways a Christian may be distracted from growing in their relationship with God. Especially those Christians who attend church for many years suffer from becoming stagnant and eventual backsliding.

How can a Christian avoid these problems? The answer to that, in my opinion, is to remain in a position of dependence on God regarding at least some area of life. Too often, Christians form for themselves a comfortable lifestyle in which they are able to control and maintain on their own. The need for prayer and drawing closer to God for wisdom, comfort, or worship becomes weaker by the day. However, when we are in a state of needing God’s providence regarding a certain area of our life, we keep our prayers and relationship with Him on an ongoing basis. Of course, this sounds as if we are only seeking God when we need His help and in a sense this is true. However, I find that there is a difference between depending on God for the sole purpose of receiving His help is lesser than staying in a position of seeking God’s help for the purpose of nurturing and developing a relationship with Him.

In sum, as Christians we need to regularly pursue growth in our relationship with God and stay away from the temptations of becoming stagnant and apathetic to Him. Often many Christians become desensitized to the truths of who we are in Christ and that is a dangerous thing. As Christians it is our responsibility to keep close to God, to learn to discipline ourselves and make the hard decisions which lead to greater intimacy with the Lord.

Not Made in China

“First, the original goodness of creation implies that all of it, including any human being we meet, is potentially redeemable. Just as a banged-up, badly repaired, out-of-tune Stradivarius violin would still be unmistakable to a trained eye and ear, so everything made by God retains at least some part of its goodness and promise. It has come for the shop of a master.”

Everyday I’m challenged with the truth of our human identity before God. The truth is that I am a created being made in the image of the Holy God, called to live for eternity with Him with some fantastic ruling and authority perks. When we compare our destiny in Heaven to our lives here on Earth, you would think that we would work towards making the finest preparations possible to smooth our transition to the infinite. However this is not the case for I find that I’m constantly distracted, led on, tempted, and even apathetic towards the truths of who I am called to be in the Heavenly context. On the contrary I place a much heavier emphasis on attaching myself to the worldly ways of thinking.

Now I’m not talking about the things which actually do require a reasonable level of attention, such as receiving education in the C.S Lewis sense, building strong and meaningful relationships with people, and I don’t know, hygiene. I’m talking specifically in the context of how I treat others. Do I sincerely treat, behave, and love other individuals as immortal beings created in the good image of God or do I think them otherwise? I ought to respect and appreciate others, yet every critical judgment, roll of the eye, and disregard contradicts what the Bible reveals not just on our true identity but also of how we need to relate to our neighbors. Jesus called us to love our neighbors as ourselves as one of the greatest commandments to obey. This means to treat them as they ought to be treated as God’s good creation, with love, grace, and an attitude of humility.

I’ve been challenged for I don’t think that every gesture, tone of voice, thought, nor opinion that I have is shrouded in integrity towards other people. I often like to think that I’m doing pretty good, however I don’t believe this is an area where you should ever feel like you’ve done enough. Rather, the charge to love our neighbors as ourselves is a lifetime process of growth until we actually do reach Heaven and truly treat and love each other as we ought to.

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror or a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one of other of the destinations. There no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”

C.S.Lewis