Friends: Jesus is pretty clear in the Bible about who He is. This is for the “He never says He’s God” crowd. Uh, yes, He does. See the column below. Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #924

July 30, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Who Is This Guy?

By Bob Walters

“[Jesus] asked, ‘Who do you say I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’” – Matthew 16:15-16 NIV

Number One on my list of pet theological peeves is when I hear someone, anyone, assert, “Religions are all alike.” No, the major religions are all very different from each other, and any assertion to the contrary reveals ignorance, not understanding or scholarship.

But that’s a topic for another day.  My Number One scriptural pet peeve is the surprisingly common assertion that, in the Bible, “Jesus never says He is God.” After reading the Bible, I don’t know how one can have any notion other than “Jesus is God.”

My longtime Bible mentor George Bebawi made the point of agreement that, no, Jesus didn’t go around promoting Himself saying “I am so and so” and “I am going to do this and that.” His mission was to shine the light of the love, goodness, righteousness, and forgiveness of His Father God into the stumbling fallenness of humanity. And Jesus was to accomplish that mission by the unexpectedly true, saving grace of servanthood and sacrifice. Mercy, not wrath.

Jesus’s mission was not to ring His own bell, but to awaken mankind to eternal life in heaven in fellowship with our Creator Father and Eternal King; the restoration of our divine roots and relationship. Jesus immediately followed Peter’s affirmation with a warning, “Tell no one.” Jesus knew he must show the world, not merely tell the world.

We see Peter affirm Jesus’s identity in all three synoptic Gospels, Matthew 16:16, Mark 8:30, and Luke 9:19. “Yeah, but,” one might notice, “Peter says Son of the living God, not You are God.” And, “Messiah,” one could argue, means savior sent by God, not God Himself.

But that misses the point, as most Jews missed the point. Look ahead into John 9:58.

There, in a tense conversation with the doubting, threatened, heresy-charging Jewish leaders who called Jesus a liar for claiming to “have seen” Abraham, Jesus drops the big one. He says, “Before Abraham was born, I AM.” That’s Hebrew for “I Am God.”

You can find Jesus on virtually every page of the Bible, Old Testament and New, if you know you are looking for the earthly actions of God in Human history.  Satan is running around, too, but with the mission of destroying man’s relationship with God. Jesus heals and restores.

This month (July 2024) my daily online Ray Stedman devotionals (LINK) have centered on Revelation and, through John, Christ’s seven letters to seven tightly-placed churches in Asia Minor.  Revelation 1,2,3, give us a bounty of Jesus – talking through John – identifying himself in several ways, in words, that He was and is the incarnate God.  Take a look:

Rev. 1:8: “I am the Alpha and Omega, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” John 1:17-18: “I am the first and the last. I am the Living One; I was dead, behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys to death and Hades.”

Rev. 2:1 (Ephesus): “These are the words of him who holds the seven stars (angels) in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands (churches).”

Rev. 2:8 (Smyrna): “the words of him who is First and Last, who died and came to life again.”

Rev. 2:12 (Pergamum): “the words of him who has the sharp double-edged sword.”

Rev. 2:18 (Thyatira): “the words of the Son of God…”

Rev. 3:1 (Sardis): “the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God …”

Rev. 3:7 (Philadelphia): “the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts, no one can open.”

Rev. 3:14 (Laodicea): “the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation.”

Those with “an ear to hear,” Jesus repeatedly says, must listen to “what the Spirit says to the churches.”  Repent, overcome, and know you know who Jesus truly is.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is refreshed reading these words of not only instruction but affirmation of truth. Faith grows strong in the reality of God’s love and righteousness.  

Friends: Seeker Christians will love this video series … if they are serious. Mature Christians will appreciate the series … if they want to help seekers. Blessings! Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #923

July 23, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Starting Well

By Bob Walters

“Now there were many other things that Jesus did …” John 21:25

The Apostle John said it plainly: even the Bible couldn’t contain everything that Jesus did. And learning even the basics of Christianity, Christian life, Christian hope, scripture, history – i.e., developing a competent personal handle on the greatest story ever told – is a daunting task.

So, enter an especially competent story teller and video producer, his friend a pastoral authority (and also a great story teller), and the unexpected appearance of a Bethlehem-native Holy Land expert, and out comes a beautifully shot and wonderfully told eight-part video on Christian basics with Bible precision and vivid, on-location Holy Land cinematography.  What one needs to know about Jesus is available right here, with discussion guides and Bible references included.

Whether the edification is for yourself, your small group, your Sunday school class, or other Bible study gathering, it is at its base a primer not just for the beginning Bible student, but also a “how-to” course for the rest of us on explaining the Bible and the story of Jesus Christ.  

To see it, click this link: Basic Christianity Video Series (or biblestudyvideos.org).  The series is free, online only, and it is a modern day video trip to Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, Bethany, Nazareth, Bethlehem and other areas where Jesus was born, lived, talked, taught, performed miracles, died, and rose again nearly 2,000 years ago.

A seasoned Christian will know the stories and have heard of the places. The series focuses on the Bible as it happened around Jerusalem, heavily covering the landmarks of Jesus. The video is straight-ahead, careful, care-taking reporting of the greatest story ever told.

Let me tell you about my friends who produced it.

Storyteller: Ken Nelson, the series’ creator, producer, videographer, and master story teller, traveled to the Holy Land in 2017 with a church group led by our friend and retired minister John Samples and his son, John W. Samples, onetime executive director of the Christian HolyLand Foundation.  “Just a tourist” at that point, Ken shot some video with his phone and, upon adding some production and voiceovers, put together a “rough” Holy Land presentation he showed to various Indianapolis area church groups. 

Ken knew he was on to something.

Pastoral Expert: That nascent, impromptu video played so well that Ken enlisted minister and former Christian college professor and president Dave Faust (the former E91 senior minister who baptized me back in 2001) to answer both basic and difficult Bible questions in the new video series.

Ken was once a TV news field reporter for WRTV in Indianapolis, and then enjoyed success with both his own video production company and a corporate personnel communications consultancy based in Indianapolis.  In late 2017 he focused his considerable talents and life-long faith on his newly-awakened passion for shooting a Bible explanation series in the Holy Land, and began gathering resources for this professional and clearly taught eight part series, approximately 35 minutes per episode.

Bethlehem Native: Any serious video production in the Holy Land requires numerous permits, and Ken’s request to shoot Jesus’s birthplace in Bethlehem was initially met with a bureaucratic “no.” But Dr. Fadi Alzoughbi (ZOG-bee), who worked at the “Garden of Nativity” (birthplace of Jesus) permitting office, saw the request and contacted Ken, saying he would help work things out.  And he did.

Fadi, a Palestinian Christian and pastor at House of Bread Church, www.hobc.info, lives two blocks from the site of the Nativity. He coordinated permits for and tours of the Bible venues Christians know. Nelson made several more trips to Israel, finished the production, and essentially gifted his efforts and this superb Bible Basics Video Series to those seeking Jesus or those leading others to Jesus.

Since Covid, and now the Hamas war since last October, Israel, Palestine, and all these Christian landmarks are not open to visitors.  But this free and extremely well done video series is every Christian’s visa to see these holiest of places where Jesus joined humanity and brought to earth God’s promise of our redemption from sin and mankind’s restoration to divine relationship with the Father. 

It is a video trip to a land currently not taking visitors, but where Jesus once “did many things.”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has worked with Nelson on various church communications projects for fund raisers and church celebrations, and admires the clarity of his Christian witness. Dave Faust’s new book, “Not Too Old, Turning Your Later Years into Greater Years,” on graciously aging in a Christian life, is available HERE CollegePress or HERE Amazon, or Sundays 10-Noon at the E91 Resource Room. And, interestingly, Bethlehem is in Palestine, not Israel. I didn’t know that.

Friends: Solomon vs. Dawkins.  A famous atheist wants freedom and meaning without God, but knows Christ is necessary to our culture. See the column below. Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #922

July 16, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

What Atheism Means

By Bob Walters

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” – Ecclesiastes 1:2

Most folks figure the speaker here is King Solomon, in the latter bracket of his life between birth and death, assessing the inadequate efforts of man to find life’s purpose.

If the speaker is indeed Solomon – being mindful of course that theologians, as with nearly everything else, land on differing views of intent and authorship – then the Old Testament’s wisest man seems fraught regarding whether purpose can be found.

Regardless of authorship, the message in Ecclesiastes is surprising simple: humanity’s efforts to establish meaning in this life are a distant and destructive second to life’s true mission.  And that mission is to discover God, love God, obey God, be awed by God … and to love others as God loves them. That’s Solomon’s meaning.

Life and existence and purpose have meaning because our focus and endgame is life with God.  It is not just a secondary “belief” that God exists and is Creator and moral master; it is life with God.  As in, I don’t “believe” I am married; I live my life with my wife Pam, and she with me. It is our life, not our belief, i.e., the truth. God is like that.

Anyway … Ecclesiastes is the Bible’s greatest screed against humanity’s self-centeredness.  We find the solution to Old Testament problems in the New Testament.

Jesus Christ was and is God’s mechanism of sharing life with humanity in divine, loving concert.  Others may hate Christians, and our Christian lives will be challenged by those who do not believe, believe something else other than Christ as God’s Son and our Lord and Savior, or prefer their own appetites over God’s righteousness.

The current century and the current year continue to give us a fair, constantly in-our-face glimmer of how life deteriorates when we dispatch God from morality and Christian ethic from our culture.  Hello woke ideology, radical Islam … and, surprisingly, of all people for the defense, famed atheist scientist and author Richard Dawkins.

Perhaps you missed earlier this year when Dawkins, in April, very publicly stated that he considered himself a “cultural Christian.” Why?  Because he saw, within atheism, the absence of charitable certitude and a baseline moral construct. 

Dawkins likes Britain and the United States – presumably anywhere – that has the morality and coherence Christianity offers: “the inviolable dignity of every human being, human rights, women’s equality, etc.,” and in his case likes the unspoken but palpable purpose that life should have some meaning.  Atheism doesn’t provide that. 

Yet, Dawkins still seems to want what many atheists actually desire, and it is not ultimate understanding or purpose. What Dawkins desires is order, but he wants “the fruit without the tree; he wants liberation from superstition and fundamentalist religion, while keeping the yield of religion.” That “yield” is morality for everyone else, and a freedom from that morality himself.  Let someone else keep order, and leave me be.

Remove Christianity, and the grounding of free culture erodes.  Dawkins realizes that.  And when there is no “grounding for existence, existence becomes meaningless.”

Ahhh.  Wokeness and radical Islam offer intolerance and fear, not freedom, love, and order. Dawkins sees them as less optimal substitutes; the fruit of post-Christianity.

All this to say, that even atheists recognize that when God goes away – when the morality of Christian culture goes away – the vacuum attracts an unpleasant maelstrom of evil.  Knowing that God is what holds life together is what gives life meaning.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) cites First Things – LINK: Dawkins, Cultural Christian

Friends: Understanding the Bible goes beyond the written text. Why do some words and phrases not match up across various translations?  Some thoughts ...  Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #921

July 9, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Luke 9:55-56    By Bob Walters

Luke 9:55 KJV – “But he turned and rebuked them, ‘Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. 56 For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.’ And they went to another village.” (King James Version, Bible)

Luke 9:55 ESV, NIV, NASB, RSV – But He turned and rebuked them. 56 And they went on to another village.

Last week I was merrily writing along about the apparent academic trend in theology supporting “universal salvation” and David Bentley Hart’s erudite defense of that idea.  Based on my reading of the Bible, I voiced doubt that “everyone is saved.”

All that hasn’t changed.  But while rechecking the column’s cited verses prior to publication, I was stopped in my tracks when I looked in my trusty NIV 1984 edition for Jesus’s words in Luke 9 about coming to “save men’s lives, not destroy them.”

Those words aren’t there.  Not in the NIV, ESV, NASB, or RSV. Scrambling to find the verse in my KJV, yep, there in Luke 9:55-56, was Jesus rebuking the disciples and assuring salvation. At that point I changed my search from studying parallel verses to translation differences. How did I not know about this enormous scriptural variance?

You Bible scholars out there already know that there are “families” of ancient texts, and that MSS (manuscripts) and codexes and papyri typically present scripture in diverse forms. The A game, obviously, is to know the Greek yourself (I don’t).  The Super A game is also to know Hebrew as well (I don’t), with a side of Aramaic, Syriac, Copt, and Latin.

There are many who read the King James Version and trust no other Bible. The joke is, “If the KJV was good enough for Paul, it’s good enough for me.” Hopefully, I need not explain the joke to you (IYKYK). But, the “KJV Only” crowd is intractable.

Of course, I trust the Bible as both God’s word and my guide to relationship with the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, church, and humanity in general.  So, when scripture throws me for a loop or I see something I either don’t expect, don’t understand, or seems contradictory, I figure it is my knowledge, not scripture, that needs work.

My theological mentor and Bible teacher George Bebawi, the multilingual Egyptian bible translator, patristics expert (the early church), and divinity lecturer at, among other places, Cambridge University, England, after he retired taught a weekly Bible class at our church (East 91^st Street Christian, Indianapolis) for 14 years (2004-2018). I coordinated the class, formatted his teaching materials, and took notes.

George knew all the above stated “Super A game” languages, plus English, German, Arabic, and maybe one or two others.  He had studied ancient sources and original texts in Paris, Germany, Israel, Egypt, and Vatican, and was unbothered by the broad shadings of the oldest writings.

I suppose it is no real challenge to read one translation of the Bible, like I do with my NIV 1984, but I also know it is important to be aware of the corpus of scriptural foundation and diversity.  In proper Christian scripture, what you find is not different religions; Christ is always Lord and Savior, God is eternally three in one and exists as an eternal loving relationship, Creator of all things, and judge of all humanity, etc.

What my research turned up – and this is just the superficial gloss of a non-academic, i.e., me – is that the KJV did not add anything, nor did the NIV, ESV, NASB, or RSV (and others) take anything away. They accurately translate the manuscripts they used, and variances do not call into question these basic doctrines of Christianity. Words simply may be in one place, but not another, John 12:47, here, for example.

Bible understanding takes some work, but trusting Christ is salvation’s door.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) found this Wiki list of verses not in modern Bibles.

Friends: I think eternal salvation isn’t just about God loving us, but also about who and what we choose to love in this life.  Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #920

July 2, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

What Will You Love?

By Bob Walters

“All flesh shall see salvation.” Luke 3:3-6 quoting Isaiah 40:5

What about that?  Will everyone be saved?

For the past several years in my various readings and studies from various sources and teachers, I’ve noticed this unmistakable, current cant in various academic and theological views: Universalism, the view that everyone will be divinely “saved.”

It’s a real thing, a current cause célèbres among some very bright Christian intellectuals.

I have a tough time buying it, but make no mistake, this isn’t about a progressive church saying “do whatever you want to do.” This is about sophisticated, modern scriptural and theological academics reconstituting centuries-forgotten minor doctrines of the ancient church, dormant through the Middle Ages and Early Modern Era, who now today reject “the doctrine of eternal punishment in hell by unrepentant sinners.” And I’m thankful to emeritus professor R.V. Young for pointing this out and writing a pretty fair push-back.  We’ll get back to Dr. Young in a minute.

My most direct acquaintance with the idea of universal salvation was from a writer named David Bentley Hart whom I have read frequently over the years on a wide variety of topics in First Things journal.  It is an intellectual task yet a delightful linguistic workout to keep up with Hart’s vocabulary and syntax.  His “baroque” writing is akin to that of the late atheist commentarian Christopher Hitchens, though Hart is no atheist.

And Hart is no iconoclast either, merely blasting away at the status quo for the pure enjoyment of watching the chips fly.  No less than Origen of Alexandria (AD 185?-254?) and Cappadocian father Gregory of Nyssa (AD 335-395) put forth similar “universal” ideas in the formative years of the church. Scholars have picked it back up the past 100 years or so.

Hart, undoubtedly the most vocal of modern voices on the topic, in 2019 authored the book, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation. Hart is a fellow at the University of Notre Dame, a renowned scholar of philosophy and theology, and, as a political persuasion, is an avowed democratic socialist. Hart is a gifted, fascinating writer and thinker with quite a sizable online following; I know; I used to be one of them.

When Hart went all in on the universal salvation thing, I backed away because the notion simply didn’t/doesn’t make sense to me.  I read the Bible; you probably do, too. Judgment happens.  Yes, Jesus came to “save not to destroy” (KJV Luke 9:56, John 12:47).  But thankfully Professor Young, mentioned above, penned as leavening an “op-ed” to Hart’s “Olly olly oxen free” as I’ve ever read.

Young’s article, “The Narrow Gate,” runs in the current issue of Touchstone, A Journal of Mere Christianity, where Young, Emeritus Professor of English at North Caroline State University, is a senior editor.  There is a quick bite of the article HERE, but the bulk of it requires a subscription. It is a great magazine I highly recommend and enjoy. Sorry I can’t provide the entire article.

My primary aim here is to expose that this “Universalist” idea exists in modern theological thought, and then to note that Young does a masterful job examining Bible verses, the Gospels, Paul, ancient sources, biblical development, and modern scholarship to arrive at a compelling, comforting, and inspiring case for faith’s continuing critical role in eternal salvation.

Life’s purpose, Christ’s purpose, and the great dramas of human life go away if sinning yields the same eternal outcome as being a saint.  Young points out in so many words that we do not get to decide to be saved; we get to decide what we love. Salvation comes from that, not dispassion.

Matthew 25:31-46 is among many places Jesus notes that judgment and eternal sorting – sheep and goats, wheat and chaff, etc. – will happen. That’s God’s job.

Our job is not to judge but one – neither Judas nor Hitler – but only one: myself. Scary.

We Christians are pretty touchy about Jesus leaving heaven’s gate wide open for everyone.  But ask yourself this: Who would you sincerely pray for God not to save? Probably no one. 

And therein lies the drama, the tragedy, the comedy, the joy, and the despair: Are we willing to love God and others enough to trust our salvation to God’s merciful hands and Jesus’s grace?

I believe we must, I believe love is a choice we make, and I believe that is how it works.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is aware of the especially secular preponderance of thought along the lines that “God must be a monster” if He doesn’t save everyone. The question is, “Why would anyone want to spend eternity with God if that person didn’t want to spent this life with God?