*The Bible's Claims About Itself

It is almost impossible for a Christian to have a meeting of minds with an atheist on any subject anywhere in the neighborhood of religion. As soon as the "conversation" moves to the source of the Christian's belief, the Bible, the atheist summarily rejects what the Christian says. In an incredulous voice, he will say something like, "You're telling me that you believe what you read in a book that is thousands of years old over the findings of modern science?" When the Christian answers, "Of course!" the atheist will ask, "Why?"

The only proper response is, "Because it is the Word of God," and the conversation can logically go no further. The determined atheist will accept no argument based on Scripture, and the faithful Christian will accept nothing that contradicts it. The conversation must end unresolved and unsatisfying—unless God Himself intervenes to open the atheist's mind or the unprepared Christian withers under the other's arguments.

In one sense, Christianity begins and ends with the Bible. All we truly know about God is found in its pages, as it is the only permanent record of God's revelation of Himself to mankind. In it, we find all of our instruction on doctrine, law, and morality. It reveals the standards by which human beings can live in harmony. It shows the miserable depths of man's depravity and the incomparable heights of his potential—and how God can take him from the former to the latter. In reality, a converted Christian bases every aspect of life on the words written in it.

Billions have seen the need to own this book we call the Holy Bible. It continues year after year to be the world's bestselling book, and millions of free copies are distributed around the globe. One would think that, with the Bible so accessible, humanity's moral fiber would be strong, but just the opposite is true. What a paradox! A major key to successful and abundant life lies in our hands, yet most reject it as quaint, outdated, and invalid for our times! The fact is, few people really study it, much less believe it. When polled, many give it lip-service, but increasingly, people do not consider it authoritative—it is just another possibility among many.

Accepting the Bible on faith may be noble, but God instructs us through the apostle Paul, "Test all things; hold fast what is good" (I Thessalonians 5:21). We must challenge the Bible to verify its claims, and conversely, we must take up the challenge to put its instructions to the test in our lives. We must make proving God's Word a personal matter that will forever erase all doubts about its validity. This takes time and work. It also takes the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit to open our minds to its richness and truth (I Corinthians 2:6-16; John 14:16-17, 26; 16:13-14). Only then can we really understand and believe.

New Bible students are struck by the Bible's authoritative claims about itself. For instance, Paul writes in II Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." The phrase "inspiration of God" is in Greek theopneustos, literally "God-breathed." Scripture, then, is a direct product of God's mind and being. The words "all Scripture" (pasa graphe) can be rendered "every text," "every scripture," "the whole scripture," "all the writings," etc., meaning the whole canon of Scripture. In other words, nothing crept into the Bible that God did not want there, and conversely, nothing He wanted to be in it has been left out.

This is backed up by II Peter 1:21: ". . . for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." God employed His Spirit to inspire His servants, the prophets and apostles. At some point, they wrote down what God had revealed through them, passing His Word on to successive generations.

Hebrews 1:1-2 informs us that God's inspiration occurred in a number of ways: "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by His Son." God is not limited to revealing Himself in any one manner. Sometimes, He spoke directly (see Genesis 12:7; 16:7; Exodus 3:2; etc.). At other times, He spoke in visions and dreams (see Isaiah 1:1; Ezekiel 1:1; Daniel 2:1, 19; Acts 10:10; Revelation 1:10; etc.). He once even spoke through a donkey (Numbers 22:28)! On one occasion, He spoke through the casting of lots (Acts 1:23-26), much as He did through the Urim and Thummim to Israel (Numbers 27:21).

Most importantly, He spoke through His Son, Jesus Christ, who came to reveal the Father (see John 1:18; 14:7-11; 17:25-26). He is uniquely qualified to speak for God because, as the apostle John describes Him in John 1:1-2, 14, 17, He is God! As the Word (Greek logos), He is the Spokesman for God, communicating to humanity, and specifically to His people, the will of God and the way to live in a relationship with Him.

Since He came to reveal the Father, Jesus must have been the God Being that the Israelites worshipped in Old Testament times, who spoke to them and led them. In this vein, John 1:3 specifically claims that the Word is also the Creator (see also Colossians 1:16; Ephesians 3:9). The Being, then, who made all that exists is the same One who inspired the words of Scripture! Since we owe our existence to Him, we also owe obedience to His Word in our Bibles.

As for its content, the Bible claims that it provides truth to humanity. Jesus Himself says in His great prayer to His Father on the night He was arrested, "Your word is truth" (John 17:17). This an echo of Psalm 119:160: "The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever." God considers every word He speaks or inspires to be true. It is His guarantee that we receive only the best instruction from Him. In fact, He would not be God if He spoke anything other than the truth (Numbers 23:19; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18).

The Bible also claims, "Every word of God is pure" (Proverbs 30:5). David writes in Psalm 12:6, "The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times" (see Psalm 19:8; 119:140). The Hebrew word behind "pure" means "tested," "refined," or "proven of the highest quality." Our God has given us only the best information to propel us along the path to His Kingdom. We can take great confidence in that.

Jesus comments on the authority of Scripture in Matthew 5:18: "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled." The jot (iota) and the tittle (keraia, "little horn" or "point") are the smallest parts of written Hebrew. Christ was so sure of Scripture that He claimed that all of it would be fulfilled—down to the minutest parts. He affirms in John 10:35 that "the Scripture cannot be broken," which means its authority cannot be "loosened," "unbound," "destroyed," "annulled," or "taken away." Our Lord and Savior says that no one can diminish the authority of God's Word!

The Bible presents many proofs of its validity and authority; what we have seen so far only scratches the surface. The most convincing and most lasting proof, however, resides in the relationship we build and foster with God. In a way, we can say that our proving of Scripture extends throughout our Christian lives as we see God in action, working in and through us to bring us into His Kingdom. The real proof is in the doing.

The Unique Greatness of Our God (Part One)

The fifth commandment in Exodus 20:12 reads, "Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you." A kind of New Testament spiritual parallel to this is found in Luke 11:2, the first verse in Luke's version of the so-called "Lord's Prayer." Jesus is instructing His disciples in how to pray: "So He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.'"

We all have or had physical fathers to honor, but as Christians, we sometimes fail to honor our far greater Father in heaven to the degree He justly deserves. Our spiritual Father is more important by far than our physical fathers because He is the One who not only provides for us and gives us so many blessings, but He is also the One who has called us out of this world and given us the opportunity to fulfill our incredible, eternal potential as His sons and daughters.

Jesus says that we are to hallow the name of our Father in heaven. The word is hagiazo in the Greek, and it means "to make holy," "to sanctify," or "to set apart." Another definition, however, perhaps applies better to our subject here: "to show a difference from the common." We all have our common, human fathers. They are all men—some better, some worse, but still human every one—yet we have only one Father who is truly holy. He comprises an entirely different category from our ordinary human fathers.

Despite being made in God's image, our physical fathers are nonetheless created beings, full of flaws and deficiencies. As a father myself, I count myself among those full of flaws and deficiencies. Yet, we have a heavenly Father who is vastly different and uncommon—a great Father who is so much more and better than any man, any father, no matter how great he may be.

Even so, we should not focus exclusively on God as a father. Instead, we need to consider the wider concept that we have a God who is different from the common because this relates to how we view God in general in our everyday lives—in our everyday relationship with Him—because He is not just a father.

Of course, that is how He is introduced to us by Jesus Christ, one of whose purposes in coming as a man was to reveal the Father (John 1:18). However, just as a human dad engages in more than parenting, "Father" is just one of God's hats, so to speak. One's father is a father, certainly, but he may also be a carpenter, a plumber, a salesman, a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker. He may also be a hunter or a fisherman, and he may be a ballplayer, a golfer, a tennis player, a card player, or a sailor. He might like to tinker on cars, or he could be a skeet shooter. He may be a poet, a playwright, a stamp collector, a gardener, a model railroader, or a woodcrafter. He may fly planes for a living and skydive occasionally. Throughout a long life, he may do a few or many of these things.

For the same reason, God is not a one-dimensional figure either. He is not just a wonderful Father, but He is also Designer, Creator, Life-giver, Law-giver, Provider, and Supreme Judge. He is sovereign over all there is. He gives, reveals, works out prophecy, answers prayers, and heals sickness. He works in world events, in church events, and in individual lives, calling, forgiving, granting repentance, justifying, sanctifying, and ultimately glorifying. One may have never thought of Him in this way, but He is undoubtedly the universe's supreme geologist, biologist, botanist, chemist, physicist, mathematician, linguist, historian, writer, and author—among multitudes of other areas of expertise.

When we look at God as though He has only one job or is interested in only one narrow aspect of life, we lose sight of how wonderful He is, how expansive His mind is, how talented He is, and how intelligent, creative, and powerful He is. We have a truly exalted and almighty God who will not be pigeon-holed into one little niche that we have labeled and defined as "God." He is so much more! His mind is so majestic and His power so wonderful that our little minds cannot grasp their magnitude, but we must do our best to understand as much of His greatness as we can so that we can truly know Him, what He is, and what He does.

As limited, self-focused human beings, we have a huge problem with this. The primary reason for this is that all we know revolves around profoundly inadequate human traits, strengths, perspectives, and standards, all of which are physical, finite, and tinged with the corruption of human nature. We make the mistake of comparing everything with ourselves or with the common, average person, and sometimes even the "best" person (see II Corinthians 10:12).

If we are trying to improve ourselves, we oftentimes set as a standard another person who is doing what we want to be able to do, and then we work toward rising to his level of competence. With God, however, we cannot do that; He is not comparable to any man (Isaiah 40:18; 46:5). Yet, making such comparisons is the only way we know how to gauge our spiritual progress, and thus we gain some idea of it by taking an unblinkered look at man and then comparing him to God. This is actually hard to do. Our minds can only grasp but a thin sliver of what God is and does. We are just so earthbound, tied to what we see and know, which is almost entirely material, terminal, and tainted by sin.

God says of this comparison: "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9). There is indeed a great gulf between Him and us. We are stuck here on earth, and we think almost exclusively on earthly things. God's thoughts, though, are always in the heavens, as it were, concentrated on spiritual things. To give us some measure of understanding, that is how He describes the vast difference between Himself and us. It appears to be an unbridgeable gap.

When we go outside in the dark of night and gaze into the sky, we can see thousands of stars wheeling about the heavens, and we know that astronomers tell us that each star is many light-years away. If He can create something so far away to give us light here on earth, then He must be a great God. In this way, we catch a glimpse of how far superior to us God is. Even so, that physical comparison does not really do Him justice, for there is also a spiritual chasm between God and us that is light-years wide and light-years deep. In our carnal state, this chasm cannot be overcome. Only through the work of God who became a Man, Jesus Christ, is there any hope of seeing God as He really is (I John 3:2).

A Polluted National Landscape

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Midterm elections will take place across America next Tuesday. Democrats are licking their chops, confident that they will win back the House of Representatives (most analysts are saying they will win twenty seats from Republicans) and perhaps the Senate (it will probably be close). History shows us that the party in power often loses midterm elections in a sitting president's second term. Only Franklin Roosevelt held serve, yet that event occurred when Democrats dominated the Senate, holding more than eighty seats.

Church of the Great God is strictly apolitical. We do not endorse any party or any candidates, and we teach that those whom God has called do not have authority to vote. Christians, whom the Bible describes as "the called" or "the elect," have their citizenship in heaven (Philippians 3:20), so they are strangers and foreigners even in the land of their birth. Just as illegal aliens have no right to vote in U.S. elections, so are true Christians banned from casting a ballot. "No one," says our Lord and Savior, "can serve two masters" (Matthew 6:24). It is a matter of loyalty.

Nevertheless, our apolitical stance does not restrict us from commenting on the political scene, especially when the government and its representatives cross the lines of morality and justice. Unfortunately, these lines are crossed all the time, giving us plenty of fodder for crying aloud and sparing not (Isaiah 58:1), a responsibility of God's ministers. Like the prophets of old, it is part of the duty of the ministry to point out where this nation has left the true path and offer godly suggestions for restoring Christian values to public and private life.

The scene today, just days before the nation goes to the polls, contains a plethora of targets for criticism. From mistakes in handling the war in Iraq to foot-dragging on solving the illegal immigrant crisis, from sex scandals to campaign finance violations, from poorly worded "jokes" to biting negative campaign ads, the national political landscape is strewn with controversy, immorality, and foolishness. We can blame these black marks on politicians, who indeed carry a large part of the blame, but that is missing the point. The political landscape is marred because our society at large is sick, from top to bottom, or as Isaiah puts it so much more eloquently: "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and putrefying sores" (Isaiah 1:5-6).

Isaiah is not speaking, of course, of physical bruises and disease but of spiritual and thus of cultural decay at work. He sees the nation as a body made up of many individuals (much as Paul describes Christ's body, the church, in I Corinthians 12), but because so many of the individuals are spiritually weak and sick, the nation itself is diseased throughout. The head, which he describes as "sick," represents the leadership, while the heart represents the patriots, those who work for the good of the country—and even it is "faint" or weak and faltering. Beyond these two critical areas, every part of the body from sole to pate is unsound. The prophet describes a sorry, almost hopeless condition.

So the old adage is true: "People get the leaders they deserve." While the politicians may be constantly in the public eye, and their indiscretions thus become front page news, they are not altogether unlike their constituents. Can we claim that no voter has ever had a homosexual tryst? Is it possible that no voter ever took some money under the table to smooth the way for a deal? Certainly, no voter has ever hired an illegal alien to sweeten his bottom line! Or evaded paying his taxes. Or smoked pot or snorted cocaine. Or voiced an ethnic slur. Or dumped some engine oil down the sewer, etc. No, even beyond the all-important issues, politicians reflect those who back them.

The liberals are fond of another saying: "Think globally. Act locally." It is a common mantra of environmentalists, who urge individuals to clean up their own acts, their own properties, as the best place to start to reform the whole world. The saying contains a true principle: A person can only change himself, and if we desire a large-scale transformation of behavior for the better, many individuals will have to resolve to change. Right now, the momentum of societal behavior runs steeply downhill toward degeneration and immorality. To shift that momentum back toward morality and Christian values will take a massive effort, one that may be beyond America's ability to achieve.

But it will certainly never even get started if Christians themselves do not live for all their worth according to God's standards (Matthew 19:17). We cannot rely on being joined by thousands of fellow citizens, let alone millions of conservative Americans, in a counter-cultural revolution. We cannot expect media pundits and political leaders to lead the charge back up the hill toward decency and civility. We cannot hope that the fight to return justice, honor, and true freedom to the American character will be swift and easy—in fact, it may well be hopeless. Yet, despite the lack of expectation for society in general, the effort itself is noble and worthwhile to each individual who undertakes it because of the personal transformation it effects (Romans 12:2; II Corinthians 3:18).

Politics is dirty, and because it involves the quest for temporal power, it has always been a nasty business. A moral society can keep this distasteful institution in check by sheer weight of influence, but when society itself is rolling in the gutter, politics has free rein to run roughshod over anyone and anything in its way. As Solomon says, "By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked" (Proverbs 11:11). The next few years will prove whether the upright or the wicked will prevail.

Evaluating Culture

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In listening to a series of 48 lectures by University of California at Berkeley Professor Robert Greenberg titled "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music" (one of the Great Courses offered by The Teaching Company), I have come to a greater realization of the evolving tastes among consumers of Western music. We ignorantly call all orchestral music "classical," when in fact there are a handful of long periods in which such music took quite different forms, for instance, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, etc. It does not take a specially trained ear to distinguish the differences between works from these periods. A Bach fugue sounds nothing like a Chopin mazurka.

As one would expect, between eras were transition periods of varying lengths due to the fact that audiences took time to accept new forms. Younger composers, feeling constrained by the strictures of their elders, experimented with new, then-cutting-edge musical styles, and when their works premiered, the critics and most of their audiences were aghast at their progressive, offensive music. Such was the reaction to what are now much-loved favorites as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Berlioz's First Symphony (Fantastíque), and Brahms' First Symphony. These three masters were criticized roundly for their "grotesque" and "incomprehensible" themes. Even the universally admired Haydn incurred the wrath of the public and critics when his "Surprise" Symphony was too startling for his audience. To us, the "surprise" is just a loud, sudden chord, but to the audience of his day, it was as shocking as the jarring clatter of a jackhammer.

We would probably have a similar reaction at the cinema if we had bought a ticket to see Bambi, were comfortably ensconced in our seats, bag of popcorn and drink in hand, and suddenly were assaulted by the opening blare of a Star Wars movie. If our tastes had been trained to enjoy benign, pastoral, gentle films like Benji or Black Beauty, the dynamics and themes of a dramatic space adventure—not to mention the brassy music—would be jolting and uncomfortable. We might learn to enjoy it over time, but our initial reaction would be negative.

Literature has suffered similar periods of great change, in which venerable authors—from our point of view—broke new ground and faced vilification for it. Even today, Mark Twain is excoriated for his realistic portrayal of relations between whites and blacks in Huckleberry Finn. William Wordsworth's poetry was considered by some to be essentially unreadable when first published. Edgar Allen Poe's works, most of them macabre, were—in some cases, literally—on the bleeding-edge of acceptability during his lifetime. Several great works of literature (by esteemed authors like Geoffrey Chaucer, James Joyce, Daniel Defoe, Thomas Hardy, Voltaire—even Hans Christian Andersen!), thought to be tame by modern standards, were condemned as obscene when they first went on sale.

However, things changed drastically in the twentieth century, especially after World War I. Artistic standards began to stretch beyond the suggestive to the explicit, and not just in sexual terms. While there had always been composers, authors, and graphic artists who strayed into pornographic, occult, or other taboo areas, their works had remained essentially private, for society as a whole maintained respectable limits on what it considered to be proper. Yet, after the First World War, these limits began to crumble in one area after another until today, when anything goes. While society still uses ratings of one sort or another to inform the public about artistic content, there are few societal impediments to restrict either their creation or consumption. Really, how vigilant is the local theater in keeping young teens from seeing R-rated movies? Or the local merchant in keeping them from buying M-rated video games?

In the end, the answer to this problem of down-spiraling artistic and cultural standards is a spiritual one, of course. The prevalent philosophy in the Western world—one that has been dominant since at least the Enlightenment—is humanistic liberalism. This is the intersection of two major ideas: 1) that man is the center and height of all that is, and 2) all men should be free to do as their conscience dictates. From this, it is easy to trace a direct line to today's general consensus that there are no real absolutes, so each person is free to believe and do whatever satisfies him.

This obviously flies in the face of biblical morality. These two philosophies are incompatible, and thus the more pleasing to mankind's nature has become dominant, leaving God's standards behind as "outmoded," "archaic," and "unrealistic." Under humanistic liberalism, cultural standards exist on a sliding scale, depending on the tastes of the individual. In the end, this means that there are no standards.

To Christians, however, the exact opposite is true: We have a set of absolute, eternal standards, which are provided to us in the form of principles in God's Word. By them, we can judge artistic achievements on their true merits. In music, we can judge more accurately if a piece is uplifting, hopeful, harmonious, helpful, etc., applying the principles of the fruit of God's Spirit. We can judge literature by these same principles, plus those found in God's commandments. (And by the way, just because a piece of literature contains, say, a murder does not mean that it is immoral. We have to go beyond this to see how the work resolves the sinful act and the circumstances it causes. If we were to do otherwise, we would have to condemn the Bible itself, as it contains murders, adulteries, incest, lying, stealing, coveting—you name it!) These same standards can be applied to the graphic arts too.

Learning godly judgment is no easy thing. It is an acquired skill. But God has called us to learn how to judge righteously. As our Savior commands, "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment" (John 7:24). How do we do this? Jesus answers, "My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me" (John 5:30). As we strengthen and deepen our relationship with God, our judgment of these cultural phenomena will improve—we will be able to discern what is truly classic.

Somewhere in the Middle

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A few weeks ago, a local talk-show host, self-described as "an aging hippie," remarked that he believed that in most matters one can find "the truth somewhere in the middle." He proceeded to explain that on just about any issue, if a person took a middle course between the lunatic Left and the Neanderthal right, he could arrive at or near the truth. My immediate reaction—an automatic response from constantly working with words—was to devise a pun on his key phrase. I thought, "His thinking on this in somewhere in the muddle."

Certainly, wisdom has escaped him on this idea. Perhaps in an overall sense, in terms of politics, what he has concluded contains an element of reality: Practical, governmental policy usually lies between two extremes. For instance, in the matter of environmental regulations, nature-worshippers push for draconian land-use laws, arguing that plants and animals and their natural habitats take priority over human development. On the other extreme falls the "git off mah land" crowd, which contends that no one and no government can regulate what they do on and with their property. Just, workable procedures walk a fine line between property rights and the common good of the community.

However, a tenet supposing that "the truth lies in the middle" is an ethically dangerous one. Applied universally, it guarantees a person a life—and communally, a culture—of compromise. Such a person or community will take a stand on nothing. Every decision will be a negotiation between whatever is perceived to be at the far ends of the spectrum. This is life in the gray land of rootless vacillation. It is living without convictions, without belief in the existence of truth.

The peril in living by this principle reveals itself most readily in matters of morality. In His Ten Commandments, God outlines truths regarding human conduct, both toward Himself and toward fellow man. These rules are not guidelines, as many seem to consider them today, but non-negotiable standards. As He patiently explains in places like Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, if we live by them, we will receive all sorts of blessings, but if we reject them and violate them, we had better brace ourselves for calamity. With God and His laws of happy, successful human behavior, there is no middle ground.

Yet, those who try to walk a centrist road often consider the Ten Commandments to be one of the extremes—the aforementioned Neanderthal right—and begin backpedaling toward antinomianism, otherwise known as anarchy or lawlessness. For example, God instructs us, "You shall not murder" (Exodus 20:13), an unambiguous statement. In other places, God explains that manslaughter is an exception to this, but even one who commits manslaughter must pay a stiff penalty for ending a human life (see Exodus 21:13; 22:2-3; Numbers 35:16-28; Deuteronomy 19:4-6). As clear as this is, though, centrists rationalize further exceptions to reach personal comfort zones.

Abortion is a sad case of such compromise. As the murder of a human life, abortion falls under the umbrella of the sixth commandment. A centrist may not agree with radical, pro-choice advocates that abortion should be on demand at any time and for any reason, yet he might allow the use of RU-486 (mifepristone), the abortion pill, because he concludes it does not technically cause an abortion (in many—but not all—cases, it is used to prevent conception).

Another concession on the abortion issue is the ubiquitous proviso, "except in cases of rape or incest." If one believes that abortion is murder, accepting this position opens a crack in the dike. It assumes that the life to be extinguished is of lesser worth due to the manner of its conception. Ultimately, this exception operates on a belief that it is permissible to end a pregnancy if it can be determined—somehow—that the child would not enjoy a certain quality of life. Thus, it also becomes allowable to abort malformed and retarded babies, and the next step would be to abort potentially chronically ill children, say, those with genetic markers that point to certain debilitating diseases and syndromes. How long is it before abortion is tolerated for reasons as basic as gender (already common in India and China) or hair or eye color?

This is the proverbial slippery slope that eventually ensues from living "somewhere in the middle." The apostle Paul maintains in Romans 8:7 that human nature is essentially hostile toward God and His law; it recoils from submitting to divine standards, which are, admittedly, oftentimes difficult to observe. The Bible shows that people have an innate tendency to compromise to placate the human drive to live by its own rules. Every day in myriad situations, men and women repeat the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden (Genesis 3:1-6), rejecting God's command in order to fulfill their own desires. Seeking "truth" through compromise will only end in sin and its destructive consequences.

Fundamentally, those who seek the "truth" between extremes are playing God. They have taken upon themselves the job of determining what is right and wrong, a position that the great Sovereign of the universe has not abdicated. Truth be told, we have all been guilty of this usurpation of God's throne, and there is no time like the present to give it back to the One to whom it rightfully belongs.

This suggests that we have to adjust our thinking. Men have formulated a spectrum of choices, all of which are legitimate to human minds, yet this is not a biblical construct. The Bible reveals, not a continuum with extremes bracketing an expansive center, but a simple alternative: We can choose between God's way and the wrong way (see Deuteronomy 30:15-20). This is why God has established the process of conversion, so that over a lifetime of overcoming and growth, we can repent of our lives of compromise and begin to live by His righteous standards.

Judging Life and Death

Many Protestants and Catholics probably recognized the irony in the fact that the Terri Schiavo "right to life" case came to a head during their "Holy Week," in which the faithful contemplate the death and life of Jesus Christ. Schiavo's parents' wishes regarding her fate, pitted against her husband's—and purportedly hers—were argued in courtrooms in Florida, Georgia, and Washington, DC, and in the paneled halls of Congress, which took the unprecedented step of writing a bill for the benefit of one individual. President Bush obliged by signing it into law after midnight, hurriedly flying in from his Texas ranch to seal the deal.

It is no wonder that Terri Schiavo's case has sparked such debate across America, as two opposing values collide within it: the right to life, championed in the Declaration of Independence and by a host of devout advocates, and for lack of a better term, the right to a natural death, the desire of many not to prolong their lives artificially and pointlessly. Also in this case, religious beliefs square off against legal ethics, just as it sets medical ethics against parental love for their child. Surely, this is a case for the wisdom of Solomon!

We in the church of God believe that God is preparing us to be kings and priests in His coming Kingdom (Revelation 5:10), and kings and priests both have the function of judges—one in civil matters and the other in religious matters. If this case were brought before us to judge, how would we rule? What laws or principles would we base our decision upon?

Most of the arguments in the media are emotional. These arguments have their place, but a judge must first consider what is just and true before he has any basis for extending mercy. There must be a standard by which he measures the merits of each side in a dispute, and he rules according to the standard—not according to the fervency of one side's line of reasoning or the background, stature, or acumen of the other party's advocate. God lays out a judge's responsibility in Deuteronomy 16:18-20:

You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which the LORD your God gives you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment. You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. You shall follow what is altogether just. . . . (see also II Chronicles 19:5-7)

The standard a godly judge must follow is, of course, God's law along with the statutes and the judgments. This is how God says it should be done: "In controversy [the priests] shall stand as judges, and judge it according to My judgments. They shall keep My laws and My statutes in all My appointed meetings, and they shall hallow My Sabbaths" (Ezekiel 44:24). This command, by the way, is given to the Millennial priesthood precisely because the priests of ancient Israel failed to judge as God had directed them. God prophesies, "I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city" (Isaiah 1:26).

Obviously, in the Schiavo case, the sixth commandment comes into play: "You shall not murder" (Exodus 20:13). For many, the argument ends right here, for they prioritize a person's right to life above all others. Certainly, the value of any life is precious, but does it trump all others? The monkey wrench in this case is that, without the measures modern medicine has taken, including the insertion of a feeding tube, Terri Schiavo would have been dead years ago. On top of this, several doctors have examined her and concluded that she is essentially brain-dead—in a vegetative state—and has no chance to live a "normal" life. Though her heart is beating involuntarily, her brain has shut down. What is the godly definition of "life"?

Does the fifth commandment come into play? Some might say it does, using it to justify following her parents' wishes over her husband's. Those on the other side of the case might counter with Genesis 2:24: "Therefore a man [or woman] shall leave his [or her] father and mother and be joined to his wife [or her husband], and they shall be one flesh." Which is the more important principle? Whose wishes should the court grant?

Another scripture that could be brought forward is Deuteronomy 19:15: ". . . by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established" (see also Deuteronomy 17:6; Matthew 18:16; II Corinthians 13:1; I Timothy 5:19; Hebrews 10:28). Though Terri Schiavo did not have a "Living Will," a document that sets out a person's wishes should he or she continue to live only on life-support equipment, her husband and several friends have testified that she expressed her desire to them to be allowed to die naturally if she ever landed in such a circumstance. Does the lack of a piece of signed and notarized paper trump the testimony of more than the required "two or three witnesses"?

Some advocates might even bring up Paul's statement in II Corinthians 5:8, "We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord." Nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist Neal Boortz, who is also a lawyer, has advanced such an argument. Is Terri Schiavo better off dead, awaiting the judgment of God? Or is she better off living out her physical life, lying on a hospice-care bed, and needing constant medical attention?

Being a judge is not so easy, is it? Nevertheless, these and other thorny questions are what a just judge must face—not only in the "big" cases, but also in the routine ones. It is easy to jump to a conclusion that "he is wrong" or "she is right" (Proverbs 18:13, 17), but as the old saw warns, "The devil is in the details." Matters are not always cut-and-dried, which is why God is taking the time to train us in the skill and art of judgment, allowing us to ponder the questions of our time, great and small, and come to wise and godly conclusions without the pressure of having to make the actual decisions.

Take this opportunity to wrap your head around this case and come to a biblically sound conclusion. You may discover a budding Solomonic wisdom in yourself—or an area of understanding that could use some improvement!

Balls and Strikes

When I awoke this morning, I actually remembered my dream. Since that does not happen very often, it seems particularly significant.

I dreamed I was a major-league relief pitcher, called upon in the bottom of the ninth to hold a one-run lead for my team. Strangely, I have no idea what team I was pitching for, but the other team was definitely the New York Yankees. I trotted out to the mound and took my warm-up pitches. As I prepared to face the first hitter, looking in to get the sign from my catcher, my battery mate simply disappeared and so did home plate.

As can only happen in a dream, this did not seem to faze me very much. I wound up and delivered a knee-high fastball directly over where the plate had been. "Ball!" yelled the umpire.

"Whaddya mean?" I shouted. "That was a perfect pitch!" The umpire ignored me, crouching down behind the invisible plate and catcher to judge my next offering. The batter dug in and waited.

Another ball appeared in my glove. Without a plate or a catcher's mitt to throw at, I decided fastballs were my safest bet—a little higher and on the outside corner. The pitch went just where I wanted it to go, and the batter laid off. "Ball two!"

"You've got to be kidding!" I said, standing in front of the mound with my hands outstretched. "I can't throw a better pitch!"

"Play ball!" shouted the ump. Discussion over.

The thought went through my mind that, if I threw another fastball over the non-existent plate, the batter would jump all over it. I needed to throw an off-speed pitch to cross him up. I can throw a pretty good knuckleball, so that was my next pitch, low and inside. "0 and 3!"

I exploded: "How am I supposed to pitch without a plate and a catcher? How am I supposed to know where to throw the ball if I have no target? How am I supposed to know where your strike zone is if there's no plate?" The umpire just shrugged and crouched.

This time I just threw the ball in without even trying to put it any particular place. "Take your base!" said the umpire, pointing down the first-base line. The batter trotted that way.

"Every one of those pitches was a strike!" I told him. "And you know it."

"Yeah?" asked the umpire. "I can call your pitches anything I want." And I woke up—very frustrated.

Mulling this over as I lay there, it occurred to me that a similar frustration must be nagging a great many people in this world. In America, the "plate" has disappeared and so has the "catcher." Our "pitches" are being flung without a standard to judge them by. The "umpire," without a guide to base his judgments upon, capriciously calls them however he likes, and there is no standard by which we can effectively disagree. It is just his word against ours.

This nation used to have a fixed moral standard, the one found in the Bible. Beyond that, we had the Constitution and Bill of Rights and English common law, both based on biblical principles, to fall back on. Somewhere along the line, these have fallen into disuse, forgotten in the rise of liberal ideas such as humanism, relativism, diversity, socialism, multiculturalism, feminism, and a host of other isms that aim to replace our Christian heritage with modern philosophies.

Now we are all on our own. Each person decides for himself what is right and wrong, no matter what his viewpoint or experience. Society, for the most part, is willing to let this occur, as long as nobody gets hurt, and then when someone does get hurt, the judicial system rarely solves the problem. It just locks the offender up for a time, and all is thought to be well.

This has been tried before and failed. The book of Judges twice indicts Israel for just this problem: "In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6: 21:25). What the book shows is the depths to which that culture sank when no common standard—no home plate, if you will—guided its beliefs and decisions. It is long past time when the decent people of this nation should have demanded a return to Christian standards. If we do not act now, we may never have another chance to act this side of something far worse.