William Lee

Hugh Welchel wrote an interesting article challenging validity of asking the question "How is your spiritual life?" You can read it here. The following are my thoughts on this topic.

When my son builds something with his lego, he authors that thing into existence. This makes him a creator, but not just a creator. That thing he created is his subject. He can manipulate it or destroy it as it pleases him. In this way, he is king over his lego!

It stands to reason that the author of this world would also be the ultimate authority over this world. Since God created the world, it should be the case that nothing could challenge his control over it. If this is true, then everything in this world is connected to him through his sovereignty; everything is made sacred by nature of their relation to him.

In light of this, there doesn't seem to be any reason for us to distinguish between things that are secular versus things that are sacred. It is, as Hugh Welchel argues, a false dichotomy.

A problem occurs when we read our Bibles and come across passages that ascribe Satan as the ruler of this world (John 12:31). Or when Paul calls him "the god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4). John teaches us that "the whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (1 John 5:19). How can we assert God's authority over this world when the Bible speaks of the devil as the ruler of this world?

There is help in Romans 13:1, "For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." When the Bible mentions Satan as the ruler of this world, it is not saying that Satan is the ultimate ruler. He rules because God allows him to rule. And thankfully, God does not intend for him to rule forever (Hebrews 2:14; Colossians 2:15)!

So, it is not the case that God's absolute sovereignty renders another ruler of this world impossible. There is a biblical dichotomy between those who side with Satan and those who side with God. And if this is true, then are there not other dichotomies in the Bible?

The reality is: there is a distinction between natural versus spiritual. One need only read 1 Corinthians 15:42-49 to get an idea of what that difference might be. On top of that, search other passages in the New Testament and a case can be made for the validity of using the word "spiritual" in church (Romans 7:14; Romans 12:1; Romans 15:27; 1 Corinthians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 3:1; 1 Corinthians 9:11).

"Spiritual" is a biblical word.

Unfortunately, Hugh Welchel manipulates us into thinking that this isn't true by writing, "Try to find the word 'spiritual' in the Old Testament. It is nowhere to be found." Why does he refrain from stating that it is found in the New Testament? Is it not because he wants to make his point truer than it actually is? Then he writes, without adequate proof, that there is nothing in the New Testament that points to a dichotomy between spiritual and secular. But, as I have shown, there is a distinction in the New Testament between worldly and godly; natural and spiritual. Why does he ignore the texts relevant to these distinctions?

I am not convinced that the question "How is your spiritual life?" is a wrong question to ask.

Why?

Because the question makes us think about worship. It makes us think about whether we've worshiped the Lord in our personal devotions or in the midst of our secular work. It makes us think about worship beyond the bounds of Sunday service and into our daily lives. It makes us think about our sin, while helpfully distinguishing it from our righeousness. It reveals worldliness in our hearts and unveils the holiness of God.

In the Hollywood epic, The Avengers, Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, quips, "Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we'll avenge it!"

The Avengers is a story about mismatched heroes banding together to fight against the forces of evil. In the first film directed by Josh Whedon, this team battles aliens bent on destroying earth. The next one seems to be about a robot bent on wrecking havoc on earth. The enemies are multifarious. The task is the same. Protect the earth.

But are these acts of “avenging”? Tony Stark’s first allusion to the team name explains it best. The Avengers are there to protect the earth. But if they can’t do it, they will avenge it. In other words, they will live up to their name the day they fail to protect the earth!

Honestly, this has no bearing on how great these Marvel films are. I only bring it up to help us consider what it means to “avenge.”

"...because the Lord is an avenger in all these things..." (1 Thessalonions 4:6)

The Greek adjective Paul uses in this verse is ekdikos, which can also be translated: justice giver or punisher. In this way, Paul is reminding us that God will respond to offences against him, not with passivity or mercy, but punishment. And the implication is that he is just and righteous in doing so.

God requires us to be holy, not impure (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5). And he will act to bring about swift justice if his standards are not met. That is just a reality that we, as his creatures, must deal with.

Perhaps, the idea of a holy, just and avenging God is not appealing to us nowadays because we are not as angry about our sin as we should be. It’s easy to understand why avenging the earth against evil aliens and diabolical robots is a good thing. Those sinister forces blatantly ignore the rights and freedoms of human beings. In other words, our rights and freedoms! We more easily approve of vengeance when we are the ones being violated.

But that is a ego-centric view. We as Christians are called to God-centeredness.

God is the one who has been truly violated. Through our sin, our rejection of him, our rebellion against him, we are rightly condemnable. But “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). There is hope in the gospel precisely because Christ makes us holy and pure (1 Corinthians 5:21); and through Christ's holiness, we are not condemned (Romans 8:1).

So when we stand before the Great Avenger, we will not be the punished. That is God's promise to us. Therefore, let us live as Paul exhorts us to live: “Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more” (1 Thessalonians 4:1).

The power of the Holy Spirit leads men to decide for God and to enlist against Satan, to give up habits of sin and to make great and everlasting decisions.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

Psalm 46:1-3

One of the most unnerving experiences I've ever had was being in the midst of an earthquake: seeing things shift around, feeling the ground become unstable, hearing glass cups clink against one another. It was not a pleasant experience. The reason major calamities strike fear into our hearts is partly because we have no control over these things. We can't calm an earthquake, nor can we stop the tides from rising.

"But God is our refuge and strength... Therefore we will not fear..."

The only way God can be our refuge against things out of our control is if God himself is in control. If he controls the earth and sea, then he can protect us from the disasters that come from them. If he is in control of the universe, then he can ultimately be relied upon to be our strength.

His sovereignty over all things matters. It matters in the face of danger. It matters when we consider our own sin.

Because of the Gospel, sin no longer has dominion over us (Romans 6:14). It does not control us. And we will not fear. For we have a saviour that is our refuge and strength.

Years ago, a friend of mine engaged me in a debate about baptism. We were both convicted that baptism should occur after conversion and that it is preferable have a believer immersed fully in water. The issue was more about receiving people from other convictions. Can a person be a member of our church if they were baptized as an infant? Is it biblical to re-baptize them?

In the end, I could not give him a solid biblical perspective on the matter. At the time, it was an open-ended question for me. I needed more time to study, pray and consider it. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why he left our church. My guess is that he thought my lack of being able to formulate a biblical opinion meant that I was lacking in biblical theology. As a result, maybe he thought our church was an unhealthy church.

As I consider that experience and certain marks of a healthy church, I wonder what to do with churches that are even more clearly unhealthy. Should we abandon them? Should we rebuke them? Should we pray imprecatory prayers against them?

I'm not sure how to answer all these questions. But I am helped by Paul's example...

Firstly, Paul wrote to unhealthy churches. There is no doubt Paul had huge problems with what was happening in various local churches. His letters to the Corinthians is a pretty good example of this. Take a look at the first chapter of most his letters and you will notice that he has an incredible love for the people in these churches. But he is also not fearful of rebuking them for deviating from the gospel. Yes, he had the unique calling of ministering to people as an Apostle. But there is something to be said about communicating to churches that are unhealthy.

Secondly, Paul visited unhealthy churches. After hearing reports of churches he previously visited, he tells Barnabas, "“Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are” (Acts 15:36). I would not encourage everyone to follow Paul's model here. Only a person given the authority by God to speak to unhealthy churches would be effective. Paul's authority as an Apostle makes that possible. Still, one wonders if God sends certain people to do that in contemporary churches.

Thirdly, Paul strengthened unhealthy churches. It is written in Acts 15:41 that Paul "went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches." Paul went and exhorted, reminded, encouraged and preached to the churches he visited. He was actively involved in healthy and unhealthy churches. Are we willing to participate in churches like that to bring about renewal and revitalization?

I know there is more to say about what we should be doing about unhealthy churches in our context. I know there is more that is written about in the Bible that could inform us on how we minister to unhealthy churches. So let this be the beginning of a conversation. Let us consider, starting with Paul's writings, visiting and strengthening, what we should do about the unhealthy churches around us.

"Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."

Ecclesiastes 12:13

There are three central commands here: 1. Fear God; 2. Love God; 3. Love others.

We know this because of Matthew 22:35-40, "And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

So, two of our primary duties as a people created by God is to love him and love each other. But what about fearing God? How do we love him and fear him at the same time?

The answer is in what we mean by fear...

There is a type of fear that results in flight. When my son runs up the stairs hyperventilating, he's likely fleeing from the darkness! That's flight. That is one reaction to something terrifying. Is this not what Jonah did when he ran from God? There is foolishness in this: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?" (Psalm 139:7).

There is a type of fear that results in fight. Jonah did not only flee from God, he fought him. Instead of obeying the call to go and send a message to the Ninevites, Jonah chose to defy him and go to Tarshish. There are countless example of people defying God in the Bible. And you know what? None of them could put up much of a fight. So, there is foolishness in fighting God as well: "Woe to him who strives with him who formed him" (Isaiah 45:9).

Then there is the type of fear that results in reverence. It says in Proverbs 1:7, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." Fear is where proper knowledge begins. But this kind of fear is not of the kind that bids us flee or fight. This is the kind that draws us to him in worship. When something is awesome, we stand in awe of that thing. We bend our knees to magnificence because it is worth magnifying and worth fearing.

This is healthy fear. Fear that is not inconsistent with love.

So, "let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:28).

Jerry Maguire: I'm not letting you get rid of me. How about that? This used to be my specialty. I was good in a living room. Send me in there, I'll do it alone. And now I just... I don't know...but our little company had a good night tonight. A really big night. But it wasn't complete, it wasn't nearly close to being in the same vicinity as complete, because I couldn't share it with you. I couldn't hear your voice, or laugh about it with you. I missed my wife. We live in a cynical world, and we work in a business of tough competitors, I love you. You complete me. And I just...
Dorothy: Shut up. Just shut up. You had me at hello.

 If you are into RomComs, you will enjoy Jerry Maguire. One scene in particular seems to tickle people's tear ducts. It's the one where Jerry confesses that Dorothy "completes" him. When I watch that scene, I think of what God says in Genesis 2:18, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."

This got me thinking about "being complete" and how we can better understand that biblically. Is there only relational completeness in marriage? What other forms of completeness are there? These questions are especially important for the person who is grappling with their singleness. Yet, they are still relevant for the person who is experiencing loneliness in the midst of their relationships.

There is good news.


The kind of completeness God offers is not contingent on the hedonistic pleasures of our ephemeral relationships. Nor is it dependent on the inconsistent love of those around us. Worldly things and relationships will ultimately fail us. And it is foolish to think that these external things can heal that weakness which is internal to us.

We don't throw blood on skin and expect it to be absorbed into the bloodstream. We need a transfusion! That's what the cross does. It is an internal completion. Spiritual completion. Jesus makes us whole from within. In our weakness, in our incompleteness, we are made perfect through him.

In this way, the answer is simple... Jesus completes us.

So, how then shall you live? Paul tells us that we are to train in godliness as we are being made complete (2 Timothy 3:17). James says that we can be steadfast (James 1:4), in the hope of completion. Go, live this truth!