Honesty

Editor’s Note: When reading this one has to keep in mind that it was written in 1969 to an audience that was largely familiar with what was going on in the Christian Reformed Church and were also likely regular readers of The Banner in which this was published. As a result, some of the references in this column are lost to us today or, at best, no longer relevant, but there is never-the-less a familiar strain to this seen across multiple denominations on a variety of issues.

For the first time in its history our denomination has been on then receiving end of a negative judgment by a sister church (confer Acts of Synod, 1969, pp. 171, 482). This came as a real shock because of the unfamiliarity of this role for us, and the shattering of our rosy self-image was as embarrassing as it is for any individual person seeing himself through someone else’s eyes.

Examples of our failure to be completely honest in self-evaluation are numerous. We boast of such splendid traditions as catechism preaching, family visiting, and the exercise of discipline, though the requirements of the Church Order in these particular matters are not met in many churches. This dereliction has long been an open secret among ourselves, but to see it in painful print from somebody else’s pen is another matter.

We are to be commended for our attempted enforcement of public Sabbath-observance, but our stance is sadly stultified by the fact that there is plenty of “window-shopping” on our part on the Lord’s Day by means of the abominable Sunday newspaper and television commercials, to say nothing of the increasing Sunday travel, with purchase of meals, gasoline, and lodging.

There are certain subjects that The Banner editors and preachers find to be “off-limits” in the eyes of some people, while many of these same persons are regular readers of Ann Landers and her treatment of these very themes.

But perhaps the sorriest lack of honesty is found in out penchant for drawing up devout resolutions on a variety of subjects and then backing down when it comes to putting them into practice. The “amused discussion” of our statement on race relations at the time of its adoption will haunt us a long, long time.

Monopoly

Many readers will promptly deny it but one great explanation for our lack of evangelism is not the conviction that God does not love the people “out there,” but our fear that perhaps He really does. Predestination tells us plainly that God does have some sheep “out there” whom we must urge inside (John 10:16), and it is that thought which disturbs us. It was not fear of the Ninevites the caused Jonah to go AWOL, but the fear that God had some love for these Assyrians.

Such an attitude is altogether understandable; nobody likes to buy an “exclusive” garment and find countless others wearing the same thing. Especially liable to this desire for distinction are those of us who do not have much other claim to exclusiveness or specialness; unconsciously we salve our souls by saying to ourselves that we may not be smart or rich, but after all, everybody isn’t saved! And sharing our faith with others, especially if they already have brains and money, means that they continue to have an earthly advantage over us and can look forward to heaven too. That thought is just too much.

What we forget is that when it comes to salvation the more you “give it away” the more you get. It is by sharing our faith that it grows. This is the whole point of such a statement as Luke 17:33. The person who tries to preserve what he has by keeping it all to himself will find that even what he thought he had is slipping from between his fingers. In short, the person who is not eager that everybody should have what he has, may well begin to wonder whether he ever had it himself.

Competence

A marital counselor who is in favor of “free love” prior to marriage said that anyone who disagrees with her “is an idiot.” Such a statement displays scientific naïveté on her part, but her opinion made quite an impression because she is presumably a woman of parts.

In this day of specialization we have little alternative to accepting as fact the declarations of presumed experts. If chemists, for example, say that water is one-third oxygen we ought to believe them. But when it comes to such religion-related fields as psychology and sociology (to mention just two) we Christians have the right to require a profession of Christianity as one of the qualifications in an expert before we uncritically accept his or her pronouncements as truth. Christianity has exercised such a strong influence in modern advanced cultures that even non-Christians have usually had Scripture-conditioned perspectives in their respective fields — but that day is over. And the fact that a so-called expert comes out in favor of abortion, trial marriage, marijuana, or homosexuality does not ipso facto mean any more than if my six-year old declares dogmatically that there is life on Mars.

An erudite elder in our church said recently that he holds no brief for the Pope in his recent decisions on very controversial subjects, but the thing that troubled my friend is that many of the Vatican’s critics claim that the Bible has nothing to say on such matters.

We do not look for monogamy or marriage ceremonies amongst dogs. It is equal folly to expect that people who ridicule the Bible are going to endorse the crumbling conventions as to sex that have been inspired by the blessed Book.

Trouble

The subject of suffering is so serious that God devotes an entire book of the Bible to its problem. Some scholars believe it may have been the very first Scripture to be written, since Job antedated Moses by many years.

At any rate, there is no more common a denominator for man than suffering (Job 5:7). And while the book of Job undoubtedly has many different themes, one often-overlooked doctrine — which is taught almost immediately in the book — is that we ought to lay the blame for our troubles upon the Evil One. In the very first chapter God draws back the screen that separates us from the spirit-world in order to reveal Satan as the mischief-maker immediately responsible for bad weather, war, sickness, poverty, and death.

All of us are aware that everything which is reported in the Bible does not necessarily have divine endorsement . David’s adultery and Psalm 14:1a are two examples. The most extended instance of this also happens to be the book of Job, which abounds with wrong ideas that emanate from men’s minds and mouths. Not only Job’s friends, but the patient patriarch himself had some wrong notions that required divine correction. One particular point on which he needed fuller revelation is the fact that although God has ultimate control over our losses as well as our gains, it is God alone who is the giver of every good and perfect gift, while it is Satan who takes away, destroys, and kills.

The fact that we instinctively (and correctly) turn to God for relief from life’s misfortunes (II Corinthians 12:8) must not blind us to the fact that it is Satan who sends them (v. 7). Going to a doctor because of some sickness does not imply that he or she is the one who caused it.