February 19th, 2009 by Kristi Stephens

I was up late last night finishing The Shack by Wm. Paul Young. For a couple of months now we’ve been getting into interesting conversations with people about this bestseller, so it was time to read it.

I will definitely say that I can understand how people are getting pulled into this story of Mack’s deep struggle to understand the character of God and how to understand pain and tragedy in the light of God’s love. Isn’t that the age-old struggle?

There were definitely some good points to the book when dealing with this issue; I think Young was right on in his descriptions of God’s deep love, defining good and evil, etc. For example, on pages 134-135, Mack and “Sarayu” (Young’s representation of the Holy Spirit) discuss whether good and evil are objective or subjective. Young did a great job of explaining how good and evil cannot be subjectively interpreted based on how we feel about events – there has to be an objective standard.

And here’s the big BUT: There are a few deep theological flaws in this book which make the rest of the story almost irredeemable in my opinion. I think that these flaws are even more dangerous because Young states them as undeniable fact – spoken by God Himself, no less!

The first huge glaring error that we’ll look at today weaves itself throughout the entire story – The Shack presents a gross misunderstanding of a Biblical philosophy of genders. It first surfaces when Elousia flings open the door of the shack and reveals both God the Father (“Elousia”) and God the Holy Spirit (“Sarayu”) personified as female. On pages 91-93 Mack learns that God is “neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from my nature. If I choose to appear to you as a man or a woman, it’s because I love you. For me to appear to you as a woman and suggest that you call me Papa is simply to mix metaphors, to help you keep from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning.”

On page 94, Mack asks, “But then… why is there such an emphasis on you being a Father? I mean, it seems to be the way you most reveal yourself.” “Well,” responded Papa… “there are many reasons for that, and some of them go very deep. Let me say for now that we knew once the Creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering. Don’t misunderstand me, both are needed – but an emphasis on fathering is necessary because of the enormity of its absence.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa!! This is not true! Viewing God as masculine is not religious conditioning, it is Biblical truth! In “5 Aspects of Woman,” Barbara Mouser states, “…some say if woman is really going to be equal with man, femininity has got to be in the Godhead. God has to be He/She, or It, or just She, but He can’t be He. If femininity is not in the Godhead, woman will be an inferior creature. This is wrong. The Bible, from one end to the other, teaches us that God is masculine. He is He the Father, He the Son, and He the Holy Spirit. Jesus even breaks the rules of grammar in John 16:13 to be sure that the Holy Spirit is called a He instead of an It….God is called “Father” 103 times in the Gospel of John alone. In the entire New Testament, he is called Father 252 times.” (Mouser, 113) The Bible never teaches that God is “both male and female,” as Young asserts, and it is pure creative theological crap (pardon me) that God reveals Himself as male because fathering is more messed up than mothering. There is absolutely no Biblical basis for that! You can read further about the masculinity of God here.

Young’s Evangelical-feminist bent continues to reveal itself throughout the book. Pages 122-124 contain an in-depth discussion about the lack of hierarchy and authority in the Godhead and how this should be mirrored in human relationships. “Mackenzie, we have no concept of final authority among us, only unity. We are in a circle of relationship, not a chain of command… what you’re seeing here is relationship without any overlay of power. We don’t need power over the other because we are always looking out for the best. Hierarchy would make no sense among us.” (122)

Young appears to believe that authority and hierarchy are inherently evil. He claims on 123 that “authority… is merely the excuse the strong use to make others conform to what they want.” On page 124 we are told that humanity was intended to be free of structure, so that we would be free to be in true relationship. What Young is presenting is a false either/or dichotemy. It’s either loving relationship or authority. He appears to believe that they cannot coexist.

Young elaborates on this position further on pages 145-146, completely muddying the definition of submission and going so far as to say that God submits to man!
“‘We are indeed submitted to one another and have always been so and always will be. Papa is as much submitted to me as I to him, or Sarayu to me, or Papa to her. Submission is not about authority and it is not obedience; it is all about relationships of love and respect. In fact, we are submitted to you in the same way.’
Mack was surprised. ‘How can that be? Why would the God of the universe want to be submitted to me?’
‘Because we want you to join us in our circle of relationship. I don’t want slaves to my will; I want brothers and sisters who will share life with me.’
‘And that’s how you want us to love each other, I suppose? I mean between husbands and wives, parents and children. I guess in any relationship?’
‘Exactly! When I am your life, submission is the most natural expression of my character and nature, and it will be the most natural expression of your new nature within relationships.’”

Again, this smacks of creative Biblical interpretation to support a feminist view of genders. The Bible clearly supports submission and authority in relationships. Jesus submitted to the will of the Father. Husbands submit to Christ, wives submit to husbands, children submit to parents, slaves submit to masters, citizens submit to their governing authorities. (See Romans 10 and 13, Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, Hebrews 13, 1 Peter 2) The concept that true loving relationship cannot exist within a “hierarchy” is simply unbiblical. By the end of reading his theological two-step I hardly know what submission is, but doesn’t it give you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside?

I don’t know about you, but I surely don’t want anyone sneaking into my daughter’s room and telling her this new definition of submission to parents! I love her with a consuming love, but part of that love is teaching her to obey. More than to obey, to submit her will to me as her parent. I don’t submit my will to hers, although I will sacrifice my will for her best interest. To say that to be in authority over her and expect obedience is to show a lack of love is just not true, and it has no Biblical underpinning whatsoever.

The final straw for me with Young’s slaughter of a Biblical view of genders was on page 147-148. In this section Jesus and Mack are having a friendly discussion again about genders, this time centering on the fall. He claims that the word for the woman’s “desire” for her husband in Genesis 3 actually means her “turning.” He says that at the fall the woman “turned” to the man for fulfillment, and the man “turned” to the earth. We are told that men have been in charge because women turned to men, and “his response was to rule ‘over’ her, to take power over her, to become the ruler.” Jesus is recorded as saying, “Mack, don’t you see how filling roles is the opposite of relationship? We want male and female to be counterparts, face-to-face equals, each unique and different, distinctive in gender but complementary, and each empowered uniquely by Sarayu from whom all true power and authority originates.” (148)

Then Young gives a very creative description of why Jesus came as a man – “I came as a man to complete a wonderful picture in how we made you. From the first day we hid the woman within the man, so that at the right time we could remove her from within him. We didn’t create man to live alone; she was purposed from the beginning. By taking her out of him, he birthed her in a sense. We created a circle of relationship, like our own, but for humans. She out of him, and now all the males, including me, birthed through her, and all originating, or birthed from God.” (148)

Does anyone else want to throw things right now? This is such junk theology! It simply does not match up with the entire story of genders, from beginning to end, in the Bible. It violates the beautiful picture that God intended in the genders, and more importantly, it completely blasphemes God by changing who He clearly says He is!

God created man to rule the earth. He clearly states in Genesis 2:18 that Eve was created as a helper. She is equal in worth, very different in role. She is created from Adam, brought to him and named by him in much the same way that Adam names the rest of the creation – because he is intended to be in authority. She is equally created in the image of God, equally human, equal in worth. However, Young’s version of this story being some strange circle-of-life issue where we all come from one another is just not what is clearly stated here. In the New Testament we are told that the woman pictures the Church and the man pictures Christ – as the Church submits to Christ, so a wife submits to her husband. These roles are not interchangeable, and they are not the result of a perversion of man at the fall!

So, what about the fall, and that meaning of “desire” in Genesis 3:16? This word in the Hebrew means “stretching out after, a yearning, a longing, a desire.” It is used only 3 times in the Old Testament, once in Song of Solomon, once here in Genesis 3:16, and once in Genesis 4:7. It never carries the idea of turning. Guess how that word is used in Genesis 4:7? This is the account of Cain, when God tells him that “sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” “Desire” here carries the idea of control – sin wants to control you, but you have to master it.

The curse did not cause Eve to “turn toward” Adam, as Young asserts with no Biblical basis. The curse meant that Eve wanted to control her husband. Women don’t want to stay in the position of submission which God intended – we want to control. Man responds sinfully by suppressing her rather than lovingly leading. The roles are all out of whack – the roles that were intended from the dawn of creation!

I apologize for this very long post- I will write more tomorrow on other issues worth discussing in The Shack. I just find it fascinating that Young chooses to spill so much ink on this topic of genders, when it doesn’t even fit that smoothly into the overall picture of what he’s doing in the book. This is obviously an issue for him. But these are important things to get right – as we’ll discuss in a future post about The Shack, you can’t mess with who God says He is in the Bible! The Shack presents a very different picture of God and His plan for creation than what the Bible does, and we have to be Biblically based enough to recognize it.

As Alistair Begg says, “You are reasonable people. Think this through!”

February 17th, 2009 by Kristi Stephens

Today we’re moving on to David’s restoration after the Bathsheba/ Uriah situation. Please read 2 Samuel 12:1-25 before we move on.

Along with the revelation of Joseph to his brothers, verse 7 is one of those verses that haunts me. If we can try to imagine being in the room, or being in David’s or Nathan’s shoes, this was one intense moment! You are the man! Far from being a chummy term of endearment from the 90′s, I imagine Nathan’s words powerfully echoing and reverberating in the palace. You are the man, David! What you did was evil in the eyes of the Lord!

I obviously would not want to be in David’s shoes at this point, but I also do not envy Nathan one bit. Confronting the king, of all people, on such deep sin could not have been an easy task. I hate confrontation. I get sweaty just thinking about it. The couple of times that I have had to confront people led to sleepless nights and not a small amount of angst! I cannot imagine Nathan’s thoughts after he was sent by God and entered the palace that day.

The way Nathan crafts this confrontation was quite something. I find it fascinating that the story he tells involves a close attachment to sheep – surely this was a tender spot to David who spent his years as a young man out in the fields, tenderly caring for and keeping watch over his sheep. David’s understanding of God and life was powerfully influenced by his time with his sheep.

Now, notice David’s response in verse 13:

Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan replied, “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.”

David has a much different response to confrontation than his predecessor Saul did. In 1 Samuel 13:11-12, Samuel has confronted Saul about wrongly offering a burnt offering in Samuel’s absence – Saul never takes responsibility for this. He blames it on Samuel being late for their appointment!

“What have you done?” asked Samuel. Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the LORD’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.”

This is the occasion when Samuel informs Saul that God has now rejected him as king and has chosen another man after His own heart. [This was just a few chapters after Saul's annointing - he started out his reign with a bang!] In our eyes, Saul’s sin doesn’t seem as bad as David’s – Saul seemed to be seeking God’s approval and offering a sacrifice, while David committed adultery and then murdered the woman’s husband to cover his tracks. What’s going on here?

1. Saul’s sin might not sound that bad, but it revealed a presumptuous and arrogant approach to God. He decided Samuel was taking too long so he would just have to do it himself – never mind that God would not bless a wrongly offered sacrifice. Then, when he is confronted about it, he simply blame shifts and explains his actions away as the apparent best course of action. He doesn’t fear God.

2. David’s sin was deep and serious. When Nathan confronts it, however, David takes ownership of it. Tomorrow we will look more closely at Psalm 51, which is David’s song of genuine repentence and restoration written at this time in his life.

David is forgiven by God and restored in relationship with Him. But, he is not free of consequences for his actions.

But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.” (2 Samuel 12:14)

Oh, this story brings up all kinds of hairy issues! Why would God take the innocent life of a baby because of his father’s sin? What happens to children who die before the “age of accountability”?

God gives life and can take it away. I believe that God does take babies and those who are unable to comprehend sin and redemption to heaven – this is my belief based on verse 23 of this chapter. Not everyone agrees with me on this, but I believe this is the most plain answer we have in Scripture and what seems to me to be most consistent with the character of God. It is not my purpose here to try to solve age-old arguments. This is just my honest and simple response to these questions.

Now, back to David and Saul and their responses to sin. I have been thinking much about the fear of God lately. This has always been a deep issue of conviction and concern for me, and a study I have been doing (which will be reviewed in coming weeks!) has been highlighting this for me once again. We, as human beings, tend to be unbalanced in our view of God as our Father and Lord.

If we lean too heavily toward the view of God as our holy Lord and sovereign master, we can end up with and understanding of God that is detached or “out to get us.” We can become obsessed with the idea that we are unworthy worms who do not deserve God’s love, and can start to doubt that He could genuinely love us, the losers that we are. We downplay God’s love and forgiveness and highlight His anger and vengeance.

If we get overly caught up on the idea of God as our father and do not balance it with God as holy and sovereign, we can end up treating God too casually and flippantly. We glory in the fact that “He loves me,” “He delights in me,” “He will forgive me,” and develop almost an arrogant attitude of entitlement. We downplay sin and God’s holiness, and highlight His unwavering love and forgiveness.

A proper relationship to God, understanding that He is completely holy and also loving in the most pure sense of the word, creates a reverent fear of Him and also an intimacy with Him and confidence in His love. I do not understand how or why God loves me, but I believe that He does simply because He says so, and He proved it to me in Christ! However, in no way do I think I deserve His love. I am a rebellious and sinful creation, and He is the holy and transcendent God who created the universe! Keeping this balance in our view of Him keeps us from becoming too “buddy buddy” with God and expecting Him to simply overlook our sin, and it also keeps us from becoming obsessed with ourselves and our “goodness.”

Exodus 20:20 says that an appropriate fear of God will keep us from sinning!

Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”

Romans 6:1-2 highlights the fact that true Christians cannot become comfortable with the idea of sin and excusing it because “God will forgive.”

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

Hebrews 10:26-27 explains that hardened, deliberate sin cannot exist in the heart of a true believer in Christ.

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.

David feared God – he obviously had a close and intimate relationship with God, as revealed in the Psalms. However, he understood the seriousness of sin and God’s authority. When confronted with sin, he repents and accepts God’s stated consequences for his actions.

Saul does not fear God! He acts presumptuously and sins deliberately. When confronted with this sin he backtracks and explains it away. His sin might not seem as “serious” to us, but it was. Lack of fear of God and true relationship with Him was the real problem in his heart and life, and it revealed itself clearly in this situation and his response to Samuel.

How balanced is your view of God? This is a serious issue that will affect your spiritual walk and daily life in a profound way. How do you respond to sin? Do you hate it and long for holiness? Are you comfortable with your sin and good at explaining it away? Do you struggle with believing that God loves you, getting too stuck on a fearful view of Him to believe Him? Do you flippantly approach Him and expect Him to overlook your shortcomings, getting too stuck on an intimate view of Him to see Him in His holy glory?

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
1 John 3:4-6

February 13th, 2009 by Kristi Stephens

My daughter just turned three years old. She is amazingly in tune with just about everything we do, which is humbling and scary! She has picked up so many habits, manners of speaking, and mannerisms that we do without us giving it any thought!

Recently I was talking with new mom who is very young in her faith about how to teach our kids about God. One of the things we were talking about is how our faith is contageous – our kids will pick up truths and understanding about God in the same way as they pick up facts and ideas about the other things we do. The more genuine and committed our own walk with God is, the more it will naturally overflow into the lives of our children.

AG has started asking me recently what I do while she and her brother are sleeping (or “resting”, as her case may be!) I tell her that it is my time with Jesus – that I love that time to be with Him, to talk to Him, and read the Bible. Sometimes I will hear her while I’m having my devotions and come upstairs during her “rest time” – she will then ask me why I’m wearing my glasses. So, again I have the chance to tell her that I have been reading my Bible.

This conversation has happened a few times now, and apparently it has started to sink in! Today while the kids ate lunch I told AG, “I am so sleepy. Maybe I should take a nap today, too!” She instantly got very animated and said, “No! You have to read your Bible!” Apparently she has joined our accountability group!!

Now that my daughter is obviously aware – and watching – it makes my time with God even more precious and important. As I commune with my Savior and learn His Word, not only does He continue to form me into His image (a big benefit for my children!), they are also seeing what a walk with God looks like lived out in everyday life.

I often think of 2 Timothy 1:5 when it comes to discipling my kids: I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.

Timothy was half Jew, half Greek. He would not have had the same access to training at the synogogue that other Jewish boys would have had. He did not even have the benefit of a believing father. But the faith of his grandmother and mother was genuine- and it now lived in him. What a legacy these godly women left – probably by small everyday conversations, and the example of a life well lived. God took the seeds they planted and grew Timothy into a great man of faith, who would impact Ephasus, a huge and ungodly city, with the truth of the gospel at a very young age.

I was blessed to have parents who love God deeply and lived out their faith in front of me. Now the baton has been passed – and we train the next generation. Oh, that their hearts would fear Him and they would walk in His ways! Father, keep me true – renew my mind, change my heart, transform me into the image of your Son. May my children grow up seeing genuine faith lived out, and may that faith come to live in them, also.

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice.
Philippians 4:9

February 12th, 2009 by Kristi Stephens

Today I want to camp on 2 Samuel 11:5-15. Please read that on your own since it’s too long to quote.

The plot continues to thicken in David’s situation. Notice that when Bathsheba sends word to David that she is pregnant (clearly by him because her husband has been with the army all this time), he moves swiftly to try to cover his tracks.

Uriah’s character through this story is a fascinating contrast to David. Uriah comes to David and fills him in on the battle, as David requested. However, when David sends him home, he doesn’t go! David is obviously frustrated as Uriah is interfering with his plan to make it appear that Bathsheba’s baby was a result of this mid-battle visit. Notice Uriah’s response in verse 11:

Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”

Oh, that had to sting! Not only is his plan backfiring, but Uriah is much more righteous than David all around in this situation. His concern is with the safety of David’s army and the ark of the covenant, so he will not selfishly go home and enjoy his house and his wife. [Remember back to part one of this study - David, as king, should have been more concerned about those things in the first place! Not only did he neglect that responsibility, but then enjoyed the company of someone else's wife in their absence!]

We can be brief with the rest of the story – David tries a second time; he gets Uriah drunk thinking that he would then go home, but Uriah still stays with the palace servants. David is now desperate and sends Uriah back to the field with a sealed letter commanding his own “accidental” death.

Isn’t it amazing how predictable we are as sinful humans? When we’re caught in sin, we instantly look for our escape. It started back in the garden with Adam and Eve’s blame shifting, and it continues today when I catch my three year old desperately trying to distract her little brother so he doesn’t cry after she pushes him onto the floor!

In part two, we looked at the subtlety of sin and the safeguards we need to put into our lives and hearts to help keep us from falling. This idea of shifting blame, covering our tracks, and looking for a way out is critical – I think this is such an ingrained pattern in our sinful human nature that we often deceive ourselves. We can so skillfully shift the blame that we convince even our own minds that we are innocent.

Notice what James 1:22-25 says about self-deception:

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.

According to James, we can easily deceive ourselves even while listening to the Word!! If we are familiar with the Word of God and are exposed to its Truth but fail to put it into practice, it can quickly become a spiritual blind spot. At our house, my husband and I tend to put shoes and other odds-and-ends that need to go upstairs on the bottom steps. Sometimes I have to gingerly pick my way through the piles, and yet don’t do anything about it! It is a habit of neglect. I’m used to the piles, and it doesn’t occur to me that the fact that I’m having to step around them is supposed to be a signal to do something about it!

The two years I taught high school Bible at a Christian school were some of the most draining and challenging I have ever had. It was stunning to me to see the spiritual hardness in many of these kids. I shed many a tear at my desk (and in front of a couple of my classes!) pleading for God to soften their hearts. For two years I watched kids walk in and out of the door of my classroom who had heard Biblical Truth their whole lives. The vast majority of them were involved in youth group and had spent most, if not all, of their school years in private Christian school. They thought they had heard it all, and it was such a habit for them to gingerly step around the “piles” in their spiritual walk that it didn’t occur to them that everything in their lives was a disaster because they had failed to obey.

What a scary thought this is to me! It is so easy to deceive ourselves, even as we are surrounded by Truth. How many of us are going to church each week, maybe even reading some Scripture passages or devotionals here or there, listening to some Christian music on the radio, and never realizing that our lives are completely out of whack spiritually? We’re skillful blame shifters, or we’re just completely consumed with avoiding consequences! (Have you ever been praying in your car and then get distracted by fear of the police officer along the side of the road and hope that he doesn’t notice you were speeding? It doesn’t occur to us that it was a inherent contradiction to pray to the Lord and disobey authority at the same time – we just don’t want to get a ticket! Ok, I’ll stop stepping on toes.)

James tells us to look intently into the Word, and then do what it says. The more practiced we become at hearing the Truth and failing to obey, the more hardened we become.

I am concluding today’s post with the same Scripture I used at the end of part two. It is a passage I pray frequently – only God can reveal to us the depth of our own self-deception and sinfulness.

Who can discern his errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.
Keep your servant also from willful sins;
may they not rule over me.
Then will I be blameless,
innocent of great transgression.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Psalm 19:12-14