Two Beggars

Two Beggars

After church yesterday, Dori and I were walking to meet out-of-town friends at a restaurant when we passed three beggars sitting on the street.

Do you have any change you could spare?” asked one shaggy man with a large shaggy dog.

Walking briskly by, I said, “No.”

Strictly speaking, that was true, since I didn’t have any coins in my pocket. But it was also an excuse, because I don’t know what to do with beggars. Sometimes I open my heart and my wallet, and sometimes I just think that I would be feeding someone’s habit.

He didn’t try again when we headed back towards our car after lunch, but a block later we encountered a pleasant-looking young black man who approached me and said,

“Do you have any money you could give me to get something to eat?”

Having just enjoyed a good (though not expensive) meal, I somehow could not refuse.

“Sure, let me go with you,” I said, leaving Dori to wait for me at the car while I accompanied him to a restaurant. (She had indicated that she was happy with this arrangement.)

“What’s your name?” I inquired.

“Stu.”

“What do you do for work, Stu?” I asked, rather insanely.

“Nothing. I don’t have any work. I lost my job.” He sounded dejected.

“What did you use to do?”

“Construction. Sheet rock. I finish sheet rock.”

“Oh, that industry is in a slump, I know.” His story sounded plausible, so I thought maybe he was a responsible sort of fellow.

“What are you doing to find work?” I pursued.

“I go to construction sites, but no one is hiring.”

“Look, that industry is going to take at least two years to recover, so maybe you could use your spare time to gain a new skill or get some free education, so you can get another job.”

He nodded appreciatively. Well, I was glad to help a man like this.

Until we saw the three beggars I’d seen before, and the slightest flicker of recognition passed between them. So, probably these tramps all know each other and occupy different turf where they prey on innocent passersby-like me.

By then I was committed, however, so we entered a lower-priced eatery that he had chosen and I pulled out two dollars (the “change” I had in my wallet) and called the manager over to give him the money.

Glancing at the menu, however, I noticed that two bucks would only buy a cup of coffee and maybe half a piece of toast, so I pulled out a five dollar bill and handed that to the proprietor instead.

”Here,” I instructed, “ use this to pay for a meal for him.”

The man behind the counter rattled me a bit more when he seemed to know my new friend, but I pretended to ignore that and left, with another exhortation to get some education and a “God bless you, Stu.” He shook my hand and thanked me. I still liked him.

The shaggy man with his big dog saw me coming, and asked again for some change. Waving to him, I strode by without a word. I guess I just didn’t like him and his fuzzy companions very much. They all looked well fed and seedy.

“He’ll talk to that nigger but not to me,” the disappointed man uttered just loud enough for me to hear as I hurried back to Dori, who had been waiting quite a while by now.

Turning quickly, I retraced my steps to where he sat and gave him the two dollars originally intended for the black man.

“You were rude to me, but I’m not going to be rude to you,” I said softly, as I handed him the money. “God bless you, brother.”

“God bless you, too, Mister,” he responded.

So many unanswered questions surround this entire event that I can only plead, “May God have mercy on us all!”

Is this experience from God?

My friend also had another question, which I shall seek to answer:

(2). Many of my Christian friends told me that they were touched by Holy Spirit.  How do we know the power touches someone is from the Holy Spirit and not from other beings, such as angels or the staff of God?

Another good question! Many Christians do claim that they have been affected “touched,” “filled,” “baptized,” etc.) by the Holy Spirit, but how do we know whether our experience is from God’s Spirit and not some other source?

A famous theologian named Jonathan Edwards once wrote a whole book on this subject, called Religious Affections (emotions, experiences). He pointed out that much of what seems to be from God may not actually be. After all, the Bible says that Satan and his demons (evil spirits) can work miracles, so a supernatural healing or other miracle is not necessary a work of God.

Furthermore, speaking with other tongues, which is commonly used as a sign of the work of the Holy Spirit, can come from another source also – either our own voice production or the work of some other spirit.

Strong emotions, too, don’t necessarily come from God. You can be really “happy” or excited, but that could simply result from your reaction to something you are thinking or some stimulus in your environment. I once had some sort of mystical experience of “peace” and “unity with the whole world” during and after listening to Beethoven’s 7^th Symphony!

If you are in a crowd, and they all go crazy over something, you can be overcome with powerful feelings that derive from the influence of the mood of the people around you. Both Hitler and Mao Zedong had that influence on large gatherings of devoted followers, and something like that seems to happen to many young people at rock concerts.

You can have a strong impression that something is true or right, but it may be very false and very wrong. These “clear” “messages” may seem to come from God, but they could be the work of the devil, who knows very well how to deceive us.

People in religious meetings are sometimes overcome by joy, or ecstasy, or dread. None of these is necessarily a product of the Holy Spirit’s work in our hearts. Likewise, falling down as if dead – sometimes called “being slain in the Spirit” – can happen to people for all sorts of reasons, and is not necessarily a work of the Holy Spirit of God.

Okay, so how can we know whether an experience comes from God? There are several ways of evaluating religious experiences:

Does it make me love God more – his holiness, justice, mercy, truth, and all his other excellencies?

Does it make me trust God more? Does this experience lead me to believe more in what the Bible says, to rely on his promises, especially the spiritual promises in the New Testament, even if everything else around me seems to deny the Scriptures?

Does it make we way to obey God more? Does it cause me to think that all his commands (meaning primarily those in the New Testament, not all the food laws in the Old Testament) are good and right and true, and that I must seek to follow his revealed will, no matter what the cost?

Does it make we want to hope more in God and in the grace that will come to me when Christ returns?

Does it make me hate sin, and falsehood, and everything that is wrong?

Does it make me love God’s people – other Christians – and want to be with them and serve them and work with them to advance God’s kingdom?

Does it make me more aware of my own sins and need for God’s mercy, and does it cause me to rejoice more in the sheer grace of God that has reached down to someone as unworthy as I am?

Does it cause me to focus my attention on Jesus Christ, the Son of God and only Savior? Or does it turn my eyes towards something or someone else? All that comes from the Spirit of God will bring honor and glory to the Son of God, as revealed in the Bible.

Is this experience in any way contrary to the will of God as revealed in the Bible? Does it make me want to read the Bible more and meditate on the Scriptures? Or does it distract me and cause me to yearn after other emotional experiences?

These are some of the tests we can use to ascertain whether what we have experienced has come from the Holy Spirit or from some other source.

Is the Bible true?

A friend in Taiwan sent me this email with questions from a non-Christian about the Bible. I thought that perhaps others might also be interested, so am including her questions and my response in the (longer than usual) blog entry, starting with my friend’s encouraging greeting:

My goodness Wright! Your blog is a “page turner”! (still going through The Lord’s Healing Words in fits and spurts…)

If you have time, could you give us advice about something? K. has a friend from long ago who is seeking truth. She is a highly intelligent lawyer who asks a lot of good, probing questions about Christianity. When my family came to visit, she and my Dad got into a conversation about Christianity. They have continued their dialog by email. She just sent Dad two questions typically asked by non – Christians. I’ll cut/paste her email:

Dear

The following two questions may be offensive, but they really troubled me:
(1). Is every word in the Bible from God? How do we know that the Bible is the word of God?

Is it possible that some content in the Bible was the work of human beings based on their interpretation of God’s teaching? The author may honestly believe all the content is inspired by God; but how can we be sure that it is really consistent with God’s will? If it is God’s will, how can some of the content has become out of date? And some seems to be not reasonable or not loving?

Messages can be mis-communicated easily due to human errors. We don’t even know exactly what happened around us now or what happened 10 years ago because people recorded it can always view something from various aspects; how can we be so sure about history written more than 2000 years ago and passed on generation by generation?

My question can boil down to one: how can we make sure all the rules we are required to follow as specified in the Bible lead to the right way to attend to God’s glory?

WD: Good questions! And you are right to boil the first of them down to one: How can I be sure that what the Bible says I should do will “lead to the right way to attend to God’s glory?”

We don’t have time or space to discuss this first very large and basic question in detail, but here are a few sentences for starters:

Many people have the same questions. If fact, this is the fundamental question about Protestant Christianity, for we claim to derive all the content of our faith from the Scriptures and not from church traditions (like the Roman Catholics) or human reason (like liberal Protestants) or from direct “revelation” from God’s Spirit (like some charismatic Christians).

Second, many scholars over the centuries have investigated these matters, and have come up with some plausible answers, though not with absolute proof in the full inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible. Dr. Carl Henry, for example, wrote a full four volumes of his six-volume masterpiece, God, Revelation, & Authority, to try to show that belief in the full accuracy and truth of the Bible is reasonable. Many shorter books support the same position.

Specifically, they say that:

(1) The Bible itself claims, in hundreds of both direct and indirect ways, to be the very words of God. To assert otherwise is to call into question everything else that the Bible says.

(2) Most apparent contradictions in the Bible can be resolved with careful study, though a small number cannot.

(3) Archaeological and historical research has demonstrated that the historical accounts of the Bible are accurate and trustworthy.

(4) Contrary to popular belief, science has not disproved the truth of the Bible. In particular, Darwinian theory has recently been shown to lack scientific proof, or even much evidence. Read Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box; Michael Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis; Philip Johnson’s Darwin on Trial; or Jonathan Wells’s Icons of Evolution for confirmation of this statement.

(5) If there is a God, and if he created us in his image, then it is reasonable to believe that he could also communicate clearly with us, using the writings of men whom he specially chose and guided to record his will and his ways accurately.

(6) Some things (such as the destruction of the nations living in the Promised Land by the invading Israelites) do seem unreasonable or unloving to us. In those cases, Christians first seek to understand what is meant by those passages, and then confess that we just don’t have enough information or wisdom to comprehend everything God does or says.

But, we believe he is good, because Christ died for us, and that he is powerful, because God raised Christ from the dead, so that we could be forgiven and come to know God as our loving Father.

(7) Which parts of the Bible, in particular, do you consider “outdated?” Do you not rather mean that they are out of sync with some modern prejudices? Who is to say our generation is right and the Bible is wrong? What standard are you using?

(8) Finally – and I know this is all very brief – we find out whether what God has told us is right by trusting his promises and obeying his commands. Only as we step out in faith to rely on his promises to forgive those who repent of their wrongdoing and trust in Christ, and to supply all that we need to serve him; and only if we attempt, relying on his power, to do what he tells us, will we experience the goodness and rightness of what the Bible teaches.

I should add that millions of Christians have done just that over the past two thousand years, and have testified to their experience that the Bible is really the Word and words of God, and that living by its teachings really works.

I hope this helps a bit.

The Unknown Artist

The Unknown Artist

Last night, Dori and I visited several art galleries on the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville. It was the first Friday of the month, when they hold special exhibitions and offer free refreshments.

The first one we entered offered some really good art, but the pickings were slim for hungry free-loaders.

The next gallery featured ugly “art” and no food, so we didn’t stay long.

But the last place, which we’ve always enjoyed the most anyway, did not disappoint us. Larger, with dozens of really fine paintings and other objets d’art, it held our attention for quite a while. We especially liked the exhibition of Eric Slayton’s oil paintings. We could see why his work has been displayed in the West Wing of the White House and in U.S. embassies around the world.

The goodies made up for the scarcity at the other galleries – fresh vegetables, crackers, tasty dips, and Sprite. I tried not to appear like the glutton I am, but did manage to, shall we say, silence the messages that had been rumbling up from my mid-section.

Sitting at a table with the little cups of Sprite was a pleasant-looking lady who seemed to belong there. Going over, I asked,

“Are you the hostess here?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, I just wanted to say ‘Thank you’ for these refreshments. They’re really good. We love the paintings, too.”

Smiling broadly, she replied, “You are welcome.” Then, pointing over to a tall, handsome man standing by himself, she asked, “Have you met the artist? He’d love to talk to you.”

We hadn’t known that Eric Slayton, the creator of our favorite paintings, was present. I walked over to him and introduced myself, expressing appreciation for his work. He beckoned to his wife, and introduced me to her, remembering my name and even pronouncing it correctly (most people say “Ray,” or “Frank,” or “Dwight”).

Dori had already gone off to another section of the gallery before I met Mr. Slayton, but I remained to chat with them for about ten minutes. Living in Prescott, Arizona, they had never before seen the Blue Ridge Mountains, so we shared our appreciation of the lovely scenery of Albemarle Country. We also talked about modern Chinese painting.

What a pleasant couple they were! And what a privilege, to meet the creator of the art which had brought us so much enjoyment!

And all because I had stopped to say, “Thank you.” Maybe there’s a lesson here somewhere.

One further thought: If we take the time, we can talk to the Master Artist whenever we want to, and thank Him for the beauty with which He has surrounded us.

“Let me tell you about my boy (girl)”: The Way God Looks at His Children

“Let me tell you about my boy (girl)”: The Way God Looks at His Children

Yesterday, I ate lunch with a friend. At the outset, he told me that he wanted to discuss with me some important career decisions facing him. I relished the opportunity to be helpful and was honored that he would want to ask my opinion. In other words, I was ready to “do business” with him right away.

But he was not eager to start with the main item on his agenda. He had something else he wanted to share with me first.

Today he and his wife are driving up to New York to take their oldest boy to visit a prominent university, from which, as it happens, my friend himself had received his Ph.D. years ago. The boy has already been accepted at this school, along with three other outstanding colleges. With a perfect SAT verbal score and a 4.0 GPA in a very good high school, the kid is obviously very smart.

He’s also a leader: Vice President of the student body as a freshman and now President. His outstanding qualities were recognized when he was given the responsibility to administer a large community grant for benefiting young people. He helps with the youth program in his church, too.

Most of all, he’s humble. When asked publicly to account for his success in academics while participating fully in extra-curricular activities, he said, “God gives me strength and wisdom.”

At first, I was impatient with my friend’s long monologue about his son. After all, hadn’t I been invited to give some valuable advice?

As I reflected on this man’s evident delight in his boy, however, it struck me that perhaps God is like that.

Can we imagine Him up in heaven, calling to one of hHs angels and saying, “Let me tell you about My boy (or girl). Sure, he makes mistakes, but all in all, he’s a pretty neat kid. I like the way he’s growing, performing well, and trusting Me more.”

After all, isn’t that what the LORD did when He virtually bragged about Job to the heavenly court? (The divine attention led to some difficulties for Job, of course, but that’s another story.)

So, I tried to think of God, my heavenly Father, beckoning to Michael the archangel, pointing “down” to me, and saying, “Let me tell you about Wright. I like what I’m doing in him, don’t you?”

Do you dare to put your name in there? Try it. I think that you’ll enjoy the awareness of your heavenly Father’s favor, which He extends to – no, lavishes upon – all who, by faith, are “in Christ Jesus,” his beloved Son.