It has been a couple of lifetimes
since I have been here, it seems… I have started these and
stopped them, every quarter or so… this tank-life seems so
unreachable now…
I have one or two days of good Tank
progress--and then this life becomes chaotic again,
overwhelmed again, lost again… for 2 months… my life ebbs
away, with nothing to show for these last
days/weeks/months/years of my time on earth… I pray and I
give, but the main thing God has used in my life and in the
lives of many, I do not have the energy or time or heart or
clarity or purity to do, it seems…
I have things yet to do in this
life--and I resign myself to that--yet the 'they shall run and
not be weary' moments seem distant in the past…
I know that these past 2 years have
been very abnormal (burying both parents, managing both sets
of affairs, flying almost 200 plane flights, a crushing
workload, trying to help/support several family members
(sometimes at the same time), weekends used for visitors,
bible teaching, or house repairs; an occasional 'local'
issue (such as a large tree falling from a neighbor's yard
across my driveway and front lawn….
[see what I mean?--it is now June 4th--a
month
later… but things seem better(?) slightly, I had a couple of
good days of Tankwerke last weekend, but nothing since then…
the day job saps all the mental life out of me, leaving
nothing for night time… but I will trust in Him… and I have
reason to hope a little, at this point… most items of the last
2 years have come to closure in the last 30 days… I still have
one or two things left to attend to on my parents' home (where
I have lived for the last 18 months), such as foundation
repair and brick mortar repair, but those will hopefully be
off my mind within another 30 days…
But as I sit here on a Saturday (with
tomorrow being taken up all day with the Skype bible study I
teach), my to-do list (non-dayjob) has dropped from 50 to 5…
but my energy level has also dropped by that much (smile)…
maybe its aging, or the wear-and-tear of many decades of being
a sinner (with the steady stream of ethical compromises and
failures that inevitably affect the children of the Garden).
But I have noticed over the past 2
weeks or so, a distinct 'lightening' (?) of my spirit, almost
like the restfulness that comes with certain types of clarity
or of simplicity.
But there is also this odd 'season'
of crises of those around me--it seems like most of my family
are experiencing unusual challenges (e.g. health, financial,
legal, relationships, morale, direction) around me…
And so it is
now January of 2012 with
no further entries in this letter… the challenges of the last
paragraph (from June 2011) turned into crises of panic and
despair… many of them
have intersected my life and at the moment I am writing this I am
utterly consumed with one of them—and in a vortex of fear and
paralysis and struggle and self-doubt and… purification?
I have sensed God’s work in my life
over the past 2-3-4 months more clearly than I can ever
remember (except at the death of my daughter, and at other
crises close to that magnitude). But in the current
crisis—which has been going on since June 2011 (sigh/smile)—I
can actually see some kind of pattern. I often can come up
with multiple interpretations of the events surrounding me,
but rarely do I have a deep ‘sense’ that what I see is part of
what God is actually intending in these events. I am looking
now at a pattern of evil events that God has allowed to
happen, but which has been thwarted in its apparent goal, that
is precipitating a radical change in someone’s life (and in
mine, as a consequence). The events are clearly evil, aimed at
one of His precious children, not in character with His
‘normal’ spiritual chastening nor
disciplining-through-hardship, and very oblique to the
mistakes of the victim.
This is actually unlike the evil
armies of Assyria or Babylon, used as national
punishment/chastening (in keeping with the covenant
commitments) on the deliberately, maliciously, and arrogantly
disloyal early Israelites. But within that mass of
covenant-breakers, there were those Israelites or Judahites
who were loyal to the Lord, and they experienced the awful
force of the enemy and the resultant loss of life, property,
and/or exile. They had the experience
of evil, but it was not for punishment. Their God would have
‘structured’ (?) or sculpted their experience of that evil to
accomplish different ends than the wake-up-call of violence
pre-announced by the Prophets. They would have received
benefits in this life (e.g., in their survival, fortunes in
the land of exile, spiritual development), or expanded
ministry opportunities (e.g., in helping the survivors, in
influencing their captors—cf. Daniel and Esther--or in
witnessing to their captors—cf the witness of the Israelite
slave girl to Naaman in 2 Kings 5), or earned additional
eternal rewards for the next life (‘a better resurrection’, as
Hebrews calls it). Or a mixture of all these…
But the case I have before me is one
of a solitary nature. There is no group, and the ‘invading
force’ has singled out this person. And the larger context may
well include a larger ‘bucket’ of evil that might be
forthcoming. So, this might be a case like that of Isaiah 57.1 -- that the
righteous are taken away (in death or exile) to be SPARED from
something worse…
It’s been
another 3 days (wow, this seems like a
‘slow moving blah-blah…’ now). Some progress, yet more fear and
uncertainty… but signs of hope … signs of His activity in
directing (even ‘hastening’?) one sub-current of this situation… I
am watching this closely, trying to be open to learning what He is
doing—and what He is TRYING to get me to see, to understand, and
to accept, about ‘His ways are beyond our ways’… I tremble, but I
have a quiet excitement about this—I know there is still pain
ahead, but I know and even ‘sense’ (the two are different,
experientially) that God is very ‘active’ in this process of
deliverance…
I don’t know the ‘what FOR’ yet,
although I can ‘rationalize’ several trajectories. Some of
them will be true, and some false, but I would bet that the
most important ones are the ones that I cannot see (now). I
will know in heaven ‘what really happened here’ but after 40
years of watching His work in my life, and the circles of life
that I participate in, I also know that I am too dense and/or
shallow to really understand much of this now. I wish I had
the deep eyes of faith and intimacy with God’s ways—like our
Lord had (“I do what I see my Father do”)—but I don’t. What
spiritual gift(s) I have are NOT in the category of faith or
wisdom or discernment—they are in the areas of ministry that
God allows me to work in, tools of teaching and of knowledge
(not ‘smarts’ but an inner sense of where some truth might
be).
Let me make a comment on this,
briefly. I understand the spiritual gift of ‘knowledge’ to
work like a metal detector. The truth that it knows (or senses
as being true) is not obvious from the surface data. It
operates like a hunch that ends up being correct after the
data is analyzed. It
LOOKS a little like knowing some proposition is true BEFORE
you have had time to even begin investigation. It is maybe(?)
something like foresight (not of future events, but of some
future discovery?).
I have seen it before the Tanklife
started (1994) but only sporadically, and I generally wrote it
off as ‘hasty induction’ or ‘a lucky guess’, but since the
Tank began, it has manifested itself more frequently. The form
is generally the same: a question which I have never even
THOUGHT about comes in, and BEFORE diving into the research,
an idea of where the answer lies emerges from my subconscious.
The idea does not restrict the research—since I will have to
defend my conclusions from every conceivable ‘attack’—but it
does help prioritize the research process and provide an
initial ‘working hypothesis’ for constructing the hypothesis
‘testing against the data’ step. I said ‘prioritize’ the
research process, but it does not ‘restrict’ it—I still have
to research all the other possible alternative interpretations
of the data, and assess them (so I won't be blind-sided by
someone later… like has happened once or twice on the Tank in
the past…sigh/smile… not to mention accountability before the
Lord!).
My initial hunches are often skewed,
and more often incomplete, but not often off-target. God seems
to use them to start the process and to guide it once moving.
[There is an old adage about finding God’s will for your life
that talks about having to START moving before God GUIDES your
movement: “You cannot steer a parked car”—I have seen that in
my life SO MANY TIMES. I know that I have to start out in
faith—slowly if I am very unsure of the path—before God will
begin to interject people, leadings, obstacles, diversions,
counselors, pauses, acceleration, open doors and closed doors
into my stream of movement.]
But back to the path… I stand today
(Jan 29) in expectation of God’s deliverance for a friend,
sensing His coordination of multiple ‘small things’ in the
larger complex of events, personalities, timings,
perspectives, emotions, legalities, and economics. “God will
shepherd His little sheep”.
The Honor of
God
Small entry… (I think…sigh/smile)…
I was just sending an email to my
Pakistani translator—who is facing much more difficult
circumstances than my friend and certainly more difficult than
I—and started to end with this:
“In His love and by His
power and for His honor,”
But it struck me that the God of the
humiliation of the Incarnation and Crucifixion probably didn’t
prioritize having ‘honor’—other than as a powerful indication
that He could be trusted as being loyal, non-treacherous,
wise, trustworthy, a source of derivative honor, and the
ultimate grounding for the reality/truth of the dignity of the
person (i.e. the image of God in us).
I have pointed out many, many times
in my writings and teaching that so many of the passages in
the bible in which God’s ‘plan’ or ‘purpose’ is described in
terms of ‘praise’ or ‘honor’ have a reference to His salvific
work, and not to some ‘glory hog’ elitist model of the ancient
world!
I see this worded the clearest in
Ephesians 1 :
“ He
predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to
Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to
the praise of the glory of
His grace, which He freely bestowed on us
in the Beloved.”
To the praise of the glory of His
power?—no—to the praise of His grace, the kindness shown to us
Again, in Eph 2, it is to show the
riches of His grace through the display of His kindness:
“…so
that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing
riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
“
And in one of the few ‘ultra-mundane’
passages we have (Eph 3.6ff), one aspect of the cosmic purpose
of God shows that the ‘display of God’s wisdom’ is/was about
His generosity
and His peace-making
power, not His judgment power:
“And
this is God’s
plan: Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News
share equally in the riches inherited by God’s
children. Both are part of the same body,
and both enjoy the promise
of blessings because they belong to Christ Jesus.
By God’s grace and mighty power, I have been given the
privilege of serving him by spreading this Good News.
Though I am the least deserving of all God’s people, he
graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles
about the endless treasures available to them in Christ.
I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious
plan that God, the Creator of all things, had kept secret
from the beginning. God’s
purpose in all this was to use the church to display
his wisdom in its rich variety to all the
unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This
was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ
Jesus our Lord. “
This unity in Christ was that of
peace-making / reconciliation between Jew and Gentile (Eph 2):
“Don’t
forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders… You were
excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and
you did not know the covenant promises God had made to
them. You lived in this world without God and without
hope. But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once
you were far away from God, but now you have been brought
near to him through the blood of Christ. For
Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews
and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on
the cross, he broke down the wall of
hostility that separated us. “
Of course, there are plenty of
passages that speak of God’s power, glory, and authority, but
again, so many of these are connected to His role or ministry
of moral governance (e.g. lawgiver, judge), His trustworthy
and righteous ‘intensity of presence’ (e.g. ‘glory’,
incandescence), His power to save His people (from themselves
and from the treacherous), and His unique dignity (i.e.
unsoiled by weakness, political corruption, caprice, or
promise-breaking).
So, I changed the ending to this:
“In His love and by His
power, and so that all will come to appreciate His goodness
and to experience His deliverance, and to bask and be healed
in His love,”
The Master who
Serves…
One of the more fascinating images
used by Jesus in the gospels (and related to the above theme)
is the story in Luke 12.35-38, in which He encourages us to be
faithful in this life, and to live our lives “as if there were
no tomorrow (on this earth)”—that is, as if His return could
be at any moment:
Be dressed, ready for service, and have your lamps
shining. Be like servants who are waiting for their master
to come home from a wedding party. When he comes and knocks,
the servants immediately open the door for him. They
will be blessed when their master comes home, because he
sees that they were watching for him. I tell you the truth,
the master will dress himself to serve and tell the
servants to sit at the table, and he will serve them.
Those servants will be blessed when he comes in and
finds them still waiting, even if it is midnight or later.
[NCV]
The image of the master serving the
servants/slaves reminds us of Jesus washing the disciple’s
feet in John 13, but the messages are different: one is about
humility, and one is about eternal reward for living each
moment prepared to encounter Him face to face.
This passage does not negate the
notion of ‘honor’ or ‘status’ per
se, but it makes the difference between high
and low status virtually irrelevant. The exaltation-of-the-lesser
and status-reversal
themes are pervasive in the Synoptics, as revealing what the
character of Christ is like, how we are supposed to be like,
and indeed even as the Father reveals Himself in the person of
Christ.
This would have been a shocking image
to His listeners:
“In Middle Eastern
culture, the master would never
serve his servants! Jesus redefined the role of the master by
serving his disciples, giving himself for them, and meeting
all their needs (see 22:24–27).”
[New Living Translation Study Bible. 2008 (Lk 12:37).
Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.]
This moves the relationship of
follower and Lord into the arena of the family and household,
and mutuality
(like in the Trinity!):
“In presenting his
picture of faithful response, Jesus borrows from standard
images of the household in Roman times, but also
redefines household relations. His most surprising—and no
doubt to some, outlandish—innovation is his
implicit request that, in order to identify oneself among the
faithful in the household of God, one
should identify oneself with the slaves of his
example; this innovation
embraces even the authority figure, the master/lord, whose
actions upon his return are themselves servile.
By serving those who are slaves, the returning lord esteems
the humble, overturning socio-religious and socio-political
norms, just as Mary’s Song had foretold (1:52b).
“Having used two
metaphors to communicate the necessity of readiness, Jesus
continues by weaving together a short example story and
pronouncements of blessing for those who maintain perpetual
alertness. Jesus’ story centers on a banquet scene that draws
together three important elements from the wider Lukan
perspective on meals. First, and most obvious in this co-text,
the
master provides a meal for the faithful, just
as Jesus had promised in his portrait of the kingdom in vv
22–31. Whatever else the meal setting might serve, it is most
obviously a
place for eating—no small matter in the context of the
proclamation of good news for the marginalized (…)
and in light of the perspective on life sanctioned by Jesus in
vv 13–34. Second, working within the lines of an important
stream of end-time thinking in Judaism as well as in
Luke-Acts, Jesus situates his concern for vigilance within the
eschatological framework of anticipation of the heavenly
banquet.
“Third, as is the case
elsewhere in Luke-Acts, so here the table provides the setting
for Jesus’ self-revelation. In
this case, a scene that otherwise reflects household
norms—slaves awaiting the arrival of their lord—actually
subverts the basis of the slave system. The
master undergoes a status reversal, so that he engages
in slavish activity on behalf of slaves. This
means that the vigilant no longer have the status of slaves,
though Jesus does not push so far as to portray them now as
masters. Instead, he seems to posit in the place of common
household conventions governed by a hyperconcern with status
consciousness the
household of God, characterized by blindness with respect
to issues of status and the roles that attend them.
Here, mutual
service
is the order of the day. On the one
hand, this surprising end to the story might be understood as
nothing more (or less) than an embodiment of the message of
Jesus as this has been proclaimed since the onset of his
public ministry. In addition, Jesus’ parable can be read in a
self-referential way, in which he presents himself as the lord
who serves the faithful; in fact, this is exactly how Jesus
speaks of himself to his disciples at their last meal together
(22:24–27). Either way, it is important to realize that Jesus’
message goes beyond any attempt to establish the parameters of
a new social order. Instead, Jesus provides for his audience a
vision of the
eschaton, of a household reality wherein hierarchies of
status are nullified; with this vision he both
declares the nature of the reward awaiting the faithful and
alerts his audience to the nature
of fidelity in the interim and in the eschaton.
[Green, J. B. (1997). The Gospel of Luke. The New
International Commentary on the New Testament (499, 501-502).
Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
I do not have a personal experience
of having had a Middle-Eastern or Greco-Roman “Lord”, but my
relationship with Jesus seems to match with what I see in the
Gospels and history books. It does not have any of the abuses
that were sometimes/often in those relationships, of course,
but it certainly has all the benefits possible within them
(smile)!
But this image of the master serving
the servant, reminds me more of another middle-eastern image
that I have no first-hand experience of: the Shepard and the
sheep. The images of the Good Shepherd sacrificing his life
for the sheep, of the intimacy of being called by name and of
recognizing His voice, and of the protection of His staff
against the wolves and predators that would do me in—these I
can understand and appreciate and marvel and weep at. Such a
Lord, such a Shepherd, such a Servant-King…
There are many images of His ministry
to us/me in the Bible—High Priest daily interceding for us,
the Life-source and nourishment of the Church, the authority
over all the ‘powers and principalities’ which influence (and
sometimes dominate) the authority structures under which I
live (e.g. governments of the world) and the cultural
processes which sometimes (and often succeed… sigh) try to
make me conform to sub-optimal values and perspectives (e.g.
glamorization of power, authentication of greed, approval of
arrogance, divinization of popular and academic celebrities,
over-individualization or under-individualization,
self-centric altruism, self-congratulatory virtue—and even
‘self-righteous condemnation of these cultural
processes’…smile!). But I still fall back on the image of the
little lamb with a broken leg, being carried in the arms of
the Shepherd, who speaks in gentle tones and comforting sounds
words I cannot understand… but I am safe here…
So, I will try to ‘watch’ for my Lord
and do the tasks He has assigned me in His absence (though He
is present and guiding in the person of the Spirit—the ‘other
Companion of the same type’ of John 14-16), and if I am
successful, then I will experience the awkwardness of that
moment when the Lord serves me at the table… what would that
be like?!—to see that face of love and eyes of joy and smile
of warm acceptance of me, little glenn?!
As a simple believer, I will always
have eternal life, whether or not I am ‘faithful to the end’,
whether or not I lapse into public sin that results in Him
taking me Home early (1 Cor 11:29-31), whether or not I even
forget that I am forgiven (2 Peter 1.9). I make be embarrassed
and bitter at myself at His appearing—from wasting life and my
talents—but I will still be an inhabitant in the Kingdom (I
might not have a ‘big inheritance’—like some of the foreigners
in Israel—but at least I will enjoy the blessings of a world
‘wherein dwelleth righteousness’.
It is the ‘little child’ who believes
and has eternal life, but it is the ‘disciple’ who is called
to ‘take up his Cross and follow me’—the Little Child (the
definition of the kingdom inhabitants—‘of such is the
Kingdom’) is only asked to come to Jesus in faith—there is no
Cross to bear for such a one, but there is a Cross for those
who would become followers (to call lost Little Children to
eternal life, and to encourage them to embrace discipleship).
The Little child is not called to ‘count the cost’, but only
to trust and embrace the Son. But the would-be disciple is
warned to count the cost up-front, and to realize that
following the Master—as a disciple, not as a sheep—will lead
to calls to constant service (with the attendant difficulties
in the world), but yielding a greater experience in the
Kingdom (‘a better resurrection’ or the various ‘crowns’
offered for different types of faithfulness or a
more-than-citizenship inheritance within the Kingdom).
But the possibility of this additional blessing and reward, in this passage, for walking with Him in (even) spotty service through these days—like all promises of additional/conditional rewards for disciples—moves me first to amazement, then to endearment, and finally—hopefully—to ‘abandoned obedience’…
Incompatible background theories of the original of
the gospels/Jesus figure
On a lighter note….(smile):
I started re-investigating some
allegations on the web that the gospel stories and the
character of Jesus were wholesale borrowings and adaptations
of early Buddhist legends (but have been distracted by a
thousand other issues…sigh). I ran across a flyer for a
conference scheduled for 2008 (but postponed), named was “Did
Jesus Really Exist? New Testament Source Criticism” and the
speaker roster included Dr. Christian Lindtner, Dr. Zacharias
Thundy, and Dr. Robert M. Price among others.
I had a moment of hilarity as I
envisioned an imaginary debate at the conference (with other
speakers not mentioned, of course), with the participants
being these:
·
Christian
Lindtner (Gospels/Jesus portraiture created almost solely from
Buddhist sources)
·
Robert
Price (Gospels/Jesus portraiture almost solely created as Midrash
on the OT, with some divine-man elements mixed in)
·
Dennis
MacDonald (Gospels/Jesus portraiture almost solely create from
Homer)
·
G.A.
Wells (Gospels/Jesus portraiture almost solely created from Divine
Men and/or Dying and Rising Gods—DARGs).
Most of these positions are mutually
exclusive (with the possible semi-weird exception that if the
OT was based on Homer—don’t laugh, it has been argued
before(!)—then Midrash of the OT could theoretically be two of
these positions in one…smile).
I know how each of these positions
argues against ‘traditional’ views of the gospels, but I would
LOVE TO SEE how they argued against EACH OTHER! I would love
to see the truly brilliant (IMO) Dr. Price try to argue that
the walking on the water was CLEARLY based on OT imagery
rather than on the disciples of the Buddhist flying over
water—only to have Dr. MacDonald tell them that they BOTH are
dead wrong—that it is CLEARLY derived from the story of Hermes
in the Iliad!
I would love to write down the
criteria they would use to debunk the parallels from their
opponents’ positions. That would provide some great material,
under the principle of ‘by what measure you measure, it will
be measured back to you’—smile.
Of course, Dr. MacDonald addresses
some alternative backgrounds to the gospel stories in his
works, as does Dr. Price (not Buddhist sources that I can
find), but I do not see the other sides of the argument taking
on the positions of Dr. Price or Dr. MacDonald. But wouldn’t
that be revealing, I bet? (GRIN)
That would be a fun exchange, and I
suspect that it would provide some level of evidence for the
position I learned/adopted (from some source which I cannot
remember, but to whom I am deeply indebted) and that I posted
on the Tank when it first started in 1994:
“It would be easy to
attack the 'fortress' of the Christian case on many, many
small-medium points, BUT TO CONSTRUCT AN ALTERNATIVE SYSTEM
that would be able to withstand the same caliber of
intellectual examination on as many fronts, I put well beyond
the practical realm of feasibility.” (from https://Christianthinktank.com/oxymore.html
).
Asaph—a role
model for us all
One of the most encouraging passages
in scripture for me is the Psalm of Failed Perspective (my
term) in Psalm 73. In it Asaph—a talented Spirit-lead minister
and deep-hearted lover of God—shares his deepest doubts, with
God and in public perpetuity.
His writing represents the moments of all those who
know God and live in the world scarred, and sometimes shaped,
by malice, materialism, and arrogance.
He starts in verse 1 at place all
those who know God start—at a theological confession of God’s
goodness (not His power and not His majesty—but His goodness).
He then confesses –in writing for all time(!) his sin of envy
, his mercantile view of personal piety (‘in vain have I kept
my heart clean…’), and his (probable) overstatement of their
prosperity and his own suffering (uh, right me down as guilty
of this too…sigh/smile).
And then in verse 15 he faces the
conflict of integrity in his ministry: if he is honest about
this anti-YHWH perspective, he will have ‘betrayed’ –
destructively – the people he leads in worship of God. He is
caught between dishonesty in his singing and praises of YHWH
and destruction of the faith of those who rely upon the
goodness of their God. This shows great sensitivity, great
honesty, and great integrity on his part.
And so he does the obvious thing—he
went into the presence of God. The sanctuary setting reminded
him of the need for atonement for evil—that God would hold
humans responsible for their moral actions, that every act
‘away from God’ reduces the very reality of the treacherous
(‘phantoms’), and that ‘current success is NO predictor of
eternal success’! His data (they are prosperous, I am
stricken) is not changed, but his enlarged perspective
(enlarged by taking God’s view) places those data points into
a different background—into one that is consonant with the
affirmations of verse one (and the history of biblical Israel
up to his time as well).
And then he does what we all do—he
has the “Duoh”-moment, followed by amazement at his own
sub-human spiritual intelligence! He is pricked, embittered,
brutish and ignorant—like a simple animal that reacts only
to/in the present. How often have I been there, and ‘will yet
be again’….!
But—again—this man knows our
good-hearted God. He knows that our God does not leave us
alone in moments of doubt or confusion, but He walks and waits
(and probably even chuckles in some of our more ludicrous
versions of this) with us.
Then I realized that my heart was bitter, and I was
all torn up inside.
I was so foolish and ignorant— I must have
seemed like a senseless animal to you.
Yet I still belong to you; you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a
glorious destiny.
Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you
more than anything on earth.
My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but
God remains the strength of my heart;
He is mine forever. [NLT]
What a model of honest and dealing
with one’s failures and doubts. Many Tank readers have
experienced this—often and deeply—as I have. The model of
Asaph’s honesty, integrity, and confidence in the goodness and
presence of His living God speaks to us all.
[I have more topics but I cannot
write them up today—I was ‘fortunate’ (smile) to be allowed to
do this today—]
In His love,
Little glenn
(Jan 29/2012)