3 Kinds of Works Christians Argue Over

Works have long been a source of argument among Christians. “What place do works have in salvation?” is generally the question that gets Christians at each others throats, which is wonderfully ironic.

One of the sources for the incessant arguing is a confusion of definitions.

When Christians talk about “works,” I have discovered there are at least three different things they are talking about.

1. Works of the Law
   When Paul speaks about salvation being by faith and not works, he’s referring to works of the law: circumcision, Sabbath keeping, food laws, etc. “No flesh is justified by deeds of the law” is Paul’s main point. The law can’t save and was never intended to save anyone. The Law was given as a covenant between God and Israel to stay in their Promised Land. If there was a law that could give life, then Christ died in vain. I am all for people who maintain that salvation is not by works of the law.
2. Works of Religion
   Other Christians are talking about religious ritual when they talk about works. These kinds of works are “things you do in church.” These works include: baptism, communion, catechism, confession, etc. The Catholic Church tends to stress these. When Luther was against works and said salvation was by faith alone, he was primarily talking about Catholic works of penance. These works are not anything that helps anyone else, but rather stuff you do to make yourself have a better standing before God, in your mind. I am all for people who maintain that salvation is not by works of religion.
3. Works of Love
   The New Testament says Christians are supposed to do works and there are several passages that flat-out say that a lack of works means no faith. “Works” in these passages are not works of the law, nor are they works of religion. When the Bible speaks positively of works (which it does frequently), it is talking about loving acts for others. When James says “Faith without works is dead,” the works he refers to are fulfilling the Royal Law, love your neighbor as yourself. As Paul says, “faith works by love.” If I do all kinds of works but have not love, it profits me nothing. I am all for people who maintain that salvation goes hand-in-hand with people who do loving works.

Works can be either good or bad. Good works are always things done to reflect the love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We show our salvation, our new birth, our new creation in Christ Jesus, by demonstrating His love to those around us.

If these new works of love are not a growing part of who you are, you should have zero assurance of salvation. How do you know Christ is in you, unless Christ is living through you?

Works of the law and works of religion result in self-righteousness, pride, and judgmentalism. Works of love forget self and seek to please your neighbor for his good to edification. As we do to the least of these, we do to Christ.

Love is the good works the Bible wants you to do. Faith works by love. If love is not working out of you, then faith is not in you.

Some Child-Raising Advice from a Dad Who Doesn’t Listen to Child-Raising Advice

When my kids were little, I received tons of advice about how to raise them. Some of it was helpful. Most of it was wasted breath.

This Fall, all my kids will be in high school. I notice that I do not receive advice about parenting any more. There are several possible reasons for this:

1. My kids are obviously awesome, which shows I do not need advice.
2. No one has any idea what to do with teenagers.
3. People are afraid to talk about this subject any more.
4. People are afraid of me.
5. People are still giving me advice, but I have stopped listening.

I can’t say for sure why the advice-giving has ceased. I’d like to think it’s #1, but it’s probably more #5.

Here’s a confession: I don’t like most people’s kids. If I don’t like your kids, there’s not a chance I’m going to listen to your child-raising advice. Not one chance.

In my opinion, based on the plethora of annoying kids in the world, I don’t know who all these parents are who think they should advise others about raising kids.

Everybody thinks their kids are special. And, trust me, they are. Very special. But here’s the thing: they are only that special to you. I’m glad you like your kids, but that doesn’t mean everyone else does, or even that they should.

While studies show us that today’s kids are more neurotic, failing in actual learning (and good grades don’t even mean anything anymore), emotionally out of whack, incompetent at most life tasks, and largely not doing anything, every parent feels their kids are the awesomest.

Our self-esteem culture has pumped our lazy, incompetent children with happy feelings. They feel great about themselves while failing at pretty much everything. Everyone gets a trophy to celebrate their abject loserliness.

I resist self-esteem. I might, perhaps, go too far the other way. I test myself all the time. I find fault with everything I do. This isn’t some kind of depressed, moroseness, it is, I like to think, an honest analyzation of my performance.

I do the same thing with my kids. I test them. I don’t let them win unless they earn it. I tell them the truth when their performance was awful. I even punish them when they didn’t do the work they said they were going to do.

This takes effort. It’s exhausting. My kids get mad at me from time to time. All the other kids get ice cream after their sorry performance. I have taken my kids home without the treat that everyone else got, because I didn’t like how they acted (Actually, I think I made them get the treat and then watch me eat it! No sense wasting free treats!)

King David had a son named Adonijah. He was a bad kid and grew up to be a bad adult. Here’s a phrase from 1 Kings chapter 1 about David’s parenting of this fool of a kid who was now a fool of an adult:

And his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, ‘Why hast thou done so?’

Adonijah’s dad never questioned him about why he was doing bad things. He never “displeased” his son. “Displeased” means “hurt, pain, grieve, vex.” Fathers are supposed to do this. I think this is a father’s job because 1) a father is better at finding fault with his kids than their mom is, and 2) a father is better emotionally equipped to discipline.

If my kids mess up, I have no motherly nice feelings. My all-consuming desire is to put them in their sorry little place!

I do this out of love. Some dads go too far and all they do is find fault and displease. Don’t go overboard. I also praise when my kids do something worthy of praise. I reward and honor and give treats to my kids when they actually work and accomplish things.

The problem now is we’ve over-reacted to the fault-finding fathers by having the best-friend fathers who just pat their kids on the back all the time. One sure way to raise a loser is to constantly praise their losing.

Proverbs 29:5 says “A man who flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his steps.”

Pumping up people’s self-esteem (also known as “flattery”) is a sure way to ruin someone. God does not like lying. Tell your kids the truth. Make them strong enough to face up to their failures, to take criticism, so they can learn and improve.

Lying to kids to make them feel good is not a good long-term strategy.

Raising kids is not easy. There are many threats to its success and each kid is responsible before God for how they turn out. Parents have a huge say in this, however. It is a terrifying responsibility.

I’ve stopped listening to parenting advice. As I told one lecturing parent, “If God wanted you to raise my kids, He would’ve given them to you.”

I’m not telling you to listen to my advice, you probably think my kids are annoying, too!

But if there’s any summary advice I have for parents, it’s said here. This is my theory. It’s not complicated. I think I have Scripture in support, and my wife and I put the work in. We’re pretty much done with their training. It’s up to my kids now to do with it what they will.

Be honest with your kids. Tell them the truth. Help them deal with truth, even when it hurts. Some day they will stand before their Creator, who IS THE TRUTH, to be judged by His word, WHICH IS TRUE.

Don’t lie to your kids. Love your kids, and remember: love rejoices in the truth.

Neil Degrasse Tyson on Life After Death

Neil Degrasse Tyson and Larry King did an interview where they talked about life after death. Tyson is the new spokesman for science, now that Bill Nye “The Science Guy” has gone crazy.

King asks Tyson what happens after death. Tyson gives a biology lesson about calories and heat energy. About assuming room temperature and dead bodies feeding worms and the cycle of life.

“That’s how I want to go out” Tyson says with pride and triumph for some reason. He wants to go out feeding worms. Tyson has reduced human existence to the lofty ideal of being fertilizer. A pile of manure, as it were. By this logic, the best thing you can do is die! While you are alive you are wasting energy, even more if you are urgently accomplishing things. Dying is the way to help others, as dying makes your energy available to others.

King asks if there is any consciousness after death. Tyson says there is no evidence that there is. Just curious how the scientific method helps a person answer this question.

Tyson says since he doesn’t remember thinking he wanted to come to earth before he was born, there must not be any thinking after we are here. I guess that’s as good as the scientific method can grant.

Tyson concludes by saying living forever would be depressing. If he lived forever, what motivation would he have for getting out of bed? If he’s going to die, he wants to use his time as much as possible now.

“The urgency of accomplishment. The need to express love. Now. Not later.”

He skips over the complete futility of accomplishment if his theory is true. He skips over why love when all I have is a short time to get what I can. Sounds awful selfish, too. “Quick, I need to love you before I die.” I can’t imagine that being a very rewarding relationship.

Living forever is not anything I want either in this world. Living 90 years seems rather depressing to me! I’ve talked to old people, they aren’t all happy about being old.

The only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is knowing that I can do things that last for eternity, according to the Bible. If there is no resurrection, if there is no living forever, then we are of all men most miserable.

Tyson is content to feed worms. He finds his view of life inspiring and motivating. I think Tyson is lying. His words betray him. He wants significance, accomplishment, and love. All things that make no sense if feeding worms is it.

The fact that Tyson can answer “what happens after we die” with a biology lesson doesn’t really answer anything. Science is not the only field of discovery.

I’ve been to too many funerals to believe Tyson. But, for the living who don’t want to think about consequences, I guess he provides soothing words. “Peace, Peace” when there is no peace.

The 3 Easiest Ways to Get a Christian Book Published

Christian publishing has become quite the money-making field. In order to get a Christian book published you must either be

1. A celebrity
2. A heretic
3. A member of the dominant Reformed-Conference tour-industrial complex.

Christians have always been desperate for validation by celebrities. We are so accustomed to celebrities being against Christianity and Christian virtue, we’ll pretty much bend over backwards to not have a problem with any famous person claiming Christ. I’m stunned by the otherwise-level-headed believers who will pontificate about some random celebrity, “Oh, she’s a Christian.”

Celebrities get little criticism if they claim to be Christians. We gladly accept them and all their strange views. Celebrity sells.

Not a well-known athlete, musician, or actress? There’s still hope for you in the Christian Publication Industry!

Be a heretic!

Heretics sell well. Find a new doctrine, make some stuff up, and then write a book about your new-fangled doctrine. Sit back and let the royalty checks pour in!

Or, if that’s too scary for you, write books about other heretics. Write books to attack the books already written.

There are constantly new books and authors that are the latest heretical threat to Evangelical Faith. There are legitimate threats, but who? Rob Bell? Andy Stanley? Joel Osteen? Or is it John MacArthur, John Piper, or Tim Keller?

The problem is in identifying who the heretics are. Heresy is defined as “unorthodox views.” Orthodox views are–what those in power believe. To be a heretic isn’t always bad: it depends who thinks you’re a heretic!

Heresy is usually nothing more than–views held by those who are not in power at the time. This is where we get into group 3 above–the Reformed-Conference tour-industrial complex.

Whenever a new book is published that does not match up with the Reformed-Conference tour-industrial complex’s doctrine, you will see a multitude of their blog posts letting you know what a horrible threat this new heretical book will be to you.

Observing this trend for a couple of years now, it makes me wonder–is the Reformed-Conference tour-industrial complex truly worried about me believing heresy, or are they more worried about losing market share?

For instance, is The Shack or Jesus Calling as bad as “Desiring God Ministries” and “The Gospel Coalition” and “Together 4 the Gospel” and all the other Reformed-Conference tour-industrial complex members say it is, or are they just trying to protect market share?

The best way to drive web site traffic is to critique a best-selling book. People are obviously into the book, the market has been proven, readers will do a search and come across your web site. Instant traffic! There is a healthy market for books written to debunk other books. “Why The Shack Will Destroy Your Faith” books sell well too.

It does not require genius to find fault. I am proving that in this post, in fact.

In all honesty, I have reservations about Jesus Calling and The Shack. I’m not defending these books or authors, nor their doctrinal foundations.

What I am saying is this: Market interests are beginning to dominate the Evangelical world. There is good money in being and labeling things “heretical.” I’m not saying that all members of the Reformed-Conference tour-industrial complex are necessarily wrong, I’m merely speculating that their market interests should cause some reservation in walking with them lockstep.

There is a lot of noise in the marketplace these days. Everyone is selling something and promoting their personal brand. It’s hard to hear in the midst of deafening levels of noise. The Christian marketplace is too noisy. As Solomon said, “In the making of books there is no end.”

It’s been a while since I’ve purchased a new Christian book. I want the market to slow. There are good books out there, but you have to read about 25 in between every good one. Markets are driven by popular demand. Right doctrine has never been in popular demand. Be careful out there.

Noah Webster and the Vulgar King James Version

The King James Bible is too vulgar.

This was the opinion of Noah Webster, best known for his dictionary of American English.

Webster thought there were too many vile things not suitable for reading in the King James Version. He wasn’t talking about the stories of rape and murder; he literally meant some King James phrases.

For instance, the King James’ phrase describing men as those who “pisseth against the wall.” Or the people in Isaiah 36:12 who will “eat their own dung and drink their own piss.”

Webster thought this was crude, so he just called them “males” instead of referring to their direction of pissing. Instead of eating dung and drinking piss, he went with “they devour their vilest excretions.”

Webster also eliminated the names of certain body parts and avoided such words as “stinketh” in order to be pure. He said the King James phrases were “so offensive, especially to females, as to create a reluctance in young persons to attend Bible classes and schools.”

Noah Webster’s Bible initially sold for $3. Then for $2. Eventually it sold for $1.50. It was reprinted once before disappearing from book stores.

It was a nice try. I appreciate the attempt. But, in all honesty, this is where Puritan ideals implode. Humans are humans, and humans are gross.

There’s a lot of stuff in the Bible about bodily discharges. We can puritanically pretend it’s not there, or we can be real.

At the same time, there is too much flippancy and stuff done for shock value over bodily discharges. Finding someone who has enough sense to be polite is nice.

The Hebrew text does say those “who pisseth against a wall.” That’s the literal translation. That’s how men were described. It’s life. Should we then go around referring to other men as wall-pissers?

No, there is decency. Ephesians says we should put away from us foolish talking and jesting. There is a line of decency. There are cultural terms that are offensive to the next generations. But there is also a maturity that understands that and goes with it and treats it as maturely as possible.

I don’t think we should edit God’s word. I think we should rejoice that our God understands humanity and that humanity is represented realistically in the Bible. There is no sentimentalism attached to God’s view of your humanity.

Use this realism about humanity, which is gross, to drive us to God who is pure. Let us all anxiously await the day we can put off this body of our humiliation!

Calvinism and a House Divided

If there were a sixth point to Calvinism’s TULIP, it would be Meticulous Determinism. Unfortunately, this would make it TULIPM, which doesn’t sound right. Perhaps TULIMP?

Meticulous Determinism is best defined by The Westminster Confession of Faith like so:

God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.

This includes sin and bad stuff.

One of the particularly bad things that has occurred in the course of human events is demon possession. Demons make people crazy. They throw them into fires and convulse them and all manner of other physically harmful things.

Jesus took the opportunity to demonstrate His divinity by casting out demons.

On one particular day, Jesus was charged with being a tool of Satan. Various Jewish religious leaders said the demons were cast out by the power of Satan.

Jesus said that was silly.

How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.

If Satan casts out Satan, then Satan is divided and he will fail.

The Calvinist, who believes God has ordained whatever comes to pass, thinks it’s the exact opposite: God has cast out God.

Satan gets little playtime in Calvinist/Reformed Theology. That’s because in that system, Satan is rather superfluous. God seems to be messing things up quite well on His own, thank you very much.

If The Westminster Confession of Faith is true, then people are demon possessed because God made them be demon possessed. Then Christ came along and cast out the demons God put in them.

Therefore, God is casting out God. God’s Kingdom is divided against itself and His house cannot stand.

If God is ordaining sin, making people do what He Himself says He hates, then God is divided. The Calvinistic skewed view of sovereignty says that if anyone else (Satan, man, etc) is doing things in the equation, then God isn’t sovereign.

Therefore, the only solution (since changing your theology is apparently not an option), is to distort the character of God and contradict the teaching of Jesus Christ.

It seems like a heavy price to pay.

Atheism, Rationality, and Miracles

The Bible calls on us to believe some pretty weird stuff: Creation Week, worldwide floods, pregnant old women, burning bushes, Red Sea parting, resurrection, and on and on.

Does a person have to believe in these miracles? If you think God doesn’t lie and the Bible is God’s Word, then yeah, you do. If you don’t care about God or the Bible, then I guess you are free to ignore miracles.

I recently listened to an interview with an atheist who denies miracles. He wrote an entire book about how irrational it is to believe in miracles.

His underlying assumption is that we only have reason to know things. Rational people can detect what is rational, and the rational is what we should believe.

Rational conclusions include the fact that dead people stay dead, water doesn’t turn into wine, Egyptian armies don’t drown in recently parted seas, etc.

Since miracles are a giant diversion from the norm, believing in them is not rational.

I agree that miracles are a deviation from normalcy, rather than this making them irrational and not worthy of belief, I would say this is what makes them miracles. He is using the very definition of what a miracle is to say there are no miracles. If they weren’t highly unlikely, they wouldn’t be miracles.

Believing in miracles has a touch of irrationality to it, because miracles, by definition, are irrational. But is it irrational to believe that nothing out of the ordinary could ever occur?

The real conundrum for the atheist is that they typically believe we all got here by a series of random, chance mutation. A process of random, chance mutation would have to have random, chance events happening all the time.

If random chance is the process we live by, how is there any rationality? Wouldn’t miracles–random, chance acts–be par for the course?

The evolutionist who believes in random chance evolution would be highly irrational to stake all on that theory and yet eliminate the possibility that something random and chance could happen.

The only way miracles make any sense is if we live in a rational and orderly system, one where we can rationally observe normal, repetitive behavior. The atheist author thinks we do live in a rational system. My question is: where did the order come from for miracles to violate?

The author admits in his interview that he cannot disprove the existence of miracles. To me, the rational step here then would be to believe that miracles could happen. Since they can’t definitively be proven to not occur, rational thinking would leave open a little bit of room that they could.

Rationality would realize that an irrational, chance, random process would eliminate miracles out of hand, because all sorts of irrational, random things (miracles) would happen.

Instead of seeing random chance all around us, the rational mind observes the order and rationality of the world and concludes that there must be a rational mind behind it all.

Once there, the rational choice would be to believe that the rational mind behind it all could violate the order at any time to make a point, maybe to get rational people’s attention, because they are too busy denying the existence of their rational source.

Miracles seem rather rational to believe in.