Tag Jesus

The Miracle of the Toothpicks

Todd R 4 Comments

In 1989, Rain Man, a movie starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman, won the Oscar for Best Picture and Hoffman won for Best Actor in a Leading Role, playing Raymond, an autistic-savant.  Long before autism was widely recognized, Raymond showed that those with autism have amazing talents, personalities, and human dignity just like anyone else.  In the movie, Raymond wins the affection of his selfish, arrogant brother Charlie, played by Cruise, who was initially only interested in Raymond because of his inheritance.

In one of the movie’s more well-known scenes, Raymond performs what in another context might be considered a miracle.  You can watch the 1 ½ minute clip here or read my summary below it.

In the clip, a waitress drops most of a box of toothpicks on the floor and in just a couple of seconds, Raymond counts that 246 of them scattered on the floor (he also counts three groups of 82).  At this point of the movie, Charlie still sees Raymond as someone he has to put up while he chases down his inheritance.  The waitress says the box had 250 toothpicks, so Charlie says Raymond guessed “pretty close” because he just wants to leave.  But when the waitress says, “there’s 4 left in the box”, Charlie realizes something amazing has just happened.  It wasn’t a guess.

It’s easy to be skeptical of miracles, or to choose to ignore them, but some of the Bible’s miracles aren’t much different than Raymond counting toothpicks at super-human speed.  We can’t explain why some people count faster than others, or run faster than others, or have photographic memories while others don’t, yet if we call something a “miracle,” many people will demand an explanation.  Other very abnormal things we just take for granted.

One miracle is recorded in Matthew 21:18-19, which says: “In the morning, as [Jesus] was returning to the city, he became hungry.  And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, ‘May no fruit ever come from you again!’ And the fig tree withered at once.”  This tree was eventually going to wither anyway, so all Jesus did was change the speed of a natural process.  True, Raymond was special because of his own speed, and Jesus controlled the speed of something other than himself, but still part of what makes it a miracle is the speed.

If the speed of a natural process, like counting or the growth of plants, can be variable and manipulated, why not also the direction of the process?  In Mark’s gospel, the word “immediately” appears in at least 5 references to healing miracles[1].  The word “immediately” means the speed was part of the miracle.  Jesus not only healed a paralytic in Mark chapter 2, but the paralytic “immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all,”[2] without months or years of physical rehabilitation therapy.  From everyday experience, we know that different people recover from injury at different rates, yet why do we demand an explanation when its immediate?  If we don’t know what process took place to make this man a paralytic, why is it hard to believe that process could go backwards, and quickly?  It’s partly a miracle of degree, not of kind.

Of course, we shouldn’t believe every miracle: some are mere hoaxes, and some signs are done in opposition to God.  But also, we should not be too quick to dismiss the possibility of miracles we didn’t expect or can’t explain.  And while Rain Man does not claim to be based on a true story[3], the Bible does.  And Jesus, the one who could control the speed and direction of what we consider “natural” processes, claimed to be the God who put those processes to work in the first place.

“As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.” – Ecclesiastes 11:5

[1] See Mark 1:42, 2:12, 5:29, 5:42, and 10:52
[2] Mark 2:12
[3] The movie was based on a novel, but Raymond’s abilities were modeled on a real person named Kim Peek, who you can read more about at this link.  https://allthatsinteresting.com/kim-peek-real-rain-man

Weeds are Good for You

Todd R 1 Comment

Are there people in the church, either in your own church, another local church, or somewhere in the global church, that seem a bit un-Christian?  Perhaps their doctrine is a bit different than yours, or perhaps they behave a bit differently.  Maybe they dress differently or have different standards in music.  They could have different political beliefs.  It could be anything.

Within a parable Jesus told in Matthew 13:24-30 is some wisdom about “those people.”  The parable is:

“He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.  And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’  He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’  But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

For this post, the key phrase in the parable is “No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.”  The wheat in the parable represents God’s people, and the weeds represent unbelievers in the midst of them.  The servants ask the master whether they should pull up all the weeds immediately, which seems like a sensible thing to do.  Weeds are bad for crops, right?

The surprising response is that the servants should “Let both grow together until the harvest.”  Why?  Because in the master’s judgment it is better for the wheat if the weeds are allowed to grow.  In other words, removing the weeds before the harvest – when God will separate the wheat from the weeds – would be bad for the wheat harvest.  Until the harvest, the master warns that we could “root up the wheat along with them.”

In Matthew 25 where Jesus tells of the final judgment in verses 31-46, it’s strongly implied that some of the “wheat” will be surprised about being wheat and some “weeds” will be surprised about being weeds.  In verses 37-39 Christians say: “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?  And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?  And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?”  In verse 44, unbelievers say: “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?”

Therefore, if the wheat and the weeds themselves can be unsure which they are, how can anyone else definitively decide who doesn’t belong, especially to risk damaging those who do belong.  There will always be true and false believers in churches until Christ returns, so remember: According to the Master, the wheat is better off with the weeds than without.  Especially if sometimes what we think are weeds actually aren’t.

Fruitful Religion

Todd R 1 Comment

Before Jesus began His public ministry, John the Baptist announced Jesus’ coming and prepared people for His message.  This, of course, generated opposition, and when the Pharisees and Sadducees came out to confront John, he told them to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance…Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.  Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”[1]

Since Pharisees and Sadducees were often hypocrites, this is usually interpreted as John telling them to practice good works that flow from an inner righteousness, instead of keeping up a merely external appearance of following God.  I agree this is a correct interpretation, but I also think there is more than that to the fruit that John spoke of.

Paul wrote in Galatians 5:22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

Could this also be part of the fruit John wanted his opposition to produce?

Perhaps John was telling the Pharisees and Sadducees that their religion didn’t produce “love, joy, peace”, and the other characteristics listed by Paul.  Jesus pointed out the lack of love in the parable of the Good Samaritan, that the religious leaders of His time would rather leave a man dying on the side of the road than break what they saw as legal obligations.  But did the Pharisees and others also lack joy and peace?  Since they strived to obey God’s law perfectly (but only on the outside) they likely felt constant pressure to live up to God’s perfect standards, instead of peace with their Maker.  Their relationships with others, who they saw as inferior to them, were distant and cold at best.  “Against these things there is no law,” yet the Pharisees and Sadducees failed to practice them.  They not only felt no joy or peace, but they also robbed others of their joy and peace by making them feel unworthy of God’s love.  They showed no kindness or patience to others.  They were not faithful to God by being gentle with people who were not like them.  They did not “bear fruit in keeping with repentance,” as John the Baptist said.

It’s easy to judge the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, since Jesus clearly exposed their inadequacies.  However, it’s a difficult challenge to ask ourselves: does our religion bear this fruit for us?  Does our practice of Christianity result in not only loving actions toward our neighbors, but also “joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” for ourselves?

Do we experience joy and peace in our relationship with God, or do we feel grief that we can’t live up to His expectations and do we still feel like God is disappointed in us?  Do we practice kindness and patience with others?  Are we gentle with those enslaved by the brokenness that rules this world?  Do we submit ourselves to the control of our God, who tells us to love Him and love our neighbor no matter what?

Fortunately for us, our salvation does not depend on our faithfulness, but on His faithfulness.  As 1 John 1:9 says: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  We can never come to God too late or too often to ask for forgiveness and restoration.  His love for His people is steadfast and His faithfulness is without end or limit.  He is always willing to bring us back to the path that yields fruit for the Kingdom.  Jesus on the cross purchased for us a way to bear fruit!

Therefore, pray that we can all “bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”  Fruit that brings us joy and peace, and that brings Him glory.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

[1] Matthew 5:8, 10

The God Over All Government

Todd R 1 Comment

We’d all like to live under a better government, but the only perfect, Godly government we’ll ever see is a monarchy under Jesus in heaven.  Until then, like it or not, we all have to live under imperfect governments.  We hope and pray for our government to be more Godly, more like the perfect government, and we should, as Paul wrote:

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” – 1 Tim 2:1-2

In addition to praying, there are many ways we try to influence our government.  In a democracy, we can seek to do this: by voting, by contributing money to political candidates, by working on a candidate’s campaign, by donating to lobbying organizations, by convincing others to vote differently, etc.  God may lead different people to participate politically in any of these ways, not at all, or in other ways.

However, none of these actions will be effective unless God is behind them, and the outcome we seek is what He also wants.  Only He can decide what are the right actions for us to take, and only He can decide which outcomes are best for His people, who He seeks to make perfectly Godly by His own definition of the word.  His purposes are to purify His people for eternity, not to bring about a perfect government in this broken world.  His purposes may not be our purposes, and where our influence is limited, His is unlimited.  Proverbs 21:1 tells us:

“The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD;
            he turns it wherever he will.”

Therefore, regardless of whether we think our government is Godly, our government is actually Godly in one way: that He is in charge behind the scenes regardless of how it looks to us.

There are a couple of verses in the book of Ezra that acknowledge this, but first just a little background.  Ezra was a priest and scribe who likely wrote the Old Testament book bearing his name, in addition to Nehemiah, 1 and 2 Chronicles, and possibly Psalm 119.  It is also thought that he helped compile the Old Testament canon (the list of which books do and don’t belong).

Ezra lived at the end of the Babylonian captivity of the nation of Judah, an exile that ended not because of the vigorous efforts of Judah to break free, but because God used foreign kings to free them, and later to pay for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.

After returning to their own land, the people of Judah were thankful for King Cyrus and King Darius, but ultimately, they knew God was behind it, and they determined to worship only Him, not Cyrus, Darius, or any other gods or men.  Ezra 6:22 says:

“And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy, for the LORD had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.”

Ezra repeats the point in Ezra 7:27, referencing the principle from Proverbs 21:1 –

“Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the LORD that is in Jerusalem”

Our government is always in God’s hands, and He can do whatever He wills with it.  Pray that He will use it to bless God’s people, but also praise Him for all the benefits we may have, even under a hostile government.  Remember that God was behind Israel’s defeat by the Assyrians and Judah’s by Babylon, not just the return from exile.  It is by worshipping only God, not particular people or forms of government, that God’s people find their joy and peace.

“The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD;           
he turns it wherever he will.”

42 is Not The Answer

Todd R 8 Comments

[This is a repost of my first post from May 2021, for the blog’s 3rd anniversary tomorrow. Enjoy!]

“You shall have no other gods before me” – Exodus 20:3

“The carpenter…plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it…He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it.  Half of it he burns in the fire…And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, ‘Deliver me, for you are my god!’”  – Isaiah 44:13-17 (abbreviated)

Meet Deep Thought

Even if you’ve never read Douglas Adams’ classic science fiction comedy novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, chances are you’ve heard that the number 42 is The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything.

In the story, a supercomputer called Deep Thought is built, specifically designed to do one thing: calculate the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything.  Deep Thought’s creators planned to re-build all of society around this answer.  The benefit to society would be worth the 7 ½ million years it took to calculate it.  “Never again will we wake up in the morning and think: Who am I?  What is my purpose in life?”  Deep Thought completes its work.  The world awaits.

Deep Thought says the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything is 42.

Deep Thought also reveals that his creators didn’t know what the question was and although the answer was right, 42 was not useful if they didn’t know the question.  Of course, Deep Thought also says he’s not powerful enough to produce the question.

So, instead of giving up after 7 ½ million years of effort, Deep Thought is tasked with helping to create another, stronger supercomputer to come up with the question.  But, after 8 million years of calculation, the new computer is destroyed 5 minutes before it was finished.

So, instead of giving up after 15 ½ million years of effort, those in charge of the project know they need to provide some sort of question to their superiors to salvage the situation.  They consider possible questions.  “What do you get when you multiply six by seven?” was considered, but not very useful or philosophical enough.  They consider a few more and settle on “How many roads must a man walk down?”, a Bob Dylan lyric, and report that to their bosses as the computer’s question.  (Which, I suppose is giving up after 15 ½ million years of effort.)  They sought a guiding principle to organize a utopia around and ended up with a song lyric.  The universe continued with no sense of meaning.  But the questions remain, like a “splinter in our mind” as Morpheus says in the Matrix, another story where Artificial Intelligence fails to fulfill our desire for meaning and purpose.

In the real world, many are working – across the political and ideological spectrum – to satisfy the market for answers.

Jordan Peterson, perhaps one of the most misunderstood thinkers of our current time, has published some brilliant best-selling books trying to answer these questions, or at least to provide a path forward in the absence of those answers: “In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition-, religion- and even nation-centered cultures, partly to decrease the danger of group conflict.  But we are increasingly falling prey to the desperation of meaninglessness, and that is no improvement at all.”  His books sell because people are searching, and he has a ton of good advice.

But Jordan Peterson is stuck in a paradox: he knows something like Deep Thought is needed to prevent humanity from destroying itself under the weight of meaninglessness, but also that what Deep Thought represents is a grave threat to humanity.  “This is what totalitarian means: Everything that needs to be discovered has been discovered.  Everything will unfold precisely as planned.  All problems will vanish, forever, once the perfect system is accepted”.  Thus, he is tenaciously anti-utopian in his thinking.  In fact, the walls of his house are covered in totalitarian propaganda as a constant reminder of the horrors of the 20th century.

See, what’s missing in the Hitchhiker’s story is any explanation of why all the people of the universe could reasonably be expected to do what Deep Thought says.  What do we do with those who don’t agree with Deep Thought’s advice?  What do they do in the Kingdom of Deep Thought to the Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego[1] who conscientiously object?  What do they do with the blind, the deaf and the lame, if Deep Thought says you need to see, hear, and walk?  After all, 15 ½ million years of effort can’t go to waste because a few inconvenient people got in the way.  You might say it was a blessing that Deep Thought failed.

While these concepts and questions aren’t new – Adam and Eve themselves got the answer wrong[2] – what’s new is that in our current American culture, more are boldly saying: “We tried Christianity and that didn’t work, so now we’re trying something else” and they fully expect the support of everyone and everything.  Resistance is futile, as they say in Star Trek.  While all past attempts at worldly utopia have utterly failed, momentum seems to be rising to make us all guinea pigs in the next attempt at building an idol, which is what Deep Thought, and its ideological brethren clearly are.  If Bob Dylan met Deep Thought at the crossroads, he might say we’ve been down this road before 42 times.  While we might take heart that G.K. Chesterton said: “When I fancied that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all of Christendom”, we ask what can we do?

Which brings us back to Jordan Peterson.  He is highly aware of Christianity as a force that has shaped culture and civilization over centuries.  He finds value in the Bible as a collection of useful and profound stories, pulling from that a lot of helpful insight.  However, he falls short of saying Christianity is true.  He is always careful not to get “metaphysical”.  If Jesus is actually real, isn’t that utopian and rigidly ideological?

I pray Jordan makes the leap of faith because what if Jesus really is the Answer?  We’ve all seen the “Jesus is the Answer” bumper stickers.  What if it’s that simple?  Ok, maybe, but what’s the question?  What about “Who am I?  What is my purpose in life?”  If we claim this Jesus is the Answer, who is this person and what does He have to do with me and my problems?

Now we get to the section of the post where I literally had a placeholder in the draft saying: “Insert Christology Here”. If I say too little, it won’t make sense, but if I say too much not only do my odds of blasphemy increase, but my first “blog post” will take years, and multiple volumes, to write.  But I’ve painted myself into this corner…

So, here goes (after a multitude of re-writes) …

Meet Jesus

Jesus is God the Son.  He is the Messiah, the Christ, foretold in the Old Testament as the perfect prophet, priest, and king.  Where the leaders of the Old Testament failed, He would succeed.  Jesus eternally holds these offices of prophet, priest, and king, who also announces Himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life – the representation of God the Father and the way to Him.  These attributes show Him as superior to all the Deep Thoughts of the world:

Truth: As omniscient God, he is our prophet, communicating to us His revelation.  He has no gaps in his knowledge or biases and therefore His utopia – His New Jerusalem – is not an inadequate abstraction or wishful thinking.  He alone is perfectly trustworthy.

Way: As our perfect priest, He is our unblemished sacrifice, putting to death our spiritual rebellion on the cross.  This priest does not sacrifice others in pursuit of earthly goals but sacrifices Himself to free us to pursue heavenly goals in service of others.  The perfect world is not only available to some lucky few in the future, but to everyone in all times who follow Him by sacrificing themselves for the truth.

Life: He offers us eternal life in His Kingdom.  His resurrection shows He has conquered death itself, and His people will be resurrected with Him, with new bodies, His law written on our hearts, enabling us to implement the answer.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego[3] – and everyone else – will have clear consciences.  The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk[4], and everyone will be fully able to realize their purpose.

Thinking of Jesus as creator may also be a clue to our purpose.  As shown in the introductory quote, it makes no sense than man could create something that transcends man, something that could know better than man himself what man should do.  But the prophet cries out to those who would build Deep Thought and seek their own way in Isaiah 29:15-16:

“Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel,
                   whose deeds are in the dark,
                   and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”
You turn things upside down!
        Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
        that the thing made should say of its maker,
                “He did not make me”;
        or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
                “He has no understanding”?”

Jesus as creator is, however, adequate to the task of being our Answer.  He is the “Word” of John 1:1 – the “logos” – or logic behind all of creation.  He knows us better than we know ourselves.  He could snap His fingers and start over, but He chooses not to.  He chooses to make us co-creators, to work through, and overcome, all our weaknesses.

Tying these ideas together with Matthew 6:10: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”, I propose 2 principles in passing now, which will be ongoing themes of this blog:

  • Our Life’s purpose is to witness to the future kingdom, to bring glory to our King, to bring Truth about the next world into this world lovingly and creatively, to point others to Jesus, who is the Way to that world
  • We model the hierarchy of the next world, where the Creator is over all of creation, and man, unique among the creation as God’s image, implements a perfect world

So, in summary: where does purpose come from?  From One greater than us, who loves us.

Why do we create to find purpose? Because He created us like Himself and shares His work with us.

What does this look like?  Here is an interesting example:

Meet Tyler

Tyler Joseph is the singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter for the genre-bending music group twenty øne piløts.  Tyler, raised in a Christian home but struggling with depression and anxiety, started writing songs in his basement and before long was performing shows with friends in the Columbus, Ohio area.  Early songs[5] included a lot of Christian symbols and references, hinting at Jesus as an answer for people with similar struggles and the band cultivated a following at Christian music festivals.  Now their fans are known as the “Skeleton Clique”, one of the most rabid fan bases in music.  If you spend any time on their social media or at their shows, you will find people who say Tyler saved their life, and others sharing their struggles.  “Stay alive, fren” is the response, often with “the clique loves you” tagged on too.

One early song is “Isle of Flightless Birds,” which I believe is about the pointlessness of life without God.  Tyler says without God we’re like birds who can’t fly, so we “find our worth in giving birth and stuff” as the “demons and angels” manipulate us.  Our lives are “frustrating and so degrading” and “we repeat the same routines” ignoring what “our soul is really thinking”

Tyler suggests a solution is to “wake up every morning and decide what we believe”, and ends the song with this: “It’s time you pick your battle, and I promise you, this is mine”

He doesn’t spell it out, but it seems Tyler’s battle is an answer (lower case) that points to the Answer (upper case)?  What if his triumph over depression was discovering that music was his way of creating something in this world that both improves this world and points to the next?  What if his battle is to minister to an immediate need – compassion and understanding in the face of despair – while dropping breadcrumbs pointing the Way to eternal life?  If he can help people survive a bit longer, perhaps they find God – “And He is waiting, oh, so patiently”

Tyler transparently chooses to deliver a veiled message, using layered metaphors containing both spiritual and secular meanings.  He struggles with how explicit to be about his faith in the song “Clear” – “I wish that I had two faces to prove which theory works: Yelling on the street corner, or cleverly masking your words”.  In another song, “Ode to Sleep”, Tyler sings “I’m afraid to tell you who I adore; won’t tell you who I’m singing towards” amid a verse including a reference to Peter’s triple-denial of Christ[6].  Why go to the trouble of intentionally identifying what you’re denying?  It’s puzzling, but that might be his way of drawing more people in with curiosity.  He even wrote an entire song, “Heathens”, that seems to be about asking his Christian fans to accept his other fans who benefit from the secular message of the music.

Tyler’s battle is not my battle, and it’s probably not your battle.  We all have different experiences, talents, and desires.  Therefore, his answer is different than our answer.  But all our battles are fought under our King, with the tools He provides.  “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” – Ephesians 2:10

We’re not all going to be successful rock stars, but we can all do something.  We’re not all going to be artistic, but each of us has value, an answer that wouldn’t exist without us.  “Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best,” said Henry Van Dyke, a presbyterian minister and writer.

“Are you searching for purpose?”, asks Tyler in the song “Kitchen Sink”, where he suggests that everyone has their own demons and that finding purpose through creating something could be a first step toward victory over those demons.  “Write something, yeah it might be worthless; Then paint something then, it might be wordless; Pointless curses, nonsense verses; You’ll see purpose start to surface”.  I hope this blog won’t be worthless, but it’s a step and I hope you’ll take one too.

God’s ceiling for each of us is in the heavens, much higher than the ceiling we manifest for ourselves[7] when we choose not to act.  My prayer is that someday we will no longer be flightless birds, but “mount up with wings like eagles”[8] and never come down.

[1] Daniel 3:20
[2] Genesis 3:6
[3] Daniel 3:28
[4] Matthew 11:5
[5] The name of this blog is taken from a line of an early twenty øne piløts song.  More on that in a later post (maybe)
[6] Matthew 26:75
[7] Easter egg alert!

[8] Isaiah 40:31