He Gave us Hearts

A childhood friend's mom died of cancer last week. She was only 50. I didn't know her well but I still feel an incredible sense of loss. She won't get to watch her daughter and son walk down the aisle on their wedding days; she won't delight in her grandchildren as they grow; and she won't celebrate any more anniversaries with her faithful husband. As a follower of Jesus Christ she is experiencing the consummation of her earthly discipleship in heaven right now, but her family is left in the wake of her influence, trying to make sense of it all.

My friend's mom is one of about 250,00 people who died last Sunday. Her death is a jarring reminder of the pain, disease, hunger, and abuse that ravage the lives of all people. Her death makes me wonder about God's love. He did, after all, decide to create us. Did his master plan for humanity include an inevitable encounter with suffering, destruction, and ultimately death? What kind of God lets the world deteriorate to the point of death?

Perhaps when I stand before God in heaven I will ask him about the problem of pain. But until then, I'm asking myself this question: if you were the author of the story of humanity, how would you have written it differently? When I ask myself this question I realize things have to be the way they are. They have to be this way because God is Love.

The Bible makes it really clear that God didn't create love, nor does he just show love, but he IS Love; love flows from his character and he delights in loving his creation. The thing about Love is it loves to be loved in return, so God gave us hearts with the capacity to give and receive love.

I guess, theoretically, God could have made us without hearts. But he's not the kind of God who wants a bunch of tin men running around who periodically show robotic affection at the whim of their Programmer. To be sure, robots are the key to eliminating world hunger, avoiding devastating wars, and abolishing slavery. But they are also the key to wiping out all of life's vibrancy because love births passion and vitality.

So if I were God and I could choose between a colony of robots and a community of people, I would choose to create people. The human heart's capacity for good is worth the risk that it will choose to do evil. But if I were God and my creation didn't choose to love me I wouldn't stand by and watch them self-destruct; I would do something about the mess human hearts have made.

I am a Christian because God did do something about the mess our human hearts created. He put on skin and spent 33 years living, dying and rising from the dead in the midst of our mess so that he could redeem it. Today he longs to pluck us out of the pit and breathe healing and purpose into our pain. He offers us a second chance, new life, and an eternity free from pain and sorrow. His hands are extended, their scars crying out for our love. How will our hearts respond?

Evil, Human Flourishing, Internal Fizzing, and the Existence of God

There are lots of ways to try to explain away God. The problem is, once you explain away God you also have to explain away any standard of right and wrong. Morality is meaningless in a godless world.

Evidence for a standard of morality is everywhere: we see it in every culture, age group, and time in history. Even some of the most staunch moral relativists cannot deny the presence of a standard of morality--they openly criticize the evil we see in the sex trade, holocaust, slavery, child abuse, domestic violence and genocide that wreak havoc on our world.

The presence of this evil points to the existence of good; without good "evil" is a meaningless concept, just like the term "dark" only makes sense because we have experienced something we call "light". Now, if "good" and "evil" are meaningful ideas in our world then we must ask the question, who determines what is good and what is evil?

Obviously we can't attribute this standard of morality to past presidents, kings, or dictators who somehow convinced the entire world to jump on their moral bandwagon. Some people argue that morality has evolved over time to promote human flourishing. But one has to wonder, if the origin of morality is a desire for human flourishing, from where does our concept of human flourishing originate? Not only that, how do we explain values like justice, love, diligence and responsibility that transcend time and culture?

Others appeal to science to rationalize our knowledge of good and evil. The strict materialist tries to explain away moral convictions as the movement of particles or chemical reactions in the brain. With this explanation our moral sentiments and convictions are no more meaningful than the convictions a fizzy cup of vinegar and baking soda might have. Hence, the materialist reduces humans to nothing more than bodies full of internal "fizzing".

The problem with the scientist's explanation is it ultimately explains away “true” and “false” statements. Thus, the scientist explains away his own explanation, for even his explanation of morality must be nothing more than the movement of particles or the "fizzing" of chemicals in his brain.

That leaves us with the presence of widely recognized evil which points to good, and nothing to explain our understanding of good and evil--except God.

"Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him." Psalm 34:8

Is the Bible Historically Reliable?

The Bible is an irrelevant collection of religious propaganda, full of so many errors and deviations from the original text it can't be trusted.

Sound familiar? If you haven't thought it, you've probably heard it. The Bible has been under the scrutiny of laymen, scholars, the religious and irreligious for hundreds of years, and for good reason. It is chuck-full of history, has always been central to Christianity, and makes such bold and penetrating claims that some people hate it, some people swear by it, and some people are radically changed by it. There's got to be something to this book.

As a Christian I believe that you don't have to be a scholar or theologian to be affected by the Bible's message. I've seen firsthand that the Word of God is "living and active...it penetrates even to diving soul and spirit" (Hebrews 4:12). Its message is powerful enough to invade any man's heart, and its truth can be known without the help of scholarship. But scholarship is still important, and the skeptic's objections to the Bible are valid, so let's briefly investigate the evidence for the historical reliability of scripture.

First let's take a look at the quantity and consistency of the biblical manuscript copies we have today:

We have over 5,600 Greek New Testament manuscripts, 10,000 Latin Vulgates (these are Latin translations of the Greek manuscripts) and at least 9,300 other manuscripts, totaling over 24,000 New Testament manuscripts! On top of that, Jews possess ancient Old Testament manuscripts called the Hebrew Massoretic texts that date back at least 1,000 years, and we have the Dead Sea Scrolls which contain portions of the Hebrew Old Testament and date back to the second century before Christ.

That's more source material than scholars have for any other work of antiquity! There are only 643 manuscripts for the work the Iliad, and only 49 manuscripts of Aristotle'sPoetics, and yet they are both considered authoritative and accurate texts among scholars. It only makes sense then, that scholars have evaluated the tens of thousands of biblical manuscripts and confirmed the historical authenticity (also called "historicity") of the Old and New Testaments we have today. In fact, we can use these manuscripts to reconstruct 97-99% of the New Testament we have today!

Usually at this point in a discussion about the historicity of the Bible someone brings up the hundreds of thousands of variants between biblical manuscripts. A variant is a difference in wording between texts, and anytime you have a lot of manuscripts there is an increase in variants. There are a lot of variants between biblical manuscripts, but they don't undermine the reliability of the Bible. Let me break down the different types of variants:

• 75% are spelling differences.
• The use of synonyms across manuscripts accounts for a large chunk of the variants (For example, using "Lord" and "He" interchangeably).
• Only about 1% of the variants actually affects the meaning of the text.

We can further examine the credibility of the Bible by looking at the proximity of its authors to the events they recorded. Most of the New Testament authors were eyewitnesses to the events they recorded, and all of the New Testament books were written within the first century after Jesus' death and resurrection. This means that other eyewitnesses of the New Testament accounts were around when the manuscripts began circulating, including hostile eyewitnesses who were enemies of Christianity. It would have been really risky for the New Testament authors to begin circulating lies and distortions with so many other eyewitnesses hanging around!

Not only were the Gospel writers held accountable by eyewitnesses, but they recorded events that cast themselves into a rather unfavorable light--sometimes these guys were a bunch of arrogant, immature, faithless fools! If the Gospel authors were just making up religious propaganda, you would expect them to depict themselves in a more complimentary way.

If you're interesting in finding out more about the historicity of scripture, you may want to investigate the ways in which outside sources like Josephus, Papias the bishop of Hierapolos, and Irenaeus, the student of John’s disciple Polycarp confirm the New Testament accounts.

I think further study will only increase your confidence in the reliability and autheticity of scripture. And as the Bible's reliability unfolds, you may want to consider if, perhaps, Jesus Christ is really who he claimed to be.

More on that later!

---

I got my facts from Evidence That Demands a Verdict and More Than a Carpenter,both by Josh McDowell; and Facing the Muslim Challenge, by John Gilchrist.

Is Allah Enough?

The trinity is an impossible thing to explain. There is the egg analogy (shell, white, and yolk=three substances in one egg) and the water analogy (water, steam, ice= same substance) that take a stab at making the trinity easier to understand, but they miss the mark.

I have to admit, I've used these crude analogies in my Bible lessons to third graders before, but I usually qualify them, explaining that regardless of how hard we try, we can't wrap our minds around the trinity. Then I try to emphasize how marvelous it is that the depths of our God are so vast the human mind cannot search them, and although we cannot comprehend all of God's nature, we can know him and be assured of his great love for us. That's what makes Christianity different from any other religion.

Muslims believe in the one-dimensional god, Allah. They praise his self-sufficiency, and worship him for his love, compassion and mercy. They exalt Allah's oneness over the three-dimensional nature of the God of the Bible, claiming that Christians are guilty of shirk, the sin of worshipping more than one god.

Allah's one-dimensional nature is certainly easy to comprehend, but it's got one major problem: it makes it impossible for us to trust in his love.

Love, by its nature, must have an object. I love my sister, my mom loves my dad, my students love recess, my best friend loves to sing--love always has an object. Without something to love, there is no love. So, imagine Allah (or any one-dimensional god for that matter) before the creation of anything. He is alone in a great black void with no one and nothing to love. Can he have love?

Allah has two options at this point: he can love himself or he can create something to love. If he loves himself, his love is self-serving and counterfeit--imagine a world where everyone's love is self-serving like that! If he creates something to love, then his ability to love is contingent on his creation, diminishing his character and making his love no more enduring or trustworthy than a fickle human's love.

The trinity, on the other hand, perfectly explains God's love: love originates from and is fully expressed within the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit--everlasting love flows from God's character.

This perfect love compelled God to put on skin and live among us in order to show us how to love: "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers" (1 John 3:16).

This perfect love drove God to give us a helper and life-guide through the Holy Spirit who indwells all Christians. "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you" (John 14:26).

The trinity is a daily reminder to me that God will continue to pursue humanity relentlessly because he loves us fiercely. His infinite grandeur didn't stop him from taking on bodily form so that he could live with us, and then die for us; his perfectly selfless love compels him to dwell within and equip all Christians with the riches of his glorious power through the Holy Spirit!

Come, Taste and See!

My Christian apologetics classes at Biola University are in full swing, and the rigorous studying is slowly corroding my writer's block. My mind is swimming with all sorts of Christian apologetics blogging material, so this post will kick off a series of apologetics-themed posts. But first, a few answers to a few common questions.

What in the world are Christian apologetics?

No, I'm not sorry I'm a Christian! The term "apologetics" comes from the Greek word "apologia" which means "a defense or justification". Christian apologetics is the field that offers thoughtful answers to the tough questions people ask about the claims of Christianity.

Why do we even need apologetics? No one ever got argued into the kingdom of heaven.

It's remarkable, really, how often I encounter this objection to apologetics. You would think the New Testament book of Acts doesn't chronicle the successful apologetic work of the Apostle Paul as he travels from synagogue to synagogue, debating the Jews and giving them good reasons to place their faith in Christ! Aside from the Apostle Paul's example however, there are other compelling reasons to add apologetics to our evangelistic tool belt.

Apologists believe that reality is iconoclastic --reality in its clearest, truest form has the power to shatter idols. When we truly understand the reality of God's goodness and love for us, our idols begin to crumble.

The work of the apologist then, is not always confrontational--it is often a shoulder-to-shoulder activity. The Christian apologist steps alongside people and begins to strip away any doubts or misconceptions that distort their vision of the reality of God's love by giving good answers to tough questions. Apologists invite others to, "Come step into my joy! Taste and see that God is good!" It's pretty tough to worship false gods when you've tasted the goodness of the one true God.

My goal as a Christian apologist is to invite others to step into my joy in Christ. I want to give them thoughtful answers to their questions. I want to challenge them to explore the knock-your-socks-off kind of life that Christ offers. And I want to help other Christians do the same. Because I'm convinced that the Truth sets people free.

The Truth Serum

An antidote to the poison of moral relativism*

Moral Relativism is...

Self Refuting: As soon as you say there is no absolute truth, you’ve just stated an absolute truth. It's no more sensible than describing a colorless red car, or a married bachelor.

Evil Enabling: Moral relativists can’t even say it’s absolutely wrong to torture babies for fun because relativists have no moral absolutes.

Racist Befriending: The relativists can’t say that it was absolutely wrong for the Nazis to murder the Jews or that American slavery was wrong.

Morally Stagnating: With relativism there is no room for moral improvement because there’s no moral standard to shoot for.

Mind Closing: Relativists declare "We're so open minded" but they are absolutely closed to anyone who believes in moral absolutes.

*Thanks to Clay Jones, Professor of Apologetics at Biola University, for introducing me to his Truth Serum.

I Want God

In the spirit of summer relaxation and brain vacations, I'm going to continue to post other people's poetry, for you all to enjoy.  My cousin, Evan Dunn, wrote this poem and performed it at a spoken word poetry slam awhile back.  It's a worthwhile read.

Disfruten!

I Want God

By Evan Dunn

Sit down and muse with me before the
fire burns desire
into the pages of my history.
I am unfulfilled,
like an unresolved chord
missing the third strand of rope
caught in the wind,
my fears rescind
my scandalous hope.

No mystery,
that the fire burning desire
into the pages of my history
should find me wanting God,
with passion something fierce and blistery—
blistery, not like the bubbled bumper sticker
on your Subaru Outback,
designed to designate superiority,
but instead screaming insecurity;
not like the glass that makes your mirror;
you so wish it was deformed,
so you pull your collar nearer:
but it’s perfect.
For its imperfection reflects your imperfection perfectly.
And you want more.

Just like before,
wanting God all the more,
for all your failures
that sew shut doors
just like before.

I want a God who
doesn’t disagree,
who
doesn’t mind my endless apathy,
who will pay my bills,
and bring me coffee—
don’t forget the artificial sweetener
in the drink of my choosing,
oh, and I get free refills,
because God didn’t make me,
I made God,
and when people died
my tears were shed,
not His,
and when little children cried
my veins were bled,
not His.

So I want a God who
feels a certain degree of sympathy
for me,
because I know what it’s like
to lose love and love lost things,
and I’ve spent so many days waiting
for the fat lady to sing,
and my ears are still straining
to hear that gorgeous note ring
salvation
in my ear—
Or maybe she already hit the note,
and I can’t hear,
for surely Deliverance from Death
is deafening,
and now life and I
are on two entirely different levels
like cubes to squares,
or color to the blind,
or free will to an ant—
I want a God who’s kind,
who waits patiently on my shelf
for me to come home
from another night out
with my heart on the roam,
and doesn’t get out of His place,
because, when I struggle,
God doesn’t see my face,
or hear my prayers—
I think He’s more like Cuban cigars,
or lofty airs,
always expensive,
hard to find,
and a tad removed,
a bit unkind.

I want God to be big,
and thoroughly involved,
to make sense of this viscous mess
into which we’ve evolved.
He’s gotta be there when I’m down,
and force me up the ladder
to the smile from my frown.
He must be with me!

…in my distress,
when hope is scarce
and I don’t dare
step lightly,
or my heart will tear a chasm in my chest,
…in my brokenness
when I screw up
and hurt my friends,
and this time
the fissure is born in their bones,
not mine,
…in my proclivity to hate
and at their behest
I would recount each sin
one by one
just to show I want to be done,
God must be with me!
…in my dishonor
when I’m ashamed
was that a mistake?
an honest mistake?
…in my loneliness
because honestly I didn’t make
it on purpose,
and honestly I can’t fake
…in my fear
misery,
though it’s practice
has proved natural
…in my loss
and common,
I am uncommonly common,
and especially not special
…in my gain, and benefit
in that I have tasted
heaven and hell,
…in my cost
though both fractionally…

I want a God who understands,
but when it comes to obedience
who stands
with the liberally laissez-faire
who’s always there,
but never too close,
who conveniently invades my personal bubble,
my blistered existence,
only when it won’t cause trouble,
who will show my blind eyes color,
and reveal my third dimension,
who will approach me without façade,
without pretention,
but who will not ask me to give up myself for Him,
unless He’s done the same.
I want to be rapturously wrapped within His arms,
but only sometimes…
Only…
I want a God who’s only love and never intrusion,
who’s only clarity,
never confusion,
but I haven’t noticed
that God doesn’t come
when I don’t want Him,
so if I really want Him,
maybe I should come to Him,
or come where I see Him.

God doesn’t show
when I do things that I know
I shouldn’t.
I often walk a mile blindly, anxiously shifting,
and at the end I wonder,
“Where were you God,
why weren’t you lifting
my soul?”
But was I looking?

I want Him when life is tough,
but I mistakenly only call on Him to soothe
my trembling hands
when they shouldn’t be trembling.
Perhaps He’s like a diamond in the rough,
but I only look when life is smooth.

Father, we are fractal, fractured, fractions of ourselves,
forgive us for condemning you,
and you would forgive us, deliver us,
from Hell,
and… well…
we don’t deserve it…
You made heaven,
and for those you choose,
but still I’m caught by the noose
that says I get what I want,
when I want,
how I want,
the way I want it—
the God I want
is sympathetic, apathetic,
powerful, weak,
one moment I have to run,
the next, deny,
and the next, seek;
I don’t think I can make up my mind,
‘cuz He’s all-perceiving, and blind,
too bold for me,
and too quiet to fix me;
Say something!
Have you said something?
I want God—


But I must recognize
the fine line that lies
between the God I want,
and the God He is.

Especially since
sometimes I want things
that I should not want,
and more often than not,
I haunt myself with me.

He invaded,
and retook
what was rightly His in us.
We are His.
He is power, He is love.
He is bold enough to break through our boring barriers,
and often comes in quiet storms,
raging rests that overtake our souls
with wonder, and with awe,
He is all—
And in this mirror,
Him showing me who I am,
He pulls my collar nearer—
There are no blisters!
No imperfections;
They’re gone!
And I hear the song-like note over my shoulder,
in my ear, which once was deaf,
in my head, my mind is made up,
singing, powerfully still, simple words:
“I have made you perfect.”
That is what salvation sounds like.

It is not as I described, is it?
I did not have to bargain with God—
He bargained for me…
With himself.
I did not have to argue with God—
He argued for me…
With himself.
I did not have to hide,
not even confine Him to a shelf.
Though I deserve to be on His bookcase,
He instead holds me before His very eyes—
and
I can see His face.

Thus sings grace,
our seldom-sold solace,
that trains our trifling hearts
to dream,
to dream;
that teaches our troubled souls
to hope,
to hope;
to know eternity within
as eternity with Him.
Muse on the mystery,
that He takes the blistery,
and makes it level,
so the horizon no longer carries on
the night,
and instead
reiterates
the dawn.

The fire burning desire
into the pages of my history
has crisped my blistered existence
into ashes,
the Phoenix God of Resurrection,
Jesus Christ,
blows gently on my fibrous ruins,
… and life…

Untitled

My little brother's friend is a poet, and a good one at that. I enjoyed his most recent poem, and I thought you might too. There's more where this came from!

Untitled

A flame fell over the horizon,

Followed by livid lilac smiles

And the sun's salmon-shaded shadows.

A new king's coming.

The blue above bows,

bending to a darker hue.

Creatures concede his supremecy,

Closing their eyes

In reverence to his reign.

Lowered heads lie on sunset beds

And cool air claims the atmosphere.

This is the Night.

A diamond-crested crown on his brow

And Moon-jeweled septor across his lap.

He sits upon his throne an emperor,

Submitting only to God and a sunlit sky.

She's Got a Mind of Her Own

My brain went missing a few weeks ago. I've been a little worried, but fortunately she just sent me an email informing me she is taking a lengthy vacation in the tropics. I guess my blogging will be light until she returns!

Some Exciting News!

Just wanted to let you all in on something pretty rad! Fashion designer Christopher Kane recently created a cutting edge clothing line... 

...and I was his inspiration!  

Today Made Me Smile

First thing this morning little Freddy walked up to me with little pieces of aluminum foil wrapped in his hair.  When I asked him what in the world was on his head he replied,  "It's an ancesory, Miss Jackson. That means it makes my hair look good."

A bit later one Virginia opened our morning with prayer:

"Dear Lord,
Please help us to have a good week and to have a fun summer. And if anyone is getting a cat or dog this summer, please help them to think of a cute name."

Mid-morning my students worked diligently on group projects, one of which was a creative skit.  The students performing the skit made their own sets and props.  Two of the boys wore delicate angel wings crafted from white copy paper.  The boys forgot they were wearing wings long after they had performed the skit, so I enjoyed watching their small white wings shiver and flap whenever they moved to and fro the rest of the day.  At one point, little Josh was on his hands and knees picking trash off the floor when I noticed cues for another actor in his skit written on his left wing:

Vicky slaps Pablo
Then she goes to the mall

Who knew angel wings were so useful? :)

Sometimes it's Nice to Take a Day Trip

The harder I try to keep my eyes open, the rawer they feel. There's a buzzing sensation in my lymph nodes, and they ache. Oh how they ache. My head feels too big for my neck. Like a bowling ball on a toothpick. I wish I could rest my heavy bowling ball head on my cluttered desk for a few minutes.

I'm staring out the window now, watching the moody clouds pass by quickly. Too quickly. I wish they'd just stop and hover for awhile, enjoying the raucous shouts of kids hanging from the jungle gym on our playground. I think they might like basking in Mr. Sun's warm rays and drinking in the musky scent of the earth they drenched last night. But they blow by, content to head eastward, unaware of all they're missing. Maybe their ignorance is bliss.

I think I will travel eastward with the clouds today. I'll ride away on the silvery cloud in the upper left pane of my window. She looks light and carefree. Perhaps she will whisk me off to the Sierra Nevada Mountains and I can watch her water the purple asters and the Giant Sequoia trees. Perched on my silvery chariot, I will throw pebbles into Lake Tahoe and watch the ripples surge outwards and lick the sandy shores. When shadows darken the mountaintops and the sun begins to set, my silvery cloud will swallow the dusky light and transform into a golden schooner. It will sail over the fiery orb dripping below the horizon, off into the night song of the star-spangled sky. As my schooner glides through a sea of stars, I will listen to the galaxies sing their harmonies, and I will roll over onto my back to watch them compose their celestial symphony. And then, I will drift off to sleep.

The next morning I will wake up in my bed, and I will smile as I look forward to my day, when I will listen to the gleeful shouts of children on the playground as the sun shines through the window, and the breeze carries the smell of moist earth through my cracked door.