Dan's Marinations

The most quoted Bible verse is probably still John 3:16 (at least according to BibleGateway) but some say that another one is gaining ground on that perennial favorite.  The one that may be gaining ground is from Matthew's Sermon on the Mount- "Judge not, lest ye be judged."  I'd like to offer a few remarks about how some misuse this verse today and also about how it should be interpreted. The problem with how this verse is commonly used today is that it is used as a blanket statement that one should never make value judgments.  It becomes then another way of supporting one of the characteristics of post-modernism- that truth is relative, that there is no absolute truth.  This injunction- "Judge Not" has been used as an excuse not to oppose everything from adultery to theft to pornography.  In this way- one can see someone doing what is clearly unjust by traditional standards, but be absolved from any responsibility to act.  Had Karl Barth,...

We humans have a need to be able to understand events.  We are programmed, I suppose, to want to interpret the events that happen around us.  This explains what passes for condolences and explanations at times of great grief or turmoil.  Phrases like, "I believe everything happens for a reason,"  "God needed another angel," "God needed Sally Sue more than we did," or this one to parents who've lost a child born with tragic birth defects, "God doesn't make junk."  I will grant that each of these statements are well-intentioned.  On the other hand they represent the most horrid theology.  Let me begin with the phrase in the title of this post.  It is pure mythology that humans turn into angels when we die.  The Bible simply never says that, ever.  Look it up.  Jesus describes the resurrected as being like the angels in neither marrying or being given in marriage.  The great worship scenes of Revelation always des...

Of the things I've posted so far, this may be the most confusing because what many folks think they know from the Bible isn't really there, yet what is really there they don't know.  In fact, what most folks think the the Bible says, and what is commonly heard at funerals is just a warmed up version of 2nd century gnosticism.  A common view of the afterlife runs something like this.  When we die our souls go to heaven and that's the end of the story.  At times this is embellished to talk about our souls escaping the prison of the body.  Eternal life in this view is purely about souls in heaven for all eternity.  Unfortunately, we hear this preached all too frequently in funeral sermons. Allow me to explain the problems with this view before I delve into what the Bible makes clear.  In the first century after the New Testament era the most damaging heresy the church faced was gnosticism.  Among the views of the gnostics was the notion...

The next sacred cow to hit the slaughtering block is this:  God loves us just the way we are.  Right from the start I need to state absolutely that God loves all people no matter how good or bad (by human standards) they may be.  In one of the most well-known verses of scripture Jesus himself said "for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him should not die."  The problem with this statement is that by itself it does not say enough about the relationship between God and humanity, between God and the world.  To state without clarification simply that God loves all of us just as we are has enormous dangerous implications.  God does love each of us as we are, but is not content that we remain that way.  God loves the world as it is, but does that mean that he loves the way the world is right now, though it is with sin, evil, wars, hatred, injustice and the like.  The answer is "of course no...