Omniscience of God?

When it comes right down to the basics of my faith, I admit to being Bible based as far as my intellect allows, so it may appear to be a bit old fashioned to some. It seems to be going out of style, but I hold to the ‘Omnis’ of the Christian faith but I notice they are being questioned, if not attacked, by the very church leaders who should be protecting them.




You see, I believe in, and defend the fact that God is Omnipresent, Omniscient, and Omnipotent. The one which is mostly under attack by some academics and theologians, is the thought that God isn’t really all knowing (Omniscient). It is only a matter of time and circumstance when others will fall under the academic gaze and red pen of the professors of liberal theology who want to carve out a name for themselves and make unnecessary changes.




Do you remember the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes? It is based on the fact that although the Emperor was in his underwear, the inner circle of the royal court kept telling him that his imaginary fine clothes were real and exquisite. It was in these royal courtiers’ interests to bask in the reflected glory of the Emperor, and as long as they could convince everyone else that their leader was dressed in the best, their place was secure.




It took a child who was innocent of the selfish game being played on his Emperor, to shout that the nation’s respected leader wasn’t wearing any clothes! The game was up for those who led the Emperor into his mistaken and false identity. So, why tell that old story? Because there are students and professors of theology who want to be seen as clever as their theological peers and heroes who claim that the outlandish theology of Omniscience is actually untrue and outdated, and that we have been labouring under a falsehood for a long time. The thing that troubles me most, is that the basic belief of free will, held by the majority of Christians, is used to disprove the omniscience of God.




What about you? Do you believe that God is omniscient? Or do you believe our free will means that God is like us in that He only knows those things that He CAN know, and only then after we have exercised our free will? It is a serious question that I believe needs an answer at both personal and corporate church level.

Elitism?

Christians are a funny lot. No, make that a strange bunch. We have those on the fringes of faith who barely know much about the Bible, but their hearts are soft, safe and pure. They may be poorly educated but they are the salt of the earth. Then at the other end of the spectrum we have the well educated academic and the well read Bible scholar, different people but both of whom see themselves as elite, and better than most Christians. They are very different people, but each one will feel elite, whereas the soft hearted Christian is lowly and humble.




So, why am I saying this? It’s because recently I came across a Christian who falls into the well read Bible scholar, and who has decided that he must take the Bible literally. That’s ok I hear you say, but let me continue. We all know faithful ones who may differ on their beliefs about the Garden of Eden, and if it was an apple or a fruit that Eve took. Literalists and those who take that part of the story as picture language, seem to get along fine because we can see where they are coming from.




BUT (big BUT) what if the literalist believer says that the earth is really flat, and then rolls out many verses of Scripture to support that belief? In order to hold the flat earth principle, many things have to be thrown aside as conspiracies of the devil. Things like, man never being in space and certainly never walking on the moon. The curvature of the earth’s surface first calculated around 300BC is a lie of satan and we have all been deceived by the master of lies by devilish conspiracy theories. There was much more as I listened to my friend expound his own late belief that the earth is flat, but the main thing that came across was the elitist way he spoke. Those who didn’t believe like him were not as Biblically wise as he is. They had not properly studied and believed the Word of God, and so were not in the place he was. Make no mistake, there are many others like him across the world. The small group of Christians with me who listened, heard him in respectful silence, but wore a confused smile of disbelief. I say that because we found his new found ‘discovery’ to be harmless because he still fully believes Christ as Saviour, and all the other main characteristics of salvation.




However, having said all that, I find the educated, academic scholar to be more dangerous in their elitism. They use bigger words and advance their own theories about interpretation and many times do not back it up with Scripture, whether understood literally, pictorially or even in poetic form. As new ideas emerge from their theses or dissertations, it can puff up and produce a sense of worth which shows them above others. Sometimes then, basic and fundamental tenets of our faith are questioned, and we are prone to accept them because they come from a lettered theologian that we are expected to respect.




Give me those Christians who enjoy a simple faith every time, who barely know much about deep theology, but who read the Bible with a clear head, and an open heart which is humble, soft, safe and pure. Turns out I know just one Christian who believes in a flat earth, but what about you? Do you or anyone you know believe in the flat earth theory, Christian or not??

First Do No Harm

You will recognise these words from the beginning of the Hippocratic Oath, which is taken by student doctors around the world, and ingrained into their minds even before they touch a patient. The reason is clear. If you can’t make the patient any better, then at least don’t do them any harm. Oh that as believers we would take the lesson to heart.




Some Christians are so used to ‘speaking the truth in love’ that they cannot, or will not, hold their tongue when they should. After all, the argument goes, it’s in the Bible, so it must be right. I would suggest that when the truth is really spoken in love, only good will be done. After all, God does not, and will not, do harm to His own witness. He may convince and convict of the sin in our lives through the Holy Spirit, but He can do that without our feeble attempts to speak for Him in a misguided ‘in love’ pretence.




Sadly, I have come across very few Christians who are loving or lovely, when they speak their version of the truth ‘in love’.

The Word Of God?

The Bible is called “The Word of God” and for good reason. The canon of scripture handed down to us contains the creation account, the prophecy of the coming Messiah, and the arrival of the promised baby which we celebrate at Christmas Time. When that baby grew up to be a man He suffered and died for our sins, was resurrected and ascended back into heaven where He pleads to the Father on our behalf. What a story, and the full account is faithfully recorded for us in the Bible.


Someone who can save us, and ensure our place in heaven is truly the Messiah, the Christ, Son of the Living God, Emmanuel, God with us! Since the Bible contains the very words of life, how do we treat it? With respect? Do we read it regularly? Take it to church? It has been 500 years since Martin Luther started a movement which would result in the Bible being made available to everyone in the land. People of conviction died and many were tortured to give us this freedom which thankfully remains until this day, and all that is left for us to do, is read it. We are indeed blessed to have the Word of God freely available, and the choice is ours to read it thankfully, or ignore it.

If Only I'd..

Some of the saddest words we will ever utter are “If only I’d..”. They are always used after an opportunity has passed, or a chance wasn’t taken, or faith weakened. They also come to mind after any opportunity to recover and make things right have long since gone.



We all live with regrets, some small and some large. It’s normally the big regrets that give us the most conscience trouble because in hindsight you can see how different things could have been if a little more time and patience and faith had been invested in the situation that we felt was so bad. I would go one step further. The pain when we realise the better opportunity was missed is always greater than the discomfort we thought we felt in the first place.


However, there is no magic solution because for as long as human beings have made decisions, there have always been the ones we lived with happily, and those we put up with until something better came along. That better ‘something round the corner’ never did come, did it, so we are left with a regret that can easily turn into a resentment?




If we are happy to quote “God’s Will” when things are going well, why do we leave God out of the picture if things don’t go as we had thought? Has God changed? Did we misjudge God in the first case when we openly talked about His will for our lives? I think we are guilty (I know I am) of giving God credit when He does things we agree with, but we distance ourselves from any notion of God’s will in any turn of events which we don’t like. In other words, we only trust His direction sometimes and that makes us part time Christians.




I trust and pray that at the end of 2018, none of us will be heard to utter the dreaded words, “If only I’d….” (you can fill in the rest yourself…). Now, have a Happy and Blessed New Year!

Impressions

First impressions are not always wrong. Over my long-ish life, I have discovered that first impressions are usually confirmed as correct as time passes. What starts as a feeling, or thought, almost always turns into a certainty. But we do not, and should not, act on any first impressions because on occasion they can be wrong, and we do not have confirmation either way, well at least not quite yet. More time is needed for that.




I’m not saying this requires the gift of discernment. Perhaps you have been gifted in this, but experiences over the years may also have resulted in us recognising characteristics which draw people together, or maybe make us think ‘caution’, or ‘beware’. Don’t misunderstand me, I am certainly not advocating making an enemy, after all, we are told that a mark of a true disciple is Godly love for all, including our faith brothers and sisters.




Perhaps I need to be corrected, but I have found that we can almost immediately and naturally be attracted to a person and really get along with them. However, there are other times when I will love my brothers and sisters, but wouldn’t usually choose to have a coffee together. On a personal level, I do not like confrontation, so the ability to ‘love but not necessarily like’ a very few of my friends may work for me, and all the while does not affect my Christian walk. Question: Am I on my own, or is this your experience too?

Nearly

Having been around churches of various denominations throughout my life, I can usually recognise the differences, and even appreciate the things that separate us in theology and practice. I’m not going to argue that we have more in common, than that which separates us, but make another observation which has been growing in my mind over the recent past.

The one thing we all share, is the life changing gospel of Jesus Christ. Or it should be a
common thread running through all evangelicals to some degree.

It concerns me that we are becoming ever better at talking about what the gospel is,
than we are at preaching it. We have become clever and intelligent as we learn more
about Bible times, and how the early disciples changed the world. Armed with this great
knowledge, why do we not preach the gospel instead of talking about it? I see a real
and fundamental difference, and in this case ‘nearly’ is not good enough for all and
any of the mainstream church denomination family.

I well remember the induction service of a new pastor, and an old saintly pastor,
close to retirement after many good years in the pulpit say to the new minister, “The
pulpit is not here to have a conversation with your congregation, it is here to preach
the Gospel”. The words were spoken many years ago, are true today, and nearly
is still not good enough.

Blogger's Block

You have heard of writers who get writer’s block, well its distant cousin is Blogger’s Block. There is little known about what causes it, but apparently it can be a small thing. I don’t know how you deal with the things on your mind, for my part I tend to write it down. I suppose that makes me a blogger of sorts. Not so much to get a response, but as a kind of therapy to face the issues that mean something to me.

I usually end up writing about matters of faith, because that is the subject that means
the most to me, and in a normal week about 2 or 3 blogs will be written and possibly
published on a couple of systems. Responses are good for the most part, and even those
who would not claim to be of the same church or faith group will be positive in their
comments. So, what has happened during this month’s dry spell?

When something rocks the foundation of your belief system, it drags you down, and in
dragging you down you stop doing those normal routine things. The bottom line is that
you don’t see a way to work through your ‘problem’, and so the Blogger’s Block happens.
Fortunately this doesn’t happen often, and my solution is to give it enough time to
percolate through my subconscious and convince myself the thing I worried about
was never really a problem in the first place. Was it? Or is it still there?

Festive Cheer?

It’s that time of year again, so take a deep breath and get right in among it! There’s the gift of giving, scented candles, decorated trees inside and outside the house, the laughter of children, the mystery associated with Santa, a table set for a lavish family dinner and prepared so well by a wife or mum, carol singers, Christmas jumpers, the church services, and the list could go on. These are just some of the things that bring happiness for so many, both young and old.

Looking at the day from another angle, these are exactly the same things that bring sadness to the hearts of many in our nation. For some, the season has lost some of its magic and sentiment. It was lost with the loss of a loved one. Perhaps a parent, spouse, sibling, or a favourite aunt or uncle. Those things that once brought a smile, now bring a tear.

However, for the believer, this has little to do with the list of activities mentioned before. Behind all of the glitter lies the baby Jesus who really is the reason for the season, no matter what the commercial world tells us. Because of that, and only that, the believer can lift their face to the heavens and say, “thank you Jesus” for being the baby in the manger who became our Saviour on the cross. From the Christmas story to the resurrection. Whether we show a smile, or shed a tear during this Holy season, we each recognise the value of the baby on that very special day.

The Calm

It’s the calm before the storm we say, and we know it is true both in weather, and our own lives. In recent days there have been some devastating hurricanes which caused widespread devastation across the Caribbean and into some southern US States. Sadly lives have been lost, and equally sad is the fact that these storms will happen again!

When the hurricane is approaching, warnings are given and homeowners start to make preparations by shuttering windows, and stocking up on essential provisions. With today’s advanced forecasting, these storms seldom catch us by surprise. We can react to the approaching hurricane, as we batten down the hatches! Then we tough it out as best we can in the hope that we have prepared well enough. Then a strange thing happens, right in the middle of the hurricane comes the uncanny calm. It seems out of place because we know we are in the ‘eye’ of the storm and it will start again. We have taken the necessary precautions, but this window of calm perhaps allows us to think about our mortality, and the people who are important to us, and trust they are safe. In essence, we get time to calculate how bad the storm has been, and are warned that it will be repeated.

Our hurricanes in life are like that. We usually know when they are coming. There are warning signs, and the wise will take the steps they know will be necessary to ride it out. Our storms will be hurricanes of financial distress, illness, family health, or death of a loved one. I would also suggest it can be the worry of the state of the church, or the strength of our own faith. Sometimes we have to just sit tight and ride out the storm, and then the eerie calm of the ‘eye’ comes. This is the time to hunker down and pray for the things we have no control over, and leave in God’s hands. Sometimes this is exactly the time to re-evaluate the strength of our faith, or our church. These things are in our hands, and we can usually do something in addition to pray.

When the calm of the ‘eye’ has passed, we know what will be coming. It already took its effect on us and will do so again. However, this time we can determine to change something that’s in our control that we didn’t take care of when the storm first hit. It may be time to take our faith deeper and to put some of those fears we carry, behind us where they belong. We may know the storm is coming, but we don’t always understand how it will affect us. That is the very time to use the period of calm. If we don’t, we will be no stronger when the next hurricane hits us, and let’s be honest, nothing is surer. Indeed, the eye of the storm can be a real Godsend.