Soul Harvest

The restaurant was a front for a Chinese gang. It was full of bodyguards, yet the tough guys ran out when he strolled in.

“I’m surprised to see you here.” The boss’s voice had a slight tremble.

“Think of me as a gentlemen farmer, coming to collect my harvest.”

“You put me in charge, I have it under control.”

“I am the landowner; you are merely a sharecropper. I planted the soil starting with the night your father visited that prostitute you called mom. I fertilized the fields with drugs and gambling. I weeded the land by driving out churches and bribing the police.”

“Don’t you mean I did those things for you?”

“No, I mean I used you to do them, giving you every idea and opportunity. I did it. Not you.”

The boss put his hand on a gun hidden under the table.

“Go ahead, shoot me. It will help me with the harvest.” It was one last command given the hireling.

The bullet passed harmlessly through the farmer, out the glass, and lodged in the wall beside of a thug. The man returned fire, and the harvest began.

Inside the restaurant, the boss had a neat hole through his head. The police never found a bullet.

This story was written for a flash fiction competition I entered this morning.  Probably one of my favorite stories of this sort. It is an example of being able to imply things with fiction that would be complicated to discuss in a teaching setting. Do you see anything in this story, stated or implied, that you would like to discuss? I would love to hear from you.

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The Devil

There are some things that Christians believe about the devil. The Bible teaches that the devil was an angel, that led a rebellion, and with him one third of the angels became fallen.

The question that naturally arises is, how do you stage a rebellion attempting to overthrow an all-powerful and all-knowing God? God will know what you are up to, and absolutely nothing you do can harm Him. So how is rebellion even possible? Why didn’t God stop it before it ever got started?

As how rebellion is possible, the devil convinced himself that he could successfully rebel, being blinded by his own arrogance and vanity. He lied to himself to believe he could succeed.

But answering why God allowed it, has to come down to one reason. The devil’s rebellion served God’s purposes. Now for some people this is a hard pill to swallow. For them, thinking God allowed sin, for any reason, is reprehensible. I prefer to look at it that God is powerful enough, that every sin, is used by God to bring about positive results.

I believe God’s purpose, His positive result, is to create humanity as truly and completely free moral agents. We have been given the power of choice. However, the power to choose is meaningless without choices to choose from. Similarly, if all of the choices are right choices, then we are not truly free.

The devil creates for humanity the alternative to choosing right. Without this choice we would not be truly free, and therefore not truly human. The purpose of our humanity is the ability to choose God, choosing to love and serve Him instead of self. This human free will is what makes us the crown of creation, and without it we would be nothing more than fancy automaton.

The next question that arises is, does that mean God is responsible for sin? The answer is no. God creates angels and humans with a true power of choice, and with this power comes the responsibility for one’s own choices. God knew the wrong choices that would be made, but that does not make Him responsible for our sins. We choose them and we are responsible for them.

To help illustrate this point, think about a couple bringing a new baby home to a two year old. They can reasonably assume the older child will at some point mistreat the younger. So does that mean they forcibly separate the two and never let them meet? Of course not, to do so would be an unspeakable cruelty. These two are born to be siblings and to love each other. So over their growing up years the parents know there will be errors, but seek to teach them to love and grow together into healthy, non-murderous, siblings.

Similarly God is not responsible for our sins. He is simply allowing the situation which gives us the possibility of becoming fully what God has created us to be. He made us to be the crowning jewel of His creation, the ones who choose to love Him.

Angelology

Angels are God’s messengers. That is the meaning of the Biblical Greek word used for angels, and the word from which the English word is derived.

Angels are created beings but they are made differently than humans. In regard to how they are different it is rather speculative to elaborate, but angels are mentioned in Scripture a number of ways, and from these we can learn some specific things about them.

Guardian angels are likely real in that Jesus speaks of putting angels in charge of watching over children.

Angels can have different physical appearances since some are described with six wings, with implication that this is different than other angels.

Angels can be used as God’s warriors in battle since Jesus states He could call 10,000 angels to His defense and since a battle in heaven is described in the origination of Satan and his minions.

Angels have a decision making ability and at least a degree of free will, since one third of the angels mounted this rebellion.

Angels can take on physical form since they took human women and interbred in the book of Genesis. These might well have only been fallen angels since Jesus mentioned angels do not have marital relations.

So how do we put these things together to give us a Christian understanding of angels? Begin with the very first thing mentioned. Angels are God’s messengers, sent to do the work of God. While God could accomplish His work in any number of ways, He chose to do some of it through angels.

But be careful, some of the conclusions people arrive at in regard to angels I would discourage. It is not wisdom to worship angels, or to seek their intervention on your behalf. We are to go directly to the Boss, not to His servants. We should not seek to know the names of specific angels or demons nor try to understand their hierarchy or realms of responsibility. Again we should relate directly to God through Jesus Christ. Remember they are God’s messengers, doing God’s work, so taking focus off of God to put it on angels will always be a misstep.

 

Halloween

Now that it is almost over I suppose I can admit it, after all it’s hardly a secret.

I am one of those pastor’s that hates Halloween. I view it as a celebration of everything evil. I don’t think this opinion is old fashioned nor do I think it moralistic to discourage association with or celebration of evil. I realize that many of the evils represented in popular references to Halloween are fictional, but evil itself is not fictional.

That is the bottom line as far as I can see. Good and evil do exist. We should not expect to represent good or to speak on behalf of God, while enjoying an annual celebration of evil