Tag: God

The Etymology of God

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I enjoy linguistics; I consider it a hobby. I speak only 2 languages fluently, and several others to varying degrees. Whereas some people find language learning tedious, I find it invigorating.

One of the areas of linguistics I enjoy most is etymology: the study of the origin of words.

Etymology gives you a window into the thinking of a culture or a people group.

For example: I have been teaching a church history class at White Fields, and last week we were talking about how Constantine, before his conversion to Christianity, had monotheistic leanings and had declared “the venerable day of the Sun” (Sunday) to be a free day, on which no one was to work. Until that time, Sunday had been a work day, and Christians gathered for worship and the taking of the sacrament (communion) before work and then again after work, in the evening. More on that here.

Someone in the class said: Oh, so that’s why it’s called SUNday?  Yes, and in English that’s why it’s called Monday (Moon) and Saturday (Saturn).

In fact, it is interesting to consider the etymology of the names of the week in other languages. In Russian, Sunday is called: Воскресенье, which is a close derivative of the word воскрешение, which means “Resurrection”.

In Hungarian, it’s not quite as cool: Sunday is “Vasárnap” – which no doubt derives from “vásár-nap”: “Market Day”… Definitely not as cool (or as Christian) as “Resurrection”. While Romans were all about honoring the Sun, Hungarians were all about shopping…

But if etymology gives insight into the way a culture thinks, then what can we learn from the etymology of “God”?

The English word God, does not derive from the word “good”, as one might think, but comes from the Germanic Gott, which derives from the Gothic Gheu, which is thought to derive from the Sanskrit: Hu – meaning: “the one who is invoked” or “the one who is sacrificed to.”  It refers to the supreme being.

The Latin Deus, along with the related Greek Theos comes from the Indo-Iranian Deva/Sanskrit Dyaus, which are related to the terms for “to give light”, “to implore”. It is from these roots that the Spanish Dios comes.

In Hungarian, the word for God is Isten.  I’ve been told that this modern form derives from:  Ős-tény – literally: “The ancient truth (or: ancient fact)”

One of the very interesting things to read about is how different missionaries tried to find a given culture’s word for God, sometimes with great success and sometimes without. For example, in Korea, Catholic missionaries believed that the Koreans had no good word for God – as in, the Supreme Being of the universe – so they used the Chinese word for God, a word which was foreign to the Koreans, and which caused the Koreans to think of Christianity as a foreign religion. It was only when Protestant Presbyterian missionaries came to Korea, that they got to know the Korean culture and language well enough to realize that they did in fact have a word (and therein a concept) for the God of the Bible: the creator and sustainer of all things, the righteous judge of all the Earth – 하나님 (Hananim).

It is as Paul the Apostle said: God has not left himself without witness in any culture, or amongst any group of people. (Acts 14:17)  Etymology gives us a window into this truth.

 

Advent Meditations: 5 – The Model for Missions

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As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. – John 17:18

“Christmas is a model for missions and missions are a reflection of Christmas.” – John Piper

The meaning of Christmas is the mission of God: a God who loves and cares so much, that He left Heaven to come and reach out to us with love and truth.

Christmas is a model for missions: God was so moved by love and the conviction that there is something better for us which we desperately need, that He left what was comfortable to Him and at great expense to Himself, came to us, to speak to us in our language, on our level. That is the model of Christian mission both locally and cross-culturally.

Christian mission is a reflection of Christmas: by going out in mission we are imitating our Father and our Lord. We are doing for others what He did for us, albeit obviously not on the same scale.

The purpose of Christmas is joy. God gave us His comfort, that we might have JOY. What a gift!  What a sacrifice, and what love it is that motivates such a sacrifice for the sake of others – others who do not always (or perhaps often) reciprocate that love.

these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. – John 17:13

Not only is the purpose of Christmas joy, but the purpose of Christian mission is joy!   Joy for those who come to know the love of God BUT ALSO: joy for those who participate in the mission.

We were made for mission, and we will only know true joy when we get on board with the one ultimate mission: the only mission which has significance beyond this life and even this world: the mission of God to bring salvation to the world. It is in this mission that we can be truly fulfilled and that is a fountain of joy.

 

Thoughts on Representative Klingenschmitt’s Comments about the Judgement of God and the Assault in Longmont

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Last week Colorado State Representative Gordon Klingenschmitt from Colorado Springs stated on his YouTube channel that the Bible says that the Longmont woman who was assaulted and had her baby cut from her stomach was the wrath of God coming against America because we have failed to protect unborn children. To make this point, he quoted from Hosea 13:16.

Since then, both conservatives and liberals have distanced themselves from Klingenschmitt and he has been removed from at least one comittee that he was a member of.

I went and checked out the statement he made, because I know how sometimes things can be misconstrued when relayed by media – I was curious if that was the case here.

Here are my thoughts:

  1. The one way that Klingenschmitt might have been misrepresented was that he was not saying that God was judging this woman individually, who was the victim of the assault – rather he said that God is judging our soceity in general, and what happened to this woman was part of that judgment.
  2. He quoted from Hosea 13:16, a verse about how both Israel and Samaria would face God’s judgment (in the form of war) as a result of their rebellion against God. The prophet describes what will happen when war comes: no one will be spared; children will die, and even pregnant women will be killed with the sword (cut open).
    This is, first of all, not even talking about the kind of assault that took place in Longmont. Secondly, the important detail in understanding what is being said by the prophet is that judgment will come in the form of war, and in war, these are the kinds of atrocities that happen.
    In other words, it isn’t God saying that He’s going to judge them by sending people to kill their children and cut open their pregnant women, it’s God saying that he will allow a time of hardship by removing His hand of protection and allowing a foreign nation (the Assyrians in this case) to overrun them. Historically, this is exactly what happened. However, in the context of the Book of Hosea, it is important to note that this is said as a warning of the judgment that will come if the people continue in their wickedness and rebellion, and is followed in the next chapter by the urging of Hosea about the blessings and restoration that repentance would bring to the nation instead.
    In other words: “You have a choice to make. It’s not too late! You can choose to continue rebelling against God, in which case God will not protect you from the impending onslaught of the Assyrians (and just to remind you, here are the kinds of terrible atrocities that happen in war…), or you can repent and turn back to the Lord and he will restore you and heal your nation.”
    Conclusion: Klingenschmitt is clearly taking this verse out of context.
  3. The difficult question this brings up is: when do we consider something to be God’s judgment, and when do we not? In the Bible, it seems that many times things happened that were indeed the judgment of God, which, if they were to happen in our day, we might not see them as such.
    For example, in the Old Testament, in Korah’s rebellion, people got swallowed up by the Earth as God’s judgment upon them. Nowadays, if someone gets sucked up in a sinkhole, calling it the judgment of God is not exactly politically correct. In the Old Testament, wars and attacks from foreign nations were often related to God’s judgment. Do we still consider that to be the case? Or how about Ananias and Saphira – they lied to make themselves look good, and God struck them dead. We don’t often think in our day about heart attacks as being God’s judgment on a person. I’m sure that not all heart attacks are God’s judgment on people – but it would seem that sometimes they might be.
    It is incredibly difficult to discern or to say with any amount of certainty which things are God’s judgment and which are not, apart from divine revelation.

My conclusion is that this man is not evil or heartless, but perhaps a bit misguided and could use some lessons in exegesis, because he is very dogmatic about some things which he doesn’t have proper basis to be so dogmatic about. Furthermore, having a platform like the one he does as a State Congressman, he should be much more careful about what he says.

Much more importantly, my heart goes out to the victim of this terrible crime. We pray for her physical and emotional healing. We pray that she will be able to have more children after this. I have been so impressed by her graciousness in her public statements, and we do pray that she would sense the love of God and presence of God and the hope of the Gospel.

How to Make a Difference in the World

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I love the way John Piper speaks about God.

If there’s one thing you can say for the man – it’s that he is certainly not indifferent about the Gospel or the things of God. I may not always agree with everything he says, but when I hear him speak about God, there is no doubt in my mind that he is a man who loves God.

Here’s some classic John Piper for your listening pleasure:

Rustling with the Rumor

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Growing up in Colorado, I took the natural beauty of this place for granted; how could I not? I didn’t know anything else, except for California and Oregon, where I spent summers with family – places which are also full of dramatic landscapes.

It took moving to Debrecen, Hungary, the center of the “Puszta” (some what of a mix between a plain and a wasteland) for me to realize how much I long for natural beauty. When it came time for me to venture out from Debrecen to plant a church, it was a great gesture of love and grace on God’s part that he called me to Eger, in the north of Hungary, flanked by the Bükk mountains on one side and the Mátra range on the other. It is a region of waterfalls and forests, very different from the rest of the country.

Living in Colorado once again, this time I appreciate it more.

Why is it though, that we have this great longing for the grand landscapes?

According to C.S. Lewis, it is because we see in nature the grandeur of beauty and grace that we yearn for for ourselves.

Blaise Pascal spoke of this longing and explained it in this way: There’s something nostalgic and reminiscent in us, that longs to get back to the place from which we have come. And that is because we came from perfection and we were made for perfection. And that is why we have this sort of lingering memory of it, and therefore we long to return to that place where everything is as God intended it to be.

Here is what C.S. Lewis wrote about this in his book, The Weight of Glory:

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words: to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.

That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves-that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can’t. They tell us that ‘beauty born of murmuring sound’ will pass into a human face; but it won’t. Or not yet.

For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy.

At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get in.”

 

 

“If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and to earnestly hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I suggest that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

I love this quote from CS Lewis’ The Weight of Glory. Unfortunately, usually only the second half of it  is quoted. I think the first part is perhaps even more important than the second, where Lewis states that the assumption that true spirituality consists of depriving oneself or pleasure, or that to seek pleasure is unspiritual, is not a Christian teaching, but comes from Kant and the Stoics.

I would add to Lewis’ comment that this is also rooted in Plato-an thinking, which holds the physical to be inherently bad and the ethereal to be good. Plato-an philosophy was also at the root of one of the first great heresies in the church – Gnosticism, and the lingering effects of this are still present in much thinking amongst Christians as to what makes one truly spiritual.

True spirituality is not found in depriving oneself of pleasure, but in walking in step with the Spirit of God to the point where your pleasures are re-aligned – properly aligned with the heart of God.

The Fat Belongs to the Lord

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This Sunday at White Fields I taught 1 Samuel 2 and the story of Hophni and Phineas, the priests who were doing shameful things in the Tabernacle. (Click here for audio of that sermon: “Messed-Up Ministry”). There was a detail of that story that at first seems a bit odd and obscure, but is worth serious consideration.

In 1 Samuel 2:15-17 we read about how the Law required that the fat be burned off the meat before it was eaten. The law about this is found in the Book of Leviticus – and as I mentioned on Sunday, the reason for this is because at that time, the fat of the meat was considered the best, most luxurious part. But God required that when a sacrifice was made as an act of worship, the fat be burned, which would create a lot of smoke and it would be a “fragrant offering” unto the Lord.  Any of you who like the smell of bacon cooking know what I’m talking about. Those of you who are vegans, well, you can eat your tofu bacon and pretend you know what I’m talking about!  

The fat belongs to the Lord

But the idea that the fat belonged to the Lord represented a fundamental belief that we should give the best to God. Many people are in the habit of doing just the opposite – keeping the best for themselves, and giving the rest (the left-overs) to God. Rather than making their offering check the first check they write every month, they wait until the end of the month to see if they have anything left over. God asks that we give him the best, not the rest.

But there’s something else worth taking note of here: when the people in those days gave the fat of the meat to the Lord, they thought they were really giving up a lot – they were really “sacrificing” something, in obedience to God. They were giving up luxury and “the good life”. However, what we now know is that fat kills. At our last men’s prayer breakfast, one man brought a creation called the “bacon explosion” made of various lard extracts which I am convinced reduced my life span by 2 months per bite!
But here’s the point: by telling them to sacrifice the fat on the altar, not only was God teaching them an important values lesson, but he was also sparing them from something which was bad for them, even though they couldn’t possibly know that yet! It would only be thousands of years later that people would realize that God wasn’t only asking them to give something up, he was actually protecting them – even though they didn’t understand it yet, much like all of us parents do with our children.

God is good and all his ordinances – the things he tells you to do and what he tells you to steer clear of – each and every one flows out of his love and care for you.

Ga BleshU

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Do you remember that Seinfeld episode where they talked about why we say “God bless you” when someone sneezes? One of them – I can't remember if it was Elain or Jerry – suggested was that instead we should say, “You're so good looking!”, because that would really make people feel better.

I saw this display at Sprouts in Longmont today:

Ga Ble Shu: You know, for when you're not really into God, but you feel like you should say something when people sneeze.

What do you think? Harmless advertising gimmick or a sign of the spiritual climate?

 

Atheist Mega-churches: What they mean and what we can learn from them

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Image
Sunday Assembly in Los Angeles

Recently a new movement has been getting a lot of publicity. Dubbed “atheist mega-churches” – the movement is being spearheaded by two British comedians. They call their meetings “sunday assemblies,” and they have all of the look and feel of a contemporary Christian church service, without one key factor: God.

Co-founders, Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans have stated that their goal is to export the original concept, first started in London, around the world. They are currently on tour visiting 40 major cities; right now they are in the US, going from New York to Los Angeles, trying to establish Sunday Assemblies and propagating their message of humanist community gatherings.

At these Sunday assemblies, they do everything that your average Christian church does: they sing songs, they drink tea and coffee and chat in the lobby, they raise money for humanitarian causes – they take offerings, and they have a sermon each week! In an interview, Sanderson Jones answered the obvious question of what they preach on if they don’t have the Bible or another “sacred text”. His answer was astounding and something that should cause Christians everywhere some serious consideration. He said that ‘preaching without God isn’t hard at all – after all, most preaching in churches these days is basically tips and strategies about how to be a kinder, more balanced, well-rounded person; we embrace that whole heartedly, and we don’t believe we need God to do that.’

‘preaching without God isn’t hard at all – after all, most preaching in churches these days is basically tips and strategies about how to be a kinder, more balanced, well-rounded person; we embrace that whole heartedly, and we don’t believe we need God to do that.’

Here are my thoughts on these “atheist mega-churches”:

1. Mega-churches? Hardly.

Although they have been dubbed “mega-churches” by the media, if you look at the pictures, you will notice that if this were a Christian church, it would not be qualify as a “mega-church”. Furthermore, let’s not forget that the gatherings getting the most press are the ones in which Jones and Evans are present and leading the meetings – two British celebrities, who have been getting a lot of press attention lately for these Sunday Assemblies. This is a special event, not a church – not a committed community of people, and certainly not a mega-church. Even the original Sunday Assembly is not all that big. I understand that “mega-church” pops out on a page – but let’s make sure we’re not blowing this all out of proportion.

2. Novelty = Media Hype

“Atheist Mega-church” is a novelty of a phrase that grabs people’s attention. Perfect for the media. Is there much substance to it? Will we see this as a growing movement for years to come? I don’t think so. I don’t believe it is sustainable. In fact, if it hadn’t been started by two celebrities, I don’t think it would have ever gotten off the ground. I see this fizzling out in the weeks, months and years to come as media hype wears off and moves on to the next amusing story. The reason why “Christian music and movies” are never as good as the original is simply this: they are not original – they are trying to copy someone else’s idea and put a Christian twist on it. It is often second-rate as a result. This smacks of the same thing, only more so.

3. A Very Important Critique

The quote from Sanderson Jones above is a VERY important critique for Christians, and particularly church leaders. Because here’s the deal: ANYBODY can “do church”! And Sanderson is right – you don’t need God to just get together, drink some bad coffee, sing a few songs and hear an inspiring talk about 10 ways to have your best life now. YOU DON’T NEED GOD FOR THAT! He’s right!

ALL that we have as Christians is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If we get away from that, then we have become nothing more than a community gathering – in which it doesn’t matter if God is there or not.

Recently I had someone come to our church, and they told me that they had been attending another church previously, but came to realize that the sermons that were being preached could have easily been speeches given at a high school graduation or by a politician. God’s name was mentioned, but if it hadn’t been, it wouldn’t have changed the substance of the message. In other words: it didn’t matter if God was there or not. They were giving tips and strategies for how to be a kinder, more-balanced, well-rounded person – and the fact is, that you don’t need God to do that.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Word of God are what we have as Christians. They are what we should major on, and never neglect in an effort to give practical advice. The Gospel is life-changing and transforming, and we must crank it up rather than water it down. Only then will people really be transformed.

What do you think of these atheist mega-churches and my estimation of them?  Are they just a flash in the pan, or are they here to stay?  And what does this mean for Christianity and society in general?