Sweet and Sorrow

Though I still have twelve days to spend here in Omaha before my summer comes to an official close, last night gave me my first taste of the finality of my time here. Will Walker, the associate pastor, is leaving tomorrow morning for Dallas and a few other areas of Texas where he will be for the next couple of weeks. So last night was the last chance I had to spend time with him this summer. A few of us guys got together over at his house and sat out in the driveway talking away the time. I feel very fortunate to have spent the time with Will that I did this summer. He has helped me to learn some of the most profound lessons of my summer and has been a visible example of the importance of digging into the Gospel. He has challenged me in a lot of ways and I feel like our time together was invaluable. It's never fun to say goodbye, but he and I are both going to end up in the same place one day. Whether that is in this life or the next, it's not for me to say. I will be in contact with him in the next couple of weeks though because he has assigned me to an exhaustive study of the book of Colossians, which has been awesome so far.

Yesterday also turned out to be a prime example of the antics that occur in the Coram Deo office. There are certain days of the week which exist under certain terms with everyone at the office. Monday is not complete if it's not Chips and Salsa Monday. Just as Tuesday only exists as Baked Goods Tuesday. And somehow, for some reason, random members of the church come by throughout the day and bring us muffins, cookies, apple enchiladas, etc. However, this time around was a first for us all. A guy who drops by often decided to make three different brownie recipes and bring them into the office in order for us to all have a taste test that would determine which one is the best. In theory, this sounds simple. But it took us nearly an hour to properly identify and debate our thoughts on the taste, texture, and tastiness of each batch of brownies. I had absolutely no complaints though. Brownies are by far my favorite homemade dessert. And I don't do sweets often, but this was a day of days. We never eat breakfast on Baked Goods Tuesday. And despite times of serious doubt and worry, God always provides for us in the form of sweet baked delights.

I had a guy ask me the other day, "What has been the weirdest thing for you about coming to Omaha?" At the time, nothing necessarily struck me as being weird or out of place. But in hindsight, I have picked up on a couple of things which I believe to be worth noting. Especially for those of you who have never been to Nebraska. It may or may not give you motivation for a visit. First of all, nobody refers to a carbonated beverage as a "soda." Rather, it is called a "pop." No matter how many times I hear the term being used, it never quite clicks for me. I always have to double take at someone when they ask me,
"Would you like a pop?"
"Um, no...OH! A soda..."
Secondly, there is no TEX MEX IN OMAHA. Instead, they have some wildly unsuccessful concoction called West Mex. I can tell you that one of the most exciting things for me about getting back to Texas is that I am going to gorge myself at my favorite Tex Mex locations and thank the Lord for blessing Texas so richly with the ability to make far superior Mexican food than even Mexico itself.

The last observation I have made about Omaha is that people here are obsessed with personalized license plates. I don't know who decided to introduce those to Nebraskans, but they are making a killing. If you don't believe me, here is my proof: I was working on a landscaping job today and got into a conversation about this with one of my co-workers. We decided to test my observation on the ride back to the shop from the job site. During this said ride, which lasted twenty-five minutes, we saw sixteen personalized license plates. 16 plates in 25 minutes. That's basically 1 and 1/2 every single minute. I don't know what is going on with those plates, but they certainly seem appealing for some reason. Maybe somebody tied balloons to them or something...

I do have something theologically relevant to write about though. Don't you worry! I listened to a sermon earlier this week by Dr. Timothy Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan discussing the legitimacy of the Bible. The deeper I dig into my faith, the more I am realizing that this is a question that people talk about constantly back in Austin. Students always try to invalidate the entire legitimacy of the Bible because they have not seen any physical evidence of Noah's ark, because it was written by men, or because there is just no way that Jesus really was God. Of course, that is all speculation, but I am finding that even though I don't agree with those arguments I do not have an answer for them. Keller's audience has consistently been full of skeptics so I consider him quite an expert on any apologetic issues. His sermon challenged that you can believe in the legitimacy of the Bible in three different ways: historically, culturally, and personally.

His three points historically were that:
1 - The New Testament was written too early to simply be a legend. The opening statements of Luke claimed that he consulted eyewitness of Jesus in order that his gospel be true and believe with confidence. Similarly, Paul's letters began only 15-20 years after the death of Christ and he also cites his interaction with eyewitnesses to in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8
2 - The New Testament is too counter-productive to be a legend. Because if the leaders of the church simply wrote a fiction about the life and death of Jesus, they certainly would have made him look better. They would have taken out the part where he cries out to his Father asking why he has forsaken him. Also, they would have made themselves look better. The religious leaders in the Bible are CONSTANTLY being verbally thrashed by Christ and are made to look like legalistic fools time and time again. And last of all, they would have taken out the account of Jesus' resurrection as having been first discovered by women, who were not even considered for valid testimony in court at the time, instead of men.
3 - The New Testament is too detailed to be a legend. This was C.S. Lewis' problem. There was no such thing as our modern fiction novel back then which makes things seem very realistic and current with cultural reality. Fiction of the time was something like Beowulf which was easy and simple to simply relegate to the genre of fiction. But that legend alone is drastically different from the Gospel. And no fiction of that time begins in the same way as the gospel of Luke.

His three points on believing culturally were:
1 - Consider that when you are reading the Bible and it says something you don't like that in fact you are not comprehending its teaching as something it is really teaching. For example, we read through the Old Testament and see polygamy acted upon over and over again without God ever intervening or laying down a law to kill those men. And therefore we think God must think polygamy is okay and we are offended by this fact. But a closer reading says something different. Genesis overturns these traditions consistently as it wreaks havoc on the families thereafter. Abraham, Gideon, David, and Solomon are all underscored examples of this. Similarly, the ancient patriarchal traditions are overturned as well. God consistently chooses the younger son over the older one.
2 - Consider that you are misunderstanding what it is teaching because of your cultural blinders. For example, many people today think that the Bible condones slavery when in fact it does not. Our idea of slavery stems from that of our own country's historical stigma. Whereas slavery in biblical times was more like that of indentured servitude. The book of Philemon is an example of this.
3 - Consider the unexamined assumption of the superiority of your cultural moment. If you react to something as being archaic, outdated, and lacking progress culturally, what in the world gives you the right to assume that your culture is right in everything it does? For example, individualistic societies, like our own, love scripture about forgiveness but struggle with restraints on sex. But if you take those same two things to the Middle East, the restrictions on sex will probably not be strict enough and the idea of forgiveness will seem absurd. Why should your cultural sensibilities trump everyone elses? Similarly, if the Bible is truly the divinely inspired word of God who exists in perfection outside of any society, shouldn't it gain credibility by the fact that every culture across the world has issues with Scripture in some form or manner?

Lastly, he tackled it personally:
1 - In Luke 24:25-27, Jesus points out to these men that they are misinterpreting the Bible. The reason for their misunderstanding is that they are believing the Scripture to be about them and not about Jesus. It is all about Jesus, not us. God did not come to Moses because he was a good man. He did it to express his grace in humanity. Stop reading the Bible like it is about you (like a lecture) and start reading it like it is about Christ (like a sermon).
2 - It is all-authoritative. Therefore, there will be conflict. In a personal relationship, there has to be conflict for it to be healthy. Without this element with God, he is basically a "Stepford God" who does whatever we ask and has no authority. Jesus had the greatest relationship with God and he submitted to Scripture fully as God and man.

I thought the sermon was fantastic. He spoke about the New Testament most of the time, but said this same line of argument could be used to give credibility to all of the Old Testament as well not only because of New Testament references, but because Jesus himself quoted, believed, and lived out the Old Testament with every bit of his life.

Sorry for the long post. And I'm sorry if I offended any Nebraskans. I enjoyed this post!!

"When I was a child, my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk, you'll end up as the Pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso."
- Pablo Picasso