TLP Op-Ed: June 2, 2018

Posted on June 2, 2018 by Don Merritt

Who’s the Buffoon?

Yesterday morning I wrote a parody and scheduled it for this column. As parodies go, it wasn’t going to win any prizes… but it was fun to write. My plans changed however, when this morning I ran across a couple stories that are significant and instructive, to say the least.

The first one is the May Jobs report: The U.S. Department of Labor released its report for May jobs growth yesterday indicating that 223,000 jobs were created last month, lowering the unemployment rate to 3.8%, the lowest rate in nearly 20 years. According to the New York Times, economists expect the strong economic trends to continue.

The second story also came yesterday, when President Trump announced that his meeting with North Korean Leader Kim will go ahead on June 12 as originally planned.

The third story came a couple days earlier when Mr. Trump said that he would go ahead with the 25% tariff on certain imports from the EU, Canada and Mexico.

Here’s what caught my attention about these three items:

Mr. Trump’s political opposition, the vast majority of the news media, and many in his own party, like to speak of him as a buffoon, and as I have said plenty of times before, he helps them along with so many of his Tweets and ill-advised off the cuff remarks. In spite of this, it would behoove us to remember that Mr. Trump is many things, but a buffoon is not one of them. Many scoffed at his promises to deliver a robust and strong economy after the economic malaise of the previous 8 years, claiming that he would bring about economic catastrophe. So far, the only thing catastrophic about Mr. Trump’s economy is how it relates to the political fortunes of his opponents.

When North Korea suddenly changed their tune, after a second meeting with the Chinese, and began skipping meetings in advance of the summit with both South Korean and US officials, the first thought that ran through my mind was that Trump should cancel the meeting. Mr. Trump did cancel the summit shortly thereafter, and his critics danced in the streets.

Evidently, they’ve never been in a negotiation.

As one would expect, the North Koreans changed their tune yet again, just like any party to a negotiation would do at such a juncture, if they wanted a deal. Despite the fact that his critics have nothing but contempt for him, often calling him “unstable, unhinged and dangerous” (just for starters) Trump’s entire career has been based upon negotiation, posturing and keeping his opponents off balance. His critics ridicule his optimism, yet Mr. Trump has been saying that the North Korea negotiations will be long and difficult and says “we’ll have to see” over and over.

Mr. Trump’s critics seem to miss this every time, as though their personal hatred is blinding them…

…which brings me to the third story. When the President said the other day that our trade negotiations with Canada, Mexico and the EU were going nowhere and that he would go ahead with the tariffs, it seemed as though the whole world had kittens. His critics jumped up and down on the table, set their hair on fire and pounded their chests with fake outrage, promising dire consequences.

Here’s a free tip for Canada, Mexico and the EU: In the past, your phony outrage and big threats intimidated American presidents who feared negative headlines in US media. Trump doesn’t care about negative headlines; he will get them no matter what he does because the Us media is driven by its hatred of him. If you would like to move forward, and we all know that you must move forward, then take a lesson from that nutjob Kim Jong Un and get ready to sit down and negotiate for real. Understand that, unlike the last guy, Trump is willing to walk away, so you’re not going to make him give away the store.

Here’s a free tip for Trump’s media critics: Trump is playing you like a fiddle.

Here’s a free tip for Trump’s political opposition: If you don’t want your famous “Blue Wave” to disappear completely, you’re going to need a lot more than naked hate to run on.

Just for record, no, I didn’t vote for Donald Trump, and I am not one of his fans…

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TLP Inspiration: June 2, 2018

Posted on June 2, 2018 by Don Merritt

Faithfulness in the Heartland

It’s getting hot here in America’s Heartland. The countryside is a deep green, and so are most of the farm fields I’ve seen; most of the corn is over a foot tall now, a little more farther south, a little less farther north. That’s pretty much the way it is supposed to be in the beginning of June.

To look around, all seems well, but beneath the surface there is a sense of unease across the land; something isn’t quite right. People are getting edgy, common sense seems less common than usual, lies are in the air, discord is sweeping the lush countryside almost like an early summer storm. Hatred is abroad in the land.

Yet if we just look at the land itself, we don’t see any of this. What we see instead is the faithfulness of God in the seasons, for this land, our Heartland, that appeared dead and desolate only a few weeks ago, is now lush and full of new life: People are behaving badly, but God is behaving faithfully.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that this is pretty much the normal state of things in this world we live in; we recall that God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. God always does His part.

Yet from time-to-time Men let themselves get carried away with frenzy and passions. All the while, God in His Creation is crying out to us: “Hey! Look to Me!”

When we look away from the silliness of Men and to the faithfulness of God, the man-made storms and controversies around us begin to fade away, like a passing storm and a sense of serenity returns, and with serenity comes calm and perspective about the ways of humans. I have to say that I am sure glad that God keeps crying out to us; I’m sure glad He is persistent− I almost forgot who is the One who is faithful, who is the One I can believe.

Serenity returns to the Heartland.

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Art

Posted on June 1, 2018 by Don Merritt

Many of the greatest artistic Masterpieces of all time have been made to glorify God, and this is true not only in painting and sculpture, but in drama, dance and all other fields of artistic endeavor. Yet as in writing, simply having the talent and temperament, the time and the resources to produce art doesn’t make it a spiritual practice; there is more involved.

The Expressive Spiritual Practice of Art is the practice of using one’s artistic abilities to glorify God as an expression of their relationship with Him. In doing so, the production of art draws the person closer to God; quite often this practice is used by a person with the spiritual gift of craftsmanship.

This one isn’t the easiest practice for me to describe, since I don’t really have any particular artistic ability; my sister got all of that in our family. Even so, the expressive disciplines always seem to come down to a ministry of some kind. Several years ago, our church put on a show for Christmas that included lots of music, a couple of skits, video and even a little showmanship. There were a couple of people with artistic ability who produced amazing backdrops, people with the gift of craftsmanship stepped up to construct beautiful sets, people with technical abilities handled sound, audio video and lighting, and of course, the musicians came seemingly from nowhere and did fantastic work.

I mention this because the atmosphere in rehearsals was amazing, for the most part. Everyone was there because they wanted to bring glory to God, and they said so often without prompting from anyone; the entire project was an example of expressive spiritual practice, in several areas at once.

Artistic people use their abilities as a spiritual practice in a variety of events within the local church, but they also often use them in making pictures or sculptures or other items that inspire others to walk closer with God, and that express the creator’s relationship with God. As a result, everyone is blessed, and the Kingdom is built up.

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Biblical Hierarchy and New Testament Thinking

Posted on June 1, 2018 by Don Merritt

Ephesians 5:22-33

There is a definite hierarchy in the Scriptures; there just isn’t any way to get away from this fact. Yet while this is a theological reality, it isn’t always popular today. In the very simplest of terms, here’s how it works: God is over Man; few would argue this part. Male is over female; and so, the arguments begin.  Adult is over child; seems self-evident to me. Master is over servant; less shouting for this one.

That the Creator God is over Mankind is an easy one, but it isn’t just easy, it’s also the whole point. Male over female is a metaphor for God being over Man. The traditional roles of men and women in marriage are used to convey the kind of relationship that God wants with His people. It is not a justification for brutish behavior; far from it, in fact. The same is true for adult over child and Master over servant, and in my view, it takes a seriously twisted theology to justify anyone trying to abuse his allegorical position.

Here’s what I mean by that:  God is over Man because not only did He create all things, including humanity, but God is all powerful, all knowing and all present; He is not subject to time or space. Yet even though He has absolute and total power, He is most notable by His restraint in using it. Instead, He is in possession of the attributes of unfailing love, unfailing mercy and unfailing justice, and being in possession of these qualities, He does not ever abuse His position to harm Man. The husband is expected to demonstrate the same qualities toward his wife that God shows toward humanity, thus he will be a blessing to his wife and not a curse if he is a godly man. The wife is expected to show the same respect to her husband that the Christian is expected to show for God, because like Jesus, her husband is expected to give up his life for her and sacrifice for her well-being. The result is supposed to be an equal partnership with different roles for the mutual benefit of both partners. The same principles also apply in the interactions between adults and children, and Master and servant.

There is nothing about this that is in any way complicated. In fact, it should be so obvious that Paul reminds us of it in Ephesians 5:22 ff.; he is not anticipating an argument here, but then he wrote in the first century and not the late 20th or early 21st centuries when there seems to be confusion in culture about every sort of human interaction.

Of course, in Ephesians 5:22 ff., Paul isn’t actually writing about marriage at all!

This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. (Eph. 5:32)

Paul is actually writing about the relationship between Christ and His Church and using the obvious example of marriage to convey his point. Then, almost as an afterthought he says:  However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. (Eph. 5:33) It is as if he threw that verse in, just in case anyone was confused by what should be obvious. Theologically speaking, it really doesn’t get any easier than this, and yet… popular culture rears its head and tries to create confusion and controversy where none should exist.; then social scientists start doing studies in an attempt to prove that men and women are exactly the same in every aspect other than the obvious… and end up proving instead that we are not exactly the same.

The Song of Songs is quite similar to Ephesians 5 in my view, for it uses the relationship between man and woman to illustrate what our relationship should be with God. Also, like Ephesians 5, the Song of Songs has the element of “oh by the way, if you didn’t already get it, husbands and wives can be very intimate together; it’s really OK.”

I wonder if we are ready to be THAT intimate with God…

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Writing

Posted on May 31, 2018 by Don Merritt

If you like to write, if you write a Christian blog, then it is likely that your writing is an expressive spiritual practice. Yet as I mentioned before, there is a difference between a spiritual practice and a hobby, just as there is a difference between a spiritual practice and a profession. Let’s use writing as an example of this…

So, you love to write and you start a blog to write about something, say your Christian walk. It’s a wonderful outlet for you, very relaxing, a great way to get away from the stress of the day and so, you write a post or two whenever you have some time and an idea. If somebody reads one of them, that’s great, and you’re amazed when someone follows you or likes a post. That is a wonderful hobby, one you can do even on the coldest of winter days, or the rainiest of summer nights. Then maybe you hear a sermon or attend a Bible study or watch a video that brings up a certain point from Scripture that you really are interested in; you start to do some study and prayer on the subject and God really opens your eyes; an epiphany! You decide to blog about it, you tell the whole story and lo and behold someone leaves a comment that says they have never seen anything like that before and it has changed their whole attitude and brought them closer to God… and it hits you: Blogging can be a ministry!

Now you get serious about your blog, you bring God into your writing, asking for His guidance, giving the whole process over to Him. You start blogging regularly; it becomes the best part of the day for you, it brings you closer to Him.

Writing has become a spiritual practice that is expressive of your relationship with God as He guides you through each step. The same can be true if writing is your profession.

If that’s your story then the day will come when someone tries to discourage you, of that you can be sure. Listen to God, not to the nonsense. Six years ago or so, a well-known pastor asked me what my ministry is these days. I told him I wrote a Christian blog. He laughed and said that a blog isn’t a ministry, that he tried it once and nobody read his posts, so it can’t be a ministry and that I was wasting my time and needed a real ministry. I replied that I had over 1,500 followers and that I had opportunity to reach them twice a day, seven days a week: Do the math. How many people do you reach a week?

His face turned bright red and he gave me the look of death and said, “Well I don’t have time for that.”  Since then I’ve had roughly the same conversation with quite a few preachers, and the truth is that the demands on their time are great, and they often really don’t have the time for writing.  God just has a different plan for them, and that’s perfectly fine, but don’t let anyone pull you away from your writing if it is how God draws close to you. If it is how God draws you close to Him, then by all means take it very seriously.

Of course, writing can be an expressive spiritual practice in other forms as well. You might write novels or commentaries or Bible studies for kids or adults, maybe home study guides or poems that inspire. Let God guide you and you might be surprised at where it ends up, I know I’ve been surprised where it has taken me.

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Song of Songs: A Dilemma

Posted on May 31, 2018 by Don Merritt

The dilemma presented by the Song of Songs has been around for a very long time. That it has been considered to be part of the Scriptures since many centuries before Christ is clear enough, and its controversial aspects since early times is also more than clear. There are ancient references to its having been read aloud in what we might call taverns since antiquity would lead us to understand that there were the same problems with it in ancient times as we have today. Around the time of Christ, there was controversy about the book as many Jewish leaders sought to strike it from the Scriptures. In the early church, we have manuscripts that suggest that the same problems were present, with many asserting its allegorical understanding and others asserting a literal understanding, and still others who wished it to simply go away. If nothing else, the Song of Songs gives scholars something to write literary criticisms about.

From our point of view as followers of Jesus Christ today, we might just wish we didn’t have the Song of Songs to deal with, and quite frankly, most of us simply pass it by. I can’t remember ever having come across a Sunday School curriculum based on it, for example; certainly not one that is for young people. I have come across a young preacher who wanted to preach a sermon series on it to teach “old people” about physical intimacy, because they “don’t have a clue,” but as I recall he was persuaded to preach about something else instead. I must admit that I got a chuckle out of that incident!

On an academic level, I have seen quite a few articles, essays and books of criticism and analysis, and I have also seen a few books on Christian marriage that quote it freely, but all of these are cases of specialized approaches to the book, as opposed to a general attempt at finding application to Christian life to a general audience. I’m sure such pieces have been written, I know that it is covered in commentary sets that comment of all 66 books, and I have gotten the impression once or twice that the authors of these breathed a sigh of relief when the Song of Songs sections were completed.

With all of that said, here I am at my keyboard setting out to try to do what few commentators or Christian teachers want to deal with; for the record, I’ve also been known to stay out in the rain.

I propose to approach the Song of Songs like I would approach any other book in the Bible and let the chips fall where they may. I’m not sitting at a desk piled high with commentaries and scholarly volumes, ripping off everyone else’s ideas and basing my conclusions on another person’s thinking; what would be the point of that? Instead, I’m going to simply comment on the text, in context, beginning with the overall context of the Word of God. When all is written, you dear reader are welcome as always to hang on to whatever you find useful, and to leave the rest behind. Seems fair enough to me…

So, let’s begin with overall Bible context. What is the Bible?

What we call “The Bible” is the collected works of Scripture, which are the written record of God’s revelation of Himself to Mankind. Often, we refer to this as the Word of God, but in doing so, we must bear in mind that the Word of God is not a bunch of collected writings on paper; it is a Person, the Person of Jesus Christ as revealed in John chapter 1. The Word of God cannot be separated from the Person of Jesus Christ: they are One. Second, the Bible is not a scientific manual or a self-help book, it is God’s revelation of Himself. In revealing Himself to Man, God reveals a little science, some rules for living, and ways in which He worked out His purposes among people in history. In fact, He has revealed Himself to us in many and various ways, but His whole purpose in inspiring the Scriptures is to reveal Himself to us. This is my first, and most important presupposition.

In doing so, God didn’t make mistakes; He got His facts straight. He also did not contradict Himself by teaching one thing in one place, and another thing in another place; He is consistent and in harmony. Thus, if we in our interpretation of His Word find ourselves having a hard time because of an apparent contradiction, it is our understanding and not His Word that is the problem: Time to start over. Finally, God has revealed Himself for a purpose, and has a purpose in all that He does; He has a purpose for each of us. Therefore, it seems highly unlikely to me that He would inspire Solomon to write down a divine sex manual or guide to happy and jolly romance.

Thus, in light of the fact that marriage relationships are used in Scripture as a metaphor for the relationship between Man and God in other places, I must conclude that this is most likely the intention of Song of Songs. In fact, I see this as being in some ways parallel to Ephesians 5:22-33, which I will discuss next. After that, I might drop in a thought or two on how this could be the case in an Old Testament book.

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Photo of the Week: May 30, 2018

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Don Merritt

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An Introduction to Expressive Spiritual Practices

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Don Merritt

We’ve surveyed the most well-known of the Classical Spiritual Practices, but there is much more to be said on the subject of Spiritual Practices because the Classics are not the only ones. There is a whole different category of spiritual practices, many of which have been going on for as long as the Classics have, but that are seldom discussed as such: The Expressive Practices.

To be honest with you, I’ve never heard or read anyone saying why the expressive practices aren’t often taught, but if I were to venture a guess, it would have something to do with the fact that many of these involve talents, not to mention spiritual gifts, that not everyone has, yet this view overlooks the fact that there are a great many types of expressive practice that don’t require a special gift or talent.

An Expressive Spiritual Practice is a practice in which we draw closer to God by expressing our relationship with Him, to His glory.

As you might imagine, these practices are usually shared with others, either in practice or by result. When you come right down to it, I can’t possibly tell you that I will presume to cover all of them, for the possibilities are endless when you take into consideration the fact that our God created each one of us to be both precious as His child, and unique in our personalities and imaginations.

It could very well be that this is also why the subject isn’t much taught or written about. Maybe my willingness to try comes from the fact that writing about things that glorify God is one of my expressive spiritual practices. Since most of the people who read these posts write Christian blogs, I might venture a guess that a great many of you share in this one too.

So, we can begin a preliminary list of expressive spiritual practices with writing, and to that we can add art, music, architecture, building, craftsmanship, gardening, cooking, hospitality, ministry, teaching, scholarship, acting, dance, presence… it goes on and on.

Here’s the catch: Just because we do one these things, say, as a hobby, or even as a profession, doesn’t make it a spiritual practice. What makes these things a spiritual practice is when it is done to bring us closer to God by expressing His glory in our relationships with Him.

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A New Adventure Beckons

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Don Merritt

We’ve wrapped up our tour of 2 Corinthians, and it’s time for a new adventure. Back in the first part of 2015, we took a look at Song of Songs, and that was one fun journey. I’ve considered updating it several times since then and sharing it with the many new followers who have joined us since then, and now seems like the time to take the plunge. After touring both of Paul’s letters to Corinth, this will certainly be a change of pace, and since few dare to venture into this territory these days, and many of you have expressed an interest in dealing with more Old Testament subjects, I think we’ll have a great new adventure in Song of Songs.

The first hurdle with this book is to figure out just exactly what Solomon was up to when he wrote it, since that is far from clear. The most obvious solution is that Solomon intended the work to be understood literally as a piece of writing about marriage and intimacy between men and women, and if you just pick it up and start reading, that is sure what it seems to be. Yet I can’t help wondering why Solomon would write such a book about physical intimacy in marriage, especially since his marriage arrangements weren’t exactly what most of us would consider “traditional” or even proper for that matter. If this is what he was up to, why would it be included in the Bible? Why would God inspire such writing?

Oh, there are plenty of questions…

And then I remember that back in ancient times, this was read aloud for Passover…

A love manual?

Of course, there is another way to understand the book, and that is as an allegory about the relationship between God and God’s people. Without going through the litany of objections to this approach, I will add my own little objection to it: In Solomon’s time, the relationship between God and His people had the huge impediment of sin between them, and with that being the case, how could there be any expectation of such intimacy: Was this Messianic?

After all of this, how can we study Song of Songs at all?  Maybe that is why there aren’t many studies, books or sermons about it… Did Jonathon Edwards have a sermon on Song of Songs? Maybe like an intimate view of what happens to a sinner in the hands of an angry God just before he is tossed into the fire?

Frankly, that seems unlikely to me, but I haven’t bothered to check before writing this and asking the questions.

Well dear reader, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how we deal with this book until the next post!

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Moving Forward…

Posted on May 29, 2018 by Don Merritt

Depending upon whose list you’d like to follow, there are a number of Spiritual Practices that I haven’t written about, and that I really doubt would work well in a blogging format. I’ve already mentioned Secrecy in passing, but there are a few others…

Submission is the practice of submitting oneself to proper Christian authority and being entirely accountable to them for our spiritual progress.

Service is a commitment to serve the needs of the Church and of others in need for the glory of God.

Chastity is a commitment to abstain from sexual relationships so that one may be fully engaged in following Christ.

Sacrifice is the practice of purposefully doing without for the service of those in need.

Worship is the practice of regular participation in corporate worship as well as adding worship to individual prayer time.

Celebration is the practice of filling one’s life with gratitude and thanksgiving for all that God has done in our lives.

Fellowship is the practice of being fully engaged in the life of the local church congregation to more fully advance the purposes of God in building the Body of Christ.

Confession is the regular practice of confessing our own sins and omissions to a trusted brother or sister, what we might call an “accountability partner” or pastor.

Obviously, these practices are not all viewed in exactly the same way from brotherhood to brotherhood, and yet as we look though the list, we will see that most of us engage already in one or more of them, perhaps without even being consciously aware of it.

When the dust settles, I’m sure that we will come to realize that not everyone will practice all of the Classical Disciplines, but we shouldn’t be surprised by this. It also doesn’t mean that we’re doing something wrong. Rather it is because we each have different personalities, backgrounds, experiences and approaches to God, and God is fine with that; He created us as unique bearers of His image. He knows just how to relate with each of us and will draw us to practices that best enhance our relationships with Him and that will best empower us to serve His purpose for our lives in Christ.

At this point, I’m going to step away from the Classical Spiritual Practices and move forward into Expressive Spiritual Practices. Some of these are relatively new, yet the  category of Expressive Spiritual Practices has been with us from the very beginning of the Church, yet have not usually been spoken of as the Classics have been, and when we get back together, I think you’ll quickly see why that is.

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