Having a Form of Godliness but Denying its Power

So, BibleGateway.com had 2 Timothy 3:16 for today's bible verse, you know, the old favorite "All Scripture is God breathed, etc." But I pulled up the whole chapter and came across this in verses 1 - 9. Pretty hard hitting stuff.

2 Timothy 3:1-9 "But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth—men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone."

Psalm 37 (King James Version)

Psalm 37

¹Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.

²For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.

³Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.

⁴Delight thyself also in the LORD: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

⁵Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

⁶And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.

⁷Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.

⁸Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.

⁹For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.

¹⁰For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.

¹¹But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

¹²The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.

¹³The LORD shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming.

¹⁴The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation.

¹⁵Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.

¹⁶A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.

¹⁷For the arms of the wicked shall be broken: but the LORD upholdeth the righteous.

¹⁸The LORD knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be for ever.

¹⁹They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.

²⁰But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.

²¹The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again: but the righteous sheweth mercy, and giveth.

²²For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth; and they that be cursed of him shall be cut off.

²³The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.

²⁴Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.

²⁵I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

²⁶He is ever merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed.

²⁷Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore.

²⁸For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.

²⁹The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever.

³⁰The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment.

³¹The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.

³²The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him.

³³The LORD will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged.

³⁴Wait on the LORD, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.

³⁵I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.

³⁶Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.

³⁷Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.

³⁸But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.

³⁹But the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD: he is their strength in the time of trouble.

⁴⁰And the LORD shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.

King James Version (KJV)

Public Domain

Deuteronomy 13

Here's some very serious stuff. And very different than the "and every man did as he pleased" world of America that I live in today. God was serious about stopping people from encouraging people to leave the fold of His nation Israel. If you wanted to leave, there was nothing stopping you, but you couldn't try to entice others to do so.

If anyone, even your own family tried to get you to worship other Gods, they were to be killed. In the free speech world I live in, this is hard stuff. But it also makes it real. That is, most of philosophy and religion, spoken freely, are just that, words. But words mean things, and words used to lead people away from the Living God are a direct insult to God.

If the nation of Israel was to be the example of God's people on earth, then there was to be absolutely no worship of any other God in that land. And so it is now with our lives as Christians. This is how we are to live our own lives. I think Christ has fulfilled the Law, such that what is "inside" the borders of the nation is now no longer geographic, but within the context of the spirit of each of our Christian lives. We don't put to death other people's voices now, we are to put to death the sinful nature within ourselves.

Heaven and Ephesians I

We often see Heaven, or the Next Age, as some infinite white plain, or a golden city, with God at the center, Christ at his right hand, and everyone seated around singing praise songs forever.

But in Ephesians 1, we see that Christ is given titles greater than any in this age or the next. So, because 'forever' blows our minds, we stop thinking about it as a dynamic place. It will be a new order, not a static setting. People will have roles and responsibilities perhaps, and titles. How else will Christ have title greater than any in the next age?

Not that I understand heaven any bit more than before, but I think I understand more that I really don't understand what it will be like.

Substitutionary Atonement

I'm appreciating the substitutionary atonement of Jesus all over again after today's sermon. Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac but God provided a substitute. I always read the Abraham story and say "phew! glad he didn't have to do it." But God actually did let the sacrifice of His own Son be carried out, and not only that but He poured all the unjust sins of humanity upon the one purely righteous person ever to walk the earth. I understand why people don't want that to be the case. The enormity of it hits you like a ton of bricks, when you imagine having to watch your own child die in front of you. Then imagine you have the power to stop it, you have the gun to the guy's head that's about to kill your child, but to save that guy, you will let him kill your son. That's what's so enormous about it, that He didn't have to do it. He was perfectly just in letting us to our own fate after choosing the knowledge of Good and Evil, but He didn't leave us. He sent provided a way for forgiveness and salvation, if we only decide to accept the freely given sacrifice and resurrection of His Son for our sins. Remarkable.

New Anointing of the Church

There is and has been within the Church a notion that the Church (gentile and Israelite) replaced the Israelite people as God's chosen people. Let's assume this is true, but let's use I Samuel as model. That is, when Saul "lost" his anointing from God, and gave it to David, how did David treat Saul thereafter? Simply, he gave him his due as King as long as he claimed it, while serving the Lord himself as he was able. I think that works well, no matter what your take is on promises filled and unfulfilled with the Israelite people. Until they as a nation accept Christ as Lord, I give them deference as God's chosen people. And when they do accept Him, they will again be God's chosen people! But I will seek the Lord for guidance, not the state of Israel (which is incidentally what the state of Israel was / is supposed to do itself anyways).

A New Look at Mysticism

Mystics tell us that there are things about God which we cannot understand. This drives the followers of Reason bananas. But, what if Romans 11:33, "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!" means we just wouldn't have enough time in our lives to do so? And maybe not in a thousand life times? What if 70 years in this time limited, spatially limited dimension simply isn't appropriate a period to cover such an awesome subject? Do we look at something as mundane as Biology and blithely declare that Reason will allow any human to completely understand it in a single lifetime? That we will get to the End of the Knowledge of Biology in our life time? I don't think so.

The only way we have anymore than a cursory knowledge, as it is, is due to thousands of life times accumulating the knowledge of the ages, and compressing it down (not without compression errors, I'm sure) to transfer it to the next generation. And, if the Knowledge of Biology could seem such a barely approachable subject, imagine trying to understand the force of God that created Biology, and then expand it across every other subject of human learning. And then expand it into multiple dimensions. It may be, under our strict definition of Reason, that God is not "unknowable," but that the time required to "know" God approaches infinity as we learn more and more, with each layer of learning expanding geometrically the knowledge we must attain to gain complete understanding.

So, what is the result? Can we only understand God through special revelation, that which He chooses to give to us? In the short term, yes. In practicality, in the long term, yes. And yet Reason is not diminished, only rationally set in its place.

Philippians 4

Trying to go over a whole chapter every week, instead of a verse a day, a chapter a day, etc. So, after reading Philippians 4 several days in a row...

"Rejoice in the the Lord always" This is a good verse. The exhortation is to always be rejoicing! But what about all the tragic moments of life? Well, Paul is not exhorting to rejoice in Life always, but rather to rejoice in the Lord. When we keep a sense of who it is that we "in" we can always rejoice in Him, even when life is in chaos around us. If He is the rock on which our house is built, we need not fear the storms of life.

Hebrews 7

There's just such a beautiful elegance to this design. It fits together so nicely, and so consistently with all the other Biblical doctrine. This is why "the Cult of Christ" as it was known at the beginning is not a Cult. Cult's change fundamental principles of their antecedents. Christianity holds the fundamental principles of Judaism, and in fact has been holding to for the last 2000 years where Judaism has been denied by the loss of the temple. Christianity's temple has been devolved (into the body of believers), the curtain torn. But there is still only one High Priest who intercedes for us. We still need intercession for our sins. We still hold to the Spirit of the Law, which is a far harder thing than holding to the Letter (we often think the opposite, that it's easier than following the Letter, but by golly it's not!). And we still sin, and therefore still need forgiveness and sacrifice, all of which is accomplished through Christ.

"²³Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; ²⁴but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. ²⁵Therefore he is able to save completely^c]">[c] those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

²⁶Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. ²⁷Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. ²⁸For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever."

Collossians I

^{Speaking of Jesus, Paul (and Timothy) says this "19}For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."

I had never caught the reference to "things in heaven" before. I don't know how well this is connected to the rest of Biblical theology, but it certainly opens to the mind to very interesting subjects. We're told of a schism in heaven, where Lucifer is cast out along with (a third? can't remember) a group of angels, who become demons. But this statement is remarkable, in that it points to there still being a rent in heaven over these matters, which has now been closed through Christ. Redeemer, Deliverer, and Ultimate Joint Compound, capable of sealing schisms of heavenly and earthly proportions.

Of course, sealing one schism can open up others, which is why I think Jesus also talks about his coming causing divisions amongst families. When you tie up a ship to a dock in stormy weather, sure, it is now fastened to the solid immovable structure, but it's also going violently resist it, still being in the heaving waves as it is.

Romans 14

This is a set of verses talking about the Weak and the Strong. It starts with "¹Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters." The keyword to me here is "disputable." For, Paul goes on to talk about differing food and holy day observance as examples.

Then we must ask, what are disputable items? For, these days, I believe the enemy has brought, and we have accepted, into the Western Church such a multitude of "disputable" items that we now are disputing our very faith. We are then asked to abide by Paul's direction in Romans 14 here, that we live to the lowest common denominator of faith amongst the believers.

That brings up more interesting questions, as to how far that extends. In Paul's day, the community of believers extended as far as you could walk in a few days time. Now, every practice by every congregation on earth is common knowledge for all. If a Church in Kansas protests against homosexuality at Military funerals, should we in New Jersey join them? Of course, I'm unfairly combining the "disputable items" with the "common denominator" discussion now.

Good things to think about though, especially "¹⁶Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil." and "²²...Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves." The first gets to the idea that there is some line to be drawn by how far you're all allowed to push your fellow Christians. The second idea echoes Jesus, with the "take the log out of your own eye first" command. Also note here that all of this is directed at Christians. All the notions of Don't Judge in Romans 14 are only in the context of the body of believers.

Matthew 20:9-16

⁹"The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. ¹⁰So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. ¹¹When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ¹²'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'

¹³"But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. ¹⁵Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'

¹⁶"So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

Point one: It is far more, even infinitely more important how we finish our "race" here on earth than how we started it. This is not to speak of making a decision to "work in the vineyards" and changing your mind later, that's covered under a different parable. This parable speaks to those to whom we Christians consider lost causes, despicable humans of the worst sort, but to whom God looks at and simply says "that's because they're not working for me yet" and hires them at the same wage. This brings us to point two.

Point two: It's not fair! This comes up A LOT in the Bible, which is funny because it still comes up today, even as it is dealt with over and over again. Here again we have humans complaining it's not fair. It is fair, it is eminently fair for necessarily one reason alone, and that's It's His Money. It's God's to do with what He will. How you would spend God's money doesn't even factor into the equation. It's just not yours to spend. I can hazard a guess using my corruptible sense of fairness, which obviously falls short of God's. I could say that we are not being paid for the time worked in the Vineyard because time is relative and is a poor measure of infinite qualities such as God has. Rather, we are paid by the only thing that stands the test of time, which is our decision to work at all, before we leave this mortal coil.

Point three: God's "money" belongs to God, and a person's money belongs to a person, to do what they will with. As a Christian, I have made my choice that my "money" (material and spiritual) belongs to God, in fact have decided that it was His all along. But I will respect the choice of others to do with their money what they will, even when I think "it's not fair." After all, their money is passing, while God's currency is eternal. If they don't want to take advantage of the best currency market of all time, it's their loss. But I also want to keep trying to hire them into God's Vineyard, and I'm going to tell them the wage will be the same as mine, though I have been here longer (which really just means I'm aware of more of my sins, so, actually feeling less qualified!).

Life of Steel

Lord, let me know Your word. Let it permeate me, like carbon permeating iron. Let Your word turn my life, my very being, into strong steel. Let me withstand the pressures of this world, let it make me stronger, and temper me, O Lord. Keep me from the flames of sin, that might weaken me, and fill me again when I am weakened.

Read I John chapter 4 today. The whole chapter is simply amazing. Such incredible concepts, so profound. I particularly liked the last bit, where it says if you can't love something you see, then you cannot love something that is unseen. If you can't love your brother who is in front of you, you can't love God who no one has seen.

And, Love drives out Fear. Perfect Love has no Fear. Which is a nice conclusion to the statement in Proverbs that Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom. So, while our relationship with God begins with Fear (read Honor, Respect, Awe), it ends with Love. We may begin our relationship with God by obeying His commands out of fear of the consequences, but He develops it into a relationship whereby we follow His commands out of love for Him.

Only One Law?

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”- Matthew 7:12

Could it be that in the end, after the thousands of lines of regulatory code and statues and ordinances of our societies, after the myriad lists of taboos, that everything comes down to only one Law? At least in governing our relationships with each other, the answer is a simple "Yes."

I recently watched a movies called "The Kite Runner." One character from the story set in pre-Soviet / Taliban Afghanistan lashed out against the Afghan Mullahs and the Communists, and all their lists of "sins." He tells his son, "there is only one sin, stealing." He explains, when you kill someone, you steal their life, and so forth. I pondered this, as I have heard others make similar observations. Then I re-read Matthew 7:12, and I realized this is a variation on Jesus' summary of the Law.

Stealing is a particularly good concrete example of how you wouldn't treat others as yourself, since you wouldn't (or ought not) steal from yourself! It recognizes the basic right of property, and the equality of that right to all. But perhaps Jesus' summation is more eloquent, as it catches both the one who would try to steal property for themselves, and those who have all their property by rights yet deny others opportunities they themselves sought in the acquisition of their own wealth.

The Simple Life (No, not Paris Hilton's)

The first Church is described as follows:

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." ACTS 2:42

That's it. We can make it as complicated as we want, but we ought to at least be doing what they did. And probably not much more, not in terms of Actions but in terms of the basic structure of our fellowship.

Sure, there are activities that require the kinds of organization and bureaucracy that we've all come to know and love, but it seems that it should be ancillary to the above model, an addendum devoted to the specific actions it is needed for. It should not flow its top heavy man made bloat back to the "simple life" of the Church either.