Hope Isn’t Hope

Nearly every week, our Sabbath School discussion stumbles over semantics and meanings of words. This week, I’m sure, will not be an exception.

The topic for this week is “hope.” What is hope? Is it optimism or positive thinking?

In today’s use of the term “hope,” we often use it in phrases as…

• I hope it won’t rain tomorrow.
• I hope I pass the exam.
• I hope I don’t catch the flu.
• I hope I win the lottery.

… and so on…

As can be seen, in today’s usage, “hope” is best described as an expectation that something positive that will happen, but of which the chance of coming to pass is at best uncertain.

What is the proper understanding of “hope” as used in the Bible?

Answers.com provides as its last definition entry for the word hope, “Archaic. Trust; confidence.” Here we find a clue to the proper understanding of “hope” as found in the Bible. In biblical usage, hope is not optimism or positive thinking, or of looking for a positive outcome in an uncertain environment. Rather, it is absolute confidence that the thing hoped for will come to pass, even though there are no previous occurrences and present circumstances may be against it.

When we approach the Bible with today’s definitions (not just limited to the word “hope” but just about all theologically significant terms), it is no wonder we get all confused and end up misunderstanding what the Bible is trying to communicate to us.

Faith or Experience?

Since this week’s Sabbath School lesson is on the topic of faith, I thought this was apropos and it made me chuckle.

Atonement: Christ in Heaven

These are comments on Sabbath School Study Lesson 11, Benefits of Christ’s Atoning Sacrifice.

The Study Guide’s thrust is about the work Christ is described as doing in heaven. The subtitles for each of the day’s lesson focus on the concept of “mediation.” Closely related to the concept of mediation is the idea of intercession.

What does it mean for Christ to be the Mediator and Intercessor, mediating and interceding for us? Is Christ in some way “pleading” our case, so to speak, in a judicial sense, before the court of the Father? Does Christ’s intercession in some way change the scales of judicial inquiry?

Or can the concepts of mediation and intercession be seen in some other way?

The IVP Bible Background Commentary NT (QuickVerse edition) has an interesting note regarding 1 Timothy 2:5. The verse reads,

⁵For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man^£ Christ Jesus… (ESV)

The commentary for this verse reads,

Both Christ’s mission and Paul’s mission testified to God’s purpose, his wish to save all. In Judaism, wisdom, the law or, in a lesser sense, Moses was thought to have mediated divine revelation, but it was ultimately effective only for Israel, not for the Gentiles. Most Gentiles believed in many mediators of revelation, just as they believed in many gods.

So according to this interpretation, the concept of mediation can be seen as bringing revelation and clarity. In other words, when Christ is said to mediate for us, it can be understood as Christ continuing to bring more clarity about the true character of the Father to us through both the work that was done during his time on earth, and now through the Holy Spirit.

On the concept of intercession, Vincent’s Word Studies, Vol. 4: Epistles (QuickVerse edition) gives insight in its commentary on Hebrews 7:25. The verse reads,

²⁵Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. (ESV)

The commentary for this verse includes,

… The idea is not intercession, but intervention. It includes every form of Christ’s identifying himself with human interests…

Thayer’s Greek Definitions (QuickVerse edition) gives definitions for the Greek translated as intercession as,

1. to light upon a person or a thing, fall in with, hit upon, a person or a thing
2. to go to or meet a person, especially for the purpose of conversation, consultation, or supplication
3. to pray, entreat
4. make intercession for any one

There is little, if any, judicial sense to the word. Rather, is is full of relational connotations, of bringing two parties together. Taking both the concept of Christ identifying with the human race, and of the relational idea of intercession, could it be that the common image of Christ somehow pleading with the Father to forgive and to let live those who have accepted him [Christ], be wrong?

What if the intercession for us was just that – that Christ is not interceding with the Father on behalf of us, but rather that Christ is interceding and mediating the Father’s image and nature to and for us? How else could we reconcile what Jesus said in John 16:25-27 with mediation and intercession?

²⁵“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. ²⁶In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; ²⁷for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. (ESV, italics and emphasis supplied)

My conclusion is that Christ’s mediation and intercession are simply extensions of what he did while upon the earth; that is, to reveal the truth about God. It could be said, in a metaphorical manner, that Christ directs the Holy Spirit’s work from his heavenly headquarters. It is through the Holy Spirit that Christ now works to continue his work of revealing God to the world. When understood in this sense, the concepts of mediation and intercession are not at odds with a God who “first loved us” (1 John 4:19) and a God who sent Jesus, not to condemn, but to save (John 3:17).

Atonement: The Cross

I don’t really have any comments of my own to add to this week’s Sabbath School Study, Lesson 10: Atonement at the Cross. I am also feeling rather tired and perhaps a little ill tonight, so instead of trying to formulate my own thoughts to put here, I invite you to take a listen to the lesson discussion led by Jonathan Gallagher, and read his thoughts on the lesson.

Atonement: Metaphors

Comments on Sabbath School Study Lesson 9, Metaphors of Salvation.

Why didn’t God just give us a single model that fully explains the Atonement and salvation? Wouldn’t that have saved a lot of trouble and controversy?

Rather what we have are multiple metaphors. Since the reality is that there is no single, comprehensive, complete model of the Atonement and salvation, there must be some reason, hopefully good, for it. There must be a reason why God allowed the different metaphors to be found and developed.

The Study Guide mentions a few: Redemption, Reconciliation, Justification, Expiation, Demonstration. The Good Word site lists a few more: Cleansing, Lost & Found, Love.

Could it be that for different people, different cultures, different experiences, different historical periods, there was and is a metaphor (or perhaps a few metaphors) that work better in understanding the Atonement than some others? Could this be yet another example of how God meets people where they are?

I think it is important to keep in mind that metaphors are just that: metaphors. No single metaphor is a complete, systematic explanation all by itself. I also believe that not every element or detail of a metaphor is applicable to the subject it is trying to explain. I think that attempts to apply non-applicable elements may only result in problems and errors entering into the attempted explanation.

Plenty of paper and ink have been spent over the years arguing for and against one metaphor or another. I think the important point from this week’s lesson is that there is more than one correct way to understand the Atonement; to not be too dogmatic about there being only one, right way to understand the Atonement; to be more charitable to those who don’t find “my” way of seeing the atonement as the “right” one; and to hold on loosely to the metaphors, because after all, they are just metaphors and not the reality.

Atonement: Incarnation

This is commentary on Sabbath School Lesson 8, Born of a Woman—Atonement and the Incarnation.

David Runcorn, professor at Trinity College in Bristol, provides a unique interpretation of the Incarnation. In the first chapter of his book, Choice, Desire, and the Will of God: What More Do You Want?, Runcorn writes [emphases mine]:

… So what do you think the incarnation is all about then?

That’s easy. God made the world good. It has gone badly wrong. God loves it so much he sent his Son, Jesus, to save us from our sins and to bring us back to him.

OK. I believe that too. But are you saying we would have never met Jesus if things had not gone wrong? I mean, for the Creator to become a creature is such an amazing thing to do. Did he only come as a human being to put things right here and then leave again? Is the incarnation like God calling himself out as an earthly repairman?

A body like ours

What the incarnation tells us before anything else is that God is caught up in an unlikely, undying love affair with our humanity. To take flesh has been his hidden desire since before time began. The secret is now out. Rubem Alves puts it even more daringly: “What the doctrine of the incarnation whispers to us is that God, from all eternity, wants a body like ours.”

… We know that Jesus came into the world because of God’s love, but we still actually put the emphasis in the story firmly elsewhere. It is usually told in terms of a divine rescue mission… Through the cross he restores us to fellowship with God our Father.

All of which is wonderfully true. The cross is absolutely central to Christian faith and to salvation. But the story does not begin there. If that is our whole understanding of the incarnation, we are putting the needs of our sinful humanity in the centre instead of God. The coming of Jesus belongs to a much bigger, more mysterious and more glorious vision…

All creation is the work of Christ. The incarnation is the fulfilling of God’s original plan of and for creation. It is not a solution to a problem dreamed up in God’s merciful imagination (“I know, I’ll try this”). It is much more than God taking our humanity. In the end it is about the taking of our humanity in God.¹

Runcorn then goes on to discuss the opening verses of Ephesians chapter 1, vv. 3-10 and cites these as evidence for his opening thesis, which I excerpted above. This is the passage that includes,

“Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ… making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (4, 5, 9, 10 ESV)

Runcorn’s thesis may be shocking at first, but I think that upon closer reflection, there is merit to it. You may not agree with all of it, and I may not. However, does the idea that God would have been incarnated regardless of sin’s existence, alter or devalue in any way the value of Christ’s death and resurrection? On the other hand, would it, as Runcorn suggests, increase the value placed upon Christ’s incarnated life, as well as his death and resurrection?

If the only thing needed for Atonement was that Christ die, then why did Jesus choose to become a human being; to be born as one, to grow up as one, to work as one, and to die as one? Why couldn’t God simply have come, died, and then gone back to heaven without becoming involved in life as a human? If the only thing needed for Atonement was that Christ die, then life as a human would have no value.

Indirectly then, I believe Runcorn’s assertion and thesis has merit worth consideration. The incarnation wasn’t necessary, but it was God’s desire and God’s choice – it was God’s will for himself. If the Atonement was simply an act in a point in time, then all that was needed was the crucifixion or some other death. But if the Atonement was, is, and will be an ongoing process of bringing humans closer into fellowship with divinity, then the incarnation was something that God had purposed and chosen to accomplish since “before the foundation of the world.” Through the incarnation God identified himself with humankind, and humankind was able to see God in a way that no other way could have revealed him. Even in the perfection of the Garden of Eden, I believe there could have been certain aspects of God that they simply could not see as long as God remained just God. It’s always dangerous to project our preconceived ideas onto what is not absolutely clear. I think it’s important to keep what is ambiguous, ambiguous and allow for multiple interpretations.

A number of evangelistic and witnessing tools portray Jesus as the bridge that crosses the gap between God and humankind. In the past I thought it was a pretty decent illustration, but no longer. This illustration pictures Jesus and God as two distinct entities.

On the other hand, the incarnation tells us that Jesus is God. Jesus did not close the gap. He crossed over the gap to be with us. He chose to identify with us, to become one of us. He brought God over to us, because there was no way we could even begin to cross the gap, even if a bridge was provided. Jesus did not come to bridge the gap, but to close the gap. Through the incarnation, Jesus came “to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” The Atonement brings unity between God and his creation.

---

¹Runcorn, David. Choice, Desire, and the Will of God: What More Do You Want? Hendrickson Publishers, 2003; pp. 1-2.

Atonement: Metaphors of the Sanctuary

Comments on Sabbath School Study Lesson 7: Atonement in Symbols, Part 2.

The author of Hebrews called the wilderness sanctuary and its services, rituals, and sacrifices a copy and a shadow. His main point is that however good the sanctuary may have been in trying to communicate the message of God’s desire to be with humankind, it is all eclipsed by the Incarnation and the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

A copy and a shadow is far from reality. In some cases, and from certain perspectives, it may bear little resemblance to reality. We might be able to approximate what reality is like from a copy and a shadow, but we can never derive reality from them.

Using the Hebrew sanctuary and its services to try to figure out the reality of salvation and atonement is similar to using copies and shadows to arrive at reality. Yet that’s what I think has been done from time to time.

I think it is best to come alongside the author of Hebrews in this matter. We ought to take the sanctuary as an imperfect metaphor that suggests some of the great themes of atonement that God has been working throughout history. We shouldn’t try to use the details of the sanctuary service, rituals, and symbols to arrive at some obscure points of soteriology. Just because God commanded the details, and Moses happened to preserve them doesn’t necessarily mean they have significance past the immediate historical and cultural period in which they were given. I believe, it is best to stick with the obvious and universal themes.

The main theme of the sanctuary was God’s desire to be with people, and for the people to be with Him. Ultimately, in whatever fashion Atonement played out, that was the purpose – for God and people to be restored into a relationship based upon choice and love, rather than fear and appeasement.

Atonement: Announced?

Sabbath School Study Lesson 5, Atonment Announced.

Dr. Alden Thompson from Walla Walla University discusses, at length, whether or not the “announcements” of the Atonement were really announcements, and if so, in what way. Because of that, and because my thoughts run along similar paths, rather than rehashing the same thing all over here, I invite you to go to the following pages for Dr. Thompson’s discussions.

• Good Word at Walla Walla University – audio discussion and study notes
• Spectrum Sabbath School discussion – a more in-depth essay that expand upon his notes

I leave you with a point to ponder regarding the Atonement. It is commonly said that “Christ died for us” (see, for example, Romans 5:6-8). Does this mean, “Christ died in our place,” as is often understood? Or could it simply mean what is says, “Christ died for us,” because there was nothing else that would clearly show both the horrible depths of sin and the infinite heights of love? Could it simply mean, “Christ died for us,” because his death and resurrection was proof that love conquers even death and the grave, and because of this victory, Christ’s offer of life is proven to be sure?

Atonement: God’s Initiative

These are comments on Sabbath School Study Lesson 4, Atonement and the Divine Initiative.

The Study Guide offers sufficient Biblical passages to show that the Atonement was certainly something that was in God’s mind prior to the occurrence of sin. The Study Guide covers the material sufficiently, so I really won’t go into that here. Rather I want to explore the question of how much the Atonement encompasses.

As you may know, I’ve been going through Gustaf Aulen’s Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement. It is fascinating to learn about the history of the ideas behind the Atonement.

Western Christianity, from around the 10th century and up to the present, has associated the Atonement primarily with the crucifixion.¹ However, this is certainly not the only view and perhaps not the best way, and at the very least, an incomplete view of the Atonement. The more complete view is that the Atonement is something that God began as soon as sin entered the world and is something God is still actively working today.² The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ constitutes a climax, though not the end, in the process of Atonement. The cross demonstrated sin’s ultimate result as well as love’s ultimate victory. The process comes to a close when Jesus returns and sin and death will be destroyed.

From beginning to end, it is God’s initiative. The Bible pictures God as coming down to meet with his wayward children, time after time. From Eden to Abraham, to Moses and Sinai, to many of the judges, and to prophets, God comes down to reveal himself to the people in ways and words that they can comprehend and understand. By coming down, God seeks to draw people up to him.

The greatest work Atonement, obviously is the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. By entering humanity as a human being, God sought to demonstrate in perfection his nature and character to the world. He came as man because that was the only language that we would understand. When the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are lifted up, people are either drawn to him, or reject him.

The victory was won at the cross, but it is of no effect unless accepted by each and every person. Thus the promise and offer of Atonement was clearly seen at the cross, but the work of Atonement continues until all have chosen to accept or reject the offer to be reconciled to God and accept the victory over sin that the Atonement provides.

Aulen writes,

The New Testament idea of redemption constitutes in fact a veritable revolution; for it declares that sovereign Divine Love has taken the initiative, broken through the order of justice and merit, triumphed over the powers of evil, and created a new relation between the world and God.³

Again, for additional thoughts and perspectives on this lesson, I recommend Good Word from Walla Walla University.

---

¹Aulen, Gustaf. Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement, WIPF an STOCK Publishers, 2003 edition, Chapter 5, “The Middle Ages.”

²ibid.,  Chapter 3, “The Fathers in East and West” and Chapter 4, “The New Testament.”

³ibid.,  p. 79.

Atonement: The Fall Into Sin

These are comments on Sabbath School Study Lesson 3, The Fall Into Sin.

You’re free to disagree, and I realize many will, with my opinion on the emergence of sin. It is my opinion, held for quite some time now, that from a mathematical, statistical standpoint; in a universe governed through love and liberty; given infinite time and possibly infinite beings; the emergence of sin was inevitable. Inevitable doesn’t mean it is reasonable. Like many of us have probably heard or read in the past, there is no reason for sin, and if reason could be found, sin would be excused. I believe there is no reason for sin, but at the same time my opinion is that it was inevitable.

The one way, in my opinion again, that emergence of sin could have been avoided was if every being clearly understood the nature and consequence of sin. But God, being God, even though he himself had knowledge about sin, could not demonstrate sin to the universe without violating his own nature. To violate his own nature would mean God would no longer be God, and well, the universe would cease to exist. Without a knowledge of sin then, my opinion is that one being, given the infinity of eternity, would eventually choose (God allows that because I believe God places supreme value on liberty, even more than power, safety and security) to try the path contrary to God’s nature of love and liberty. Prior to demonstration of sin, created beings had to trust that God’s way was best.

What is God’s nature of love and liberty? I believe it is the attitude of self-sacrificing love. Self-sacrificing love frees all who practice it from the need to be loved and accepted by someone else. The paradox is that when everyone practices self-sacrificing love, the need for love and acceptance is automatically met. Harmony is disrupted and a wound is introduced when someone chooses to try the path of self-love rather than self-sacrificing love; when someone thinks that they are better able to meet needs on their own, or demand (through force, deception, coercion, etc.) that their needs be met by others.

The big problem (I’m sure there are others, but the one I want to focus on here) with self-love is that it breaks relationships within a community. Since the definition of sin that I favor is a broken relationship, self-love then is sin. Self-love can be manifested in many different ways. The one I focus on is the attempt by one person to meet his or her needs through their own efforts.

In the Garden of Eden I think that this expression of self-love was a cause of the Fall. When the Serpent comes to Eve (and really, the Biblical text strongly implies Adam was right there with her, standing by, doing nothing), the insinuation is that God has only provided partial satisfaction for a relational need; i.e., God has not provided intimacy (“knowledge” is associated with relationships and intimacy) with evil. The Serpent implies that God’s knowledge of good and evil are both intimate, and therefore Eve, too, should strive to be like God in that respect. The Serpent offers Eve a way to correct this deficiency, and Eve accepts, and Adam acquiesces. Adam and Eve choose to distrust God’s goodness and God’s way. The Fall is complete.

What Adam and Eve discover is that indeed they have become intimate with evil, but in the process have lost intimacy with God who is only good. God has knowledge about evil, but God is not intimate with evil; God does not have a relationship with evil. As created beings, the only way for Adam and Eve to really get to know what evil is all about is to experience it. The Serpent was right: they came to know evil, just as it had. They discovered that they had replaced a good relationship with an evil one. In their own power there was no way back.

Because God places supreme value on liberty, the demonstration of sin had to be allowed to run its course. But God, because he is love, could not leave Adam, Eve, and the rest of humankind subject to the ultimate consequences of sin. Thus the plan of restoration, the plan of at-one-ment, was put into action. This plan had always existed, because God knew that sin would eventually emerge.

Atonement: Solution to a Problem

This is commentary on this week’s Sabbath School Study, Lesson 2, Cosmic Crisis: The Disruption of God's Established Order.

The primary problem of this week’s set of lessons is the assumptions on which is based, that there are significant passages in the Bible that provide details of Satan’s fall and how sin came to exist. The two passages discussed in Sunday and Monday’s lessons are Ezekiel 28:14-17 and Isaiah 14:12-14.

For various reasons Seventh-day Adventists have historically taken these two passages as referring to Satan. Here is what the IVP Bible Background Commentary, Old Testament has to say about it:

Ezekiel 28:16-17. Satan Connection. From early on in church history there has been an interpretive tradition understanding his passage as an account of the fall of Satan. Though this same type of interpretation in Isaiah 14 was fervently denied by well-respected exegetes such as John Calvin (who bluntly ridiculed it), it has persisted into modern times. From a background standpoint, it must be noted that Satan is never portrayed as either being a cherub or being with the cherub in the garden in any passage of Scripture. Furthermore, Israel’s understanding of Satan was far more limited than that found in the New Testament. Even in Job [ed., which the lesson brings up in Wednesday’s lesson], Satan is not a personal name but a function (see comment on Job 1:6). “Satan” does not become identified as the personal name of the chief of demons until about the second century B.C., and he does not take up his position as the source and cause of all evil until the unfolding of Christian doctrine. Consequently, the Israelites could not have understood this passage in this way, and no New Testament passage offers a basis for departing from the Israelite understanding of it. In the context, it is a metaphorical description of the high stewardship entrusted to the prince of Tyre (as significant as the cherub’s role in the garden). Rather than treating this sacred trust with reverence and awe, he exploited it to his own benefit – as if the cherub of the garden had opened a roadside fruit stand. He was therefore discharged from his position, relieved of his trust and publicly humiliated.¹

In regards to Job 1:6, the same IVP BBC OT reads

Satan. It is important to note that the term here, satan (literally, “the accuser”), is preceded in Hebrew by the definite article (“the”). Thus, in the context of Job it appears to describe a function rather than serving as a proper name…²

Finally the same IVP BBC OT in the commentary on Isaiah 14 notes that the rebellion described there bears resemblance to a number of Near East stories that probably existed when Isaiah was writing.³ Isaiah, in order to convey his message, may simply have been borrowing themes and words from already existing literature of his time.

Once we get to the New Testament, Jesus’ words and the authors make clear that there is indeed an evil being that is named Satan. It is only towards the very end of the New Testament, in Revelation 12:7-9 where a clear connection is made between Satan and a brief description of how he ended up in this world.

What all this tells me is that details and the origin of the being we know today as Satan is inconclusive, when only Scripture is used. In other words, we ought to be careful that we don’t base any of our teachings and doctrine that requires the myth (I use this term in the proper, literary sense, rather than the pejorative sense) of Lucifer and Satan to be 100% accurate, true, and precise.

Regardless of the origins of Satan and how evil came to be, even if Satan is primarily a designation and representation for sin and evil in the world, the world has a problem: sin. The early church fathers saw the Atonement as the solution to the sin problem. Irenaeus responds to the question: For what purpose did Christ come down from heaven? “That He might destroy sin, overcome death, and give life to man.”⁴

Sin is not just some legal issue. In fact the breaking of any law is the natural consequence of sin that already occurred. Sin is the state of a created being who is no longer in proper relationship to the Creator. Because the Creator is Life, sin is also death. To be redeemed is to experience the at-one-ment, to return to a proper relationship, to be delivered from the state of bondage to sin and death, and back into a state of fellowship and life under love and liberty.⁵

George R. Knight writes, “The Bible pictures SIN as a relational concept. SIN is a way we relate to God. SIN at its most basic level is not some impersonal evil or residual animal behavior or bad trait built into human character. Rather, it is rebellion against the God of the universe…”⁶

I have one other quibble with the study guide. It’s found in Thursday where it begins, “There are two words used by Ezekiel…” and then continues in the next paragraph, “The word translated ‘trade’ also could be rendered ‘slander,’ suggesting that in heaven Lucifer was involved in raising false accusations against God and probably other heavenly beings.”

Now, I don’t read Hebrew, but I can look at concordances and dictionaries. According to what I’ve found, although the words “trade” and “slander” mentioned above are related in the Hebrew language, one is not a direct replacement for the other. The argument given in Thursday’s lesson seems to me to be a bit of a  stretch.

I have two recommendations for additional comments and study on this week’s lesson:

• Spectrum’s Sabbath School discussion
• Walla Walla University’s Good Word discussion

______________________

¹The IVP Bible Background Commentary, Old Testament. InterVarsity Press, 2000. p. 715.

²ibid., p. 495.

³ibid., pp. 603-4.

⁴Quoted in Aulen, Gustaf. Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement, WIPF an STOCK Publishers, 2003 edition. p. 19.

⁵ibid., pp. 23-25.

⁶Knight, George R. I Used to be Perfect: A Study of Sin and Salvation, 2nd ed., Andrews University Press, 2001. p. 19.

The Atonement: God’s Nature

The following are some of my thoughts on this week’s Sabbath School Study, Lesson 1, God’s Nature: The Basis of Atonement.

“The subject of the Atonement is absolutely central in Christian theology; and it is directly related to that of the nature of God. Each and every interpretation of the Atonement is most closely connected with some conception of the essential meaning of Christianity, and reflects some conception of the Divine nature. Indeed, it is in some conception of the nature of God that every doctrine of the Atonement has its ultimate ground…”¹ [Emphasis mine.]

What this says to me is that how one interprets and views the Atonement is colored by his or her understanding of God’s nature. Not only that, but his or her understanding of God’s nature is itself colored by how he or she understands the Atonement.

Is the above statement true? I believe it is. If a person believes that law-based justice is the overriding nature of God, it is easy to see the Atonement as merely a legal transaction. If the Atonement is primarily about satisfying legal demands, it becomes much easier to see God’s nature in forensic and judicial terms.

On the other hand, if a person believes instead that God’s nature is primarily one of love based relationships, is becomes difficult to accept any kind of legal and substitutionary metaphor in the Atonement, but rather see it more as a demonstration of God’s love. If the Atonement is viewed primarily as demonstration of love, it becomes much easier to interpret everything about God through that lens.

What is being described is a case of cyclical dependency. If we are not careful, the more we study the Atonement, the more narrow and rigid our mindset can become both in regards to the Atonement and of God’s nature. When we become rigid, we tend to become intolerant. When we become intolerant, we become unloving. When we become unloving, we defeat the whole purpose of the Atonement.

The two perspectives I mentioned a few paragraphs ago are termed, respectively, as the objective and subjective views on the Atonement. The former is attributed to Anselm (1033-1109). The latter is attributed to Abelard (1079-1142). As you might guess, the one held to by most Christians today is the objective view.^{2, 3}

Aulen argues that neither is the view held to by the early Christians. (From the dates of Anselm and Abelard, it looks like possibly up to the first 1,000 years of Christianity.) He puts forth the idea of a classical view on the Atonement, which he calls the dramatic view of the Christus Victor.⁴ From the broad descriptions I’ve read, he seems to have some strong points in favor of this view. I might even suggest that as Seventh-day Adventists, our Great Controversy metanarrative might fit the Christus Victor perspective better than the more common perspectives. I’ve only begun to read his historical survey, so I cannot comment much more than this.

I think the key for the set of studies this final quarter of 2008 is to try to open up our perspectives to examine other points of view and to engage ideas with which we don’t agree in a respectful, courteous, and loving way. As finite beings, we need to realize that when we attempt to make sense out of and understand God, we are going to encounter paradoxes (what Aulen terms dualisms⁵). We must learn to live with both/and perspectives rather than either/or.

I believe God speaks to each person in ways that they best understand. For some, one perspective on the Atonement may work better than another, while for a different set of people, the one that works for the other may not work at all. We must be willing to at least try to see things from other perspectives, and to disagree agreeably. God does not change, but our perspectives and experience do change. I believe God accommodates our changes and reveals Himself in ways that are best at each stage of our journey.

Finally, as we study the Atonement this quarter, I believe whatever it means must translate into practical significance. If it doesn’t, then perhaps it isn’t as important as we’ve been led to believe; or, we missed something really key; or, the meaning of the Atonement we have isn’t quite right.

For further studies and commentary on this week’s lesson, I highly recommend the audio and study guide at Good Word.

_______________

¹Aulen, Gustaf. Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement, WIPF an STOCK Publishers, 2003 edition. p. 13.

²ibid., pp. 1-3.

³Knight, George R. The Cross of Christ: God’s Work for Us, Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2008. pp. 21-22.

⁴Aulen. pp. 4-7.

⁵Aulen, pp. 4, 11.

Missionaries: The Call

These are comments on Sabbath School Lesson 13, “Here Am I; Send Me:” The Prophet Isaiah.

For me, this final lesson raises more questions than it answers. The lesson primarily discusses “the call” Isaiah received (recorded in Isaiah 6:1-10). Here are some of questions that rise up in my mind:

• Are calls supposed to be dramatic like this?
• How does one know for sure that the call is from God, rather than say, wishful thinking, self-delusions, or foolishness?
• Are calls only given to few individuals?
• When one thinks/believes he/she has been called, should they make no effort to test, verify and validate before responding? (Back to the question, “How do you know it’s really God calling?”)
• How should one respond to someone who says they’ve “received a call?”
• Related to the previous question: What of people who use “the call” as an excuse to do shoddy work and then move on before the consequences catch up with them?
• Why does the Seventh-day Adventist denomination use “the call” almost exclusively to paid, denominational employment? A related question is, why are plain old job offers (because that’s what they are) termed “the call” anyway?

Here’s my taken on all this. You may or may not agree. But here it is…

Everyone who has chosen to follow Christ has received a call: it is to reflect Jesus’ methods and attitudes of self-sacrificing love to the world. No more and no less. In the great majority of cases (80%, 90%, 95%, 99%, 99.999%?) how one chooses to live out this call is not specifically selected by God.

I believe that the will of God for each person is quite broad. One can choose many different paths and still be heading in the right direction. I think that when Jesus’ saying about the narrow gate and path (Matthew 7:13-14; c.f., Luke 13:24) are interpreted to mean that God’s will is narrow and specific, I think that interpretation misses the context. The context (as I read around these texts) is that because self-sacrificing love is so contrary to sinful nature, many will find it difficult to find the gate and pathway into the way of self-sacrificing love (Christ) which is eternal life.

We should keep in mind that what is recorded in history, including the Bible, are typically the extraordinary cases, the one-in-a-million case. Of the millions of Hebrews and Jews through multiple millenia, only a handful are recorded as prophets.

For me the message this week is to live a life the reflects God’s love to the world. As long as I’m doing that, I’m following God’s call and will for my life. I shouldn’t worry that I have or haven’t received some dramatic “call” for a specific work in a specific place to a specific people. I am a missionary right where I am.

Next week begins a new set of lessons on the Atonement of Christ. I just received a book that I’m looking forward to reading and using as a resource for the next three months: Christus Victor: An Historical Study of The Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement by Gustaf Aulen.

Missionaries: The Gift

These are comments on this week’s Sabbath School lesson 12, Gifted for Service: Philip.

Going through this lesson, one of the thoughts that came to my mind is how differently the initial believers viewed the relative importance of administration vs. field work. Today quite a few ministers think it is a promotion and a step up to leave the pastorate and become administrators. That is not how things were viewed in Acts 6. Though the text uses the word “deacon,” I think it was in the Good Word discussion that one of the individuals there noted that the deacons were more akin to what we would call today, administrators.

For the first generation of believers, field work, the evangelist and the pastor were doing the most critical work. Administration was something that became a necessity, but it was not seen as a step up. Looking at the story of Philip, how he soon became a preacher, evangelist, and effectively a pastor at Caesarea, I could even imagine administration functioning as a training ground for field work. That got me thinking how we’ve got things quite upside down today, and is it even realistic to think of placing new ministers into administrative positions and as they become more experienced to place them in the field? What if the pay scales were turned upside down so that the president made the least money and the youth pastor was given the most? I haven’t really thought through this, but I think it’s worth thinking about.

Another idea that was triggered by the lesson was how the name “Philip” being a Greek name, could mean that Philip was a Hellenistic Jew, one who was already accustomed (to some extent) to other cultures. There is an interesting study note on the NET Bible for Acts 8:1:

“Given that the Jerusalem church is still active after this and that the Hellenists are the focus of Acts 6-8, it is possible to argue that only the Hellenistic Christians were forced to scatter.”

For me these provide some insight into how and why Philip was able and eager to share the gospel to non-Jews. He may have harbored less prejudice than the non-Hellenistic Jews. He may already have had multicultural perspectives. He obviously had a heart for those outside Judaism and understood, even before the Apostles, that the gospel was for all people.

The main theme of this week’s lesson is the Holy Spirit and the gifts given through Him for service. One of the most helpful books I’ve read on the subject of spiritual gifts is Henry and Mel Blackaby’s What’s So Spiritual About Your Gifts? The thesis is that whereas many Christians focus on specific spiritual gifts, the real gift is the Holy Spirit Himself. The manifestations of specific gifts depend upon what is needed at a specific place and time. The authors also clearly differentiate between natural abilities and talents vs. spiritual gifts. The former is always available whereas the latter is something specifically given by the Holy Spirit to meet a specific need. They also suggest that in many cases, God may lead believers into areas where none of their strengths are of use, just so that they may learn to depend upon Him so that any success can only be due to His strength working through human weakness.

The lesson references a couple of the standard “spiritual gifts” passages in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12. Romans 12:6 is quite interesting in that “gifts” in Greek is “charisma” and “grace” is “charis.” One could say that spiritual gifts are directly related to grace that is given by God. When I read 1 Corinthians 12 (specifically vv. 4, 7, and 11) and put it together with Jesus’ words in John 14 and 16, it is quite clear to me that the Blackabys are onto something when they write that “the Holy Spirit is the gift.”

Philip appears to be an example of what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:8, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (ESV) Philip didn’t know from one moment to another what was going to happen, but the important thing is that he was open to the Spirit’s leading, wherever it lead.

As missionaries for God, we should be open to the Spirit’s leading. We should be confident that when the Spirit leads, He will also equip. Too often, I know that I’ve been afraid of taking risks and going into the unknown because the destination didn’t seem to fit in with my strengths and skill-set. We often want the equipping before the going. We might even use a pre-equipping as a “test” of God’s calling. But more often than not, if I am willing to go first, God is also able to strengthen and equip.

Missionaries: In God We Trust

These are comments on Sabbath School Lesson 11, Mission in a Pagan Land: Daniel and Company.

Once again, the lesson this week covers so much ground that I can take the discussion in any number of directions. I could discuss how some of the historical and cultural aspects relate to the stories. I could talk about one of the stories in great detail. I could discuss God's progressive revelation of himself to the pagan kings. However, it appears that the primary message of the narratives in the book Daniel is that of trust and dependence. "In whom or what does a person place his trust and dependence?" is the question asked of every person. It is this question that is at the heart of each narrative in the book. I've heard it said that "the stories of Daniel illustrate its prophecies." If true, that would mean that the relevant final judgment question comes down to, "In whom or what do you trust and depend?"

In the opening story (chapter 1), the prologue to the rest of the book, Daniel and company are faced with this question. Being in a pagan environment, being given pagan names, and being required to study pagan subjects, for them, does not compromise trust and dependence upon their God. But to accept food from the king's table crosses that line, regardless of whether or not the food was offered to idols, was unclean, etc. Accepting food from someone meant to acknowledge dependence upon the giver. One of the commentaries I referenced notes that "vegetables" does not necessarily imply vegetables, but rather that they were given provisions that they were able to prepare for themselves. In any case, the point of this is that Daniel and company were not going to partake of anything that would allow anyone to say that it was because of the king's blessings that they accomplished what they did.

The next story (chapter 2) is a story of conflict between the gods of the Babylonians vs. the God of Heaven, the Revealer of Mysteries. Nebuchadnezzar's faith in his gods is shaken as their spokespersons are discovered to be impotent. (Commentaries note that there may have been plots against him around this time, and thus his distrust and extreme reactions, both in this chapter and the next. The reason Nebuchadnezzar refused to relate his dream may have been a test of loyalty. Another theme that could be explored is the insecurity of Nebuchadnezzar contrasted with the security of the Hebrews'.) Daniel and friends pass this "test" not because of anything they have in themselves, but because they are completely dependent upon their God. Their whole purpose in this is not to save their own lives, but to be used by God to show what power really is, and to save the lives of the other wise men.

The next story (chapter 3) leaves Daniel aside and focuses on his three friends. Once again this is a test of loyalty. This time, to profess loyalty to the king is to renounce complete trust and dependence upon God. The three have no guarantees of deliverance. But their trust in their God is so strong that even if God chooses to not deliver, they will not let go of their trust in Him. They are delivered, I believe not because of their trust in God, but because of Nebuchadnezzar's challenge and doubt. When God's name -- his character, his glory - is challenged, it is best to leave defense of it up to Him. The three Hebrews let God do what was best to defend His honor. In doing so, they demonstrated the utter dependence and trust they had in Him.

Finally, the lesson skips to the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den (chapter 6). Once again, it is a story of a test of loyalty. This time, it is Daniel himself that must choose between expediency and continued dependence upon God. Like the three before him, Daniel chooses to continue to depend upon God. There is once again, no guarantee of deliverance. Once again, I believe it was Darius' fragile faith combined with some doubts that brings God to act to bring glory to His name. Daniel's trust was strong enough to take him to his death, but Darius' faith may not have survived it. Therefore God chooses to intervene so that Darius can have freedom to continue to learn the way of the true God.

In each of the above stories, Daniel and friends have no guarantees of the outcome of their decisions. From what I can tell, the outcomes are not a concern to them. For them, maintaining their trust in God, even when God seems to have failed, is the non-negotiable thing. Whatever "rewards" came about in the aftermath, as I've noted already, I think was primarily for the benefit of those observing. The general pagan mindset was that if a person is faithful to his or her God or gods, they are rewarded appropriately. I see these stories as showing how God works within the cultural and religious language of the times and people to try to move people to a better understanding of Him.

Finally, the first three stories imply the importance of having a community of like-minded believers. Would Daniel and friends have been able to stand so strongly in their trust in God if they didn't have one another? They were likely in their late teens, and certainly not out of their twenties when these stories took place. What if it was just Daniel and he was surrounded by other Hebrews who took the more expedient path? Of course we don't know what could have been. But the fact that Daniel takes care to mention the four of them together tells me that there is strength in numbers.

As missionaries for Jesus Christ, we must trust and depend completely upon God. However, that does not mean that we can stand alone. We need others around us who can encourage us and whom we can encourage in our journeys. Our journey to Christ, our salvation, is both an individual and a community pursuit. Our strongest witness may not be our words and preaching, but rather how we walk the journey of trust and dependence upon God. Ultimately, I think it was Daniel's life demonstrating trust that won Nebuchadnezzar over to the living God, the Most High God, the Revealer of Mysteries, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.

Missionaries: Pushing Boundaries

Comments on Sabbath School Study Guide, Lesson 10, Women of Mission.

When cultural norms and accepted social customs are hindrances and stumbling blocks in the way of people coming to Christ, what is a missionary to do? When should missionaries prioritize preserving peace and unity over pressing for what is right? When does pressing for what is right become evil rather than good?

This week's lesson begins right off the bat with the topic of Jesus "Breaking the Rules" (Sunday) of traditions, culture, and religion. Some of my observations upon looking at the examples given are that:

• Jesus pushed boundaries, but never so far as to destroy his mission. In other words, Jesus understood the limits of what the culture was able to tolerate. For example, although Jesus allowed and encouraged women to participate as disciples, he did not (as far as is recorded) formally appoint or anoint them as such.
• Jesus demonstrated and taught, within his own spheres of responsibility and authority, moves towards God's ideals, those things that were contrary to accepted norms; but he usually did not impose his ways outside of his spheres, onto those who were opposed to his ways. For example, Jesus taught the higher principles of marriage (divorce is contrary to God's plan) and life (even hating is a form of murder), he demonstrated that laws regarding ritual impurity can be set aside (touching the dead and unclean individuals), but he did not campaign to have laws changed.
• Jesus acted and taught to bring glory to God's love. His deeds and words always sought to bring those who witnessed them liberation from man-made prisons of thought, so that they could see more clearly God's true character. Perhaps the one place where Jesus seemed to impose his way was in the cleansing of the temple. The way I see this incident is that what was happening at the temple was clearly misrepresenting God. Additionally, perhaps the temple was the one place on earth (at the time) where Jesus did have full authority.

The point of bringing up the above is because the church, for much of its history and even today, views women as inferior to men when it comes to their ability to serve as God's missionaries. I sense that too many take the Bible as the standard for religio-cultural practice rather than case-studies of religio-cultural progress. Too often churches take, say, the letters of Paul and make universal application of the practices, failing to understand, deliberately or by omission, that each letter was written to address specific problems in a local church, each with its own cultural, societal, and historical context.

After reflecting on this week's lesson, the conclusion I've come to is that churches function best in a local context. The church's mission is to show increasingly more clearly God's love. One of the ways is to do this is to bring relief and liberty to those who are oppressed and marginalized. Thus I believe churches have a responsibility to push the boundaries of accepted norms. This is best done within a local context. A worldwide church simply cannot dictate all things to all cultures, all the time. A worldwide church that seeks to minimize conflict and maximize uniformity will nearly always stay inside the lowest common denominators. I don't believe this is what Jesus intended for his church.

If the global church won't or can't push boundaries, then individual churches, wherever they are, should follow the example of Jesus. But in doing so, don't destroy and misrepresent God's purpose; don't impose your context onto others, but rather work within your context; and always seek to magnify God's glory and his love by removing obstacles that people have in seeing the true God.

Missionaries: Continue Learning and Growing

This is commentary on Sabbath School Lesson 9, A Pillar of Mission: The Apostle Peter.

Perhaps one of the biggest dangers for Christians (who are all missionaries) is that we stop learning and we stop growing spiritually. The temptation is great to rest on knowledge already acquired, on understandings and interpretations that have served us so well, on methods and programs that have been successful, and on past successes themselves. The temptation is great to settle into a comfort zone after spending so many years "working for the Lord."

This week's study on the apostle Peter appears to illustrate how God works to keep His people moving forward. I've heard it said that to remain in one place is really to go backwards; or in biology, to stop growing is to start dying. When Jesus commissioned his disciples (whether in Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:15, or Acts 1:8), he said, "Go."

The study for the week begins with one of the more controversial passages in the gospels, Matthew 16:18 which reads,

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (ESV)

The traditional Adventist interpretation is that the "this rock" does not refer to Peter but to Christ. And certainly there is some biblical support for it. But after going through a number of Bible commentaries and listening to a couple other Sabbath School lesson discussions for this week, to me the natural reading seems to be the best interpretation; that is, "this rock" does refer primarily to Peter, and perhaps more precisely, to Peter's confession, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16 ESV).

Adventists have preferred the former interpretation probably because we don't subscribe to the concept of apostolic succession, and the above passage has been abused (in our view) to support the idea. On the other hand, could we be abusing this same passage from the other side by continuing to encourage rejection of the natural reading? More than one commentary notes that the Greek wordplay between "Peter" and "rock" often used to support our position would not have been in Aramaic, what Jesus' would have spoken. Perhaps we still have things to learn and unlearn...

When Jesus said, "And on this rock I will build my church," was He appointing Peter as the foremost apostle or was He simply stating what would happen in the early church? My view is that it was the latter. Jesus foresaw how future events would unfold and stated what would happen. Peter, probably because of his personality, became the de facto leader of the sprouting movement. Later on it appears that James (brother of Jesus) would end up leading in Jerusalem while Paul became a leader to the Gentiles.

Even though the church was growing among the Jewish people, that was only a small part of Jesus' intended mission. Peter is again called upon to expand God's work -- this time among the Gentiles. This required a shattering of some of the bedrock and foundations upon which Peter's entire worldview and identity were built. The requirements of ritual purity, the chosen-ness and the setting apart of Israel from all other nations were directly from God. They were commandments and covenants directly from God. How could someone violate them?

Yet God was the One who came to Peter and gave him a new command. How could God seemingly rescind earlier commands of His? The way I see it, and I think how Peter saw it, was that the commands are not the foundations themselves. Commands are tools that point to the foundation. Commands are God's concessions to limited human thought to (re)direct our vision towards Him. The foundation is God Himself, His love, and His desire to redeem and restore all people to Himself.

After going through some change, human tendency is to think enough has been done -- that it is okay to rest and take a break -- let someone else carry on the torch of change. Perhaps that is what happened with Peter when Paul came around as recorded in Galatians. As change studies have noted, change does not stick once pressure for change is relaxed. Things probably won't revert all the way back to how they were, but the pendulum will swing away from the edge of change.

The mission given by Jesus to Christians is that of change. We proclaim that the kingdom of God is both at hand and is here. We proclaim a power of change for human nature. We can proclaim all we want, but if we don't exhibit change in our own lives and in our own spheres within this world, the kingdom and power we proclaim is of little effect. We must continue to learn and grow. We must always be critical (in the good sense of the word) of what we know, challenging our beliefs, to see if they still reflect and lead to the foundation that is found in God and His love for the world. We must always be on the lookout for improved ways of knowing and doing that better represent God and His power in this world.

Missionaries: Danger and Value of Intuition

The following are some comments on Lesson 8, From Folly to Faith: The Apostle Peter.

Peter being one of the most prominent characters of the gospels, there are many places that this discussion could be taken. I'd like to focus on the role of intuition in God's followers.

Intuitive reasoning, I think, is frequently thought of as having less value than concrete reasoning - reasoning based upon what can be seen, observed, measured, and recorded. Decisions made based on intuition, I think, are often considered suspect. If it turns out okay, the result is often attributed to blind luck. According to the Myers-Briggs type indicators, perhaps a quarter of the U.S. population tends to the intuitive style of gathering information (http://www.infj.org/archive/typestats.html). Would God have created people this way if it didn't have value?

Peter, to me, looks like a person who made his decisions primarily based on intuition. Whether it was the decision to make a full-time commitment to follow Jesus, the request to walk on water, identifying Jesus as the Son of God, the action of fighting back with a sword -- if the decisions were made in light of what could be observed, measured, and evaluated, they wouldn't have made sense. But to Peter, there was something bigger than what could be immediately observed. He didn't fully realize the bigness of Jesus, but in the light of Jesus' bigness, Peter's decisions and actions made sense.

The problem is that Peter's intuition was skewed by his own misunderstandings about the Messiah and his own desires about what the kingdom of heaven might mean to him. Peter might have based some of his initial decision to follow Jesus on the material rewards he thought would be at the end. Peter intuited that if Jesus could walk on water, Jesus could allow him to do so, too. Immediately after declaring Jesus to be the Son of God, Peter tries to dissuade Jesus from a negative-sounding path. Jesus' future didn't fit in with Peter's intuitive sense. Finally, in Gethsemane, Peter intuited that a climactic battle was about to occur. The problem again is that his assumptions skewed his intuition and he thought that the battle was physical when it turned out to be spiritual in nature.

On the other hand, in Acts, we see the same intuitive Peter, but now his intuition is spot on. He intuits an opening for the gospel message, so he preaches. He intuits faith in the crippled beggar and so calls him to healing. Peter intuits something amiss with Ananias and Sapphira and exposes their deceit.

The difference between the two Peters, before and after Jesus' death and resurrection, I think is one of focus. Formerly Peter was most concerned about what he could get out of Jesus. Afterwards, Peter's concern and focus was how to be a conduit for God's message of hope and salvation. Peter's story seems to provide some evidence that one of the ways the Holy Spirit communicates to us is through intuition. Could it be that when a person's focus is on self, the Holy Spirit cannot use intuition (or that messages are garbled and corrupted)? But when the focus is on God, intuition becomes a powerful means through which God is able to communicate things that cannot be directly seen or observed?

As missionaries, as agents bearing hope from and of the unseen world, perhaps we should be more open to intuition in how we interpret what we see, observe, make decisions, and engage the world and its people around us.

For more on this topic, the Summer 2008 issue of Leadership contains an article by Gordon MacDonald, "I Have This Feeling..."

Missionaries: Power of Self-Sacrificing Love

The following are some comments related to this week's Sabbath School lesson, Lesson 7: The Apostle John.

Early on in this week's study, the Study Guide brings up the point that John and his brother James were nicknamed Sons of Thunder for some very good reasons. It appears that prior to Jesus' crucifixion, they were some of the most prominent of the Twelve in seeking power for themselves, and were most desirous in seeking to employ power (force) to get their way or to punish those who didn't see things their way.

What is interesting is that John's pre-conversion characteristics are noted by the other gospel writers. John himself makes very little mention of himself (and only very cryptically when he does) in his own gospel account. Is it because he wanted to hide his past, or was it because the love of Jesus was so much greater? I think it is the latter. I think that for John, his story was inconsequential when compared to Jesus' story.

When I look at the gospel account of John, the epistles, and (yes, even) Revelation, it is the self-sacrificing love of God that is at the center of all of them. The heart of the gospel account seems to be the Last Supper to the Crucifixion. Both are demonstrations of God's self-sacrificing love. In between the two events contain John's theology of God's love which explain the two events. The heart of the epistles appears to be (because God is love and He first loved us) the call for Christ's followers to reproduce God's self-sacrificing love in their own lives. The book of Revelation might be seen as the story of the victory of self-sacrificing love -- to choose the way of love is to choose life. According to John, the opposite of love is not hate, but force and coercion.

As I wrote in the previous blog post I spent a week at camp with kids ranging in age from 8 to 15. (There were no 16-year olds.) It was fascinating to observe some of them, particularly the boys (though there were some girls, also), trying to establish a pecking order. There is something about human nature that demands acquiring as much power as we are able. Are all the systems of the world basically a variant of this desire and process? Jesus' disciples certainly weren't immune to this.

The desire of the campers to wield power over one another, and even over counselors and staff, inevitably lead to trouble. In order to manage a large group and to keep discipline, the usual consequences were push-ups, extra chores, loss of privileges, or repeating what was required.

I spent the week trying to communicate to them, mostly with words, God's love and care. I don't know if it got through or not. I suspect the disciples at the beginning of the Last Supper were like many of the campers -- still only concerned about themselves and their place in the world.

It took demonstrations of self-sacrificing love for Jesus' words to sprout meaning to the disciples. I suspect the same is true of all of us. I think that as John stood at the foot of the cross, he finally began to understand what God's kind of power is about. The power of love is far stronger than power based on force because the power of love comes from free choice. Threats, fear, and force all lose their power when their opposite is freely chosen. John, as the sole witness to all the events surrounding the trial and crucifixion, must have seen this demonstrated.

The camp staff can force, to some extent, campers to obey. But force cannot change attitudes and hearts. It can even turn some campers more rebellious. Words may feed the intellect, but the principles may often remain dormant. What is needed is a demonstration. The challenge is to find ways to demonstrate self-sacrificing love. Jesus took 3-1/2 years with his disciples. Our camp was just a week long. I just hope that some of the campers saw or experienced something that made the way of love a bit more attractive than the way of force.

I think this is why the Apostle John, in all of his writings, emphasizes love. "God is love," he writes (1 John 4:8). "God is light and there is no darkness in him at all," he also writes (1 John 1:5). God's way is love -- to offer each person the freedom to choose between the way of love and the way of force. God will not and cannot threaten, force, or use fear to tilt the choice towards him. As disciples and as missionaries, Christians should only employ self-sacrificing love to demonstrate God's love to the world.

Love, seemingly without any power, when freely chosen becomes the most powerful force in the universe.

Out of town at camp for a week

This is a note to let anyone visiting the blog over the next nine days that I will be out of town at campmeeting this weekend followed by a week of assisting at junior camp.

That means there won't be any sermons from tomorrow or next Sabbath. Nor will there be a Sabbath School lesson commentary.

We're expecting 35 or so Petersburg children to attend camp next week. It is, by far, the largest attendance from PSG probably in all of camp history. The weather forecast is still looking pretty good for next week. Pray that it holds! :)

Cell phone coverage at camp is minimal at best. From last year I recall the BlackBerry being able to receive voice and data if I was standing at just the right place facing just the right angle.

Anyway, hope everyone has a good week, and I hope that I survive the week!