At Just That Point in History

We believe that the death of Christ is just that point in history at which something absolutely unimaginable from outside shows through into our own world. And if we cannot picture even the atoms of which our own world is built, of course we are not going to be able to picture this. Indeed if we found that we could fully understand it, that very fact would show it was not what it professes to be - the inconceivable, the uncreated, the thing from beyond nature, striking down into nature like lightning. You may ask what good it will be to us if we do not understand it. But that is easily answered. A man can eat his dinner without understanding exactly how food nourishes him. A man can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works: indeed, he certainly would not know how it works until he has accepted it.

We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed.

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

To Give More Than We Can Spare

We have all heard this verse...

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be  also." (Matthew 6:19-21)

and...

"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me."  (Matthew 19:21)

So as Christians, what do our personal finances look like?  How much of our income do we give away?  Is it 10%?  Is it more?  One friend I know once told me he did a reverse tithe...he gave 90% of his income for a summer to the Church.  That is pretty intense!!  So what are we called to give?

I would like to share with you a few things that I have heard or read on the subject of Christian giving recently.

A few weeks ago I attended a service at Oxford Bible Fellowship here in Oxford, OH with my wife, my parents and brother.  The pastor was speaking that day on giving (the dreaded sermon by all pastors and congregants alike).  He had some pretty interesting things to say.  He gave us many statistics on Christian Giving, our relative place in the world according to our income (see "Poor or Less Rich" below), and what Americans are spending their money on.

Pastor Jeremy Carr asked us if we had thought about how much to give to the Church this year.  He proposed that the real tragedy is that most of us probably hadn't even thought about how much money we were going to put in the offering plate that morning until it came down our aisle.  We just looked around to see what others were giving so we wouldn't look too cheap, or maybe just crumpled up a dollar bill or two so it might look like a $5 or a $10 bill.  Sadly, he was totally right.

C.S. Lewis said in his book Mere Christianity this...

"I'm afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.  In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little.  If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small.  There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditure excludes them."

How much money do you make right now?  Do you know someone that makes a similar annual income?  What does their lifestyle look like?  Is yours equal to theirs?  I don't believe that this means we should give to the point where we are living in poverty.  Maybe this means that if we make $50,000/yr we live as though we make $40,000 - $45,000.  Or if we make $1,000,000/yr we live as though we make $800,000 - $900,000.  

Most of us can still give far beyond the standard 10% (although if you look at a church's list of annual giving it probably only adds up to 2-3% of what the congregation actually made that year).  We will not have to live a life of poverty to give a little more than we are comfortable with.

My challenge to you would be to take the time to think about what you are going to give to the Church and worthy charities this year, or even this month.  If you have an income, budget some giving into it.  Even if you are in high school or middle school and only make $50 every now and them when you mow a few lawns.  Think about what you can give to the Church and God's people.  My wife and I are doing the same.

A Thought on Theology

Lately we've been having some discussion on here about religion, truth, love, and their source.  We have debated whether our old theologies and doctrines are stale.  It has gone even a step further in questioning why we need a specific religion, or set of doctrines, at all.  Why can't we just find God and Truth in all places instead of one specific doctrine?

I am one that has thought that theologies can often get in the way of God.  There are so many denominations and doctrines out there, even just within Christianity itself.  How can these small differences in doctrine possibly make a difference in our faith?  I don't really think they can honestly.

I do think, on the other hand, that understanding the different theologies and doctrines in our faith is important.  Last night I was reading a chapter in C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity and he had a good point about theology.

Lewis was considering the fact that many people are put off by theology (theology being the "science of God").  Many people find it is more personal and beneficial to feel God, through whatever means they can.  They feel they can learn more about God through their daily interaction with Him as opposed to studying theology.  

It is true that personal interaction with God is going to be more "real" than any old theology.  Lewis' illustration was that this is similar to standing on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean and seeing it's magnificence, then going and looking at it on a map.  Obviously the map is going to be far less real than the actual Atlantic ocean itself.  The map, however, is necessary in navigating the ocean, should you want to travel that ocean from England to the US (I am paraphrasing Lewis here).  Lewis made the point that theologies are based on the interaction of hundreds and thousands of people with God over thousands of years.  They have written down what they found to be truth about God.  Others have then built on those theologies as the centuries have gone on.  

Take science for example.  Over thousands of years scientists have studied the world and its inner workings.  Each one building on the next and correcting the falsehoods of the last.  What if each time we wanted to learn something of the world we had to reconstruct the Periodic Table, or refigure the E=MC2 equation...we wouldn't get very far.  

In a similar way, the theologies that have been passed down over the centuries can help us better understand the God we worship.  We can learn great things from what others before us found as Truth about God and attempt to build on them.  This seems a far greater way of coming to know God than relying solely on our own feelings and experience.  As long as we study with a certain skepticism.  We still need to constantly question and come to our own conclusions.  

Don't get me wrong, experiences have a huge place in understanding and learning about God.  What I am saying is that it is foolish to negate thousands of years of people, just like you and I, trying to know God, and passing on the truth that they had found.  It is still important to discuss and debate these theologies, none are perfect.  It is impossible for any of us to understand and explain God perfectly...if it were possible, He would be a pretty lame God.  

So let's continue to discuss our theologies and doctrines, whether from Christian faith, or from any other source we believe we can find truth in, and see what we come up with, but let's not forget the great people that came before us that God revealed His truth to as well.  

Why Christ?

A series of random events and conversation in my life has led me to unorthodoxly address why one should believe in Christ, or for that matter Christianity. Now obviously this is not an easy task, nor a short one, but I hope to address a few of the questions which people might have about Christ or Christianity. Feel free to chime in, argue with, or enlighten us on your views on the subject.

Before we start, I must note that this may be an extensive post. It will be VERY long, and I encourage you to read the entire post, or simply skip over it. I say this because of the continuity of the logic in this post. In basic terms, you wont understand what is being said unless you read the post in its entirity... aka: dont skip around, cause you might get lost... and you may become lost anyways. Sound like fun?! Lets go...

In my life I have experienced many people who take religion to separate, unhealthy extremes. I have met Chritians throughout my life who I would define as "legalistic" in philosophy. When I say legalistic I mean they are too focused on the specific rules of Christianity without regard to the grace and freedom with have in Christ. Many of us have been hurt by Christians who seem to be so consumed with rules that they may forget to see their own downfalls until its too late. Thus many times people label Christians as hypocritical individuals. It is sad, but many times we think of "legalistic" Christians when we hear of christians being cast as hypocrits in the national news. Our perspective on Christianity becomes dark and gloomy, because we have this thought that Christians must be perfect.

The other side of this unhealthy extreme which I would like to talk about, is the growing amount of individuals who believe that all religions point to our true creator, and therefor we need to open our minds to accepting all religions on holding absolute truth. I try not to be stereotypical in my descriptions, but this is the persons who would argue that in many ways Christ was a great man, but nonetheless just a good moral teacher to help us see God; similar to that of Muhutma Ghandi, Muhummand, and others.

Which brings me to the question I intend to provide some sort of clearity to: Why believe in Christ only? If the Jews, Muslims, and Christians all serve the same God, why cant we find some moral ground to serve the same God? Let us focus on that question. We can come back to pantheistic world views later (i.e. Hindu, Buddhism, Greek philosophy), right now lets focus on Allah, God, Jehovah, Yahweh, the God that seems from the outside to be the same in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

And I know of no better way to answer this question than to look at a few pages from C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity." I foundationally believe this excerpt is one of the most powerful passeges of apologetics ever written, and my thought is "why re-write something as powerful as this." Keep in mind that this man writting this passage, Lewis, was an athiest for much if not most of his life. I will spare you the exciting details of C.S. Lewis for another time, but here is response to "Why Christ":

"God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gas, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended-civilisations are built up--excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down. They are trying to run it on the wrong juice. That is what Satan has done to us humans.

And what did God do? First of all He left us conscience, the sense of right and wrong: and all through history there have been people trying (some of them very hard) to obey it. None of them ever quite succeeded. Secondly, He sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all through the heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again and by his death, has somehow given new life to men. Thirdly, He selected one particular people and spent several centuries hammering into their heads the sort of God He was--that there was only one of Him and that He cared about right conduct. Those people were the Jews, and the Old Testament gives an account of the hammering process.

Then come the real shock. Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Hindus, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world, who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men's toes and stealing other men's money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history.

Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less so unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is 'humble and meek' and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

Thoughts, comments, questions?




*Points of Interest in Scripture:

"Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division." Luke 12:51

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Matthew 7:13-14