Notes
One student who is currently doing our Scripture Under Scrutiny courses, has emailed me a bunch of their questions. I will post my answers here over the next week or so. These Notes will also import into our Facebook Page, so feel free to head over there and discuss further.
He wrote:
"I'm struggling to work out how it isn't one big setup, or a game. God made us for his pleasure, and is omnipotent. So He could've stopped Satan from tempting us, but didn't. So He allowed us to fall and become separated. Then all people have original sin from then on due to some intrinsic rebellion, so humans have to sacrifice animals to be forgiven in the OT. Then God saves us with Jesus, but He was in control of the whole thing! I know that God wants us to come to Him freely and not feel forced, but it sounds like the whole story has been set up so that we're failing from the start and need a saviour.Right, so 1. How do you see this? (response here)" "2. Why did God behave so differently in the OT and suddenly decided to change tack? He's omniscient/present, so time isn't an issue. (response here)" "3. Why does anyone at all need to ask for forgiveness (in prayers and such) if Jesus has already paid the price? Is it just an acknowledgement that we have to do?
It's important to remember, when we want answers to our doubts, that if there are answers, then Christianity is real. The force of this question kind of (unintentionally) assume that God is kind of half-real, that he invents things that he decides we need to do.
But it's not like that. If Christianity is true, then God really exists and we are really 'sinners' - enemies of God. Repentance and faith are turning back from God. Without them, we are still rejecting him and everything he gives - including forgiveness.
The goal of Jesus dying is not just to give us forgiveness so we can do our own thing. Jesus died to make peace between us and God. Repentance and faith is the start of a new life lived at peace with God.
One student who is currently doing our Scripture Under Scrutiny courses, has emailed me a bunch of their questions. I will post my answers here over the next week or so. These Notes will also import into our Facebook Page, so feel free to head over there and discuss further.
He wrote:
"I'm struggling to work out how it isn't one big setup, or a game. God made us for his pleasure, and is omnipotent. So He could've stopped Satan from tempting us, but didn't. So He allowed us to fall and become separated. Then all people have original sin from then on due to some intrinsic rebellion, so humans have to sacrifice animals to be forgiven in the OT. Then God saves us with Jesus, but He was in control of the whole thing! I know that God wants us to come to Him freely and not feel forced, but it sounds like the whole story has been set up so that we're failing from the start and need a saviour.Right, so 1. How do you see this? (response here)" "2. Why did God behave so differently in the OT and suddenly decided to change tack? He's omniscient/present, so time isn't an issue."
My response:
The Bible speaks about itself as a progressive revelation, where God is deliberately taking time to unveil his plans and purposes. It is not that God changed his mind or his nature between NT and OT, in fact there is fundamental continuity between the OT and NT portrayal of God. Rather, God is working out his purposes gradually.
So, for example, the animal sacrifices in the OT are not a different way to be forgiven. They are recognised as symbolic and intrinsically inadequate even in the OT itself. They are rather signposts, showing God's desire to forgive and what is needed for forgiveness. Jesus is the true object to which these sacrifices point.
Why did God do it this way? There are a range of reasons we might give. But here are two important ones:
1. To Teach: the whole OT gives the categories of thought that enable us to understand what God eventually did in Jesus.
2. To Demonstrate: slightly different to teaching, demonstrating refers to the way God is shown more plainly to be God and we are shown more plainly to be sinners. The time God took in the OT provided real-life proof of God's justice and patience, and real-life proof of our desperate need for forgiveness.
Tamie has posted some pretty deep stuff on Twilight and its emobidment of 'third wave feminism''s tensions and concerns. It's worth following the links in this article, too.
An excerpt:
"In classic third wave style, Bella accepts the helpless-female-in-need-of-protection role but absolutely refuses to play the submissive role to Edward’s leadership. Furthermore, she becomes the sexual aggressor in the relationship, another classic third wave trait. You’d think Jacob would offer her more: his desire and pursuit of her is just as strong as Edward’s, yet he’s more up front, less manipulative. Surely he fits better her ‘protect, provide but don’t you dare lead’ preference. And she’s definitely got chemistry with him.
Except, she goes for Edward – why? If you ask Bella, it’s that she loves Jacob but she loves Edward more. But you also get the feeling that she won’t get her way all the time with Edward while she could wrap Jacob around her little finger. This is the tension that third wavers face: they resist powerful men on one hand, on the other, they find them magnetic. Apparently ‘protect and provide’ are an OK option without the ‘lead’ but inexplicably more intoxicating with it."
One student who is currently doing our Scripture Under Scrutiny courses, has emailed me a bunch of their questions. I will post my answers here over the next week or so. These Notes will also import into our Facebook Page, so feel free to head over there and discuss further.
He wrote:
"I'm struggling to work out how it isn't one big setup, or a game. God made us for his pleasure, and is omnipotent. So He could've stopped Satan from tempting us, but didn't. So He allowed us to fall and become separated. Then all people have original sin from then on due to some intrinsic rebellion, so humans have to sacrifice animals to be forgiven in the OT. Then God saves us with Jesus, but He was in control of the whole thing! I know that God wants us to come to Him freely and not feel forced, but it sounds like the whole story has been set up so that we're failing from the start and need a saviour.Right, so 1. How do you see this?"
My response:
If we really want to understand what the answer might be if Christianity were true, we have to work hard to see things from that point of view. A question like this can be asked from such a sceptical point of view that you won't find the answer convincing, because you're unintentionally assumed that it can't be true.
What I mean is: if Christianity were actually true, then we need to begin by acknowledging that these are some of the deepest, biggest most complex things we could dwell upon. It's not an intellectual cop-out to say that we are touching on mystery here. If anything, that shows intellectual integrity. If we can't make everything completely neat and tidy, that is because we are dealing with matters of time and eternity, creator and creation.
This very recognition is the most important part of my answer, too. I want to say that the kind of links we make between God's power and God's responsibility don't necessarily follow. Just because God is all powerful and in control of all things doesn't logically make him responsible for our evil doing. It might seem like common sense that he is responsible. But then we aren't used to thinking about how eternal beings relate to time. Normal causation may not neatly apply.
There are other things that make God's relationship to this world complex: human free-will does make the whole picture complicated, and warn us against making snap assumptions about God's motives - as if he is just pulling puppet strings. The Bible can happily speak of both God's control over all things and yet at the same time fully uphold the reality of human freedom and action. It's not very precise to say he could've stopped Satan from tempting us.
Likewise, there are complexities in the way we need to think about God's plans and purposes. There are passages in the Bible that speak about God's ultimate plan for Christ to come and save a sinful world. And yet there are also passages that uphold the value of the original world, before sin entered it, and that speak of the human rebellion as a evil corruption of God's purposes for his good creation. We mustn't flatten these out too much, so that we reason that God only made the world so that people would sin.
That's the long answer. The short answer is:
'It might seem like it's one big game but it's not.'
Why not?
'Because that's not the way God relates to the world.'
How does he relate to the world?
'It's beyond our understanding to fully grasp.'
A thoughtful response to the question from theologian Don Carson:
Cold Rock is this ice cream place where they take the ice cream flavour of your choice and then mix it together with your choice of lollies and cookies. It's basically like the ice cream bar at an all-you-can-eat Sizzler, except they do the mixing for you and charge you an extra $3. That means the people doing the mixing are working at $36 an hour, which isn't too bad for a takeaway franchise job.
Anyway. Some people approach church like Cold Rock. They mix a bit of Bible Study from this church, with a bit of safe-feeling morning service from that church, with a bit of exciting-music evening service from that church. Where is their home church? Nowhere really. They've kind of invented their own mutant church.
This temptation is especially real for students who have moved to a new city to study. And it is one that I think should be avoided. There's plenty of reasons why, but here's six:
- Coldrocking fails to submit to a local church community and its leaders. It may not feel disrespectful to a local church, but it is: "I'm deciding what the local church is, thank you very much!"
- Coldrocking fills up our time with attending church events and takes away energy from the less glamorous parts of church involvement: small groups, Sunday school teaching and volunteering on rosters.
- Coldrocking distracts churches from caring for their true members and non-Christian visitors.
- Coldrocking lets our preferences dominate in churchgoing, rather than an attitude of service to others.
- Coldrocking retards the leadership recruitment process. Choice can lead to consumerism, rather than settling down in one place and taking on significant responsibility.
- Coldrocking stops churches getting better. They don't see how few new people are coming cause they're full of visitors and they don't get to work on their weaknesses, because people just go elsewhere for that.
In our first Leadership Development session we did a tour of Deuteronomy and Hebrews to see just how central the Word of God is to Christianity.
We then discussed some important applications of this to our fellowship:
- The Word of God must be central to ministry, not good deeds, community, music or other things.
- We should be willing to go in depth with our study of God's word. Our sermons and conferences and Fellowship Groups should sometimes be long, hard work.
- There is great value in simply working through books of the Bible in our sermons and Bible studies, so that God sets the agenda of what we think about, rather than always focusing on answering our questions.
- There is an important place for leaders and preachers, so that we hear God's Word as authoritative, rather than only ever doing discussions and forums.
- Our unity with others should be based around the Word of God, rather than simply social or institutional things.
- The Word of God should remain front and centre in our evangelism. No one will be saved by good deeds, loving community or clever arguments alone.
If you really recognise that, how will it change what we do? Or maybe we are thinking and acting as if people don't become Christians.
All over the world, people are becoming Christians. Right here in Hobart, people are becoming Christians. We should think, act, plan and pray for people to become Christians.
Good way to start Semester 2, don't you think?
Similar to 'The Problem with Christianity Is' that Uni Fellowship ran last year, Monash CU is doing a variation this year called 'OMG Why?'.
By God's grace, some wonderful things have happened in Tasmania over the last fifteen years, through the Vision 100 network of which the Uni Fellowship of Christians is a part.
At the recent Geneva Push conference in Melbourne, Mikey Lynch told the story of Vision 100 in Tasmania.
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