1 Timothy: It's All About Grace, Not Rules!

We set up rules for our children to protect and teach them, but we want to have a loving relationship with them rather than a legalistic, command-and-control relationship. Sometimes we are happy to have them do as we say no matter the reason, but mostly we want them to do what we ask because they love and respect us as parents and as people. When our kids are in their 30s and 40s, we don't want them to come and visit us twice a year, just to stay in the will.

God's desire for us in much the same. He is not first, and foremost a “rule maker,” although he has given us rules to obey (the Law). He would much rather we love and respect him and as a result, do the things that please him. He doesn't want us to come to church once a week just to keep our place in Heaven.

The letters to Timothy and Titus are known as the pastoral letters because in them Paul is offering advice to two young pastors on how to lead their churches. I think the messages Paul gives are also useful for us to hear as parents and friends as well.

In 1 Timothy 1:3–11, Paul warns Timothy about those in the church at Ephesus who were preaching a false message of the Law. They wanted people to believe that God required everyone to follow a long list of rules. Many of the rules were ones they had made up themselves. Paul wants Timothy to make sure the people know the truth about God. How very true this is for us today as well. We are quick to make up rules for others to follow if they want to be "in the group." In the end, the rules serve only to destroy the very thing we thought we were trying to protect.

Paul then goes on in 1 Timothy 1:12–20 to talk about his own relationship with God and the Law. Paul had nothing to boast about in terms of his “credentials” as a Christian. He was anything but what most people would consider a model of a believer. He sums up the reason for telling Timothy all this in verses 15-16,

"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life." 1 Timothy 1:15-16 (NIV)

This is good news for all of us! If God can save Paul, then he can save anyone...including me. It is good that God is not a rule maker, because if he were, I wouldn't have a chance.

Last Blog ... at least for this year!

I'm not sure why, but I just can't let this year close without a parting comment. Maybe it's a numbers thing--I want to hit 20 for the year. I've already exceeded the 2007 total, although posts-per-month is down.

Anyway, here goes the final thought for the year...

We were talking a while back about whether the things that happen to us are caused by God, allowed by God, or just happen without God's involvement in any way. I think your beliefs in this regard have a lot to do with what you think God is like, and how much you've thought about where your beliefs lead you.

If you believe things happen to us without God's involvement, and perhaps without any special interest on God's part, then I think you don't believe in the God of the Bible. God is clearly portrayed in both OT and NT as being actively involved in creation. The stories of Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, and Paul, Peter, and countless others show that God directly influenced their circumstances and that they were not surprised by this.

The other two possibilities are a bit more difficult to deal with if we are to be honest. The problem is that some of God's attributes are not easy to reconcile with each other and our experiences. God is all-powerful (omnipotent), meaning that God can to anything that can be done. God is all-knowing (omniscient), so the smallest detail is not overlooked or forgotten. God is also the definition of love, loves us, and wants the very best for us.

The problem this causes is we have difficulty answering the question, "Why do bad, unpleasant, downright nasty things happen to us?" God surely knows they are happening, could take action to prevent them, and loves us. So why do they happen? It actually matters less whether God actively causes them to happen or passively allows them to happen. In either case they happen because God intends them to happen. I actually prefer the active explanation because I think God is in direct control of all of creation, not just some portion.

I think our difficulty with this question comes from our unspoken belief that we're at the center of the universe. From that viewpoint, good things happening to us are good and bad things are bad. But maybe there's another viewpoint. Maybe we're not the center of the universe. Maybe it's good for bad things to happen to us. I don't claim to understand how or why that might be so, in fact I find it appalling that God could want it that way.

I'm left with the belief that God is good and loves me more than I can imagine. I don't see how having bad things happen to people is "good", and I guess I'm OK with that. God is God and I'm not.

Lord of All Creation

I've been listening to a series of lectures entitled, "Astronomy: Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe" and it's got me thinking about the size of things. It's hard to get a real feeling for how amazingly big the universe is. You've heard people talk about the Earth being 93 million miles from the Sun, the closes star, Proxima Centauri, being about 4 light-years away, and the closest galaxy, Andromeda (pictured here, courtesy of NASA Images), being 2.5 million light-years away. Maybe you don't remember the exact distances, but you've likely heard something like this before. The numbers have no real "feeling" to them. How far is a light-year anyway? It's hard to get a sense of the size from the numbers themselves. (1 light-year = about 6,000,000,000,000 miles)

The lecturer, Professor James Kaler (info here, or here), did something that helped a lot, and I thought it was worth some thought time.

The first steps along this path are some "local" sizes. The Sun is about 100 times the size of the Earth, and the distance from the Earth to the Sun is about 100 times the Sun's diameter. That means you could line up about 10,000 Earths between here and the Sun. Already this is a pretty big number to imagine!

Going further, imagine that the distance from the Earth to the Sun was one inch. On that basis, the Earth would be about a tenth of a micron, far too small to see, about the size of a large bacteria. Our solar system, out to the little rocks beyond Pluto, would be about six feet across. On this scale, the nearest star would be a little over four miles away. Beyond this, the numbers quickly get too big to absorb again. If the distance to the Sun is one inch, our galaxy, the Milky Way, is 100,000 miles across--half way to the moon. Our galaxy is one of billions that we can see and is unremarkable. Remember, this is a galaxy containing hundreds of billions of stars I just called unremarkable!

The universe is unbelievably large, staggeringly large, mind-numbingly large. It's B-I-G. Mankind is proud of the fact that we've gone all the way to the Moon, but that's about the diameter of a strand of a spider's web in our modified scale. Almost too small to see!

One of the things we tend to do as Christians is to underestimate God. We see him as a slightly larger version of ourselves, maybe without the little imperfections we have. But God is the creator of this stupefyingly large universe we've just been looking at! We make a serious error if we see God as just a "big person." We contemplate God, we argue about his existence, about the extent of his power, about his character. What we should be doing is standing in awe, unable to grasp his size, but yet overwhelmed by what we can grasp.

In Isaiah 55:9 God says, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

I should say so!