Satan’s Knowledge

A friend and I were having a discussion today that led to an interesting train of thought. I’m not sure there is a hard and fast answer to this, but I’m interested in your input:

Do you think that Satan knows or operates under the knowledge that he will be defeated? Are his attacks on God’s people simply rage at impending doom? Or does he operate thinking he can somehow overcome God’s plans, that he can exalt himself without facing judgment for it? Or is he operating out of ignorance, ignoring the future, rather than dealing with the knowledge of who God is?

My friend expressed that Matthew 8:29 and Ezekiel 28:11-19 both made him believe that Satan and the demons are fully aware they are doomed, with no chance of success. Neither of those passages seems all that convincing to me in this regard.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

The Cost Of Forgiveness

I was doing my Bible study this morning, in my Hebrews LABS, and found some of the comments very interesting. They led me off in a slightly different direction from where the study was going. So I wrote down a few quick comments. Now I am coming back to them. This quote started the thought-process:

Forgiveness costs. In order to forgive, our anger must be set aside, and a sacrifice must be made. But we who are hurt must make the sacrifice, not the one who hurts us. If we forgive a debt, it costs us money. If we forgive a wrong, it costs us the satisfaction of seeing justice served. The cost of sin is high.

Now, I have from time-to-time heard people say that God had no “right” to forgive. That the idea of vicarious sacrifice made no sense, that it wasn’t just, that it was contradictory to a just God, etc. The funny thing, in retrospect, is these people want to create a world with a dichotomy that is irreconcilable. They want justice. But personally, they want to be forgiven. We can’t have both without a cost to someone!

The world tells us we should be forgiving, and never tells us how we should do that against a backdrop of justice. I guess it speaks to our desire to be forgiven, but also to find “satisfaction” when we are wronged. We don’t necessarily want to forgive. We certainly don’t want to be the one to pay the penalty when we have wronged someone, to provide them the “satisfaction”.

So we are told to forgive. No reason, and no cost. Just forgive. And my response to that is: it is quite an unjust way to think about it. God didn’t just forgive at no cost. It cost him dearly. We want the forgiveness we offer to cost us nothing – we want the one who wronged us to be the one to pay for it. That isn’t forgiveness the way God envisions it.

Cheap forgiveness is not really forgiveness. If we are to really forgive, we must release the one who has hurt us from our condemnation. That is costly to us as individuals. But it is absolutely necessary as a follower of Christ. The person who suggests that we should just forgive – rape, murder, theft, ingratitude, jealousy, anger, etc. – and never reflects on the cost is a trickster. Absolutely, in every way that we are wronged, we are to forgive. But this is not arbitrary. It is not some flight of fancy. It is an act of submission to God, it is a costly transaction where we refuse to be “human” the way we have always known it. At the cost of forgiveness is the reward of being transformed. And in being transformed, we have the potential to transform everyone around us.

So, God took the initiative as the injured party and forgave at the cost of living as the least of us and dying as one of us. To one who condemns this as unjust or illogical, I can only offer that there then can be no justice if we are to find forgiveness and mercy; there then can be no forgiveness and mercy if we are to be just. Apart from this truth, forgiveness is a worthless endeavor that begs the weak to give in to the powerful and the injured to give in to the aggressor. But this is not forgiveness. It is not a denial of guilt, not just forgetting or ignoring our pain. It is following God’s example and trusting in the power of Christ’s sacrifice. It is restoring relationships, creating life and peace where there is none. And it is worth the cost.

English as a Second Language

It’s been a couple years since I was involved in an English as a Second Language (ESL) program. And I am glad to have gotten back into it. I really enjoy teaching conversational English (with  work on good pronunciation) to internationals. Yesterday evening, I taught words related to food. We looked at words to describe taste in general (tasty, delicious, etc.). We then moved on to more descriptive words for taste (salty, sweet, etc.), words for texture and consistency (crunchy, chewy, etc.) and then finally described temperature (hot, cold, lukewarm, etc.)

Going from there to let them share some food likes and dislikes, and why, using these descriptive words was very interesting. Having to talk about what “favorite” means after people list 15 different vegetables that are their “favorite” is always interesting. It’s like trying to explain “favorite” to my daughters. No, wait, I think the internationals may actually get it eventually…

I also enjoy interacting with the native languages as well, in breaking moments. Sharing knowledge about Chinese characters, Korean characters, and IPA descriptions is always a lot of fun.

There are always fun language barriers. Like when you say, what topic would you like to cover next time I am teaching (I teach every other week)? The answer? Oh, I really like when you teach. Trying to get across the idea of theme, topic, material for discussion didn’t go smoothly. But I eventually got a, whatever you would like to teach.

So, Lord-willing, I will continue.

Review of Love And Respect

Lave & Respect The Love She Most Desires, The Respect He Desperately Needs Author: Dr. Emerson Eggerichs Hard Cover, 240 pages Publisher: Thomas Nelson Language: English ISBN-13: 9781591451877

Thanks first to Thomas Nelson, who provided me this review copy of Love & Respect.

In this book, Dr. Eggerichs attempts to provide a framework by which married couples can get off a cycle of destructive relational behavior and replace it with a powerful and rewarding alternative. The main thrust of the book is that men and women approach relationships with different core needs. This then provides the framework to illustrate three “cycles” that reflect relationship health. These are (1) the Crazy Cycle where failure to recognize core differences builds friction, (2) the Energizing Cycle, where respect and love are used as tools to build healthy and growing relationships that can weather mistakes made by well-meaning but not always consistent partners, and (3) the Rewarding Cycle, where the marriage relationship is seen in the context of a relationship with Christ, where love and respect given to the spouse is really love and respect offered to Christ.

I found myself torn reading this book. I agree with and enjoyed reading much of what the good doctor has written, but I was frustrated with the way he presented some of it (I had this reaction mostly in the first half of the book). A pattern of over-generalizations and unbalanced assertions threaten to derail all the good he has to share. In a number of instances where he addressed scripture rather than anecdotal testimony, I found that his argument even undercut his main thrust about the need for women to show men respect, and men to show women love, on account of a primary need in relationship. He so highlighted the need for respect in relationship, that often this bled into men showing women respect, which muddied the distinction he was attempting to make.

But in spite of these glitches in the presentation, his suggestions and insight have already been very fruitful in reducing conflict in my own relationship with my spouse as I am more aware of what may upset my Spirit, and how I can approach and calm hers. In fact, I might say it is because of the highlighting of mutual respect, quite apart from any fanciful notions of love, that makes all the difference – male or female.

Footnotes were held to the end of the book, to the book’s detriment. In fact, Note 1 on chapter 1 would have calmed much of my distaste with his generalizations had it been inline, rather than found at the end. Each chapter ended with a recap of concepts to remember, which was very useful for cementing the intent of the chapter. The book is littered with quotes from letters, both before and after spouses attempted to try the author’s ideas, and many were very heart-warming or challenging.

I would give this book ★★★★☆.This is giving the benefit of the doubt, rounding up so to speak. The book does have excellent application but was almost submarined by over-generalizations and use of scripture that undercut his tight male-female dichotomy.

Beautiful, You Are

Here is the text of the verbal for this week:

Ecclesiastes 3 tells us:

“God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.”

We long to find the beauty, the pattern, in what happens around us. Life’s journey is full of both the good and bad from our vantage point. So stepping out into something new can be a tricky task. At the start of a journey – at the Trail Head – we question the cost, we question our strength, we question our determination. But above all, we ask if God is there with us. We ask if he is able to guide us to the end.

The answer is, “Yes”. Yes. Yes.

We worship the one who is, “the way, the truth and the life.” If there is security, it is to be found in him. If there is wisdom, it is in him. If there is a need for instruction, direction, and guidance, the answer is found in him.

He is sufficient in our every need; brilliant, powerful, timeless and present.

This verbal is acting as a bridge between the song “Beautiful” by Francesca Battistelli and the song “You Are”.