Truth: Right Knowing or Knowing Rightly?

This summer I'm teaching a small group of college students on the topic of God's nature and character. Recently when I asked these students how their view of God has changed in the past 6 months, one of the young men said something to this effect: "I used to see God more as a construct of certain beliefs that were given to me; now I'm beginning to see Him as a real Person with whom to relate."

I believe he articulated a major problem that has developed over time within Christianity: we think that being a "Christian" means that we believe (mentally assent to) a certain set of doctrines about God in Christ that we have put together from the Bible. Our churches and Bible institutes and seminaries reinforce this idea that our life in God as Christians is mainly about "right knowing" or "right information".

Jesus confronted this problem with the Pharisees, saying to them, "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life..."  Or as Eugene Peterson aptly puts it in The Message: “You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you’ll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren’t willing to receive from me the life you say you want."

Having a neatly constructed set of beliefs (truths) about Jesus isn't the same as knowing Truth as a Person (John 14:6). To relate to Truth as a Person is dramatically different than relating to a package of beliefs about that person. A person is very dynamic, not black and white. Relating with a person entails love and listening, hard and painful work, along with continual new discoveries; it's an ever expanding growth experience (which means change).

In an article entitled "Christians: It's NOT a Sin to Change Your Beliefs", Stephen Mattson from Northwestern College (St.Paul, MN) says:

"American Christianity has created a culture of theological permanence, where individuals are expected to learn a set of beliefs and latch onto them for the rest of their lives. Many of our first theological beliefs were probably taught to us in Sunday school, which was part of a church, which was represented by a denomination, which had its own parochial schools and Bible colleges...

But theology — our study and beliefs about God — should be a natural process involving change instead of avoiding it. Our God is too big and too wonderful to completely understand by the time we graduate high school, or college, or get married, or have children, or retire. Our life experiences, relationships, education, exposure to different cultures and perspectives continually affect the way we look at God. Our faith is a journey, a Pilgrim’s Progress, and our theology will change. And while we may not agree with a person’s new theological belief, we need to stop seeing the inherent nature of change as something negative..."
(See the entire article here...)

Right knowing is static and flat; knowing rightly (learning in and from Jesus, the Truth) is dynamic. Perhaps our focus in discipling both children and adults should be more about how to know than about what to know. Then we may not find it so scary to be on a continual course of change but instead see it with anticipation and joy.

God's Confidants

A post from a couple of years ago:

This quote by George MacDonald is from the book, "Discovering the Character of God":

"Terribly has the gospel of Jesus suffered in the mouths of the wise and prudent! How would it be faring now had its first messages been committed to persons of great repute, instead of those simple fishermen? From the first we would have had a system founded on a human interpretation of the divine gospel, instead of the gospel itself. As it is, we have had one dull miserable human system after another usurping its place. But thank God, the gospel remains!

"Had the wise and prudent been the confidants of God, the letter would at once have usurped the place of the spirit, and a system of religion with its rickety, malodorous plan of salvation, would have been put in place of a living Christ. The great Brother, the human God, the eternal Son, the living One, would have been utterly hidden from the tearful eyes and aching hearts of the weary and heavy laden.

"But the Father revealed his things to babes, because the babes were his own little ones, uncorrupted by the wisdom or the care of this world, and therefore able to receive them. The babes are near enough whence they come to understand a little how things go in the presence of their Father in heaven, and thereby to interpret the words of the Son. Quickly will the Father seal the old bond when the Son himself, the first of the babes, the one perfect Babe of God, comes to lead the children out of the lovely 'shadows of eternity' into the land of the 'white celestial thought.' As God is the one, only, real Father, so is it only to God that anyone can be a perfect child. Only in His garden can childhood blossom."

The Church Fathers and Reading the Bible

As I'm learning to approach scriptures in a different way than I used to, I'm appreciating them more and loving God more primarily because of how the living Christ is seen as greater than the Bible. An article published on Peter Enns' blog by David Opderbeck, professor of law at Seton Hall University of Law School is helpful in seeing how the Church Fathers approached scriptures.

The following is a short portion from the article:

The Fathers read the scriptures and constructed their theologies through the lens of the Church’s living experience of Christ.  They did not use the scriptures to prove Christ.  They used their experience of Christ to authenticate the scriptures and then used the scriptures to clarify their experience of Christ. - See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/06/what-ive-learned-about-reading-the-bible-from-reading-the-church-fathers-one-pilgrims-perspective-guest-post/#sthash.jnQI2ARU.RA1P85cG.dpuf

"The Fathers read the scriptures and constructed their theologies through the lens of the Church's living experience of Christ. They did not use the scriptures to prove Christ. They used their experience of Christ to authenticate the scriptures and then used the scriptures to clarify their experience of Christ.

In fact, the Fathers began to define the canon of scripture from among a wide variety of early Christian writings based in large part on what they understood to be the central 'story' of the universe (referred by some of them as the 'Rule of Faith'): the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Christ." 

See the entire article here.

Yet even with all their philosophical rigor, the Fathers themselves knew that their linguistic and philosophical categories were approximations or analogies for truths that finally lay beyond human comprehension.  Their efforts to define these doctrines carefully were not so much attempts to state final truths as efforts to avoid idolatry and blasphemy – to avoid saying too much, and to avoid inaccuracy as much as is humanly possible.  - See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/06/what-ive-learned-about-reading-the-bible-from-reading-the-church-fathers-one-pilgrims-perspective-guest-post/#sthash.jnQI2ARU.RA1P85cG.dpuf

The Fathers read the scriptures and constructed their theologies through the lens of the Church’s living experience of Christ.  They did not use the scriptures to prove Christ.  They used their experience of Christ to authenticate the scriptures and then used the scriptures to clarify their experience of Christ. - See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/06/what-ive-learned-about-reading-the-bible-from-reading-the-church-fathers-one-pilgrims-perspective-guest-post/#sthash.jnQI2ARU.RA1P85cG.dpuf

The Fathers read the scriptures and constructed their theologies through the lens of the Church’s living experience of Christ.  They did not use the scriptures to prove Christ.  They used their experience of Christ to authenticate the scriptures and then used the scriptures to clarify their experience of Christ. - See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/06/what-ive-learned-about-reading-the-bible-from-reading-the-church-fathers-one-pilgrims-perspective-guest-post/#sthash.jnQI2ARU.RA1P85cG.dpuf

The Fathers read the scriptures and constructed their theologies through the lens of the Church’s living experience of Christ.  They did not use the scriptures to prove Christ.  They used their experience of Christ to authenticate the scriptures and then used the scriptures to clarify their experience of Christ. - See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/06/what-ive-learned-about-reading-the-bible-from-reading-the-church-fathers-one-pilgrims-perspective-guest-post/#sthash.jnQI2ARU.RA1P85cG.dpuf

The Fathers read the scriptures and constructed their theologies through the lens of the Church’s living experience of Christ.  They did not use the scriptures to prove Christ.  They used their experience of Christ to authenticate the scriptures and then used the scriptures to clarify their experience of Christ. - See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/06/what-ive-learned-about-reading-the-bible-from-reading-the-church-fathers-one-pilgrims-perspective-guest-post/#sthash.jnQI2ARU.RA1P85cG.dpuf

The Fathers read the scriptures and constructed their theologies through the lens of the Church’s living experience of Christ.  They did not use the scriptures to prove Christ.  They used their experience of Christ to authenticate the scriptures and then used the scriptures to clarify their experience of Christ. - See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/06/what-ive-learned-about-reading-the-bible-from-reading-the-church-fathers-one-pilgrims-perspective-guest-post/#sthash.jnQI2ARU.RA1P85cG.dpuf

Opening the Window Blinds to Let in More Light

There's a line in a prayer by St. Augustine that goes something like this: "The house of my soul is small; do Thou enter in and enlarge it." Since reading that a few years ago, I've prayed it many times over in my desire to have an enlarged heart. I believe the Lord heard and continues to hear that prayer, and He is answering it.

This week as I was thinking once again of this prayer, a picture came to mind from which has emerged a new prayer of my heart: "The house of my soul has many windows; would You enter in and uncover them that I may see You more fully." The picture I saw was a house with windows on all sides but the blinds were covering the windows on some sides of the house; for most of my life, I've looked through the windows of one side where the blinds had been opened through the help of family and friends. I've looked at God and His kingdom through this set of windows because it was the view I inherited from American conservative evangelicalism.

I'm grateful for that view and value much that I received from it, but I believe that in answer to the simple prayer for Him to enlarge the house of my soul, the Lord has begun opening the window blinds  of other sides of my soul's house so that more light concerning Him is being cast on my view of Him. The lighting is different in the house when there is light coming in from all sides; it's the same light but with added dimensions and colors.

I don't claim that all of the windows of my soul's house are uncovered yet, but enough different ones have been uncovered to motivate me to keep at it. I don't fear the entrance of Light from other views now, but rather I welcome Him who is the Light to enter in greater brightness through all of the windows. (I John 1:5 "God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.")

Because of this, I will at times share the writings and thoughts of followers of Jesus who come from other streams of the Christian faith. I may not swallow everything whole that they say but I can receive light about Jesus from them that I don't get from the view I inherited. After all, I don't expect others to swallow everything whole that I say, and yet, hopefully, they can receive light about Jesus from me that they may not receive through their window.

Lord, the house of my soul has many windows; would You enter in and uncover them that I may see You more fully...

The Little Way of St. Therese of Lisieux Revisited...

This is a post script to the series I did recently on St. Therese of Lisieux's "The Little Way" (here)...

On his blog, Experimental Theology, Richard Beck wrote a good piece entitled "The Little Way and the New Legalism of Radical Christianity" in which he highlights Therese of Lisieux's "little way" as an example of what "radicalness" in everyday ordinary living might look like. He says the following:

"What is needed, in my estimation, isn't a generic call to 'faithful presence'--be nice and a hard worker wherever you are--but a way to get the radicalness of something like the Sermon on the Mount infused into 'everyday ordinary living.'

And that, I would argue, is the genius of St. Thérèse."

To get the context of what he's saying, see his blog here.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Jesus in the Psalms

As one who loves the Psalms, I want to quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's beautiful book, Life Together (here) in which he speaks of Jesus and the Psalms in this way:

"The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the truest sense of the word. He prayed the Psalter and now it has become his prayer for all time...we understand how the Psalter can be prayer to God and yet God's own Word, precisely because here we encounter the praying Christ...because those who pray the psalms are joining in with the prayer of Jesus Christ, their prayer reaches the ears of God. Christ has become their intercessor...

In the Psalter we learn to pray on the basis of Christ's prayer. The Psalter is the great school of prayer...the whole sweep of the Book of Psalms was concerned with nothing more nor less than the brief petitions of the Lord's Prayer. In all our praying there remains only the prayer of Jesus Christ...The more deeply we grow into the psalms and the more often we pray them as our own, the more simple and rich will our prayer become."

When I realized some years ago that Jesus is the primary voice in the Psalms, they took on even more significance for me. Now when I read them, I think of Jesus and hear Him praying them, and with my imagination, I enter into His prayers by faith.

A helpful book along these lines is Patrick Reardon's Christ in the Psalms (here).

The Little Way - Section 5 "Daily Practice" (Part 2)

This is the concluding post on St. Therese of Lisieux's "The Little Way". I'm devoting two posts to the fifth and final core element of the "little way" since it is the outflow and overflow of the first four elements. As you can see, when she talks of the little way, she really means it - all of her ways of serving, as seen in this fifth core element of "daily practice" were where she lived in the convent. As I wrote earlier in this series when introducing her, she lived only 24 years and did nothing more than  these simple little acts of love, and yet the impact of that has gone far and wide.

While most of us will not become well known for our small gestures and attitudes of love, we have in Therese an example of how God values the little things done with much love and we can be inspired by this young life to live close to Him and attentive to ways in which we can wash His feet by small acts of love wherever God has placed us. Often we look far and wide for ways to serve Jesus while missing the small acts of self-giving love that present themselves to us daily...

The following are more stories of how Therese expressed the love of God in her small world:

"Do everything to give pleasure to Jesus...I try to do everything to give pleasure to Our Lord...A spiritual feast of gentle joyful love is all I can set before my Sisters; I do not know of any other, and want to follow the example of St. Paul, rejoicing with all who rejoice. I know he wept with those who week, and my feasts are not always without their share of tears, but I always try to turn them into smiles, for 'the Lord loveth the cheerful giver'."

"Love others as Jesus loves them...Jesus made known His will to me at the Last Supper, when He gave His apostles His new commandment: 'Love one another as I have loved you' (Jn 13:34). I set to work to discover how Jesus had loved them. I found that He had not loved them for their natural qualities, for they were ignorant and taken up with earthly things, yet He called them His friends and His brothers and wanted to have them with Him in His Father's Kingdom; He was ready to die on the cross to make this possible...Meditating on these divine words, I saw only too well how very imperfect was my love for my Sisters; I did not really love them as Jesus loves them. I see now that true charity consists in bearing with the faults of those about us, never being surprised by their weaknesses, but edified at the least sign of virtue..."

"Offer the merits of others to Jesus...There was a certain nun who managed to irritate me in everything she did...Not wishing to give way to natural antipathy, I reminded myself that sentiments of charity were not enough; they must find expression, and I set myself to treat her as if I loved her best of all. I prayed for her whenever we met, and offered all her virtues and merits to God. I was sure that Jesus would be delighted at this, for artists always like to have their work praised...
I prayed earnestly for this Sister who had caused me such struggle, but this was not enough for me. I tried to do everything I possibly could for her, and when tempted to answer her sharply I hastened to give her a friendly smile, and talk about something else...
She said to me one day, her face radiant: 'What do you find so attractive in me? Whenever we meet you give me such a gracious smile.'  What attracted me? It was Jesus hidden in the depths of her soul, Jesus who makes attractive even what is most bitter."

"Love in adversity...For a long time I had to kneel during meditation near a Sister who could not stop fidgeting; if it was not with her rosary, it was with goodness know what else...I wanted to turn around and glare at the culprit to make her be quiet, but deep in my heart I felt that the best thing to do was to put up with it patiently for the love of God first of all, and also not to hurt her feelings...In the end I tried to find some way of bearing it peacefully and joyfully, at least in my inmost heart; then I even tried to like this wretched little noise. It was impossible not to hear it, so I turned my whole attention to listening really closely to it as if it were a magnificent concert, and spent the rest of the time offering it to Jesus..."