Indagatio Veri

We tend to project our experience of justice, revenge, and anger onto the face of God. His wrath, we decide, must look and feel like our wrath. His justice must be carried out of the constructs of right and wrong that we have personally adopted.  In so doing we have blinded ourselves to the goodness of God, and painted Him as a schizophrenic deity that sometimes loves and sometimes hates. God's wrath is other centered, while ours is self-centered. His justice is carried out with love for every individual, while our justice is retributive towards those we hate. Our anger generally revolves around personal or ideological offense; 'how dare they!' It therefore revolves around hate towards individuals or groups, and our sense of justice is rooted in our objectification of others. God is very unlike us in this way. He is love, therefore His wrath and justice need to be understood as an expression of His passionate desire for our freedom and benefit. He is for us, not against us...

It’s the age old question, the heart cry of disappointment, the confusion after unmet expectations, the frustration when facing injustice; what is the meaning of life? Answers to this seem to be as innumerable as sand on the sea shore. People around the globe wonder why we are here, what our purpose is, and what brings fulfillment to life. These deep longings pull at our hearts and lead us to find answers in religion and philosophy. The disappointment and failure to fulfill these longings lead us to search for success, self-actualization, competitive victory, or ideological confidence.   Many decide that life’s meaning is subjective, relative, and individually defined. What do we learn from Jesus about why we are here? Can we find in Him an answer that is relevant to our hearts desire? I think so. The desire for fulfillment is a powerful longing; and although it is where we all begin, it is actually a misguided pursuit.  Desiring fulfillment begins with the belief that th...

The spiritual climate in our country is radically different than it was just a few decades ago. Skepticism, doubt, and differing opinions about God are not new; however, in today’s world we have unprecedented access to these opinions. We are influenced from every angle by multitudes of philosophies, differing world views, and complex social issues. Not too long ago we had limited sources where we gathered information. Today we are growing up with the internet at our fingertips and we are interacting within a more diverse culture. This has led us to be less certain, more conscientious, and more understanding. Thankfully, this gives us the ability to better engage with those around us, and to better understand ourselves. Knowing what we believe about the world, ourselves, and God has never been more challenging or important. Because of the resources we have access to, we have an even greater responsibility then the generations before us to decide what we believe. More options make decisi...

Too often our 'faith' is interpreted as the confidence we have in our understanding of God, or the level of conviction we feel for certain truths. Our sense of security lies in how much ‘sense’ we can make of the gospel, Christianity, or what God wants from us. In reality this is confidence in ourselves, our ability to comprehend, understand, and 'be right'. It is a humanistic perspective in the sense that it starts with us, our experience, comprehension, and ideas. This is extremely problematic, faith cannot be about trusting ourselves. When we define faith in terms of personal conviction or confidence we don’t know what to do when we experience doubt, or when we have more questions than answers. In fact, when dealing with serious questions we will wrongly think we are falling from faith. It is very discouraging that much of the church is trying to bolster this self-centered understanding. Faith in Jesus cannot be faith in ourselves, rather faith in Jesus means to ac...

I by no means have a complete handle on this… God’s wrath in some ways is still a conundrum to me, but more and more I have struggled with the Penal Substitution model of atonement. This theory revolves around the wrath of God being pleased by Jesus dying on the cross. To get started, here are a few verses on God’s wrath in the New Testament. “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.” -Romans 1:18-19 “Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.” -Romans 2:4-5 “Since we have now been justifie...

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." Matthew 16:24 Life would be easier if we let go of our 'rights' and sense of entitlement. When I'm offended by someone, I am really saying, "how dare they treat ME that way." What a self-centered prideful notion. We think we deserve something better, which means we look down on others when the don't recognize us the way we think they should. Entitlement and pride are symptoms of our desire to be validated. We want to be recognized for how we act, feel, or think. In other words we want to be recognized for our performance. This is called legalism, living by the law, or self-justification. I want to be identified by what I do. What would happen if we gave up our right to be treated a certain way? What if we stopped paying attention to how other people treat us, demanding them to treat us by some sort of 'ri...

Sometimes there seems to be a thousand different ways to understand the Gospel, what Jesus' mission was, and what it means to be a Christian. I am often confused and frustrated by the multitudes of different opinions and ways of understanding Christianity. Sometimes it makes me doubt, while other times it is just frustrating.  Even in my own life my faith and belief has change and transformed as I have gone through different periods of life, had different experiences, faced different contradictions, and noticed greater complexity in the world around me. I often wonder if my current understanding of the Gospel is correct, both because of the ways I have changed and because of the seemingly endless supply of differing ideas around me. Yet amidst all the different ideologies, understandings, and practices, there is one common denominator across Christianity, one thing that the Christian world revolves around, Jesus. The fact that there are so many ideas, opinions, and understandings...