Monthly Archives: September 2016

The Effectiveness of Prayer – Part 1

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Hands of an Apostle - Albrecht Durer
Hands of an Apostle – Albrecht Durer – c. 1508

What do you say when a friend tells you of some struggle in their life like a troubling medical diagnosis, a bad car wreck, or a recent death in the family? Have you ever said “I’ll be thinking of you” or something similar? Most people take that as a sincere statement of sympathy. But what good does just thinking of somebody do? Maybe there’s the intent of follow-up action after that prerequisite thought, which is certainly good, but does just thinking of someone help them in any way? Not really. What about statements like “Could I pray with you now?” Skeptics would place that last statement in the same category as the first one, but I’d like to suggest why that isn’t the case.

First off, what is prayer? The atheist who says that God doesn’t exist would say that it is nothing more than us talking to ourselves. I’ve discussed the rational justification for God’s existence at length previously (here, here, and here among others…), but today, let’s take God’s existence as a given for the sake of argument. In that case, prayer is our personal communication with the sovereign Creator and Sustainer of all there is. And that is precisely where the difference lies. Christians aren’t simply thinking well of another when they pray for them, or expressing their hope for a good outcome. We are asking the God who made all things in the first place to intervene in the course of human events. The power to change events rests not in our own limited powers of thought, but in the nature of the one and only omnipotent God. However, prayers are not magic spells or incantations that move God to act in a certain way; Christians don’t believe their prayers have any power in themselves. Our hope is in the One we pray to, not the prayer itself. Prayer also isn’t our way of letting God know what we want – He knew before we were even born! [Matt 6:8] Why bother praying then? I see four reasons:

  1. Prayer affirms our reliance on God as we seek His will and His sustenance. None of us would even exist without God, but that’s so easy to forget sometimes.  We live in a very self-centered culture, but prayer reminds us that the story is God’s, and it’s better to be a footnote in His story than the star of our own!
  2. It develops our character as we then conform our will to His. As Norm Geisler puts it, “Prayer is not a means by which we change God; it is a means by which God changes us.”[1] In prayer we learn submission to God’s perfect will, as Jesus modeled for us in Gethsemane when he prayed, “Yet not my will, but Yours be done.”[Luke 22:42] We learn patience and trust as we learn to wait on God rather than blindly rush into our own short-sighted plans. And trust is at the very core of biblical faith.
  3. Prayer draws us in to closer fellowship with God just as any conversation draws you closer to the other person you’re conversing with.
  4. Prayer allows us to participate, in some small way, in God’s work. God is sovereign, and knows all things, and yet He condescends to accomplish His goals in the world through the prayers of His people. [James 5:17]

So while positive thoughts may or may not make us feel better, prayer in accordance with God’s will can actually accomplish real change. But that brings up some legitimate questions, doesn’t it? I see three main questions: 1) what about unanswered prayers? 2) what about competing prayers, such as between opposing sides in a civil war, or between Christians and Muslims? and 3) how do we know our answered prayers aren’t just coincidence? Let’s take a look at that first question this week.

What about when God doesn’t seem to answer? What are we to make of it when we petition God to intervene and … nothing changes? Or it changes, but not the way we wanted? While I’ve never considered myself a country music fan, Garth Brooks was on to something when he sang that he thanked God for unanswered prayers and that “just because He doesn’t answer doesn’t mean He don’t care / Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.”[2] Unfortunately, our limited perspective often keeps us from seeing what the best course of events would be until it’s too late. For us, only hindsight is 20/20, and even then, not always. Yet God’s omniscience means that He has better clarity regarding the future than we do even of the most straightforward events in the past. For even when we look at past events where we can clearly see causes and their effects, the butterfly effect still prevents us from ever really knowing how a different chain of events would’ve changed life as we know it.  But what about those tragic events like the death of a child, or intense suffering of a dear friend? These are often the unanswered prayers that hurt us the deepest, and cause some to give up on God. Things like “Why wouldn’t God heal my sick mother?” have led many a person to resentment and rejection of God. This is because we are intensely emotionally invested in that outcome, and with our finite perspective, we see no reason at the time for a good God to not grant that desire. But as noted earlier, we really can’t predict the future good that may derive from a painful situation now. For example, countless lives have been saved over the years because someone was driven into medical practice or disease research because of the impactful death of a loved one. But even if there is no future public good derived from one’s unanswered prayer,  the spiritual character development and closer fellowship with God mentioned above are immeasurably valuable. We were created by God for His glory [Isaiah 43:7], and whatever helps us to glorify God in our earthly lives, and prepares us for our eternal life, is of great value from an eternal perspective.

Do I understand the interaction of our free will to ask for something, and God’s sovereignty to accomplish whatever He chooses, and His omniscience regarding how the situation will turn out before it even developed? No, but I don’t have to either. I do know that He is trustworthy, and like a good soldier, I can be content with some need-to-know scenarios being “above my pay grade”.  If I’ve been willing to trust some all-too-human commanders in my time to overrule what I think they should do, based on my limited perspective from one small corner of the map, then why would I question the One who sees  the end from the beginning with perfect clarity, who does not make mistakes, and who has a grander plan than anything I could ever conceive? In the end, it’s really not that we have unanswered prayers, but that the answer wasn’t what we were looking for. Tune in next week for part 2, and share your thoughts in a comment in the meantime. Thanks!

[1] Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology in One Volume, (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2011), p. 449.
[2] Find the lyrics here. Interestingly, that song is a true story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unanswered_Prayers, accessed 2016/09/25.

Club Church

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club_churchIt’s been said that to succeed in business, you must find your niche and play to your strong suit, whether that’s low prices, high quality, large variety, customer service, etc. And if you offer a product or service that people want, but no one else is providing, you’ll be well on your way to market domination as long as you don’t sabotage yourself with bad choices. Does that apply to how churches “market” themselves?

The church is described in the Bible as the “body of Christ”, and like a human body, there are many functions performed by different parts of the body.[1] There should certainly be ministries to widows and orphans [2], teaching of sound doctrine [3], praising God,[4] fellowship with other believers,[5] and celebrating communion,[6] and more.[7] But where do you fit in building that new basketball gym? Is that a ministry to local kids “starving” for court-time? Or maybe “fellowship”? What if we actually try teaching our youth our creeds and statements of beliefs and why we believe those to be true? Will that cut into pizza and video game time at youth group? Will half the youth group stop attending if we stop babysitting them and start training them to face the battles they’re otherwise heading out to unprepared? What if the power went out, and our well-choreographed worship presentation didn’t have working microphones and amps, and the words to the songs weren’t conveniently displayed on large screens for us to lip-sync with minimal effort? Would we all just go home for lack of entertainment?

Now, before I get branded a crusty old curmudgeon, I understand that many times that basketball gym is keeping kids on the street from looking to gangs for their social structure and their role models; I understand that pizza is a fellowship meal just as much as other foods have been through the centuries; and I understand that kids have played games of one sort or another whenever they congregate, whether modern video games, or kick-the-can, or whatever made-up game could be invented on the spot, for as long as kids have been kids. I’m also not advocating that more contemporary churches burn their electric guitars and sound booth and switch to a Gregorian chant for their worship. But I am asking whether we’ve started majoring in the minors, so to speak – focusing on the details around the edges and forgetting the focal point of all history. When many of Jesus’ wannabe disciples had left Him to go find new entertainment, and Jesus asked the disciples if they too would leave Him, there are some things they didn’t say in response. They didn’t say they were staying because of His engaging style, His charisma, His warm personality, His concern for the causes they personally identified with, or a lot of other reasons people give for attending particular churches. Peter nailed it when he replied “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.“[8] That’s really what it comes down to, isn’t it? If we forget that, we are in danger of becoming just another passing social club.

However, the church makes a poor social club. The world will always be able to offer more enticing clubs. After all, clubs promise immediate gratification and don’t ask for lifelong commitments; they’ll stay conveniently compartmentalized in whatever area of your life you set aside for them; they don’t ask for your all; they certainly don’t ask you to be willing to endure suffering or even physical death for them. But that is precisely the commitment that Christ asks of each of us.[9] Yet there is one area where Christianity has a complete monopoly: only Jesus offers eternal life.[10] And with it comes the added bonus of all the fulfillment and joy that all the clubs in the world can’t provide.

Are your children being equipped as disciples of Christ, or just temporarily entertained while they grow to be “ex-Christians”? Is your worship about what feelings you get out of the experience or what you can offer to God? If people can attend your church, and all they come away with is that you have really good coffee and donuts (but little spiritual nourishment [11]), and the kids had fun (but weren’t getting “the wisdom that leads to salvation” [12]), and the preacher was pretty funny (but conveniently would never convict anyone of the danger they’re in living apart from God [13]), then I would suggest that your church has left the only “market niche” God ever intended for it to occupy.[14]

[1] 1 Corinthians 12, NASB.
[2] James 1:27, NASB.
[3] Most of 1st & 2nd Timothy…
[4] Colossians 3:16, NASB.
[5] Acts 2:42, NASB.
[6] 1 Corinthians 11:23-34, NASB.
[7] 1 Corinthians 12:5, NASB.
[8] John 6:68, NET.
[9] Visit Open Doors or Voice of the Martyrs if you have any doubts.
[10] John 14:6, Acts 4:12, NASB.
[11] Matthew 4:4, NASB.
[12] 2 Timothy 3:14-15, NASB.
[13] 2 Timothy 2:23-26, NASB.
[14] Matthew 28:19-20, NASB.

What is a well-designed faith?

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faith-constructionFor this 2nd anniversary of my blog here, I wanted to take some time to explain what a “well-designed faith” is. It is, of course, this blog: this exhausting labor of love dedicated to helping fellow Christians and skeptics alike to see the beautiful, reasonable truth of Christianity. It’s where I do my best to answer objections to Christian beliefs, explain misunderstood doctrines, encourage clear thinking through the application of logic and sound philosophy, give an engineer’s perspective on God and the Christian faith, and hopefully give those who have rejected Christianity in the past reason to take a second look. It is an endeavor that, if it were followed and read by millions, but nobody came to accept the truth of God’s Word through it, would amount to nothing but a supreme waste of time. But on the other hand, if I get to Heaven, and the one person that had read my ramblings says, “Thank you. God used your words to point me back to Him,” all the hours spent here will be justified. But beyond the blog itself, a “well-designed faith” is also the focus of the blog. For I do believe that “well-designed” aptly describes the Christian faith.

Hebrews 11 is often called the “faith chapter” or the “faith hall of fame” of the Bible because it defines faith, and gives many examples of it lived out in Jewish history. Verses 9-10 tell us about Abraham, and say that “by faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” That last description of God as an architect and builder has always caught my eye. Shortly after that, Hebrews 12:2 tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, “the author and perfecter of faith“.

When the Bible tells us that Abraham was faithfully seeking that city “whose architect and builder is God”, it’s telling us about the long-term plan that God has held for all eternity, the goal that He both selected before the creation of the universe, and works to actualize across human history. When it states that Jesus is the author and perfecter of faith, it is saying that He perfects – completes – the trust, (or faith) birthed in us by God.[2] In fact, this word “perfecter” is the Greek word τελειωτὴν (teleiōtēn), meaning a consummator, one bringing a process to its finish. Digging deeper, this is based on the Greek root “telos”, which denotes the end goal of something. This is the root of our modern word teleological, meaning “to show evidence of design or purpose.”[1] That’s why the argument for God from observed design in nature is called the “teleological argument“. How does this perfecting of faith work? Maybe similarly to how we see design work in the building industry I’m a part of.

My profession of engineering is often lumped in with 2 other related fields to form the industry grouping AEC: Architecture, Engineering, & Construction. And these generally go together well as we’re constantly working together to complete a finished project. The architect is designing the building to meet certain goals of the client, whether it be a hospital, school, business, or a residence. The hospital needs to contain a certain number of beds, lab equipment, operating and exam rooms, and offices to accomplish their goal of caring for the sick. The school needs to have a certain mix of classrooms, teaching labs, music rooms, and sports areas,  to accomplish their goal of providing a well-rounded education. A business may need flexible floor plans that can be changed as the business changes and grows. Some businesses even have essential specialty equipment that the building has to be constructed around. Even a home is going to have very different needs to accommodate one family versus another. Different home designs might focus on things like handicapped access to all the rooms, natural ventilation in the tropics, heating efficiency in the far north, “safe rooms” in America’s Tornado Alley, and so on. But in all of these examples, there is one thing in common – an end goal, a purpose. That goal drives the design. It’s counterproductive for an architect to design an amazing sports stadium for a music school that doesn’t even have a sports program!

As engineers, we work to ensure the architect’s vision of the client’s goals is actually achievable. We complete, or perfect, that initial design, by putting bones to the flesh, so to speak. We execute specific selections to make the architect’s idea buildable.  The laws of physics can be brutally unforgiving, and sometimes we have to be creative to ensure the architect’s “bold vision” holds up in real life. There’s a lot of coordination there as architects and engineers work together to make choices that accomplish the client’s purpose while conforming to real-life constraints. But finally, the plan is complete and the builders come in and turn the client’s dream, the architect’s vision, and our calculations into an actual, usable building.

It seems like there is a similar spiritual workflow as:

  • God the Father initiates a plan for us, drawing us to Him,
  • God the Son completes the plan and accomplishes tasks (like the atonement) needed to make it happen, and
  • God the Holy Spirit develops it in us through His work of sanctification in our lives.

Initiation, execution, and development working seamlessly together in the perfect unity of the triune Godhead to conform us to His image, that we might fulfill our purpose and glorify God – that is a most well-designed faith, if you ask me!

[1] https://www.wordnik.com/words/teleological, accessed 2016/09/08.
[2] John 6:44, NASB. As Barnes says in his commentary on this verse: “In the conversion of the sinner God enlightens the mind (John 6:45), he inclines the will (Psalm 110:3), and he influences the soul by motives, by just views of his law, by his love, his commands, and his threatenings; by a desire of happiness, and a consciousness of danger; by the Holy Spirit applying truth to the mind, and urging him to yield himself to the Saviour. So that, while God inclines him, and will have all the glory, man yields without compulsion; the obstacles are removed, and he becomes a willing servant of God.”

S.D.G.

Highway to Hell

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Dante & Virgil in Hell - William Adolphe Bouguereau, 1850
“Dante & Virgil in Hell”, witnessing the fierce brutality there – William Adolphe Bouguereau, 1850

I met up with an old friend for dinner the other day, and we started talking about objections we’ve heard to God’s existence, or to Christianity specifically. He brought up one he’d been presented with: “If God would send my best friend (or parent/sibling/etc) to Hell, then I don’t want anything to do with that God. I’d rather go to Hell to be with my friend/family.” An implicit assumption there is that where your friends or loved ones are, friendship and love will continue to exist. However, there’s really no reason to think that would be the case. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s not going to be any parties in Hell, regardless of whatever songs, jokes, or movies you’ve heard or seen. Nevertheless, let’s examine the logic of this loyal, but misguided idea,  with 2 analogies related to loved ones still living and those already deceased.

Consider this: if your house is burning down, staying in to try to save your friend is commendable. But the idea is for you both to get out of the danger. Would you run through the burning home, find your friend, and then sit down next to him, a few feet away from an exit door, and wait for the burning roof to collapse on you both? No! If you love your friend, you’ll try to get him to come out of the inferno with you. Or if there is somehow only opportunity for one of you to get out, you might push him out ahead of you in heroic self-sacrifice. Indeed, Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”[1] But to join him in his eventual demise doesn’t help anyone. Instead, seek escape from the impending disaster together. In this case, go on a truth quest together. Or, if your friend refuses to investigate about God, then seek Him out on your own if you have to; save yourself, and then go back in like a firefighter, protected from the blaze and equipped to rescue your friend, if he’ll let you. He may not. After all, God gives us free will to accept or reject the offer of salvation.

But what if that friend or family member has already died in his or her sin, cut off from God? There is no trying to save them in that case; it’s too late for them. While that is truly heartbreaking, should the one who still has a chance to live forfeit it, and choose eternity in Hell with their friend over life with God? This is even more short-sighted than dying with your friend in the burning house, for this is like standing at the doorway, able to step through to safety, but seeing your friend’s charred corpse in the corner, and choosing to stay and burn as well. It only doubles the tragedy.

“But how could God be so cruel as to send my friend, who was a great upstanding guy, to a place of eternal torment?” That’s a fair question, but whether we agree with God’s motivations is really beside the point. It comes back to objective truth. If God exists, and if a realm called Hell exists, and God has provided a means to rescue us from it, then the choice is clear, whether we like it or not. For example, I was practically born with a lead foot, and I find speed limits very annoying. However, the limits still exist, and are still enforced with very real fines. So whether I agree with speed limits or not, obeying them is the only guaranteed way to not get a speeding ticket. Likewise, whether I agree with God’s plan or think He’s cruel, or anything else, obedience to His plan is the only alternative to Hell.

All that aside, what of God’s motivations? Is His plan actually cruel? It’s easy to think that when we judge behavior by our standards. But “nobody’s perfect,” as the old saying goes, and yet perfection is God’s standard. Even “great, upstanding guys” will fail that standard every time. That’s why, as hurtful as it may be to our pride, we need God to provide the solution. And He did, in the form of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross. Moreover, if God did “bend the rules” and “let them slide”, He would not be just. Also, what is “hell” anyway? It is, ironically, what many who resent the idea of eternal punishment most desire: separation from God (the source of all goodness) for all eternity. But that desired separation will be the eternal torment they resent.

In closing, I can’t help but notice that we tend to like it when someone in authority lets us go without our due punishment, like a cop giving me a warning instead of a speeding ticket, but we are outraged when others are let off the hook, like a corrupt politician getting away with embezzling. You might say those examples are comparing apples and oranges. But that’s the thing: we don’t like the idea of hell because we have an overly optimistic view of the goodness of mankind, and an inadequate view of what sin is to a perfectly just, holy God. But any sin is rebellion against God. When we calibrate our standards to the one perfect standard of God’s, then we recognize the justice of Hell, but also the amazing grace and love demonstrated at the cross.

[1] John 15:13.