Two Fat Guys Smoke Pipes & Talk Theology

Thursday my friend Wes came over and took me to breakfast at Daves where, like the good quidnuncs we both are, we caught up on personal news: he, on a medical conference in Orlando he’s just returned from; me, on the denial of service attack on my computer server.

Afterwards, he drove me to a post office to mail the Library of Congress their copies of my most recent books.

Then comes the fun part:

For over three hours we sat in my garden enjoying the sound of singing birds and flowing fountain, smoking our pipes and discussing theology — a conversation others might find boring but I find stimulating.

Among other things we thought over Romans 10: 17, “So then, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God”.

Wes, who is proficient in Greek, pointed out that the word hearing means more than listening to background noise like music on the radio or even listening to a sermon in church; the Greek meaning is corresponds to our legal term hearing in which people evaluate the evidence before them and form a verdict.

And our own nature determines our evaluation of the evidence before our eyes.

For instance, When Jesus called dead and stinking Lazarus to life again out of the tomb, a lot of people were there and observed that fact. This incident is recorded in John, chapter eleven.

When Lazarus, still wrapped up like a mummy, came forth, “Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on Him.”

They evaluated the evidence and acted according to their nature.

On the other hand, “But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done… Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death”.

Evaluating the same evidence according to their nature, they went their way.

Emmanuel, God come in the flesh, the very Lord of Life at whose call all dead everywhere will come forth from all graves on the last day was followed by some people and put to death for our sin by others.

Then He rose from His borrowed grave under His own steam.

The record about Lazarus shows the problem lies not with the evidence before our eyes, but the way our nature reacts to that evidence, the way we evaluate Jesus.

Our nature, unless changed by God, is to rebel, to fault God, to demand our own way, to strive to be god and to manipulate all things and people around us ourselves.

To become Christians, we must be touched by a supernatural factor, a change of nature which results in putting God in place, in acknowledging Jesus as Lord of my life.

So far, so good.

But here’s where Wes and I hold different views.

The way my nature evaluates the Scripture, I feel that God exposes every person ever born to enough evidence to evaluate. Jesus is the “True light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world”.

I believe that if any person moves toward the light he has, he will eventually come to Jesus, the Light of the World.

Unfortunately, “Men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil”.

Wes, on the other hand — if I’m presenting his view correctly — quotes a phrase from a long convoluted sentence in Ephesians, chapter One, verse eleven, which says, Christ, “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will”.

Wes reasons from this Scripture and his studies of Paul’s letter to the Romans, (Wes is a big Romans fan) — he reasons that all humanity has fallen so far and is so rebellious by nature and is so depraved, wicked and evil, that the whole lot of us are bound for Hell.

And justly so.

Sooner the better.

But, for reasons of His own, God chooses to change the nature of some of us according to His will and good pleasure — but He lets the majority of us continue in our own way to where that leads us.

I mentioned the good social works of one Christian group.

“Yes,” Wes said, “They work diligently to make the world the nicest place possible to go to Hell from”.

Let me assure you that Wes lives a better Christianity that he talks; I know of no one anywhere more given to acts of kindness and charity than him.

Wes reasons that the saving of any person at all , even though nor a one of us deserves it, reflects the mercy and glory of God.

I suspect that in maters of theology Wes and I are both equally wrong.

And equally right.

We enjoy talking about things far beyond us.

The Lord God Almighty is bigger that the both of us and His thoughts are not our thoughts, His ways higher than ours. He is past our finding out. He is Creator, we, creatures. He is holy, we’re not. He is just, we’re self-serving. He is love, we are recipients of that Love.

After Wes left, I mowed grass.