Theology Thursday Lite: The Great Catch of Fish
I’m going to keep this brief this week. Seriously. I was reading in Luke 5, about the Great Catch of Fish. Allow me to sum up:
Jesus gets into Simon(Peter)’s boat and tells him to go out and let the nets down again. James and John are in another 
boat. Presumably, Andrew is in Peter’s boat. They fish and come up with such a large catch that it almost sinks the boat. Peter senses there’s something different about Jesus and confesses that he’s a sinful man. Jesus reassures him that He can still use him, and calls him and the sons of Zebedee to follow Him.
I’ve always wondered what the purpose of the Great Catch was. Certainly it alerted Peter to Jesus’ power, but might there have been something else at work? I wonder if it might have been Jesus’ way of compensating Zebedee (and Peter and Andrew’s business partners, whoever they were) for the loss of their four main fishermen.
Does that even make sense?
Theology Thursday: Perfect Through Suffering
Well, I asked for somebody to lob me a topic for Theology Thursday, and it happened! JonV, former little kid and now full-fledged adult, working as a Clean Water Engineer with the Mennonite Central Committee in Tete, Mozambique, filled out the Suggest a Topic! form, and now I’ll attempt to do his question justice.
The big news here, though, is that Jon referred to me in the email as “Seth” and not “Mr. Heasley.” Keep in mind I’ve known him since he was shorter than I am, back when The Fair Elaine and I were working with the youth in our old church. Back in the previous century, you know.
Jon’s question is from Hebrews 5:8 and following, which says:
Hebrews 5:8-10 (ESV)
8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, 10 being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
This passage seems to imply that Jesus had some growing to do before he could be our High Priest. More than that, it seems to imply there was some perfection that Jesus lacked. This seems offensive to our “He’s the perfect man, he’s the Lord’s own son” sensibilities. And yes, that’s a classic Petra reference (The Coloring Song).
So there’s the question: What does it mean that Jesus learned obedience or became perfect?
Right off the top, I’d point out that there’s really only one question here. The two parts of the question, I believe, are a bit of parallelism. So “Christ learned obedience through suffering” = “He was made perfect.” I don’t think there’s a way to separate the two thoughts.
Of course, it’s tough to address a question from the Epistles without having the greater context of the letter in mind. So, being a reader, I read the book of Hebrews over the weekend. There are a couple of verses that stick out to most readers, but they’re on the Eternal Security question, and I think the emphasis on them distracts from the greater arc of the letter. I’ve read Hebrews probably ten times now, but the beauty of the letter really hit me this time.
For those unfamiliar with it, the writer of Hebrews (Luke? Apollos? Titus?) makes a sustained argument about Christ’s role as the High Priest of the New Covenant, and addresses how his new role affects humans. An outline looks something like this: (and you can find something similar in most study Bibles)
- Chapter 1 – Christ superior to angels
- Chapter 2 – Christ made like us
- Chapter 3, 4 – Christ greater than Moses
- Chapter 5 – Christ as priest despite his non-Levitical lineage
- Chapter 6 – Warnings against apostasy
- Chapter 7 – Christ superior to the Levitical Priests
- Chapter 8 – Christ as the priest of a New Covenant
- Chapter 9 – The Earthly Temple was never anything but a copy of the Heavenly Temple
- Chapter 10 – Christ’s sacrifice superior to animal sacrifice
- Chapter 11 – How we access Christ’s work: Through Faith
- Chapter 12 – Our response: Faith and endurance through suffering
- Chapter 13 – The sacrifices God honors: Praise and Serving Others
I wanted to include this outline first to inspire someone to go and read Hebrews. As I wrote, it’s very easy to get freaked by the warnings against apostasy and to miss the greater points about how Christ accomplished our salvation.
It’s really impossible to answer Jon’s question without tracing it through the whole book, or at least a couple of the chapters. Because Chapter 5 isn’t the only place where Christ’s being perfected shows up. In fact, there’s a much earlier reference:
Hebrews 2:10 (ESV)
10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.
Keep in mind that Chapter 2 discusses how Christ was made like us. Further down, we have this verse:
Hebrews 2:17 (ESV)
17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
In this sense, we’re looking at how Christ was made perfect for his role. He had to be like us, and to suffer as we suffer, in order for him to truly represent us.
(BTW, I want to make it clear that this idea didn’t originate with me. I did some Googling and whatnot and this is the position I think is correct, or at least makes sense.)
So anyway, I’d sum up the writer’s argument this way: Christ was the mediator of a better covenant, was qualified to be its High Priest by being appointed to it by God, was made fitting for it by what he suffered, and further qualified by enduring suffering in obedience. Which brings me to Hebrews 7:
Hebrews 7:26 (ESV)
26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.
One more thing I’m going to throw in here. The Internet is a great tool for researching Bible Blogs. I looked up the word “to make perfect” ("teleioo", for the record) from 2:10 and 5:9, and in the range of definitions is “to be found perfect.” Going with that definition, we wouldn’t have to do any wordful wrangling. It would just be relating that Christ endured his sufferings perfectly, not that the sufferings somehow made him perfect.
Well, Jon, I hope that helps. I even managed to keep it under a thousand words! Feel free to weigh in in the comments.
Theology Thursday: Saints or Sinners?
I generally try to come to Theology Thursday with a well-thought-out idea, complete with Bible references. But today I just wanted to write about something I’ve been wondering about, but without most of the actual effort involved with making a Biblical case for it. Call it laziness if you want.
It seems that it’s the thing to do these days for Christians to call themselves sinners. Or to emphasis their sinfulness, by way of (perhaps?) trying not to look pompous or judgmental.
Certainly, it wouldn’t necessarily help my witness if I went around calling myself a saint, right? Or should I update my Facebook profile to say something like this:
“Seth: Husband, Father, Baseball Fan, Saint.”
But isn’t just a bit odd to insert “Sinner” there, too? Is that really part of who I am, any more than “Baseball Fan” is? Do I really need to emphasize my own sinfulness? And mightn’t I just as easily put “Human” for all the information it gives? Where does this emanate from?
I suspect there are a number of different motivations that feed this tendency for us to insist that we’re “just sinners, saved by grace.”
- It’s a defense against unbelievers who call Christians hypocrites. If we call ourselves sinners, then we can hardly be called hypocritical when we fail, right?
- It just looks pious.
- We feel, acutely, our own sinfulness and express our gratitude to God by emphasizing it.
- The word “saint” just doesn’t fly today.
I mainly want to write about #4, but I’ll take comments on any of them, or suggestions for other possible motivations. I do think that #3 is certainly a common reason, particularly among men, for going with the Sinner label. I could be off-base here, but I think the types of things men tend to struggle with get more attention, and therefore are felt more acutely. (Definitely generalizing here.)
But I definitely think that the reason we can’t really get away with '”saint” is that it’s not a well-understood word these days. The word itself conjures up, at least to Protestants, images of icons or statues in a Catholic or Orthodox church, and has an almost sterile, ivory tower connotation.
(This in spite of the fact that any treatment of the Lives of the Saints will normally have ample evidence that these saintly folks were awfully human, too.)
“Saint” simply means “holy ones.” Well, that’s not much of an improvement, is it? “Holy” is another misunderstood word, because it doesn’t mean “perfect,” but rather “set apart.”
I know I said I wouldn’t get all Biblical on this topic, but go look at the salutations of the Epistles in the New Testament. A goodly percentage of them are addressed to “the saints” in a particular city. Certainly there was no implication of the people of the churches in those ancient cities being any less sinful than we are today.
At the risk of sounding like Stuart Smalley, isn’t there some value in positive affirmation? I’m not into the Word of Faith doctrine, in which faith is seen as a force and words as having some mystical power. But it seems to me that calling ourselves “sinners” is similar to a person who’s been sober twenty years calling himself an alcoholic. (And here I really step in it.)
Yes, we are sinners. But we’ve been bought with a price and set apart to be saints.
Thoughts?
Theology Thursday: Redeemed
Back on New Year’s Eve, I engaged in a short debate-ish thing with my Esteemed Partner in Pavement Pounding about Jephthah, and specifically about whether he sacrificed his daughter in Judges 11. (Whoa, I just totally pulled that chapter reference out of my head! Sweet!) I took the negative proposition, that Jephthah did not sacrifice his daughter, though the wording of the passage seems to indicate he did. (You can go read it if you want. I’ll wait.)
Mostly my position is based in logic. And it goes like this:
- God does not approve of human sacrifice
- God approved of Jephthah (Hebrews 11)
- Therefore, Jephthah did not engage in human sacrifice
But then, a couple of weeks ago, I came across an additional bit of support for my position. (By the way, you’d probably like to know what I think Jephthah did sacrifice, right? The short answer is something acceptable.)
My new evidence came from Exodus 13, when the Lord commanded the consecration of the firstborn. Here’s the passage:
Exodus 13:12-13 (ESV):
12 you shall set apart to the LORD all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the LORD’s. 13 Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem.
The “shall be the LORD’s” part seems to indicate that they would be sacrificed. But not all species would be sacrificed. Only clean animals. Others would be redeemed with a lamb. And firstborn sons, in particular, were consecrated to the service of the Lord (see Numbers 3), though later the tribe of Levi was taken for that service (but all firstborn sons of other tribes still had to be redeemed).
But my main point here is that an Israelite couldn’t offer just anything to God. Even when bringing a clean animal to sacrifice, it had to be spotless. God seemed to be very particular about what could be offered.
In this passage, the example of a donkey is given. Checking Leviticus 11 (a lot of 11th chapters in this post), we note that the donkey doesn’t have cloven hooves, so it’s unclean. It has to be redeemed (or throttled, apparently).
So, back to Jephthah’s case. He promised to offer what came out of his tent to the Lord. But he was an Israelite, and knew that he could only offer something clean. Anything unclean, he would have to redeem. But it would still belong to the Lord.
So, Jephthah’s daughter would have been redeemed, but would have been consecrated to the Lord. If this is so, and she was dedicated to service, she may not have been able to marry. This makes a good deal more sense when one considers that she lamented not her impending death, but rather her virginity. Jephthah’s grief would be explained by his knowledge that his line would end with her, since she was his only daughter.
This also seems to match the chronology of Judges 11, as one of the concluding verses says this:
Judges 11:39 (NKJV, just because it’s more word-for-word)
39 And it was so at the end of two months that she returned to her father, and he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed. She knew no man.
It might be stretching things a bit, it seems the “she knew no man” happened after Jephthah had fulfilled the vow.
BTW, I’m comfortably out of the mainstream with my interpretation here. Most commentators think that in the time of the Judges, the Law wasn’t observed particularly well, and so resorting to human sacrifice wasn’t be all that surprising, and Jephthah was honored for keeping a painful vow. But the writer of Hebrews doesn’t mention the sacrifice at all, so I think my explanation fits.
Now that we’re done with that, I’m shocked that my feeble little brain is just now really connecting the redemption of the firstborn with the fact that mankind was redeemed by the Lamb of God. The unclean redeemed by the clean. The broader idea of redemption by a lamb/bull is pretty well documented, but this specific idea is just now settling in for me. Guess I need to keep reading.
Theology Thursday Lite: In All Points
I have to say that I’m enjoying my less rigorous read-through this year. I’m finding I’m enjoying the reading more, going at a slower pace. I’ve even got a few Theology Thursday topics rolling around between my ears.
So, it’s my first New Testament post of the year!
Matthew 4 details Christ’s temptation in the wilderness. The three temptations are:
- To change stones to bread, to fill his hunger
- To jump off the Temple, counting on God’s protection
- To worship Satan, in exchange for the kingdoms of the world
You can find any number of creative interpretations of the three temptations and what they represent. But the thing I’ve been pondering is this:
Could Jesus have sinned?
Grand Theological Term Alert! The doctrine of The Impeccability of Christ says that Jesus was incapable of sin. I do not hold to this doctrine, and the reason is simple: I don’t think it’s Biblical.
Hebrews 4:15 (ESV, my emphasis):
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Okay, yes, I’ve strayed a bit from Matthew, but in my defense, I did once do a read-through where I read Matthew and then went straight to Hebrews (whoa, and my first Bible-Blog post was about it.)
I think the verse pretty much says it all, but I’ll admit that my thoughts on this are more logical than anything. And in that respect, I’m willing to have my logic adjusted.
I guess my objection is also a bit emotional, because if Jesus couldn’t sin, I’m not sure what was admirable or meritorious about His resisting temptation. How is it even remarkable in any way? And why would the writer of Hebrews think to mention it?
After all, how could Christ sympathize with us if the temptation He experienced was anything but just like ours?
For instance, I can’t really sympathize with an alcoholic, because I have no particular temptation to drink. (In fact, I’m putting it somewhat mildly. I think beer and wine taste alarmingly like vomit. And that’s when trying what others call “the good stuff.”)
Maybe I’m way off base here, but I think I’m making sense. Comments?
Theology Thursday: Two Little J’s
Yes, I realize I used an apostrophe in the title. And I am aware that “Js” would’ve been perfectly acceptable in a way that “As” wouldn’t be. (Because “As” is a word and not clearly the plural of the letter A.) But since I’d rather be consistent in my letter pluralization, it’s “J’s” for me. (Numbers I generally leave unapostrophied. Stupid spell-check doesn’t recognize “unapostrophied,” an obviously good word. Or “pluralization” for that matter)
Well, the whole year has been leading up to this, my last Theology Thursday post of the year. And all I’m going to do is ramble very briefly about 3 John and Jude, since they’re the last danglers from The List that I can get to this year. The others will have to wait until I get back around to them sometime around the middle of next year.
Which, by the way, reminds me to remind you that I’m totally open to topic suggestions, or even Bible questions you’ve always wondered about and just didn’t have anyone to ask. Not that I’ll know the answers, but I can ferret out an answer with the best of them, so fire away if you’d like. I also take book recommendations, though I’ve got a stack of theology books to work through next year. A quick count tells me the tally is seven. So that should get me through a few months. But I’m not promising to read one per week, so still lob me those suggestions. (Use the Suggest a Topic! form.)
For anyone wanting to read along with my Bible read-through, I’m planning on reading the English Standard Version again. My extremely exact and precise plan is this:
- Read one Psalm per day. You might actually enjoy them one at a time, and they’re great when read as prayers (in general).
- Read between three and five chapters (five is more likely than three, but whatever makes sense at the time) of the Old Testament per day, reading straight through, skipping Psalms (on account of I’ve already read it by the time I get to it) and perhaps Proverbs (on account of I finished Psalms and Proverbs is next).
- One day per week, which will be decided on later (I’m going to say Tuesday for now), read five chapters of the New Testament. Why not one chapter per day in addition to the OT? Well, because the NT is downright boring to read one chapter at a time. The Epistles, in particular, just should not be read a chapter at a time. You lose the whole flow of them.
(You could do three chapters of the OT, one in the NT if you want. Don’t let my absolute statements throw you off, even if I’m absolutely right.)
Generally I finish in late November by following this plan. The really great part about reading the Psalms one at a time is twofold:
- Psalms shouldn’t be read in big chunks. How can you meditate on something you’re flying through? They should be read individually in order to be fully appreciated. (Though I’ll admit that I get impatient to finish Psalms and double-up or triple-up on the last few dozen of them, on account of their being shortish. Lousy spell-check again!)
- By the time you finish Psalms, you’ve pulled ahead of your church’s read-through by several weeks. Alternatively, you’ve just built in several weeks of “I got bogged down in (round up the usual suspects here)” catch-up time.
So much for this being a quick post. But it’s the end of the year, and this way maybe I’ll inspire a couple of non-read-throughers (spell-check!) to sally forth and kick some serious Bible-reading booty next year.
(Seriously, if you haven’t read through at least once, you really owe it to yourself. And it gets easier every year. And if you’re a Dad, do you really want, when your child asks you a tough Bible question, to say, “Ask your mother.”? Didn’t think so. So man up and read that thing! And do it in the morning. Get up early if you have to. If you try for night-reading, it won’t happen. Trust me on this.)
(And if you honestly don’t think you’re up to a full read-through, at least do the New Testament. It’s really ridiculously easy. One. Chapter. Per. Day. Not challenging. Do it!)
(Too many parentheticals? I can never tell?)
Right, so wasn’t I going to write about 3 John? Jude, even? I’m already 750 words in and now I’m getting to today’s topic? Feel free to bail if you need to.
(At this point I’ve let this post sit for about a week and a half, and now I’m finding that I have no idea what I was going to write about the two little J’s.)
So, what to write about 3 John? Well, something that everyone might not notice is that the letter is apparently from “The Elder.” Historically, this was thought to be just John using a different title for himself, and a fitting one at that given that this book is generally accepted to have been written when John was in his eighties or nineties.
But there’s another school of thought that says “The Elder” referred to another John in Ephesus, who compiled and published John’s Gospel (adding a few bits here and there, particularly Chapter 21), and wrote the Johannine Letters and Revelation.
(I think there’s a good argument to be made about John 21 having been written by another author, but I’ll leave it until another time.)
Of course, none of this is unique to 3 John. It’s a very short book, one of the shortest in the Bible, only slightly longer than 2 John. In both 1 and 2 John, mention is made of antichrists, being those who deny that Jesus came in the flesh. In 3 John, a different kind of Bad Guy is mentioned, the kind who loves to have authority in the Church.
There are quite a few Bad Guys mentioned in the New Testament, among them:
- Hymenaeus and Alexander (1 Tim 1:20 and 2 Tim 4:14)
- Hymenaeus and Philetus (2 Tim 2:17)
- Diotrephes (3 John 9)
Interestingly, John follows up the mention of Diotrephes with a mention of Confirmed Good Guy Demetrius. Nice balance there, eh?
On the subject of Bad Guys, Jude makes mention of a group of false teachers. And then he insults them. Over and over. The letter was already a short one, but it could’ve been much shorter had he not decided to compare the false teachers to the following:
- Unthinking animals
- Balaam, deceiving people for pay
- Korah, perishing in their rebellion
- Dangerous reefs that can shipwreck the godly
- Shameless shepherds who care only for themselves
- Clouds blowing overhead without giving rain
- Autumn trees, doubly dead, bearing no fruit and uprooted
- Wild waves on the sea
- Wandering stars
Well, I’ve officially used up all my words for the year now, and I think that’s a wrap for my final post. I’ll certainly look to finish out any Bible books I’ve still missed next year. The list is much shorter now, comprising only:
- Ruth
- 1 Kings
- 2 Chronicles
- Esther
- Song of Songs
Looks like somewhere around April I’ll be starting up with these. So again, lob me any questions/ideas you might have for topics. I’ve got next week lined up already, and then I’m wide open.
I wish you a Blessed and Happy New Year!
Theology Thursday: Why Did Jesus Die?
Before I get started this week, I’d like to share an insight I had in church this past Sunday. The speaker was talking about the reality of Satan and how to resist his influence, and a though occurred to me:
One never hears anyone object to calling Satan “He.”
I just found that interesting.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking a bit lately about what salvation means. Ask a hundred people and you’ll probably get a lot of different answers, but many folks would probably say it has something to do with getting to Heaven. But isn’t there more to it than that?
As Christians, we believe Christ’s death resulted in our salvation. But what, exactly, did his death accomplish?
Well, I found a hint in TITUS!!! Yes, that Titus which, until now, I’ve not blogged about. So now I get to cross it off the List!
Titus 2:11-14 (NLT, emphasis mine):
11 For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people.12 And we are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, 13 while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed. 14 He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds.
(An aside here, but verse 13 is a good Divinity of Christ reference.)
Verse 14 is the key one for the salvation question, obviously. And this is what, I’d submit, Salvation means to us today, while we live. In the end, of course, it means we’ll live on in Eternity. And Paul even makes a mention of this later in Titus.
Titus 3:4-7 (NLT)
4 But "When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love,5 he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. 6 He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. 7 Because of his grace he declared us righteous and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life."
I guess it turns out I didn’t need the first passage, because this one contains both points. Right now, we have new life, and ultimately we’ll inherit eternal life. Actually, it basically means we’re already living that eternal life.
So how should we live now? As His People, totally committed to doing good deeds.
Theology Thursday: Deedless Creeds?
Awhile back, I read a series of books on Judaism. And no, I never seriously considered converting. I just wanted to know more about the Jewish faith. (I have a book on the Talmud I’ve been reading off and on since about ‘05.)
One of the books I read was Dennis Prager’s The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism. Question Four was “How Does Judaism Differ From Christianity, Marxism and Communism, and Humanism?” An interesting mishmash of topics, don’t you think?
But one of the things Prager contrasted between Judaism and Christianity was, as he put it, that Judaism is a religion that “stresses DEED over CREED.”
Meaning that while Christianity defines itself by proper belief, Judaism is defined by proper actions.
Orthodoxy versus Orthopraxy.
(New word for anyone there? Orthopraxy is one of my favorites, and I so rarely get to use it.)
But the fact is that, while the statement vexed me, it had the ring of truth to it, even if only in a general way. Stop a hundred church-goers on the street and ask them what makes them Christians, and you’ll mostly get answers about belief.
But is it all really about belief? Or might there be something deeper? Well, Paul indicates that there is.
In Colossians!
Yes, Colossians, which means I’m blogging about Colossians, and I can cross it off my list!
Colossians 2:6 (NLT):
6 And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. 7 Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.
I love the subtle contrast to the two ways he says we grow by following Christ.
First, he tells us to let our roots grow down into the Christ. Notice he’s still not talking about a work we’re really doing. He doesn’t say “Grow your roots down into him.” He tells us to let them grow. Meaning it should be a natural consequence of following.
Likewise, he tells us to let our lives be built on Christ. Notice again that it’s in the passive voice. Not “Build your lives on him,” but let your lives be built on him.
I think he uses these two images to give us a benchmark to let us know if we’re actually following Christ. We should see growth.
I’m finding this pretty convicting. Gotta let those roots grow!
Related Post: Faith Without Works
Theology Thursday: Doctrinal Wind-Surfing
I wonder, have I mentioned before that I do my New Testament reading on the weekend, leaving me free to read ahead a bit in the Old? With my schedule of reading once through the Old and twice through the New, it means reading basically ten chapters in the New Testament every weekend. I thought it better to basically take whole books at a time, the better to appreciate the context of 
what I was reading.
Anyhow, I read through Galatians and Ephesians a couple of weekends ago, a total of exactly ten chapters.
Ephesians is a pretty rich book, packing in a lot of famous theology in just six chapters. But I was struck by a passage in which Paul discusses the need for Christians to use their gifts in order to build each other up, with the goal being all Christians coming to maturity in their faith. He then mentions an outgrowth of this maturity:
Ephesians 4:14 (NLT)
14Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth.
This is a great passage for me, because I find it’s my nature to be easily persuaded by a good argument, even if it’s for a bad position. I have to challenge myself to really engage with the argument and make sure it holds up.
In fact, I sometimes remind myself of Homer Simpson. There’s an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer is considering joining The Stonecutters, a not-so-subtle reference to The Masons. His daughter, Lisa, warns him about his vulnerability to cult-like organizations, given that he’s “the easily suggestible type.”
Homer’s response?: “Yes, I am the easily suggestible type.”
That’s me, sometimes.
Awhile back (talking years here, not months), I was listening to the radio and heard a Catholic call-in show. It was, of course, put on by a couple of really good Catholic Apologists, and they said some things that made me question why I’d never even considered the claims of the Catholic Church. (Or, for that matter, why I couldn’t even articulate what those claims were.)
I was shaken quite a bit by the idea of there being a One True Church that I might be missing out on. So, I dove into What Catholics Believe, and spent quite a bit of time really undecided.
There’s something very comforting about the idea of a Monolithic Church, with a received corpus of Teaching and Tradition you can take to the bank. (There are so many theological issues with wiggle-room to them that it might be nice to just look up The Church’s view and go with that.) And the idea of the Sacraments is something I find attractive.
I never really shared my angst/doubt with anyone while I was going through it. And it’s not like I was ever close to conversion, but I had to at least open myself to the possibility if my investigation was to be truly honest.
Should I have shared some of this with my family? Probably. A close friend? Maybe, and I did mention some of it, after the fact, to someone I trusted. (By the way, I have regular theological ramblings with a good friend nowadays. I can only get as far afield as he lets me.)
The reason I didn’t share my little excursion with anyone close to me was that I didn’t want to let emotions get in the way. I didn’t want anyone talking me out of anything. I needed to find out for myself. I figured that when I came to a conclusion, I’d deal with the consequences from a position of certainty.
But the bottom line is that I was definitely tossed about by those guys’ doctrine.
(By the way, I’m not trying to indicate that they were trying to trick anybody. I believe they were sincere believers in exactly what they were teaching, and I believe they’re fellow Christians. I still listen to the show now and then when I’m interested in the topic. And while some of my investigations led me to an understanding of some doctrines closer to the Catholic understanding of them, I’m not going to be converting.)
Of course, it’s not that they were tossing me about by anything they did. I was being tossed. Because I wasn’t mature in my faith.
So there was a very positive outcome of my investigations/angst: I learned to really dig on my own. To challenge my beliefs and make sure I knew why I held them. To find out what the Bible actually says about things, and not just go with whatever Traditions I’ve heard.
(By the way, I’ve also come to recognize that as much as evangelicals malign Catholics for holding to Tradition, we often don’t have a leg to stand on.)
I’m not claiming to have come to full maturity in my faith. I just know I wasn’t at all mature before. I’ve at least moved along the road somewhat.
You know what’s funny? I planned this post almost entirely around the Homer Simpson quote. I had no intention whatsoever of being so transparent. So now you know why I seem to know quite a bit about Catholic doctrine.
Another odd thing is that these days I find that I’ve swung over toward being stubbornly difficult to convince in some areas. So I not only have to battle myself to not be too easily convinced, but I also have to make sure I’m staying open-minded (reading helps quite a bit with that).
Anyone else out there struggle with either side of this issue? Too rigid? Too pliable?
Next week, my first ever Colossians post! Woooo!
Theology Thursday: Caffeine Bondage
I’m not a morning person. But I’m not exactly a night person, either. In short, I like my sleep. Still, I get up five times a week, earlier than I’d like, and some days I really could use a coffee to help get me going.
And I really like coffee. But I don’t always allow myself a coffee. Now why would that be?
First, some background on my tumultuous past with the dark beverage. Really, I promise I’ll work in at least a tiny drip of Theology by the time we’re done.
Back up a few years. Wow, it’s actually more years than I thought. Anyhow, I used to not really like coffee. Oh, I tried to like it because I thought it looked grown-up to drink it. But really I had to drown it with cream and sugar to make it at all palatable.
Then I started college. In Newberg, home of the Coffee Cottage. And I still didn’t really like coffee. I tried a mocha or latte now and then, but they were too bitter.
Then I took a summer job working swing shift, then moved to graveyard shift. And the coffee flowed.
Anyone who’s ever worked graveyard can attest to the strange sleeping hours playing havoc, at least for a time, with one’s circadian rhythm. And I went for normal sleeping hours on the weekends, for the most part, so I didn’t help my own cause very well. And there was the small matter of the Suicide Run (get off at 8am, drive to the Kenai Peninsula for some fishing, limit out, drive back, sleep for two hours, and back to work).
So I started packing a thermos of coffee. Or at least cocoa with some coffee mixed in. As the summer waned, the mixture had gone from 20% coffee to 10% cocoa. I’d broken through.
Espresso drinks were still too bitter, though.
Then came my first senior year of college (graduated in December, so I had three senior semesters, or four junior semesters). Then came Dr. Graff and Electrical Engineering Lab 3. One hundred percent design. This was a class with a one hour lecture once per week, but it was a four credit hour class. The math doesn’t seem to add up there, eh?
We were expected to spend ten or so hours per week in the lab working on our designs. These included our weekly design projects, plus ten or fifteen required side projects. Required in that if you didn’t complete them, you failed the class. Complete them and you got a C. To pull the grade higher required even more extra work.
This was one class. I also had Senior Design to do. I didn’t sleep much.
In fact, I can give a detailed description of what it’s like to fall asleep on a lab stool. While soldering. I’m lucky to still have both eyes.
I once biked home from the lab at 6:10am and slept for forty minutes, then got up and went to my 7am class. The class with three other guys in it. An eighty minute class with my most droning professor. Advanced Control Systems. Sounds riveting, doesn’t it? (Actually I loved that class. When I stayed awake.)
So it’s probably not surprising that, upon surviving that semester, I discovered suddenly that espresso drinks were suddenly not so repellent. In fact, I loved them. It didn’t hurt that I worked for my brother-in-law that summer, and we always, always, always stopped for lattes on the way to work (at 6am).
For the next several years, my coffee consumption was mostly a workbound phenomenon. I’d go for a mocha midmorning, then maybe grab some nasty drip in the afternoon.
And then Mr. B came along. Actually, I moved into the same campus as Mr. B. And he brought his French Press. And he’d email me around 9:30am with a subject line normally approaching “2, 4, 6, 8, when do we caffeinate?” or “I have a pressing matter I’d like to discuss.”
And then he moved and I had to fend for myself. I got my own press. Made my own. And then I decided to just make it at home. Saved on the hauling of the apparatus to and from work.
I certainly didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. It’s just coffee, right?
But I certainly knew the Caffeine-Withdrawal-Headaches were Not a Good Thing. Of course, there’s an easy way to avoid such a thing. Just keep drinking, just keep drinking, just keep drinking, drinking, drinking…
And then I read a verse, or heard it on a radio show or some audio Bible teaching. And I thought it was Time To Cut Back.
So I quit. Cold turkey. And I basically had a headache for a week and a half.
I didn’t quit with a mind to never have coffee again. In fact, I fully intended to still partake of it. You see, I still liked it. I just didn’t want to need it.
So now I’m on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. The other days, I go for herbal or green tea (yes, it has caffeine, but only about a quarter as much).
I’m no longer a slave to caffeine. I like my coffee days, and actually look forward to them. I enjoy having my morning cuppa.
Want to know the verse I referenced? It came up in my reading last week. And here it is:
1 Corinthians 6:12 (NLT):
12You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything.
Of course, Paul isn’t specifically talking about hot, caffeinated beverages here. Actually, it’s a lengthy dialogue on avoiding sexual immorality. But still, he gives a very general statement that basically says a Christian shouldn’t be in bondage to anything.
I’m not trying to pretend I’m super-spiritual here because I’ve managed to throw off Caffeine Bondage, though it seems it’s a rare thing to do around my work. (Energy drinks and caffeinated pop are thrown down with alarming regularity. I’ve still never tried Red Bull.)
But I do think it’s a good idea for Christians to examine their lives and see if they’ve become slaves of anything. Television? Internet? Chocolate? Shopping? It doesn’t have to be one of the Big Three (alcohol, drugs, sex) to qualify as a Not a Good Thing.
And I think throwing off a bondage issue can often reveal the underlying Good Thing that had been masked by overuse. Or allow us to focus on a different Good Thing. Or the One who gives us all such good gifts.
And now I’m going to have some tea.