What are Your Beliefs About Birth Control and the Right to Choose?

QUESTION:  What are you beliefs on birth control and the right of women to have control over their own bodies?

ANSWER:  

BIRTH CONTROL
The Creation mandate God gave in Genesis is where he called humans to be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:27).  Some Christians believe this command teaches us that sex should only serve the cause of procreation and thus any expression of sex that doesn’t lead to children is wrong, and so also would be birth control.

But Scripture has much more to say about sex than that one command.

In 1 Corinthians 7 for example, the apostle Paul talks to married couples about sexual intimacy.  And he calls them to not deny sexual intimacy from one another and to be mindful the other’s needs in that area, especially as the culture is so loose with its sexual mores and provides constant temptation to unfaithfulness.  In that whole discussion of sex, children are not brought up (except for a cryptic mention in 1 Cor 7:14).

The Song of Solomon also is a celebration of married sex which is enjoyed for the sheer joy of increased oneness, intimacy and the mutual pleasure it brings.  When Hannah is depressed because she can’t have children, in 1 Sam 1:8, her husband Elkanah tells her that their love and union should be more important than the children who may or may not come from it. 

So sex in Scripture plays a vital role in marital health beyond the utilitarian function of procreation.  Sex is a gift for intimacy and bonding between husband and wife with children as the glorious byproduct of the union rather than the specific goal of it.  Therefore, it seems clear that God grants couples the freedom to determine the size of their families.

The specific subject of birth control is not really considered in Scripture, probably since in the ancient agrarian cultures where it was written, a large family was often your retirement fund and social security.   The only person in Scripture shown to use a crude form of birth control is Onan in Genesis 38:9.  He is condemned by God, not because all birth control is evil, but rather because he is selfishly withholding from his wife the very retirement/social security which a child would bring.

Many cultures in history have practiced other more cruel forms of birth control, which amounted to forms of population control by dealing with unwanted children who could not be afforded or who were born the “wrong” gender, or who threatened political rule.  Killing of babies in battle and infant sacrifice was normative in ancient Canaan, and the Romans abandoned unwanted children so regularly they had identified public places where the “waste” could be dropped off.

Clearly, it would be preferable to have no children than to have children that you let die or actually kill.  The Biblical imperative to provide for one’s offspring makes this very clear indeed (1 Tim 5:8).  If you have limited resources (which most do) some form of birth control is simply a part of being a shrewd manager of the life God gave you.  And isn't it true that even those who believe birth control is wrong, nevertheless still at times practice a form of birth control (abstinence) for this very reason?  If all birth control was bad because the creation-mandate demands that we procreate as much as possible, even abstinence would be bad, and I don't think anyone takes that position.

Therefore, if sex is for other purposes than procreation and if responsible stewardship of limited resources honors God and shows high character, we mustn’t condemn birth control based on the creation-mandate alone.   Couples should be free to use birth control to limit the number of children they have or not have them at all, based on their own pasts, their stage of life, their level of resources, or their calling from God for other ministry.

However, if the choice becomes normative (in the developed world childlessness is reaching crisis proportions) out of pure self interest in order to maintain a more self-indulgent lifestyle, I would be (and am) deeply concerned if the Church followed suit.  Countries whose governments are paying for couples to have babies because it’s threatening their societies, show us that there is an enduring wisdom and moral imperative inside God’s creation mandate to have kids.  In other words, it is part and parcel of the others-oriented, selfless loving call of the Christian gospel, that parenting should be honored and considered normative (while not mandated) for disciples.

ABORTION

About your second question:  The simplest form of the women's rights argument in favor of abortion goes like this: a woman has the right to decide what she can and can't do with her body.   A fetus is part of a woman's body.  Therefore that woman has the right to abort a fetus they are carrying.  Of course the fundamental flaw in this argument is premise 2: the fetus is NEVER a part of a woman's body, as her appendix is or any other 'part'.  The fetus is, from conception, a wholly unique individual, with it's own DNA, it's own blood type, it's own unique existence.

It is, in fact another body.

This scientific fact is in keeping with the value and personhood God places on in-uteri babies throughout Scripture (Deut 21:22-25; Ps 139:13-17; Jer 1:5; Lk 1:41-44).  And so the general rule of corporeal autonomy becomes an argument against abortion rights, not for it.  If women should have control over their bodies, then it stands to reason that no one should have a right to usurp control over someone else’s body.  But with a fetus, that is, in fact, what we have: someone else's body.  To kill somebody else in the name of exercising bodily integrity, is obviously incoherent.

Of course, pregnancy is this amazing state of being where the bodily autonomy of two distinct individuals may come into direct conflict with each other.  Until we find a way to incubate life outside of wombs, this conflict is inevitable and I suspect God would always want it so.  Why?  Because the radical dependency of life at its earliest stages underlines the radical nature of selfless love which God wants to define all of us (Matt 22:39) because these qualities of love define God (1 John 4:16).

So my view of abortion comes down to this:  You have two individuals with the right to life and liberty because they’ve both been made in the image of God.  The less powerful life may be inconvenient or present risk to the more powerful life and so their rights are in conflict.  As in all life, the more powerful is in position to be the “oppressor” of the weak, but love calls us to care for the weak, to defend the cause of the fatherless and the helpless.

In short, love and moral law calls for the one in power to sacrifice for the one who has no voice and no power (Ps 82:3,4).  If God calls us to this way of thinking for the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, I can’t see why we change this way of thinking when the potential victim of oppression is in the womb. 

Freedom for others isn’t convenient to me.  Love isn’t easy.  Here’s what love is however:  1 Cor 13:4-8, “Love is patient, love is kind. …it is not self-seeking, …It always protects, …Love never fails.”  And so I think abortion is simply a horrible failure to love.

The only argument against this position is to posit that the womb arbitrarily makes any body inside it not true a human individual with rights of their own.  No one thinks that my right to bodily integrity gives me the right to usurp someone else's similar right.  So arguments must be made that a fetus is not a person, or as Christians we might say, not endowed by God with his Image.  Clearly alive, clearly human, clearly another body (scientifically these are inarguable facts) but not a "person".

But the "personhood" argument fails every test of science, morality and logic.  When does “personhood” fall on a human body?  Conception is the only objective choice.  Every other line we might draw is deeply arbitrary:  When brain waves are present?  Heartbeat? Fingerprints?  Oxygen in the lungs?  A spinal column?   Looks?  Sentience?  Ability to feel pain?  Age of Viability (which is getting younger as technology improves)?

These arbitrary lines are actually fault-lines - because the side of the line you stand on has seismic consequences.  We are talking about the line between life and death, the line between constitutional protections and no protections; between taking an innocent life and a benign surgical procedure.

Yet, before the legal arguments get rolling, the unalterable biological fact is so obvious it gets missed: human life begins at conception and continues until death.  The science of fetology wasn't around in 1973, the year the Roe v. Wade decision was made, so maybe we could imagine the fetus was some undifferentiated cluster of cells then.  Not anymore.  The idea that what is killed in an abortion isn't "human" has largely been dropped.  I mean, what else is it in there if it’s not a human? It’s not a dolphin!  This is how human persons begin:  small, helpless, a distinct organism, from one single cell.  There is no magic moment post-conception where “God’s Image” or “personhood” (and thus human rights) falls on them after the fact – at least none that any of us are qualified to judge.

If it's human but not a "person", does this make the birth canal magic?  What pixie dust powers it must have to confer on a previously value-neutral biomass (morally akin to a pancreas) the precious, protected status of “human being”!  Because this is patently absurd, everyone making abortion arguments really knows it is not about the personhood of the fetus at all – abortion is finally about procreative freedom.  Of course, procreative freedom matters – but does it matter more than life?  

I know this is a hard answer to a controversial question.  But it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Christians today oppose abortion.  Christians have felt strongly about abortion since there have been Christians.  Abortion was pandemic in ancient Rome and the Didache, a very early manual for new Christians, instructed disciples thus: “do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant.” They were guided by their Christ who said, “if you have done it to the least of these brothers of mine, you have done it to me.” (Matt 25:40)

With that ethic of love as our guiding value, Christians ought to still be first in line to defend the cause of the fatherless and the innocent and to sacrifice for them – and to support women who are pregnant in harsh circumstances who are called upon by Love to sacrifice the most to care for “the least”.

Should Christians Support the Modern State of Israel?

QUESTION: Hi Rick, just found your site. Is all this joining with Israel and sending the Jews home to their land jumping the gun and meant for the second coming, and should we be careful supporting it?

ANSWER:  So, in one sense this question is past due date. Meaning, the Jews have already been sent back to their homeland. I know you already know that, but it means your question of support for Israel can have two different meanings, one past and one present.

The first question of support deals with what has transpired to bring the Jews to their ancestral homeland.  The question is, should we think that this historic event fills a huge prophetic prediction of Scripture which Christians should be very excited about?  If we had been around when Zionism was at a fever pitch (around the turn of the last century), should we have supported the formation of modern Israel on these grounds?  As you note, this question is connected to prophesy about the Second Coming: would it have been right to support the formation of the modern state of Israel because we would have been "helping" an End Times timetable along?

The second question regarding support is much less biblical/prophetic and more geopolitical in nature and more currently relevant. Given that the UN charter created the modern state of Israel way back in 1948, and given that this did give safe haven to a deeply, historically persecuted and displaced population after the Holocaust, and given that they are today a functioning liberal democracy sharing a lot of what Christians value in terms of freedom, representative gov't, and all that, should we support Israel today?

I think the first question is an open question of biblical interpretation without a clear answer. Obviously, many Christians think that Israel being home in their land is a necessary precondition to the return of Jesus. Mostly they think this because of Scripture that infers there will be a Temple in the land before the coming of Jesus (Matt 24:15). On that specific question, I think that Christians do not have to commit themselves to an End Times model that requires Jewish presence in Palestine. And I say this because I don't think that the Temple has to be rebuilt before Jesus returns.

The verses where Jesus talks about the Temple destruction presaging his Return were very clearly fulfilled in 70 AD at the Roman destruction of Herod's second temple.  This is so clear and so compelling a vindication of Jesus words that it's mind blowing to me why anyone would even want to dilute the power and wonder of that fulfilled prediction by assuming it has some future fulfillment! Let the reader know, Jesus taught that the Temple would be destroyed before his coming and that prediction has already been fulfilled to the letter!  We do not need any future state of Israel or a future Temple so this prophesy can happen again before Jesus can come back.

But as I write that the Jews do not need to be in their land and the Temple does not need to be rebuilt, two contrasting thoughts hit me at once:

One, there they are, in the Land!  If nothing else, it is historically speaking, astounding!  And further, the Jews returning to rule over Jerusalem after the Temple destruction does seem to have prophetic significance as I'll make clear in a second.

Secondly, if it is a needed sign, our support of it or lack of support can make no difference at all - not in God's economy! For if we believe that Jesus holds history then he will conclude it on the Father's chosen timetable (Mark 13:32), not ours, and so modern Christians ranting for or against Zionism could never change what God has decreed!

I'm always amazed at End Times teachers who read the Bible like an advanced News Paper on one hand, then wring their (other) hands at global developments that scare them because "this means the End is near". A well-known Christian political thinker and fiction writer was on the news years back bemoaning America's lack of concern over Iran getting "the Bomb". Why? Because if Iran gets the bomb, he said, it will surely use it to attack Israel and that will signal the Tribulation. 

Hold on. 

I thought every Christian wants Jesus to come back. We "long" for the "Great Appearing," don't we? So for any event which we knew presaged this great Conclusion, shouldn't we be cheering for that to happen, and quickly?  It was as if in this teacher's mind, we could both know God's exact, unalterable schedule of events, and yet also totally affect the outplaying of those events by our geopolitical actions and voting preferences!!

Scripture gives us no indication that we can either know or effect the timing of that day or hour.

All that to say, on a prophetic level, we must let God be the Sovereign of history, and stop pretending or worrying that we can alter the unalterable timing He has set by pushing for or against this or that geopolitical agenda. The level of arrogance required to think we could even know what events are "needed" to push the schedule forward, let alone when to push them, is shocking to me.  Christians are not alone in this thinking - both Muslim and Jewish radicals think they can "speed" the End of Days by this or that catalytic action - usually an engineered catastrophe.

Having said all that, as I mentioned above, I'd be lying if I told you I didn't think it was biblically/prophetically very interesting that Israel is once again a State, back in the Land.  One thing that leads me to believe it's not unimportant is Jesus statement in Luke 21:24 "...and Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled."

Since 70 AD, Jerusalem has been ruled in part or in whole, by Gentiles. But Jesus seems to indicate that this will come to an end at some point. After the UN partition, slowly the City is coming under more and more Jewish control - the Temple Mount being one glaring exception. Again, I believe the important thing about Jerusalem for End Times has already been fulfilled (Temple destruction), but it interests me that the time of Gentile control of the Holy City may end in our lifetime.

But, if I'm right that modern Israel's presence in Palestine may not be an important sign relative to the End, then if modern Israel suddenly went away, this would not shake my faith or make me less confident that Jesus was coming back. I'm not committed to the State of Israel one way or the other, prophetically speaking.


So with the prophetic questions sort of up in the air, all that leaves is the modern Christian Church's stance about the geopolitical situation surrounding the modern state of Israel. On that score, I think we do well to avoid two extremes:

One is the extreme that Israel, because it is populated by descendants of Abraham, can do no wrong and we should never call out immoral or ineffective policies of that State. Biblical calls to bless Israel and warnings against cursing Israel are sometimes misused to imply that God demands the Gentile believer's unconditional support for what is (let's face it) a deeply secular and irreligious State today. 

I've been there, in 2009, and by the testimony of Arab Christians who live there, the Jewish State can be heavy handed with non-Jews living there, and have a bit of an itchy trigger finger when it comes to retaliation for perceived wrongs and self-protection. They do own the gun everywhere you go (except Gaza), including the West Bank where they regularly have funded developing Jewish communities which the Arab Muslim population hates with a passion. They see it has an effort to push them out.

The other extreme is the one taken by the secularists in America who call Israel's influence in Gaza and the West Bank the "occupation" and regularly paint the Jewish State and the Palestinian leadership as co-equals in terms of their morality, values and behavior. This is utter nonsense. I suspect it is a stance driven less by the facts or political principle and more by a knee jerk reaction against traditional conservative, Christian support for Israel. If Christians like it, it must be bad!

Meanwhile, they ignore that Gaza has basically been left on its own by Israel and has descended into something that resembles a post-apocalyptic nightmare. When Israel did a full pullout in 2005, they left behind a thriving greenhouse infrastructure which the Palestinians, in pure spite, promptly destroyed or looted days after disengagement. 

Hamas regularly sends missiles into Israel without provocation because their charter explicitly states the destruction of Israel as one of its goals.  Whereas Israel, despite it's excesses, is publicly committed to a two state solution. Add to that the fact that Gaza (and its neighbors Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan) values almost nothing we think important to a moral government, such as democracy, liberty, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom for women, sexual minorities, etc., and it's not hard to make a case that Christians ought to support Israel's right to exist, against the credible, persistent, existential threats of its neighbors.

So in sum, we should let the End Times timetable play out by God's timing without thinking it needs our assist by involving ourselves in world events with our money or votes.  And we should simply use our Holy Spirit inspired, biblical discernment to judge what we support or don't support about what the modern secular state of Israel does.

Was Abraham Really a Prophet?

QUESTION: In Genesis, shortly after Abraham instructed Sarah to call herself merely Abe's sister to avoid being murdered while in a foreign land, God personally showed up in the dream of the man who sought to take Sarah as his own wife. In this dream, God calls Abraham a prophet (Gen 20:7). However, to my understanding there are no recorded cases of Abraham making any prophesies.

This, of course, does not exclude prophethood from him, especially given God's declaration, but is there a deeper or extended context to how we might understand what a prophet is? As in, someone who doesn't merely foretell....? How should we take this statement God made about Abraham?

ANSWER: Two things to say. First, we must understand that prophesies in the Bible are not always predictions of future events. Even when they do predict the future, sometimes it is not to tell us what will inevitably happen but what MIGHT happen, if certain conditions are not met.  So for example, Jonah predicts the destruction of Nineveh, but it doesn't come to pass because the more important feature of his prophecy, is God's relationship with the Assyrians. He wants them to repent and turn to him in humility - which they do, and the predicted judgment does not come to pass.

It is true that in the Old Testament many prophets do predict what God's going to do in the future. And the success of these predictions authenticates that the spokesmen speaks for God because who but God could know the future? Even in the New Testament, gifted prophets in the Church also make predictions by the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 11:28).

However, in both the Old and New covenant periods, prophets actually spend most of their time FORTH-Telling rather than FORE-Telling. Meaning, they speak forth God's Word boldly, revealing God's mind, God's heart, God's will, God's FEELINGS (that's an amazing thought!) and God's purposes in the right now, not in the future. Prophets simply receive God's messages. So they also act as intercessors for people and nations, as God's chosen liaison/mouthpiece (see Jeremiah 11:14, 37:3, and Elijah in James 5:17).

Under this expanded biblical definition, Abraham is certainly a prophet. He receives God's messages all the time! (Gen 12:7; 13:14; 15:1; 18:10) He's just not delivering them publicly to a large audience, like Jeremiah or Isaiah did.  In Abraham's story, the author tells us the messages God gives to him, so it doesn't look like it's Abraham's "prophecy" because it's always God delivering to him, rather than Abraham delivering them to others.  But what else should we call these communiques, if they're messages or direct promises from God?  It's prophecy!  Abraham's prophetic career has a different feel than the Major Prophets because, again, he's not writing these down or delivering them like sermons to kings and peoples in courtyards, with the phrase, "thus saith the Lord!".

All messages directly from God are prophecies nevertheless.  And the fact that we even know about them means at some point Abraham delivered all this prophetic insight to others.

Also, Abraham does intercede for nations, like other prophets do, when he prays for Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 18).  And he speaks messages from God for people, even if it's just his own people - the people of his own house (Gen 17:9ff) who will inherit the promises God makes.

Secondly, despite all this FORTH-Telling, Abraham was also given messages about the future as the FORE-telling prophets did. For example, God revealed to Abraham what he was going to do with Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 18:17). Also, God revealed what he was going to do with the Amorites, that he was going to tolerate their sin for a while longer before judgment. And God revealed the fact that his descendants would travail in slavery for many generations (Gen 15:16).

So in both his FORTH-Telling roles and his FORE-Telling roles, Abraham qualifies as a prophet like any other.

What's Your Take on T.U.L.I.P.?

QUESTION: Where do you align with the Calvinism T.U.L.I.P. points

RESPONSE:  Well, let me first say that this is a highly disputed and sometimes contentious area of debate for Christian for hundreds of years.  

AC3 doesn’t hold an official position between Calvinism and Arminianism.  This is appropriate since the Biblical data about divine power and human responsibility is so wide ranging.   Still, I do have opinions about T.U.L.I.P. and I’ll share them here.  I could say (somewhat coyly) that I agree with all 5 points if you define them a certain way.  Defined classically, however, I struggle with parts of all of them:

T – Total Depravity.  I agree that we are totally depraved, in that every part of our nature is affected by sin.  I believe there is no unfallen part of us.  But I do not believe that we are as evil as we can be or that our sin slavery means we are incapable of doing any good in our fallen state (Acts 10:4).  I also don't accept that being "dead in sin" means a person cannot reach out for God, since Paul told unregenerate pagans that God put them where they are to seek him and reach out for Him (Acts 17:27).  The idea that we will be held accountable for our behavior and be justly condemned because of our sin is straightforward enough.  However, if this point means that our sin brokenness makes us so depraved that we can't even reach out or even want salvation without God wanting it for us, and then to further believe that God condemns us for not wanting it or reaching out for it (the very thing we are unable to do), is, to me, tortured logically (not to mention morally) and biblically selective.  But I do believe with our sin brokenness God must help us see the light and to overcome self and satanic deception that would keep us blinded to his saving grace.  I believe God gives this help to everyone.

U – Unconditional Election.  I agree in unconditional election if we define good works as the condition of God's choice.  God elects without respect to our good deeds; there are no good works conditions on Grace.  But I don't accept that God elects the saved and damned without regard for the belief or faith of the individual.  This is so obvious Biblically it should go without saying (Rom 3:22).  How many verses are needed to make the case that there is clearly a condition on salvation – it's faith!  However, the "U" classically means that God elects without regard to works or faith, but instead for no reason at all, except God’s glory.  This is deemed as fair, because all are justly condemned anyhow - if God picks him and not her that doesn't make her condemnation less deserved.  True enough, but if a remedy is selectively applied without reason, the problem of God’s unfairness is still very real.  To see the problem you just have to imagine an accident scene where 4 drunks are dying in a car about to explode.  They all deserve their fate.  But when a Rescuer comes by, and he can save all 4 but chooses to save only 1 for no reason at all, is this Rescuer still just and fair and good?  No.  But the God revealed in Scripture is “the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.” Deut 32:4 NIV.  Putting the condition of faith on Salvation, doesn’t diminish God or his glory (as some Calvinists would claim) or constitute a "work" on our part.  Rather, it exalts God's good character, by which he is bound, and only because of that can He be called faithful and true.

L – Limited Atonement.  I agree with limited atonement if by this we mean that the atonement will be limited in its effects.  All will not be atoned.  Yes.  I believe that universalism (the belief that all will eventually be saved) is a heresy.  Thus while God wants to reconcile ALL to himself, all will not be reconciled to him and some will be tragically shut off from God forever.  But I do not believe that Jesus died only for the elect – and again this seems to me, biblically explicit: 1 John 2:2 is clear enough.  On this point I take solace in knowing that even John Calvin wasn’t a “Calvinist,” classically speaking, since he admitted openly:

"Yet I approve of the common reading, that He alone bore the punishment of many, because the guilt of the whole world was laid upon Him. It is evident from other passages...that 'many' sometimes denotes 'all'...That, then, is how our Lord Jesus bore the sins and iniquities of many. But in fact, this word 'many' is often as good as equivalent to 'all'.  And indeed, our Lord Jesus was offered to all the world. For it is not speaking of three or four when it says: 'God so loved the world, that He spared not His only Son.'...Let us not fear to come to Him in great numbers, and each one of us bring his neighbors, seeing that He is sufficient to save us all." Sermons on Isaiah 53, pp. 136, 141-4

I – Irresistible Grace. I can agree with irresistible grace if by this we mean euphemistically that God is “irresistible”; that He is a wooing, drawing God.  If this means that no one comes to God without His explicit wooing, I agree with that too, for no one can become a Christian based on their own idea alone – God must draw them (John 6:44).  But of course, this phrase means much more than that to Calvinists.  It means that if God woos you, you will be saved, period.  And if you are not saved, then God never wooed you and never had saving intent towards you in the first place (which fits nicely with "L").  This doctrine essentially sets up a complete determinism which takes human choice off the table.  When you say God marks a person for salvation, and that person can't resist, it implies not only irresistible GRACE but also irresistible WRATH, since everyone not so marked has been selected for damnation.  (Though different Calvinists do make a distinction on this point.)  The strong implication is that all of this, the saving and the damning, is unilateral.  This makes humans out to be puppets and the whole redemption drama to be a pre-scripted charade.  Attempts are made to retain free will in this system but the “I” always creates an unsolvable paradox - how can I be free in any real sense, if grace is irresistible? I would rather take the biblical data at face value rather than try to cram them into a theological system.  For example, take the fact that God is not willing for any to perish (2 Peter 3:9), coupled with the fact that some will in fact perish.  The simple conclusion is that God’s saving grace can be resisted!  Jesus said to the lost, “how I longed to gather you… but you would not!”  That sounds like Jesus had a saving intent for Jerusalem that was actively and successfully resisted.  The Bible does not paint the human redemptive drama like a pre-scripted charade, but rather like a high stakes war.  The human story might have a certain final outcome, but in the meantime, options have been made available, sides are drawn, choices are made and that's how fates are sealed.  Not the other way around.

P – Perseverance of the Saints.  I agree with the "P" in that salvation is perfectly secure for all who trust in Christ; that God carries us to heaven by his grace and power and no one, not any trouble, not even our temporal sin can separate us from his love (Romans 8).  But I don't believe that trust in Christ eliminates your ability to later reject that same Christ.  If it does, then why was Hebrews written?  The whole letter is appealing to Christians to persevere.  If all saints persevere always, because of God's decree, then this whole letter is absurd.  Why warn those who are going to persevere in their faith (because God will make them persevere) of the need to persevere in their faith?  Why warn true believers (Heb 6:1-6 - these are not people who were "not real Christians in the first place") unless it's possible for some who claim Christ to later turn and reject him?  Why does Jesus tell the parable of the sower who sows some seeds that sprout and then die?  We must assume that some Christians just won't persevere, like two specifically named in the Bible, Hymenaus and Alexander, who Paul says, "shipwrecked their faith".  The Calvinist must claim that they could only fall away because they weren't really true believers.  But I believe it was John Wesley who said, "you can't wreck a ship you're not sailing on.”

The “P” in TULIP is the one point that many believers of any persuasion usually agree with because of its comforting appeal.  I don’t begrudge them their hope in God’s sustaining power - "my sheep know my voice - no one can snatch them out of my hand".  However, I note that whatever comfort is gained by “P” in this system, is often lost by “U”.  That is, how can I unerringly know that I’m one of the unconditionally chosen elect who always perseveres?  I cannot know since it's God's choice and none of my own.  I may think I believe, but maybe God didn’t pick me, and I’m self-deceived.  This anxiety marks some Calvinists I know.

But if you ever worry that you’re not one of the elect, this should be a self-correcting feeling.  No sooner have you felt it, than you have been assured that you are in fact, Elect, since you do believe in Christ, and his promise for those who believe is sure.  Only those never concerned with the question should worry about the question, since by their indifference to Christ they show they do not belong to Him.

I should repeat that I don't make a hard stand about TULIP at AC3, and we have plenty o’ Calvinists among us, and I have many who are close friends.  My concerns are less theoretical than they are practical, especially in more radical variety of TULIP believers (AKA hyper Calvinists) who:

• Diminish the need for conversion (and accept infant baptism more readily)
• Diminish the importance of evangelism
• Experience copious amounts of anxiety about whether they are elect or not
• Believe God elects people to hell and thus can’t believe that God is love.
• Start to accept a might equals right mentality in life, church and politics because God’s Sovereignty and Power trump his Goodness.
• See public invitations to faith or appeals to mind or conscience as at best useless and at worst, sinful.
• Require a person show evidence of “regeneration/election” before you preach to them.

Why Don't Christians Honor The Sabbath?

QUESTION: I’m a Christian, but one of my big unanswered questions is this: why don’t we honor the Sabbath?  It’s a commandment and it’s NOT SUNDAY – Sunday is a Pagan holiday!

ANSWER: I actually agree that we should honor the Sabbath as an ongoing part of the moral law.  However, I think that the controversy about how we honor it and when, stems from the fact that Jesus said things that altered the believer’s relationship with the Sabbath.

For example, by the time of Jesus ministry, the Sabbath had turned into rules upon rules that forbade anything one might deem “work”.  So one Rabbi said (this is not a joke) that he wouldn’t eat an egg on the Sabbath because that meant a chicken had been working!  

Into this legalistic world Jesus disciples were walking along one day and ate some wheat they found at the edge of a field.  The Pharisees were stunned.  This violated the Sabbath because to them it constituted ‘threshing’.  Jesus responded in defense of his followers by pointing to two times in Scripture when ceremonial laws were violated with God’s specific permission, both times violations of Temple procedure. Then He says this shocking thing: 

Matt 12:6-8: “But I tell you that something greater than the temple is here! 7 If you had known what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

This is amazing on a couple levels.  One, it seems Jesus is preparing the ground for the Church to abandon the ceremonial laws of the Torah.  He does this on several other occasions, like when Mark says that Jesus “declared all foods clean” (Mark 7:19) or when Jesus mentioned there were “weightier matters in the law” which related to its MORAL duties as opposed to its ceremonial duties (Matt 23:23).

Two, Jesus in this teaching is putting himself higher than the Temple!  And in so doing, declares that He is over the Law!  And he was clearly reserving the right to reinterpret the law and tell us what parts of Moses are being prepared to be laid aside.

As a result of Jesus, every Christian now believes that much of the Mosaic code is no longer in force for believers.  We do however, carry forward the moral demands of the Law as a guide for discipleship (even as we realize no one is saved by obeying the law, for no one is able to, Rom 3:20-21).

This leaves us with the critical question: is the Sabbath part of the ongoing moral demands of the Law, like do not murder, etc, or is it part of the ceremonial laws which Jesus clearly lifted?  This question is the heart of the controversy about the Sabbath.

Some believe that all obligation to Sabbath keeping is nullified in Jesus words.  John MacArthur just made a pretty strong case about that, if you want to check out his sermon online.  But I don’t agree totally with him.  I think that all 10 of the 10 commandments are the objective definition of loving behavior toward God and toward our fellow man.  If so, there must be an ethical/moral imperative that remains for Christians who are not saved by that Law, but who nevertheless are called to walk in love, which the Law defines.  I believe therefore, that the Sabbath command is part of the obligation we have to love God and love ourselves.

Jesus in fact would say love is the moral force behind the Sabbath when he said in Mark 2:27-28:

“The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. 28 Therefore the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

The Sabbath is for us!  We are not made to be slaves to Sabbath rules, rather the idea of rest is built into creation and moral law so that Sabbath serves us!

So if this is an ethical demand that carries forward and it is for us rather than us made to come under a bunch of Sabbath rules, this poses a new question:  does this mean we are free to change the means by which we obey the Sabbath?  Can we find and obey the ethical demand inside the commandment, even if the rigid rules around the Sabbath, which Jesus clearly rejected, are discarded?  I think the answer to that is yes!

I say this because already in the early church, you see them meeting on “the First day of the Week”.  That’s Sunday.  They were mostly all Jews, so that didn’t mean that they were not also observing the Sabbath on Saturday.  But it does mean that already within the first generation of Christians, the worship of God and the observance of rest and reflection was transferring Sabbath qualities onto a different day.

To add to this elasticity about the Sabbath, Paul asked Gentiles to be patient with Jews who considered some specific Days sacred, but Paul clearly was not critical of those who didn’t observe those special Sabbaths which Moses commanded (Rom 14:5).  So, already in the early church, Jesus' teaching on the Sabbath had lifted some of the specific requirements of Sabbath observance found in Moses.  I think therefore, that Christians have freedom to do Sabbath things (Rest, Reflect, Recreate) on different days and certainly not in subservience to the traditions of the Jews – Jesus made that abundantly clear.

What that means is that the ongoing moral content of the 4th commandment is that we must regularly, about once a week, and for a whole day, just rest.  Jesus modeled this rhythm of rest even as he pushed back hard against Sabbath regulations (Mark 6:31)  By the way, Sabbath doesn’t mean "Saturday" - it means, “pause”.  What’s important is not Saturday, what’s important is rest.

Looking at the creation narrative, rest is actually our default posture before God. When we were created, on the first day of Adam and Eve’s life, they entered into rest!  How awesome is that!  God made us in rest.  We work, yes, and we love productive labor, but rest is what we start in, spiritually and physically.  We launch out of rest into work, rather than see rest as the reward for work.  What a beautiful statement about grace!  Work does not save us.  Grace comes always comes before work.  Adam and Eve started in the grace of rest.

I think Christians who take Jesus teaching, “I am Lord of the Sabbath” to mean that we don’t need to feel a moral obligation to rest anymore are sadly mistaken.  Thankfully we are not saved by our perfect adherence to the moral law, but rather by grace.  Yet, on any of the moral commands that we fail to obey, we are failing to love, for Love summarizes all the law, including the 4th commandment.

However, to think that worshiping and resting on Sunday is to somehow honor a pagan holiday is mistaken as well.  Yes, the first day of the week is named after the Sun by pagans, but Thursday is named after Thor.  I don’t think I’m honoring Thor every time I write that day of the week on letters or emails!  If Paul said we are to have freedom regarding special days, then the day is what you make it.  

And the early Christians didn’t seem to care what the day was named, it happened to be the day that the Lord Jesus rose bodily from the dead!  If it was a "pagan day" before that, God had clearly robbed the gods of their right to that day and declared it His own, by honoring it with the Resurrection of His Son! 

Or do you think that it was for no reason that the “first day of the week” is mentioned so often in Scripture in this regard?  (Matt 28:1, Mark 16:9, Luke 24:1, John 20:1, Act 20:7, 1 Cor 16:2)  Scripture shows the early Christians were doing communion, taking offerings, and worshiping on that day, which means they were having sacred Christian gatherings - church services - on that day, already in 58 AD!

So I think you can be at peace about the specific day Christians honor the Sabbath, but do continue to honor the regular, weekly rhythm of rest as part of your duty to love God and love your neighbor as yourself – for Jesus said, God made the rule of rest, for us!

Is It Wrong To Have Images of God in Mind When We Pray?

QUESTION:  When I’m praying, I wish I could get this image I have of God and of Jesus out of my mind. You know the long hair and perfect face with an awesomely groomed beard?  I don't think that's what he looked like at all but that's the image that pops in my mind when I pray. Or a body with a sun for a head that's too bright to look at. I wonder if it’s wrong to have these images on your mind when you pray to God.

RESPONSE: Don’t be too hard on yourself when you pray with images in your mind that you know are inaccurate or even, dare I say it, somewhat idolatrous!!

Please understand, I don’t mean idolatry is ever good, but I think we must acknowledge that if idolatry is to worship something LESS than God, then we're all guilty of it.  Who could ever say they have a perfectly right image of God at all times?  If we don’t, and can't, then every imagining of God we can muster will be inaccurate in some way, and less than God’s perfect Self.  

This kind of "idolatry" is not intentional and it really can’t be helped – we are physical creatures after all, and every way we have of understanding something is in relation to some physical thing we know or see.  So how can we know how to accurately imagine a God we can’t ever fully know or see?

You see this dilemma playing out in the great vision of God that Ezekiel had.  Listen to his language the closer he gets to seeing the actual presence of God himself.  Language utterly fails him.  He says things like “the image of the likeness of the appearance of the Lord”.  !!  He’s using all these things he knows to describe what he’s experiencing, like animal heads and geometric shapes, but while doing it. he KNOWS it’s inaccurate, this is the "appearance" only.  It’s just these words are the closest he can get in his human mind to conveying what is completely beyond description.

So the best thing we can do, is to follow the example of Israel which was the only ancient people whose Temple was empty!!  That’s kinda funny when you think about it, and profound.  Every other nation had temples full of images.  The Jews had this amazing Temple… full of nothing!  Well, not exactly nothing, the ark of the covenant, a  couple of angel images, but definitely no image of Yahweh.  It wasn’t allowed, because any set image reduces God.

So we can tell ourselves that no image we have of God is adequate and then try to keep the Temple in our minds as empty as possible… but like Ezekiel, when pushed, we will grab for metaphors for God’s likeness that are not accurately God, but convey something about his true nature to our souls.  

For example, this Zeus thing we all have in mind, big guy, white beard, is not accurate, but it does convey something about wisdom or power or authority or personhood.  The idea of a throne of light, is also not exactly what God is, but it conveys perfection, truth, purity.  You see?  

It’s OK that we let many of these images pass through our minds in prayer to convey something about God that is true to our spirits, even if the image itself is not.  Just don’t settle on any one image.

Ironically, both the Mormons and the Muslims settled so hard on that Zeus-like thing, that they do in fact imagine that God is corporeal, with a real human face and body.  Needless to say, this reduces God’s majesty to imagine that God is no more than what we are.

However, having said that, we Christians must never forget that God did in fact, become a man.  And so if we see a man, Jesus, in our minds when we pray, this cannot be idolatrous, since the early church prayed to “the Lord” and it was Jesus they had in mind (Acts 1:24).  So God is not different than we find in this man, Jesus, for God revealed himself in the Son.  

And maybe, part of the reason for the incarnation was that, in the fullness of time, we really did need to see and touch and feel God.  He gave us an image to worship, since our hearts through all ages did crave that exact thing…  So now we have Jesus to imagine when we need an image of God, and this cannot be idolatry because all the fullness of the Godhead was present in him (Col 2:9).  

The incarnation is God condescending to our need, for a Savior certainly, but also to see the object of our worship!  In past ages, the Jews knew, anyone who sees God will die.  But in Jesus, God veiled himself in flesh, and by mercy made us right, so that we fallen sinners could see God, and live!

Does 501c3 Status Make Churches Obey Government Over God?

QUESTION: Just wondering if Allen Creek is a 501c3 church w/the IRS. I've been doing interesting research and I am curious your thought on that. Specifically it seems to be that being under contract to the gov/irs means not being obedient to God.

RESPONSE: Thanks for your question.  I've been asked this quite often, from folks concerned that any church that registers with the gov't gives the gov't control over the church's operations and message.

The elders of AC3 have decided that for now, we will continue to be a 501c3 organization because concerns about the gov't’s control are relatively minor, and that those controls which we submit to by coming into such a contract, we agree with in principle.  

So, for example, our status with the gov't disallows the church from officially endorsing any candidate or party for political office.  We actually have no problem with this restriction, since we have no interest in tying the message of Jesus to a political party or candidate.  The Kingdom of God should be ideologically unchained and independent from the Kingdom of the World and nothing ruins that independence faster than the church becoming an implicit promotional wing of a given political party.

We are not however currently required to refrain from speaking out on moral or social issues that relate to public policy or laws or political positions (like abortion for example).  Also, officers of the church can personally endorse parties or platforms as long as they maintain this as their personal position and not the official position of the church.  We rarely get that deep into partisanship at AC3, so these restrictions are not a burden to us.

In the meantime, the contract instills a benefit to donors to our ministry, by allowing them to deduct their donations from taxable income, reducing their tax burden if they choose.  For most donors this benefit is negligible, so the concern that registering engenders greed is overblown.

The reason for this arrangement has deep roots in American history, but mostly is an attempt in the tax code to incentivise charity, which can and does reduce the burden on gov't services.  Also, this status means the church pays no taxes on property which provides another benefit.  So the gov't, realizing that a thriving faith community reduces strains on criminal justice, public services etc., makes giving to established charities tax-deductible and makes the churches exempt from taxation.  The registration with the gov't is required to ensure that qualifying non-profits conduct activities that are truly charitable in nature.  Again, we do not consider this an unreasonable or restrictive burden.

The question may arise, do we see a time when the gov't may impose much greater restrictions on our activities and message through our affiliation with it?  The answer to that is yes.  Gov'ts around the world that ask churches to register with them, do often restrict the freedoms of those churches.  This is true in China and across the Muslim world and to a lesser degree in Europe where churches are sometimes funded by the gov't (Norway).  So it may certainly be the case that in the future, the American gov't may "crack down" by revoking the non-profit status of churches that refuse to promote publicly taught views on gender and sexuality, for example.  To this date, "exemption clauses" make Churches immune to discrimination laws on these particular issues because of our history of religious freedom.  So historic Christian teaching on sexual morality is not yet directed by state morality.

These exemption clauses do not feel stable to me at all.   They are, if one were to be honest, "bigotry clauses".  This is because, in the public view, Christian teaching on sex is not "just another way" in our pluralistic society which we tolerate, but rather is explicitly an immoral way.  Therefore, ask yourself how long any society gives safe haven to groups and views that the majority considers to be offenders of common decency.  Not long.  

So it may be that we can see a future where the gov't provides increasing pressure on churches to conform to public views on controversial issues (this year, the gov't of Canada refused any public funds to hiring organizations - including churches - who did not subscribe to its view on unlimited abortion access).

But our fears about such a day when our 501c3 is used to club us into submission are yet future.  And I lose no sleep over it.  It doesn't concern me because on the day that our teaching of historic Christian doctrine means the removal of non-profit status, that is the day we will gladly surrender the benefits of being a non-profit!  

Our message is the same one Christians have always had:  Jesus is Lord.  If that message means donations to churches no longer have personal/corporate benefits, because the gov't no longer considers Christian charity to be beneficial to society, well, so be it.  We will simply deregister with the gov't.  And if that earns us other penalties, we'll accept those as well.  Compared to the cost our brothers and sisters around the world and through history have paid to say, "Jesus - not Caesar - is Lord," ours would be a mere trifle.

But, I can think of no good reason to not enjoy benefits which enhance our mission until such a time that our freedom to conduct that mission is infringed upon.  And I can report, despite any suspicion that there's a secret, undetectable hand behind the 501c3 status that we should be afraid of, that no sermon, no word of doctrine, no part of our operation as Jesus people has ever been impinged by our gov't.  So far.

We move forward then, innocent as doves, shrewd as snakes.