Quote for the week * Zitat der Woche

The Hebrew word  ‘shalom‘ is often translated in the Bible with perfection, health, well-being, contentment, peace, quiet, tranquillity, good human relationships, friendship with God through the covenant, absence of war and conflict.

Jim Wilder defines it in this way:

Shalom is when everything is in the right relationship, at the right time, in the right place, with the right strength and in the right amount for God and people … and nobody feels a need to change a thing.

***

Das hebräische Wort “Schalom” wird in der Bible oft übersetzt mit Vollkommenheit, Gesundheit, Wohlergehen, Ruhe, Stille, Frieden, Zufriedenheit, gute menschliche Beziehungen, Freundschaft mit Gott durch den Bund, Abwesenheit von Krieg und Konflikt.

Jim Wilder definiert es so:

Schalom bedeutet wenn alles im richtigen Verhältnis ist, zur richtigen Zeit, am richtigen Platz, in der richtigen Stärke und im richtigen Ausmaß für Gott und Menschen … und niemand hat das Bedürfnis, irgendetwas daran zu ändern.

Does God still speak today?

In one of our last Bible studies we discussed another chapter of Tozer’s “The Pursuit of God.“ It was on the spoken word of God.

We read a whole series of verses about God’s word and suddenly I realized that we usually assume that these refer to the Bible, even though most of them do not necessarily say that. It’s so easy to hear “God’s word” and think of “God’s Word” as if it was the only word of God.

This reminded me of a book that I had read two years ago, and it motivated me to do a little summary of what I learned through it. The book is Hearing God, developing a conversational relationship with God, by Dallas Willard (1984)

Willard starts the introduction with a story of his wife’s grandmother: When somebody in her house group mentioned that God had spoken to him, she remarked “I wonder why God never speaks to me like that.” She is in good company. Maybe you have had the same question. Many believers like her have a rich interactive relationship with God but are unfamiliar with God’s voice and the possibility of having a conversational side of a relationship with God.

“Our failure to hear God has its deepest root in a failure to understand, accept and grow into a conversational relationship with God, the sort of relationship suited to friends who are matures personalities in a shared enterprise, no matter how different they may be in other respects” (29)

He defines this conversational relationship as telling God what is in our hearts and hearing and understanding the “still, small voice.”

In the following chapters, Willard treats different aspects of this question, misconceptions and arguments why God cannot, would not, and does not want to speak to people. These arguments are partly influenced by “naturalism,” leading people to believe it is unscientific to think that God speaks.

(If you don’t have time to read a long post, jump to the end of the post for the summary.)

Willard is very clear on the question that the Bible is the primary manner of communication. However, the second way as expressed in Ps 32:8 is guiding us with his eyes. This means an awareness of what the other person is thinking. This is what Willard calls the conversational relationship, an outworking of Jesus living in us and his presence in us (Col 1:27, Gal 2:19-20).

Jesus promised us that we can hear his voice (Jn 10:1-16). One aspect of hearing his voice is to receive guidance. He can use dreams, visions, voices, the Bible, extraordinary events, etc but the most important one is the “still small voice” or “gentle whispering” that Elijah heard. It is easily overlooked and disregarded. It can be audible, or a human voice, or through messengers including angels, but most often we will hear it inside our spirit.

Willard addresses some common misconceptions:

- “a message-a-minute view” – every movement needs to be ordained by God, and people are unable to act without clear guidance from God even for daily tasks.
- “it’s all in the Bible” view – leading to the assumption that we do not need to hear his voice today. He also call this “Bible deism” – similar to the Sadducees, there are those that believe that God stopped speaking, but this is a wrong way of honoring the Bible.

When the Bible refers to the “word of God” without further qualification it usually means God’s speaking, communicating, his thoughts and his mind (Ps 119:89-91). God’s word is powerful and in speaking God created the universe (Gen 1) and through it he rules the kingdom. In the same way that the word of a king is powerful and can have big effects (including heads rolling), the same is even more true for God’s word. This is what the centurion recognized (Mt 8:10) – “just speak a word and it will happen.”

The reality in the kingdom responds to the spoken word! God also gives power and authority to people (e.g. Num 20:8-12). God handed over power to Jesus, and Jesus handed over power to us, “as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you” (Jn 20:21, Mt 10, Lk 9)

There are different degrees of power – sometimes we are called:

- to ask for God to speak a direct word (pray)
- to speak on his behalf (Acts 3:6; 14:10)
- to take action on his behalf (Acts 9:40)

We need to keep in mind that THE word of God is Jesus (Jn 1:10-11).
And the Bible is God’s Word, his written word, and one result of God’s speaking.

Willard makes it very clear that:

“the Bible is the written Word of God, but the word of God is not simply the Bible” (141)

When we examine Bible passages with this in mind, we will discover that

- the Bible is the Word of God in its unique written form
- but the Bible is not Jesus Christ who is the living word
- neither is the Bible the word of God mentioned in many Scriptures passages: e.g. Ps 119:89, Ps 19:1-4; Acts 12:24; Mt 13 – in comparison to 2 Tim 3:15-17 which refers specifically to the ’sacred writings,’ or Scriptures or 1 Pt 1:23-24 where both are mentioned next to each other.

All of these are God’s word, including when we hear from him individually!

God’s word is portrayed in the Bible, and available to every person through the Bible, but it is not limited to it. God uses the Bible to renew our mind, but it is mainly through his speaking to us that we are transformed in a character for whom listening to God’s voice is natural. This is what our union with Christ looks like (Gal 2:20, Phil 1:21).

In chapter 8, Willard provides detailed answers on how to recognize God’s voice. It is a learning process. We need to learn to discern his voice, both while reading the Bible and when listening to the “still small voice” because even Satan can abuse the Bible. In this learning process it is good to have help from others, who have a close relationship with God. But first we need to accept that God does speak, and wants to speak to us, then we can grow in experience and ability to hear his voice.

On the question how to distinguish God’s voice from our subconscious voice, Willard cites E. Stanley Jones who points out that the subconscious voice argues with you, tries to convince you, but the inner voice of God does not argue, it just speaks (175).

When God speaks we can sense the weight of its authority. This is combined with a spirit of peacefulness and confidence, which is similar to the godly wisdom mentioned in James 3:17. We should test it because it has to be consistent with God’s character and the principles of his written word, e.g., fear motivation does not come from God.

It also helps to accept that there is no guarantee for perfection, or infallibility of discerning God’s mind. It is impossible to never be mistaken and nowhere promised, but maintaining a close relationship to the Bible helps. Willard warns us that this is not the same as scholarship.

“Scholarship does not replace experiencing the living voice of God.”

Concerning fear of not being able to discern God’s will: “God is not a mumbling trickster” (191) – when we are willing to listen, he can make himself understood and is able to communicate plainly.

God can direct us mechanically, without speaking, like driving a car or directing a robot, “but when he guides us with conscious cooperation, he speaks to us.” The necessary conditions are:

- our willingness to listen
- asking him to speak
- being still

We should not be anxious if we don’t hear from God, but trust that he gives us a lot of freedom to determine our life, and sometimes he wants us to make our own decisions.

Concerning the “perfect will of God”: when we follow God’s general counsel of his written word, we are right in the middle of God’s perfect will, and if there is any specific word, we should be obedient to it.
Beyond that we have a huge freedom, because God does not always have a specific plan for each moment – “no ideal, detailed life-plan uniquely for each believer.”

Two final thoughts:

- Hearing God does not exclude risks or suffering.
- The greater goal of listening to his voice is to move beyond it to living in the kingdom (211).

Willard summarizes the book with the following steps (213)

A) Foundational steps

- having entered into an additional life by the additional birth, including the commitment to find out more what is morally right and commanded by God
- seeking fullness of the new life in Christ at the impulse of the spirit of God, growing in faith, moving beyond living in our own strength

B) Steps to hearing God

- meditate on God’s principles of life in the Scriptures
- be alert and attentive to what is happening in our life, mind and heart
- pray and speak with God about all matters that concern us
- listen carefully and deliberately for God’s voice
- if God does not speak

o ask him about possible hindrances
o seek counsel from other believers who live in close relationship with God
o correct whatever comes up
o if nothing comes up, act on what seems best to you.

Wednesday without words

Why Western Christianity Failed

In September/October Deeper Walk International brought an interesting series of webinars on the topic of “Why Western Christianity Failed.” The speaker was Dr. Jim Wilder from Shepherd’s House in California.

- The first part was about a 300 year old philosophy that heavily influenced Western Theology.
- The second part looked at how medieval psychology influences us until today.
- And the third part explained how we ended up with a false dichotomy because of these two influences.

In this post I will give a short summary of part one:
The Voluntarist philosophy goes back to people like Réne Descartes. His famous “I think therefore I am” led to the idea that thinking is what makes us humans. Other rationalists and empiricists like John Locke, Gerorge Berkely, David Hume and Bertrand Russell followed. This emphasis on our left brain activity led others to the assumption that “it must be that the first beginning of faith lies in the will” (William Ames). As a result will and reason became the cornerstones of US theology. Conversion became a matter of the will and is based on right information and right choice.

Experience shows that this does not work. A lot of people have all the right information but make the wrong choices. More information (i.e. more training, more Bible study) is not the solution for everything. Why? Because this is not how our brain works.  It is not the left brain hemisphere (which stores verbal knowledge) that takes care of our decisions. Actually, it is the first part of the brain, that won’t work properly when we are under pressure, or just sleepy. It is highly unreliable and can’t change our character. It is the right part of our brain (the relational, emotional center which stores experiential knowledge) that makes a pre-selection before we even start thinking about a decision.

Wilder points out that

“We (the Americans) are the most well informed and best educated people in the history of our planet. We should be the best model of healthy community, character, maturity, and relational integrity in church and world history.”

I am sure the same could be said about other countries with a high percentage of Christians.

Why do our choices and emotions not line up?

“Could it be that we have developed a system that is focused on building our intellectual capacity – while our emotional, relational and character development have atrophied?”

Thinking and willpower are not enough to transform our character. The real control center of our life, including our cravings, is located in the right hemisphere of the brain. Any strategy that tries to solve our problems by bypassing the right brain hemisphere won’t work.  As a result there are many people who have all the right information and are still a failure in character.

Wilder mentioned another very telling example:
Today the WWII veterans are getting older and many of them develop dementia. As a result of their failing will power, a lot of old fears, other negative emotions, bad temper and character defects come up. Their will power did not change them, but just held these negative things at bay.

This shows me that our will power can keep our negative emotions under control, at least sometimes, but it can’t change our character.
The same happens to us when we come under pressure in everyday life – our true self comes out and we are embarrassed about our behavior under stressful circumstances. This also happens to recovering addicts if they use cognitive approaches to overcome their cravings – this works fine as long as life runs smooth but as soon as the pressure is on (e.g. things don’t work out) this left brain oriented approach no longer works. Their (and our) good solutions go down the drain.

What we need is a character transformation that is right brain oriented. All the right information in the world, our intellect and the will are not capable of transforming us. If we want to see real transformation and the fruits of the spirit, for example, control our tongue or our cravings, we need to give the right brain what it needs to change – joy strength, relationships and belonging.

If you are interested in listening to this series of webinars, go to Deeper Walk International Resources Center – Webinars and scroll down to

Webinars by Jim Wilder

How Western Christianity Failed

Each webinar is available for $3.00. Once you have paid, you will receive a link to download or listen online to it.

Quote for the week

I make it my business to persevere in his Holy presence, wherein I keep myself by a simple attention and a general fond regard to God, which I may call an actual presence of God; or, to speak better, an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God, which often causes me joys and raptures inwardly, and sometimes also outwardly, so great that I am forced to use means to moderate them and prevent their appearance to others.

- Brother Lawrence

Traffic patterns

In a class on Folk Religion we read Paul Hiebert’s article on “Traffic Patterns in Seattle and Hyderabad”. His comparison between Seattle and Hyderabad made me smile because after having lived in two African countries and visited several others, I knew exactly what he was talking about.

Hiebert writes about the traffic in Hyderabad:

The first impression many Americans have is that Hyderabad traffic has no order. Obviously, this is false. So many people could not travel with so few accidents if there were none. Why, then, do Americans jump to this conclusion?

I am familiar with this kind of frustration when things don’t work like we think they should. Even if the official traffic rules in Mali are patterned after a Western example (France), there are often cultural rules that come into the mix.

Global Road Warrior has the following information for business people coming to Mali -Mali: Road Conditions

Driving conditions in the capital of Bamako can be particularly difficult and dangerous. Few traffic signals function regularly, and drivers often do not follow the rules of the road. In particular, the small, green, van-like buses called “bashays” pay no heed to oncoming traffic, and bashay drivers are known to change lanes unexpectedly without looking. Please exercise extreme caution when driving in Bamako.

Over the years of living in Mali and navigating the traffic in Bamako, I discovered the following principles:

1) Egalitarianism – everybody gets a chance

When you come to a crossing from a non-priority street, after some time of waiting, you have the right to go, priority or not. This is often indicated by stretching out your palm towards the oncoming traffic on the priority road. When I saw this for the first time, I  got really upset. I had priority and this was a violation of the rules. Plus, the person seemed to behave like a policeman but wasn’t one, and I thought: “Who the heck does he think he is?!?!” Once I understood the principle, I could see the advantage as I am, too, sometimes coming from a non-priority street, and if it went according to the rules, I might have to wait “until the cows come home.”

2) Cow path mentality – go wherever there is room

This leads me to the second principle. Most people in Bamako are more influenced by village life, than town life. Most grew up in a village or have spent a longer time with relatives in a village. Also, this kind of village mentality does not easily change and is passed on to second and third generation of town folk. I know from experience that there are few clearly marked roads in a village or between villages, and even less tarmac roads. So when the rain makes a stretch of road unusable, this is not a huge problem. People just find another way to get around the spot. By the end of the rainy season there are many different ways to get from point A to point B. The paths of cow herds moving up and down the country vary even more. Wherever there is no obstacle, you can go, and when there is an obstacle you just find a new path.

How does this now apply to the traffic in Bamako?

It’s simple – you go or drive wherever there is room. If there is a line of cars on the right side of the road, waiting for the traffic light to turn green, and nobody is coming on the left side of the road, you will of course use this “empty space” to circumvent the obstacle. This applies especially to bikes, motorbikes and pus pus (push carts). When you want to go over the Niger river on the new bridge, you will arrive on a kind of cloverleaf intersection / ingress ramp to join a two lane street. During rush hour these two lanes easily turn into four and a half lanes, as cars and motorbikes keep pushing their way in (four with cars, a half one with motorbikes).  Amazingly, this does not happen when there is a policeman in sight.

3) Negotiation – establishing relationships at every crossing

The third principle does not only apply to Bamako traffic, but to many other areas of Malian culture. Who gets to go and who has to wait is a matter of negotiation, not of rules. You have to make eye contact and try to discern the other persons intentions, which is often communicated by hand gestures and/or head movements. When I discovered this principle (thanks to a discussion about traffic with Ibrahima), at first I was annoyed. Is it not so much easier and more efficient to follow rules instead of negotiating at every crossing who gets to go? You can go much faster on a priority road, when you know that everybody sticks to the rules and nobody will step or drive into your way who shouldn’t. Plus, it is so much less stressful! This is certainly the normal reaction of a Westerner and rather ethnocentric. Interestingly, Hiebert quotes an experience from 1974 in London that showed that traffic lights and marked lanes do not guarantee more effectiveness.

On the other hand, negotiating your position in relationship to others is very much an overarching principle in many areas of life in Mali. So it is only natural to also apply it to the traffic. In a way it is a more people oriented approach, while rules easily diminish other people to objects.

Hiebert calls the two approaches immediate and mediate transactions:

Marked lanes, stop lights, and signs controlling space introduce a particular type of order to traffic, an order based on mediated transactions. In immediate transactions players calculate their moves by observing the actions of the other players. In mediate transactions they calculate their moves not directly on what others are doing, but on their relationship to a third mediating agency (Figure 1).

Hyderabad traffic seems to have a lot of similarity with Bamako traffic. Similar to my remark above, Hiebert also concludes that:

The introduction of mediate transactions tends to standardize and depersonalize interaction. In immediate transactions a player is related directly to other players. …. In mediate transactions a player responds to an impersonal matrix. The result is a measure of standardization and of depersonalization. The difference between the two types of transactions is roughly analogous to that between tennis and golf.

Of course, there are many more aspects that come into play: the fact that the majority of road users is probably illiterate and has not learned in school how to behave in different traffic situations (I am not even sure whether thosse that go to school have had any kind of road safety education or not); people riding a motorbikes do not need a license and therefore had no instruction on traffic rules; most participants have no idea that a truck can’t stop as fast as a pedestrian; women have the tendency to cast their eyes down and not look men into the eyes, which some also do when crossing the road; few have heard that it is wise to also keep the road users behind oneself in mind, e.g. when moving to the middle of the road or avoiding an obstacle; there is a patron-client thinking that makes the richer person more responsible than the penniless road user, which means that even if it is not your fault, the one with money gets to pay the bill; Western traffic rules were made for situations were bikes are a minority – in Bamako cars are several times outnumbered by bikes and this creates whole different dynamic.

All of this makes Bamako traffic a challenge for everybody, but even more so for expatriates.

Ref:
Hiebert, Paul G. “Traffic Patterns in Seattle and Hyderabad.” Journal of Anthropological Research 32, no. No. 4 Winter (1976): 326-36.

Wednesday without words

Deeply De-Christian Doctrines (meme)

Joe started an interesting meme: Evangelist Changing: 5 Deeply De-Christian Doctrines Meme which I discovered through Eddie’s blog  Deeply De-Christianised Doctrines « Kouya Chronicle

Peter Kirk has tagged me with a meme that states: list 5 doctrines that are taught within the Christian church that you believe to be deeply de-Christian.

Among those who have already participated are:
Gentle Wisdom» Blog Archive » Deeply De-Christian Doctrines

St. Aidan to Abbey Manor: ‘5 Deeply De-Christian Doctrines’

clayboy » The Deeply De-Christian Doctrine meme

De-fending the de-Christian | lingamish

Lingamish suggests that “If you’re a reader of this blog consider yourself tagged.” So, I consider myself  tagged and will contribute some thoughts on this topic. However, I am not necessarily listing real doctrines but ways of thinking that I believe to exist in many Christian circles but are not necessarily biblical.

1) Some cultures are more Christian than others: this is along similar lines as Eddie’s “Christians in one country or region are better than others” but not quite the same. The colonial attitude is unfortunately still alive – it assumes that Western cultures and Christianity are nearly identical. Therefore in case of doubt, the local culture must be wrong and unbiblical. For some it is hard to imagine that they got it right, even before becoming believers, and we might have gotten it wrong.

2) Bible Idolatry: the book called “God’s Word” is sometimes considered God’s only Word and often becomes more important than the author himself and my relationship with him. We forget that the Bible is only a means to an end – a deeper relationship with our creator.

3) Perfectionism: we are supposed to become more or less perfect soon after our conversion. If it does not work, I need to at least pretend; put on the Sunday smile before going to church. This is one of my more recent insights – we are called to become more and more Christ-like and this is NOT identical with being perfect but a matter of maturity. It’s hard to shake off a perfectionist upbringing and learning to understand that rules are not more important than relationships – “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

4) Having the right information solves all problems: as long as I have the right information (=get enough training, do enough Bible study), I can use my will and make the right decisions. Conversion and faith are a matter of the will. Legalism and judgmentalism are the logical result when you think that that ideas and choices are key to being a Christian and making us into the right kind of person. This means when you know God’s Word, you are able to decide in every situation what’s God’s will for yourself and others. No need to ask God. Or so many people seem to think. Unfortunately, there are lots of people who have all the right information and still make the wrong choices.

4a) Right theology is more important than character transformation: even though the theological part is only one point of many and the last in the list for the qualification of elders, it is often treated as the most important one when choosing a pastor or elder, to the detriment of other points that the Bible seems to consider more important.

5) Our mind is more important for spiritual living than the body: this mind-body dichotomy is rooted in a medieval psychology that is long outdated and no longer tenable in view of more recent psychology and brain science, but Western theology still subscribes to this view. Will and spirit were seen as spiritual and important, while the body and emotions were seen as fallen and therefore unable to please God. Today we know that will and spirit are very much linked to our body.

The last three points I owe largely to teachings by Dr. Jim Wilder, especially his recent webinar series on “Why Western Christianity Failed.”

EDIT: Oops – I forgot to tag others. Let’s see if the following people will take up the challenge: Dr. Mouw, Rombo, Marti, Tim and Wess.

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Quote for the week * Zitat der Woche

Be patient with everyone,
but above all with yourself.
I mean, do not be disheartened by your imperfections,
But always rise up with fresh courage.
How are we to be patient in dealing with our neighbors’ faults
if we are impatient in dealing with our own?
He who is fretted with his own failings will not correct them.
All profitable correction comes from a calm, peaceful mind.
- St. Francis de Sales

***

Sei geduldig mit allen,

aber vor allem mit dir selbst.

Ich meine, sei nicht entmutigt durch deine Unvollkommenheiten,

sondern stelle dich ihnen mit neuem Mut.

Wie können wir geduldig sein im Umgang mit den Fehlern unserer Nachbarn,

wenn wir ungeduldig sind im Umgang mit unseren eigenen?

Wer sich über sein eigenes Versagen aufregt, wird es nicht korregieren können.

Alle hilfreiche Korrektur kommt aus einem ruhigen, friedlichen Geist.

- St. Francis de Sales

You are there

In yesterday’s Bible study group, we discussed another chapter of Tozer’s “The Pursuit of God“. It was on God’s omnipresence. Among other things, we read Psalm 139:7-10 and were then encouraged to rewrite the verses with those places where we need to be reminded of God’s presence. Here is my personalized version:

When I am wasting time with red tape,
you are there.

When I feel powerless in the face of corruption,
you are there.

When I am overwhelmed with things to do,
you are there.

When I am exhausted from the noise around me,
you are there.

When I am unable to meet others’ expectations and accomplish my own goals,
you are there.

When I feel lost and uncertain about the next steps,
you are there.

Even there you are IMMANUEL – God with me,
surrounding me with your love,
and delighting over me.

Rewriting these verses was very helpful for me and a wonderful reminder of God’s presence.