Saturday, June 30, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Trust and Obey
There's a very nice hymn with this title. For the sake of completeness, I give it here:
Trust and Obey
When we walk with the Lord
In the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will
He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.
[Chorus]
Trust and obey -
For there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus
But to trust and obey.
Not a shadow can rise,
Not a cloud in the skies,
But His smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt nor a fear,
Not a sigh nor a tear,
Can abide while we trust and obey.
Not a burden we bear,
Not a sorrow we share,
But our toil He doth richly repay;
Not a grief nor a loss,
Not a frown nor a cross,
But is blest if we trust and obey.
But we never can prove
The delights of His love
Until all on the altar we lay,
For the favor He shows
And the joy He bestows
Are for them who will trust and obey.
Then in fellowship sweet
We will sit at His feet,
Or we'll walk by His side in the way;
What He says we will do,
Where He sends we will go -
Never fear, only trust and obey.
------------------------------------------
Now, I've always taken "trust and obey" to be two things that simply go together and naturally follow one after the other, like "live and learn". I think this is what the hymn has in mind. But recently I've been thinking about a different view of "trust and obey" - not contrary to the first view, but in addition to it. Trusting and obeying can sometimes feel like opposites. For instance, imagine that you're a scientist and a Christian. As a scientist, it's your job to push the boundaries of human knowledge. You can't know ahead of time where this quest will take you, and sometimes it can be a bit scary. Especially in our age of aggressively a-theistic science, one might fear that this quest could end up leading one away from God. But then you remember that God is the Creator of all things, even the things you are studying, and that no amount of boundary-pushing or questing will lead you beyond the boundaries of God's jurisdiction. You can trust that. You can rest in God's faithfulness, in His trustworthiness. You can push the boundaries with abandon and the worst that you'll do is show how much bigger God is than you had previously thought!
But on the flip side, you want to be faithful yourself; you want to obey, to bring "every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." You don't want to pursue an idea into heresy. As long as you're pursuing the Truth, you're pursuing Jesus, but often it's hard to know in advance what it is about a new idea that is True and what is not. So you have to make a decision: Either you forfeit the pursuit, playing it safe, taking the conservative route; Or you plunge ahead, taking the risk. In the first case, your understanding of God's majesty and greatness suffers by virtue of not being expanded, but at least you know you're safe. In the second case, you stand to gain in admiration and praise for God, but you also stand to wander into heresy - you're not safe. It's like putting your money in a bank account vs. the stock market. But losing at this game is worse than running into a bear market. But again, you ought to be able to trust that Jesus is faithful to keep you on the straight and narrow, to keep you obedient ("trust and obey" come back together at this point, like "live and learn").
This may be enough to encourage you to step out (we say "in faith" but we could equally well say "in trust") into the unknown, but it doesn't always mean that you take the step without any kind of trepidation. In the meantime, you pray that Jesus will correct you if you start wandering from the path. It is therefore with some trepidation, but also with hope in the promises of Christ, that I submit the following bit of thinking...
***************************************************************
Jesus performed miracles and signs. These days we think that miracles are specifically contra-natural events that can only be explained by appeal to the supernatural. The (Greek) word used in the Gospels is "dynamis", from which we get the English words "dynamic", "dynamite". "Dynamics" is the branch of physics that deals with forces, and we might well say that "force" is a synonymn for "power" or "ability", which is really what the Greek word meant. "Dynamite" is something that has great explosive "power", or an "ability" to blast holes in mountains. But we don't think that dynamite acts by anything but entirely natural means, and likewise we consider dynamics to follow from certain Laws of Nature. I don't know what 1st century Greek speakers would have thought about the word "dynamis", but I wonder if they thought of it differently than we do today under the translation of "miracle" - if they thought of it in a way that involved the natural, perhaps as a natural means by which a supernatural Being might act in the world. Although I don't know whether this is the case, let's assume that it is, for the sake of argument.
Some of Jesus' miracles involved healing people. One of these miracles that has puzzled a lot of people, including me, is the healing of the blind man by making clay made with spittle and applying it to the blind man's eyes. The question has always been "What's up with the clay and especially the spittle? Why didn't Jesus just say 'Be healed!'?" I was struck recently when I discovered (recently) that there was a story of the Roman emperor Vespasian healing a blind man in a similar manner. A little further digging and I learned that there was a widespread belief in the ancient world that human saliva had some pretty impressive healing powers. (It seems that the idea went like this: Human saliva is poisonous to snakes, and by extension to other loathsome creatures, including demons. Spitting at someone with a disease might therefore act both to help cure the person by killing the disease with saliva, and to keep the disease from spreading to yourself. It was generally best to apply the saliva to the affected part of the body.) All of a sudden this miracle makes sense - Jesus was using the methods corresponding to the medical beliefs of the time to perform this healing of the blind man. But at the same time, this makes the miracle seem somehow less miraculous - at least, if we say that a miracle is contra-natural rather than para-natural (I know, I know, I'm mixing Latin and Greek roots...).
I'll have to think more about this, and study more, but I wonder if a similar thing could be said for Jesus' other (healing) miracles - namely, that He made use of the understanding of the day to display His power ("dynamis"/"miracle") and to prove His authority (by "signs"/"semeioi", which is also frequently translated as "miracles").
This leads me to think two things. First, it kind of makes sense that Jesus would condescend to the imperfect understanding of the day. After all, His parables are all about things that were common and every-day in that part of the world and at that time. And let's consider what we might have thought if Jesus had come performing His miracles in 2007AD rather than 30AD, and if He had healed a person sick with the flu by, say, mixing flour with water and rubbing the solution on the person's forehead. First of all, we'd think He was crazy or a quack, and furthermore if the person was actually healed we'd say that Jesus got lucky in that He happened to apply the flour water just when the person was about to recovery on their own (or because of the medication they were on). Even if flour-water applied to the forehead were a cure for the flu and we just haven't figured it out yet, our current understanding of how the body works and how the flu works just does not allow for this possibility to enter our minds. Perhaps this is rather post-modern of me, but it makes sense that if Jesus wanted to communicate something to us, He would use our language.
Now, what does this line of thinking imply? For one, I think it implies that the sometimes tricky issue of thinking about medicine vs. faith is not so tricky anymore. You might think that taking medicine to help you recover from a cold is like turning your back on God because you are putting your faith (your trust) in medicine instead of Him. But if a miracle is something that God does by means of nature (rather than in opposition to nature), then it makes sense that you will take your medicine and trust God - taking your medicine is no kind of disobedience.
One might object that since doctors then and now have used their understanding of the natural world to heal people, then if we say Jesus did the same thing, how can we claim that Jesus' miracles in any way validated His claim to be the Son of God? After all, we don't want to say that every doctor is the Son or Daughter of God (in the way that we mean it when we talk about Jesus). I don't think this is a big problem, really - after all, the point would be that Jesus was demonstrating His power; and He did that in many other ways, performing "signs and wonders" of various sorts, most importantly dying and being resurrected on the 3rd day. You can't dismiss these things simply because Jesus spoke the language of the day and used the understanding of the day to communicate His message, His Gospel.
*******************************************************************
Well, I suppose this is enough for now. It's way past my bedtime...
Trust and Obey
When we walk with the Lord
In the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will
He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.
[Chorus]
Trust and obey -
For there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus
But to trust and obey.
Not a shadow can rise,
Not a cloud in the skies,
But His smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt nor a fear,
Not a sigh nor a tear,
Can abide while we trust and obey.
Not a burden we bear,
Not a sorrow we share,
But our toil He doth richly repay;
Not a grief nor a loss,
Not a frown nor a cross,
But is blest if we trust and obey.
But we never can prove
The delights of His love
Until all on the altar we lay,
For the favor He shows
And the joy He bestows
Are for them who will trust and obey.
Then in fellowship sweet
We will sit at His feet,
Or we'll walk by His side in the way;
What He says we will do,
Where He sends we will go -
Never fear, only trust and obey.
------------------------------------------
Now, I've always taken "trust and obey" to be two things that simply go together and naturally follow one after the other, like "live and learn". I think this is what the hymn has in mind. But recently I've been thinking about a different view of "trust and obey" - not contrary to the first view, but in addition to it. Trusting and obeying can sometimes feel like opposites. For instance, imagine that you're a scientist and a Christian. As a scientist, it's your job to push the boundaries of human knowledge. You can't know ahead of time where this quest will take you, and sometimes it can be a bit scary. Especially in our age of aggressively a-theistic science, one might fear that this quest could end up leading one away from God. But then you remember that God is the Creator of all things, even the things you are studying, and that no amount of boundary-pushing or questing will lead you beyond the boundaries of God's jurisdiction. You can trust that. You can rest in God's faithfulness, in His trustworthiness. You can push the boundaries with abandon and the worst that you'll do is show how much bigger God is than you had previously thought!
But on the flip side, you want to be faithful yourself; you want to obey, to bring "every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." You don't want to pursue an idea into heresy. As long as you're pursuing the Truth, you're pursuing Jesus, but often it's hard to know in advance what it is about a new idea that is True and what is not. So you have to make a decision: Either you forfeit the pursuit, playing it safe, taking the conservative route; Or you plunge ahead, taking the risk. In the first case, your understanding of God's majesty and greatness suffers by virtue of not being expanded, but at least you know you're safe. In the second case, you stand to gain in admiration and praise for God, but you also stand to wander into heresy - you're not safe. It's like putting your money in a bank account vs. the stock market. But losing at this game is worse than running into a bear market. But again, you ought to be able to trust that Jesus is faithful to keep you on the straight and narrow, to keep you obedient ("trust and obey" come back together at this point, like "live and learn").
This may be enough to encourage you to step out (we say "in faith" but we could equally well say "in trust") into the unknown, but it doesn't always mean that you take the step without any kind of trepidation. In the meantime, you pray that Jesus will correct you if you start wandering from the path. It is therefore with some trepidation, but also with hope in the promises of Christ, that I submit the following bit of thinking...
***************************************************************
Jesus performed miracles and signs. These days we think that miracles are specifically contra-natural events that can only be explained by appeal to the supernatural. The (Greek) word used in the Gospels is "dynamis", from which we get the English words "dynamic", "dynamite". "Dynamics" is the branch of physics that deals with forces, and we might well say that "force" is a synonymn for "power" or "ability", which is really what the Greek word meant. "Dynamite" is something that has great explosive "power", or an "ability" to blast holes in mountains. But we don't think that dynamite acts by anything but entirely natural means, and likewise we consider dynamics to follow from certain Laws of Nature. I don't know what 1st century Greek speakers would have thought about the word "dynamis", but I wonder if they thought of it differently than we do today under the translation of "miracle" - if they thought of it in a way that involved the natural, perhaps as a natural means by which a supernatural Being might act in the world. Although I don't know whether this is the case, let's assume that it is, for the sake of argument.
Some of Jesus' miracles involved healing people. One of these miracles that has puzzled a lot of people, including me, is the healing of the blind man by making clay made with spittle and applying it to the blind man's eyes. The question has always been "What's up with the clay and especially the spittle? Why didn't Jesus just say 'Be healed!'?" I was struck recently when I discovered (recently) that there was a story of the Roman emperor Vespasian healing a blind man in a similar manner. A little further digging and I learned that there was a widespread belief in the ancient world that human saliva had some pretty impressive healing powers. (It seems that the idea went like this: Human saliva is poisonous to snakes, and by extension to other loathsome creatures, including demons. Spitting at someone with a disease might therefore act both to help cure the person by killing the disease with saliva, and to keep the disease from spreading to yourself. It was generally best to apply the saliva to the affected part of the body.) All of a sudden this miracle makes sense - Jesus was using the methods corresponding to the medical beliefs of the time to perform this healing of the blind man. But at the same time, this makes the miracle seem somehow less miraculous - at least, if we say that a miracle is contra-natural rather than para-natural (I know, I know, I'm mixing Latin and Greek roots...).
I'll have to think more about this, and study more, but I wonder if a similar thing could be said for Jesus' other (healing) miracles - namely, that He made use of the understanding of the day to display His power ("dynamis"/"miracle") and to prove His authority (by "signs"/"semeioi", which is also frequently translated as "miracles").
This leads me to think two things. First, it kind of makes sense that Jesus would condescend to the imperfect understanding of the day. After all, His parables are all about things that were common and every-day in that part of the world and at that time. And let's consider what we might have thought if Jesus had come performing His miracles in 2007AD rather than 30AD, and if He had healed a person sick with the flu by, say, mixing flour with water and rubbing the solution on the person's forehead. First of all, we'd think He was crazy or a quack, and furthermore if the person was actually healed we'd say that Jesus got lucky in that He happened to apply the flour water just when the person was about to recovery on their own (or because of the medication they were on). Even if flour-water applied to the forehead were a cure for the flu and we just haven't figured it out yet, our current understanding of how the body works and how the flu works just does not allow for this possibility to enter our minds. Perhaps this is rather post-modern of me, but it makes sense that if Jesus wanted to communicate something to us, He would use our language.
Now, what does this line of thinking imply? For one, I think it implies that the sometimes tricky issue of thinking about medicine vs. faith is not so tricky anymore. You might think that taking medicine to help you recover from a cold is like turning your back on God because you are putting your faith (your trust) in medicine instead of Him. But if a miracle is something that God does by means of nature (rather than in opposition to nature), then it makes sense that you will take your medicine and trust God - taking your medicine is no kind of disobedience.
One might object that since doctors then and now have used their understanding of the natural world to heal people, then if we say Jesus did the same thing, how can we claim that Jesus' miracles in any way validated His claim to be the Son of God? After all, we don't want to say that every doctor is the Son or Daughter of God (in the way that we mean it when we talk about Jesus). I don't think this is a big problem, really - after all, the point would be that Jesus was demonstrating His power; and He did that in many other ways, performing "signs and wonders" of various sorts, most importantly dying and being resurrected on the 3rd day. You can't dismiss these things simply because Jesus spoke the language of the day and used the understanding of the day to communicate His message, His Gospel.
*******************************************************************
Well, I suppose this is enough for now. It's way past my bedtime...
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