Couldn't Help Noticing

Bending the gender roles

(From Joshua Bovis, one of our Briefing readers in Mount Kuring-gai, Australia.)

Those who are trying to bring women's ordination into the fore at Sydnod and have it go through all hold to the view that Paul's view of gender differences was merely first-century cultural baggage and not universal for all time.

Yet I assume that evangelicals who take this perspective would strongly disagree that homosexuality is endorsed by the Bible. So how do they argue against liberals who say, “If the church is going to ordain women to the ministry, how is one's sexual orientation relevant when gender distinctions no longer apply?”

By and large, I think that proponents of women's ordination who are evangelicals are in a paradoxical situation: when it comes to women's ordination, gender roles and distinctions are cultural; when it comes to homosexuality, the gender roles and distinctions are universal. Ironic.

Suffering II

After Rob Smith's helpful summary on the connection between sin and suffering (see earlier post), he then took us through the book of Job. As we skimmed through the book, I was struck by Job's question to his wife in chapter 2.

Remember, he's just lost most of his wealth and all ten of his children, and he's also in a great deal of physical pain. Yet he says to his wife, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10). In other words, “God gave us our wealth and our children and our health in the first place. He has now taken them away. We must accept whatever God does.”

Two things occured to me as I pondered Job's response:

1. Kudos to Job for his faithful trust in God. Suffice to say that his response at this point is probably different to what mine would be if I was in his situation!

2. God sends both good and evil (the ESV footnote suggests the word translated as ‘evil’ might also be translated as ‘disaster’). It's not that God actively gives us good things but only passively ‘allows’ bad things; Job's words in 2:10 attribute his suffering directly to God, even though we know it is Satan's doing (cf. 1:12). This idea is immediately confirmed in the same verse: ‘In all this Job did not sin with his lips’. The same idea has, in fact, already appeared in this chapter, after the first round of disaster struck Job:

   And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.” Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” (Job 2:3–5, emphasis mine)

   It seems even Satan knows his actions are under God's active control.

   The idea that disaster comes directly from God also crops up elsewhere in the Bible, for example Isa 31:2; Amos:6; Zech 8:14.

This second point presents a problem for those who preach ‘prosperity now’ for God's people. If, as many of these preachers claim, God is only interested in giving us the ‘good life’—blessing us with wealth and material possessions, getting us promoted at work, helping us to go from being the ‘borrower’ to the ‘lender’, etc.—then what do we make of these passages in the Bible where God is clearly causing his people to suffer? What do we make of the suffering experienced by countless faithful Christians all around us? What do we say when a person's suffering continues unabated despite much prayer?

We have no answer to these questions, unless we accept that suffering is part of God's plan for his people.

I’ll bet you haven’t heard this one

I've been labelled a lot of things, being a Calvinist. However, this is a new one to me.

Liberty Theological Seminary President Ergun Caner answers questions on his website:

Q: Didn't you say that Calvinists are worse than Muslims?

A: Yes, absolutely. For a small portion of these people, just daring to question the Bezian movement is heresy. They will blog and e-mail incessantly. I call it a ‘Calvinist Jihad,’ because just like Muslims, they believe they are defending the honor of their view. They can discuss nothing else. I have even had a few call for my head! Dr. Falwell and I have laughed about it, because they are so insistent, and they miss the point completely. There are plenty of schools to which the neo-Calvinists can go, but Liberty will be a lighthouse for missions and evangelism to the ‘whosoever wills.’ Period.

The difference is, Muslims know when to quit—for these guys, it is the only topic about which they can talk.

Unfortunately, my experience with many Reformed people (especially young seminarians) confirms what Dr. Caner describes. However, I doubt his tact serves to be a “lighthouse” towards these people. Or, maybe I've just missed the point completely?

Suffering I

Rob Smith (Lecturer at SMBC) gave an excellent talk in church last week on the topic of suffering. It was so good that I'm stealing some of it (with Rob's kind permission) to share with you—specifically, a very helpful little summary on the connection between sin and suffering:

1. There is a general connection between suffering and sin. If there were no sin in the world, there would be no suffering. So there is an indirect connection between any person's suffering, and the fact of sin in the world. We are sinners, therefore we will experience suffering.
2. There is sometimes a specific and direct connection between a person's suffering and their sin. Examples of this can be found in Exodus 32:35 (where God sends a plague on the Israelites because they made the golden calf) and 1 Corinthians 11 (where some members of the church are “weak and ill” because they have been participating in the Lord's supper “in an unworthy manner”; some even died because of this).
3. We cannot assume a direct connection between a person's suffering and their sin unless God tells us there is one. How do you know if your cancer is a direct result of your sin, or just a general consequence of this sinful world? You don't, unless God tells you. So it is dangerous to speculate about this.
4. Some suffering has no connection to a person's sin. It may even be a consequence of their relative lack of sin. The most obvious example is Jesus: he suffered, but it wasn't because he sinned. Another good example is Job: the Bible tells us that his suffering was a result of a conversation between God and Satan, where God points out Job's good character to Satan and Satan responds by saying that Job only trusts God because he has been so blessed by God. Were God to take away all that he has blessed Job with, says Satan, then Job would curse God to his face. God responds by challenging Satan to do exactly that: take away all that God has blessed him with (Job 1:8ff). So it seems that Job's suffering is partly a result of his trust in God!

This gave me much food for thought, but for now I'll leave you to do your own thinking on the topic. Stay tuned...

13 years of waiting

What were you doing 13 years ago? Go on, pause for a minute and think about it. I was fresh out of high school, and had recently moved to Sydney to do an Arts degree at Sydney uni (which I soon dropped out of). It seems a lifetime ago.

Now that you've worked out what you were doing 13 years ago, think about this: what have your last 13 years been filled with? For my part, I can name three more education courses I enrolled in since then (let's not talk about how many I actually finished), four jobs I've worked in, five houses I've lived in, four cars I've owned ... not to mention the many people I've had the pleasure of meeting, some of whom are still around and some of whom are now far, far away.

My point is that 13 years is a long time. Of course, in the grand scheme of life-death-the universe-eternity-the cross-and-everything-else, 13 years is a trifle. It's nothing. But within the scope of my life, 13 years is quite a chunk of time—almost half my life.

And I couldn't help noticing, as I made my way through Genesis recently, that 13 years is roughly the time between God promising Abraham a son, and God fulfilling that promise.

At the beginning of Genesis 15, God specifically promises Abraham (still Abram at the time) his own heir:

And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” (Gen 15:3-4)

Almost immediately, Abram's wife Sarai takes matters into her own hands. She's been unable to bear children, so she figures Abram had better try his luck with her servant, Hagar. I can just imagine it: God makes Abram a promise; Abram and Sarai are amazed and astonished and humbled and grateful; but five minutes later, they're thinking, “So when? Huh? When? When do we get a son? And how? Huh? How?” And I can imagine myself doing exactly the same thing.

So Abram follows Sarai's advice, and Hagar bears Abram a son.

But God will not be forced into hurrying. His plan is for Sarai, not Hagar, to bear Abram's heir. And as I quickly read Genesis 16-17, I almost missed the fact that 13 years passed before God brought his plan to fruition:

And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” ... And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her ... I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year.” (Gen 16:15-17:21)

13 years!

It's an excellent reminder to be patient as we bring our requests to God. Like Abraham, we don't know when God will grant them. Unlike Abraham, we often don't even know if God will grant them (depending on the request). In a culture of instant-everything, we need regular reminders to be faithful in our prayers and patient as we wait upon God to answer.