Paul Reasons at the Synagogue of Thessalonica

17:1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2 And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” 4 And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. 5 But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. 6 And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, 7 and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” 8 And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. 9 And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. (Acts 17:1-9 (ESV)

And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”

He reasoned with them, explained to them, and proved to them. With Paul, the Christian faith was reasonable. It was one of the great tools he had with him that he reasoned with people about the faith. One of the great strengths of Christianity is that it is reasonable. At a time when the paganism of antiquity was being discarded as being folly and silly, Christianity showed itself to be reasonable. And it still is reasonable.

But today? Well most of so-called Christianity has become extremely lazy. We don’t want to reason. Too often the thought is that reason is against faith, that only hard science is reasonable and somehow it has the upper hand in the debate, when often it has nothing to say to the issue at all, though people want it to speak to the issue. In actual fact the other side is about as lazy in their reasoning when it comes to issues of faith. The science gambit is most often nothing more than an appeal to authority, and then you have the authorities appealing to authorities, but no one seems to be able to dress the emperor. The truth of scripture is one that can’t really be decided by a telescope or a microscope. Neither for or against. The evidence put forward from these devices has to be interpreted and interpreting brings you right into a whole host of philosophical and epistemological issues that frankly few “scientists” one reads and hears today are qualified in any manner to deal with. The great Philosopher of Science in the Twentieth Century, Karl Popper, was known to bemoan the fact that it seemed scientists had gotten very good at measuring, but were incapable of thinking. Tyson Neil DeGrasse will go on and on and on about how a philosophy major isn’t worth the time, and seems oblivious to the fact that he has uncritically accepted an entire philosophy, and not a very good one at that, himself.

And it is all just lazy. You can’t dismiss the historical truth claims of a resurrection by showing the earth revolves around the sun. Neither can you prove the historical truth claims of a resurrection by demonstrating the irreducible complexity of a hair follicle. Christianity and science actually mesh with each other quite well, if you let them. There is actually a reason why there have been so many great scientific advances in the western world influenced most greatly by Christianity.  

But the laziness often cuts both ways, and is almost codified, not just among Christians, but in society as a whole, which somehow now believes that the definition of faith is something on reasonable. People actually believe that you can’t believe in something reasonable. And conversely, it seems, the more unreasonable the faith, the greater the belief which is somehow a virtue in and of itself. Having faith, has become a virtue on its own, apart from any consideration concerning that which you believe in.

Paul reasoned for the resurrection. He did so by going to the scriptures and pointing to the prophecies of the Jewish faith, prophecies made by prophets that had proven themselves trustworthy. Many of these prophets suffered themselves for that which they prophesied, but the things they said would happen did in fact happen, in their own life times, and sometimes shortly after they were executed for prophesying calamity. Many in Israel saw no problem with shooting messengers of truth if the truth was hard to hear. Then Paul showed how Jesus was the Christ because he fulfilled these prophecies with his resurrection. Everything hinged upon the resurrection, which Paul himself was witness to. At the center of Christianity is the resurrection, an event recorded, and vindicated by historical investigation. It is hard to see how it would have taken off the way it did, if claiming Jesus rose from the dead, any of the enemies of this faith could have produced the body. Certainly, 3,000 men in Jerusalem would not have been convinced by the Apostle’s preaching had the body been in the tomb, or they could have come up with  any plausible alternative as to why it wasn’t where they knew it should be.

That They May Be One

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (Jn 17:20-23)
Jesus prays for the unity of the church. And because Jesus prays for it, and the prayers of a righteous man are answered, there is a oneness in the church. But it is often misunderstood.
The unity of the church exists despite denominations and other human organizations that are involved with the work of the church on earth. This unity is created by faith in Jesus Christ, which incorporates all believers into the body of Christ, and he only has one body, we are made to be as members, legs, feet and toes of Christ’s body. It is an organic unity, not an organizational unity.
That said, organizational unity wouldn’t be a bad thing if it didn’t involve power plays, or compromise on doctrine. If we are to be one it has to be because we have been sanctified in truth. That we have different denominations is the result of people not accepting the truth, or perhaps only accepting part of the truth. But our pursuit must be for truth. Seek first the kingdom of God. His word is truth. It’s a tall order, and not one people care to pursue much these days. Today there are serious challenges to the idea of truth itself. People pick churches for a myriad of reasons, but what the church teaches is a concern finding itself surprisingly low on the list. Youth activities usually finds itself higher on the list. Of course, that might mean that a church should find a way to supply youth activities that more might hear the truth. In the same way, and this is just a fact, people believe what they want to believe. So the church might do well to give them a reason to want to believe the Gospel. This isn’t always done well with infighting and bickering over doctrinal truths the way Sean Hannity berates liberal dogma over the airways. It actually requires getting to know people and understanding where they are at, this is just as true of society as it is of individuals, and then applying the truth, law and gospel to their situation in a way that shows Christ’s love and concern for them. Because finally, this is what unifies us in the church, Christ’s love for the world, Christ’s love for us, and for you. It is from this love that he taught the disciples and gave us the New Testament consummated with his death and resurrection. Yes, it is his love that gave us Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and our doctrine, because his doctrine, his teaching has the power to save and to heal.
Power to heal, this is what the teaching of Christ does, it heals, it delivers a good conscience and a clean heart. This is the effect of Christ’s love, it gives rest to a weary soul. It brings peace. I recently read and reviewed “The Sober Truth” which was a critique of A.A. It had a bias against religion and particularly the religion of A.A. The book contained the thoughts of many who had become disenfranchised from A.A. for many reasons. But in many of these interviews, I found it a bit shocking how many of them were turned off from the religious aspects of A.A. in part due to bad experiences with Christianity growing up. In fact, it seemed to me, that many of these people were perhaps drinking to excess and killing themselves with alcohol and other drugs precisely for the reason of trying to deal with abusive teachings passing themselves off as Christian, to which they were exposed as kids. Of course there are many different reasons people drink in such a manner. And I don’t think we will ever be done with the problem of alcoholism. But it did strike me the prevalancy with which these alcoholics expressed issues with religion, and mostly meaning some branch of Christianity. It gives one a bit of pause for thought. Of course, not everyone is going to accept the truth either. The gospel will always be rejected. But it would be nice if when people left “the church” or were angry with it, they at least were rejecting the gospel rather than a pseudo-gospel. As one Professor once told a class, “yes, the gospel offends, but you might want to make sure it is the gospel that is offending and not you.” And the truth is, it often is us, we are sinners. And despite it all God manages to work through us to accomplish his purposes, drawing us together as one in him, sanctified in truth.

Love One Another

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants,[a] for the servant[b] does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another. (John 15:12-17)
Jesus wants his disciples to love one another. He lays his own life in love for his friends. He doesn’t do this for servants but for friends. It is the love he has for you. And it is because of this love that he has chosen you. He tells the disciple that he has chosen them, and appointed them to bear fruit. This is true of all his disciples. He chooses us. He chooses you. It’s a matter who is in authority, who is in charge. A general looking for recruits has the prerogative. If the recruit doesn’t meet his standards then he is not chosen however much he might want to be chosen. Luckily for us, the only qualification that Jesus has is that we be sinners in need of forgiveness. He didn’t come to heal those who are well but those are sick. This is his love, that despite our sin he laid down his life for us, while we were yet sinners! This is his love, forgiveness. This is the love we are to emulate. It isn’t easy. It’s often very hard, especially in a small congregation. People step on each other’s toes. Things aren’t always done the way we think they should be done. People start throwing accusations, people get their feelings hurt. And it isn’t always easy to forgive when everything is said and done. Yet, Christ forgives us all, and we all receive his love in communion. There we receive the strength to forgive each other, to love one another despite our differences. Jesus knows our weakness. He knows our sin. But if we cut ourselves off from his love, we will never have it in us to love each other as he has loved us.

Interview on Bo Giertz

just a heads up, tomorrow I will be interviewed by Todd Wilken on Issues Etc. Mostly this will be about plugging "Then Fell the Lord's Fire." which can also be ordered off of Amazon.com. They have asked me to talk about who he was and then about his theology. I'm excited and a little nervous, I don't know why I get jittery before these interviews. I could talk all day long about Bo Giertz and his theology. Should be fun.

Thank You Issues Etc.

Thank you, Issues Etc. I just now realized that last week I was honored with Blog of the Week on Issues Etc. due to my post on Pieper and Apologetics. Guess I need to check out the on demand section a little more often. I appreciate the publicity. I think this has generated more traffic than when Issues Etc. Interviewed me about my Translation work on Bo Giertz’s “To Live with Christ.”

Issues Etc. interview about Bo Giertz

I had the pleasure today to talk with Todd Wilken concerning "To Live with Christ" and Bo Giertz. Since then I have noticed a bit of a spike in traffic here at Utah Lutheran. For those of you who would like to continue the conversation, and ask more questions concerning the Bishop, or about devotional life in general feel free to ask them here. One tip "To Live with Christ is considerably cheaper at Amazon.com than it is at CPH. Give the money you save to your local congregation. You can listen to the interview here.

Radio interview

I just received an interview request from Issues Etc. to talk about Bo Giertz and "To Live with Christ." I have excepted the interview, which should be between 2 and 3 mountain time. Should anyone want to listen to it they can hit the little Issues Etc. button to the side of the blog. The interview will probably be recorded. Keep me in your prayers, all the sudden I have jitters. I don't know what my voice sounds like on the radio. (I knew this would happen. It has been rescheduled for next week. When I can use a land line.)