The sharp distinction between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith common in New Testament studies has proven to be an inexhaustible mine for those searching for melodramatic ideas to bounce around during important Christian holidays. The historical Jesus is taken to be the merely human person who was born and raised in Palestine and was crucified during the days of Pontius Pilate. The Christ of faith is assumed to be a mythical, supernatural figure invented by the early admirers of the earthly Jesus. Such thinking flourished in eighteenth century German biblical scholarship, particularly after the posthumous publication of the private notes of Herman Samuel Reimarus between 1774 and 1778.
Inspired by Reimarus’s doubts concerning the historicity of the biblical record, many other scholars published monographs in which they cast Jesus in various religious and cultural roles unhinged from the supernatural. The whole movement, which became known as “the old quest of the historical Jesus,” was brought to a near screeching halt by the 1906 publication of Albert Schweitzer’s book, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, whose title also branded the movement. Schweitzer demonstrated that the scholars of the old quest shared something in common--they relied heavily on their presuppositions about who they believed Jesus was and so “each individual created him in accordance with his own character.”(1) In other words, each one of them ended up producing the Jesus they went out looking for in the first place.
Unfortunately, the tendency to recast Jesus in our own image continues even in our day. In scholarly circles, it is represented by the Jesus Seminar which refuses to allow the possibility of the supernatural for those who have “seen the heavens through Galileo’s telescope.”(2) Even among believers, it rears its ugly head whenever we prefix the name of Jesus with the possessive pronoun “my” in order to secure our turf from unwelcome scrutiny. A few years ago, a friend and I attended a church in which several people broke out in convulsive laughter in the middle of the worship service. My friend later informed me that they were laughing in Jesus. I knew something about the historical Jesus, but this was my first encounter with the hysterical Jesus and further evidence of his protean flexibility in human hands.
The allure of the personality of Jesus is impossible to shake off, whether in profane expressions of provocation or in moments of fervent praise. Enthusiastic children sing about him in Sunday school, while seasoned, scrupulous, dyed-in-the-wool ivory tower scholars make flourishing careers out of studying or even quibbling with his words. The New Ager wants him for an ascended master. The Hindu wants him for a guru. The Muslim will accept him as a prophet of Allah. The secular humanist admires him as a great moral teacher, and the oppressed of the world identify with his suffering. Like an immensely gifted athlete with some eccentric personality quirkiness, it seems Jesus will be welcomed into almost any team, provided the coaches retain a measure of confidence that they can tame him. We insist on meeting Jesus on our own terms, and our ideas of who he is invariably take the form of our most cherished images. Like the proverbial queen in Snow White, our questions about Jesus are sometimes motivated by predetermined answers. We ask, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, which Jesus is the fairest of them all?” and the only answer we will accept is the one that best suits our fancies.
But in spite of our audacious determination to craft a custom-made god out of the story of Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible remains in complete command of himself and us. When the dust settles, it is the eternally imposing figure of the Incarnate Son of God that lies behind the hauntingly inescapable question, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). Any honest search for an answer to this question must take our presuppositions to account in light of the available evidence. The main question we all have to contend with is our attitude towards a world in which there exists a Being totally outside our control and to whom we must subject our autonomy. In his book, The Last Word, philosopher Thomas Nagel may have spoken for many when he attributed his own preference for the non-existence of God to a “cosmic authority problem.”(3)
We are easily broken over the pain and suffering we see around us, and well we should. But what a day of rejoicing it is when our hearts are broken by the sweet bitterness of seeing our own sinfulness against the blinding purity of the Son of God; when our fists begin to loosen our grip on the stones we would self-righteously cast at others, and when we finally approach God, not as his advisors, but as sinners in need of mercy and forgiveness! When the intent is right and the mirror is the word of God in its historical context, the revelation that true beauty lies in Christ alone will only drive us ever closer to the restoration of our own beauty in Him. Such an encounter with our Creator is not to be found amidst the cacophony of noises within the factory of dedicated god-crafters; it is best seen when nothing obscures our view of the Cross.
J.M. Njoroge is associate apologist at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Albert Schweitzer The Quest of the Historical Jesus, (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 4.
(2) Robert Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar The Five Gospels (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1997), 2.
(3) Thomas Nagel, The Last Word, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 131.
Source: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Alienation and Restoration
Vincenzo Ricardo. If that name does not mean much to you, you are not alone. It does not seem to have meant much to anyone else except, perhaps, him who bore it. In fact it was not even his name. His real name was Vincenzo Riccardi, and nobody seemed to get it right after the sensational discovery of his mummified body in Southampton, New York. He had been dead for 13 months, but his television was still on, and his body was propped up in a chair in front of it.(1) The television was his only companion, and though it had much to tell him, it did not care whether he lived or died.
Riccardi's story raises many unsettling questions. How can a human being vanish for over a year and not be missed by anyone? Where was his family? What about his relatives? Why was the power still on in his house? Whatever the answers are to these and other questions, one thing is clear: Riccardi was a lonely individual whose life can be summed up in one word, alienation. You see, Riccardi was blind, so he never really watched television; he needed this virtual reality to feed his need for real companionship. Moreover, his frequent "outbursts and paranoid behavior" may have played a role in driving people away from him.(2)
This is indeed a tragic and extreme tale, but it makes a powerful statement about how cold and lonely life can be for millions across the globe. Even those who seem to have all of their ducks in a row are not immune to the pangs of loneliness and alienation. Alienation affects us at three different levels. We are alienated from ourselves, from others, and most significantly, we are alienated from God. That is the reality in which we exist. The restoration process involves all three dimensions, but it begins with a proper relationship with God. We cannot get along with ourselves or with others until we are properly related to God. The good news of the gospel is that full restoration is available to all who want it.
This process is well illustrated in an encounter Jesus had with another deeply wounded man who lived in a cemetery. Relatives, and perhaps friends, had tried unsuccessfully to bind him with iron chains to keep him home. He preferred to live among the tombs (alienation from others), cutting himself with stones, his identity concealed in his new name, "Legion" (alienation from self). His mind and body were hopelessly enslaved by Satan's agents, and his life was no longer his own (alienation from God). It took an encounter with Jesus for the man to be fully restored, "dressed and in his right mind" (Mark 5:15). Only then could he follow Jesus's command to go back to his family and tell them what God had done for him.
The restoration process remains the same today. Until we are properly related to God, our true identity and potential will always elude us. No virtual reality or gadget can even begin to address the problem, for they only give back to us what we have put into them. They are like the message in a bottle, which a castaway on a remote island excitedly received, only to realize that it was a cry for help that he himself had sent out months before. As Augustine prayed, "You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You." We are finite creatures, created for a relationship with an Infinite Being, and no finite substitute can ever meet our deepest needs. Trying to meet our real needs without God is like trying to satisfy our thirst with salty water: the more we drink, the thirstier we become. This is a sure path to various sorts of addictions.
But when we are properly related to the True Shepherd who calls his sheep by name, loneliness is infused with great hope as we, with Abraham, look "forward to the city with foundations whose architect and builder is God" (Hebrews 11:10). We become members of God's extended family. Day by day, we learn to trust God as we travel with others along a heavily trodden path that never disappoints. Friends and relatives may desert us, but we are never alone. We may grieve, but never like those without hope. We have peace and joy within, and even in our own hour of need, others can still find their way to God through us. The alternative is a crippling sense of isolation and alienation within a worldly system whose offerings, however sophisticated and well-intentioned, can never arouse us from spiritual death.
J.M. Njoroge is associate apologist at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Erika Hayasaki, "He Died in Vast Isolation" LA Times, March 31, 2007.
(2) Ibid.
Source: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
Riccardi's story raises many unsettling questions. How can a human being vanish for over a year and not be missed by anyone? Where was his family? What about his relatives? Why was the power still on in his house? Whatever the answers are to these and other questions, one thing is clear: Riccardi was a lonely individual whose life can be summed up in one word, alienation. You see, Riccardi was blind, so he never really watched television; he needed this virtual reality to feed his need for real companionship. Moreover, his frequent "outbursts and paranoid behavior" may have played a role in driving people away from him.(2)
This is indeed a tragic and extreme tale, but it makes a powerful statement about how cold and lonely life can be for millions across the globe. Even those who seem to have all of their ducks in a row are not immune to the pangs of loneliness and alienation. Alienation affects us at three different levels. We are alienated from ourselves, from others, and most significantly, we are alienated from God. That is the reality in which we exist. The restoration process involves all three dimensions, but it begins with a proper relationship with God. We cannot get along with ourselves or with others until we are properly related to God. The good news of the gospel is that full restoration is available to all who want it.
This process is well illustrated in an encounter Jesus had with another deeply wounded man who lived in a cemetery. Relatives, and perhaps friends, had tried unsuccessfully to bind him with iron chains to keep him home. He preferred to live among the tombs (alienation from others), cutting himself with stones, his identity concealed in his new name, "Legion" (alienation from self). His mind and body were hopelessly enslaved by Satan's agents, and his life was no longer his own (alienation from God). It took an encounter with Jesus for the man to be fully restored, "dressed and in his right mind" (Mark 5:15). Only then could he follow Jesus's command to go back to his family and tell them what God had done for him.
The restoration process remains the same today. Until we are properly related to God, our true identity and potential will always elude us. No virtual reality or gadget can even begin to address the problem, for they only give back to us what we have put into them. They are like the message in a bottle, which a castaway on a remote island excitedly received, only to realize that it was a cry for help that he himself had sent out months before. As Augustine prayed, "You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You." We are finite creatures, created for a relationship with an Infinite Being, and no finite substitute can ever meet our deepest needs. Trying to meet our real needs without God is like trying to satisfy our thirst with salty water: the more we drink, the thirstier we become. This is a sure path to various sorts of addictions.
But when we are properly related to the True Shepherd who calls his sheep by name, loneliness is infused with great hope as we, with Abraham, look "forward to the city with foundations whose architect and builder is God" (Hebrews 11:10). We become members of God's extended family. Day by day, we learn to trust God as we travel with others along a heavily trodden path that never disappoints. Friends and relatives may desert us, but we are never alone. We may grieve, but never like those without hope. We have peace and joy within, and even in our own hour of need, others can still find their way to God through us. The alternative is a crippling sense of isolation and alienation within a worldly system whose offerings, however sophisticated and well-intentioned, can never arouse us from spiritual death.
J.M. Njoroge is associate apologist at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Erika Hayasaki, "He Died in Vast Isolation" LA Times, March 31, 2007.
(2) Ibid.
Source: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The New Atheism and Morality
Though the chorus of voices decrying belief in God has been humming in the ideological background for centuries, it seems to have reached a crescendo with the emergence of a movement that has been dubbed the new atheism. The trademark of this new brand of atheism is its vitriolic attack on religion. To its advocates, religious beliefs are not only false; they are also dangerous and must be expunged from all corners of society. The pundits of the new atheism are not content to nail discussion theses on the door of religion; they are also busy delivering eviction notices to the allegedly atavistic elements of an otherwise seamlessly progressive atheistic evolution of Homo sapiens.
Given the rhetoric, one might be forgiven for thinking that some new discoveries have rendered belief in God untenable. Curiously, this drama is unfolding in the same era in which perhaps the world’s leading defender of atheism, Antony Flew, has declared that recent scientific discoveries point to the fact that this world cannot be understood apart from the work of God as its Creator. This is no small matter, for Flew has been preaching atheism for as long as Billy Graham has been preaching the Gospel. Unlike Flew and others, the new atheists seem to forget that the success of their mission hinges solely on the strength and veracity of the reasons they give for repudiating religion. Venom and ridicule may carry the day in an age of sensationalistic sound bites, but false beliefs will eventually bounce off the hard, cold, unyielding wall of reality.
A good example of a claim against religion that does not sit well with the facts of reality is issued in the form of a challenge to the believer to “name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever.” (1) We are expected to agree that no such action or statement exists and then conclude that morality does not depend on God.
The problem is that the conclusion does not follow from the premise. The fact that a non-believer can utter moral statements and even act morally does not logically lead to the conclusion that morality does not depend on God, much less that God does not exist. This challenge misunderstands the believer’s position on the relationship between morality and God.
The believer’s claim is that the world owes its existence to a moral God. All human beings are moral agents created in God’s image and are expected to recognize right from wrong because they all reflect God’s moral character. The fact that human beings are the kinds of creatures that can recognize the moral imperatives that are part of the very fabric of the universe argues strongly against naturalism.
Unlike the laws of nature, which even inanimate objects obey, moral imperatives appeal to our will and invite us to make real decisions on real moral issues. The only other parallel experience we have of dos and don’ts comes from our minds. Thus when the atheist rejects God while insisting on the validity of morality, he is merely rejecting the cause while clinging to the effect.
Without God, morality is reduced to whatever mode of behavior human beings happen to favor either because of their genetic makeup or conventional accords. There is no action that is objectively right or wrong. Rape, hate, murder and other such acts are only wrong because they have been deemed to be so in the course of human evolution.
Had human evolution taken a different course, these acts might well have been the valued elements of our moral code. Even Nazi morality would be right had the Nazis succeeded in their quest for world dominance. Unless the world contains behavioral guidelines that transcend human decisions and genetic determinism, there is no reason why anyone should object to such conclusions.
Though some religious people do not live up to the moral principles they espouse, it is not true that genuine religious devotion makes no difference to one’s moral commitments. It is missionaries, and not atheists, who regularly give up their own comforts and accept unbelievable amounts of pain and suffering to better the lives of societal outcasts, not just through preaching but also through education, technology, and humanitarian relief. Our failure to live up to what we know to be right provides empirical evidence for the need for God’s intervention in our lives.
Those who insist that objective morality makes no difference to human autonomy still expect morality to guide the behavior of others. That our society is saturated with transcendent moral sentiments accounts for the popularity of some television programs that arrest our attention night after night. Perhaps ninety percent of the shows depend exclusively on our ability to apply objective moral standards to the actions of the characters. Should the Judeo-Christian moral bank close its doors to our cultural psyche, the bankruptcy of human-centered morality would eventually send our spiritual tentacles scouring for an alternative transcendent anchor.
Thus were the new atheists to succeed in their quest, the result would not be the elimination of religion but the entrenchment of a different religion. As Ravi Zacharias has warned in his new book The End of Reason, eventually, the real choice for the West will not be between Christianity and atheism but between Christianity and another religion.
Beware of ethical naturalists bearing moral gifts.
1) Christopher Hitchens, “An Atheist Responds,” The Washington Times (Saturday, July 14, 2007).
J.M. Njoroge is associate apologist at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
Source: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
Given the rhetoric, one might be forgiven for thinking that some new discoveries have rendered belief in God untenable. Curiously, this drama is unfolding in the same era in which perhaps the world’s leading defender of atheism, Antony Flew, has declared that recent scientific discoveries point to the fact that this world cannot be understood apart from the work of God as its Creator. This is no small matter, for Flew has been preaching atheism for as long as Billy Graham has been preaching the Gospel. Unlike Flew and others, the new atheists seem to forget that the success of their mission hinges solely on the strength and veracity of the reasons they give for repudiating religion. Venom and ridicule may carry the day in an age of sensationalistic sound bites, but false beliefs will eventually bounce off the hard, cold, unyielding wall of reality.
A good example of a claim against religion that does not sit well with the facts of reality is issued in the form of a challenge to the believer to “name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever.” (1) We are expected to agree that no such action or statement exists and then conclude that morality does not depend on God.
The problem is that the conclusion does not follow from the premise. The fact that a non-believer can utter moral statements and even act morally does not logically lead to the conclusion that morality does not depend on God, much less that God does not exist. This challenge misunderstands the believer’s position on the relationship between morality and God.
The believer’s claim is that the world owes its existence to a moral God. All human beings are moral agents created in God’s image and are expected to recognize right from wrong because they all reflect God’s moral character. The fact that human beings are the kinds of creatures that can recognize the moral imperatives that are part of the very fabric of the universe argues strongly against naturalism.
Unlike the laws of nature, which even inanimate objects obey, moral imperatives appeal to our will and invite us to make real decisions on real moral issues. The only other parallel experience we have of dos and don’ts comes from our minds. Thus when the atheist rejects God while insisting on the validity of morality, he is merely rejecting the cause while clinging to the effect.
Without God, morality is reduced to whatever mode of behavior human beings happen to favor either because of their genetic makeup or conventional accords. There is no action that is objectively right or wrong. Rape, hate, murder and other such acts are only wrong because they have been deemed to be so in the course of human evolution.
Had human evolution taken a different course, these acts might well have been the valued elements of our moral code. Even Nazi morality would be right had the Nazis succeeded in their quest for world dominance. Unless the world contains behavioral guidelines that transcend human decisions and genetic determinism, there is no reason why anyone should object to such conclusions.
Though some religious people do not live up to the moral principles they espouse, it is not true that genuine religious devotion makes no difference to one’s moral commitments. It is missionaries, and not atheists, who regularly give up their own comforts and accept unbelievable amounts of pain and suffering to better the lives of societal outcasts, not just through preaching but also through education, technology, and humanitarian relief. Our failure to live up to what we know to be right provides empirical evidence for the need for God’s intervention in our lives.
Those who insist that objective morality makes no difference to human autonomy still expect morality to guide the behavior of others. That our society is saturated with transcendent moral sentiments accounts for the popularity of some television programs that arrest our attention night after night. Perhaps ninety percent of the shows depend exclusively on our ability to apply objective moral standards to the actions of the characters. Should the Judeo-Christian moral bank close its doors to our cultural psyche, the bankruptcy of human-centered morality would eventually send our spiritual tentacles scouring for an alternative transcendent anchor.
Thus were the new atheists to succeed in their quest, the result would not be the elimination of religion but the entrenchment of a different religion. As Ravi Zacharias has warned in his new book The End of Reason, eventually, the real choice for the West will not be between Christianity and atheism but between Christianity and another religion.
Beware of ethical naturalists bearing moral gifts.
1) Christopher Hitchens, “An Atheist Responds,” The Washington Times (Saturday, July 14, 2007).
J.M. Njoroge is associate apologist at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
Source: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
The Ultimate Diet
Some years ago, a group of young boys discovered a bird nest with a couple of baby birds inside. When the boys touched the nest, the birds stretched their feeble feet to their fullest heights, balancing their heads on their wobbly necks, alternating methodically between chirping expectantly and holding their mouths wide open. Apparently, a touch of the nest had, up to this point, meant that their mother had returned with food. Unfortunately, there was no trace of motherly instincts in these boys, a fact promptly confirmed by the actions of one of them. He picked up a handful of dirt and emptied it into the mouths of the birds.
The recklessness of the actions perpetrated by the boys and the appalling consequences in this story are easy to spot. But there is a parallel habit that is all too common in many of our churches, and much of the time it goes unnoticed. Easily stated, the problem is that many consistent churchgoers do not have a comprehensive, steadfast biblical foundation for their faith. The rugged discipline of critical, theological reflection for a mature application of the faith in all aspects of life has all but vanished from some of our pulpits, and, as a result, many in our churches are defenseless against the onslaught of worldviews, behaviors and other cultural trends inimical to our faith. Like unknowing, feeble hatchlings, we will swallow anything that comes our way.
We live in a period when science is believed to be the stalwart custodian of what can confidently be known about reality. In matters of religion, it is assumed that there are no experts, and the advice of a talk show host on spirituality is as reliable, if not more so, as that of the pastor. Church leaders who distinguish themselves by their oratory skills and ability to draw a crowd are unwittingly branded successful, regardless of the depth and rigor with which they themselves, let alone their listeners, grapple with the Scriptures. The admirable, deeply felt admission by the leaders of Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago that in spite of the millions of dollars they have invested in church activities over the last several decades, their way of doing church has failed to produce devoted disciples of Jesus should serve, as Pastor Bill Hybels put it, "as a wake up call" to all of the people of God.(1)
In stark contrast, the apostle Paul envisions a church community in which gifted leaders equip God's people towards unity and maturity in their knowledge of Christ so that they (the people) can do the work of the ministry. If we run the church this way, "we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming" (Ephesians 4:14). The Christian life is neither a call to legalism nor a call to lawlessness; it is a call to true, lasting transformation of the whole person. Fruits of righteousness will necessarily sprout from a well-tended, blooming soul.
Consequently, we must resist the temptation to let the ministers in our churches study the Bible for us--they are there to teach us how to study and apply its message. We should have the same expectations of ourselves that we have of our pastors. Questions such as how could he, a pastor, behave that way? or how can his kids be like that?, etc., should be asked of any follower of our Lord. Our assignments may differ, and those who are ahead in the spiritual journey bear more responsibility towards others, but we are all priests in the temple of God. We labor under the same Shepherd, and any black sheep--pastor or not--disgraces the whole herd and dishonors the Shepherd.
Popular daytime television programs illustrate this point in a powerful way. The format is always the same: you show as much garbage as you can during the program and then take the last few seconds to issue some moral exhortations. When you think about it, the logic behind this is truly incredible. How can any thinking human being believe that a one minute, haphazard, second-rate moralizing statement can ameliorate the effects of a full hour of unmitigated moral filth? Yet unfortunately, we operate on a similar premise when we live our lives as though God does not exist six days out of the week and then expect a one hour church service on Sunday morning to straighten us out. If we don't learn to feed properly and consistently on the reality of God's Kingdom delineated in his Word, we leave ourselves quite vulnerable to the never-tiring enemy of our souls whose time-tested skills at feeding unprotected, hungry mouths are unequalled.
J.M. Njoroge is associate apologist at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Christianity Today, October 18, 2007.
Source: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
The recklessness of the actions perpetrated by the boys and the appalling consequences in this story are easy to spot. But there is a parallel habit that is all too common in many of our churches, and much of the time it goes unnoticed. Easily stated, the problem is that many consistent churchgoers do not have a comprehensive, steadfast biblical foundation for their faith. The rugged discipline of critical, theological reflection for a mature application of the faith in all aspects of life has all but vanished from some of our pulpits, and, as a result, many in our churches are defenseless against the onslaught of worldviews, behaviors and other cultural trends inimical to our faith. Like unknowing, feeble hatchlings, we will swallow anything that comes our way.
We live in a period when science is believed to be the stalwart custodian of what can confidently be known about reality. In matters of religion, it is assumed that there are no experts, and the advice of a talk show host on spirituality is as reliable, if not more so, as that of the pastor. Church leaders who distinguish themselves by their oratory skills and ability to draw a crowd are unwittingly branded successful, regardless of the depth and rigor with which they themselves, let alone their listeners, grapple with the Scriptures. The admirable, deeply felt admission by the leaders of Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago that in spite of the millions of dollars they have invested in church activities over the last several decades, their way of doing church has failed to produce devoted disciples of Jesus should serve, as Pastor Bill Hybels put it, "as a wake up call" to all of the people of God.(1)
In stark contrast, the apostle Paul envisions a church community in which gifted leaders equip God's people towards unity and maturity in their knowledge of Christ so that they (the people) can do the work of the ministry. If we run the church this way, "we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming" (Ephesians 4:14). The Christian life is neither a call to legalism nor a call to lawlessness; it is a call to true, lasting transformation of the whole person. Fruits of righteousness will necessarily sprout from a well-tended, blooming soul.
Consequently, we must resist the temptation to let the ministers in our churches study the Bible for us--they are there to teach us how to study and apply its message. We should have the same expectations of ourselves that we have of our pastors. Questions such as how could he, a pastor, behave that way? or how can his kids be like that?, etc., should be asked of any follower of our Lord. Our assignments may differ, and those who are ahead in the spiritual journey bear more responsibility towards others, but we are all priests in the temple of God. We labor under the same Shepherd, and any black sheep--pastor or not--disgraces the whole herd and dishonors the Shepherd.
Popular daytime television programs illustrate this point in a powerful way. The format is always the same: you show as much garbage as you can during the program and then take the last few seconds to issue some moral exhortations. When you think about it, the logic behind this is truly incredible. How can any thinking human being believe that a one minute, haphazard, second-rate moralizing statement can ameliorate the effects of a full hour of unmitigated moral filth? Yet unfortunately, we operate on a similar premise when we live our lives as though God does not exist six days out of the week and then expect a one hour church service on Sunday morning to straighten us out. If we don't learn to feed properly and consistently on the reality of God's Kingdom delineated in his Word, we leave ourselves quite vulnerable to the never-tiring enemy of our souls whose time-tested skills at feeding unprotected, hungry mouths are unequalled.
J.M. Njoroge is associate apologist at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Christianity Today, October 18, 2007.
Source: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
Harmless Petty Sins?
A familiar fable tells of the hunter who lost his life to the leopard he himself had saved as a pet for his children when the leopard was just a cub. The moral of the story can be deduced easily from the title, Little Leopards Become Big Leopards, meaning that sin is easier to deal with before it becomes a habitual practice that eventually defines our lives.(1) Though the story as it stands is a beautiful illustration of a profound truth, there is a deeper lesson regarding the nature of sin that is easily concealed by this line of thinking and which, I believe, lies at the very essence of our call to Christ-likeness. The problem is that the parallel between little harmless leopard cubs and little harmless sins can be dangerously deceptive.
Whereas leopard cubs are indeed harmless, there is no stage of development at which sin can be said to be harmless, for individual acts of sin are merely the symptoms of the true condition of our hearts. It is not accidental that the call to Christian growth in the Scriptures repeatedly zeros-in on such seemingly benign “human shortcomings” as bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, slander, and malicious behavior (Ephesians 4:31). In his watershed address, The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus placed a great deal of emphasis on lust, anger, and contempt; behaviors and attitudes that would probably not rank high on our lists of problems in need of urgent resolution. Armed with firm and sometimes unconscious categories of serious versus tolerable sins, we gloss over lists of vices in the Scriptures because they seem to be of little consequence to life as we experience it.
But when we fail to grasp the subtleties of sin, we run the risk of rendering much of biblical wisdom irrelevant to our daily life and practice. While we appreciate the uniqueness and necessity of the sacrificial death of Jesus on our behalf, his specific teachings can at times appear to be farfetched and the emphasis misplaced. Does it not seem incredible that the God who made this world would visit it in its brokenness, dwell among us for over thirty years, and then leave behind the command that we must be nice to each other? Can the problems of the world really be solved by having people “turn the other cheek” and “get rid of anger and malice”? To quote a close friend, “Hello!”
Unfortunately, those “little” sins are not only the mere symptoms of a much bigger problem; they are also effective means of alienating us from God and other human beings. How many careers have been ruined only because of jealousy? How many people have been deprived of genuine help as a result of the seemingly side-comment of someone who secretly despised them? How many relationships have been destroyed by bitterness? How many churches have split up because of selfish ambitions couched in pietistic terms? How much evil has resulted from misinformation, a little coloring around the edges of truth? And have you noticed how much we can control other people just through our body language? From the political arena to the basic family unit, the worst enemy of human harmony is not spectacular wickedness but those seemingly harmless petty sins routinely assumed to be part of what it means to be human.
According to a NASA scientist, a two-degree miscalculation when launching a spacecraft to the moon would send the spacecraft 11,121 miles away from the moon: all one has to do is take time and distance into account.(2) How perceptive then was George MacDonald when he uttered these chilling words, “A man may sink by such slow degrees that, long after he is a devil, he may go on being a good churchman or a good dissenter, and thinking himself a good Christian”!(3) Similarly, C.S. Lewis warned that cards are a welcome substitute for murder if the former will set the believer on a path away from God. “Indeed,” he wrote, “the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”(4)Now the decisive path out of this quandary is not just a greater resolve to be obedient to God. Such a response is usually motivated by guilt, and the duration of our effort will be directly proportional to the amount of guilt we feel: we will be right back where we started from when the guilt is no longer as strong.
The appropriate response must begin with a greater appreciation of the holiness of God and a clear vision of life in Him. It is only along the path of Christ-likeness that the true nature of sin is revealed and its appeal blunted. Yes, brazen sinfulness is appallingly evil and destructive, but it only makes a louder growl in a forest populated by stealthier, deadly hunters masquerading as little leopards. It is no idle, perfunctory pastime to pray with King David:
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Test me and know my thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
And lead me along the path of everlasting life (Psalm 139:23-24).
J.M. Njoroge is a member of the speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) For example, Paul White’s, Little Leopards Become Big Leopards, published by African Christian Press.
(2) John Trent, Heartshift: The Two Degree Difference That Will Change Your Heart, Your Home, and Your Health (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2004), 17.
(3)George MacDonald, in George MacDonald: An Anthology by C. S. Lewis (New York: Dolphin Books, 1962), 118.(4) C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, in A C.S. Lewis Treasury: Three Classics in One Volume (New York: Harcourt & Company, 1988), 250.
Source: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
Whereas leopard cubs are indeed harmless, there is no stage of development at which sin can be said to be harmless, for individual acts of sin are merely the symptoms of the true condition of our hearts. It is not accidental that the call to Christian growth in the Scriptures repeatedly zeros-in on such seemingly benign “human shortcomings” as bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, slander, and malicious behavior (Ephesians 4:31). In his watershed address, The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus placed a great deal of emphasis on lust, anger, and contempt; behaviors and attitudes that would probably not rank high on our lists of problems in need of urgent resolution. Armed with firm and sometimes unconscious categories of serious versus tolerable sins, we gloss over lists of vices in the Scriptures because they seem to be of little consequence to life as we experience it.
But when we fail to grasp the subtleties of sin, we run the risk of rendering much of biblical wisdom irrelevant to our daily life and practice. While we appreciate the uniqueness and necessity of the sacrificial death of Jesus on our behalf, his specific teachings can at times appear to be farfetched and the emphasis misplaced. Does it not seem incredible that the God who made this world would visit it in its brokenness, dwell among us for over thirty years, and then leave behind the command that we must be nice to each other? Can the problems of the world really be solved by having people “turn the other cheek” and “get rid of anger and malice”? To quote a close friend, “Hello!”
Unfortunately, those “little” sins are not only the mere symptoms of a much bigger problem; they are also effective means of alienating us from God and other human beings. How many careers have been ruined only because of jealousy? How many people have been deprived of genuine help as a result of the seemingly side-comment of someone who secretly despised them? How many relationships have been destroyed by bitterness? How many churches have split up because of selfish ambitions couched in pietistic terms? How much evil has resulted from misinformation, a little coloring around the edges of truth? And have you noticed how much we can control other people just through our body language? From the political arena to the basic family unit, the worst enemy of human harmony is not spectacular wickedness but those seemingly harmless petty sins routinely assumed to be part of what it means to be human.
According to a NASA scientist, a two-degree miscalculation when launching a spacecraft to the moon would send the spacecraft 11,121 miles away from the moon: all one has to do is take time and distance into account.(2) How perceptive then was George MacDonald when he uttered these chilling words, “A man may sink by such slow degrees that, long after he is a devil, he may go on being a good churchman or a good dissenter, and thinking himself a good Christian”!(3) Similarly, C.S. Lewis warned that cards are a welcome substitute for murder if the former will set the believer on a path away from God. “Indeed,” he wrote, “the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”(4)Now the decisive path out of this quandary is not just a greater resolve to be obedient to God. Such a response is usually motivated by guilt, and the duration of our effort will be directly proportional to the amount of guilt we feel: we will be right back where we started from when the guilt is no longer as strong.
The appropriate response must begin with a greater appreciation of the holiness of God and a clear vision of life in Him. It is only along the path of Christ-likeness that the true nature of sin is revealed and its appeal blunted. Yes, brazen sinfulness is appallingly evil and destructive, but it only makes a louder growl in a forest populated by stealthier, deadly hunters masquerading as little leopards. It is no idle, perfunctory pastime to pray with King David:
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Test me and know my thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
And lead me along the path of everlasting life (Psalm 139:23-24).
J.M. Njoroge is a member of the speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) For example, Paul White’s, Little Leopards Become Big Leopards, published by African Christian Press.
(2) John Trent, Heartshift: The Two Degree Difference That Will Change Your Heart, Your Home, and Your Health (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2004), 17.
(3)George MacDonald, in George MacDonald: An Anthology by C. S. Lewis (New York: Dolphin Books, 1962), 118.(4) C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, in A C.S. Lewis Treasury: Three Classics in One Volume (New York: Harcourt & Company, 1988), 250.
Source: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
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