A Divine Moment

What kind of faith is Christianity? Is it experiential? Many of thought so. Is it intellectual? Again, many have considered it so. The answer is of course neither and both. Christianity is primarily relational. We understand God in how we relate to Him, and the church is functional only in terms of is communal unity.

Relationships have their experiential nature. I'm writing this today because this evening I had one of those truly defining experiential moments. I've had others, but I thought this one was worth sharing, especially considering how theological it was.

I've been reading a book called Truth Is Stranger Than It Used To Be (which I highly recommend) and in it, it was discussing the necessary aspect of complaint in Christian worship. This is something that I've felt strongly about for some time, but this sparked me to think about it with some depth. I pondered (remember, this is meant to be as close to my train of thought as possible with words):

God is God. Because of this, He is the Lord and Master of all of the cosmos and over all of creation. As such, we have no right to come before Him and complain to Him about how He is doing things.

However, because we are now in covenantal relationship with Him, which was cut through Christ, we now have an invitation to go before the throne and complain. Indeed, God requests that He does, and it is important that we do so honestly. David was honest before God; Job was honest before God; We should be honest before God, and should not hold back in case we offend His majesty.

Marriage is a covenant. When I am upset with my wife, I tell her my feelings. I am open before her, and tell her precisely what bothers me about what she did and how it affects me. I do so because I trust her not to throw it back in my face, and because ultimately my desire is reconciliation with her. This can only happen is I openly and honestly express my perspective and reaction to what she has done. With that comes correction and restitution.

With God, to not be honest and to hold back is not to trust His response, and to prefer obedience to proper relationship. Being open doesn't mean that you believe that what you are saying is correct, but that you recognize that this is the perspective that you have, and it needs to be dealt with, and that the only way to deal with it is to go to the source, submit it, and trust that He will value your honesty and reconcile with you. It is a supreme trust.

And how good of a God He is that He is faithful to that trust! That if we come to him complaining, He'll listen and come and reconcile. He may speak from a whirlwind, or He may speak in a still small voice, but He'll come.

God loves me. He really loves me. That love is not simply an emotion, but it motivates action. He pursues me. Yes He reigns, but He really cares about me.

God, You're love is real, and true...

At this point, my thoughts really stopped being words. It was more a group of concepts sort of ramming into each, and interacting with each other: blending and merging, sort of like a conceptual kaleidoscope. I had a similar experience once contemplating the Trinity. It is like the ideas almost become pure, leaving their verbal symbols. It sounds chaotic, but when this happens my thinking is actually clearer.

The first time this conceptual kaleidoscope happened the concept of the Trinity was simply made plain to me. In this case, God's love was just before me. I could see it; feel it. All of it's parts and depths were there. It began to feel like God was holding me in His arms: not in a literal way, but definitely in a tangible way. I don't think I can describe it better than that. It was just me and Dad: and it was good. VERY GOOD. I would've been content to just stay there if Esther didn't tell me that it was dinnertime (she actually could tell something was happening with me).

I don't know if I can say much more than this. It was what it was, and I will hold it in my heart. I pray that you all may have a similar experience.

Ephesians 1:17; A Devotional

...that the God of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Glorious Father, may give you the spirit¹ of wisdom and of revelation on the knowledge of Him...

This verse is a verse about the Father, and, I believe, describes the relationship He has to both the Son and the Spirit. What is more important here is that the context of this passage is prayer for the Ephesians.

In the last couple of verses, Paul said that he has been praying for the Ephesians constantly. Here, he says what he is praying. He does not pray for wealth, prestige, or more numbers. Instead, he prays that they have wisdom and understanding.

I think this is a very good pastoral lesson. Often pastors are motivated by the wrong goals. They try and teach the congregation how to live more comfortably, or what are the right doctrines to have, etc... Instead, Paul's pastoral heart calls for them to be like Solomon: wise in the ways of God.

The bible teaches that being a follower of Christ, in part, means that you have an entirely different way of viewing the world than the rest of the world. I don't really like the notion of adapting our understanding of God to the trends of the world because our perspective is supposed to be different (this does not mean that just because our understanding is different we therefore believe what is right). This does mean that when pastors are shepherding their congregations, one of their goals is to train them in the ways that they should think.

Think about yourself at the moment. Does the cross reshape your reality? Does it define the way you view all aspects of life? Does it affect how you do your work? How you vote? How you play? What you watch? What you say? Does it define how you see yourself? The cross interrupts life as it normally is, and it is important that we seek that interruption, because it is there that we find the true impetus for life itself.

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Translation notes

¹ There were three ways to render 'pneuma' in this text: 'the spirit', 'a spirit', 'the Spirit'. There is no definite article in the Greek, so the use of 'the' is not required, but it is also not impossible. The lack of a definite article does not demand indefiniteness in Greek. The option of 'Spirit' is always tricky in general because, though the Spirit is definately referred to in personnal terms in other texts, He does not really have a formal name and, like 'pater', it is not always obvious when it is referring to the person of the Spirit. Personally, i think that it is, but one shouldn't push one's point of view in translation.In the end, I used 'the spirit' since it allows all three understandings possible.

Ephesians 1:15-16; A Devotional

Because¹ of this, and² because I heard about your faith in Lord Jesus and about your love toward all the saints, I've not stopped praying for you, recalling you to mind³ in my prayers.

The thrust of this passage is about prayer. At first it hits us as a bit of a surprise. This first section in Ephesians is so full of high theology that one hardly expects the sudden intrusion of something practical. But I think this points out an important feature of Christianity.

Many times Christianity is described as a reflective faith. We have a deep history of serious theological and philosophical reflection. However, as much of American evangelicalism has aptly demonstrated, it can also be a very practical faith, and can exist and act separately from high level theology.

The truth of the matter is that Christianity in its purest form takes abstract theological concepts and makes them practical. Christianity is more than something to make us feel better, or something to motivate us, or a hobby to muse over when there's nothing on TV. Instead Christianity is a robust and provocative way of viewing the world which is grounded in the reality of life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and as such every theological thought reaches in and affects the way in which we interact with the world.

For instance, in prayer Paul cites two impetuses for his prayer for the Ephesians. One is the witness of their love and faithfulness to Christ and His church. This as an impetus for prayer is relevant because it sets as an example the level of commitment we are supposed to have for our fellow Christians. Often we forget this.

The other impetus is all the theological stuff Paul has been saying so far, especially what he just said in verses 13-14. Because the Gentiles are now included within the inheritance that was the Jews, they are now brothers and as such Paul loves them as his own people. The prayer that Nehemiah prayed about the ruin of Jerusalem and the corporate love of his people has, for Paul, now extended to the Gentiles.

Therefore we see that the theological idea of the Gentiles' inclusion into the promises of God had direct influence on Paul's prayer. Now I wonder how much it has on ours. Do we pray for the saints as brothers? Do we reach out to those loyal in Christ in our prayers? Do we hold them up? I think we should.

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Translation notes

¹ The Greek reads 'Dia touto' which literally means 'through this' or 'by this'. 'This' is referring back to what Paul has just been saying. The English words 'because', 'therefore', etc... serve the same purpose. I chose 'because' so I could distribute it through the 'and'.

² I wrestled a bit with the 'kai' in this passage, which is usually translated as 'and' or 'also', depending on context. It is a very common word, and I never really expected to have trouble with it. However, I found it difficult to discern exactly what was being joined in the sentence with the word. One option was to consider the Ephesians as something else that Paul is giving thanks to, but that doesn't seem to work with 'kai''s position in the sentence. I also found little help in the translations. The NIV uses 'ever since', which I don't see at all. The ESV just crops it out.
The KJV and its descendants translates it as 'also' which doesn't work contextually. This would either mean that Paul also heard this (though Paul hasn't mentioned hearing anything) or that Paul also heard the gospel as the Ephesians heard it (which seems to contradict the sentence).
However, I think what makes the most sense is to see the subordinate clause as something else "through" which Paul is not ceasing his prayer. Thus, it is connecting the subordinate clause with 'touto' in connection to the preposition 'dia'. I attempted to demonstrate this by distributing the 'because' through the 'and'.

³ 'Mneian poioumanos' literally translates 'making memory' or 'doing memory'. The word picture is literally forming the memory in your mind in order to act on it. I felt that 'remember' was too soft and 'making mention' was too inaccurate. Therefore I used an synonymous expression in English that uses the same word picture: 'recalling to mind'.