Night Light Reading

If you're in need of a good read-a-short-chapter-once-a-day-before-I-doze-off-to-sleep book, you've come to the right place. I have read this book three times, and it truly is a great read. It was originally published in 2004 as "The Passion of Jesus Christ", it was then re-published in 2006 under the title, "50 Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die". This book by John Piper is intellectually/spiritually stimulating regardless of how long you've been a Christian (or even if Christ means nothing to you).

Every chapter presents a reason why Christ came to die (...to absorb the wrath of God; ...to secure our resurrection from the dead; ...to show that the worst evil is meant by God for good), is only two pages long, and includes one or more scripture passages followed by an insightful commentary.

Here is an excerpt from chapter 28 entitled, "Christ suffered and died...to free us from the futility of our ancestry."

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"You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited form your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot."

I Peter 1:18-19

Secular people in the West, and more primitive people in animistic tribes, have this in common: They believe in the power of ancestral bondage. They call it by different names. Animistic people may speak in terms of ancestral spirits and the transmission of curses. Secular people may speak of genetic influence or the wounding of abusive, codependent, emotionally distant parents. In both cases there is a sense of fatalism that we are bound to live with the curse or the wounds from our ancestry. The future seems futile and void of happiness....

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Here's Your Sign

I spent a rather significant portion of time on the road this past week (27 hours to be exact), and I noticed two very interesting, and very different, road signs.

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Each of these diamond-shaped metal things with writing on them is trying to warn us of the danger of icy roads, but they each do it in very different ways. The sign on the right might as well have a big flashing sign that says, "We think you are a complete moron." Are we supposed to watch for ice even if the chance of precipitation is 0% and it's 110 degrees outside? I feel dumber for just reading the sign, like I'm being spoon fed by Big Brother on how to drive. The sign on the left is more explanatory, and at least treats me like my elevator reaches the top floor. It forces me to use my brain, observe the weather conditions, and determine the possiblity that the bridges might be icy - even if the road isn't. The sign on the left offers me information I can use later on, while the sign on the right simply beats me over the head with a rule which may or may not come in handy. Ever heard the old expression, "Give a man a fish, you've fed him for a day; teach a man to fish, you've fed him for a lifetime." - that's kind of how I feel after pondering these two road signs.
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So...if you've ever wondered what I think about while trapped in a car for an entire day, you can sleep at nights now.

Change Has Come Today

“Some things never change.” Usually this phrase is accompanied with a knowing chuckle after crazy Uncle Bob tells that same joke, or exhibits that all-too-familiar idiosyncrasy for the hundredth time. All joking aside however, do people change? Or, perhaps more importantly, can people change? Before you get married, people will tell you, “You can’t assume that your spouse is going to change. You have to be willing to marry them, warts and all!”

A couple of months ago, I heard a radio host say something like, “I used to think I could change people…I don’t think that anymore. I don’t try to change people, because, you are what you are. “ The latter part of that quote is rather bold - “You are what you are.” Convert it to first person and you get, “I am what I am.” Seems like somebody said that once…and it wasn’t crazy Uncle Bob. (Hint: It was God - Exodus 3:14)

You see, I’ve got to believe that people can change. If I didn’t, I'd go crazy. It’s that hope, the hope for transformed lives through Christ, that keeps me moving forward.

Comfortable?

"Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we may be able to comfort those experiencing any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."
2 Corinthians 1:3-4

I used to think of these verses strictly in terms of the so-called "problem of evil". That is, I used to think that this passage only gave a reason for our "troubles", namely, so that we can help others "experiencing any trouble". I no longer view these verses in only this context, and hope to walk you through a whole new way of looking at this Pauline teaching.

Ok, here we go...

Paul begins this section with a brief, straightforward doxology, "Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ". He then focuses on a particular aspect of God's character, saying, "the Father of mercies and God of all comfort". Notice that comfort is attached to God (and again at the end of v. 4). In the Greek, the word "comfort" could be taken as a genitive of content, and would read "God is full of all comfort".

Keep that in mind because Paul is going to describe an "interaction" of comfort between God and man. Paul says that God is the one "who comforts us in all our troubles". Notice, God comforts man. But, Paul doesn't stop here, he describes another "interaction" of comfort, "so that we may be able to comfort those experiencing any trouble" This time, man comforts man.

Here's where it gets interesting, Paul says that we comfort each other, "with the comfort with which we ourselves were comforted by God." What an incredible concept. First, God comforts man, then man takes that same comfort, and comforts other men.

The implications are startling, God allows us to, how can I say this without sounding heretical, function as God towards those around us. What a humbling thought, that God would choose to use fallen human vessels for His service. Analogous to How God reveals His glory through the heavens (Psalm 19), God actually chooses to reveal Himself through the agency of human beings as well.

My question to you is this, "Can people see God in you?" When someone needs comforting, do you show them the comfort of God Himself? You might be the channel through whom God expresses his comfort. The people around you have the chance to catch a small glimpse of God's comfort through, don't miss this, you! The God of the universe, who had the bright of idea of 'comfort' in the first place, chooses to, at times, give comfort to His creation, through His creation. Amazing.

One is the Loneliest Number

Since it's inception, I've tried to make Tangential Lucidity relevant to a wide demographic. In an effort to improve TL, I've decided to make this a team blog, and have invited Stephen Archer to be a regular contributor. Stephen has run his own blog, God Restores, for about a year, and his writing always provokes thought.

Hopefully, our posts will function relatively independent of each other. We aren't on here to debate, and the topics we blog about might be quite different from each other. While we do agree on many topics, simply patting each other's arguments on the back isn't the purpose of this blog either. Our goal is to simply run an eclectic team blog that challenges people to think about current issues from a Biblical worldview.