God’s care for all people

I am reading through Kings right now, and I was really struck this morning by Solomon’s prayer during the dedication of the temple in chapter 8. Among many things that could be commented on, his prayer in verses 41-43 is very interesting:

“Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for your name’s sake (for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this house, hear in heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name.”

Not only does Solomon assume that people from “a far country” will hear about God through Israel, and not only does He petition God to hear the prayers of such people, but the purpose of God’s hearing such a prayer is stated to be “in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel.” In other words, already in the Old Testament, the knowledge of God that Israel enjoyed was supposed to spread through Israel to the whole world. Israel’s election was for the sake of the rest of the world.

A lot of times we think of the Old Testament as narrowly concerned with Israel, and God’s concern for the other nations of the world originating in the Great Commission. Or at best, we leap from Genesis 12:1-3 to Matthew 28:18-20, as if nothing in between had anything to do with this. This is one of those passages (Deuteronomy 4:5-8 is another) which shows that not only has the God of Israel always cared about all the nations, but his election of Israel was the very means by which He intended to show this care.

Read Full Post »

Joy (again)

Everyone wants to be happy, but different people seem to have different ways of pursuing it. This same end is sought by many different means. Most people, it seems to me (and I certainly include myself), are not naturally very good at finding happiness. The thing we spend our entire lives chasing is very elusive. Our highest aim has our lowest success rate.

It seems to me that joy is found in unlikely places. We think we will experience joy if we get our way, accomplish our goals, fulfill our dreams, but we’re wrong. We are chasing after shadows. As Ravi Zacharias once said, “the loneliest moment in all of life is the moment of success, when you get what you thought would deliver the ultimate, and it lets you down.” I have found this true for me. The things I pursue rarely make me happy. The times in my life I have felt the most joy:

a) serving another person in a way that I know will be meaningful for them
b) living in authentic community with other people
c) wholeheartedly working at something interesting or fun (whether a book or a game of tennis)
d) being married and the mutual love and vulnerability entailed in it
e) finishing a difficult task
f) enjoying something external to myself (e.g., good music, or a simple pleasure like going on a walk on a beautiful day)

I desire greater joy in my life. I want to live out of fullness, in a way that only God can provide. I want to have an experience of what Jesus is talking about in John 7:38: “whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” What is the way forward? Well, since joy is often found in the last places we look for it, this means a submitting, a surrender, and acknowledgement that we do not have joy and cannot find it on our own. It means forsaking one way of life and pursuing another. The path to joy is faith and surrender.

Proverbs 3:13-18:
“Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed.”

Read Full Post »

Animal Suffering (again)

This past fall I did a series of posts on animal suffering, and several friends here in St. Louis mentioned that they did not follow what I was trying to say. I am therefore in this post attempting to restate the problem in a simple, linear formula.  This is not an addition to that series, but rather a restatement of what I was addressing in a brief, linear form. Here goes:

1. There is something wrong with nature.

2. This wrongness (to use as general a term as possible) appears to have existed before human beings.

3. Therefore, the human fall is an inadequate explanation for (all of) this wrongness.

Premise (2) is where the rub comes for most people, but I would argue its difficult to deny to the evidence in favor of it.

From my second post:
“By animal suffering I mean not only the physical sensation of pain felt in individual animals with developed nervous systems when they are injured or killed in nature, but also the entire system of competition, futility, waste, and inefficiency by which the natural order subsists. Everywhere we look we see a nature “red in tooth and claw” in which the strong devour the weak, suffering and death are the driving forces, and decay, disease, and disorganization are rampant. If we are willing to yield to the overwhelming fossil evidence that this system pre-dated human beings (and thus the human fall), then … what do we do with this?”

So how do we understand the brokenness of nature? I’d love feedback from others who have wrestled with this…

Read Full Post »

20 Qualities of Good Listeners

I have been reflecting lately on how important – and how difficult – it is to listen. I am coming to understand how much conflict and misunderstanding is related to a failure to listen well, and I want to become a better listener.

I’ve been blessed to know many people who were good listeners. What makes them good listeners? Some observations:

1) Good listeners consider a person’s statements in relation to their presuppositions (as much as possible). They are willing to ask the question “how does this make sense to them?” and genuinely seek an answer to that question in evaluating another person’s opinion.

2) Good listeners are not hasty in making judgments. They are willing to think about something for a while. They don’t have to categorize everyone and everything immediately. “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19).

3) Good listeners pay careful attention to words. They don’t assume that an idea they are hearing is identical to an idea they are already familiar with simply because it has similarities. They respect the complexity of reality and are willing to make fine distinctions and treat each person, each statement, each idea on its own terms.

4) Good listeners ask questions. Not to embarrass or attack, but to clarify and distill.

5) Good listeners are not lazy. They work hard to understand. They exert energy in listening. For example, other people can usually tell that they are listening from their body posture and nonverbal communication.

6) Good listeners don’t feel threatened by not controlling the conversation. They are comfortable with silence. They give the speaker unthreatened, unhurried space in which to operate while communicating.

7) Good listeners understand that everyone has different communication styles, and adjust their listening to correspond to the speaker’s communication style. For example, if the speaker is shy, they draw the person out more. If they are talkative, they interject more. Etc. They don’t take a “once size fits all” approach to listening.

8) Good listeners interrupt intentionally and gently, rather than habitually and rashly.

9) Good listeners recall their own subjectivity and finitude as a listener. They make evaluations with the humility that corresponds to seeing parts, not the whole. They consider the angle and point of view from which they are listening.

10) Good listeners are willing to listen to something even if its hard to hear. They don’t stop listening as soon as they become offended or turned off by the speaker. They can receive a rebuke.

Proverbs 12:15
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.

Proverbs 15:32
Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence.

Proverbs 13:1
A wise son hears his father’s instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.

11) Good listeners do not unreasonably question the motives of the speaker. They make a good faith assumption that, all other factors being equal, the speaker is trying to communicate clearly and truthfully.

12) Good listeners don’t equate listening with agreeing. Good listeners understand that careful listening equips you to disagree well, because by listening you understand more clearly what it is that you disagree with.

13) Good listeners are not simply waiting to talk again when someone else is speaking. They actually value the contributions of other people.

14) Good listeners remember that you can learn from anyone. They realize that human subjectivity and fallenness is such that the most learned person can still learn from a little child.

15) Good listeners love people. They understand that listening is connected to every other aspect of relationships. The understand that there is simply no substitute for genuine affection for other people.

“The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17).

16) Good listeners pay attention to nonverbal communication without discounting verbal communication. They pay attention to the fact that they are paying attention to both nonverbal communication and verbal communication.

17) Good listeners are willing to speak. They don’t equate listening with silence. They understand that the speaker may need them to communicate in order to further the conversation.

18) Good listeners understand that every act of communication takes place in a context or setting. They consider the way the context of a communication event shapes the meaning. For example, they understand social dynamics and the way different situations call for different kinds of listening.

19) Good listeners are willing to stop listening to something that is perverse, wicked, or dangerously foolish. They understand that in a fallen world there are some things that are so evil or foolish that they should not even be listened to. They know when to draw the line. They use common sense.

20) Good listeners understand how important listening is to a relationship. They don’t assume or underestimate the value of listening; they value and seek to cultivate good listening skills.

Read Full Post »

Van Til’s Christian Apologetics

Although I have written critically of Van Til’s critique of Barth, I appreciate his contribution and general approach to apologetics. I recently looked a bit at Christian Apologetics, a revamped version of his syllabus for his apologetics class at Westminster, edited (and helpfully introduced) by William Edgar. Edgar describes Van Til’s presuppositionalism as rooted in his desire to be rigorously and consistently reformed – and thus God-centered – in his apologetical method. In other words, for Van Til, reformed theology + apologetics = presuppositionalism. Obviously, reformed theologians more inclined to classical apologetics disagree! I am fascinated by this discussion, and want to learn more.

My most fundamental question, and a question I see at the root of the whole debate, is this: can you argue for Christianity without presupposing God? Van Til seems to answer this question in the negative on the grounds that you cannot argue at all without presupposing God, because factness and argumentation are themselves unintelligible apart from God. Rationality itself must assume God. God is the context of everything, including ideas.

Although I sometimes feel that Van Til is too architectonic and sweeping in his statements, I cannot deny that this basic orientation is very powerful. I found this Van Tilian statement very interesting and helpful in understanding the starting point of his thought: “I feel that the whole of history and civilization would be unintelligible to me if it were not for my belief in God. So true is this, that I propose to argue that unless God is back of everything, you cannot find meaning in anything.”

Read Full Post »