Spirituality Column #415
October 28, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

“Are there angels in church?”

You never know where our Wednesday night Bible study teacher George is going with this type of question.  I mean, of course there are angels in church, but ….

Dr. George Bebawi, theologian, church history expert, Bible translator and retired lecturer from Cambridge University’s school of divinity, was discussing the Gospel of Luke and noted that angels appear throughout the Bible, especially in the early parts of the four Gospels.  Think of Gabriel delivering messages to Mary and Joseph, parents of Jesus, and to Zechariah and Elizabeth, parents of John the Baptist.  Angels comfort the shepherds, minister to Jesus, are constantly “going up and down” from heaven and are regularly God’s messengers in the Gospel narrative.

George chuckled at the notion of wispy, delicate angels with wings, an image he pointed out is not the least bit biblical despite being very much a part of medieval church artistic lore.   When you think about it, most of the Bible’s angels are actually warrior, counselor types.  The TV mini-series “The Bible” presented angels that looked and acted more like communicative Navy Seals on a mission than dainty cherubs of myth.

Anyway, if you know the Bible, you understand angels are real.

But are they in church?

We twisted in our seats, wondering how to answer this intuitively easy question with intelligently discerned biblical assurance.  In a room of mature, thoughtful Christians, nobody blurted out an answer.

George finally broke the tension.  In the Bible, he pointed out, angels are constantly around Jesus, so if Jesus is in church with us – which we believe He is – then angels are most certainly there, too. Easy enough.

George then offered a couple of stunning observations about worship, angels and the destiny of mankind.

In church, we worship God, yes.  But how much more properly are our hearts in tune for worship if we realize that we join in praising God with the entire heavenly host – the angels and saints – who are praising God loudly and always (Isaiah 6, Luke 2, Ephesians 1:6-10, etc.)?  In church, we sing with the heavenly choir.  I love it.

George further noted that after His death on the cross, Jesus didn’t become an angel; he became a resurrected human.  As the image of God, our goal isn’t to become heavenly angels, but to perfect our humanity in Christ.  It was the human person of Jesus who was crucified, buried, resurrected, and then ascended to the right hand of the father.

Angels are messengers, but they are neither the message nor the goal.

Jesus Christ is the message, and humanity is our goal.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) can’t sing especially well but often blurts out answers.

Spirituality Column #414
October 21, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

An Evening with George
By Bob Walters

For the past decade – since September of 2004 – most of my Wednesday evenings have been spent studying with and pondering lectures by Christian scholar, Bible translator and Carmel resident Dr. George Bebawi.

George, retired from the Divinity faculty at Cambridge University, England, prepares lengthy notes for each class and then like the university lecturer he is, often puts the notes away (figuring you can read them later) and lectures on corollary topics.  East 91^st Street Christian Church in northeast Indianapolis is host of the weekly series and this fall George is teaching The Gospel of Luke: Witness to the Gentiles.

A recent class handout discussed the birth of John the Baptist in Luke 1.  Among his notes George listed several echoes and fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies, promises and personalities.  John’s mother Elizabeth, like Isaac’s mother Sarah, was well past child-bearing age.  John is filled with the Holy Spirit, as was Elijah.  John’s father Zechariah, a priest who entered the Holy of Holies, emerges mute, unable to pronounce the customary blessing “The Lord bless you and keep you …, etc., that appears in Numbers 6:24-26.

Good, standard stuff.  Then came George’s zinger: Why was Zechariah mute?  Well, because the priestly blessing from the Old Testament is about to become unnecessary because the True and Final blessing – the person of Jesus Christ – is on the way in the womb of Elizabeth’s young relative Mary.

Like so many things George says, I’d never thought of that.

His lecture included other pearls.  Warning against “biblical anemia,” George listed several things we miss if we read the Old Testament without understanding the tangible arrival and work of Jesus Christ in the Gospels of the New Testament.

For example, in the 23^rd Psalm the Lord is a comforting Shepherd, even as we “walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”  In the New Testament our shepherd is Jesus Christ, who dies for us.  I hadn’t thought of that, either.

George pointed to four things missing in the great Old Testament prophesies of Isaiah: 1) the actual fulfillment of those prophesies, 2) the real arrival of the Messiah, 3) the materialization of the light of life in the person of Christ, and 4) and the coming of God himself among us in His son Jesus.  Isaiah presents true predictions, but the Truth of Jesus Christ comes to fruition in the Gospels.

George also had compelling things to say about angels, worship, humanity, and the truth of our destiny in the person of Jesus Christ.

All something to think about.

More next week.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) coordinates George’s E91 class, which is free and open to the public Wednesdays 6:30-7:45 p.m. in the upstairs Sun Room.

Spirituality Column #413
October 14, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Christians know plenty of people who are unwilling or unable to believe in Jesus Christ because we can’t prove His divinity, resurrection, truth and worth to them.

I have a driver’s license in my pocket that proves I am a licensed driver.  Somewhere I have a diploma that proves I graduated from college.  The fact that I am in church most Sundays proves … that I go to church.

But the Jesus license I carry in my heart is not something so easily revealed to, proved to, or understood by others.  If Heaven is a diploma, I can’t dig in a dusty box and say, “See? Here it is.”  If I attend and am involved in my church, it takes Jesus or other Christians to understand and judge my actions.  The life we lead, the love we share, the servanthood we offer, the peace-patience-mercy we demonstrate, the perseverance we exhibit can all be evidence of Jesus Christ in our lives.

We all know lots of people with these generally “good person” traits – generosity, humility, a magnanimous spirit toward others; you know, nice folks – who would never darken the door of a church or seek the light of Jesus.  To believe Jesus is real, they demand clear, unarguable evidence: a license, diploma or visible proof – not mystery.

The New Testament hammers home the centrality of faith as our proof and love as our purpose as the core of the Gospel truth, the good news of Jesus Christ.

A Christian’s demonstration of a loving attitude, exhibition of knowledge, or even an offering of works won’t be enough to “prove Christ” to an unbeliever.  Anyone can be even-tempered, bright and generous; anyone can be deceived by “a fine-sounding argument” (Colossians 2:4).  Faith is bigger than actions or argument.

God loves us enough to sacrifice the most precious life He knows – that of His son Jesus – to cover the sin of man’s worldly existence.  No government bureau or academic institution can issue that kind of credential; only the Holy Spirit can.  The joy of being a Christian is our shared, loving relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ thanks to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

The Jews and Gentiles of Jesus’ time had a similar problem accepting the reality of Jesus, because Jesus wasn’t one to fully disclose, codify, or systematize the truth He brought of God’s love.  “Jesus doesn’t fully disclose himself because faith only develops if you make your own discovery,” teaches Christian scholar Dr. George Bebawi.

Our faith is our proof; sharing God’s love is our purpose.

That’s the point Jesus was trying to make.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) for most of his life preferred argument to belief.

Special note: Walters coordinates Dr. Bebawi’s Wednesday night Bible study at East 91^st St. Christian Church, Indianapolis, 6:30-7:45 p.m., upstairs Sun Room.  Free and open to the public.

Spirituality Column #412
October 7, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

The teenager walking into the public junior high school wore a t-shirt with one word on the back.  In large, bold letters it read: “Justified.”

I thought, “How awesome!  Here is a young Christian professing faith in salvation, who knows Jesus, knows enough theology to praise Jesus’s sacrifice for our sins, probably got the shirt while participating in an uplifting Christian youth program, and is courageously wearing that message into public school.  Right on!”

Then I saw the front of the shirt, which named the school mascot followed by the word “Pride.”  It was a school spirit shirt, not a Holy Spirit confession.  The shirt’s message, coming, was “School Pride.”  Going, it was “Justified.”

My creative hope for this small slice of spiritual revival had rushed ahead of reality.  It was just an innocuous, secular piece of community-building apparel, not a crusade.  While my brain had run on ahead to all that the Bible and especially the Apostle Paul had to say about Christ’s sacrifice on the cross providing sinful man with justification before God, the student had merely pulled on a t-shirt and gone to school.  Most likely it wasn’t even a prideful decision, just the next shirt in the pile.

And so it goes in our daily lives.  Even if we aren’t teenagers, how many of us just “pull the next shirt out of the pile” and go about our day without ever thinking about the great spectrum of divine life?  How many folks in the world rarely make a decision based on Christ’s mercy, God’s glory, or the leading of the Holy Spirit?

Of course, one of the main problems we all encounter is that our “shirts” are often stacked against us.  The world’s message is focused on the “seen” and the “felt,” not the mystery and subtlety of God’s message.  The world sees the word “justified” as a simple descriptive for self-evident authority, not as the first phase of our soteriological (salvation) journey to a redeemed life in the eternal heavens glorifying God Almighty.

The world promotes taking pride in ourselves for our own sakes rather than endorsing pride in Jesus Christ for God’s glory.  Paul encountered the Corinthian church in all its legalisms, Judaizing, false teachings and idols, and encouraged the right-believing Christians there to take pride in the truth of Christ, to “take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart” (2 Corinthians 5:12).

The “seen” is the world, and “what is in the heart” is Jesus Christ.

We are justified, truly, only when our pride rests in Christ.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) can read a lot into a t-shirt.

Spirituality Column #410
September 23, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column #409
September 16, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

“… though the eye of sinful man, Thy glory may not see.” – from the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy.

Among my favorite Bible head-scratchers is God’s dual creation of light.

On Creation’s first day, God creates the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1), there is “darkness over the deep and the Spirit of God over the waters” (verse 2), and God says, “Let there be light” (verse 3).

“Light” is the first thing that God says is “good,” and it divided the darkness.  But it is not the light of the sun, the moon, the stars, the heavens, a campfire, or a light bulb.  That kind of light, the light of physical illumination that allows physical sight, isn’t created until Day 4 (verse 7).  Why does God create light twice?

Well, He doesn’t.  The Bible’s “first” light is God’s light of truth, love, power, goodness and relationship.  It is the “information” component of Creation.  As opposed to all the physical things that can “be” – such as matter or energy, or even “animal, vegetable or mineral” – God’s “light” is what installs a purpose and moral order to His physical Creation.  Without God’s light, Darwinian evolution may as well be true because no moral information would be needed.  The faithful in Christ believe in and fight for the light of Creation because that light is God’s truth.

Momentarily and mistakenly, we might think the “light” created in Genesis 1:3 actually is Jesus Christ, but it can’t be – Jesus Christ isn’t a created being.  He is an eternal, uncreated part of the Trinity and the exact reflection of the glory of God (see Hebrews 1:2-3).  Like the Spirit “hovering over the waters,” Christ the Son was already here at the beginning, not created after it.  It was God’s placement of His Son, the “heir of all things” (Hebrews 1:2) with “authority over all things” (Matthew 28:18), that brought the light of God’s truth into the world – “His life was the light of all men” (John 1:4).  That Jesus is the “light of the world” (John 8:12) speaks to the incarnation of God on earth.

That first-day darkness must have been an unholy emptiness, a void then dramatically filled by the animating, loving, relational, creative, light of God.  But ever since man was created on the sixth day, just as man’s eyes adjust to physical darkness, so man’s soul adjusts to spiritual darkness.

Satan – a created being and fallen angel – is alive and busy wherever a soul’s darkness persists with festering blindness to God’s light.

In Jesus Christ – the eternal shepherd of God’s light – man overcomes his blindness to the glory of God.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes the Earth was once all water – Genesis 1:2,9. Hmmm.