Obviously, the 2011 revision of the NIV has changed the verse I was looking for. Immediately the question popped into my mind: how did they revise the masculine pronoun out of that sentence? Surely they didn’t write “sins against his or her own body,” did they? I searched for 1 Corinthians 6:18, and lo and behold…

“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.”

Did they really just do that? In case you missed it, “their” is a plural pronoun, where as “whoever” is a singular one. To be gramatically correct, it should either say “those who sin…sin against their” OR “whoever sins…sins against his or her” OR “whoever…his”. The original greek here doesn’t mix singular and plural, nor should the english.

What’s happened is that we’ve traded grammatical correctness for political correctness. The simplest way to write this sentence would be (as in the 1984 version), “he who sins sexually, sins against his own body.” To get closer to the actual greek would be something along the lines of “the one sinning sexually sins against his own body.” But those options use masculine pronouns only, so it’s not good enough, and instead we must use shoddy grammar. Granted, the 2011 NIV corrected a number of other passages to be closer in meaning to the original text, but in this case it seems they’re moving away from precision in favor of political correctness–a very dangerous road to start down.

Makes me even happier that our church is moving to the ESV next spring!

(How does the ESV render this verse? “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”)

Speaking of which, Accordance Bible Software is just plain awesome. I love using it for sermon prep and original language work. If you’re looking for some hardcore Bible Study software, I definitely recommend it! Their library is not as fully developed as something like Logos, but the Hebrew and Greek tools with it are worth the price of admission.

…but you came here to win a macbook air!

I really needed to read it to assuage the offended individual, to stop being a punk who judges something he hasn’t experienced, and because I happen to be affiliated with a church where I live: in North Platte, Nebraska, where the miraculous visions took place and everyone in town knows about the book.

Again, the first chapter turned me off immediately, because Lisa and I had been reading The Lord of the Rings immediately before this, and the difference in writing quality was like stepping from the classical art of Rembrandt to the slapstick entertainment of Ingrid’s poo adventure…and I’m not saying that the book should be compared to poo. My point is that the poo video is funny, fun to watch–it’s entertaining and people are more likely to get a kick out of it than looking at a Rembrandt. Such it was with Heaven: from the minute you begin reading you realize there’s going to be a lot of flowery language and emotional fluff. It’s “heartwarming.” If you want something deep and challenging to be enriched by, look elsewhere.

I will say though, if you’re going to knock on this book, you’d better read it first. But for those of you who just want to know “should I read it?” or need to hear what a youth pastor thinks about it, here we go:

1) I have problems with his description of Jesus as a guy with blue eyes who wears a purple sash and has holes in the center of his palms. Sounds rather Americanized to me, rather like the Sunday School Jesus we’ve all seen all over the place. (Maybe that’s ‘cuz Jesus has shown himself to so many people that the got it right…or maybe Colton’s memories are suggestible [pdf link]).

2) The whole deal with people fighting with Jesus against Satan is a bit questionable. (Page 136) Revelation chapters 19-20 describe Jesus with an army, but all who are killed are killed by the sword coming out of the rider’s mouth or consumed by fire from heaven. Nowhere do we get the picture that this is even close to the type of hand-to-hand combat Colton speaks of. Let’s face it, while our fight here and now might be against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm (Ephesians 6), God is supremely sovereign, Christ has already won, and Satan doesn’t even really have a chance.

3) Perhaps my biggest gripe: Todd talks about people needing to be saved to go to heaven, and how that’s Colton’s greatest concern for those dying. But in this book there is no clear, straightforward explanation of the gospel. There’s no primer on sin, atonement, repentance, and salvation by Grace alone through faith. Heck, there’s not even the shallow “just repeat these words to be saved” prayer in the back. All you find is Colton yelling “he had to have Jesus in his heart!” (Chapter 11) To a non-Christian reading this, what does that even mean, anyways? There are blurbs in the back to explain the timeline and to tell you more about the Burpos…but nothing about knowing God.

4) Read the review by Tim Challies that I already linked to above. He says a lot more that I don’t feel the need to repeat.

Bottom line: do I think Colton is a despicable liar? No. Do I have a good way of explaining everything in this book in a completely rational way (eg. miscarried sister and “Pop”)? No. Do I think that much of what Colton experienced could have been suggestible or distorted memories? Likely. Is it good to read this book and ask yourself where you’ll end up after you die? Yes. Does that mean I think you should read this book? No.

If you want to know about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, heaven, and eternity, read your Bible or ask a Pastor, elder in your church, or someone who knows the Bible better than you do.

Of course Heaven is for Real. We’ve known that for 2 Millenia. How much of Colton’s story is for real? I guess you’ll just have to ask God someday–assuming of course, that you know Him. You don’t? You need to hear the Gospel. (Read the Romans Road if you’re not feeling the other link or need more info!)

I’m not here to rail on Mr. Seigler though, other than to point out that Facebook and Twitter will either a) destroy our society, or b) die, just like MySpace. Why’s this? Because both Facebook and Twitter are founded on the premise that you can easily make your thoughts, opinions, and (private?) pictures instantly available to a whole host of people who don’t really care about you.

I tried Twitter, and it was a complete waste of time, and endless roll of pointless drivel (“enjoying some jameson on the couch, sit up unable to follow along with my own timeline”) and links to articles I don’t care to read (and don’t have time to read). Mr. Seigler is annoyed at the time spent sifting through and reading endless emails, and yet he’s thrilled at the usefulness of Twitter because the President used it once? Sanity, please. (The link tries to make a point about how you, too, can be heard, by mentioning that the Pres answered a handful out of 169,395 Tweeted questions?)

Let me break it down for you: life is not about spewing your opinions to the unwashed masses (yet, how hypocritical it is for me to blog this…). It’s about relationships–with God and mankind. You don’t maintain any sort of real relationship facebook stalking someone. You don’t know others and be known by them in 140 characters or less. All you do is waste time, wishing you lived someone else’s life or trying to re-write yours by hooking up with old flames. In the process, you work less, live less, and get fatter sitting in front of your computer.

To be fair, we could say the same thing about many other popular things such as Netflix instant streaming, except Netflix lacks the narcissism of Twitter and Facebook. If you’re constantly updating your status, let me just tell it to you straight: NOBODY CARES. If they DO care at all, it’s because of how well they already know you offline, in the real world, or because your dietary habits are really the most important thing in their life (which is either really sad or really scary). Log off and pick up the phone (txting doesn’t count). Better yet, go grab a coffee with someone. Even better yet, have them over for dinner.

So here’s your choices, America: become so self-involved that society self-destructs, or realize what’s important in life and go build yourself into a self-strengthening community.

Quit wasting your life and start sharing it. Spend some time with God. Spend some time with the people He’s put in your life.

Thankfully, many of you already figured this out.

Grin again gang get gung ho about Jesus (Shoo-be-dooby-doo)
Smile sweetly Sally so you send Satan sadly away
Buck up brother Bill because a bunch of bitter boys became a bunch of better boys beneath a big big smile
Grin again gang get gung ho about Jesus

Again–it was stuck in my head today, 20-some years after I learned it, and I got to thinking…is this helpful, or shoddy theology that needs to be “undone” later on in life? My problem is that the underlying idea ties together happiness (as opposed to joy) with being a Christian. Smiling sends satan sadly away? For real? Bitter boys become better when they smile?

At some time, “real life” hits. You lose your job, or a loved one. You get sick or someone betrays you. Will smiling fix it? The reality of the matter is that being a believer doesn’t mean life becomes all roses, and just smiling doesn’t make you a better person (and certainly doesn’t send satan away!) If you live your life according to grin-again-gang theology, you’re going to have a significant crisis when life just gets ugly, and it will: we live in a fallen world.

It’s for this reason that I absolutely LOVE Faith and Doubt, a song that fits life a little better when things are tough. If you haven’t heard Aaron Espe before and you have even a tolerance for Folk music, you’ve got to check it out. It’s spoken to me countless times before, including some of those long days, weeks, months (and daresay I years?) in seminary. It lives on this side of reality. It reminds me of lament Psalms. It’s awesome during tough moments:

———–

I read that Jesus walked the stormy sea and he pulled Peter up
Said, Man you gotta believe me
And he shared with his disciples
Said, Here’s how to be free
If you asked me I’d say most days
I totally agree
But right now I can’t pray, I don’t feel like talking to God
I need somebody out there with a little skin on them

When I read that story I heard thunder everywhere
I could feel that boat crashing on the waves
The bow is in the air
And I have respect for Peter who had faith enough to dare
Step out onto the water
While all the others stared
And when hell is on your back,
Sometimes you think you got strength and you say,
Hey Lord, save me, I’m drownin’ out here!

But I’m caught somewhere between Faith and Doubt
And I feel like I’ll never find my way outta here.

Last night I felt free just like I was a kid
So I laid in the grass and thought of all the things I did
When I didn’t know of pressure it was easy to forgive
You didn’t have to be perfect
Not in my neighborhood
I don’t know what year things became so unclear
but I’m still here

caught somewhere between Faith and Doubt
And I feel like I’ll never find my way outta here.

————

I highly recommend you check out the song, or even pick up his albums: they’re super solid all the way through.

First off, it’s an indicator that we’ve reached such a level of political correctness that “tolerance” has become one of our society’s greatest virtue. By this I do not mean that tolerance (in itself) is a bad thing, but I do mean that what we now term tolerance goes far beyond that. Tolerance means “I will not prohibit you from doing something,” and typically understands the action/belief in question to be one that contradicts what the tolerating person believes. Tolerance does not equate to agreement or support, nor does it entail unilateral pluralistic license.

I will tolerate it if the neighbors’ music is a little too loud up until a certain time of night. If asked, I would prefer that they keep the noise to a reasonable level, and I will even state that it is disrespectful, selfish, and unkind for them to violate my need for restful sleep. Nevertheless, I might tolerate it up to certain levels in order to maintain a more amicable relationship with my neighbors. However, there is a point at which tolerance is no longer a virtue: if I cannot sleep at 3AM because of the noise next door, or have chronic headaches from their chronic partying, I will demand that they stop and involve the police if necessary. You wouldn’t call me intolerant for that, you’d say I was standing up for my rights, my beliefs that I need sleep to function properly at school, work, etc.

So, I will tolerate homosexual couples and beliefs to a certain degree. Homosexual activity (as opposed to temptation) is a sin per God’s judgement as revealed in Scripture, but I also recognize that humans have free will and there is only one Lawgiver and Judge, and that said Lawgiver is not me. However, when Heroes (or anyone else, for that matter) attempts to equate homosexual relationships with heterosexual ones, they are preaching a morality against Scripture that unfortunately has deceived many. Wrapping it in the attractive context of trust and love makes the moral precepts being pitched that much more dangerous. Satan masquerades as an angel of light. For the sake of current and future believers, I must resist this wholeheartedly.

Lest you miss it, I am also highly disgusted by how Hollywood does this with heterosexual relationships as well: takes extramarital sexual relationships, couches them in “devoted love,” and portrays them as a good, desirable thing. This too is opposed to Scripture and deserves our censure. Why the “double standard?” It’s partially due to the compounding nature of homosexual activity (not only is it illicit in it’s nature, but it is also further sinful in its typical extra-marital context), and partially due to the fact that the extramarital relationships battle has been largely lost in our culture and avoiding all references to such activity would likely shut us out from the media entirely. The homosexual topic still has enough of a taboo and minority status attached to it that prevention of its popularization may still be feasible.

So, here we are. Heroes was starting to be lame, but I was still hooked. I just won’t support a homosexual agenda in my viewing habits.

Unfortunately, while he starts out OK, he turns this into a plug for Calvinism? Where the heck did that come from!?!

“I must say that Arminianism, or an emphasis on free will, is certainly (emphasis mine) the root of this man-centered approach by Osteen. Sure, not all Arminians take their free will theology to his extreme, but most certainly he is only acting consistent with this foundational belief. When man is that captain of his own ship; when man gets to decide if he deems his Creator worth the time to submit to and worship; when man’s sinfulness is covered up to the point where he still has the innate goodness within to make the most important ‘decision’ in all of eternity; when God’s kingdom is more like a self-help club which members choose to enter into as they see fit, then these types of ministers and messages will only continue to flourish. This is precisely why we should proclaim God’s sovereignty in all situations, whenever possible.

This is certainly a gross exaggeration. Let me break it down: free will states that our will is capable of choosing between right and wrong, not that we get to decide God’s role, or make our own salvation. To claim that our ability to actually make choices somehow diminishes our need for (or the efficacy of) Grace is completely and utterly wrong. Arminianism != a self-help gospel.

Sure, it is certain that determinism doesn’t leave room for self-help theology, but that doesn’t mean that Joel Osteen’s bad doctrine is merely the result of him believing in free will. If you drink motor oil it will kill you, but if you put it in your car it will keep your engine running smoothly. In either case, reason demands that we attribute the outcome to you, not the oil. If you turn Arminianism into a self-help gospel, you’re to blame, not Arminianism.

Nevertheless, if you want me to proclaim God’s sovereignty whenever possible… “God’s sovereignty means that He is making Joel Osteen preach this health-and-wealth message,” so don’t complain when God’s will is being accomplished. Quit fighting against it! Why must you kick against the goads?!

Joel Osteen may be wrong and Arminian, but his being wrong is not the natural result of his being Arminian.

I guess the big problem comes in the fact that I don’t see the Chronicles of Narnia as “nice stories.” They’re powerful depictions of Christian truths, and as such they can’t be directly adapted by Hollywood, who seems to want to have nothing to do with traditional values.

In order to get on with the story more quickly, Prince Caspian makes some early changes to the book, which are certainly understandable and not really objectionable. But quite rapidly the movie degrades: it’s all about the girl power. Susan is transformed from a doubting yet proper girl into a butt-kicking Amazon warrior. Puh-lease! Rather than the “High King Peter” leading, she often overshadows him, and doesn’t hesitate to jump into battle, even though Aslan has discouraged her and Lucy from doing so (“You must use the bow only in great need, for I do not mean you to fight in the battle…battles are ugly when women fight”). To say that gender roles have been modernized in this book would be an understatement.

Speaking of Aslan, he is almost entirely removed from the plot, despite being the central theme around which the book revolves. (But again, it seems as if Hollywood cannot handle having such a strong Christ figure!)

Finally, Susan kisses Caspian at the end of the movie, despite knowing she’ll never see him again. Is this the moral we’re left with? Forget about protecting hearts and guarding purity, if you can grab a quick rise from some one-time-only intimacy, go for it?!?

The Bottom Line: Watching Prince Caspian was like seeing an old friend be horribly mutilated. It just hurt too much to watch the solid morals of the book die to Hollywood values and sensationalism. I’m the kind of guy who enjoys about any movie out there…but I just plain didn’t like Prince Caspian. Lisa and I both agreed: when we have children, they will not be watching this movie, at least not until they’ve read the books (multiple times!) and are old enough to discern the seriously lacking values set forth in this movie.

Today I met with Seth, (an old friend and associate) and I asked about the idea of “screwing things up.”

You see, I’m far from perfect (well, actually, not even in the same universe as perfect), and I often find myself wondering about how my body of flesh—my physical self with all its bad habits and selfishness—so often does the very things I hate myself for. (See Romans chapter 7) How can something I despise so much in my self and others be so oddly tempting at times that it overcomes my resolve? The crux of the matter is that I often wonder what my flesh is capable of.

You see, I’m in seminary, training to hopefully become a pastor some day. It scares me that in some weak moment I might fall into some sin that totally destroys all I’ve dedicated my life to teaching and living out. How can I be assured that the strength of my flesh won’t overcome the redeemed and renewed will of my spirit?

I guess it then boils down to the question: What is love? Or, more specifically, what is God’s love for me? He cared enough for humanity to send Christ to die for our sins even while we were still horribly rotten sinners. (Romans 5:8) This, while hew knew that many would purposely reject him, and all the rest would deny him (eg. Peter) or continue to sin against him (eg. Me). Can I even grasp that kind of love?

I guess my point is this: when Christ carried out the ultimate expression of love on the Cross, dying as payment for sin, no one had done anything to deserve that. God knew what was in all of us, from pastors to addicts to super-apostles like Paul (Saul “I do what I hate” of Tarsus), and He still laid down his only Son to restore us to Him. Rather than fleeing/hiding my face over my sin, then, my proper response ought to be to run back to God, and thank Him all the more for redemption.

I guess I still don’t understand the magnitude of his love or forgiveness, because every time I sin, I fear that I’ve let him down and somehow pushed myself farther out of his supreme “circle of trust.”

Total depravity as purported by Calvinists, states that there’s nothing we do that’s “good” at all. We’re totally depraved, and thus cannot bring anything good from ourselves. The big proof text? Romans 14:23, which states “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin”.

Excuse me when I scream “CONTEXT!!!!”

Paul is talking about eating food dedicated to idols, and other questionable practices that, if done with the wrong motives, can be sin. He’s not talking about every single act imaginable.

Let me clarify. When I eat breakfast in the morning, I do not do so out of faith. I do so out of hunger, or habit. According to Piper’s reasoning, eating breakfast in such a matter would be considered sin.

Or how about going a little deeper? The main point of Total Depravity is that it means we can’t be the origin of saving faith, for that faith can only come from the Grace of God. If then, our faith doesn’t come from faith (for how could it?) this reasoning would make that faith itself sin. Kind of twisted, huh?

The intended point is that man cannot even come up with the faith required to accept God’s grace, because they’re entirely against him. Therefore, Salvation originates entirely in God, and “free will” has nothing to do with it.

I personally don’t claim to have it all figured out, but I look at it this way:

1. We are flawed, sinful creatures, but this doesn’t mean that we can’t do good
2. What good we may do, however, can’t earn us favor in God’s eyes, because they are stained with our other sins (Is 64:6)
3. Just like Adam and Eve, despite being perfect beings, were able to sin even though that wasn’t “in their nature”, so we as humans have the capacity to make right choices, even if we are fundamentally evil

The whole bit about men being condemned regardless of what they do is fine by me—once man has fallen the only way to remove the guilt of sin is death (Rom 6:23)—but using this reasoning to prove we can’t have faith without God forcing us to, is a weak argument at best.