The Debate Begins – Gun Violence
My publisher, Energion, is starting a series of debates between author Joel Watts and myself. Joel is of a decidedly more liberal bent than I am, so it should make for a good and informative exchange. My publisher will post a question to which we will write initial answers. At that point things should really get interesting as we will then begin a series of responses to each other replies, until we move on to the next question.
The first question will be on how to deal with gun violence. Like all the questions, we will not be focusing on the latest news cycle, which so often is caught up in the superficial. Rather we will try to look at the deeper issues. Since we are both Christians, we will also be bring our different religious perspectives into the discussion where appropriate.
You can find Joel Watts’ answer here. You can find my answer here. Let the debate begin!
The Epistles of John: Living in Truth and Love. 1 John 4:11-21
Study
John now begins a summary starting with a summary of the key points in this section but then moving into a summary of the letter. Such summaries are very helpful in making sure that our understanding of the key points in this letter, line up with John’s intent.
g. Summary: Love leads to perfection (4:11-5:12)
i. The significance of God’s Love (4:11-12)
11 – Dear friends, if this is the way God loved us, we must also love one another.
– John now begins his summary where he started this section – love one another. He starts by taking God’s example of love and applies it to us. This is more than just an example, it is an obligation. Note that this is not a command to love God, but to love others.
12 – No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
– It is likely that some of those who left, were claiming visions of God. Here John is pointing out that this is not possible, and that if we really want to experience God we do so, not through mystical visions, but by serving others.
his love is perfected in us.
– Lit: the love of him (ἡ ἀγάπη αὐτοῦ ) It is not completely clear what John means here. This could refer to: Our love of God; God’s Love for us; or the type of love God has. The context here would seem to support either 1 or 3.
– True Christianity is not to be found in retreating from the world in prayer, but working in the world through love and service.
ii. How we know we abide in him (4:13-15)
13 – This is how we know that we abide in him and he in us: he has given us his Spirit.
– This here refers to in the living out of our faith in the service of others. There is a dual point being made here. First, that we can know our personal relationship to God. Second, we can test the relationship of others. Do they live the love of Christ?
– The spirit also reveals himself in our service to others.
14 – We have seen for ourselves and can testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
– John return to the opening of the letter: as statement of his personal witness.
– Here the focus is on Jesus as the savior of the world. God’s love was not limited to Christians. Our love is, likewise for the world. Gnostic had secret teachings for the few, We have service to all.
– Given the context, it is likely that the “We” refers to the Church as a whole, rather than just the apostles, as in the opening.
– Can we say this today? Have you seen the work of Christ in your life? It is the Holy Spirit that testifies to us.
15 – God abides in the one who acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, and he abides in God.
– John again return to the concept of abiding, and thus these three verses are in the form of a chiasmus, the focus of which is on our testimony.
Abide – v13
Testify – v14
Abide – v15
that Jesus is the Son of God
– An emphasis on the human side of Jesus.
The results of abiding in God (4:16-18)
16 – We have come to know and rely on[1] the love that God has for us. God is love, and the person who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
And rely on (πεπιστεύκαμεν)
– Believe – trust – perfect tense indicates lasting conviction
the love that God has for us
– Lit the love which has the God in us. (τὴν ἀγάπην ἣν ἔχει ὁ θεὸς ἐν ἡμῖν) This would seem to indicate that the love here includes the love of the Cross and the gift of the Holy Spirit
God is love
– John is giving us a logical argument here. Since God is Love (also v 8) therefore to abide in love is to abide in God. Abiding in love is a result of abiding in God. Scholars debate whether or not this is Love of God, or love for one another. John makes no real distinction, to do one is to do the other. It is a demonstration and source of comfort for relationship with Christ
17 – This is how love has been perfected among us: we will have confidence on the day of judgment because, during our time in this world, we are just like him.
– The perfection of God’s love leads to confidence. Do you have confidence about Judgment day?
during our time in this world, we are just like him
– Some claim a contradiction with 3:2. While a superficial reading can lead to a contradiction, as usual context is very important. The context here is Judgment Day. What is critical to judgment? Sin. Give this, how are we like him? We are sinless because of his love, and that is why we can have confidence.
18 – There is no fear where love exists[2]. Rather, perfect love banishes fear, for fear involves punishment, and the person who lives in fear has not been perfected in love.
– Because of this, there is no fear. After all, what do we have to fear of Judgment day? Nothing! We have been washed clean but the blood of the lamb. We abide in the perfect love of God. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
– How does this line up with verse like Phil 2:12
And so, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only when I was with you but even more now that I am absent, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling
That we do not fear judgment day does not mean we lose our respect for God position.
has not been perfected in love
– This is not necessarily referring to those who are lost. It means that God’s love needs to be perfected in them.
To love God is to Love one another (4:19-21)
19 – We love[3] because God[4] first loved us.
– Our love for God is not grounded in a threat of punishment. It is a response to the love that God has already shown us. It is grounded in gratitude, not fear.
20 – Whoever says, “I love God,” but hates his brother is a liar. The one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love the God whom he has not seen.
– John returns again to the claims of those who left, but here he is making a larger point. We cannot see God, but we can see our brother. So while we might not really be able to tell if someone loves God, we can tell if someone loves his brother.
– This works both ways. Sometimes is it easier to love God, because we do not see him. Sometimes it is easier to love people because we do see them. True love covers both.
21 – And this is the commandment that we have from him: the person who loves God must also love his brother.
– This is more than just a guideline, this is a commandment. In John 13:34 Jesus said,
I’m giving you a new commandment…to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
– John started his summary with how we should Love, which was one the key errors of those who left. Why do you think John has stressed this point so often?
If you have question or comments about the class, feel free to send me an email at elgin@hushbeck.com and be sure to put “Epistles of John” in the header.
See here for references and more background on the class.
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible: International Standard Version®. Copyright © 1996-2008 by The ISV Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTERNATIONALLY. Used by permission. www.isv.org
Note: Some places I have modify the text from the ISV version. Passages that I have modified have been noted with and * by the verse number and the ISV text is included in a footnote.
Footnotes:
[1] 4:16 Lit. believe in
[2] 4:18 Lit. in love
[3] 4:19 Other mss. read love him; still other mss. read love God
[4] 4:19 Lit. he
The Epistles of John: Living in Truth and Love. 1 John 4:4-10
e. We overcome the World (4:4-6)
i. You have overcome them (4:4)
4 – Little children, you belong to God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
– John assures them of their victory. They have resisted the temptation though the power of the Holy Spirit. There is possibly a hint of persecution here. Also note the contrast between “in you” and “in the world.” While we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, non-believers are not indwelt by Satan.
ii. Belonging to World vs. Belonging to God (4:5-6)
5 – These people belong to the world. That is why they speak from the world’s perspective,[1] and the world listens to them.
– Then, as now, there was the way the world looks at things, and the way God looks at things. Those who left were of the world and they speak that way. Today we see this in the use of, and battle over, labels such as Pro-Life – Pro-choice. We must remember we are not in a popularity contest. God’s message will is not to be judged by numbers. The world judges by how big and how popular something is. But for God, what matters is truth and love.
6 – We belong to God. The person who knows God listens to us. Whoever does not belong to God does not listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.
– Note the change to plural. John is speaking of all Christians. Those who know God will accept the teachings of God, while those who do not know God will not. We are not in a battle of logic and reason. That someone does not accept the Gospel is not a failure on our part. That the experts disagree is not relevant.
f. Love comes from God (4:7-10)
i. Love one another (4:7a)
7 – Dear friends, let us continually love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God.
– Having just talked about the importance of truth, John now turns to the other test: Love. Here John adds a reason: because love comes from God. He is continuing his argument that those who know God accept the truth of his message, and they reflect his actions: i.e., they love.
Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God
– This can be a difficult verse and context is important to avoid misunderstanding. Here the context is of loving others. John is not talking about the love of a parent for a child, or love of a spouse. The context is loving people.
– To really love, require that we love in truth. We are to love as God Loves. To know God is to obey God; to Obey is to Love; to Love is to know God – John closes the circle. This is a goal that few and probably none actually achieve. It is something we strive for.
ii. Loving one another = knowing God (4:7b-8)
8 – The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
– Again having stated the positive, John now emphasizes this with the negative.
because God is love
– This is one of John definitional statements, such as God is Light (1:7), God is Spirit (Jn 4:24) This statement is quite popular in the modern Church but note that it does not say God is only Love. John’s argument here is that God is Love, how can we claim to be followers of God if we do not love?
iii. God’s Love demonstrated (4:9-10)
9 – This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent his unique Son into the world so that we might live through him.
– If we are to love as God loves, then how does God love? John gives us the greatest example in a fashion very reminiscent of John 3:16. This example has both of the major components of godly love: A true compassion that works itself out in action.
10 – This is love: not that we have loved[2] God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
– John expands on his definition of love
Not that we have loved God but that he loved us
– As we seek to understand real love, we cannot look to how we love God or how we love others. True love is to be found in how God loved us.
sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin
– Rom 5:8 – But God demonstrates his love for us by the fact that the Messiah died for us while we were still sinners.
– God’s love was demonstrated while we were in rebellion against him. What does that say about our love? What does it say about how we treat others?
If you have question or comments about the class, feel free to send me an email at elgin@hushbeck.com and be sure to put “Epistles of John” in the header.
See here for references and more background on the class.
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible: International Standard Version®. Copyright © 1996-2008 by The ISV Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTERNATIONALLY. Used by permission. www.isv.org
Note: Some places I have modify the text from the ISV version. Passages that I have modified have been noted with and * by the verse number and the ISV text is included in a footnote.
Footnotes:
[1] 4:5 Lit. from the world
[2] 4:10 Other mss. read we loved
Energion Roundtable Week 11 Libya and the role of the US in the world
This week’s Energion Roundtable question with Bob Cornwall, Arthur Sido, Allan R. Bevere, Joel Watts, and myself is:
One of the major news stories of the last couple of weeks has been the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya and the deaths of the ambassador and three other people there. In response, some have suggested that America is portraying weakness in the Middle East (and elsewhere) and that we need to maintain a strong military, or increase what we now have, and take a stronger stand against regimes and terrorist groups that oppose our policies and/or our interests.
As a Christian and an American, what do you think our approach should be? How does your faith inform your answer to this question?
Related questions: Can a Christian support war in any circumstances? What specific changes in our policy toward various middle eastern countries do you believe would make our diplomatic missions safer? How does our relationship with Israel impact our ability to deal with other issues in the middle east?
While very broad, I will try to address all the parts, though by necessity, only briefly, and thus this may at time be seen somewhat random and disjointed. First off, Libya remains and evolving story, not because of any weakness of the United States or Middle East policy, but because of 1) the turning down of requests for increased security, and instead the reduction of security in the months leading up to the attack. 2) The repeated attempts of various members of the administration, including Clinton, and the President to blame this on a video long after it was known that there was no demonstration and that this was a terrorist attack. This even resulted in the film maker being jailed. 3) Now it turns out that requests for assistance during the attack were also denied, an attack that lasted 7 hours, even though help was about 1.5 hours away. 4) The administration’s efforts to cover this up and their failure to answer even the most basic questions with anything but “we are investigating.” In short the administration failed before, during, and after the attack. In a best case scenario this was gross incompetence. It was either that, or it was flat out lying, mostly likely both.
Who told the administration this was a video? Why did they push the video for nearly 2 weeks, when it was clear within two hours of the start of the attack that this was a terrorist attack? Why were the forces in the area who could have provided support told to stand down and who gave the order for them to do so? When was the President told and what did he do? (Beside fly off to a fund raiser, that is.)
As for this weeks remaining questions, let me take them somewhat in different order. Concerning a Christian’s support for war in any circumstances, for me it comes down to the question, should we oppose evil if we have the ability to do so? Long story short, I believe yes. Not only should we, but we have a duty to do so.
Now of course there is a lot of unpacking to do in the phrase “oppose evil, if we have the ability to do so.” The standard example would be WWII, but I would also include in this Korea. When one considers the difference between North and South Korea, I think it is pretty easy to say that saving South Korea from the national concentration camp called North Korea was a war worthy of support.
As for our approach to the world, I think it should be guided by the goals of promoting freedom and resisting evil, again with the caveat, of where we are able. The choice of freedom here is important. It is not necessarily democracy. In fact, I think that a blanket support for democracy can at times lead to less freedom, not more, as we are now seeing in places like Turkey and Egypt.
Since WWII the United States has been the leader of the free world and dominant force in the world. Before WWII that role was performed by Great Britain. Like a city with a good police force, we have somewhat forgotten how important this role is. The common refrain is that we cannot be the police force of the world, but if not us, who?
If the United States steps back from this role then who will fill the vacuum? The UN? I don’t think so. In world affairs, there are those who do evil, those who oppose evil, those who oppose those who oppose evil, and those who ignore evil. At best, the UN has functioned more as a shield for those who do evil than anything else, though at times they have been in the role of doing evil themselves. I would want the US to be in the category of those who oppose evil.
Coming back to the Middle East, the problem is not Israel, which by far has the most freedom of any other country in the Middle East. The problem in the Middle East is the same as that which confronts the world: a radical [note the adjective] form of Islam that will not rest until it imposes it particular view of Islam on the entire world, and which most significantly believes that using terror is a perfectly acceptable means of achieving this goal.
One of our biggest problems is to simply call it what it is. The root of this problem go back long before reestablishment of the state of Israel, and it is a problem that is growing worse. As I see it, there are only two ways this is going to get solved. The first and by far the most preferable is an internal reform within Islam, a reform that respects freedom and rejects coercion in general and terrorism in particular. An Islam where there are far more protests over those who kill in the name of Allah, than supposed videos. The second is armed conflict. Unfortunately the latter currently seems more likely.
Finally, concerning the military, I do not believe that we go to war because we are too strong. A strong US military deters aggression in the world the same way that a good police force deters crime. This goes to the heart of the exchange on the Navy between Obama and Romney during the debate.
Contrary to the false claims of fact checkers, Romney was actually correct in his claims on the number of ships (yet another reason fact checkers now need fact checkers). As even the fact checkers admitted “It is true that the number of ships in the U.S. fleet is now lower than the 1917 level. But that has been true since 1999.”
Still the real issue is not 1917, but what is our need today, which was Romney’s main point. The Quadrennial Defense Review said that we should have 346 ships to do the mission the nation have given the Navy. The Navy, realizing the situation, said they could get by with 313, which has recently been reduced yet again to 300. Yet we only have about 287 and we look headed to 250. As Robert Kaplan put it well before the debate, “There is a big difference between a 346-ship US navy and a 250-ship navy – the difference between one kind of world order and another.”
Do we want a stable world that encourages peace, free trade and commerce? I would say yes, and a strong U.S. military makes this far more likely.
Energion Roundtable Week 10 Responses
This week’s Energion Roundtable question concerned education, and like last week there was considerable agreement among the responses from Arthur Sido, Bob Cornwall,, Joel Watts and myself.
But while there were large areas of agreement there were some key difference. One place I disagreed with Cornwall, was with his statement that, “It will take money, good teachers, parents who care about the future of their children, and young people who have a desire to learn and grow.”
Now at first blush it might seem that there is little to disagree with here. However I would argue that we already spend more than enough money and that there are plenty of good teachers and concerned parents. As for young people “who have a desire to learn and grow,” this strikes me as putting the cart before the horse. Young people are, well, children. It is part of the job of parents and teachers to instill this desire, and quite frankly, to push them when they would rather do other things.
One of the problems is that the system often gets in the way of teachers and parents. Just look at the waiting lists and lotteries for charter schools. We need to encourage such choice and opportunities. The flip side of this is that teachers unions often make it virtually impossible to get rid of bad teachers. What is really needed is not more money, but structural reforms that free up parent and good teachers, while removing the bad teachers.
Not too surprisingly, Sido and Watts were at opposite ends of the question on the role of the Federal Government. Sido wrote, “that there is no Constitutional role for the Federal government in compulsory public education.” Watts, on the other hand, wrote, “given the disparate needs of the country, the Federal Government is about the only way to ensure a decent educational system.”
Now I disagree with Watts that the Federal government is the only way. This is only true if you seek a system based on command and control. But if instead you have a system based on choice and competition, i.e., a bottom up approach, the role of Federal government is much less obvious. While this may not get to Sido’s goal of no Federal role, it would greatly limit any Federal role. This is because there is very little that can be done by the Federal government without stifling choice and competition.
Still, there is another issue here. The problem with many failing schools is often not so much the schools themselves, but rather the schools are just a sign of a much greater cultural problem. Failing schools are a symptom of failing neighborhoods, which is itself a symptom of the breakdown of the family. It is just a truism that what you subsidize you get more of, and what you tax you get less of. Yet in a grand social experiment government has for 50 year tried to ignore this basic principle of economics, with sadly very predicable responses.
George Gilder, in fact, was one who did predict it in his books Men and Marriage (originally published in 1975 as Sexual Suicide) and his Wealth and Poverty, which sold over a million copies and has just been updated for the 21st century. Gilder summed up the attacks on the family from government as requiring a welfare state to take care of the women and children, and a police state to deal with boys growing up without solid male role models. This pretty close to what we find in many inner cities were such government programs have had the most effect. It may not be politically correct to say so, but the problem of failing schools will never be dealt with until we deal with the issue of failing families.
