Tag Archives: Christianity

True? False? or Who Cares? (Part 2)

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(Part 1 Can be found here)

How do we know what is true and what is false in everyday life? Isn’t it true that most of us don’t know things from firsthand experience, but rather we learn them through other people who tell us or teach us about truth? For example, where was Abraham Lincoln when he was shot? Or was he shot? Maybe he died of a heart attack. How do we know these things? We don’t know any of this by having seen it with our own eyes. We don’t even know because we personally did hours upon hours of research to find out. Most of us know because someone, probably a teacher in school, and the textbooks we used, told us what happened to Abraham Lincoln.

Most of us who use math at the every-day level don’t know the truths underlying the math, although we probably could. For example, most people don’t know from personal investigation how fractions and common denominators work. But if we use them at all, we were taught how to work with fractions, and we know that the methods work, and that is good enough for us. But my point is that we didn’t learn it from personal investigation and discovery. We believe these principles because people we trusted, and who we assumed were authorities, taught us, and what they taught us works.

What is interesting to me is how and why we choose the people we decide to believe. In elementary school and probably through most of high school we believed what we were told by our parents and teachers. But as we grew older, we began to distinguish one opinion from another, and we began to argue and debate whether what we were being told was true or not. What matters to me is how we decide who to believe when we receive conflicting messages. Politics is a good case in point. Someone on TV says that the reason we are in the economic mess we are in is because we are spending billions on unnecessary wars. (This article was first written in 2013.) There are really two messages there: 1) the economic mess is caused by the wars, and 2) the wars were unnecessary. The purpose of this article is not to delve into the politics, but to observe that people on each side of the argument will rant for hours on their point of view. How do they know the economic problems are caused by the war expenditures? How do the people on the other side know that it was not the wars that caused the economic problems? Have any of these people looked at the numbers, compared the graphs, and analyzed all of the factors? No! We mostly listen to what people tell us. For some reason each one of us has a propensity to believe one explanation of events rather than another. In this particular example, some believe war caused the mess and some do not. These beliefs are based on who we have decided to listen to and who we believe. Why do we believe one source rather than another? Do we have any factual reason for doing so, or are we going by feelings?

I think the current debate over the Coronavirus is another similar situation. Some say the President and his team are doing a great job in handling the crisis. The other side says he should have started earlier, he shouldn’t have shut down the economy, etc. Here again, I think that very few of us actually know. We have chosen which news sources we believe because we are drawn to their arguments, but it’s hard to actually get to the truth. Most of us don’t analyze the graphs, we aren’t epidemiologists, we don’t know how viruses work. Truth is out there, but it is hard to get at.

Shouldn’t we be interested in truth? What is the truth? In many cases we could know if we took the time to do the research. Take historical events for example. I brought up Abraham Lincoln a moment ago. How does one know he was assassinated? I’m not a philosopher nor a historian so this is not a rigorous academic treatise, but it seems to me that to verify historic events, which no one living now witnessed, we need to go back to original documents, news reports, photographs, etc., and put together the best scenario we can as to what actually happened. This takes a lot of time – more time than we have if we are trying to determine the truth about everything we hear. So, we decide who we will believe and base our opinions on what they say.

These methods of determining truth pretty much work for day to day living. But the possibility exists that we have chosen to believe things which are not true simply because of who we listen to. We need to be open to the possibility that what we believe might be false. We need to be ready to discuss our ideas, and to probe other people’s ideas, and to give and receive facts and arguments in order to get at the truth. The problem is that today several things stand in the way of discussions of this sort. We’ll discuss these in more detail later, but basically discussions of truth end because 1) People don’t really care what the truth is – it doesn’t matter; 2) Truth is felt at the emotional level and so if it feels correct, it must be true no matter what the facts say; 3) Truth can’t be known so why bother talking about it; and 4) Truth doesn’t exist.

My main focus in these articles is to focus on religious truth, specifically the truth of Christianity and the implications. But, as I do that, I also want you to begin thinking about all truth claims you hear, whether in the realm of politics, advertising, advice about health, etc. Why do you believe what you believe and how do you know you’re listening to the people that are telling you the truth? But, in future articles I want us to think about how we as Christians get at the truth of Christianity, and why we believe it is true. I want us to think about the implications of saying that it is true. I also want us to see how the four hindrances to seeking truth even impact our understanding of the Bible and the differences of opinion among us.

Technology and Reading

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Importance of Reading

            In the previous two sections I have discussed the fact that some of our technology has a way of increasing our distractedness and decreasing our ability to attend to or focus on a task for an extended period of time. In addition, technology has the potential to become an idol for us. One of the reasons that these issues concern me as a Christian, is that God has chosen to reveal Himself to us through His Word. That is, He has communicated with the human race through written words. If we do not know how to read, the communication from God is hindered. But most of us know how to read. The problem many have is the inability to focus for an extended amount of time in order to think about and analyze what God has said. In addition to not being able to focus, we have the problem of not being able to think deeply about the text.

            In Joshua 1:8, God says, “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night.” He goes on to explain that meditating on it brings success in our lives. This is not the kind of success to which most Americans aspire, but it is the kind of success Christians should work toward. It is the successful life of faith that builds a strong relationship with God and with other people. This success is founded on the wisdom of God that is gained as we think about and reflect on what God has said.

            But in contradiction to this, we have developed a culture that is focused more on the visual media such as TV, movies, and Internet browsing.

Here’s an example of the time spent per day by percentages of young people on various media:

watch television: 84 percent 3:04 hours

use a computer 54 percent 48 minutes

read a magazine 47 percent 14 minutes

read a book 46 percent 23 minutes

play video games 41 percent 32 minutes at console; 17 minutes with handheld

watch videos/dvd 39 percent 32 minutes

watch prerecorded TV 21 percent 14 minutes

go to a movie; 13 percent.

(Dumbest, page 89)

            There are many hindrances to extended thinking and meditating on God’s Word. One of the more recent hindrances is the growing inability to focus on anything for an extended length of time. We are becoming more accustomed to reading web pages where there are multiple windows open begging us to look at them to see what is being advertised or what new event has been posted to Facebook. Throughout most of the texts we read online there are hyperlinks that tempt us to click in order to follow some rabbit trail of thought. While this helps us to extend our knowledge in some way, it also interrupts the flow of thought. Even if we don’t click on the link, we are interrupted by the split-second thought of the possibility of clicking on it. As I mentioned previously, these constant interruptions of our train of thought change the way we think so that it becomes more and more difficult to focus for an extended period of time. Just ask someone under the age of 35 how it would feel to sit down for 30 or 40 minutes to read their Bible and think about it, with no background music, no TV, no cell phone beeps, and no interruptions of any kind. Just the thought of it brings pain and panic. Or how about asking them to listen to even an interesting lecture for 45 minutes? More pain and more panic.

            Nicholas Carr, in his book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, explains that research shows that the average person spends between 19 and 27 seconds at the most on any web page he visits.  How can a person who is used to this kind of scanning, sit down and hear from God through His Word? You simply can’t take in a page of Scripture in 19 seconds! Rather than doing a lot of reading ourselves and encouraging our children to read, we spend time in front of the TV or with our computers and teach our children to do the same!

            Consider the important impact reading time has on student performance in school:

“Buried in the depths of the Kaiser report Generation M is a startling finding about different media use and student achievement. It shows that leisure reading of any kind correlates more closely with a student’s grades than any other media. While eight to 18 year olds with high and low grades differed by only one minute in TV time, they differed in reading time by 17 minutes, (46-29) a huge discrepancy in relative terms ( a 36 percent drop in leisure reading for kids with low grades.” (Dumbest, page 90) What this is saying is that students with low grades spend considerably less time reading than students with good grades.

            We’ve become addicted to our screens: “The screen…promotes multitasking and discourages single-tasking, hampering the deliberate focus on a single text, a discrete problem. ‘Screen mindedness’ prizes using search engines and clicking 20 websites not the plodding, 10-hour passage through a 300 page novel. It searches for information, fast, too impatient for the long-term acquisition of facts and stories and principles.” (Dumbest, page 115)

            This kind of multitasking and rapid skimming is detrimental to grasping the facts, stories and principles found in any text, but most important for us, God’s Word.

            If you are a Christian, you need to take this information seriously. As a parent, you need to make sure that your young person is not losing his ability to concentrate. You have a responsibility to set the example and then establish the expectation that in your home there will be technology-free times when time is devoted to quiet reading and meditation. Just writing the previous sentence sounded strange. When does anyone have time where there is no input from TV, radio, or the Internet? Some people will suggest that reading is a thing of the past and is no longer necessary in our time when our technology serves as the conduit for our information. The problem is, and you need to think about this carefully – the problem is that the God of the universe has chosen to speak to us in written words. Those who cannot read those words either because of illiteracy or inability to focus, will not hear from God!

            But, you may say, is it necessary to read? What about listening to God’s Word? Doesn’t that count? The answer is yes, but how often does anyone sit and listen to the Word of God being read to them? How easy is it in our video-centric culture to sit and listen to words being read for an extended period of time with no other interruptions or input. I think you can see that listening happens less than reading does and is at least equally difficult.

            One of the things educators and researches are noticing is that we are becoming good at skimming, but we are losing our ability to interpret what we read accurately, as well as the ability to think carefully and deeply about what we read. The reason this is important is that when God communicates through words, He is communicating truth and concepts that are not necessarily understood with a quick skim. Many of the sentences in the Bible are long and complex, and many modern readers are unable to understand such complexity, whether it is in the Bible or a book about the Bible. Think about how important this is. God desires to speak to us through His Word, and we may be unable to understand what He is saying because we have become surface readers and have not trained our minds to think deeply and logically about what He is saying. That’s something that should not be dismissed lightly.

            So let me encourage those of you who desire to be faithful to God, to train yourself to put aside the technology and focus on the Word of God for extended amounts of time. Let me encourage you to insist that the children for whom you are responsible do the same. They will grumble and complain, but it is essential for them to learn how to hear from God.

            Read to children early in their life, and then encourage them to read for themselves throughout their growing up years. Have regular conversations with your children. You’ll be keeping the relationship strong, and at the same time you will be giving them the vocabulary they need to navigate through life.

            Mark Bauerlein writes, “Everything depends on the oral and written language the infant-toddler-child-teen hears and reads throughout the day, for the amount of vocabulary learned inside the fifth-grade classroom alone doesn’t come close to the amount needed to understand fifth-grade textbooks. They need a social life and a home life that deliver requisite words to them, put them into practice, and coax kids to speak them.” (Dumbest, page 138)

            This is especially true in the Christian home where you want your children to pick up the vocabulary that they need to describe God’s relationship to man and our relationship to Him. In a recent study of adolescents and twenty-somethings, it was observed that young people simply do not have the vocabulary to describe their thoughts and feelings about God and the truths the Bible teaches about God.

            Another thing that the all-encompassing presence of technology does is allows us to pursue topics that are of interest to us and to avoid topics that we don’t think are all that interesting. We can have it our way.  Now when it comes to educating our children and ourselves, it’s important to expose ourselves to things we may not necessarily be interested in. When someone proposes a class in some unfamiliar area of Christian doctrine, there is a tendency to avoid that class or to allow your children to avoid such a study.

            Bauerlein writes, “For education to happen, people must encounter worthwhile things outside their sphere of interest and brainpower. Knowledge grows, skills improve, tastes refine, and conscience ripens only if the experiences bear a degree of unfamiliarity.” (Dumbest, page 145)

            From this I take it that we shouldn’t try to get off easy when it comes to what kind of learning we subject ourselves or our children to. If we continually read things that we are already interested in, we won’t learn much. With our technology, the tendency is to read about and follow trains of thought that are of interest to us. Because there is so much information available, we do not need to explore the unknown or difficult. One would think that having the proliferation of technology would allow people to learn more and grow more. But the natural tendency is the reverse. It is not natural to delve into something difficult or that we think we wouldn’t understand. But if we don’t, our minds won’t be strengthened.

            As technology moves along, there is a tendency to substitute web reading for book reading. As an older person who was raised on books, I find that I read the web much the same way I read a book. This is not the case with younger readers. And if I spend more and more time reading online rather than in a linear text such as a book, my brain will be affected and changed as well. Book reading affects regions of the brain for language, memory, and visual processing whereas web reading affects the brain areas for decision making and problem solving. (Dumbest, page 120) Why the difference? Because when reading the web there are hyperlinks and ads and other messages along the periphery of the text that causes your brain to constantly be making decisions as to the relative importance of these links.

            Deep reading is hindered by problem solving. Intelligence requires taking things into short term memory and then weaving it into conceptual schemas in long term memory. If our problem-solving areas of the brain are active, the concentration and focus aren’t there to transfer information into long term memory. Our problem-solving capacity has been using up brain power to decide which links to click on or avoid. This can overload working memory which results in distractedness, “understanding” weakened by overloading

            Why am I emphasizing all of this detail? Because I think we as Christians should have an idea of what’s at stake. As we read the Bible and religious texts about the Bible and Christian devotional life, God wants us to meditate and reflect deeply on the truths they contain. In order for that to happen, we need to understand what we read and then take that information deeply into our lives where all sorts of interconnections can be made so that it affects our life. It’s important to understand that out-of-control technology and its resulting distractedness can rewire our brain in such a way that understanding and assimilating the truths of Scripture can be severely impaired. We certainly shouldn’t want that to happen to ourselves, and we especially need to be careful to prevent that from happening to those who are most susceptible to this danger, our children.

             So what are some concrete steps you can take to help prevent this from happening to you and your children?

  1. Limit exposure to visual media – whether it be TV, videos or web-based media. I remember way back when our kids were small, my wife was concerned about Sesame Street. Everyone was proclaiming the virtues of such educational material, but she wasn’t so sure. In retrospect, after having observed middle school and high school students up close in an educational setting for over 40 years, I believe she was right. The images on programs such as Sesame Street change every couple of minutes either causing or adding to children’s inability to focus for long stretches of time.
  2. Encourage creative, imaginative play. Reduce the number of choices children have to play with at any given time. When your children are faced with which one of 20 different toys they should play with at any given moment, it increases the decision-making part of the brain, but reduces the thoughtful part.
  3. Read to your children often and encourage them to read when they are old enough. Let them see you reading, thus setting a good example that they will want to follow.
  4. When using technology personally or with children, use it for specific purposes and reduce the impulsiveness of it. In other words, don’t jump to the technology to fill every 5-minute void in something to do. Don’t give your children the example of interrupting one activity with another as demanded by your technology. In other words, when you are writing in a word processing program, as I am right now, don’t keep switching to see all of the world-shaping events in the news and weather and Facebook changes that have taken place in the last 5 minutes. Let it be obvious that you stay on a task for extended periods of time and teach them to do the same.
  5. Don’t allow children to have the technology in their rooms. Let everything be out in the open so that you can see and control how its used.
  6. As strange as it sounds, create times of quiet in the house where kids can read and work on homework while parents read a book or magazine. Leave the TV off. Make sure cell phones are unavailable for texting or web browsing after a certain time.
  7. Teach your children explicitly how to use technology as I’ve outlined it here. If they need to do word processing, provide a computer that has no Internet connection or games so that they only use the tool for one thing. They must be overtly taught the skill of focus rather than distraction.

Technology and Idolatry

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            One of the important things for us as Christians to recognize regarding technology is that it can become an idol, either in itself or in the perceived benefits it provides.

            Tim Challies observes, “There are always spiritual realities linked to our use of technology. We know that there is often a link between our use of technology and idolatry, that our idols are often good things that want to become ultimate things in our lives. Communication with others is just this sort of good thing, a very good thing, that can so easily become an ultimate thing—an idol in our hearts. How can we tell if something has become an idol? One possible sign of idolatry is when we devote an inordinate amount of time and attention to something, when we feel less than complete without it. It may be something that we look at right before we go to sleep, and the first thing we give our attention to when we wake up. It may be the kind of thing that keeps us awake, even in the middle of the night.” (The Next Story, page 74)

            Challies gives us several indications as to when a thing might be becoming an idol. One of the things he mentions is the devotion of an inordinate amount of time to something or anything we feel incomplete without. Haven’t you felt these inclinations in yourself when it comes to your smart phone or computer? Haven’t you felt the sensation that says, “What do I do now?” when your phone or computer is out of order? Do you feel compelled to check your Facebook page before you do almost anything else in the morning? Almost certainly most of us check email or Facebook before we even check in with God in prayer or read His Word. That indicates the possibility of an idolatrous situation taking place.

            One author suggests that people have begun to see technology and the Internet as a sort of spiritual existence: “Many see in cyberspace nothing less than a new, spiritual heaven that is open to all who are computer literate, that is, ‘baptized,’ some observe. Cyberspace gives us the means to realize ‘a dream thousands of years old: the dream of transcending the physical world, fully alive, at will, to dwell in some Beyond—to be empowered or enlightened there, alone or with others, and to return,’ writes editor Michael Benedikt in the influential essay collection Cyberspace: First Steps.” (Distracted, page 51)

            People have always had the tendency to be attracted by the idea of out-of-body experiences and existence. The Internet gives them that capability to a degree. They don’t have to be real; they can become strong online when they are weak in person. They can be beautiful online when they may be plain in person. Such capabilities are alluring to some people and take on an idolatrous tug.

            Challies says that we need to figure out what idol we may be serving. “What is really happening here? Why do we feel this constant need to communicate with others? What idol are we serving? There are any number of idols we may be serving through the tools of communication technology:

 • We may be serving the idol of productivity, communicating so that we feel as though we are being productive, constantly answering work-related e-mails or monitoring work-related social media platforms, feeling the need to respond instantly and decisively morning, noon, or night.

 • We may be serving the idol of significance, finding a sense of value in the number of people who notice us and interact with us. People with an idol of significance will measure their success or popularity by the number of friends they have on Facebook or the number of followers on Twitter. They make popularity something that can be measured and analyzed and feel that their own significance increases as more people pay attention to them and interact with them online.

 • It may be that the very desire for information is an idol for us; that we feel as if having more information holds the key to living a better life.” (The Next Story, page 75)

            One type of sin that I think is related to the idol of significance that Challies mentions is the twin sins of pride and envy. Now that we have the ability to inform all of our friends about every move we make, there is a tendency to mention things that we secretly hope will arouse a certain amount of jealousy. Let’s let people know about our latte at Starbucks or the powerful engine in our new truck. Why not inform people that you are having a fantastic time in Bermuda during the middle of a cold winter. I need to be careful here because it is possible to inform friends of these things without having any intention of arousing their jealousy, but it seems to me there is a danger here that we need to be alert to.  Even in the case when our own motive might be pure, we need to learn to have caution as to how we might be provoking others through our carelessness. As Christians we are not supposed to be causing others to stumble, and when we blatantly announce every new purchase or exciting adventure, we may be triggering jealousy in others.

            The Bible tells us to flee idolatry. The natural tendency when one reads an article such as this one, is to go immediately into self-defense mode and to deny that anything close to idolatry exists in our lives. A more prudent reaction would be to go to God humbly and ask Him to reveal to us any areas of our life where He is not first. Ask Him for wisdom to determine whether something about technology – having it, jealousy of others, pride and boasting in social media, or anything else has become an idol.

            The Bible tells us in 1 John 2:15 that we should not love the world. A love of the world is an indication that the love of the Father is not in us. John then goes on to tell us what things demonstrate this love of the world. 1 John 2:16 “For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world.”

            I’m sure if we look carefully and think deeply, we can see that there is potential for each of these three characteristics of worldly focus to be present in our use of technology. As Christians, let’s take steps to recognize God in His proper place and put our technology in its proper place – a place of helpfulness and productivity, but not the place of control and mastery. As Paul said, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” 1 Corinthians 6:12 (Emphasis mine)

Here are some steps that might help us determine whether some technology (or anything) is becoming an idol in our lives.

  1. Evaluate the amount of time you spend with technology, playing games, mindlessly hopping around the Internet, checking Facebook posts, etc., compared to the amount of time you spend in the scriptures, praying, meditating, etc.
  2. Examine the attraction of the technology compared to the attraction of other things. When you first get up in the morning, is your first instinct to check Facebook or email, or do you get showered, dressed, and have devotions before checking in with your technology?
  3. Ask yourself how you would feel if you had a technology-free week with the only exception being voice phone calls. Is the feeling similar to the feeling you would have if you missed your Bible reading, prayer, and church attendance for a week?

When you follow the trail of your time, energy, affection, and money, you find a throne.  And whatever or whomever is on that throne is the object of your worship. ~Louie Giglio

All Things Together in Christ

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All of this is so that in the Fullness of Time He would:

Reconcile and gather all things together in Christ

“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. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—” (Colossians 1:19–22, NKJV)

“having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him” (Ephesians 1:9–10, NKJV).

“Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18–19, NKJV).

The goal and purpose as stated in these passages is that God has purposed in eternity past that everything will be reconciled back to the Son of God. We live in a fallen world, and mankind is in rebellion against God. There’s been a separation. But God is going to bring it all back eventually. Every knee will ultimately bow to Christ. Christ is to be all in all.

Put an end to all rule and authority

“Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power” (1 Corinthians 15:24, NKJV).

All other competing powers will be brought under His control.

Destroy death, the last enemy

“The last enemy that will be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26, NKJV).

Show the exceeding riches of His grace and display the manifold wisdom of God.

God’s plan from eternity past is that His Son and the people He has redeemed will be a display for all creation to see. It will display how great and inexhaustible the wisdom of God are and how amazing His grace is that He would take rebellious treasonous subjects and transform them by His love and grace into His sons and daughters, adopted into His family and made co-heirs with His Son Jesus Christ.

“That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7, NKJV).

“To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 3:10, NKJV).

Jesus Christ will reign forever and ever with His bride, the Church

“And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth”” (Revelation 5:9–10, NKJV).

“Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”” (Revelation 11:15, NKJV).

“There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5, NKJV).

God will be all in all and will dwell with His people

“Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28, NKJV).

“And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God” (Revelation 21:3, NKJV).

The mission will have been accomplished. God will have demonstrated His glory and the centrality and supremacy of His Son by creating and sustaining all things through Him, showing His grace by reconciling sinful people to Himself, by demonstrating His justice by not overlooking sin but punishing it in Christ, and ultimately reconciling everything together to Himself so that God Himself will dwell forever with His people.

Link to video on youtube: https://youtu.be/7979yF2hm6s

Jesus’ Successful Mission

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Because of Christ’s Successful Mission, God has

Highly exalted Him.  We read in Philippians that because of Jesus’ obedience “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:9, NKJV). In his letter to the Ephesians Paul explains it this way: “He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come” (Ephesians 1:20–21, NKJV).

Jesus Christs has been placed in a position of great glory at God’s right hand, and this is far above all other authorities that exist in the universe. The author of the book of Hebrews explains it this way:

“You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:7–9, NKJV).

Jesus Christ is the God-man. But never forget that He is a man with a human glorified body. He is the first person to receive his glorified body and He has His place in heaven as our forerunner. He is the guarantee that all of those that belong to Him through faith will also have their place in heaven with Him. He is our anchor behind the veil.

“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:19–20, NKJV).

In the Old Testament the temple has a veil separating the two parts. The part behind the veil where God was could not be entered by anyone except the High Priest and then only once a year. That veil ripped in two from top to bottom on the day Christ was crucified. The earthly temple was a model of what is in heaven. This passage in Hebrews tells us that the way is now open. Jesus Christ is already there as our forerunner and our anchor behind the veil. All who belong to Him will have their place with Him in a glorified body some day.

Christ is central and supreme because He is the One who obtained eternal redemption for us through His sacrifice on the cross and is now seated as sovereign in heaven, and every knee will bow before Him (Philippians 2:10).

Link to video on youtube: https://youtu.be/7979yF2hm6s

God Has Made Christ Supreme

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God Has…

Made Him heir of all things. “[God] has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds” (Hebrews 1:2, NKJV).

God has made Jesus Christ the inheritor of all things. Take a moment and consider what is included in the “all things.” All nature?  Yes. Every planet? Yes. Every galaxy? Yes. Every person? Yes.

In Ephesians 1:18, Paul prays that as believers our eyes would be opened to “the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,” (Ephesians 1:18, NKJV). This is not Christ as our inheritance. This is Christians as His inheritance. Christians are part of the all things that Jesus has inherited from God the Father. And as long as we are stretching our faith, let’s consider the fact that God has announced that His people are joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).

God has given Him Authority. “As You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him” (John 17:2, NKJV).

“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18, NKJV).

God has made Him head of the Church “And He is the head of the body, the church” (Colossians 1:18, NKJV).

Jesus Christ has been given all authority over everything in the universe, and in a special sense, He is head of the Church, because the Church is His body. He is present in the Church everywhere the true church is found, and He is its head. No pastor, bishop, or pope can claim that position.

God has made Him the judge. “For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22, NKJV).

“And has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man” (John 5:27, NKJV).

It’s interesting to note that the Father judges no one. The authority to judge every one of us has been given to the Son. Every one of us will stand before Him one day and be judged. We will be judged by a peer, if you will, another human. The Man Christ Jesus. Paul told the Athenians, “But [God] now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead”” (Acts 17:30–31, NKJV).

When will this judgment take place? The book of Hebrews tells us: “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27, AV).

God has sent Him on a mission. The Word, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity was sent on a mission arranged in eternity past. This mission basically was to come to this earth as a human being, live among us, be tempted in every way like we are without sinning, be illegally convicted and executed as punishment for our sins and then to be resurrected to return to His position in glory from where He had come. This time He returns as a conquering King who has “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10, NKJV).

He testified that He had come to give life abundantly (John 10:10) and to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).

Summarizing then what we have covered under this heading, we have learned that God has made Christ the heir of all things, given Him authority over everything which includes His responsibility to judge, and God has sent Him on a mission to rescue people from their sins and the penalty that comes from sin.

We can see therefore how central and supreme Jesus Christ is to everything God has done and is doing in the world.

Link to video on youtube: https://youtu.be/7979yF2hm6s

God With Us

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The Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us

The argument I am trying to make in this series of articles is that Jesus Christ, the God-man, is the core of all knowledge, all science, our very being, and He is the Supreme ruler of all things. As we read in the gospel of John chapter one verse 14, John tells us that the Word became flesh and lived among us. The Word is the second person of the Trinity. Earlier in the first chapter of John he wrote that in the beginning the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So now we see that the Word becomes flesh; this thing called the Word becomes human, takes on a body and comes here! We know this person as Jesus Christ. There are several passages of scripture that I would like us to look at, and I’m going to quote them verbatim so that you can see what the scripture is claiming.

“He [speaking of Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” (Colossians 1:15, NKJV)

“For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,” (Colossians 1:19, NKJV)

“in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3, NKJV)

“For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;” (Colossians 2:9, NKJV)

“[God] has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” (Hebrews 1:2–3, NKJV)

According to Colossians and Hebrews, Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. The writer to the Hebrews says He is the express image of God. In other words, He is the exact impression of God. Just like we might make a stamp and impress an image onto a block of clay, Jesus Christ is the impress stamp, the image of God the Father. These verses further tell us that all the fullness of the godhead dwelt in Jesus Christ bodily. That means that when Jesus was walking around on this earth getting his feet dusty, He was the embodiment of the entirety of the godhead. In addition to that, Paul wrote to the Colossians that all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are to be found in Jesus Christ himself. The word all leaves nothing out. Every bit of wisdom that exists in the universe has its origin in Jesus Christ. All the knowledge of science, chemistry , astronomy, psychology, sociology, and so forth, are rooted in Christ. Any wisdom that there is in the universe has its source in Jesus Christ. This is why His being is central and supreme.

There can be nothing said of someone that is more profound and an acknowledgment of the supremacy of that one and the centrality of that one than to say that He is the creator of all things, the entirety of God almighty is contained in Him, and that  all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge dwell in Him.

In the Beginning

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The purpose of this series of articles is to demonstrate the centrality and supremacy of Christ as given to us in the Scriptures. The first part of this series I’m calling “In the Beginning.” The first verse in the Bible tells us, “In the beginning God …” Obviously this means that in the beginning, God was there before anything else existed. In John 1:1 the Bible tells us “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.” Before anything else existed, God was there, as was the Word, and the Bible says that the Word was God. We also know from Genesis 1:2 that the Holy Spirit was also present at creation hovering over the waters. These verses lay the foundation for the Christian worldview and philosophy. We are going to discover that “The Word” is none other than the Son of God and the man Jesus Christ, and He is the center of everything.

What we can see from this is that the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were all present at creation. In John 17:24, Jesus testifies that God the Father loved Him before the foundation of the world. Earlier in that same chapter Jesus looks forward to the day when He will share again in the glory He had with the Father before the world began. What we know, then, is that within the Trinity there was love, communication, and glory before anything else had been created. Should we be surprised then that we as human beings, who have been created in the image of God, have personalities that include love and communication as part of our nature?

These truths lay the foundation for what comes next. In Genesis 1:1 we learn that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In John 1:1-3 we learn that the Word, that was in the beginning with God, and was God, created all things, and there’s nothing that’s been created that He did not create. Therefore, as we look around, everything we see around us has been created by the Word, the Son of God. Furthermore, according to John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

“He (speaking of Jesus Christ) 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.” (Colossians 1:15–17, NKJV)

“[God] has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” (Hebrews 1:2–3, NKJV)

What do we learn from these passages? Jesus Christ the Son of God created all things including thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. We further learn that He made everything for Himself. Just as we sometimes create artwork or a piece of furniture for our own use and enjoyment, Jesus Christ did the same with all of creation. In addition, we learn that He holds everything together. Why is it important to consider the centrality and supremacy of Christ? Because He is the foundation of all of creation, and He supports and holds it together for His own pleasure and glory.

Let’s think about these ideas in a different way. In the beginning all that existed was a 3-person God who existed in a spiritual form, that is, He did not have a body. And yet there was communication and love among the members of this Trinity. At some point before time began, this triune God decided to create the universe. All of the atoms and molecules that make up our universe, our world , and our bodies, were created out of nothing through the Word of this God. And what John tells us in John chapter one is that this Word, that created all things, is God himself, and that He is currently holding all things together. If that’s not amazing to you, I don’t know what it would take to amaze you!

I think what we need to do as Christians is to try to put aside the conception of these things as being religion or religious teaching. The Bible is saying, and we as Christians believe, that these statements are actually true. This truth is at the core of all science and all history and, in fact, all knowledge. There actually is a God who exists in three persons, and who created all things by His word. I would go so far as to say that if you do not believe this to be true, then it is likely that you are not actually a Christian, because these statements in the Bible, are the foundation and the core of all the rest that follows.

Link to video on youtube: https://youtu.be/7979yF2hm6s

Part 5 – God’s Remedy

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In these blog posts, I’ve been musing about the purpose of life and how God fits into the picture. The Bible clearly describes our condition as one of rebellion and sin against God. He is our creator, and we have rebelled against Him. The punishment for that rebellion, or sin, is death – eternal separation from God forever.

But the Bible presents us with it calls the Gospel – the Good News. The good news is that Jesus Christ, the second person of the trinity, took on human flesh and came here to live among us. He did not do this merely to be a good example. What good is a good example if we don’t want to follow that example, or are incapable of following that example?

The gist of the Good News of the Christian message is this:

1) Jesus Christ came and took our punishment on Himself when He died on the cross.

Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the [cross], that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. (Isaiah 53:5)

For [God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

2) God offers salvation and forgiveness as a gift to everyone who repents and believes the Gospel.

Repent and believe in the gospel. (Mark 1:15)

Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. (Acts 17:30)

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:12)

3) God offers to give us His righteousness in exchange for our sin.

For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” But to him who does not work, but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. (Romans 4:3, 23)

And be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. (Philippians 3:9)

4) God offers eternal life to those who trust Him with their souls.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. (John 3:16, 17)

Part 4 – God is Not a Grandpa

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So far in my musings about the meaning and purpose of life, I have tried to show that there is a God who exists, and that he is greater than all that we can imagine, and he created and owns everything and doesn’t need our advice and counsel to figure out how to run the world. The second thing we looked at is the Bible’s teaching that God’s purpose for all he does is his glory. We were created by him in his image in order to reflect his glory and majesty, and when we get side-tracked from that we lose our focus and then find ourselves without meaning and purpose. Finally, I tried to explain the Bible’s point of view that all of us have sinned against God by not acknowledging him and by not being thankful for his provisions for us and finally disobeying his just commands.

Most people view God as being a kind old man who doesn’t really expect much of us. He wants us to be happy and helps us now and then, but pretty much stays out of our way. When it comes to some sort of final judgment, God realizes that we all pretty much do our best, and nodding his approval, welcomes us into his home. The problem with this is that it is not at all the way the Bible describes God. The Bible describes God as being a just God. Being just means that he cannot just ignore sins against him. He loves people, but in that loving, his character of justice cannot simply overlook sin. Think about it this way. How would you feel about a judge who freed the same criminal over and over because he really liked the guy. Suppose the criminal was in court for his 50th murder in the act of committing a robbery. Would you be pretty content with that judge if he just kept letting this man go because he was a nice guy and was really likeable? We all know that such a judge is not just and should be removed from the bench. And yet we are hoping that God is like that judge.

The God presented to us in the Bible is completely just and will not overlook sin.  He has already demonstrated that to us in this world by putting all creation under a curse. We know something is wrong. We have a sense about how people should ideally get along, and yet we see so much abuse, fighting and killing in the world that we know something is wrong. We picture what an idyllic garden should be like, and yet there are constant attacks on that garden by weeds and pests of one kind or another. We are trying to grow a few beautiful roses right up next to our sunroom, and suddenly one morning every bud was gone. A deer had come up to the house and had eaten every bud that was available. That same deer has to be careful to avoid being attacked by a predator or killed by a hunter or run over by a car.

We know things are not like we think they should be, and it’s not because we’re just lazy and want an easy life. We know things are out of whack somehow.  The Bible explains that God cursed the ground because of us – because of our sin. Paul writes in the book of Romans, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.”

So my thoughts today are aimed at understanding that God is a just God and he will and has responded to our sin and disobedience with appropriate punishment.

Numbers 14:18 “He will by no means clear the guilty.”

Ezekiel 18:4 “The soul that sins shall die.”

Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.”

Next time we’ll look at God’s solution to our problem.