Zeitgeist Pride is the spirit of the age these days. That is probably something that could be said about every age. It is at the core of much of what sin is. When the Apostle John was describing sin, one of the three phrases he used was “the pride of life.” (1 John 2:16) This is only made worse in our current culture because pride is actually celebrated. Many have asserted that the danger of capitalism is that greed becomes a virtue. However, in a world where personal autonomy, self expression, and radical individualistic authenticity are the standard for a relativistic morality, pride is good. So much of our lives is captured by the prison of our own pride. Pride is dangerous and brings many snares and traps. Pride causes us to have a distorted and even perverted view of the reality around us. However, this distortion is not perceived by us because it is what we want to be true. The more prideful we become individually and societally, the more blinded we become to just how warped our understanding truly is. Me, Myself, & I At the heart of pride is the exaltation of self. Narcissist is a word that comes from a character in Greek mythology. The story goes that Narcissus was an attractive young man who, upon beholding his magnificent visage in a pool of water, fell in love with himself. His desire to love himself led him to despair that he could not love himself enough to the point that he committed suicide. You might think that this is crazy. Don’t people who hurt or kill themselves suffer from too low a self esteem instead of too high? Actually, both self love and self loathing usually come from the same prideful root. That is that even if a person hates himself it is probably because he thinks he deserves to be better or have a better life than he has. Here, the problem is still pride, albeit indirectly. This is also at the root of our sin against God. We love ourselves more than God who deserves for us to love Him entirely. I am not saying that we should not love ourselves. Both Jesus and the law said “that we are to love others as we love ourselves.” (Matthew 22:39) However, we are still called to love God supremely, with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Whoa….Careful All of this danger is why the Scripture repeatedly warns us about the dangers of arrogance and pride. The wisdom of God tells us that pride leads us straight into failure and ruin (Proverbs 16:18). These warnings are in the pages of the sacred text to compel us away from the tragic path of selfish pride. The worst part is that this makes us enemies of God. God says that the proud and the arrogant are His opponents (James 4:6). Being enemies of God is the worst situation to be in and it is exactly what Jesus came to correct. Jesus came while we were still the enemies of God to make us children of God and bring reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:16-21). But if we continue in unrepentant pride we will not desire or acquire this salvation that comes to us only through humble faith in Jesus Christ!
0 Comments
Apparitions We are coming up on the holiday when most folks are thinking about ghosts and goblins. As Christians, we know that spirits are real. Each of us is a spirit as well as a body and soul. However, humans do not hang around to haunt their enemies or to finish some old business. The Bible is clear that at the point of death people go to the place of the dead. This place is called Sheol in the Old Testament. In the New Testament it seems clear that unbelievers go to a place called hades (bad place) awaiting the day of final judgement (Luke 16:22). While believers, on the other hand, go to be with the Lord. There they wait to be clothed with a glorified body in the resurrection secured by Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:1-10). However, there are spirits that are active in the world. One type of spirit would be the ministering spirits who are actively attending God’s people with blessing from His generous hand (Hebrews 1:14). These angelic beings are spiritual beings that have kept their created state of obedience to their Creator and are in submission to their glorious role. Their counterparts are those fallen celestial beings which are in rebellion against God. As with all rebels against God, they are fighting a losing battle. But these beings are also spiritual. They are liars, for they follow after the one who is the father of lies (John 8:44). They are seeking to deceive and destroy the image bearers of God. One of their favorite tactics is to cause people to believe in mystical, spiritual, or extraterrestrial realities to erode faith in genuine reality and the one true God. But ghosts and spirits are not really what this post is all about. The point I want to talk about today is that we can do great harm to one another, especially in the church through neglecting the promises we have made and the community to which we belong. Terminology The term “ghosting” is a relatively new colloquial term usually used in dating relationships to refer to when one person abruptly stops all contact and communication without any evident reason or explanation. Now I haven’t been in the dating game for two decades, but I think that this term can also be applied to other relationships of which we all are apart. All of us have relationships imposed on us through the circumstances of our lives. What I mean by this is that most of our regular relationships are with family members and coworkers. However, the relationships that are most likely to be “ghosted” are not these relationships, but those relationships that we have entered upon as a clear choice and probably ones that we believe we can just as easily remove ourselves from if desired. Bonds Ephesians 4:1-6 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. This text of Scripture is addressed to a local church and deals with the practical way that they are meant to be devoted to one another and responsible for one another in the local church. Do you think that it would have been ok for a member of the Ephesian church to just stop—not only attending, but communicating and engaging with the brothers and sisters in their fellowship? The word ekklesia refers to the “called out” ones. It is the word that is translated church. It is a congregational word. The word denotes those belonging to a group. An individual Christian is not the church. The church is the covenant body of the local church. It is not just insensitive or disrespectful for someone to “ghost” the local church, it is sinful. The hebrews writers counsel those in danger of being drawn away from their steadfast commitment to Christ and His church to not forsake the assembling of the church (Hebrews 10:24-25). This term “ghosting” should be the world’s word and it should not be found among the saints. Material Our modern age is a very material age. What I mean is that our scientific successes have caused us to understand all things in terms of naturalistic and material processes. With this we have come to believe that everything has a kind of natural and material explanation. This is not necessarily something that we say, but it has become for many people, even professing believers, an underlying assumption. This is a worldview issue. Worldview is that set of presuppositions or assumptions that we use to synchronize the information that we gather about the world so that we can understand and appropriately act and react to the world. The problem is that we do not live in a simple, material universe. This means that many, if not most, modern and postmodern people are trying to analyze reality through a materialist filter that does not allow them to even consider the existence of realms or dimensions beyond the physical universe. They are what the Bible refers to as spiritually blind. Present Darkness This is especially dangerous for them because we are surrounded by dark and powerful enemies that desire our harm. The demonic ranks hate those made in God’s image and want to destroy that image. That means that people walking around with this kind of epistemological blindness are exceptionally vulnerable to satanic schemes and devilish devices. This is most evident in that they cannot even understand that the danger is real. The Scripture is clear that our present battles are not against flesh and blood but against spiritual powers and force beyond this material realm (Ephesians 6:12). However, blindness is not only dangerous because of enemies who mean to harm us. The person suffering blindness is also susceptible to danger from their own inability to perceive reality. The materialist is more likely to stumble and fail because they cannot detect the spiritual holes and rocks all around them. Worst of all, since they do not even know that they are blind they take no precautions against these injuries. Unseen Light However, all these dangers do not even begin to compare to the greatest tragedy for those captured by such blindness. This great tragedy is that they miss all the beauty that they could be beholding. Spiritual blindness is not only a problem because one cannot see the enemies but because the blessing and truth are also shrouded from view. These people are walking around blissfully unaware of the cosmic battles but they also cannot rejoice in the celestial victories. Jesus said that even the angels are rejoicing with the swivel of every repentant sinner.(Luke 15:10) Without spiritual sight these family members, friends and neighbors are left to exist without beholding the glory of God in face of Jesus Christ.(2 Corinthians 4:1-6) Paul says here clearly that a veil lays over the eyes of the unbeliever. They are genuinely missing out on the beauty of Jesus and the transcendent wonder of the glory of God. Open Eyes This is why it is so important for us who are believers to not adopt the numbness of the world around us. We know that there is a spiritual reality that is far more vast and real than anything that one can taste or touch or smell or see. The enemy of our souls would like nothing more than for us as Christians to adopt a materialistic and naturalistic worldview. In this case we are fooled into believing that he is no danger and Christ is only a sentimental Savior. But we must be vigilant to the reality all around us. So let us fix our spiritual gaze on Jesus and consult regularly His revelation to us in the Scriptures that we would be truly spiritual people (Hebrews 12:2). Focus Our current culture is infatuated with youth. This is not a new phenomenon. But we must not forget that each generation has an important role to play, which includes both seeking to make progress while not losing the valuable wisdom of those in our past. My concern is that we as a society have become so impressed with our own technological advancements and invested in our own theories about the future that we are in great danger of missing the important lessons from those who have gone before us. We are so concerned about what history will say about us that we are not listening to what history has to say to us. Family Most of us have grown up in rural areas where certain families have marked the local history. In the area I grew up in those were the Brown's, Bradford's, Privitt's, and Hackett's. In Searcy county it's probably the Horton's, Ragland's, Treat's and several others. The point is that how our grandparents and older generations impacted the local area and their families is important. This provides for us a basic root structure from which the societal orchard grows and thrives. However, with understanding our history we become disconnected and socially estranged. Patriarchs On Sunday nights we have been studying the life of the patriarchs. We are not doing this just to provide a topic for our bible study. Instead we are seeking to grasp the history which God put at the root of the Biblical narrative. Without understanding the important aspects of God's covenant and promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we will not fully grasp the amazing story of redemption painted so beautifully in God's deliverance of His people from Egypt and bringing them to the promised land. But it is even more necessary for us to understand this Old Testament history, because if the redemptive account of the exodus can be likened to a painting then the redemption story told in the New Testament is an HD film. In Jesus, we see God in all His goodness and grace on display (Hebrews 1:1-3). Jesus has won our freedom and granted us entrance into an eternal garden which we could not understand without the history which shows us who God is and how He relates to people. God's Family This is the history that points to our future and binds us together in our time. We are not just an assortment of believers meeting together on Sunday mornings but a family that will be together even in eternity. We are truly a people for His own possession (Titus 2:13). So often our understanding of the church and our place in it is shallow because we are not remembering that we are a part of a much larger history. Disputable Matters As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ we are called to share in a common faith and be like minded. To this end God has revealed Himself in a firm and final standard of truth called the Bible. But even though we are to be like minded and accept the same ultimate authority there are issues on which well meaning and thoughtful Christians will disagree. These are not issues that define the gospel or heresy. These are called disputable matters that various Christians will view differently (Romans 14). These things should not divide us from one another, but rather, should serve to show that we genuinely love one another even when we disagree (1 Corinthians 6:12-20). I believe that one’s view of vaccines and vaccine mandates falls into this category. Many Christians view the vaccines and other health related restrictions over the last couple of years as demonstrations of our love for neighbor and submission to authority (Romans 13:1-7). What follows is an example of an argument for resistance to mandates that I hope is not inconsistent with our call to obey the governing authorities. Conscience The Christian faith is at the most fundamental level the confession that Jesus is Lord (Romans 10:9)! Since this is the case, committed Christians are first and foremost subjects of Christ’s kingdom and obliged to follow His commands. His commands include repentance from sin, love for God and neighbor, as well as a practical pursuit of biblical faithfulness, holiness, and righteousness. Therefore, Christians are called and counseled by scripture to seek to obey governing authorities because they serve under the providential permission of the one true sovereign God (Romans 13:1-7). Jesus is heralded as King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16). This means that all governments, presidents, legislative bodies, and courts are under His authority. However, when the governing authorities command Christians to do what is not allowed by the law of Christ (i.e. participate in sins like abortion or theft) or restrict Christians from doing the righteous things positively instructed by the law of Christ (i.e. not preaching the gospel or gathering as the church) then genuine believers are under obligation to obey God not any human authority (Acts 4:18-20). Different Christians can come to varying opinions about the positive or negative nature of the vaccines. Many Christian are concerned about the long term effects of a rapidly produced vaccine that of necessity cannot have any long term study or data. Even more Christians are opposed to the use of a vaccine that has been developed or tested using abortion derived fetal cell lines. An even larger segment of the Christian population may be concerned about the overreach of authority. Within God’s good design for human flourishing, He has established realms or jurisdictions of authority. These begin with the self, and work out through the family, church, and civil authorities. Government mandates regarding an individual's health choices are examples of the governing authorities going outside their divinely allowed jurisdiction into the jurisdiction of the family and the individual. Conviction Christians are ultimately called to live before the Lord Jesus Christ in faith. This means that believers must seek to maintain a good conscience. The Bible is clear that anything not done in faith is sin (Romans 14:23). This means that anything that a Christian cannot do with faith and a clear conscience is sin and must be rejected regardless of imposing threats or consequences. This should constitute a conscientious objection and therefore a religious exemption, because the faithful Christian cannot act contrary to their sincene convictions derived from the word of God. |
AuthorEddie Ragsdale Archives
May 2024
|