CS Lewis continues to amaze me and countless Christians around the world even sixty years after he wrote. I just finished reading one of his more obscure titles, The Great Divorce. It is an interesting take on heaven and hell which he narrates in first person. The whole thing is but a dream from which he awakes at the end, and it is by no means meant to hold any sort of factual bearing on what really happens when we die. But it was also one of the more challenging books I have read recently.

The story starts in Hell, or purgatory, or whatever you want to call it. He and those around him are but mere wisps of ghost-like forms who travel from purgatory to the outer realm of heaven. There they encounter solid, radiant spirits which turn out to be angels whose sole purpose is to get the ghosts to join them in everlasting life.

As Lewis is walking around the vast, open valley, he runs into one of his greatest influences here on earth, George MacDonald, who tries to teach him about the way things are. As they walk and talk, the overhear conversations between other ghosts and angels who are trying their hardest to convince the ghosts to stay and not return. Yet one by one each ghost gives his/her excuse as to why they can’t possibly stay. All of these things are ideas, thoughts, attitudes, disillusionments, and other sins which must be executed in order for them to truly become who they must be. But ghost after ghost is too blinded by his/her sins that they cannot possibly see how they could really live under any other circumstance.

This is the reason for the title, The Great Divorce. Within each of us lies something that is holding us back from becoming who we are truly made to be. It may be selfishness, pride, envy, complacency, discontentment, self-pity, misplaced love, etc. We may feel like we are just created with these thoughts, feelings, and mind-sets, and there is nothing we could do about them. It’s just the way we are. But we must do anything possible to divorce ourselves from these, dig them out of our life, and crucify them. It will hurt. It may even seem torturous at the start, but for anything to really live, it must first die.

“If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” Romans 6:5-8

These are some of this “issues” with which I have been wrestling for a while:

• Why are we so inconsistent in our teachings and practices on certain issues?
• We say women cannot speak in the “formal” assembly, yet they can say whatever is on their mind in Bible class or devotionals – neither of which are biblically authorized. So they can speak in mixed company about spiritual things in a classroom in the same building, on the same day, just at a different time – then a bell rings, we switch rooms, and suddenly they can’t do a thing?
• Why do we say that women can’t pass communion? They can sit in the pew and pass it to the person next to them – no problem. But is it suddenly taking a position of authority for them to stand in the aisles and pass it? Seriously?
• Why can women not say public prayers? If someone is praying in front of a group, they don’t have absolute authority over anyone. We have our own power to change the words of someone else’s prayers – we can choose to agree or disagree.
• At the same time that we say women can’t pray publicly, we sing many popular songs written by Fanny Crosby, Twila Paris, and others, and we have absolutely no problem with that.
• Why do certain people feel that God is pleased with one set way of worshiping Him? What if we do, indeed, have more liberty to express our love and devotion to Him than we typically think?
• I think that maybe certain leaders in our churches are guilty of the very same sins of which the Pharisees were guilty – being white-washed tombs, binding heavy loads on all their followers, calling things sins which are neither condemned nor condoned by God in scripture, tithing of mint, dill, and cumin, but neglecting the greater things of the law – love, mercy, grace.
• Why are we so obsessed with getting to heaven? Wasn’t the whole point of Jesus’ ministry to bring heaven here through the work of his followers?
• I think that instead of using the word “Christian” as an adjective, we should use “Christ-like”. A lot of things would change.
• Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. What if the same applies to the church? Maybe the church was made for man, not man for the church.
• And finally, to quote the brilliant author, AW Tozer: “If you are not seeking the kingdom first, you are not seeking it at all.”

I recently read a book that I had heard a lot about and was very interested in reading – and I actually had the time to read at my workplace. It’s a book called Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell, you may know him as the NOOMA guy. Anyway, I was excited but nervous about reading his first book (he has another one called Sex God which sounds intriguing). I was nervous because I’m always skeptical when I read books like this. I fear they may go off the deep end on some crazy tangent that has no biblical basis nor any use in furthering the kingdom of God. But I must say, I was blown away.

Rob Bell articulated many thoughts I had been having about the church and Christianity in general for some time yet was always unable to express coherently. He knows his stuff. He is a true believer, not only in Bible study but in Bible scholarship. He knows his Greek and his Hebrew. He knows his ancient Israelite history. He even cites the sources from which he gathered all this information for a book which is obviously written to teens and young adults (those more up in years would enjoy it as well). But the best thing of all is that he straight up knows how to communicate. He knows how to connect. He knows how to use his study and drill it right down into your heart and leave you begging for more.

If you get some time, I highly recommend this book, as well as the NOOMA video series. They will change your life if you let them.

Things I’ve (obviously) been thinking about:

“The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.‘
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:18-24)

“A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown” (Proverbs 12:4)

“Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the maidens.” (Song of Solomon 2:2)

“You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes…” (Song of Solomon 4:9)

“but my dove, my perfect one, is unique, the only daughter of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore her. The maidens saw her and called her blessed;” (Song of Solomon 6:9)

“Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.” (Song of Solomon 8:6-7)

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” (Ephesians 5:21-33)

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.” (Colossians 3:17-19)

“Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” (1 Peter 3:7)

4:00PM FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 2008

The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into him, that they may delight in his presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God himself in the core and center of their hearts.
-A.W. Tozer
___________________________

I am going to start off by making it very clear that I do not have all the answers. I don’t even have all the questions for that matter. But one thing I do have is a growing love for the ancient words of the New Testament. I am finishing up my third semester of Ancient Greek, which I decided to cram into two weeks. Things have been pretty crazy, but it has also been awesome just to be engulfed in the original language of Gospel according to John (of which we are translating about 40%).

Yet, those opening words of John’s still ring most powerfully in my mind: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This one was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and not one things came into being without him. That which came into being through him was life, and the life was the light of mankind. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend [or overcome] it.”

It’s interesting that John calls Jesus “The Word”. Through the word of God, he made all things. The Word of God was, is, and forever will be. Once a word is spoken by God it rings throughout eternity, for he is not bound by time or space, and neither is his word. But the word, which is powerful and eternal, became flesh and pitched his tent among us.

The Word entered into time and space. The Word became hungry and tired. He thirsted, he sweat, he cried, he bled, he died. But death itself, the ultimate unknown, could not comprehend the light of God’s Word. Death itself, the ultimate realm of darkness, could not overcome the light of God’s Word. The Word, though bound by time and space, still had authority over all things which he created. The Word continued to have power over time, space, and natural laws which He had set in motion from the beginning. No one could shut the Word up, but he chose to silence himself before Pilate. No one took the life out of him, but he gave it up so that we might have life eternally.

The Word spoke to thousands but was heard by only a few, and those few have gone through the trouble of bringing the Word to us that we may know him. The Word became flesh, not paper and ink, but the words and deeds of the Word have been preserved through paper and ink for us to hear and obey.

Are you listening?