Theology Question

For anyone that has ever wondered what kind of questions theology professors put on their exams, here's one.

You have been asked to counsel with a family in the church, whose son was one of the victims of the serial killer Charles Bonin. They are perplexed since hearing that Bonin reportedly accepted Christ on death row. They have asked you to explain how God could forgive Bonin, when the nephew murdered by Bonin had yet to accept Christ, though the nephew had participated in some of the youth group events. "How fair is it that Bonin is in heaven and our nephew is in hell?" How could you use atonement metaphors to guide them to comprehend more of God's grace through the cross of Christ in their difficult context?.

This is an actual question that might pop up on my theology mid-term exam on Thursday. Feel free to leave your answers in the comments, I would love to see the different takes on this question. I will post my answer next week after my exam is over.

Theology Reflections

I have decided to post a copy of an assignment that I did for my theology class. It is a reflection on the doctrinal witness to the person and work of Jesus Christ. The kicker to this assignment was that it could only be 2/3 of a page long. This was alot harder than it seemed.

Please, if you read this paper leave a comment. Treat it as if you were my teacher and you were grading this paper for content within the parameters. I welcome the insight and criticism (constructive please).

Theology Reflection #1:

As in any aspect of our faith, there needs to be a balance in how we understand the person and work of Jesus Christ. Throughout history there always seems to be a draw from one side of the spectrum to the other, either the personhood of Jesus is emphasized at the expense of his deity, or the deity of Christ is emphasized as the expense of His personhood. I don’t see how it is possible to have more of one and less of the other, or how you can separate one from the other. I think that in order to have an effective savior you have to have a person Jesus.
I think that Jesus had to be born from a human mother in order to begin to fulfill all the requirements of being fully human. If at any point He was to have skipped a step He would not qualify as a savior. He would not have experienced every aspect of human life therefore being able to relate to us completely. If at some point our sin had been born out of an experience that Jesus had not been able to encounter because He skipped that step of humanity, He would not be able to save us from that specific sin. However, because He did go through every step of humanity from birth to death, and did not sin, He was uniquely qualified to be the sacrifice necessary to fulfill the debt of sin that mankind owed to God.
I think that the miracle of a virgin birth was necessary because it signified that from the beginning He was deity. Not only did this fulfill prophesy but it necessitated the infusion of God to complete the process of procreation without a human father. If Jesus had been anything less than completely God, He would not have had the authority to forgive sin, and therefore would not have been able to atone for our sins on the cross. He also would not have been able to have authority over death in order to take up His life again allowing Him to ascend back to heaven in bodily form.
Going back to the idea of balance, I think that we often spend too much effort emphasizing the work Jesus did on the cross or explaining what took place in order for Him to be completely human. I think we do this often at the expense of the actual life He lived and ministry He had. Certainly Jesus could have been fully man and fully God and died on the cross for our sins, but without the ministry that led up to that point, we would not have known that it ever took place. Jesus had to be the controversial teacher that He was on earth or else the work on the cross would have been ineffective because no one would know about the free gift of salvation because there would be no witness to it.
We often go from birth narrative to passion with little or no time spent on the life and ministry of Jesus when we witness of Him. We do this at the expense of our ability to relate to Him. His entire life and ministry is an explanation of how we are to relate to His humanity and His deity. It’s the instruction manual on how to have community with the totality of who He is not only as the Son of God, or Jesus of Nazareth, or Christ the Messiah, but all of Him balanced together. Without this balanced knowledge of Jesus Christ there is an imbalance to how we react to Him as believers.

Greek

Due to the large amount of brain cells that it requires to learn Greek in one semester, I regret that I have not posted in quite some time. I hope to remedy that situation soon, however I am taking another Greek class this semester so my post volume will remain low as long as I don't drop the class. I hope to post soon.

Xa/rij u9mi=n kai\ ei0rh/nh a0po\ qeou= patro\j h9mw=n.

Words Matter!

The vast majority of communication is through words. Yes, I know we communicate through pictures and music and by using expressive motion, but in today's society we do far more communicating by words than any of those other things. We speak face to face, we speak over the phone, we text message, we blog, we email, we even occasionally use pencil and paper to write letters (archaic I know). The growing majority of our communication is just words.

The importance of words wes brought to my attention this morning when I was doing my devotional reading in Proverbs. Verse 12:18 drew my attention, "Reckless words peirce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing." Just let that verse sink in for a minute. "Reckless words" how often have do we just say whatever comes to mind without really filtering the consequences of our words? I am truly guilty of that, I often joke about not having a filter I just say whatever I'm thinking at the time. But the fact of the matter is this kind of speaking without thinking can really effect the way others percieve you.

"Reckless words" in text form are even more common. How often does it occur that you find yourself having to explian a text or email, because what you wrote was misunderstood and either cofused someone or offended someone. I have even read emails that seemed like they were almost yelling at me, when in fact they were just instructional in nature.

Lets take this to another level. What does it look like when Christians write blogs or responses to public domain conversations and we don't choose our words well? What kind of damage do "Reckless words" do in an environment like this? Do we communicate "healing" or hatred?

Proverbs 12:13A says, "An evil man is trapped by his sinful talk," and Proverbs 12:14A, "From the fuit of his lips a man is filled with good things." Twice Jesus reminds us in Matthew that the words that come out of our mouths are formed in the heart. Paul urges in Ephesians 4:29, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."

The Bible speaks much about how we speak. How do we use our words? Are we reckless with our words or do they bring healing? Our words reflect who we are on the inside, these passages mentioned above all speak to that. As Christians we need to think really hard about how we view our words and how our words are viewed by others.

What does Washington have to do with Jerusalem?

What is the Christians role in American politics? In eight days Americans go to the poles and vote for many things, as is our right according to our constitution. Besides the act of voting, I wonder what is the responsibility of Christians in this process? How does our involvement reflect on our culture? Does our message translate well through political channels?

I am a very politically conscious person. I have spent a lot of time in the last eighteen months watching the unfolding of the different races and issues. Especially as they apply to cultural ethics and morality. However, I do not spend an excessive amount of time in political activism. Rather, I prefer to spend my time affirming the issues through expression of Biblical concepts as they relate to issues discussed in the political arena. I do not promote politics from my influence as a teacher in the church. But am I doing all I should be?

There has been much criticism in the last few years of the politics of Christians. The term "religious right" has been thrown around in the political arena to the extent now that it is more of a negative reference than a descriptive position. Has so called "Christian activism" in politics jeopardized our witness to our country? Are we (the church) expending so much energy toward influencing the political that we are neglecting our responsibility to the social?

In the book Unchristian David Kinnaman reveals polling information done by the Barna Group that would suggest that maybe there are those who would see the efforts of the "religious right" as counter productive to our call to be culturally counter. The point of revealing the information of these poles is to show Christian leaders that there is a developing generation out there that is actually being repelled from the church due to the seemingly judgmental political stance the church is portraying in the public eye. That is not to say the perception is 100% correct, but where there is smoke there is usually fire.

Phillip Yancey speaks of politics as running on the "rules of ungrace". If the purpose of the church is to express grace as it is expressed to us by God, then is it such a wise thing to align ourselves so closely to a structure that knows nothing of grace? Yancey says, "I see the confusion of politics and religion as one of the greatest barriers to grace." Yancey also references C.S. Lewis, explaining that it is when religion and politics merged throughout history, that is when all of the crimes of the church have taken place.

Jesus left us a much different example on how to influence culture. Jesus preferred more of a "grass roots" effort to being "salt and light". You will never see Jesus going to the ruling class to try and change the culture, instead he was seen spending most of his time with the parts of society that trouble politicians the most. Jesus demonstrated to us that by meeting peoples most immediate needs we then have far more credibility to then influence their spiritual needs.

I don't blame people for wanting to be involved in the political process, after all we have a future beyond ourselves at stake. My concern is for our approach and how it reflects on the church and most of all how it reflects on our Lord. How do we get involved and work towards a positive outcome without becoming corrupted by the process?

I sincerely do not pretend to have the answers to all these questions. I know we are called to pray for our leaders (1 Timothy 2:1-3). And I urge everyone to do so. I also know that we have a responsibility as Americans to take part in the democratic process by voting. And I urge everyone to do so. But to what extent we get involved in the tricky aspect of politics is very sketchy. We must be prayerful and tread carefully in these waters because it is not just our own personal reputation on the line, when Christians step into the political arena they (willingly or not) represent the whole church.

I guess on this issue I'm open to ideas. What convictions guide us in our decisions in political matters? Is it possible to stay involved in the political arena and undo the damage that has been done according to Kinnman and the Barna group? Can we be involved in an arena ruled by "ungrace" according to Yancey and still show grace to a hurting country?

Day Off

Every once in a while you need to take a day off. Even though mid-terms are rapidly approaching and I really need to work on my Greek, I just couldn't resist taking the family out for a break.

Fleet Week was this week so we decided to hop a ferry and watch the air show from San Francisco. We had a great time. We saw the Snow Birds perform while we were on the ferry, on the way to SF. It was amazing watching the jets fly right over the top of us as we cruised the bay. Then we got to see the Blue Angels perform while we were on the top deck of the Eureka, docked at the Hide street pier. We topped the day off by eating clam chowder and fish n chips from a restaurant overlooking the bay.

It was a great day of rest that I think the whole family needed. Now back to work!

Our arrival at the Port of San Francisco by ferry.

One of the Navy ships in SF for Fleet Week.

Julie and Emily on the ferry ride over to SF.

Me and the kids as we arrived in SF.
Emily being cute on the ferry bench.


William steering the Eureka (while at dock).

William and Emily playing pirate on board the sailing vessel at the Maritime Museum.


Anchors away for Lizzy and Emily.


Emily and Lizzy not sure which way to steer.

Julie got some great pics of the Blue Angels in action.

Shooting Star Theology

I was just standing on the top of the hill at the seminary looking out over the amazing view we have of the Bay Bridge and San Francisco, when I saw a shooting star. It was incredible, it streaked across the night sky right in front of me. I was thanking God for the beauty of what I was seeing when it dawned on me that I was actually missing the point. Well, at least the whole point because it really was beautiful. But God was revealing to me something more.

You see, the whole reason I was out looking over the bay was because I was praying for a very close friend of mine. He's had a really tough go of things lately, with more stuff piling on to his troubles almost daily. So what does this have to do with a shooting star, well I realized that the shooting star was Gods way of telling me that He will provide for my friend. Just like He was providing for all of us in Northern California at that very moment.

Let me break this down. I realized that the shooting star I was watching is, as most of us know, actually a meteor that was burning up in the atmosphere. If it had not burned up, when it hit the ground it could have caused catastrophic damage for miles. That's why God created the atmosphere, the beautiful night sky I was admiring is actually Gods provision for His creation so that every time a piece of space rock runs into the earth it does not hit the ground and kill thousands of us. The amazing forethought of our creator to provide a shield for us from the meteors that head right toward us almost every minute of the day. And on top of it all the spectacle of His provision is beyond words to describe.

So, as you can see, what was an amazing sight of a shooting star is actually Gods display of His great provision for all of us. It was also His way of telling me that He really does have it all under control. And just like I don't have to worry about all the meteors that run into our atmosphere causing constant disasters, So also I do not have to worry about how He will provide for my friend. He's got it covered.

This also ties in great with what I have been studying in Theology class about natural revelation, or the things that can be learned about God from observing His creation. And to finish off this post here is a verse from His special revelation:

31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:31-33 NIV)