text pertaining to the love of God

I know this is a little old, but Paul Tripp comments on what hinders community in today’s American culture. I think he hits the nail on the head when he says:

“You can’t fit God’s dream (if I can use that language) for his church inside of the American dream and have it work. It’s a radically different lifestyle. It just won’t squeeze into the available spaces of the time and energy that’s left over.”

If the church wants to be a community that stands out in this increasingly individualistic society, then we need to fight for that selfless, sacrificing community. Otherwise, we will be swept along to create our individual kingdoms with everyone else.

Origen, a church father of the 5th century, was the king of allegory. He believed in three levels of meaning: literal, moral, and spiritual, which was the most important. One example is his interpretation of the parable of Good Samaritan, which he assigns new meanings to the various people, places, and objects of the parable.

The man who was going down is Adam. Jerusalem is paradise, and Jericho is the world. The robbers are hostile powers. The priest is the Law, the Levite is the prophets, and the Samaritan is Christ. The wounds are disobedience, the beast is the Lord’s body, the [inn], which accepts all who wish to enter, is the Church. … The manager of the [inn] is the head of the Church, to whom its care has been entrusted. And the fact that the Samaritan promises he will return represents the Savior’s second coming.

But he did not stop here. He used this hermeneutic in the Old Testament as well. He took the exodus of the children of Israel and saw it as an allegory of the Christian life. Thus leaving Egypt is the initial salvation of the believer and then crossing over the Jordan river into the promise land as going into heaven.

I find it interesting that many of the spirituals seem to come from this interpretation of Scripture. In the midst of the slavery of early America, the slaves passed on their theology through song and they seemed to view their lives as traveling through the wilderness and they lived with the hope that one day they would “cross over Jordan” and enter the Promised Land (heaven). Note some of the song titles:

• Wings over Jordan
• Roll Jordan Roll
• Get Away Jordan
• On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand

I find it interesting to see the allegorical interpretation of Origen in the 2nd century so embedded into Christianity through the centuries. We even talk about going through the wilderness in some of our language today.

This idea is not too far off track as the wilderness or desert is typically viewed as symbolically representing a time of testing. For Israel was tested in the wilderness (Deut. 8:2) and Jesus was tempted in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1) and Jeremiah uses the analogy of the dry desert verses the lush land as a portrayal of a wicked life verses a righteous life.

Anyway, the more I study the history of the church, the more I see many seeds of modern Christianity planted in prior centuries. It’s really fascinating.

In preparing for a message that I gave last week on biblical aging, I came across some fascinating information regarding out nation’s preoccupation with youth. In essence, our society is obsessed with looking younger, but they are not just fighting wrinkle, they are trying to reverse the Fall.

Ever since Genesis 3, people have been aging, which ultimately leads to death. But people don’t want to look older and ultimately they don’t want to die. So, it wasn’t too surprising when I found out that a huge area of medicine today is in anti-aging medicine. In fact, there is a American Association of Anti-Aging Medicine.

These are the rules of anti-aging medicine:

• Don’t get sick
• Don’t get old
• Don’t die

They are advocating for people to put their hope in anti-aging medicine to reverse the effects of the Fall (i.e. aging and death). They say,

Medical knowledge doubles every 3.5 years or less. With these gains in medical knowledge, we will reach the point where we will know how to stop aging, put it on hold, and even eventually reset the clock mechanism of life itself.

With this philosophy as the background, here are a few of their suggestions for living longer:

• Avoid Trauma - Trauma kills more people between the ages of 1 and 44 than any other disease or illness: Nearly 100,000 people of all ages in the United States die from trauma each years, roughly half of them in automobile crashes. Trauma can strike at any time of the day.
• Reduce Stress - Reduce expectations. Reduce responsibilities. Share your feelings. Avoid arguments. Go easy with giving and receiving criticism.

These suggestions are just a few of the many listed, but they reveal what a Godless, man-centered worldview will lead you to. Man continues to rebel against his Creator and wants to control their own lives.

So this study has led to a few conclusions:

1. Our world is obsessed with fighting the consequences of the Fall.
2. Christians should not be pursuing youth, but old age. The Scriptures show old age as a blessing, even though there are hardships and physical limitations and pain that come with it. As a whole, the Christian community needs to respect the gray-headed with greater intentionality (Lev. 19:32; Proverbs 16:31, 20:29).

Maturity, Christ-likeness, and greater devotion to Christ are awaiting me in old age, so I press on to that end with that hope.

I was reminded of a biblical truth this morning from my friendly, unbelieving, Starbucks barista. We were talking about school, which we are both in, and she asked me how much longer I had. I replied, somewhat sarcastically, that I don’t want to talk about it because I still have four more years. She then replied, with a puzzled look on her face, “You shouldn’t be so down on yourself. Aren’t you working full time?” I nodded. She said, “It’s about the journey, not the destination.”

For the first moment, I passed it off as some slogan of worldly wisdom, but then I immediately realized that what she had said was true. The attitude and tone of voice that I communicated to her was one of sludging through the next four years with the only hope and joy coming at the end. But joy doesn’t come from the cessation of the toil, but from God in the midst of the toil. It’s all about enjoying the process.

Although the way that the barista and I will tackle the journey is going to be different, the principle she stated is still correct - It’s about the journey, not the destination.

If you thought you live in a clean house and you wash thoroughly everyday, then you might want to check again.