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Published: 10 December 2015

Do you know people like that?  The phrase, “I don’t know” is not in their vocabulary.  They have an answer for everything and if they don’t have an answer they have a really strong opinion.  Fundamentalist Christians are often accused of such over-confidence but I don’t think it’s unique to believers.  There are over-confident atheists and over confident agnostics too; it probably has more to do with personality than ideology.  Mr. Trump seems to have a lot of answers right now, I’m not sure how many of them are right—but they are right to him and for him that is what matters.  This is the problem in a world that claims truth is relative.  Supposedly I can have my truth and you can have your truth and all our truths have equal weight.  This relativity is leading us down some dangerous paths.  The prophet Isaiah warned, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”  Apparently there is good and evil and the two shouldn’t be mixed up.  Simply calling evil something it isn’t doesn’t change it into something good.  This implies that from God’s perspective, there are some absolute truths.  They have an objective and transcendent Source.  These are truths that are not subject to human opinion and whether they are “liked” or not is irrelevant.  Truth matters because Isaiah also wrote that “when the leaders of a people cause them to err, those who are led by them are destroyed.”  Error brings destruction!  Our role as God’s ambassadors is not to make absolute truth but to recognize it.  Sometimes, Christians have been as dangerous as relativists; we’ve made up some “truths” of our own—with good intentions, and held them up with true truth on the same level.  Without genuine Scriptural merit, we’ve added something that may have been a good idea in practice to the level of inspired Word.  This causes the world to miss the reality of the gospel and it causes some believers to “check out.”  Thankfully, there are among us people who are not content to live with what Daniel Taylor calls “unquestioned answers.”  They believe that God is light; that His Word is truth and that even believers have some notions that need to be challenged.  Like the Bereans of old, “they search the Scriptures to see if things are so…”  If you have an answer for everything, some of those answers probably do not square with absolute truth.  Be careful.  Having answers may make you feel comfortable or even superior but it may not help others live in pursuit of God and His life.  It’s okay to live with some mystery, only God is light in whom is no darkness at all. 

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Published: 03 December 2015

Like many teens of the 70’s I liked and listened regularly to a band called “Boston.”  Catchy tunes, great rhythms and some amazing guitar riffs just kept us coming back for more.  Because I am studying “peace” this week, as in “The Prince of Peace,” I can’t help but think about a Boston tune titled “Peace of Mind.”  Whenever I am in a restaurant and the song plays I am mentally gone from conversation for a few minutes.  The song recognizes the futility of corporate ladder-climbing and the emptiness of those who say they have life when they do not.  That is good.  The song writer essentially says that people are free to live in the rat race if they want to but all he wants is “Peace of Mind.”  Interestingly, Christian author Francis Schaeffer had written a few years earlier that Americans chiefly pursue “personal peace and affluence” but they are willing to live without the affluence if they can have the personal peace.  If one’s life is filled with strife and contention and their work is a constant assault on their mental wellbeing, money and/or position fails to bring enough satisfaction to offset the struggle.   Sadly, Boston never addressed the way to have peace of mind even though it is obviously longed for by many people.  One is left thinking that peace of mind may be too elusive to really have.  This is not a new subject.  Before Schaeffer and Boston there were plenty of philosophers and artists working through these issues.  As we will point out on Sunday (Lord willing), the Jewish and Christian concept of peace entails a lot more than “peace of mind.”  The Old Testament term “Shalom” and the New Testament term “Eirene” both refer to a state of being rather than a state of mind.  For there to be real peace, we need more than peace of mind.  There is a peace of mind that is like the proverbial ostrich with its head buried in the sand.  Real peace requires getting ultimate things settled.  It requires hope about the important questions that have to do with origin, meaning, purpose and future.  Real peace requires more than a “whatever” attitude.  We need some answers.  We need some substance.  We need Someone who deals with reality.  We need more than platitudes.  We need a Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the PRINCE OF PEACE!