InterVarsity Christian Fellowship - North Florida Area

(originally posted on Sublimidad)

Submission does not seem to be a popular concept these days. Imagine walking into church and hearing the preacher get up and say, “today we’re going to talk about submission”. What are you thinking? If you’re like me you might be thinking, “is it too late to get out of here? what would happen if I yelled ‘bomb’ or ‘fire’ right now…”

I don’t know whether it’s because we have issues with authority or whether we just see ourselves as the only one deserving to have authority but there is something in most of us that resists the opportunity to submit. To have another’s will or “mission” imposed on us. It’s almost unbearable.

And yet, submission is at the very core of what it means to be a Christian. And not only to God, but also to people. Let’s all shake our fists at the sky…

“If we spoke less about God’s love and more about his holiness, more about his judgment, we should say much more when we did speak of his love.” – P.T. Forsyth, Cruciality of the Cross

Have we jettisoned God’s holiness in the pursuit of his love? If so, have we cheapened his love by the way we’ve pursued it? I read the above quote while reading John Stott’s The Cross of Christ. I have often felt like on one hand, I do not grasp the holiness of God, and on the other hand, I do not experience the full depth of his love.

It’s interesting how on campus these days, people are ready to ascribe that “God is love” but resist the assertion that “God is holy”. Maybe they would not deny his holiness but they certainly do not accept the consequences of that tenet.  If God is holy, completely holy, then he can not be in the presence of evil.  In fact, if he is a holy judge then he can not simply forgive sins, he must punish them.  He must mete out justice.  Everything that is in opposition to his holy nature must be expelled from his presence.  This is the very nature of hell as I understand it.  And without a proper understanding of the holiness of God how can we come to grips with it?  And so, the university community seems to want to accept a god that is love, but not one who would exclude anyone or anything.

How then do we offer the campus the God who is love?  Do we focus on that and leave his holiness and justice for a later time?  Are we not selling a false bill of goods if we offer the god who is love but not the one who is holy?  According to Forsyth we should reclaim the truth of God’s holiness, make it our aim to shine the light of truth on God’s holy justice.  Only then will be able to talk of God’s love with accuracy (and power).  Then we shall have much more to say about his love.

…a response to the “scum” discussion on facebook.

I have been thinking about how to respond to this discussion. As a Christian brother (call me whatever else you like) I am hoping to offer both realism for your expectations and “hopefully” some beautiful hope. I will try hard to ask for respectful, loving standards from women but not point the finger unnecessarily.

I will begin by saying that I probably would not have joined this discussion (online anyway) if I hadn’t first had a discussion about it with another group member who happens to live in the same house with us. The group name and picture seem to have already laid down the verdict (although the description seems to ask a question on some level). My question is, “not having heard what you want, are you ready to jump in the boat with the rest of society and label us all as scum?”. Do you believe that all men are simply inferior to women from a spiritual standpoint? That our struggles are without a counterpart? I don’t say this to justify our sin, only to question the assumption that all men are simply weak, or scumbags, and in their laziness just choose to cop out to their desires.

Not having been in on the discussions that lead to this online forum I will try to answer what I assume to be some of the underlying questions…

From all that I have ever experienced, read, or heard of, men tend to be visually oriented when it comes to sexuality. I simply have never talked to a man who had a different experience. How we choose to accept, live with, and respond to that is another story but I’m am talking about what I consider to be innate to us. If this is a problem then it seems you will need to either find another species or be angry at God. Although I can not think of a worse choice in the matter then the latter one. But to grit your teeth and be angry at this seems fruitless to me. If you find more than 2 guys who aren’t this way then I will reconsider.

So then, what are some reasonable expectations from men? I think you should expect men to value your dignity and personhood apart from your physical appearance. There is a difference between noticing a person’s beauty and treating them as an object to be consumed with by their eyes or imagination. I would be lying to say that I never or even rarely “check someone out”, but whenever I’m conscious of it I consciously resist that temptation. Also, it is never far from my mind that a beautiful woman has committed to me for the rest of her life and I would be a fool to jeopardize that in any way.

I also think that you should expect men who claim to follow Christ to be committed to purity and holiness in their relationships with women. It is not okay to place that burden on the woman in a relationship. Too often that has been the case and it stems from double standards passed down from history that were never just. And if you feel like you have to lower your standards of holiness in order to “secure” a guys affections then I believe that is no man that you want to be united to for the rest of your life. Things do not change just because you get married.

You should not expect men to “stop” once they get “turned on”. Oh it’s possible, (i.e. someone turns the key to unlock the door) but don’t allow them (or you) to get turned on in the first place. We tend to overestimate our abilities to walk away from sin once we’ve started down the road. I would love to be able to tell you that we could all just toe up to “the line” and be okay but my experience is that if we get anywhere close to “the line” we’re going to cross it given a chance 9 times out of 10.

You should expect a man to love and appreciate you enough that they would not give in to temptation because what they would lose is FAR more valuable then anything that temptation could afford. I expect to find myself tempted at times, but when you know that you have a Mercedes, the temptation of a new Honda Civic doesn’t hold much sway. And unlike cars, spouses only get better with age. Sure, there is always something alluring about the mysterious, but the risk in losing the happiness I’ve found does not compare.

I will end it for now with that. I’m sure there is more to say but hopefully this will spur on the conversation in good ways.

There are some other things I would ask of from you. I would love for you to decide to live in the reality that your value does not come from your looks. 90% of how you look can not be changed (without going off the deep end). You are already beautiful! You really are. Don’t try to prove that to me again by accentuating or revealing every curve. I’m not saying you need to wear a habit, just be mindful that what you wear adds to or takes away from the problem. Both in our struggle to resist objectifying you and in your struggle to find your value apart from your looks. I would ask you to build up men in the same way that you would like to be respected and understood. We have a deep desire to be respected and calling us scum disrespects us, or worse, gives us permission to be exactly that. For our part, some of us will do our best to earn that respect that you so graciously give us. I would like to ask you to forgive us for the ways we’ve hurt you both physically and emotionally. and spiritually for that matter. I’m so sorry. It grieves me to hear of how common abuse of every form is, so often at the hands of those who are supposed to love and protect you. Words can not express my sorrow for these things. Finally, I ask you to run the race of faith and persevere in striving toward holiness. Refuse to give in to the wrong expectations and refuse to lower the right ones. You are not called to “submit” to anything opposed to God.

Please do not give up hope. We, who have been bought by Christ, are being redeemed and some of our ideas need to be redeemed too. But He who has begun a good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ. Come Lord Jesus!

I was listening to a well known pastor give a talk on missional leadership today.  At one point he began remarking that in the church we often talk about social justice when we should be calling it ministries of mercy or something like that.  There was much that I disagreed with in his little aside but essentially he was saying that we need to be more careful with our language.  His point was something to the effect of “justice” is what Jesus got for our sake and “mercy” is what we get from God.  Therefore, we should practice acts of mercy not justice.

I think as followers of Jesus we need to practice both, but that we should be able to distinguish between them.  In my mind social justice is when we act to make right the systems that enable and support oppression in any form.  Mercy is when we act to relieve the symptoms of oppression (that comes from without or within).

This pastor used the example of a homeless man who is an alcoholic and hungry.  He said that if this man lets alcohol destroy his life and doesn’t try to get a job then justice is to let him rot away on the streets (not his exact words).   Mercy in his mind was to give this guy a hot meal, some clean clothes, and a place to sleep.  He doesn’t deserve it but neither do we.  I think this is a typical way of thinking about the problem of homelessness (or any number of social problems we see) in this country.  It assumes that everything we see is a product of choices, good or bad.  “If I have a nice home it is because I’ve made good choices and if someone else is homeless you can probably trace it back to bad choices.” Those of us who don’t really experience any form of oppression tend to overlook the way our society is structured that leaves some with such a feeling of desperation that they make bad choices.
I don’t believe that justice is to just let this guy get what he “deserves”. I’m trying to look beyond the obvious (alcoholism, inability to get/hold a job) and see if there are any systems that are not right/just that keep him in this vicious cycle.  So social justice would be to act to correct the laws that aim to keep the homeless population out of our sight so that businesses can thrive and everyone else can pretend they don’t exist.  But this takes a longer time then I would like and in the meantime, out of gratitude for how God has treated me, I should practice mercy by taking care of his immediate needs, etc…

In the end, I think this pastor was on to something though he missed the boat in some ways.  We are lazy with our language in this culture and if we’re not careful, words like justice and mercy will lose their meaning (i.e. grace, love, awesome, good).  But regarding this example, let’s be a people that would stand for both justice and mercy where appropriate.  Let’s let our hearts be angered by the things that anger the heart of God and be moved to make systems right and treat people with the mercy that we’ve been shown.  Come Lord Jesus!

Why is it so hard sometimes to discern God’s will? This is the question that some InterVarsity staff friends and I discussed this past weekend over a bottomless pit of chips and queso at Chili’s. It seems like for so many of us, we want to follow God’s will for our lives and it seems like that would be easy but we become paralyzed when we don’t hear God’s voice clearly. Is it possible that in our culture we have misrepresented the nature of hearing from God? Or have many of us just never learned how to hear God’s “still small voice”? There have been a few times in my life with Christ when I’ve been certain that a thought or revelation was divine and not from me. Those moments had a quality to them that I can’t describe very well. But if I’m honest, in most of the circumstances when I’ve had to make big decisions, it’s come down to me pretty much choosing what I thought would be best. I prayed and prayed and listened for God to make clear to me which of two paths was better, but in the end, without a clear word I just chose one. Often, these were huge decisions that I would have liked God to have made. Decisions like whether or not to accept a new position in ministry.

Where do verses like Romans 12:2 come in? Or Philippians 1:9-11? They seem to imply that part of the renewing of our minds and our growth in the love of God will help us be able to know what God’s will is (apart from supernatural revelation?) But that’s not very glamorous and I don’t want to give up on actually hearing from God in moments of decision. How do we find that balance? Or should there be balance?

One thing is clear to me, from scripture we can often know for certain that some things are not God’s will. To over simplify, if I’m struggling with whether or not it’s God’s will for me to cheat on my wife or my taxes I’m pretty sure that I can know that those things are not God’s will. But it’s going to be hard to find a properly interpreted text from scripture that will tell me whether to take a ministry position, go overseas as a missionary, or be a witness for Christ in the marketplace. How do we discern between those good things?