How do you reconcile the many passages in the Old Testament that speak of the appearance of God—to Abraham, for instance—with passages in the New Testament that say that God was never seen (or heard)?
Remember that Scripture was written over a period of more than 1,000 years by a host of writers, speaking with different voices, responding to different times, and pursuing different agendas.
In an early era, tribal superstitions were strong, including a superstition that seeing God and even saying God's name would mean death. Later, that superstition faded.
The New Testament writers are trying to make a different point, namely, that no one can come to God except by way of Jesus.
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Do you think that people in relationships are "meant to be"? If God decides, do people end up together in the end no matter what the circumstances? This has caused me much heartache and pain, and I'd like to know what you think God's role is.
I don't believe God is a “matchmaker.” I think people find each other in various ways, sometimes by familiarity (school friends, for example, or work colleagues), sometimes by chance encounter, and sometimes by intentionality (web-dating and parental input, for example). One person might connect more deeply than the other. I don't believe God forces one's ardor onto the other. We do the best we can to form solid relationships.
Then God comes into play, as the source of the love, grace, forgiveness, mercy and strength that will be required for the relationship to blossom and to endure.
In other words, God doesn't cause our relationships to happen. We turn to God for what it takes to have a relationship work.
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If
someone was totally committed to baptism and very upbeat before,
why would one feel sadness for about a day after?
Most
major life events seem to lead into periods of letdown, loss,
sadness, sometimes even illness. The issue is grief. Even
positive changes like marriage or baptism or childbirth involve
change, and change leads to grieving. One stage in grieving
is deep sadness.
The
way to deal with it is to do exactly what you are doing now:
talking about your feelings, expressing your sadness, and
allowing your grief to proceed on to acceptance.
If
your sadness continues beyond a reasonable limit, I would
urge you to seek out a pastor for further counseling in dealing
with grief.
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Seven
months ago my husband left me said he didn’t feel the
same about me anymore. Since then I have been praying fasting
and asking God to destroy Satan in him. The reason I pray
for this is because I know God is not against my marriage
or my family. It is Satan that wants to destroy them. I know
God has power over Satan. Why won’t God destroy Satan
in my husband?
I
encourage you to take a broader view of what caused your marriage
to disintegrate. Over 50% of all first marriages end in divorce,
generally because the couples grew apart and ended up incompatible
(not uncommon among couples who married young), because the
bond wasn't strong enough to endure stresses (financial, child-raising,
illness), because one or both parties were engaged in addictive
behavior (alcoholism, infidelity), or because early romance
never did blossom into mutual commitment.
It
is people who form marriages, and it is people who fail at
marriages. I don't doubt that some situations involve evil,
but I think those are rare. The usual cause of divorce is
plain old human frailty.
A
more fruitful prayer for you might be to ask God for insight
into what caused your marriage to unravel, for wisdom and
compassion, for the courage to move on, and for healing of
your own wounds. Prayer isn't a weapon to be used against
someone else.
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What is the importance of obedience in living a Christian life?
Jesus called for sacrifice, rather than obedience (as in abiding by precedents, hewing to rules). He himself showed little regard for obeying the rules of his day. His goal, it seems, was to be responsive to human needs as they presented themselves. A faith grounded in rules, procedures and protocols probably will please God less than a faith grounded in love and service.
In the story of the Good Samaritan, for example, the priest obeyed the rules, but the Samaritan actually stopped to help the wounded traveler. Obeying the call to love far surpasses obeying the rules of religion.
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How can one live an overcoming Christian life?
I am not familiar with the so-called “Overcoming Life” movement. A web search pointed me to a Bible study program developed by a congregation in Arizona . From their web site, I gather that the idea is to “overcome” the problems of one's life through a combination of Bible study and doctrine.
I doubt that our problems can be that easily resolved. More likely, a serious Bible study will draw us into the company of good and faithful people, lead us into active works of servanthood and mission, and help us to do what Jesus said we should do, namely, love God and love our neighbor. In the process of “letting go and letting God,” our problems come into better perspective.
The heart of it, I think, is to be prepared for change, or repentance, by which I mean letting go of old ways that are self-destructive (such as addictions, dishonesty, selfishness) and preparing to put on the “new garment” of Jesus Christ. Because we are all different and have different problems that we need to overcome, the path forward will be different for each of us. That's one reason why I place little focus on doctrine, or orthodoxy. Rules and definitions do less for us than an inquiring mind, open heart and peace-seeking soul, not to mention the incomparable gift of a healthy Christian fellowship.
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What does the salvation experience mean to you?
I doubt that salvation means just one thing, or that we humans can possibly comprehend all that God might wish for us under the umbrella of being “saved.”
Personally, I think of “salvation” as being in right relationship with God. That is, orienting one's heart and will to God and to love of neighbor, and turning away from the lesser ways of the world. The path to salvation seems to mean dealing with whatever obstacles stand between us and such an orientation. Pride, self-loathing, gluttony, avarice, hatred – the list of obstacles is long. Jesus seemed to say that these obstacles, or sins, tend to express fear, and so his commandment was to let go of fear. Another common source of sin is hubris, or overweening pride, sometimes experienced as arrogance, or as narcissism, or as a desire to play God.
Salvation seems to mean dealing forthrightly with whatever is separating us from God. Jesus showed us the way by the manner in which he lived and served. The salvation experience, therefore, will be different for each of us. I don't agree with the desire of certain religious movements to define salvation as meaning only one thing, and then declaring a “litmus test” to verify one has achieved it. Salvation isn't an achievement, but a gift from God.
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I have been questioning the idea of sin and the fall in the garden of Eden. In our Christian faith, Eve's choice to eat the apple is made out to be bad and wrong. What if God knew she would eat the fruit and it was necessary for the evolution of consciousness to evolve? How does that change the view of the cross and the death of Christ and sin?
The story of Adam and Eve bears close study, for it has been used many ways over the years and not always for good purpose.
First, God's command to Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was intended to prevent them from being like God, that is, arrogating to themselves the stature of God. Thus, the essential human sin is arrogance, or hubris. The answer to that sin is humility. We tend to view “sin” as seamy behavior, dirty and loathsome. That sort of behavior certainly exists and diminishes the human experience. But that view of sin isn't what Genesis 2-3 is about.
Second, the doctrine of the fall—Eve sinned, led Adam to sin, and thereby set in motion a genetic disposition to sin that passed down among all persons, until Jesus broke the genetic transmission by not having a human father—is one interpretation of the story. It developed both as a way to blame someone (Eve, most especially) for the obvious depravity of humankind and as a way to underscore the power of the Church as the only way out of the inevitability of sin leading to damnation. That interpretation served the interests of a patriarchal church, but isn't an adequate explanation either of the Eden story or of human depravity.
Third, God clearly was surprised by the behavior of the first humans and disappointed. I don't see any point in speculating that God orchestrated the fall.
Finally, the doctrine of the atonement—that Jesus, like a sacrificial lamb, paid the penalty for humankind's sin, and thereby atoned for it—merits fresh scrutiny. It isn't exactly true to the Gospels' accounts. Jesus is referred to as “Paschal Lamb,” that is, Passover Lamb, as the one whose blood leads to liberation from bondage. Jesus lifted up humankind, seeing men and women as nobler and more capable than religious tradition saw them.
The problem is God's agency. In the Exodus story, God told Moses to sacrifice the Paschal lamb and to smear its blood over the doors of the Hebrews' homes, so that the angel of death would recognize them and “pass over” their homes on the way to killing the firstborn children in Egypt. Some want to see the Passion of Jesus in exactly those terms: that God deliberately killed his own son in order to undo the sin of Adam.
The Gospels, however, suggest that Jesus began his ministry unaware of the sacrifice that would be required, that he figured it out along the way, that he initially shrank from it (see the scene in Gethsemane) but that in the end he accepted death on the cross as necessary for humanity to know God's love. The point of the passion, then, wasn't to pay a penalty (atonement) but to reveal God's love and to invite people to respond to that love by loving God, loving their neighbor, following the example of Jesus, and helping others to know him and to be free.
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Sometimes I walk into a church and immediately feel the presence
of the Holy Spirit. Why do some churches have that quiet quality
and others don't?
I have had the same experience. I think some churches work at it and are blessed with architecture that supports quiet. High ceilings, for example, pews that are separated from a noisy gathering place or fellowship hall, a nave that is serving only one purpose, rather than being multipurpose space, and lighting that isn't too bright. Some worshipers support quiet, too, by not chatting inside the nave door, by entering quietly and sitting or kneeling in quiet, and by using the nave as a place to center themselves, not as a place to meet old friends.
This sort of architecture is expensive, and attitudes of quiet need to be nurtured over time. Some churches are simply too new to have developed habits of quiet. Also, for reasons that also are good and defensible, some congregations value community-building over quiet. In the warm (and inevitably noisy) greetings to friends, they see the Holy Spirit's presence.
