A Boomer in the Pew

Dr. Wayne Grudem: Christians and Politics - 5 Wrong Views (Post #1)

This post is part of a series of posts taken from Dr. Wayne Grudem's Sunday school class at Scottsdale Bible Church.  In this class, Dr. Grudem is taking us through his forthcoming book:  Politics:  According to the Bible. I have created a category link here, which will allow you to scroll through all of the upcoming posts.

Wrong View #1 - Government should compel religion.

Here Dr. Grudem spends just over 30 minutes setting up an understanding of this wrong view.  In so doing, he employs the fact that our country was founded by a great many people fleeing compelled religion.

He further goes on to explain that our founding fathers desired that we all be equally free to worship as we choose, and that right should be available to all religions equally. 

Further, Grudem cites that Jesus distinguished between the realms of God and of Caesar, Jesus refused to compel people to believe in him, that genuine faith cannot be forced, and that Christ's kingdom is not a worldly kingdom.

Wrong View #2 - Religion should be excluded from government.

This view is the complete opposite of the previous wrong view, in that proponents of this view vigorously oppose any religious expression in a "government" setting whatsoever.  We have all seen examples of this with the restriction of valedictorian speeches, controversy with religious expressions on our coins, our government buildings, and the removal of religious symbols all across our land.

To further understand this wrong view, Dr. Grudem explains that such views override the will of the people, it changes freedom of religion into freedom from religion, it wrongly restricts freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and it removes from government God's teaching about good and evil.

The objective of this viewpoint would be to make government completely secular, and withhold any conversations about God, or what God's moral law might say to us.

Next week we will explore Dr. Grudem's other "wrong views".

In the meantime, please take some time to listen to Dr. Grudem's audio below.  These are important political times in our country, and it is critical that we all possess a Godly foundation under our political worldview.

I look forward to great conversations, in the comments section below, as this series moves forward.

Push the play button to listen:

Dr. Wayne Grudem: Faith and Politics

One of the benefits of my membership with Scottsdale Bible Church is that I have Dr. Wayne Grudem as my Sunday school teacher.

Dr. Grudem is currently working on a forthcoming book:  Politics:  According to the Bible, which is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2010.

Fortunately, for those of us in his Sunday school class, he has just launched a new series based upon his upcoming book.

I intend to blog my way through his series, and share Dr. Grudem's thoughts with you here each week.

As a note of disclosure, Dr. Grudem wanted us, and therefore you, to understand that:

• He appreciates the church giving him approval to teach this class.
• There are many different views about political questions among evangelical Christians.
• What he teaches will represent his views, and he intends to use Scripture to demonstrate his reasoning.
• His views are not necessarily the official position of Scottsdale Bible Church, and they are not the only views among the church's leadership.

Stay tuned!

Who is Jesus Christ?

"Madonna and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist", ca. 1497, Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino) (Italian, Florentine, 1473–1517) @ The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In this painting, we see an opinion of the identity of Jesus Christ through the eyes of a 15th century painter, clearly influenced by the dominant Roman Catholic persuasion of the day.

But just who is Jesus Christ?  How can we know?

My wife and I are class leaders for a Christian foundations class, at Scottsdale Bible Church, called Class 100, which is taught by pastor Steve Eriksson.

Our post-modern culture puts forth a great number of answers to the identity of Jesus Christ.  Even more strange, our culture says that all of these opinions can coexist with one another, and would further prescribe many "truths" to this answer.

Yet, if you read the actual claims of Jesus, regarding his identity, you will quickly learn that he did not leave his identity subject to confusion.

He claimed to be God!

As C.S. Lewis writes:  “You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to.”

Here is a wonderful, well thought out instruction, by pastor Steve Eriksson, on the one true identity of Jesus Christ, from our second session of Class 100:

Note: this would be a wonderful lesson to forward to a new believer, or some one scratching their head about Christ.

Don't you know who I think I am?

I've been angry of late. 

In fact, I went to bed angry, and shared with my wife that I couldn't quite put a finger on the source of my anger.

As I share this, please understand that I am shining a light on a seed that exists in me.  This seed is not fully developed, and thankfully not as prominent in my life as I might make it sound in this post.

But, shining the light on it helps me see how horrific it is, and hopefully motivates me to seek its destruction, or at least to keep it ever caged in the dark shadows of my mind.

Does that make sense?

I have shared with you, in this blog, the story of our success.  I have shared how we worked hard, ferociously worked to serve the best needs of our clients, and accomplished my long-stated goal to retire at the age of 50.

Then, if have you been a reader of this blog, you have witnessed God teaching me a great many things, with perhaps the greatest of these being his complete sovereignty, and an understanding that he alone is holy God. 

I was fairly easily undone as God pulled the rug out from under my "well conceived plan of retirement" (see me flipped back, and falling flat on my back?), and designed to teach me that I had allowed pride in my life.

I learned that pride was the chief object the we inherited from our elder brother Adam, and that a great part of my striving was to become self sustaining.  If I had enough money, what couldn't I do?  Would I need God?  Might I even become a god unto myself?

Please understand, those thoughts never entered my mind, but their seeds existed in me.

Now, as I begin to craft a new direction in my life, and I gaze around the landscape, I am continually reminded that my once "lofty" position no longer exists.  Please don't feel sorry for me, we were not totally destroyed by this recession's circumstances.  My plan, however, is indeed smoldering in the ashes.

So...here I am, in a land where no one knows me, no ones knows of my accomplishments, and I find myself, as it were, back at the bottom.

God seemingly has placed me here, and said serve.  Lay your pride aside, your accomplishments were not the object, the things that you did, and the people you helped, were.

So, here I stand, at the bottom of the ladder, so to speak, and angry.  "Lord, I am 53 years old, I thought I had accomplished my duties here on earth, I was ready to sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labors!"

Start serving David, and climb.

Oooof, a belly punch to my pride.

Hmmm....it would seem that my anger is pointed towards God.

Please pardon my dust, and there may be lots of dust, I am under remodeling.

Oh my soul, here we are, at the root, climb!

To my sons, and future generations:  please learn from my stumblings.

Wailing with David: Oh, Absalom, Absalom!

"David and Absalom", by Marc Chagall

ESV Study Bible Devotions

2 Samuel 18:33 - And the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, he said, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

I suppose it is possible that to fully grasp the pain in David's soul you must be a parent.  And in particular, perhaps a parent who has watched their child walk down the wrong path.  And to drive this point even further, perhaps this is even more deeply grasped by a man, who would add massive amount of guilt to the scene, and take upon himself massive pain for the wanderings of his son.

This painting by Marc Chagall seems to illicit this gut-wrenching pain of David's.  Here we see David hugging his son Absalom, mixed with the imagery of Absalom hanging dead on the oak tree.

David knows full well that this immense pain was brought about by his sin.  God made this explicitly clear through the prophet Nathan.

I am also moved to consider God crying over his children's sin as well.  Remember God crying, through the prophet Ezekiel, "...Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.” (Ezekiel 18:30-32)

Certainly we must also consider our Christ crying over Jerusalem, "And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:41-44)

Oh, the pain of sin. 

When we feel its sting, we cry, "Why Lord?"  But if we are students of Yahweh, if we sit in the classroom of Jeshua, we learn the answer.  We don't like the answer, but learn it we must.  The wages of sin is death, we have all sinned, and go after our own way.  We would all, left to our own devices, seek to become gods.  This is the nature inherited from our elder brother Adam.

This is why we must cling to our Father.  We must purpose each day to be obedient, and plant ourselves by the Living Fountain, ere we stray in our pride, and find ourselves too wailing in deepest agony over sin.

Oh my Father, my soul wails with David.   Draw near, keep us close, protect us from our pride, the temptations of that Great Bastard Satan, and please dearest Abba, gather our loved ones around us.  Keep us all under your wing, until that great day, when you burst through the clouds, and remove this plight from our lives once....and thankfully....for all.

Learning the Path of Faith driven Obedience

ESV Study Bible Devotions:  The Parable of the Persistent Widow

Luke 18:1-8 - And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man.3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

For the first time in my life, I find myself standing before a costly obedience.  This obedience, in the mind of the natural man seems perhaps lunacy, and certainly not standing up for what is right, or just.

Yet, between this so called justice, and me, is a wall (obedience) with a door.  If I choose, I can open the door, walk through the wall, and seek justice with my sword.  Or, I can bow in obedience, and let God rightfully pursue justice, and remain ever presently waiting upon Him.

So, it would seem, I am to forgo my justice, and become, as it were, the pleading widow.  I am to completely let go of my brand of justice, my inclination to act, and place my faith driven obedience first.

The Parable of the Persistent Widow is mostly about eschatology (study of end times).  As we mature in our Christian walk, we begin to understand that our justice may not be complete on this earth.  Sometimes, God ordains that we suffer loss, so that we might understand that our lives are to be focused primarily in longing for Him, and His coming.

When Christ comes, will he find us longing for Him, or will He finds us longing for what is right, what is pleasurable, and what we have become comfortable with here on earth?  Will we find our comfort in our money, our homes, our families, our church, or will we spend our lives crying  Maranatha...come Lord Jesus, come.

Oh my soul, cry Maranatha, long for the Messiah's coming!

Dr. John MacArthur the Parable of the Persistent Widow.

Trying to wrap my mind around the curse of God against King David's family

The Rape of Tamar, c 1640, by Eustache Le Sueur (French, 1616–1655), The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

2 Samuel 12:11 - Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house.

There is a never ending supply of things that are most difficult to read, and understand, in the Bible.

The whole book of 2 Samuel is about David's rise, and subsequent fall. 

Here we have the man who heart is after God's! He is at the very pinnacle of his kingship, and then, WHAM, he commits coveting, adultery, and murder.

Then God tells David that his sin is forgiven, but that he (God) will raise up evil against him out of his own house.

This is hard to understand.  If God forgave David, why would he raise up evil against David? 

In the very next chapter we see David's son Amnon raping his sister Tamar.  And then we find another of David's sons (Absalom) killing Amnon for this horrific offense. 

Imagine the high's and lows in King David's mind.  It was just a short time ago that he was dancing before the Ark of God.  It was just a short time ago that God honored David by telling him that his throne would be established forever.

And now this! 

Is there anything more painful than watching your children suffer in sin, and bearing the fruit of its tree?

Evidently, as I read the notes in my ESV Study Bible, the next 7 chapters are devoted to the sin of David's family.

Questions:

What are we to make of this?  Why has God presented this in his word to us?  How are we to understand God raising up evil against David?  Does God's forgiveness mean that David shall live, but yet bear the consequences with pain, and suffering in his family? 

Where does all this sin, and violence in David's family come from?  Was there a strain of sin in David that was passed down to the generations? 

Should we understand that even the greatest faith, while sojourning on this earth is still marred with the potential for great sin?  Can great faith, and great sin coexist?

When Paul said that he was the chief of sinners, was there a pattern of great sin that he struggled with that is hidden from our view?

I suppose, if we step back and try to understand this, perhaps we need to understand that God is always working through sinful man.  We tend to think of ourselves more highly, perhaps, than we should.  We think ourselves better than Hitler, because of the scale of Hitler's sin.

Yet the sin that I committed yesterday, regardless of how small, is an affront to the holiness of God, and if we understand that, a capitol offense.

Another thing to remember in all of this is that Samuel told us that this whole idea of kings for Israel was a great sin, and that we will learn that no earthly king can, or will, supplant the original King, Holy God.

As you can see, I have a great many questions.  I welcome dialog on any of them?  What do you think of all of this?

David, Bathsheba, Voyeurism, Temptation, Capitulation, Murder, and Satan's Triumph?

"Bathsheba", 1889, by Jean-Leon Gerome.

ESV Study Bible Devotions

I have spent a fair amount of time trying to view this scene from the perspective of the angels.

We tend to view this scene from our natural perspective, but also busily working, hidden from our view, is God, his angels, Satan, and his dastardly minions.

Layer upon all that God's sovereignty, and we have a scene that will leave us scratching our heads until the resurrection.

Clearly the seeds of sin had been growing in the heart of David, all while he is enjoying the great blessings of God.  Remember, this is the man whose heart is very pleasing to God.  I suppose with all the wives, and concubines, David had developed quite a sexual appetite.

And here, in this scene, we find David presented with the forbidden fruit as it were.  Satan had no doubt been laying this trap for years.  Tragically, with one forbidden act of sinful passion, we find the beginning of David's decline, and with it the great pain (curses of God?) that will follow David the rest of his life.  Perhaps his greatest pain found in God's refusal to let David build the Temple.

It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to understand the adultery.  Yet David's irresponsible use of his power to commit murder, and attempt to cover his tracks is quite surprising. 

Was Satan using the riches, the beautiful women, the power, and man's ego to bring down this man of God?

Was there a scene in heaven similar to Job, where Satan appeals to God to allow this temptation?  If so, what does that all mean?

Isn't is surprising that God continually uses great sin to accomplish his will?  Remember, out of this sinful act will come Solomon, and the blood-line to Messiah!  Who can plumb the depths of this?

Oh my soul, closely chain yourself to the Throne of God, reside under His wings, where evil never treads.

My Birthday, David and Bathsheba, and Ezekiel's Prophecy of a New Spirit

Today is the day of my birth.  I thought I would celebrate with a little of my dry humor.  Gotta love the expression on this cat!

While we are talking about birth, let's all understand that my birth was merely the day I was brought forth into this world.

My creation was planned in God's mind from infinity past.  I actually came into being, became a person,  some nine months before I actually screamed my way into this present world.

So it would seem that I was actually created, physically, somewhere in January.

As I started today's devotions, I was a little bummed that today's reading was Psalm 51, and 2 Samuel 11.  These both describe David's sin with Bathsheba.  Hmmm, that's not a very nice birthday story.  My namesake gazes upon a beautiful woman, commits adultery, and then kills her husband to cover up his sin.

I then move on, in today's reading, to Ezekiel 11:14-25, where we have in view the promise of a new kind of relationship with God, which is more fully explained in Ezekiel 36:22-28:

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God."

I had a very difficult time yesterday, reading of God's glory leaving his temple in Israel.  Yet here, I am reminded that we live in the age where we are the temple, and God's glory dwells in bodily form within each of his elect.

Who can understand this mystery? 

Therefore, while I am pleased to have possessed this physical body for now 53 years, it is my second birth, the day of my salvation, through the calling of Messiah, that I am most pleased to celebrate.

I don't know exactly when that was.  Sometime in the early 60's, in a little country Baptist church.

For this birth, I am infinitely pleased, and feel that it is something greatly to be celebrated.

Does this make sense to you?  Have you experienced this second birth of God, or do these words sound foreign, and bewildering?

Please dear reader, family, friends, in all your getting, get your name in the Lamb's Book of Life!

We are all called to two birth's and one death.  If not, then we suffer the horror of one birth, and two deaths.

The greatest birthday gift you could give me today, is to let me know that your name is written in this Book of Life, and that we will have the pleasure of eternity together in the presence of God.

Deeply disturbed as I read of God's Glory leaving the Temple before Ezekiel

Ezekiel 10

I had a very difficult time reading this morning's passage in Ezekiel, as I witnessed the Glory of God leaving his Temple.

Is not this Glory of God the same we view in Revelation?

To consider God turning his back upon his chosen is unbearable to me.   When God turns his back, then surely judgment will follow.

When I read this, I was immediately transported in my mind to Gethsemane, where we find God turning his back, and leaving Messiah in the garden to face His judgment and wrath.

Imagine the horror of Ezekiel as he witnessed this!

Dear reader, are you shaken to your very core when you read this? 

We know of the judgment to follow.  We are keenly aware of Jerusalem's horrible destruction.

But for me, I weep as I consider God's Glory disappearing over the Mount of Olives.

Oh, what agony could be greater than having God turn his back upon you?  Is not the judgment secondary to this?