Linkage: Is Christian Hope Speculation?

What does it mean to have hope?  In our culture that is a word that has some baggage to it.  President Obama promised "Hope and Change," by which he meant to say that the he wanted to give the United States a bright looking future again.

I think for many people hope comes to mean wishful thinking.  A young lady might say, "I hope to be married someday."  What she means is that her wish, her desire, is to married, even though at the moment the prospects of that happening are not the greatest.  So hope becomes this weak wish list of what one looks forward to happening in the future.  There is no firm evidence for what the future holds which means that hope is nothing more than speculation on our part.

This is the reason why a book like Heaven is for Real becomes such a popular book in Christian circles.  We are looking for evidence that what we speculate about, what we wish for, what we "hope" for is actually true. Whether or not it provides such evidence is a discussion for another day.

Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed started a discussion on the nature of hope. We need to have this conversation.  If hope is nothing more than our speculation about the future and if we need to have evidence to support of speculation than are we really trusting God?

One word that has come up a few times in the last year’s discussion about life after death, about heaven and hell, and about who goes where, is the word “speculation.” A number of folks have used it, but two notables who have pushed against traditionalists with that word are Rob Bell and Shane Hipps. Is the Christian hope in life after death, in “heaven” (however understood), in eternal life, speculation? I cringe when I hear “speculation” because I wonder how extensive such a view is. Is it all speculation? Just speculation? Or is just some of it speculation? What of the Big Four: return of Christ, last judgment, resurrection, and new creation? 

A simplistic reaction to the “it’s speculation, after all” claim is to affirm or assert or dig one’s ground on the doctrine of Scripture. There’s a better way, and it’s a deeper way. The Christian hope is not simply believing the Bible. I will say it with Greek words and then spell this out as we discuss Tony Thiselton’s Life after Death. Here it is: euangelion is epangelia. (Gospel is promise.)

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Daily Thought: It is Far Truer

"The most important divine truth ever given is far truer and even more difficult for us to absorb than a simple golfing truth.  From Moses to Malachi and from Jesus to John, the Bible witnesses to this elemental truth: God loves us.  He loves you, and he loves me—as individuals.  This big truth needs to be absorbed into our beings." ~ Scot McKnight, The Jesus Creed, p. 24

Daily Thought: God's Promise to Love

"Even better, the premise that God loves us is also a promise.  God takes the first step toward us.  It all begins with his gracious love for us, regardless of who we are and what we have done.  He promises this much: he will love us." ~ Scot McKnight, The Jesus Creed, p. 30

Linkage: Decisions or Discipleship

I appreciate Scot McKnight's thoughts in this article: Decisions or Discipleship?.  A quick survey of the Church in the United States shows that something isn't quite right.  That problem is that while we can help people make a "decision" for Jesus, but no real life change happens in their lives.  While people do need to make a choice to follow Jesus there is also the important task of making disciples.

It was 1971. I was a 17-year-old high school senior fresh into a brand new experience of faith. I was also full of zeal for evangelism but clueless about how to evangelize other than just telling my friends about what I was so passionate about—God, Jesus, the Bible, salvation and the rapture. 

My church had an evangelism program; I had attended all the sessions for Evangelism Explosion and was paired with a leading deacon in our Baptist church for our first night of calling on people so we could present the gospel to them. The deacon and I knocked on the first door. Behind this door was a man whose name we had been given because he had visited our church and innocently filled out a visitor's card. The man came to the door and greeted us, but it was obvious from traces of food on his face and the napkin in his hand that he and his family were eating dinner and watching TV.

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Shaping Theological Agendas

"What I am saying is this: sometimes our own theological agendas are shaped as much by personal and social factors as they are by a concern for the truth. The keen Christian is alert to the social world shaping the positions in vogue at any given time." ~ Scot McKnight, The NIV Application Commentary: Galatians; p. 91

Stick to the Calling

"Whatever areas we are called to, it is important for each of us to discern what God has called us to do and to do that without trying to do everything else. What I am getting at is that when we sense the call of God on our lives, we need to stick to that calling and not let distraction prevent us from fulfilling God's will for us." ~ Scot McKnight, The NIV Application Commentary: Galatians; p. 78

Submission to the Text

"Our stance is submission to whatever the text says, regardless of what that means for our thinking and lifestyle. We are using a slippery escape when we distort the interpretation so that it fits our predispositions; we are not finding a slippery escape when we accept the text as it stands, regardless of its implications for life. Every honest interpreter can give countless examples of find himself or herself to be simply wrong and in need of God's grace as a result of reading the Bible with the purpose of hearing God's word." ~ Scot McKnight; The NIV Application Commentary: Galatians; p. 56

Christian Living

"And here is the essence of Christian Living to Paul: living in Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. When a person lives in the Spirit (i.e., under the total guidance of God's Spirit), that person does everything God wants, and so the law cannot condemn that person. When a person lives according to the leading of the Spirit, that person will always do the fullness of God's will, of which the law of Moses was but a preliminary glimpse." ~ Scot McKnight, The NIV Application Commentary: Galatians; pg. 35

Lay Aside Your Preconceptions

Being so far removed from when the text of the Bible was written is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because we have such a wealth of material handed done to us by men and women who have pondered and study the text and have done their best to pass on what they believed. We can gain valuable knowledge from what these examples of faith wrote down long ago.

It is a curse because of all the baggage we bring to the Bible. While I do believe that what the theologians of years past have passed on to us important ideas I also believe that often these ideas hinder our understanding of what the Bible says. Some times it seems to me that we act that because so-and-so taught this there is nothing more to be said on the the subject. Biblical Christianity, if there is truly such a thing, is based on people’s interpretation of the Bible than what the Bible actually says. Our standard for truth cannot be what some guy says truth is, no matter how brilliant he may seem to be, but the truth God has revealed to us through through His word.

I like what Scot McKnight wrote in his commentary on Galatians:

“Our stance is submission to whatever the text says, regardless of what that means for our thinking and lifestyle. We are using a slippery escape when we distort the interpretation so that it fits our predispositions; we are not finding a slippery escape when we accept the text as it stands, regardless of its implications for life. Every honest interpreter can give countless examples of finding himself or herself to be simply wrong and in need of God’s grace as a result of reading the Bible with the purpose of hearing God’s word” (The NIV Application Commentary: Galatians; pg. 56).

We need to approach the Bible with the objective of hearing God’s word rather than trying to prove that position is THE Christian position. Part of humility is being able to set aside what we think is so important and open our hearts and our minds to what God has to say to us. I wonder how many times I have missed out on hearing God’s Word because I when I approached the Bible I thought I had it all figured out.

Here is another challenge I want to give you as we head into this new year: set aside your preconceived notions and go to the Bible seeking a word from God. If you will do this you might realize that you don’t have things quite as well figured out as you thought you did. But I am willing to bet that you think that is a fair trade as you get to know God better.