Category: Of Random Interest

Anne Rice (the vampire novelist) has become a Christian.

“For the last six months,” she says, “people have been sending e‑mails saying, ‘What are you doing next?’ And I’ve told them, ‘You may not want what I’m doing next’.” We’ll know soon. In two weeks, Anne Rice, the chronicler of vampires, witches and—under the pseudonym A. N. Roquelaure—of soft-core S&M encounters, will publish “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt,” a novel
about the 7‑year-old Jesus, narrated by Christ himself. “I promised,” she says, “that from now on I would write only for the Lord.”

Incidentally, her novel is getting rave reviews.

The advance notices say she’s pulled it off: Kirkus Reviews’ starred rave pronounces her Jesus “fully believable.”

You might also want to check the Wikipedia article on her.

I recently had occassion to be pummeled at Halo 2 by Dylan, who is quite possibly the world’s worst vegetarian.

You see, he hates vegetables. He thinks they taste nasty.

He doesn’t have any convictions about the moral superiority of vegetable consumption. He doesn’t seem to have any worries about the sustainability of a carnivorous society. It’s not a spiritual thing for him. He doesn’t really fit into any of the standard vegetarian categories.

He just doesn’t eat meat. He apparently survives on assorted junk food.

Why does he live this way? Because he was raised a vegetarian and now can’t digest meat and doesn’t want to go to the trouble of training his body to process meat again–I’m not quite sure what that would entail, but it sounds as though unpleasant digestive moments are involved.

I just thought that was hilarious. A vegetarian who hates vegetables. 🙂

By the way, you can buy that bumper sticker at http://bumperart.com/ if you’re a bumper sticker sort of person.

I received an email from a student asking whether it was okay to “put God to the test.”

I just came back from a strange church service, and I have a question. Lately, I have been learning quite a bit about God up there. The pastor’s wife shouted out loud that the Lord wants us to “test” him in prayer, meaning see if our prayers are answered. I was confused about this statement, as I recalled the temptations of Christ, when Satan tempts Jesus, and Jesus quotes scripture, “thou shalt not test the Lord your God.” Am I getting caught up in a technicality, or is there some merit to this claim, which I do not understand? I can see how God would want us to pray and ask for proof in life, but I feel such a strong injustice to this thought. Any thoughts?

As I frequently field this question or a variant thereof, I thought my response might be of more general interest.

Are we to test God or not?

In Deut 6:16 we are commanded not to put God to the test. In Malachi 3:10 God tells us to test him.

Is this a contradiction? No, not at all. The Hebrew word in Deuteronomy 6:16 is nacah http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/words.pl?word=05254
whereas the word in Malachi 3:10 is bachan
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/words.pl?word=0974

So what we have is two words in Hebrew that can both be translated “test.” Some tests are forbidden and others are commanded.

So what are we forbidden to do? Jesus tells us not to tempt God in Luke 4:12 (quoting Deuteronomy 6:16). If we look up Deut 6:16 (“Do not tempt the Lord your God as you did at Massah”) we will notice that it is a reference to Exodus 17, wherein the Israelites demand that God do a specific thing to prove he is with them. That’s the same temptation Satan set before Jesus: make God perform an action of your own choosing.

However, we read in Malachi 3:10 that God desires us to test his goodness and his faithfulness. We are to expect God to perform actions of his choosing.

That makes sense. In the first case we are giving orders to God, in the second case we are receiving orders from God. In the first case we are trying to be God ourselves, in the second case we are allowing God to be God.

Perhaps we could phrase the distinction thus:
“Don’t try to tell God what he ought to do, but expect God to do what he has promised to do.”

So in your specific case, it all depends on what sort of prayers you’re expecting God to answer.

Did that help clear it up?

In my most recent sermon at Chi Alpha I made a statement in the Q & A time that “pleasure is an intrinsic good.”

At least one student has been thinking about what I said and sent me an email:

I was reading Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy and a comment reminded me of something you said last week at XA. You said something to the effect of pleasure in and of itself is intrinsically good. Now I totally understand what you were saying and what you weren’t saying. But I was wondering if you could shoot me some Bible verses to back it up.

So I wrote up a reponse which I thought might be of general interest:

First, the Bible never explicitly teaches that pleasure is an intrinsic good. The Bible doesn’t really deal in such philosophical categories. Rather, the notion of pleasure as an intrinsic good is a presupposition throughout.

Verses that occur to me in this context:

Deut 14:22–27, where celebration is pictured as worship (see also Nehemiah 8:10 where celebration is portrayed as more appropriate response to God than fasting)
Psalm 104:14–15, where God created some things in the world for the sole purpose of pleasure
The book of Ecclesiastes in general. Especially a few passages like Ecc 11:7–10 and Ecc 9:7–10, where the Teacher encourages us to enjoy life. As with everything in Ecclesiastes you’ll have to spend some time studying to make sure you feel that he’s endorsing pleasure in the context of the whole book (the Teacher is confusing, to put it mildly).

And I see strong hints that pleasure is an intrinsic good in that joy is a Biblical virtue (Gal 5:22, Neh 8:11), that many passages presuppose (or command) our delight in God (John 15:11, Psalm 1:2, Philippians 4:4), and that pleasure is a shorthand for the goodness God offers us (Psalm 16:11).

In fact, there is a whole host of passages that command or presuppose our joy: Deut. 28:47; 1 Chr. 16:31,33; Ps. 32:11; Ps. 33:1; Ps. 35:9; Ps. 40:8,16; Ps. 42:1–2; Ps. 63:1,11; Ps. 64:10; Ps. 95:1; Ps. 98:4; Ps. 97:1,12; Ps. 104:34; Ps. 105:3; Isa. 41:16; Joel 2:23; Zech. 2:10; Zech. 10:7; 2 Cor. 9:7; cf. Acts 20:35; Philippians 3:1. Heb. 10:34; Heb. 13:17; 1 Pet. 5:2.

That latter list, incidentally, was mostly lifted from some essays by a pastor and theologian named John Piper. He has written extensively on “Christian Hedonism” and these two brief essays are excellent introductions to the subject: We Want You To Be A Christian Hedonist, Brothers, Consider Christian Hedonism!

And to clarify, the fact that the pleasure of even a sinful action is intrinsicly good does not make the action itself good. Nor does it even make the fact that you derive pleasure from it good (consider, for instance, laughing at a perverse joke or the less common case of necrophilia). All that I assert is that pleasure is intrinsicly good and that we need to appreciate that fact. Some Christians treat pleasure as somehow bad for you and are instantly suspicious of anything fun or entertaining. That’s just bad theology. The fact that something produces pleasure should cause us to give it the benefit of the doubt rather than assume it guilty until proven innocent.

This has been a public service announcment.