*Hold Tightly to Revelation

The Bible is not against what we might call scholarship or intellectual pursuit. From all that history can tell us, the apostle Paul may have been one of the most intellectual men who have ever lived. II Peter 3:15-16 warns believers that Paul's epistles contain instruction so hard to understand that false teachers can easily twist them to say wrong and harmful things. Members of the church, made up of the weak of the world (I Corinthians 1:26-29), can be especially gullible when it comes to intellectualism, and some stumble.

Even so, Scripture displays no animosity toward the use of the intellect, nor is it against rational arguments and dispassionate reasoning. When used properly, these things are good. God Himself gave us these skills, and we must use these tools to understand God's way of life. In fact, He wants us to use them in our ongoing pursuit of the truth of God. The true teachings of God that we understand and believe have all undergone deep scrutiny by these means and methods—scholarship, rational arguments, and dispassionate reasoning—and they pass muster on all counts. The doctrines that we in the churches of God agree on are sound and biblically based.

While not condemned by any means, human reason, scholarship, logic, and abundant research must take a back seat to two important elements, both of which are given directly by God: divine revelation and the Holy Spirit. These two pieces must be present before the rest of the puzzle will fall into place. Revelation is God's gift to us of His truth through His Word, and the Holy Spirit must be used to understand it properly. Once we have this initial understanding, we can apply scholarship, rational arguments, and dispassionate reasoning to glean further understanding. The important thing is that divine revelation and God's Spirit must come first.

We tend to forget about divine revelation because it is right in our Bibles, right under our noses, and we take it for granted. Of course, we study it frequently, but we rarely think about how the words and the truths they form got there in the first place. They are there because God revealed them, they were recorded by willing minds, and transmitted down through the centuries, guided and protected by God Himself. That is an awesome thing to consider.

We need to be careful to understand that the revelation we interact with in our Bibles is not direct revelation, as experienced by the apostles and prophets in visions, dreams, and the actual appearance by angels or even God Himself from time to time (Hebrews 1:1). Direct revelation is exceedingly rare. What we have in reading God's Word can be called "general revelation." It is what is available to everyone generally.

Scripture contains all that we need to know about our salvation, about God's Plan, and about our parts in it. If it is not in the Book, we can be sure that whatever it may be is not necessary for us to know in terms of salvation. If a fact does not appear in Scripture, it probably does not have much bearing on our calling and our future in the Kingdom of God. Extra-biblical knowledge may be occasionally helpful, and it may even add depth to our understanding. However, when it comes to a conclusion about whether something is spiritually true or not, the words of the Bible itself must be the final arbiter short of a direct appearance from God.

Another way of putting it is that general revelation—what is contained in God's Word—trumps every other source of information available—even church of God publications. Many people have taken Herbert W. Armstrong's booklets and made them into the equivalent of the Epistles of Herbert, metaphorically stapling them at the backs of their Bibles. We should understand that, though inspired by God's Spirit, his writings are not Scripture (see Isaiah 8:16; the canon of Scripture was finished with the death of Christ's disciples, the original twelve apostles). While his works contain quotations from Scripture, they also contain a great deal of material that was simply his explanations of various topics. They should be accorded respect but not veneration.

The only real source of divine revelation that we have access to, then, is the Bible. Certainly, it is more conclusive a source than any Bible resource help, such as concordances, lexicons, commentaries, and Bible dictionaries. Those books can be helpful, adding information and perspective, but they are not the final word on a given topic or doctrine. That is the Bible's job.

In the same way, the Bible is more authoritative than Jewish sources like the Talmud, the Mishna, the Targums, or any Jewish tradition. It is far more trustworthy than any opinion from a sage, rabbi, priest, or historian. The Bible is simply the last word on any matter of true Christian doctrine or practice.

The Bible itself claims this position. Jesus, for instance, in John 17:17, while praying to His Father just before His arrest, says plainly, "Sanctify them [His disciples, including us] by Your truth. Your word is truth." In reality, we need to look no further for the truth—those truths that have to do with our salvation and future in the Kingdom are in God's Word. Our Savior said so.

In II Timothy 3:14-17, Paul instructs the younger Timothy on what is to be the basis for his ministry and preaching:

But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Timothy had learned the truth from Paul, who had learned them from Christ. There was a direct line of descent of truth from the Source. That same truth has been preserved and made available to us in our Bibles. In a larger respect, Paul tells us that the Bible—the instruction that we have received from the prophets, apostles, and Jesus Christ Himself—is all that we need to equip us completely for the Kingdom of God.

So, beyond learning and applying these things, what is our responsibility to the revelation given to us? In II Thessalonians 2:13-15, Paul answers this question:

God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth . . . for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.

The apostle warns that difficult times are coming, times of apostasy, so we must hang on to the revealed truths we have been taught, including the godly traditions we have learned. The revelation of God is precious and should not be sold for a bowl of soup. Do not let cunning arguments or even rational discussions, which may be completely bogus, take us off track. Stick to the pure words of the Book.

Sacred Cows

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Even though we live in a world deluged by knowledge—after all, our day is known as the "Information Age"—we often rely heavily on our preconceived ideas about many things. On the other hand, if what we believe about a thing is not a preconception, it is often a misconception because we do not take the time or effort to find out the truth. In other words, some of what we believe is the result of ignorance, rather than true knowledge, while other beliefs are the result of prejudice, rather than true judgment. It is to be hoped that true Christians are whittling away at—or better yet, carving out big chunks of—both of these.

Some of these preconceptions or misconceptions become so dear that they turn into "sacred cows." According to the dictionary, a sacred cow is something "that is often unreasonably immune from criticism or opposition." This term was coined from the Hindu practice of worshipping cows. If any non-Hindu suggested that the cow, as a dumb animal, should not be allowed the run of the country, a Hindu would take great offense. This subject is immune to reason, criticism, or opposition.

A few of our ideas about biblical events or people are sacred cows. To some people, Herbert Armstrong is a sacred cow. They mistakenly venerate him so highly that they brook no criticism of him at all, forgetting that he, like all the rest of us, was human and made mistakes. Too many jump to the other extreme, saying that he did nothing right! Moreover, we have had skewered the sacred cow of an exclusive body of the true church in one corporate organization. Other sacred cows are, for some, church government, a Monday Pentecost, the new moons, postponements, conspiracy theories, etc.

One sacred cow is that the ten northern tribes of Israel were taken into Assyrian captivity, and nearly 150 years later, Judah was taken to Babylon. Generally, this is historically accurate, but it is not the whole story. A few years after Israel's fall to Assyria, a major segment of Judah's population was also taken captive by Assyria! Suddenly, the sacred cow of the Ten Lost Tribes becomes inaccurate. Not only the ten northern tribes were "lost," but even a large portion of Levi, Benjamin, and Judah lost their identities too! Now, in reality, we have thirteen remnant lost tribes! This is one reason why later Bible writers call the Jews "the of Judah."

Most people are ignorant of this because the Bible does not directly mention it. However, the Bible agrees with the historic record: "And in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them" (II Kings 18:13). This occurred only about eight years after Israel fell to Sargon. What did Sennacherib do upon taking all these cities? He boasts in his inscriptions that he took 46 fenced cities of Judah and deported 200,150 captives to the same areas to which Sargon had transported Israel. He says he left Hezekiah confined in Jerusalem "like a bird in a cage." In the end, only Jerusalem escaped intact. In essence, this means that only those few of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi who had taken refuge in Jerusalem were not deported or killed! How is that for skewering a sacred cow?

Another sacred cow is the occupation of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What did they do for a living? How did they become so wealthy? The movies made about the patriarchs usually depict them as nomadic shepherds. Even though the Bible describes Abraham as immensely rich in livestock, silver, and gold (Genesis 13:2), moviemakers usually make him seem just on the verge of poverty, dressing him in dirty brown robes, giving him a hangdog expression, and surrounding him with a few sheep and goats. How much wealth could a landless shepherd amass? Let us notice a few biblical facts:

Genesis 14:13-16 tells the story of an escaped captive coming to Abraham to tell him about the attack upon Sodom and about Lot's capture. Why did the man come to Abraham? Abraham had 318 trained and armed men, which he quickly marshaled and led into battle, successfully routing the forces of the four kings of Mesopotamia. Suddenly, Abraham starts taking on another dimension.

In Genesis 23, the Hittite elders address Abraham as "my lord" and "a mighty prince among us." They then proceed to negotiate ruthlessly with him for Sarah's burial cave, finally agreeing on the price of 400 shekels, a lot of money at the time. The Hittites ruled a vast empire centered in Asia Minor, and they had built it primarily on trade rather than conquest. They haggle with him as a sign of their respect for—not a dirty, poor shepherd—but a successful and incredibly wealthy merchant! It appears that Abraham was a businessman of great skill, intelligence, and power!

If the Egyptians considered shepherds to be an abomination (Genesis 46:34), why did Pharaoh and the princes of Egypt accept Abram and Sarai so readily in Genesis 12:14-16? Simple—Abram was not a shepherd but a wealthy merchant! The patriarchs were shepherds, in a sense, only because vast flocks and herds were necessary to their main occupation: trade! In that society, livestock acted as a form of currency just like silver and gold. Coins had not yet been invented, and some found it easier to trade in livestock rather than in heavy gold and silver. In a way, we carry on this practice by calling our trading centers "stock markets."

We tend to forget Abraham's origins. He was born in Ur, a large, commercial city of Mesopotamia, and he lived there into his seventies. He then moved with Terah, his father, to Haran, a major stop on the caravan route that ran between Babylon and Egypt. Trading seems to have been the patriarchs' business for several generations. Genesis 34:10 shows Jacob and his sons allying with the Hivites to carry on the family trade.

Another proof of their occupation as traders can been seen by mapping the patriarchs' dwelling places in Canaan. The resulting map shows that all of their activities took place at the junctions of major trading routes. The patriarchs lived where their business could profit them the most!

How does skewering this sacred cow benefit us? It is definitely not knowledge necessary for salvation, but it is the truth. It is not a preconception or a misconception. It is a small piece of knowledge that may help us understand more important things. For instance, God certainly has nothing against His children being in business and making money. In addition, we can better relate to some of the problems the patriarchs had to overcome.

It should certainly make us more careful in our Bible study to avoid relying on preconceptions. Proverbs 15:14 tells us, "The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouth of fools feeds on foolishness." We should be seeking the knowledge that will help us to understand the truth and shun the foolishness of sacred cows. This will help to show God that, rather than believing the lie, we have received the love of the truth (II Thessalonians 2:10).

Crisis? What Crisis?

Probably everyone has heard and used the tired cliché, "He can't see the forest for the trees." The Dictionary of Clichés asserts that some form of this cliché has been making the rounds since at least the mid-sixteenth century. It means, of course, that a person is "unable to grasp the broad meaning of a situation or the point of an argument because of an excessive attention to details." One gets the picture of the proverbial absent-minded naturalist so busy inspecting the beautiful striped rope that he fails altogether to observe the tiger's fangs on the other end.

Christians can fall prey to the same misfortune in watching world news for signs of the times. It is easy to read so many news articles and watch so many news programs on this or that topic, becoming saturated with the nitty-gritty minutia of a story, that one can forget to step back to see it in context. Many pundits have made similar comments regarding this week's targeted killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by Coalition Forces in Iraq. Sure, it was a victory for the good guys, but in the larger order of events, it is not necessarily earth-shattering. Good can come from it if the Iraqi government can use the opportunity to contain the insurgency and stabilize the country, but as with the capture of Saddam Hussein many months ago, this event will probably not turn the tide. Someone will likely step in to take his place, and who knows if he will be more or less effective?

Along a similar vein, Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor), a global intelligence-gathering and forecasting service, made a striking comment on June 6 about China's mounting economic woes. Stratfor CEO George Friedman writes: "We have been writing about this problem for several years now, and people keep asking when the crisis will come. Our answer is simple: If this isn't a crisis, what would a crisis look like?"

His comment should make one think.

The church of God has been writing and speaking about "the crisis at the close" for many decades now. In fact, Herbert W. Armstrong, who died twenty years ago, often used this phrase as a synonym for the prelude to and the actual Great Tribulation. More recently, we have taken cues from William Strauss and Neil Howe's generational studies as found in The Fourth Turning. They predict, based on historical cycles keyed to the character traits of generation after generation of Britons and Americans, that we are just about due for a major Crisis. They have found that major crises descend on the English-speaking peoples with regularity, about every 80-100 years, once in every four generations. Since the last Crisis occurred during the Depression and World War II, we are on the verge of another in just a few short years.

We would recognize something as horrible as the Great Depression, right? We would surely realize we had plunged into another World War! We would know if we had entered the Crisis! Would we?

Perhaps, yet most people fail to realize that they lived through World War III. We know it better as the Cold War, but historians are now writing, with the benefit of hindsight, that the dangerous political games and arms races of the Fifties, Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties constituted a real war, despite the fact that American and Soviet armed forces did not pummel each other to bloody bits on battlefields. We admit that each side had the ability to annihilate all life on earth multiple times over (appropriately called "MAD," mutually assured destruction), but we are still reluctant to assign the term "war" to this tense, uncertain time. Nevertheless, each nation was for all intents and purposes on a war footing for about 45 years. Ronald Reagan gets a great deal of credit for winning the Cold War for the West through economics—he essentially forced the U.S.S.R. into the ground by outspending it on arms and research.

With this in mind, how certain are we that we have a firm handle on world affairs? Maybe it is a good time to take a few steps back to look once again at the big picture, which should give us a new perspective on what is happening in the world. Fresh eyes often spark fresh ideas. While we are taking in the view, we should ask ourselves a few politically incorrect questions:

• Where are the real points of conflict in the world? Who are the antagonists? What are their aims?
• What kind of character do current world leaders have? Would we buy a used car from any one of them? Are they politicians or statesmen?
• How vital is economics in the grand scheme of things? Are the industrialized nations really as prosperous as they are said to be? How stable is the world's economy?
• How are the major alliances in the world configured? Are they shifting? Do the world's international institutions have any power or prestige to bear on conflict resolution? Could they be counted on in crunch-time?
• What affect does migration have on world affairs? Births? Aging?
• Is multiculturalism and diversity helpful or harmful to a nation? Socialism? Religion?
• Finally, what is the true spiritual, cultural, political, and financial condition of the nations of Israel? Just where are they in the biblical and historical cycle of liberty, backsliding, war/captivity, and deliverance (Judges 2:11-23)?

A look at the great expanse of the forest should help us regain our bearings as we move toward the coming Crisis and, beyond that, our goal.

Twenty Years On

It just occurred to me that January 16, 2006, will mark the twentieth anniversary of Herbert W. Armstrong's death. I remember that day quite clearly. I was a sophomore at Ambassador College in Pasadena, California, and employed by Church Administration to assist the office in various functions (in the vernacular, I was a "gofer"). When I reported for work that morning at 8, there was a palpable feeling that something big had taken place, and it took me all of three seconds to find out that Mr. Armstrong had died earlier that morning.

His death was not unexpected, it being common knowledge that his health was rapidly declining. Joseph Tkach, the new Pastor General, quickly put a transition team into action, and plans were put into motion for announcing Mr. Armstrong's death to the church and the press, arranging his funeral, developing a tribute telecast, informing the students and employees on campus, making legal adjustments for the smooth operation of the church, and doing a host of other activities. Condolences began pouring into Pasadena from all over the world by telex and fax and phone; I remember being handed a thick stack of them and being impressed by all the "big names," both foreign and domestic, who took the trouble to relay their sympathy.

The next few days and weeks were, to me, a blur of activity, highlighted by specific events that loomed large at the time: Mr. Armstrong's funeral, the huge response figures for the tribute World Tomorrow program, the introduction of the new World Tomorrow presenters, the move "upstairs" by Joseph Tkach, the inaugural church visits around the country and the world (on one of which, to Chicago, I was permitted to go), the "We Are Family" campaign, etc. Those were heady days. The church appeared to have transitioned peacefully and prosperously to the new regime.

It did not take long for those exhilarating days to end.

Most people are unaware that the doctrinal changes began to be enacted almost immediately. It began with "little things" slipped into a Pastor General's Report or implemented without much fanfare as counsel in individual cases. The first may have been backpedaling on teaching that married women, especially those with children, should be homemakers. There were flip-flops on applauding special music and the wearing of makeup. Many of Herbert Armstrong's booklets were edited, demoted, or retired and replaced altogether. The church's teaching found in The United States and Britain in Prophecy was questioned, ridiculed, and subsequently dropped.

The first core doctrinal change—concerning faith, Christ's sacrifice, and healing—occurred in early 1987. Elements of this change were theologically correct, for instance, that sin is sin, no matter whether it is physical or spiritual in nature. However, the practical effect of the change was to remove faith from healing—and really, from anything else—to such an extent as to make it negligible. Once this major tenet of the church's teaching fell, others, like dominoes, were doomed also to fall. Soon, certain Sabbath teachings were loosened, hints of Trinitarianism began to bubble out of headquarters, and the gospel of the Kingdom of God was downgraded in favor of "the gospel of grace" and "the gospel of Jesus." All of this took place before 1992 began, and many more changes would follow.

In a relatively few years, then, the work of Herbert Armstrong, which had taken about sixty years to build, was dismantled. Certainly, a decade after his death, the Worldwide Church of God was essentially unrecognizable as the church God had raised up through him. Twenty years on, it is seeking not even to be called the "Worldwide Church of God" any longer because, in the words of Joseph Tkach, Jr., "Our current name does not properly represent us." He is right. His organization does not deserve the name!

Notwithstanding such praise, Herbert Armstrong was a fallible man, and some would argue that he made many mistakes. He was not always right, even on doctrine. His fixation on preaching the gospel, while commendable, blinded him to other areas that should have received his attention, particularly to many church members' desperate need of strong, deep instruction in God's way of life. In addition, his authoritarianism is legendary, but it was effective in promoting and accomplishing his vision of God's work on earth. A person cannot head a global evangelistic organization without these traits.

It is too bad that, for many people, his negatives overshadow his positives. He was a wonderful teacher, due in many respects to his advertising skills. He could bore right to the heart of an issue, collect what was necessary for understanding it, and explain it in simple terms so that a person of average intelligence could grasp it. Unlike many in these "nuanced" times, he was at times painfully, even offensively direct, but there was never any doubt where he stood on an issue. He was also doggedly stubborn, refusing to change a doctrine until he was absolutely convinced that the change was biblically correct. These qualities, combined with the sheer force of his charisma, kept the church's teaching relatively stable for many decades, which produced much good fruit.

William Shakespeare wrote, "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together." The skein of Herbert Armstrong's life contained more good yarn than ill, and for that, we can praise God that He weaves the lives of such servants into ours. Would there were more of his fiber!