Darkest Hour

It is a dangerous thing to live in ignorance of history.  The last several generations have lived with World World 2 as a chapter in a history text book.  We tend to take for granted that Hitler’s intentions all along were nefarious, the British saved their army at Dunkirk, the United States was galvanized by Pearl Harbor, the D-Day invasion was a resounding overall operational success, and “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” pushed the Japanese to surrender.

However, to have lived during that time was to know uncertainty, trepidation, and outright terror.  In the European theater of operations, the German war machine, under the command of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, was a terrifying machine of destruction.  It rolled like a tidal wave over Western Europe in a matter of days and weeks, leaving the forlorn country of Great Britain in fear for its very survival as a nation.

Looking back on this time now, again, through the lens of clinical text books, we view men like Winston Churchill as titans of courage who faced down the wrath of Germany and were willing to fight to the bitter end, ultimately ensuring the freedom of the world from the cruel and satanic oppression of Nazism.  Yet, these men were just that, men.  They were flawed and frail creatures of limited sight and imperfect vision.  They knew not what the future would bring, and that lack of certainty at times brought them to their knees in desperation.

“Darkest Hour” is a film that endeavors to capture a period of about a month, in May and June of 1940, just after the German invasion of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.  Winston Churchill had just become the Prime Minister of Great Britain.  He was immediately faced with the difficult proposition of what to do to ensure the safety of his nation.  With opposition from within his own party, the almost certain annihilation of the entire 300,000 soliders of the British Expeditionary Force that was trapped between the advancing German Panzer divisions and the English Channel, and his own inner demons that threatened to unhinge him, Churchill entered into a dark night of the soul such as most of us have never endured.

While taking some historical liberties, as movies are wont to do, this film does a wonderful job of capturing the inner turmoil of this man who history has come to know as one of the great leaders of the Second World War.  It reminds us that in spite of uncertainty, there are certain inalienable and unchanging principles of conduct that are always applicable and eternally relevant to the human condition.  Courage, tenacity, loyalty, integrity, and honesty are a few of the terms that come to my mind in attempting to describe the character qualities that ultimately prevailed in this great conflict.  We would do well to remember such lessons from history as we face our own darknesses.

Prominently displayed is Churchill’s outstanding ability as an orator.  It warms my heart to see represented so well the incalculable power of ideas, communicated through the medium of language.  Churchill had the capacity to take individual words, string them together into stirring sentences, and craft those sentences into speeches of unparalleled motivational effect.  “Darkest Hour” ends with a small portion of Churchill’s speech to the House of Commons, delivered on June 4, 1940.  Here is an excerpt from the actual speech, part of which made it into this film, to give you an idea of the power of Churchill’s oratory:

“Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.  We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

The final words of “Darkest Hour” are powerful and have left an impression in my mind.  It is a quote by Edward R. Murrow, the famous American journalist, who in 1954 was describing Churchill’s actions during the war.  In the film, the quote is given to Viscount Halifax, one of Churchill’s most powerful opponents from within his own political party who wanted to sue for terms of peace with Hitler.  After Churchill delivered the rousing speech mentioned above, and with virtually the entire House of Commons standing in ovation, one of Halifax’s confidantes turns to him and says, “What just happened?”.  Halifax, in the words of Murrow, responds: “He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”  May we all strive to recognize the tremendous power, both for good and for evil, that has been granted to us via language.  May we all take exceeding care that our words are utilized for the same purpose as the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth almost 400 years ago.  That of the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.

Born To Die

In the Summer of 1939 Sam Stern received his diploma.  This was a rabbinical degree, or Smicha, and Sam, a Jew, had his sights set on entering the ministry as a rabbi.  But then, in September, Adolf Hitler’s German war machine rumbled into Poland, launching the second world war.  All of Europe was engulfed in flames, and six years later, when the war ended, Sam was in a concentration camp.  He had survived the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust.  However, all of his family members were dead.  Sam’s faith in God had been shattered by the realities of a world gone mad.

Eventually, in the aftermath of World War 2, Sam made his way to America and began to work as an assistant rabbi at a Synagogue in Rhode Island.  But, he had tremendous conflict in his heart.  He could not understand how God could have allowed the massive devastation of the Holocaust.  Frankly, he no longer believed in Judaism, he had lost faith in mankind, and was not sure what he believed about God.

One day, a few years later, Sam met a Christian missionary who gave him a copy of the New Testament in Yiddish.  This missionary also connected Sam with a Jewish Christian.  They met together for a while and discussed life and religion.  Eventually, this man told Sam about a poem called “The Sufferer.”  Here is part of it…

            For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,

            And like a root out of parched ground;

            He has no stately form or majesty

            That we should look upon Him,

            Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

            He was despised and forsake of men,

            A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;

            And like one from whom men hide their face

            He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

            Surely our griefs He Himself bore,

            And our sorrows He carried;

            Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,

            Smitten of God, and afflicted.

            But He was pierced through for our transgressions,

            He was crushed for our iniquities;

            The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,

            And by His scourging we are healed.

            All of us like sheep have gone astray,

            Each of us has turned to his own way;

            But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all

            To fall on Him.

           

Some of you may recognize this poem.  It is a portion of the 53^rd chapter of the book of Isaiah.  Sam, however, did not recognize it as coming from the Hebrew Scriptures.  His Christian friend asked him who he thought the subject of the poem was, who suffered for our sins, and by whose scourging, or stripes, we were healed.  Sam responded that the poem was probably referring to Jesus.  Imagine Sam’s shock when he was informed that the poem was actually just Isaiah 53:2-12, out of his own beloved Scriptures.  His friend had copied it onto a piece of paper, and read it to him.  Sam went to his Hebrew Bible, and sure enough, there it was. 

Indeed, Sam was correct about the referrant of Isaiah’s prophecy.  We know without question that the servant is Jesus.  In Acts 8 Philip, one of the seven deacons of the early church, encountered an Ethiopian eunuch traveling on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza.  This man was reading from the scroll of Isaiah, specifically verses 7 and 8 of chapter 53.  He asked Philip who Isaiah was referring to.  Philip’s response was to preach Jesus to this man, resulting in his conversion.

Sam placed his faith and trust in Christ soon after his experience with Isaiah 53.  It may surprise you that a Jewish Rabbi, trained in the precepts of Judaism, would be so unknowledgable with a passage out of his own Bible.  But, there is a very good reason why Sam was not familiar enough with Isaiah 53 to recognize it when it was read to him.  Every year the Rabbis in Jewish Synagogues adhere to a Bible reading schedule for each Sabbath that has been in place since the middle ages.  But, something curious happens in the middle of August each year.  The reading schedule stops one week at Isaiah 52:12 and picks up the next week at Isaiah 54:1.  If you ask a Rabbi why this is, he will probably answer that it is simply because they cannot read every passage of the Bible in their weekly readings.

However, I think there is a deeper reason.  I think that the real reason is because it is impossible to read Isaiah 53 and not come away with an image of Jesus in your mind, assuming you know even a little bit of what happened to Him in 32 AD.  The Old Testament has hundreds of Messianic prophecies and allusions.  Four of them are the servant songs of Isaiah 42, 49, 50, and this one in chapters 52 and 53.  That final prophecy, extending from Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 is, I think, the greatest of them all.  It is the Everest of Old Testament Messianic prophecy.  It is the climax, or the peak of the grandeur that God has revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures about Christ.  And, in fact, no passage of Scripture has been more instrumental than Isaiah 53 in bringing Jews to faith in Jesus.  Sam Stern is only one of many Jews who, when confronted with the explicit description of Jesus in Isaiah, were forced to confront their own preconceived notions that had been given to them by an orthodox Jewish rabbinical system that vehemently denies that Jesus was and is their Messiah.

In light of all this, I think it is entirely appropriate and fitting that, as we approach Christmas next week, we take some time to linger over the glorious truth revealed in this precious text.  You see, although it is fitting and proper that we focus upon the birth of Christ during the Christmas holiday, it is also entirely appropriate to fix our gaze upon the breadth of His messianic ministry, including His atoning sacrifice upon a Roman cross.  If our understanding of Jesus is limited to His time as a human baby, then we do not even know enough to experience genuine Christian salvation, let alone to begin to appreciate the Lord Jesus’s amazing sacrifice for us.  That being said, the servant song of Isaiah 53 is a long passage.  To plumb its depths would be the work of multiple sermons.  So, I would like to focus on only a small portion of the entire prophecy.  Specifically, I want to dig into the last three verses of Isaiah 52 as well as the first verse of chapter 53.  This section serves as a sort of prologue to the servant song in the rest of chapter 53.  In these verses we see Christ’s stunning exaltation, His horrific disfigurement, and His work of purification.  These three elements are followed by Isaiah’s admission of the inexplicability of the message he is conveying.

The prophet begins in verse 13: Behold, My servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted.  Notice the repeated emphasis here.  Isaiah uses four distinct words in Hebrew to explain just how magnificent would be the servant’s glorification.  He says that the servant will prosper, He will be high, He will be lifted up, and He will be greatly exalted.  Now, as you might imagine these four words have similar meanings in Hebrew.  They are essentially synonyms.  There is some variation and nuance among them, to be sure, yet there is a harmony of meaning as well. 

Prosper has the idea of both success in one’s endeavors as well as an increase of understanding and comprehension.  High is literally to be elevated physically, on a platform or a mountain perhaps.  Lifted up has a slightly different emphasis, in that it is to be lifted up by another or carried.  And, greatly exalted, in contrast to high, is to be elevated in one’s own nature.

The question we should ask is why.  Why does Isaiah pile up all these synonyms one after another?  I think his purpose is to emphasize the greatness of God’s Servant.  Isaiah wants us to be very clear that this Servant will be elevated to the highest position possible, His status will exceed the rank of all others, and His glory will outshine the world itself.

And now things begin to get very strange indeed.  The transcendent exaltation of the Servant in verse 13 is only matched by His stunning humiliation in verse 14: Just as many were astonished at you, My people, so His appearance was marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men.  To get at the meaning behind this verse we need to dig into a little bit of Israel’s historical interaction with God.  Two passages will help us here.  In Deuteronomy 7:7, Moses wrote to his countrymen: “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.”  The Hebrew nation did not start out as a strong and vibrant people.  They were the least of all families of the earth.  God deliberately chose the weakest among the tribes of man to set His favor upon.

It gets even more graphic in Ezekiel 16.  In verses 4 to 6, in addressing the Jews, God says: “As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in cloths.  No eye looked with pity on you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you.  Rather you were thrown out into the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born.  When I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you while you were in your blood, ‘Live!’  Yes, I said to you while you were in your blood, ‘Live!’”

Do you see the horrific picture God is painting?  He describes Israel as essentially an ancient abortion.  In those days, there were no medical procedures to surgically murder a child in the womb of its mother.  So, if a baby was unwanted, the mother would come to term and deliver.  Then, the parents would take the newborn out into the woods, a field, or anywhere else that was remote and away from civilization.  They would leave the little one there to die.  That is exactly the picture God is giving of Israel when He chose them.  They were like a newborn.  Their umbilical cord was not cut.  They had not been washed with water to cleanse their skin or rubbed with salt as an antiseptic.  They were not even given any clothes.  They were unwanted, unloved, and abandoned in a field, squirming in the blood of their birth.

Now then, look again at the first line of Isaiah 52:14.  God says, of His Servant, that people would be astonished at Him just as they had been of Israel.  Actually, I think the New English Translation of the Bible is much better here: just as many were horrified by the sight of you.  That carries the force of meaning implied in this verse.  But, in the case of the Servant, what is it they would be horrified by?  They would be appalled at His appearance.  The Servant’s looks would be marred, or disfigured more than any other man.  Just how bad would His appearance be distorted?  We can tell by the force of the people’s reaction.  One commentary says it this way: “The Servant’s sufferings brought such a disfigurement that those who saw said not only, ‘Is this he?’ but ‘Is this human?’”

Now, before we go on, we need to stop and consider just how ridiculous this is.  We need to take off our evangelical, Christianized, Americanized glasses for a minute.  We who have perhaps been raised on stories of Christ along with our mother’s milk.  We who might take the truth of the gospel for granted.  Look at what the prophet is saying here.  It does not make any sense whatsoever.  First, he writes that God’s servant will be exalted.  He will be glorified to such an extreme level that Isaiah needed to say it four separate ways, with four different Hebrew synonyms.  But then, with his next breath, Isaiah turns around and says that this same Servant will be so horribly and brutally mutilated that He will not even look human anymore. 

In what obscure and bizarre universe does this sound plausible?  Is it any wonder that the first century Jews were completely confused and off base with their expectations of the Messiah?  I think sometimes we like to pile on the Jews, talking about how ignorant they were.  But honestly, would we be any different, short of supernatural revelation, with the ridiculous insanity of a Messianic prophecy like this one?

And, to top it off, Isaiah then writes, with the first line of verse 15: Thus He will sprinkle many nations.  The Israelites were quite familiar with this phrase.  Their Levitical sacrifical system under the Mosaic Law included copious amounts of blood.  The blood of sacrificed animals splashed as their throats were cut, the life blood of the animal overflowed the surface of the altar, poured down, and collected at the base.  The priests dipped branches of hyssop in the blood and sprinkled objects with it to consecrate them.  In many ways, ancient Judaism was a religion of blood.

The most prominent example of this was on the singular Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur in Hebrew, that occurred once each year.  On this special day, the high priest would take the blood of a sacrificial goat, dip his hyssop branch in it, and the enter the holy of holies inside the tent of meeting of the Tabernacle or Temple.  He would take the hyssop and use it to sprinkle the mercy seat, the cover that sat on top of the Ark of the Covenant and upon which the presence of God Himself rested in the midst of the people.  It was this blood, the blood of an innocent, spotless sacrifice that consecrated the mercy seat and provided atonement for the sins of the people.  Were it not for this sprinkling of blood, the holiness of God would engulf the people and destroy them because of their wicked natures and actions.

So, the Jews who read Isaiah knew exactly what he was talking about when he wrote that through these means the Servant would sprinkle the people.  In some incomprehensible way, the Servant’s exaltation and His humiliation together would provide an atonement, or a propitiation, for sins.  Furthermore, it was not only the Jews who could expect to be covered under this blood.  The Servant would sprinkle “many nations” with His blood. 

Again, I realize we who live after the advent of Christ in the 1^st century can see, with the benefit of hindsight, exactly what this means and how it played itself out.  We know that God’s Servant was God Himself, in the flesh, born as a Jewish man named Jesus in the first century.  We know that this man, Jesus, lived a sinless life and was perfect in every way that none of us is capable of.  We know that He went willingly to a horrific death on a Roman cross to pay the penalty for all of us.  We know that God, in His infinite holiness, demands such a payment of death as recompense for our terrible slandering of His character, that we produce just by merely existing in our sinfulness.  We know that placing our faith and trust in Christ, accepting the free gift of salvation, reconciles us to our Creator and guarantees us eternal life spent in His presence, basking in the warmth of His love and being eternally awestruck by the magnificence of His splendor.  Those of us who are Christians know all of this, and perhaps sometimes we take it for granted.  However, do not overlook how difficult it would have been for the Jews to make heads or tails out of this prophecy.  And, do not overlook how perplexing the message of the gospel continues to be, to the mind of sinful man.

In fact, I think Isaiah alluded to the difficulty of his message with what he wrote next: Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him.  Picture a king, sitting upon his throne.  Perhaps it is King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2, sitting in pomp and circumstance.  He is steaming with anger, because none of his so-called wise men, enchanters, and astrologers can tell him what his dream was, nor what it meant.  In walks a young Hebrew boy.  This upstart lad proceeds to unfold with exacting precision and clarity the very images in the king’s mind, that no one else had been privy to.  As Daniel speaks, I can imagine Nebuchadnezzar’s jaw slowly dropping in amazement, along with probably his entire court.  And then, perhaps, when he realizes his mouth is hanging open, he snaps it shut in surprise.  I think that is the image here.

But notice why Isaiah says that the kings will react in this way: for what had not been told them they will see, and what they had not heard they will understand.  Unlike Daniel with Nebuchadnezzar, people will not come to an understanding through the words of men.  The only way they will perceive the truth of the Servant is via things not even explained to them.  The explanation of humans, no matter how educated and sophisticated they are, will be incapable of providing illumination to the mind such that comprehension dawns.  In other words, Isaiah writes, his message about the Servant is so inexplicable that it cannot be understood.

I think that is exactly why the prophet wrote the first verse of chapter 53.  I think it serves as a hinge between the prologue of the Servant, here at the end of chapter 52, and the more detailed description of Him in the next chapter.  Verse 1 reads: Who has believed our message?  And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?  The implied answer?  No one has believed the message.  To no one has the arm of the LORD been revealed.

God is so serious about helping us to see how confusing the message of the gospel is that He made it a central theme of the entire gospel of John.  In John 12:37, after Jesus had done countless incredible miracles right in the midst of the people, we find that: though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him.  Lest we think this was an accident, and the people’s unbelief took God by surprise, look at the very next thing John wrote.  He quoted this same verse, Isaiah 53:1.  John 12:38 makes it clear: This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke: “LORD, who has believed our report?  And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?”  Paul echoes his fellow Apostle John in Romans 10:16 by quoting Isaiah 53:1 yet again.

This response of hardhearted disbelief was not new to the prophet Isaiah.  In fact, it is by design.  Right from the beginning, God had revealed to him what the outcome of his ministry would be.  In Isaiah 6:9-10 God revealed the future to His prophet: “Go, and tell this people: Keep on listening, but do not perceive; keep on looking, but do not understand.  Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed.”

The Lord is so serious about making sure we understand this point that these verses are quoted in every gospel (Mt. 13:14-15, Mk. 4:12, Lk. 8:10, Jn. 12:40) as well as Acts (28:26-27) and Romans (11:8).  All of these verses point to the inability, short of grace, for Israel to believe in Christ.  But, this is not a condition exclusive to Jews.  We Gentiles share this racial inability to believe.

This is exactly why Paul described the gospel as utter folly when he wrote to the Corinthians.  1^st Corinthians 1:18-19 tells us: the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.”  Again in verse 27: but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong.  Why does He do this?  1^st Corinthians 1:29-30 gives us our answer: so that no man may boast before God.  But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus.

Now then, I have been hammering on this for several minutes now.  What is my point?  Am I trying to drive you to depression the week before Christmas?  No, not at all.  What I seek, and what I think Isaiah hoped for, was that through understanding the truth, that only God can open the eyes of the blind and make them see, we will enter into Christmas week by worshiping our Savior in gratitude not only for what He has done for us. 

But also, I believe we ought to be humbled as we realize that we do not deserve to be saved and we did not believe in Christ because of our own intelligence.  In fact, left to our own devices, we would reject Christ every single time, just like the Jews did.  I am convinced that, once we come to truly understand this, then we will burst with joy inexpressible for the wondrous revelation of Christ that God opened our minds to when He removed the scales of spiritual blindness from our eyes. 

I think if we embrace this doctrine then we will overflow with thankfulness, as David did in Psalm 138:1-3, a powerful prayer of thanksgiving: I will give You thanks with all my heart; I will sing praises to You before the gods.  I will bow down toward Your holy temple and give thanks to Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; for You have magnified Your word according to all Your name.  On the day I called, You answered me; You made me bold with strength in my soul. 

The natural result of such appreciation should be amazement and wonder, as Paul expressed in Romans 11:33-36, one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture: Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!  For who has known the mind of the LORD, or who became His counselor?  Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to Him again?  For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  To Him be the glory forever.  Amen.

Will you be thankful and worship the Lord for His priceless gift of salvation this Christmas?  If you have never known the riches of God’s grace and mercy, will you turn now to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith and repentance?

Is Christ Irrelevant?

            A common thread that is woven through the fabric of the human condition is self-interest.  Powerful men do not seek after power for the sake of power itself.  Wealthy women do not pursue riches for the sake of money.  Their agendas are driven, at a foundational level, by the gratification of self.  The particular means chosen to achieve this end by individuals is merely the window dressing on a much larger picture of the internal drive of every human to achieve happiness, or peace, or security, or whatever it is that gives them the most satisfaction.  In this context, it is perhaps inevitable that, in relation to the Christian faith and its master, Jesus Christ, a question that many people may ask is this.  What is the relevance of Christ – a first century middle eastern Jew – to the problems of today?  More specifically, how can someone who lived two thousand years ago and was of an entirely different culture possibly have anything to offer those who pursue modern agendas?  How can Christ understand or relate to the issues of the 21^st century?

            Many would ask this question from the point of view of their own particular social or economic lenses.  In the world of today, everyone seems to have an agenda.  Whether it is feminism, ethnic minority interests, or social liberation the human race is perpetually dissatisfied with their lot in life.  And so, they come to the table of Christianity asking the age-old question: what’s in it for me and how can Christ fix the aspects of my life that I dislike? 

            That being said, stepping away from the disapproving tone of the previous paragraph, perhaps not everyone asks this type of question from selfish motives such as these.  It must be said that the simple interest in practical application to one’s own situation in life is not inherently wrong.  It is perhaps a fair request to pose to God to ask Him to explain how a relationship with His Son will benefit a person.  I believe the answer is of such a foundational nature that it, once understood and accepted, changes everything and renders all of the above considerations irrelevant.

            We begin first with a brief consideration of God.  The Bible unapologetically presents Him as the omnipotent Creator of the human race.  He chose to mold mankind in His own image, spiritually and emotionally if not physically.  As such, it follows logically that this God would perfectly understand the race of living images of Himself that He made.  As a painter is intimately familiar with every brush stroke on the canvas or a software engineer is aware of the hidden loopholes and idiosyncrasies of his code base, so God possesses a microscopic level of insight into the human condition.  In other words, a concern does not exist that God does not have full and complete knowledge and comprehension about.

            Factor into the above consideration the biblical truth that Jesus of Nazareth, the aforementioned first century middle-eastern Jew, was and is God incarnate.  He is literally God clothed in human flesh.  Therefore, what God knows Jesus knows.  His understanding is not bound by the epoch of history He lived on this earth in.  In light of that, the hypothetical asker of our thesis question must understand that individual issues and agendas such as ethnicity or gender are not pertinent when considered in relation to Jesus.

            In fact, this is precisely the point.  It was Jesus who shattered all cultural or societal barriers and opened the doorway of salvation wide to any and every human being to step through into His arms.  Prior to His death, burial, and resurrection, ethnicity, if not gender, was exceedingly important when considering relation to God.  The reason was that God had specifically chosen the Jewish race, the descendants of God’s original covenant partner, Abraham, to be the recipients of His love.  In this context, in order for a person to be allowed into relationship with the Lord they had to either be a Jew or voluntarily naturalize into the Jewish society and religion.

            However, when Christ came on the scene in the first decades of the first century He changed all of that.  He revealed the full New Covenant gospel message of redemption.  He inaugurated this new covenant with His blood on a Roman cross.  And salvation was subsequently offered to the Gentile nations of the world.  The only stipulation then and now became the placing of complete faith in and the total surrender of one’s life to, Christ alone.  When this happened, all concerns of everyday human life suddenly faded into insignificance.  It mattered not whether a person was male or female, Jew or Gentile; they all had equal opportunity to come to Christ and thus be reconciled to God. 

This was the titanic point the Apostle Paul was making in Galatians 3:27-29.  He wrote: For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

So then, what does this mean for our original question?  It means that the foundational issue of the human experience is not financial equity, social standing, gender equality, or anything else.  The item of real import is whether a person is reconciled to their Creator through Jesus Christ.  Not that being joined to Christ automatically eliminates all cares and concerns of life.  In fact, often it has exactly the opposite effect.  Having been drawn out of the wicked world we live in; a Christian becomes a bit of a marked man or woman.  Satan, in a furious attempt to destroy the saints, typically redoubles his efforts to attack the faith of a Christian.  And God sovereignly permits this so as to grow the faith of His newly adopted child.

So, cares and concerns do not disappear.  However, they do attain a greater significance because of their eternal impact in conformity to Christ’s character.  Furthermore, what once seemed of paramount importance tends to lose its luster.  Issues of race and gender become secondary to issues of union with Christ.  And, this unity with Him gives a new clarity of perspective on these same social issues.  They can now be viewed with an eternal, historical, biblical understanding that often causes a person to see that their former stance was inherently self-centered and unworthy of the name of Christ.

I recognize that to someone embroiled in the midst of social agenda and reform, this answer to the question may seem like side stepping the issue.  However, such a charge does not change the truth.  Focusing upon surface issues of ethnicity, gender, or social status is a bit like treating the symptoms of a disease rather than treating the disease itself.  The symptoms are important, to be sure, and must be cared for.  But, such treatment is a complete waste of time if the root of the disease is left unchecked.

In the same way, handling the surface problems of one’s lot in life without dealing with the foundational issue of relationship to God, which transcends all human barriers, is a fool’s errand.  What difference does it make if political goals are achieved if subsequently one’s eternal soul is condemned to hell for all eternity?  Besides, if the ultimate target of social reform is satisfaction in life, and if a relationship with Christ brings satisfaction surer and firmer than any human accomplishment, then has not the objective actually been achieved anyhow?

This Christ, this first century middle eastern Jew, offers you a satisfaction both in this life and beyond that cannot be eclipsed or even approached by any earthly experience.  Will you accept Him as your Lord and Savior today and achieve quantitative change in your life unlike anything you have ever experienced before?  Or will you continue to be distracted by the cares of this life, blind to the horrible abyss of an eternity without God that is looming just a few yards away?

Is God's Presentation of Himself Accurate?

What is the relationship between God as He presents Himself in the Bible and God as He knows Himself?  This question gets at the very core of our understanding of God.  The reason is that all we can know about God comes from the Scriptures.  Therefore, what we believe about how He has presented Himself in them versus what He is actually like becomes very important when we consider that if God is substantially different in His essence from His presentation of Himself in the Bible, then can we truly say that we have come to know Him at all, even if we have studied the Scriptures extensively?  I think the key to understanding this question is found in two biblical aspects: The Imago Dei and the Incarnation of Christ.  I believe these two biblical truths tell us that the relationship between God’s understanding of Himself and God’s presentation of Himself in the Bible is that they are two different levels of the same truth.

The Imago Dei is a Latin term meaning “image of God.”  It comes from the account of the creation of man in Genesis 1:26-27.  In these verses God first presented the concept when He said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”  Then, in the next verse, He follows through with action: So God created man in His own image.  This was a spiritual image rather than a physical one.  God, at this point in time, had no physical form.  Therefore, His image must be His nature, His spirit, or His essence.  This was the pattern man was fashioned after, albeit at a lesser level.  Just as a painting or a photograph of a person is not the same as that person, so God’s image of Himself in man was not the same as Himself.  Yet, at the same time, it was still a facsimile of the original blueprint.  In other words, although man does not and can never attain to the level of God in his nature, he is still the best representation of God available in the created order. 

Now then, here is the point.  God’s revelation of Himself throughout the Bible is intrinsically tied to human concepts, human relationships, and human understandings.  To be sure, God is not down on man’s level and must condescend to communicate with him.  But I do not think that means that God’s communication is artificial or illusory.  I think that when He states that He made man in His image, that is exactly what He meant, with no obfuscations or circumventions.  And, when God proceeds to communicate with man and reveal Himself in a manner that corresponds to man, I think it is because man is on some levels similar to Him and can come closer to understanding Him through His own faculties than any other created beings.

I think this point is further driven home by the Incarnation of the Son of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  Prior to this, it would have been much more difficult to consider this issue with a satisfactory level of precision.  But, when God clothed Himself in human flesh, all the doors were opened and the curtains rolled back on God’s character that will ever be this side of Heaven.  Consider the following well known passages: Hebrews 1:1-3, Colossians 1:15, and Colossians 2:9. 

In Hebrews 1 God says that in the past He spoke to men through the prophets by diverse means and at varied times.  But now, He has spoken to us in His Son, who is Christ.  So, we know that God has changed the form of communication from human prophets to a divine Son.  But here is the point.  This divine Son is the fullest and most exact representation of God possible.  Verse 3 drives this home when it describes Jesus as “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature.”

Corresponding to that understanding is Paul’s letter to the Colossians.  In chapter 1 verse 15 we read that He, meaning Christ, is the “image of the invisible God.”  Again, we find the word image being used to convey the idea of a picture of God.  Then, in chapter 2 verse 9 Paul gets even more explicit.  Christ is not merely the best possible picture of God.  Paul says that in Him “the fullness of deity dwells bodily.”

The point is that Christ, in His incarnation, according to the Scriptures, is literally the fullest expression of the character and nature of God that it is possible to have.  Even considering that we still do not understand everything Christ did and said, just as we do not understand everything about God, it must be understood that by seeking to study and learn who Christ is we are literally gaining accurate knowledge of who God actually is.

Now then, because God is infinite in His understanding and His being, and because we are finite in all ways, we can never possibly hope to understand God completely, even though we spend the rest of our lives studying the Bible on a daily basis.  But, I believe the pursuit of such study is a pursuit of the actual and literal knowledge of God.  It is not an illusion or a tangent that is disconnected from the reality of who God is.  To suppose that God does not accurately present Himself in the Bible is, to first of all, fly in the face of the Imago Dei and the Incarnation, and second of all, I think it speaks ill of God Himself.  If God were to interact with mankind in this way it would be a false and duplicitous approach to the issue of communicating with His creations.  He wants us to come to know Him, truly, not some misshapen vision of Him found in Scripture. 

In John 17:3 Jesus defined eternal life in this way: “And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Christ’s Apostle, John, in stating the purpose of his first epistle, wrote the following in 1^st John 5:13: I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.  

John’s use of the present tense of the Greek verb “echo”, or to have, is telling.  He is saying that we have this eternal life now, presently, in this life, after coming to Christ.  And, from the revelation of Christ Himself, we know that to have this eternal life is to know God.  Therefore, the conclusion must be that the knowledge we gain of God now is true and accurate knowledge.  Thus, it follows that God’s presentation of Himself in the Scriptures, the only detailed source of information about Him, must be also be true and accurate.

Two examples have been given of how God’s interaction with man might work; an ant on a computer screen and a dog being walked past a bank.  In the case of the ant, it’s understanding of the pixels behind the glass is nonexistent but the computer operator, even if he does not understand all the mechanics behind it, obviously knows much more than the ant.  With the dog and the bank, the dog can certainly see the walls of the bank, the sign on the outside, and the doors which provide ingress and egress to customers.  But clearly, he has no understanding of the purpose of the building, while his owner presumably does.

I think these illustrations are insufficient when it comes to God and His communication with man.  I believe a better analogy would be a father and his child.  The child is a product of the father’s DNA.  Many component parts of the child are directly influenced by what is within the father’s own body.  However, the father, by virtue of maturation, experience, and education, knows far more about the world around both of them than the child does.  The father desires his child to come, in time, to understand things accurately the way he does.  So, the father’s task then becomes to attempt to distill complex ideas down into manageable chunks of information that his child can deal with.  The father does not tell his child lies about the world around them; that would be counter-intuitive.  Yet, he cannot explain things the way he would to another adult, such as his wife.  So he uses language and terms the child can understand in an attempt to communicate truth.  It is not the complete picture of truth that the father knows, to be sure, but it is still truth at its core.

I believe this is how God communicates to man about Himself.  He cannot fully explain Himself because our minds do not have the capacity to either comprehend or contain the information.  But He loves us and wants us to understand Him better eventually.  So, He speaks to us on our level, the level of a child as it were, and gives us only what we can handle at that time.

Golden Calves and Games of Thrones

A number of years ago I read books 1 to 3 of “A Song of Ice and Fire.”  These are the novels that have spawned the popular television show “A Game of Thrones” (also the name of the first book in the series).  I had to stop in the middle of book 4, because the Holy Spirit convicted me that what I was taking into my mind was wholly unrighteous and depraved.  The wanton cursing, brutality, dishonesty, rape, murder, homosexuality, incest, betrayal, pedophilia, gore, death, theft, fornication, and idolatry on display were too much for me and were not even remotely congruous with the model of righteous living and thinking that a Christian is to strive for that I was finding in the Scriptures.  I thought of specific instances from the stories for every one of those words I just typed; that in itself is a statement about the damage done to my own mind through the harmful influence of these books.  Over and above that, there is a hopelessness and a fatalism inherent in the story that flatly contradicts the message of the Bible.  I found this to be distasteful as well.  So, when the TV show came along, I knew right away I wanted nothing to do with it.  Yet, as time went by I found myself struggling with the temptation to watch clips of the show on Youtube because I found the narrative interesting and some of the characters appealing. 

I write this introduction to make one thing clear.  What I am about to say is not said from a soapbox.  I am not investigating specks in the eyes of others while a log is hanging out of mine.  I engage daily in “log removal” and my sin is ever before me, to my great shame.  But at the same time, I feel compelled to speak out about this horribly evil series.  Some will read this and accuse me of judging them.  I accept that label.  Because you know what?  The Bible never teaches Christians not to judge each other.  The Scriptures condemn two things in the area of judgment; unrighteous judging and the sinful actions of those who have been judged, either righteously or unrighteously.

In Matthew chapter 7 Jesus teaches about judging others.  Verses 1 and 2 are where most folks like to stop: “Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”  If that was all the Lord had to say about judging, then I would have to admit that He taught we are not to judge others.  However, that was not all He said.  Verses 3 and 4 continue the refrain: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?”  And again I have to confess, if Christ had stopped there, we might have a leg to stand on in decrying judgment.  But, just as before, He had more to say, in verse 5: “You hyprocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Do you see the point?  Jesus did not teach us not to judge others.  He taught us not to judge others unrighteously.  He desired us to repent and confess our own sin first, and then continue to work toward helping others to turn from their sin.  Jesus did not condemn judging.  He condemned unrighteous judging.

Furthermore, He did not tolerate sinful actions, whether they had been unrighteously judged or not.  Later in His ministry the Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery.  They wanted to put Him on the spot to see how He would handle a difficult situation.  The Law of Moses was clear.  For the crime of adultery this woman deserved death by stoning.  It is in this context that Jesus uttered the famous line: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”  Obviously, no one in the crowd could claim with a straight face that they were without sin.  So all of the woman’s accusers melted away in shame.  After they were gone, the Lord asked the adulteress: “Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?  She said, “No one, Lord.”  Now, notice the next sentence Jesus speaks to her: “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

In the eyes of Christ neither party in this situation was above reproach.  The accusers were guilty of precisely what He had taught about back in the sermon on the mount.  They unrighteously accused this woman while at the same time wallowing in the mire of their own ungodliness.  But the woman was not free from condemnation either.  She was in fact guilty of the sin with which she was being accused.  So Jesus charged her to stop. 

The point is that judging is not wrong.  In fact, quite the opposite.  Christians are called to humbly exhort one another to godliness and righteous living.  We are called to gently point out sin that we see for the purpose of restoring fractured or strained relationships between God and His children.  In Galatians 6:1-4 Paul conveys this beautifully: Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.  Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.  Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.  For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.  But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor.

Where I often fail personally is in having that spirit of gentleness and humility that Paul is describing.  Yet, in spite of our failures, we are not excused from pursuing the course of action Paul is mandating; being aware of sin, calling it for what it is, and seeking restoration.

What I am about to say is also not said from a position of ignorance.  I have not “heard through the grapevine” about this series and then decided to condemn it.  Unfortunately, I know exactly what is in these books, what is in the television show, and what is in the heart of George R. R. Martin (the author of the novels).  Here is a quote from him that demonstrates quite clearly what his worldview is regarding “gods” and “religion.”

Well, the readers are certainly free to wonder about the validity of these religions, the truth of these religions, and the teachings of these religions. I'm a little leery of the word "true" — whether any of these religions are more true than others. I mean, look at the analogue of our real world. We have many religions too. Are some of them more true than others?

Or how about this one…

I think the books are realistic. I’ve always liked gray characters. And as for the gods, I’ve never been satisfied by any of the answers that are given. If there really is a benevolent loving god, why is the world full of rape and torture? Why do we even have pain? I was taught pain is to let us know when our body is breaking down. Well, why couldn’t we have a light? Like a dashboard light? If Chevrolet could come up with that, why couldn’t God? Why is agony a good way to handle things?

What he is saying is the same old question that sinful mankind has been throwing up for millennia.  The world is broken, I do not like it, I want it to be fixed, but I want no part of taking responsibility for the state things are in.  Furthermore, I think I know the best way to handle things.  If there is a God, he should come talk to me and I will tell him how to do his job.  And besides, if God is really a good god, he should just make it all better.  And if he will not do that?  Then he can kiss off!  I do not need him!

Now then, my point is not to discuss the merits of Martin’s novels.  I do not believe they have any merits worth exploring.  My aim rather is to call my Christian brothers and sisters to either avoid “A Game of Thrones” like the plague if they have not experienced it yet, or to call them to walk away if they have already indulged.

In Romans 12:1-2 Paul writes an impassioned plea, as follows: I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.  Christians are not to fall in line with the pattern of the world.  They are to be changed by refreshing their minds through the teaching of Scripture.  A Christian cannot renew his or her mind and be transformed away from the world by indulging in those things the world delights in.  Echoing his apostolic brother, John writes in 1^st John 2:15: Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  Christians cannot chase after the unrighteousness and ungodliness in the world and expect to be in conformity to the character of Christ.  Nor can they expect to love and be loved by God for their unrepentant carnality.

In contrast to such a pattern of wickedness, Christians are instead commanded, in the words of Paul again, this time in Colossians 3:2, to: Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  Not only are we to focus on heavenly things from God, but we are to be on guard against earthly things from Satan.  John again, this time in 1^st John 4:1: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Now wait a minute, some might say.  Does this mean we are supposed to walk on eggshells and tiptoe around in an effort to be so spiritual that we cannot have any fun?  Well, first of all, if your definition of fun necessitates the consumption of the pleasures of the world, then you need to go back and re-read 1^st John 2:15.  You may have a serious heart condition that goes far deeper than just what television shows you prefer to watch or what books you like to read.

Beyond that, in answer to the hypothetical question I just posed, yes, that is exactly what God is saying.  James, in chapter 1 verse 27 of his letter: Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.  How exactly are we keeping ourselves unstained from the world when we engage in the same practices the world does?  Paul once again, from the fourth chapter and eighth verse of Philippians: Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.  How can anyone possibly argue that “A Game of Thrones” or a multitude of other entertainment choices at our disposal meets the criteria that Paul just outlined?  I am jumping on a single series with this essay, but there are a host that immediately come to mind, that I know many Christians enjoy watching, that also fit the same bill.

It gets worse for the carnal minded seeker of worldly pleasure.  Paul again, from Romans 16:17-19: I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.  For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naïve.  For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.

What the apostle is getting at is those who promote and encourage things contrary to what they have been taught are guilty of leading others astray after them.  What is it that they have been taught?  For one thing, as Paul makes clear here, they have been taught to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.  In other words, Christians are to be experts in the realm of what is good and clueless babes in the realm of what is evil.  I guarantee you one thing.  If you pour 6 or 7 books, or 7 or 8 seasons, of “A Game of Thrones” into your head you are going to be just the opposite.  You will be wise as to what is evil and innocent as to what is good.

Furthermore, I think of all the young Christians who, on the advice, encouragement, or example of their supposedly more mature peers, might be encouraged to ignore the qualms they may be feeling in their spirit and dive right into the ugly realm of Westeros (the fictional setting of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series).  I am mindful of the dire warning of Jesus Himself, in Luke 17:1-2: “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!  It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.”

I genuinely fear that Christians are using secular logic and human reasoning to justify their continued enjoyment of “A Game of Thrones” and many other forms of secular entertainment that are prevalent in our modern self-gratification driven culture.  I fear that these Christians are ignoring the clear teaching of Scripture and the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and in the process searing their consciences as they walk down the road of carnality.

There was another group of people in the biblical record who did this.  It was the nation of Israel.  Do you know what the vilest sin is that the Hebrews committed?  It was syncretism; that is, the blending of the worship of God with the worship of false pagan deities.  This was utterly abhorrent to the Lord.  In 1^st Kings 18:21 Elijah, in speaking to the Israelites, illustrates the issue for us: “How long will you go limping between two different opinions?  If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”  And the people did not answer him a word.  The people were so numbed to their condition that it was as if they were dead, unable or at the very least unwilling to respond and make a commitment one way or the other.  You see, the Israelites never completely eliminated the worship of God in their country.  They never broke down the temple and removed the Torah from their consciousness.  They just thought it was perfectly fine to mix the Torah with the pagain Canaanite religions around them. 

Repeatedly, as one reads the account of the various kings who came to the throne of the northern kingdom that Elijah prophesied against, the following description is found: He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin; he did not depart from them (e.g. 2^nd Kings 13:2).  What was this sin that Jeroboam was guilty of leading the northern kingdom into?  It was syncretism.  Right after leading the 10 northern tribes in a rebellion against Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, Jeroboam decided he needed to solidify his power base by centralizing religious life in the north, in his jurisdiction, rather than letting it remain in the south, in Jerusalem.

We can read what he did in 1^st Kings 12:25-33.  In a nutshell, he set up golden calves for the people to worship at Bethel and at Dan.  The purpose was ostensibly to ease the travel burden for weary Israelites.  But the underlying motive was to try to hold onto what God had given him through his own power.  Who did the Israelites think they were worshiping at Bethel and Dan when they bowed down to these golden calves?  It was not pagan deities.  It was God Himself.  Jeroboam is very clear about this in verse 28: “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough.  Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” 

The appalling truth is that these people were so blinded they actually thought they were worshiping Yahweh by engaging in a practice expressly and specifically forbidden by Yahweh.  Exodus 20 verses 4-6 is the 2^nd commandment, given to Moses at Horeb as part of the Sinai Covenant between God and the Hebrews: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.  You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

Yet, in spite of this clear prohibition, almost immediately the Israelites did exactly what they were not supposed to do.  In Exodus 32 Aaron crafted a golden calf for them to worship as a stand-in image for Yahweh, who has no physical image.  This is probably where Jeroboam got the idea.  The point, as it relates to this essay, is this.  The worship of calves, bulls, and other forms of animal life, was a specifically and clearly identifiable practice of the pagan nations of the Ancient Near East.  Archaeological evidence is quite clear about this, as evidenced by reliefs of man headed and eagle winged bulls in the palace of Sargon II of Assyria as well as many others.  The great crime of Israel was in blending the worship of Yahweh with the worship of false gods.  Eventually, they would be destroyed by divine judgment because of this.

Although Christians today are not bound by the same terms of the Sinai Covenant, as the Israelites were, the heart of the matter is the same.  We are not to mix with the world in terms of lifestyle, preference, or behavior.  We are to be in the world as strangers or aliens, yet not of the world we live in.  We are to shine as light to the people around us.  If our light is the same color as theirs, how are they supposed to tell the difference. 

And above all, we are to do this not out of a false sense of religious ritualism, as the Pharisees of Jesus’s day were guilty of.  But rather, we are to abstain from worldly pleasures because we love Christ, we love His Father, and we love the Holy Spirit who resides within us.  The question I want to lovingly exhort my brothers and sisters in Christ, who indulge in carnal entertainment, to ask themselves, is this.  How can I maintain a close, intimate, loving, and pure relationship with my Savior while filling my mind with images and concepts that are diametrically opposed to who He is?  Please, if you claim the name of Christ, I plead with you to pray about and meditate upon these things.

How to Study

This is not my material.  It is a short article written by one of my college professors.  I found it to be incredibly useful and interesting.  So I wanted to share.  Please enjoy.

I've sometimes been asked for general advice on how to study, and for specifics on how to raise grades in a class. I answered a student, and thought I'd pass it on.

The first thing to do is figure out if you thought you knew the answers on the test, or if the questions looked completely foreign to you. If it’s the second situation, then you are not concentrating on all the material that is on the test. You’re narrowing your focus too much. You would need to take in more facts, which for you means more extensive notes. If the questions on the test look familiar and you thought you knew them but found out you didn’t, then you need to change the way you are studying, not the scope of your focus (by far the most common problem with students I’ve talked to). Most students make the mistake of studying by going over material only until it seems familiar. That is, they read until they can think to themselves, “I know this.” Unfortunately that’s not enough. Simply recognizing something when you see it is not enough to get you through most exams, especially objective exams (i.e., true/false, multiple choice, matching—the kind I give in my classes). You need to be able to produce the answers from your own memory. I would suggest you either make flash cards, so you will know when you are able to produce the answers from memory, or that you go through your notes by uncovering the topic heading or sentence while keeping the details covered; then uncover it and see if you are correct.

So for example, assuming you take notes in outline form, uncover the heading only, and see if you remember what’s below it. If you don’t have time to take notes and are studying from a book, you can uncover the topic sentence (often the first sentence of a section or a paragraph in textbook style writing). That requires a higher level of retention than simply recognizing something when you see it. It’s the difference between remembering someone’s name when they say it versus being able to recall their name when you see their face.

Another principle that will help is what’s called “overlearning.” Most people stop as soon as they are successful, in this case as soon as they can produce the content from memory. The amount of time it takes to be able to do that is the time it takes to “learn” the material. But studies show that retention levels are very low if you stop then. The best retention for the effort comes at 50% “overlearning,” that is, where you keep learning for another half the time it took to learn it in the first place. So if it took ten minutes to learn something, you would continue for another five minutes (i.e., another half the time it took you to learn).

The best learning takes place on a higher level. That is where we connect what we learn with what we already know. To simply retain the new material as isolated facts, unconnected to what we know, is to leave it in a very weak place in our memory. It is much better to connect it to as many other things we know—or have experienced—as we can. So for example, if we are trying to learn,“Karl Barth believed that people cannot come to know that God exists by looking at the world around them,” we will have a hard time recalling that if that’s as far as we go. However, if we connect that with everything relevant we will do much better. We could connect it to the fact that this is a topic called “natural theology,” that is, the question of what people can know without the Bible. We could also remember that it has something to do with Romans chapter one. We could think about what Calvin said about it. We could even go to our experiences, such as what we feel when we look at a the stars at night and ask, can anyone believe this is all an accident? The more connections we make to new material, the firmer it is in our minds, and not surprisingly, the more it becomes real learning.

The difference between someone who knows little and someone who knows a lot, has something to do with the density of connected knowledge, and often how much use they’ve made of it. The very act of connecting our knowledge makes it more useful. There is a physiological element to this. When a fact sits isolated from other knowledge, we have perhaps only one “neural trace” to it, that is, one thread by which we can recall it. But if we make twenty different connections, or neural traces, to the new fact, there are twenty different biochemical pathways for the brain to get to it.

A student taking a test was once trying to recall how the ontological argument for God’s existence worked. I couldn’t give him any answer with content, but I did suggest he recall everything he could about it. He said that the only thing he remembered was that it was formulated in the Middle Ages. I suggested he try to recall everything having to do with the argument—who formulated it in the Middle Ages, and what it attempted to do. He couldn’t recall anything. So I suggested he just think about that particular period of the Middle Ages, everything about it he could recall: the way people dressed, the church, the state, etc. After a few seconds he recalled the ontological argument and got the test question right. He was a bit surprised that he had recalled it. I explained that he had formed a neural trace from the ontological argument to the Middle Ages, but that trace had broken down (which is what happens when we forget something). By suggesting that he expand his thinking about it, it increased the chances he would pick up another trace he had made to the forgotten material. So as he thought about it, something about the way they dressed and worked in that time period reminded him of the ontological argument. When studying it seems he had formed a mental picture of Anselm, and during the test thinking about dress at the time led him to Anselm and thus to Anselm’s ontological argument. All he had to do was find that unbroken neural trace. That underscores the importance of making multiple neural traces to the new material, connecting it to as much of what we already know as possible (including experiences, memories, opinions). And that makes it more like real, usable, knowledge–which is what we should be gaining from our learning anyway. It’s not just learning for a test that matters, but growing our knowledge so we can use it. Neural traces might not go both ways as easily.

For example, if you always study by looking at a term then recalling the definition, you might not be able to as easily go in reverse, from seeing the definition to remembering the term (such as on a test, or in a work situation when you need to remember the right term). I had some trouble recalling a few biblical verses until I realized I had always looked at the verse reference then recalled what it said. But when I needed to remember it in a conversation or when teaching, I was having no problem recalling what the verse says--I just couldn’t remember the reference. I was studying it backwards. Now I (also) study it by going in the other direction, by looking at the verse then recalling the reference. That’s made it much easier. Additionally, applying what I said about developing multiple neural traces, as I work to memorize it, I recall the verse reference at several points in the verse.

So for example, for Isaiah 57:15, I would say to myself, “For thus says the high and exalted One (Isaiah 57:15) Who lives forever, whose name is Holy (Isaiah 57:15), "I dwell on a high and holy place (Isaiah 57:15), And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit (Isaiah 57:15) in order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite (Isaiah 57:15).” That forms many neural traces. If I just formed one, at the beginning of the verse, and I forgot it, I’d be stuck. But there’s a much better chance one of those many traces will survive.

There are other factors that increase memory, such as motivation. People who struggle to recall math formulas would have no trouble remembering whether their favorite team won their last game, and probably even who scored the winning point. We can increase our motivation by making sure that we always know why we want to learn the material we have to study. The best motivation is intrinsic, that is, you want to know the material for itself.  You want to be a more mature person, know more about how the world works, about how to be successful in relationships with God and those you care about, how to be good at what you’ve chosen to do with your life. Not as good, but still helpful, is extrinsic motivation: you need to know this so you can do well in the class, graduate, get a good job, support a family, and do other things you want in life. When you sit down to study or start your day of classes, take a few seconds to do a motivation check. If it’s lacking, quickly rehearse why this matters.

Clarity also helps learning. It’s hard to remember something we don’t understand very well. Go over new and old material in your mind until it’s absolutely clear. Some people find it helpful to write out their own explanation (a lot of teachers are helping you do that when they have you write answers to questions–that’s one reason my students typically are required to do a fair amount of writing). It can be helpful to imagine yourself explaining it to someone. Even better is to actually explain it to someone. When it comes to finding fuzzy areas in your thinking there’s nothing like trying to explain.

This brings up a related point about learning. So often it is a solitary endeavor. But there are people all around you trying to accomplish the same goals as you. Why not become allies in the learning process? When it comes to memorizing, there’s what’s called “chunking,” where we cluster knowledge together into fewer groups. It is always easier to remember a few things rather than many. One way to reduce the amount you have to remember is by looking for patterns, so that instead of remembering a lot we can remember less because we reduce it to one or two principles. It’s hard to remember the string, 3, 7, 214, 22, 4, 108; but it’s easy to remember 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12. That’s because we are really remembering only one thing, that you add two to each number. Studies of some people with seemingly super memories shows that they are simply very good at chunking. Their memories don’t work better than anyone else’s. When they can’t group or chunk material they don’t do better than the average person. (Some people, however do have remarkably higher memory skills, revealed partly by larger hypothalamus glands, that part of the brain that makes new memories.).

Take heart, memory is like a muscle. The more you use it the stronger it gets. You will gain momentum as you work at it. As we said, memory, which is often what gets measured on tests, is just one aspect of learning. What matters is that you go beyond mere recall and build connected, usable, knowledge (which will, in turn, improve your recall). Another aspect to learning is your physical state. That’s huge. There are hundreds of studies examining the effects that of sleep, diet, exercise, and stress have on learning. It seems as though ninety percent of what I’ve seen (and I look for these, so I’ve seen a lot) boils down to common sense and what you already know. You need enough sleep. Make sure it’s restful, which for most of us means it has to be quiet (I know that is challenging if you live in a loud dorm), you need to be comfortable (not too hot or cold), and you need enough of it. Don’t think you can go on four hours of sleep and learn effectively. You may get used to it, but that doesn’t mean you are working at your peak. If you go on depriving yourself of sleep long enough, you won’t even recognize that you’re capable of performing at a much higher level.

Also, don’t try to solve problems by laying awake. That is a big mistake. Your ability to solve problems depends heavily on getting enough rest so you can think through solutions. Above all, recent studies indicate that sleep is when your brain converts temporary knowledge into permanent, usable knowledge. Your brain sorts out what it learned that day and categorizes it, connects it to existing knowledge and experience, and the like. Why work hard to learn something only to lose it because you stayed up playing that video game a few more hours? One study I read even showed that if your sleep is interrupted at times after the day you learned something, you can’t recall it as well even if you get more sleep later. If your brain fails to convert something to permanent knowledge it’s gone, like turning your computer off before you save; turning it back on won’t get it back because it never got converted from temporary to permanent memory.

As far as diet, your body needs lots of different things to be effective. A lot comes down to an old fashioned balanced diet. If you eat only what you think tastes great, you’re headed for problems, and not just with your GPA. Recent studies underscore the hugely beneficial effects of exercise on the brain. A couple of them have indicated that it actually increases the density of connections in your brain (not the traces of information you put there, but the actual physical hardware that allows you to put the information there). As some have said it very simply, exercise can make you smarter. It makes sense because your brain needs a high blood flow, and exercise increases that (by the way, the brain is very sensitive to dehydration, so making sure you get enough fluids helps it run better).

Stress is a hidden factor in learning. It changes your brain chemistry and does a lot of damage. The military has done large numbers of studies on the effects of stress (and sleep deprivation), confirming the amount of damage it does to the brain. Cortisol, which is produced under stress, can actually destroy brain cells. I don’t know about you, but I need every last one of them. In short, your emotional and spiritual condition have a big effect on your learning. Neglecting that to spend more time studying is counterproductive. So every part of your life affects learning. And learning should affect every part of your life. You’re not accomplishing much if you merely memorize a few facts only to forget them after a test. Real learning is growing your way to a better life. Don’t settle for less. It’s your life. I hope something here helps. 

--Brian Morley, ThM, PhD