Changing God's Mind?

Again today I counted myself blessed to have discovered Tabletalk magazine a few months ago. Available for subscription at www.ligonier.org , Tabletalk is a daily devotional and Bible study plan that has helped me become consistent in reading the Word every day. And the articles and daily Bible studies are well worth the few minutes it takes to read them.

Today's study dealt with the account in Genesis 18 of Abraham's encounter with the three visitors. After the Lord has delivered the news of Sarah's impending pregnancy and has rebuked her unbelief, the visitors turn their faces toward Sodom and Gomorrah. Here begins the fascinating account of the Lord's decision to share his intentions with Abraham, and of Abraham's brazen bargaining session: will the cities be spared for the sake of fifty righteous inhabitants? How about forty five? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten?

The point is first made that in all his negotiating, Abraham "never implies it is wrong for God to destroy wickedness. By asking Him to act accordingly to His nature, the patriarch shows that divine justice demands only that the righteous be spared. In not requesting the Lord to relent entirely, Abraham reveals that perfect justice also requires evil to be punished." Do we moderns forget what Abraham remembers?

But what I really want to get to is what the text reveals about prayer. Reformed theology often gets challenged with a question that goes something like this: "If, as you Calvinists claim in your Westminster Confession, God has 'unchangeably ordain[ed] whatsoever comes to pass' [3.1], then why pray? Hasn't God already determined what He shall bring to pass?"

It's a good question, and I think Genesis 18 provides a good answer. As today's study guide notes:

Abraham's intercession revealed the Lord's intent to save the cities if certain conditions were met, and moved Him to relent should ten righteous men be found. God knew Abraham's prayer and his response long before they occurred, but He does not reveal this knowledge so that He might test the patriarch's sense of justice and move him to intercede. God's declaration of judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah invited Abraham to wrestle with Him in prayer and see that his actions are not incidental to God's plans.

God had already willed what He would bring to pass, but it's crucial not to forget that God ordains both the end (judgment on Sodom; salvation of Lot and his family) and the means (Abraham's prayer). What's more, in God's mysterious and sovereign plan, opportunity is provided to Abraham to sharpen his sense of justice and to get some practice coming boldly before the throne of grace.

Speaking of God's mysterious plans:

Deuteronomy 29:29 distinguishes between the Lord's secret and revealed wills. His secret will contains the unalterable decrees by which He foreordains all things that come to pass. These decrees are basically unknown to us, and for the most part, we are not to worry about them. Rather, we know that our prayer is the means by which He often brings about His desires, and thus we must pray, confident that God uses our intercession to make a real and eternal impact.

So why we do we pray to the sovereign Lord who has unchangeably foreordained everything that is going to happen? Maybe I would say it something like this:

Because He has planned not just the end result (like maybe the salvation of your weirdo neighbor, who knows) but every step along the way to Weirdo trusting in Christ, including his grandmother's habit of dragging him along to Sunday School all those years ago, and the truck with the bad brakes that just barely missed him an hour ago, and that nudge you're getting right now to wander over and ask him about the old car he's restoring.

Because (as with whether Weirdo is among the elect) God's secret will is unknown and unknowable to you. Don't even ask. Just do the stuff the Lord tells you to do. After all, how do you know Weirdo isn't among the elect? (You were kinda weird once yourself, if you don't mind my saying so.)

Because God uses crises like the imminent loss of one's nephew to grow us in holiness. Sure, God perfectly planned all along to deliver Lot. But in not telling Abraham everything about everything that was going to happen, he fashioned him in Christ-likeness: concerned about both righteousness and justice, and one heck of a prayer warrior to boot.

Does that help?

Transitions

Around the local government unit where I work, there were a few pairs of eyes having their tears wiped away with Kleenex today. Other pairs of eyes, those of the non-crying variety, belonged to people who felt like things just won't quite be the same anymore, now that S. is leaving us.

S. had been working in my department for a couple of years when I joined. She is a woman in her early twenties who has, well, that sort of delightful disposition. If she ever had a really bad day, you wouldn't know it. Always smiling, always pleasant, ever professional in her dealings with employees and citizens. Ours is one of the more public functions in local government: we're the face of government for thousands of citizens, and S. was courteous to everybody, no matter how rude, abrasive, sarcastic, or generally idiotic some people can be. It wasn't an act; I worked with her long enough that if she was not what she first appeared to be, the reality would have made itself known.

She moved on because her middle-aged parents (long-time residents of the area served by our local government) finally decided enough was enough and they were moving away from the frenetic pace and high cost of living around here. They've settled in a university town in another state, and now her Latin papa is calling for his daughter to rejoin the familia and finish her education. He'll help. And he misses her. And, she announced with plenty of tears of her own as she gave notice, she misses her family terribly.

Today, everybody in the building found the time to stop by and ask about her plans and tell her they'll miss her and be sure to write and all that stuff; many came really close to telling her how much she meant to them.

Why is it that we wait until people are gone, or at least nearly so, to say the things we've held in our hearts for so long?

The other transition is only an anticipated one. I've been praying with my accountability partner G. for over a year now for God's leading into a vocational change, or at least a change of venue for the vocation he's following (for my purposes here, he's an IT guy). For a while I thought things were going in the direction of another, better job in the same field, one that wouldn't require him to move his family away from their home and our church. A turning point in his thinking occurred when his friend from college moved to Turkey to help spread the gospel in a tentmaking capacity. Now G. is contemplating a move to Germany with a small U. S. government contractor. G's wife speaks the language while he doesn't, but his lack of the language doesn't seem to be in any danger of stopping them. He wants to make his life count for the gospel; to be a witness where the good news isn't widely known. (I would think post-modern Germany, the erstwhile Cradle of the Reformation, is a great choice) The job offer is a bit nebulous right now (they have to get the contract to offer the job, and they need the right person to get the contract, ad infinitum) but in God's providence it appears likely my friend will depart these shores in just a few months.

I'm not eager to see him go. He is my friend, and as with S. above, things won't be the same without him. And yet, how dare I stand in his way?

When Modes of Baptism Attack

OK, so my mother in law just got back from a trip to Turkey. At one of the early Christian sites her tour group visited, the guide pointed out a baptistery constructed in the shape of a cross. I don't know if the word "immersion" was part of the spiel, but the idea was conveyed that a candidate would enter the water and lie in it with his or her arms extended, cross-shaped, to be baptized.

Not so! insisted a member of the tour group, a clergyperson from a tradition where sprinkling is the norm. She went on to take apart the hapless tour guide for daring to teach on a subject he knew nothing about: everyone knows, she assured him, that Jesus "could not" have been immersed (covered in water) for his baptism because the Jordan River is too shallow to allow it. He would have stood in water up to, say, his shins, and John the Baptist would have scooped up water in his hands and poured it over Jesus' head. (This little lecture, by the way, was delivered in front of a bunch of unbelieving tour participants who probably wondered what the big deal was. I'm sure the Kingdom was advanced and God was glorified by this outburst...)

Now this pastor actually has some early Christian art on her side, I understand. I read recently (please don't ask for the citation because I've already lost it!) that there are early mosaics and such showing baptisms in just this manner. And I belong to a church that baptizes infants and young children with an ounce of water or less applied to their heads. If I was against the practice, I wouldn't have had our three children baptized in just this manner.

But, c'mon. Does anyone really know with certainty that immersion baptisms did not take place anywhere in Asia Minor in the first few centuries of Christian history? And for those of the immersion persuasion, is there really incontrovertible evidence that all baptisms in the apostolic age were immersions? Apparently lots of people in both camps think so, judging by the amount of ink they've spilled.

I'm much more interested in what I consider weightier questions: what baptism signifies; what benefits, if any, it conveys; its proper recipients; that sort of thing. I've never seen the debate over the mode of baptism as worth getting into. In my mind, it would be like arguing over the size of the pieces of bread served as the Lord's Supper. Am I missing something? Is there an issue of faithfulness to the gospel that is completely evading me here?

While this is only the rough draft of a theory, I wonder if both sorts of "modalists" are really arguing over things they associate with the mode of baptism, rather than the mode itself. For the sprinklers, especially in the mainline and self-professed liberal churches, the enemy is "fundamentalism." Since most baptisms by immersion take place in conservative, inerrancy-professing, Rapture-promoting, wife-subjugating churches, immersion becomes the symbol for everything the sprinklers are against. For theological and moral conservatives on the other hand, there is a mental association between the non-gospel of liberalism and the baby sprinkling that most of these churches practice. In both cases, the wrong mode becomes the symbol for all that is wrong with the opponent.

As a conservative evangelical who affirms baptism of infant children of believers, I find myself sort of in the middle: agreeing with my fellow conservatives about the abyss that is liberal theology while disagreeing (but only recently! remember, I'm Reluctantly Reforming) with their talking points about immersion.

The theory may need some work. Or, the theory may need to be taken behind the barn and killed with an axe. Whichever. At any rate, I'm willing to talk over the issue of mode of baptism with anyone who can make a case for why it needs to be talked over at all. And I also hope we Christians can do a better job of recognizing that debates like these are, or ought to be, intramural ones. Let's leave the pagans on the tour completely out of it. And maybe, you know, talk about Christ with them instead.

Step Up to the Plate and Cut Bait!

Ah, such heavenly-mindedness as this Lord's Day concludes!

Some people collect stamps, others collect antiques or coins or baseball cards. Hey, some collect ex-spouses. I collect mixed metaphors. Here are two of my favorites.

"A real fly-by-the-shoestring operation." Source: my dear wife. Approximate date: oh, late 1990s sometime, I dunno. I remember we were driving through our neighborhood talking about a local business that, well, if it traded on eBay it would have one of your lower feedback ratings. Home improvements, maybe? The quaint expression stuck with me but not the context.

"Another kink in the monkey wrench." This beauty appears to be a high speed collision between a kink in the chain and a wrench in the works, with the wrench and the chain getting ejected into the weeds, and the remaining occupants of both vehicles awaking from surgery to find themselves joined in a whole new kind of bad. It issued forth from the lips of a sales rep I was talking with at one of my old jobs.

These are the only two I can think of at this moment, but I know I've got more tucked away somewhere. In any event, please help! I welcome your submissions! My only requirement is that they have to be real, meaning that somebody somewhere really said it without intentionally mixing metaphors. Suitable candidates can come from your own silver tongue, or from someone's you know, or from anything published in print, broadcast or online media. Just keep it real, people.

UPDATE April 21, 2008: from somebody's comment on somebody else's blog: "treading on dangerous waters." This one's in medal contention.

Avoiding prayer to generic deities

I've recently been asked to lead my son's Cub Scout den, and this has forced me to think about the issue of "non-sectarian" prayers. The Boy Scouts of America program prominently features God, which is good news. The oaths the boys take, and the requirements for the various ranks of scouting that they work toward, all require that they acknowledge that there is a God, and encourage them to think about ways that they might serve God. Adult leaders must affirm belief in the existence of God in order to be involved in Scouting, and Scouting meetings seldom end without a benediction: "May the Master of all Scouts be with us until we meet again."

I'm totally for this. The problem, of course, is that this revered Deity is never defined. As with AA's "higher power," "my God" can be completely of my design, and your God can be completely of your own. We can even pray together, waxing devotional about how loving God is, and how thankful we both are that God is, um, God. Right?

Well, no. I would prefer a completely prayer-less Scouting event than one featuring prayer to a lowest-common-denominator deity, one who demands nothing from us in the way of approaching him as he truly is. I can recite the Pledge of Allegiance with non-Christians, but I cannot pray with my non-believing friends no matter how much I delight in their company and value their friendship. But how to explain this to all the boys and their parents? Or do I prepare explicitly Christian content (e.g., prayers in Jesus' name) and just wait for them to join with me or go away mad?

Reluctantly Reforming?

Just in case some live human out there happens onto this blog, its name comes from being Reformed in my theology and worldview, albeit newly, inconsistently, and of course reluctantly. Like most Calvinists I know, I did not set out to be one. God made me do it!

Reasoning with Adam and Steve

I got to reflecting recently on the effort to legalize gay marriage, and how Christians might contribute arguments that pack some punch with people who do not accept biblical authority.

One argument worth making is what I would call (for lack of a better descriptor) the witness of thousands of distinct cultures over thousands of years of written and/or oral history. Can anyone identify a few cultures or historical periods in which same-sex relationships resembling marriage were known to enjoy legitimate status?

Such example would of course need to meet a few standards of evidence. Confirmation from more than one source, for instance, that such practice did in fact exist and that the period in question lasted a historically significant amount of time (i.e. Mayor Gavin Newsom's short-lived San Francisco experiment doesn't count).

I, of course, really doubt that this precedent can be found, and that's my point. Is it not with breathtaking hubris that our current Western civilization (certain segments of it, anyway) dismisses the witness of the entire history of human civilization to promote this novelty? That with regard to a fundamental issue like what constitutes a family, we have nothing to learn from the collective wisdom of every generation and culture from our grandparents' back to the dawn of time?

Lancaster, PA

Like millions of others, I am stunned by last Monday's attack by a milk truck driver on a group of Amish schoolgirls. It emerged over the course of the week that his invasion of the one-room schoolhouse was meticulously planned. He brought along lumber and hardware for barricading the building against the police, restraints for his prisoners, and KY Jelly (apparently) for his intended sexual assault(s). His was a church-going family; in fact his wife was leading a mothers' prayer group at a mainline Presbyterian church at the very time he was assembling his supplies.

The suicide-esque note to his wife included the disclosure that he'd molested two young relatives when he was twelve, and had dreams that he would do so again. The note also mentioned his anger with life, and God, particularly in relation to the death of an infant daughter some years ago. As was the case for my wife and I, this loss was followed by the births of three healthy children. I understand the Job-like questioning over the death of a child. Been there, cried that. What utterly baffles me is how this grief, alienation, doubt, guilt, and fear translated into a planned exit from this life that would feature violence against a bunch more children.

One thing I have not yet come across in any commentary on this event: as with last week's attack on a high school classroom in Colorado, young men and/or boys were present at the beginning. In Colorado, boys the same approximate age as the girls held hostage were sent out by the assailant. In Pennsylvania, the boys were younger (oldest of them perhaps 13?); after being sent from the building by the assailant, they ran for help. In both cases, the boys followed the gunman's orders to leave their classmates, friends, and sisters to their fate. None of us really knows how we would react in such a situation, of course. But does it reflect on how we're raising our sons today that (apparently) that both groups of boys so obediently left the premises when they were told to? Would my sons do any differently? Would I?

Or am I asking an improper question? Go ahead, set me straight!