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Morals are not the same as ethics.

There is no difference between the meanings of the two words, ethics and morality from an etymological view. They are from two different languages: ethics being a Greek word, and morality being a Latin word, which means manner and customs of people. Ethics, however, carries the additional connotation of internal standards because of Aristotles’s philosophical treaties on ethics, “Nicomachean Ethics“.   Morals, on the other hand, tends to lean in meaning towards the mores of a people or the outward manners and customs of a people just as the word customs is the root to the word costume.

The technical distinctions aside, words have a predominant meaning by the current usage.  In deed, most words are used by people without regard to the etymological meaning.  For example, the word “blessed”  has moved beyond Christian usage and is used by people of all faiths to mean privileged and favored, with happy circumstances.   The etymology of blessed is uniquely Christian, however, because it literally means “blood-covered”  (bled-sion) and comes from Medieval Catholicism.  To be covered in the blood means to be in covenant with God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Consequently, such a covenant brings favor and privilege in happy circumstances.  But the word is used without any regard to its origin.

Likewise, I wish to elaborate on the deeper differences between our subconscious usage of the words “ethics” and “morality” which merit having two different words from two different languages grafted into English usage.   Ethics, in my opinion, leans more towards decisions of the conscience, whereas morals leans towards accepted public opinions and customs.  As such, ethics are expressions of God’s will, and morals are the expression of man’s will. Read the rest of this entry →

Seeing and knowing what is right

Too many people do not trust their own senses.  Too many believers rely on the law instead of the leading of the Spirit in their lives.  We have been encouraged to not trust ourselves which results in rootlessness.  The political government encourages us to rely on them not ourselves.  The church government does the same.  The book of Judges is considered to be a time of anarchy by most in the Church.  The famous line that is quoted is,

In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes. (Judges 17:6  KJV)

which is also repeated in Judges 21:25.  As I began my journey away from organized religion and began to question the role of governments both in the Church and politically, I wondered if we had misunderstood the book of Judges.  In 2008 I wrote my first blog on the topic .  No one responded to the topic, so I let it go.

However, the Lord has brought this back to my mind and I have been meditating upon it again.  I must confess at the outset that I am so influenced by the general negative opinion of the verse that it still seems like a negative statement.  But the facts of Scripture speak against that feeling  which shows how we are so easily influenced by other people’s opinions that it blinds us to the plain facts.

The influence of the world permeates every area of our thinking.  Christians think that more laws are the cure for society’s ills.  Recently I heard Jerry Tuma make a similar statement in his radio broadcast.  He recognized that the problem is government, and broadcast  the soundbite of Reagan’s famous saying:

“Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem.”
—  Ronald Reagan Read the rest of this entry →

Death is a transition

In my last post I mentioned two fascinating ideas presented by JRR Tolkien in his work, “The Lord of the Rings.” The first was the unending life of the mortal elves (a contradiction in terms) and the gift of death given to men. It is the second idea that I am addressing here.

Death in the New Testament writings of Paul is presented as our enemy.

Rom 6:23
23    For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (KJV)

Rom 8:6
6    For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. (KJV)

1 Cor 15:26
26    The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. (KJV)

1 Cor 15:54-57
54    So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
55    O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56    The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57    But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (KJV)

After becoming a Christian, these and other verses that declared death to be our enemy, made his statement ludicrous.   So what did Tolkien mean when he called death the gift of men?   He was a Catholic, so he had a some Christian world view that he wrote from.  And I think he had a Christian meaning in this statement. Read the rest of this entry →

Should Christians ever lie?

The joke has been made that “A lie is an ever present help in a time of need.” I have had many discussions with believers regarding the use of lies in dire circumstances. Escaping Nazi Germany is always an example that justifies the use of lies. Likewise, there are numerous biblical examples of godly people lying that are cited, too.

My wife and I started watching the TV show, “Lie to Me,” because of the intriguing use of body language to determine when someone is lying. They used to show many still pictures of famous people caught in the act of lying who had the same facial expression as the character in the show. They don’t do that as much anymore, perhaps because of lawsuits.

Nonetheless, on a recent episode a disgruntled farmer parked his tractor outside a government building where the Lightman Institute is located with a possible bomb. As it happened a group of children were touring the institute and had to sheltered. Stuck with the job of entertaining the kids, Will Loker (played by Brendan Hines) gets the kids to write a song on lying called, “White Lie.” Since we recorded the show, I was able to rip an mp3 of the song and copy the lyrics for this post. You can play the song and read the lyrics as it is sung. Read the rest of this entry →

 White Lie [1:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

God has to deconstruct before He can rebuild

Jer 1:9-10
9 Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.
10 See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant. (KJV)

The Didache is receiving renewed interest.  I had it brought to my attention again by Brother Maynard who shared on a new issue of the document in a book by Tony Jones.

This document has been available for years online, and I have provided my own PDF version of it in my own website.  I agree that this document has a timely application today.  With so many people forsaking the clergy system they are looking for alternatives to Christian living either in house church gatherings or else where.  The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is an early church document that gives practical advice on following Christ before the clergy system developed. Read the rest of this entry →

Having root in one's self

Jesus said in the story of the sower and the seed:

16 And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness;
17  And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, immediately they are offended. (Mark 4:16-17 KJV)

In a recent discussion on theology as the problem of the Church, I came to a realization of what is the real problem in the American Church.   The discussion I was in blamed theology as the barrier to a personal relationship with God in the heart.  I disagreed and made the case that we need both a mental theological understanding of God as well as a heart sensitive relationship with God.    The people in the discussion are the “gratefully disillusioned”  who have left organized religion, and blame the professional clergy for telling them that they were to live by biblical principles.   They are now “liberated” and living in a “Spirit-led” relationship with Father.  Even though I have placed quotes around “Spirit-led” I do believe that many of them are truly experiencing a fresh relationship with God.   The reason for the quotes, however, is that I know from personal experience that what we think is God can sometimes be our own imagination, or even demonic, if we do not test the spirits against the Scriptures. Read the rest of this entry →

The spiritually mature care for the young

Leadership Requires Knowing Where You are Taking Others

I am a gymnastics coach. If  I do not know what the “big tricks” are and how to train athletes to do them, my coaching will only go so far.  Knowing where you are going with the training has to be known before one even begins to coach.  For the very first steps have to be done with these goals in mind.

So when I read the Barna Group survey recently published entitled, “Many Church Goers and Faith Leaders Struggle to Define Spiritual Maturity“.  They came up with a variety of problems.

…an underlying reason why there is little progress in helping people develop spiritually: many churchgoers and clergy struggle to articulate a basic understanding of spiritual maturity. People aspire to be spiritually mature, but they do not know what it means.

Not only the congregation, but the pastoral leadership has little understanding of what spiritual maturity means.

Pastors want to guide others on the path to spiritual wholeness, but they are often not clearly defining the goals or the outcomes of that process.

For the majority of believers they think that spiritual maturity means following rules and having consistent devotional practices.  This is encouraged by the pastoral leadership who view maturity by the activitivities of their congregants.  And yet to their dismay,

…a minority of pastors believe that spiritual immaturity is a problem in their church.

Well, of course…  if these pastors think spiritual maturity is outward actions, then no wonder their congregation is spiritually immature. Read the rest of this entry →

The organized church tries to bypass its role.

In my last post I made the point that we are accountable to God to whom we give our money.   We are not giving God our money, but the service of the ministry that our money has bought.  We are confused because organized religion tries to pass themselves off as God’s substitute.  But they are not.

The more I thought about my last post,  I realized that we are all suffering from a mistaken identity as the church. Even individually we like to think that we are God’s substitute on Earth.  And, in truth, we are called Ambassadors of Christ (2 Cor. 5:20).  But notice that it does not say that we are ambassadors of God.  The verse further states that we are given the ministry of reconciliation.   That means that the church does not represent God but the Lamb of God.  And the ministry of reconciliation is laying down our lives for others as Christ laid down His life for us. Read the rest of this entry →

It matters what we give to God.

For many years I had heard that when we give money to a ministry, if that ministry abuses the funds, it does not matter for our giving was unto God and God will deal with the abusive ministry.

That has never seemed right to me.  And I wish to state categorically that it is both wrong and a lie.  We are accountable to God with our stewardship.  We are responsible to give our funds into honest and Spirit led ministries or needs.   God does hold us accountable for giving to abusive ministries or for giving to unrepentant people who continue on with their drug addictions or what have you. Read the rest of this entry →

All creation is integrated

Spirit Precedes Material

There is a tendency to view the spirit world and the material world as separate entities.   Heaven and Hell as far off distant places.   However, this is not the reality of creation.  The spirit world and the material world are integrated together in one creation.

To begin with we need to maintain a biblical perspective.   In Genesis 1:1 it says, “In the beginning, God…”.  In other words God, as the Creator, precedes in existence the creation.  God is not a material being, He is a Spirit.  Consequently, Spirit precedes matter therefore is greater than matter.   Furthermore,  since there is no clear mention of the creation of the spirit beings commonly called, “angels” in Genesis, nonetheless we understand that Lucifer was in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve.  Therefore it is agreed that the angelic host was created before the material world was created.

In regards to mankind we know that Adam was created materially first (Gen. 2:7) from the dust of the ground, then the breath of life, or spirit, was given to him.  With that spirit he comes to life in the physical world, but also exists in the spirit world. Whether this was true for Adam or not, it is true for us that our spirits can see through the physical, but the physical has difficulty seeing into the spirit.

All people exist in the spirit world at all times because our spirits are in that world while our bodies are in this world, but that is not to say we exist as divided people, for our spirit, soul and body make up the one being that we are.   When Paul tells us that we are seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:6) he means that we are in Heaven already with Christ in our spirits, but not our bodies. Read the rest of this entry →