Spirituality Column #745

February 23, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Evil ‘I,’ Part 2    

By Bob Walters

“We have met the enemy, and he is us!” – Pogo, 1970 poster / comic strip by Walt Kelly

We want to be in charge.  We really, really do.

Whether people, all humanity, philosophers, politicians, control-freaks of every stripe, even the timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat, it is implanted in our willful, human, universal being that we should have the ultimate, permanent, authoritative say regarding the world in which we live and of how things ought to be.

But … we don’t, though we encounter things all around us that are permanent.

Such as?  How about all the God stuff, the “Mother Nature” stuff?  The sun rising and setting, the stars at night, the moon going from full to dark to full, the cycles of wind systems across the earth, the perpetual evaporative cycle that pulls water up from the oceans, waters our lands, and then returns to the sea.  Our relative presence on earth is seemingly unnecessary; our earthly labors, desires, and initiatives … meaningless.

If that sounds familiar, it’s a direct lift from the Bible’s Ecclesiastes 1.  The teacher / searcher who almost everyone agrees is Solomon (we can’t even control agreement on that), is telling us that in this otherwise and, on its face, totally depressing Old Testament book, the only thing that does have meaning is that which God controls.

And God is amazingly, incredibly, and often annoyingly to us, consistent.

Why is it that we were shaped in the image of God, yet we don’t get to control that which God designed to serve our existence?  Ray Stedman wrote, “The Bible tells us that people were created to be the crown of creation.  They are the ones who are in dominion over all things.  People ought to last endlessly and nature ought to be changing, but it is the other way around.  Humans feel the protest of this in their spirit.”

And when we protest the consistency of God, that’s the door through which Satan enters our being and muddles our view – muddles the cosmic truth – of God’s ultimate, objective goodness, His love, and His absolute righteousness.

Evil lurks in this world in more than just human-generated interactions that result in jealousies, injustices, wars, and the like.  We perceive evil visited upon humanity from the natural world as well: weather disasters, diseases, earthquakes, volcanos, plagues, infestations … not to mention the death and temporal frailty of our human bodies.

Where is our strength?  Where is our freedom?  Where is our hope?  Where is our ability not to ruin ourselves and our world?  Where is our purpose that as we live in this world over which we have so little control we find the promised glory of God? 

The teacher / searcher is telling us that everything in life is meaningless: except God. We must learn through our steady faith in God – discoverable through our minds, spirits, and souls – that we have one shot at a permanent place in God’s Kingdom.

And what is that discovery that has meaning?  That does not pollute our living being and God’s creation with Satan’s wiles and misplaced angst against our Lord?

It is our discovery of Jesus Christ, of faith in Him, and the truth of God’s love.

That’s what turns the world of our Evil “I” – me – into eternal confidence in and relationship with the Good One.  Let’s strive to be in charge of sharing that discovery.

Walters (rlwcom.aol.com), speaking of pollution, notes that the Pogo quote was on an anti-pollution poster Kelly drew for the very first Earth Day, April 22, 1970.

Spirituality Column #744

February 17, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Evil 'I', Part 1

By Bob Walters

“The devil made me do it!” – Flip Wilson as Geraldine, 1960s comedy routine

“We have met the enemy, and he is us!” – Pogo, 1970 comic strip by Walt Kelly

That’s The Evil “I”, as in, “I” am part of the problem.”  It helps answer a question that arose recently in Sunday school: "If God created everything, why did He create evil?"

I offered a knee-jerk, defense-of-God response about human free will and its necessity to discover love.  Unless we love out of our own volition given to us by God (i.e., voluntarily), we can know only coercion, slavery, or convenience, not love.

Evil, I was trying to say, was more of a free-will, collateral damage thing, not a punishing, intentional God thing.  I’ve been thinking about that question all week, and while that’s not a terrible answer, it’s terribly incomplete.  It occurs to me that if we examine the Bible and then examine ourselves in a mirror, evil may not be so much a created, outside affliction as it is an internal, unnatural, and humanity-wide condition.

Does the devil create evil and make us do evil things?  Or do humans just habitually make miserably bad choices due to pride, fear, greed, jealousy, power, lusts – all egregious misuses of our free will.  Satan is a creation of God, yes: an angel expelled from heaven for denying God’s will and himself wanting to be God. 

But God didn’t originally create Satan to be evil, at least I don’t think so; the Bible is silent on that one.  However it happened, Satan freely grew into it.  Nor did God create humanity to be evil: Adam and Eve were pure in paradise.  Fallen Satan tempted them with two of the worst lies on record: 1. God’s word and will are not firm; and 2. obedience to God’s commands is optional.  Adam and Eve bought it, God cursed them, all humanity, and Satan; evil has been the world’s greatest problem ever since.

Why did God do that?  First, let’s look at who God is; i.e., how we typically describe Him.  God is good, just, loving, creative, trustworthy, faithful, in control, merciful, and oh yeah, don’t forget this one: God is righteous.  Oh boy, is He righteous.

Some folks would put “wrathful” on that list, but I think “wrath” is God’s reaction, not God’s nature.  Just like Satan wasn’t evil before he disobeyed, God wasn’t wrathful before His righteousness was challenged.  Throughout the Old Testament, while we see God’s wrath on full display, we also see God’s will and righteousness on full display. Sometimes it’s truly hard to imagine how humans could possibly tell the difference.

Think of all the people God protected.  Think of all the others – foe and friend alike – He destroyed.  Think of how He hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus) against freeing Israel from bondage so God could unleash His glory on full display – which to the Egyptians would have looked a whole lot like evil: signs, plagues, Pharaoh’s army drowning in the sea, and, not to mention the loss of much of the nation’s labor force.

This is not about “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”  God’s righteousness is not a matter of debate or perspective; at least, it shouldn’t be – not among humans, especially faithful humans.  God is righteous all the time; that is truth.

We blame Satan for evil in the world, but on closer inspection it is humanity’s misuse of free will and its woeful decisions to listen to Satan’s lies that reveal evil.  It is a faithless dodge to say, “The devil made me do it.”  No, we do it to ourselves.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) continues next week: God’s stunning consistency. 

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Spirituality Column #743

February 9, 2021

Jesus On Every Page

By Bob Walters

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place, and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth.” – Philippians 2:9-10

I believe you can find Jesus on every page of the Bible if your heart is intent on looking for Him.

That said, my wife Pam led worship in our E91 Traditional Service a couple weeks ago and read a wonderful passage from The Celebration Hymnal (1997, Word/Integrity Music). Remember hymnals?  This hymnal has more than just songs, and since the service many people have asked for a copy of the reading.  Here it is.

The hymnal’s page 14 has the heading “Name Above All Names” (with no author listed, regrettably, because I’d love to know who wrote it), and this intro: “God has promised He will never leave or forsake us. In Christ, God revealed His faithfulness to us from the beginning of time.”  And then Pam read the piece … it took my breath away.

“In Genesis Jesus is the Ram at Abraham’s alter.  In Exodus He’s the Passover Lamb.  In Leviticus He’s the High Priest.  In Numbers He’s the Cloud by day and Pillar of Fire by night.  In Deuteronomy He’s the City of our refuge. 

“In Joshua He’s the Scarlet Thread out Rahab’s window.  In Judges He is our Judge.  In Ruth He is our Kinsman Redeemer.  In 1^st and 2^nd Samuel He’s our Trusted Prophet and in Kings and Chronicles He’s our Reigning King. 

“In Ezra He’s our Faithful Scribe.  In Nehemiah He’s the Rebuilder of everything that is broken and in Esther He is the Mordecai sitting faithfully at the gate.  In Job He’s our Redeemer that ever-liveth. 

“In Psalms He is our Shepherd and we shall not want.  In Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, He’s our Wisdom and in the Song of Solomon He’s the Beautiful Bridegroom.

“In Isaiah He’s the Suffering Servant.  In Jeremiah and Lamentations, it is Jesus who is the Weeping Prophet.  In Ezekiel He’s the Wonderful Four-Faced Man and in Daniel He is the Fourth Man in the midst of a fiery furnace.

“In Hosea He is our Love that is forever faithful.  In Joel He baptizes us with the Holy Spirit.  In Amos He’s our Burden Bearer.  In Obadiah our Savior and in Jonah He is the Great Foreign Missionary that takes the Word of God into all the world.

“In Micah He is the Messenger with beautiful feet.  In Nahum He is the Avenger.

In Habakkuk He is the Watchman that is ever praying for revival.  In Zephaniah He is the Lord, mighty to save.  In Haggai He is the Restorer of our lost heritage.  In Zechariah He is our Fountain and in Malachi he is the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings.

“In Matthew He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  In Mark He is the Miracle Worker.  In Luke He’s the Son of Man and in John He is the Door by which every one of us must enter.

“In Acts He is the Shining Light that appears to Saul on the road to Damascus.

“In Romans he is our Justifier.  In 1^st Corinthians our Resurrection.  In 2^nd Corinthians our Sin Bearer.  In Galatians He redeems us from the law.  In Ephesians He is our Unsearchable Riches.  In Philippians He supplies our every need and in Colossians He’s the Fullness of the Godhead Bodily.

“In 1^st and 2^nd Thessalonians He is our Soon Coming King.  In 1^st and 2^nd Timothy He is the Mediator between God and man.  In Titus He is our Blessed Hope.  In Philemon He is a Friend that sticks closer than a brother and in Hebrews He’s the Blood of the Everlasting Covenant.

“In James it is the Lord who heals the sick.

“In 1^st and 2^nd Peter He is the Chief Shepherd.  In 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd John it is Jesus who has the tenderness of love.  In Jude He is the Lord coming with 10,000 saints.”

“And in Revelation,” with Heaven standing open, He rides a white horse

and is called Faithful and True.  With justice he judges and wages war.

His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns.

"He is our King of Kings and Lord of Lords."

My friend and teacher George Bebawi, who taught so many of us so much about knowing Jesus in the Bible and, more importantly and profoundly, in our lives, passed away before dawn last Thursday.  I could think of no better way to honor him this week than by talking about Jesus through all 66 books of the Bible ... and I had this reading passage my wife found for a worship service.  Perfect.

George, in home hospice at the end, died quietly with his loving wife May at his side and two of his three sons, visiting from Texas and Germany, at home with him.

Now, George is with Jesus whom he loved and defended fiercely in life.  Restored to communion in the Coptic Church last fall, George was a lion in the service of the Lord and possess a Christian and philosophical intellect on par with any in this world.  I love George dearly and he will be missed by not just his lioness May, his family, and close friends but multitudes of Christians and especially Copts he touched wrldwide.

Rest in peace, Rabbi.  You ran the good race, fought the good fight, and finished well.  With our deepened faith in Jesus we will revere your memory always.  Thank you.

Signed, The Archbishop

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that George was buried Monday, Feb. 8, in Oak Lawn Cemetery, Fishers, Ind., USA, after a private family Coptic / Orthodox funeral.  He guesses George’s first words inside the pearly gates were, “Where is this Paul?” 

A post-Covid memorial gathering ??? is something May hopes to arrange ... tbd, obviously.

Also, regarding the reading passage above, Bob deeply cherishes the victorious and “White Horse” Jesus of Revelation 19 and so suggested Pam’s edit in the reading’s last paragraph (portion not in quote marks). We hope Word Music doesn’t mind.

And one last thing … George, before finding Christ in his late teens, grew up Jewish (in a Muslim neighborhood in Cairo, Egypt, if you can imagine).  Hence, Bob called him “Rabbi.”  Early on, George responded to that sobriquet by noting Bob’s Episcopalian upbringing and dubbed him “The Archbishop.” 

 Spirituality Column #742

February 2, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

God Already Knows

By Bob Walters

Today we are going to look at a short list of hot topics with brief Bible and Christian comments about each.  Here we go …

Purpose: “O Lord, our Lord … what is man that you are mindful of him?” – Psalm 8:4

Many folks wonder or worry about the question, “What is my purpose in life?”  Or, “Why am I here?” What if we start with “God’s purpose” instead of “my purpose?” Then, go forward with the simplest of all answers: “My purpose is to glorify God.” 

That’s why we’re here, that’s why God created us.  We want life to be about “me.”  But all life and especially humanity was created by God for His glory and delight.  

How do we accomplish that mission?  Believe Jesus is God’s son.  Then?  Seek Jesus as He seeks you.  Then? How about … be creative, love your fellow humans, be a servant to them, and develop and persevere in your talents which are gifts from God.

Don’t obsess on your own behavior or “purpose;” focus on loving others.

God sees love, because He is love.  That should be purpose enough.

Government: “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities … authorities that exist have been established by God.” Romans 13:1

We are all wondering what the heck is going on with our government, with us, with our nation, who’s leading, who’s following, who’s good, who’s evil.  I have strong opinions on all that.  But I want to present just this one thought about who, exactly, are the “governing authorities” in the United States of America.  According to the U.S. Constitution, it’s “We the People,” who, according to the Declaration of Independence, “are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

I read these two lines along with Romans 13:1 and think: We the People are the God-mandated authority for this nation; not elected leaders. We are the government.  This is different from every other place on earth, and God gave it to us.  Think about it.

Lying: “The Lord detests lying lips…delights in people who are trustworthy.” Prov 12:22   

We have had some lively Sunday School discussions lately, as we study the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-6-7), about, “Is it ever OK to lie?”

The standard knee-jerk reaction is “Of course not!”  In the Ten Commandments, No. 9 (Exodus 20:16, Deuteronomy 5:20) is “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.”  That’s more about loving your neighbor and honoring the good order of the community than a blanket, “Though shalt not lie.”  Are we to be “shrewd as vipers”?

Something’s out of whack.  And I know that because in Genesis there are dozens of lies and deceptions by both the wicked and the good – Satan, Cain, Abraham (more than once), Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Rebekah, Joseph’s brothers, Potiphar’s wife, even Joseph himself.  It is God who sorts out which lies He tolerates and which He punishes.

However, our joy on earth is largely dependent on who honors God, and how we honor each other.  Acting honorably in the first place, and telling the truth, helps all.

The worst part of lying may not be in the sin, but in being found out by people.

God already knows.

Judging – “Do not judge...”  Matthew 7:1 

Perhaps the most oft-quoted and most misunderstood and misapplied advice in the Bible, this verse is quoted surprisingly often by people who do not believe the Bible.

Of course humans have to judge.  We do our best to discern right from wrong, what works and what doesn’t, what and who are healthy for us and what and who are not.  Judgment is what keeps us alive. That’s part of the light God gave to humanity.

“Don’t judge” – and leaving it at that – is the same thing as saying “Don’t use your brain.”  My experience is that most people who say this mean, “Shut up and leave me alone.”  For reasons, weaknesses, or appetites of our own, we are aware when we are doing something “wrong” and resist others pointing out our flaws.  “Don’t judge.”

However, in the overall context of Matthew 7 and the instruction of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-6-7), this makes total sense for everybody if “Don’t judge” is meant to infer “Don’t compare.”  Back up a few verses to Matthew 6:5 where the showy, praying, proud Pharisee is comparing himself with the lowly, praying, humble tax collector.  The Pharisee proclaims, “Thank you, God, that I’m not him!”

If we are simply glad for others, have compassion for others, and don’t compare our situations with theirs – good or bad or just different – relationships go best when we focus on Christ-like sacrifice, service, loving, and kindness.  Envy-feeding and class-delineating judgment hurts humanity.

Use good judgment … and apply it freely.

God is in Control – “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” 2 Timothy 1:7

Funny thing. I can’t find a single verse in the Bible that says, “God is in control.”

I know … the whole Bible is about God being in control.  But it’s not that simple.

In the beginning God created everything, and in the end, He judges everything.  Yep, God’s in control.  He is so in control, in fact, He endowed humans with freedom so that they could freely discern to have faith, or not to have faith, in Him.  Humans also have freedom to love, or not love.  How does this “freedom” square with “control?”

There is no honor or glory for God if He forces us – controls us – to love Him.  Same as if we try to coerce another person to “love” us in this lifetime; it will end up looking like slavery, not love and freedom.  If we have “free will” and therefore choose that which we love – and I believe we do – it honors God greatly when we love Him and love others on His terms but in our own free, responsible, God-gifted will.

We also must notice all the hearts in this world that are quite obviously controlled by Satan.  Yes, God’s got the big stuff.  Satan comes after Genesis 2, and Satan goes before Revelation 21, and God is in control.  But all that stuff in between?

Some folks run toward Jesus, some toward Satan; some just run, some just sit.

We have to realize … at some point, we better find Jesus and control ourselves.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) had to get some of this off his chest.  He hears beliefs and doctrines all the time that point inward rather than outward. Some of this he has written about or alluded to before.  And as far as this nation at this moment is concerned, “We the People” need to get our act together.