Spirituality Column #789

December 28, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

‘The God of Spinoza’    By Bob Walters

“I am the Lord thy God …” – Exodus 20:2

What I really want to talk about today is the Christian satire website The Babylon Bee, and Elon Musk, the current “richest man in the world.”

We’ll get to God and Spinoza in a minute.

For my philosophically inclined friends, sorry, this is not a treatise on the 17^th century Dutch, Jewish voice of the Enlightenment, Baruch Spinoza.  And for my Christian friends like me who are plenty happy with the simple love of Jesus and less inclined to ruin our day with endless philosophical postulates, propositions, and definitions, relax. 

The Bee will make you laugh, and Musk will make you think.

The Bee will also make you think, and Musk will also make my deepest Christian friends sit up and say, “Wait, what?  How can a guy as smart as Musk know so little about Jesus?”  Musk sat with the Bee in a 100-minute interview last week.  Fascinating.  I watched the whole thing.

The Babylon Bee (The Babylon Bee | Fake News You Can Trust) is a – forgive the ironic descriptive – wicked-smart Christian website that makes daily fun of everybody: religions, politics, culture, you name it.  It’s a quick and rewarding “read.”  Subscriptions are free, or you can pay.

Truth and surprise being critical components of humor, uncomfortable truth wrapped in wry observation is the Bee’s mission, fodder, and glory.  It was founded in 2016 and I’ve been a “Bee” premium subscriber for a couple years.  It is a daily Christian, cultural voice that, I think anyway, must not be silenced by woke, politically correct, or doctrinal sourpusses.

So that’s my pitch for the Bee – try it, you’ll like it – and we’ll move on to Musk.  If you quit reading right now because you already don’t like Elon Musk for whatever reason, at least give the Bee a look.  It’s my New Year’s gift to you.

Now on to Musk, Spinoza, and God: The Babylon Bee interview.

I was as blown away by Musk’s real-world transparency, talents, comportment, history, and observations – what an interesting guy – as I was startled by his comments late in the interview responding to specific questions about faith.  We all know dozens of people just like him, faith wise or non-faith wise. Musk is a person who can’t imagine anyone actually reading the whole Bible.

In the Bee interview, Musk first grills his hosts on who they are and what the Bee is.  Then he recounts his South African roots, late teens in Canada, developing his coding talent at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of his early ventures netting him $20 million.  We know it today as PayPal.

Named Time Magazine’s “2021 Man of the Year,” Musk recounts and opines on the media, humor, politics, his $240 Billion wealth and $11 billion income tax, Tesla, sustainable energy, SpaceX, colonizing Mars, Neuralink, artificial intelligence, and paralysis research.  Fascinating.

It was the Bee editors asking their “Ten Questions” (the same ten they ask all podcast guests) at the end the interview – two in particular – that triggered this column.

Bee: “What book would you add to the Bible?” Musk: “Has anyone actually read the Bible?”  Having grown up Anglican/Episcopalian like Musk, I know what he’s saying.

Then, question #10 from the Bee editors who reminded him they were Christians and the Bee was a Christian site, was this dandy: “Will you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”  Musk flailed a bit, brought up the “God of Spinoza” (channeling Einstein: all things are God, God is merely the sum total of human experience), and having thus defined God, didn’t say yes or no.

Here is a guy with a handle on seemingly everything in the world, more or less flummoxed by the world’s single most important question.  I pitied Musk’s lack of Bible understanding, but also remembered when I was in the exact same pitching, uncomfortable boat of faith-around-the-edges.

Thanks to the Bee, and prayers for Mr. Musk. “I AM the Lord thy God” (Exodus 20:2) is the truth of God, and “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6) is the sure promise of Jesus.

Join me in prayer to reinforce that message with Musk.  He would make a great Christian.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes the link: Elon Musk Sits Down With The Babylon Bee

 Spirituality Column #788

December 21, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Mary Knew, But …

By Bob Walters

“…the angel [Gabriel] said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.  You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High … the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.’ … And Mary said to Gabriel, ‘Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word. – Luke 1:30-32, 35, 38

The popular Christmas song title asks, “Mary, Did You Know?” 

Well, according to this Bible passage from the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, I think the answer is most definitely, “Yep, Mary knew.”  Jesus was on the way.

Mary at that time certainly didn’t know the answers to all the questions and tender images the song poses about the eventual life and work and miracles of Christ; nobody at that time did.  Despite the scriptural roadmap laid out in the Old Testament for God’s plan of salvation of humanity, this frightened but faithful and obedient teenage girl received this world-altering news from what I imagine would have been a glowing angel sent by God almighty.  Mary’s response went from fear to confusion to rejoicing.

Mary knew in her heart this wasn’t fake news. While the person, methods, and fullness of Christ couldn’t have been known then – by Mary or by anybody – humanity would come to know Jesus as the Good News of its salvation from a fallen world: the restoration of mankind’s eternal shared life in the glorious presence of our Creator God.

But in remote Judea, the Son of God to be born as a baby was on the way.  And at that moment of Gabriel’s visit, Mary was the only one who did know, along with, shortly thereafter, her similarly startled husband-to-be, Joseph, who received the news – separately – from an apparently different angel in a dream (Matthew 1:18-25). 

Where the “Mary Did You Know?” song gets it right is not so much in whether the virgin Mary knew the identity of the baby she would carry and birth – she did – but how absolutely no one in the world had any idea what God was truly up to and all that Jesus would mean during his short life on earth and for the remainder of human history. 

So yes, Mary knew.  However, her only question was how it would happen. Then … no more questions.  Her response from then on was trust, faith, and obedience to God … and love for the child growing inside her.  That was Mary’s first Christmas.

Mary was “the mother of God,” what theologians call the “Theotokos,” or “God bearer.”  Mary’s soul “glorified the Lord” and her spirit “rejoiced in God my Savior.” She knew “all generations will call me blessed.” (Luke 1:46-48). That’s quite a Christmas gift.

We share Mary’s joy when we obediently accept the savior Jesus into our lives, and Christmas is the time of year to remember that.  Joy multiplies when we remember it every day … every moment … but Christmas is when we share the story to an unsaved world that needs to hear the Good News of the birth of Jesus and salvation.

Too many of us think celebrating Christmas is about earthly gifts, when Jesus is the cosmic, divine, ultimate gift: new life in Christ.  With faith in Jesus, acknowledging Him as the Son of God, the Truth of God, the Word of God, and accepting our sins as forgiven, we are restored to the paradise of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Merry Christmas.

Mary, blessed for all time, welcomed Jesus into the world.  She knew then that the best celebration of Christmas, always, is when we welcome Jesus into our hearts.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) sees no verse mentioning Joseph and Mary talking to each other about the angels’ separate visits to them. Imagine that conversation…

 Spirituality Column #787

December 14 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Life of the Party

By Bob Walters

“I am the way and the truth and the life.” – Jesus to the disciples, responding to Thomas at the Last Supper. John 14:6

At his birth, the one we celebrate at Christmas – the baby Jesus – brought into the world the promise of restored, revived, renewed, and hope-filled life for all humanity.

Of course, almost nobody at the time knew about it: about Jesus and salvation, I mean.  For the few who did, there was only the faintest understanding of who Jesus was in God’s kingdom and no comprehension at all of whom He would become in human history.  Jesus arrived with the cry of a baby, not the trumpet of a conqueror.

Those who knew Hebrew scripture hoped, someday, for a marauding but wise and holy Messiah warrior fixing the world’s ills and establishing Israel as the ascendant kingdom of the world.  What they got instead was a humble, helpless, entirely unknown peasant baby boy born among shepherds at the far ends of the Roman empire in a poor, rural, backwater peasant town who as a man would be killed as a Jewish heretic.

Oh … if the world truly had been paying attention to the gift Jesus presented.

Jesus was life itself; He restored to humanity – on offer to all through faith in Him as the Son of God – mankind’s originally created life made in the image of God Himself.

We lost that image in man’s Fall in the garden.  The First Adam’s disobedience led to us desiring to be gods without the authority of God.  So, we created idols and worshiped ourselves and the things we ourselves made and thought.

Despite all that was given to us in the Second Adam, Jesus, we still do that today.

In ancient scripture God promised Israel He would use its obscure nation – His chosen nation – to restore and return all humanity to His love, image, and relationship.

Jewish prophecy about this restorative Messiah Christ abounded, but the coming of Jesus wasn’t what anyone expected.  Perhaps it’s a minor misnomer to say the world wasn’t paying attention, because the resurrection and the ensuing growth of “The Way” which became the Christian church, and the name Jesus itself, have influenced all life and history ever since.  Yes, the world noticed Jesus, but continued to idolize itself.

Science and philosophy are tireless in their academic efforts to explain, define, and “own” all aspects of our existence: life, thought, sense of self, consciousness, and all manner of physical and rational propositions.  Humanity, for the most part, still hasn’t figured out what this “life” is, exactly, or where it came from or what it’s for. 

Over the weekend I read a review of a new book, Being You: A New Science of Consciousness.  It was in Friday’s Wall Street Journal under the headline, “Why We Have A Sense of Self.”  I had this immediate, simple answer: “We have a sense of self because God gave us one and wants us to use it to find him, love him, and love others.”

Then, I tensed up and read the review.  As expected, there was no mention of, nor faintest allusion to, God, faith, truth, life, Jesus, sacrifice, Spirit, hope, love – i.e., reality – from these supposedly “smart,” sentient, deep, praiseworthy people. Sigh.    

They laud impotent idols of knowledge and ignore life’s true answer: Jesus.

Christmas is a party, Jesus is life, and people never understand it without faith.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows life comes from God, new life comes from Jesus, and the knowledge of truth comes from the Holy Spirit. Duh. It’s in the Bible.

Spirituality Column #786

December 7, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Story Time

By Bob Walters

“Jesus did many other things as well.  If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” – John 21:25

The Gospel of John is the last Gospel presented in the Bible, there exists little doubt it was the last Gospel written – probably late in the first century – and John 21:25 is the last verse of John’s last chapter.

And what John is saying in this closing verse of the Gospels is, “There is so much more.”

The story of Jesus is the Greatest Story Ever Told, and it is a story we will never fully grasp in this lifetime.  The Bible is the guiding light of the Holy Spirit’s largesse, sharing the magnificent story of God, creation, humanity, sin, salvation, love, and grace.

Stories are how humans communicate, and it may be God’s most under-rated gift that our narratives and languages spark creative relationships among individuals, families, neighbors, and nations.  We rarely think of stories as “a thing.”  Yet it is our unique and varied stories that bind humans together, tear us apart, define life as we know it, and make us curious to answer the greatest of all questions: “Why?”

I think it’s an easy answer: Q. “Why?”  A. “For God’s glory.”  If one pursues the plainest truth and purest proof of purpose, reason, logic, and the unmistakable presence of human instincts that go far beyond elemental survival, God gave humans the great gift of stories and language to investigate, discover, describe, expound, discern, and most importantly share all that we come to know, think, feel, hope, and believe.

In that sense, “stories,” I believe, have a divine organizational kinship with “time.”  Both are God’s gifts to humanity that we tend to neither notice nor appreciate.  God is outside of time in eternity, which remains a mostly-opaque notion to my human mind.  Christ, as Jesus, stepped into time and into humanity to communicate the love, glory, truth – the story – of God’s salvation for a fallen world: Jesus beats Satan’s hate with God’s love.  

Science, you ask?  Note that math and science don’t provide stories; they provide facts.  Where the Bible is all about “why” and stories; science is God’s gift to humans about how things work.  Science replaces God’s purpose?  No, science reveals God’s “How.”  Equations and elements and physics, discovered and defined by humans, are God’s universal language: they are the same everywhere for everybody.

New science discoveries alter man’s understanding, but they don’t alter God.

Stories, everywhere for every person, are unique and changing and gloriously promote or monstrously destroy human understanding and relationships.  Stories we errantly construct can also destroy our understanding of, and our relationship with, God.

But they can’t destroy God; He is so much more than we can fully comprehend.

Humans have God’s special spark because we think in stories.  Animals are unencumbered with such existential awareness.  If you want to assign “emotions” on pets, fine, but it is we who imprint “stories” on them.  They possess instincts, notice patterns, can be trained, etc., but who imagines an animal asking, “Why am I here?”

I say all this because I read the Bible as the Truth of God and Creation, and I’m thankful humans have the great power of experiencing and sharing God’s endless story. 

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) often tells stories to his dog Kramer, who listens.

Spirituality Column #785

November 30, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Thanksgiving Leftovers

By Bob Walters

- “… give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” – Paul, 1 Thessalonians 5:18

- “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven – the Son of Man.” – Jesus to the Pharisee Nicodemus, John 3:13

- “The time came when the beggar [Lazarus] died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side …” – Jesus to the Pharisees, parable of Lazarus, Luke 16:19-31

- “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen!” – Heavenly host, praising God, Revelation 7:12

‘Tis the latter season of thanks, and I’m praying I’ve not now put more on my plate than I can digest.  But I had a thought recently that gave me pause:

When we get to Heaven, will we be thankful to be there?

I’m serious.  “Thanks” is the humble and relational coin of our earthly realm; might relational currency in Heaven be vastly different?  Will we still be “thankful” in Heaven – once we’re there, saved and serving – or just absorbed into the glory and praise and peace of eternal life in God’s presence, knowing Jesus, and living in the Spirit among the saints?

Might “thanks” no longer be necessary due to the absence of envy, strife, turmoil, confusion, sickness, and alternatives in a perfect paradise?  Is thankfulness in this fallen earthly life merely a condition ordained by God as a coping mechanism for fallen humans to connect with Him and nurture hope?  I see nothing about gratitude in Genesis 1 or 2.

I ponder this because in life today, the glory and joy I have in Jesus is the gratitude I feel now for His truth, love, presence, promise, reality, forgiveness, etc.  Nearing His own end, Jesus didn’t pray to thank God; He prayed to glorify God and himself. Perhaps that’s a model to heed.

The above four perhaps seemingly disjointed scripture bits might lend some clues …   

-       1 Thess 5:18 – Paul knows we won’t always be happy in this life, but that our joy in Jesus comes from always being thankful in Christ, no matter our circumstances. 

-       John 3:13 – Jesus is saying to Nicodemus that no one has been to Heaven yet except Him, Jesus, who came from there (and the Spirit, I’d presume); so it’s all new for us. 

-       Luke 16:19-31 – Jesus, to be specific, doesn’t say Lazarus is in Heaven; Lazarus is wherever Moses is, and those tormented in hell can see them.  We read only of the Rich Man’s hellish lament, nothing of Lazarus (who has no lines) being thankful.

-       Ahhh … but in Revelation 4:9 (and 7:12, 11:17), the heavenly host of worshipers – angels, elders, and the “living beings” – attribute the quality of “thanks” to God along with His glory, wisdom, honor, power, and strength. So, “thanks,” in Heaven is, maybe, a purely God thing?

I used to sit with a friend, minister Russ Blowers, over lunch and occasionally we’d ponder, “What would not be in heaven.”  And not the easy stuff like sin, war, fear, envy, illness, deceit, and so forth.  Marriages are apparently out (Matthew 22:30). Will there be competition?  Fun? There were labors in Eden; will we have jobs?  Bosses? What about competition, success, winners, losers, sports fans? What about artists? Aspirations? Challenges? Is justice an issue?

Minus any challenge, will thanks be necessary? Justice? In Heaven?  It’s fulfilled. 

Whatever it is that comes next – Heaven, rewards, eternity, a perfect Earth, whatever … as my minister friend Dave Faust likes to say, once there, we won’t be disappointed. 

I suspect we may discover that thankfulness is what we do in this fallen life to recognize the great gift of new life now, and perhaps we’ll be thankful to a greater degree then.  Still, I cannot imagine being anything but forever grateful to Jesus … even in Heaven.  But maybe … ?

A simple “thanks” doesn’t cover it.  Perhaps expressing joy in our thankfulness – now – does, or comes as close as we can on this side of life.  Heaven will be all new, not leftovers.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes: Don’t worry about Heaven; love God and trust Jesus.

 Spirituality Column #784

November 23, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Hungry for Thankfulness

By Bob Walters

"Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish." - John 6:11, Feeding the 5,000

Since Thanksgiving is so much about eating, let’s look at the small boy who gave up his lunch of “five loaves and two fishes” so Jesus could “feed the 5,000” (John 6).

For openers, let’s understand these were not big, rich loaves of boutique bakery artisan bread.  Nor were the fish plump salmon, marinated and grilled with seasonings and garlic butter.  Nor was the boy wealthy or overladen with an excess of food.

John 6:9 tells us that Andrew told Jesus, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will the go among so many?"  Think of five small biscuits and a couple of smoked smelt or maybe sardines.  They wouldn’t “go far,” and barley, remember, was the cheap grain of the poor.

The small boy on the one hand needs to be sainted for his generosity, but on the other, it’s a great lesson of kindness and compassion for its own sake, not for reward, gain, or recognition.  Note: nowhere does anybody thank the boy for sharing his lunch. 

Jesus gave thanks, but it was to God for the miracle He was about to perform that the hearers might come to know God the Father by His Son Jesus, the Bread of Life, “the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (John 6:33).

In summation, the boy’s small, humble gift allowed Jesus to glorify God.  Our gifts matter.  We should all – and always – seek to do the same. 

And when we do, to praise God, find joy, and be thankful for the opportunity

Also on Thanksgiving, consider the blessing and importance of our giving thanks, and of Jesus giving thanks, and God teaching us all to be thankful … all the time. 

Why is thankfulness a blessing?  Because thankfulness is a joy-generating, God-ordained human quality of humility and grace.  Thankfulness is a really good look.

Thanksgiving, the holiday, is mostly a civil affair as opposed to a traditionally religious affair.  Only a few churches have Thanksgiving Day services and when you try to look up traditional Thanksgiving holiday church hymns … the list is pretty short.

Thanksgiving of course is a civic metaphor for God’s grace and provision, but most people think of it, if they think of God at all (too many don’t), as a time to thank God for the good earthly things He provides.  We thank God for family, our homes, our being taken care of, our nation, our love, our “stuff.” I.e., “things that make us happy.”

Instead, we should focus and invoke our best thanks for our joy.

You see, I always assert that “happy” is different from “joy.”  I like to say that happy is a symptom, but joy is a condition.  Happy is usually about “my comfort and situation right now.”  Joy, at least the true joy I’ve found, is about doing things for others. 

And remember, Jesus came to humanity not to be happy, but for the joy of saving God’s creation, sacrificing Himself, and glorifying God. 

Thanks, when you think about it, is always directed at others, never ourselves.

Thankfulness done right makes us less greedy, more charitable, and facilitates God’s two greatest commands: to love God and love others.  When we are thankful, we are joyful – we can’t help it! – and that is a great, relationship-building gift of Jesus.  And more than simply obeying God, we nurture our own joy, ease our pain, and grow in our appetite and appreciation for Christ’s peace.  That’s a wonderful hunger to have.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures that our mantle of thankfulness makes us more loveable to each other as well.  Every little bit helps.

Spirituality Column #783

November 16, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Where Does It End?

By Bob Walters

“… even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” – 1 Peter 1:8-9

Pam and I joined a few thousand other joyful souls at Clowes Hall Saturday for the stage production of C.S. Lewis’s thought-provoking 1945 book, The Great Divorce.

At least, one could well assume those gathered were mostly joyful souls.  A grump – especially a narcissistic one – would have a hard time watching the production (or reading the book) without, I would imagine, feeling uncomfortably convicted.

Nonetheless, it’s a book I’d recommend to anyone I ever heard say anything like, “A good God would not allow …”.  Or, “A God of love wouldn’t allow …”.  Fill in the blanks.  Those blanks typically are what the members of the human race do to their fallen selves when taking the cue from Satan to blame or disobey God.

In others words what I hear is, “Here’s how I would run things if I were God.”

And what I understand in those words is that I’m listening to someone who is robbing themselves of knowing God’s love, truth, and joy; and who is subordinating – at least in those moments and thoughts – the entire purpose of human life: to glorify God.

Did you think life’s purpose was to be saved?  Or to “do the right thing”?  Or as one of the opening characters in the book asserts in a huff, “I’m just here to get my rights.”  We’re here to love God, sacrifice for others, and know Jesus is the saving, perfect Son of God … and revel in the joy and life of possessing that knowledge in faith.

The Great Divorce bills itself as the divorce of Good and Evil, which it is, but I’d define it as more the great divorce of our petty, self-directed, painful lives from, and into, the great joy and glory of God’s eternal otherness and wholeness nestled in Jesus. 

Hell, or Heaven?  We choose.  Christ has already done the heavy lifting.

The Great Divorce is Lewis’s work that poses the poignant question: “Are the gates of Hell locked from the inside?”  It is a fantasy dream treatment that examines the deceased who inhabit a dreary but not-too-bad Hell who can go to Heaven – by bus – to visit or stay, any time they please.  Many make the trip; few choose to stay.

What leads them back to lock themselves in dreary Hell is their inability to cultivate, nurture, recognize, accept, or even consider the totality of God’s purpose and righteousness juxtaposed with their misplaced human sovereign sense of “Who I Am.”

On stage, four actors played the book’s 20 or so characters in front of a large video screen backdrop and it was wonderful.  It was a one-show Saturday afternoon presentation and I’m no drama critic, so all I can say is I enjoyed it and had a nice conversation about it with Pam on the way home.  I’d re-read the book earlier that day.

The book, incidentally, is a quick 140-page read and ends with the adventure’s narrator – presumably Lewis himself – waking up from this very vivid but strange dream.

Where our journey of life ends – whether in Heaven or Hell – Lewis suggests, depends on whether we choose the joy, love, totality, supremacy, and utter reality of God over the pride, jealousy, fear, suffering, and stubbornness of our vaporous lives. 

Salvation is as simple as that but impossible for many. Where it ends is up to us.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows Jesus is the only reason Heaven is open to us.

Spirituality Column #782

November 9, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Out of Focus

By Bob Walters

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.” – Romans 8:5

Mary, Martha, the mourners, and the disciples all presumably gaped in astonishment when four-days dead Lazarus came out of his tomb (John 11:44).

I doubt anyone was more surprised than Lazarus himself – if in fact he somehow knew he had been dead.  Along with death’s physical fact of rapid bodily decomposition, a common Middle Eastern cultural and religious notion was that the human spirit left the body after three days.  Jesus tarried so all would know Lazarus was really, truly, dead.

As an aside, that makes me wonder, four days on, was Lazarus already in paradise, and maybe cognizant, when Jesus called him back into, as Shakespeare put it in Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech, “this mortal coil” at a tomb outside Bethany?

If so, what a truly, truly rotten deal for Lazarus.  Maybe that’s why Jesus wept.

But in all seriousness, let’s notice two prominent scriptural realities, one before Lazarus returned to this life, and one after.

In John 11:1-40 as the story of Lazarus is told, all except Jesus were focused on the death of Lazarus and the absence of Jesus.  Jesus could have done something right now but instead delayed his arrival to make a point, and everybody missed the point.

And the point was, Jesus’s identity as the Son of God, not the miracle of Lazarus’s revival.  All of Jesus’s statements in the story reveal his intention to lead His flock to the knowledge and faith in His true identity.  Everyone else points to Lazarus.

Even Jesus’s wonderful, out-loud prayer to God in John 11:42-43 is, “for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Next Lazarus (v44) is called out, comes out, and (v45) “many put their faith” in Jesus. Then I notice something oddly missing from the story; there is no celebration.

Granted the point isn’t whether there was a celebration, but the scriptural fact is that whatever reaction there was, it is left for us to imagine. Jesus tells Lazarus to get dressed and go; that’s it.  Some “got it” and came to faith; maybe we should, too.

Jesus doesn’t say anything else.  Martha, Mary, and the others don’t say anything.  The disciples are quiet.  In the entirety of the Bible, Lazarus never does say anything. He came back illustrating Jesus’s identity … and later died another death.

The Bible is so wonderfully and vividly written that we often focus on the characters in its stories – Lazarus, the Sinful Woman, the Prodigal Son, and so many others – perhaps because we can relate in the flesh of real-life to their situations of sickness, sin, despair, failure, rejection, pride, greed, hopelessness, and confusion.

But that’s on our worst days.  On our best days we read these stories and instead focus on and relate not to the dismal fleshly failures of our own fallen lives, but on the soaring spiritual hope and truth of the identity of Jesus Christ and His restorative gift of our salvation.  We then live in the comforting truth and peace of the Holy Spirit.

Not everyone finds Jesus just because they are hopeless; many find Jesus because they read the Bible, experience the church, focus on Jesus, and are hopeful.

It’s a matter of setting – and focusing – our minds on the right Spirit.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) saw the church, read the Bible, and “got it.” Amen.

Spirituality Column #781

November 2, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

I Am, and I Mean It

By Bob Walters

In reading the Gospels, do you notice that Jesus generally doesn’t get mad at sinners?

At least not at the garden-variety, run-of-the-mill, caught-up-in-the-flesh (or pride, greed) type of sinners.  In the Bible Jesus encounters many of them, and He is typically gentle, kind, always righteous and unyielding, but not harsh, condemning, or dismissive.

Jesus tries to help sinners understand who He is.  His mercy abounds.

But notice, Jesus roars like a lion when those who should know who He is, don’t.

We’ve been looking at the “I AM” statements of Jesus in our Thursday morning “Mustard Seed” Bible study at church, and this notion of Jesus’s demonstrable anger at the Pharisees and disciples – but not at common sinners – popped into my head.

Consider “the sinful woman” caught in adultery at the start of John chapter 8. Her sins obvious, she neither confessed, apologized, asked forgiveness, repented, nor called Jesus Lord, but Jesus saved her from stoning.   Clearly His purpose, first, was to expose the treachery of the Pharisees who were using the woman’s sin to trap Jesus into condemning her.  Second, we see His mercy and righteousness on the woman.

Jesus declares, “Let He who has not sinned cast the first stone,” and the Pharisees dropped their stones and slinked away.  Jesus then asked the woman, “Who has condemned you?” and followed with, “Neither do I.  Go and sin no more.”

What we notice in all four Gospels is that Jesus is kind and often encouraging to common sinners.  Think of the good thief on the Cross next to Him.  Or the centurion, or Zachaeus, or the woman who grabbed the hem of his garment, or the woman at the well.  Jesus was compassionate, and told them of not sinning again, of paradise, faith, restitution, grace, and living water.  Go, and sin no more.  Trust His mercy.

But woe to those who should have known, appreciated, and worshipped Jesus for whom He truly was, and instead denied His identity as the Son of God.  Of course, the Pharisees first come to mind because whether by argument, parables, or occasional rage, Jesus knows they should know. Their self-serving denials ultimately destroy them.

Jesus also levels angry charges of faithlessness at his often-doubting disciples who, up to the very end and even after the end, express doubt He is the Son of God.

Jesus’s first four “I Am” statements – bread, light, the gate, and the good shepherd – are all prompted by the intransigence of the Jewish leaders.  The fifth, “resurrection and life” is stated to Lazarus’s grieving sister Martha, and the last two – “way, truth, and life,” and “the true vine” to His disciples the evening of the Last Supper.

Jesus knew that His mission was to deliver humanity from its sins and restore its relationship with God’s glory through our individual faith in Him as Lord, Savior, and Son of God.  By declaring “I Am” – as God uniquely and undeniably identified Himself to Moses – Jesus as Christ revealed the final saving truth of mankind.  I Am.  He meant it.

The Pharisees hated Jesus for this truth.  His disciples and friends harbored doubts bred in the overwhelming mystery of encountering the One True God as a man.

We take comfort that when Jesus says, “I Am,” He means it for all eternity.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures “I Am” will be on the Judgment final exam. Btw, he also teaches the Mustard Seed Bible study at E91 Thursdays at 10:30.  All are welcome; email Bob for more info.

Spirituality Column #780

October 26, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Settled Faith

By Bob Walters

“But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.  Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect …” – 1 Peter 3:15

Some years back, being “prepared to give an answer” ceased being a difficult thing for me. 

At age 47 I set my heart – and mind – on Christ as Lord, though those close to me could still see the evident chinks in my armor.  I grew in Godly faith, knowledge, hope, and resolve through reading, study, prayer, and with the mentorship and encouragement of beloved pastors, teachers, and friends. With all I was learning and thinking, it was natural to share it … in writing.  Writing is what I do.

And with a few scattered mea culpas and the tolerance and abiding grace of many Christian brothers and sisters, “gentleness and respect” in these writings have been generally more present than absent … I hope.  Jesus is my favorite subject.

This writing marks 15 years of the weekly joy that has produced 780 consecutive Common Christianity columns.  As I hear a seemingly and increasingly lost world debate and reverence various elements of “settled science” and take opinion polls suggesting doubt about the grace, presence, and efficacy of God, Christianity, and the spiritual surety of the truth of Jesus, I confidently peck away at these weekly missives.

My faith and hope in Christ are settled because in all my studies, prayer, spiritual perceptions, life experiences, quiet times, and the occasional uproar of chaotic challenges, I’ve learned two essential and unwaveringly settled things:

1. God doesn’t change, and 2. Humanity hasn’t changed. 

God is love, He is righteous, He is the Creator, Logos, Word, and Spirit, and His eternal life is unchanging yet creative, reactive, seeking, and filled with personality.  It is the mystery of all mysteries how He does it, but the truth of all truths that He does.  

People can change, sure.  I have, perhaps you have, and I’ve seen many others who have.  But we learn a lesson from all those folks in the Bible, Genesis through Revelation, on up to today’s news headlines and unchanged neighbors.  Simply put, humanity, its joy transient, thin, and limited, has never shaken its fallen, sin nature. 

It is a nature that makes us chase many worldly things seeking life and security and, as Satan promotes, denying the truth and goodness of God.  We are happy to “settle science” – as mightily helpful as science is – but deny the God science reveals.

Individuals change by discovering the divine purpose that resides not in our pride, greed, or fear, but in the joy, peace, and trust in God’s life and goodness.  We may discover a purpose and meaning within our own being, but it will die with us.  Jesus arrived amid humanity as proof – that we see in His resurrection – that a life of humility, obedience, intelligence, and sacrifice bring to us – now – God’s joy and eternal hope.

Not everybody accepts, seeks, or wants God’s unwavering truth and hope.  A stated truth of the Bible is that some folks will get it, and some won’t.  But Jesus came to settle this issue once for all humanity; God’s invitation back into the Garden stands.

Science will never settle faith or meaning; Jesus settles them every day.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), Lord willing, and with thanks, will keep writing.

Spirituality Column #779

October 19, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

First Light

By Bob Walters

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. – Genesis 1:3

Into the formless and void world with the Spirit hovering over the darkness on the deep, on the first day of creation, the first thing God created was light.

Fast forward to the Gospel of John: Jesus is asserting His identity with the argumentative and intractable Pharisees, saying in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world.”  OK, obvious question: Is Jesus this “light” God created?

Please don’t panic.  The answer is no.

Christ Jesus wasn’t “created,” for the simple reason that Jesus, as the Christ, is the second person of the eternal Father-Son-Spirit Trinity. Jesus Christ, like the entire Godhead, is “un-created.”  Nobody knows “where He came from.”  God just always was and will be.  Worry about something else.

But this “light” created on the first day of creation is fascinating, because the sun, moon, stars, and apparently all the things that cause physical light, weren’t created until the fourth day of creation (Genesis 1:14-19).  So this first light was a creation of, if not Christ, then what?

My hunch is that everyone who regularly studies the Bible has their own answer for that one, but here’s mine.  The light created on Creation’s first day was God’s proclamation of His intention, will, purpose, and mission to divide the darkness and declare His glory in a world that “In the beginning”  was nothingness.  He molded it into a world only God’s love, truth, righteousness, perfection, and goodness could create.

And the Light of the first day is the authority bestowed on Christ to do so.

It was a good first week … then “very good” when man in God’s image was created on Day 6.  But we all know about the Garden, Adam, Eve, Satan, temptation, the apple, sin, the Fall, the curse, the expulsion, and God posting the Angel with the flaming sword barring Adam and Eve – all mankind – from re-entering the Garden.

We were “post-paradise” and on our own in a now-hostile world.  What happened to all that love, truth, perfection, etc., that was to mark the glory of God’s creation?  Did God change His mind? Change His heart?  Change his purpose?

No … far from it.  God’s light was the absolute diagram of love that would brook no part of sin.  But God, loving His Creation, kept a close eye on the creatures who had betrayed Him then and continue to betray Him to this day.

The light of life, purpose, and God’s glory that was Christ’s mission continued to shine in the heavenly realms of creation, tirelessly peeking at, prodding, and pronouncing to mankind God’s unwavering righteousness.

Mankind, with few exceptions, preferred/prefers the mantle of Satan’s darkness to hide its unrighteousness.  Jesus stepped into our midst as the perfect, restorative sacrifice to remove the angel with the flaming sword and light our way back into life in the Garden.

It is a gift we cannot buy, and a light that is ours, and yours, by asking in faith.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is confident this isn’t heresy (lmk if I need light<><).

Spirituality Column #778

October 12, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Christianity

Long Division   

By Bob Walters

“Thus, the people were divided because of Jesus.” – John 7:43

At the announcement of our Lord’s birth, the angels proclaim “peace on earth.”

Then as Jesus moved toward the cross, He seemed to be dancing to a very different piper when He said this to His disciples:

“Do you think I came to bring peace on earth?  No, I tell you.  But division.  From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three.” (Luke 12:51-52)

Were the angels wrong? (No.)  Did Jesus change? (No.)  Is He a psycho? (No.) Can we trust this guy? (Yes.)  Just don’t look in the mirror and expect to see Jesus.

I’m convinced most of the world has the Jesus thing backwards – either by will, by philosophy, or by ignorance – because so much of “The World” expects in Jesus a reflection of its own errant image of “kindness”: an affirming, unifying, non-judgmental, apparently passive, soft-humored, gift-giving, flock-building, cuddly, good-time Charlie.

Like, say, an unprincipled rich uncle: not especially serious, not authentically real.

And then the World discovers that Jesus’s first principle is the unwavering love and righteousness of God.  The World says “No thanks; that’s not what I want. Jesus is a myth.” No, I’m afraid it’s the unprincipled rich uncle who is the myth; he cannot save.

Jesus as the salvation of mankind is as serious and real as serious and real get.

A Christian believer who asserts the truth of Christ will, like Jesus, be hated by the World which thinks peace is merely the absence of divisive struggle.  But the struggle, in the world, will always be with us while Satan, the great divider, is around.

It is Jesus who provides peace in the midst of struggle, of the fight for our eternal souls that is the province of Jesus.  We reduce the Christian religion to “sin and forgiveness” when the Gospels repeatedly affirm that Jesus is less ruffled by sin than by people not knowing who He is.  Salvation comes from identifying and loving Jesus. 

Notice that Jesus consistently heals, helps, and is nice to sinners; He roars at the unbelieving Jews.  Jesus isn’t angry at the sinful woman, or the Roman centurion, or the woman at the well.  But among those who should know who He is, often including His disciples and always the “brood of vipers” as he calls the Pharisees, Jesus holds them to severe account for their doubt and/or ignorance of His identity as the Son of God.

It’s not surprising that the world thinks first of sin; Satan is lord of the world and man’s sins are Satan’s reins.  We take sin’s bit and prance to Satan’s goal of stealing God’s glory as, by pride and greed, he hinders humanity’s ability to recognize Jesus.

We implore others to “Be Kind” (saw that today on a sweatshirt).  We’d rather be “spiritual” than religious.  We need only “believe” (in what?) to find goodness.  And we are happy and confident to self-affirm, “I’m a good person.”  I shake my head.

I’m afraid that’s the long dividing line.  If Jesus were wearing that sweatshirt, I sort of imagine it would instead read, “Be Righteous.”  That’s what Jesus is all the time. 

Yes, Jesus is kind, but our salvation is in identifying His righteousness and His true personhood in God.  That’s how His grace is multiplied and our peace is achieved.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) relies first on Christ’s righteousness; His truth too.

 Spirituality Column #777

October 5, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

All Day Long

By Bob Walters

“Do you sense that Christ is yours all day long?” – Ray Stedman

Several years ago I piped up in a church Bible study group that I thought the key to knowing Christ and living with Jesus was to keep it simple.

The teacher looked horrified.

It’s been long enough ago that I remember barely any specifics of what we were discussing, nor the teacher’s barely audible response.  I only remember the teacher’s look. And it was a look that seemed mainly sad, and I don’t know if that was for my benefit or his.  We had generally, I think, been having one of those “How do we know we are Christian?” and “How do we know we are pleasing Christ?” type conversations.

I said something close to, and no more profound than, “Why worry about it?  The simplest thing is to trust Jesus.”  The teacher’s look and posture suggested, sternly, not only that my solution was inadequate, but a sadness that he knew he couldn’t do it.

Keep it simple, I mean. 

He trusted Jesus … but I sensed it was a great mental, spiritual, and emotional strain to accept whether he was “doing it right.”  He didn’t know, and when we don’t know, our joy in the Lord and comfort of the Holy Spirit grows thin and develops holes.

(As an FYI, for those of you who know me well, the teacher wasn’t George.)

Almost as many years ago (15? 16?) I got into the habit of reading Ray Stedman’s online daily devotional The Power of His Presence (link).  It is short, themed, free, focuses on one Bible book per month and one scripture passage per day.  Last month the book was 2 Corinthians, and the above quote appeared Sept. 24 suggesting we can sense Christ being ours “all day long.”  To me, that’s as simple as it gets.

All day long?  Yeah … you just live with Him.  I sort of liken it to a spouse who you don’t have to really think about to be with them in spirit all the time, because you just are.  Who forgets they are married?  Who doesn’t weigh their daily decisions and actions in consideration of their spouse?  Or their kids?  Or career or commitments?

Christ should be no different, except that Christ should be first.  I recently read a note somewhere that said a great marriage focuses on Christ, a good marriage focuses on your spouse, and a bad marriage focuses on yourself.  Any relationship on any terms can be trying, but Jesus being a part of our intimate, all-day-long daily life eliminates the need to go back to the Lord in prayer, saying, “Now where was I?”

You’re just there, and you live in your faith and in His light and truth.  The point isn’t that one’s life is easy, or without sorrow and challenges.  The point is the abiding bedrock trust in Jesus that leads one through life’s complications.  We may wonder, “What am I going to do?” Or, “What is Jesus going to do?”  Fair questions, but the simplest path to joy is knowing Jesus is right there at our sides all the time.

All we have to do is invite Him in, with love for Him and others.

If you let it, it’s as simple as that … all day long.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) offers this link to the 9/24 Stedman devotional The Simplicity Of Christ (2 Cor 11:3-15).  Also, Bob is now reading “Seeing is Believing” by scientist Michael Guillen (see column #776) and loving it.  Highly recommended!

Spirituality Column #776

September 28, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Welcome Aboard

By Bob Walters

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; lean not on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5

Myself being a late-comer to faith in Christ I have perhaps a heightened compassion for those whose faith is bound up in the small and tight space of science.

I was never a scientist – not even close – but I have lots of beloved friends, family, and acquaintances who are.  Some live in faith; some don’t.  They cover the spectrum of having wide open and robust faith, no faith, some faith, seekers, no interest, lifelong believers, and never-in-a-million-years ”nones.” 

There are scientists I attend worship with every week, and some who would never open a Bible or darken a church door.  Some are all-in.  Some are curious, some sneer.  Some are respectful but distant: maybe embarrassed by the practices and optics of what a Sunday morning in church looks like or says about them.

What I accept is that their faith is their own business.  I can explain my faith to them (1 Peter 3:15), but I can’t explain their faith to them.  Sharing faith in Christ – with others – is a special and mysterious bond I never understood the first 47 years of my life.  It is not a bond I can imagine being conjured or forged in a scientific lab.

Scientists are on my mind this week because of a new book by Michael Guillen, “Believing is Seeing, A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith. Name ring a bell?  He has multiple PhDs, taught at Harvard, and was an Emmy winning science editor and reporter for ABC News.

I love Guillen’s story even before reading the book (which I ordered): a Harvard atheist discovers no explanation for the expansive, invisible world other than the very hand of God.  Guillen explains that as an atheist and scientist he was constricted to materially understanding the totality of all things as limited by their physical nature. He was wrong.

In last Friday’s Wall Street Journal Houses of Worship editorial feature Why Atheists Need Faith (link), Guillen described, briefly, how his intellect grew beyond science and how among world religions and philosophies, he landed amid Christianity.

I’m one to follow Jesus more than to “follow the science.”  Jesus doesn’t change, and science always does.  Our culture wants to postulate that science, i.e., “seeing is believing,” will somehow, can somehow, replace God.  But that’s nonsense; science helps to reveal God.  I notice the Bible is big on Why, but not How.  And I believe God bequeathed us science to search for Him and discover His “How.”  Believing is seeing. 

G.K. Chesterton noted in his 1908 “Orthodoxy” that “every circle is infinitely round, but there is tyranny in its circumference.”  Translated, any field of study – law, science, philosophy, etc. – defines its size, breadth, reach, and scope by what it allows itself to imagine.  Minus God, human enterprise and purpose shrink to nothingness. 

Guillen observed that while the physical world is limited, the spiritual world is not. “Faith is the foundation of the entire human experience,” he writes.  “Our faith in spiritual reality drives us to seek treatments for diseases, to create works of art, music and architecture, and to see life as divine creation, not an accident of nature.”  Right on.

Polls meant to discourage cultural attitudes toward faith are no match – ever – for a human heart, mind, and soul that grasp Jesus Christ.  Welcome aboard, Dr. Guillen.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) will likely have more to say after reading the book.

Spirituality Column #775

September 21, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Where Seldom is Heard …   

By Bob Walters

“… God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.  And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” 2 Corinthians 5:19

Pam and I recently visited family at a favorite old haunt in northern Michigan: Mackinaw City. It was my boyhood summer home and my parents are buried there.

Time was short over the long weekend, but relaxation was bountiful, the weather was perfect, and a schedule was non-existent.  One of my favorite things is to visit small churches when we travel and I thought it might be fun to go to one in town not far from our old lakeside home.  But … I wound up not going.

I looked up the church online to see who the preacher was and discover any info about the congregation, doctrines, etc. This one was promising; it was a traditional Bible-based church with an obviously seasoned and able pastor.  I love those guys! But his sermon series was on “Discouragement,” and my enthusiasm waned.

Everything I read about Jesus in the Bible leads me to believe that my Christian walk is blessed by the encouragement of Jesus, not to be encumbered by the plentiful discouragement of the world, let alone a litany of discouragement from the pulpit.

“But you have to face up to the world, Bob!”  And I say … no, not like that.  Satan dishes out all the discouragement he can toward Christ specifically.  And I don’t agree with why churches (this isn’t the only one) feel the need to catalogue the world’s discouragement as an argument for the love of Jesus and our salvation in Christ. 

Why not just preach the encouraging message of Christ?  I can get a week’s worth of worldly discouragement from five minutes of any show on Fox News … and – trigger warning – I tend to agree with their slant on things. 

The pulpit message of Christ can be uplifting, should be uplifting, is uplifting.  When He faced the “discouragement” leveled at him by the Pharisees, Jesus knew the grace and love of God.  He also possessed the perseverance of His own mission, obedience, and love.  Jesus never lost sight of His purpose, which was to save the world, not gripe about it.  Our purpose is to accept His saving gift and glorify God.

It’s a legitimate if mysterious question to ponder: Was / is God “discouraged” by the sin of the world, the work of Satan, the gross disobedience of Israel, the death of His only Son, broken churches, heresies, or a largely disbelieving world? I won’t guess on that one, but I am sure God never doubts His own righteousness, purpose, or love.

I believe that the body of Christ – His church – should never purpose to scare or depress people enough about the world so that they crowd fearfully into a small space with no choice but Christ.  How much better when we see the glory and purpose of Jesus, fall in love with him, and freely choose to be in faithful relationship with Him?

This side of heaven we will never encounter a world where we seldom hear a discouraging word, but discouragement is no way to tell the story of Jesus.

I’ll never know what the nice preacher at the small church up north was going to say, but I do know that alienation and discouraging words come naturally into our fallen worldly lives.  In any case, my Home on the Range is the encouraging word of Jesus.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) believes the Good News of Jesus.  That’s true media.