Learning to Honor

I used to fear my father.  When I say that I do not mean to conjure up some image of a little boy cowering from his father's shadow.  What I mean is that as a young child, up to my teenage years, I knew that if I got into trouble, regardless of what the punishment might be at school, it was my father's punishment I feared.  I feared my father's punishment because he could actually take things from me that I wanted, he could actually use physical force in punishing me, and no matter what, I could not avoid him, because I had to go home at some point.  In looking back I do not think that fear was a bad thing, because at times when I was not motivated by common sense and a good intent (children are sinful you know) there was another motivating factor to keep me in line.  Fear is not always a bad thing, sometimes fear has perfectly good and practical purposes.

Lest anyone misunderstand, mine was not a household where my mother simply held back and watched my father discipline my brothers and me.  Remember, (if you've read my previous posts) my mother was a quadriplegic, so there was simply little she could do, in terms of force, to punish us.  My father was the primary disciplinarian in my household just because that was the way things had to be.  I have no idea how things would  have been different had my mother been able to walk.  Such a question is really basically irrelevant to me, because I live in the reality that is, not in the possibility of what might have been.

The reason I bring up the fear I had of my father though, is because it is that fear which taught me to honor those authorities over me.  Because I was afraid of my father, I honored his wishes, I behaved (usually) as he wanted me to behave.  And, because my father wanted me to represent him and my mother well, he wanted me to obey those teachers and other authorities that were placed over me, so long as the rules were just.  As I learned to obey the authorities over me, I eventually learned to honor those authorities.

In honoring others I learned something else as well: how to honor myself.  As I grew up and realized what it meant to honor others, I began to realize that the respect I gave those who had authority over me was the same kind of respect I wanted for myself.  I did not want people to be polite to me because I wanted to exercise control over them, but because it meant that they were respecting me, they were showing me the due deference that I was showing them.  If I was supposed to honor my bosses, doing what they wanted me to do and working as hard as I could to complete the orders given to me, then I wanted them to respect me as a person, not giving me orders just to make me work, but because the orders were sensible.  Honoring myself did not mean thinking more highly of myself than I ought to, but realizing that I had value, I am a son of the living God.

It is this same sense of honor that I have tried to teach to children who use insulting language and refuse to exercise self control.  The poor behavior of children like that shows that they do not honor their parents, because they do not care what people think of their children that they would act in such a way.  This poor behavior shows that these children do not honor others, as they use vulgarity and profanity that may insult or offend others nearby, and their behaviors generally cause a commotion, disturbing the peace of those around them as well.  This behavior also demonstrates that these children do not respect themselves.  They do not know how to behave so as to demonstrate that they think they are worth anything more than the value of entertainment they are providing at any given moment.

It is interesting to me that those who make themselves the center of attention could be the ones with the least amount of personal honor.  I do not mean simply that they may behave the worst, or commit crimes when no one is looking, but they also have no personal honor in that they do not think of themselves as having worth.  Children who scream profanities, who insult adults, and who display no self control not only insult those around them, but they illustrate that they insult themselves as well.  I realize this is not the case for all children, some of these children think the whole world revolves around them and they act the way they do because they think everyone ought to give them what they want because they are worth it (or deserve it).  But, in either case, whether these children honor themselves too much or have no honor at all, they still do not rightly honor themselves, their parents, or anyone else.

I bring all this up because I wanted to point out the importance of the Fifth Commandment.  I noted previously, as Scripture says, that this is the first command with a promise: "Honor your mother and your father that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you."  In honoring our parents we learn how to honor society and the authorities of society.  We learn how to honor God as we model our relationship with him on the relationship with have with our mother and father.  We also learn how to honor ourselves, holding ourselves as being worth more than just a cheap bit of money, more than just a bit of food or someone's entertainment.

Honoring our parents brings with it a promise, but also an implied curse.  If we honor our parents, then we will live long in the land, but if we do not, then we will not live long in the land.  That curse is still applicable today.  A man who grows up without honoring, having neither care for his parents, nor concern for others, is prone to make one of two equally disastrous errors.  Either this man will have no respect for himself and will sell out at every opportunity, always seeking to find something to give him meaning, or, he will think of himself as the only one who really matters and he will become selfish, greedy, and contemptible.

Many of us were like this.  We were those who had no honor, we did not give God the glory due him.  We claimed to honor our parents, but in reality we only cared for ourselves.  But, God has forgiven us, if we come to him through Christ, and now he has given us the honor of being called his sons.  How then can we continue in dishonor, when we have a Father who is worth all the honor in creation?

I learned what it means to honor by starting with fear.  Not everyone needs to start in this same way.  For children there is perhaps some value to having a right level of fear of their parents, understanding that their disapproval could lead to significant consequences.  But, for adults that does not need to be the case.  We can learn how to honor others just from the command of Christ: "For whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets." (Matthew 7:12)  Honoring others begins by doing what we ought, because it is right to do so to them, and because we love them as God has commanded us.

If we are wise we will learn to honor our mothers and our fathers.  We will learn to honor them because in so doing we will honor God.  In honoring God we will learn what it means to honor ourselves, what it is to see ourselves as more than merely animals, as though we were just some kind of evolved protozoa with a sense of morality.  We will realize that he who made us out of dirt also breathed his spirit into us, so that we are more than the sum of our physical parts, because of his spiritual blessings.  Let us honor our mothers and fathers in every aspect of our lives, when they are present and when they are not, because our Father, to whom we owe our very existence, is ever present with us, and is always worthy of our honor.

A Victory for Life and Science

I never cared much for doing science fairs when I was a child.  To be honest, I just wasn't that creative and didn't have ideas that I could realistically test that hadn't been done by others.  What's the point in doing a volcano for the hundredth time, talking about the chemical reaction of whatever two components you chose to make it explode?  But, I did like to play with shiny things and I would come up with all kinds of ideas that would allow me to see what burned what color or what worked as a better magnet, etc.  A lot of what I did when I was young wasn't science, but that didn't stop me from submitting those ideas as science fair projects, just because I had to do something.

I wonder sometimes if that same idea is what is behind much science today.  How much do researchers attempt to get the government, or private companies, to finance ideas that they know are not effective, but they have wed themselves to ideologically or economically?  I have a feeling that the answer might be more than many of us realize.  That isn't to fault researchers, it isn't to say that they don't believe that somehow, someday, they might be able to do some good with their ideas, but they realize that any such good is really a long, long way off.  Likewise, even if they are blinded by their own commitments, that only demonstrates that they are human, because all of us have our ideological blind spots, usually areas that we will passionately defend, even if someone points out that our positions don't make much sense.

I wonder if that is why some scientists continue to insist on the potential of embryonic stem cells.  The fact is that there is not much promise in embryonic stem cells.  The very few successful uses of embryonic stem cells have been limited to animal models, and even then there have been increased cysts and tumors.  Yes, the discovery of these types of stem cells only dates back 12 years, but the fact is that there hasn't been a successful treatment on humans yet.  In the only current FDA permitted trial in the United States they are working with cells that are derived from embryonic stem cells, despite the fact that cysts were more prevalent on the spines of the mice that received the treatment.  (The FDA did not comment on why they removed the hold they had placed on the research, however the company doing the research claimed that the cysts had no adverse reactions, and that they changed their treatment to result in fewer cysts.)

Don't misunderstand me, I'm really big on the idea of stem cell research.  I mean I think that the possibility that we could use naturally occurring cells in the human body to cure major diseases which we have no effective means of currently treating is absolutely wonderful.  Adult stem cells have shown promise in this area.  Because adult stem cells are able to be developed from a person's own body they generally do not suffer from the issue of rejection like embryonic stem cells.  Adult stem cells have also been used successfully in human trials.  (Each of the words in the previous sentence links to a different site discussing the success of adult stem cells.  I chose the sites I did based on the fact that each of them contains at least one different story, so that while there may be overlapping examples the sites also each contain unique examples, or if two sites had two of the same stories, they are thus represented properly as two different situations.  The whole points being that you could spend all day finding new examples of the success of adult stem cells.  Some of the stories mentioned above include recovery from decades of blindness, walking after nearly two decades of paralysis, and many other amazing events of that nature, all due to adult stem cell research.)

It is because I am a big supporter of adult stem cells that I am excited that a court has halted a recent decision from the Obama administration to allow for additional federal funding on embryonic stem cells (pending the results of a lawsuit).  Please, let me be clear: I am not against stem cell research, I am against the murder of babies, (primarily) and the waste of limited resources in less efficient areas of research when there are already existing promising opportunities presenting real cures for existing diseases.  Yes, I intended to say "murder of babies" above.  Embryonic stem cells are generally obtained from destroying a fetus, thus terminating a life that has already begun.  You can argue that this is not killing a person if you want (I find that argument logically tortuous and laughable, but that's up to you) but you cannot say that you are not killing an actual human being as an embryo is a living independent organism, with human DNA.  (Again, I know there are methods of getting embryonic stem cells that do not involve the destruction of embryos, but lets be honest, the reality is that most lines of embryonic stem cells are developed from killing an embryo.)

This really is a victory both for science and for life.  Scientifically speaking there is less value in embryonic stem cell research than there is adult stem cell research, even if based on nothing but potential for results.  From the perspective of a culture of life, this is a great victory because there will be no federal funding of the murder of the innocent.  The federal judge did not rule that embryos are humans and should, therefore, have the full protection of the authorities against being wrongfully murdered.  The judgment does not at all address the reality that we are killing our children for the vain hope that we might derive some form of medical benefit in the long term.  But, I'll take what victories we can get, even if they do not address the root problems that we are facing.

If you think my language is brash in arguing against embryonic stem cell research, then I beg you to reconsider.  I have already laid out my position: a baby is a baby from the time of conception to the time of birth.  While many things may happen to naturally terminate a pregnancy before the birth of a child, that does not make it less a murder when we do so intentionally.  That is why I take this so seriously.  God is the giver of life, for us to arbitrarily take the life of another human being is a horrible thing.

A Mother's Love

I wrote last time of my father, now I would like to write of my mother.  My father taught me how to read Scripture, he taught me the importance of understanding what has been given to us, and he taught me how to be a man of faith.  My mother taught me how to suffer.  My mother showed me that no matter what, God is still God, and his ways are good, even when I cannot understand them.  My mother shows me still what patience looks like, and what it means to love even when you cannot act.

My mother is a quadriplegic.  She has been paralyzed since I was four years old.  She is what I have been taught is considered and "incomplete quad."  That means that she is able to move her upper arms, basically she has control of her biceps.  But, that's where he muscular control ends, a line across her body basically at breast level.

What that means is that my mother is incapable of any deep coughing to dislodge material from her lungs or deeper in her throat.  She is limited in what she can hold because she cannot grasp with her hands.  She cannot hold her self up as well because she does not have control over her abdominal and back muscles that most people have.  But, she is, with special equipment, able to drive, able to maneuver her wheel chair around, and able to feed herself and do other similar functions.  What limitations my mother has do not prevent her from enjoying life, they just mean she has to do things a little differently from others.

I bring all this up just so you can understand why my mother has had such an impact on me.  You see, despite all that she has gone through, I have never seen my mother depressed.  I have never seen her angry with the lot life has given her.  My mother has embraced all that God has given her, and has counted his plans as better than her own.  God has used my mother to impact me and others whom she has come in contact with so that we should recognize that it is possible to glorify God in the hard times as well as the good.

My mother loves to tell stories.  Maybe that's where I get my love of stories from.  She has told my brothers and I multiple times of what she went through in the hospital.  She tells of how after the surgery where the doctors determined how bad the damage that was done to her spine by the car wreck was, the doctors were amazed by what movement she had.  She has told us of how she prayed after the wreck, placing her life in the hands of God and acknowledging his sovereignty over all things.  I do not recount her stories here because my writing could not rightly capture the manner of them.

I mention my mother's stories because they were always focused not on what was going on in her life, but with how she was trusting God to handle and to care for her needs.  In all of my mother's stories she is not the hero.  God is the hero, and that is his rightful place.  My mother's stories are the epitome of what a Christian's testimony ought to be: a story from or about our lives that reveals the goodness and beauty of God to those who listen.  My mother tells stories of faith, because the God of the Scriptures is not dead, but is living and active within her, and her faith in the expression of how God has impacted her life.

I do not remember much of my mother from before she was paralyzed.  I guess as a little child you just take things like seeing your mother walk for granted, so those memories do not stick in your mind.  Even from the time around the accident I do not have many memories.  I don't remember going to the hospital to visit her.  I don't remember first seeing her in a wheel chair or learning about the idea that my mother would never walk again.  I just grew up knowing those things.

I also grew up knowing that my mother trusted that God has a plan, and that he is fulfilling that plan in her and in all things.  This was the faith I was brought up under.  My mother still puts up with pain, she still has many limitations and is beginning to experience additional complications from being paralyzed for many years.  But, she also remains cheerful, knowing that her God is good, and will do great things on her behalf.  I pray that should I ever go through an event half so traumatic as hers that I would be blessed with that faith, because I have come to realize that it is a gift from God.  The Lord may take something away from us, a job, a career, our legs, even our families.  But, if we put our faith in him, he is all we need, and he will provide for us, so that he might receive the glory.

I closed last time with asking men to be fathers, so this time I ask women to be mothers like my own.  Share your faith with your children (cf. Acts 16:1 and 2 Timothy 3:15).  Take those children who do not have godly mothers under your wings and bring them into your lives that they may see the grace of God through you.  Suffer with grace, as all Christians should, that those who look to you might see that your hope is not in this world, but in the new heavens and new earth, when God will right every wrong, and wipe every tear from your eyes (Romans 8:18, 2 Corinthians 1:5, Philippians 1:29, 2 Thessalonians 1:5).  Live your faith, dear women, impress all with your godliness, and tell the wonderful story of the grace of God in your lives (1 Timothy 2:9-10).

Of Good Fathers

I have learned more about the Christian faith from my father than probably anyone else.  My father taught me how to read the Scriptures, taught me the importance of the original languages, and taught me what it means to be a man of faith.  While I know that God can use whatever means he wants to in order to teach a man, in my case, much of what I learned came from my father, at least in seed form.  Even today, when I have questions or I want to double check my interpretation of a passage I'll call my father and talk with him, because I still want to learn from his wisdom, and I know that he has more experience and has studied Scripture longer than I have been alive.  The first command with a promise is to honor your mother and your father that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving to you, and my God has made it easy for me to be able to honor my father.

My father is the one who taught me how to see the themes of Scripture and how to read the bible with a focus on the development of the thematic elements within the text.  He taught me to how to realize that God is consistent, and is consistently revealing himself in a progressive manner from Genesis to Revelation.  As I developed in reading Scripture and began to see the importance of Christ in both the Old and New Testaments, the inspiration my father gave me helped me to go from simply reading words on a page, to really understanding the depth and value of Scripture.  There was a time that I thought learning the bible would be as simple as memorizing words and concepts, but then I began to see the intricacies of God's word, that each part plays into the other in a complex web and pattern, and I realized that I would never glean all that is in Scripture.  All of this because my father taught me that what I see in Genesis carries through to what I learn from Revelation.

I would be lying if I said my father taught me Greek or Hebrew.  The fact is my father rarely mentioned the Greek alphabet and may have used a handful of Hebrew words in my life.  But, my father taught me the value of knowing Greek and Hebrew from the way he turned to those languages when I had a question.

When I wanted to know whether Isaiah really meant for us to understand Immanuel as "God with us" my father pulled out a Hebrew concordance (I still love that book) and showed me the word "el" in the Hebrew, told me it was the word Isaiah used there, and then showed me where that concordance listed every single instance of that word in Isaiah.  I then went through the whole book of Isaiah, read every verse and section that mentioned God, and realized that Isaiah only ever uses the word "el" to denote divinity.  While my father did not teach me Hebrew, he did teach me the value of knowing the language.  That's why I spent five semesters in Hebrew and Greek study in seminary, because of my father's influence on me in seeing the value of knowing the languages of Scripture.

More than knowing languages, and more than simply knowing how to read Scripture, my father taught me what it means to have faith in Scripture.  I cannot think of a time when my father ever expressed a doubt in the awesome care and love of God to me and my brothers.  Even through times of difficulty, my father has always been steady in his care of his family and his belief in Christ.  I'm sure my father has had struggles to which I was not a party, just as I have had struggles which no one will ever know about but God himself, but his words and his manner have always been strong despite those difficulties.

I have written this not just to honor my father, though I have sought to do so.  I have written this to encourage young men who have not had strong father figures, that they might know what an impact they could have on their sons and daughters if they will be the men they wish their fathers could have been.  I have written this to remind each of us of the importance of fathers and father figures, and to remind those in the church that there is a need of fathers in this world.  In America today far too many children do not have fathers, and if the men in the church are not willing to be their fathers, Satan certainly has enough of his own lined up who are ready to do the job.

I could cite statistics and new reports about how children who grow up without fathers do worse in school, are more prone to crime, and more likely to get involved in gangs and other violent activities.  I could go on and on about how single mothers are forced to leave their children unattended for long periods of time in order to work and bring home food, thus leading to even more strife in the home.  I could discuss the poverty that many children without fathers live in.  But, the reality is God made us to come from a father and a mother, and he intended for that relationship that led to our creation to also continue on in our upbringing.  It is sufficient that this is the plan of God, the horror stories are simply proof of the goodness of God's plan.

Fathers are essential to a healthy home.  God has declared himself to be a loving father.  How will we learn about God when we do not understand the idea of what it means to be a loving father?  Dear Christian men, let us honor our father in heaven, and be fathers to the fatherless in whatever way we can.  You men who have sons and daughters, care for them as best you can, and if already you have a child with a woman who is not your wife, then plead with God that you might still be a father to that child, because he will need you.  I write this as a man who had a good father, and as a man who has seen the heartbreak of many friends who did not.

The Challenge of Justice

One of the best arguments for the reality of moral standards is, I think the argument from injustice.  What I mean is that everyone seems to know when they have been wronged.  No one needs to teach someone when they have been wronged.  In fact, more than that, we have to be taught to reign in our emotions when we are wronged, lest we get into even more trouble.

For instance, imagine you were in medieval China, where the local lord had absolute authority over the life and death of those who lived in his territory.  Imagine that you are wearing the correct colors, (yes, Chinese peasants had certain colors they were allowed to wear, and certain colors they weren't) you bowed and showed proper obedience when he went by, and you even went out of your way to show respect to the local lord by bringing the taxes you owed early.  Basically, imagine if you were the perfect Chinese peasant.  How would you feel if the local lord intentionally rode his horse next to you and tromped through some mud, just to get the dirt all over your face?  How would you feel if you were disrespected despite the fact that you had fulfilled all your obligations and had honored your superior to the best of your ability?

I think of an example from my own life.  I was fighting with one of my brothers (not an atypical event) and he was winning (also, not an atypical event).  The difference was that in this particular situation I was actually entirely innocent!  Normally when I got into a fight with my brothers I was at least somewhat to blame, but not this time.  This time, and I can't even remember what the fight was over, I was totally innocent, and my brother knew it.

I was defeated and beat up by someone stronger than me, and I was outraged.  I was also despondent, because no matter how hard I might try, there was no way I could avenge myself.  I could go to my parents, but I had no evidence that I had been wronged, and without evidence I did not know any way I could get justice.  There was no appeal to any higher or stronger power for justice, except that I could plead with God that my brother would admit he was wrong and apologize for what he did to me.

My point is that because we all know when we have been wronged, we also need justice.  Any society that cannot convince its people that is laws are basically just will ultimately fall, because the people of that society will not support those who wield power.  If people believe they are constantly being wronged, they will seek to get justice for themselves in whatever little ways they can.  Justice is essential, not just for a society, but to each individual in society.

Because justice is so essential, both to society and to us as individuals, I found a recent article very interesting.  Apparently, there is a judge in Saudi Arabia who has asked hospitals if they would be able to paralyze a man by damaging his spinal cord in some way.  I kid you not.  Read it for yourself here: "Saudi Judge Considers Paralysis Punishment."  He is doing this because one man accidentally paralyzed another man, and now the paralyzed man and his family want justice, based on the concept of  "an eye for an eye," which means the other man must also be paralyzed for there to be any justice.

I'm not intending to harp on how barbaric Islam is that it could be reasonable to paralyze a man because he accidentally paralyzed another man.  Admittedly, the idea of paralyzing a man for the sake of justice is a pretty horrible idea.  The fact that any society would think that corporal eye-for-eye punishments would result in an equitable solution for crime seems ridiculous on its face to me.  What I mean is that if you cut off a man's foot because he accidentally (or intentionally) cut off yours, now you have introduced a situation where he is limited in how he can serve society, and how he could help pay for the disability he caused.

Here is the real problem for each of us though: Justice is essential.  If we recognize that we have been wronged, and we recognize that our indignation is real, not just a contrived construct of society, then there is some standard that serves to define justice and injustice, both.  Ultimately that standard has to be the absolute moral righteousness of God, for anything less is not absolute and has no true weight when placed on the scales of reality.  But, if we have been wronged then we must admit we have wronged others, and if we have wronged others, we have also wronged God, because whenever we wrong someone else we not act unjustly against them, we violate the justice of God, since he is the one who established what is right and wrong.

What can we do though?  Justice, when rightly performed requires that there be a repayment, an exchange that rights the wrong performed.  At the very least, in the case of a slight wrong, there must be an apology.  But, an apology only works between men because one humbles himself and appeals to the other, admitting that he has acted improperly.  Forgiveness, in such a case, is not really justice, it is an act of grace whereby the one who forgives chooses not to require justice, but to act as though the wrong has been repaid.  The problem is that if we humble ourselves before God and ask for forgiveness, we only assume our right position before God.  And, if God chooses to forgive us then he would be in violation of his own justice, choosing to act as though repayment has been made when it has not.

If we tried to repay God we would find that to be impossible also.  Even if we acted perfectly for our entire lives we would never do more than we should do.  Even if we to live morally perfect lives in every way, such that we even sacrifice ourselves to save others, we would still not be doing anything more than living as we should live from that moment on.  Justice requires not simply that a man should stop stealing, but that he should also repay for what he has stolen.  How then can man repay God, when we cannot live morally perfect lives, and even if he could, that would not be enough to make him perfect, because after one wrong act the blemish would always exist.

The necessity of Christ becomes clear when we consider the justice of man.  If even those without Christ understand that perfect justice is accomplished through exact repayment, then how much more should we understand what Christ paid on our behalf?  Our iniquities, our injustice, our immorality, had to be atoned for, but only one who had no blemish could suffice for such a payment.  Perfect justice requires a perfect payment, and so Christ, who was perfect, suffered, endured the wrath of God, poured out upon him on a device of human torture, so that in every way our unrighteous acts might be atoned for, paid for exactly by the Son of God himself.

When my brother got done beating me up he left me alone, and I cried and prayed that God would make him come back and apologize to me, because my brother knew he was wrong, I knew he was wrong, and more than that, God knew he was wrong.  I did not really expect an apology, but I asked God that he would make right what was wrong.  After I had regained my composure, I sat on my bed feeling sorry for myself, and my brother came back and told me that he was sorry.  He knew I was innocent, he knew that he had no right to beat me up, and he was sorry for doing it.  The very words I had prayed to God were spoken back to me from the mouth of brother.

Life does not always workout like things did with my brother.  Sometimes we are wronged and there seems to be no recompense.  Sometimes it seems like we ourselves have gotten away with murder.  The fact is though that there is a righteous God who sees all things, and who will have justice one day, because his laws demand it.

The joy of being a Christian is that we already know our payment is complete.  Christ, who died upon the cross, has born our sins, and we bear them no more.  God's righteous justice is matched by his loving grace, because he did not have to provide Christ for us, but that it was what he chose to do.  Because we have been forgiven, we can forgive those who wrong us, and when they stand puzzled at why we do not demand justice, we can let them know that justice has already been met, and that Christ suffered even for them, if they will confess him as Lord and Savior.  Justice demands repayment, and grace allows us to tell people that a perfect payment has been made on their behalf.  Have you considered how great a payment Christ's death was for you?  Have you considered what a blessing it might be to endure injustice, how wonderful it could be to forgive someone else, so that you can tell them of the wonderful payment Christ made on their behalf?

If we have died with him, then we have been resurrected with him.  He was declared the Lord of all things by his resurrection, so who are we to deny him?  If his death was sufficient to pay our debt where we had wronged God, how much more should it suffice to pay for the petty grievances we might hold against those who have wrong us?  Let us endure injustice, but let us be bold to confront those who have wronged us, that we might share with them the grace of the one who died and rose again.  Our egos might be bruised, our toes might get stepped on, but let us see that the real challenge is not to demand justice, but to share the mercy of God with everyone who would hear.

Peace Making 101

Have you ever done something stupid?  Have you ever done or said some stupid thing that hurt someone else by accident?  How about on purpose?  I'll bet if you think hard enough you can probably come up with an idea of sometime when you did.  I know I can.

I have two older brothers, one about 2 years older and one about 4 years older.  Because we grew up as three boys, and because we basically grew up in an area where there were no other children until I was 8, we did stupid things that got each other hurt.  I remember one time emptying out a 2 liter bottle of some kind of soda, then I held it up to my eye and acted like I could see something really cool in it.  When one of my brothers took it and looked into it I hit it.  Now, I meant to knock it so he would be surprised, but I didn't think about the fact that bottles have little openings, so instead of just hitting around his eyes, I basically hit the bottle right into his eye.  As you can imagine, he didn't think it was funny, and it ended up hurting him a bit more than I thought it would.  (As you can also imagine, I got into trouble for it.  Lesson to all you kids out there: stupid actions do not make you immune to the consequences.)

My point?  Well, apparently even adult Christians are not immune from doing stupid things.  I came across an AP News Article that reports that a church in Gainesville, FL plans on burning copies of the Quran on September 11.  Now, I'll grant you that I'm not entirely up to date on exactly why they plan on burning copies of the Quran, I have an idea but I haven't actually talked to anyone from the church about it, but I'm going to state that this is a categorically stupid idea.  Not only is it stupid, it is unchristian.

Why is it unchristian?  Well, what does it accomplish?  Does it present the gospel to a lost and dying world?  Does burning copies of the Quran engage with Muslims in the area or abroad and present to them the reality of their sins and their need for redemption?  Basically, this move in no way exalts God, because all it does is burn pieces of paper.

Okay, it isn't just pieces of paper, its copies of the religious holy book of another religion.  So what?  Will burning those copies of the Quran prevent the spread of Islam?  Will burning copies of the Quran have any effect on Islam in any way, shape or form?  Of course not.  Burn ten copies, burn a thousand copies, burn a million copies of the Quran, it won't change a thing, because more can be printed and will be printed.  Unless everyone who is enslaved by Islam around the world embraces the freedom that is offered to them in Jesus Christ, destroying copies of the Qur'an is a meaningless event at best.  At worst this event will simply harden the hearts of people who desperately need to know about Jesus, and thus this church will be helping Satan lead these people to hell.

Maybe this church figures that because bibles are routinely destroyed in Muslim countries they are simply doing what Muslims have been doing for years.  But that isn't what Christ commanded us to do.  He told us to do to others what we would have them do to us.  That means despite the fact that we are insulted, we do not insult back  Despite the fact that Christians are wronged, our Scripture is insulted and our people are murdered, we do not respond in kind, because we are called to love those who hate us, and to bless those who curse us.

I had a whole rant prepared for how we are God's Israel, and how our battle is against spiritual powers and a sinful system that enslaves and oppresses those who do not know Christ.  But I don't really need to do that rant.  I don't need to provide an argument for what we are called not to do, because there is a simple statement that tells us what we should do in situations like this: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.  (Matthew 5:9)

If we are called to be peacemakers, is this church being obedient to the Word of God?  Is burning the Qur'an going to help spread the gospel of Christ so that his peace will reign in the hearts and souls of men?  Anyone who honestly looks at this can only say, "No".  Instead of being peacemakers this church is quite intentionally stirring up controversy.

I'm not saying that we should not confront Islam.  I think we should.  But I think we need to do it in the same way Christians are commanded to confront any false religion, any sin: through biblical, personal outreach.  We need to demonstrate that what we are doing is being done from love, and that we want to rescue the hurting.  Speaking gently, confronting with compassion, and standing on the authority of God's Word are the means of confronting any sin, not burning effigies and screaming at people.

I wonder if this church realizes how much harder they might be making things for Christian missionaries in Muslim countries.  I had a friend who was going to go and be a missionary in Indonesia, he told me that he sometimes had people come to him and say they wanted to know what it would take for them to go with them.  He told me that his response was that they shouldn't bother to pack suitcases, but instead, buy a plain pine coffin, pack their clothes in it, and have it sent with them as their luggage because most likely they would need it if they came with him.  He went knowing that it was entirely possible, if not probable, that he would die sharing the gospel with a lost and dying people who were at war with God.

That is what being a peacemaker means.  Being willing to accept that the gospel of Christ is of more importance than material possessions, your own life, or even your own anger and venom.  I do not doubt that this church that wants to burn Qur'ans believes that Islam is evil and dangerous.  I believe Islam is evil and dangerous.  But what if, instead of burning Qur'ans, this church did a joyful, peaceful servant project to a local community that had a high population of Muslims, and tried to develop personal relationships that would allow them to speak truth into the lives of those enslaved by lies?  What if on 9/11, and every day, instead of throwing fuel on the fires of hatred and resentment, we reached out to a dying world with love?

The Need for a Guide

When I was 17 years old and just really getting back into church, I spoke with one of the men who was going to church with me briefly about the idea of evolution.  I'm not sure how the subject was brought up, but I can remember the gist of the conversation.  I argued that Darwinian evolution and Christianity are perfectly compatible, based on the idea that Scripture was not really giving us a history in Genesis 1, and that Darwinism simply explained the mechanism through which God brought about humans.  The response I received was not an apologetic for Scripture, it was an apologetic for apologetics.  My friend told me that I should sit down and read some Ravi Zacharias, or maybe some other works (which he mentioned).

I had never heard of Ravi Zacharias.  I had never really heard of apologetics.  I had simply attempted to reconcile what I was being taught at school with what I read in Scripture.  Being the typical teenager I certainly wasn't going to start asking my parents.  After all, I did not think it a discussion worth having, I already knew the answer, why bother asking them for the solution to what was not a problem?

Reading Zacharias introduced me to apologetics.  From him I began to read others.  From that starting point I realized that there was a lot that I thought I knew that I simply did not know.  In my own wisdom I had taken to reading Scripture through a lens that demythologized it.  Sure, I still believed in miracles, but when I read about the crossing of the Yom Suf (I blame Dr. Garret for this, if you don't know what it is, I'll explain later) or about any number of other events, I simply assumed that these were not particularly miraculous as much as they were times where God simply used the normal course of events to bring about his will.  (Why that is necessarily less miraculous I am not entirely sure.  The idea of a God who could arrange things so a major event of world history would just happen to coincide with some otherwise naturally occurring event, so that the naturally occurring event would take on momentous meaning is pretty awesome.  Work carefully, I promise that last sentence can be parsed into something sensible.)

Apologetics was my road map back to conservative Christianity.  What I mean is that I had bought into a great number of rather liberal assumptions about Scripture.  For instance I am sure that I thought that the authors could have made mistakes, that errors could have crept in via copying, and that Scripture was just as open to error as any 2000+ year old document.  But, I had never considered what Scripture says about itself, and the logical defenses for that position.

When Paul says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God..." I had not considered that he could here actually mean that God had inspired the writers of Scripture, so that what they said and recorded was actually true and free from error.  Further, I had not considered that God himself, as the ultimate author of Scripture, could also be the one to protect Scripture, so that it could be free from error.  Therefore, my assumption was that the bible should be treated like all other documents, in how we read it and seek to correct it, because it is just like all any other document.  Because I started with a wrong assumption, I came to a wrong conclusion: Scripture, while useful for moral teaching and important as a means of salvation, is not necessarily factually accurate in what it speaks of when it comes to history, anthropology, and every other subject it discusses.

My guide was always my own mind, and what I understood of current science.  Scripture was useful, but not essential.  God could be discovered through purely rational activity, such as philosophy.  Man, while imbued with the unique image of God, was biologically only an evolved primate.  Science was my key to understanding life, and so I pursued science, especially Chemistry and math.

But, in being exposed to apologetics I realized there was another way of looking at the world.  What if Scripture was unique and special?  What if we took it at its word, assumed its accuracy, and then sought to wrap our minds around its implications?  What if we looked to prove how the bible has been correct, and did not assume that we, in our modern wisdom, knew more about the past than those who lived at the time and wrote about it?  These questions required me to re-examine the bible, and to realize that there was a lot I missed.

Thinking about Scripture in this way transformed the way I thought about everything.  Maybe God really did create the world in six day.  Why not?  What evidence was there to be marshaled against the idea?  Could that evidence be explained by the biblical account of creation and fall?

What if everything that Scripture claimed was absolutely true and happened just as it happened?  In that case Scripture became more than just a mere record of history, it was the means by which God communicated himself to men throughout every generation.  Moreover, it did not record mere chance events of nature, but it testified to the awesome and inspiring work of a God who I could never grasp and who I could never put into a box of limitations.

This view of Scripture did not require me to abandon logic, it allowed me to dive deep into logic, to go as far as my mind could carry me into any mystery, into any question, because at the end of all exploration there was God to meet me once again.  God the creator, designer, sustainer, provider, helper, discipliner, and lover.  Every question I asked could point me to God, if I followed it through a biblical worldview.  And so I realized, understanding Scripture does not limit my exploration, I do not find mindless chaos as when I assume a purely Darwinistic view of evolution, instead I find a God who is abundantly more than anything of which I had ever dreamed.

In every situation we need a guide, otherwise we will never know if we are on the right road.  For me, more than anything else I have determined that Scripture is what I want as my guide.  I want my mind guided by Scripture, my morals, my heart, and my imagination too.  Why?  Because, whereas I may vacillate on whether something is right or wrong depending on how I feel, and whereas scientific theory may be overturned tomorrow or in a hundred years, and whereas I may grow confused and make an error in logic, Scripture is God's Word, and it alone can claim to be eternally correct.  Without a guide there is no meaning, but what guide can prove more accurate, or give greater meaning, than that which is inspired by God?