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

The Only Stairway to Heaven

Where does faith come from?  Oh, nebulous question of questions.  Oh, arcane mystery of mysteries.  Faith, by its very nature, is difficult to define.  This is so because it is completely intangible.  One cannot draw a picture of faith.  Perhaps an artist could portray a subject acting in faith or demonstrating faith.  But, the faith itself?  It is impossible to portray.  In spite of its esoteric nature, for those who have access to the Bible, faith is not completely obscured from our understanding.  Indeed, the Lord both defines faith for us and He clarifies its source, or its origin. 

In Hebrews 11:1 God says: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  So, to have faith is to be confident that what you hope for will come to pass.  It is to be absolutely convinced of something that you cannot see.  We have a small plaque in our home that reads as follows: “Faith is a bird that feels the light and sings while dawn is still dark.”  This is a quote from the famous Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore.  It perfectly captures the essence of what the Lord communicated in Hebrews 11 so long before.

Alongside the biblical definition of faith, God also provides to us the answer of where faith, specifically saving faith, or faith that leads to salvation, comes from.  Ephesians 2:8 leaves no doubt: For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.  In the salvific context to which Paul applies it here in Ephesians, we can clearly see that God is the source of saving faith.  The ability to believe and thereby be rescued from damnation by the grace of God is sourced in God Himself.  It is He alone who doles out this capacity for faith that we require in order to enter into fellowship and relationship with Him.

These two concepts, the definition and the source of faith, are readily apparent to students of Scripture.  But, I want to ask another question.  Namely, how does God produce this saving faith?  What are the means and the mechanisms He employs in order to unlock the potential in a human heart and mind to respond to the gospel, or the good news, about Jesus Christ?  I will provide my answer to this question up front and then spend the rest of my time attempting to defend that answer.

I think that God produces saving faith in a human heart by acting upon the experiences, the situations, and the encounters with the gospel, both through the written form of it in the Bible and the experiential form of it in the lives of authentic Christians, that we have faced in life.  He uses these pre-existing building blocks by expounding upon them and unveiling the truth about Himself within them in order to confirm His own character through the rational sensibility of our understanding.  In other words, He uses things that are seen, or known, in order to confirm things that are unseen, or unknown.

A wonderful illustration of this can be found in the first chapter of the gospel of John.  This chapter covers a lot of ground, but at the end of the chapter, in verses 43 to 51, I think we can see an example of what I am talking about.  It is the account of the calling of Philip and Nathanael.  These two men would become part of “the twelve”, Jesus’s trusted inner circle of disciples.  These were the men upon whom the Lord would eventually confer His apostolic ministry, so that they would continue to spread the good news about Him after His ascension into Heaven in the due course of time.

I want to begin in the middle of our passage and then work outward from it.  John 1:47 reads: Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”  Frankly, this was an astonishing statement.  Jesus had never met this man Nathanael before in his life.  To issue such a bold declaration of the makeup of Nathanael’s character was either the height of lunacy or the revelation of some previous knowledge that Jesus had.  Nathanael was certainly not blind to the strangeness of such a greeting.  We can see that in his response in verse 48: Nathanael said to Him, “How do you know me?”  This was a perfectly reasonable question.  This man, who Nathanael had never laid eyes on before, had just commented on things that He should have no way of knowing.  Nathanael’s curiosity was instantly aroused and his interest piqued.  I think this was precisely Jesus’s intent.  He was setting Nathanael up for the answer to the question that Jesus knew he was going to ask.  And the Lord gives His reply in the remainder of verse 48: Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”  If Nathanael had been interested before, now his senses were stoked to a fever pitch, as evidenced by his reply in verse 49: Nathanael answered Him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!  You are the King of Israel!”

Now, I want to stop and be frank.  Nathanael’s response in verse 49, according to human wisdom, was utterly ridiculous.  For him to take one demonstration of supernatural power and deduce from that, that the man talking to Him was deity, indicates that either Nathanael was a lunatic, or that something else was going on here.  For that matter, how could Nathanael have known for sure that any power from God was even on display at all?  Jesus might have just happened to be passing by the tree Nathanael was taking refuge under and that is how He saw him.  Why did Nathanael immediately leap to the conclusion that Jesus was “the Son of God” and the “King of Israel?”

Is this nothing more than a demonstration of God’s ability to supernaturally produce, out of nothing, the ability to exhibit saving faith?  I do not think so.  I believe there is something else going on in this encounter between Christ and Nathanael.  We can see several clues scattered through the passage, both before and after the text we have read so far.

First, we have great insight into both Philip and Nathanael’s relationship and their world view.  They were clearly friends, as seen in the fact that Nathanael appears to be the first person Philip sought out after Jesus called him.  Observe this interaction between the two in verses 43 to 45: The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee.  He found Philip and said to him, “Follow Me.”  Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.  Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

Also, these two friends were students of the text.  They were studiers of the Hebrew Bible.  Notice how Philip phrased his revelation to Nathanael: “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote.”  Philip was referring to the numerous Messianic passages, or Scriptures pertaining to the Messiah, that are found in the Old Testament.  In particular, he was referencing Deuteronomy 18:15.  In that verse Moses wrote: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers – it is to Him you shall listen.”  The fact that Philip and Nathanael were familiar with these Old Testament references to the Christ indicates that they were men of the text. 

This can also be observed in Nathanael’s second reply to Jesus, that we saw before.  He called Jesus the “Son of God” and the “King of Israel”.  These titles would only have been used by someone who was familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures which prophesied both the role the Messiah would play as well as the nature of His character.  Psalm 2:7-9 was probably one of many texts that Nathanael was familiar with: I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.  Ask of me, and I will make the nations Your heritage, and the ends of the earth Your possession.  You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Nathanael was aware of Messiah’s deity.  He was also aware of Messiah’s role as the ruler of Israel.  The only way he would have known this is if he had studied the Scriptures.  I think it is clear that Philip and Nathanael were men of the text.  Further, I believe this was a critically important factor in how the Lord Jesus approached Nathanael in John chapter 1.

Consider the first statement Jesus made to Nathanael.  He begins in verse 47 by saying: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”  Now, was this merely a case of Jesus reading a man’s heart and knowing what was in him?  That is certainly something our Lord was capable of doing.  The very next chapter in John confirms that He had this ability, in John 2:25, which says that He: needed no one to bear witness about man, for He Himself knew what was in man.

I think it is more than that.  I believe that not only did Jesus know what was in Nathanael’s heart, but He also knew precisely what Nathanael was doing under that fig tree, and it was that knowledge He was playing upon.  I think Nathanael was studying Scripture when he was under the fig tree.  Specifically, I think he was studying the account of Jacob in Genesis 27 and 28.

John does not explicitly state as such in the text.  However, I think he offers us a number of clues and circumstantial evidence that help us to arrive at this conclusion.  The first clue I have already covered.  Philip and Nathanael were men of the text; students of the Hebrew Scriptures.  The second clue is in Jesus’s final words of the chapter.  After Nathanael proclaims Him to be the Messiah Jesus responds, in verses 50 and 51: Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe?  You will see greater things than these.”  And He said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Jesus was not making fun of Nathanael here.  He was not brow-beating him for having premature faith.  What He was doing was pointing out to Nathanael two things.  First, that Nathanael still was not grasping the enormity of Jesus’s perception and omniscience.  Second, that if Nathanael was impressed already, he, to coin a phrase, “hadn’t seen nothin yet!”

Jesus’s statement about heaven opening and angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man is a direct reference to Jacob’s dream vision in Genesis 28.  In that account, Jacob makes camp at Luz.  When he goes to sleep he has a dream which is recounted in verse 12: And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.  And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!  The dream continues, and God speaks to Jacob from the top of the ladder.  The Lord reveals Himself as the God of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob’s grandfather and father.  And this God of his fathers affirms with Jacob the same covenant He had made with Abraham and Isaac before him.

In the dream, the ladder, or staircase, represents the means by which God descends to commune with man.  The angels serve as God’s messengers who communicate the words of God directly to mankind.  Jacob woke up and he got the point.  He renamed Luz to Bethel, which meant “the house of God” because he thought that the location had special significance as the place in which God would communicate to man.

Now here comes Jesus, 1800 years later.  He expands the symbolism of Jacob’s dream and reveals Himself as the staircase!  Notice how Jesus rephrased the dream.  He said that Nathanael would see heaven opened and the angels ascending and descending “upon” the Son of Man, Himself.  It is Jesus who enables the relationship of God to man.  It is He who is the actual means of God’s descension to man’s level and man’s ascension to God’s level.  Christ is the conduit through Whom worship is now to be given to the Father.  And, although Jesus could have simply been utilizing a great Old Testament patriarch to make His point, I think there is more to it than that.  I think Jesus used Jacob’s dream because that was exactly what Nathanael was reading about under the fig tree!

With that in mind, go back to verse 47 and notice Jesus’s choice of words: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”  The word in Greek, which is translated here as deceit, is dolos (dah-los).  It means deceit, cunning, or treachery.  But here is the thing.  There are several synonyms in Greek that mean almost the exact same thing.  Jesus could have used apate (ah-pah-tay), meaning deception.  He could have said dolios (dah-lee-os), which means dishonest.  He might have used plane (plah-nay), or error.  Even planos (plah-nos), meaning deceiver would have fit the context.  Why did our Lord choose dolos?  I do not believe it was purely a matter of a random choice of several similar words.

The Hebrew Bible that both Philip and Nathanael would have been familiar with was not actually written in Hebrew.  It was written in Greek.  In the third century B.C., Ptolemy II of Egypt sponsored the translation of the Hebrew Torah into Koine Greek.  This was because most of the Jews at that time were fluent in Koine Greek but not Hebrew.  So Ptolemy assembled a translation team of 70 Jewish scholars who went to work and produced a translation of the Hebrew Bible called the Septuagint.

In the Septuagint, the translators needed to choose a Greek word to replace the Hebrew word that described Jacob in Genesis 27:35.  Our English text reads thusly: But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.”  The word used in the Septuagint for the description of Jacob’s character, deceitful, is dolos.  It is the exact same word that Jesus used to describe Nathanael’s character, by stating that he was not dolos, or not deceitful.  Also, remember that Jacob was later renamed to Israel, which is the form of address Christ used for Nathanael; an Israelite indeed.  All these dots must have connected together in Nathanael’s mind.

As if that was not enough, then Jesus really ups the ante by providing the ultimate interpretation of the dream of Jacob that Nathanael had been considering.  In one master stroke of a sentence the Lord explains not only that Jacob’s dream had messianic implications, but that He Himself was the fulfillment of those implications.

So, I believe Nathanael was studying the Scriptures under that fig tree.  I think he was looking into the life of Jacob in Genesis 27 and 28.  Jesus of course knew this, knowing the heart of man as He does, and He used this knowledge to pierce right to the heart of Nathanael.  I think it was this understanding that dawned on Nathanael; not only did this man know where he had been, not only did He know what he had been doing, but He knew exactly what he had been thinking about.  And it was Nathanael’s awe at Christ’s power that caused him to respond as he did: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel.”

Seen in this light, the second statement that Jesus made to Nathanael takes on a new significance.  Again, remember the first thing Jesus said, in verse 47: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!”  Then in verse 48 He declares: “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”  There are two levels of depth that Jesus is operating at with these two sentences.  At first glance, on the surface, the second appears to be more profound than the first.  But I think the second statement served to unlock in Nathanael’s mind the truth that it was actually the first statement, which while initially seemed less penetrating, was actually by far the deeper of the two.

Jesus’s first words, that Nathanael was a true Israelite without guile, were easier to say but harder to prove.  The second statement, that Nathanael was under a fig tree, was harder to say but easier to prove.  It was more difficult for Jesus to say that He saw Nathanael under the fig tree.  But it was easier to prove because it could be handily verified by Nathanael’s own experience.  On the other hand, it was quite easy for Jesus to say that Nathanael was a true Israelite without guile.  Yet it was much more difficult to prove that because the veracity of the statement was intangible and unverifiable.

We can see another example of Jesus working like this in Mark chapter 2.  In this chapter we read of the account of the paralytic and his friends.  Jesus was in a house teaching.  The paralytic’s friends brought him to see the Lord for healing, but the crowd was so great they could not get in.  So, the resourceful men went up on the roof, dug a hole in it, and lowered their disabled friend down into the middle of the crowd where Jesus was.  Jesus, upon seeing their faith in His ability to heal, responded to the paralyzed man in verse 5 with: “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Some scribes were in the home.  They became upset at hearing Jesus’s words.  In verse 7 Mark records their thoughts: “Why does this man speak like that?  He is blaspheming!  Who can forgive sins but God alone?”  The Lord’s response in verses 8 through 11 is of particular relevance to us: And immediately Jesus, perceiving in His spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts?  Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’?  But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – He said to the paralytic – “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.”

In the case of the paralytic, anyone could say that his sins were forgiven because there was no way to verify the truth of such a claim.  But no one could tell him to get up and walk unless they actually had the power to make such a miracle happen.  Jesus’s point is that the forgiveness of sins was the greater of the two miracles.  Although, from a surface level point of view, the healing of paralysis was the more demonstrably miraculous, in terms of eternal significance having one’s sins forgiven is of vastly greater weight.  So then, the healing of the body served to authenticate the healing of the soul that had already taken place.

Going back to Nathanael in John chapter 1, we can see the same principle at work but applied to a different situation.  Jesus’s first statement, that Nathanael was a true Israelite without deceit, was far deeper and more perceptive than His second statement, that He had seen Nathanael under the fig tree.  But the problem was that the first statement sailed right over Nathanael’s head initially.  So, Jesus used the obviousness of the second statement to cause Nathanael to recognize the miraculous nature of the first statement.  In other words, the seen became the proof of the unseen.

Allow me to paraphrase and re-state the situation in a different way.  I think Jesus was saying the following to Nathanael.  You are a true descendant of Jacob Israel.  However, unlike your fore-father, you are a man of integrity who does not engage in deception.  Like your ancestor, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending from earth to heaven.  But, unlike Jacob, you will see them doing so upon Me rather than a ladder or a staircase.

My point is this.  I think that God produces faith in us just as He did with Nathanael.  He utilizes our minds and our experiences.  He ordains the situations and encounters we face in life.  Then He uses them and expounds upon them to confirm His own character by the rational sensibility of our understanding.  In other words, I believe that God often does not simply create faith in us out of “thin air”, so to speak.  I think He uses the building blocks that are already present within us and from them causes something to occur that would never happen without His intervention; saving faith springs forth and new life is born.

This is why the preaching of the gospel is so critically important.  It is the primary method that the Lord uses to regenerate the dead heart of man.  Consider the text of Romans 10, verses 13 through 17: For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed?  And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard?  And how are they to hear without someone preaching?  And how are they to preach unless they are sent?  As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”  But they have not all obeyed the gospel.  For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?”  So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

God uses pre-existing ideas, concepts, and images in the mind of men to create saving faith in their hearts.  In the case of Nathanael, he demonstrated diligence and perseverance by being a faithful student of the Scriptures.  Then Jesus, correctly perceiving and understanding Nathanael’s heart, met him right at that point to produce saving faith in the heart of this man by using the prep work of Bible study that Nathanael had been engaged in.  If we desire to have faith like Nathanael’s, either genuine saving faith for the first time or the expansion of our current capacity for faith, then it would behoove us to prepare ourselves now so that we will be ready when the Lord comes with His perfect knowledge and timing to open our minds to understanding.  Furthermore, the preaching of the good news about Jesus is the method that God is pleased to employ in order to bring about repentance.  So we had better get to work!

Why Do We Suffer?

I want to speak to you on a topic about which every single person reading this is intimately familiar.  This topic transcends age limitations, cultural barriers, educational boundaries, and mental abilities.  It is at once both familiar and despised by every human being from the cooing infant to the slobbering drunkard to the bedfast senior.  The topic on my mind is pain.  Suffering, we might say.  Anguish, torment, and discomfort.  These concepts and the experiences that present them to us are the meat and the drink of our lives.  Suffering is inescapable and it comes to us all.  We instinctively avoid it with every fiber of our beings.  Torment is unilaterally shunned by all people regardless of station in life.  It is only those who have particular mental debilitations that delight in pain.  For the vast majority of humanity, suffering is vigorously bemoaned when it comes and is eagerly escaped from as soon as possible.

It was not always this way.  Although the Bible is not explicitly clear on this, I believe that in the original creation, prior to man’s descent into depravity, rebellion, and sin, there was no pain.  Genesis 1:31 provides us with the concluding summary statement of the work of creation that God had done: And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.  I think that in the phrase “very good” we find the implication that the troubles, problems, and failures that we live with every day were nonexistent.  Furthermore, even if that point is arguable, another is not.  That is, that in the new creation that God will bring about, after the destruction of this present corrupted universe, pain, death, and everything that goes along with them will be completely eradicated once and for all.  

Revelation 21:3-4 makes this abundantly clear: And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.  He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

So, those who are in Christ have a wonderfully exciting, pain free, joy filled future to look forward to.  But that future is not yet.  For the time being we remain on this cursed earth with all of its troubles and turmoils.  And in that context, we must ask a critically important question.  Namely, does God provide any instructions about how we are to confront the tribulation that comes to us in life?  Are there guidelines, rules, and best practices we can take with us as we rush headlong into the lion’s jaws of this painful mortal coil?  More importantly, for the follower of Christ, is there a reason for our suffering?  Is the pain of this life just random chance, heaped in greater measure on the heads of some or lesser measure upon the heads of others, purely by the whim of fate?

The Bible provides a comprehensive answer to these questions.  It can be found, among other places, in the book of 2^nd Corinthians.  This book is a letter that was written by the Apostle Paul to a small house church of 1^st century Christians living in the city of Corinth, Greece.  It is one of at least four letters that Paul wrote to this church, only two of which have been preserved in Scripture.  This letter is particularly adept at handling the questions we want to throw at it relating to suffering.  The reason is that the first eight chapters are dominated by the issue we are raising today, with additional commentary scattered throughout the remaining five chapters.  That is, how should Christians relate to, respond to, and view trials and pressures that face them in life?

Although much of the book deals with this topic, for the sake of time we will focus primarily on just a very small portion of it.  Specifically, in chapter 1, verses 3 and 4 Paul opens with a summary statement that clarifies the message he wants to present and that he will expand upon throughout the rest of the book.  The text reads as follows: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  Let us examine this text in detail and draw our conclusions from it as well as from supporting passages found throughout the letter.

The very first phrase is critically important and we dare not skip over it.  Paul writes “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Blessed is the Greek “eulogetos”.  It is the word we get our modern English word eulogy from.  Perhaps it strikes you as odd that Paul would confer a word upon the Lord that you may have only ever heard associated with funerals.  It is true that eulogies are often delivered to commemorate the life of a person who has recently died.  However, in the best sense of the word it is not necessarily restricted to the realm of death.  It merely means to praise someone.  To eulogize a person is to extoll their virtues and rejoice in their accomplishments.  It is to heap wishes for success and praise upon their heads.  Aside from the funereal connotations of a eulogy, a person might be eulogized while living.  Perhaps they are graduating from school or retiring from a career.  In such cases a good friend, relative, or co-worker might give a eulogy for them.

In a Biblical context, eulogetos means to bless someone else.  It means they are adorable to you.  You consider them to be elegant and have fine speech.  This person is to be reverenced.  They might even be consecrated; meaning set apart for a special task.  The person speaking such a blessing upon another is, in effect, invoking a benediction upon them.  A wonderful example of this is Aaron’s benediction that he was commanded to speak to the people of Israel in Numbers 6:24-27: The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Why does Paul begin this way, by confering a blessing upon the Lord?  Is this just the apostle’s customary salutation that he always uses?  In a modern context we might ask, is Paul doing a quick copy/paste from one of his other letters?  It is true that he, as well as the other biblical writers, often begin in a very similar manner to what we find in 2^nd Corinthians.  However, in this case I think there is a deeper level of reasoning and meaning behind Paul’s choice of words.

To put it succinctly, I think he is modeling the correct perspective for the Corinthians.  He knows the material he is about to cover.  It is difficult subject matter.  Suffering, confrontations and divisions within the church, false apostles, and strained relations between himself and the believers are just a few of the weighty and sobering topics Paul is about to get into.  I think he knows very well that human tendency when confronted with such things is to view them with negativity, derision, and frustration.  So, he wants to establish the baseline of a proper world view right off the bat.  Namely, that God is blessed and all that that entails, as mentioned above.  Paul knows that in order to properly assess the difficulties in their lives, these Corinthian Christians must have a proper and correct view of who God is.  And so Paul provides answers to questions that have not even been verbalized yet.

First, who is this God that Paul desires to eulogize?  He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  This is a critically important concept to understand.  Paul was a Jew.  Although he was writing to a Gentile church, undoubtedly there were some Christian Jews in the mix.  Furthermore, regardless of audience, Paul was as thoroughly Jewish as it was possible to be.  His Hebrew culture and heritage were steeped in the traditions and customs of his ancestors.  Here is the point.  Israelite society was intensely patriarchal.  This means that family units were large and insular.  Multiple generations existed either together or in very close proximity to each other.  They were closely knit together through the medium of living life together.  The family was of paramount importance to a Jew.  And the eldest living father, or the patriarch, was the literal ruler of this little clan.  The father called all the shots and the family literally either rose or fell on his shoulders.  If the father was successful, the family was successful.  If the father bungled things, particularly in regard to wickedness, then the whole family would often go down with him.

This is drastically different from American culture.  We live in a society where men have often been emotionally emasculated.  In an effort to distort God’s design for marriage relationships in which the husband and wife are equally valuable yet have distinct and defined roles and responsibilities, a liberal culture that refuses to accept the sovereign will of the Lord has worked overtime to dispute and disrupt any possibility of a patriarchal society.  To be sure, often throughout human history patriarchalism has been mismanaged and poorly implemented.  But that is due to the sinful heart of man, not problems with God’s design.

So, we need to recognize the cultural distance between ourselves and the apostle Paul.  And we need to recognize that when Paul identifies God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is elevating God to a tremendous degree.  Because if Christ is the absolute Master and Overlord of the church, then God the Father, in His trinitarian role as Father, is of equally exalted status.

That brings me to the other aspect of the title that Paul uses for God here.  In a patriarchal society such as Israel, the son, particularly the firstborn son, was exceedingly important.  He was the very image of his father.  He portrayed his father’s character and reputation in public.  If the son was to behave poorly or dishonestly, it reflected back on his father in a very real and potentially disastrous manner.  It was much more visceral than in our society.  In our culture, if a child is misbehaved, sure, the parents suffer some level of reproach.  But not like this.  In Hebrew culture, the actions of the son were literally seen as equal to the actions of the father.

This means that Paul is also ascribing incredible value to the Son, Jesus.  He is making the claim that Jesus of Nazareth, in his person as the Son of God, carries the literal reputation of God the Father on His shoulders.  There is an intrinsically communal, harmonious, and circular quality to the relationship between Father and Son.  The One is the image of the Other.  The Other is the reputation of the One.  They are both the exact imprint of an identical nature.

Oh, how much richness and depth are inherent in every line of Scripture!  And Paul is not even finished yet in introducing the Lord in this letter.  Next, he identifies God as the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.  This is the only place in the New Testament where these particular titles are given to God.  Why does Paul include two different descriptors here?  By examining the nuances between them I think we can ascertain the apostle’s intent.

Here are our clues.  Mercies is plural while comfort is singular.  Also, comfort has the modifier “all” attached to it.  Furthermore, Paul associates mercies with fatherhood while relating comfort to godhood.  What is he trying to tell us?  I think Paul’s meaning is at once both simple and profound.

The plurality of mercies conveys the idea of a multiplicity of actions.  In other words, Paul is not talking about a general sense or idea of mercy in an abstract manner.  He has in mind specific acts of mercy that are carried out by God.  We are to see the Lord as personal and interactive.  I think Paul uses the word father because he wants us to have in mind an earthly human father who is involved in the lives of his children.  This man’s family can instantly call to mind any number of concrete examples of the interpersonal quality of their relationship with their father.  Just so with God, in Paul’s mind, as He walks with us and cares for us through His inexhaustible compassion.

On the other hand, the singularity of comfort seems to point to a more general and less well defined yet an ultimately more comprehensive covering of comfort.  Paul’s use of the modifying adjective “all” reinforces this idea.  It is not merely that the Lord is a source of comfort, perhaps one of many such sources.  Rather, Paul seems to be saying that all comfort that occurs flows from God.  In fact, I think Paul’s point is that no true comfort exists apart from God.  The fact that he associates “God” with “all comfort” adds to the image that is developing in our minds.  A father is seen as intimate and personal, yet ultimately limited in scope and capacity.  Conversely, a god is considered to be aloof yet all powerful and in control.

I think what Paul is getting at is that the Lord God of Israel synthesizes these two disparate aspects of compassion in His own person.  He is a tender Father who cares for our every individual need for mercy.  But He is also an all-powerful God who is in complete sovereign control of His creation.  This God orders and directs the wide-angle lens of all comfort in the entire world at all times while simultaneously interacting with His children in a tender and loving, individual and specific manner.

Why does Paul take such pains and go to such lengths to be sure our understanding of God in His capacity as a comforter is clear and accurate?  Because he wants us to truly believe in our bones that God has our backs.  He knows that we must have an image of God as the completely sufficient and totally unique foundation of any mercy, compassion, and comfort that we will ever receive.  If we fail to grasp this truth of God’s character then the rest of Paul’s message about suffering is going to fall on deaf ears.

The reason is that his answer about why we suffer and what comfort God provides in the midst of that suffering may not be what our self focused flesh wants to hear.  Paul needs us to be completely focused upon the Lord so that the impact of his message can penetrate deeply into our minds and radically alter our perspective on both our own lives and the rest of the world around us.

We begin to see the answers to our questions emerge in verse 4.  We need to pause for a while on the very first phrase: who comforts us in all our affliction.  The word affliction is “thlipsis” in Greek.  It is variously translated as oppression, tribulation, or distress in our English Bibles.  But, the best sense of the word is that of a pressing, a pressing together, or pressure.  Imagine a heavy object such as an anvil being placed upon a wooden table.  The weight is considerable, yet the table holds.  Then another anvil is added, doubling the pressure that gravity is bringing to bear upon the wood beneath.  Then another anvil and another.  Eventually, the wooden legs of the table exceed their structural tolerance due to the extreme pressure, and the whole thing collapses.

This is the image that Paul himself puts forth just a few verses later when he uses the same word, “thlipsis”, in verse 8: For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.  For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.  Paul never reveals exactly what the nature of this affliction was.  But he makes it painfully obvious that the pressure he felt, the weight of tribulation, was pressing in upon his soul with a crushing force, even unto the point of despair.  This is the image in Paul’s mind as he writes that God will comfort us in our affliction.

Notice also that, again, the apostle inserts the adjective “all” before the word affliction.  Be very clear in your mind, as Paul is, that there is no pressure, no turmoil, no struggle, and no burden sufficient to exceed the all-consuming mercy and compassion of God.  That being said, an important question presents itself immediately to our minds.  Namely, how does God provide this comfort?  In what manner does He comfort us?  To find the answer to that question we need look no further than Paul’s own example again, conveniently chronicled in this same letter.

In chapter 12, verses 1 to 6, the apostle describes an experience he had at some point during his ministry.  He was caught up to heaven, whether in vision form or in the flesh he was not sure.  While enjoying this heavenly experience Paul saw and heard things of incredible power and glory.  He does not say what he witnessed.  In fact, he states that it cannot be told.  Then, in verse 7 Paul describes the Lord’s act of forced humility upon his life: So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harrass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.

Just as with the vision, Paul never says what this “thorn in the flesh” was.  But he does chronicle his response to it, in verse 8: Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.  Make no mistake.  Whatever this thorn was in Paul’s life, he did not like it.  He desired to have it gone as soon as possible.  The apostle was not some kind of super saint who was so spiritual that he was beyond the realm of human frailty.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Paul was very much an ordinary man, probably much like us in many ways.

Just like we would be prone to, he begged God to take away the thorn that had been given to him.  And it is in the Lord’s response to Paul’s request that we find the nature of God’s brand of comfort.  In verse 9 Paul writes: But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”  That is all.  No promises to wipe away the pain of our burdens.  No assurances that we will not have to endure them long.  No guarantees of ease and contentment.  All that God gave Paul was a simple promise that the grace of God would sustain him.  All that God vows to us is that He will walk with us through the pain.  He will hold our hand when we are afraid.  He will put His arm around us when we stumble.  And He will carry us when we fall and cannot go on any longer.  God never promises us that He will remove us from our troubles.  He simply guarantees that He will bear them with us.

This is the message that our flesh often does not want to hear.  We desire peace.  We long for an easy life, free from trouble.  We sometimes come to God with an erroneous assumption that because we are Christians He will supernaturally clear the road for us so that we can drive straight through without any hassle of traffic or road blocks.

However, this is not at all the way God works and not remotely what He has promised His children.  Furthermore, although our flesh rails against it, it is not what we need either.  Moving back to chapter 1 and the heavy burden Paul endured to the point of death, we find his own “post game” commentary on what he had suffered, in verses 9 and 10: Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.  But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.  He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us.  On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again.

The point of Paul’s affliction and the reason behind our suffering is the same.  It is to give the Lord an opportunity to comfort us in the midst of it.  The comfort He gives is the assurance that He will not forsake us.  Rather, He will guide us and nurture us through the pain.  This process of divine hand holding is the very thing that builds our trust, strengthens our belief, and straightens our spines to face ever greater tests of faith in the Lord our God.  If God were to magically warp us out of the tribulation, this transformation of character would never happen.  Furthermore, we would never come to experientially know the incredible surpassing power of God’s comforting hand.

As incredible as all that is to consider, it remains only half of the answer to our original question.  We asked, “Why do we suffer?”  And we have seen that the answer is, in part, so that God will have an opportunity to demonstrate His inexhaustible capacity to comfort, for the purpose of producing men and women of steel who trust Him implicitly, even unto death.  But there is another angle to our suffering.  There is another factor that must be considered.  It is found in the remainder of verse 4: so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

This is the utterly compelling reality of the communal aspect of our suffering.  We are afflicted for the sake of ministry!  The New Testament overwhelmingly presents an image of the Christian life in which people are born again, adopted into the family of God, and placed by Him into fellowship with a spiritual family of local fellow adoptees.  The expectation then becomes service and ministry to this new found family.

We can see this in Paul’s own chronicle of his life in this very letter.  In chapter 1, verses 12 to 15 the apostle writes: For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.  For we are not writing to you anything other than what you read and understand and I hope you will fully understand – just as you did partially understand us – that on the day of our Lord Jesus you will boast of us as we will boast of you.  Because I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a second experience of grace.

Paul so highly regarded this group of spiritual brothers and sisters in Corinth that he counted his time among them as well as the letters he had written them to be outpourings of the grace of God, channeled through himself.  Furthermore, he fully intended to boast righteously in the testimony of the power of God in their lives, just as he expected them to boast in his life.  This was not mere words for Paul.  He desired to back up his conviction with physical visits, because he knew that time spent together in fellowship would only increase the grace experienced by both parties.

The result of such a spiritually uplifting relationship between Christians can be seen in chapter 3, verses 1 to 3: Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?  Or do we need, as some do, letters of commendation to you, or from you?  You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all.  And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

The incredible design of the church is that we pour ourselves into ministry to our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We invest in their spiritual growth just as they invest in ours.  And over time, the fruit of that ministry to each other becomes the greatest testimonial in the world of the power of God that works in and through us.  We cease to require words on paper to commend our efforts.  God Himself commends us through the medium of the many powerfully Spirit filled Christians we have touched with our service to both them and to Christ.

This is the pattern, the expectation, and even the commandment of how a Christian is to live.  And, backing up to chapter 1, verse 4 again, we see that the affliction we endure is the equipment we require in order to accomplish this task of ministry.  When we suffer we are being taught how to trust God.  We are being instructed with “on the job training” in how to commit ourselves to Him and Him alone fully and completely.  With this rigorous education under our belts, and with our tools close at hand, we then carry these lessons forward into ministry and service to the saints of the living God in whatever Christian relationships the Lord places us in, with the local church being a major emphasis of our efforts.

The astonishing, and frankly counter cultural, doctrine being taught here by Paul is that the life of a Christian has a single purpose.  There is only one unifying and underlying goal that should be driving every Christian forward in a never ending pursuit of the life and character of Christ.  That is ministry.  Our lives are for ministry.  Our salvation is given to us so that we can minister.  Our sanctification is carried forward by the Holy Spirit so that we can minister more effectively. 

Consider Paul’s evaluation of what he had endured and how it related to the Corinthian church, in verses 5 to 7: For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.  If we are afflicted it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.  Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

Paul’s estimation of his suffering is that it is for other Christian’s comfort and salvation.  His understanding of the comfort he receives from God is that that too is for others; for their future comfort that can only come from their own experience of suffering in which they are trained to trust God through the circumstances they face.  Our purpose in life then becomes the training of others in how to trust the Lord through the most horrible pressures and tribulations imaginable.  And in a glorious pattern that truly comes full circle, the comfort that God has promised He will provide is miraculously given through other believers.  We actually become a part of the Lord fulfilling His divine promise to comfort Christians in all their afflictions.  A Christian who is committed to ministry and service is a veritable conduit of grace.

Do you see the pattern that is emerging here?  It is a perspective that is unwaveringly focused outward rather than inward.  When we suffer our eyes are to be locked onto Christ rather than ourselves for sustenance.  When we are comforted our focus is to be upon the incredible mercies of God.  When we are at peace our hearts are to be seeking after others so that we can pour into them what God first poured into us.

This is the Christian life.  If you are reading this and everything I am writing is foreign to you, then I deeply apologize.  Because, you have completely misunderstood what it means to be a follower of Christ.  You have bought the shrink wrapped commercial brand of Christianity that has been sold in the United States and other countries for years.  You have succumbed to the lie that “church” is a place to go once per week so that you can be entertained or to have your spiritual gas tank filled up to get you through the rest of the week in which walking with Christ is the furthest thing from your mind.

And, sadly, you have so far missed the glorious product of a life lived like what Paul is describing in 2^nd Corinthians.  The end result of all this suffering, comfort, and service is an indestructible Christian whose faith is like steel.  I want to leave you with three lengthy passages, all from 2^nd Corinthians, that work together to paint a portrait of the life of a believer that is built on the solid rock of their faith in Christ.

Chapter 4, verses 6 to 10 begins the narrative by describing our triumph against all odds of our frail bodies and afflicted souls: For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.  We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.  There is no power in the universe that can crush the spirit of a born again Christian who is clinging to Christ as the source of their strength and who is committed to embracing their suffering as the means of their sanctification.

Chapter 5, verses 1 to 4 expand the view to include the focus of our future desires: For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.  For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened – not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 

There is only one type of complaint that is permissible for a Christian when they suffer.  It is that they long to be free of the suffering so that they can be at home with the Lord in heaven.  Our desire for suffering to end must not be bound up in a wish for a good life here on earth.  Such a life does not exist, except inasmuch as it is lived for service and ministry like what Paul has been describing.  Our gaze must remain fixed heavenward at all times, especially in the midst of our trials.

Chapter 6, verses 1 to 10 is the longest passage of all.  But it is crucial to complete our understanding of Paul’s message here: Working together with Him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.  For He says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”  Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.  We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise.  We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

A Christian who lives continually in the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, who clings to God as their only source of comfort in their afflictions, and who expends their energy in service to others to teach them these same principles becomes an invulnerable fortress of faith that Satan will break himself to pieces on before he puts a dent or a chink in the outer walls.

Paul’s heart was wide open to these Corinthian believers.  He professes as much in the next three verses: We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open.  You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections.  In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.  Dear reader, will you widen your heart today to the glorious life that awaits you on the other side of your afflictions and through the course of the life of ministry that God has called you to?