Three Phrases that (Don't) Mean the Same Thing

I spend a lot of time in this blog writing about the Kingdom of God. As I've mentioned before, the Kingdom of God is a central concept in Christian thought. Unfortunately, most Christians don't spend a lot of time thinking about the Kingdom of God.

Most Christians, at least in America, assume that the phrase "Kingdom of God" simply refers to people who are Christian and/or the place where Christians will go when they die.

Evangelicals spend a lot of time talking about whether or not someone is "saved", "truly Christian", or less commonly, "in the Kingdom". They tend to use the terms interchangeably, as though they meant the same thing. I believe that the reality is more complex than most Christians realize.

First, let us consider what we mean when we say that someone is a Christian. Most people would agree that a Christian is someone who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he was crucified, that he was raised again, and that, through his death, he made peace between God and man.

That's the gist of it. Some people would define it a little differently, but at the end of the day Christianity is a belief system. Whether or not someone is a Christian is based on what they believe.

I've talked before about how religion relates to the Kingdom of God. I agree that religious beliefs do matter; that believing in Jesus and his work on the cross is an important piece of the puzzle. I just don't think it's the whole picture.

There is so much more to God's Kingdom than simply having the right beliefs. If we want to see God's Kingdom come, we must also concern ourselves with love, justice, mercy and forgiveness. There are many misguided Christians out there who actively work against God's Kingdom. At the same time many people who aren't Christian are, without being aware of it, actually helping to build God's Kingdom.

Next, I want to think about what we mean when we say that someone is "saved". Most Evangelicals use this term to refer to the final judgement. A person who is "saved" will not be condemned, but instead they will receive eternal life.

This idea is also related to the Kingdom of God, although in a different way. This question is concerned with who will inherit God's Kingdom.

In the present age, there are many people working to build God's Kingdom, but the work is far from finished. Most of the time our world can be a terribly cruel and unjust place. We try to make things better, but the task is so daunting that it can often seem overwhelming.

The Bible looks forward to a time when God's Kingdom will be fully established; when love, justice, mercy and forgiveness will be the rule rather than the exception; when everyone will be able to experience peace and joy in God's Holy presence.

The question is, who will inherit this Kingdom? Once the work is finished, who will be allowed in, to enjoy the blessings of the Kingdom? This is a difficult question, and not one that I am comfortable answering. It is not my place to say who will be let in and who will be kept out. That is for God to decide.

I feel confident saying that people who are Christian, and who are working to build God's Kingdom, will enter into God's Kingdom as long as they remain faithful till the end. Beyond that, I do not know. I suspect that God may decide to expand the guest list quite a bit, and I think that there will be more than a few surprises when the time comes.

So in the end I can't be certain what will happen, or who will be in or out, but I trust that God will judge fairly. I believe he will show mercy to everyone who asks him, and that he will be found by everyone who seeks him.

TGD: Chapter Three - Birth or Resurrection?

The next section of Dawkins book deals with the argument from scripture. Specifically, he deals with the argument that the New Testament provides historical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God.

He makes the claim that the New Testament is not a valid or reliable source of history. He claims that the New Testament was written a long time after Jesus lived, that it was copied by scribes many times, that it contradicts the historical record, that it contradicts itself, and that its authors all had an agenda that colored their writing.

Dawkins uses the stories about the birth of Jesus as an example to prove his point. He points out the difference between the accounts in Luke and Matthew, and he points out the historical problems with the account in Luke.

There are problems with the accounts of Jesus' birth, but, from an historical standpoint, that is the least reliable part of the gospel story. The gospels were written by followers of Jesus. Jesus' first followers witnessed Jesus' ministry, death and resurrection, but none of them witnessed Jesus' birth. At best, Luke and Matthew were relying on second or third hand accounts of an event that happened almost a hundred years ago.

On the other hand, the accounts of Jesus' ministry are first or second hand accounts of events that happened fifty to seventy years ago. It's reasonable to assume that the accounts of Jesus' life or ministry are much more accurate than the accounts of Jesus' birth.

Moreover, while the doctrine of the virgin birth is important, it's not nearly as important to the Christian faith as the resurrection. The claim that Jesus was raised from the dead is the central truth claim of the Christian faith. We can see this, because nearly every book in the New Testament refers to Jesus' resurrection.

Unfortunately, Dawkins doesn't directly address the issue of whether or not Jesus rose from the dead. Instead he isolates the weakest part of the Biblical narrative and criticizes it. Then he implies that the whole story is equally unreliable.

The problem with Dawkins' argument is that the whole story isn't equally unreliable. Next week I will present the case that Jesus of Nazareth did, in fact, rise from the dead. I hope that you'll come back for that.

Grace and Social Justice

I read this post on Internet Monk awhile back. He writes that the beatitudes are pronouncements of grace. He says that Jesus is announcing God's undeserved love to the mourners, the poor, the meek, the hungry, and so on. This interpretation differs from my own understanding, but since I read it, I've been thinking about it. I think Chaplain Mike may be on to something.

Let me start by giving you my own understanding. I believe that this passage speaks primarily to issues of injustice. It speaks to people who seek justice in the world or who suffer from injustice. Jesus is saying that they are blessed because they will see God's justice.

When I first read that the beatitudes are pronouncements of grace, it seemed strange to me. It seemed out of place, like he was reading Paul's ideas into the words of Jesus. As I thought about it some more, I started to think about the role of grace in God's justice. I began to realize that grace is really important to understanding God's justice.

Grace, as I have written before, is God's undeserved mercy. It is the love and kindness that he shows to everyone, whether they deserve it or not. It is this love that gives justice it's true shape.

Think about what justice looks like among people. How often do we see a person begging for money? How do we respond? How do we justify our response?

First of all, most people, and I'm included in this group, don't give money to beggars. And how do we justify that decision? We think to ourselves, "She's just a scam artist," or, "He'll just spend it all on drugs." We tell ourselves that they don't deserve our help.

A similar thing happens when we consider programs aimed at helping the poor. We wonder if our tax dollars might be better spent elsewhere. We worry that the poor will become dependent on government handouts; that they won't learn to work or provide for themselves. Once again, we don't believe that they deserve it.

The beauty of God's grace is that it cuts through all of these arguments. God's justice is about loving people and providing for them, whether or not they deserve it or even need it. This is what God's justice looks like.

I'm grateful that Chaplain Mike helped me to see the purpose of God's grace in the midst of it.

The Twisted Story

I'm sure that all of you have heard the gospel at some point. The story is very well known in the Western world. It is so commonly heard and so often repeated that it just becomes part of the background noise after awhile.

Moreover, the gospel, the Christian message, has been at the center of European culture for 1600 years now. The story is so widespread and has become so common that almost everyone has heard it, but we rarely stop to think about what a strange story it is. The story seems normal to us, because we've heard it so often in so many different forms. Though we've often heard it described as, "The Greatest Story Ever Told," it might be more accurate to say that it is the most twisted story ever told.

It is a story of the God who made everything. The God who made everything created people in his image to govern the earth for him. But people turned away from God. They lost their privileged status and fell under a curse. The world, which was once perfectly good, began to turn against them.

This is just the setup. This is the part people frequently object to, but this isn't the part that's twisted. The twisted part comes next.

God decided to set things right again. He sent a person who will be good, who won't turn away from him, to be his representative and to make peace between himself and humanity. This person led a good life. He gathered some followers and taught them how to lead a good life. Unfortunately, a lot of people with political and religious clout didn't like this person, so they conspired to have him killed.

Now, here comes the twisted part. God allowed it. He let the people in charge kill his representative. God's representative went along with this plan and even forgave the people who killed him.

Finally, it is revealed that this was God's plan all along, to allow his chosen representative to die, despite the fact that he did nothing wrong. His death acts as a sacrifice, the good person is punished instead of the people who actually deserve it. Then the good person is brought back to life, and he promises that the people who follow him will be brought back to life as well.

What do you think. Is the gospel story really as twisted as I've made it out to be? If it is, why do you think Christians made such a bizarre story central to their faith? Finally, how did such a bizarre story become the dominant story in the Western world?

The Upside-Down Cross

Lies have an interesting way of revealing the truth.

Confused? I'll explain.

When a lie spreads through a large group of people, it often reveals a lot about what those people really believe. As an example, I'll talk about a lie that is pervasive through large sections of the American evangelical church.

The lie is this: the peace sign is actually the sign of Nero; a broken, upside-down cross.

In actuality, the peace sign is based on the semaphore signals for N and D, which stand for "Nuclear Disarmament".

What does this lie reveal about the American evangelical church? First, the obvious, it reveals the conservative nature of American evangelicalism. It reveals how deeply rooted their opposition to liberal politics is. They have no problem believing that the peace sign, a common symbol of the anti-war movement in the 60's and 70's, as actually the symbol of the most hated persecutor of Christianity in history.

But it also reveals something else. It reveals that they believe that the message of the cross is diametrically opposed to the message of peace.

So we see that the lie reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about the meaning of the cross. The message of the cross is fundamentally a message of peace. Peace, first of all, between God and humanity, and secondarily, peace among men. (If you don't believe me, consider what Paul said about Jesus.)

Of course, the lie is even more revealing than that. Why would conservative evangelicals feel the need to slander peace activists like this?

The answer is simple, if they don't, then their congregations might consider the fact that Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." They might consider the fact that the call for nuclear disarmament sounds a lot like Jesus' call to turn the other cheek. In other words, they use this lie to make sure that their followers' eyes remain blind to the truth.

The truth is that there is another symbol, one that is easily recognizable, which more accurately fits the label of "upside-down cross". That symbol is the crusader's sword.

First of all, cruciform swords, when held upright, bear a clear resemblance to an upside-down cross. More importantly, however, the crusaders inverted the message of Christ. They took a message of peace of love and used it as a justification for violence and bloodshed. When they drew their swords, they turned the cross upside down, both literally and metaphorically.

This perversion is still alive and well in the church. Men spread the lie that the peace sign is an upside-down cross to obscure the fact that they themselves have turned the cross upside-down. In the words of Greg Boyd, they have fused the cross and the sword.

In my experience, nothing combats a lie more effectively than the truth. If you hear someone calling the peace sign an upside-down cross, please correct them. Also, consider telling people about the true upside-down cross.

Forgiving Homosexuals

Background: On the internetMonk there was a discussion about whether or not the author should review "Jesus Freak: Feeding, Healing, Raising the Dead". The issue: the author of the book is in a same sex relationship. I commented that if we decide not to review this book, based only on the author's sexual orientation, then we're saying that Jesus' forgiveness only goes so far. In response someone asked the question, "Has she asked for forgiveness?" Below is my answer to that question.

Also, I wrote this post under the assumption that homosexuality is a sin. In fact I'm not entirely convinced that it is a sin, but I was hoping to convince Christians who do believe that it is a sin.

I assume she has asked for forgiveness, since she identifies as Christian. I imagine that she has confessed that she is a sinner in need of God's forgiveness, and that she has asked for God's forgiveness for her sins.

Obviously she is a practicing homosexual. I can think of a few ways these things can be reconciled.

First, she might not believe that homosexuality is a sin. Does this disqualify her? Does this mean she isn't saved? I don't believe so. I don't think we need to be fully aware of all our sins in order to be forgiven. The important thing is that she has asked for forgiveness.

As an example, Leviticus says that eating shellfish is a sin. I assume (based mainly on Paul's letters) that the law against eating shellfish does not apply to gentile believers. In fact, I'm a big fan of eating shellfish. However, even if I'm wrong I'm not worried. I believe that Jesus will forgive me for sinning in ignorance. I believe that Jesus has forgiven me for the sins that I have committed unawares.

Second, she might know that it is a sin, but be unwilling to repent. This is more complicated. I think of the words of Saint Augustine who prayed, "Lord, give me chastity and constancy, but not yet." I believe that a person in this situation is still saved, although they are deeply conflicted. There is a danger that someone in this position might give up the struggle. They might choose to reject Jesus' forgiveness. However, if they persist they will certainly be saved.

Third, she might accept that homosexuality is a sin and believe that Jesus forgives even unrepentant sinners. This position seems a little shaky, although, wasn't it Luther who said, "Sin boldly, believe more boldly still"? This is a tough question, and I'm not sure what I think about this position.

On the one hand, it seems like she should give up her sin in order to follow Jesus. On the other hand, she is being obedient to God in other ways. So we see her obedience clearly isn't perfect, but then we must ask ourselves, who is perfectly obedient? I can only think of Jesus, who said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

In conclusion, I want to say that, as sins go, homosexuality is often unfairly targeted. Most men in the church struggle with an addiction to pornography. Many American Christians sin by bearing false witness. I personally struggle with anger, as do many other Christians. When Christians struggle with these sins, we rarely ask, "Is this person saved?" even if the person is clearly unrepentant. We have more patience for these sins than we do for homosexuality.

I wonder what would happen if we treated all these sins the same as we treated homosexuality? One thing is certain: we wouldn't have nearly as many sinners in church.

Religion and the Kingdom of God

I've mentioned before that I'm a fan of internetmonk.com. It is a blog that I would recommend to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the gospel and the Christian faith. Sadly, this past Easter the author, Michael Spencer, passed away. I'm not going to write a tribute to him. Many other people have already written wonderful tributes to him. Still, today I'm going to be referring to a topic he wrote quite a lot about: the coming evangelical collapse. If you're interested in what I write about it here you might want to check out his posts on the subject.

A while back I wrote about the Kingdom of God. I explained that Christians have many different ideas about what the Kingdom of God actually is. One of the more common ideas is that the Kingdom of God is a specific religious group. Today I would like to talk about religion and how it relates to the Kingdom of God.

My thoughts in this area are strongly influenced by the Internet Monk, Michael Spencer. In his blog, which is subtitled, journeys through the post evangelical wilderness, he wrote about the coming evangelical collapse. He believed that American Evangelical Christianity was headed into a period of decline, and that it wouldn't be recovering anytime soon.

What is Evangelical Christianity? The best definition I can give is that an Evangelical Christian is someone who believes that the only thing that a person needs to enter God's Kingdom is to believe that Jesus Christ died to pay for their sins and that he rose again three days later. As a whole, I see the Evangelical movement as a poster-child for the idea that the Kingdom of God is purely a matter of having the correct religious beliefs.

I also believe that the movement is headed towards collapse. Even though I'm an Evangelical myself (as is Michael Spencer) I don't have much hope for the movement.

Why is that? I think there's a lesson from church history that will help us to understand.

In the middle of the first Century, Jesus' followers faced a crisis related to religion. All of Jesus' early followers were Jewish. Jesus himself was Jewish and during his life he preached almost exclusively to Jews. However, after Jesus ascended into heaven a funny thing began to happen. Through the work of the Holy Spirit a large number of gentiles (i.e. non Jews) began to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. By about 55 A.D. the gentile believers began to outnumber the Jewish believers.

Early on people asked the question, do these gentiles need to convert to Judaism? At first the answer seemed obvious, of course they do. Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. His first followers were all Jewish. Obviously anyone else who wanted to follow Jesus would have to be Jewish as well. Specifically, the would have to be circumcised, keep the sabbath and eat kosher foods.

However, as the movement expanded, and more and more gentiles joined in, the answer started to change. People began to notice that God's Spirit was at work among the gentiles just as it was among the Jews. Many people clung to the idea that the gentile believers should convert to Judaism, but others noticed that God didn't seem to care. They thought to themselves, if God doesn't discriminate between Jews and gentiles, why should we? If God accepts these people as they are, who are we to push them away?

In the end it was decided that gentiles didn't have to convert to Judaism in order to follow Jesus. This decision blew open the doors of the church. For the first time, God's Kingdom was available to anybody.

It's easy to say that that was a different time. One could claim that the first century was a unique period in Christian history, but I disagree. In fact, I think that twenty-first century Evangelicals could learn a lesson from these first century followers of Jesus. I think we need to learn a lesson about how to accept people who are different: people from different cultures and backgrounds, people of different ethnicities, people who speak different languages, and even people with different religious beliefs. None of these things can prevent people from entering the Kingdom of God.

Does this mean I'm abandoning the gospel? Am I saying that it doesn't matter that Jesus died for us, or that he was resurrected? Of course not. In fact, it is because of Jesus' death and resurrection that I can say, with confidence, that no one is excluded.

When Paul was explaining the gospel to the Ephesians he told them that when Jesus was crucified he put to death the wall of hostility between Jews and gentiles. Did Jesus give his life to put an end to the barrier between Jews and gentiles, only to create a new barrier between Christians and non-Christians? Did Jesus' death on the cross bring reconciliation for all humanity, or did it merely move the goal posts?

The problem with the Evangelical church isn't that they focus on the gospel. The problem is in how they preach the gospel. The Evangelical gospel is somewhat limited. Most Evangelicals only talk about how Jesus forgave our sins. They don't talk about how Jesus reconciled us with God and with each other. They don't talk about how Jesus frees us from oppression. They don't talk about how Jesus heals our disease and gives us victory over death. If they do talk about those things, it is always secondary to the forgiveness of sins.

This focus on sin creates a barrier. Since the focus is on the forgiveness of sins, they usually start out by telling people that they're sinners. Most of the time, this drives people away.

Some Evangelicals realize that this is poor salesmanship, so they try to spin the message so that it doesn't sound so bad, but the problem is more fundamental than that. The problem is that they're preaching a message of exclusion and the gospel is a message of inclusion. The gospel is an invitation, not a threat. If the Evangelical church can wrap its head around that idea, then it will realize that the coming collapse isn't such a bad thing after all. If it takes this idea to heart, the collapse might be avoided altogether.

TGD: Chapter Two - On the Character of God

Chapter Two of "The God Delusion" begins with the following sentence: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." Today's post is going to be a response to this one sentence. Now, I don't pan on walking through the rest of the book one sentence at a time, however, since I worship the God whom Dawkins is slandering, it seems only fair that I should offer a rebuttal.

I'll start by responding to the most egregiously false accusations.

On the top of that list would be the claim that the God of the Old Testament is unforgiving. This is simply not true. Throughout the Old Testament we see God forgiving people. He repeatedly forgives the nations of Israel and Judah, in the book of Jonah he forgave the entire city of Nineveh, which was the capital of one of the most notoriously bloodthirsty empires in the ancient world, and he famously forgave King David when he committed both murder and adultery. Those are just a few examples.

What's more, whenever God does punish people, it's almost always after he has been patient and forgiving over an extended period of time. He waited four hundred years to punish the Amorites for, among other things, ritually sacrificing infants. If anything, the God of the Old Testament is forgiving to a fault.

Then there's the accusation that God is filicidal. I will freely admit that I had to look this one up. Filicide is the act of killing one's own son or daughter. Presumably this refers to the crucifixion of Jesus. That doesn't happen in the Old Testament, but we'll ignore that for now.

First of all, Jesus was a grown adult who went willingly to his death. More importantly, God wasn't the one who killed him. Finally, as John Cleese might say, he got better.

(If we assume he's sticking to the Old Testament, this could be referring to the book of Exodus, in which God calls the Jewish people his firstborn son. The main problem with this theory is that the Jewish people are still alive and well.)

The accusation that God is megalomaniacal is more humorous than anything else. The God of the Old Testament made the whole universe out of nothing and Dawkins is accusing him of having delusions of grandeur. To what great heights could a delusional, omnipotent deity aspire to? Does he take a break from ruling the heavens and the earth so he can pretend to be the King of Scotland? Does the one who formed a human being out of dirt like to pretend that he invented the sandwich? In the preface to the paperback edition, Dawkins said that he wanted this sentence to come across as humorous*. This is one place where I think he succeeded admirably, although not as he intended.

The claim that God is racist presumably refers to how God treats the Jewish people compared with everyone else. It's true that God had a special arrangement with the nation of Israel, but that arrangement does not include special treatment. The Old Testament makes it clear that God cares for the nations surrounding Israel, just like he cares for Israel. In fact, as part of their special arrangement, the Israelites have an obligation to be a blessing to the nations around them. God's treaty with Israel isn't about God loving Israel more than everyone else. It's about God wanting Israel to be a blessing to everyone else, which is more like the opposite of racism.

Of all the accusations that Mr. Dawkins makes against God, the one that is the most accurate is that God is jealous. God is jealously protective of the Jewish people. He wants them to stay faithful to the promise that they had made to serve him. Even though they repeatedly break that promise, God keeps his promise and remains faithful to them. God becomes jealous, but he does not abandon him. In my mind, that is one of God's best qualities. He stays faithful to his people, even when they cause him pain.

The last accusation that I'm going to address directly is that God is unjust. In many ways that one word sums up the whole sentence. The central point being made is that God's reign of the earth, as described in the Old Testament, is unjust.

The question is to big for me to provide anything close to a thorough answer. Instead I will do my best to present, in brief, what the Old Testament has to say on the subject.

In the beginning, God made everything good. Humanity lived in paradise with God and God provided them with everything they would ever need. God gave them only one rule and it was easy to obey. Things fell apart when humanity broke that law. God punishes humanity in order to restore justice, and God promises to fix what is broken.

This is the basic pattern of Genesis 1-3, and it forms a template that recurs over and over again throughout scripture. The template goes something like this: 1) God does something good for an individual or a group of people, 2) sooner or later that individual or group does something evil, 3) God responds to the evil that has been done and 4) God promises to one day get rid of evil and replace it with good. Of all these steps, step 3 is the most flexible. In some cases it seems to be missing (in these cases God is being patient and forgiving). In other cases, God asks the person to make a sacrifice before forgiving the sin. Very rarely, God refuses to forgive the sin and punishes the person for what they have done. As I said above that last option almost always happens after God has already shown an incredible amount of patience and forgiveness.

When people question God's justice they concentrate on steps 2 and 3. They question why God regards certain actions as evil; they question whether or not the people who committed evil were truly responsible for their actions; they question the methods God uses to punish people; they question God's decision to forgive in some cases and not in other cases.

But the claim that God is just does not depend primarily on steps 2 and 3. The books of Ecclesiastes and Job openly acknowledge that how God punishes evil, or fails to punish evil, can seem very unjust at times. Instead, the claim that God is just depends on steps 1 and 4. God is just because in the beginning he made everything good and in the end he will make everything good again. Moreover he has promised us that we will be included in that future where everything is restored, even though we sometimes do evil. That is why I can say with confidence that God is, indeed, just.

This was a bit of a dense post. If there's something you don't agree with, or something that doesn't make sense, feel free to post it in the comments. I look forward to reading them. Thank you.

* In the preface, Dawkins was responding to critics who complained that his writing was too shrill. The above sentence was the example most often given. Dawkins wrote, "It is not for me to say whether I succeeded, but my intention was closer to robust but humorous broadside than shrill polemic." I will say that I think the sentence failed to be humorous, if only because the idea is so unoriginal. As for the broadside, I think it missed its mark. Most of the shots are wildly off course, as I have already shown.

Evangelism

As far as words go, evangelism has a pretty bad reputation. For many it is a source of fear, shame, embarrassment and awkwardness. In my case the word brings up feelings of anxiety, nervousness and even a slight amount of dread. Why does the word evangelism bring up such strong negative emotions in people.

Before I answer that, I'd like to talk about what exactly evangelism is. Evangelism is sharing the good news about what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. The hope is that the people hearing the good news might come to believe in Jesus.

Of course, not everyone who hears the good news believes in it. Many Christians feel that it is their obligation, when sharing the good news, to convince as many people as possible. Their evangelism starts to turn into a debate or a sales pitch as they attempt to win over as many people as possible.

This leads to pushy evangelism strategies that create so many of the awkward moments that evangelism is famous for.

The truth is that I've been guilty of this as well. On more than a few occasions I've entered into debates with people who don't believe in Jesus in a futile attempt to persuade them.

The question is, why do we do it? Why do we push so hard to convince people to believe in something that they just don't agree with?

In my case I do it because I don't trust God.

Let me explain myself. I came to believe in God because he was very patient with me and very generous toward me. He waited patiently until I was ready to believe that Jesus was the risen Son of God who died so that we might have peace with God.

I came to believe in God not because I was very smart or because I was a great person. I believed because God loved me. God loved me because I needed it, not because I had earned it.

This unasked for, unearned and unconditional love of God is what Christians call grace.

Here's the problem. I know that God has acted this way toward me, but for some stupid reason I don't believe that he will treat everyone else the same. I run into trouble when I start to think that God, the same God who showed me an incredible degree of kindness, goodness, patience and gentleness, will turn around and be cruel, wicked, impatient and harsh to everyone else.

Certainly that is not the case. God is the same now as he was then. The God who had grace enough for me will have grace enough for those who come after me. I didn't believe the good news the first hundred times I heard it. God didn't hold it against me, and he won't hold it against the people I choose to share the good news with.

Knowing that, I know that I don't need to put pressure on people. I don't need to twist their arm to get them to agree with me. I'm free to wait for an appropriate time and place, let people know about Jesus, and, unless they want to know more, I can shut up afterward. It's much less awkward for everyone involved.

The Gospel

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that all who believe in him would not die, but would have eternal life." It is an ancient story and it is one that I'm sure you've heard many times before. Even so I'm going to tell it again here because the best stories deserve repeating.

This story in particular deserves repeating because it isn't always clear that God loves us. Often times it can seem that the opposite is the case. When our luck runs out, when tragedy strikes, or when everything seems to be falling apart we can come to believe that God is against us. That God has nothing but evil intentions toward us.

But throughout history God has sent messengers to let people know that he is watching over them and that he is concerned for them. And at just the right moment in history God himself came down to earth and visited us.

He came as a human being so that he could experience everything we experience whether good or bad. He did this to show that he is not unconcerned with our struggles. Indeed God has experienced our struggles and made them his own.

Indeed this man even suffred and died just as mortal men do, to show that God is with us even in the depth of our pain.

And if the story had ended there it would have been a fine story. A tragic tale of a God who really cared for his people. A God who lived among them in good times and in bad times. A God who even went to the grave with them.

But the story does not end there. For the man who was God came back from the dead. By doing this he showed the whole world that humanity has a future. He showed everyone that God is for humanity. That his plan for humanity isn't limited to this mortal life.

His plan for humanity includes teaching people how to love each other. It includes healing our diseases and our infirmities. It includes freeing us from oppression. It includes taking away all of our guilt and our shame and showing us how to live with honor and integrity.

His plan includes an end to war, an end to strife and the beginnings of real peace.

This is the gift that God has offered to everyone, without exception. This is the gift given to everyone who trusts him. This is the good news.