Speaking Truth in Love: truth-in-love.com's weblog

"By entertaining of strange persons, men sometimes entertain angels unawares: but by entertaining of strange doctrines, many have entertained devils unaware." (John Flavel, 1627-1691)

I usually prefer not to blog on current events, but this one is too good to pass up. (Plus Alan has been a bit behind lately.)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is fond of quoting a particular passage of Scripture. The quote, however, does not appear in the Bible and is "fictional," according to biblical scholars.

In her April 22 Earth Day news release, Pelosi said, "The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.' On this Earth Day, and every day, let us pledge to our children, and our children's children, that they will have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to experience the wonders of nature."

In the book of Hosea, God calls upon the prophet to take a wife who is a prostitute:

When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, "Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the LORD." So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. However, I learned something new today: it seems a great many men who are well-respected and thought of throughout the religious world regard the entire story of Hosea's marriage to be fiction. For example, John Calvin wrote:

It would have then exposed the Prophet to the scorn of all, if he had entered a brothel and taken to himself a harlot; for he speaks not here of an unchaste woman only, but of a woman of wantonness, which means a common harlot, for a woman of wantonness is she called, who has long habituated herself to wantonness, who has exposed herself to all, to gratify the wish of all, who has prostituted herself, not once nor twice, nor to few men, but to all. That this was done by the Prophet seems very improbable. But some reply as I have said, that this ought not to be regarded as a common rule, for it was an extraordinary command of God. <...> Their opinion, therefore, is not probable, who think that the Prophet had taken such a wife as is here described.

Got that? I'll summarize: God would never ask a holy man to do this. It would be undignified. (No word on if he thought laying on one's side and eating only bread cooked over manure or walking around naked and barefoot for three years were likewise beneath a man of God.) The problem? There's nothing - no indication whatsoever - in the text that it isn't literal. The only reason to reject it is because it makes one uncomfortable with what God might require of him.

"God would never..." is a loaded phrase. God created man in His image; ever since, we've tried to recreate God in ours. And so Calvin (and Luther, and many others like them) decided God would never demand something so humiliating as marrying a prostitute, because they would never have demanded it. They place themselves in God's shoes and put their words in His mouth because they can't imagine a God whose will might be different from theirs despite what His actual Word says.

We do the same thing on a smaller scale every day. We justify ignoring God's revelation with that same phrase. "God would never want me to be unhappy, so it's okay if I get out of this marriage." "God would never ask me to financially ruin myself, so I'll take the job that will make me miss assembling with the saints." "God would never be so picky as to say someone who's not baptized for the remission of their sins is lost." And on and on it goes.

Friends, there's nothing more arrogant than to contradict God. Recall that the apostle Peter did something like this in Matthew 16:21-23. Jesus said that He's the Messiah and then says that He's going to suffer and die. This doesn't fit with the Jewish concept of the Messiah, which was that He would be a conquering king, a military general who would physically triumph over his foes. And so Peter almost comically takes the Lord aside and tells Him that He's got it all wrong. Peter thought he understood Jesus' mission better than Jesus Himself did!

Do we really want to find ourselves in that position? In Isaiah 55:8-9, God says "For My thoughts are not your thoughts nor are your ways My ways... for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." God is immeasurably smarter than we are. Who are we to assume what God would or wouldn't do? Who are we to dictate to God in contradiction to what He's already revealed? Does God have to justify Himself to us, or when God says it, shouldn't that be enough for a faithful servant?

It's a bit late, but let me recommend some challenging thoughts from Eddie Legg's blog Simple Life in Christ:

You see many Christians talk about how they don't know what to say to non-Christians... they don't know what to do. So we stay safe in our insular groups, we keep busy with 'church activities' , we read spiritual books, and we feel good about our Christianity. The truth is that reaching the lost does not require any special skills, or 'action plans', or 'personal evangelism' seminars. Reaching the lost is about treating everyone the same. We treat everyone the same by treating each person like the individual, eternal soul that they are. By showing the same love, attention, and care for the lost that you show to your brethren.

It's not complicated, but it can be hard. It's hard to talk to someone about salvation or prayer when they don't care about it like you do. It's much easier to sit around with a bunch of Christians and talk about it, bc they are as into it as you are. The above quote reminds me that mercy, grace, and love are important truths to be shared with ALL people, not just other Christians.

Here's an amusing article:

Brethren:

It is with the utmost humility that we inform you of a change of worship practices.

Be assured that we bring about his change only after much prayer and study.

We have recently concluded an in-depth study of the Law, and have decided to bring about a change in the type of fire used in worship. We are aware that there is a standing tradition of using only one source of fire, but we, as priests, do not feel obligated to blindly follow tradition. Numerous polls indicate the overwhelming opinion that worshipers do not care where we get the fire. We are in agreement, as we cannot see how a change in fire will affect anything in the least about our sacrifices.

Besides all this, nowhere in the Law does the Lord forbid the use of what some detractors have referred to as "strange fire." We feel that the lack of such a restriction was meant to give us freedom. Is there any place in the Law that tells us we cannot do something the Lord has not seen fit to condemn?

Also, Israel is the only religious group that limits itself to one kind of fire. We have become a laughingstock, and have been ridiculed openly by many groups. This self-righteous, "only-one-fire" policy has alienated us from everyone else. We believe this change will open up many fellowship opportunities.

Now, to set the minds of some of you at ease, we will continue to offer a traditional service using the old-fashioned fire as well as this progressive service with the new fire. This will also make it possible to appeal to a younger audience as we discover more entertaining ways to "light the fire" of our assemblies. (Hope you caught the little play on words there!)

For those who still oppose the use of new fire, we ask you not to be judgmental.

We also hope you will not use this change as an excuse to divide our people or stir up trouble. We remind you that this has been well thought out and the majority of elders have signed on with us.

We are very much looking forward to our first new fire service. God will be watching and we anticipate that His joy over seeing His people take a great step toward throwing off the burden of binding tradition will be an electrifying experience.

See you there... we think this new practice is going to spread like wildfire.

For freedom's sake!

Nadab & Abihu, DDLP (Doctors of Divine Law and Progress)

P.S. Future plans include the ordination of women priests, inter-idol fellowship activities, and a special service called, "It doesn't have to be Passover to celebrate Passover."

Courtesy of Ed Rangel.

I recently came across this article by Steve Dewhirst in Focus Magazine. Read the whole thing, but this passage especially stood out to me:

The same sense of comfortable orthodoxy enjoyed by the denominations has come to characterize many Christians in our generation. Instead of a hunger for the word of God, many Christians seem to want shorter sermons, non-textual Bible study (actually an oxymoron), and little personal commitment. As long as one can establish precedent - demonstrate that things were done or taught a certain way by men in the past - it's enough to satisfy brethren who lack the appetite for self-examination and the proper establishment of Bible authority. So long as a preacher can trot out a string of "proof texts" - whether taken in context or not - it satisfies men and women who are content to believe what they've always believed, even if they've never really understood the concept under discussion. Anything deemed new or different is immediately suspect, even if biblically sound, because brethren are too ignorant of the principles to understand the issue. It's just easier to condemn what we don't understand out of hand, than to apply ourselves to learning. This isn't discipleship; it's the maintenance of a middle-class, respectable sect.