Questions Asked via Messaging

Here are the questions that I have received over the past weeks; most of these were answered "live" but I thought those who missed the interaction in the room might enjoy the quality of questions being asked!

Beauty sermons from August 2009:

Q: How do you separate the desire for acquiring beauty from materialism?
A: Tough to do so; the two easily merge. It's helpful for me to think of beauty as something to be savoured rather than possessed. Accumulating "beautiful" objects can quickly degenerate into materialism. We often prove to be simple creatures! The experience of beauty is what I am after, not the grasping of things that remind me of beauty.

Q: Is the glory of God reflected in the beauty of the new Jaguar or just in the 'creation' of nature?
A: I understand that human creative acts can reflect beauty; nature's beauty would be God's direct expression of beauty; our creative acts can mimic that. So, yes, the Jaguar IS beautiful! Not dependable, perhaps, but beautiful...

Q: Can you comment on aesthestics such as those that have adorned the Catholic Church as good or bad?
A: Wow, that debate has been alive since Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer, emptied all the statuary in his Canon's parishes. I am sympathetic to his arguments, which remind us that "no graven image" is to distract us from the beauty and glory of God. Certainly, that goes all the way back to Augustine in the fifth century, so Zwingli's argument was not new.
I do believe that Zwingli over-reacted to the issue. From childhood, I was made to feel uncomfortable with any depiction of Jesus, so that is a struggle that remains. However, the concept of beauty as expressed in painting, sculpture, etc. does NOT contradict the Commandment.

Q: How do we reconcile that the subjectivity of beauty causes some people to look at God's works without seeing beauty because of personality or spiritual disorder?
A: Paul addresses that directly in Romans 1--we are all accountable to recognize the eternal and divine nature of God in his work of creation. Psalm 19:1-6 is a root of this thought from Paul; it's not original with the apostle. We are broken at every level, thus we cannot savour beauty for all it's worth; often, we cannot even perceive beauty. The English proverb imploring the hearer to "stop and smell the roses" echoes the tendency to move too quickly through the day without even noticing beauty around, though the assumption is that the beauty CAN be perceived.

Q: The language you are using is very close to that of Screwtape. Are you saying that we should desire to possess God in the same sense?
A: Yes, I think I am saying that. We perceive the glory of God and by that perception experience Him; this is what Paul was driving home in Romans 1, not just that we are accountable but that He is available to us. Eccl 3's "eternity in their hearts" is a similar idea--we have the capacity to perceive Him, "through a glass darkly."

Q: How does NT Wright deal with the Scripture that states that the old heaven and earth will pass away and there will be a new heaven and earth?
A: Gingerly. Wright expresses the connection between the two as follows: We work hard in the present, fallen earth, believing that God will somehow take the hard work which He inspires and enables us to accomplish now as the "building blocks or stones" which will be used by Him to construct the new heaven and the new earth. He professes not to fully understand such a process, but that without such a connection, he is left with a sense of futility over work done now.
I find his guesses intriguing but not fully satisfying!
Read NTWright's "Surprised By Hope" for more detail.


Joseph's Life Cyle (which is really about Judah!)
Q: What creates favoritism then?
A: We do. This is a sign of our brokenness, our fallenness, but it is a perversion of God's ability to savour each one of us with a special kind of love and joy. He also is fully justified in preferring Jacob to Esau, based in God's own character and intention.
We are made in His image, so we have similar capacities to savour those whom we love, but we distort and twist it into a raw favouritism. Our choosing one over another looks ugly, because it reflects our brokenness rather than God's wisdom and love.

Judah's sons: Er, Onan, Shelah
Q: You imply that Er's death at God's hand was a deserving death because Er was evil. Is premature death a mark of evil and judgment?
A: Yes. Not always the evil of the dying person, though!!! All death is a a result of evil, since the Fall of Adam and Eve. "Premature" death most often happens because of someone else's evil (murder), rather than that of the dead. There are certainly occasions, like Er and Onan, where God directly intervenes and ends a life based on the devastation that is ABOUT to spread if that life were extended. This is God's role as a Just One. Without belief in a just being who makes such decisions, we are left hopeless in a world full of evil.

Q: Is God's will shaped by our culture? Eg, God's reason for killing Onan?
A: I think this question must have been stimulated by the way that I stated the point, and I don't remember precisely how I made the point.
I will say this: God DOES respond to our actions. Several places in the OT, this is plainly stated (God spoke to David: if you do this, I'll do that, etc.).
God's reasons for killing Onan had to do with the SEED. The SEED promised to Abraham was to go through Judah; Onan's refusal to provide offspring brought quick action from God, who at all times works to fulfill his promises to Abraham, without lapse.
On the other hand, our cultural decisions and tendencies do NOT shape God's intentions nor his will.

Q: How do we know that Judah had been with prostitutes before?
A: Several ways. First, Judah never expressed hesitation at bargaining with the veiled Tamar; his negotiations reflect his comfort and experience. Second, Tamar is said to have known his patterns, an apparent reference to his common behaviour with prostitutes. Third, the narrator is brutal about this, contrasting his behaviour with Tamar's, not defending him as innocent but for this one occurrence. Fourth, ALWAYS TRUST THE NARRATOR, one of the cardinal rules of reading narrative literature. Fifth, Judah's entire response of repentance (She is more just than I) is predicated on a new understanding of his moral condition, implying that this sort of thing was not new with him, but is now seen in a new light.