Category Essays

The Narrative Doesn’t Know It All

Todd R Leave a comment

This morning many were learning of the passing of Colin Powell, former U.S. secretary of state, at 84.  No human other than Jesus is perfect, but Powell was in more than one way an important figure in U.S. military and government matters for years.  Many, including myself, mourn his passing.  In my case, an experience in undergraduate journalism school involving Powell was a huge lesson to me on the use and power of narrative, of storytelling, often as a way of simplifying the world to make it digestible, but also as a way of influencing.

This news also provides an opportunity for a timely detour before continuing the “He Who Laughs” post.  Soon, God willing.

Loose Ends
This blog began with a post, “42 is Not the Answer”, about mankind’s search for answers to “life, the universe, and everything” in a fictional supercomputer called Deep Thought.  They were left with “42”, or not much of a narrative.

As I wrote in “Godly Offspring”: about the story of Genesis 38, “Judah had created his own narrative to explain his misfortune as Tamar’s fault, when it was really God’s judgment for the sins of Judah and his sons.”  However, Tamar’s children became ancestors of Jesus!

In “Man in Need of an Ally”, Zacchaeus was condemned based on being reduced to a representative of a narrative used to simplify a complex social and political situation.  Jesus loved Zacchaeus, forgave him, and now he has eternal life!

Narratives are everywhere and are enticing and powerful.

Some of my favorite quotes deal with the danger of narrative and the need to be aware of it:
“It’s not what you don’t know that kills you, it’s what you know for sure that ain’t true.” ― Mark Twain
“Beware of single cause interpretations – and beware the people who purvey them” – Jordan Peterson
“In my experience, the more I know about a subject, the less I’m impressed with related media coverage” – Howard Marks

The examples below are not intended to show that one political party is good or the other is bad.  That would be an unhelpful, divisive narrative.  Politics is a sometimes-dirty game, and the media are sometimes enablers – on both sides.  The point is that people often believe in, and act on information they believe is reliable but that is always incomplete and sometimes inaccurate.  Also, sometimes the information is intentionally incomplete and inaccurate.  The dots of the pointillistic narrative are never the full picture and sometimes aren’t the right color.  I confess this applies to everything I write, but perhaps particularly to some of this post.

Narratives push us to forget that, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously wrote: “The line separating good and evil passes, not through states, not between political parties either, but right through all human hearts.”

Influencing the Blame Game
In 1995 and 1996 the U.S. government, just as they are now, were fighting over more spending and how to pay for it, resulting in two “shutdowns”, one for 5 days and the other for 21.  Around this time, a member of the White House staff came to our journalism class to talk about the experiences of an “insider”.  One thing he shared with us was that Bill Clinton was on the verge of backing down from the shutdown confrontation but decided to continue digging in when Colin Powell announced he would not run for president in 1996.  Powell had bi-partisan support as a man of character and military expert and was expected by many pollsters to win.  However, he had no desire to be president, citing a lack of passion for it, and an unwillingness to put his family and friends through the potentially painful process.  Clinton, knowing the other Republican challengers weren’t as strong, knew the political damage of continuing the government shutdown would be minimized.  Clinton also knew he had help in managing that.

The other thing shared by this guest speaker was that the reporting of polls about attitudes regarding the shutdown was being misrepresented.  Many media outlets were reporting that most voters “blamed” the Republicans for the shutdowns of the government.  What we were told though was that the question – as presented to those answering the poll – was about who is “responsible” for the shutdowns.  So, if you answered “Republicans” to the poll because you were convinced that they were doing the right thing by protesting either the amounts or specifics of the spending proposals, the poll reported it as “blame”, not as a conscientious objection.  By changing one word, “responsible” which is less of a value judgment, with “blame” which assigns a clear, negative, value judgment, public opinion was swayed.

As noted in an earlier post, More Than Truth, I saw very few examples of outright lying while in school, but there were some.  In this case, the public had no idea of these two things, which were told openly to a classful of future journalists.  The narrative was created, put on the hook, and swallowed by many voting fish.

All of the Above
Another example is narratives around the “Global Financial Crisis” of 2007-2008.  This was an extraordinarily complex series of events, set up by years of blunders by possibly millions of people, yet still some pin the blame on just a handful of “bad guys” who represent the Bogeymen of “the rich”, “deregulation”, “regulation”, “big banks”, “house flippers”, etc.   But what if the answer could be “all of the above”?  The best evaluation I’ve read is a memo called “Whodunit” by Howard Marks, a widely followed investor who is known as a balanced thinker.  It’s 13 pages and you can read it here (memo link), but who reads 13 pages of anything anymore?  Especially something designed to extinguish partisan fury-inducing narratives, rather than inflame them?  I’ve summarized Marks’ memo in the past as saying “regulation tied the gas pedal to the floor, while deregulation disabled the brakes,” but really any explanation vastly oversimplifies one of the most complex sagas in financial market history. Something like a Global Financial Crisis was not caused by the butler.

This does not just happen with once-in-a-lifetime events.  In the financial press, billions of dollars of daily transactions in the stock and bond markets are reported as “Markets were Mixed Today on Wall Street”.  Never mind that much of modern trading doesn’t even take place on Wall Street, or that all days could be called “mixed”.

A common topic today is “what’s wrong with the labor market?”  Like the Global Financial Crisis, there are competing narratives and the truth is probably a combination of “all of the above”, rather than any one cause.  One reason less people are working is because we’ve had a pandemic, and many, many workers have passed on, or remain sick.  That’s difficult to talk about in a “professional” meeting.  Government policy plays a part, but which government caused, or sustained, a global shortage of workers?  Does U.S. policy explain other countries’ shortages?  Many workers simply retired earlier than planned, helped by higher housing prices and stock market values.  For some, day care is not available. For some, they have prioritized other things.  The list goes on and on.  “All of the above.”

These are just samples from my experience, but referring back to the Howard Marks quote above -“In my experience, the more I know about a subject, the less I’m impressed with related media coverage” – I expect you have many more examples based on your knowledge of other subjects.  And here we must be careful about Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 8:1 that “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

Love Requires Humility
Like many topics on most days, much of today’s media coverage of Colin Powell’s death will be a battle of narratives.  Exactly how much integrity did he have?  What do they mean he “died of Covid complications”?  Who is to blame?  What kind of president would he have been?   This discussion is good when it is done in the right Spirit, but unfortunately it often isn’t.

I’ll chime in on the debate with “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and note that only God has a full picture of Powell’s life.  I pray he found his hope in Jesus and for comfort for his family and friends.  No person deserves to be treated as an incomplete narrative.

I’ll also follow that up with a twist – all narratives are flawed and fall short of the glory of God.  Only God has a full picture of every life, and I pray we find our hope in Jesus.  No person deserves to be judged based on an incomplete narrative that they get shoe-horned into.  As they say, Be Kind, you never know what someone is going through.

Each of us is an intricate matrix of beliefs, at different levels of truth and of conviction on every possible topic.  In my examples, I’ve shown some of my own biases. Forgive me.  Here Ephesians 4:1b-2 has guidance for us, where Paul, writing from prison, urges “you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

In humility we seek to view other’s biases and narratives as different than ours, not worse.  In addition, sometimes we might view something as a flaw just because it is a difference.  Just as we are not perfected instantaneously in this world, neither are others and we must be patient.  In love, we walk as God has called us, putting other’s needs above our own, because this is how we grow in unity and fruit of the Spirit.

“For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.  For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” – 2 Cor 4:6

Jesus is the Answer and He does not fall short of the glory of God.  Inject Him into your narrative as you would a grain of salt.

Driving Toward the Morning Sun (Part 2)

Todd R 2 Comments

Part 1 focused on “Taxi Cab”, a song by twenty øne piløts, which provided the name of this blog and helps explain its purpose.  “Driving Toward the Morning Sun” reminds us of our destiny in Christ and builds on the “forerunner” metaphor that anchors our “full assurance of hope”.  Part 2 adds the importance of our origin in Christ, which gives our works meaning, in contrast to secular views.

Introductory Verses
“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” – John 13:3-5
“Praise the LORD!  Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the godly! Let Israel be glad in his Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King!” – Psalm 149:1-2

Why Do the Right Thing?
While in college, I was in a group study of the Gospel of John, came across John 13:3-5 and got stuck on the phrase: “he had come from God and was going back to God”.  In the middle of a story about God washing the feet of men, why does John intentionally point this out?  What’s the connection with this and service?  But this was not just a random phrase thrown in by John, it was perhaps the key to the whole story: that being anchored to our origin and destiny in Christ is what enables Christians to love others.  If Christ Himself served knowing these things, how can we not also serve?  Jesus willingly gets His hands dirty, so we might do the same.

However, a rejection of God as origin and destiny, as Alpha and Omega[1], has implications for individuals, families, congregations, cultures, and nations.  Hebrews 12:15 warns: “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no ‘root of bitterness’ springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled.”  The Apostle Paul outlines the consequences in Romans 1:18-32, after arguing for a gospel of grace, which is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16).  Paul writes this as “a servant of Christ Jesus” (Rom 1:1), and we also are servants, who need to answer our call to be set apart for God’s purpose, to be holy.  We are made to love God and to love others – empowered by life-changing grace to give grace.

Without Christ, humanity is smart enough to know that a 100% selfish race would be the end of us, but not wise and humble enough to acknowledge their Creator and King.  Therefore, we seek substitute alphas and omegas, but they just won’t do.

I’ll give two quick examples.  I took a Child Psychology class in college, where they taught that babies are “cute” because of evolution.  They said if babies weren’t “cute” then parents wouldn’t go through the effort of taking care of them.  Therefore, only “cute” genes survived the natural selection process.  Other babies were left to die.  Somehow, most of the class just nodded along and thought this was quite an insight!  I thought it was not only pure speculation, but barbaric.  What’s the evidence, other than saying that there must be a reason babies are “cute”?  Are there a ton of “ugly” babies in the fossil record?  What is “cute” anyway?  Under this logic, mankind might get to define what’s “cute” (and therefore worthy of love) and eliminate what’s not “cute”, for the betterment of future generations.  No.  I’ll look elsewhere because I’ve seen this movie before.

Second is the concept of karma.  If there’s an impersonal cosmic record-keeper that makes sure “what goes around, comes around”, then we need to send goodness around and we will be fine, right?  But this simply doesn’t match real-life experience and is bound to disappoint.  The idea is lampooned in the 2019 song “Karma” by AJR, where the singer asks his therapist whether he should be good, since karma doesn’t seem to be working: “I’ve been working my ass off; I’ve been so good; Still, I’m lonely and stressed out”.  There is too much unknown and seemingly random in the world for “karma” to consistently motivate good works.  If we don’t see the return, in exactly the way we expect, then we lose motivation.  I prefer to side with Samuel Johnson, who said “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”[2]  Unless you have an immovable reference point for the “goodness” you need to send around, it’s all up to the individual to decide what’s on the “good” and “bad” side of the ledger, even if they think neglecting “ugly” babies isn’t so bad.

The Ultimate Cause
The question of altruism – or concern for others even at a cost to self – has puzzled secular and religious philosophers and ethicists for centuries.  Instead, I recommend the ethic of Psalm 149:2-4:

“Let Israel be glad in his Maker;
                        let the children of Zion rejoice in their King!
Let them praise his name with dancing,
                        making melody to him with tambourine and lyre!
For the LORD takes pleasure in his people;
                        he adorns the humble with salvation.

In other words, be glad!  We are not random accidents with no creator and no purpose.  We have a loving Creator and King who died that we might live.  In response, we offer our creativity and energy to God as worship, in all forms available to us (including but not limited to dancing and music!) and within our area of influence.  Accepting us in Christ as we are, the Lord takes pleasure as we humbly offer what we have to His service and rewards us with His blessings.

If we acknowledge our Maker and King as the protagonist of our story, we know that we have an origin, a purpose, and a destiny, and that our works can have eternal value, beyond any “random act of kindness”.  Whether our community and culture are crumbling or thriving, the call of God is our ultimate priority.

However, if we insist on being the protagonist and following the idols we create, our incomplete thoughts of altruism and karma will never be enough, and our works will always be mortal and rotting.  We don’t move beyond the verses of “Taxi Cab”.  Our works might help us “carry on”, but that’s not a very good place to be.  God has better in store for us.

Verse 1 of Psalm 149, skipped above, says:

“Praise the LORD!  Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the godly!”

“A new song” suggests something that’s creative, offered in praise.  It’s an invitation from God to think expansively under the Spirit’s guidance, not restrictively under laws and regulations.  Don’t misunderstand – it’s not about “put yourself out there” and be an extrovert.  Perhaps you are not a “creative” person.  You might be a tax collector or a soldier[3].  You might be a clerk, accountant, lawyer, politician, engineer, housewife or anything else.  It doesn’t matter.  It’s about knowing who you are and dedicating that to the Lord and to others.  Turning some of this world’s “tohu va’bohu”[4] into something eternally rewarding.  But also, for some it means living in a hostile country and wondering whether and how to love your enemy when they come for you.

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” – Colossians 3:23-24

Coda
Fast forward to 2021 and Tyler Joseph of twenty øne piløts is still encouraging people to create amid a pandemic.  “Shy Away”, off their latest album, was one of the final encouragements for me to start publishing this blog.  The song started when Tyler’s brother asked him how to record and produce music.  Tyler started writing the music as an example, but he ended up with a completed song.  The lyrics are encouragement for his brother to do the same.  After all, if Tyler hadn’t long ago created “Taxi Cab”, that “mortal, rotting piece of song” for the merch table, he might still be lost in despair.

Listen to or read the lyrics to “Shy Away”, and ask God and yourself: What is your new song?  Is it your song, or is it someone else’s?  Will your song be heard?  Is it an “I love you”?

Keep Driving Toward Morning.  Don’t be afraid.  After all, humility is not false modesty, but “the virtue that allows us to get out of our own sinful way and thereby embrace God’s redemptive work in us.”[5]  Your Maker and King will rejoice, for “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” – Luke 15:7.  Lay aside your outer garments, or leave your skin on the floor if you prefer that metaphor, and pick up a towel.

This is His mission, should we choose to accept it.

[1] Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet; Omega is the last.  God declares that He is both in Revelation 1:8 and elsewhere.
[2] See also Luke 14:12-14
[3] See Luke 3:12-14
[4] The Hebrew phrase translated as “without form and void” in Genesis 1:2. See prior post.
[5] Gibson, Richard H..; Beitler, James E. III.  Charitable Writing (2020).

Driving Toward the Morning Sun (Part 1)

Todd R 3 Comments

“We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” – Isaiah 64:6
“And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD” – Ezekiel 37:13-14

In my first post, nearly 3 months ago, I footnoted that the name of this blog is taken from an old twenty øne piløts song and that I would explain later.  Well, here we are.  This one will focus on the song, and Part 2 will expand the idea behind the blog beyond the song.  Otherwise, this would have been a very long post.

The song, “Taxi Cab” is from the band’s first album, self-published in 2009.  Songwriter Tyler Joseph has called it something he just threw together to sell at the merchandise table at shows.  Several of the songs are brutally honest discussions of Tyler’s struggles to find meaning and to maintain faith in God.  There’s a brokenness there you can hear in Tyler’s voice and there are videos of him breaking down and crying during live performances of songs from the album like “Addict with a Pen”.

“Taxi Cab” is my favorite of these early songs, and when they performed it live, I nearly cried myself!  It was Halloween, 2018, at Capital One Arena in Washington, DC and fans came to the show in costume.  We saw Gandalf, Jesus, and even a Tyler doppelganger there!  In 2016, the band had achieved this honor: “Twenty One Pilots are just the third rock act with simultaneous top five Hot 100 hits in the chart’s 58-year history, following only The Beatles and Elvis Presley”[1]  But at this sold-out 2018 show, they chose to include “Taxi Cab”, a song about being saved from brokenness by God!

A Beautifully Plain Taxi Cab
Often in these posts, I’ll include a “Coda” at the end, but for this one, you might want to watch the lyric video, or just read the lyrics first.  I’ll wait.

While I haven’t decoded every reference and metaphor in the song (Tyler often embeds both a spiritual and secular meaning), the basic structure of the song is this: the verses describe Tyler’s faults and inability to please himself and God; the “rap” is a story of Tyler’s salvation; and the chorus is an encouragement to find strength in that salvation.

Verse 1 says:
“I wanna fall inside your ghost; And fill up every hole inside my mind
And I want everyone to know; That I am half a soul[2] divided”

Tyler confesses that he lacks knowledge, and even where he does have knowledge, his inner being is in conflict and unable to do the right thing with that knowledge.  It is a similar cry to that of the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:15-23, where even with the truth we have, we remain at war with ourselves and can’t act the way we want to.  On the positive side, he understands that the knowledge gaps need to be filled by “your ghost”, a reference to the Holy Spirit, and that confession is an essential first step to progress.  He is frustrated with what he doesn’t know and asks for help from the One who knows all.  More knowledge isn’t the answer to his moral failures, but faith is.

With verse 2, he adds to the confession and frustration:
“I wanna strip myself of breath; A breathless piece of death I’ve made for you
A mortal rotting piece of song; Will help me carry on but at least you heard”

Here Tyler is asking, “what’s the point?”  In other songs, he encourages others to find purpose in their creativity, but here he says his own efforts at creativity are “mortal” and “rotting” and he’s considering giving up on music.  As declared by Isaiah in the introductory verse, “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment”.  We cannot meet God’s standard.  But again, a slight note of hope: “at least you heard”.  There is value in the song as a prayer, as an honest expression, as a release.  It keeps him from jumping off the ledge of despair.  He awaits God’s response, and that response comes from the rap verse of the song.

Overcoming the Grave
“Taxi Cab” is the first song where Tyler included a rap, and while it’s more “spoken word”, it’s full of interesting images and symbols.  While there are multiple possible interpretations – some say it is about a failed suicide attempt – it’s clear one intended interpretation is as a story of Tyler’s salvation, and I’ll point out 3 key ideas:

First, Tyler finds himself dead and helpless.  As a result of his incomplete knowledge, his inability to do the right thing, and failure to create something of eternal value, he finds himself locked in a coffin packed in the rear of a hearse.  He’s tried everything but can’t change his fate.

Second, unable to save himself, God intervenes on his behalf in ways impossible for him.  He had tried to scratch his way out of the coffin!  But, “the hearse ran out of gas”, someone “picked the lock” of his coffin, and he “found the breath I was searching for”.

Finally, his destiny has changed from death to one where “all your blood is washed away and all you did will be undone”. He is out of the hearse and into the Taxi Cab, which will carry him to heaven.

Putting the rap in the context of the verses, you find that through clever songwriting, Tyler packaged much of the “Romans Road” tool of Christian evangelism into a song about overcoming depression and performed it to a packed house at Capital One Arena!  He may not have specifically used the Romans Road as a guide, but the key concepts are there.  For those not familiar, the Romans Road[3] is an easy to memorize and share summary of the Christian gospel using verses from the book of Romans.  It quickly describes the need for salvation and the way to salvation using these verses:

Romans 3:23 – All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
Romans 6:23(a) – The wages of sin is death
Romans 6:23(b) – The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord
Romans 10:9 – If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved

Saved to what?  Eternal life, where we become what we were created to be.

While works cannot earn us salvation, in Christ, Tyler “found the breath [he] was searching for” and so can we.  “Breath” here might be another reference to the Holy Spirit, as the words for “breath” and “spirit” are often the same in the Bible’s original languages.  If it is, then the Holy Spirit is the missing piece in Tyler’s creativity, the part that transforms it from mortal to eternally relevant.  Salvation brings meaning to our works, to our creativity.  As in the valley of dry bones vision in Ezekiel 37, God rescues us from certain death, gives us His Spirit, and a destiny (see verses 13-14 in the intro).

The final bit of the rap, where the blog title comes from, is a conversation between Tyler and “three men” who were driving the cab, and now in control of his destiny.  These men represent the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all of whom are involved in Tyler’s new story.  He asks, “Am I alive and well or am I dreaming dead?”, and one of them answers:

“We’re driving toward the morning sun
Where all your blood is washed away
And all you did will be undone”

This blog is called “Driving Toward the Morning Sun”[4] because Jesus, our forerunner (see last post) has purchased for us a destiny and a purpose.  Therefore, how do we bring the eternal into our present?  How does receiving the gospel empower us to live?  Unless we focus our eyes on the promise of God, we become mired in circumstances and ineffective.  We become entangled in attitudes, activities, and goals with no eternal value.  We grieve the Holy Spirit and don’t experience the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

I want every post to echo – in truth and in tone – the last lines of the “Taxi Cab” chorus:

“I said ‘don’t be afraid’.  I said ‘don’t be afraid’
We’re going home”

Part 2 coming soon.  With a new song.

[1] https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7488038/chainsmokers-hot-100-halsey-closer-number-one-shawn-mendes
[2] The source of my “Author” profile on the blog
[3] This site has some more helpful detail on the Romans Road: https://www.christianity.com/wiki/salvation/what-is-the-romans-road-to-salvation.html
[4] Some sources say the lyric can also be read as “Morning Son”, more explicitly saying that our destiny is to have the character of Christ. 

The Sure Eternal Path

Todd R 2 Comments

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16
“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” – Hebrews 6:19-20

We have all seen the John 3:16 signs.  At seemingly every sporting event, someone with a spot guaranteed to be on camera has one.  T-shirts, bumper stickers, frisbees, and probably even iPhone cases have this verse.  This verse is so popular because it is a concise and easy to remember summary of God’s message to humanity: although the world has turned on Him in rebellion, He has not given up on it, but loves His people enough to make the ultimate sacrifice of His own Son to save them from perishing.  In the last post, I wrote: “God’s purpose in creating His kingdom, populated by His family, will not be thwarted by sin because sinners are the only people available to join His family… Through the death of His only begotten Son on the cross, God became Father of His people”

But what’s “eternal life”?  What is God offering?

It’s not that those who believe in Jesus will simply live forever, because that’s actually true for everyone.  The Bible explains this, but I like this quote from C.S. Lewis[1]:

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

So, this “eternal life” is different than just biological existence for all time.  In my last post, I wrote: “Wisdom is the ability to choose between the path of righteousness and the path of the wicked.”  However, the Bible also contrasts the two paths as representing “life” and “death”.  If “life” is being on the path of righteousness, then eternal life means that the destiny of those who follow Jesus is to eternally choose the path of righteousness.  This eternal life is also lived in community where everyone else is always on that path, and everything that exists in that world will reflect righteousness.  Every decision we make will be in the Spirit; we will always have the right Answer.  This does not mean that we will be robots following orders, but it means that our morality and creativity will be unconstrained by our fallen nature.  Righteousness and justice will “come naturally”.

In the meantime, Christians can taste this future, but incompletely, as they imperfectly try to follow Jesus.  It can be quite frustrating as nobody can meet the standard no matter how hard they try.

The Inner Place Behind the Curtain
Now the 2nd introductory verses, from Hebrews 6, contain one of my favorite Biblical metaphors.  Hebrews 6:19 starts with “We have this”, but what is “this”?  Earlier in chapter 6, the writer wants his readers to “have the full assurance of hope”[2] and tells them that Abraham was blessed and multiplied into a nation, not by Abraham’s efforts, but by the promise and oath of God, who cannot lie[3].  After all, the famous hymn is called “Great is Thy Faithfulness”, not “Great is My Faithfulness”.  The destiny of the Christian is founded on the cornerstone of Christ’s completed work, and God will not change His mind.  Verses 19 and 20 were written to make this statement as emphatically as possible to the 1st Century Jewish reader.

For other readers in the 21st Century, some background might be necessary:  The book of Hebrews, written for Jews who had become Christians, includes a lot of imagery they would recognize like “the inner place behind the curtain”.  In the Old Testament, God’s tabernacle, and later temple(s), were indications of at least two things: that He was present with His people, and that He could only be approached in the way He prescribed.  God is Holy and Just, unable to tolerate sin, so entering His presence is serious business.  In the very early days of Israel, the Levite priesthood were commanded to kill anyone who came too close to God’s presence[4].  A vastly elaborate sacrificial system was implemented to illustrate God’s requirements for meeting with sinners: an innocent creature had to die.  Animals symbolized the later sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Even the altar upon which the animals were sacrificed required its own sacrifices to be acceptable.

But the “Holy of Holies” was the ultimate statement of how serious approaching God is.  This innermost room of the temple was only entered once per year (on the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur), and only by the high priest, who only can enter after hours of preparation.  Once there, the high priest would sprinkle the blood of a sacrificed bull on and in front of God’s “mercy seat”, the cover of the ark of the covenant and a sign of His presence[5].  Later Jewish tradition (not found in the Bible) indicates that others would stand outside the room holding a rope that was tied to the high priest, who also had bells tied around his waist.  If those outside heard the bells jingling, followed by silence, they would assume the high priest did not atone properly for the sins of the people, died in God’s presence, and needed to be dragged out by the rope.

While being dragged out, the high priest would pass under the veil, or curtain, that covered the entrance to the Holy of Holies.  This curtain was a physical reminder of the barrier to God represented by His holiness.

Anchor and Forerunner
Hebrews 6:19 is the only place in the ESV Bible that refers to a metaphorical anchor.  Literal anchors are mentioned in the book of Acts and nowhere else.  As you know, an anchor is a heavy object, usually metal, attached to a boat or ship by rope or cable for the purpose of securing the vessel to the bed of the body of water.  Typically, an anchor is used to keep you in place.  However, Hebrews mentions a forerunner because this anchor is used to secure you to a destination, not to keep you in place.  Where you are now is not your eternal home and God does not want you to anchor there.

In the early centuries A.D., a “forerunner” was a boat sent to meet larger boats at sea, take their anchor, carry it into the harbor, and deposit it at the destination.  Thus, the incoming boat was still at sea, but assured of reaching its destination.  It just had to follow the path of the rope to the anchor, which would also keep it from going too far adrift.

So, we now have the parts of the metaphor about what provides our “full assurance of hope”: anchor, curtain, and forerunner. (Melchizedek I’ll leave for another time)

What Hebrews is telling us is that our hope is in God’s promise, and that the promise is secure because Christ Himself took our anchor and secured it inside the Holy presence of God where atonement has been made for His people.  When Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday, He cried “it is finished”[6], and “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.”[7]  In one moment, all of the elaborate Old Testament ceremony symbolizing the requirements for being in God’s presence became irrelevant, and Jesus became “the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh”[8]  Once for all, His flesh was the only sacrifice necessary for us to know God.  For His people, there is no longer a veil or curtain as a barrier, but through the tearing of His own flesh, we have sure and eternal access to Him.

While we remain metaphorically at sea tossed by waves of chaos, Jesus is in the Temple, and the Holy Spirit is at sea with us “hovering over the face of the waters”[9].  The Spirit is both a connection to the “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul”, Christ our forerunner, and also a voice telling us what to do in the meantime.  We’re surrounded by, and are, a creation in progress, and He gives us our task, but also the certainty of ultimate success.  While our purpose can be frustrated, God’s purpose is sure, and His promise is for His people.

Consider this: If God wanted to change His mind about you, He’s had plenty of opportunity before now.  Hours passed while Christ was on the cross.  He was mocked as helpless and unable to save Himself, while Jesus knew at any moment, He could ask His Father to send twelve legions of angels to save Him[10]!  (Or He could just save Himself).  In those hours, Omniscient God considered all the sins of all His people over all of time and decided: “Worth it”.  The all-powerful actively chose to embrace powerlessness in the face of hours of torture to save His people.  He will not turn His back on you now, or ever, if you are His.

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” – Philippians 1:6

Upgrading the Moral GPS
Remember that the purpose of the forerunner metaphor is that we may “have the full assurance of hope”, enabling us to walk in the path of righteousness.  Confidence that our hope is in God’s promise and Christ’s faithfulness has several implications.

First, having Jesus as our forerunner means that our Moral GPS is always pre-programmed with salvation as the ultimate destination.  2 Corinthians 5:5 says “God…has given us the Spirit as a guarantee” and the Life Application Study Bible notes: “His work in our lives today assures us that the healing process will be thoroughly completed in Christ’s presence. Each time the Holy Spirit reminds you of Scripture, convicts you of sin, restrains you from selfish behavior, or prompts you to love, you have evidence that he is present. You have the Spirit within you beginning the transformation process.”

We all take wrong turns along the way, but we end up with Christ in the end.  Our mistakes don’t cost us our salvation, because God already knows them and has taken them into account.  This doesn’t mean we haphazardly proceed without any concern of consequence, but as I wrote in an earlier post: “We should not be afraid of God, where we are motivated to passivity – avoiding mistakes that would anger the one we fear.  We fear God in that we revere Him and respect His authority, thus actively seeking to please Him.”

If you are in Christ, the Spirit prays for you, “groaning”, while speaking to your spirit internally.

Until Jesus returns, the other voices in the GPS don’t turn off, and we’re not always 100% sure of what God wants.  There may seem to be more than one “good” option.  Security in Jesus makes us tend toward moving forward.  Mistakes are part of the process, and we can learn and grow from them.  Even if you have some doubt, it’s God’s faithfulness that counts.

Second, God called you for a reason, and it might be related to your current circumstances.  1 Corinthians 7:17 says “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.”  You have a role in God’s family, and it’s a role only you can fulfill.  Therefore, in your Moral GPS, fear God’s voice for you alone, not what God has called others to do.

In the book “Compassion” cited in earlier posts, the authors write: “Saints and ‘outstanding’ Christians should…never be perceived as people whose concrete behavior must be imitated.  Rather, we should see in them living reminders that God calls every human being in a unique way and asks each of us to become attentive to His voice in our own unique lives.”[11]  You are called to be you, not the Apostle Paul, Billy Graham or Mother Theresa.

Third, knowing you won’t lose God’s favor may give you courage to not live to please men.  God might tell you to do unexpected things.  Perhaps things that are outside the norm or have not been done before.  Therefore, in the Moral GPS, we must discern what part of our “rebelliousness” needs repentance, as being outside of God’s justice and righteousness, and that which merely violates social and other convention.  Sometimes being yourself as God intended means being unlike what others expect by earthly standards.  You may be called to meet a specific, timely, need for something creative.  There may be a powerful, but unconventional way to encourage others.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” – 1 Corinthians 15:58

Coda
Lauren Daigle’s hit “You Say” is a great closer for this post.  It is a reminder of the reliability and strength of Jesus and His voice when other voices, including perhaps your own, are turning against you.  An anchor of hope in the midst of trouble.  Only God can tell you who you are.

Watch the video
Or read the lyrics

[1] Lewis, C.S.  The Weight of Glory (1941).
[2] Hebrews 6:11
[3] Summary of Hebrews 6:13-18
[4] Numbers 1:51. The Levites were a type of priest, after whom the book of Leviticus is named.
[5] Leviticus 16:1-16
[6] John 19:30
[7] Mark 15:38
[8] Hebrews 10:20
[9] Genesis 1:2
[10] Matthew 26:53
[11] McNeill, Donald P.; Morrison, Douglas A.; Nouwen, Henri J. M.  Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life (1982).

Tuning in to Wisdom

Todd R 2 Comments

“But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” – Psalm 130:4
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” – Proverbs 9:10

So far, I’ve written about Jesus as the only Answer to our need for purpose.  He is the only one qualified to be the Truth we can rely on, the Way to our salvation, and the Life that can restore us to what we are intended to be.  Jesus is the cornerstone upon which we must build our lives and impact the world around us, as a witness to the God who loves us and offers us a new heaven and new earth where His purpose and our purpose are perfectly aligned.

God’s “perfect system” exists only in heaven, but in this world, He calls His people to do His work, pointing the way to His kingdom. But if we are to create for His glory, we require His wisdom, which I briefly mentioned last time as “set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth”, and there, “like a master workman”[1] To all the people and kingdoms of the world, His call is to repentance. If you want utopia, you need to go through Him.

Now we come down from the almost cosmic level of the prior posts to the level of the individual.

Learning Fear

What follows started with me pondering Psalm 130:4: “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.”  I read this a few weeks ago and initially thought it was backwards: why does knowing that God forgives make us fear Him more?  Shouldn’t we fear Him less when forgiven?  Also, if “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom”[2] then to find purpose we need wisdom, and to have wisdom we need fear.

Getting Psalm 130:4 to make sense with the order of forgiveness, fear, and then wisdom required a re-thinking of repentance.  My conclusion was: the one who has not been forgiven has not repented, and the reason they did not repent was that they did not fear God.  They did not understand Him properly.

But the one who has been forgiven has repented, and they repented because they understood that was the best thing for them to do.  A proper understanding and respect for God’s character makes us turn to Him with our guilt, rather than run away from Him.  We should not be afraid of God, where we are motivated to passivity – avoiding mistakes that would anger the one we fear.  We fear God in that we revere Him and respect His authority, thus actively seeking to please Him.  When we pray and ask for forgiveness, it’s often a simple prayer made with the proverbial faith of a child, but if you unpack the implications, prayers of repentance acknowledge:

1) Him as the source of the law, the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong
2) Him as the righteous judge who is personally offended by our sin
3) His omniscience, knowing we cannot hide our sin
4) His uniqueness, as there is no other God to turn to
5) His steadfast love for us, knowing He bore the cost of our sin, and therefore we can approach Him
6) His compassion since He lived as a man
7) His power and willingness to heal us
8) His consistency of character: that He is not arbitrary
9) …and more

If we don’t implicitly or explicitly believe these things, then why repent and ask forgiveness from God?  Why expect to get it?  Exploring that set of statements could fill multiple volumes of theology books, but we don’t need that knowledge.  Fortunately, in His grace, He honors our heartfelt confessions.  He paid the price for all our inadequacies – even when we don’t fully understand our own prayers or who we’re praying to.  The Spirit pleads with the Father on our behalf[3].  Without His inexhaustible grace, our doubt on any one of these points might prevent us from repentance.  Mercifully, our forgiveness is based on His faithfulness to us: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” – 1 John 1:9

The righteous must live by faith because otherwise God would be playing whack-a-mole with our doubts for eternity.  Faith – our trust in God – is imperfect but it is the only thing that can bridge the gap between the faith of a child and the omniscience of God, who knows all our doubts and all their answers.  We come as we are.

In pondering Psalm 130:4, I better appreciate how complex, and in fact, miraculous, repentance really is.  Genuine repentance leads to forgiveness, which gives us a better appreciation of who God is.  We will have lived Psalm 34:8 for ourselves:

“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”

Only through your acceptance of the cross, where Christ’s atoning blood was shed for you, can God in His Holiness commune with you.  Only through forgiveness will the Holy Spirit come and live in you – the indwelling referred to last time.  Only by tasting of His goodness do we really know what He is like.  It requires participation on our part.  If you never repent, you don’t know what it tastes like, only what you’ve been told.  And you might not have been told the truth.

So, forgiveness enables proper fear of the Lord, and the fear of the Lord enables wisdom, but what’s wisdom?

Upgrading Wisdom

I’ve had some sort of working definition of “wisdom” for most of my life.  As a teenager, I remember joking that it was the ability to learn from other people’s mistakes.  Sounded teenager-wise, but how do I know what’s a mistake?  Later, I read somewhere about wisdom being “skill at living life”.  Also sounds useful, but perhaps vague and worldly feeling.  Even later in life, I started thinking of it as “being able to make decisions based on facts, instead of wishful thinking.”  This has been even more useful, but which facts do you follow?  How do you choose between two “true” options?

Now I have a new definition: Wisdom is the ability to choose between the path of righteousness and the path of the wicked.  Reading the Psalms and Proverbs specifically, there is a contrast between these “paths”, and an idea that moral decisions are like a route between places.  You can be on one path or the other, and with wisdom, “you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path”[4]

You may be thinking: “that sounds like a moral compass!”  I’ll respond with: “you need to upgrade your technology.  We use GPS now!”  Let me explain.

A compass is too simple a metaphor.  Wisdom is usually not like a clear sign pointing the way, although God can use whatever means He chooses.  In our experience, wisdom is more like one voice among many on a broken Moral GPS system, that speaks about all “political, social, cultural, personal, moral, religious and spiritual”[5] factors in our environment and from our experience.  It tells us to go places we shouldn’t and not to go places we should, weighing pros and cons in multiple voices.

A pre-Christian GPS considers all these factors, and a person makes decisions as they see fit to prioritize among them.  Salvation requires realizing the GPS is broken, trusting someone who knows how to fix it, and then striving to follow the new instructions.  When this happens, a Christian gets an added feature in their Moral GPS, a “Holy Spirit download” that adds one more (heavenly, loving) voice to the cacophony.  The Spirit speaks of the justice and righteousness referred to in both Proverbs 2:9 and in Isaiah 28:17. The Spirit speaks with the wisdom needed to measure from the cornerstone and fulfill our purpose as individuals in God’s image.

As we make decisions in the world, they reflect an inner decision, as we consult our Moral GPS, but remembering that it’s still a broken system.  Proverbs 1 contains an interesting parable.  As we walk down the streets of our inner map, Wisdom calls out and raises her voice in the markets (Pr. 1:20): “If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you” (Pr. 1:23).  But the streets are noisy (also Pr. 1:20) and you continue down the wrong street (perhaps to take shelter from the voices in your head).  Wisdom refuses to answer when you discover your mistake too late.  If you respond to wisdom, you get more wisdom.

A funnier example is in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, where Lancelot is rescuing Galahad from the Castle Anthrax.  The women of the castle live alone without men and when the knights stumble by (fooled by a false Holy Grail), the women try to seduce them into staying.  Galahad should know the right thing to do, because 1) he is nicknamed “the Chaste”, and 2) the castle is named Anthrax. However, the lure of Zoot and the other women is so strong that Lancelot must forcefully drag him away.  They argue: “Can’t I have just a little peril?”  “No, it’s too perilous”.

Sometimes we have the grace of a Lancelot to save us from falling into the trap set by the wrong voices in our moral GPS.  Sometimes we’re alone.  Sometimes we’re among people who want us to do wrong.  In these cases, the strength to choose wisely must come from inside.  Back in Proverbs 1:29, wisdom says people go on the wrong path because “they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord”, suggesting that’s the deciding factor.

Absent Lancelot dragging us away, it is the fear of the Lord that makes us listen to, and act in, wisdom instead of going any which way.  It is the fear of the Lord that makes us listen to the correct voice in the broken GPS, to weigh that voice above the others.  The Holy Spirit may or may not add facts to the conversation, but it adds God’s heavenly perspective, influencing us to choose what is eternally valuable.  God does not want to drag us kicking and screaming into righteousness; He wants us to be thankful for His love and trust Him to know what’s best for us.  He knows about, and cares deeply about, every possible consequence of our actions to us and to others, not just the ones we see, or even want.

Wisdom is about taking the right action, not about accumulating facts.  Facts matter, but any voice can have facts.  In context of the Great Commandments[6], wisdom is what tells us how to love God and others actively, but in a way based on obedience that leaves the results to God.  In the book of Acts, Ananias didn’t minister to Saul, the notorious persecutor of Christians, because he thought it would end up well for Ananias[7], he did it because God told him to, and God knew that future Saul was Paul, the author of much of the New Testament.  Ananias didn’t decide based on the facts as he knew them, but he adjusted the facts in light of revelation from God.  Also, wisdom might sometimes tell you the best action is to do nothing.  Sometimes wisdom flashes a red light while others are flashing green.  “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” – Pr. 14:12 and 16:25.

Wisdom is why the Way, the Truth and the Life must be a person, not a set of rules or philosophy.   Truly, only you, in relationship with God through the Holy Spirit, can figure out what your purpose and identity in the body of Christ are.  Wisdom is proactive and specific to you.  Nobody else’s situation is your situation, and nobody else has the same relationships, abilities, and resources.  Books, advice, and experience can be helpful, but you need to “taste and see” the Holy Spirit in you, working at your very core where only He can reach.

Wisdom will put you on a path that provides you, and this world, a taste of heaven.  It is informed by a justice and righteousness – God’s law and Christ’s character – that is not of this world.  With wisdom you can build and create on the cornerstone of Christ.  The world might not like it, but the world is not your Creator.

Fulfilling our purpose requires Wisdom and Grace, motivated by Godly fear – perhaps even the boldness of Caleb in the wilderness to face giants despite the majority opinion[8].  The next post, God willing, will be about combating the other voices in the Moral GPS.

Future Topics: Mind Your Own Business, Learning from Chaos, Walking on Water, some song analysis, recycled posts from my old, defunct blog, and hopefully much more!

Thanks for reading – comment below and/or share if you want.  What was meaningful to you?  What did you disagree with?  How do you define wisdom?  How does the world?

[1] Proverbs 8:22-31
[2] Proverbs 9:10a
[3] Romans 8:26-27
[4] Proverbs 2:9
[5] See last post.  These are some arenas of opposition defeated by Christ on the cross, and that He wants His people to influence.
[6] Matthew 22:37-39.  In short, love God and love your neighbor.
[7] Acts 9:13
[8] Numbers 13:30