Created for Work ~ Chapter 15 "How Could It Be My Fault?"

Self-defense is instinctive in most of us. When confronted in any kind of threatening manner, our first reaction is to get into a fighting stance; to let fly a right swing and a left jab. This instinct can be a good thing. At the same time, it can be a bad thing...

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Self-defense can be good thing if your accosted by a thug in a dark alley at night. In such a situation, it is usually best to let loose with whatever weapons are handy, whether that's your .38 Special, rocks, your pocket-knife, or your fists. Now, I seriously doubt any of you have ever  had to get rough with a thug in a dark alley at night. However, there is another kind of self-defense - the bad kind - which we all use quite often in everyday situations - at home, at work, at school, or at play. And it's this kind of self-defense that Bob Schultz addresses in Chapter 15 of Created for Work.

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When somebody blames us for a problem, what is too often our first reaction? We get defensive. We "let loose" with a string of hot words, indignantly pointing out that "it's not my fault". This is the bad kind of 'self-defense' I was talking about, and it's rooted in an "I just can't bear to be wrong" attitude - in other words, it's rooted in three things:

1. Pride. We feel that if someone proves us wrong, it will damage our ego. 
2. Arrogance. We think we "know it all" and therefore we can't possibly be wrong.
3. Stubbornness. We refuse to acknowledge our fault, even in the face of evidence.

Everybody struggles with these things to some extent or another. Pride, arrogance, and stubbornness are sin, and sin is inherent to man's nature. However, Christians are called to something different than sin and wickedness; they are called to overcome their inherent nature through Christ, and to "put off the old man with his deeds, and... put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him." (Col. 3:10) 

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So, instead of automatically jumping the gun when trouble comes our way and shouting "It's not my fault!", we should stop, pray, and really consider what we're faced with. God will give wisdom to those who humbly ask Him. When a problem is considered in a prayerful way, God often reveals to us facets of the situation of which we were not aware. Sometimes, you might just find that you were in fact the one to blame. Schultz says, "We have the tendency to see the faults of others before considering our own shortcomings. Convinced of our right standing, we are blind to the fact that we might be part or even the whole problem."  Many people (and I've been among them at times), when faced with this, simply bluster and storm about it, choosing to be stubborn and hard-headed, which only increases the strife. This is not the way to handle things. The way to handle things is with humility. This all-important weapon of the Christian faith is one of the greatest ways we can combat pride. It will open many doors which pride closes. It is requisite to fighting the good fight of faith.

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 Therefore, "the next time you have a disagreement with somebody, or perhaps have some other trouble on your hands, pause and ask yourself, 'Am I part of the problem?'... It's the godly man who looks for his own foot before he criticizes somebody else."

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"Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults."

- Psalm 19:12

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Persevero,

Scribe

Basic Christianity - Chapter 2 "The Claims of Christ"

Note: as you read this, keep in mind that Basic Christianity is addressed mainly to the skeptics, those who doubt or challenge Christianity. Remembering this fact will put many of Stott's statements into perspective...

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In Chapter 2 of Basic Christianity, John Stott begins by stressing this all-important fact: when enquiring into Christianity, we must begin with Jesus Christ Himself. We can't start our search anywhere else. Here are the two principle reasons why:

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I. "Essentially, Christianity is Christ. The person and work of Christ are the rock upon which the Christian religion is built. If He is not who He said He was, if He did not do what He said He had come to do, the foundation is undermined and the whole superstructure is collapsed.  Take Christ from Christianity, and you disembowel it. Christ is the centre of Christianity; all else is circumference. We are not concerned primarily to discuss the nature of His philosophy, the value of His system, or the quality of His ethic. Our concern is fundamentally with the character of His person. Who was He?"

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II. "If Jesus Christ can be shown to have been a uniquely divine person, many other problems begin naturally to be solved. The existence of God is proved and the character of God revealed if Jesus was divine. Again questions about man's duty and destiny, life after death, the purpose and authority of the Old Testament and the meaning of the cross begin to be answered because Jesus taught about these things, and His teaching must be true if His person was divine."

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This said, we will use the Stott continues by reminding us that "our purpose is to marshal evidence to prove that Jesus was the Son of God... only so could He be worthy not just of our admiration but of our worship."

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This evidence, Stott tells us, "is at least threefold: it concerns the claims He made, the character He displayed and His resurrection from the dead. No one argument is conclusive. But the three converging lines point unfalteringly to the same conclusion."

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So, right now we'll start with Evidence #1: the Claims of Christ. These can be divided into four different kinds of claim: His Self-Centered Teaching, His Direct Claims, His Indirect Claims, and His Dramatized Claims...

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I. His Self-Centered Teaching. "The most striking feature of the teaching of Jesus," Stott points out, "is that He was constantly talking about Himself." This instantly sets Him apart from other religious leaders, who were always self-effacing rather than self-advancing. Jesus declared... 

• that Abraham had rejoiced to see His day (John 8:56)
• that Moses had written about Him (John 5:46)
• that the Scriptures bore witness to Him (John 5:39)
• that in the three great divisions of the Old Testament (the law, the prophets, and the writings) there were things concerning Him (Luke 24:27,44)
• that to believe in Him was man's chief duty and that to deny Him was man's chief sin (John 8:24) 
• that the Holy Spirit would testify of Him (John 15:26)  
• that those who would believe on Him would find eternal life. (John 3:36)   

II. His Direct Claims. Jesus did not hesitate to make very direct claims concerning His deity, His Messiahship, and His oneness with God Father. Stott says, "So close was His identification with God [the Father] that it was natural for Him to equate man's attitude to Himself with  his attitude to God. Thus, 

• to know Him was to know God (John 14:7)
• to see Him was to see God (John 14:9; 12:45)
• to believe in Him was to believe in God (John 12:44; 14:1)
• to receive Him was to receive God (Mark 9:37)
• to hate Him was to hate God (John 15:23)
• to honor Him was to honor God. (John 5:23) 

These are some of the general claims which Jesus made to a unique relationship with God [the Father]." 

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III. His Indirect Claims. "Christ's claim to deity," Stott says, "was advanced as forcefully by indirect as by direct means. Of these, four may be mentioned..."

• He claimed the power to forgive sins (Mark 2:1-12; Luke 7:36)
• He claimed the power to bestow life (John 6:35; 11:25; 14:6; 15:4-5; 17:2; 5:21)
• He claimed the power to teach the truth (John 7:46; Luke 4:32; Matthew 7:28-29)
• He claimed the power to judge the world (John 5:22, 28-29; Matthew 25:31-46)

All of these are powers which God alone possesses. Therefore, by declaring these powers to be His powers, He declares Himself to be divine.

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IV. His Dramatized Claims. By this, we are referring to the recorded miracles of Jesus Christ.  Stott tells us, "This is no place for a thorough discussion of the possibility and purpose of miracles. It is sufficient to indicate that the value of Christ's miracles lies less in their supernatural character than in their spiritual significance. They were 'signs' as well as 'wonders'. They were never performed selfishly or senselessly. Their purpose was not to show off or compel submission. They were not so much demonstrations of physical power as illustrations of moral authority. They were are in fact the acted parables of Jesus. They exhibit His claims visually. His works dramatize His words." Here are several examples...

• The feeding of the five-thousand (John 6:1-13) advanced Christ's claim to satisfy the hunger of the human heart (John 6:35).
• The opening the eyes of a man born blind (John 9:1-7) demonstrated Christ's claim to open men's eyes to see and know God (John 9:39)
• The raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11:14-45) illustrated Christ's claim to be the life of a believer before death and the resurrection of a believer after death (John 11:25-26)

Conclusion
At the end of Chapter 2, John Stott reminds us that we cannot eliminate these claims from the teaching of Jesus Christ; neither can we say that these claims were merely inventions or exaggerations. "They are widely and evenly distributed in the Gospels and the sources of the Gospels, and the portrait is too consistent and too balanced to have been imagined." 

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Of course the claims in and of themselves are not evidence enough of deity. They could have been false. However, we must find some explanation for them. "We can no longer regard Jesus as simply a great teacher if He was completely mistaken in one of the chief subjects of His teaching - Himself." 

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We must then inevitably ask the question 'Was Jesus an impostor? Did He claim a divine authority He had no right to claim?' "This," Stott says, "is very difficult to believe. There is something guileless about Jesus. He hated hypocrisy in others and was transparently sincere Himself." 

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'Was He then mistaken?' we ask, 'Did He simply have deluded notions about Himself?' Stott answers, "This possibility has its protagonists, but one suspects that their delusion is greater than His. Jesus does not give the impression of abnormality which one expects to find in the deluded. His character appears to support His claims, and it is in this sphere that we must now pursue our investigation."

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Persevero,

Scribe

A Comedian on Conviction

I urge you to speak with conviction... you know what I mean?

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Persevero,

Scribe

Swine Flu

 

Courtesy of Student News Daily