Does God Change His Mind?

An email from my favorite theologically minded friend started this post. Recently, Craig Blomberg, a well-known New Testament scholar whose work on the historical accuracy and reliability of the Gospels has been of great help to many a student, pastor, and layman, wrote an article explaining why he is a "Calminian" -- a jokey riff on the "Why I Am/ Am Not a Calvinist" books of recent years. Blomberg is basically trying to put himself clearly outside the Reformed mindset once and for all. I've read a few expressions of disappointment, and an article agreeing with his position, which is basically what I'm going to attempt to respond to today.

First of all, let me point out that Craig Blomberg is way smarter than I am. I don't pretend that I can tangle with him intellectually. But despite that, I still think he's wrong. Second, let me point out that Craig Blomber is also a brother in Christ, despite what I think are his mistakes on this front. I'm not denigrating his faith or his commitment to the body of Christ, nor am I trying to write off his contribution to the Christian community. One of his books sits on my shelf, and it's staying there! But anyway, here goes.

At one point in his article, Blomberg refers to the story of Joseph's brothers coming to him in Egypt for help during the great famine. Joseph's famous line, "You intended it for evil, but God intended it for good," Blomberg insists, is not a declaration of God's sovereignty, but a mere statement of fact. He says: "Two separate agents, two separate wills, at cross purposes with each other, neither described as logically or chronologically prior to the other. Neither is said to cause the other; they occur simultaneously." What's really happening, he says, is that both wills operate at the same time, without one being over the other.

Well, hold up. I get what he's saying. Joseph says to his brothers, "You sold me into slavery out of a wicked intention, but God's power trumped your evil desires." In fact, God's purposes to preserve his people included the brothers' evil plans and actions. God is so powerful that he can even use human evil -- the condition of our fallen nature! -- to accomplish his purposes. That's comprehensive sovereignty. This is a copout. Blomberg's a great guy, and his work on the historical reliability of the Gospels is priceless, but he just does NOT want to be in the "God is totally sovereign" camp AT ALL. (Plus, calling himself a "Calminian" is cute, but the fact is that there isn't a responsible Arminian on the planet who wouldn't totally acknowledge God's sovereignty in human history. So he's really a Cal-Open Theist-ian. Which isn't quite as cute.)

Moving on to broader arguments about God's sovereignty, I often encounter people who point to the word "relent" in the Scriptures and say, "See? That means that God goes back on his word! If he really is completely sovereign over everything, how can he appear to be influenced by the prayers of his people?" I used to use this argument myself! Well, yes, "relent" means that he will not do what he said he would do, out of a gracious desire to preserve and defend his people. But a couple things:

1) This DOES NOT MEAN that God changes his mind or that he's fickle or doesn't know what he's ultimately going to do. The problem with the argument here is that, while they're trying to just draw a line around the Reformed understanding of God's sovereignty, they END UP basing their whole view on the idea that God actually changes his mind. Listen up: this is where guys like Greg Boyd and Clark Pinnock got started, and where they end up is saying that God takes risks, that he doesn't even KNOW the outcome of certain events, and that in some cases WE have more sovereignty over circumstances than the creator of the universe. That's a pretty stupid place to end up and still call yourself a Christian. It's just like how the Mormons use the methods of 19th century German liberal philosophers to convince people that the Book of Mormon is ok -- the argument might convince people, but you're cutting off the branch you're sitting on!

2) Check out this article. There's some uncool argumentation happening here, and this isn't the only place I've heard this line of reasoning, not by a long shot. You ever hear of "weasel words"? They're little words or phrases that a speaker or writer slips in, sometimes without even knowing it himself, that unfairly denigrate the other position -- it's like straw man + ad hominem all at once. The one that popped out to me was "real relationship." Yates and others imply that, unless God limits his own foreknowledge or sovereignty in some way, it's impossible for him to enter into "real relationship" with his creation. This is nonsense. We don't get to make up the rules for how God interacts with us based on our experiences with each other. The scriptures are full of the truths of God bringing the dead back to life both literally and figuratively. But does that one-sided interaction, that ultimate demonstration of total sovereignty, mean that God has some kind of counterfeit relationship with those he raises to life? Did Jesus have a more or less "real relationship" with Lazarus when he raised him, single-handed, from death?

3) There's also some plain old ridiculousness that gets shoveled around. To quote Yates, who is taking up a common anti-sovereignty argument: "The statements that Yahweh will harden the Pharaoh’s heart at the beginning of this process (cf. Exod 4:21; 7:3) are an expression that Yahweh’s purposes will ultimately prevail in this struggle but not that he dictates or determines the Pharaoh’s responses." Uh... what? What part of "I will harden his heart" is the tough part to interpret? "I will" meaning it's gonna happen, "harden his heart" meaning that's what he's gonna do. Yup. You have to do some pretty sexy contortionism to get around the plain meaning of that sucker.

4) The kicker is the "only a really sovereign God could accomplish his purposes in a universe where he has limited his sovereignty," also known as the "it's true because it ain't" argument. A God who can accomplish his purposes in such a give-and-take, unresolved universe that anti-sovereignty folks try to set up, is truly sovereign? Huh? So only a God who is truly sovereign and omniscient could operate in a universe where somethings are outside his sovereignty and beyond his omniscience? Yeah, that makes sense. What's the purpose of prayer if the God we're praying to has chosen this event to be one of the hands-off parts of world history? How are we to know the difference? Or does he wait until we pray and then decide to re-institute the sovereignty he's chosen to put on hold?

Unlike Blomberg and lots of other people who use these kinds of arguments, I'm happy to live knowing that my choices are BOTH really choices that I really make with my time-bound will and mind AND are mysteriously part of God's plan. It's called paradox, and we have to embrace it, largely because our finite brains can't fathom the depths of God's will. Let's not try to eliminate paradox by making God more like us. That's a pretty dumb Bible study method. Dig?

Kitchen Keeping Tips #4 -- Making the Most of Your Pantry (Pantry Philosophy Edition!)

What is a pantry, and what goes in it? Why should you have a well-stocked pantry?

Your pantry is any storage area in or adjacent to your kitchen where you keep dry goods (like rice, pasta, beans, grains, flour, etc.), canned goods, and other nonperishables. For the purposes of this post, your freezer counts as part of your food storage. If you have a deep freeze, that counts, too.

In the past, I've given a pantry list, along with ten pantry-only recipes and a 30-day menu plan, as shower gifts for brides-to-be. I figure it's incredibly practical. How many times have you come home, hungry and exhausted, from your family vacation, only to be greeted by an empty fridge? And if your schedule looks anything like mine, there are times when you literally have no time to grocery shop. A well-stocked pantry will get you through those moments with minimal stress.

Think about a steaming bowl of spicy, savory pasta puttanesca. Or a rich, comforting risotto. Or Cuban red beans and rice. Or a quick vegetarian black bean chili, served over creamy polenta. You can make all of these things in thirty minutes or less, with only ingredients you have in your pantry, if you stock it according to the list in the previous post.

But just how do you do that without breaking the bank?

It's simple. Make a list like the pantry list below of all the items you do not have, and keep it with your shopping bags (you do use cloth shopping bags, don't you?) or in your purse. Each time you go to the grocery store, pick up one or two of the items, or more if you can find them on sale. You're going to be saving money by using my shopping plan anyway, so you'll be well able to afford those few extra items -- and they're cheap items!

The next time you're in the neighborhood of an ethnic grocery (there are Indian, Korean, and Mexican groceries close to me, so that's where I go), pick up some of those ingredients as well. Indian groceries are a fantastic source for cheap spices, lentils, and basmati rice. Mexican groceries often have canned and dried beans that are much more reasonably priced than a regular grocery store. An Asian market is obviously the best place to buy your everyday rice, and is a surprisingly reliable source for fresh, unique produce.

If you're a meat-eater and own a deep freeze, look into sourcing meat directly from local producers. If you put half a beef or a whole pig -- butchered and custom cut, of course -- into your freezer once a year (almost always at a dramatically lower price per pound than comparable meat at the grocery store), you can keep eating the meat you enjoy while saving literally hundreds per year.

Now, how much to buy? The answer to that involves three considerations: how much money can you save by buying in bulk, how much space do you have, and how quickly will you go through pantry items?

I have a very small kitchen, and all of my pantry items are in one standard sized cupboard and one small cupboard above my stove. Plus, I'm cooking for one most of the time. So buying beans or rice or flour in fifty-pound sacks isn't practical for me. I don't have any place to put that amount of food, and there's no way I could get through it all before it got bugs or went rancid and I had to throw it away, which negates any savings I could get by buying such large amounts.

But let's say you have six kids, your house has a root cellar, and you bake all your own bread and eat rice and beans twice a week. For you, buying rice and beans and flour in fifty-pound sacks would probably be a great plan, and the best use of your money!

Here are some good rules of thumb for determining how much to buy:

1. Buy as much of the product (rice, pasta, beans, flour, etc.) as you can store, in the largest package possible. It's more economical to buy staple foods in large quantities than small, not to mention the environmental benefit of reducing packaging materials.
2. Balance that with how much you can use before the item gets rancid (a consideration with whole grains and nuts), attracts bugs, loses potency or flavor (as with baking powder, herbs and spices, tea and coffee, etc.), or gets freezer burn in the case of your "freezer pantry."
3. Plan. I cannot over-emphasize this. PLAN to use each item in turn as you plan your meals. Focus your meal plans on your pantry stocks rather than on meat -- in other words, if you use a flex-plan like I outlined in my Shopping post, plan to have rice one day a week and pair it with a meat that was on sale at the grocery this week (or go meatless and do rice and beans!). Another day, have pasta with another meat that was on sale (or, again, go meatless). Have a meal that puts a homemade bread at the center, like pizza, crusty bread with soup, or hot sandwiches.

Whew! That was a LOT of info, but I hope it was helpful!

Kitchen Keeping Tips #3 -- Shopping Wisely

So I lied.

I'm not doing pantry stuff next. As I was putting the pantry post together, I thought, "Where are you getting this stuff? There has to be some shopping involved FIRST!" So here goes:

There are two general philosophies, if you will, of meal planning and grocery shopping, each with strengths and weaknesses.

First is to plan specific meals and buy only the items necessary for those meals. Simplicity is this shopping style's major advantage: it's a no-brainer to buzz through the grocery store looking for a very specific list of stuff. The main disadvantage? Inflexibility. When you're chained to a list, you run the risk of overspending because you don't have the freedom to buy chicken if it's on sale or get the produce that's on manager's special or to buy seasonally.

The other method is the "no-plan" plan. In this method (or... um, non-method), you go up and down every aisle putting into your cart everything that a) is on sale, b) looks good, or c) you think you might use in some dinner this week. The benefit of this method, if there is one, is that you are free to buy what looks good in the produce department, what's on sale, etc. Wastefulness keeps this from being a tenable long-term method, however. Inevitably you'll end up with fresh food in the trash because you don't have a plan to use what you buy. Overspending is another obvious danger, of course.

The best strategy for meal planning and grocery shopping, in my experience, is somewehre in the middle. It involves three very simple steps:

1. Make your meal plans "flex plans." Plan in advance generally what you'll have for weeknight dinners (like meatless Monday, pasta Tuesday, soup Wednesday, crock-pot Thursday, pizza Friday).
2. Shop with an eye out for sales. Learn what is a reasonable price to pay for the items you buy regularly, and develop a mental "high number" that you won't go over (like, "I won't pay more than $1.29/lb for apples"). Never, EVER buy meat that isn't on sale. There is always something on sale that you can incorporate into your flexible meal planning strategy.
3. Plan to eat from both pantry and fresh food storage during the week, with a specific plan to eat or freeze (and, again, plan to eat later) all leftovers before your next trip to the grocery store. Planning is key here!

As I said in the first installment of Kitchen Keeping, the biggest hurdle in frugal cooking is a mental one! The actual steps are simple, once you change the way you think about your kitchen!

Just as a side note, let me answer the question that may be nagging at your mind right now: Why bother? Let's say that you and your spouse spend $500 per month on groceries. If you could save $200 per month by implementing these strategies, that is $2400 in your pocket (or bank account, or toward your mortgage) by this time next year. So we're not talking about working hard, feeling deprived, and ending up with not much to show for it. That is real money, people! It's worth it.

Kitchen Keeping Tips #1 -- Mindfulness

Ok, ok. "Mindfulness" is a totally granola, Oprah, new-agey word. I got it.

But when it comes to kitchen keeping, the first step is just that -- being aware, mindful, of what you already do, and becoming aware of the areas where you most need to change. I had an acquaintance who spent $500 or $600 per month on food for just two people. I'll give you Aussies a sec to do the conversion there, but can we all agree it's way too freaking much money to spend on food?

And why did she spend that much money? Because she had no idea how much she was actually spending or what she was going to do with what she bought. She just wandered into the grocery store, looked at her list, and threw things into her cart. She never looked at a price tag, never compared prices, found the best deal, or substituted a lower-priced item for a higher one. And then at home, she just cooked whatever she wanted to eat without planning to use leftovers, so she wound up throwing food away every week.

Don't be like that.

Become aware of what you buy. If you think your grocery budget could stand a trim, go through the grocery store and, as you pick up items on your list, ask yourself: Why am I buying this? Is it just a habit (I always get bananas when I grocery shop, etc.) or do I have a plan to make sure I use it before it goes bad? Is this the best use of my money?

Become aware of the true cost of things. Not just the price per ounce (or gram, perhaps?), though that is also extremely important, but the cost to Creation and to your body as well. A cheap cut of meat that comes from an animal that was raised on a super-polluting factory farm, treated cruelly, pumped full of antibiotics and chemicals, slaughtered inhumanely, and butchered carelessly is not as "cheap" as it seems.

Become aware of how you cook. Do you find yourself spending money to buy recipe ingredients that you never use again? Can you improvise with what you have in your cupboards and fridge, or are you chained to a cookbook every time you step into the kitchen? Can you creatively re-use leftovers or are you constantly either repeating the same meal or throwing out old food?

Become aware of scraps. Seriously. I mentioned my "stock bag" in my last post. It's full of the odd bits of vegetables that I would otherwise have tossed-- onion and garlic skins, parsley stems, carrot ends, celery tops, etc. -- plus the giblets and neck from the last chicken I roasted. When the meat gets picked off that chicken, his skin and bones will go in the stock bag too. When the bag is full, I'll soak the bones in acidic water to get the calcium and magnesium to dissolve, and then I'll cook the veg ends along with the chicken bones and skin to make a rich, nutritious stock. Why should all that goodness go in the landfill? And what else are you throwing out that could have another use?

Frugal frugal frugal

When I was growing up, we lived on a pastor's salary while my mom stayed home. So... you do the math and figure out if we were the kind of family that ate out three or four times a week. Hint: no.

We had a garden. We bought ingredients instead of prepared food and cooked all our meals from scratch. We bought beef once a year from a local rancher. We didn't waste food, ever.

For my mother, it wasn't such a stretch. She, like many in my parents' generation, was raised by folks who grew up during the depression, whose frugality wasn't an affectation, but a characteristic learned by bitter necessity. But somewhere in the prosperity of the last thirty years, my parents' generation struggled to pass the skills of frugal living and frugal eating along to my generation. And for many people my age, we had little motivation to learn those skills. In times of unparalleled economic growth and national wealth, it seemed unnecessary to many of us to learn how to bake our own bread, how to plant a garden, how to make a roast chicken stretch into three meals, how to can and preserve food.

But I'm blessed to have a stubborn mother whose dad was the youngest of eleven and grew up on a farm. Gardening, baking, canning, and generally saving money were second nature to her. I basically grew up in her kitchen. And now that we seem to be in for a long haul with this recession, I'm more glad than ever for that fact. I can bake bread (and I do!). I can make delicious meals with frugal ingredients. I can home-can produce and beans. And these skills are saving me money.

I was talking with my awesome, gorgeous sister-in-law last night and, on the topic of stretching grocery budgets and feeding ourselves and our loved ones with less meat and more love, I said, "By golly, if our grandmothers could do it, so can we!"

Too often what hinders people (especially women) in my generation from really mastering domestic frugality is just plain fear: fear that it's too hard, that it's not worth it, that we really can't do it even if we try. But that's just not true! We can do everything our grandmothers did to steward our finances and care for our families. We truly can.

Food. Again. But Not Really Food Blogging, As Such. Just Read It, OK?

Here's my latest revelation about my eating habits. Do I have the right to cheap food? I was standing in front of the meat counter at Whole Foods the other day, mentally grousing about the prices, when that question popped into my head, followed quickly by, define cheap.

Does "cheap" simply mean the price per pound? Or does cheap mean that the animals were raised, pumped full of antibiotics and hormones, on a factory farm, at whatever cost to the environment and to the health of the livestock itself, then inhumanely slaughtered by poorly-trained and -supervised hourly workers in a massive plant?

It's been something for me to ponder -- as a Christian, how does my God-given responsibility to live with an eternal, Kingdom perspective even now effect how I think about the welfare of creation?

I read a fantastic article a while back, by a woman who buys her meat directly from the "growers" whenever possible, even visiting the operations herself. She wrote about coming to terms with being an omnivore -- recognizing that, every time I bite into a hamburger, I am putting into my body something that was once alive. Ultimately, she's OK with that, and so am I. But the least I can do, she says, is to "look my food in the eye," so to speak -- to know where it comes from, how it was raised and slaughtered, and not simply purchase it in "nuggets" at the drive-through. That really resonated with me.

Any other thoughts?

Come out of the Closet With Me

People, seriously. Let's reject the idea of race. Let's embrace diversity in ethnicity and finally forget about categorizing ourselves according to skin color. Here's an excerpt from today's article on Boundless from Thabiti Anyabwile:

This is not merely a problem of integration, of spiritual forced busing to churches. It's more serious than that. From Sunday to Sunday, month to month, year after year, Christians of every hue are abandoning one another in lovelessness. Because we are too often loveless, "race" overpowers us even though it is not real. Our love seeks the limits of convenience and familiarity, to be bounded by the ease that "race" offers, when Christ calls us to a largeness and breadth of love that is like His own, that assembles and gathers and loves and gives to every nation, tribe and language. And that's to be displayed in our churches. Christ has made us one and called us to unity, but we have filed a declaration of independence from one another and voluntarily enacted Jim Crow practices to reinforce it.

Wow.

Seriously, please go read the article I linked to yesterday, and today's installment too. Then if you're still interested, head over to T4G.org and listen to Thabiti's message on this very topic. You'll be blessed, and I hope you'll be motivated to erase the category of race in your heart and mind.

A Beautiful Rejection

I'm about to come out of the closet here, people. Are you ready for this? Brace yourself.




I don't believe in race.




Still reading? OK! While you're in the mood to read, read this:

[F]or the Christian, there is an even greater basis for unity across ethnic lines and the abandonment of "race" as a part of our worldview and spiritual life — our union in Jesus Christ.

When the Christian walks into that lunchroom, she or he sees two groups and thinks, Descended from Adam — like me. Made in the image of God — like me. Fallen sinners — like me. And then if we find that any of those persons in the lunchroom are Christians, we are able to say, United to Christ — like me. Sharing His Spirit — like me. Received the promises of eternal life and everlasting joy — like me!

Catch the full article, by visionary pastor Thabiti Anyabwile, here.

Stuff

Random list time!

Stuff Christians should stop freaking out about:

1. Halloween. Dude. What a bunch of wasted energy is poured into the anti-Halloween lobbying that happens every year!! Is Samhain a pagan holiday? Yup. Is Halloween a pagan holiday? Uh, no. It's primarily the Eve of All Saints, and secondarily a cutesy Hallmark-perpetuated candy orgy/ excuse for little kids to dress up and show off their dressed-up-ness. Let your kids trick-or-treat, don't let them trick-or-treat. Whatever. But please don't try to convince me that the Bible says it's wrong for Christians to let their kids put on Superman capes and go door to door asking for candy. Please.

2. Disputable issues like consumption of alcohol, R-rated movies, tattoos and piercings, birth control, etc. Read Romans 14, and remember that we're not to look down on people who don't feel freedom in these areas, nor judge those who do.

3. Politics. Christians can vote, be involved in their community political processes, argue passionately for their political positions, and even (in some circumstances) run for office. Should they hang all their hopes of their country being transformed for the better on a political party, politician, or ideology? Definitely NOT. The Kingdom of God isn't Republican or Democrat or Green or Labour or any other such thing, and it won't be advanced by the (conscious) efforts of secular political machinery. God will advance his Kingdom.

4. Anecdotes that "prove" our points. We're so eager to latch onto this or that bit of scientific or archaeological or historical or sociological evidence that confirms our positions (like in this Boundless article), but we roll our eyes when pagans and atheists do the same (like with the ossuary found a few years ago containing the bones of a dude named Jesus son of Joseph). We ought to take an attitude of quiet confidence when it comes to these sorts of discoveries. Of course history, archaeology, and the like will confirm and support the Scriptures -- God did, after all, create everything and all truth belongs to him -- but that's not why we trust the Scriptures. We trust them because God has, by his incomprehensible grace, enlivened our hearts and enabled us to see in the Scriptures the testimony of Christ, his perfect Son and our atoning sacrifice. So we should be glad, knowing that the Scriptures are true, when some new affirmation of their historicity comes to light, without placing our hope or confidence in those discoveries.

Stuff Christians should get more fired up about:

1. Nominal Christianity and twisted "Gospels." Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, TBN, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Ann Holmes Redding (the Muslim Episcopal priest), and Jeremiah Wright should not be given a free pass by Christians and pastors around the world. Just because someone claims to be a brother in Christ and uses churchy-sounding words does not make him a Christian. And don't even get me started on hip-hop artists who give a shout-out to Jesus when they win a VMA for their hit single about making sure one ho don't find out about another ho.

2. Manhood, womanhood, and families. The Scriptures we (supposedly) hold dear are full of instruction about and examples of what godly men, women, and families look like. Something is not right when people who call themselves Christians divorce with impunity, reject and despise God's blessing of children, and in all other ways look just like the world in the way they live as men and women, and the way their families work. Early apologists and historians appealed to the morality and purity of Christian families as evidence for the truth of the Christian faith. Pretty tough to do that now, huh?

OK, that's enough ranting and randomness for the day.

Maybe one more thing. I'm watching NCAA basketball RIGHT NOW. AWESOME.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Michael Pollan's beautiful, sweeping, joyous, practical, intense, inspiring, provocative, stunningly magisterial open letter to the incoming president (whoever he may turn out to be) in the Sunday New York Times Magazine section, all about revolutionizing and returning to our agrarian roots.

It's nine pages long, wordy for a newspaper article, but is so thrillingly visionary that you'll be finished before you know it. Can't recommend it highly enough.

Questions and Answers, Part 9

Hey Laura,

Here’s another theological question for you: theosis, deification, all that stuff. What’s going on there? I see great Truth in the Salvation by Faith alone and of course there is plenty of Scripture to back it up. I recognize my incapability to do good (without selfish motivation) and take joy in the Gift of Grace.

But there’s always been a lingering vision or motivation in my brain of “working my way towards Christ” for lack of a better phrase. I think perhaps I have a romantic idea of it. And I think it might come from bottomless cups of tea and hours of readings of Dostoevsky and the like. But I think it’s hard for me to dismiss the thought. And I think the idea of “I believe, I am saved, the end,” is repulsive.

I believe that we are required to do good works BECAUSE we are saved; that that should be our motivation. But frankly, sometimes that doesn’t seem like enough. Your favorite verse comes in handy here (work out your salvation because it is God who works in you). But then there are those verses in… Is it Timothy? Or James? “Faith without works is dead” and many more in that book. What do these mean?

And I suppose I see such a connection between our life now and Kingdom life. Although I don’t know what I’m talking about really. And although I believe in resurrection into new life… I do believe there is a connection between now and eternity. This seems to be further support for some idea of becoming more and more like Christ. Surely we have some part in this? Yes, God gives us Grace and works in us to be more and more confirmed. Yes, he will complete the good work he began. Yes, we do have responsibility though. How does our Protestant idea of this clash with this idea of “theosis”? The answer seems simple but then…. I’m not totally sure I know what it is.

Your Friend,

X

OK, first. Let's not get the idea (so often perpetuated among modern evangelicals) that Belief = Assent to a bunch of statements. As in, yes, I believe that Jesus died for my sins and that makes me a Christian. that is LAME. There are plenty of folks who believe that that's what "belief" means but it's completely not the biblical picture of faith. Faith/Belief/Trust is all wrapped up in that word. As in confidence in, reliance upon. So "by grace, through faith" doesn't mean "by grace, through agreeing with propositions" but rather "by grace (God's undeserved favor) through trusting, relying, leaning on Jesus Christ." And Ephesians 2:8-9 says that faith in itself is a gift -- in other words, the ability to trust in, rely on Jesus is made possible by God's grace -- that we never would have relied on Jesus for our salvation apart from the Holy Spirit working in us... we would have kept on relying on ourselves.

You are right that there IS a tension in the Scriptures about God's sovereignty and our responsibility. And I would venture a guess that most of the folks we know who call themselves "reformed" at Sojourn and elsewhere are really what we call "compatibilist," which means that God somehow works out that WE have a responsibility, in the midst of HIS plan, to do OUR part, enabled by HIM. That our choices are real and meaningful. That we have to work out our salvation.

Another thing too... we believe that the Scriptures even when they seem in tension, actually describe different aspects of the same reality. So James is talking about faith without works is dead. Right. Totally agree. He's talking about "faith" and FAITH. "faith" is that lame-o belief business, just assenting to propositions about Jesus. FAITH is robust, relying on God -- evidence of a changed heart. There's an old saying I learned as a teenager -- "We are saved through faith alone, but faith that saves is never alone" -- in other words, true faith, faith that saves, is never just assent. It's trust in a God who changes lives. So James is talking about the outward workings of an inward reality. Just like Paul talks about the inward and spiritual realities, and ALSO describes the outward "evidences" of true saving faith.

Paul also talks in 2 Corinthians (and other places) about how we are being saved. It's consistent throughout the NT to discuss salvation in three ways: (1) as an accomplished fact (Romans 8:24, for instance) -- "you were saved," (2) as an ongoing process -- "you are being saved," and (3) as a future reality to be hoped for and anticipated (Romans 5:10, which also contains some of #1)-- "you will be saved." It makes a lot of sense of how a Christian's spiritual life ought to look: Confidence in Christ and his finished work that purchased us, sanctification and the necessity of discernment and work and prayer and community, and a balance of humility and hope as we await the final salvation that sums everything up in Christ.

Part of the issue is how much we have a tendency to lean toward #1 in the reformed/protestant type circles! We think of salvation as an accomplished fact, something that happened in the past, and forget that the Bible talks about how salvation is not just an event, but a process. Now, I do think salvation happens. Paul talks to the Ephesians so much about what they were BEFORE they were saved and makes such a sharp contrast between you were like this but now you are like this in Christ, that it leads me to believe strongly that there is a time when a person is a pagan headed for hell and then God does a work and their nature is changed. But they are also being conformed to the image of Christ. It's a process, just as much as growing up and maturing in our natural lives.

And yeah, man!! The kingdom!! It's so rad. WE, us, the church -- we are the sort of pro-tempore kings of God's kingdom, the provincial rulers given charge over it while Jesus tarries. Jesus ushered in the Kingdom of God when he came in flesh, and our JOB as those who are becoming like him while we wait for him to return is to push the front lines of the kingdom forward! This is WHY we do mercy! It's why we "do" Church, for crying out loud. Evangelism is part of this! Environmental stewardship! Counseling! Raising kids! It's all kingdom work!!! That's why there is NO unimportant person in the Church or in the World. We build and create and love and civilize and settle and obey the cultural mandate (be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it) because all that stuff has found its ideal and its goal in Jesus! We're not just building a human kingdom like the Israelites were! Jesus is the True Israel of God and we are in Christ, so we push forward. So we see places where the Kingdom of God is NOT reigning, and we ought to grieve! We ought to see a Christian married couple with a crappy marriage and want to bring God's Kingdom rule to bear on their lives. We ought to see pollution and mistreatment of animals and say, huh-uh, that ain't the way it's going to be in the coming Kingdom! Let's work to make this not happen. I mean, what is the POINT of fighting against abortion -- I mean, all those babies go to heaven, right? -- unless we are WORKING to make THIS world look more and more like the world to come! The world to come won't have death, or suffering, or misery, or exploitation, or loneliness, or any of that crap. So we work and fight and strive to make our LIVES kingdom LIVES and our world like the Kingdom that is to come. THAT is a compelling vision of our future! We work now, hampered and thwarted by sin and the flesh and the devil and the world, but we look forward to the day when our work (which will be a continuation of our work now) will be perfected -- not held back by our own selfishness, not thwarted by sin, not made futile, not fruitless or weak!! SO. RAD.

Naw, what are you talking about? I'm not excited about that. Not at all.

;)

L