Darwin and Darwinism: A Thought

Posted on 02/17/2009 by Paul Pavao

I took a little risk and wrote a post on Charles Darwin his 200th “birthday.” Why would I do that?

Darwinism is blamed for turning people away from God. I don’t believe there is any truth to that accusation. In fact, I believe it’s a scapegoat, turning our attention away from what does turn people away from God.

Jesus said that the world would know the Father sent him because of Christian unity. Paul said that people who say “I’m of Paul” and “I’m of Apollos” and “I’m of Peter” and even “I’m of Christ” are carnal and divisive (1 Cor. 1:10-13; 3:3-4).

Despite these clear Biblical statements, it is very difficult to find a Christian who is willing to do anything about the fact that it is normal for us to say “I’m a Baptist,” “I’m a Pentecostal,” etc.

It’s hard to find a Christian who even cares.

Scientific Accuracy of the Bible

Instead, we haggle on about whether on about whether Genesis one is scientifically accurate when it’s obviously not. Unless the sky is a hard dome holding up water and containing the sun, moon, and stars, Genesis one is either not literal or it’s in error scientifically (Gen. 1:7-8, 14-18).

This is just true. You and I can like it or not like it, but it’s just true.

Amazingly enough, while we fight for a literal Genesis, we forget all about fighting for obedience to the teachings of the New Testament.  Where are the people clamoring that Luke 14:33 is literal, so we need to give up all our possessions if we are going to call ourselves Christians?

I’m speaking (writing) a bit harshly, which I don’t want to do because I can’t see my audience. There is a love that is shed abroad in the heart of disciples by the Holy Spirit. That love makes them long to be together.

That love will change the world. By it, the world will know that we are disciples (Jn. 13:34-35), and by the unity it brings, the world will know that Jesus is from God (Jn. 17:20-23).

Two things stop that love.

  • “Christians” don’t take Jesus seriously.

Jesus only takes disciples who lay down their lives, take up their cross, obey him, and forsake their possessions and the world (Luk. 9:23; 14:26-33; 1 Jn. 2:3-4, 15-17). If that’s not your attitude in following him, you can’t be his disciple. He won’t give you the Spirit, and you won’t have the love that makes unity in your heart.

  • Disciples are deceived into devoting themselves to fellowship with those who are not disciples.

They attend churches consisting mostly of non-disciples, and they give themselves to those churches thinking they’re doing what God wants.

What an awesome success that has been for the devil!

He couldn’t separate the disciples by force in the early days of Christianity, so he released all his children to become Christians en masse. The actual disciples of Jesus were so mixed up in the mass of the devil’s children that their unity dissolved.

That happened when most of the Roman empire became “Christians” during Constantine’s reign.

Despite a few bright, shining group of disciples, Christianity has never recovered.

Doing Something About It

It may seem cold to walk away from non-disciples, but there will never be a testimony to the world until that happens. God wants a city set on a hill to shine to the world, not a bunch of “this little lights of mine” all separated.

When that unity happens, we may still argue and exchange harsh words over Genesis one. Disciples, however, are moved by the Spirit of God to love one another with a love that astounds the world. We’ll agree or disagree on Genesis one as God wills, but either way we’ll be guided by God, we’ll stay together in remarkable love, and the world will notice.

Until that happens, we can fight for a scientifically accurate Bible all we want, but the world will keep reading about the hard as metal sky in Job 37:18 and think we’re stupid.

P.S. A Comment from a Reader

I could have put this in the comment section, but this deserves mentioning. Someone wrote me to point out that the world thinks we’re stupid for laying down our lives for one another, denying ourselves, and all the other things that mark disciples.

Basically, he was saying, “Who cares if the world thinks we’re stupid.”

Valid point.

Okay, I should change what I said above. Let’s not actually be ignorant. (And let’s drop the pejorative word “stupid.” Sorry for bringing it up.)

If the world thinks we’re stupid for obeying Christ, great. However, if the world thinks we’re ignorant because we’re ignoring things the Bible says (like Job 37:18 and 1 Sam. 2:8), twisting the word of scientists (<a href=”http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html”>A tale of Two ‘Cites'</a>), and refusing to look at the very nature that God says is a testimony to his majesty–well, then I think we’re  making a big mistake.

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Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin

Posted on 02/12/2009 by Paul Pavao

I would be remiss not to honor Charles Darwin, whom I believe to be a truly great man, on the 200th anniversary of his birth.

I among those who have actually read On the Origin of Species, his ground-breaking—and breath-taking—work on origins, creation, and evolution. It is simply astounding in its breadth of knowledge, depth of insight, and heights of honesty and humility.

Oh, that more Christians would write with the same honesty!

The Origin of Species 

It is obvious that most people who try to answer Charles Darwin have not read Origin. They assume that he got his ideas from fossils and rocks.

Au contraire, it was his job as a naturalist to catalogue and categorize living things.

The difficulty of that job led to his theory concerning the origin of species.

His book begins by describing his difficult task. He explains that following his training, he would categorize pigeons into three genera and eight distinct species. The problem was, he and everyone else knew that all the domestic pigeons in England were descended from one species, the Rock Pigeon. Nonetheless, pigeons, bred over 2,500 years, differed in such important physical features as even number of vertebrae.

He goes on to explain the difficulty of trying to decide whether a type of pine tree belongs to a different genus, species, subspecies or variety than others.

Varieties were supposed to be related to each other by descent. Seperate species were supposed to have been created separately by God. He had immense difficulty even categorizing these living things, much less deciding which were separately created!

Nonetheless, creationists today try to argue against Darwin by saying–in gross ignorance–that creatures around us categorize easily into species.

They do not!

Darwin Began Thinking . . .

. . . If all those doves descended from the rock pigeon, as was known, then what if the rock pigeon and the birds nearest it descended from a common ancestor. If that could be proven, where would the stopping point be?

You and I would answer, “Who knows?”

You and I are not Charles Darwin.

Darwin was amazing. As I read his book, I wondered if he knew every creature on the earth from the smallest single-celled organism to the largest elephant or giraffe. He knew creatures from the sea, he knew plants, he knew fungi, and he knew the animal kingdom. He could pull examples from any of them.

Every example of evolution that Darwin gave was from living creatures. He didn’t rely on the fossil record. He found the evolution of lungs, the eye, and a crab’s claw in nature; in things currently alive. He found those evolutionary lineages step-by-gradual-step, making it quite clear how a swim bladder could become a lung and a set of light-sensitive cells could become an eye.

He was even able to offer an explanation of the evolution of instinct and behavior.

Believe it or not, I’m a Christian, and . . .

I’m a creationist. I believe God created the earth and man through evolution. I see the hand of God in the largest stars, which use an attribute of iron to result in supernovas that spread carbon-based molecules across the sky.

Every supernova does that.

Carbon-based molecules.

They’re called organic molecules because they’re the dust of life. You and I, we’re made of stardust.

I believe the heavens declare his glory, and the firmament his handiwork. They don’t lie. They proclaim his power and greatness.

Did Darwin Recant on His Deathbed

On the authority of Answers in Genesis–an anti-evolution, pro-creation organization–he did not.

They write:

It therefore appears that Darwin did not recant, and it is a pity that to this day the Lady Hope story occasionally appears in tracts published and given out by well-meaning people.

There was a story, published in his day that a “Lady Hope” had visited him and talked to him about God. That story seems unlikely to be true, and even if it was, she never said that he recanted; only that she talked to him. Darwin’s whole family denied the story, a lot of facts in the story don’t fit, and Darwin’s wife–who was always distressed that he was agnostic–would have been glad to verify the story had it been true.

It didn’t happen.

And if it did, Darwin would have been wrong.

A Little Honesty

I’ve been asked why I don’t take Genesis literally.

Because I’ve studied it. If you studied it, you wouldn’t take it literally, either.

Sorry, but you already don’t believe what it says.

You believe that there are galaxies spread across the universe, filled with hundreds of millions of stars each, millions of light years away.

Genesis says that the sky is a hard dome holding up water and having the sun, moon, and stars in it.

Read it. Look up raqiya (firmament) some time. People deny it, but it means something hard.

The Bible mentions the earth being set on pillars (1 Sam. 2:8; Job 9:6; 26:11; Ps. 75:3; . It says that the sky is as hard as a brass mirror (Job 37:18).

We can talk about why the Bible isn’t literal on scientific things, but we are going to have to face the fact that it isn’t literal on scientific things.

Sometime you should read through the writings of the early Christians and get a taste of the way they were always looking for the spiritual meaning God put in the Bible. That’s certainly how they found the prophecy of the virgin birth in Isaiah 7:14. Read through Isaiah 7, and you will find that Emmanuel had to be a child, born in Judah during the reign of king Ahaz as a sign to him that the kings of Israel and Syria would be overthrown by a certain time.

God never meant for Isaiah 7:14 to just be one prophecy. He always meant for it to be two, and he knew that Matthew would reveal the spiritual meaning of Isaiah 7:14 to the world in his Gospel.

We don’t need to fear for or defend God. God can defend himself. In fact, he can defend us as well. If we will leave off defending God and begin to obey him, we may find that we need him to defend us.

As long as we’re fighting for a literal Genesis while ignoring Jesus’ prayers and Paul’s commands for an obedient people, fully united in love, we won’t have to worry about God defending us. The world will leave us alone. It is the obedient and the loving who are persecuted.

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Obstacles to Christian Unity 2

Posted on 02/08/2009 by Paul Pavao

I apologize for the gap between posts. It’s been a busy time at work, and I have six children as well. 

 I started the last blog by talking about the importance of unity. You should look at it and make sure you agree. The road to unity is not an  easy one. Unless you think unity is crucial, you will not make the effort.

In the last blog I recommended not calling yourself by divisive names. Today I want to talk about fellowship with other Christians.

There will never be unity unless we are able to fellowship with people whose doctrine we don’t agree with.

Let me say that again: there will never be unity unless we are able to fellowship with people whose doctrine we don’t agree with.

Pentecostals and Non-Pentecostals: A Story

When I was first told this, I was in an Assembly of God church. A brother said to me, “We can’t keep seeing Baptists as half-Christians. They’re our brothers and sisters in Christ.”

The Assembly of God is a Pentecostal denomination. They believe the baptism in the Holy Spirit is a second experience, accompanied by the evidence of speaking in tongues, that all Christians should experience. Baptists don’t believe this.

Baptists have various ways of viewing the Pentecostal phenomenon of speaking in tongues. Most Pentecostals see Baptists (and other non-tongues-speakers) as second-class Christians. They’re saved, but they don’t have the power of the Holy Spirit.

I read a book once where a Charismatic–they’re also tongues-speakers–said that the faith is like a steak that most Christians keep in the freezer. Charismatics have it in the frying pan.

It doesn’t matter which side of the charismatic issue you’re on. You’re not going to get everyone to agree with you; at least not today. Can there be unity without agreement on these things?

How Much is Christian Unity Worth?

Do you believe that those Charismatics are Christians? If you’re a Charismatic, do you believe those Baptists are Christians?

If so, then they’re your family. They’re your brothers and sisters.

Jesus expects you to lay your life down for them. Our Father believes all of them–all that are really Christian–are his children, and he has told you in the Scriptures to be one heart, one mind, intent on on purpose, and to strive together with them for the faith of the Gospel.

Church Unity vs. Christian Unity

Lots of Christians are willing to devote themselves to unity in their own church. But are we willing to devote ourselves to unity among Christians in general?

Remember, Jesus said that the unity of his disciples would prove to the world that the Father sent him. He requested “perfect unity,” the unity he has with the Father, as proof of who he was.

Are we really giving him that while a Presbyterian church and Baptist church sit on corners of the same intersection?

Call it unity all you want. You’re not  fooling God; you’re not fooling the world; you’re not fooling me; and I hope you’re not fooling yourself.

Doctrine divides the Presbyterian and Baptist churches.

They both admit the other is Christian, but they don’t fellowship. They mind their own business. They live and let live.

That is tolerance, not unity.

It’s certainly not the perfect unity of the Father and Son and Jesus prayed for.

Can We Really Do Anything?

What I’m requesting of you will get harder and harder as the days go by, but you can start with this simple thing. I have seen God bless it with godly Christians over and over.

Personally become blind to denominations!

Last time I asked you to refuse to call yourself by a denomination. Now I’m asking you to ignore them as distinctions between Christians.

For right now you may have to attend a denominational church. We are working towards the day when you won’t. I believe that day can come. Remember, it was Jesus who prayed for it.

Find a different church’s prayer meeting to attend. Find a local Bible study that’s interdenominational or of another denomination. If you move to a new town, attend a new denomination’s church!

That’s asking a lot, I know.

We are ignoring the request of Jesus Christ–supposedly our Master and Lord–that we be perfectly united in one mind and one heart (re: Php. 2:2). It’s asking a lot of him to put up with centuries of our lack of concern about something that was on the forefront of his mind as he went to his death for our sins.

Someone has to do something.

This is the easy stuff. Are you that someone?

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Obstacles to Christian Unity

Posted on 02/01/2009 by Paul Pavao

Jesus prayed that we would be perfectly one so that the world would know the Father sent him (Jn. 17:22). Paul said that division is a work of the flesh (Gal 5:19-21). Actually he said that denominations are a work of the flesh.

In the KJV, one of the words in the list of works of the flesh is “heresies.” That is a transliteration (a non-translation, in which you simply rewrite the word with an English spelling) of the Greek word haireseis. Most modern translations render it as “factions.”

That word is used five times in the Book of Acts, and each time it refers to one of the sects of Judaism, such as the Sadducees, Pharisees, and even once in reference to “the Way,” which is what the Christians were being called. In other words, haireseis could legitimately be translated “denominations.”

The question is, if Jesus prayed for perfect unity and denominations are a work of the flesh that could keep us out of heaven (Gal. 5:21), how do we change the way things are? Unity isn’t exactly what American Christians are known for. In fact, we’re famous for our division, and we’re busily exporting it to the rest of the world, training them to divide according to doctrine and denomination just the way we do.

How do we get out of this pattern?

First, the word “denomination” literally means “to set apart by name.” You can quit calling yourself a name. “I’m a Baptist”; “I’m Assembly of God”; “I’m a Presbyterian”; “I’m Calvinist”; “I’m an Arminian”; All these names divide us from one another. Paul rebuked the Corinthians for this very thing: “For you are still fleshly . . . While one of you says, ‘I am of Paul,’ and another, ‘I am of Apollos,’ are you not fleshly?”

Friends, the devil is laughing at us. He wants us to believe that it is impossible to obey Christ. He wants us to believe that unity is impossible, and he wants us to believe that we have no choice but live in the works of the flesh: schisms, divisions, denominations. That’s a dangerous place to stay, since those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

One small step, clearly taught in Scripture. Stop calling yourself by a name. We’ll talk more about these names later, as we talk about how to come into unity with those from another denomination.

Up the road, I’m going to ask you some really hard things, so you’d better decide here whether it’s Jesus and Paul who are opposed to our divisions and denominations or just me. Look at the Scriptures above and decide whether this matter of unity and division is important because you are not going to follow through if you don’t decide. This first step is easy; some of the others are not. They’ll involve letting go of things your flesh treasures. There’s a reason Paul calls denominations a work of the flesh, you know.

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The Christian Foundation

Posted on 01/27/2009 by Paul Pavao

Nevertheless the foundation of God stands sure, having this seal: The Lord knows those who are his, and let everyone that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. -2 Tim. 2:19

Today I had a friend tell me that he hates seeing how doctrines divide the church today. Then he added: “I know there are some doctrines that are crucial.”

There are. Every different denomination has a different idea of which doctrines are crucial; however, which ones are truly crucial was decided a long time ago.

1700 years ago, in A.D. 325, all the bishops of the churches throughout the Roman empire gathered to attempt to preserve the unity of the Church. They met over one specific issue, but by the end of it they had crafted an essential creed that has been given the amen by all thriving, godly churches for the last seventeen centuries. We know it today as the apostles creed.

It’s important to know exactly where that creed came from.

All the early churches had what was known to them as “The Rule of Faith.” It was taught to a new believer at baptism, and every believer was required to believe it. Jesus began the process by teaching the apostles to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Over the next couple centuries, the churches added—slowly and with great care—to that creed. Since there was no pope and no overarching hierarchy, each church developed their own. They were similar, but not the same.

At Nicea in A.D. 325, the council of bishops decided to use the rule of faith of the church at Caesarea. Most likely, it simply represented a typical rule of faith and there was nothing outstanding about it. At the council, after much debate, they added a couple of phrases to it in order to deal with the controversy current at that time.

For 1700 years since then, godly churches have given their amen to this creed.

We cannot forget that Jesus’ last prayer with his disciples was for their unity. He prayed that his disciples would be as perfectly one as he is with the Father. Dare we ignore that? Dare we lightly break that unity? Dare we meet separately from one another over any doctrine that is not as dear to his heart as it is to ours?

I can assure you that Jesus is not fooled by our proclamations of unity while we meet in separate buildings, having no part in the lives of Christians that are meeting in a different building at the next street corner. The world isn’t, either. Only we are.

The apostle Paul had an even smaller list of doctrines that he called essential. He said, “The Lord knows those who are his, and let those who name the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”

I would like to suggest that you are not free to break fellowship with any believer who will live in obedience to Christ and who believes that the Father is creator, that Jesus is his Son who came in the flesh, died for sins, ascended to heaven, and will return to judge the living and the dead. When God asks you about that brother, do not be found replying, as Cain did, that you are not his keeper. God will not be thrilled to find you caring more about your own family than you do about yours.

Tomorrow I will comment again on the difficulties of pursuing unity in an age of denominationalism. The devil mocks us. He believes he has made it impossible for true believers—those who actually obey Christ—to give their lives to one another. If we don’t know that the eye can’t say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” yet and still the devil has not forgotten it. He knows that “divide and conquer” is a true principle when applied to the Church of Jesus Christ.

He has not made it impossible. He’s just made the price very high. Are any of us willing to pay it?

See you tomorrow.

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Honest and Historic Christianity

Posted on 01/25/2009 by Paul Pavao

I’ve spent the last couple days working on a potential ebook that I want to call Honest, Historic Christianity. If you’re a reader of this blog, I wouldn’t mind you helping me with it. It is not linked to on my web site, only here.

It’s only started, but it is about 17 pages of single-spaced writing in a Word document. The two main finished chapters are on the church and unity and salvation by faith. It won’t be real new if you read my blog a lot, but it is a unique approach to the Scriptures.

I call the approach the honest and historic approach because I have two goals.

One, honesty. I don’t want to explain away any Scriptures. I want the things I believe, hold to, and teach to be without “difficult” Scriptures. Nowadays, without the apostles to teach us and with their traditions, so honored in the early churches (2 Thess. 2:15), lost to us, it can take years of prayer and waiting to find what’s true.

Two, historical. I want to believe and teach what works. A prophet is known by his results, not his words. The kingdom of God does not consist of words, but of power. I want what I teach to be historical in the sense of being what powerful, holy, and united churches have taught in the past. I would also like it to be historical in the sense of “actual”: real and lived out.

You can see how I’m doing at this link: http://www.oldoldstory.org/Honest and Historic Christianity.doc

The only charge is feedback if you have any.

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Our Very Real God

Posted on 01/22/2009 by Paul Pavao

The quotes used below are from the Jan. 15 posting at a blog at http://www.beautyfromtheheart.org/index.html. Great blog, and I’ll add it to my blogroll as soon as I get a chance.

Back in 1982, at the tender age of 21, I had become an atheist. I wasn’t an atheist very long, just over a couple months, but it wasn’t an accident. It was a conscious choice that I put a lot of thought into. It was at that point, however, that God really began to go after me in a personal way.

One of the ways was a movie called In the Presence of Mine Enemies. It made a huge impact on me. It’s about a guy who was in a Vietnam POW camp for seven years. It showed some of the torture he went through and a lot of the horrid conditions he lived in all those years. What affected me was what happened when he was released.

He was released when the whole POW camp was delivered by the Americans. All the prisoners were released at once, and they all made their way into a clearing, blinking in the bright sunlight. Immediately, they did two things. They sang “God Bless America,” and they all knelt and gave thanks to God.

I was incensed. I was in the military myself at the time, and I was alone in the barracks rec room watching the movie on TV. I stood up and started yelling at the TV. “Why are you giving thanks to God? If he really exists and can deliver you from the POW camp, then why didn’t he do it seven years ago? You should be cursing him for letting you go through all that torture!” I stormed out of the rec room, stewing and brewing in my own anger.

That night I laid awake in bed wondering how that could have happened. Why would all those POW’s give thanks to God? Why all of them, or almost all of them? Why didn’t most of them agree with me and curse God?

The only answer I could come up with is that God was with them, comforting and helping them during their imprisonment. Somehow, they did not feel abandoned by God despite the torture and despite the ongoing suffering. It shook my atheism, and it was the start of God showing me his Son and causing me to bend my knee to him.

Today, I was reading the story of another prisoner of war, this one at the horrible Nazi labor camp at Dachau. This prisoner of war, Alexandria Goode, was thirteen at the time. Listen to these portions of her story:

Countless prisoners from Alexandria’s own barracks were found dead after committing suicide in their bunks. Utterly alone and parentless, Alexandria credits God with saving her from that same fate. “Oddly enough,” she says, “that’s where I found Jesus.”

Not so odd to me. I became convinced 26 years ago, as an atheist, that God doesn’t abandon the imprisoned. Alexandria, who has much more right to speak about such things than me or you, agrees. She was the subject of Nazi “science” experiments. She had her tonsils removed by them without anesthesia. They injected her with various substances, resulting in boils all over her body (remember Job?). This is what happened to her:

Lying awake in the darkness atop her straw-strewn bunk, she begged God for the strength to survive. It was her bargain. Either should we commit suicide, or God would give her help, somehow.

Following her plea, a peace Alexandria still cannot fully describe overcame her agony: “I was filled, literally filled with the joy…I went to assure the girls who were with me that we were going to be okay, and they really thought I had lost my mind. But I was so sure! I was just filled with an assurance. It was unquestionable.”

Alexandria is living in America today. You can see her picture at the blog I linked above. She’s in her 70’s and serving God wholeheartedly and with great energy.

We serve an awesome God. Thank you, Alexandria Goode, for your incredible testimony and example.

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The Presence of God

Posted on 01/17/2009 by Paul Pavao

The comments are turned back on. I found a much better spam filter that I was able to add as a plugin. They had great instructions, so it wasn’t too hard to figure out how to do it.

I have a couple recent prayer stories I could add to my prayer answers series, but I want to tell you a story instead. Hopefully, it will encourage you. Hopefully, you’ll be able to relate!

Unfortunately, this story is around 26 years old. Wow! It still stands in my memory, though.

It was 1982 or 1983, and I was in Florida in the military. I was on midnight shift, and one night there was no work at all for me to do. We weren’t allowed to sleep, so I got a book out to read. It was The Release of the Spirit by Watchman Nee, and I read the whole thing in about two or three hours. I was a relatively new Christian at the time, but I could totally relate to everything he said. It was not just like I could understand it, but I could feel the whole thing.

The gist of the book is that God works on our soul from the inside and the outside. He uses circumstances, trials, and other things to crack us from the outside, while the life of God in our spirit presses on us from the inside. He compared it to a seed that is planted in the ground. Pressure, heat, and moisture work on the hard outer shell of the seed, and the life inside the seeds presses its way out as the shell breaks.

Watchman Nee is awesome at helping us understand that God wants people to be able to see Christ in us. Even our best points are not what God wants others to see. He wants them to see Christ. Therefore, our greatest strengths can often be our greatest weaknesses because those are places where we trust ourselves. It may look good and righteous to us, but it’s still part of the hard outer shell of our soul. God wants to break those things and let Christ be released from our spirits.

That book completely filled me with God. I was overwhelmed, and after the first three hours or so of reading I spent the rest of the night outside under the stars praying and crying out to God. The presence of God was so strong that I felt like I’d been transported to heaven.

In the morning, as the sun came up, I sat in our dispatch office waiting for my relief to come in. Apparently, I was not the only one who could feel God’s presence. Five different people walked up to me as I sat there and talked to me about God in some way. My boss showed up and basically apologized for not following God, and he promised me that he was thinking about it. I hadn’t said anything to him. Another co-worker I barely knew came up to me, told me she went to church, and invited me out to visit her church. Another co-worker asked me a couple questions about God, then told me he’d try to be less crude around me. Again, I hadn’t said a word to him about being crude, neither that day nor previously. All this came out of the blue, and I realized the great power of the presence of God.

I was thinking about that today, and I’m reminded once more that it’s not our strength that will reach the world. It is the power of God. May our focus not be on the work of God but on the face of God, for only there will we find the power that will make the work of God something good, spiritual, and divine. It is not our righteousness but his that will transform the world.

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God’s Not a Legalist

Posted on 01/14/2009 by Paul Pavao

The high places were not taken away out of Israel; nevertheless, Asa’s heart was perfect all his days.

~2 Chronicles 15:17

God’s not a legalist. Other kings were commended for getting rid of their high places, but Asa didn’t do it. Nevertheless, Asa’s heart was perfect, says the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures.

If you’ve read the Gospels, you may have noticed that Jesus wasn’t very fond of the Pharisees. What you may not know is that the Pharisees are the descendants of the Maccabees, of whom God was very fond. The Maccabees fought for Israel, defended the temple, defended the Law and the traditions of Israel, and they trained the people to reject idols and obtain the blessing of God. They were great men of God. If you’re a Protestant who hasn’t read Maccabees because it’s in the “Catholic” Bible, you’re missing out. It’s not as exciting as watching a modern movie, of course, but there’s a lot to be learned in it.

Think of the Maccabees as being like the church of Ephesus before it lost its first love and the Pharisees as being like the Ephesians after they lost their first love. Judas Maccabeus and his brothers and descendants had their eyes on God and on the people of Israel. The Pharisees had their eyes on rules. The latter made Jesus mad, real mad. Read Matthew 23 some day. He didn’t like the doctrine of the Pharisees.

Today there are all sorts of movements insisting that some little particular is required in order to please God. The Sacred Name movement, for example, insists that you have to use Jesus’ Hebrew name (Yeshua, Yehoshua, Y’shua, Yahshua or some other version they’ve made up) if you want to be saved. Other denominations insist on some other thing.

Years ago I met a man from the Church of Christ who told me I was the only other man who would talk with him about God. No one at his church, he said, was much interested in such conversation. He was delighted to have met me. The third or fourth time we got together, however, he found out that my water baptism, years earlier, had not been for the purpose of the forgiveness of my sins. I told him, “I understand Scripturally why you would want that to be so, but it’s impossible. By the time I went to be baptized, my sins were already forgiven. I can’t change that, and I wouldn’t want to.”

That man cut off fellowship with me from that moment. I was awestruck by his legalism. He was bent on literally interpreting Acts 2:38 and 22:16, but he seemed to have no regard for Matthew 7:20, literally or figuratively. It meant nothing to him at all that his doctrine was producing no interest in God at his church so that I was the only one who would converse with him about God. His doctrine was his doctrine, and it just didn’t matter what the fruit of it was.

Let’s not be like him. Let’s be like God. God had fellowship with people like Sampson, and he believed that people like Asa could be perfect. Samuel the prophet was one of his favorite people, and he not only didn’t tear down high places, he regularly sacrificed at them, as well as anywhere else he wanted to, thus breaking the Law of Moses. Nonetheless, the Scriptures testify that God let none of his words fall to the ground. It can be very important to recognize God’s prophets, as God tends to back up their words. You won’t recognize them by some minute rule you want to enforce. You’ll recognize them by their fruit.

Don’t forget, the Pharisees were unable to recognize God himself when he walked among them.

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Righteousness Is Its Own Reward

Posted on 01/06/2009 by Paul Pavao

We will not require that you punish our accusers; they being sufficiently punished by their present wickedness and ignorance of what is right. ~Justin Martyr, c. A.D. 150

Yesterday my son, upon hearing that a fellow student had ignored a teacher’s instructions without consequence, decided that he had been a fool for his own obedience. What reward had he gained for his self-restraint?

I had to get him to pause and look. Do you really want to follow this student? Do you really want to be like them? Every day this person pays for their lack of self-restraint. What Justin Martyr said over 1800 years ago is true. The unrighteous are sufficiently punished by their own wickedness. The flip side is also true. Righteousness is its own reward.

I want to be careful not to label my son’s fellow student as wicked for two reasons. One, I don’t want to speak more negatively about this person than is fair. Two, I want to apply this to you, my dear reader. It is your unrighteousness that is sufficient punishment of itself and your righteousness that is its own reward. This is not purely the domain of the “wicked.” Every day all of us make choices that mark who we will be.

Those who make bad choices stand out by their own words. They describe their own punishment in the complaints that pour from their lips; “People are always saying things about me”; “Nobody likes me”; “I never get to do the things I want”; “There’s no opportunities for me to achieve what I want in life.”

We’re made by God. He didn’t make us to be satisfied by wickedness. What satisfies his heart satisfies ours as well. We are made in his image. It is not “people” that do these things to complainers. It’s their own hearts and consciences that do things to complainers. The closed doors they face are created by their lack of discipline and diligence, not by people who are standing in the way.

For my son, overcoming his own desire for the sake of respect–for the sake of some authority’s desire–is training to acquire a skill. It is the same skill that will be needed to overcome other obstacles that stand in the way of the tremendous satisfaction that comes from being an achiever. Strangely enough, a heart that is capable of self-denial is a grateful and uncomplaining heart. This happens because it is satisfied and happy from living the way it was made to live.

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