know thyself

I really enjoy stumbling across a word like "godliness". To think you know what a word means and then find out not just a deeper meaning, but really an entirely different meaning is a great experience. However today I am struck by a different experience that is also pretty cool and even a bit sobering. I read the following passage and looked up all the words I underlined:

"11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses."

Looking up all those words I discovered ... nothing. They all mean basically exactly what they look like. Some were incredibly basic. Man of God translates anthropos of theos. The most basic way to describe a human. any human. But he is of God. It displays though the great marriage of attitude and action. I really am tempted to paste in the James passage on faith and works, but it's so familiar and I feel that it is again represented here. After a call to the attitude of godliness, Paul goes on to encourage and explain the ACTIONS that will arise from that attitude. When I first began to get excited about truly following God and loving him and having real relationship with him and my wife and other believers I was enthralled by this relationship attitude concept. All you need is love. After an early life spent being hit over and over again with actions actions action and appearance appearance appearance it was so amazingly refreshing to see that my God, first and foremost, wanted me to have an attitude of love toward him. My actions didn't define my faith. My actions didn't matter. Oops. Did I just write that? I sure did. I wrote it because that is how I began to think and it was an unhealthy swing in the opposite direction.

I overreacted. I was so intoxicated by the freedom of having a relationship with God that was more about love and relationship than performance that I somehow managed to overlook an incredible amount of Scripture. Maybe I can say that I had seen the do's and don't of Scripture for so long that ignoring them for a while to focus elsewhere was warranted but I have to honestly say no. It wasn't truly healthy. I had exchanged one unbalanced view for another. This has changed again though.

I was talking with my wife last night and I have learned a bit about myself from talking it out. I'm now a complete mess. I still seem to have as a bit of a default setting an impersonal view of God that overlooks his love. When I begin to slip a bit and live in my own strength I tend to follow God out of ... well I don't really know what to call it ... reality. I follow God because he's true. I don't really have a choice. There's not a post-modern bone in my body. When I know something is true, I adapt. But that's a loveless faith. It's my default. I don't like it. It works both ways. When I live this way, I not only express my love to God less, I basically live like I think that he doesn't love me. He's just that impersonal all powerful God. It's gets fairly fatalistic. It came up because my wife told me that she knew we would be okay whether I got a job or not. I basically felt like "it doesn't matter if I think we'll be okay or not, God's gonna do what he's gonna do". All I can I do is buckle up and deal with whatever he decides to throw at us. While not entirely wrong from a theological sense, it does show that I do indeed have a lack of the understanding of the deep love of God for me, and also that there is no way I can have this attitude and love him as I should. In short, it's a problem.

This is where all this comes back around. It is true that attitudes such as godliness are primary. That discovery won't change. But to be of primary importance is different than to be of solo importance. This is the truth that must be a reality in my life. Primarily, Paul calls Timothy and his congregation to the attitude of godliness. Then, after that, he also calls them to FLEE, PURSUE, FIGHT, and TAKE HOLD. All strong concepts. I've taken the godliness step. I revere and respect him. But these are actions that now must follow. They are strong words. Fighting verbs. Action verbs. They are the types of words that describe warriors. According to Paul they are the words that describe anthropos. People. of God. If I am a man of God. If I am simply a weak basic human who has aligned himself under the kingdom of the Almighty, then I will have an attitude of godliness. I will also FLEE, PURSUE, FIGHT, and TAKE HOLD. It's time for action.

godliness

"3 If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness,4 he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions,5 and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain."

I did a search on my blog just to make sure I hadn't posted on this idea of godliness here before. I know I've run across it a few times in my Bible class days and maybe also in a youth group or two. Apparently though, it has never made it into here. The first time I looked it up I was a bit surprised. When I had heard the world godliness before, I had always assumed it meant "good like God". So I simply read it as a synonym of holiness or goodness or any other of the Bible words that simply mean "good". This fits in well with the the type of faith I grew up in. That type of faith had only 2 spiritual decisions. First: Pray this prayer. Second: Be good. It was a really simple faith and a terrible system. I didn't understand the prayer, and I couldn't always be good. But that's a rant I know I've covered before so I won't go there in this space. As a smart all-knowing Bible teacher I looked up this word godliness in a concordance just hoping to find something a little different to make a test question out of in a couple weeks. It'd probably just say "goodness" I thought, but hey, you never know. Here's what I found:

1) reverence, respect

2) piety towards God, godliness

Pretty wild if you really think about it. For me and my assumptions about it, it had always been a word that was all about ACTIONS. Yet respect and reverence are not actions, they are ATTITUDES. This changes everything. To be godly is not at its core to DO anything. To be Godly is to view God in a reverent, respectful, awe-filled way. It can be assumed that such an attitude will in fact dramatically alter and even direct one's actions, yet it is not a command to act in a certain way, it is a command to view God as... well... God. In a christian culture obsessed with image and perception and appearance, the truth of whether one is truly "godly' can be seen and known clearly only by God himself. 

With this understanding of godliness, I now have to go back into the context and read it that way. I think I'm just going to write it out that way again:

"3 If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with reverence and respect toward God,4 he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions,5 and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that reverence and respect toward God is a means of gain."

If you don't truly know God, if you haven't experienced his love and forgiveness and mercy and strength and peace and hope and all that goes with knowing him, then there's no way you can understand what those who really know God that way know. You see the excitement and the joy of those who are serving and you want a piece of that, but you never submit to God. You seek to get that in your own strength. You are seeking after God because you want to gain something. I remember some speaker in a book or video asking the question "do we want God, or just his stuff?" Now that I write that I'm fairly certain it was Francis Chan. This is the motivation of those who are associated with Christianity but don't know Christ. That is where all the fighting comes from. Isn't it clear from Paul's choice of words that these guys don't really know God? He calls them people who are "depraved in mind and deprived of the truth". That cannot be a believer. There's no way. This is tough news.

The passage doesn't even end there. There's more:

"6 Now there is great gain in reverence and respect toward God with contentment,7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs."

All I ever hear from this passage is contentment, contentment, contentment, but this is as much or more about godliness. First you must greatly revere and respect God, then ... be content. Serve that ideal first, and let the chips lie where they fall. Love God, act in ways that represent that attitude, and then be content with what God places before you. This is no easy thing to even comprehend, let alone do. I am writing this today and in about half and hour I will leave to go for a job interview. Will I get it or won't I? Do I respect and revere God? Will whether I get the job or not affect either my level of godliness or contentment? I'd like to answer with a hearty no, but it's hard to say. This blog is a history of my spiritual discoveries, not necessarily my spiritual victories or accomplishments. Today may be a window into the truth of it. 

God, culture, slavery

This is a dangerous post. It could derail in a couple ways. First, I like history and this could devolve into a worthless rabbit trail that benefits no one. Worse, I could get into a debate about the spiritual nature and ethics of slavery. I get the strange idea that in my present location there may not be a lot of personal application at the end of that road. But there may in fact be some pretty deep application here regarding how a follower of God reacts and interacts with his culture. Also, if we are to know God better we may need to look a little bit at his nature and how he viewed things at the times this was written:

"1 Let all who are under a yoke as slavest regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled. 2 Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers; rather they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved."

I know from my own personal study of history that this passage was used by preachers in the 1800's to defend the institution of slavery in the South leading up to the Civil War. I'm thinking that's not a good thing. People who hate God have used this passage in their talks with me to try and prove that IF God exists, he's not the just and loving God I know him to be. How could he be if he condoned slavery? This is the issue one faces when you read through a book in its entirety; you can't dodge this stuff. Modern well meaning people often take this and try to apply it to employment as if that is fair and answers all the questions. Now it's probably true that the attitudes given here are in fact the way we should treat our employment today, but that hardly answers any of the questions concerning the context of the passage and how it affects the holy nature of God. It requires 2 questions be asked. One, am I ok with a God who condoned and allowed the continued existence and slavery; even allowing true believers to continue as owners of other human beings?

Anyone who knows me much knows that this is the type of question I hate. Any question that contains the idea "Am I ok with a God who would..." is foolish, arrogant, and irrelevant. God could care less if I'm "ok" with him. He is truth. He is what the Word says he is. We adjust our understanding according to the truth of an unchanging God and his Word. He doesn't adjust himself to my fallen mind with a warped humanistic view of justice and ethics. Understanding this brings the second question. Since I know that my God said this, what is the view of culture that he has that places him in a spot where this is his position, and his holiness, goodness, and agape love is intact? Now that's a good question, and it's not a waste of time or a theological plaything because this must be a deep facet of the personality of my God and I want to understand how this works not so I can polish my head knowledge up, but so I can better know my beloved God. So here goes.

I don't think that by God teaching a slave how to react to his master he was "condoning" the institution of slavery. God wasn't setting up a perfect world in this passage, he was teaching his children how to live and function in an imperfect one. That little idea is really all you need to know. God is so much bigger than culture. We are not called to change our culture. Our world is decrepit and broken so ANY culture (even that of our precious founding fathers) is in and of itself fallen as well. Some are obviously better than others but that means little in God's big picture. If we can outlaw abortion, put prayer back in school, and keep the homos from getting married it doesn't mean that our culture pleases God. It doesn't mean that more people will love God more. If anything Christian history teaches us that followers of God are more devout and dedicated in cultures where they are persecuted. For this reason God rides above the varying cultures of men. He teaches his children how live and act in whatever state they are, since we are capable of loving him and bringing him glory and honor in any culture.

The applications aren't all that hard. No I don't think you can use this passage to say that God endorses slavery. I did find a little bit of commentary on this from a guy named David Guzik that was fairly intriguing:

d. This teaching was especially important in the ancient world, where slaves might be treated very differently from master to master, and where there was sometimes intense racism and hatred between slaves and masters.

i. Christianity arose in a social setting where slavery was commonplace. There were some 60 million slaves in the Roman Empire. Sometimes slaves held privileged positions; other times, slaves were treated like dirt.

ii. Paul and others in the New Testament did not call for a violent revolution against the institution of slavery (which would have failed miserably); but they did, through the gospel, effectively destroy the foundations of slavery - racism, greed, class hatred - and made civilization without slavery possible.

iii. The church itself was a place where slavery was destroyed; it was not uncommon for a master and a slave to go to church together, where the slave would be an elder in the church, and the master expected to submit to the slave's spiritual leadership! Such radical thinking was an offense to many, but glorified God and eventually destroyed slavery.

It makes a lot of sense. I don't know exactly where he got his information about slaves and masters attending church together but from what I understand of how the Bible teaches that the children of God are to treat each other and love each other I understand it. I can picture it. I can picture it in my imagination since I haven't seen a ton of it in reality. The bigger concept is that I need to put all my focus, all my strength, all my passion into my relationship with God, other believers, and lost people. I don't have time to play these cultural games. My life must revolve around the truth and that truth exists in any culture. It trumps and defies any culture. When I am dragged into cultural games I lose my focus. I begin to worry about my rights and interests instead of his glory. We all vote, and I will vote according to values that I hold because I believe that they honor my God, but I won't act like God will be defeated if we let the Democrats win. My God is bigger than any culture and therefore my worship of him will be as well. Our God is not that small.

conspicuous

con·spic·u·ous

[kuhn-spik-yoo-uhs]

adjective

1. easily seen or noticed; readily visible or observable.

2. attracting special attention, as by outstanding qualities or eccentricities.

I had some people over to the house today, and was talking with them when a couple of my cousins showed up unannounced. They were there for a short time and then left. Once they were gone one of the guys that was there said "I've got a lot of family just like that ... scumbags". It was comical, accurate, and offensive all at once. At the end of 1 Timothy 5 is a section about promoting people to leadership and how it shouldn't be done quickly without proper vetting, then (after a famous alcohol related verse that I'll decline to comment on at this time), Paul states:

24 The sins of some men are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later.25 So also good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden.


This doesn't even really need necessarily to be in the Bible. Most anyone would accept this concept as true. Much of the bad and good that there is to a person can be readily seen, and some of it cannot be. What a simple truth. It is stated to Timothy as reminding advice as he chooses who he will lay hands on to help him lead. Thinking about it I realized how much we choose leaders in our Christian culture based on what we don't know instead of what we do. Even now as I fill out job applications I adjust my resume to fit each different job and make myself sound more qualified; a perfect fit. If it's a job in the Christian sector, call it a ministry. If it's a secular job, call it a program. Slide this in here, tweak that part there, do what you can to conceal the bad and accentuate the good. It makes me sick. 


When I came to Calvary I believed that I had been "saved" at 7, lived  a complacent, self-focused life until around 20, at which point God "woke me up". I honestly believed that to be the truth. After years of seeking my God and learning about him in his word I understand the true reality of my personal history. I began my real relationship with God at about 20 years of age. Everything before that was rubbish. Would I have been hired at 23 had I known that and admitted it? It's a question that can't be answered, elsewise I wouldn't have asked it. My point though is that they didn't know me. Few people really know anyone. So unless you are like one of my cousins, who rode in on their Harleys with long hair and tattoos, joking about drugs and chain smoking the whole time, people seem to assume the best, especially in a church setting. I talked with a guy who I barely knew the other day and it turned out he was a volunteer youth worker. In our first conversation he talked about some past issues and mentioned that he had a DWI arrest in his past. It was refreshingly honest. 


We need to ask ourselves what we really know about each other. How do I KNOW that they love God? Do I see their passion for the kingdom? Do I see their sacrifice? Is it apparent that they are more concerned with the next world than this one? Do they love others in a way that is nonsense to the common way of thinking in our culture? I can answer these questions about only a handful of the scores of people that I would say I know well. Why? The Bible seems clear that we should know each other much more deeply that we do, much more deeply than our Christian culture requires us to. The superficiality of it cripples us from accomplishing what we should. This is why we're so shocked at the divorce, or the arrest, or the sudden falling away from the faith of people we thought were "fine". We always assumed they were ok EVEN THOUGH WE NEVER REALLY SAW THEM LOVE GOD. 


The point of this passage is that we should be seeing the goodness of God in each other is we are really his children and called according to his purpose. Not that we should be arrogantly promoting it and displaying it and manipulating it (like my resumes), but that it should be the conspicuous nature of our lives. I write this at my parents dining room table and across from me stands a display cabinet my dad and I rescued from a college that was closing. It was a college my dad attended. The cabinet bears special meaning to my dad because of the plaque that is mounted on the face of it just above the doors. It reads:

IN MEMORY OF

JAMES LAUREN HOLLISTER

Oct. 30, 1949-Sept. 30, 1970

FROM HIS FRIENDS

WHO SAW JESUS CHRIST

IN HIS LIFE

I obviously never met this man, he died of cancer at 21 years of age nearly a decade before I was born. He was my dads college roommate and by all accounts his truest friend. I wish I could have met him and known him. What an incredible epithet if it is true. But it should not be incredible. Not at all. We are all children of God. We have the mind of Christ. It is the duty of every follower of Christ to live a life where someone should be able to say that they saw Jesus Christ in our lives. The fact that this is so rare serves as a condemnation to the way we live. We must become active participants in the effort to change our culture. I want people to think of Jesus when they think about who I am and what I did with my life.

zombies are lame

I really really get annoyed at the zombie thing. It must be about the lamest trend in history. Grown adults reading about zombies all day, putting zombie stickers on their cars, playing zombie games, dressing like zombies for lame zombie parties, etc... I get a real rough and tough manly gun magazine. There was an advertisement in it last month for special zombie ammo. Unbelievable. They're not real! I write this rant because today, reading the Bible, I found an instance of a true zombie. The last thing I want, however, is for one of my kids to find this journal 50 years from now and think that I wrote it because I thought it was a cool concept. I didn't. I hate all trends. And I hate this one the most. But it's here anyway.

I read through 1 Timothy 5 today and I don't know why I did because it's just about widows and I don't really see much application there for me. Here's what I read:

"3 Honor widows who are truly widows.4 But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.5 She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day,6 but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives.7 Command these things as well, so that they may be without reproach.8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. 9 Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband,10 and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work.11 But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry12 and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith.13 Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not.14 So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander.15 For some have already strayed after Satan.16 If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows."

Verse 6 is the one that caught me of course. It was an eerie verse to read. This is my culture's drug of choice. Self. Why didn't Satan think of this one sooner? It encompasses all other sins. This culture cares only for self. It serves self. It will die for self. This attitude has poisoned the church. This is not some facet of culture slowly invading the church. It's here. It's reality. It's assumed. It's normal. Most don't realize that their true god is right there in the mirror. In today's faith you can serve yourself in a way that pleases God. LIE. Wait though, context context context, right? This is about widows. I thought that for about 10 seconds before realizing how stupid it sounded. So self-indulgent widows are dead even while they are alive but somehow equally self-indulgent people who aren't widowed are honoring to God and he's cool with them. Duh. It is safe to think that this is God's view of EVERYONE who serves themself first. 

Dead even while they are alive. What a horrible thought. Something as stupid as Hollywood's version of a zombie causes me no fear compared to the sickening fear that grips me to think of this. I see myself running here, running there, working, doing things with family, spending time on the computer, doing whatever. Then I picture God in heaven looking at me; looking at what I am spending time on, what I am "accomplishing". He looks at me and thinks: "That guy might as well be dead already". His story is written. If he accomplishes every goal he has before he dies, he will be no further than he is right now. Because in a cosmic spiritual sense, he's dead. He cares for nothing that has a chance to be real, to be alive, to matter. Make a movie about that and I'll wet myself in terror. 

God, this is a real danger to me. I can get this way. I can find myself from time to time investing in things that are junk. My time, my money, and my passion switches from You to things that don't matter. And I die. I might as well be dead in those moments. God keep me alive. Help me focus on you and what you have for me.