Concerning Donkeys

If God rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) – if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.  This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority.

Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse on celestial beings; yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not heap abuse on such beings when bringing judgment on them from the Lord. But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish.

They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, revelling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed – an accursed brood! They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer, who loved the wages of wickedness.  But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey – an animal without speech – who spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

I was reading an article by a (Baptist as it happens) Christian who referenced the thoughtlessness of people who believe too easily - say in (to use his words) talking donkeys.  It was an interesting thought to publish, especially as the article had an overall heading containing two New Testament verses.  

This is why it is interesting:

1.  It is not wise in the same article to claim the authority of the Bible by text headings and undermine it by throwaway insults aimed at the same source.  And this is an abiding problem in the church.  Most unbelievers I meet don't really believe the Bible is true but explicitly or implicitly seem to grasp that if they did believe it they would believe just about all of it.  Christians, on the other hand, notably as they get older (when they rather need the Bible to be largely simply true you might think given their shortening days), jettison bits and pieces unaware that they really have nothing left to meaningfully believe. The ageing article writer suffers this curse I think.

2.  It is not wise to ridicule what the apostles and post-apostolic era church straightforwardly believed and recorded.  They are the source of what has been handed down to us, not least about our Lord.

3. The plural in the writer's article is interesting and a device that is frequently misused by peddlers of falsehood.  There are not talking donkeys.  There was ONE donkey that talked, and it not as a rule! Specifically 2 Peter references what we know by broad experience - donkeys don't talk. Balaam was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey – an animal without speech – who spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.  The donkey that carried our Lord into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday said nothing (well, quite a lot - but not verbally). But once . . .  Similarly you do not make light appear by speaking.  But once . . .  Similarly, you do not leave an exit for corpses to leave the tomb.  But once . . .

4.  Where is the madness in the Peter reference?  Not the donkey; not the people who believe that the Creator of donkeys can utilise one to speak; the madness is that of a prophet who will not take God's side.  And in 2 Peter, the main danger for religious teachers, preachers and article writers does not appear to be animals that are momentarily like humans but humans who traverse the other way: Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse on celestial beings; yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not heap abuse on such beings when bringing judgment on them from the Lord. But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish.

Cats and Dogs

Here's a picture from a Garden Centre we visited recently.  It is so amazingly inappropriate that I had to take to the picture so I could believe what I had seen!

 

I suppose it is, if nothing else, a reminder that we need to look like the message we claim to convey.  Is this really any different to the good old fashioned Church split (you'll know our faith by our fellowship and love but just wait while we have an argument and go off in another direction first).  Is it actually any different to the grim-faced atmosphere that would greet the happy pagan on arrival in church (we're joyful, you know).  Is it really any different to looking at me?

A Son's Tribute - Speaking the Truth in Love

The motto of the Wickliffe preachers was 'Speaking the truth in love' (Ephesians 4:15)

 

This was the text taken as the theme of my Dad's thanksgiving service.  It's appropriateness was not simply that of the motto itself, it was that he lived out this text.  My Dad's gift to all who knew him was to demonstrate that Love does not have to be diminished by standing for the Truth and that the Truth does not have to be compromised by living a gracious life of Love, including (perhaps especially) in our speaking.

 

This is a combination that seems to elude almost everyone, including very many followers of Christ (who alone is the Truth and the greatest expression of Love).  And the first place it eludes people is in their speaking by which the Truth is doubted or denied or it is asserted without the kind of gracious humility that Love demands.

 

Truth

Can anything be bigger than God?

At first glance this appears to be an unacceptable question. God must be unimaginably greater than anything.

Than anything except truth.

For if, as the naturalistic atheists maintain, the truth is that there is no God that truth is greater than God. God cannot be greater than the truth.

The theory of evolution is sometimes set out as that ultimate truth that dispenses with God or gods. Galileo is often cited.

On discovering, in 1604, a supernova and having previously spotted sunspots the prevailing truth of the academic day - that of Aristotle - seemed to be untrue. Both academics and the Church authoriies of the day resisted his apparent heresy to maintain their truth that was not, in truth, true.

Today, claim the Neo-Darwinists, we have the same situation. The truth is that a natural process made everything. This truth makes God redundant and those who believe in God(s) are deluded.

Well, we've seen that the evidence points exactly the opposite way. Information - that is, an outside agency - is scientifically necessary to make a beginning. But then there are those monkeys. Remember them? The ones that type randomly trying to produce a work of Shakespeare. It cannot be done in the available time and space.

So how, on this theory, did the processes make the complexity of the world we find ourselves in? "Ah, " says Richard Dawkins et al., "You see when a monkey types the right letter, it is compared with the target letter and if correct, he stops". The monkey eventually hits 'W' and, matching the first word of the play, holds it right there to set off the writing of Hamlet. The monkey knows his job is done. In this way the impossible mountain of complexity is scaleable.

For all his protestations, Richard Dawkins does not believe in a Blind Watchmaker at all. He has to believe - because his logical mind shows him the truth - that there is a script on to which Darwin's theoretical randomness is being written.

Richard, who wrote the script? "Ridiculous," says Dawkins. "If you're going to say God is forever and beyond time and the mega-playwrght you might as well say that DNA is, or a spaghetti monster". Except we know for sure - he knows for sure - that DNA is not for ever and outside of time, and nobody actually professes to know a spaghetti monster which, anyway, presupposes a prior spaghetti maker. On the other hand, God is the plausible explanation of all necessary outside agency.

The Bible - and God - do not claim to be above the truth. They cannot be. Rather, the Lord Jesus taught that he is the Way, the Truth and the Life. The Word and Person of God are the most important aspect of the truth, and the part which if neglected leaves humanity's largest hole.