Welcome to the March 2022 edition of The Eclectic Web Journal.
This month we’re covering an array of theological topics: an introduction to Calvinism, thinking about the good and bad of blended worship, considering the theological implications of the death of Christ, and more.
Also, we have a lot to say about the amount of money that we send to foreign countries. Sound familiar? Yes, we’ve barked up that tree before. We’ll, we’re gonna start barking again, but with some updated information and some new thoughts.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and input. Feel free to send your thoughts and ideas about any of our articles to feedback@eclectickasper.com. Also, you can “like” our The Eclectic Kasper Facebook page and comment on any of our posts there.
We appreciate you being on this eclectic journey with us for the last decade with our The Eclectic Kasper and here with our new effort The Eclectic Web Journal. Thanks for reading, and stay eclectic!
ROMANS: Living the Dying of Christ, Romans 6:1-3, Part 1
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
The Bible often portrays the new life that we can only have in Christ (John 3:15; 14:6; 20:31; 1 John 5:11). But another side to that is that new life in Jesus consists of an ongoing dying to self, which is mirrored by our Savior’s own death. While Christianity celebrates the life we have because of our faith, many Christians forget the importance of living in a way that reflects the dying of Christ. Paul discusses this dynamic in Romans 6:1-3.
At the end of Romans 5, Paul argues that the work of Christ for redemption and life is greater than the sin of Adam and its resultant death for humanity. The apostle specifically notes in 5:20 that divine grace can always outpace mortal sin and he notes in v. 21 that the reign of grace abounds even more than the reign of sin.
However, Paul recognizes how this truth may be wrongly applied, as truth is frequently perverted and twisted into half-truths and alleged spiritual loopholes. One may think that if they sin more, then God will provide more grace! Some ancient Greek and Roman cults, such as the religion of Cybel and Dionysus, adhered to a distinction between flesh and spirit that seemed to justified this. Some believed the only way to release or appease the spiritual nature of man was to indulge the physical and sensual nature of man.
This appears to be the situation among those to whom Jude 1:4 is addressed. Some mistook the abundant grace of God for license and probably also saw the forgiveness of God as a vehicle for continuing to sin. But both a theology of forgiveness that allows ongoing sin as well as an understanding of grace that permits licentiousness, twist these majestic theological concepts; as Jude 1:4 says, this behavior denies our only Master, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The propensity to misunderstand grace and turn it into license and greed is not merely an ancient one. In May 2018, Jesse Duplantis asked followers to donate money for him to buy a new $54 million private luxury jet, since the jet he was using at the time was already 12-years-old. In 2016, Duplantis and fellow heretical televangelist Kenneth Copeland defended their use of private jets: “Commercial planes are full of ‘a bunch of demons’ that will bog down their busy schedules with prayer requests.” Duplantis later argued that on a commercial plan he is not able to unbuckle his seat belt to speak to God standing up.
In fact, Paul had mentioned this misunderstanding earlier: Romans 3:8: “And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), ‘Let us do evil that good may come? Their condemnation is just.” God’s abounding grace does not justify the license of heretics like Duplantis and Copeland.
The exact phrase “What shall we say?” in 6:1 is used often by Paul to move along the argument in Romans (Rom 4:1; 6:1; 7:7; 8:31; 9:14, 30). Paul acknowledges here that there could be a misunderstanding, perhaps one that he thinks his audience may extrapolate, or perhaps one that Paul had encountered previously in his teaching ministry: If God’s grace always outpaces human sin, then wouldn’t more sin only result in greater grace? While this may be true to an extent, that question misses the entire point of grace.
The verb “to continue” is epimeno, meaning “to remain, stay; continue, keep on, persist in.” The epi prefix on the common verb meno, meaning “to stay” or “to remain,” means not just to remain in a state for a time, but emphasizes persisting in or continuing in that state or continuing an activity for longer than anticipated (John 8:7; Acts 10:28; 12:16; 21:10; Rom 11:23; 1 Cor 16:7; Phil 1:24; 1 Tim 4:16). In some cases, however, the semantic difference between epimeno and meno seems negligible (Acts 21:4; 28:12, 14; Rom 11:22; Gal 1:18; Col 1:23). Paul’s rhetorical question suggests that the individual has remained longer in sin than one may expect a believer should; and they do this ostensibly so that God would provide even more grace to the believing community.
But the presupposition behind the question is the kind of presupposition that lurks in the fallen mind, even the fallen mind of the believer. The presupposition is not: How much grace can we get? Rather, it is: How much sin can we get away with? It is a twisted attempt to manipulate the teaching about grace in order to justify more sin. While it is sad that Paul would even have to address this issue, the reality is that human nature constantly looks for the easy path, for loopholes, and for ways to manipulate grace for our own good.
How, specifically, does Paul deal with this question in v. 1? We’ll look at that in the second half of this article below!
CALVIN’S CORNER: Introduction to Calvinism
It is amazing the animus that people feel toward Calvinism. I don’t know people who get angered about pre-millennialism or baptism by immersion or views on inerrancy the way people get upset over Calvinism.
This is probably because the worst thing about Calvinism are the Calvinists. They are not known for being an overly gracious and accepting group. This has made Calvinistic principles harder to swallow.
We here at The Eclectic Web Journal are starting a series on Calvinism, not because we’re flag-wavers or card-carrying adherents. The interest in doing this series is two-fold. First, Calvinism seems the best way to deal with some tensions in Scripture, especially the tension of the sovereignty of God and the so-called “free will” (we’ll circle back to this term later) of people. Basic Calvinistic tenets seem to best encapsulate passages of Scripture and address this tension between divine sovereignty and human will more Biblically than Arminianism on one side or the extreme aspects of Calvinism on the other side.
A second reason for doing this series is because of the many misunderstandings and misconceptions that swirl around Calvinism. Like Christianity in general, or conservativism, I believe that more people would appreciate Calvinism if they were not so turned off by its sometimes-annoying and over-zealous adherents.
I know that this is well-trod soil for many, but for others, these are new ideas, and new debates. For those new to this fascinating and unending discussion, and for those who may need refinement on their views of this debate, this series of articles is for you.
I want to start by being as fair to both sides as possible, that is, by not demonizing Jacob Arminius and his adherents, nor by claiming that Calvinism has all the answers wrapped up in a pretty bow. There will always be good people on both sides who love Jesus and who strive to be as Biblically accurate as possible. I hope that these articles can clarify Calvinism and explain how well it correctly handles the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15).
John Calvin was a sixteenth-century theologian who developed his ideas about a half-generation after Martin Luther. Both are considered prominent Reformers, though both approached the reformation of the church in different ways; Luther initially wanted to reform the church from within, whereas Calvin wanted to completely rebuild the notion of church on a purely Biblical basis. While he wrote and taught about many different topics, Calvin’s ideas for reconciling divine sovereignty and human responsibility are prominent in the theological system named after him.
Also, remember that Calvinism is a system that alleges to be derived from Scripture itself; that is, few of Calvin’s ideas were original to him; rather, they were taken from his extensive study of Scripture and teaching from it. Theological systems do not deserve our loyalty and are not inherently good or bad, right or wrong. They are only as good as the exegetical data that they utilize. A theological system must be based on the clear and concise exegesis of specific texts, and must take into account as many texts as possible.
To put it another way, there are no Calvinist verses or Arminian verses. Rather, there are Scripture references; none necessarily support one system or another, but they must be carefully studied and understood. A theological system is only good or helpful if it adheres to Scripture faithfully and accurately.
Calvinism was adopted by many believers in Holland, from which came the Dutch Reformed church. In the early seventeenth century, an individual named Jacob Arminius challenged Calvinistic principles. A meeting called the Synod of Dort in 1618 solidified Calvinistic principles in opposition to Arminius.
Calvinists and Arminians have been arguing ever since, sometimes in civil and academic ways, and sometimes, well, not so much. I don’t suspect we’re going to solve some of these issues this side of glory, but at least we can clarify Calvinism, demonstrate the legitimate Biblical basis for it, and and try to deliver it from some of the misunderstandings and caricatures made of it.
My contention is that Arminianism has yet to successfully refute three foundational planks of Calvinism. I think that is because these three planks are deeply ingrained in Scripture. Those planks include God’s privilege of electing, universal human fallenness, and the need for God to initiate a saving relationships with human beings.
That God as Creator reserves the right to choose some people for service and salvation is undeniable Scripturally. The following verses affirm that God to one extent or another sovereignly and graciously utilizes election and predestination: Gen 18:19; Deut 7:6; Isa 41:8-9; Amos 3:2; Matt 24:22-24; Mark 13:27; Luke 18:7; John 15:16; Acts 13:48; Rom 8:29-30, 33; 9:11; Eph 1:4-5; 1 Thess 1:4; 1 Peter 1:1-2; 2 Peter 1:10. While many have debated the specifics of each of these verses, the Biblical picture is that God does indeed choose people, which is part of His prerogative as God. Also, as clear as these words are, people struggle with otherwise straight-forward words like “predestined” and “foreknowledge,” contorting these words in whatever way they can to infuse human will where it never belonged. We will get to these concepts as this series progresses.
Another reality is the fallenness of man, or total depravity. This does not necessarily mean that all people are terrible, but simply that people can’t save themselves. We lack the merit, goodness, and capacity to solve the problem of sin and death on our own. Depravity is less about how bad people are, but rather, it is about how all people are bad, and even the best people cannot merit, earn or deserve salvation. Again, Scripture is not ambiguous on this point: People are spiritually dead (Eph 2:1, 5; Col 2:13), human sin leads to death, and there is no way we can reverse that on our own (Prov 14:12; Isaiah 44:20; Romans 1:32; 5:12; 6:23). No human being is righteous by ourselves (Isa 64:6; Jer 17:9; Rom 3:10), and nobody seeks the one true God on our own (Psalm 53:2-3, quoted by Paul in Rom 3:10-12). People have an inclination toward religion and faith, but we always make gods in our own image (Psa 115:4; Jer 10:8; Habakkuk 2:18; Rom 1:25).
Thus, if salvation is going to occur, it must necessarily be accomplished totally by God and a relationship of salvation must be initiated by God. God sent His Son, the second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, to die a sacrificial death and rise from the dead so that we could have forgiveness and eternal life (Rom 5:6, 8, 15; 1 Cor 15:3; Col 1:13-14; 1 Pet 3:18). We even sing a hymn that includes the lyrics, “Jesus paid it all/ All to Him I owe.” No work or effort on our part was needed or would even be helpful. Or as a line from older versions of the hymn “Rock of Ages” says, “Nothing in my hands I bring/ Simply to Thy cross I cling.”
God always initiates this relationship because fallen and spiritually dead humanity could not properly do so on our own. God made Adam, initiated covenant relationship with Abraham, chose David, and He also made spiritually dead people alive (Eph 2:5; Col 2:13). Furthermore, He loved us before we knew Him or were even capable of giving affection to Him. Paul notes that Christ died for us “while we were still helpless” (Rom 5:6), “while we were yet sinners” (v. 8), and “while we were enemies” (v. 10).
He needed to initiate relationship. One of the sweetest verses in Scripture also asserts this reality. First John 4:19 is so beautiful, that it’s easy to get lost in the sentimentality of it and miss the causal connection. The old KJV version that many of us memorized is, “We love Him, because He first loved us.” That is, our love for God is proof of how He initiated relationships with us, without which, relationship with God would not exist.
Of course, we are just scratching the surface. We will explore sovereignty, depravity, human responsibility, divine election and similar issues as this series progresses.
POLITICS: Revisiting the Global Welfare Problem, Part 1
At the beginning of this year, I was looking back wistfully through old editions of our former web journal, The Eclectic Kasper, which ran from 2011 to 2021. Specifically, I went back a decade, to the January 2012 edition.
And in that edition was an article about how our glorious country horribly mismanages foreign aid, throwing away billions of dollars while our own people starve and our own infrastructure crumbles.
I guess that last sentence pretty much gives away where I stand on the issue!
In fact, we had several of these articles: “A Global Welfare State” in the March 2011 edition and “A Simple Solution to Global Welfare,” from the January 2012 edition. We wove our concerns about wasted foreign aid into other articles, as well, such as “An Exegesis of Paine” (July 2014), “A ‘Plain’ Rally Cry” (September 2014), and “Dealing with Debilitating National Debt, Part 2” (November 2019).
We have been grumbling about this issue for a decade now. Every administration, both parties, both Senate and the House of Representatives, everyone is responsible for this profound mismanagement of funds.
So, here’s where we’re at now: The United States planned to spend $43 billion in foreign aid in 2020, and ended up spending about $45 billion (you can research more about these numbers here). Of course, we throw words like “billion” and “trillion” around like they’re nothing, but one billion dollars is, in fact, a sizeable amount of money. If you had a one-thousand-dollar bill, it would take one million of them for you to get to one billion. Or, maybe better to think about it this way: You would have to be a millionaire one thousand times to be considered a billionaire.
Now try to wrap your head around $45 billion dollars earned by US tax-payers that gets sent to 212 countries around the world rather than staying in our own borders. If we held on to most of that money, that would be almost a billion dollars given to each of our states; maybe we would give a half-a-billion to a few of the smaller ones. If we gave a billion dollars to most of our states, those states could use those funds to build roads, bridges, hospitals, or fire stations, or to hire more police officers and teachers. In fact, a billion dollars would get a state a good way toward achieving several or most of those goals.
And if that sounds selfish, consider this; channeling this amount of money into our states would provide more jobs and better-paying jobs to our own people, so that we would have more money to be more generous to people around the world who need help.
By the way, no other country gives away as much in foreign aid. And yet, America rarely gets credit from others or even from our own people for being an incredibly, and perhaps, unsustainably, generous people.
But, with all the need in our own country, perhaps we should be a bit more generous to ourselves with our own money. Here’s another way to think about these foreign aid funds: about 155 million people in the United States are employed to some extent. What if we kept these foreign aid funds that those employed persons earned, and just issued it back to them? Republicans talk about helping the middle class and Democrats brag about their concern for workers; if we divided that $45 billion equally, we would be able to give those employed people back about $290 per year; that’s not a ton, but that would certainly pay a few bills and buy a few meals.
But the point is, it is our money; if we want to use it for our mortgage, our bills, or our family, we should be able to do so. And if we individually want to send funds to Israel, Ukraine, Nigeria or Mexico, or if we want to contribute to International Red Cross or Amnesty International, then we should be able to do that freely, by compassion not compulsion.
And what exactly do we get for this money? Realistically, I’m sure we get something from it, like trade privileges or strategic alliances. At least I hope we get something for it.
But that just prompts the question: Why are we the ones out there buying strategic alliances? Shouldn’t other nations want a strategic alliance with the United States? I’m not sure if we’re being bullied, manipulated, intimidated or just straight-up robbed. But it doesn’t make sense that we send $45 billion of our money all over the world.
So where do all those funds go? We’ll look at that in Part 2 of this article below.
WORSHIP: The Idea and Practice of Blended Worship
In the November 2021 edition of The Eclectic Web Journal we reviewed a book that discussed six different views of worship. The book featured authors representing different styles of worship including liturgical, contemporary, blended, and charismatic among others.
I wanted to camp out for a bit on of the idea and the practice of blended worship, mainly because blended worship has become the predominant mode of worship in many churches today. The idea of it is good, but the problem is that it often breaks down when it is put into practice.
There are really three kinds of blended worship. One is the superficial, but obvious way of thinking about blending worship: half hymns, half choruses. In some cases, this is born from a genuine desire to reach multiple kinds of people. In some cases it is merely a way to placate different camps within a church, in which case, it is worshiping people, not God. For some, blended worship is supposed to be transitional; I have heard on more than one occasion a church leader saying, either in jest or in earnest, that blended worship is needed until the old people leave or die. I’m not joking: I’ve heard those precise sentiments actually expressed.
The second form of blended worship, probably the best form, is to take the best of all genres, Reformation songs, revival-era hymns, older choruses, newer praise songs and bring them together into our services without concern for when they were written.
The third form is the opposite of the second, and yet, it seems to find daylight more than the second. The third form is that worship leaders chose bottom-shelf selections from all genre, the cheesiest hymns, the most superficial choruses, pithy songs that seem to just repeat how great we are for serving and worshiping the Lord. Only easy songs are selected, with little concern for doctrinal and theological content. The great historical songs of the faith are abandoned and replaced with forgettable songs and trite lyrics.
There are many important criteria for determining songs to be used in a corporate worship service. Songs should have theological depth and should cover different doctrinal disciplines (Bible, Christology, Holy Spirit, etc.) and practical topics (prayer, Scripture reading, witnessing, etc.). The lyrics should have some literary value; a basic attempt to rhyme consecutive lines is helpful, but lyrics that are memorable, and that use some good imagery and metaphors are helpful, too.
There are important musical elements that should be taken into consideration, also. We should use tunes easy enough for all to sing, so nobody feels left out of the worship experience. The music should elevate, but not distract; the songs themselves should not be so difficult to sing that that it prevents non-musicians from appreciating the content of the song because they are too busy trying to keep up with the coloratura of the melody. Nor should the congregation be distracted from the theatricality of those who purport to lead worship, but really just seem to be attracting attention to themselves.
The main concern for song selection should not be when it was written but if it communicates truth clearly and memorably. Careful worship planning should present the best of a variety of all genres for the edification of the congregation and the glorification of God. Doing so, however, requires a great deal of work, planning, and purpose; some theological training among worship leaders helps greatly, also.
Sunday morning worship services in blended churches should strive to feature the best of the best of musical genres. However, in practice, they often devolve into style number three, which present bad or mediocre offerings of only two or three different genres. Again, this is where the idea of blended worship diverges sadly from the practice of blended worship.
I mentioned these numbers before in an article about Christology in worship, but I did a statistical survey of the content of worship music as part of my Master’s Thesis. Since nobody is busting down my doors asking for these results, I figured I would share some of those with you here.
A thorough and relatively exhausting survey of several hymnals and praise chorus books revealed that about 1% of choruses mentioned the Trinity relative to about 4% of hymns. About 5% to 15% of choruses mention “grace,” while about 20% to 30% of hymns employ that word. About two percent of choruses mention forgiveness from God relative to about seven percent of hymns. Only 5% of choruses mention the death of Christ compared to about thirteen percent of hymns, and about two percent of choruses refer to the cross of Christ relative to, again, about thirteen percent of hymns. There’s more, but you get the idea.
A wide array of theological words and concepts that I surveyed demonstrated that those important ideas were usually found with slightly-greater to far-greater frequency in hymns over choruses. One of the few exceptions was, of course, the idea of worship and praise which was, predictably, found more frequently in modern praise and worship music.
If a steady diet of blended worship consists mainly of newer songs and just a few token cheesy hymns, then that worshiping congregation may not be adequately fed from God’s Word.
And, to be fair, contemporary worship doesn’t claim or assert to be more substantive. It strives for connection, accessibility, setting a low theological bar for people who are new or immature believers. There is, I suppose, a place for that. However, if this is all a parishioner gets, then one wonders how they will grow in their relationship to God without exposure to deeper, Biblical content.
In that book that we reviewed previously, Six Views on Exploring the Worship Spectrum, one of the authors discusses the weakness of some of the main genres of church music: “What was missing in one was the strength of the other. The traditional church was missing the sense of a real and vital experience with God. The contemporary movement was missing substance. Blended worship brought the content of the liturgical movement and the experience of the contemporary movement together” (Paul A. Basden, page 178). But it is exactly this dichotomy that is dangerous when people talk about blended worship. It seems like the best of hymns and the best of CWM should provide us with songs that are both substantive and that also encourage a genuine spiritual experience.
We could go on, but I think you get the point. If you pursue any kind of blended worship at your church, make sure it is the best of the best that you are feeding your people. If you attend a church that uses the most average of the mediocre, then demand a higher level of songs and texts from your church. If you utilize blended worship, don’t settle for mediocre; demand the best of the best for the edification of the congregation and for the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31; 14:15; Eph 5:19; Col 3:16).
ROMANS: Living the Dying of Christ, Romans 6:1-3, Part 2
When we last saw Paul (in Part 1 of this article above!), he had asked a rhetorical question, one that he had surely heard before. Essentially, the question is that if the grace of God abounds where there is a great deal of sin, then, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” (Romans 6:1). It seems that Paul had argued himself into a corner.
Paul refutes the rhetorical question in v. 1 with a strong negation in v. 2: “May it never be!”, a favorite rhetorical phrase used mainly by Paul and once by Christ (Luke 20:16; Rom 3:4, 6, 31; 6:2, 15; 7:7, 13; 9:14; 11:1, 11; 1 Cor 6:15; Gal 2:17; 3:21; 6:14). Paul doesn’t even consider that this line of thinking is a legitimate one.
Paul asks here a rhetorical question that will govern the rest of chs. 6-7: If we died to sin through our faith in and identification with Christ, why are we still living in sin? The interrogative particle used here may be even stronger than it is rendered in most translations: “in what way?” or “how is it possible?” For the believer who has received eternal life, it is completely inconsistent to continue to live in proximity with or in relationship to sin. The verb in the phrase “died to sin” is aorist tense, usually indicating to a specific point in time. Perhaps this is referring to Christ’s death for our sake, to our own faith in Christ’s death, or to both as one continuous process of redemption.
Either way, the moment of salvation was a death to the power of sin in our lives. Therefore, it is completely nonsensical for the believer to continue to “live” in sin and to be characterized by habits of sin. Of course, we will still sin as redeemed people. But Paul is focusing on not merely the sins that we commit, but the sins that we continue to commit, that we “live in,” that we commit willingly and habitually. Romans 6-7 will give us exhortations for breaking the grip of those kinds of sins in our lives.
Paul then asks in v. 3, “Or do you not know . . . ?” The phrase “to not know” is the verb agnoeo, “to be ignorant; fail to understand; disregard,” from whence we derive the word “agnostic.” The phrase here recognizes a discrepancy between what one knows and how one lives; it is a gentle reminder of the need to translate one’s doctrine into right practice and to not be ignorant by failing to do so.
The pronoun that is used here emphasizes the fact that there should not be a discrepancy between our doctrine and practice. The pronoun hosoi means “those of us who . . .” or “all of us who . . .” That is, all of us who are in one category, should also be in this other category; all of us who have been saved, redeemed, and who profess that connection with Christ through baptism, should be the exact same group as those who are not characterized by ongoing, habitual sin. There should be a complete overlap between these two groups of people: the redeemed, and those not shackled by ongoing sin. The lack of overlap between these groups is where we find hypocrisy and contradiction. We should, therefore, strive to be in the overlap, not in the contradiction.
The verse rolls out a valuable truth about the rite of baptism. Paul is not talking here about Spirit baptism as he does in 1 Corinthians 12:13. He is referring to the literal rite of baptism, and how it reflects the death and resurrection of Christ. The verse notes that we are baptized “into” Christ. The word used here is the preposition eis a very versatile word that indicates direction, connection, and purpose. In fact, the two uses of this word indicate a parallelism: being baptized into Christ means being baptized into His death. This requires dying to self, to our lusts, to our agendas, to our sinful passions that had formerly enslaved us before we were saved by Christ.
We don’t get baptized to appropriate the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection. We receive these benefits through faith in Christ, a point that Paul has already made previously in Romans (such as 3:28, 4:3 and 5:9-10). However, baptism publicly formalizes the believer’s relationship to Christ and our association with Him. But part of being baptized into Christ includes being baptized in His death. That death includes a death to self, death to sin and death to anything that can take us away from our relationship to Christ.
You may have been baptized a long time ago, but this verse still applies to you. Maybe when you were baptized as a kid or as a new believer, you didn’t understand all of the implications of your baptism. Baptism signifies an identification with Christ, and with His death to sin. This demands that we, too, die to sin, lusts, evil habits, and that as baptized people, we make purity a top priority.
We certainly should enjoy the life of Christ. But part of following Him means that we live in a way that reflects His death and His dying, an act of placing the will of God and Christ’s love for us above all other priorities. We should prioritize the will and love of God in our lives.
This article was originally presented in the September 2020 edition of The Eclectic Kasper.
We have written several articles about why we take Genesis 1 literally.
Many Christians believe that the opening chapters of Genesis are metaphorical or poetic. Many believers adhere to theistic evolution or affirm with modern secular science that the earth is millions of years old.
But the more we dive into the opening chapters of Scripture, the more we believe that they are intended to be taken as literal and historical. Many believers still affirm that all things were created by God in six 24-hour days, despite how increasingly naïve some people believe that view to be. He created all things with the appearance of age so that He could have immediate interaction with His creatures, and we don’t believe that this makes God deceptive in any way (see our article about this called “Science, God and Deceit” from the May 2020 edition).
Some who believe that the days in Genesis 1 really represent eons or ages appeal to verses like Psalm 90:4. This verse notes that God perceives or understands time differently than we do: “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night.” They then leap to 2 Peter 3:8, which seems to be borrowing this concept about time from Psalm 90:4. Since Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8 discuss time and days, why shouldn’t we use Psalm 90:4 to interpret Genesis 1?
This kind of “leap” from Genesis 1 to Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8 may make someone feel like they have an iron-clad argument that the world is actually millions of years old. However, they are also “leaping” over several important layers of interpretation.
Context is extremely important in the interpretation of any verse or passage. When looking at a verse, one must consider where that verse is situated in the chapter, in the book of the Bible that it is in, and in the area of Scripture (such as early narrative literature, minor prophets, or epistles). One must consider the genre of the book that it is in (such as poetry, prophecy, or story) and the point that is being made in the original context where the verse is found.
For instance, Psalm 90:4 is in a poetic passage and in a book of poetry. Of course, not all poetry is figurative, but there certainly tends to be more figurative and metaphorical language in poetic sections than in narrative sections. The passage of a millennium is compared in this verse to a night watch, and it is likened to a flood, sleep, and new grass in v. 5. These are similes and comparisons in the immediate context; they are not intended to suggest that the word “day” in other parts of Scripture should not be taken as actual 24-hour periods.
The book of Psalms is a book that employs metaphors and similes frequently. In these cases, it is not trying to portray scientific accuracy. However, Genesis 1-3, and really the entire book of Genesis, is history. It still uses metaphors occasionally, just like we all do in normal life and speech. However, it is narrating actual history, using days, weeks and years in literal ways. We dealt with the literary genre of these early chapters of Genesis in our article, “Is Genesis 1-3 Poetry or History?” from the September 2018 edition. However, it is worth revisiting the question, if Genesis 1 is poetry and symbolic but Genesis 7-8 about Noah or Genesis 12 about Abraham are literal, then when does Genesis stop being figurative and become literal and historic?
Some don’t think that Genesis 1-3 is poetry, but that it describes the literal creation of all things. Their only caveat is that the “days” are figurative, representing ages or eons, rather than actual days. Obviously, we disagree with their assessment of the word “days.”
But this points to an odd interpretive inconsistency: why take the references to time (“day,” “evening,” and “morning”) figuratively, but take everything else literally? They want to take day figuratively, but they don’t take “sun” figuratively; they believe that Genesis 1 refers to the creation of our literal sun. Is “water” figurative, too? Does it stand for the Holy Spirit? Or the flowing blessings of God? Or are the references to “water” referring literally to water even though references to “day” are not about literal 24-hour days? We take everything else literally in Genesis 1, that God made a literal sun, literal stars, literal animals, and eventually made literal people, and yet the multiple time markers, like “day,” “evening,” and “morning” are somehow figurative. This doesn’t seem like consistent interpretative methodology.
Also, we need to consider that Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8 portray how God perceives time, not how He communicates it. It is not necessarily that time moves faster or slower for God or for us, but that we as finite creatures perceive time differently than He does. For an eternal God, centuries and millennia are perceived as brief relative to the way temporally-locked creatures like us understand the passage of time. And, while this may be an interesting theological discussion, that doesn’t mean that these verses should be used to argue that the “days” in Genesis 1 are eons or ages rather than 24-hour days.
Since we’re on the subject, I will add that Psalm 90:4 and Revelation 20:1-7 are bad bedfellows, too. Revelation 20 also mentions the term one thousand years pointing to the millennial reign of Christ after the Great tribulation and before the eternal state. Some point to 2 Peter 3:8 since it also refers to end time events, and suggests that the thousand years in Revelation 20 should be taken figuratively. However, Revelation 20 is portraying a literal future condition in a genre that takes numbers pretty seriously (like detailing the 140,000 in Rev 7:4-8, or the listing of seven churches in Rev 2-3, seven seals in Rev 5, seven trumpets in Rev 8-9, and seven bowls in Rev 16). Also, the term “thousand” is repeated in six consecutive verses in Revelation 20:2-7, signaling that this was not a throw-away metaphor, but the author intended for us to take this time-span literally.
Psalm 90:4 and similar verses like 2 Peter 3:8 present fascinating theological truths, but should not be used to impose an interpretation on a different genre, such as historical narrative in Genesis 1-3.
POLITICS: Revisiting the Global Welfare Problem, Part 2
Above, in part 1 of this article, we noted how the United States sends $45 billion to countries all over the world. But who gets these funds?
According to World Population Review, the most amount of foreign aid goes to Afghanistan, about $5 billion a year for several years. Much of this was probably related to our military presence there, but, again, why should this be so much? And what good was all this money when we just abandoned that country anyway? The next four highest recipients of U.S. foreign aid are Israel ($3 billion), Jordan ($1.7 billion), Egypt ($1.4 billion), and Iraq ($960 million). We’ve asked it before, but doesn’t it seem like we’re funding both sides of Middle-Eastern tensions?
Speaking of international tensions, we sent about $680 million to Ukraine in 2020, and the U.S. spends millions a year on Russian oil. As stated in a March 3, 2022 Fortune article, “The U.S. imports 670,000 barrels of crude oil and petroleum products each day from Russia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which only accounts for 5% of its crude imports.” So, we’re sending millions in foreign aid to Ukraine, but we’re also sending millions to Russia by buying a large portion of their oil. Again, it seems like we’re funding both sides of this conflict. As Firefly antagonist Jubal Early would say, “Does that seem right to you?” In light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we are now discussing banning oil imported from Russia; however, this seems like too little, too late to me.
Of course, foreign aid is a frightfully small percent of our annual U.S. budget. But the point is that we should be thoughtfully examining every part of our budget to see where we can make drastic cuts for the sake of the health and solvency of the country. What if we made difficult cuts in other, larger portions of our budget, and instead of giving back a tax rebate of $290 to each employed person (as we discussed above), we could give back an average of $2,900. But, I don’t have much hope that many in Washington D.C. have the financial knowledge and the personal maturity to make these kinds of cuts for the sake of our great nation. Ideally, they should be proposing more cuts rather than proposing more spending.
We certainly have economic interests in these foreign countries, and humanitarian ones as well, especially during a time of global viruses and invasions. I have previously proposed that we not just eliminate all foreign aid, but drastically reduce it across the board and then carefully evaluate what each country gets (I discuss this more in the article “A Simple Solution to Global Welfare,” from the January 2012 edition of The Eclectic Kasper).
But we come back to the issue of the needs that human beings have who are already in our own borders. It is not greedy to want to keep more of this money to use on our own citizens and for our own country, and use them for our own educational institutions, our own economy, our own roads and bridges.
Furthermore, isn’t this a bi-partisan concern and problem? Is there a faction on either side of the aisle who thinks that we should be giving significantly more money to foreign countries? Don’t both Democrats and Republican want to keep more of our own money in our own borders and decide to spend it here more responsibly? Liberals and conservatives have different ideas on how to use these billions of dollars, but certainly all would agree that we would like more of this money to keep for ourselves?
Some will say this is hopelessly naïve, and perhaps it is in some ways. But it doesn’t seem naïve or foolish to me to spend our money helping our own. That seems infinitely better than using tax-payer money to pad the pockets of foreign dictators and despots.