A God Veiled in Time and Space but Revealed in Christ

Posted on January 20, 2023 by salooper57

This article first appeared in the October 19, 2018 issue on Christianity Today website. I found it while doing some research for a sermon on Colossians 1:15-20 and thought I would share it with you again. Hope you enjoy.

If God wants us to believe in him, why doesn’t he come out of hiding?

When I read that songwriter Michael Gungor told his wife Lisa, “I don’t believe in God anymore,” I experienced a familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the same one I’d had a couple of years before when Nick, a twenty-something leader in our church, called in a panic. He was having doubts and wanted to talk. I spent hours with him, listening as he poured out his questions and fears. Over the months that followed, I prayed God would reveal himself to Nick, but his doubts hardened into unbelief. He began telling people he was an atheist.

Nick and Gungor seem to be following a well-beaten path to atheism: cognitive dissonance over the church’s stand on sexual orientation and gender; outrage over pain and injustice; doubts regarding the authority of Scripture; and an embarrassing feeling that science has rendered belief in the Bible’s claims ridiculous. If there are reasonable explanations for these conflicts, why doesn’t God just show us? Why doesn’t he come out of hiding? Why doesn’t he come out of hiding and reveal himself to my child, to my friend? Or, if he has, to where can I point them? The various doubts that tripped my friend before he fell into atheism were all situated on the bedrock of the hiddenness of God. His thinking went like this: Christians say that God requires people to believe in him or they will be eternally condemned; God, if he is good, would assist people in forming that belief by revealing himself; God does not reveal himself; therefore, God is either not good, or he does not exist.

Michael Gungor and my friend Nick are hardly alone on this path to atheism. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, Protestantism is no longer a majority religion in the US, and 18 percent of adults raised in a religious tradition now consider themselves either atheists, agnostics, or unaffiliated—a shift driven largely by Millennials. As far as these young adults are concerned, the burden of proof is on God. If he exists, he’s going to have to prove it.

The hiddenness of God, which was once a problem for philosophers and theologians, is now a reason for Millennials and their older counterparts to reject the gospel. Christian parents and leaders can help them work through this, but they must be able to offer reasonable answers to two questions. First, why would a God who insists that we believe in him not give us more evidence—why would he hide? And second, where would he hide? One would think that the God described in the Bible would be hard to miss.

So Where Does God Hide?

Take the second question first: Where does God hide? That he does hide is clear. Jesus repeatedly referred to God as “the one in secret.” Poets and prophets agonized over this, and Isaiah exclaimed, “Truly you are a God who hides himself.” But where on earth (or elsewhere) is there a place roomy enough for God operate and yet secret enough for him to remain hidden?

Such hiding places abound. God built them into the universe when he designed it. Creation is like a palace, built by an ancient king, filled with secret rooms and moving walls. The King can stay in the palace and yet remain out of sight.

In Quantum Uncertainty

Quantum uncertainty is one of those secret rooms built into creation, and the scientists who have tried to learn all the secrets of the King’s palace have been confounded by it. David Snoke, a University of Pittsburgh physicist, says that “given our present theories of quantum mechanics, some things are absolutely unpredictable to us …. hidden behind a veil we can’t look behind.”

Snoke is thinking about a theory called observer effect. On a quantum level, the very act of measuring a system changes the system. We cannot push Snoke’s veil aside, no matter how quick or careful we are, without changing what is going on.

Even apart from observer effect, uncertainty is inherent in all quantum objects, which is to say, in all physical reality. Yuji Hasegawa, a physicist at Technische Universität Wien (TU Wien) in Austria, reminds us that “the uncertainty does not always come from the disturbing influence of the measurement, but from the quantum nature of the particle itself.” Advances in technology may someday minimize observer effect but cannot remove indeterminacy on the quantum level.

Similar hiding places exist in the macro-world. Even systems that are fully deterministic— weather systems, for example—remain unpredictable because we can never have a complete knowledge of initial conditions. Snoke points out that this kind of unpredictability holds for quantum systems as well.

In the Unknowability of the State of Matter Due to Scope

We cannot see into the smallest places dues to quantum uncertainty and observer effect, but neither can we see into the largest places. Even apart from quantum uncertainty, the universe is simply too large for us to understand. Both the initial state of any system in the universe and its current state are beyond our grasp.

According to Randy Isaac, former executive director of the American Scientific Affiliation and VP of Science and Technology at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, the universe is so large and there are so many variables, we can only know it on a statistical basis. Isaac points out that one mole (a standard measurement equal to the number of chemical units found in 12 grams of Carbon-12) of a substance – that is, 6 x 1023 – “is so inconceivably vast that there is no hope of knowing the attributes of each molecule in even a minute but macroscopic amount of substance.”

If there is no hope in knowing the attributes of each molecule in a minute amount of substance, what can be said about every molecule in the known universe, which is currently estimated to be about 46 billion light years across? There are hiding places everywhere.

In Time

Perhaps time is the most mysterious hiding place of all. St. Augustine mused: “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.” Time is a mystery that is as close as our beating hearts. We live in it (at least we think we do) but we cannot say what it is. Time – our subjective experience of it, at any rate – potentially provides massive cover for God.

Paul Davies, Regents’ Professor at Arizona State University and Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, says that before Einstein, “space and time were simply regarded as ‘there’ – an immutable eternal arena in which the great drama of nature is acted out. Einstein showed that spacetime is in fact part of the cast. Like matter, it is dynamical – it can change and move and obeys laws of motion.”

Davies goes on to say that “intervals of time can be stretched by motion or gravitation.” This is the orthodox view of time held by physicists. It tells us something about what time can do but nothing about what time is. For that we must turn to the philosophers, who have struggled to understand the nature of time since pre-Socratic days.

Bertrand Russell argued that time does not flow, it simply is. The flow of time, or our movement through it, is an illusion. His colleague at Cambridge, J.M.E. McTaggart disagreed. It is not the flow of time or our movement through it that is an illusion, it is time itself.  It does not exist. The contemporary philosopher, William Lane Craig believes Russell and McTaggart are both wrong. Craig believes there is a time that transcends time, a God-time by which all other time is measured.

The Australian philosopher J.J.C. Smart argues that such a view of time leads unavoidably to an infinite regress. If we measure our time by a transcendent time, then we need yet another measuring rod against which to measure that time, and another by which to measure that time, ad infinitum. Rejecting this, Smart believes that the universal human sense that time is passing is an illusion “arising out of metaphysical confusion.”

Time, and our place in it, is a deep mystery. Philosophers cannot see into it and we can’t see through it. This makes time the perfect hiding place for God, providing him with limitless room to act while remaining perpetually out of sight.

The legendary British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle believed that God secretly acts at the indeterminate quantum level to direct the world to the future state he desires. In other words, God uses the hiding places of both time and quantum uncertainty to interact with the world.

But Why Would God Want to Hide?

But why would God want to hide? Is he just waiting to jump from his hiding place in quantum uncertainty and shout, “Surprise!”? Does he want to astonish us by the revelation that he has been here all along, working in our lives and our world, turning evil to good, and making all things serve his incomprehensible purpose?

Perhaps. God, as the Episcopal priest Robert Farrar Capon once pointed out, loves throwing parties: “Creation is not ultimately about religion, or spirituality, or morality, or reconciliation, or any other solemn subject; it’s about God having a good time and just itching to share it.”

Yet there is more to this than God’s love of a good party. Earlier, we saw how it is impossible for humans to see what’s really going on in the world, particularly the quantum world, because of observer effect. Perhaps something like observer effect might explain why God keeps his presence a secret from us so much of the time. He cannot enter our reality without changing it. Once he pulls aside the curtain and steps into our space, we will inescapably be changed, overwhelmed, and deprived of autonomy.

C. S. Lewis addressed this dynamic in Mere Christianity: “God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. … For this time it will God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not.”

The God of the Gaps

Quantum uncertainty, the vastness of creation, and the inscrutable nature of time present unbridgeable gaps in human knowledge. They are not gaps for which God supplies a ready explanation, but gaps in which God remains an endless mystery.

Trying to find God in the gaps is problematic. If he is hiding there, we will never find him. If he is not hiding there, science will eventually close the gap, God will cease to be a credible explanation, and the faith of struggling believers will be needlessly shaken.

If humans are going to find God, it will not be where he has chosen to hide but where he has chosen to reveal himself. It is not in quantum uncertainty or statistical analysis that God is discovered. We will not find him in a gap but on a cross. It is here in the most unexpected of places that we discern, as Stanley Hauerwas has put it, “the grain on the universe.”

(First appeared in the October 19, 2018 issue on Christianity Today website.)

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Forgive Him (Following Christ Today)

Posted on January 17, 2023 by salooper57

You cannot read the Gospels without getting the impression that forgiveness is a big deal. Jesus wants his people to be the most forgiving on earth – “not 7 times, but 70 times 7”! How do we do that? What gets in the way?

This is the first of two classes in which we learn what forgiveness is, why it is important, and how we can do it better.

Approximately 42 minutes
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Seven Reasons to Commit to Christ (Col. 1:15-20)

Posted on January 15, 2023 by salooper57

This message was especially encouraging to people. If it encourages you, please let me know by leaving a comment. – Shayne

Viewing time: approximately 30 minutes (text below)

The vision statement at Lockwood Church describes the reality we hope to see in this way: Committed: to Christ, to Christlikeness, to each other, and to the world. The life pictured in these terms is a cataract of love and grace that flows from the fountainhead of a transformational commitment to Jesus Christ.

The English word committed has two senses. It describes the subjective state of “being all in,” of feeling dedicated and devoted. This is a relatively new meaning, which first appeared in English usage in 1948. The older meaning, which goes back to medieval times, is of a thing or person being entrusted, or of a task being delegated, to the care of another.

We will only be committed in the contemporary sense of the word (will only be all in, dedicated, and devoted) if we are committed in the earlier sense of the word (our lives are entrusted to Jesus Christ, their care delegated to him). It is futile to work up a feeling of commitment when the act of commitment has never been performed. People who try will eventually fall away from Christ, find that they lack faith in him, and end up being agnostic or atheist.

If you are listening to this, whether here or on the radio or online, and you no longer claim to have faith in God, look to see if this was true in your own experience. You once had a feeling of commitment but never actually and intelligently committed your life, time, reputation, and future to Christ. You were with Christ – in the sense that you were attending church, maybe doing Bible study, or even teaching and preaching – but you hadn’t entrusted your life to him. You were like a woman who lives with a man but has never entered the covenant of marriage with him.

That is not who we want to be at LCC. Our goal is not a feeling, though we are grateful for the feelings that spring from our commitment to God. But making a certain kind of feeling our goal is a mistake. Feelings of dedication and devotion will come … and go (as such feeling come and go in marriage), but our reality is that we have committed ourselves to God for his purpose and are under his care.

Again, this is like marriage (which is probably why God used marriage as an illustration of our relationship to Christ). I am married whether I feel like it or not. I entered the covenant of marriage with Karen Wilson on June 30th, 1979. Whether I am filled with affection or anger toward her, whether she respects me or thinks that I am a jerk, I am still married to her. I may get dementia and not recognize her, not remember that I am married to her, but that will not change the fact that we are married. I am committed to her not just with a feeling but with a covenant. I am hers and she is mine, and that is that. And that is good.

Or take the army as an illustration (which the Bible also does). Let’s say I am an 18-year-old who, two days ago, took the oath of enlistment. But now I have had a sudden realization: I don’t like the army. I don’t feel like a soldier. In fact, I identify as a civilian, not a G.I. That may be but, when I took the oath, I committed myself to the army for two years of active duty and six years in the reserves. Whether I feel like a soldier or not, whether I have a strong sense of devotion and dedication or not, I am army.

Before we dig into Colossians 1:15-20, let me ask you to reflect: Are you committed to Christ – that is, have you entrusted yourself to him like a recruit who takes the oath and entrusts himself to the army? Have you given yourself to Christ like a bride who gives herself to her husband through covenant vows for better or worse, for richer or poor, in sickness and in health, through life and to death? Being a Christian is not about feeling a certain way; it is not about holding certain viewpoints; it is not even about praying a sinner’s prayer (though all those things can go with it). It is about confessing Jesus Christ Lord in a commitment of yourself to him. Apart from that commitment, you are not a Christian; you’re a girlfriend, but not a wife; you’re a high school senior in the recruiter’s office, but not a soldier.

I’ll let you in on what I am trying to do in this message: I am trying to persuade you to commit yourself to Christ. If you haven’t already done so, I am going to tell you why you should. (I’m the army recruiter handing you a pen; I’m the matchmaker telling you about Mr. Right.) If you have already committed to Christ, I am going to show you why you should stand by, reaffirm and rejoice in that commitment.

Why should you commit your life to Christ? Why pin your hopes on someone who lived 2,000 years ago? Why invest your time and money? Why change your lifestyle? If I were limited to a one-word answer, that answer would be: Jesus. He is the only reason you need. I know that preachers often tell people they should commit their lives to Jesus, so they don’t go to hell. Yeah, that too. But the worst part of hell is missing out on Jesus. Jesus is the treasure. He is the pearl of great price.

That preeminence of Jesus shines through our text, which is a magnificent hymn of praise. From verse 15 through verse 20, there are no less than 12 pronouns that refer to Jesus (and an additional implied pronoun). Paul and the early church had met Jesus and they couldn’t give over it! There is no one remotely like him. To know him is to love him.

And to see him … to see him is to be transformed, transfigured, and made new. St. John understood and wrote, “We shall be like him” – which corresponds to St. Paul’s, “We shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling on an eye” – “for we shall see him” (1 John 3:2) What may be my favorite verse from any hymn goes like this: “He looks, and ten thousands of angels rejoice, and myriads wait for His word; He speaks, and eternity, filled with His voice, re-echoes the praise of the Lord.”

If we only see him through the glass of this life darkly, the eyes of our hearts but faintly illumined, if we merely behold the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, even so, we are changed. My life has been transformed in this way. But when we see him (Paul’s words) “face to face,” when we see him (John’s words) “as he is,” we will undergo a metamorphosis that will transmute, transform, and transfigure us into something we cannot now imagine. And when, in the words of the Revelation, “every eye will see him,” the world itself will be reborn.

What magic is at work that will transform us and make the world new? Only Jesus.

I want us to see Jesus today, even if through a mirror darkly, even if through the beclouded eyes of our spirits. But that will require the mediation of his Spirit on whom we must depend.

Let’s read our text, this stirring hymn to Christ (Colossians 1:15-20): He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

Why should you commit to Christ? The Apostle Paul gives us 7 reasons: (1) Because of who he is; (2) because of what he has created; (3) because of where that creation is headed; (4) because of what he is doing now; (5) because he is the head of the church; (6) because he is the first to overcome death; and (7) because he has proved that he has our interests at heart. We could spend hours on this, and – glory to God! – we will spend eternity on it, but today we have about fifteen minutes. So, let’s get to it.

First, you should commit to Christ Jesus because of who he is. He is the invisible God’s image, all creation’s firstborn. I will focus on Christ as image, but I need to say this about the firstborn. The Jehovah’s Witnesses (God love them!) use this text to support their doctrine that Jesus is the first created being, but they do interpretive injustice to the word “firstborn.” It is used refer to the first of numerous children, but it is also used as a title for the first in importance. So, Solomon, who was neither his dad’s nor his mom’s first child, was given the title Firstborn – the one with the status and authority. It is in this sense that it is used of Jesus. His status is “First and Foremost,” and all authority belongs to him.

Besides that, the text emphasizes that all things were created in Christ. He is not the first of all created things but their Creator. The Watchtower Version obscures that fact by inserting the word “other” into these verses five times even though it isn’t there in the Greek even once. So, it says things like, “by means of him all other things were created,” and “he is before all other things,” and “all other things have been created by him.” That is not translation; that is propaganda.

You should commit to Jesus because he has the primacy – he is First – and because he is the invisible God’s image. We need to understand what that means. When God created humans, he made them in his own image. That, as far as we know, distinguishes humans from angels and animals and every other creature.

We were created in God’s image … and who is God’s image? Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God. We were made to be like him. But the image of God in humans was marred by the rebellion when humanity rejected God and, in so doing, defaced his image.

But God did not give up on the plan. God never gives up. Instead, through Christ his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and the impartation of his Spirit – God is renewing his image in humans and thereby restoring the beauty and blessedness of creation. So, Paul will later tell the Colossians that they “have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:9-10).

You were modeled on Christ, who is both the image of God, and the prototype on which you were based. You were designed to be like him. That’s why you should commit yourself to him.  

Why commit to Christ? Because you were not only made to be like him, but you were made in him – and not just you, but everything in Creation. Our text says that all things were made in (or by) him, and that all things were made through him (v. 16). Everything owes its existence to Christ. “Without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:2). Matter exists because of Christ. Dark matter exits because of Christ. All creatures that are not comprised of matter – there are myriads – exist because of him. All creatures that are comprised of matter – like humans, trees, bears, whales, rocks, and watermelons – exist because of him. You exist because of him. He made everything and he know how it all works – including you and me.

Let’s say you have a very complex piece of technology that isn’t working right. To whom would you rather take it– the person who made and programmed it, or just another user? The one who made it, right? When you commit to Christ, you are putting yourself in the hands of the one who knows how you work best because he made you.

Why commit to Christ? It is not just because he was the source of all creation but because he is creation’s goal (v. 16). Not only did all things come into being in him, but all things came into being for him. The Greek preposition implies motion: all things are moving toward him. He is both the beginning of our journey and its end, our source and our goal. You and I were not made for ourselves but for him and we, like Augustine, can pray: “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Why commit to Christ? It is not just because he created everything in the past or even because everything is moving toward him in the future, but because he keeps everything going in the present. Look at verse 17: “In him all things hold together.” All things: you, me, the planet, the cosmos, the universe. Everything.

A little over a month ago, researchers and staff at the ignition facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory accomplished a remarkable feat. They started a nuclear reaction that produced more energy than it took to ignite it – for the first time ever. The world scientific community is on pins and needles, as it should be. This accomplishment portends remarkable changes for our world.

This has been sixty years in the making. The team at Livermore was able to sustain that nuclear reaction for a few billionths of a second. Billionths. Jesus has been sustaining all the energy of creation since it came into existence (and he isn’t even tired). “In him all things hold together.” He is, even now, as the author of Hebrews put it, “sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3).

Apart from him, all things would come apart, and it wouldn’t take even a few billionths of a second. You, your very existence, is dependent upon him. He holds you together when life, and death, and the four forces of nature threaten to pull you apart.

Why should you commit yourself to Christ? Because he is (v. 18) the head of the church. People commit to the church only to find its leaders and members let them down. But the head of the church will never let anyone down.

Why should you commit yourself to Christ? Because he knows how to live right through death. He is (v. 18) “the firstborn from among the dead.” He not only knows how to beat death, but he gives his Spirit to those who are his so they can beat it too. The trajectory of human history changed forever on the morning Christ Jesus came out of the grave. He is the pioneer of our faith, forging a way through death for himself and for all who follow him.

So far, I’ve given you six reasons to commit your very self to Christ: (1) Because of who he is; (2) because of what he has created; (3) because of where – or rather, to whom – that creation is headed; (4) because what he is doing now; (5) because he is the head of the church, acting through the church on earth; and (6) because he knows the way through death and will lead his own people out.

Six great reasons to commit yourself to him, six proofs of Christ Jesus’s incredible power, incomprehensible intelligence, and masterful control. But as impressive as those things are, they leave something out: they don’t demonstrate that he is for me. They don’t convince me to trust him. Knowing that he is smart and strong and capable is not enough to move me to take the oath, to bind myself to him in covenant. I’ve known people who are smart, strong, and capable … and mean, unreliable, and selfish all at the same time! How can I entrust myself – my life, my future, my reputation – to Christ with any assurance that he will care for me?

That brings us to the seventh reason you should commit yourself to Christ, which comes from verse 20. We will not find Christ in eternity’s workshop making galaxies and stars and angels and dominions (though he has done all this). We will not find him on heaven’s throne, ruling over those galaxies and stars and angels and us (or at least not yet). Nor will we find him in the great mysteries of physics where he binds the four forces of nature together (though he is there). We will find him where he has chosen to reveal himself: on a cross, dying to reconcile us to God; dying to restore us to the glorious image; dying to make all things, in heaven and on earth, what God is his joyous love made them to be, including you and me.

This is why you should commit your life, your time, your future – your very self – to Christ: Because “He loved us and gave himself up for us” (Ephesians 5:2).  

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The Christian View of Wealth: A nuanced perspective from Jesus

Posted on January 14, 2023 by salooper57

Reading time: approximately 4 minutes.

What is the Christian view of wealth? I don’t ask about the “religious view” of wealth because I am not qualified to present the views of other religions. Perhaps I should not even speak of the “Christian view of wealth,” since there is a wide range of opinion across Christian groups. The folks in the prosperity gospel camp, for example, do not see eye to eye with the brothers in a Franciscan monastery.

Perhaps the question to ask is, “How did Jesus and his apostles view wealth?” The New Testament contains a storehouse of relevant data on the subject. According to Howard Dayton, sixteen of Jesus’s thirty-eight parables have something to do with money and possessions. Dayton notes that here are about 500 biblical verses on prayer and another 500 on faith, but over 2,000 on money and possessions.

The view of Jesus and Paul on wealth is nuanced, which makes sense given the large place occupied by wealth in the Bible and in people’s lives. For example, Jesus, unlike advocates of the prosperity gospel, never suggests that wealth is proof of God’s blessing. But then neither does he idealize poverty or recommend it as a path to godliness.

Photo by John Guccione http://www.advergroup.com on Pexels.com

It is true that Jesus once told a wealthy young ruler to sell all he had, give the proceeds to the poor, and come follow him. But the wealthy young ruler was the only person to receive such instruction from Jesus. He did not require other wealthy followers – think of Joseph of Arimethea or Nicodemus – to do the same.

Something similar is apparent in St. Paul’s approach to wealth. He is alert to the danger that wealth poses. Having money might lead people – falsely – to think of themselves as better than their neighbors. It might also cause them – disastrously – to transfer their future hopes from God to their wealth.  

But, like Jesus, his apostle neither congratulates nor condemns people for having money. He takes a very different – and practical – approach to wealth. He commands the wealthy “to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.” For Paul, neither the absence of wealth nor its abundance is what matters. What matters is what people do with the money they have.

As such, money is a test, an x-ray of sorts for the soul. Expose people to money, and a picture of what they are like on the inside begins to emerge. Because he understood how this works, Jesus could say: “The one who is faithful with very little is faithful with much, and the one who is unrighteous with very little is unrighteous with much.” Like an x-ray, money reveals what is on the inside.

But that doesn’t mean that money is safe. It is, as Austin Farrer once noted, one “of God’s good (but withal dangerous) gifts to us.” X-rays are wonderful diagnostic tools, but repeated, unprotected exposure to them can lead to serious problems. Repeated, unprotected exposure to wealth can do the same. Hence St. Paul’s instruction to do good, be rich in good deeds, be generous, and willing to share. These are protective measures for those who must deal regularly with money.

The views of money held by prosperity gospelers and by vow-of-poverty-taking friars have one thing in common. Even though one considers money a threat and the other considers it a triumph, they both consider it important. Whichever camp you’re in, money is a big deal.

Jesus, however, did not consider money to be a big deal. He referred to it as “a very little thing” or “the least of things.” This strikes almost everyone, from the impoverished friar to the $10,000-suit-wearing televangelist, as a kind of heresy. Most people, whether they love money or despise it, think it is important. Jesus did not.

This unusual approach to money is only possible for someone who views life in a fundamentally different way than most of us. Jesus was that person. He neither loved money nor was he anxious about it. It did not impress him, yet he knew what it was good for and how to use it well. His student, “when fully trained,” will be like him.

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The G.O.A.T. in the Kingdom of God?

Posted on January 11, 2023 by salooper57

Sports enthusiasts are always arguing about who is the G.O.A.T. (the greatest of all time) in their favorite sport. There was a time when a few key players in the Kingdom of God were debating the Kingdom’s G.O.A.T. Jesus’s answer is helpful to anyone who is his disciple. (By the way, it was not: “You’re a bunch of idiots to be talking about this!”)

Join Kevin Looper and me and the Following Jesus Today class as we think through what it means to be great in the kingdom of God.

Viewing time: 46:36

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Do Not Throw Away Your Confidence

Posted on January 7, 2023 by salooper57

(Estimated reading time: 4 minutes)

As I write, I am sitting in my study, facing my desk. In the middle of the desk is a monitor stand, built from shelving we had in our old house. I used the stand for my old CRT and LCD monitors, but it is not high enough for my laptop with its remote keyboard. So, I have three reams of paper on top of the monitor stand, and on top of them rests my computer.

There are 28 books lying on my desk. They rise and fall like foothills beneath the mountain of my monitor stand, with its reams of copy paper. On the corner of the desk, a tray for correspondence has overflowed in an avalanche of envelopes and notepads, and cascades down to the desktop.

This is how my study always looks between cleanings. In home décor parlance, I believe the look is known as “Early Disheveled.” Contrary to rumor, no children or pets have ever been lost in my study—but that’s not to say that there haven’t been some close calls.

I put off cleaning my study for a reason. I do not know what to do with all the stuff. Things that might be important go in the tray while I wait for more information, or formulate a response, or weigh a decision. They sometimes stay there for a long time.

My wife tells me that I ought to file such things, but I know myself. The file cabinet is a burial ground and file folders are graves. Once a paper goes in there, it will, apart from a miracle, never see daylight again.

I am going to clean my study someday soon. Despite appearances, I like things to be well-ordered. I will begin by moving the mountain of books back to their appropriate shelves in my study, office, and basement. Next, I will sort through the papers, keeping the relevant ones and disposing of the rest. Then, after a quick dusting, all will once again be right with the world.

But I foresee a problem. Experience has taught me that I go a little mad once I start cleaning. I know what to do with the books, most of which are already catalogued and have their particular places. But the papers are another matter.

As I begin to sort through the papers, I find many that are no longer relevant: deadlines are past, invitations are dated, decisions have already been made. But there are still some that I do not know what to do with. That is a problem. I want an empty paper tray.

That’s when I get a little crazy. After a few minutes, I begin tossing things, left and right. When I start a project, I want to finish it, and those papers are an obstacle to the completion of my goal.

In my quarterly frenzy to declutter (my wife would say it is more like a semi-annual frenzy), I have tossed things I wish I had kept. My determination to finish the task makes me act impulsively. I find myself throwing everything away.

What set me thinking about my rash disposal of things was a line in the biblical Book of Hebrews. The author admonishes his readers: “Do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.”

In our day, when so many people are “deconstructing” their faith, this warning to the Hebrews seems very contemporary. If faith can be deconstructed, it should be, and the clutter – the pietistic flotsam and jetsam carried on the tide of faith – thrown out. But the rash way in which some people are going about it almost guarantees that beliefs that warrant keeping will be discarded.

Many people, upset with the ecclesial debris that has accrued around their faith, have impulsively thrown faith itself away. When their confidence in Christ goes, their relationship to his church goes with it. Hence, Joel Belz, founder and CEO of World Magazine, is warning Christian leaders to get ready for an avalanche of church closings.

Those who throw away their confidence in Christ will find that they have discarded something precious. I hope it is not too late for them to recover it.

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The Ultimate Hero’s Journey: The Story of Jesus (Phil. 2:1-11)

Posted on January 4, 2023 by salooper57

When my son Kevin preaches, people take notes – including me. I’ve learned so much from him! It’s funny: ten or so years ago, when a staff position opened at our church and Kevin asked if I thought it was a good idea for him to apply, I said, “No.” I told him that it would be hard coming back – a prophet in his hometown. Also, I said, “I’ve taught you everything I know. If you worked with someone else, you would learn things I can’t teach you.”

But he did apply – and I am so glad he did! What a blessing he has been to our church family and to Karen and me. May he also be a blessing to you as he shares truth from Philippians 2:1-11.

Approx. 24 minutes.
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The Telescoping Reality (Luke 2:1-14)

Posted on January 1, 2023 by salooper57
Viewing time: approximately 27 minutes (Text below.)

Have you seen a telescoping spyglass? There is a wide cylinder in which a narrower cylinder rests, in which a yet narrower cylinder rests, and perhaps several more. I think our view of reality is likewise telescoping. We live in the narrow end and view our world through the lens of our own experiences. But we and our experiences are contained within a family circle, and our family circle exists within a community, and our community exists within a nation, and our nation exists within a world.

Most of our attention is given to the nearest circles of reality: ourselves, our family, and our immediate community, which is normal and good. But it is important to remember that we are part of something bigger, and that something bigger is part of something bigger still.

Think again of the telescoping spyglass and how its widest cylinder contains all the others all at once. It is that way with us, where the widest circle is not our nation. It is not our world, or even our cosmos. The widest circle, containing all others, is our God. He is, in the language of the apostle, “All in all” (1 Cor. 15:29).

We do ourselves injury when we fail to see that all things exist within the rule and love of our God. This includes the good and beautiful things, which we enjoy and for which we ought to be thankful. And it includes the hard things we endure, and even the grievous things we can hardly bear. Though we live within all these things, they exist within the encompassing scope of the gracious God’s good intent.

When we fail to believe this, many things disturb our peace and cast doubt on our security. Instead of being an opportunity to know God, life becomes an irritation and a threat. We question whether God loves us, whether we’ll be okay, whether we are enough. We have zoomed out far enough to see the enemies that threaten us and the griefs that might overtake us, but not far enough to see the heavenly Father within whose will all these things exist and to whom they pose no threat.

In verse 1, we read that “Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.” I wonder if the Emperor’s decree disturbed St. Joseph’s peace. Things were already difficult for him. Before he got married, his wife had become pregnant in mysterious circumstance and while she was away from home. And now this. The international census, instituted by the Emperor Augustus, had come to Israel.

There are various purposes for a census, but one is universal: effective taxation. Apparently, the Divine Caesar needed to do something about his cash flow. Posting troops around the world was expensive then, just as it is now. It is hard to plan a budget when you don’t know how much revenue to expect. And you won’t know how much to expect unless you identify your sources of revenue; hence, the census.

In Israel, unlike in the provinces, people were required to return to their hometowns to be registered in the census. Had I been Joseph, I expect I would have complained: complained about the Emperor, complained about the situation, complained about the time off work, complained about pretty much everything.

Perhaps Joseph, good man that he was, did not complain. Perhaps he saw that he, and his circumstances, and his work, and even his godless Emperor were all within his good God’s good intent. Whatever may be the case, Joseph went to his hometown; he went to Bethlehem. Luke tells us that he did this because he belonged to the house and line of David. And he took Mary with him.

Why he took Mary is not exactly clear. In other regions of the Empire, only landowners were required to register. Perhaps Mary, who was also from David’s line, was an only child and had inherited property from her parents. Or perhaps Joseph took her along to get her out of Nazareth because of what people there were saying about her. Whatever his reasons, Jospeh took Mary went with him, though she was (as the NIV puts it in verse), “expecting a child” (Luke 2:5), or, as the King James translated, “being great with child.”

It must have been a wearisome trip. Depending on the route they followed, they would need to travel between 70 and 90 miles, much of it uphill. Normally that would take four to six days, but Mary was quite possibly in her third trimester, so it might have taken even longer.

The popular account of Joseph and Mary reaching Bethlehem just as she goes into labor does not seem to fit the biblical text. Luke writes (verse 6) that “While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born…” We don’t know how long they were there, but it is unlikely that they stumbled into Bethlehem just in time for the baby to be born.

That’s not the only inaccuracy in the way the story gets told. The text does not say anything about a hard-hearted innkeeper turning them away. It is true that verse 7 says that there was no room for them in the inn, but the meaning of that word is in question. In its only other use in this Gospel, the word refers to a guest room in someone house. And the one time Luke clearly speaks about a travelers inn, he uses a different word.

So, let’s put those details together, then think about how Mary and Joseph must have felt. They arrived in Bethlehem prior to Mary’s labor. They had been there at least a short time before the baby was born. The inn – or guest room, which is a more likely translation – was unavailable to them. The text says literally (in a word for word translation), “because not to them was there a place in the guest room.”

Perhaps there was no place because other family members had arrived first and already occupied the guest room. But can you imagine a loving family sticking the pregnant girl who was about to give birth in the stable rather than giving up their room for her? It may be that the family disproved of Mary – almost thirty years later people were still making snide comments about Jesus being born illegitimately – and because of that she and Joseph slept with the animals.

This is speculative, of course. But imagine being Joseph or Mary. The family does not take you in. They say: “Sorry, very pregnant girl. You’ll need to sleep with the animals.” How would you feel? Would you remember the telescoping nature of reality and remind yourself that you were safe in God’s care?

From very early in Christian history, it has been said that Jesus was born in a cave. The church of the Nativity is built over the site of the cave that early Christians believed to be Jesus’s birthplace. Because homes were built on the ridge in Bethlehem and the ridge was dotted with caves, this cave may have been below a family member’s house, where his animals were sheltered. It might also have been a cave that local shepherds used for their animals. That seems likely to me because when the angel told the shepherds that a baby who is the Lord Messiah had been born and was lying in a manger – a feed trough for livestock – the shepherds hurried off (verse 16) and found Mary, Joseph, and the baby. They didn’t need to ask directions. They seemed to know where the baby in the manger would be. How did they know? It is possible that the cave where Joseph sought shelter belonged to (or was used by) one of those shepherds.

Luke first introduces those shepherds in verse 8. He says that “there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.” The fact that they were nearby is interesting and a little unexpected. It is unexpected because Bethlehem was not much more than five miles away from Jerusalem. Why does that matter? It matters because there was an ordinance that banned livestock from being kept within an eleven mile radius of the Holy City. (This was because of purity laws.)

So, what were these shepherds doing within the prohibited area? Were they breaking the law? No. There was one exception to the ban, which was a matter of necessity. Animals raised for sacrifice at the temple – and many tens of thousands were needed each year – were permitted within the eleven mile radius. That means that the sheep and other animals around Bethlehem were bred and raised for one purpose: to be sacrificed – frequently as sin offerings – to God.

How fitting that the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world would be born and then raised for a time in Bethlehem! The one whom God presented as a sacrifice of atonement was born where many such lambs had been born, dating back centuries. The shepherds who attended him at his birth had attended the births of thousands of lambs that had been offered in sacrifice to make atonement.

Can you feel the circle within circle of the providence of the all-knowing God? But did any of this occur to Joseph’s mind when he was informed – perhaps by some swaggering Roman soldier – that he must leave Nazareth and travel to Bethlehem at the most inconvenient time and register in a most inconvenient census for a most inconvenient tax? Probably not. But God knew. No wonder Paul burst into praise: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen” (Romans 11:33-36).

Luke began the birth narrative section with Augustus, “Father of his country,” “Savior of the world,” “the Emperor Caesar Son of God” – those were some of his titles. Now he turns from the most powerful man in the world to men who lived at the other end of the social spectrum. Shepherds had no authority or status. They were peasants who rarely owned their own land or even the sheep they tended. But the God who, in Mary’s words, “has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts … has lifted up the humble” (Luke 1:51b, 52b). The shepherds, no less than the Emperor Augustus, were well-known to God, and both they and he existed within the circle of his will.

God’s messenger angel brought these shepherds the good news that the Savior, the Lord Messiah, had been born to them. Notice how personal this good news is. The angel does not say, though it was true, that a Savior had been born to the world, but rather “to you is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord.” The shepherds, who were so often excluded from social functions, were included by God, and honored by him.

The angel gave the shepherds a sign. God will, I think, give signs to anyone who will make use of them. I’ve talked to people who say, “If God wants us to believe in him, why doesn’t he just give us a sign?” I suspect those same people pass by every sign that God posts without reading them. If a sign will help, you can be sure that God will give it. That was the case for the shepherds.

This is what I think happened. When the angel told the shepherds, “You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger” (an animal’s feed trough), they knew just where to look. I don’t doubt that Joseph had already talked to one of these shepherds about using the shelter where he kept the sheep when the weather was bad – and when the ewes were lambing – and so they knew right where to look.

The news that a baby had been born and was lying in a manger might have left the shepherds wondering what help a baby would be – especially a baby born to a poor family who had to use a manger for his crib. Perhaps they thought, “We need an army, not a baby.” But this baby came with backup – not that he needed it. For immediately, the sky was filled with “a great company of the heavenly host” (2:13).

We’ve heard that phrase many times, usually as part of the Christmas story, but we might not understand what it means. The word translated “host” is simply the Greek word for “army.” This is Company A – possibly part of a combat brigade. We often speak of these herald angels as singing, as if they were a choir, but the text says they “were praising God and saying…” Perhaps we would be better to imagine their words as a chant, a kind of marching cadence: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests” (2:14).

As soon as the army had vanished from sight – though they maintained – and still maintain – a strategic position – the shepherds “hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger” (2:16). The shepherds that kept watch over the sheep found the Lamb that keeps watch over them.

And now, be amazed at our great and glorious God, from whom and through whom and to whom are all things. See again the telescoping reality of his creation. The movers and shakers of the earth – the great ones who have taken titles for themselves and think that they are the ultimate power of the universe – fit easily into our God’s hand and can do nothing to thwart his will. And as we descend from these great ones, circle within circle, world, nations, kings and rulers, we arrive at last at the circle we occupy.

It is filled with ordinary things: with births and deaths; with need and plenty; with love and hate; with beauty and ugliness. In this circle, we go to our jobs – whether we are shepherds or craftsmen. We go to the market. We go to school. We eventually go to our grave. This circle too is within the scope of God’s purpose, and we are held in the palm of his hand.

But because of Christmas, because the Word was made flesh, the God in whom all things hold together was himself held in the Virgin’s womb – and then in the manger crib. The same God who is wholly other is one with us. The One who transcends all things is imminent within them. The God who is ultimate being, the outside cylinder of this telescope reality, is also at the center of its inmost circle. He is all and in all.

The God who exists beyond time, and at all points in time, enters time and dwells with us. “Time is silly putty in his hands,” as the philosopher Peter Kreeft once said. He can compress a thousand years into a day and stretch a day into a thousand years. Time is his accordion, which he expands and contracts as he plays his dazzling tunes.

The eternal God has entered time. The infinite God whom the heavens and the highest heaven cannot contain (2 Chron. 6:18) now dwells in people – first in the Virgin’s womb and now in our hearts. When he came to be born of the Virgin, angel armies stood at attention. When he comes to judge the earth, angel armies will do the same.

On this Christmas Day, we worship the newborn king who is also the Ancient of Days. We glory in the infinite God who once lay in a cramped manger. He did not despise the Virgin’s womb, nor has he despised the hovel of our hearts. Instead, he is making them new from the inside.

On this Christmas day, let us take courage: for this God, who holds emperors and kings and presidents in his hand and disposes them according to his will; this God who made all things and in whom all things consist; this God is, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, our God and we are safe in his hand.

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Does God Want You to Be Happy?

Posted on December 31, 2022 by salooper57

(Reading time: four minutes.)

In his classic story, The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis has the great Lion, the Christ figure Aslan, say to the story’s protagonists, “You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.” Perhaps Lewis put these words in the Christ figure’s mouth because he realized that this was the kind of thing the true Christ was saying to him.

The idea that Christ wants his people to be happy is not one that most of us, who have swallowed a cultural caricature of religious people, have spent time exploring. That caricature, found in books and film, represents Christians as dreary, dour, and frequently sour folk who care nothing for earth, but only for heaven. They regard every earthly pleasure as a threat, which is their sacred duty to avoid. They also feel an obligation to deny these ruinous pleasures to others.

It is, unfortunately, not just irreligious people who have bought into this way of thinking; many Christians have too. They have somehow come to believe that the faithful can’t have fun. To enjoy earth, they think, is to betray – or, perhaps, to risk – heaven.

But is this a caricature? Doesn’t the Bible say a lot about keeping commands, fleeing youthful lusts, and walking in the narrow way? Isn’t the Bible filled with commands that Christians are required to obey? Wouldn’t constant attention to those commands make anyone dreary, dour, and sour?

I think this way of framing it is misleading. Yes, there are many rules or commands in the Bible – more in the New Testament than in the Old, which many people find surprising. But keeping these commands was never an end in itself, nor was keeping them a requirement for entrance into the afterlife.

Think of it this way. There are a lot of rules in music. For example, music follows a rhythmic pattern at a particular tempo. It requires pitch, which is a result of sound waves vibrating at particular frequencies. Musicians make use of particular pitch patterns based on established relationships between these frequencies. They build harmonies on recognized combinations of them.

Anyone may choose to ignore these rules and do music their own way. That, of course, is up to them, but they may not be able to play well – or play at all – with other musicians. Moreover, it is quite likely that neither they nor anyone else will find their music satisfying. The “rules” of music are not there to frustrate musicians and get in their way. They simply express the way music actually works.

Likewise, following the Bible’s rules helps us “play well” with God and others in a way that is rich and satisfying and wonderfully creative. God did not give us rules to frustrate us, but to enable us to flourish.

If we only keep the Bible’s rules as a means of reaching a desired end – entrance into heaven – they will feel artificial and imposed. But once we realize that these rules express the way life works best, the door opens for us to see that God wants people to be joyful. The mistake we repeatedly make is trying to create feelings of joy rather than construct a state of being in which joy is a natural part.

Photo by Bekka Mongeau on Pexels.com

God, the Bible makes clear, experiences joy himself. He is, in fact, the most joyful being in the universe. He delights in his creation, rejoices over his beloved people, and takes pleasure in showering blessings on them.

It is because God is the universe’s most joyful being that the hero Nehemiah could tell people: “the joy of the Lord is your strength.” It is also why the biblical songwriter could say to God, “…in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

C. S. Lewis was right: “…it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

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Grinched! (Spiritual Experiences Are Not Enough)

Posted on December 28, 2022 by salooper57

(Viewing Time: 21:14.)

On Christmas Eve we put on an original (and fun) skit that featured the Grinch of Dr. Seuss fame who was being interviewed on The Jenny Carson Show. In the highlight of the interview, the Grinch says, “I would just tell everyone that an experience – even a very powerful experience like I had – is not enough. After it happened, I thought, “I’ve had a spiritual experience,” and, I guess, I felt like that was all there was to it. But I needed more than an experience. I needed a life.”

The devotional message that follows takes up the theme with examples from Scripture, including the Christmas story. Spiritual experiences are great, but they are not enough!

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