by Logan Ames
Today is the one day of the year in the United States that we set aside a full day to honor all military veterans past, present, and future. Regardless of what we all think about some of our nation’s decisions regarding military intervention, we must always be willing to support and appreciate those who make sacrifices in service to others. They sacrifice time with their families, the comforts of home, and years off their lives due to lasting physical and mental health complications that come from their time spent in combat. Jesus told his disciples, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). While we remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice on Memorial Day every year, Veterans Day is a time to reflect on the many freedoms we have and honor those who have given up something to preserve them.
There is a lot that we, the universal body of believers in Jesus Christ, can learn from what we see in the United States military. I’ll start with the obvious. The individuals who comprise our great military model the desire to serve others that Jesus talks about in Mark 10. He had been with his disciples when suddenly, James and John pull him aside and tell him they want him to allow them to sit beside him in glory. Jesus proceeds to explain to them that it’s one thing to talk the talk, but to have such a position in his kingdom will require them to go through the same things Jesus was going to go through. The rest of the disciples get annoyed with James and John, but Jesus, rather than condemn them for their selfish thinking, uses the opportunity as a teaching moment and reminds his disciples that even he, the Son of Man, the only One who would truly be deserving of others serving him, came instead to “serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). While we all understand that our government as a whole does not always intervene militarily with noble purposes, no one can deny that the individuals who sign up for the force do so with the opportunity to serve other human beings making up at least part of their motivation.
Another similarity between the body of Christ and the U.S. military is that both are called to be peacemakers as part of their mission. Now, before you tell me that’s not the case for those who fight with guns and worldly weapons, I’d like you to consider what it means to be a “peacemaker." Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). Jesus didn’t say, “Blessed are those who always LIVE in peace." We know that living in peace is not always possible with someone else because they might have their heart set on bitterness and anger toward us. That’s why Paul says in Romans 12:18 that we should live at peace with everyone “as much as it depends on you." He also understood that peace is not always possible. Sometimes, the peacemaker is one who mediates between two other fighting parties. Sometimes, the peacemaker is the offended party but chooses to forgive or overlook the offense. And still other times, the peacemaker is the one who eliminates any threat to peace. That’s where the U.S. military comes into play. They have the hardest job in the world and sometimes have to make the excruciating decision to take out those who stand in the way of peace. And while many Christians can’t see how this could be Christ-like, remember that David took out Goliath as he defied God and stood in the way of God’s plan for his people.
The late Fred Thompson once said, referring to our beloved United States, “This country has shed more blood for the freedom of other people than all the other nations in the history of the world combined." I remember writing a paper on Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a brigadier general for the Union during the Civil War who had left his prestigious position as a professor at a college in Maine to fight for what was right. He had talked often about his understanding that the horrible war and the scourge of slavery would not be put to an end until men like him were ready to make personal sacrifices. Chamberlain did not perish in the Battle of Gettysburg, but his wounds from the battle caused him to live in some level of suffering for the rest of his life. He accepted this because he just could not sit idly by while the injustice of slavery continued in his beloved country. That’s a peacemaker!
Yes, I understand there are some conflicts that our country should’ve probably never entered. But our military still has the strictest rules of engagement and the harshest penalties for those who kill innocent civilians due to either anger or accident. We take far greater care than any other military in the world when it comes to opposing civilians, because we know that war is the last resort when peace could not be obtained through agreement. We’re not interested in eliminating those who live in a country opposing us just because they live there. We just want to get the bad guys, specifically those who stand against peace or those who oppress others. Isaiah 58:6 tells us that, to truly fast and humble ourselves before God, we must be “loosening the chains of injustice and setting the oppressed free."
And finally, the body of Christ can learn from the unity of the United States military. This day and age, our nation is so divided because everyone looks out for themselves and everyone is concerned about their “individuality." Sadly, this has infiltrated the Church. In the body of Christ, as in the military, there’s no such thing as an “individual." While we may have been created uniquely by a wonderful Creator, we cannot live the Christian walk alone. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 that we are all members of one body. We have different backgrounds, views, opinions, like and dislikes, brokenness, skills, and struggles, but we are UNITED in Jesus Christ as his body. Likewise, those in the United States military come from all different backgrounds. However, any individuality is cut away - literally - the moment they arrive at basic training. You get a haircut and a uniform. And the barber doesn’t ask you what look you want because he/she already knows what look you’re getting!
I had an opportunity recently to spend about 4 days with a group of young men in the United States Marine Corp who are currently serving our nation on deployment. I got to spend that time with them while they are away from their families and in a foreign country halfway around the world. As we talked about their families, I could sense the pain of being away and the increasing excitement at the thought of returning home. What struck me even more though was the diversity of our military. We know there are men and women from all over, but in the group I was with, they were all from different states. They were different ages and different stages of life. One guy’s father even lives in Mexico and denounces his son’s choice to join the U.S. military, yet the young man felt a call to serve others and joined anyway.
In the Church, we’ve got to stop focusing on our differences and instead focus on the Jesus who died for all of us. We were first united in the fact that we are all sinners, but we have since been united as those who have been born again by the blood of Jesus and his Holy Spirit. We have a common goal to be Jesus’ ambassadors to a lost world, and that goal cannot be accomplished when we are constantly bickering. In the United States military, if someone goes rogue, it can have devastating consequences for everyone. We have to accept that the same is true for the body of Christ. As we salute those who serve or have served our country today and the unity with which they pursue the goals of peacemaking and fighting for the oppressed, let us learn from their example.
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“Love does not envy. It does not boast, it is not proud.” (1 Corinthians 13:4, NIV)
“Love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;” (1 Corinthians 13:4, NKJV)
Paul takes four angles in describing love: love is, love does, love is not, and love does not. Last week, I described how love is patient and love is kind. Then here Paul describes some of what love does not do. It is important to note that love is not merely an emotion or a state of being but primarily an action of choice. Paul spends more time describing what love does than he does describing what love is. The first two things Paul describes love doing are negative: love does not envy nor boast.
Love does not envy
Envy is one of the fabled Seven Deadly Sins. It is the desire and greed of that which someone else has, jealous that they have what you seek. Envy has a closely related sister: covetousness. The Tenth Commandment states “Thou shalt not covet…” and then gives a list of types of possessions, resources, and relationships. Envy is a breeding ground of many different dangerous behaviors: jealousy, paranoia, bitterness, greed, wrath, distrust, discontent, and many others. Little illustrates the contrast between envy and love better than the relationship between King Saul and David.
David had been anointed king of Israel, likely even before he began to serve Saul and before he slew Goliath. He was just a lad at the time. Yet, after the slaying of Goliath, David’s fame, praise, and honor began to surpass Saul and envy began to take root. To make a long story short, Saul became paranoid of losing his throne, which he knew would happen because Samuel had told him that, and he sought to kill David.
David, on the other hand, had legal right to the throne as per Samuel’s anointing. He could have easily desired Saul’s crown and had not merely one but two opportunities to kill Saul and claim the throne for himself. However, David loved Saul and recognized he was God’s anointed king. He would not make a move to take the throne, which was rightfully his, in his own strength or his own timing. Saul’s envy for David’s praise set him on a course into insanity. Yet David would not envy nor covet that which was rightfully his; and he waited patiently for God to take action in due time.
Envy is not limited to the heathen; it is rampant in the church today. All it takes to rear its ugly head is to see someone actually seek to walk the walk among a group who prefer mediocrity. When I wrote about Perfect Doctrine, I covered this issue with those who seek to bring those above them down to their level. Envy shows itself in mediocre Christians telling mature Christians to stop praying. It shows when those who only want to have to follow minimal doctrine try to silence those who call for repentance and speak truth.
Love does not envy. It does not get jealous of others in their possessions, their relationships, their prestige, or anything they have. It is important to note that not everything someone has is good for them. Riches can often be a curse. Reputations and the praise of man is all you are going to get if that is what you seek and it will be short-lived. This world will only shout your name as long as you give them what they want. As soon as someone else enters the picture, you are forgotten. Do not envy. Instead, lift up, build up, and edify others. If someone leaps ahead of you, encourage them to keep going and use that as motivation to step up your game too.
Love does not boast
Love is not interested in self-proclamation. It does not seek to bring attention to self. Love does not require you to build a platform and promote yourself. Love does not need publicity. Love does not go around telling people what you did. Love does not seek man’s approval. Love does not proclaim self’s value or self’s deeds.
Jesus gave a parable of a Pharisee and a tax collector. The Pharisee boasted about all he did and how moral he was and even had the audacity to say how he was so much better than the nearby tax collector, who hung in the back and humbly confessed his sin before God. Every bit of good the Pharisee had done was wiped out because all of it was stained with pride, making it worthless.
Paul declared he could boast in one thing and one thing only: Jesus and what he did on that cross. Now, boasting is different than defending one’s case to preach. Paul had to show the Corinthian church why he was qualified as an apostle because false teachers were questioning his credentials. However, in that defense, he never pointed attention to himself and instead boasted about how God had put him in that place.
Here’s a way to illustrate that point a little more. A good friend of mine, Dr. Charles Jackson (most famous for his role in Genesis: Paradise Lost, and his upcoming project “Quantum”), has four science degrees (a bachelors, 2 masters, and a PhD). As he grew as a speaker for Creation, he realized he needed to also go for Mensa Society, the top 2% in IQ in the world. This was to boost his credentials. He told me he tried to take the test a second time to see if his first passing was truly legit and he just barely did. He said that was God’s way of keeping him humble. At that time, I too was asked about applying for Mensa because several think I am smart enough for that. I realized the only real reason I would have for doing that was not for credentials but rather to have a piece of paper to brag about. I have not taken the test, nor will I unless God makes it clear to do so, because all it would do is feed my ego. I likely would not use it to validate my authority in speaking as I should. I’m honestly not convinced I could pass that test anyway.
Whenever we minister to someone, a good rule of thumb is to get someone to think more about Jesus than about us. If they are thinking about us, then we need some work to do on our presentation. But where we have to watch out the most is after the ministry event. How many times do we hear preachers boasting about how many conversions or proclamations of faith in their services or crusades or events? They may give lip service to God by saying, “Look at how many people God brought to the Lord this weekend.” However, what is the motive? What is the fruit of that statement? What it is used for? Is it truly giving praise and glory to God, or is it rather to boast about what that preacher did?
If we truly love someone, if we truly love God, we will not speak or act to draw attention to ourselves. We will not need to tell others what we have done or the good deeds we are doing. Love is not about you. That said, love also does not boast about others, giving them undue attention. It does build up and it does edify others, but it has no need to brag about others in pride. Often such boasting is a subtle way to boast about self because then the other person would “owe you a favor.” Instead, boast about Christ and Christ alone because he alone is worthy of the praise and the glory.
Next week, I’ll look at how love is not rude nor self-seeking.
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by Steve Risner
Last week we began looking at language—what is it, how does it happen, and where did it come from? We looked at why man is unique among all living things in his ability to communicate complexly, essentially taking thoughts from his mind and imparting them into the mind of another human. We also briefly looked at the areas of the brain that are essential for language—for both sending and receiving. We hardly mentioned all the muscular actions that are necessary but, trust me, it's a lot! So how do Bible deniers explain the miracle of language?
Scientists who reject the Biblical narrative of history believe that man, once he somehow developed the right areas of the brain, went from making simple, animalistic grunts and groans to making more complex sounds to eventually making words and forming sentences and, finally, to writing things like the Bible, the Iliad, and Hamlet among other things. There are a variety of different versions of this story, but they are all fairly similar. We started making animal sounds like grunts and groans and then, over long periods of time, those sounds became very complex. Essentially, language went from less to more complex over time. Is this what we see happening today?
Ever read Shakespeare? Ever look at the “Amplified” version of the Bible? The truth is, over time language actually becomes simpler. And it's also true that there is no such thing as a “simple” or “primitive” language. Even the most “primitive” languages are highly complex—some more so than more modern languages. In fact, many “primitive” languages are absolutely amazing in their complexity. Do a little research on Native American languages or African languages. They blow English away in terms of complexity. Human children have a remarkable ability to learn language. It's just what they do naturally. No chimp or dog or bird or any animal, really, can do this. Children learn the language of their parents. The areas of the brain responsible for language are 6 times the size of those in chimps (allegedly our nearest relative). Chimps can't talk. They can learn a couple of hand gestures and nothing more but only if taught by a human being who has the gift of language. In most cases, these communications are related to basic survival skills and are extremely basic. A chimp hasn't been taught to express himself, telling us how he feels or how his day went.
There are 3 basic truths about the evolution of language: 1) colloquialisms come and go rather quickly, only sometimes remaining; 2) new words are introduced as they're needed; and 3) when cultures and languages interact over a period of time, they will alter one another.
It's hard to say exactly when a new language is born because it happens so slowly. Recall that French, Spanish and Italian used to be called Latin. They were separated and changed over time. But Latin is vastly more complex than Spanish or Italian or any other language it birthed. The differences are astounding in conjugation, noun usage, gender assignments, etc. Greek is the same way. Greek has 6 words to describe the English “love.” We say love. They would say eros, philia, agape, ludus, pragma, or philautia depending on the situation. The same is true for today's “primitive” languages found in remote tribes. Their language is very complex as are ancient forms of writing. It's fairly universal as we look at just about any language that they do, in fact, get simpler over time. This stands in the face of evolutionist thinking which defies the scientific data. Suzette Haden Elgin says about language, “No known language in the whole of human history can be considered ‘primitive’ in any sense of the word” in her book What is Linguistics? She continues, “… the most ancient languages for which we have written texts—Sanskrit for example—are often far more intricate and complicated in their grammatical forms than many other contemporary languages.”
Human language is far more complex than any communication between animals. Dogs bark. This essentially doesn't mean anything to the dog beyond announcing its presence. Birds chirp or sing. Again, they're not communicating ideas or sharing experiences. They're simply making noise that alerts others to their presence or the presence of danger. That's the end of the complexity, for the most part. Some “higher” mammals may appear to have more complex language skills, but when compared to that of humans, it's like comparing the mass of a flea to the that of a blue whale—it's a completely different scale. Helmut Gipper, a linguist from Germany said,
“All assumptions that human speech developed gradually from animal grunts (the so-called woof-woof theories) or that gestures changed incrementally into audible language, cannot be sustained. Such erroneous hypotheses compare the specifics of human speech with the communication systems of animals. It can be stated emphatically that the essence of human speech is not communication. Communication exists everywhere in the animal kingdom. But human language is in the first place a knowledge medium; this encompasses an intellectual/spiritual access to the observable world. The essence of speech lies in the possibility of assigning specific meanings to articulated sounds, thereby making them mentally accessible.”
That is so profound, I hope you will read it again to get all he is saying. Human language is far more than just noises. It's a way to pass on abstract ideas, share emotions, describe specific experiences, and pass on knowledge. This exists nowhere in the animal kingdom.
Evidence suggests that human language—spoken, written, or whatever form it may take—is far too complex to have evolved from animal sounds. Evidence seems to indicate that language was installed into mankind at the beginning and slowly became less complex over time, although it is exceedingly more complex than any communication between any other species. The fact that language exists at all indicates the necessity for a Creator. The Bible tells us that God spoke to Adam, and Adam understood Him. Adam used his language skills to name all the animals in the Garden of Eden. Language, like man, was created on Day 6.
Next time, we'll look at the languages of the world—there are many. There are some 6000 spoken languages today! There are even organizations whose purpose is to come up with new words, primarily to keep up with technology. That's strange, really, but also amazing! How does this fit with the Biblical narrative of the Tower of Babel? Quite well, but we'll save that for later. Thanks again for reading.
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“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12)
The 4th commandment in my series on the Ten Commandments is to honor your father and your mother. The meaning of this commandment according to Luther’s Small Catechism is, “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.”
Now, I don’t know about you, but I have fantastic parents! They raised my brother and me in a Christian home, taught us how to live our lives in a right and moral manner, provided well for us, and have always showed us love to the best of their abilities. A couple months ago, my parents came to my aid when I was injured in a motorcycle accident, making the nearly 2-hour drive to and from my house many times just to be with me and help out with whatever I needed. So this commandment may come easier for someone like me than for someone who had parents who didn’t seem to care much about their children. But, God doesn’t tell us to honor our parents only if they honor us as their children; there’s no stipulation on this.
As with all the commandments, why should we do this? Honoring our earthly parents shows that we honor God with our lives. We love God, so we should love our parents too, because He created them and gave us to them as their child. Our parents (even mine) aren’t perfect, but that’s no reason for us to break this commandment; we should honor them no matter what, as difficult as that may be at times.
Every time I ponder this commandment, I recall the Hebrew for it. The word that we translate as “honor” can also be translated as “to make fat” (because fat was a sign of wealth in that culture). It always makes me laugh when I think of this commandment as “Make your father and mother fat”! Clearly that’s not the intended meaning here, but it still makes me giggle because language can be funny.
You’ll notice that Luther’s meaning for this commandment also includes “other authorities.” This commandment doesn’t just apply to our biological parents but also to others in authority over us - grandparents, aunts and uncles, teachers, bosses, government officials, etc. For more on what the Bible says about authorities in our lives, check out this post.
This commandment is known as the only commandment with a promise. This one gives us the result of what will happen when we obey it: “so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” This was especially applicable to the people of Israel since they were journeying toward the Promised Land when they received these commandments from God. That was their goal in life, and they as a people would achieve it if they as individuals respected all of the authorities in their lives.
While you and I are likely not on a many-year journey to a promised land, we can still claim the promise this commandment gives us. When we honor our parents and other authorities in our lives, our lives will be better. Of course there is no guarantee that we will live to be over 100 years old if we honor our parents, but the idea behind it is that our lives will be fulfilling when we honor those around us, and in turn honor God with our lives. When we serve, love, and obey our parents, we serve, love, and obey God.
Do you truly honor your parents and others in authority in your life? What could you change this week to show more honor to those around you and in turn honor God by keeping this commandment?
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by Logan Ames
I once read a wonderfully written story called “Life After Birth." You can find a version of it here. The gist of the story is that two babies are in the womb and are having a conversation about whether there is life after delivery. One baby is sure there is nothing else out there, while the other baby hangs on to a belief that there is something more where they will actually get to meet “Mother." The story ends with the unbelieving one essentially mocking the believing one.
Since we are all living and breathing outside of our mothers’ wombs, we can say we know with certainty that there is life after birth. But I want to talk to you here about something that not everyone believes and for which there is not yet any irrefutable proof. I’m talking about life after death. The question of what happens after we die is one of the 7 questions that all worldviews have to answer. Christians are often ridiculed for the belief that we will be resurrected into eternal life with Jesus, and we’re told that it’s just something we’ve made up to make ourselves feel better about what we don’t know. This view, of course, ignores the evidence from Scripture.
Many of us first learned about life everlasting from the most popular Bible verse of all time. As children, most of us heard the King James Version of John 3:16 at some point: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The issue for many believers is not IF everlasting life exists, but more so what that life will look like. Some of you are probably completely freaked out by the concept of eternity. When I was a child, I always thought about how long of a time eternity is and what we’d be doing with it. I remember my mom once saying that we’d be worshiping God all the time. I equated worship with church at that time, so needless to say I wondered who in the world would want to be in church ALL the time. At that age, I didn’t even want to be there once a week! vThe truth is that if heaven were based on what “I” want, it wouldn’t be heaven at all. Bishop T.D. Jakes said, “As a Christian, Christ died so that we will have eternal life with him in heaven. What it looks like doesn’t matter, what it smells like doesn’t matter, as long as Christ is there it will be heaven to me." I think he’s right. We all have our mental pictures of what heaven “might” be like, but no one knows for sure. Since we all picture different things, the most important thing to know is that Jesus is present there.
It’s interesting when we start talking about the physical characteristics of heaven that we have traditionally come to expect. Those characteristics include “streets of gold” and “pearly gates." It’s interesting because those descriptors actually apply to another place and not heaven. The word heaven is first seen at the very beginning of the Bible in Genesis 1:1, but the Hebrew word used there is shamayim and is the same word translated as “sky” in Genesis 1:8. That’s because the Hebrew word basically just means “the waters above." Therefore, heaven is not a proper name, or a place you find on a map. It’s just a reference to the skies above and that’s why when it pours down rain, we say “the heavens opened up."
So, the logical question to ask then is why do we call the place where God dwells “heaven”? Quite simply, it’s because Jesus did and we follow him! In Matthew 6:9, as he teaches his disciples how to pray, he says, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name." Later, he called the place by a different name. As he responded to the criminal on the cross next to him in Luke 23:42-43, he referred to the place as “paradise." The word for “paradise” there, when translated back to the Hebrew, is the same word used for the Garden of Eden, or God’s idea of a perfect place. We don’t know much about the rebel on the cross next to Jesus. Scholars believe he was either a murderer, a thief, or both. Either way, this is the essence of everlasting life. That man, who had lived a mess of a life, at least to some extent up until that point, was now told by Jesus that he was about to have eternal life. Jesus knew his heart was sincere and if we think about it, it’s amazing that Jesus was willing to say this to the criminal despite the agonizing suffering Jesus was in, which would’ve made it painful just to speak and breathe.
The best descriptors of the place we have been taught to believe is “heaven” can be found in Revelation 21. In verses 1-5, we see that Christ is making everything new and the new city is coming down “out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband." This tells us that the “city” we’re about to read about can’t be heaven because it’s clearly coming OUT OF heaven. Then in verses 9-27, the characteristics of this perfect “place” are mentioned. This is where we find references to the streets of gold and the pearly gates, among other descriptors. The crazy thing is that this section begins with an angel showing John “the bride, the wife of the Lamb… the Holy City, Jerusalem." Now, we know from Ephesians 5:32 that the bride of Christ is the Church, the universal body of believers.
The big question for many of us, then, is how does this impact our lives right now? Some people just want to be woken up when everlasting life gets here. But the reality of these passages is that they seem to indicate that the “city” made up of God’s people is actually what we often confuse for “heaven." Yet, the passage says the bride is “prepared." How do we prepare ourselves to meet the bridegroom, Jesus Christ? It just so happens that he does a good part of the preparing in us. Take a moment and read Mark 10:17-27. I was blown away when I read this passage with a renewed understanding. Jesus had just talked to his disciples about having faith like a child and in walks this man who does just the opposite. He has heard about everlasting life and wants Jesus to give him the bullet points of what he has to DO to inherit it. The truth is he had already done what is most necessary - he fell at Jesus’ feet. But as soon as he opened his mouth, it all went down hill for him. He called Jesus “good” and Jesus questioned this, not because he’s not good or not God, but because he wanted the man to understand that it doesn’t matter how many good things are done; no one is “good” except God. Therefore, to call Jesus “good” was to call him “God," and Jesus wanted to make sure there was no getting around it.
The problem for the man was that he was not asking Jesus to be his Savior. Rather, he was asking Jesus to tell him how he can be his own savior, which of course is impossible for any human being no matter how “good” they are. For us to be prepared to be part of the city that IS everlasting life with God, we have to be willing to admit our need for Jesus and get ourselves out of the way and let him do the preparing. This attitude is exemplified by Paul in Romans 7:24-25. The humility required to say I am wretched without Jesus but rescued with him is a prerequisite for getting prepared for everlasting life. Have you been trying to earn your way to everlasting life and getting frustrated because of your failures? Let Jesus change you. After that discussion with the rich young ruler, Jesus’ disciples were dumbfounded and wondered who the heck could possibly be saved. Jesus famously replied, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27). If you haven’t already, surrender your life to Christ and allow him to begin to do the impossible in preparing you for the gift of life everlasting. Amen and so be it!
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“Love is patient, love is kind…” (1 Corinthians 13:4, NIV)
“Love suffers long and is kind…” (1 Corinthians 13:4, NKJV)
Love is Patient
If we truly love someone, we will be patient with them despite their flaws, idiosyncrasies, and anything that makes them “not normal.” Patience is not merely talking about the ability to wait for something to happen. That is the basic, elementary understanding we tend to be given as children. However, the Bible’s definition of patience is “long suffering.” What does that mean?
Eric Ludy gave the clearest picture to me in his sermon Hold the Position in which he deals with how to handle crisis. He describes patience as tensile strength, the ability to revert back to ‘normal’ after being stretched or strained. In an application of this, love is the ability to continue working with someone no matter how strenuous the relationship or the situation is.
Patient love is able to teach the students or the children how to do something five, ten, thirty, or even hundreds of times, even if they never seem to get it without getting frustrated, annoyed, or going as far as saying, “You never will figure it out.” Patient love is working with someone through their struggles in life, not complaining about how slow they are to work out their salvation. It does not give up easily. Each time we see someone fall, patient love keeps us there to pick them back up.
I have a friend I have met online who has required patient love. Without going into details, he tends to be very slow to pick up on things. Even though I have repeatedly told him how to handle some of his problems, he often seems reluctant to do the uncomfortable thing in dealing with them. Yet, how I am able to show patient love towards this person is by looking at what he could become if he were to truly yield his life to God. Have I been perfect in showcasing love towards him? Of course not. But I bring up his case because he requires patient love.
I have friends at my church who have an extreme special needs daughter. She is wheelchair bound, cannot do even basic things to take care of herself like eat or use a bathroom by herself. It takes a special love that only God can give to constantly take care of such people and retain that love. In my substitute teaching job, a couple times this year I’ve been put in classrooms that deal with kids like this daughter, and I often don’t know what to do, in part because I have not had formal training. There still is part of me that had not yet experienced the true love of God, because sometimes it can be hard for me to truly love these extremely special needs kids with the patience required to work with them. The same can be said with the “normal” kids who have behavior issues. Love is patient, even when you really don’t want to be.
Love is Kind
Many people do not know what this means. They think they do, but often when someone talks about love and kindness, they usually mean, “Let me do what I want, and don’t dare tell me it’s wrong.” Love is kind, but it is not that. What am I talking about then? There are two major aspects I will deal with here.
First, kind love is the type of love that seeks out the lowly, the lonely, or the outcast and treats them with honor and respect. Kind love is the one who helps a bullied student pick up his books and comforts him (standing up to said bully is for later). Kind love does not speak a harsh word nor a coarse joke. It is gentle and always looking to build up and edify others. It is always outward seeking.
Kind love goes beyond the typical “love” we generally think of. It is very possible to love someone and not like them. As Mark Lowry puts it, “You’ll cry at their funeral but you don’t want to go on vacation with them.” Kind love doesn’t love out of duty but actually likes those it loves. Kind love likes the outcast and the vulnerable and the ignoble. Kind love wants to be with these people.
But often this love must speak up against destructive behavior. Kind love also warns against false teachings and against lifestyles and choices which may seem fun at the moment, but will lead to destruction in the end. This is usually what people call “tough love,” however, even tough love must be kind.
Let us not forget that God is love. So everything Paul describes here in 1 Corinthians 13 is a description of who God is. God will discipline those who are his and also bring justice upon the wicked. God being kind and gentle is true, but so is his demand for justice. Only God is able to carry out that justice while being kind at the same time. How does that apply to us?
We will allow someone to get into our face, slap us upside the head, and “wake us up” if said person has earned that right and respect from us. We reserve this right only for our deepest and truest friends or an authority figure we love. They want to see us genuinely care for them. Paul also describes us as carrying the fragrance of Christ. While many will hate us simply for bearing the scent of life (because they in their sin want to stay in their sin), for others that scent will draw them closer. When we correct someone, it cannot be from a basis of, “You are right, I am right.” It must be from, “Look, this is a dangerous path. I know where it leads. Please turn from it. I care about you too much to let you go that way without telling you.”
Now, if the person still rejects the warning, then you must listen to the Holy Spirit to know whether to pursue further or to walk away. Several incidents in the Gospels show Jesus commending persistence. A prime example is the Parable of the Persistent Widow who plead and plead and plead her case to an unrighteous judge and got her wish. How much more would a righteous God answer the constant pleading of his saints? But there are other times where Jesus did not pursue. When he gave a hard message, 20,000 left him and Jesus turned to his disciple and asked, “Do you want to go too?” When the rich young ruler walked away sad because he did not want to let go of his wealth, Jesus didn’t pursue him. Only God knows when to keep going and when not to. We must learn from him when to do which.
Love is patient and love is kind. It does not cave nor snap in times of pressure or inconvenience. It is able to be stretched and revert back to “normal” without distorting its shape. Love seeks after the lowly and is kind to all it encounters. It likes those it reaches, and does not merely love out of duty. It will correct with genuine care for the wayward and be kind in doing so. All this is to be taken holistically with the rest that follows. Next week, I’ll look at what love does NOT do: it does not envy nor boast.
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by Steve Risner
“Language – the uniquely human ability to build from a few sounds an infinite range of meaning so that the insight and imagination of each of us can be shared among all of us.” -Alan Alda on The Human Spark
“Right now I’m doing something pretty extraordinary. I’m breathing out slowly while at the same time moving my tongue, jaw, and lips in an incredibly fast ballet of movement. I can use this skill to take thoughts in my head and transfer it into yours.” -Professor Simon Kirby
After my delay in writing, I wanted to continue with the Table of Nations and Tower of Babel as a topic. When we think of the Tower of Babel, most often we immediately think of people being driven away from each other due to language barriers that God had created due to man's disobedience. I'd like to briefly look at language as a thing and then look at different languages from around the world. Both of these topics give strong credence to the historical accounts of both creation and the Flood followed by the Tower of Babel. Let's first look at language in general to see if it will give us anything that points to a Creator.
A huge division between man and all other forms of life on earth is language. This is a universal idea, whether we're talking about evolutionists or creationists or someone else for that matter. Mankind essentially owes all of his accomplishments—literally—to his ability to communicate. Birds chirp, whales sing, dogs bark, and bees buzz, but no organisms on earth that we are aware of can even remotely rival the communication skills of human beings. Dogs have no idea that man has landed on the moon and we can't tell them. They are ignorant of the fact that the Himalayas are the tallest mountains on earth. They wouldn't know how to bake a cake or how to play Euchre. All of these things require communication. I'm not just speaking of spoken language, of course, but of all forms of language man has employed over the centuries—written, spoken, artistic, coded, hand gestures, etc. But how did spoken language begin?
Undoubtedly, it was the original form of communication existing before written language and the like. So how did it start? The answer, from a scientific standpoint, is: we have no idea. The difficulty here lies in the fact that we can't dig up fossil evidence of prehistoric language, if such a thing existed. We can look at languages today and see how they've changed over time. We can look at ancient writings, but even these are not really that old in relation to how old secular thinking would place language and writing. All that can be done by scientists in this field is guess work, albeit educated guesses. I'm not suggesting there's no merit to looking into these things scientifically and there certainly are a great deal of theories out there on how man acquired language. There's also the fact that most scientists looking at these questions begin with an assumption that may very well be wrong (and likely is wrong). That assumption is that man is just an ape that's a little smarter than other apes and that language slowly evolved over time from grunts and the like to the complex systems we have today. We'll see in a moment why all of this is demonstrably false and is not supported at all by anything. But first we should look at what is going on physically for speech to take place. There's a lot to it.
There are both hardware and software requirements for speech. This is one of the issues with an evolutionist's musings on how language came to be. One without the other is useless, so which came first? In the brain there are at least 2 very distinct areas that do very different things but are essential for language. One of these areas turns our thoughts into words, and the other turns our words into thoughts. Without one, the other is useless. Let's look at the parts and processes required for speech to be a thing.
Language is a code. Specific sounds, which in and of themselves are meaningless, are assigned meanings. So a human being's thoughts need to be encoded into the agreed upon sound arrangements in the person's brain first. Broca's area, first discovered in 1850, is basically where our thoughts are put into words. I think it's helpful to realize that language is such a part of the human experience that we think in a language. Without that language, processing the most basic thoughts would be extremely difficult. Broca's area seems to be the planning area for speech. This area is activated prior to speaking. Then a very complex orchestration of muscular movements are coordinated in the jaw, throat, face/lips and tongue as well as the intercostal (between the ribs) muscles and diaphragm to produce the desired coded sounds. These sounds are vibrations that pulse through the air. They'll eventually bombard a listener's ear drums and the sounds will be transmitted from the ear to the brain for deciphering. This happens in Wernicke's area — the area responsible for interpreting language.
Wernicke's area actually filters out all other sounds, making it a remarkable bit of hardware. In fact, it's also powerful enough to hear and filter a distorted spoken utterance and ignore it, hear the same utterance intelligibly, and then make sense out of the distorted version upon hearing it again. This area works overtime if you're talking with a toddler or someone who's primary language is not what they're speaking. But, remarkably, it works so well that it's not very often you can't eventually make out what someone is saying even if they're not very clear in their speech.
We also use vision to understand and interpret language. Ever notice that you tend to look at a person's lips when they're speaking to you? There's also a great deal of other things that go into this type of communication. Voice inflection, tone, facial expression, and physical gestures all go into the mix, so a person must be able to decipher not only the sounds accurately and ascribe the correct meaning, but one also must interpret a variety of other things to figure out what thought is being transmitted. This is how a person can say, “Nice job” in such a way as to sound like a compliment or to be sarcastic—a jab at someone.
In short, human interaction via language is extremely complex. Does this make sense if evolution from a single common ancestor is true? Let's see about that next week. You all know I'm a Biblical creationist who believes the Bible and accepts the narrative found in it in Genesis concerning the origins of the universe and earth, life, and specifically man as well as the Flood and Tower of Babel. From there, so many questions about us as humans can be answered, but only if we're honest enough to accept the source. Science cannot tell us about origins. It's impossible. Whether it's the origins of the universe, the earth, mankind, life in general, love, faith, language, DNA, etc., science cannot tell us where these things came from. But God has told us. It's in His Word. Within His Word He has given us so many other things that are reliable and trustworthy, why not believe Him when He tells us about how He created the universe, life, man, language, etc.? God spoke with Adam. This would require both areas of the brain described above to be fully functional so he could understand God's statements and also respond to them with his own statements.
We'll take a look at the “evolution” of language next time and see if the stories told by secular linguists hold up to scrutiny or if they are actually contrary to what we know about language. Thanks for reading.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
