Author: Nathan Wilkerson

Black Light

I used to have a recurring nightmare. I’d enter a dark room where I sensed a malevolent 6e3b4bf860a2bf56c7e062a7d3325637--black-lights-bulbspresence. Instinctively, I’d flip the switch on the wall, but the light wouldn’t respond. Fear would grip my heart as I vainly repeated my attempts to shed light on whoever or whatever approached me in the darkness. It’s been quite some time since I’ve had that dream, but it still haunts me whenever I read Jesus’ words recorded in Matthew 6:22-23.

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

Can you imagine walking into a dark room and flipping the switch only to discover that the bulb emitted darkness? That image might be hard to visualize (no pun intended), but we need to grasp the reality behind Jesus’ metaphor because it illustrates a living nightmare from which many will never awaken.

To understand the reality behind Jesus’ figurative language here, we need to look at the broader context. In both this passage and the parallel one in Luke 11:33-36, this warning comes embedded between a rebuke of Pharisaic hypocrisy and exhortation to disciples regarding their treatment of money. The Pharisees knew the Torah, but rather than shedding light on them, it further darkened their hearts. Rather than see Christ in their scriptures, they used them as rationale to reject Christ. How terrifying!

Two people can encounter the same light, but one will be illumined and the other darkened. What accounts for this difference? Someone might say that the Pharisees were blinded by hypocrisy, but I disagree. I would say, rather, that hypocrisy is blindness the cause of which lies in something more apparent.

In both the Luke and Matthew passages, the word translated “healthy” referring to our eyes literally means, “generous” in the original language. The word translated, “unhealthy” means, “stingy.” Could it be that generous people come at divine revelation without the same bias that stingy people do? Could it be that stingy religious people come to interpret scripture in ways that alleviate their obligation to the poor?

In the very next verse of Matthew 6, Jesus says this:

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Stingy people want to keep what they have and they also want what God gives. So, they tell themselves that they can have both in spite of the teaching of the book they claim to revere. This self deception colors all future revelation in dark hues of greed so that when a penniless itinerant rabbi calls them out, they have no trouble putting him to death on a cross. Or at least putting him on a distant crucifix hung in their lavish dwellings.

Justice, mercy, and compassion comprise the soul of religion. Without those, religion devolves into self-referential ritual and incantation offered to appease the whim of a deity just as self-interested as his worshipers. Prohibition and prescription become the essence of a soulless shell. Those who violate the crucial minutia must pay for the religious leaders’ justifications.

The Pharisees in Jesus’ day embodied wicked religion. The passage directly following Luke’s telling of the illustration of eye health goes like this:

When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal.

Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.” (Luke 11:37-41)

While the Pharisees have gone down in infamy, they hardly hold a monopoly.

Why do the people who seem most up in arms about prayer in the schools or the imposition of “biblical values” on society seem to almost always advocate against programs designed to alleviate the suffering of the poor?

Amazing grace is truly a sweet sound, but it strikes a sour note in the mouth of the stingy. Without generosity, “grace” clangs and bongs in the ears of a lost world. Greedy religious people deceive themselves most of all and, so, ever deepening darkness falls over their eyes. For, nobody can truly believe themselves a saved wretch, lost now found, and remain a lover of money. Those who count grace God’s indescribable gift no longer regard material things with a covetous eye.

They were blind,

but now they see.

Te Quiero

I have a friend who wants to help me fix my car. Yes, I made a bad decision and purchased a lemon. No, I don’t have the money or skill to fix my situation. But, that’s not his main motivation to help me. He also wants to spend a week working side by side with me on it. That’s God’s kind of love.

That’s the love demonstrated in Romans 1:6-7:

And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

We’re called to belong to Jesus Christ. God loves us and called us to be his holy people – that is, his own possession.

Jesus didn’t come to die, rise, and return just because we’re pathetic. He went to all of that trouble because he wants us. He did it for us and he did it for himself. The author of the letter to the Hebrews said that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him. What was that joy? It was you and me.

The good news that Paul preached isn’t just “good” to us. It’s “good” to God. We’re restored from waking death and God gets his children back. Then, we all celebrate together!

In some ways the Spanish language conveys the concepts of the gospel in every day life better than English. “I love you” in Spanish translated literally is, “te amo.” That’s not how it’s said in daily speech, though. If you want to express love like a person might have for their spouse, you say, “te quiero,” literally, “I want you.” This isn’t sexual. It’s an expression of the value placed on the other. It says, “You are my treasure.”

Recuerde hoy, Jesu Cristo te quiere.

 

What’s in a Name?

My cousin is a Jehovah’s Witness. She and I had a conversation a while back. I asked her, “When Jesus said that he had given his disciples God’s name, what name did he mean?”

“Jehovah.” was her unhesitating response.

Then I asked her where in the Gospels do we find an instance of Jesus ever calling God, “Jehovah.” She didn’t have an answer. Jesus had his own name for God which he taught his disciples to use as well. Know what it is?

I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. (John 17:11)

The Hebrew scriptures speak from time to time of the LORD as being like a father to his people, but no one used, “Holy Father,” in the vocative tense to call on God. Only Jesus, the eternal Son, could so refer to God. That is, until by his death and resurrection, he paid our adoption fee.

The name, “Father,” when applied to God holds tremendous power regardless of the language we speak. Those who call God by this name can count on his protection, provision, guidance and correction. The children of God can live victorious, though persecuted, in the midst of a wicked society.

The name Christ has given us to call God by speaks of relationship. The power comes not from phonemes, but from our access in Christ to the Father by one Spirit (see Ephesians 2:18). If it were any other way, God would be reduced to some sort of impersonal force required to respond to properly pronounced incantation.

When we call God, “Father,” we proclaim gospel theology.

Fathers, especially adoptive ones, initiate the relationship with their children apart from any effort or work on their part. Children can be proud of their father, but they can’t boast in their own merit at achieving a place as his child.

Fathers want to give gifts to their children. We can come boldly to God to ask for small things as well as big things.

Fathers seek the best for their children, but children must trust that this is so in order to benefit from that good will. This is why everything in our relationship with God must come from and operate on faith.

Fathers discipline wayward children for their benefit even though it isn’t pleasant for either party. There is a severe side to God as Father, but always for our good.

Every father’s ultimate goal is to develop mature offspring who reflect their character but also stand as full fledged individuals. God commands us to live free.

These facets of our understanding of God can seem to contradict, but they harmonize completely in God’s nature as Father. By holding all of these dimensions of the name, “Father,” in tension, we will be protected not only from external harm, but also from destructive ideas about God in our own minds. We will truly be kept in his name.

Pessoptimism

I’m a bit of a critic. At times I’ve felt guilty for failing to be more positive. After reading Oman this morning, I feel a little less so.

A half and half morality always means a hopeless view of humanity; whereas a view of man as involved in a widely organised and radical corruption, always means a high estimate of his possibilities and a universal sense of the moral significance of life. –Grace and Personality

The gospel teaches that we live in a world infested with evil which permeates the hearts of every person. We were made to reflect the very glory of God, but have chosen instead to make our own destiny to our own destruction. These truths hardly call us to “accentuate the positive.”

That last phrase reminds me of a story which Bani, my friend from Albania, told me about living under the totalitarian regime of Enver Hoxha. Bani said that under communism the least mention of a fault in their society could get a person incarcerated. He spoke of a man who went to the store for potatoes to discover that they had run out. Later, that man met a friend for coffee and mentioned that there had been no potatoes at the store. An informant at the next table reported the man and he was thrown into prison. Apparently, the correct response to the question, “Why didn’t you get potatoes?” was, “I changed my mind.”

There is an optimism which hides corruption and a pessimism which reveals glory.

Most pessimistic of all is the teaching of Jesus. The highest morality turns out to be mere respectability, the purest religion mere formalism, and the insincerity is such that the Prince of this world is the Father of Lies. Nowhere, nevertheless, is the Kingdom so real or so near.

Jesus came to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and a judgement to come. He passed that call on to us (John 16:1-11).

Trouble Shoot

When someone who claims to believe in Christ comes to me with insurmountable problems, I have to wonder whether God has failed them or vice versa.

Actually, I don’t wonder, I know which one it is.

To help us all continue to move towards healing, I thought I’d make a simple decision tree to troubleshoot the real cause of misery in people who profess faith in Christ.

Here it is:

troubleshooter

Trouble Shoot

When someone who claims to believe in Christ comes to me with insurmountable problems, I have to wonder whether God has failed them or vice versa.

Actually, I don’t wonder, I know which one it is.

To help us all continue to move towards healing, I thought I’d make a simple decision tree to troubleshoot the real cause of misery in people who profess faith in Christ.

Here it is:

troubleshooter

Body Life Part 1 – United

When Jesus set out to make disciples, he gathered committed people around him and did life with them. Yes, he taught the multitudes, but it doesn’t seem that those people became champions of the kingdom after his death. Perhaps many of them were actually among the throngs demanding that Pilate crucify him. His teaching seems to have been an invitation to join the small group of committed people who shared life with him.

After his death and resurrection, he left his disciples with each other and the Holy Spirit.

He didn’t leave them a book or even a DVD series on how to live in the kingdom. They had no building, no programs, and no parachurch ministries – for crying out loud, they didn’t even have a place to drop their kids!

Those things belong to institutions, but Christ had made them his body. Bodies grow as life flows through to all of their members. Bodies perform work as each member receives direction from the head.

All of these functions are natural. They just happen in healthy bodies.

In Ephesians 4:1-16, Paul describes the healthy function of Christ’s body.

The Healthy Body of Christ Sticks Together

I know a guy who cut off the end of his middle finger with a circular saw. He took it to the emergency room, but they didn’t have a vascular surgeon on staff and the only one in the area wouldn’t be back in town for two days. So, they literally taped it back on! I’ve gotta tell you, I didn’t have much hope that he’d be able to keep the finger when I saw it. Two days later, the blackish purple appendage got reattached. It took, and he still has the finger. Unfortunately, he can’t bend it, so he inadvertently offends people once in a while.

Apart from the body, my friend’s finger was dying. His body also suffered the loss of that finger’s full function. That’s what happens when just one member of Christ’s body becomes separated from the rest. The body of Christ can suffer far greater damage when disgruntled factions defect at once. Can you imagine the trauma to a physical body if one third of its mass was suddenly cut away?

We didn’t make our bodies, but we know we need to keep them in tact.

According to the apostle Paul, it’s the same way with the body of Christ.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:1-6)

We don’t create the body of Christ. We don’t even join the body. We’re members of the body because we share one Spirit. The Spirit unifies all those whom he indwells into one. From the moment we’re born again, we become united to every other regenerated person. We are one body because we’ve received life from Christ.

We can’t produce the unity of the Spirit, but we can undermine it. In the same way that abuse or neglect of the physical body will jeopardize it’s health, so we need to “Make every effort to keep (or maintain) the unity of the Spirit.” We keep what we’ve been given by considering one another and tolerating each other. Who wouldn’t want to be in a community where everyone worked to be pleasant company and to keep loving each other even when they weren’t so pleasant?  In this way, we will begin to fulfill our calling.

What calling is that, you ask?

This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms,  according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Ephesians 3:6,10-11)

God means to hold up the church before all heavenly beings as an expression of his ability to bring all kinds of people together into one new humanity. It our job to get in step with this plan.

In an age of megachurch, it might seem strange to advocate for unity among believers. Someone might say, “Hey, we’ve got 20,000 people coming to this campus every Sunday. How much more unified can you get?”

A lot.

Here’s the problem. People go to megachurch to receive spiritual goods and services for themselves. If they don’t receive the type or quality of spiritual goods and services they’re looking for, they just go to another church that promises better products to meet their demands. Their relationship with the church isn’t with the other members but with the institution, and it’s a tenuous, codependent relationship.

It’s easy to go to a place where I can drop off my kids to be entertained, get a free cup of coffee, listen to a concert in a padded seat, and get an inspirational message all while being told that I’m following Jesus. And best of all, since it’s such a large group, I can sit or stand all alone in a crowd. (Unless that junior pastor makes everyone turn to shake hands.)

I’m not against worshiping through song, or hearing a message from the Bible. I’m just saying that those things can’t possibly be what Paul was talking about in Ephesians 4 because they don’t require us to “Make every effort.” If we’re going to put for effort into church, shouldn’t it be to build loyal, loving relationships with other believers who are different from us in every other way?

If the life of Christ within us isn’t enough to knit us together across every other cultural divide, then God has failed. He never fails, so we need to make every effort to cross the seat back partitions between us and share life. We need to eat together, travel together, work together, play together. That’s church. Nothing else will grow us into the likeness of Christ.

Body Life Part 1 – United

When Jesus set out to make disciples, he gathered committed people around him and did life with them. Yes, he taught the multitudes, but it doesn’t seem that those people became champions of the kingdom after his death. Perhaps many of them were actually among the throngs demanding that Pilate crucify him. His teaching seems to have been an invitation to join the small group of committed people who shared life with him.

After his death and resurrection, he left his disciples with each other and the Holy Spirit.

He didn’t leave them a book or even a DVD series on how to live in the kingdom. They had no building, no programs, and no parachurch ministries – for crying out loud, they didn’t even have a place to drop their kids!

Those things belong to institutions, but Christ had made them his body. Bodies grow as life flows through to all of their members. Bodies perform work as each member receives direction from the head.

All of these functions are natural. They just happen in healthy bodies.

In Ephesians 4:1-16, Paul describes the healthy function of Christ’s body.

The Healthy Body of Christ Sticks Together

I know a guy who cut off the end of his middle finger with a circular saw. He took it to the emergency room, but they didn’t have a vascular surgeon on staff and the only one in the area wouldn’t be back in town for two days. So, they literally taped it back on! I’ve gotta tell you, I didn’t have much hope that he’d be able to keep the finger when I saw it. Two days later, the blackish purple appendage got reattached. It took, and he still has the finger. Unfortunately, he can’t bend it, so he inadvertently offends people once in a while.

Apart from the body, my friend’s finger was dying. His body also suffered the loss of that finger’s full function. That’s what happens when just one member of Christ’s body becomes separated from the rest. The body of Christ can suffer far greater damage when disgruntled factions defect at once. Can you imagine the trauma to a physical body if one third of its mass was suddenly cut away?

We didn’t make our bodies, but we know we need to keep them in tact.

According to the apostle Paul, it’s the same way with the body of Christ.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:1-6)

We don’t create the body of Christ. We don’t even join the body. We’re members of the body because we share one Spirit. The Spirit unifies all those whom he indwells into one. From the moment we’re born again, we become united to every other regenerated person. We are one body because we’ve received life from Christ.

We can’t produce the unity of the Spirit, but we can undermine it. In the same way that abuse or neglect of the physical body will jeopardize it’s health, so we need to “Make every effort to keep (or maintain) the unity of the Spirit.” We keep what we’ve been given by considering one another and tolerating each other. Who wouldn’t want to be in a community where everyone worked to be pleasant company and to keep loving each other even when they weren’t so pleasant?  In this way, we will begin to fulfill our calling.

What calling is that, you ask?

This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms,  according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Ephesians 3:6,10-11)

God means to hold up the church before all heavenly beings as an expression of his ability to bring all kinds of people together into one new humanity. It our job to get in step with this plan.

In an age of megachurch, it might seem strange to advocate for unity among believers. Someone might say, “Hey, we’ve got 20,000 people coming to this campus every Sunday. How much more unified can you get?”

A lot.

Here’s the problem. People go to megachurch to receive spiritual goods and services for themselves. If they don’t receive the type or quality of spiritual goods and services they’re looking for, they just go to another church that promises better products to meet their demands. Their relationship with the church isn’t with the other members but with the institution, and it’s a tenuous, codependent relationship.

It’s easy to go to a place where I can drop off my kids to be entertained, get a free cup of coffee, listen to a concert in a padded seat, and get an inspirational message all while being told that I’m following Jesus. And best of all, since it’s such a large group, I can sit or stand all alone in a crowd. (Unless that junior pastor makes everyone turn to shake hands.)

I’m not against worshiping through song, or hearing a message from the Bible. I’m just saying that those things can’t possibly be what Paul was talking about in Ephesians 4 because they don’t require us to “Make every effort.” If we’re going to put for effort into church, shouldn’t it be to build loyal, loving relationships with other believers who are different from us in every other way?

If the life of Christ within us isn’t enough to knit us together across every other cultural divide, then God has failed. He never fails, so we need to make every effort to cross the seat back partitions between us and share life. We need to eat together, travel together, work together, play together. That’s church. Nothing else will grow us into the likeness of Christ.

I Never Studied Law

I grew up on Warner Bros. cartoons.

I once heard that the older ones weren’t actually created as entertainment for children, but as shorts to precede feature films.

I remember one bit in particular that evaded me as a child. At one point, Elmer Fudd forced Bugs at gun point out to the end of a limb and then sawed off the limb. Once it was cut through, the limb remained aloft and the tree crashed to the ground with Elmer in it. Then, Bugs broke the fourth wall to say, “I know this defies the law of gravity, but I never studied law.”

The six-year-old me knew that the law of gravity and jurisprudence differed from one another, but I couldn’t fully appreciate the humor. I get it now. Through this shtick the geniuses at Warner Bros. invited their audience to laugh at human arrogance. For all of the time, money, and energy our species spends on legislation and litigation, not a bit of it has an ounce of power to affect actual events. We simply do not have that kind of authority.

What if we found evidence of legislated reality? What would be the implications of discovering that nature obeyed a seemingly prescribed limit?

Maybe you’ve heard that time slows and then stops the closer one gets to the speed of light. In a recent study I did, I was surprised to discover why that happens: Speed is a function of space over time. The speed of light is a constant in the universe. When a vessel nears the speed of light, the light inside has the potential to double that speed as it is carried along in the vessel. To ensure that the constant remains constant, time actually dialates. Since light can’t travel faster than 186000 miles/second, the second expands to enforce the speed limit. Clear as mud? Here’s a video to make it clearer.

So, I wonder about that. Why would impersonal universal forces obey a speed limit? Could it be that someone with authority over nature set that limit and prohibits it from being exceeded?

I Never Studied Law

I grew up on Warner Bros. cartoons.

I once heard that the older ones weren’t actually created as entertainment for children, but as shorts to precede feature films.

I remember one bit in particular that evaded me as a child. At one point, Elmer Fudd forced Bugs at gun point out to the end of a limb and then sawed off the limb. Once it was cut through, the limb remained aloft and the tree crashed to the ground with Elmer in it. Then, Bugs broke the fourth wall to say, “I know this defies the law of gravity, but I never studied law.”

The six-year-old me knew that the law of gravity and jurisprudence differed from one another, but I couldn’t fully appreciate the humor. I get it now. Through this shtick the geniuses at Warner Bros. invited their audience to laugh at human arrogance. For all of the time, money, and energy our species spends on legislation and litigation, not a bit of it has an ounce of power to affect actual events. We simply do not have that kind of authority.

What if we found evidence of legislated reality? What would be the implications of discovering that nature obeyed a seemingly prescribed limit?

Maybe you’ve heard that time slows and then stops the closer one gets to the speed of light. In a recent study I did, I was surprised to discover why that happens: Speed is a function of space over time. The speed of light is a constant in the universe. When a vessel nears the speed of light, the light inside has the potential to double that speed as it is carried along in the vessel. To ensure that the constant remains constant, time actually dialates. Since light can’t travel faster than 186000 miles/second, the second expands to enforce the speed limit. Clear as mud? Here’s a video to make it clearer.

So, I wonder about that. Why would impersonal universal forces obey a speed limit? Could it be that someone with authority over nature set that limit and prohibits it from being exceeded?