Jack Pelham

Let’s see how I can say this with utter brevity, though much more needs to be said about it.

Much ado is made of the power of God and his ability to influence and guide people, and even his ability to supersede the laws of nature. But I think that a sizable portion of God’s power is overlooked by a great many people, who give very little consideration to things like:

1. The teaching power of the way that reality itself is set up and operates in this world. That is, things like cause-and-effect, consequences of actions, and trial and error. This is part of God’s wise design for this life, yet so few Christians seem to talk about it as such. And I’d venture to say that the value of what alert humans can learn from the reality of daily life may well exceed the teaching/maturing power than all the Sunday Schools combined.
2. The fact that truth exists. Similar to the first point is that truth even exists, and is often (even if not always) discernible. The people who look for truth the most are likely the ones who find the most of it―even if we haven’t got it all figured out yet. And again, I’d venture to say that the person who is always going about, looking for the truth of things is much more likely to mature in Christ than the one who’s just looking for a preacher to listen to.
3. The power of prayer. Now, understand me EXACTLY here: You may think you know what I mean, because “the power of prayer” is such a commonly-used saying. But actually, it’s quite a misnomer almost all the time, because those who say it are almost always referring to the power of God to answer prayer; they don’t mean that the praying itself has power. But I mean to say this: regardless of whatever God might do in response to a prayer, there’s something separate going on in it. That is, that the believer’s mind is focused on the (hopefully-good) thing, and is processing/imagining/seeking some improvement. And I submit that, apart from whatever God himself may or may not do in response, these mental/emotional/spiritual processes have their own value—their own power—and that God knows this, and that it’s part of his plan. And not terribly dissimilar from this is the power of (good) conversation with (wise) friends and confidants. (Watch out, because there’s plenty of bad conversation to be had with unwise people, too!)
4. The sting of failure, and the timeout of necessity. A parent might spank a child, or put him in timeout, but we all see that God does no such literal thing for us. Many will think such things metaphorically, however, as they try to imagine God behind the scenes, working out what goes on, and what doesn’t go on in their lives. But again, apart from what God does or doesn’t do, there is also the power of life’s ability to “sting “punish” us and delay us and disappoint us and frustrate us. It all tests our resolve and convictions and plans, and our understanding of things. It tests our priorities and values. And if we’re inclined to be wise about it, it gives us a great many opportunities to grow and to improve ourselves.
5. The fifth item below. There’s a fifth item below, separate from these. And you’ll see why later.

Yes, much of what I’ve listed above is really the same thing—or is consisted merely by different angles from which to understand it. But it focuses more on the mere design of this world, and of how human societies tend to function. That is, the way God designed it, life itself has much power to test us and to show us opportunity (if we have our eyes and minds open to it) to learn better and to improve ourselves.

Sadly, though, many don’t think of all that as something that really counts when it comes to spirituality. Rather, they seem to have in mind scenarios in which God himself comes and touches their heart somehow, or changes them somehow—or sends someone else to do it—or a dream, perhaps, or something mysterious and hard to explain. That’s their idea of intervention, and the mundane matters I’ve been describing are largely overlooked. And I think that a lot of Christians are short-sighted in this way. They won’t see it as interaction with God if it doesn’t involve prayer or worship or Bible work, but I see it as interaction with the very world and the very reality and the very truth that God himself designed, and that he put us in to live out our lives.

Somehow, we’re hyper-spiritualized our idea of proper religion, so as to ignore the value of such things.

The Fifth Item

Another very powerful thing that’s overlooked is story. That is, how things go. How they turn out. What happens. What works out. Good and bad. Right and wrong. Wise and foolish. Successful and failing. Just and unjust. Win and lose.

Stories can be real-life events, or can be completely made up, and can still deal quite truly with how life goes. The Bible is packed with what I believer are some of the best stories ever told. (And yes, people debate whether they all happened historically or not—even sometimes missing the treasure of truth regarding “how things go” that’s written into the stories. And there are lots of other amazing stories, beyond the Bible—some of them obviously fiction, and still quite telling the truth of what life is like.

And these can have quite some power over the reader—power to influence and enlighten and encourage to goodness and to warn from badness. Even so, there’s plenty of bad story out there—just as there is plenty of good story, poorly told. It’s not entirely unlike the caveat I gave before how about powerful and instructive talking with friends can be, though not all are good advisors.

But to story itself, I cringe to see so many write off good story—even the ones in the Bible—in favor of things more church-official, like creeds and doctrinal bullet-points, and such. I’d trade you every creed and sermon and book from the mind of man for what we already have buried in the scriptures and waiting to be mined out from them by way of a lifetime of thoughtful and curious and eager reading.

So many want influence from God by way of feelings and dreams and inspiring pep-talks from church leaders who have some particular “vision” for them—but whether those things are available or not, we have so many other valuable things built into our life experience here. And I think they’re part of God’s general design for this Earth, and that most neglect them considerably, not counting them of “spiritual” value. Yet in my estimation, I’d say that if they knew the Spirit better, they’d see the spiritual value in them right away.

Among those who claim Jesus, there are myriad millions who will not obey this one teaching:

If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over.

Jesus. Matthew 18:15. NIV.

They would rather 1) be wronged, and 2) let the offender go on offending God and man alike, than to confront him or her in order to help them overcome it.

But just imagine a Christian fellowship―or even a single friendship―in which all parties embraced and practiced this teaching of Jesus, with everybody pulling the same direction, toward righteousness and love!

This is why, I’m convinced, that the churches are so dysfunctional; their idea of love does not match with Jesus’ idea. Theirs is more of a feeling, where Jesus’ love is more of a doing and a helping―a love for changing and growing.

One can wish a thing in but a moment’s time,
And count it among his wants―
Telling himself, and everybody else,
That it is his ardent dream and plan.

But deep down inside, we all know―
For experience has taught us already―
That he’ll never become what he is not willing
To work for habitually.

It’s disturbing
How many will
Call themselves Christians
Before they even
Agree with God
As to what is
And is not
A sin.

Many think that
Because of God’s grace
And his amazing forgiveness,
Believers don’t have to repent and grow
And learn and change and overcome ,
And that God adamantly chooses
To see them as if they had
Already done all of that―
After which gratitude
Might actually prod
Them to grow a
Little bit here
And there.

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I have worked for many years on excellence of mind―considering reality to be a fine rule of thumb, to which my own thoughts and attitudes and intentions and beliefs and decisions should be repaired. I have read all or most of about thirty volumes on the psychology of rational thought, and have also found a great many passages in the holy scriptures that show that God and Jesus alike are consummately rational and truth-loving, and expect the faithful to conform themselves to the truth in all matters.

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It has been my observation―
And you can quote me on this if you like―
That most people are fairly well-behaved
When they are behaving well.

When you see them falling short,
It’s often not so much because they don’t
Know any better as it is because
They don’t want any better.

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I think this meme is clumsy, and overstates its case. This is aggravating, because the point it really wants to make is a good one, but it is overstated here, beyond what is true and reasonable, as if the author were driven to declare an absolute rule about how Satan operates.

Let me demonstrate. Here’s the first sentence:

Satan disguises submission to himself under the ruse of personal autonomy.

This opening line raises the question of whether the meme will assert an absolute (which it does in the second sentence). It could make a softer entry into the subject by inserting “sometimes”, as in “Satan sometimes disguises….”. But it seems to be running headlong into the absolute statement made in the second sentence:

He never asks us to become his servants.

This is an absolute statement, leaving no room for exceptions. (Note the absolute term, never.) As such, it only takes one exception to disprove an absolute statement. And I think I have found an exception in this passage of scripture about the temptation of Jesus by Satan:

⁸ Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ⁹ “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” ¹⁰ Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’

Matthew 4:8-10. NIV.

Is this not Satan asking Jesus to become his servant? And does not the meme say Satan “never asks us to become his servants”? Does the Matthew 4 passage not present an exception to the rule asserted in the meme?

I think so. And should this not give one pause when considering the veracity of this absolute assertion? That is, if Satan explicitly asked Jesus to worship Satan, how can we be so confident that this was the only time it had ever happened, or would ever happen?

(I’m assuming that the meme’s author assumes that Satan is still at work today as he was in the First Century. If this is not the case, then further exception might be taken to the meme on those grounds.)

This one exception to the absolute assertion, “never”, should stop the meme dead in its tracks, but it doesn’t seem to have this exception in mind. Rather, it goes on, as if trying to make a proof from a negative:

Never once did the serpent say to Eve, “I want to be your master.”

This is another overstatement, for in no place that I know of are we told that we have in print the complete conversation between the serpent and Eve. Yet here, the meme’s author assures is that “never once” was such a thing said. And this statement certainly could have been softer. For example, it could say “We don’t see the serpent saying to Eve, ‘I want to be your master.'” Rather, it goes so far as to assure us that “never once” were such words spoken. But how could the meme’s author possibly know that? And what would make a writer want to assert so absolutely something he could not possibly know?

The meme goes on:

The shift in commitment is never from Christ to evil; it is always from Christ to self.

Note the continued use of absolute language in the terms “never” and “always” here. The author really seems to want there to be a hard-and-fast rule about how Satan operates, and is willing to go out on a limb, declaring such things without the direct support explicit statements of scripture.

I note also that this sentence seems to assume that a commitment to Christ is already in place when Satan does his enticing. That raises some questions that deserve examination in their own right.

Let us consider Judas for a moment, and the passage here:

As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. So Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.”

John 13:27. NIV.

It is difficult for me to imagine that what John really wants to tell us here is that autonomy entered Judas at this moment―that an attitude of aloofness and independence suddenly entered into Judas. The word John uses here is “Satan”, and the plain sense of the language seems to be that some manner of possession took place here, with Judas serving out the specific mission of Satan with regard to the arrest an execution of Jesus. Sure, the author of the meme could argue that “clearly”, Judas was in it for the money, which is a self-serving thing, and that Judas “never once” said he knew he was serving Satan in all this. But my point is that he would have to make this argument while stepping over the way that the Gospel of John tells the story. He would have to insert his points into the story told by scripture.

I was curious just how much the Bible talks about serving other gods, as opposed to serving oneself. So I searched the following terms to spot check the idea, and I got the following results:

Searching the ESV for [serv gods], I got 54 returns.
Searching the ESV for [serv self], I got 1 return, and it doesn’t seem to be relevant.
Searching the ESV for [serv selv], I got 0 returns.

So, why would the Bible speak so much in terms of serving other gods, but not in the terms that the meme seems to adamant about using?

I did search all the Bible translations at BibleHub.com, and got zero returns on the word “autonomy”.

The meme continues:

And instead of HIS will, self-interest now rules, and what I want reigns. And that is the essence of sin.

It is certainly true that shunning what God wants in order to do what oneself wants is sin, but once again, I believe the meme goes too far in saying that self-interest is “the essence of sin”. Isn’t sin conventionally defined as “missing the mark”, as in missing a target. One doesn’t have to be aiming at the wrong target to miss the one he’s supposed to be hitting. That’s what the meme seems to want to describe: replacing the pleasing-Jesus target with the pleasing-self target. But can’t one be fully intending to do right by Jesus, and still miss the mark by way of some error, or of insufficient effort, perhaps?

This whole meme seems too adamant and stubborn to me―too heavy-handed in its disposition with regard to the absolutes it asserts. Even in this final sentence, it wants to commandeer the definition of sin to serve only the one instance of substituting one’s own will for that of Jesus―as if the scriptures use the term in no other way than that.

Why the need to reframe the tactics of Satan and the very definition of sin, demanding that this one case be the only case? Why the need to declare that Satan “never once” said a thing, as if we have an exhaustive list of all the things Satan ever said? And why the need to declare that Satan “never asks us to become his servants” when we have him on record enticing Jesus to worship him, and we have Jesus on record replying: “For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'”?

Sadly, even though this meme does recognize one of the tactics used by Satan, it grossly overstates some of its points, and is very messy, as are so many memes. The abuse of absolute terms and statements is a tell-tale sign of a messy mind. The author either doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, that we have at least one slam-dunk exception to his rule about Satan’s tactics in the biblical record.

If I wanted to write a meme about this target-switching enticement of Satan, I might write something like this:

While Satan might be happy to have somebody switch from being fully committed to Jesus to being fully committed to Satan, it would seem from a broad surveying of scripture that he is also content to have people choose an attitude of self-rule, as this effectively draws them away from Jesus, too.

Or, to tackle it from a different angle, still, I might write:

You don’t have to be an all-out Satan worshiper to rebel against God and go your own way in some fashion similar to Satan. The sin is in missing the Way of God, and not so much in which particular alternative way you chose.

Or again,

Since man is not born fully-devoted to God, but must learn that devotion during his life on the Earth, it is not necessary for Satan to convert the man to full devotion to Satan in order to ruin the man, but only to keep him from being fully devoted to God, as per the first and greatest commandment.

This is a question that will not likely occur to many a layman, and I wanted to ask it here briefly, if that were possible. It’s two questions, really―as the whole thing happens to occur to me at present:

1. What kind of narrator have we got in Genesis? And,
2. What kind of being is influencing the narrator’s thinking and writing?

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Do we not so often judge our own piety
By where we draw the line,
Rather than by where we do not?