Author: Tobie

Strain Out Those Gnats!

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The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 2 Thessalonians 2:9-11

End time hype, which received a huge boost in the early seventies with the publishing of Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth, has been at an all time high since the release of authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’ 16 novel Left Behind series. In spite of the fact that more than 35 million of Lindsey’s books and more than 63 million of the Left Behind books have been sold, not everyone is applauding.

A number of prominent theologians are pointing out that these books represent but one view of eschatology amongst several, and not necessarily the most satisfying or historically accepted one. They also argue that, due the particular sensationalist slant of this view (called the “literalist, premillennial, dispensational” view), it has translated extremely well into novel format and especially onto the big screen. Lindsey’s book was adapted into a 1979 movie (narrated by Orson Welles) and the Left Behind series into 3 action thriller films, with a fourth one being planned. Due to the commercial success of the books and films a questionable interpretation of the Bible’s teaching on the “end-times” have now become mainstream, the critics say.

Strain out those Gnats!

Needless to say, eschatological debates amongst Christian are at an all time high as a result of these developments. Premillennialists are arguing with amillennialists who are arguing with postmillennialists. Pre-trib rapturists have a problem with mid-trib rapturists who have a problem with post-trib rapturists, and all of them frown upon so-called “pre-wrath” rapturists. And so it goes on. In fact, the arguments are so severe in certain circles that believers are breaking fellowship with one another because of eschatological differences. A case in point is the compulsory resignation of Marvin Rosenthal from his position as director of the Friends of Israel organisation a few years ago. The reason? Rosenthal changed his views from believing that the rapture of the church is going to take place before the great tribulation to believing that it is going to take place before the period when God’s wrath is going to be poured out at the end of the tribulation.

One cannot help but wonder how on earth Christians got to a place of such pettiness. There was a time when comedian Emo Philips’ classic joke was just a joke (it was voted the funniest religious joke of all time), but now it would appear to have been more of a prophecy than a joke. For those who cannot remember:

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What denomination?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.

The problem, it would appear, is the very one pointed out by Jesus in his rebuke of the Pharisees: “You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” Whilst the straining out of the gnat indeed seems like a time-wasting display of trivial-mindedness, the greater problem has to do with the swallowing of the camel. Put differently, the real tragedy is not that the devil manages to get us obsessed with nonessentials, but that he makes us lose focus of the essentials in the process. As Mark Twain quipped: “Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.”

Keeping the Main Issue the Main Issue

The main issue pertaining to the so-called “end times” has never been the timing of the rapture, the nature of the millennium or the nationality of the antichrist. No, the main issue is aptly stated in Jesus Christ’s own words at the opening of the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24): “See that no one leads you astray.” This reference to a spiritual seduction and apostasy in the last days, and the reminder to be on the alert, are repeated a number of times in the New Testament, for instance 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 and 9-11 (quoted at the beginning); 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 3:1-5 and 4:3-4; Revelation 13:11-14 and, of course, in the rest of Matthew 24.

One does not need to be a scholar in theology to detect the single greatest characteristic of the coming great deception. In 2 Thessalonians 2 the apostle Paul tells us that the “apostasy” will be characterised by “power” and “signs and wonders”. In the so-called “Olivet Discourse” (Matthew 24) Jesus says that “false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (verse 24). In similar fashion the book of Revelation tells us that the “false prophet” will perform great signs and deceive those who dwell on earth” (Rev 13:13-14).

This is where the primary focus of any eschatological study should be. What makes this focus even more imperative is the fact that we live in a time of great natural calamities, economic uncertainty, war (with the constant threat or “rumours” of greater war), and, above all, global religious transformation. Not only do we see a great apostasy from the Christian faith all across Europe, but in the past few decades we have seen much of the Christian church undergoing a radical shift from a focus on God’s Word to an obsession with signs, wonders and personal experience that is often highly subjective and mystical. Supernatural phenomena in the church are on the rise, and especially angelic appearances are becoming more commonplace in certain Christian circles. If we find ourselves in the last days, what do these changes signify? Is the church coming closer to God and experiencing the foretaste of some latter day great revival, or are we in the process of being deceived?

(Excerpted from the article Angels & Demons that appeared in the Auksano magazine)

The Gift of Knowing

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Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. Matthew 11:25-26

Knowledge, according to a popular dictionary definition, is the “acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation.” These last two words indicate the conditions for knowledge, and so the one who wishes to acquire knowledge is assumed to be a “student” or “investigator”. In other words, the responsibility for acquiring knowledge lies with the one who wishes to know.

Some people, of course, are better students than others. They have higher IQs, are wiser than their peers and are generally better and faster at understanding concepts. Many of them become professional students, that is, full time researchers who get paid to share their ever-increasing knowledge with lesser-enlightened souls.

But suppose the acquisition of knowledge did not depend on the knower but on the object of knowledge. And suppose the object of knowledge allowed itself to be known by using criteria that had little to do with study or investigation. If that were the case the wise and understanding would loose their advantage. And those who qualify according to the different criteria would gain it.

It’s a strange idea, isn’t it? Yet that is exactly what the Bible teaches. Knowing God does not depend on our wisdom or understanding, but on God making himself known. This “revelation” comes to children, which suggests that the condition for receiving it has more to do with dependence, vulnerability and sincerity than an abundance of grey matter.

That explains why someone like famous atheist Christopher Hitchens, who has been voted the “world’s fifth top public intellectual”, has not been assisted by his formidable intellect to discover a single thing about God.

Beggars and Manipulators

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Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:3

Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Matthew 7:23

These verses are found at the beginning and the end of the most famous sermon of all times, the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 – 7). They present us with a striking contrast between two types of people: The poor in spirit, and demon-driving, miracle-working prophets. It is a strange irony that the former will inherit the kingdom of heaven, whilst the latter will be driven out.

The introduction and conclusion of the sermon presents a frightening contrast, and everything in between expands thereon. There are two roads, two houses, two foundations, two responses to Christ’s words, two ways of praying, two ways of fasting, two ways of giving, two ways of interpreting the law, two ways of storing up reward, two ways of judging and so on. The contrast is not between the vile, drunken sinners on the broad road leading to perdition and the few pious saints on the narrow road leading to life, as the famous painting depicts. No, the contrast is between two types of religion. The religion of the poor in Spirit and the religion of the self righteous. To miss this is to misunderstand the Sermon on the Mount.

‘Blessed are the paupers’, reads the Latin Vulgate, coming closer to the original Greek text. Literally, the blessed are ‘spiritual beggars’, people who are not just deprived, but utterly destitute. They understand their spiritual poverty, their wretchedness before a holy God, and so they mourn (verse 4) and hunger and thirst for a righteousness that they know they don’t possess (verse 6). Subsequently, God fills them. The progression in the beatitudes is clear.

In contrast, the sermon portrays the ‘hypocrites’ as those who take pride in their own righteousness. They base it on their observance of Mosaic Law, and believe that their acts of giving, praying and fasting are meritorious and impressive (6:1-18). They seek their reward in the here and now, and they do so by gaining recognition for their distinction in the matters of God.

The miracle-workers of Matthew 7 fall into this category. Their ability to take control in the spiritual realm, to prophesy and exorcise demons, presents us with a metaphor of the self-righteous person. He has God all figured out, can manipulate the spiritual forces, and thinks this will get him to heaven. As a result they have no need to subject themselves to the teaching of Christ.

Let us not be deluded. Let us join the beggars and mourners instead of fabricating our own righteousness.

Black Swans and the Bible

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Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:13-15

In recent years there has been an upsurge in books and scholarly articles dealing with humanity’s inability to correctly predict the future. Most notable has been Nassim Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan. These are scary reads, revealing how vulnerable we are to constructing idealistic visions of the future whilst heading straight towards disaster.

What we call forecasts are oftentimes no more than wish dreams, and this is true whether we are New York stockbrokers, politicians with bags full of promises or young professionals embarking on the road to their first million whilst raising the perfect family.

It all sounds pretty cynical, especially when the bookshops and airwaves are crammed with messages that you can attract your own future by following a few basic universal laws to which even God is subject. But thinkers like Taleb, Daniel Kahneman and Daniel Gilbert are vindicated by two factors: Firstly, history testifies on their behalf with millennia of grim statistics, confirming how often the unexpected violently intrudes into the lives of the most decent of people. Secondly, and more importantly, the Bible has been saying for ages what these scholars are propagating.

The Bible, however, goes one step further. Instead of merely shattering our wish dreams it introduces us to an alternative focus that is immune to surprises: The eternal, unshakeable will of God.

Angry Axl

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Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4

One of the past few decades’ most famous ‘angry young men’ is a heavy metal singer by the name of Axl Rose. Rose, who was arrested over twenty times in his teens on charges such as assault and public drunkenness, gained notoriety as the frontman for American rock band Guns ‘n Roses. Rose is as famous for his onstage antics, rants and profanities as he is for his musical abilities. The influential rock magazine Hit Parader ranked him 11 in their list of Top Metal Vocalists of All Time.

But there is another accomplishment of Rose that few people are aware of. As a youngster he won prizes not for musical achievements but for his knowledge of the Bible. Raised in a strict Pentecostal home Rose attended church 3 to 8 times a week, taught Sunday School and memorised Bible verses. He sang in church from the age of five and his first musical performances took place with his brother and sister during services.

Anyone who has ever caught a glimpse of a Guns ‘n Roses concert will realize that Axl is clearly no longer singing for the Lord. Why? What went wrong? We’ll never know the full story, but here’s a clue: As a youngster he once sang along with Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” and got walloped by his religious stepfather. He tells of other instances of abuse, a mother who was never there for him and a church “filled with self-righteous hypocrites”. And so Axl became angry.

Hmm. There is a lesson here for us who are parents. A legalistic “touch not, taste not” upbringing might seem godly, but ultimately it will only provoke anger if not accompanied by love.

A Tale of Two Trees

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I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Galatians 2:20

There is a strange and inexplicable theological error that has plagued the church of Jesus Christ since its inception: A one-sided understanding of Jesus’ accomplishment on the cross.

A simple question illustrates the problem. How often have you heard the words “Jesus died for me/you/us”? Compare that with the amount of times that you have heard people saying “Jesus lives for me/you/us”. There is usually no comparison. Christians have an odd habit of celebrating the death of Christ and its implications, rather than the resurrection and life of Christ with its implications. We prefer to wear crosses around our necks, not empty tombs. And we ignore the fact that the cross once was a tree. It symbolises that which once was alive, whereas the empty tomb symbolises that which once was dead! Indeed, nothing illustrates the curse and wages of sin better than a dead tree, especially if it spreads its infection and causes others to die. This is why we read “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” Christ became that curse, and through his resurrection he broke it. Our ancestors ate from the forbidden tree – the tree of death – and caused the other tree to become forbidden. Through Christ, however, we once again have access to the tree of life. Christ’s life was not only given. It was also received!

Perhaps our misunderstanding in this regard has to do with the fact that we appreciate the idea of forgiveness, but that we are reluctant to consider the idea of a changed life. Whatever the reason, the Bible is clear that the Christian life is a life lived by the risen Christ inside of us. And so the secret of Christianity is to be found in our union with Jesus Christ. Paul refers to this as a mystery that has been revealed in the words “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

To try and live the Christian life by self-effort is the most futile exercise ever. The sinful flesh can conquer itself no more than Beelzebub can drive out Beelzebub. It is a simple impossibility. This is why God sent his beloved Son to the world. Not to only die in our place, but to live in our place. Christianity is more than someone paying for your sins. It is to experience the power of an exchanged life on a daily basis!

A Determined Heart

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For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. Matthew 6:21 – 23

The sentences above are well known and often quoted by Christians. Unfortunately, we frequently ignore the sequence above and quote them as separate statements, implying that each sentence has its own message.

A careful reading of Jesus’ words reveals that we are dealing with one statement, not two. The second and third sentences comments on the first and expands its meaning.

Read together, they proclaim a single, simple truth: Our hearts are not free. They follow our treasure. Put differently, our commitment and passion in life are determined by those things that we deem valuable. This “value attribution”, as psychologists and students of human behaviour call it, determines the way in which we look at the world. It creates a “paradigm” or “interpretive grid” which functions like a mental filter, inviting some facts in and blocking others out. Ultimately it determines our behaviour, and so the old cliché rings true: “Seeing is being.” In the words of the Bible: The condition of your eye determines the whereabouts of your body.

Contemporary psychology and motivational theory have latched on to this idea, hence the jargon above. But the one thing these disciplines cannot do is to reveal the actual location of the treasure. This Jesus does. In case you hadn’t noticed, the verses above are preceded by a striking disclosure: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.“

The News is Good Enough

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Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. 2 Corinthians 4:1-4

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul devotes much time to explaining what it means to be a minister of the New Covenant. This Covenant, he says, far surpasses the Old Covenant. It has an intrinsic power and glory that is magnificent and indescribable.

The verses above build on this teaching and lead to a profound conclusion: The New Covenant message is so glorious that it does not need any human interference to increase its appeal. It cannot be marketed or promoted. It does not require sponsorships or endorsements. A glib sales pitch by a smooth talking, dynamic individual is a waste of time.

And so the gospel is best presented plainly, Paul explains, directed at the conscience and not the emotions. This is why the best candidate for delivering it is a weak and unimpressive one. A few verses on we read “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” To the same Corinthians Paul wrote that God chooses people who are not wise, influential or of noble birth.

The marketing revolution of the past few decades has taught us to package and promote our products, causing some of us to forget the basic lesson above. Spicing up our gospel presentation may appear to attract more souls, but in the long run it may very well obscure the glory of the gospel rather than reveal it.

The Fear of Death

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Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. Hebrews 2:14-15

James Arthur Ray, the self-help guru and motivational author who gained fame as a guest speaker in the film The Secret, has been found guilty of three counts of negligent homicide last week. He faces a sentence of up to eleven years in prison.

Ray was known for his expensive motivational retreats where participants were subjected to “sweat lodges”, that is, sauna-like ceremonies used by Native American Shamans to detoxify the body. The botched sweat lodge that led to Ray’s conviction left three people dead and 18 hospitalised.

The reason behind Ray’s sweat lodges and the intended accompanying near-death experiences is explained in his own words: “The true spiritual warrior has conquered death and therefore has no fear or enemies in this lifetime or the next, because the greatest fear you’ll ever experience is the fear of what? Death. You will have to get to a point where you surrender and it’s OK to die.”

Ray is correct. The fear of death is indeed humanity’s greatest fear. But he is tragically mistaken when it comes to the method by which it is overcome. The one who delivers us from this fear is not a motivational guru, but Jesus Christ. And the way in which Christ does it is not through inducing near-death experiences whilst shouting motivational twaddle, but by destroying the source of death.

That makes a lot more sense. To try and overcome the fear of death whilst heading straight towards it is stupidity, not courage.

When Grace Becomes Cheap

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What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? James 2:14

Martin Luther once called the New Testament letter of James an “epistle of straw”. Struggling to reconcile Paul’s gospel of free grace with James’ demand for good works, Luther remarked that he would give his doctor’s beret to anyone who could do so. Years before he had come to an understanding of God’s grace, and nothing could drag him back to his old life of trying to please an angry God through a system of good works. His cry became the cry of the Reformation: Sola Gratia! (Grace alone).

It is interesting to note that this phrase is often quoted, in some form, by Christians in discussions about moral issues, and usually seen as the last words on the subject. Like Luther, we side with Paul and choose to ignore James.

Yet James’ inclusion in the canon of Scripture is no accident. James does not attack or minimise our understanding of God’s grace, but rather expands it. Grace, according to James, does not only forgive sins, but also transforms the sinner. It includes both pardon and rehabilitation. Separate the two, and it is no longer grace.
These two dimensions of grace are strikingly illustrated in the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8). We all know what Jesus said to the Pharisees and love quoting him: “If anyone is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her”, but we seem oblivious of his words spoken to the woman: “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, said Diettrich Bonnhoeffer. Let us heed James’ words, and not fall into the trap of thinking that God’s grace is a license to commit or condone sinful acts.