Total Depravity in Genesis 6:5?

*Before I jump in here, I want to make clear it is not my intention to deny the doctrine of Total Depravity. Rather, I want to show that this verse (Genesis 6:5) does not, itself, touch of on the subject of Total Depravity.*

Genesis 6:5:

The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

From John Wesley to John Calvin to John Stott, Genesis 6:5 has been used to argue for the doctrine of Total Depravity. Total Depravity affirms human persons are, because of the Fall, totally corrupt in our entire nature. Sin has touched every one of our faculties – spiritual, emotional, psychological, and physical – and because we are totally corrupted in our sin, we cannot, in our own will, make a decision for God without his prior actions of grace toward us.

It’s easy to see how this doctrine can be derived from Genesis 6:5. It’s easy.

But easy doesn’t make it right. 

The larger context of Genesis 6:5 demonstrates why utilizing Genesis 6:5 out to prove the doctrine of Total Depravity is a mis-use of the text.

Genesis 6:5 is concerned with a special, extensive, particular form of wickedness directly tied to the Nephalim (6:4) – offspring of the Son’s of God (evil angelic beings?) having sexual relations with the daughters of men (human women).

In other words, according to Genesis 6, itself, we’re not talking about normal, run-of-the-mill human sin(fulness). We’re talking about an extreme (and odd!)  form of sin(fulness).

Indeed, the passage claims that humanity’s wickedness had become great, not that it always was great. And then later the passage describes God’s grief for having created humanity because of how wicked they had become.

Furthermore, the Nephalim wickedness was so extreme in form that Genesis 6:5 posits it is the direct, causal factor for the subsequent flood narrative. In other words, we have an extreme form of judgment (the flood) because of an extreme form of sin (Nephalim wickedness). And if this wickedness is extreme, then we’re not talking about normative, universal human nature existing in all times, all places, and within every human heart.

In fact, if the words of Genesis 6:5 were universal to humanity, and therefore relevant to the doctrine of Total Depravity, then God would have destroyed the world long before Genesis 6.

But since God doesn’t, this leads me to the conclude that Genesis 6:5 is an irrelevant text in the Total Depravity discussion, except insofar as it illustrates how far human sinfulness can go. But let’s be clear that it cannot prove the Total Depravity of non-Nephalim peoples.

Again, I am not challenging the doctrine of Total Depravity here. That’s another discussion altogether. But I want to argue that we shouldn’t be using this passage.

What do you think? Have I completely missed the boat? Have any of you ever wondered about the use of this passage to prove Total Depravity?

Delighting in the Gift, Not the Packing Paper

Dora the Explorer is my daughter’s favorite show. Cassie and I love it because it’s educational (man, has it helped her vocabulary expand!), and because it’s not schizoid and random like Sponge Bob Square Pants.

Today Cassie and I were on our weekly lunch date and while walking through the mall we saw a “Backpack,” Dora’s trusty companion backpack that has his own special song and carries all the items Dora needs during her adventures. The price of Backpack is normal nearly $30, but its sale price was down to $4. So we got it…fully expecting the Phoebus to get really, really stoked.

About 5 minutes ago we gave it to her. She looked at it. Got a smile on her face. Pulled the packing paper out. Then threw Backpack on the ground, taking absolute joy in the packing paper!

Immediately, with a smile on my face (because, after all, I could smile – I only spent $4, not $30), I realized that this is exactly what I do with God.

In the cross of Jesus, God gave the world the greatest gift it could ever receive – Himself! And for free, no less!

But in so many ways we are prone to look at God’s gift, throw it down on the ground, and get distracted by the “filling”: Blessings are good, but they are not the God who gives them. Feelings are good, but they are hardly ever consistent. Theology is good, but theological pronouncements can never fully represent or take the place of the God to whom they point. Material possessions are good, but they can distract from God. Love is good, but when pursued for itself, it leaves us lacking.

These things are mere “filling” when compared with the real gift. We are permitted to delight in them, but often we throw down the gift and trade it for something that, well, ends up being nothing more than a bowl of soup compared to the family inheritance, the packing paper when compared to the Backpack.

The real gift is the God who blesses us even when we don’t see it; the real gift is the God who is present even when we lament his absence; the real gift is the God who cannot be shackled by our systematic theology but seeks always to draw us deeper and deeper into Himself (a place no systematic theology can fully comprehend); the real gift is the God who can call us to give all our possessions away in order to have eternal life; the real gift is the God who is Love in the flesh, in it’s purest form – self-giving love that serves others and seeks them above Itself.

So let’s delight in the gift, not just the packing paper. After all, when the gift IS the Giver, delighting in the gift IS delighting in the Giver.

 

 

What are some other ways we trade the Gift for the packing paper? Is there a time where God showed you this was exactly what you were doing? How did He redirect your focus?

The Word of the Lord Came to Jonah…

As I study through the book of Jonah, I’m going to start writing little reflection pieces here and there about different things that catch my eye. This won’t be anything too serious or deep, just some reflections based on the text.

Jonah 1:1: And the word of Yahweh came to Jonah…

I’m intrigued by this phrase, “the word of Yahweh came to Jonah.”

This same “word” was the agent of creation in Genesis 1, when Yahweh spoke everything into existence.

It is by this word that Yahweh created the sea: the sea that will eventually get violent and try to destroy Jonah’s ship (1:9).

It is by this word that Yahweh creates all the creature of the sea: one of whom swallows Jonah and takes him into the depths of the earth (1:16).

It is by this word that Yahweh creates plant life: plant life that would eventually give shade to Jonah only to die off later by the mouth of a worm that Yahweh also created through this word (4:6-7).

It is by this word that the Holy Trinity decided amongst themselves to create humanity in God’s image: a humanity which would later not recognize their Creator, would pray to their own gods (1:5), and hate rather than celebrate God’s redemptive desires (3:10-4:1).

And it is by this Word that even Jonah, in spite of all his faults, will eventually be redeemed by the God who created everything and therefore loves everything…including self-righteous sinners (John 1).

There’s just something beautiful and intriguing about Yahweh’s providential care  and love for His creation. From the beginning of Jonah’s story, the narrator wants us to know that the God who created by His word is the same God who sends his word out to his creatures that they might not be destroyed…de-created by their Creator under the weight of their own sin.

“30 for 30″ #5: The Little Guy Always Wins

My brother Travis and I are always in the mood for a good dog-pile. We’ve been known to dog-pile my dog Jet, sometimes toddlers, and quite often my wife.

The funny thing about my wife is that when she gets dog-piled, she keeps on mouthing…in her own Cassie sort of way. Even when she’s on the bottom of a Fuerst Brother’s Dog-Pile, you can hear her screaming, “THE LITTLE GUY ALWAYS WINS!!!!”

It always makes me laugh because clearly the little guy is losing.

Yet over time I have realized there’s a bit of truth to what she’s saying: the gospels teach us that the little guy does always wins. From the beginning of the New Testament, the message has been that God will overthrow the mighty and uplift the broken, the arrogant cannot stand and the poor in spirit are blessed.

The Little Guy Always Wins slogan was best embodied by Jesus, who taking on the form of a human being, died on a cross under the weight of Roman power, only to resurrect 3 days later and proclaim, “Death has no hold on us! We need not be afraid of the bigger, more powerful guys! The little guys always win!”

It is the Apostle Paul (whose name literally means “the little guy”) who tells us of Jesus’s humility in Philippians 2. I won’t bore you with the Greek grammar, but the point he’s making is that central to God’s character, before the foundations of creation, was the fact that God is humble. The incarnation of Jesus is just the logical and natural manifestation of God’s humility.

“THEREFORE,” says Paul, “HAVE THIS MIND IN YOU!”

It may not look like the little guy is winning when he’s hanging on a Roman cross. But 3 days later, when death could not hold him, the truth became earth shatteringly clear:

THE LITTLE GUY ALWAYS WINS!!!

God, justice, and the other

This is a short, 12 minute, homily by my long-time friend, Bryne. I think you will find her intellectually engaging and spiritually challenging. But most of all, I think you will be moved by her passion for justice.

Our Old Friend Fear and You and Me

I thought I would offer a little Election Day advice: No matter who you vote for, if you’re a Christian, your voting is not to be compelled by fear. Fear is a motivating factor for many self-interested, self-centered, and self-protective things in the political sphere. And it has been used by politicians as a tool to motivate religious people for centuries. The fear-tactic is nothing new.

The biblical writers knew all too well that fear drives us to do crazy things that go against our otherwise firm beliefs. For this reason, the scriptural command that occurs more than any other in the Bible is, “Do not be afraid.”

Fear is the definition of insanity for Christians.

When we act in fear, we act to protect our own self-interest instead of the interests of others who are less fortunate than us.

When we act in fear, we act in a way that protects ourselves and our rights instead of seeking rights for people on the margins or people who are forgotten.

When we act in fear, we confuse this-worldly political agendas with the eternal kingdom of God.

When we act in fear, our world falls apart when elections don’t go our way.

When we act in fear, we degrade and dehumanize people who don’t vote the same way we do.

I don’t know who you’re voting for today. And I don’t think it’s my place to tell you how to vote. But I will say this; we are allowed to make mistakes in the voting booth (Lord knows, I’ve made some of my own) if we make those mistakes with good intentions. But we’re not ever allowed to act out of fear, for fear should never be a motivating factor for people who rightly understand the kingdom of God.

Our kingdom is not ultimately of this world. As great as Democracy is, it is Jesus Christ, not the next president or governor, who is the savior of the world. When you vote then, vote not with the rhetoric of fear and hatred in your mind from the political ads, but vote with the hope of a crucified savior who died for Republicans and Democrats alike.

Do I Even Want the Gospel for Timothy McVeigh?

Here’s the latest sermon I preached on the myth “All Good People Go to Heaven and All Bad People Go to Hell.” Timothy McVeigh is my case study for whether or not I would rather believe this myth or the true gospel. Let me know what you think.

http://www.mylhumc.net/502652.ihtml

Do you REALLY believe this is redeemable?

I’m preparing for my sermon on Sunday where I’m going to posit that the most heinous of criminals can receive the grace of God. While studying for it and trying to take it out of the realm of logical abstractions and into the world of real life, I came across this famous photo from the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19th, 1995.

Maybe it’s because I have a daughter now about this girl’s age, but I have to tearfully admit that this question really forces me to consider whether I really believe the gospel can redeem such evil. That I know, logically, that it does and can redeem such evil, forces me to bask in the greatness of God’s grace. But my heart still doubts and fears, not only for Timothy McVeigh, but for myself. – Matthew 5:21-22

Let’s Start a Revival

From the newest attempts to start a revival by “liking” Jesus on Facebook, to the more traditional attempts to start a revival by hosting a “revivalist”  to preach fire-and-brimstone sermon series, I am continually reminded that we contemporary American Evangelicals remain woefully ill-informed about what true revival actually is. Duped into thinking revival is something we initiate through our own activity, we’ve been convinced that if we just “did the right things” revival would come not only to our church, but also our nation.

But where is the Holy Spirit in that?

Where is the freedom of God to send or withhold revival at His own discretion?

Where is God in any of this?

The fundamental problem with our understanding of revival is that it simply doesn’t need God. All it requires is some effort on our part. All it requires is a good program. All it requires is the right politician. Even a good slogan might do the trick.

After all, if I can start a revival by getting a bunch of people to “like” Jesus, we don’t really need the Spirit’s activity.

But in the Scriptures, genuine revival is the work of the Holy Spirit challenging the church to repentance (something we’ve grown weary of hearing about), outward focus (something our narcissism disallows), and humility (something completely antithetical to our normal ways of operation in American culture).

We don’t force the Spirit’s hand by “liking” Jesus on Facebook. We don’t command the Spirit through organizing revival services. We obey in the present as we wait for the Spirit to come upon the church in that special way. We long for it, but we don’t make it happen.

Your job isn’t to start a revival. It’s your job to live in obedience so that when God finally decides to start a revival, you’re in a prime position to see it for what it is and join in what He’s doing.  When revival comes, it comes on those who have been faithfully, actively waiting for God to show up.

Worship: Finding the Right Preposition

This is a post by a friend of mine, Jonathan Powers. Jonathan and I have begun guest-blogging on each other’s pages in an effort to make our blogs more well rounded. He’s a Phd. student at the Robert Weber Institute for Worship and the Arts. I think you’ll find his discussion of worship well worth your time!

What is worship? This is a very basic question concerning who we are as Christians. It is also a question many find difficult to answer, even theologians haven’t settled on a definition. Some definitions are complex, “worship is an act of religious devotion where one fully submits and dedicates oneself to a deity, attributing to the deity a sense of worth.” Then there are simple answers such as, “worship is celebrating God.” However, neither fully grasps what worship is. (Churches often add to the confusion by focusing more on a style of worship than on the content of worship.)

Perhaps then, defining worship is not the best starting point for gaining a proper understanding of worship. Like love, worship is something done, something experienced, not just something talked about. Worship is both word and action.

I make no claims to be a great theologian, but in my search for a proper understanding of worship, I have found two terms that help in a way no definition has ever sufficed: revelation and response. In other words, God reveals Himself in either word or deed; His people respond in both word and deed.

Biblically, this is the form shown over and over again. Isaiah 6 and Luke 1 are great examples of this conversational form of worship. God speaks or acts first. His people respond in word and action. Christian worship then is a series of revelations and responses. Revelation is the Word of God at work within a Christian community. It is the truth of the Triune God and God’s relationship with God’s people. Response is the reply of God’s people to this truth, a prepared or spontaneous opportunity for His people to answer, reply, or react.

It is interesting to evaluate a typical Sunday morning on the criteria of revelation/response. Does God get the first word? Are we called into a revelation of God’s presence, (whether through song, Scripture, or spoken word), before we begin responding through praise, adoration, and thanksgiving? I am beginning to find my understanding of worship taking a subtle but important shift. It all has to do with finding the correct preposition: worship isn’t something I do to God or for God; it’s something I do with God in the sense that we worship with Christ (see Hebrews 5, 9, &10).

Worship is like a dialogue. God speaks, we respond. Perhaps this does not help us come any closer to settling on a definition of worship, but perhaps it will help us better understand our experience of it.

- Jonathan Powers