Spreading the Wealth Around

Count off seven sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan... In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to his own property. If you sell land to one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of each other. You are to buy from your countryman on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And he is to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what he is really selling you is the number of crops. Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. (NIV)

This cryptic passage from the book of Leviticus is not in force for non-Jews, nor for the Church of Jesus Christ; nonetheless, I find it interesting in that it reveals, at least to some degree, how God looks upon the redistribution of wealth in an earthly economy. That should likewise be interesting to any American, given that our economy is supposedly one under God (at least that's what we say on our currency). Redistribution, the pariah of free-market capitalists everywhere, seems to be looked upon with favor, even ordered, by God.

Apparently, every 50 years, i.e. about a generation and a half, God wants the economic scale set back to zero. The land is to be redistributed, debt is to be forgiven, and slaves are to be set free. Why? It seems to me, God's objective was that inequities in society wouldn't become so entrenched as to produce a perpetual slave class, endlessly indentured to and beholden to the rich. And all the Republicans said, "Wha-a-a-t?!"

I've heard it said that a severe financial crisis crops up once or twice a century in the West. If 50 years is God's metric for resetting the playing field, do you think that perhaps there's a correlation? There may well be. Is it possible that in his mysterious governance amongst mankind, that once too much wealth is held by too few people, God wants things shaken up? And especially so if those people are his people.

One statistic that would be germane in watching for such a thing is the concentration of wealth-- the measure of the "rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer."

The old adage, "it takes money to make money," is true and describes the mechanism though which wealth is concentrated. Some politicians have long cited the concentration of wealth and the need for redistribution as a justification for increasing the size and spending of government; however, making the government bigger (wealthier) doesn't make the poor wealthier. In fact, it just shifts the poor's indenturer from the rich to the government, while it surreptitiously keeps their slavery just as perpetual. 

Increasing spending among the poor doesn't actually make them wealthier, it only increases their share of consumption. That may not be a bad thing, but it doesn't shift the economic balance of power which is more correlated to wealth. If the U.S. government actually wanted to effect wealth distribution, the easiest place to start would be reforming the Social Security system. If every Social Security account holder actually owned the wealth accumulating in their name, each would be that much more wealthier.

Over the last couple of months much of the wealth of the rich has evaporated into thin air. That kind of thing hasn't occurred since the Great Depression--not exactly 50 years, but close enough for government work. The poor are not likely to be statistically poorer as result of this economic downturn (we'll have to see what unemployment ends up doing), but the rich sure will be. Could the Great Depression II, which we seem to be in the beginning throes of, be God's redistribution plan? It wouldn't be the first time God took things into his own hands to spread the wealth around in a rather draconian fashion.

To wit: The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy... The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah. (NIV)

Vote for Life

Approximately thirty years ago, Evangelicals, no longer satisfied sitting on their hands as part of Nixon's silent majority, decided to speak up.

The Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and some of their companion groups arose with a vision of preserving America's religious roots and returning her to them through political engagement. I've always seen that ideal as a selective reading of history, namely, because America has always been a land of booze, getting rich quick, and the guy at the bottom of the food chain getting the shaft from the guys at the top. And let us not forget that for the bulk of our history, Africans have been held against their wills in slavery and women have had no political or legal say-so.

Are those really the roots we want to return to?

I do believe, in this country where people are the government, that Christians should be politically engaged, and in both major parties. We the people are responsible for what our political leaders do on our behalf. We're responsible if we don't vote, because we could have, and we should have. We're responsible if we do vote, particularly if the candidate we voted for wins and is seated in office. Other people in other times in other places in the world didn't have this responsibility, we do!

There's no running or hiding from it, political involvement is the cost of living in a representative democracy.

So how should we handle that responsibility? It's not so much about the whos of who's elected, but at what cost to our allegiance to God do we support and promote those whos. No politician is the answer to what ails us, Jesus alone has that power. Certainly, no singular politician, at least under our form of governance, is going to change everything. Really, most of what passes as politics is bluster and lie, and needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

The way I see it, the sooner we get these folks back to productive life after their public service the better!

There is, however, one issue that stands above all others in my viewpoint, and one for which we cannot lose heart in the struggle. When the most innocent among us are cold-bloodedly murdered day in and day out, nothing else can be right in the land. Being anti-abortion is not about returning to some fantasy about some former golden day in America, it is about life and death and we cannot shirk our responsibility. Christians must vote pro-life.

You may strategize about how to do that, whether by party affiliation or the individual candidate's stance, but make no mistake about it: you are the government and you are responsible for the choices government makes. What you can do to influence those choices is good and right for you to do, so long as it's not rebellious. By far, the easiest thing you can do is simply vote for life.

Revival Jesus

I've written before about my growing lack of enthusiasm for what is promoted as revival. The recent pseudo-revival at Lakeland only serves to reinforce those thoughts. Now, there was a time when I thought revival was just what the doctor ordered for the ailing church, I mean I came to Christ in the midst of a revivalistic wave, for goodness sake.

State College, Pennsylvania was a truly happening place in the late 70's and early 80's. People were coming to Christ hand over fist. Miracles were occurring. God's presence was readily experienced, fellowship was sweet. I was too naive at the time to realize that what was happening then was revival on a small scale. I thought that, that was just how true Christianity was practiced. It was like the Bible was happening in life.

It was only the subsequent study of church history that made me realize what had actually occurred then in State College, and I ached to see it occur again.

I still have that longing, but I'm reticent to get on the revival bandwagon these days. Frankly, the record of revivals since WWI has been spotty at best... "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." They fall like a meteor, make a splash, but given just a short time, the waters go still with scarcely a ripple left to evidence that anything happened at all. Why? 

It seems to me, revival, as this generation knows it, tends to be about feelings of relief or emotional stirrings rather than about the person and majesty of Christ.

Folk lay in convulsing heaps bemoaning with loud sorrow their sinfulness longing for absolution, or fly around erratically like untied balloons in the joy of their spiritual experience. Either way, the emphasis is on the individual rather than Jesus, and eventually, such activity is bound to run out of steam when the self is tapped. Things then settle into a depressing, entropic sameness but lessness.

A few stalwart cowboys may try to rekindle the brands and restore the sizzle of flesh on fire, but their efforts tend to be more style than substance. Then the pining begins. All those folks want is to return to the experience, like addicts trying to catch that first rush again. I have to wonder why. Didn't they meet Jesus in the midst of all that experience? Wasn't he in himself sweeter than life? Didn't they joyously embark on a walk with him from then to eternity?

You see, I can't avoid the sneaking suspicion that what some of the revival hungry are really saying is that the Jesus thing doesn't truly work except in those special times. At all others, it produces substandard spirituality, with something missing, yielding no real satisfaction. The only Jesus worth experiencing is Revival Jesus. I've got to tell you, for me, that just does not compute. It's not what being a disciple, a brother, the redeemed is all about. It's not what is presented in the Bible.

It does not, and it never will get better than a personal, interactive fellowship with Christ. That is not revival, that is Christianity. I'll happily embrace, and longingly pray for a season of visitation and harvest, outpouring and filling for the church, but we need to keep our bearings straight. To love Revival Jesus better than Jesus everyday is to flirt with idolatry. For me, everyday Jesus, just as he is, is more than enough.

"I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ " Philippians 3:8

Who Are Tongues Addressed To?

For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit. 1 Corinthians 14:2 (NIV)

Who are tongues addressed too?

Some Pentecostal scholars have suggested that the audience of tongues is God, and therefore, the interpretation of tongues should address God as well in order to be legitimate. Under such a regimen, an interpretation that addressed people (as in prophecy) would be considered out of order out of hand. Is this intimated in scripture and should this be the standard leaders apply in accepting or rejecting intepretations? No, for two reasons.

1) Although this text says straightforwardly that a tongue speaker speaks mysteries to God, in saying so its intent is not to dictate the direction of tongues. The passage states very clearly why a tongue speaker, in effect, speaks to God-- only God can understand him. No one else does; to the people hearing it, it's merely babble. God alone understands the tongue itself, even if it was directed to men.

To extrapolate from that functional reality and say that tongues must be directed conversationally toward God is to say more than, and other than the scripture says in context. Although there are passages which anecdotally imply direction toward God, that is not the same as asserting that the direction must be toward God just because it was in those instances.

In the Law it is written: "Through men of strange tongues and through the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me," says the Lord. Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is for believers, not for unbelievers. 1 Corinthians 14:21-22 (NIV)

2) When Paul quotes Isaiah to point to an Old Testament presage of tongues, he clearly reverses the direction of communication. In other words, God speaks to men through the strange tongues that men are speaking to other men. If the model for tongues in the Old Testament has it directed from God to men, why would anyone doubt that the fulfillment of the image in New Testament Spirit-filled tongues would do the same?

Since God inspires both the tongues and the intepretation, it is up to him to determine what is done with them, including the direction of the communication. The only objective tests we are given in scripture regarding any spoken utterance deal with content, not direction. If we listened to the proponents of this directional theory, we would wind up paying undue attention to the pronouns in a message rather than its actual content. What excess or error could that possibly address?

Aren't there enough real problems for charismatics to deal with that we don't have to go around turning stones over looking for intellectual trifles to stumble over?

The Difference Between Show Business and Ministry

As the dust settles after the Lakeland fiasco, I take up the subject of flesh-inspired antics in charismatic ministry...

The realm of finance is presently teaching us what the realm of ministry has taught us over and over again: people are unwilling to call their superstars on their excesses. Success inexorably excuses excess. Despite red flags, warning sirens, and the inevitable recognition, after the fact, that we knew something was fishy, we look the other way if the party in question at least gives the appearance that he or she's getting it done. The Charismatic movement is in disarray because of that unfortunate trait.

Are there some simple principles that charismatics could use to assess the actual spirituality vs. fleshly embellishments of ministry, before the result is another boondoggle that embarrasses everyone who cherishes the gift of the Holy Spirit? Yes, I think there are...

• If Jesus didn't minister that way, neither should we
• If it was not envisioned by the scriptures, it's not of God
• Goofiness is not spiritual, it's just goofy
• Prestidigitators and illusionists need fanfares and distractions to perform their art, legitimate ministers of Christ do not
• No one is all that special
• In the Bible, only the megalomaniacal needed music to set the tone for ministry
• When they were slain in the Spirit in the Bible, they were carried outside and buried forthwith
• When Jesus took off his coat while ministering, he washed feet, not stoked up the crowd

More could be said, but the bottom line is: if a man or woman ministers outside these guidelines, he or she is fleshly at best and an out and out charlatan at worst. That may sound judgmental, but how many dog and pony shows are we going to be subjected to before we start exercising the discernment any Bible-believing, Spirit-filled person should be able to easily? Or, God forbid, are we so far out at sea that we cannot tell the difference between show business and ministry?

Are You Ready for Religion in Politics?

Biblically, I see the only purpose of government, under God, as protecting the innocent from the evil-doer. Secularly, this is an absolute necessity if life amongst sinners is to continue until Jesus comes back. In the best of worlds, we wouldn't need government, in ours (even in the Millennium) we do, desperately. The Bible instructs us to cooperate with the governing authorities in their purpose of ensuring justice, they don't bear the sword for nothing!

But that government bears the sword and not the key leads us to some further conclusions... 

Government is not in place, under God, to tell anyone what to think, how to run their life, what to do for retirement or education or with private property or what to do medically. Certainly, government in this world in this age should never enforce a belief system, though it did in ancient Israel. Government, at its most fundamental, is there simply to keep the powerful and the violent from doing harm or oppressing the rest of the population.

With that Biblical, worldwide mandate in mind, let me suggest a few policy positions a politician who actually brought biblical religion into the realm of politics might take:

Concerning the Use of Deadly Force

• The Death Penalty should be enforced, without pity or mercy, upon anyone who willfully or callously takes the life of another.
• No other government or body should be allowed to kill or oppress the citizens of this country while they are in their own lands, without incurring the response of the sword, which necessitates a strong, ready and able military.
• Abortion should be illegal, unless the unborn child is causing immediate, physical distress that realistically threatens the mother's life. A practitioner, or anyone else, who performs an illegal abortion should be sentenced to death.

Concerning Crime and Punishment

Prisons, by and large, should be abolished. Criminals owe their victims, not the state. Those that commit crimes should be indentured to the victims of those crimes until restitution is made. Those too violent to put on the streets should be sentenced to death. Crimes that are of a personal nature should not be crimes at all.

Concerning Economic Justice

Labor should not be commoditized. The ox is not to be muzzled as it treads the grain. It is a travesty that the most powerful sliver of the workforce uses its power to enrich itself, tapping into the harvest, while the mass of the workforce is forced into ever tighter, constricted competition for less and less. In hubris, the powerful actually believe they deserve that much more than the poor schlubs at the bottom of the ladder. God is no respecter of persons and has no respect for greed. Neither should the law! Whatever profit a corporation disburses in dividends to stockholders and bonuses to the top tier of management should be at least matched and distributed among all of its employees, including the janitor and the receptionist. Sole proprietorships and partnerships should follow similar rules.

Concerning Welfare

Those who will not work, should not eat. Those who cannot work, should be shown mercy. Those who cannot find work ought to be put to work serving the public good.

Concerning Reparations

The bulk of idle federal landholdings, not held in trust for Native Americans, ought to be divided among and deeded to all those who can trace their lineage to former slaves. Those slaves were not only often abused and mistreated, but were given nothing upon achieving freedom, and that needs to be rectified. Whether it's 40 acres or not doesn't matter, but regardless, no mules will be distributed..

Concerning Law and Order

Every neighborhood in this country, rich or poor, should be safe enough for even a stranger to pass through without fear. Wealthier neighborhoods already are, but poorer neighborhoods often do not experience the same level of law and order. There is no excuse for governing authorities to abandon entire areas of cities to the de facto control of gangs, thugs and crime. The poor deserve safe neighborhoods every bit as much as the wealthy.

More police need to be placed on our streets, particularly, the mean ones. There's not one square inch of this country that the government, under God, can justifiably cede to the rule of thuggery rather than the rule of law and order. One idea for utilizing our police forces that would help immediately: stop parking them along the streets in patrol cars manning speed traps and start placing them more often on the streets preventing crime!

Concerning Political Parties

The Constitution should to be amended to specifically ban elected officials at any level of government from being associated with any political party, and furthermore, should ban any association which seeks to organize candidates or office holders into ideological blocks in order to gain political power. Taxpayers should not foot the bill for party politics as it does now through gridlock; double staffing; witch hunting, grand standing inquisitions; primary elections and matching funds for campaigns.

I could go on, but I won't. Hopefully, you're reading in between the lines and can see the problem that lies ahead for any who would resolutely attempt to bring biblical religion into politics. Jesus rules, unapologetically, with a rod of iron, and we will rule with him, like him. 

The world is not ready for that just yet, but ready or not, it's coming!

Just How Depraved Are We?

The natural spiritual state of mankind is both the subject of theological debate, and homespun philosophy without any reference to religious doctrine. Folksy conclusions drawn from the observation of life can be stated succinctly, running along a spectrum, from "nobody's perfect," to "everyone has some good in him," to "children learn what they live." The parallel theological spectrum runs from Calvinistic total depravity to Pelagianian ability. One would think that Paul put the issue to rest with Romans 7, but the debate lingers on.

In trying to assure that God gets all the glory in salvation, many feel they have to diminish man in order to elevate God. But, I wonder, does God need us as a step ladder? While the desire to glorify God is commendable, diminishing his stated plans, purpose and design for man in order to do it is, at least, misplaced assistance. How, exactly, does Worm Theology glorify the Creator in whose image the "worm" was made and the Son of God was incarnated?

Of course, in the opposite vein, overstating the quality or abilities of natural man only induces self-dependence, which results in pride, frustration and loss.

The problem outlined in Romans 7 for natural mankind is not that a sinful person is unable to perceive the goodness of the law, nor even to understand what is good conceptually, but that he has something within him which frustrates his ability to actually do anything about it. We do, in fact, have a clue in the scriptures that natural man is actually able to derive what is good on his own apart the written law, even though he's not able to carry it out. Even that ability owes its existence to the action of God who wrote such into mankind's very nature.

The truth is, natural man has no desire to know God or to do good.

So, the natural man is able to discern the nature of God by what God has given him naturally, and even able to discern and discover what is good by the same. His problem is that he does not have the inclination to do so nor the power to follow through. That certainly doesn't mean he isn't capable of seeing it when God graciously presents it to him-- he absolutely can, and without being regenerated! The godly sorrow that results from that perception is what leads the natural man to abandon his self-reliance and to put trust and hope in Christ. 

To the depraved Christ proclaims his life saving message, "Repent, and believe the good news!" More than mere communication, it confronts the sinner with divine presence, with Holy Spirit conviction. For sinners awakened by such communication and who do repent and believe, the frustration of personal depravity yields to the peace of his salvivic ability. That ability regenerates the sinner who has turned to him in faith, infuses that former sinner with the indwelling Holy Spirit and makes a life of obedience in faith possible.

So humans are never so depraved that they cannot sense the tap of the Holy Spirit on their shoulder and turn to Christ and be saved by him.

The World's Background Noise

It's been said that the mass of humanity is sheep-like, following whomever seems to know where to go. There doesn't have to be a logic to it, boldness is sufficient to turn the masses. Adolf Hitler's strategy was to tell the biggest lie he could as boldly as he could, and the sheep would follow in tow. Hitler as Bo-peep, now there's an image you won't find on the average blog, boy, I wish I had graphical skills!

It doesn't take anything as dark as Hitler to reveal this quality in the human race, we see it in the rather silly and less threatening realm of fashion and celebrity. A star wears the outrageous or impractical and the stores can't stock enough to staunch the crescendo of bleating. Though we're all adapting to the concept of the viral in the internet age, I wonder if its roots trace wa-a-a-a-ay back before Al Gore's famous creation to the fawning of a new age introduced by bobby-soxers' hysteria over Frank Sinatra.

Does one little match really set the forest aflame?

It makes one wonder, at least it does me, where my ovine tendencies are leading me. Whether it be election year musings, or some more profound stirring of soul, I'm asking myself whose lead am I truly following. We all know the PC (preferred Christian) answer: Jesus!-- but does an investigation of our trail  to this point reading this silly blog, confirm or belie that contention?

There are many whose wool rises above the heights of any other's in the vicinity. They write books for dummies, testify to the greener grass in the pasture they know the way to. They host TV shows, wool carded and sounding not b-a-a-a-a-d at all. They get on soapboxes in the public square and blather until we choose, between them or that other blatherer standing on a different colored soapbox, which to follow.

Where are we going following them? 

It's time for us to begin checking credentials at the door. You know, that door to your life (thanks Bill Bright). We're not made of iron and these stars we follow are not made of neodymium. We can't follow two masters, two gurus, or two directions at once. Jesus rose from the dead so his credential trumps everyone else's. So, regardless of what anyone is selling, or supposedly knows, or thinks they can guarantee, put all your eggs in Jesus' basket.

We don't need to be like the world, we don't need to have what the world thinks we do, we don't need to fit into their mold, and we don't have to see things their way.

The ruckus of all that bleating, even the howls of wolves, are just background noise.

Works vs. Faith

Jesus was asked one day, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" His answer, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

I am Arminian in theology, not because I feel any particular bond or loyalty to Jacob Harmenszoon, but because I believe the Bible clearly teaches that salvation is not accomplished without, and is predicated upon, the the conscious choice of the saved. It's not that God isn't involved in nor even providing the impetus toward that choice, but that belief in Christ is a response made by, not for, the saved. It's a question of personal faith, and, given the wooing of the Holy Spirit, it is possible for everyone.

Believing in Jesus is, in fact, the work that God requires of us. As Mark Knopfler might say, "that ain't workin'!" But that is the way we do it! Faith is not the product of sweat and toil, nor the fruit of planning and vision. It's a response to a circumstance, a reaction to a stimulus. The word of the Lord (stimulus) came to Abraham, faith was his response, righteousness credited was his reward.

Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead on the third day because of our justification (circumstance), the reaction of the saved to that circumstance is faith, eternal life is the repercussion. Where's the work in all this? The answer is that it is excluded. The believer did nothing work-like in order to be made righteous, he merely responded to something done by another.

It is by grace that we are saved, through faith, not of works so that no one can boast. The work was done by God, we only respond to it. Jesus was being tongue in cheek when he answered that question the way that he did on that day so long ago. It must have struck a perplexing note in his hearers. "What kind of work is that?" they might have asked themselves. That's the point-- it isn't one, and I think that's just what the Lord wanted to point out.