Two Commands

Often in life the commandments of God seem to rub against each other a bit. It is often hard to know what to do at times in life. It is why the bible always calls us to wisdom. Wisdom will show us the way when life becomes difficult.

For example sometimes tensions arise between keeping confidences of things others have said to us and keeping relationships with nosy people. You know you cannot break confidence and yet you cannot confront the nosy people asking inappropriate questions because they will not understand.

There is a delicate balance at times maintaining a balanced view of the law in certain situations. Much wisdom, thought, and prayer is required.

In a biblical example David, when he was on the run, ate bread that was only permitted to be eaten by the priests. He ate what he should not eat in general and did what was right.

Is the law in conflict? No. The bible is quite helpful in that it gives us levels of wisdom. You see there is much specific guidance and some of the specifics can come into tension in situations in life. That is why the bible gives overarching principles.

The overarching principles are that we are to love God with our whole heart and love our neighbor as ourselves. You see the bible summarizes our direction easily for us when life becomes difficult.

The bible spells out the details to aid us to learn. But when we need wisdom because of the stickiness of life we should first pray, but also fall back to the overarching principle of biblical ethics of love. If we truthfully act in love after prayer and careful thought we will not be far off.

Christianity and Culture

I have recently been reading a book analyzing Niebuhr’s categories of Christianity's relation to culture. I have always found the topic of some interest.

The only thing I can conclude about the relation of the Christian to culture is that it falls into the category of wisdom. The analysis of the Christians relation to culture that I have read in books always seem to fall short.

The bible has a lot to say about the relation of the believer to the culture and the state but often it seems that what is said does not give a large amount of guidance to an overall relation but rather a set of guiding principles.

I can only feel the relation of the Christian to the culture depends on the culture in which one is in. Often there is a certain situation specificity to life that is somewhat bothersome to people.

The bible presents an absolute religion with absolute truth. To no accept the absoluteness of scripture is to be liberal and have unbelief.

Alas wisdom is an absolute category in scripture. In the category of wisdom falls many things and these things depend upon a gift of understanding from God and a trained personhood to know the difference.

You see the criticism of relativity is a rejection of the categories which the bible promotes. I wonder why we wish all the answers to be easy in a box.

I guess wisdom is frightening we need to grow and question and be thinking peoples. It is as if God has entrusted us with the duty to use our judgment.

The call for judgment is a call for man to be as he was in the garden a man of power making decisions. We should love God and do as we please.

You see as a Christian we are free. God has entrusted us with sonship to make choices. We must use judgment.

People often see God as being very specific in giving direction of life. He is very specific in the principles of direction but not the details.

As his sons we need to work out the details for ourselves. If we love him and look to the principles he wishes us to live by we cannot go much wrong as we live by faith.

A faithful Church

A faithful church is to a degree always a critic of society. The church often confuses this with becoming a political force.

The difference is that the church is to be a critique of the way society is. A critic of what is wrong with society.

The bible deals with the problems of the heart so if offers solutions for what is wrong with the heart of humanity. Thus the church can potentially improve society by showing where society has fallen short.

The church however does not function nearly as well as a critic of politics. Often the church has fallen sort because it feels that legislation can change morality.

Possibly legislation can improve society at times, but he issue with humanity is not that there are not enough rules. In fact man lived sinlessly when he had only 1 rule – to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Actually mankind is at his best when he lives with only one thought. To follow Christ.

Augustine said that we should love God and do what we please. The reality of this is true if we do act out of love toward God we need only one rule or one thought to govern our entire existence.

All the time we see many rules get in the way of moral living. We cannot make an exception the to rules at any time. We cannot have wisdom to realize when the rules are not applicable.

In life it is important to follow God. When Satan tempted Jesus he attempted to place multiple rules in scripture against each other.

The error of course is that many rules function at time more like guideposts to direct faithful living rather than absolutes.

Some rules are more absolute than others, but most of the law in scripture has exceptions.

David when he was on the run ate of food of the temple which was forbidden and the punishment was death. He did what was right and we can see that the law was always a principle and never an absolute.

The principle was of the upmost importance but the reality is the will of God cannot be made into a absolute set of rules.

I used to be frustrated how vague the law of God was at times. But the reality is that life creates many unique situations.

A too tight set of rules produces extreme difficulties. This is why scripture has far more principles than rules.

Few people see this. Scripture is all rules, but the reality is most of the rules are more principles which are pointing directionally than absolutes.

The Undone More Important than the Done

A lot of times in life what is undone is more importance than what is done. There are a lot of people who seem to have their lives together and seem to be living in a perfectly healthy way.

A lot of what we see is only what people do in the world. The reality from scripture is that what is undone can often be more significant that what is done.

You see this all through Jesus' teaching. He criticised the Pharisees not primarily for the things which they had done, but leaving the important things of the scriptures undone.

A good example is Matthew 23:23

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

The critique of the Pharisees was not so much about how they lived, but the great depths of living that they failed to do. It is interesting that often a sever legalism looks very righteous on the surface because of its many requirements, but the requirements are all at the surface of good.

A lot of the really deep things in life are impossible to sum up in rules. The bible sets out many clear rules, but more often it sets out general principles to live by.

The interesting thing about the bible is that it clearly sees the complexity of life. Jesus for example understood the Sabbath teaching of scripture more clearly than the Pharisees - there is an apparent breaking of the Sabbath which on a much more real and deeper level is in fact a keeping of the true Sabbath.

Scripture spends a lot of time pointing directionally because in life there are often many things which require great wisdom. Two good things seem to pit each other against each other and we must choose.

Interestingly we may not always be called to serve. There were moments in Jesus' teaching where crowds were seeking his wisdom, but Jesus did not teach them instead he went into the wilderness to pray.

Amazingly even the son of God could not serve the world 24/7! Many people think they can serve the world constantly, but they simply lack the wisdom to understand that even Jesus was not capable of this with limitations of a human body.