The Perfect Father

Several months ago, one of my pastors, Nick Wagenmaker, shared a teaching on good parenting. He made the point that the best parent is not the one who tells his children what to do and then makes them do it. Rather, the best parent lays out principles of behavior and lets his children apply those principles within the scope of their free will. In other words, a good parent helps his children learn what works and what doesn’t work.

Obviously, there are limits to the freedom a good parent allows. One wouldn’t allow his children to drink poison or run into the path of an oncoming truck. Locking up dangerous substances and monitoring activities near the road are examples of logical limits a parent must apply. On the other hand, if a child wants to exercise his freedom to do something that might cause minor discomfort or loss, the best parent allows the child to suffer in order to learn.

We have all seen the so-called helicopter parents hovering over every aspect of their children’s lives. As a coach, I was painfully aware of how desperately some parents wanted their kids to star on the field. Recently I came across the term “bulldozer parents” to describe the overwhelming pressure some parents place on their children, shoving them into situations the children either don’t want or cannot handle. I have also witnessed the disaster these parents have sometimes created when their children rebel as they get older.

It goes without saying that too little supervision also has a negative consequence. I think of the history of Eli’s sons recorded in 1Samuel 2. Eli was not only too loose with his supervision, he apparently failed to provide his sons with the proper grounding in righteous behavior. Giving children some latitude to experiment is fine as long as there are boundary principles within which they operate. When children are raised without such boundaries, we see results such as school shootings, teen pregnancies and all manner of social disorder.

As with human parents, so it is with our Heavenly Father. Most believers realize that having free will is an integral part of bearing the image of God. Absent freedom to choose, the requirement to love and honor God would be meaningless. Robots can obey commands, but they cannot return love to their creators. The freedom not to obey, not to love is essential to the status of God’s image bearers. God had to give Adam the choice whether to eat the forbidden fruit or not to eat it.

Here we come to the point of this lesson on parenting: God, the best parent ever, allows us the freedom to behave any way we choose. Before joining His family by uniting with Christ, we were more likely to do wrong than right. After being adopted into God’s family, our revived spirits get help from His Holy Spirit to overcome the drag the world places on our souls. The pull of the flesh, the world and the devil is still there; the difference is whereas we had little power to resist before, we now have the power of Almighty God to steer us correctly.

I purposely chose the word “steer.” As the perfect parent, God does not force us into righteous behavior; He guides us through His Word, our renewed conscience and the community of fellow believers. When Paul tells us it was, “For freedom that Christ has set us free,” he adds the reminder that prior to our life in Christ, we were bound as slaves to sin. We now have the “freedom” NOT to sin which was not possible before. Sadly, we often still choose to sin anyway, breaking our commitment to the One who bought our freedom.

The writer of Hebrews points out that, like an earthly father, our Heavenly Father disciplines us when we make those wrong choices. While the discipline is not pleasant, it is proof that we are legitimately children of God according to the Hebrews’ author. If God didn’t care about us, He wouldn’t bother to help us stay on the right track. He wants us to obey Him out of love, but He will use discipline to convince us to obey when love fails to do so.

My children are all grown now. I don’t have the same control over them I once imagined I had. I am happy to say that they are each living lives that, in large part, honor the God they chose to serve while still under my roof. Each of my adult children has made choices at one time that I would have wished to countermand, but I have no power to discipline them anymore. But I am not without the power to affect their lives. I pray daily that God will draw them close and take whatever means necessary to keep them safe and sound – sound meaning grounded in His love. After all, He is the perfect Father.

The 2020 COVID Easter

I am sitting in my living room writing this on Resurrection Morning, as people in my childhood faith tradition call Easter. To my knowledge (forgive my terrible memory) this is the first Resurrection Sunday I have stayed home from church in my life. My mother used to joke that she started taking me to church nine months before I was born; I have missed very few Sunday services since then in my sixty-eight-plus years.

For many nominal Christians, Easter Sunday may be the one Sunday they attend church all year. For me, this raises the question why Easter is so important to some people. True believers celebrate the resurrection of Jesus every Sunday, and if they are truly committed, the Lord’s resurrection colors their thinking every day of the week. Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. Easter is really the only celebration on the church calendar that belongs where it sits, despite the hijacking of the name.

Early in church history, in a misguided effort (my opinion) to attract pagans, the celebration of our Lord’s resurrection was named after a pagan goddess, Astarte which became “Easter” in English. The date remained connected to the Jewish calendar and the time of the Passover when the crucifixion occurred. This explains why Easter moves around the calendar; the Gregorian Calendar we follow does not match the Jewish calendar, so Easter floats.

Anyway, it is fitting to celebrate Christ’s resurrection at this time, and it makes sense to tie it to the actual day in history when it occurred. But I wonder why so many of what I call “nominal Christians” give a hoot. Perhaps it goes back to a time when many people in Christendom believed the Roman Catholic church held the keys to grace, and it was necessary to attend a mass to receive that grace as distributed by a priest. It appears obvious to me that there are also quite a few people who sit in a pew Sunday after Sunday thinking they are getting access to the power of resurrection grace while living Monday through Saturday with no connection whatsoever to the Lord of the Resurrection.

This brings me to COVID 19 Easter Sunday. If we believe the truth of Scripture, even though we are sitting apart this morning, we are seated together with Christ in the heavenlies today and every day. I admit that I have had many moving experiences while gathered with my fellow-believers at special Easter services. I even attended a few sunrise services, even though I realize they are a throwback to another pagan rite celebrated by sun worshippers. No matter; gathering together is good and proper. My word this morning is to remember that we are “really” together in the Spirit whether we sit in the same room or not. Our fellowship with Christ and each other is spiritually based, not physically based.

The truest “reality” is the spiritual reality of our existence “in Christ.” The physical universe we usually refer to as real is not the ultimate “real” thing in our lives; God is. God exists outside of our created reality, having created it long ago for His purposes. One day (soon I hope) God will wrap up His operations on this earth as we know it, and He will cause it to vanish to be replaced by the new heavens and the new earth where I believe we will spend eternity worshiping Him. That is reality. That is the reality our Lord suffered and died to purchase for us. That is why we can celebrate “Easter” today even if we are sheltering in place. We know our place is truly in the heavenlies where we sit together with Christ. Hallelujah!

Living in Zerubbabel’s Day

God showed me something today that really helps explain where we are in the ever-unfolding story of redemption. As you probably know, the history of human redemption began soon after Adam failed the test of obedience in the Garden of Eden by eating forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam’s disobedience caused God to sever the intimate relationship they originally had. This severing is referred to as “death” because it created a distance between God and Adam that could only be bridged by a payment for Adam’s wrongdoing: a redemption.

Adam was to have been God’s representative on Earth. The language of Genesis 1 gives Adam dominion over the creation. When Adam rebelled against God, he forfeited his dominion, and the evil one who had initiated the temptation snatched it up illegitimately. We know God saw it that way because of what He said to the serpent in Genesis 3 about crawling on his belly (metaphorically bound to Earth) and eventually being crushed by the seed of Adam.

Just about everybody knows the following stories of Cain and Abel and Noah and the flood. However, Bible readers often overlook the significance of the events recorded in Genesis 10. The chapter ends with this, “These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations and in their nations. And from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.” This “table of nations,” as it is called, is significant for what is missing: the nation that would issue from Abraham. The reader must wait for the scattering of these nations in Genesis 11, and then witness the call of Abraham in Genesis 12 to see what God was doing. In Genesis 10, all the descendants of Noah were dispersed to their respective locations, but the nation promised to Abraham (Gen 12:2) was not mentioned.

This is where the story of redemption really ramps up. Besides promising that Abraham would become a great nation, God promised Abraham that the blessing he received would ultimately lead to the blessing of “all families (nations) of the earth.” (Genesis 12:3) It has been debated whether God intended the nation of Israel, Abraham’s descendants, to be that blessing. History records that they kept the blessing to themselves, more or less, and eventually squandered it royally. I intended a pun with “royally,” because God’s dealings with Israel eventually led to the royal line of David being promised the throne forever.

Now I am back to where God gave me insight into the Scripture I read today from the prophet Haggai. Read this, and then I will unpack it. “²¹ “Say to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah: I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, ²² and I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms and destroy the military strength of the kingdoms of the nations. I will overthrow chariots and their drivers; horses and their riders will fall, every one by the sword of another! ²³ ‘On that day,’ _⌊declares_⌋ Yahweh of hosts, ‘I will take you, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, my servant,’ _⌊declares_⌋ Yahweh, ‘and I will make you a signet ring, for I have chosen you,’ _⌊declares_⌋ Yahweh of hosts.” (Haggai 2:21-23)

The prophet quotes “Yahweh of hosts,” a military designation, using what has been called “divine warrior” imagery. Throughout much of prophetic literature, God is described with military imagery. Many of the prophets record oracles of doom and destruction on “the nations” surrounding Israel. Sadly, the judgment for Israel’s disobedience is also couched in warlike terms. In this instance, Haggai quotes God saying, “On that day” He will, “overthrow the thrones of kingdoms and destroy the military strength of the kingdoms of the nations.”

The other thing that happens “on that day” is, “and I will make you [Zerubbabel] a signet ring, for I have chosen you.” Making Zerubbabel a signet ring means God was restating the promise he made to David (Zerubbabel’s ancestor) to keep the throne of God’s kingdom in the family. Read the Matthew 1 genealogy in of Jesus, the ultimate King in David’s line, and you will find Zerubbabel. On that day, God continued His fulfillment of the promise that went from Adam through Abraham to David/Zerubbabel and eventually was completed in Jesus. The New Testament clearly ties that promise to us as believers in Jesus. Paul asserts that Jesus is the “seed” that was promised to Abraham; the metaphor undeniably recalls the seed of Genesis 3 as well.

In Colossians 2:14, Paul echoes the divine warrior imagery found in Haggai and elsewhere by describing Jesus’ work on the Cross as a military conqueror defeating, “the rulers and the authorities, [making] a display of them in public, triumphing over them by it.” Throughout Paul’s writing, “rulers and authorities” is a reference to the evil powers in the spiritual realm. This is the language of Ephesians 6:12 where Paul reminds us that, “our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

The same imagery of military triumph is found in 2 Corinthians 2:14: “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ.” Christ defeated the rulers of “the nations” of Genesis 10 (the spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies) and bought us a place in the family of the Second Adam by completing the task at which the first Adam failed. Eventually, even the death that began with Adam’s disobedience will be defeated. Paul says, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For ‘God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’” (1 Corinthians 1526)

Someone might be saying, “Wait a minute! I thought “On that day” referred to the Day of the Lord which is Judgment Day at the end of times.” That is true… sometimes. Other times the “Day of the Lord” refers to intermediate judgments or blessings not associated with the end of all things. I am comfortable saying Haggai’s “day” happened with the coming of the Messiah because Zechariah, who prophesied about the same time as Haggai, told Zerubbabel’s counterpart, Joshua the high priest, that Yahweh would, “bring [His] servant, The Branch” on that mysterious coming day. The Branch is a name used for the Messiah throughout the prophets.

Fast forward to Jesus’ day. Even His closest disciples were a little confused about the timing. Just before He returned to the Father for the last time, one of His disciples asked, ““Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷ But he said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸ But you will receive power when* the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:6-8) The day Jesus had pointed to was the Day of Pentecost.

Another proof that the Messiah’s day was that which the prophets foresaw is found in the sermon Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost after the disciples did what Jesus commanded and waited in Jerusalem. Peter quoted Joel saying the prophet was referring to the things that happened in Peter’s day when the church was established. (Acts 2:20) Joel called the time he saw "the last days." (Acts 2:17) The appearance of fire above the disciples’ heads, the sound of a strong wind, and the speaking in many different languages each find their roots in prophetic words about the coming kingdom. It was on that day that the message of the Kingdom began to be spread worldwide.

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This makes more sense when you realize what it means for the kingdom to be restored. The word kingdom is usually thought of in geographical terms: this river to that mountain and everything in between is the kingdom. The geography is just the result of what “kingdom” means; it means rulership or dominion. Everywhere the king exercises His rule becomes the kingdom. It’s not a place, really; it is a state of being ruled. This is why we can say the kingdom of God came on Pentecost but is not fully restored yet. Everyone who has accepted Christ’s rule has entered the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom will be fully restored when the last person God has chosen is ushered in.

Where does that place us? We are in the awkward place of already-not-yet kingdom come. The kingdom has already arrived as announced by Jesus. The cosmic battle between the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of Light has begun. But the kingdom is not yet fully come until the end of the “last days” when the trumpet sounds and Christ returns. The great thing is that we already have kingdom power over the enemy; we already have a restored relationship with the Father; we already have complete forgiveness of sin and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. That’s not a bad place to be, even if it does leave us looking forward to a day when we will have even more. And as sure and the sun rises every morning, that Day is coming. Maranatha!

Today’s Chaldean Chastisement

A recent visual verse on my Logos app was Habakkuk 1:5, “Look among the nations and see; be astonished and astounded. For a work is about to be done in your days that you will not believe if it is told.” I was struck by the word “astounded.” It made me want to re-read the book; so, I did. In summary, the book details Habakkuk’s lament and God’s answer. The prophet wanted to know why God didn’t seem to be doing anything, and God’s response was to explain that He was using the Chaldeans to accomplish His work. His work was to chastise Judah. Habakkuk might have been sorry he asked.

I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet (as they say), so what I am about the suggest should not be misconstrued. I am not 100% sure even the application is correct, but it makes sense to me, so I will let the reader beware and take it with a grain of salt. I am toying with the idea that there may be a near parallel situation in our day, and I am wondering if it is safe to assume that God may be responding to it in a similar way to Habakkuk’s day.

Habakkuk wrote between the time of the virtual extermination of the ten northern tribes (Israel) and the coming captivity of the southern tribes (Judah). God’s judgment on His people was in response to their repeated infidelity or wickedness. The irony is that God was using a “wicked” nation, the Chaldeans, to punish those who should have been righteous. Habakkuk noted this irony in the first chapter. If you are at all familiar with the Old Testament prophets, you know that God repeatedly used foreign nations, wicked nations, to chastise His people.

This raises a thorny question: in what sense does God use “evil” to accomplish His purpose? I covered this at some length in an earlier post (Finding God in COVID 19). The uncomfortable conclusion is that God does, in fact, use what the Bible sometimes calls “evil.” As I wrote previously, the Hebrew word translated “evil” is broader than our English meaning of moral evil. The Hebrew encompasses ideas like calamity, distress, or adversity. It should not disturb us to know that even “calamity” is under God’s control; our reaction should be relief knowing that we are not beyond God’s reach even in the tough times.

Nor should we be surprised that God disciplines His own. The history of the nation of Israel is full of disciplinary incidents from the wilderness wandering to the captivity in Babylon. Habakkuk and many other prophets warned of God’s coming judgment. In the New Testament, the writer of Hebrews makes the point that any loving Father uses discipline to bring out “the peaceful fruit of righteousness” in His children. We may not like the thought, but as the writer of Hebrews suggests, the discipline itself is proof that we are children of a loving, disciplining Father.

This brings me back to the contemporary application of the Chaldean chastisement. When I first saw the possible application, I thought of the actual modern-day Chaldeans – the Iranians. The radical Islamic clerics leading Iran call America “The Great Satan.” Rather than be offended, perhaps we should try to see what the clerics base the title on. Adultery, fornication, abortion, support of homosexual lifestyles, lewdness, crudeness and all manner of moral evil abound in this country. Perhaps the Muslim clerics see us more clearly than we realize.

 The sad truth is that the preceding list of evil deeds is descriptive of many who call themselves Christian. How far out the limb am I to suggest that God could be using the Islamic jihad to chastise His people? His people are no longer a nation that can be treated as one entity; military defeat or captivity don’t apply anymore. The “war” initiated by the Islamic terrorists is not directed at any nation in particular; instead it is aimed at destroying what was once called “Christendom,” Western society generally. Nominally, these are God’s people.

Another method God has used to discipline His people is to bring a plague on them. The plague that struck Israel in the wilderness and the one in David’s time come immediately to mind. The HIV-AIDS epidemic certainly seems to be a type of judgment on unrighteous behavior. I would not go so far as to say that COVID 19 is that type of judgment, but as I wrote before, calamity should push us to a deeper reliance on the God who is in control.

Maybe I am wrong to equate the present Islamic terrorists with the ancient Chaldeans. Maybe I am wrong to suggest that COVID 19 is more than just the result of living in a fallen world. In any case, I do believe that the proper response to terrorism or this pandemic is to get on our knees, repent, and turn more fully to God and away from the powerful attractions of our “wicked” society. The last three verses of Habakkuk are poignant: “Though the fig tree does not blossom, nor there be fruit on the vines; the yield of the olive tree fails, and the cultivated fields do not yield food; the flock is cut off from the animal pen, and there is no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will rejoice in Yahweh; I will exult in the God of my salvation. Yahweh, my Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer; he causes me to walk on my high places.”

Understanding the Bible as Literature

Some of my friends will be “offended” at what I am about to say. What I mean is they won’t like it; they will disagree vehemently. I know this because I expressed the thought one Sunday morning, and a dear friend misunderstood, and our relationship was never the same. If you are willing, please read to the end before you form an opinion.

I finished reading the book of Jonah this morning, and I was reminded by a commentary I had open that some people think the book is an extended metaphor or perhaps a parable. I asked myself what difference it would make if the events recorded in the book were fictional. I wondered if that would have any effect on the truth of the message. I think not, but I know the arguments against that opinion.

The most serious argument against the events in the book of Jonah being fictional is that is diminishes the truth of all Scripture. Those who hold this opinion usually also express the idea that the Bible must be taken “literally” in every instance. I say we cannot take the Bible literally in every instance. This is the point at which my friend lost his cool. The problem is with the definition of “literally.” My friend thought I was challenging the truth of Scripture. I am not.

A dictionary definition of literal follows: “taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory.” This explains why we cannot take the Bible literally all the time. Scripture is full of metaphor, allegory, parable, symbolism, imagery and apocalyptic literature. So, for example, if we take Isaiah 11:1 literally, the then-coming Messiah would be a vegetable of some kind: “a shoot… from the stump of Jesse.” That implies Jesse was a tree or something too.

We understand that Isaiah was employing a metaphor to teach that the Messiah would be born in the line of Jesse, hence a descendant of David which was necessary to fulfill many promises God made to David in particular and Israel in general. The same is true of Scriptures that speak of God’s judgment shaking mountains or an enemy’s advance being like locust or rivers of water flowing from a believer’s belly. We do not take these passages literally, but we do not doubt the truth they teach using metaphor or symbolism.

A second good reason some people think we must believe Jonah’s circumstances represent physical reality (they really happened) is that the New Testament, Jesus particularly, uses the lesson of Jonah. It is held that if Jesus referenced Jonah, then the story must be true, historical fact. This sounds convincing at first, but it is not logical. Jesus told numerous parables that teach truth but do not find their truthfulness in the fact that they actually happened. I doubt there was a Samaritan man who helped a poor traveler who had been robbed and beaten. I doubt there was an actual person who sold everything he had to buy a field in which he had discovered treasure. And so on; you get the point.

Regarding Jesus’ use of Jonah, it is not necessary for the events to have occurred for the meaning to be true. Consider this: when we say someone has the strength of Hercules or Superman, it does not require that our listeners believe Hercules or Superman actually exist. We understand the reference to unnatural strength to be the point. Angelo Siciliano changed his name to Charles Atlas because Atlas is a mythical figure who had the strength and fortitude to hold the entire world on his shoulders. I don’t think Angelo believed Atlas ever existed. That doesn’t take away from the reference.

So it is with Jonah: Jesus could refer to a parable from the Old Testament with just as much effect as if it were an historical event. The meat is in the reference, not the referent. I know I am on shaky ground here; some would say a slippery slope. I am not suggesting that there is no historical basis for anything in the Old Testament (or the New, for that matter). I am simply saying that whether Jonah was really swallowed by a huge fish or not, Jesus point about “the sign of Jonah” being parallel to His three days in the tomb still rings true.

In other words, I believe the Bible is all truly the Word of God. I believe everything in it was put there by the supernatural methods God chose to make His revelation. Sometimes God orchestrated human events so that, as Paul says, they could be an example for us to learn from. Sometimes God used symbolism, imagery, metaphor and any other literary device He chose to make His point. The literal parts and the not-literal parts are equally God’s Word.

The key to proper interpretation of Scripture vis a vis this literal conundrum is to recognize that the Bible is made up of many genres of literature. Each genre or type of literature must be read according to the logical rules of interpretation. When Jesus used hyperbole, we don’t take it literally; we are not supposed to poke out our eyes if they lead us to sin. When Jesus recommended believers take up a sword to advance the kingdom, He was not advocating jihad.

A slavish, literal interpretation of all Scripture leads to gross misinterpretation. At one point in church history, people were put to death because they suggested the earth revolved around the sun. The church leaders thought this contradicted the clear teaching of the Bible that the sun rose and set (revolved) around the earth. Again, the Bible frequently uses the idea of the earth having “foundations” because the cosmology of the day pictured the earth as a table with legs or foundations.

The inspired Word of God uses the understanding of the original readers to make its point. The Old Testament, particularly the wisdom literature and the prophets, is full of metaphor, imagery and symbolism. The original readers were accustomed to literature that was not meant literally. While it is true that some people in church history have taught that the entire Bible is allegorical, their overreach should not cause us to swing the pendulum too far the other way and assume the Bible is all to be taken literally.

It should go without saying that the Holy Spirit is the final arbiter to determine how a passage of Scripture is to be interpreted. I suspect that He, after all, is the agent through whom the words were originally inspired and written. This fact, however, does not absolve us of the need to use our God-given faculties of reason and logic to reach an understanding of the meaning of Scripture. To paraphrase a popular aphorism, read Scripture like it all depends on the Holy Spirit to reveal the meaning, and think like it all depends on you to figure it out. That should give the necessary balance to reading the Bible as literature.

Later posts: Take the Bible Literally; Taking the Bible Literally Part 2

Finding God in COVID 19

Whenever something bad happens, thoughtful people ask why. We are created with a sense of fairness and a rational mind that lead us to expect things to be done for a reason. In its simplest form, even children grasp the concept that good behavior brings good consequences while bad behavior brings bad consequences. Although the adult world becomes much more complex, we continue to look for what may be called either fairness or justice.

Fairness and justice are not the same thing. They overlap at times; when someone gets what he deserves, we say that is fair, and it may also be just. However, there are times when justice is served, but it does not seem fair. If two people are found guilty of committing an illegal act, but due to unique circumstances only one goes to prison, the prison sentence is just, but it seems unfair that the other person goes free.

On a global scale, we know that the rain falls on the just and the unjust; the Bible says so. Many of the Psalms cry out against the unfairness of this reality. The wicked often prosper, as the Psalmist frequently laments, while the righteous suffer indignity. This seems unfair; it probably is. For most of us, fairness is a human construct while justice, true justice, belongs to God. Taking the long view, the Bible assures that ultimately, the wicked get what they deserve. Fairness and justice meet in the end – God’s ordained end.

In the case of our current global pandemic, neither fairness nor justice seem to be present. History teaches us that this is not a new phenomenon: Bubonic plague, Spanish Influenza, H1-N1, SARS and now COVD 19. To varying degrees, each of these disasters has swept across humanity with no regard for fairness or justice. Some would claim that either there is no god who controls events, or that any god who may exist is fickle or even malicious. Obviously, the Bible contradicts both of those conclusions.

The Bible makes it crystal clear that God is in control of even the disasters. Isaiah 45:7 is uncomfortable for some people as it clearly states that our God “forms the light and [creates] darkness; I make peace and I create evil.” The Hebrew word “evil” can be translated as “disagreeable, unpleasant, calamity, distress, adversity.” These things are only “evil” or wicked if one takes the view of Heaven which asserts that they do not belong in a perfect world.

There’s the rub: this is not a perfect world. To be sure, God created it perfect, but Adam’s rebellion against God brought on the curse that still holds creation in its grasp today. We often think of the curse being sin, and that is not altogether wrong. However, a close reading of curse in Genesis 3 describes what might be called a dissolution of order, otherwise known as chaos. Sin is chaos inasmuch as it represents a departure from the orderly way God intends His creation to operate. As a consequence of Adam’s rebellion, the earth began to devolve into chaos rather than continue in perfect order. Relationships between beings also fell apart, both human and divine. Even the human soul became a hotbed of chaos.

The chaos we are experiencing now, COVID 19, is just another result of Adam’s rebellion. Not all viruses are harmful to humans, much the same as not all bacteria being harmful and not all plants being poisonous and not all sea creatures being as dangerous as great white sharks. The order of Creation has been disrupted, but the Bible is clear that God uses even the disruption to accomplish His will. Allowing Joseph to be kidnapped and brought to Egypt set up the eventual saving of his family. God used the Assyrians and then the Babylonians to chastise His chosen people, then He used a Persian to bring the remnant back to the Holy Land. The things we call catastrophes are often used by God for His purposes.

The most stunning and meaningful example of this is the way God used the wickedness of the Jewish leadership to bring about the sacrifice necessary to bring His people back to Himself. When you think of the first disciples, especially Jesus’ mother, grieving for three days over the loss of the One they believed to be the Messiah, you can imagine they were asking why. By the third day, everything began to become clear. The coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost a few weeks later sealed the deal. The disciples then understood what had happened; Peter said as much to the crowd that day asserting that the “lawless men” who crucified the Christ were unwittingly fulfilling God’s plan. (Acts 2:23-24)

As we struggle through the unsettling times created by the COVID 19 virus, we know why it is happening in the larger sense: COVID 19 is just another example of the chaos that pervades the creation. On an individual basis, we can also look for meaning if we try. Bible sales are at an all-time high; hopefully this means people are turning to God. Many people are behaving in more gracious ways than they would absent the crisis. As believers we should be doing everything we can to reach out with the love of God to whomever we can.

Also, believers should take the message of Psalm 62 to heart: worldly wealth and power are like a vapor that passes away, but God is a strong rock, a refuge in whom we can place complete confidence. We can rest amid the confusion because God has promised to be with us through the waters and in the fire. (Isaiah 43:2) Notice the promise is not to deliver us from calamity but to be with us in the midst of it. If the worst happens and the economy collapses while we suffer the loss of millions of people, believers should take the opportunity to draw closer to the God who promises justice but offers grace (aka unfairness) at the same time. The advice of the prophet Micah is timely: love justice, act kindly, and walk humbly with God. And remember: this chaotic world is not your home.

Who’s Your Daddy?

If you have been around evangelical believers for any length of time, you probably have heard someone say that Christianity is not a religion; it’s a relationship. To clarify what that means, I would say religion is about rites and rules; relationship is something else altogether. I have been thinking about that quite a bit lately as it has been the focus of much of our teaching at church (Kingdom Life, Muskegon).

To see what it means to have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, you can start by comparing how the concept of God as Father changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament. God did call the nation of Israel His children, implying He was their Father, but the Jews’ relationship seems to have been focused on the God who shook Mt. Sanai or dwelt in a pillar of fire. That doesn’t sound too cozy. Even after taking the promised land and building a temple, their relationship was characterized by bloody sacrificial rites and mediated by strictly regulated priests. Outside of the love poems in some Psalms, there is little to suggest that the Jews saw their God as a warm, welcoming Father.

Enter Jesus Christ, God’s one-and-only Son. The language changes immediately. Where God may have been the Father in the past, now He is my Father, or even more radical, our Father. Jesus demonstrated what it means to have an intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father. Jesus allied Himself with His Father so intimately that He could say things like, “I and the Father are one.” That was astounding; so much so that the religious leaders considered it grounds for stoning. Jesus asked the religious leaders at one point at which of His good works they took such offense. They responded, “We are not going to stone you concerning a good deed, but concerning blasphemy, and because you, although you are a man, make yourself to be God!” They understood very well that He was talking about a relationship – a relationship they did not share. (John 10:33-34)

Some might be tempted to argue that Jesus was the Son of God, so clearly, He could relate to a Heavenly Father. You might be able to sustain that line of reasoning if the entire New Testament was not filled with references to believers’ status as children of a Heavenly Father. Jesus often applied the plural personal pronoun to Father when He was teaching. “Therefore, if you, although you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” (Matthew 7:11).

The apostle Paul makes it undeniably clear in Romans, “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit himself confirms to our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer together with him so that we may also be glorified together with him.” (Romans 8:15-17). Again, in Galatians 4:6-7 Paul writes, “And because you are sons, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba! (Father!),” ⁷ so that you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, also an heir through God.”

I highlight these two passages because of the use of the Hebrew word, “Abba.” It was the most personal word a child could use. If it were translated instead of transliterated from the Hebrew it would most likely read, “Daddy.” It spoke of a loving, familial relationship. In what must have been Jesus most tortured prayer, He used the intimate word for Father, “And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you! Take away this cup from me! Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36). What this tells me is that when things are at their worst, we go to God for comfort and counsel based on the intimacy of our relationship.

For an Old Testament Jew to get close to God, he had to travel to Jerusalem, bring or buy an animal, and wait in line to have a priest shed the animal’s blood. I doubt many were feeling an intimate connection at that point. Maybe a few like Simeon or Anna who saw the coming Messiah from their place in the temple felt close to God, but that was the exception. On this side of Calvary, believers have the privilege, bought by the suffering Savior, to enter the very throne room of the King of the Universe and expect an audience. And we know He will hear us. (1 John 5:14)

This is what it means to have a relationship as opposed to a religion. Admittedly, there are “religious” rites: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These are meant to be a testimony to a relationship, not “religious” means to an end. In a proper New Testament relationship, we feel the true import of the love of our Heavenly Father as portrayed in the marital analogy that runs throughout the words of the Old Testament prophets. We understand the level of commitment by God when Moses says, “He will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6).

We should cherish the privilege of calling God, “Abba.” Answer the question posed by the title of this article. If you can’t say “Abba,” He’s not your Daddy.