Category: Common Sense (Page 6 of 6)

There is a lot at stake when it comes to Christians learning how to slow down. Doctors have been warning us for decades about the danger of a frantic pace of life. Marriages have been ruined because they have been replaced by work. Families have become strangers to each other because they are caught up in the rat race of consumerism.

The Christian life is counter cultural. The Christian life was meant to be lived slowly. This is hard for American Christians to accept, but it is true. If we can take a step back from the hectic pace of our consumer society, we will be able to see that God never intended people to live at the breakneck speed we see all around us today. 

When God created the heavens and the earth, he did so more slowly than humans would have. We would have created it with one big bang, but that’s not what God had in mind. He modeled the creation week after our planet’s natural division of time, “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” (Genesis 1:5)
In the ancient world, many people believed each “day” started at night. This meant that the rhythm of each day was naturally limited by the setting and the rising of the sun. Technology existed, but it did not allow people to work beyond the original timeframe that God had established with the twenty-four hour day.

We know life was meant to be lived slowly because God included a seventh day in the creation week. This is the day of rest. Genesis 2 says, “And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” 

Isn’t it fascinating to consider that rest was included in the first work week of creation? This goes against how we think of work. We separate work and rest, but God included rest as a part of his work week. The creation week would not have been complete if he didn’t rest. 

He not only included the day of rest; he blessed it and made it holy. This is why the people of God have always reserved one day a week for rest. They have always understood that life was meant to be lived slowly, because God modeled this for us in the creation week. 

Jesus Christ confirmed this in his teaching. He said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) He was making the point that God did not establish the Sabbath as a rule that man had to keep. He established the Sabbath as a blessing for humans to experience. 

The Hebrew word for Sabbath literally means to stop. The goal of bringing an end to work is so you will be able to find rest for your soul. This is not supposed to only happen one day a week. The Christian life is supposed to be lived slowly every day of the week. The apostle Paul did not say “run by the Spirit.” He said, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16)

Jesus gave us his own warning. He said, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” Those who don’t believe in Christ must be warned. They will lose their souls unless they repent of their sin and commit their lives to the one who died on the cross and rose from the dead to pay for their sins. The believer is also in danger, not of being condemned, but of wasting his or her life. It is possible for a Christian to run through life so fast that their soul is never given the time to find it’s rest in God. May we all slow down to be able to find the rest and the peace that we all so desperately need. 

The shortest election result in American history only took an hour and fifty minutes to decide. Ronald Reagan won the election at 9:50 PM EST on November 4, 1980 because that was the exact time Jimmy Carter conceded the race. 

The longest time the American people have had to wait for election results was in 1876. It took our government four months to declare the winner that year. Rutherford B. Hayes didn’t actually win the election until March 2, three days before his inauguration.

This year, we have been surprised because it’s been four days since election day and we still don’t know the official results. For many people these last four days have felt like four long months. The media has led us to believe that the results will come in soon, but there is no guarantee that will happen. The 20th Amendment of our Constitution does not have a deadline for declaring a winner. It only mentions that the next president will begin his term at noon on January 20th. It looks like we could be waiting a while before either candidate concedes the election.

Our society hates waiting. The original authors of the Declaration of Independence believed we have “unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” If that declaration were written today our society would replace the last pursuit with this one, “the pursuit of Instant Gratification.” 

This demand for instant gratification has filtered into the church. This can be seen in the attitudes many Christians have as consumers in our society. It can also be seen in the anxiety level many of us have about this election. We want to demand immediate results because we think technology should make that possible. I agree that it would be good if we could have the results soon, but I have come to realize our Constitution does not have the same demand, so we need to learn to be patient and wait on the Lord for the results. 

One of the best ways to keep the right perspective on difficulties in life is to look back at how the people of God kept perspective during times of trial and hardship. If you look in the Bible you realize rather quickly that our complaints about this year’s elections are insignificant compared to the difficulties God’s people have had to endure. 

The book of Exodus records how God’s people had to endure slavery in Egypt for four hundred years! How would Christians in America do if that kind of persecution broke out in our country? Our current complaints would be put to shame. We would be forced to put our hope in the God who sustained the Hebrew people. We would be forced to find strength in the Sovereignty of God. We would learn to read passages of Scripture like Psalm 90 the way the original author intended it to be read. 

“Psalm 90. A Prayer of Moses, The Man of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed.” 

“You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?” 

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O LORD! How long? Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” (English Standard Version) 

There are now three originalists on the Supreme Court. Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation this week means that she will raise the court’s originalist members to one third of the court. Justice Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch are the other two judges who are in agreement with Barrett’s originalist approach to reading the Constitution. She said, “I interpret the Constitution as a law, [that] I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it… So that meaning doesn’t change over time and it’s not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it.”¹

She mentioned two important principles that all Christians should use when reading the Bible. The first is the principle of looking for the original author’s intended meaning. The second is refraining from updating its meaning to fit with a modern interpretation. Both of these principles line up with the historical-grammatical method of reading scripture, which is the way everyone should read Scripture.

The historical-grammatical hermeneutic is the common sense approach to interpreting Scripture. It is a philosophy of interpretation that says that each bible passage has one basic meaning that is grounded in both historical truth and the rules of grammar that define human language. By looking for the original author’s intended meaning we come up with a straight-forward approach to Scripture that can be applied with confidence to a person’s life.

Paul’s second letter to Timothy says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” How can someone be equipped for life if they have doubt about the meaning of Scripture? The Bible was written to guide people. It is a book of instruction. It is a book of truth. It is a manual for living.

Imagine if a farmer tried adopting a modernist philosophy to reading an old tractor manual. He might say the manual is a living document. He might say our society has evolved to a more enlightened place. But no matter what he said, he would still be a foolish. A 3/4” bolt won’t take a 1/2” wrench.

The subject matter demands a historical-grammatical approach to interpretation. The same thing is true of the Bible because the subject matter was written by a God who never changes. When he says something is right, that means it is always right. When he says something is wrong, that means it is always wrong.

Some will say the Bible is a complex book and thus it needs to be interpreted with a more nuanced approach. The historical-grammatical approach allows for this because it recognizes that there are different genres in Scripture. Poetry is written differently than prose. Apocalyptic literature is different than historical narrative. This is a much better approach than the three other main options, which include the mystical approach, the ethical approach, and the allegorical approach. The slippery slope becomes steep rather quickly if these are taken.

The apostle Paul expected Christians to stand firm in the midst of the world. This is only possible if the believer has a firm understanding of how to interpret God’s word. The historical-grammatical approach is the best foundation because it makes us look to the author’s of Scripture for guidance, not to our own preferences, and certainly not to the whims of our confused society.

And we must not forget that the original author of Scripture is God! John’s gospel says, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Talk about being originalist! Our goal is not only to understand the human author of each passage in Scripture. Our goal is to understand the divine author who loved us enough to give us his word. May we be faithful to protect the original meaning of Scripture for our generation and those to come.

Common sense ceases to be common if people can’t agree about the definition of right and wrong. To prove that point let me tell you a story about when I realized how misguided our society’s common sense has become. 

I was just about to start my senior year of high school. Our family was visiting my grandparents in Huntington Beach before returning to Southeast Asia, where my parents were working. I had seen some people playing pick-up soccer and I thought it would be great to join them. Maybe I could get some practice in before returning to Thailand, where we played pick-up soccer all the time. I drove over to the field and jumped right in with this group of soccer aficionados. Everything went well until one of the players stopped me because I was too young. 

He asked me how old I was. I told him I would turn eighteen in a few months. He told me I couldn’t play because of liability reasons. At first, I thought he was joking. Maybe this was a strategy they used in Orange County to get faster players off the field… I gave him a surprised look and kept playing. He came back around and said, “We can’t run the risk of you getting injured because you are still a minor.” I didn’t know what he was talking about. I couldn’t see any miners on the field…

This guy was speaking a different language. He was speaking legalese. He was saying that  his pharisaical conscience would not allow him to let me continue playing. I couldn’t believe it. What was this strange world I was living in?

In Thailand we didn’t care how old you were. We would play with almost every age group. We used rules that allowed us to accomplish the goal of the game. We used rules to help us get some exercise, to have fun, to share the human experience. If someone got hurt they would never sue another player. That thought literally never crossed anyone’s mind. But not in Huntington Beach. This man’s knowledge of liability had skewed his understanding of pick-up soccer so much that he thought he was being commonsensical. “Of course you can’t play. You aren’t eighteen.” 

That same year I read a book called The Death of Common Sense by Philip K. Howard. It explains how obtuse legal theory is suffocating our country. It is still one of the most helpful books I have read in understanding our modern American society. 

That is the curriculum our governor should consider making all high school students take. But, even that wouldn’t go far enough. You see schools can’t bring common sense back from the dead. That is what we need the sixty-six books of the Bible for. The Bible is a supernatural book. It was graciously given to humanity as the supernatural standard of right and wrong. Without God’s definition there is no standard for defining right or wrong. And without God’s definition there is no common sense at all. 

Instead of rejecting Christian common sense our society needs to realize it is the only hope we have of discovering what true common sense is. The apostle Paul wrote long before we began using the phrase, but he certainly knew how to describe it,  “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1) The more closely we align our minds with the truth of God’s word the more closely we can understand what common sense truly is.