What Is God Doing About The World's Evil?

Chatting with some friends yesterday about my faith, it seems that the old “Problem of Evil” is still the biggest issue people have against God. Why is there evil in the world if God has the power to stop it? Several times in the Bible, men asked this same question in one sense or another. And often when they asked “Why is this evil happening to us? Why isn't God doing anything about it?” God responded with something like, “Ok, here I am and here's what I'm about to do... I'm going to destroy those evil doers!” And so we have wars, or these massive invasions like when Babylon conquered Israel, and like when so many hundreds of years earlier, Israel conquered Canaan. And of course, we all know of the end-of-the-world apocalyptic scenario where God finally comes to destroy all evil once and for all. But this is not the answer to evil that we want because 1) evil runs rampant for a long time until such judgement occurs, and 2) the judgement would most likely destroy us too! And so we continue to complain about God and question God. Surely the all-wise and all-powerful God can come up with a better solution!? Well, maybe He has...

But we need some back-story. We'll start in Egypt, and please bear with me. The Egyptians did not worship Yahweh, and they kept the Israelites as slaves. For this sin, God waited some 400 years (during which time I'm sure the Israelites cried out “Why does God allow this?”) and then He judged Egypt with the famous 10 plagues. And God said “on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments” (Exodus 12:12). These plagues were specifically targeted at the gods which the Egyptians worshipped, demonstrating that Yahweh was superior to those gods. For example, He covered Egypt in darkness, showing Himself to have power over the sun, and showing Himself to have power over “Ra” their god of the sun, (and while they were surely praying to Ra during that time.)

Next, God showed that He was God of all in every land on Earth as He led Israel to the land of Canaan in order to judge Canaan for their sins also (Genesis 15:16, Deuteronomy 9:4). But He commanded them...

You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place.  (Deuteronomy 12:2-3)

And to Israel He had said...

You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3)

So God was dealing with evil with that first “method” we spoke of in my initial paragraph, where He would destroy the evil-doers. But we should realize that He was really trying to deal with evil by striking at the root cause of it... the false gods that people worship. Deuteronomy 12 tells us explicitly what was wrong with those false gods...

You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. (Deuteronomy 12:31)

Eliminating evil is the name of the game, and God, dealing with the root cause of evil, wants to turn us away from the false gods we worship, and in this case He is doing it by force. But He instructed Israel otherwise...

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  (Deuteronomy 6:5)

The Bible teaches that we tend to become like what we worship. God's “second method”, (His and our preferred method) of eradicating evil is to have us become like Him, who is without sin. Rather than destroying sinners, God would rather that we would become like Him and live a sinless life.

Gandhi is quoted as saying “Be the change you want to see in the world.” This is a good mindset. If you say “Wouldn't it be great if we lived in a world where nobody hated anyone else, and nobody cheated anyone else...”, then you yourself shouldn't hate or cheat. It may not be that you will change anyone else's behaviour, but if you do good, then that's one less hater and cheater in the world, and the world has ever so slightly moved toward that ideal. This is probably what Gandhi meant. But just about anyone who has been inspired by Gandhi's words to live a more moral life will quickly come to the conclusion of “Easier said than done, Mr Gandhi!” Even if we understand that the key to overcoming our own sin is to worship the right God, we find that we cannot do that either. But this is what God has begun to do in eliminating evil from the world... He has sent His Holy Spirit into the lives of those who desire to worship Him, and this gives us the power to actually overcome the sin and temptation in our lives.

Paul wrote...
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.  (Romans 6:16-18)

This sums up what we have been talking about. We become like the god we serve. If we serve God, who is sinless, we become like Him. But it was necessary that God change our hearts (that is, who we really are on the inside) so that we could, in fact, become “obedient from the heart.” This is what God spoke of in the Old Testament where He said...

...from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezekiel 36:25-27)

Peter writes about the fulfilment of this, telling us that we have all it takes to "become partakers of the divine nature"...

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Peter 1:3-4)

So in conclusion... there is evil in the world and all people expect God to do something about it. But what it is that God should do about it no one seems to be quite sure. Take 9/11, for example. Should God have diverted the aeroplanes moments before they crashed? But why do that... why not prevent those pilots from becoming pilots in the first place? But why do that... wasn't Osama Bin Laden's ideology the root cause? Why not prevent Osama from developing his ideology? But why start there? Why not prevent the Muslim religion from taking off, which formed the basis of his ideology? And of course, this is an interesting point to get to because, after all, we can look at what God did do. He demonstrated to mankind His supremacy over all other gods when He sent plagues over Egypt, and He commanded us “You shall have no other gods before me.”

And it's not as though He remained silent after that... Israel continued to proclaim this command to the world, and then Christ came and re-established this commandment with great signs to prove His authority. And now Christians everywhere proclaim this same commandment to all people. And not only that, but God has given us the Holy Spirit, if we desire Him, who will give us actual power to overcome the sinfulness in our own hearts, wherein we can theoretically eliminate the evil from our own lives and actually be part of that new, sin-free world we all desire. In my view God is very pro-active in eliminating evil, and in the non-destructive sense where sinners are saved from destruction. But we know from the Bible that that day will come, and final judgement will come upon all mankind, and in which all evil will be purged from the Earth.

But all in all you cannot say that God is not doing anything about the evil in the world, you can only say that He is not doing what you would do if you were God. And unfortunately, people thinking they're smarter or wiser than God actually only tends towards more evil. Instead, listen to God's Word to us all...

Seek the LORD while he may be found;
    call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
    and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
(Isaiah 55:6-8)

Derren Brown Has a Point, But...

Derren Brown is a renown hypnotist/illusionist and atheist skeptic. I’m only reasonably familiar with his work, but it’s clear that the former description of him is a very big part of why the latter description also applies to him. Quite often in his television programs he is trying to demonstrate the power of suggestion, and then to show that much of religious experience can be explained by this same phenomenon. And though I’m a Christian, you may be surprised to find that I actually appreciate his work and what he’s saying. He made a documentary called “Miracles for Sale” in which he set out to show that many so-called “faith healings” are really just blatant illusions, or due to the power of suggestion. And I think that’s absolutely true. On the program he spoke to a man named Mark Haville. Mark is a former “faith healer” having seen first hand the psychological manipulation in the ministry, but nevertheless remains a steadfast Christian. Though there are a lot of false experiences of God, it doesn’t mean that there is no God or true experiences of Him. And when we refer to “false experiences”, we can speak of those in which people have deliberately fooled us, or also of those times when we can fool ourselves.

In Derren Brown’s latest program, “Fear and Faith”, Derren “induces” a staunch atheist, Natalie, to have a religious experience using the power of suggestion. And once again, this is not something that Christians are oblivious to. In my own Church the theme often comes up in sermons; that we need to be very careful to discern the difference between a true experience of God and a false one. Our pastor, for example, is very much against the practice in many Churches known as “altar calls”. This is where the speaker will, at the end of a sermon, ask people who want to be saved to come forward to the altar to commit their lives to Christ. But these altar calls always follow a very emotion packed message, and there is a very real danger that these commitments are really just based on the mood created in the meeting, and actually have no “divine basis”.

So how do we tell the difference between, say, our emotions and a true experience of God? Of course, a true experience of God will engage our emotions, so what is it that people like my pastor are looking for in order to say “That’s just an emotional experience” versus “You’re truly born again!” Well, I think that in one sense, the pastor’s concern is valid, and we would generally say that you shouldn’t count yourself saved until you’ve seen a lifestyle change in the direction of true repentance of sin as a result of your commitment to Christ. But to say that God was not in the altar call experience of one who doesn’t truly commit is, I think, a mistake, and I want to look at the case of Natalie in Derren Brown’s program to illustrate my point...

In the program, Derren very deliberately used psychological techniques to elicit an emotional response from Natalie. Sat in a Church, he spoke to her about her father in order to evoke in her the emotion of fatherly love like we find between God and Man; and then he spoke to her about things in life having “purpose”, which naturally implies the guiding hand of the Divine since nature or life itself has no mind with which to purpose anything. After the skillful illusionist had set up these emotions, he left Natalie on her own. Once alone, she began to weep, and later described her experience as something like feeling the love of her family and friends magnified a thousand times. At this, Derren clearly feels as though he’s succeeded in creating a false religious experience; and of course we all saw how it was conjured up. Nevertheless, I’d like to suggest otherwise.

God created Mankind with a range of emotions. We all feel love for others, and the need to feel loved. And I think that these emotions can be how God reveals Himself to us all. I don’t think it really matters what pretense Derren Brown had for stimulating these emotions, I think that right there and then, as Natalie was pondering the majesty of God and the magnitude of God’s love, God was reaching out to Natalie. It doesn’t make sense for the skeptic to say “but it was just emotions” as though that explains away God. Neither do I think it’s right for my own pastor to imply that an altar call is worthless if it’s “just emotions”. I would agree with him in the sense that we don’t want to be misled into thinking we’re saved when we’re not, but God draws us to Himself little by little in life. I probably responded to at least five altar calls in my life before I was saved, and when I truly committed to Christ I was alone, sitting at a desk. But surely those altar call experiences were still times in my life when God had made an appeal to me. I certainly wouldn’t say that Natalie is now converted, but I would say that she may well have had a true religious experience. We don’t know what really went on in Natalie’s mind at that moment, the program doesn’t reveal much, but I did notice that as she stood there weeping in the Church, she said aloud the words “Sorry. I’m so sorry.” So it’s clear that “feeling love” is not the whole story of what Natalie was thinking at that moment; and if you ask me, the most clear sign of a genuine experience with God is to be thoroughly convicted of our sins, and something like “sorry” would be the first thing to come out of anyone’s mouth.

Derren Brown evoked an emotional response in Natalie by reminding her of the love of her father, for example. And the Bible can evoke these emotions in us also. This is why, after all, God is spoken of as “Father”. God knows how to communicate with His own Creation; we should expect Him to appeal to our emotions as well as our intellect. Just as we can look at the world around us and reason that it must have been Created, we can read a story like the Prodigal Son and understand emotionally, in our hearts, what God is like. But even Jesus spoke parables about those who would experience the revelation of God and even respond to it, and yet for one reason or another, later fall away (see Matthew 13). We may all have experiences like Natalie’s... the question is, what are we going to do with them? Are we going to say “Ah, it’s just my emotions playing tricks on me.” Or are we going to realize that when the God of the universe reaches out to you personally, it’s quite reasonable to be touched and moved by it!

   “You will indeed hear but never understand,
       and you will indeed see but never perceive.”
   For this people's heart has grown dull,
       and with their ears they can barely hear,
       and their eyes they have closed,
   lest they should see with their eyes
       and hear with their ears
   and understand with their heart
       and turn, and I would heal them.’
   But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.
(Matthew 13:14-16)

A 9 Year Old's Crisis of Faith

Recently I spoke to a friend of mine who told me that her nine year old niece no longer believes in God. Apparently this young girl, when asked why, launched into a long and emotional speech which left her in tears. She spoke quite emphatically, demanding to know “Why, if God is so powerful, are there people dying in hurricanes, and why are there kids with only a Mum and no Dad!?” And this is the point at which she began to cry. To me it seems that she’s been influenced by some atheist adult, possibly a teacher or family friend, who has put this “problem of evil” reasoning into her mind. But she’s meditated on what she’s been taught and understood it and applied it to her own situation... people dying in hurricanes is one thing, and she’s very disassociated from that; but her father left them, and for that she’s now found someone to blame other than her mother, whom she loves, or her father, whom she loves. Just like any adult who speaks about the “problem of evil”, she’s really just expressing how upset she is with the state of the world, and because God is ultimately to blame she is expressing hatred for God.

What I find interesting is that many in the Bible expressed their grief and hatred for the state of the world, including Jesus, and including God in Heaven! When Lazarus died, Jesus grieved and wept over that. And when Jesus saw the corruption of the priesthood and the faithlessness of Israel, He wept over that, and it made Him angry and upset. When God in Heaven saw the idolatry of Israel and the terrible sins they were doing, He pleaded with them as a concerned and loving Father saying “Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 18:31). When the Psalmists expressed their grief over the state of the world, they didn’t come to the conclusion that there is no God of Love, or of Justice. Rather, they said...

Return, O LORD! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
(Psalm 90:13-15)

In other words, “life sucks, but God can make our bitterness sweet.” And this is how any Christian views the world... nobody denies that the world is corrupt and evil, but we look to God for joy in the midst of this world. The question is, why has God “afflicted us”, as the Psalm above makes clear? Let’s put the above passage in context by citing the verses which precede it...

For all our days pass away under your wrath;
we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Who considers the power of your anger,
and your wrath according to the fear of you?
So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
(Psalm 90:9-12)

See here, “All our days pass away under your wrath.” The reason there is hardship and death at all is because of our sins. This is precisely the curse pronounced upon Mankind in Genesis 3 as a result of Man’s sin in the garden of Eden. But this is a hard truth to receive for a self-righteous people. The real argument behind the “problem of evil” is “Why does God allow all this suffering on mankind though we don’t deserve it.” There is a false assumption made here that we don’t deserve our suffering; but the men of the Bible didn’t make this assumption. And so, for example, in the midst of Jeremiah’s grieving over the suffering God has brought upon His people, Jeremiah said “Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins?” (Lamentations 3:39) This is the righteous prophet Jeremiah speaking, who also suffered much along with the rest of Israel. No one is innocent before God. The only reason, I think, that the “problem of evil” should make sense to us is when we are unaware of our own sinfulness and how serious our offenses are against God. But that, readers, describes just about everybody!

When Jesus was on the Earth He spoke of the “mission of the Holy Spirit” saying “And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). The Bible teaches that God opens people’s hearts and minds to receive the gospel and to put their faith in Christ. This only happens when we begin to understand, through the Holy Spirit's influence, our sinfulness before God. We begin to see that we’re deserving of death. And when we understand our sin and we come to Christ, can you imagine how our bitterness is turned to joy? We were “children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:3-7) God takes no pleasure in the death of anyone, but came to seek and to save the lost... to rescue us from the consequences of our sins; from this life and from death itself!

So this nine year old girl is upset with God because of the hardships in life she’s suffered. That’s understandable, but instead of hating God and denying God, acknowledging that her parents are sinners, and that she herself is a sinner would, I believe, better help her to cope with and understand what she’s going through. At the moment she wants to blame God because she doesn’t want to find fault in either of her parents, whom she loves. But if she could acknowledge her parents’ sin, she could begin to forgive them. And imagine if the hope of their whole family could be in God, to save them from their own sinfulness which led to the family breakdown in the first place! Christ isn’t about destroying families... being able to forgive will bring reconciliation! But you cannot begin to forgive if you deny that anyone is at fault. And so as the Psalmist wrote...

Who considers the power of your anger,
and your wrath according to the fear of you?
So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
(Psalm 90:11-12)

Was Turning The Other Cheek An Insult?

I've been watching the new television series "The New Normal", about a homosexual couple who hire a surrogate in order to have a baby. In the most recent episode, "The Godparent Trap", one of the main characters goes to speak with a Catholic Priest. During their conversation, the Priest says the following... "(Turning the other cheek) didn't mean 'Lay down and take it'. In those days, turning the other cheek was an act of defiance! It meant 'I will see your insult and raise you a 'Suck It!'" Now, this show has plenty to say about homosexuality and the Church, (the Priest also says earlier that homosexuality is not a sin), but I feel like I've already written so much on homosexuality in the past that I'd just be repeating myself. But I did want to comment on a few things from this episode, and we'll start with this interpretation of what it means to "turn the other cheek."

It's a cunning approach here because we have someone who is portrayed as an authority on the Bible, but also they're professing some deeper knowledge of the historical and cultural context of the Bible, and saying "Look, you just don't understand the cultural difference." And so we believe what he says because few of us have an education in the historical and cultural setting to know any better. However, if we look at the passage in question, we don't even need an education in history and culture. It is fairly clear from the Textual context alone that to "turn the other cheek" is by no means to return an insult...

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. (Matthew 5:38-4) 

Jesus is clearly saying that we are not to pay-back evil for evil, or insult for insult. He had also said earlier, "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth." We can also see that other passages of Scripture would oppose the "insult for insult" interpretation quite explicitly. Consider the Epistle of Peter...

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. (1 Peter 2:21-23)

Jesus taught by His example, and His example was not to pay-back evil for evil, or insult for insult.

The program dialog continues...
Priest: "(Jesus) saw hypocrisy and injustice, and he said 'Seriously, you guys are idiots! This has got to change!'"
Bryan: "So you're saying the Church can change?"
Priest: "Well, it would. I've seen gay people battle discrimination and march for marriage equality. They demanded the right to fight for their countries, but for their souls...? Nope! They just give up and walk away. Jesus was a fighter, son. How about you?"

Now, I said earlier that I wasn't going to get side tracked into talking about homosexuality and the Church, so don't misunderstand me... the point I'm about to make is more general than that, but homosexuality in the Church will be our "working example." Despite the Priest's comment, homosexuality is a sin according the Bible. In this last extract of dialog which I transcribed, the Priest is arguing that the Church needs to change, and the character Bryan asks "So the Church can change?" as if to ask "Is that even possible?" And of course, Martin Luther was one who saw change in the Church as necessary, and also showed it to be possible. But what kind of change was Luther seeking? He wanted the Church to move from un-Biblical practices back to Biblical practices. The Church cannot be whatever it wants to be; it is Christ's Church and He, as the Head of the Church, has spoken as to what is and isn't acceptable within the Church. The Priest argues, however, that the gay community should fight for acceptance in the Church, which he calls a "fight for their souls." This implies that if the gay community can get the Church to accept them, they will gain their souls, (or salvation). But this couldn't be further from the truth. Again, we're only using homosexuality as a working example, but the key point is this... your salvation does not depend on whether the Church accepts you or not, but on whether your faith is in Jesus Christ. Salvation is as attainable for a gay man or woman as it is for anyone else, but all must attain it through repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ. It's not whether the Church accepts you, but whether you follow Jesus and His Word despite the teaching of the Church which may be in error. This is what Martin Luther and the Reformers realized; that they would rather be rejected by the Church and follow Christ because the Church, despite having the name "Christian Church", was in fact opposed to Christ. And this is also what Jesus did in His days on the Earth, as the Priest himself pointed out in the episode we're considering. He did see hypocrisy and injustice and demand a change, rebuking the religious leaders at the time, saying...

Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering. (Luke 11:52)

The lawyers were those who, like the Priest in this episode, were supposed to be experts in the Law (that is, the Law of Moses... the Scriptures.) But they led people astray from the Scriptures by "teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." This Priest, (or in reality, the writer of the episode), didn't even teach correctly something as clear as what it means to "turn the other cheek!" If we want to be a fighter like Jesus, our fight must be for adherence to the Scriptures...

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jude 1:3-4)

Is Marital Fidelity A Sin Against Yourself?

I read the following statement in an article recently in relation to adultery: “Our age allows most things to happen before marriage but accepts nothing much thereafter.” Before we’re married we’re permitted to sleep around, and so the implication seemed to be that we should also be permitted after marriage because the urge to do so doesn’t change. Of course, as a Christian this kind of logic really gets me stirred up, because once upon a time society did not approve of sleeping around before marriage, but as society abandoned this Biblical principle, many Christians everywhere would have been saying “This is the start of moral decay, so that eventually adultery will even be acceptable.” And here we have an article explicitly trying to move us further down that path of moral decay. Whereas the article would suggest we should permit philandering after marriage because we accept it before marriage, I would argue the other direction to say that we should not permit it before marriage precisely because we don’t permit it after marriage.

The article seems to put forward the argument that because we all have the desire to be adulterous, it is actually just as wrong to deny ourselves that desire as it is to be unfaithful. We essentially need to hurt someone; either our family or ourselves, and so we can legitimately ask which is the lesser of two evils. But I think that even a straight forward “lesser of two evils” evaluation would find us against adultery, since the damage done to the whole family is greater than the damage done to ourselves. I have a very worldly friend who says, in all honesty of heart, “Cheating is ok as long as you don’t get caught.” So even by her standards the damage to the family is greater, but can be avoided by them never finding out. Thankfully this “utilitarian” kind of morality is not how Christian morality operates. We know that God has created us, and has designed us with a certain nature in mind, and to follow a certain order. When we operate contrary to that order, we typically call that sin. Our consciences, among other things, tell us the difference. We know that adultery is wrong because nobody can do it in good conscience. This is why they keep it a secret. If we have to say “Cheating is ok as long as you don’t get caught,” then this reveals that our conscience knows it to be wrong for, as the Bible says: “everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” (John 3:20)

The Bible uses marriage to illustrate man’s relationship to God. A marriage, as God intended it to be, illustrates a God who loves us so much He would even die for us, just as a husband might love his wife so much he would even lay down his own life for her. And it shows Man as devoted to God exclusively, like a faithful wife. If, in reality, men and women cannot help their adulterous desires, then how much more will Man fail to be faithful to God? As society accepts more and more such things as promiscuity before marriage, and as Man more and more turns away from God, then a greater frequency of adultery is precisely what we should expect. If you cannot be faithful to your spouse, you can hardly be faithful to God; but the opposite is true as well, I think, because if God does not exist then your “god” is yourself. You are the highest authority in your own life, and as “god” you can decide what is and isn’t permitted, and what is and isn’t best for you. As this article I read pointed out, adulterous desires are always going to be there - the question is whether you are going to hurt your family by indulging in them, or yourself by not indulging in them. But if you are “god”, the law-giver in your own life, then you’re fairly biased in this judgement. Statistics show that around 50% of married people have been unfaithful, and I’ve thought for a long time that the real reason behind this is selfishness, or self-centeredness. Unless we deny ourselves and put our families first, of course we’re far more likely to give into temptation when that temptation inevitably arises. But the fundamental principle of Christian morality, which will guard against all temptations toward committing adultery, is to put others first, especially our spouses and children.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. (Philippians 2:3)

A Biblical View of Fasting

I have never done a Bible study on the topic of fasting, and I have never heard a sermon preached on the topic of fasting. Speaking to my brother the other day, he made this observation as well, asking me "What is fasting all about? Is that something we're supposed to do as Christians?" The Bible speaks of fasting, yet I find that Christians never seem to talk about it. My understanding of fasting has come directly from my regular reading of the Bible over the years, essentially without any external influence at all. So I thought I'd share with you the conclusions I've come to on the topic of fasting.

What I find as I read the Bible is that fasting is often linked with prayer, which might give the impression that sort of "adding" fasting to your prayer life will make your prayers more effective. But is this a voluntary denial of food in order to make the prayer more effective? I don't see how the denial of food would make prayer more effective. When the Bible teaches explicitly on how one is to pray effectively, it teaches that we should pray according to God's will (which is almost the same as saying "according to Scripture"), and that we must be living righteously. I'm not so sure that denying one's self food will affect our prayers. But what I have found in my own life is that, when I'm really stirred up to pray about something, I actually lose my appetite for food somewhat involuntarily; and I suspect that this is what fasting meant to those characters in the Bible which fasted. When we're distressed, or in grief, we often lose our appetites. I have a friend who, when his girlfriend broke up with him, ate nothing for days. He was simply too upset. What kinds of things might cause a Christian to become that upset that they lose their appetite? And wouldn't they be the kinds of things that a Christian might begin to pray about fervently? As I read the Bible, I find that fasting is almost always in response to some distress, as is the prayer associated with it. Some Biblical examples would be when David's first child to Bathsheba becomes sick; David prayed and fasted over that. And Saul, when he was confronted by God on the road to Damascus, ate no food for several days after. We can be distressed or grieved by our circumstances, but we can also be distressed over our spiritual state of being. When I as an unbeliever, for example, truly came to understand the weight of my sins, this for me was a time when I literally lost my appetite and couldn't eat. And we see fasting of this kind in the Bible as well. Another example would be when the King of Nineveh proclaimed a fast in response to the preaching of Jonah, which convicted the whole city of their sins.

Quite often in Scripture we find people, usually those in power, proclaiming a fast. This is often in the form of a king's edict that everyone in the city should fast, like in the case of Nineveh. Another example would be where Esther proclaimed a fast before she approached the King about the fate of her people. In such cases it seems as though a fast would not be involuntary, but would be deliberate, and obviously toward some purpose. But whereas I might fast in response to a distress which affects me, these proclamations are in response to some distress which affects the whole city or people. I have no doubt that culturally it was a symbol of expressing one's distress to God. But as always, it was not the outward gesture which was important to God, but the true attitude of the heart; and I think that if my city was preached to by Jonah, I might have gone into that "involuntary fast" over it whether the King proclaimed a national fast or not. It's a bit like when, in our culture, we commemorate certain tragic events with a minute of silence. One can keep silent for a minute and be thinking about all manner of things besides the dead soldiers, or what have you... but if the memory of those soldiers really does mean something to you, you might consider them during that minute as you ought.

Isaiah 58 is probably the most explicit text on fasting in the Bible. It begins with the people asking God "Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?" They possibly saw fasting as a way of making their prayers more effective. But God answers "Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers." And then, with words of correction, God says...

"Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?" (Isaiah 58:6-7)

These things don't really have anything to do with denying one's self food, and that's God's point. God is not interested in asceticism, or self-denial, in some attempt to get closer to God. Rather, God is interested in good works. Going without food so that some starving person might have a meal; that might be the kind of fast which God is interested in. And to be so grieved over the spiritual state of those in the world around us that we lose our appetites, that's what Biblical fasting really is.


Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast." (Matthew 9:14-15)

How My Son First Learnt About Homosexuality

My son is five years old, and yesterday at school one of his classmates told him what the term "gay" means. He came home to us a little disturbed by what he'd heard, and this post is about how I, as a Christian parent, handled my son's questions. I want to write about this because to me, this is what my blog is really all about... an honest look at how a Christian views the world. And how I raise my children is of particular interest, as this truly reveals the beliefs we value. My son, prior to yesterday, had never really known anything about homosexuality at all. We don't really know what his friend at school has told him, but the following is an honest transcript of how our conversation went.

Son: Dad, do you know what gay is?

Me: Gay? What do you know about "gay"?

Son: Oliver says it's when a boy likes a boy, or when a girl likes a girl.

Me: … Yeah, that's right. …

<The look on my son's face was as if to say 'Seriously? That can't be right...' So I said...>

Me: Is that ok?

Son: No.

Me: Why not?

Son: I don't know? ... They can't have babies.

<Realizing that this is going to have get serious, I sat down and put my son on my lap.>

Me: Listen... you know that boys marry girls and girls marry boys, right?

Son: Yeah.

Me: But sometimes, something inside a person is broken and instead of liking girls, they like boys. Or something inside a girl is broken and they like girls instead of boys.

Son: Why?

Me: I don't know. But lots of people are broken in different ways... sometimes people are born retarded, like that boy we know; or some people are born blind. For some reason, something inside gets broken. I don't know why. But you know that teacher at your school, Ms. Finn? She's gay... she has a girlfriend.

Son: <Shocked> I don't like her anymore.

Me: Why not?

Son: … I don't know.

Me: Listen to me... some people are very mean to gay people because they're broken. But that's no reason to be mean to someone! We've talked before about that retarded boy, and how it's not nice to be mean to him. It's the same thing. It's not nice to tell him he's retarded, or to make fun of a blind person, or to tell someone they're fat... and it's not nice to make fun of a gay person, or to tell them they're "broken". They don't feel broken, but really we're all broken people in lots of different ways, even if sometimes we don't feel broken. And it's not nice to make fun of people or be mean to anyone.

<My son is deep in thought now, and I think this is where I'll leave him. So I say...>

Me: C'mon, it's bed time...

So this was basically me teaching my son theology, and applying it to homosexuality. It's what I've explained a few times on this site before... that all of Creation is essentially broken, in so far as things are not the way they are supposed to be. But how are things "supposed to be"? To have any notion at all of things having a "way they're supposed to be", you need a God who created with intent...  that is, a God who designed, or intended, for things to work one way and not another. And with Christian theology you have that... God created us to be "in His image". We are supposed to reflect God's character, like an “image”. But none of us do, necessarily, because we are all "broken" in various different ways. Sin has corrupted all of Creation.

Now one might say, "You've compared homosexuality with retardation and obesity... but they're different, at least in the fact that not even the Bible calls it a sin to be retarded or fat." This is true, but no analogy corresponds in every respect. These examples are similar in that all of these are not the way things are supposed to be. Perhaps a better analogy for adults would be promiscuity, which is also considered fairly normal in society, but which, according to the Bible, is actually a sin and a "broken" desire in man. But it also occurs to me that whenever we take what is broken about the world and rejoice in that and glorify it, that is sin. And that would even apply to obesity and possibly retardation. We've all heard of gluttony, and that's sinful. Nobody wants to say "Being fat is cool! Let's all pig out so we can all be fat!" No, we feel sorry for fat people in some sense, as it is not what anyone generally desires to be. The analogy holds true... we love fat people and they're our friends and we make them our husbands or wives, and we treat them equally with anyone (or we ought to). But there is still something to grieve over... nobody wants to be fat, and we would discourage the overeating which feeds the problem. And I suppose we can make a similar parallel to retardation in that nobody wants to be retarded, or thinks being retarded is cool. We love those people afflicted with it, and we shouldn't think less of them, and we ought to befriend them. But there is something to grieve over on their behalf. People can't help being retarded or fat, and I would probably affirm that some people can't help being gay. But society's attitude should change, I think, so that it is seen as an affliction - a part of the brokenness of this world. That's what I think Christian theology has to say about it. And I would say the same about promiscuity, or alcoholism, or any number of different issues which affect our lives, some of which society agrees are a problem, and some of which society takes no issue with. The decider, however, is God; and God has revealed through the Bible various things which are not as they should be.

I've made this point before, but I'll reiterate... where the Bible prohibits homosexuality in Leviticus, it also prohibits bestiality and incest. Without a God who determines the way things are supposed to be, you really can't say, yourself, that "Yes, incest and bestiality are wrong, but homosexuality isn't." Why should there be any distinction at all? An evolutionist has told me that bestiality is wrong because we don't want to share our seed with other species. This seems absurd to me. Why is that an intrinsic rule of the game? What's the worst that can happen in the process of evolution; a mule is born? So what? And when I queried the Internet as to how evolutionists justify homosexuality, the answer seemed to be that "It is good to have men in the community who like to stay at home instead of going out hunting. Men are strong, and it is good to have some of them 'in the village' at all times, guarding the women and children, yet not being a threat to the men who are out hunting, as their wives won't be adulterous with such men." Well, offensive stereotypes aside, this story doesn’t even make any sense... do all the men have to go out hunting at the same time? I’m sure that plenty of straight men will hang around in the village because their talents have to do with repairing houses or, who knows, defending villages? This explanation is thoroughly a product of imagination. It's story-telling as much as any myth you'll ever find.

Now, as I said, this is an honest blog about how one particular Christian views the world. And not all Christians are the same. Some approve of homosexuality, but I don't in so far as I think it should not be practiced; and those who have homosexual feelings ought to seek Christ's help as they struggle against them, recognizing that this is a kind of brokenness in their minds and bodies. This is what I believe the Bible teaches, and if I didn’t care for what the Bible teaches then I wouldn’t care about other people’s sexuality. But I do care because I believe that what the Bible teaches is for our good, and will lead us to the ultimate good of fulfilling the very purpose of our design... to reflect the image of God. And then there are also some Christians that hate homosexuals and throw insults and abuse (even physical abuse) at them. And I hope it came through to you, as well as to my son, that this is not acceptable at all. It's not Biblical or Christ-like in any way.

We live in a broken world, and it is broken in so many ways. And some day my son and I will probably have to have one of these talks about pornography in his web history, or some such thing, and he's going to have to realize that he himself is broken too! But there is One who makes all things new...

And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new."  (Revelation 21:5)