Tag: God

Reflections on Why the Biblical Story Makes the Most Sense

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This is part IV in a series on apologetics. If you want to read the other articles click on the following links:

Part I What is Apologetics?
Part II People and Apologetics
Part III Christianity and the Questions of Right and Wrong

Enjoy!

“The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’ The child enjoys his cold meat, otherwise dull to him, by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savory for having been dipped in a story…by putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it.”

― C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature

Life is full of myth, lore, and drama that ensnares the imagination and catches us up within the rich tapestry that makes up our human story – that makes sense of our existence. Every one of us has this deep sense of our life, meaning more than it does, from the Sun rising in the East to the birds singing in the early morning. From the kettle boiling, our stomachs rumbling, the caress of a brisk winter wind, or the smell of saltwater in the Summer. The high pitched cry of a newborn baby and the roof of your mouth burning after taking a bite from a slice of hot pepperoni pizza. The gutted feeling you get over betrayal or the stress of paying your bills on time. The weariness one feels after a long day at work or looking after the family. For some, depression, for others, worse. Finally, the contentment (or excitement) of being in the arms of a lover – these are all paragraphs in the chapters to the book that makes up our existence.

The greatest stories ever written are told so that humanity can make sense of themselves. So that we can all slowly stitch together those chaotic, beautiful and terrifying chapters that we’ve all starred in. The world’s oldest stories, from the Enuma Elis (The Epic of Gilgamesh), The Hermopolis Egyptian creation myth, and The Eridu Genesis, to the Aboriginal dream-time stories and the Native American Creation myths, every culture and civilization has within their memory a story that defines who they are and why they’re here. For the modern West, we look to science and western philosophy to make sense of our humanity. According to evolutionary biologists, humanity (Homo sapiens) evolved from Homo heidelbergensis somewhere around 100 000 years ago. All life (a biologist might argue) evolved from the big bang event approximately 13.7 million years ago, and humanity is the latest in the evolutionary chain (that we know of). In light of this, philosophers like Fredrick Nietzsche and scientists in the neo atheist movement such as Richard Dawkins, and socio-political critics such a Christopher Hitchens might argue that life has no intrinsic meaning or value (this is called existential Nihilism). As Dawkins famously said, “the universe we observe is precisely what we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” However, for most of us, this bleak commentary on the nature of existence remains unsatisfactory. Most of us, perhaps even Dawkins himself (though he might never admit it), have a deep-seated sense of “something more.” One cannot look at oneself in the mirror of the cosmos and not have their heart leap as it longingly grasps for something greater than themselves. We want to be known, we want to be loved, but we must first know ourselves and our place.

Herein lies the power of the biblical story (i.e. the Gospel – the Good News). The unfolding drama of the biblical story compellingly peels back the lays of the human existence and uniquely relates them to God, to one another, and the world in a way no other story does. Why is this story significant? Because of the way we live, relate to one another, and the world around us, the way we relate to God profoundly depends on how we comprehend, perceive and understand all of these things; otherwise, Nihilism may be true. Let us then explore this narrative so that we may judge for ourselves how this story makes sense of our existence.

  • God gives meaning and purpose to all that exists and orders it out of a chaotic state (Genesis 1:1-25)
  • Humanity is endowed with God’s image (Genesis 1:26), and they’re tasked to multiply and subdue the earth (Genesis 1:27-28)
  • This image that God gives humanity is two things. It is 1. an ontological reality (a part of their nature) in which every human somehow shares in, participates, and retains something of God (separate but related to His likeness). 2. It is a task or vocation that God bestows upon humanity to live out this ontological reality. That task is to multiply, subdue the earth, and guard and keep the Garden (Genesis 2:15), the dwelling place of God.
  • Humanity fails at walking in God’s image. Instead of guarding the Garden, Adam and Eve allowed the serpent to enter God’s dwelling place and corrupt it. Adam and Eve, therefore, chose for themselves wisdom apart from God and decided to rule themselves apart from God’s love and wisdom (Genesis 3).
  • God takes Adam and Eve and removes them from His dwelling place, stopping them from eating from the Tree of Life. Humanity has now chosen spiritual death and disunity with God, and as a result, they are disconnected from one another and the creation around them.
  • However, God doesn’t let the world fall into chaos. He promises that through the line of Eve, humanity will be saved by crushing the serpents head even at the risk of the seed’s own life (Genesis 3:15).

In just the first three chapters of the Bible, we have a densely rich narrative that paints humanities reality. We were created and chosen by God for good things. For unity, for love, peace and joy. Yet we went our own way. From Genesis 3:15 onwards, the entire Bible is story after story of God rescuing the world through chosen individuals and people groups, eventually culminating in the person and work of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). In the final pages of the Bible, the Apostle John tells of a world where through Jesus the Messiah, there will be no sickness or death. There will be no separation from God, life, each other, and the world around us (Revelation 24).

At the end of the day, it is up to the individual to decide which stories they want to believe in, and which they don’t. The Bible is a big book, and it isn’t something that’s supposed to be read and understood in a day, week, or even a year. It’s complex, gritty, raw, alien, but all too familiar at the same time. I believe, if we wrestle with every page and let the Scriptures speak for themselves, this metanarrative we call the Bible makes the most sense of who we are (image bearers made to be in relationship with God, one another, and the created world), where we are (in an unjust fallen world that we all contribute to), and where we’re going (new creation free from the tyranny of sin and death). My invitation to you is to consider its message carefully, reflect, and ask yourself this critical question “does this make sense of our story?” Whether you realise it or not, you’re a character in its unfolding drama.

How will your chapter end?

Doubt

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How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?

  How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I take counsel in my soul

  and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;

  light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,

lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”

  lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

– Psalm 13:1-4

Just the other day I was in the car with my girlfriend Sarah driving as she was speeding down a street to get to MacDonald’s. I said “I’m not so sure of my salvation that if we were to die right now, I’d be in Heaven. Please slow down.” Immediately she slowed down and then asked me, “you’re not sure of your salvation?” “No” I replied. For some reason, Sarah could not fathom my doubt, and it hasn’t been the only time. Often, especially these days, I doubt my Christianity, my salvation, and even God. For some Christians like Sarah, this is hard to imagine. She’s had such tangible experiences with God to doubt His existence or to question His love for you is like doubting whether gravity or air exists. However, for me, I can’t even begin to imagine a life filled with such confidence. Just think of it, a life where no matter the situation you trust God with such unwavering faith that you never doubt His love for you let alone His existence. What bliss!

I envy people like that. I wish I just knew that everything I read and understood in Scripture is true without a shadow of a doubt. But I just can’t. I don’t know if it’s my sinful nature, Satan, whether I’m a product of post-modernism. I’m afraid. I’m so scared that I’ll believe the wrong things and die on the wrong side of whatever ends up being true. I’m always questioning myself and my doctrine. I’m continually wondering if what I think is right, is true. Perhaps I should attempt to lay aside my doubt and just swallow everything I’ve been taught hook, line, and sinker. The very thought makes me cringe – sick in fact! Yet the idea of living in doubt is just as crippling.

There are small comforts. I see real people in the Bible live with doubt. David, in his darkest moments, seems to question if God will ever act (story of my life). Peter doubted Jesus when asked to walk on water (Matt 14:30-31). Thomas doubted and needed to touch the risen Lord (John 20:24-29). Sure doubt is not something great, but it’s very human. I just want to say doubting is entirely normal. It’s expected. Uncertainty is something to live by and to fight against. The human experience is the constant battle between assurance and the doubt you experience from day-to-day. Living in the tension between these two experiences is very, very human. You are not the only one. Almost everyone wrestles with questions and ideas they’ve held to their entire lives. It’s good to test them and to hold fast to that which proves good. Embrace the journey.

I wonder if Jesus ever doubted anything? Immediately I want to say no. Maybe He didn’t. Yet when I read about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, I wonder if a certain sense of uncertainty was trying to overcome Him. The Scriptures say that His soul was filled with grief and that He asked the Father if He would take away the impending cup (the coming atonement). Yes, Jesus immediately said “not my will but yours,” but why even express that unless doubt was crouching at the door wanting to rule over Him right? To me, this makes Jesus all the more human, and all the more relatable without taking away His Godly nature.

What’s my point? I dunno. Perhaps I want to remove the stigma that surrounds doubt. I want to be able to explore my doubts without feeling like I have to have it all together to be a good Christian while at the same time, I want to strive for assurance. We all just need a little help, I think.

“Belief in God does not exempt us from feelings of abandonment by God. Praising God does not inoculate us from doubts about God.” 

– Eugene Peterson

“I do not believe there ever existed a Christian yet, who did not now and then doubt his interest in Jesus. I think, when a man says, “I never doubt,” it is quite time for us to doubt him.” 

– Charles Spurgeon

“I think the trouble with me is lack of faith… often when I pray I wonder if I am not posting letters to a non-existent address.”

 – C.S. Lewis

Let’s Fight Depression

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I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages. – C. H. Spurgeon

It’s only been hours since Jarrid Wilson pastor, and author of Love Is Oxygen: How God Can Give You Life and Change Your World, and Jesus Swagger died by suicide. As a personal favourite of mine, the news hit me hard. For the past two hours, I’ve been at a loss for word, tearing up, confused, shocked, and unable to properly process how someone like Jarrid – with a beautiful wife and two amazing kids, a successful author and megachurch pastor could, in a single moment give it all away. My heart aches for him, his friends and his family. I can bearly begin to fathom the hurt, trauma and anguish in the days, weeks, months and even years that are ahead for those closest to him. However, this hasn’t been the only case recently where a pastor has chosen to end their life rather than continue on. Suicide, depression and mental health problems are bombarding the Church in what seems like higher numbers than ever before. Personally, as someone who identifies strongly with this, I can’t help but say “this is not the kind of Christianity that I signed up for.” So many questions are rolling around in my head. Why is this happening to us? What is depression, and why is it so crippling? How do we fight this? Where’s God in all of this? I really don’t know.

This is not the Christianity I signed up for. Sure, I didn’t expect it to be all rainbows and butterflies, but the Christian life is meant to be full of joy and love and goodness, right? We were all told that God has a great and wonderful plan for our lives, that He wants to bless and prosper us. Where’s the light and easy yoke? Where’s the comfort, and the peace that surpasses all understanding? These are all legitimate promises and verses in the Bible, yet, in reality, it often feels like we rarely ever experience it. The fallen world gets the better of us. Sin crouches at the door, and it feels like we rarely rule over it. Depression smashes us and leaves us without hope, and we end up feeling like the Psalter who says:

My soul thirsts for God,
    for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?”
These things I remember,
    as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
    and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
    a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me? (Psalm 42:2-5a)

Notice though the glimmer of hope, how he longs to gladly shout praises amid his sorrow.  How hard it is to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I get that … I really do. God, dear beloved friend, gets it even more. Jesus, the man of sorrows shares in your pain, your anguish and your tears and He took them to the Cross. He longs to take hold of you and never let go. He loves you more then I could ever express in mere words. I know it’s impossible for you to see, but He offers new life.

Depression is dark and uncertain, but God called forth light and defeated darkness on the Cross so that we might live and live it abundantly. 

I don’t have answers. God does. Take up your swords fellow depressed and beaten down brothers and sisters, slay that which seeks to destroy your soul, take hold of the One who wants to bear your burden and for God sakes join arms with others. Please, we want to help you even if all we can do is hug you tight and pray. The fight sucks, but it is worth it…

Finally, here is my challenge:

  1. Christians make yourself available and make that publically known to everyone around you. Don’t let someone slip through the cracks because you were too lazy to love someone.
  2. Pastors stop preaching trash. Get it into your thick skull, the message of the Bible isn’t sunshine and lollipops. It’s light overcoming darkness, and that’s yet to come to completion until our King returns. Preach the Cross. Preach freedom. Preach life. Just don’t forget to preach it out of the reality we live in, not the one we try to create for ourselves.
  3. If you’re struggling hardcore with this and you know me. Contact me, please. Let’s walk, talk and drink coffee together. I’ll listen, pray and give you a hug. You’re worth it and much much more.

Existential Christianity

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A friend of mine once said the “Gospel” we preach today is the reason why so many people are at a loss with the Church. It’s the reason why so many of us are struggling with depression, anxiety, gender identity, and why once-famous Christians are walking away. Maybe. I think everyone believes that their “Gospel” is the right one. I think everyone thinks that if everyone just got their “Gospel” then the world would change and BAM! Jesus comes back and all is well with the world. The problem with thinking like that is that even in the midst of biblical Christianity, the Apostles had a lot of crap to deal with. Life didn’t get better for them, it got worse. They had hope in Jesus, but in their immediate set of circumstances, the Church was killed and ostracised for being a cult and for rebelling against the State (the Roman Empire). I’m now half a world away and two thousand years into the future. There might not be a Roman Empire per se, but mental health issues, social and educational persecution, the prosperity Gospel, liberalism and a swath of issues are on the front lines of the Church’s Western Front. Principalities and powers indeed.

Not only that but more than ever in the history of humanity information and in turn philosophical and scientific theories are spreading like wildfire. You can walk into one room full of ten people with vastly different perspectives and get ten different definitions on the meaning of life and how it should be lived. Even among Christians, I’ve rarely met any two people who could agree on what it even means to be Christian. We all say yes and amen at “love thy neighbour,” but what it actually means to do that looks completely different to whoever it is your talking to.

Personally, as I venture down the black hole that is theological and philosophical thought, I find myself, in my strive for wisdom, in a constant inner war between two primary concepts; meaninglessness and purpose (found in Christ). I find myself very much at home with the existentialist or even the authour of Ecclesiastes. There is a realness to life I think we all try to avoid. We all wear smiles as we attempt to turn that frown upside down. It’s socially awkward to admit that life sucks. “How are you?” “Yeah, good” or “not bad” is our autoresponse. Life slaps us in the face when a loved one dies or a tragedy befalls us. Suddenly it’s ok to cry, to mourn and to hurt… yet… every one of us does that every day. There’s a beautiful dread to life that we hate admitting exists. If it weren’t for the Gospel then where would I, or any of us be?

Here’s my point to all of this. Human, get good at talking about the pain and the hurt and the despair. These are real things forming (perhaps even unwittingly) an identity inside every one of us. They take root, they form us and they make us into who we are behind the masks we all wear. Then thrust the Gospel of life into their hearts. Peel back the layers of chaos and bring the shalom each one us truly aches for. Life is beautiful but it can be more in Jesus the Messiah.

“For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another” (Galatians 5:14; Romans 12:9, 15; John 13:35).

Genesis 1-11 Part II: In the Beginning

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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. – Genesis 1:1-2

A long time ago before I became a Christian, I remember dating a girl who’s family were hardcore believers. I remember one day being at their house, bored, and picking up a Creation magazine. Two things stuck out to me. First, that the earth was around 6000-10,000 years old and second that they didn’t believe aliens existed. Immediately I knew they were crazy. However, it wasn’t long until I thought these things myself. When I became a Christian, I hit the ground running with the Scriptures. I soaked up everything it had to say and just believed what I thought it was telling me. For most of my Christian life, I believed that God created the earth around 6000 years ago, that there was a real talking snake in the Garden, and that ideas like evolution were a lie cleverly constructed to deceive the world into believing that God doesn’t exist. I was taught by many people (people who are still dear friends today) that unless you believed these things you weren’t taking Jesus, the Bible or the Faith seriously. So I joined their tribe. I often went street preaching, seeking to debunk evolution and turn people to Jesus. For me, atheism and evolution went hand in hand, and if you could disprove one, the other would fall. Sure, I had heard about Christians out there who believed in evolution (they’re known as theistic evolutionists). However, they were considered liberal, twisting the Scriptures, compromising and it probably wasn’t long until they walked away from the Faith altogether. Since then, a lot has changed. Bible college set me on a trajectory of seriously studying the Scriptures in its original context and genre. I remember quite clearly that the first theological position that shifted was my eschatology. I went from being a Premillenail Dispensationalist to a Convenential Amillinealist. The next thing that started to change was my approach to the Scripture itself. I went from reading Bible verses in isolation from one another to seeing huge thematic threads that reverberated throughout the entire Biblical narrative (I came to know this as biblical theology).

I began to understand the importance of context, genre, audience, authorship and to look for the authors intent (much of which I discuss here). Huge biblical themes like temple and sacred space, priesthood, union with God and much more, lit up the Bible as it began to sing to me a sweet alluring song that I haven’t been able to get out of my head to this day (not that I’ve tried). Eventually, I came across Tim Mackie and the Bible Project. They kept pointing out how important the story of Genesis 1-11 was for the entire biblical narrative, and wow was I amazed. Coupled with what I was learning at college, these guys turned the Bible from Netflix into 4k VR surround sound where, at times, it was almost like I could touch God Himself through the very pages I was reading. Now, as a result of all this, over the last three years or so I’ve shifted in my view of Genesis 1. Let’s explore.

Genesis 1 has been the subject of much speculation and debate for thousands of years. Each generation or era has a different take on what’s happening in the text, and I actually don’t think that’s a horrible thing. I believe God intends for us to reflect on whatever it is we’re reading in the Bible into our own context and live out the implications as God’s people. However, this shouldn’t be at the expense of the original intended meaning of the text. As far as I can tell, I see three main theological themes being explored in the first chapter. 1. God and who He is. 2. The ordering or construction of sacred space. 3. The establishing of humanity and their vocation in relation to God, sacred space, and the created order.

When we turn to the first page in the Bible, the very first thing the author wants us to notice is that there is a god and that this god created the heavens and the earth. Who is this god? This is where context is so important. If Moses wrote Genesis (I discuss authorship in a previous post), then his cognitive environment would have shaped his understanding of who this god was. For Moses and the Israelites in the Exodus events, the same God who brought them out of Egpyt was the same God who was the Creator in Genesis 1. This can be further supported by the use of the title “LORD God” in Genesis 2:4 (and onwards) where the author seems to be making an emphatic claim that this is indeed Yahweh Himself. The God of Israel is the God of the entire cosmos.

Just this line of thought alone has some profound implication for its readers. The most obvious is that God doesn’t merely create the universe, order it, and leave it to its own devices (deism). Instead, if this god is Yahweh Himself, we see that He is always at work throughout human history. God is both transcendent and immanent. He is distinct from His creation but is at work in it and often through it to bring about the redemption of a fallen world. The New Testament later picks this up by throwing Jesus into the mix (see: John 1 and Col 1:15-17).

Furthermore, in a polytheistic world, the idea that one God created the cosmos would have been a little edgy. In the ancient near eastern world (ANE), there were many other creation narratives, each depicting a council of gods creating the cosmos, usually chaotically, through violence and battle. Instead, God here simply speaks, and there is light, stars, animals etc. Very chill. To me, this says something about God’s character. Rather than having chaos reign, God is all about order, peace, shalom. In fact, this can be further supported by the use of the word create. This leads me to my next point. Order out of chaos and sacred space.

Here is where I blend a few ideas together. First, we read that the earth was formless and void. The Hebrew wording here can be translated as wild and waste, desolate and chaotic. Picture, if you can, a tumultuous watery wasteland that continuously churns and destroys. This was the state of the world before day one. Immediately the readers would have picked up on what was happening here. In the surrounding ANE world, there were plenty of creation narratives where chaotic and wild waters were to be overcome by the gods. It’s where the great leviathan dwelt, chaotic and dark sea creatures at odds with the plans of the gods (see the Enûma Eliš as an example). To the ANE world, dark, chaotic waters and leviathan were something to be feared, yet in the text, God simply brings order out of this chaos by speaking, unlike the ANE gods that wared over it. Furthermore, the leviathan was made to be a good creature, not an evil one in Genesis 1:20-23 (c.f. Ps 104:26). Similarities? Yes. Absolutely. It goes without saying that we’re going to find similarities between people groups in the same cognitive environment.

The differences, however, are important. Instead of God having to fight or war for lordship over the chaos and darkness, He is lord from the very beginning. The chaos creatures are actually His, and so are the waters. They’re subdued and ready to be moulded in the hands of the Creator. From here, God takes the wild watery wastes and uses them to form His sacred space – temple.

John Walton in his book “The Lost World of Genesis 1” argues that the Hebrew word for “created” in Genesis 1:1 shouldn’t be understood as ex nihilo (creation out of nothing), rather it should be understood that God orders the cosmos into a cosmic temple (sacred space). I recommend you read his book and wrap your head around the full argument. From what I’ve learned from him and other resources I concur. The ANE world was more concerned with function and order then they were about the material origins we’d usually read into the text. One analogy Walton uses is the difference between a house and a home. The way we usually read the text is like building a house. We place down the foundations, the walls, roof etc. Where the ANE was more interested in a home with furniture, food etc. A home is where one thrives, lives and flourishes, the other is more about material origins. This is likely what’s happening in the text. The author is more interested in function and home in the sacred space God is about to order, rather than the material origins of the universe. In this blog, I explore the theme of temple and how it relates to the biblical story. In the next post, we’ll explore more about the theme of temple and how it relates to what’s happening here.

So to wrap up this part of the series:

  1. The god in Genesis 1 is Yahweh. He is the sole creator, sustainer and Lord of life.
  2. The earth was in a wild, dark and chaotic space then God starts to order it.
  3. God is arranging a sacred space or temple.