- What's the appropriate role of a woman in the church?
- Is there any place for a woman to teach or preach?
- Can a woman rightfullly be a spiritual leader?
- Should she be allowed to contribute to congregational worship at all?
Tough questions. And this Sunday, we're going to tackle them together, and more.
As far as we are planning, this should be a 1-week topic in our series on "Challenging Theology: Dealing with God's Tough Issues". I really hope you can make it.
Also, for anyone who knows them from a few years ago, our dear friends Lance and Traci Denton will likely be visiting us in the AM. So if you know them (or want to meet them) you'll have a chance to connect with them tomorrow.
Does God ever cause the bad stuff? I say yes...
Will God specifically cause things that harm us, when He's NOT necessarly punishing us for something?
Does God send trouble/hardship in our lives, or simply passively allow it at times?
These are some of the things we wrestled with together last week - and it was an engaging conversation!
I got this email from Elian a couple of days ago:
From: Elian Levatino [mailto:elian@levatinoins.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 1:39 PM
To: jp(at)flippinghomes.com
Subject: 4 Step Argument
You remember what you put up on the board Sunday? I hope so, cause I don’t. I wrote it down and I think it’s gone now. Can you e-mail it to me?
Thanks, Elian
No, Elian. I will not email it to you. I'll blog it, then send you an email to go to the blog. ;-)
And I added a principal, so there are 5 now. Here ya go...
Here are the key principals I (jp) use when reconciling how a good God can be directly responsible for the horrible, horrible stuff that happens in life.
Principal 1: God is all-powerful
There is nothing in the universe or elsewhere that God does not have absolute dominion over. Whether you believe that God directly controls everything or causes some things and merely allows others, no Christian can deny God's absolute dominion and ability to exert control over His creation whenever and wherever he chooses.
Anything less would dethrone God and make him to some level impotent, which is not compatible with His character.
Principal 2: God is always, absolutely 100% good
God can't sin; it's completely contradictory to His perfect character.
This should be pretty comforting when paired with principal #1. So we've got a God who's never out of control, and who's always good.
Principal 3: God's chief purpose is to glorify Himself.
Contrary to our often humanistic (very American) approach to God, the most important thing to God is not making us happy, but revealing His own glory. It's the reason He created the universe and everything/everyone in it in the first place. God's creation and His entire existence is oriented around the spreading of His glory!
Furthermore the fact that God's chief compulsion is to exalt His own name is not sinfully selfish, as it would be if one of us had the same motive. In fact, God's compulsion to exalt his own name is actually the ultimate act of love on our behalf, and is absolutely in our best interests.
As Piper so aptly put it,
"Is not the essence of righteousness to place supreme value on what is supremely valuable? Thus the righteousness of God is the infinite zeal and joy and pleasure that He has in what is supremely valuable, namely, His own perfection and worth. And if He were ever to act contrary to this eternal passion for His own perfections He would be unrighteous, He would be an idolater."
If you find this concept challenging, you can read a more in-depth exploration of this idea, presented in a very compelling way, right here. (Also, see the Bible ;-)
Principal 4: God works out ALL THINGS for our ultimate good
"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to [His] purpose." Rm 8:28
This only applies to believers, not the good of everyone in the whole wide world.
Many would be temped to believe that "our good" must be apparent to us, but God promises no such thing. His commitment is that all things will work for our good, not that we will have crystal clarity. At times He will grant us understanding. And other times, He desires to strengthen our faith in His promise by not connecting the dots so readily for us, causing us to fall back on trusting in His goodness and power.
Many also seem to feel that "our good" must equate to making us happy or satisfied in the "here and now" somehow. Again I would submit this to be a faulty (albiet common) assumption.
Remember, His highest glory is our greatest reward! And there you don't have to look very hard to find many, many cases in the Bible and the world around us in which circumstances which glorified God the most brought some (possibly extensive) level of pain or anguish upon his Children at the time.
Principal 5: We can't "get" it all
When Alyssa was an infant she had no ability to fathom why we (her parents) would choose wilfully to put her in the cold hands of a complete stranger, and ask him to cause her pain by poking a long, sharp needle through her tender flesh.
But as her parents, we see a bigger picture. While all she understands is the pain of the moment, we are wise enough to know how important her shots can be to her health and how it's really and truly in her best interest, though inconceivable to her now.
God's ways are so much greater than ours, that (as Billy reminded us last week) it's probably more apt to comparing the mind of an amoeba to Einstein -- times billions!
To "bottom line" this one, you MUST ABSOLUTELY give up your perceived "right" to understand everything about God and His ways. His ways are NOT our ways, and there will always be levels of divine understanding that make perfect, holy sense, but that our finite minds simply cannot comprehend.
This should not be perceived as a "cold, hard fact", but as a great comfort, similar to how Alyssa (at times) finds comfort in knowing that I "get" the things she doesn't, and even when she doesn't understand what's going on or why, her loving parents are in control and she can trust us.
The Bottom Line...
There will always be things in life that happen and seem cruel and injust to us. My own daughter could be raped and murdered before my very eyes. I can't imagine much worse, but things like that happen.
And when (not if) things like this happen, it's key that we don't allow ourselves to fall victim to:
- doubting God's power and control over it
- doutbing God's motive and/or goodness
This may be your temptation, and naturally so. But as you wrestle with this, the very foundation upon which we (as Christians) can rest is our relationship with God coupled with our knowledge of His perfect character and complete dominion.
Having a very personal relationship with a living God can allow us to say,
"God, even though I have no idea how to reconcile this horrible thing with your control and goodness, I know that I cannot deny your character, so I give you responsibility. I know that you're just as loving and good and sovereign as you've always been, and that somehow even this is within your loving care. Lord, I know, becuase of my relationship with you, that I can trust you, even though this is so far above my ability to understand."
Our minds simply can't conceive of why God would cause/allow some things, and how these things can be reconciled with God's character. And frankly to assume that we can (or have the right to) is pompous and arrogant.
But we know Him personally, don't we? And we know that' He's GOOD, and SOVEREIGN and TRUSTWORTHY, in the same way -- no, in a FAR GREATER way than my own daughter knows and trusts me.
And I would submit to you that this is how we, as Christ followers, find our ultimate rest and peace with these issues.
...jp
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