Opinions and Philosophy

This site contains my opinions and philosophy on everything and anything that I feel like commenting on. Remember:
Never take yourself too seriously.
A wise man learns from his own mistakes, but a wiser man learns from the mistakes of others.

02/02/2010 - Greater works than these

John 12:14

Intro:

http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/campolo_4001.htm

When we read John 12:14 our mind automatically falls into the trap of defining greater works as miracles and the astounding. We have to remember to use other passages to help us interpret what Jesus meant here. There have been thousands of well intentioned Christians believing this verse means we should be able to do any number of miraculous works at our discretion. This is not the case and a waste of precious time to pursue.

What did Jesus mean by "greater works than these" then? Matthew 25:31-36 tells us how Jesus will judge us on judgment day. Notice that the works he recounts for the righteous are ones of love, mercy, and grace not the miraculous. The unrighteous show an utter lack of these works. Now lets look at a parallel passage to this one in Matthew; Matthew 7:21-23. Here we see those who had done miraculous works, but they counted for naught. I am not saying that God does not on occasion do the miraculous for us. I am saying that the miraculous is not the greater works that Christ is speaking of in John 12:14 as also evidenced here and by 1 Corinthians 13. We need to stop wasting precious time in the pursuit of the fantasy of the miracle filled Christian life and devout our time to "greater works than these". Let's pray for miracles, but lets not dither over them when they do not occur as we wish. There are greater works to do.

[ Back to top ]

02/01/2010 - Faith or works

Catholics teach a salvation partially through works. Evangelicals teach we are saved solely by faith. Which is correct? Well as we see many times the truth lies somewhere in between. Consider the following passage:

Matthew 25:31-36

We see here that on judgment day people are separated based upon what they did and did not do. Ephesians 2:8 and 9 tell us we are saved by grace not by works. Except there is more to the story. We have to interpret the Ephesians' passage along side of the above passage from Matthew and James 2:20 that teaches us faith without works is dead.

Jesus likened faith to a mustard seed, Matthew 17:19-20, because faith is meant to take root and grow. The fruit of faith are works of grace, love, forgiveness, mercy, and the like. So faith by itself is not enough it must find its completeness in works as evidenced by how Jesus described how we were to be judged upon His return.

We see that works do not save us, but if we are truly followers of Christ our works will make it obvious that we are such since we have an efficacious faith at work inside us.

[ Back to top ]

01/03/2010 - Faith and Intellect

Faith and intellect are two diametrically opposed forces in many Christian circles it seems. It seems that simply just believing is enough to justify and solidify a belief. Whether there is any actual scriptural foundation for such a belief is not important when it tickles our ears and justifies our actions. We over invest our emotions into many of our beliefs and under invest our minds in searching them out. We do not read dissenting views or study opposing view points because we "believe" they cannot possibly hold any truth as they contradict our assumptions and feelings or we are just ignorant of any other possible interpretations.

The Bible in untrained hands is a very dangerous tool without the mature guidance of others who have spent time truly studying it. I believe we've turned a belief system that was meant to be organic into something quite institutional. We have many "teachers" who presume to teach, but have not been taught themselves in how to listen to dissenting viewpoints and then rightly divide the word of truth with as little personal bias as possible.

Faith and intellect go hand in hand and must or we are lead into all kinds of errors as evidenced by all the silliness that takes place on Christian TV. Many Charismatics especially have created a Christian fantasy world that has divested the Gospel of much of its real practical power for the world most find themselves in. If only God always healed everyone all the time and we could all be materially wealthy if we just exercised the right kind/amount of faith. Such that preach these things hold out false hope whose fruit is disappointment, frustration, and ignorance. God's power is not at its greatest display in signs and wonders. The most powerful display is to be witnessed in those who live their lives with integrity in the most difficult of circumstances. 2 Timothy chapter 3 is all about the display of the power of God in a life continually lived with integrity.

2 Timothy 4:3-5 (The Message)
You're going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food-catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They'll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages. But you-keep your eye on what you're doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God's servant.

2 Timothy 2:15 (English Standard Version)
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

[ Back to top ]