I have been struggling the concept of demon possession. Great, another wacko pastor-type! That is the reaction I most fear when I dare to think about this. But here is the problem.
Tomorrow I preach about Jesus binding, silencing, and casting out demons-then equipping his disciples to do the same. And now, tonight, God has cast the verse from 1 Corinthians 12:3, "Nobody can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit." And it connected for me. I understand what Paul is saying. Anyone can mouth the words "Jesus is Lord", to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit, to be truly accepting of Jesus in our hearts, to be truly in God's hands, is when those words truly carry meaning in our own lives.
Paul is fairly consistent with this concept of Holy Spirit-possession, when he talks about doing the things he does not want to do and not doing the things he wants to do. I recognize that enough in my own life. Tying back to Holy Spirit-possession, we begin a journey under that power of turning our lives over to God, of being able to live more in the love of Christ than in the life of sin we came out of.
All that is pretty sound, orthodox 'life in Christ' kind of stuff. But what about the flip side of it? Possession by Spirits that aren't so holy? Now this is a very dangerous topic, because addiction was for a very long time attributed in many instances to demon possession. Depression, bipolar disorder, how many other medical conditions have led to people being treated in cruel and vicious ways in the name of liberating them from demons?
And we are free, responsible beings, responsible for our own decisions and choices. But there is something in the middle there, something I cannot scientifically prove, but something I have seen in my own experience (so-called anecdotal evidence) of people exhibiting self-destructive, sinful, or destructive behavior with what I can only describe as addictive tendencies in ways that I cannot explain.
"The devil made me do it" is no excuse, never has been. Using that excuse undercuts the power of the Holy Spirit. But our lives contain conflicts that, I believe, rise above what we can simply see with our eyes and hear with our ears. But it is a power that runs in both directions, for good, and for ill. And as the Holy Spirit is the author of the good, it will always be victorious.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Why "Oliver Twist" Makes A Lot of Sense
I've been listening to Oliver Twist on audio. I think it has a lot to say about our Foster Care system today. Indentured apprenticeship, church-run workhouses, providing for the poor, but not so much that they can have any fun at all... And yet today, we would call Oliver Twist a social commentary.
Yet there was nothing there that runs contrary to Holy Scripture. The bible does not condemn indentured apprenticeships for children as young as 9-though in the bible that would all under the category of "slavery". The bible, in fact, does not condemn child labor either-the father was the head of the household and everyone fell into place...or else. David was 12 (by interpretive extension) when he was in a life threatening occupation of sheep-herding, taking on lions and tigers and bears...oh my... Okay, truth be told, no tiger is recorded in Scripture.
Yes, we founght a war about it in this country, yes, the bloodiest conflict on U.S. soil, yes, slavery is officially banned in this kinder, gentler world. And no, I am not willing to demonstrate in my own life how it might be something to reconsider. But when you take these culturally run structures, when you take the support or condemnation of Holy Scripture, you can make convincing arguments why bad things are good for us.
The thing about slavery is that our choices about whether or not to have slavery were never made by the slaves themselves. People who were not slaves, would never be slaves because of the color of their skin, people of a cultural class who had the capacity to own slaves, they were the ones whose moral compasses pointed them for or against this horrid condition on behalf of those people who were enslaved, or freed from enslavement.
And here we are again, arguing about homosexuality. We who are "free of that condition" are arguing over the fate of those who have "chosen that condition" as it pertains to Scripture and it pertains to the church. And because the interpretation of Holy Scripture is to condemn homosexuality, the conclusion is that people must choose to be homosexual, because God would not condemn his own creation, because God would not condemn homosexuality if that were the "way God made us".
And the trouble on the other side is if support of homosexuality is the theological position of the church, an intentional biblical "set aside" apparently must occur. And we act like we have never done this before.
But if we are just operating on the "plain reading" of Scripture, we have been operating on this "set aside" notion for generations. Slavery, women's inequality, racial inequality, all of these have been successfully argued from the "plain reading" of Scripture. And they have been overturned because there is a more fundamental law running all the way through God's Word.
That is the Law of Love, which transcends cultural and historic circumstances, which transcends legal niceties and moral categories, to go back to that most fundamental relationship of God and us, God's creation. it is what Jesus died for. It is what the Holy Spirit was sent for. It has guided our understanding of God's Word for two millenia. It allows us to live in tension with some very interesting and oddball points of view found in the bible.
And it needs to speak to us again today.
Yet there was nothing there that runs contrary to Holy Scripture. The bible does not condemn indentured apprenticeships for children as young as 9-though in the bible that would all under the category of "slavery". The bible, in fact, does not condemn child labor either-the father was the head of the household and everyone fell into place...or else. David was 12 (by interpretive extension) when he was in a life threatening occupation of sheep-herding, taking on lions and tigers and bears...oh my... Okay, truth be told, no tiger is recorded in Scripture.
Yes, we founght a war about it in this country, yes, the bloodiest conflict on U.S. soil, yes, slavery is officially banned in this kinder, gentler world. And no, I am not willing to demonstrate in my own life how it might be something to reconsider. But when you take these culturally run structures, when you take the support or condemnation of Holy Scripture, you can make convincing arguments why bad things are good for us.
The thing about slavery is that our choices about whether or not to have slavery were never made by the slaves themselves. People who were not slaves, would never be slaves because of the color of their skin, people of a cultural class who had the capacity to own slaves, they were the ones whose moral compasses pointed them for or against this horrid condition on behalf of those people who were enslaved, or freed from enslavement.
And here we are again, arguing about homosexuality. We who are "free of that condition" are arguing over the fate of those who have "chosen that condition" as it pertains to Scripture and it pertains to the church. And because the interpretation of Holy Scripture is to condemn homosexuality, the conclusion is that people must choose to be homosexual, because God would not condemn his own creation, because God would not condemn homosexuality if that were the "way God made us".
And the trouble on the other side is if support of homosexuality is the theological position of the church, an intentional biblical "set aside" apparently must occur. And we act like we have never done this before.
But if we are just operating on the "plain reading" of Scripture, we have been operating on this "set aside" notion for generations. Slavery, women's inequality, racial inequality, all of these have been successfully argued from the "plain reading" of Scripture. And they have been overturned because there is a more fundamental law running all the way through God's Word.
That is the Law of Love, which transcends cultural and historic circumstances, which transcends legal niceties and moral categories, to go back to that most fundamental relationship of God and us, God's creation. it is what Jesus died for. It is what the Holy Spirit was sent for. It has guided our understanding of God's Word for two millenia. It allows us to live in tension with some very interesting and oddball points of view found in the bible.
And it needs to speak to us again today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)