I’m reading through Genesis currently as part of a 90 day reading plan (yes, so of course, I’m just beginning) I’ll post a few brief reactions to the readings on this blog. Here are some unfiltered reactions to the first 17 chapters:
— the prose is poetic in places, and stunning in its scope and vision of God’s world. Reading it brings much anticipation that something great is about to happen.
— also striking how some folks show up without explanation. Melchizadek! I get that he is a type of Jesus according to the Hebrews writer, but I wonder what the Israelites made of him in their temple sermons.
— some wonderful humor too: Sarah lied and said he didn’t laugh, but God said, “you did too laugh.” beautifully understated
— Some moments of puzzlement: God declares that people will not live beyond 120 years, then they promptly continue to live 200+ years.
— God’s patience in accomplishing his will and/or promises is striking. Dozens of years can go by between God’s call and providence.
— Abraham taking matters into his own hands: God promises a son. No son. So he tries to make his servant a son. No deal, says God. So he tries a surrogate Mum. No deal, says God. It turns out God meant exactly what he promised, just not on Abraham’s timing.
— Tough lesson for us humans including this very human human.
Peter Hitchens, “Atheism led me to faith.”
Peter Hitchens is the brother of famous atheist Christopher Hitchens.
I’ve posted an interview with him below, but if you’d rather not sit through that wonderful 8 minutes, then perhaps this quote will make you sit up: “Its important for people to hear from me that Atheism led me to faith. Because so many people view atheism as the final station on the railroad. That you arrived there, that you’ve been through everything else, that the argument is finished and you’ve permanently rejected something. You can see from where I sit that far from being the end of the argument, it is the beginning of the argument.”
“If you read your own question into the text, and try to get an answer from it, when the text itself is talking about something else, you run the risk of not only hearing only the echo of your own voice rather than the Word of God but also of missing the key point that the text was actually eager to tell you, and which you have brushed aside in your relentless quest for your own meaning.”
— N.T. Wright from the book Justification
Hmmm. So I thought Fred Buechner was the king of extended sentences, but Tom Wright wins the prize with this sentence above. Still, sentence structure aside, I love what Dr Wright is saying here and I think this problem is rife in the modern church. A fundamental step in discipleship is learning what the text is saying on its own terms and trying to shed the terms we place on it. Easy to say, hard to do, but a very worthwhile pursuit.
BTW, for what its worth, I highly recommend Justification for my Neo Reformed friends who love John Piper’s work. This offers a balanced, needed and I believe corrective response.
A Season Of Doubt
At Discovery for the next few weeks, we’re talking about Doubt. Last Sunday we kicked off the series and you can grab the podcast by going to the itunes store and typing “Steve Cuss” in the search box or by visiting the file on our website here.
On Sunday we invited folks to write any areas of doubt they’d like addressed and we’ll speak to them on this blog in the next few weeks. I’m going to send these questions by email to friends of mine locally and around the world who are theologians and/or philosophers to see if they’d like to give any feedback on the questions. Hopefully, then, we’ll receive a broad view response from these issues. Also, feel free to add your own questions or comments below.
Here is what came in from Sunday. You’ll see that some are quite personal and others more philosophical. such is the nature of doubt:
1) Why do I choose to follow a God that allows my world to crumble around me?
2) Why are there no contemporary historical accounts of Jesus performing miracles? (ie no accounts outside of scripture while Jesus was alive?)
3) Explain Jesus, God and Spirit as one and three.
4) Sins: it seems that the Bible teaches that God removes our sins “as far as the east is from the west” but then also teaches that we must give an account for our life when we die.
5) The Bible seems to teach that God loves us so much as to die for us, but is also often angry at his people.
6) If men chose which books would be included in the Bible, how do I trust that they were God’s chosen books and that the unchosen books aren’t the word of God?
7) How do we know God’s intent when it is frequently sifted through human intervention? (ie the Bible and today the church.)
8) My doubts are not so much about God than about the Church in general. Churches present God and act on God’s behalf. The evidence seems shaky here.
9) I doubt that God loves me. I believe his love is huge and he died for everyone, but had I been the only one, would he have died for me?
10) I have doubts about Hell as a literal place. Is Scripture black and white on this issue?
Thanks everyone for sharing your questions. Check back as we tackle them one at a time.
