Gardeners, Born and Bred

        Humanity has always born a profound curiosity about his origins. The Bible contains one set of explanations, complete in itself. Though "modern" people largely consider the Bible's creation story to be metaphorical, science hasn't managed to contradict it, or provide satisfactory answers of its own.
        Biblical creation is sufficiently nonspecific to avoid scientific debunking. Yet, given the probability that the details are fabricated, one must also grant the possibility that it is essentially true. Whatever might it mean?
        Perhaps the healthy skeptic could suspend disbelief just long enough to examine the Biblical creation story's essence. Allow it, for a time, to speak its wisdom, even if it is only allegory. Every allegory, after all, has its message, and this particular one has demonstrated its profound power over the centuries. That in itself should qualify it as a significant source of wisdom, not to be taken lightly.
        So, let's go to the story recounted in the Bible. Adam was God's man. In fact, Adam and man are the same word in different languages. In today's phrasing, man was God's Creative Property; He conceived, designed and built man as the creative expression of Himself. After creating the rest of the universe, man was to be God's crowning achievement, for He created man in His own image to become creation's steward, its gardener.

The Job Description
        While Adam enjoyed all the joy, privilege and reward of living as steward over God's creation, he also bore the solemn responsibility to care for it. Part of that job description was to obey God in the one matter with which God found it necessary to constrain him; while Adam was to enjoy all the fruit of the garden, he was not, under penalty of separation from his Creator, to partake of one particular pleasure. Whether the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a literal tree, or metaphorical, matters not in the least to the principle in question. Whatever it or its fruit looked like, or whatever it meant to eat of it, God made it strictly off-limits.
        As the creation account unfolds in God's word, we see Adam stepping up to the plate, so to speak, by naming all the animals—no small feat in itself. Later, we learn that Adam was not only man, but human, in that he was lonely. Acknowledging a need in Adam that the man couldn't even define, God used a key part of Adam to fashion the Woman who would fill that void.
        So, man became mankind, God's gardeners, created to reproduce in His image to care for the rest of His creation.

A Serious Error
        Anyone who's a Windows computer user knows about the Serious Error. No one understands it, but it tends to shut down the operating system. For whatever reason, one of the new humans committed a Serious Error. That person found a fatal attraction in the one thing God had forbidden. Maybe the source of temptation was the serpent, and maybe the fateful object was a spectacular fruit that glistened in the morning sunshine. And maybe it wasn't, but what does it matter?
        The point is, through whatever mechanism, humanity chose to flout the one constraint that God had placed upon them. Perhaps, in the pressure of the moment, they simply forgot that God forbade that particular indulgence. No, the text indicates that the tempter addressed the issue in the form of a question. So they hadn't forgotten.
        Did they not believe God meant it? Well, they knew God personally. What in His personality or temperament would have indicated that He was kidding?
        Or, perhaps they simply didn't take the commandment seriously, preferring to risk His wrath in order to get what seemed attractive at the moment. After all, God was a God of love, wasn't He? Surely He wouldn't throw them out for just one minor indiscretion, would He? In view of contemporary mankind's attitude toward rules and rule-givers, this explanation seems quite likely.
        From the Genesis account, God didn't find their "minor indiscretion" at all funny. In fact, their "error" was sufficiently serious that God "yanked their plugs" from the Source of eternal life, and since they obviously wanted to live by their own standards, He accommodated them with banishment from the garden to make their own way in the harsh, cruel world.

But That Was Then ...
        Let's fast forward a few dozen centuries to see how far we've come. Risking the appearance of tree-huggers, let's forget our conservative politics for a moment and gaze about to see what our "garden" has become. How do we stack up as stewards and gardeners of this planet?
        Have we respected creation by using its resources responsibly? Or have we coveted the pretty fruit until the "tree" is in danger of being stripped bare?
        Have we used the intelligence of a common dog to not soil our own habitat? Look, for the answer, to our cities' filthy streets, to our polluted water and air, to our refusal to commercially develop non-wasteful energy sources. Let's face it; for an intelligent, creative race, we seem awfully slow at our lessons.

Drop Your Bludgeons, People
        So, dear skeptic, is it not possible to find valuable lessons in the book you believe to be full of human errors? Have our "enlightened" lives shown more wisdom than that old, dusty Bible?
        And, dear Bible-toter, standing on ones belief in God is meaningless if we refuse to learn more from Him than sterile, religious doctrine. He said we will love, because He first loved us. Do we?
        Does Christendom demonstrate Christ's love? Does Humanism demonstrate the highest ideals of humanity? Come on, children, let's quit bludgeoning one-another long enough to listen to what the other guy has to say.
        What this planet and its population need to survive is to abandon the inbred prejudices of our know-it-all attitudes, and set about learning from those with whom we disagree. Conservatives need to consider the possibility that unfettered enterprise may be corrupt to its roots, that freedom and autonomy carry with them the solemn responsibility to acknowledge their Source, and that self-government can only work in the context of self-control.
        And liberals need to consider the possibility that we humans aren't the center of the universe, that "quality of life" requires standards of morality and self-respect, far more than a guaranteed standard of living, and that the "free lunch" is, and always has been, the lie we love to believe.
        Earth's gardeners, one-and-all, step up to that plow, take hold of that spade, bend your backs to our God-given responsibility. Whether-or-not we believe in the job Giver, we each have a job to do if we're to survive, and there is nobody else around who will do it.

My Doctrinal Head-Scratching--minus the dandruff

Michael Marlowe has produced a brilliant web site called, Bible Research by Michael Marlowe. With the variety of Biblical resources he offers, this medium simply doesn't allow enough space to adequately plumb the site's depths. I strongly recommend it to any Bible student.
        In response to Bro. Marlowe's statement on that site to the effect that his doctrinal position is "conservative and reformed," I submit the following essay, adapted from an e-mail I sent to him.
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        Your biographical page said your doctrinal stance is "conservative and reformed." Perhaps you could be the one to explain to me the meaning, in this context, of reformed. I know it generally means Calvinist, without promoting the partizanism that usually goes with schools of thought bearing men's names.
        At one time I struggled with the seemingly conflicting teachings of reformed theology and "holiness" theology, which latter term is as ambiguous to me as the former. Most of the discussions I've witnessed between "experts" of the two schools of thought reinforce my own conclusion on the issue: The Bible obviously(without giving book, chapter, verse) supports both teachings, with advocates of each, bending the Biblical context in their attempt to discredit the opposition, which attitude clearly reflects the "spirituality" of their approach.
        One might ask, "How can the Bible teach two such mutually exclusive doctrines as unconditional election and personal volition?" It can and does teach both, because both are true, though not necessarily in the form they are usually taught.
        Each of us tries to wrap our awfully finite mind around God's infinite, eternal truth. With that attempt, large portions of said eternal truth is squeezed out the cracks of the little boxes that are our minds. To deal with said apparent dichotomy, I've arrived at a few conclusions that seem consistent with my woefully inadequate knowledge of His word. I am open to my theories being disproven, but not by anyone consumed with dogmatic pride.
        First, both sides of the figurative aisle seem to assume their understandings of these teachings are as complete and accurate as the texts from which they allegedly derive them. That presumption is utter foolishness! While I'll defend to the death, my belief in God's inerrant truth, I deny just as forcefully that any flawed human being is capable of accurately grasping His truth in its entirety. That pretty much throws any dogmatic stand on human interpretations out the stained-glass window.
        Does that open the smoking hatch to Satan's infernal relativism? Hardly. It just closes another scorched door called pride in ones personal or sectarian understanding.
        Second, divine sovereignty seems to be Calvinism's pivotal doctrine, allowing little-or-no room for human volition. The teaching of unconditional election subjugates any human choice to God's prior selection(Please note my use of the word prior. I'll deal with God's time-line later.).
        So, how sovereign is God? Answer: God's sovereignty is both perfect(qualitatively), and absolute(quantitatively). But His perfection goes infinitely beyond any human understanding of quality, as His absoluteness goes infinitely beyond our understanding of quantity. How can we presume to limit God's options by insisting that He, in His sovereignty, precludes all human volition? Isn't that God's choice to make? Is it not possible that He could sovereignly choose to limit His own sovereignty, giving man some degree of self-determination? Oh, that's right; God's sovereignty is from eternity, while any choices we make are strictly temporal. That leads me to my next point ...
        Third, traditional head-scratching over both persuasions often overlooks one basic fact: We are temporal beings, and our sense of cause-and-effect depends on our temporal perspective, while the Creator of all truth is eternal. That gives Him a somewhat more accurate perspective on matters of eternal truth. I get all cross-eyed thinking about this, but chronological order is meaningless in eternity. To God, there is no past, present, or future. To say our choices are now, while His choices were then, constrains His activity to our concept of time. God has no such limitation! And He needn't accommodate our inability to grasp that fact by attempting to conform His eternal truth to our finite understanding.
        God's Holy Spirit "anoints" His truth to our understanding when He sees fit. Dare we presume to declare any of our understanding as anointed of God? Dare we interpret our "feelings" about the accuracy of our scholarship and the certainty of our doctrines as His agreement?
        Despite our having "crucified" our fallen prIde(that's a capital i in the center of the word) with the old man's sinful nature, its rotting corpse has yet to be completely purged from our bodies. If we refuse to admit its presence, its infectious maggots will spread throughout our attitudes, our motives, our hidden thoughts, until the infestation drags us, unawares, back into the world's sinful quagmire. Eternal security or no eternal security, that "saintly" corruption is an infernal reproach to the holiness of His name, giving the world ample excuse to ridicule our "religion" and ignore our attempts at sharing God's holy gospel.
        I wonder how many of us realize that we "saints" will be judged for throwing such an obstacle in the way of seekers. His word commands us to Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. (Col 4:5)
      Thanks to His matchless grace, God ultimately managed to soften my heart, hardened as it was by the well-meant, but foolish, behavior of a few believers in Christ. But only He knows what I could have accomplished for Him, had they wooed me, rather than wounding me. And only He knows how many seekers have been put off from Him for all eternity; lost because of our occasional thoughtlessness. Just one act of hate, rather than love, of judgment, rather than grace, of pride, rather than of humility, could become a tragedy of eternal consequence.

No Fooling!

        My Scripture calendar revealed God's promise of Mark 10:27 for Tuesday, April First, 2008: Jesus looked at them and said, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God." (English Standard Version)
        In view of God's faithfulness, as well as all His other attributes, the believer might respond to Jesus' statement with a huge, Duh. Through the eyes of faith, to say that all things are possible with God is one of the most obvious statements He could have made.
        To see it that way, we must close our eyes to our human experience. From that fallen perspective, Murphy's Law prevails: "What can go wrong will, and at the worst possible moment." How many times have I quoted one of the numerous permutations of that fatalistic phrase? An even more negative, humanistic cliché would be, Life sucks, and then you die.
        What a contrast that is with God's word! And how foolishly pie-in-the-sky His inspired word seems through the eyes of corrupt, human flesh. But through faith, we can respond to all of God's promises with a resounding, "No fooling!" Even on April first.

Like Doing WHAT Into the Wind?

        True country boys understand the complete folly of loosing track of wind direction during certain ... uh ... duties. Wet boots can be decitedly unpleasant.
        Christian pastors often face a similarly futile chore. Everyone who has spent much time in church knows what it is like to deal with brethren who are wholly sanctified, and proud of it. In fact, they can't stand brethren who don't have perfect love.
        Mere mortals believe that no one this side of heaven is perfect. But what do they know? The really mature saints have already put in their time doing the "grunt" work of lay ministry, so it's about time they were in charge ... as in accountable to no one.
        Something is obviously wrong with that attitude, unless you're the one holding it. God has called countless young--and not-so young--pastors into His service as under-shepherds. His commission on these servants should be fairly simple: guard the flock from Satan's attack, and guide them into godliness. Simple, right? It's simple until they encounter brethren who are already godly, and have no use for any suggestion otherwise. If only they knew who they were.
        It's often been said, "I is in the center of sIn." We know that's right, especially when applying it to those who need to hear it. You know who I'm talking about--them. The problem is, everyone who applies hard preaching to anyone but themselves isn't listening very closely. Whether speaking through His word, or through His man's preaching, God never speaks to others. So if any of the saints listens to preaching with one finger mentally pointed at someone else, he would do well to notice how many fingers are pointed back at himself.
        Let God take care of them, and help keep the preacher's boots dry by minding your own sIn.

Kristy's Lament

My heart broke, today, for a young woman in Southeastern Australia whose beloved husband was jerked out of this life in a freak(some would say freaking) boating accident. Somehow, she pulled herself together enough to report the tragedy in her blog, South East Country Wife. I appreciate Bonnie Calhoun's notice in her e-mailed newsletter from the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance.

THEY GO TO THE DARK

Critters
        They love the evening, dining after hours, procreating with anyone who'll give 'em a tumble. "Sleep all day, play all night," that's their motto.
        Las cucarachas never sweat the consequences; they don't sweat at all. As long as their egg sacks survive to spread their posterity, they're happy ... uh ... campers? These dark-populating insects scamper about obeying nature without question--until the light is switched on. Then, allowing just a few seconds of startled stillness, they scurry to the nearest dark haven to continue their instinct-ruled lives.
        One might expect the race of highly evolved, two-legged night crawlers to follow a more enlightened path. As with their six-legged comrades, however, these human denizens of the night have a two-fold motive: First, evade the light. And second, leave their filthy imprint on an otherwise clean world.
        Most two-legged residents of moderate climes routinely call pest-control when they detect an insect infestation. But they would balk at the idea of exterminating the purportedly human, night crawling, instinct-driven pests. In fact, only those people whose human sensibilities are similarly jaded would entertain such extreme measures

Human to a Fault
        "If the animal is classified homo sapiens, it is human!" chafe the true egalitarians. Although such assertions are technically true, this breed of instinct-ruled pests is nothing like it was created to be, nor is it anything like it could be once again.
        Rather than exterminating the pests--who would be left to exterminate the exterminators?--the only viable option is to exterminate the darkness they require. This is a job for none other than, Su-per Light.

Hero
        Faster than mere physical light, more powerful than a universe of super novas, able to defeat evil wherever it lurks, Elohim came to earth as the common son of a carpenter. After going about the land healing the desperately ill, raising the dead and feeding the hungry, he single-handedly confronted the hypocritical religionists who demanded that he die.
        But die he did! And just when the authorities felt safe in exalting over their enemy's defeat, he defeated death and depravity by rising from the grave, restoring the eternal life that originally made humanity unique. Instinct yielded to wisdom. Darkness yielded to the Light, and the two-legged denizens of the night went scurrying.

Infernal Prison vs. Eternal Refuge
        There are, however, pockets of darkness left to attract the pests, furnished complete with the most delicious pest-bate. The master exterminator saw to that. And the instinct-driven pests stand in line to gobble down the slow death it conceals. Tragic, isn't it, that those mindless creatures of instinct swallow the bate so easily? They don't have to. Though it goes against their nature, they can seek out the Light of destiny. And finding the Light, they can accept the rebirth freely given them by the Light of the world.
        And how does one find the Light? Though it's not easy, it is infinitely simple. The Bible says, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

To Know Him is to Love Him
        Jesus doesn't appeal to everyone, but only those who tirelessly seek the true Light. He doesn't come to just anyone, only those who want him with their whole heart. And while he loves his creation enough to die for us, only those who realize and acknowledge that love are able to love him enough to obey him.
        That simple beginning takes a whole lifetime to complete. And after completing a life of loving the light, he draws us to him for an eternity of unimaginable joy.
Now isn't that better than a dark hole any old day?

We Can't Have, "Dry"

        Many believers in the Lord Jesus avoid too much exposure to the Old Testament. "It's too dry," they say, or, "It's too hard to understand." Such believers are missing out on some of the richest of God's teachings. True, some Old Testament wording is daunting, but who said we have to pronounce every single word we read? And true, Jesus fulfilled the Jewish ceremonial laws. But even though the Law of Moses no longer rules our behavior, each law God gave has an application to our lives in Christ Jesus.
        Take, for instance, Exodus 20:25:
        The alter was to be of earth, not of hewn stone. The verse expands on that idea with, for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. The reason for that distinction is solely for our instruction. Do we build stone alters? Never! Since Jesus was the last sacrifice, there is no need for an alter of sacrifice in the church(Hebrews chapter 10). Hewing the stone for the alter symbolizes our unwarranted requirements for religious ritual, rules and prohibitions. When we enforce our own machinations upon our corporate religious practice, we profane the alter upon which we offer ourselves, rendering the offering profane as well.
        Is that to say, as some do, that we must pattern our religious practices exactly after those of the apostolic church, or the synagogue, or even the temple worship? Of course not! That would place the emphasis of our worship upon formality, rather than upon our Savior. Instead, we are to worship as Jesus instructed the Samaritan woman: John 4:22-24 ESV You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
        Does that mean we must "worship in the Holy Ghost," including mandating "tongues" in our worship, as Pentecostals assert(1 Corinthians 12:27-31)? Or does it mean that we should prohibit speaking in tongues(1 Corinthians 14:21-40)? Such requirements are nothing more than "hewing the alter-stones" on which we sacrifice ourselves. John 4:24 simply means our worship is to be spiritual, not ritualistic. Spiritual worship is concentrating solely on God, rather than on formality or program.
        "Is Pastor Frank raising his hands in worship? Oh, yes he is. So I'd better do the same. But I'm embarrassed. What will people think of me? Maybe if I just sort of half-raise my hands, or lift only one hand, they won't think I'm trying to act spiritual." Those who entertain such concerns are nothing more than people-pleasers, and God has some strong things to say about that behavior(Eph_6:5-7, Luk_18:9-14).
        All that is to say, "Don't sweat it!" Worshiping is to the believer as breathing is to any animal. If you're a believer, you will worship. Concerns about worshiping according to custom or liturgy miss the point completely.
        Neither studying the Old Testament, nor participating in worship, will be a dry experience to whose who are walking in God's Holy Spirit.

What Am I, A Sheep, Or A Man

        We don't know what sort of voice the Self-Existent One used when speaking to Moses and Aaron, whether it was audible, or a strong, sub-vocal impression. But we do know that it was undeniable; it grabbed their attention.
        If the phrase "Self-Existent One" is unfamiliar, it is the meaning of LORD, Jehovah, or Yahweh, because God told Moses, I Am That Which I Am, in response to Moses' question about His name(Exodus 3:13,14 YLT). He is the only being in the universe for whom the fact of His existence points to no one beyond Himself.
        Anyway, the Self-Existent One clearly demonstrated through the series of miracles delineated in Exodus, chapters three through twelve, the work he planned to execute through Jesus. Establishing the theme of 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come, He declared that this Passover would establish a new beginning for His people.
        Some might ask why God had tens of thousands of innocent lambs slaughtered. To them it seems wrong to kill so many in the name of religion. Why would God demand that sort of bloody obedience?
        God welcomes hard questions. For sincere inquirers, He always has an answer if they are willing to accept it. The believer in God's faithfulness would assume that He had a higher purpose in the lambs' slaughter, as in fact, He did. First, God demanded the paschal lamb be without blemish. That symbolism is obvious.
        Second, while God's word doesn't distinguish between the paschal lamb's nature and its physical perfection, there is significance in the fact that God chose a sacrificial animal that is naturally prone to wander and get into trouble. The great I Am came in human form to demonstrate the wonderful truth that fallen, human nature does not necessarily hold mankind in an unbreakable strangle hold. Jesus become the Lamb of God, bleeding out and dying after the Romans drove spikes through His wrists and ankles, that we might enjoy the choice between bondage to our rebellious nature, or abandoning that accursed "old man." The question is, will we choose to remain sheep, mindlessly following our lower urges? Or will we choose to become the humans He created us to be?
        It's as simple as that.

Familiar Face

        An exhausted Marine, probably not older than twenty years-of-age, gazes unaffectedly at the field photographer's camera after struggling forward against well dug-in Japanese automatic gunfire on the beach of Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. What have those young eyes seen? How much of his friends' blood remains dried on his coal dust-encrusted skin; friends who advanced next to him, but plowed into the dirt with bullets or shrapnel quickly stealing away their lives. Friends to whom he couldn't tend, or even say good-by, because he had to keep running toward the enemy machine guns.
        In those wide eyes we see the aftermath of terror, the shame of being the one to return home after so many better men fell in battle.
        Two people gaze at the impersonal camera: First, a Marine, unknown to everyone, with the possible exception of someone, somewhere who loved him and remembers his face. Second, a man in harm's way, whose job it is to kill those his superiors have declared to be his enemies, and if possible, to stay alive to fight another day. Here is the face of Bataan, Korea, Viet Nam, Lebanon, Granada, Afghanistan, Iraq, and any place where young Americans spill their blood out of duty to their family, friends and neighbors back home.
        Is it right to kill and die out of duty to one's government? Well-meaning debaters have argued war's morality for as long as mankind has waged it. In recent years, the news media has made the horrors of war always visible to the civilians who pay for it with their young men and women, and their tax money. We persistently demand justification for the expenditure of lives and material, but the reasoning behind it all remains cloudy. Are we to simply trust our leaders and back their wars? Or it it our moral responsibility to question their motives and pressure them to end war's evil?
        Everyone who cares has an undebatable answer to those questions, either supporting, or resisting, war. And they have a solemn responsibility to express their opinions. But considering these questions raises other crucial issues: Does anyone have the right to sabotage others' efforts to to express themselves? Does anyone have the right to sabotage war efforts even if the conflict is conducted for obviously wrong motives? Such actions will implement the Law of Unintended Consequences.
        That law(otherwise known as Murphy's Law) is already in force as a result of our engaging Saddam Husain's regime. No one in the west anticipated the Islamic militia's sustained resistance, kept alive by sympathetic Muslims the world over. Whether or not we should be involved in the Near East is a useless argument at the moment. Going into the past and not going to war with Saddam Husain's regime is impossible, regardless how much we hate the war. Realistically, we have an Islamic tiger by the tail. What will happen if we let go? For one thing, it will prove to the enemy that we are unwilling to stay the course. Since they already hate the United States as the "Great Satan," they will greet any conciliation or offer to negotiate as an opportunity to put us on the defensive. Once we begin heading that direction, our way of life will be doomed.
        No one knows where this war will end. Both interests are determined to win, and both are willing to commit virtually unlimited resources to that purpose. Only by personally placing their trust in, and their dependence on, the eternal, self-existent God, can anyone hope for a positive outcome in this hopeless situation. And that outcome will not necessarily take place in this lifetime. Until then, people will continue sacrificing their lives to please humanity's triune god of Wealth, Power and Success. Ultimately, this side of eternity, no one wins.

Photos credited to the National Archives.

Will the real Huckabee please stand up?

        Over the past couple of days I've stood back far enough for my aging eyes to clearly apprehend what Mike Huckabee is saying, and what true conservatives are saying about him. My brother-in-law, who makes me seem like a moderate, sent me this link to a column by Ann Coulter. Those who bother with trivia like politics and other current events will probably recognize her as a coherent voice for conservative values.
        Though I am usually loathe to admit my own hyperopia, I am beginning to see a need to reverse my previous position of Mike Huckabee fan. He may indeed be a true conservative Christian, but salving all the Religious Right's hot buttons doesn't necessarily make him good for our nation.
        Now all I need to do is filter through all the political Bull Shit(apologies to my more sensitive brethren), and find a man who will make a great president for this difficult age.