Wrestles with God

What do you think about church? I think it might be interesting to get a discussion started on this, as many of us find aspects of church difficult. A few questions to kick off:

• How important would you personally say it is to be part of a church – essential, important, not particularly significant, very unimportant? What about going to services or other church meetings regularly? What are the advantages and disadvantages of being part of a church?
• What is your reaction to people in church very unlike yourself? What can we do when we find ourselves responding badly to them?
• How do you cope when your church (if you have one) has a style of worship that you find different from your ideal?
• What would you say are the most important priorities in choosing a church?
• How would you change your church, if you have one? Ideas for what we can practically do at the moment to change things would be great.
• Do you think that being part of a group of Christian friends can take the place of church?

I find it very easy to be critical, so I want to add the following sort of questions to balance things:

• What do you think your weaknesses are, that others in church could help you with?
• What’s really great about your church, if you have one?
• Hope that sets things off. I’ll rant about my own church situation in the discussion as it gets going.

Everyone seems to acknowledge that the world around us is changing. People are embracing `postmodernism’ – everything is relative and nothing has any real meaning.

And I think Christians are mssing out on some good stuff…

Modern society is bad, right? We believe in Absolute Truth and we’re against Apathy and Individualism, yeah?

Well, I’ll leave you to make a list of things we don’t like about our society. I’m interested in stuff we’re scared of that is actually really cool.

Here’s my best example:

Lots of people now are happy with ambiguity – realising it could be one thing or another, or another maybe. In fact, when I talk to people about the meaning of life, people seem to be very comforted when they find uncertainties.

In contrast, we Christians are terrified of ambiguity. We write whole books on why things aren’t ambiguous. We join one camp or another to avoid having to hold two possibilities in our heads. Or we just say it’s too hard and ignore it, hoping someone else will figure it out.

But we should be happy with ambiguity too. Why?

• God is incomprehensible. We are just too small.
• The Bible is ambiguous on loads of stuff. Hebrew particularly is a very ambiguous language, I’m told.
• Sometimes we just don’t know. This is even true of ministers. We should embrace the mysterious nature of God.

Actually, on this particular issue, the Catholic church has it down much better than us evangelicals. They have these things called Mysteries (for example Jesus is both God and man) that they basically say are beyond our understanding.

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Here’s another example just to make the point:

People are genuinely looking for authentic spiritual experience. Personally, if I’m honest, I’m scared of authentic spiritual experience and relieved when it becomes a routine.

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Modern culture is actually quite good for some stuff. Why are we so scared of it?

`In the world, not of it’ doesn’t mean it’s ok so long as we’re `of’ a world from 50 years ago.

What do you think?

Reading through the site there seems to be too many answers and not enough questions. Sometimes people put an idea on which then gets a comment that seems to suggest the idea was a question that needs an answer. Bono from U2 once said that his faith gave him a whole lot more questions in life instead of answers. What do other people think?

A poem.

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Not Lost
Something missing
but not lost

Everything lined up nicely but
what now
what’s missing

NO SPIRITUAL EARNING POWER

Told many times he loves you
you’re not lost

Also told many lies
by wrong good people

When will I learn my lesson
or is this how it is
when you’re different
because he made you so

Take me back

How did Judas die? Take a look at these two passages from the Bible:

Matthew 27:3-6

When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”
“What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.”
So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
The chief priests picked up the coins and said, “It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.” So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty silver coins, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”

Acts 1:18,19

(With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

Which of these is right?

Some people say that he hanged himself and then his body fell down and his guts spilled out in the field, but that seems very strange. Whilst that could be true, another alternative explanation is that there were two alternative myths that grew up amonst the people of Jerusalem about this unimportant detail (the exact nature of the grisly death of Judas), and that the two writers here wrote down the two myths.

Which alternative do you believe, or do you believe something else?

Exactly how Judas died (and who bought the field) will not affect my faith, but my attitude to conflicts like this will profoundly affect it.

Is it wrong to treat the Bible as evidence (rather than instructions)?

I had a friend who didn’t like Jesus. She read about him in the Bible, and she didn’t like him. She thought he was arrogant and self-righteous.

I thought I was pretty open-minded until she told me, but it was a shock.

Does anyone else ever feel like this? How do you cope? Could I ever admit it if I did feel this?

Here’s the argument:

“If you start questioning certain parts of the Bible, where do you stop? You’ll have to question all of it, and where do you draw the line between bits you ignore and bits you believe?”

Here’s my opinion of that argument:

Not an argument at all: doublethink.

Here’s another argument:

“If you start questioning certain parts of what the Prime Minister says, where do you stop? You’ll have to question all of it, and where do you draw the line between bits you ignore and bits you believe?”

This is clearly rubbish.

You can’t dictate what you believe by looking at the consequences of that opinion.

You have to decide in all conscience what you think, and then live with the consequences.

Here’s another argument:

“I can’t believe the world is round until after next summer, because I’m going to Australia and I don’t want to fall off.”

What you believe doesn’t change the fact that the world is round. Similarly, what you believe doesn’t change the Bible.

I’m not saying that the Bible contains untrue things. What I am saying is that if you think it might, the argument above is not a good way of persuading you otherwise.

Is it possible to be a Christian and think that some parts of the Bible are wrong?

The best thing about being a Christian is knowing that God is always with you. The worst thing is when he goes away and leaves you.

“Ah – but he doesn’t actually leave you. It’s only your feelings going wrong.” So say the lucky people who have never felt deserted by God!

Some of the people in the Old Testament knew what it’s like.

Job:

God has wronged me and drawn his net around me.
Though I cry “I’ve been wronged!” I get no response;
though I call for help, there is no justice.
He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass;
he has shrouded my paths in darkness.

Jeremiah:

O Lord you deceived me and I was deceived.

The trouble is – it happens. And when you feel deserted by God, where are you but in hell?

Can Jesus help in this sort of hell?

Jesus grew up knowing and enjoying God. He loved getting away to talk to God for hours. He shared God’s secrets. He called God his father – even his Daddy. His delight was to do what his father wanted. Communion with God was in his very nature.

Then after a lifetime of loving and serving his father, he faced his crisis. He was arrested and there was no help from God. Of course, he didn’t expect any help, he knew he had to go through with it. But he also knew that God was still with him. Next day, even during the agony of being crucified, he still talked to his God. “Father forgive them . . .” At his lowest point his sense of God remained. He knew his father was with him. But suddenly – all was changed. The cloud came down. The heavens became black. “Father, where are you? I can’t see you. I can’t feel you. What’s happened? You’ve always been with me. You were there yesterday as they tortured me. You were there this morning as they drove in the nails. Now suddenly you’re gone! Why? My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” The unthinkable had happened. Jesus had lost his faith.

We know the sequel. (Where would we be without the sequel?!) The blackness did not last. Triumph and resurrection followed. With hindsight the crisis was a short one. But what use is hindsight when you’re struggling with the blackness? What use is Jesus’ resurrection when you’re not even sure he exists? God has deserted you. There’s no reason to believe anything. You’re drowning. Is there no lifeline? YES there is! When you feel abandoned by God, Jesus has already been there. He KNOWS!

There may be no other reason for being a Christian – but this is reason enough.

References: Job 19.6-8; Jeremiah 20.7; Luke 2.41-52; Matt 14.23; Matt 11.25-27; John 5.20; Mark 14.36; John 6.38; Matt 26.50-54; Luke 23.24; Matt 27.45,46

I can’t understand why David in Psalm 51 says “Against you, you only, have I sinned”. It seems to me the person he let down most was Bathsheba. But why doesn’t she get a mention in his apparent guilt as expressed in this plea for mercy?

As I think about how ineffective I am as a Christian I often think about how I let people down. I can’t get into this “I’m off to heaven so I’m alright” bit and I often feel like I would feel more at home with the let down people, who according to some people’s interpretation, are destined for the more warmer climate of ‘down there’. If we sin against another person, whatever that sin is, we destroy another chance for them to have confidence in the gospel. Is that right?

Then in Matthew 18 v15-17 Jesus tells those who have been sinned against to go and tell the culprit. What did Bathsheba do? Did she say to David “With God on your side I assume you will get away with this?”

God’s grace was once again exploited.

I became a Christian at the end of the first year of my degree, which is now about 3 years ago. Though brought up in a Christian home, up until then I had decided God, Christianity and church were not for me.

However, I had always felt deep down that God existed and that Jesus came to earth and died for my sins. It’s hard to explain but though I ignored it I knew it was true but I just didn’t act on it and tried to prevent it from impinging on my life. This meant, of course, that my life without God was fraught with contradictions and meant I worried that if it was true, I should do something about it, and if it wasn’t true, that caused serious problems for some of my deeply held beliefs.

So, 3 years ago, I decided it was true and became a Christian. I would like to say those 3 years have been a time full of obedience to God, radical improvements in me as a person and the growth of a faith that could shift the Alps. Sadly I don’t feel this is the case.

Looking back to see how you have changed is always difficult as most change is gradual and it’s often very hard to be objective about it. Change is hard to recognise and when I do, it is all too easy to ascribe the changes to time or even to myself, rather than to God.

Over the last three years, it’s hard to see how my relationship with God has changed, but I feel it has, improving slowly but steadily, overcoming my natural distrust. Rather than through extreme spiritual experiences or emotional crises, I feel most progress has been made through my learning actually to trust God.

Having this type of relationship, to which it is hard to ascribe dramatic emotional experiences, often makes me feel insecure and makes me worry that I don’t have as good as a relationship with God as other people do. The last three years have shown me how suspicious I am of emotion, always resisting the feeling of getting carried away, and finding emotional experiences rarely seem very convincing after the immediate feelings have fizzled out.

I am learning more and more how individual a relationship with God is, and how comparison (though often involuntary) is fruitless.

Having highlighted how hard it is to assess yourself objectively, there are definitely areas in my life, in which I can see God’s hand. I can definitely recognise His peace in my life. This is a clear answer to my prayers and without which, on many occasions, my panicking, paranoia or distrust could have wasted opportunities.

`Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever’ (Hebrews 13v8), over the last 3 years this verse has been very important to me, reminding me that however my moods differ, my circumstances change, or my confidence fluctuates, God does not change. However far I move from him, he loves me just the same.