catapult magazine

One of the biggest problems I have with the Bible’s purpose in Christianity is that it seems that there’s always a slippery slope on which it’s interpretted. For example, a couple hundred years ago Sunday/Sabbath observance had a completely different meaning than it does today. In some societies, you just didn’t work on Sunday. Period. But even within my lifetime, Christians I’ve known have changed their own views on Sunday observance. It’s as if the Ten Commandments are being slowly phased out because of contemporary culture. Now I’ve heard the arguments that it’s more of a lifestyle of Sabbath observance and all that, but the bottom line is, the Bible says don’t work on Sunday and we’re coming up with more and more reasons to override that. I’d even say that many of the reasons seem valid to me. But why? Why did we wait until now to decide to override something chiselled in stone?

Women’s role in the church used to be more clearly defined. Now, in comes the tide of feminism, and we’re looking at the places that say “No women speaking in church” and saying that hey, that’s not for us, that’s a cultural norm rather than a moral one. And quite possibly that’s true. We’re a different society, where women don’t have the same roles as men anymore, and so it’s not so necesary to maintain such a male-dominated order to things. BUT my question is this: when you look down the road, at the pace we’re going, what other Biblical things are we going to be throwing out? Think of your grandparents and how stick-in-the-mud you thought they were about ditching hymns during worship. Well, imagine if some of the things you hold as ABSOLUTES were re-interpretted by your kids to fit the norm of society. How can the Bible really be relevant if we’re always reinterpretting it? Are we moving towards a Bible that only has meaning as an allegorical narrative?

Christianity is a religion that says there are absolutes. But with the path we are taking on interpreting the Bible, will that be true in a thousand years (should there be another thousand to come)? Will we be down to “love God and the rest of the Bible is outdated”? Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill . . .

I think that in the not-too-distant future, most of the organized church will condone gay marriages. And I think that most of the honest, thinking, heart-commitment Christians will be right there with it. Whether that’s a good thing, a bad thing, or otherwise, I honestly can’t say. But what I can say is that the church of yesterday told us it was WRONG. And they didn’t say, “It’s wrong, but it may become right if society changes.” And both that church and the church of the future looked or will look at the Bible before coming to their conclusions on the matter. SOMETHING’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE. What is it? What am I not seeing here?

Are there really absolutes?

For what it is worth, I think maybe the chunk we are missing here is the Holy Spirit. We are told many times in the Bible about the Holy Spirit’s action — baptisms, pentecost, etc. We are told that the Holy Spirit enters into us and causes a change. I come from a denominational tradition that tends to downplay the spirit (I think because it freaks us out a little bit) but the idea of the Spirit is that it is God’s transformative power. It workswithin us for change. I am now in my late 30s. When I look back at my life, I can see a gradual change over time in the deoth of my belief. This is nothing that I can take credit for (and, sadly, not something that can really be discussed rationally). So my sureity (such as it is — and I gotta tell you, if getting into heaven were based on certainty, neither I, nor Saint Peter would be getting in) is based on the Spirit working in me (and my reading of the Bible, including Jesus’s assurance to the theif on the cross — Today you wil be with me in paradise.)

I think maybe part of the reason we get so confused about this one is our misinterpretation of the story of Peter walking on the water. I don’t think that story was supposed to show that Peter would drown because he didn’t have enough faith. Rather, the point was that none of us gets anywhere on our own. It is through grace that we do all that we do. Grace allowed him to get as far as he did — not some sort of faith-power (Use the force, Peter).

Adam, I’m somewhat stunned by the question. It’s a good one but I guess my immediate response where isn’t it in Scripture.
The concepts of God choosing Abraham, choosing a people for himself, the nature of grace being a gift to us and not something we earn. Salavation is all God’s doing and that in itself gives us “surety”.
Being sure is not something we choose it is a gift from God. People who have the most trouble “getting it” are those who struggle to recieve love from others. That doesn’t mean they don’t have salvation, they just don’t know how to accept what they already have.
Sorry, this is getting off your question of where it is in the Bible. For me it is as obvious as Mary being pregnant with Jesus.
You just are, now deal with it, work it out, don’t take it for granted, bear fruit, etc.

Adam, I’ll try to get back to you with “surety” scriptures.

As for the “Now, I’m saved, what’s next?” topic, I used to think that the Christian life was about becoming saved and then trying to obey a bunch of rules the best you could until you were finally relieved of that burden at death. Now I know that’s not true. God created us so we could fellowship with him. We won’t have a perfect fellowship with him until we get to heaven but we can have a taste of it now.
God really does want to fellowship with us. When we seek Him with all our heart we will find him. It’s the holy spirit thing BBC was talking about.
In addition to blessing us with freedom from sin and a closer relationship with him on this earth, the Bible seems to allude to rewards in the afterlife. Paul often speaks of earning crowns to lay at the feet of Jesus. Also I Cor. 3 talks about how everything we do will come under a fire, and only things pleasing to the Lord will remain.
Jesus also talks about storing up treasures in heaven. Also in the parable of the talents, not everyone hears “Well done my good and faithful servant” and some are given more responsibility according to what they have done.
This is an extremely brief overview of the topic of rewards in heaven.
One thing to remember is that salvation is most certainly not earned, and most of the crowns are “earned” by things like perseverance in times of affliction, dying to self, submission to God, etc., not in an earthly manner like taking the physical challenge or something. Another thing is that we lay our crowns at Jesus’s feet in heaven since it is by Him we do all things.
I’m definitely not an expert on the subject, but thought an introduction would add to the discussion.

Well said, Jason. You’ve hit the nail on the head. The key is that trying to live a Godly life is a thankfulness response that you can’t help — not a pre-existing requirement.

Sometimes people talk of having a personal relationship with God. I think that is sometimes a good way to describe our life with God, but i think it can also be limiting. The Bible doesn’t use the language of friendship nearly as often as it does the language of parenthood, with all the emotions that go along with that — dependence, admiration, joy, comforat, and sometimes fear.

When we talk about our response to God, it seem to me that the Psalms are a good palce to start. There we read of a whole gamut of emotional response by God’s children, awe, anger, fear, joy, and on and on, but the one that seems to me to come up most often is thankfulness.

Okay, I think I got a bit afield there. What were we origianlly talking about? Relativism?

Dew: Thanks. Perhaps I could redirect the question just a little bit: It seems as if surety comes and goes. Everybody has periods of doubt; some more severe, some less. At such times, surety is a joke. If it’s something that comes and goes (which certainly seems to be the case, as every thinking Christian I’ve known has experienced extreme doubt at some point), then how is that surety at all? As a person doubting, I severely mistrust the day when I will no longer doubt, because there will always be questions—anyone who thinks that they can reason out God and make everything about Christianity jive perfectly is fooling themselves, Period.

My point is that I think the gift of God you’re referring to is Peace, not surety. Peace in spite of the lack of surety. Now that makes sense to me.

Frankly, lack of surety doesn’t scare me much. The world doesn’t make a lot of sense, so why should salvation?

Maybe the doubting mind just can’t comprehend it or something. Maybe I’m being obtuse because I’m pissed off at the Christianity I was handed.

The church that I go to has consistently suggested, through the years, that it is okay for a Christian to wrestle with God. Lately I have less trouble with doubt about whether God exists. I certain of that. My doubt deals more with what he is doing with himself and why he isn’t getting down here to deal with his business. On days when grace is shining through most clearly, it isn’t so hard. But on crummy days, when it seems like all the hard work I have been doing (which I tell myself is for Him) is threatened, and the school that I want so much to be His seems mired in petty politics and lacks vision, on those days, i can’t figure out how he can watch us and not make it all right with a pass of his hand.

Adam: You seem to be equating surety with a rational, scientific, in the mind type of knowing. More and more over the past few years I’ve come to realize that the majority of my “decisions” regarding my faith, my lifestyle, what I view as sinful, etc. have not been rational thoughts in any way. Rather, I am sure that God exists and that Christ paid for our salvation based on a deep, unchanging sense that it must be so. It’s unexplainable in many ways, but when I do start to question and think things like: “what if it’s just a bad joke?” all of my senses tell me that it’s not.

Same thing goes for Bible interpretation and the like. I trust my senses, my conscience (or unconsious) to let me know what is right for me—what I can handle, what might be sinful. Usually I can’t really explain in words why I believe a particular act to be ok or not ok, but I don’t really feel as though that’s necessary. I understand, based on what I believe to be the Holy Spirit’s inner guidance, and when I follow my senses I usually end up with a great deal of peace.

So while I do think it can be very valuable to struggle and question and try to figure things out, after awhile it gets old for me. It is, of course, impossible to explain and understand and figure out all of the mystery of God’s ways—God is God, and that’s about all you can say about that. Most of the time I just have to rely on a deep-seated feeling that what I’m doing is right and true. The more I explore and listen to my other ways of knowing (other than my “rational” sense, that is) the more peace and surety I have.

When I have doubts, I seek God through his scriptures and prayer. God loves us and desires fellowship with us. So often in trials we try to lean on our own understanding, instead of letting God do what He does so well: love us and provide for us.

I’ve had a few experiences in my life that I haven’t been able to explain other than the power of God. However, if you haven’t had a personal revelation of God, it’s a little harder to have faith. And when it’s hard to have faith, it’s hard to have peace.

BTW, Adam, what pisses you off about the Christianity you were handed?

frederick buechner, in his book Longing for Home:

i’m paraphrasing because i don’t have the book in front of me right now, but that idea has helped me a lot. i don’t know if we can ever have faith that is completely without doubt. and, like you adam, it worries me a bit when i get too over-confident in my own understanding.

Adam: Doubt is a feeling and our feelings of surety come and go and that can be helpful as Beuchner suggests in his book. However, the reality we hold on to (by faith) is surety. Whether we feel it or not our status as children of God is a sure thing. As we cling to that reality we rest in Him and His love and grace spur us on to love and good works.
Again my greatest concern is that our motivation is fear or guilt. They are certainly motivators but not the ones God wants for us.
My concern likely comes from the fact that I dislike the “church” I was handed as a child. Not the Christianity I was handed from my parents but the “church” experience I had functioned more out of fear and guilt than a foundation of grace and the freedom it provides.

Our experiences certainly shape our understanding of God.