Monday, October 19, 2009

Standard of Cleanliness in a Personal Anecdote


Projectile vomiting is not a sport.

But if it were, my infant daughter would be among the elite.

Chloe suffers from chronic stomach pain because of a repairable condition she had called gastroschisis. She was born with her intestines outside her body, resulting in her noteworthy ability to propel stomach content at great distances. It is extraordinary to behold.

This is why my wife, Kyoung, and I call Chloe a two-person baby. Feeding her can be a complicated event for us, and a painful affair for her. So, when I’m home, I try to be as helpful as I can when it comes to her feedings. Recently after breastfeeding Chloe, Kyoung handed her to me for burping. It was during this time the following scene unfolded.

After 20 minutes of back-patting, (and without warning,) Chloe’s mouth erupted with jiggling curds of sour milk. She apparently wanted to share her meal. It soiled my arms and legs, as well as the folds of her neck, her chest, her shirt and blanket. Kyoung was almost hit from across the room.

This time the volume of milk was impressive. I estimated she tapped as far back as nine feet into her small intestine. The mess would take a while to clean up, so I quickly wiped her down and gave her back to Kyoung to feed again. I worked on the carpet. Cleaning Chloe herself had to wait until she was full, because a hungry baby is difficult to deal with. I planned to change her shirt and blanket and wipe her down with a warm rag, (she just had a bath).

So, she ate again and Kyoung gave her back to me for re-burping. After a few minutes she produced a dry (thankless) burp and I began the laborious process of changing her shirt and diaper. I say “laborious” because she has a low tolerance for being touched in any way unrelated to affection, (an unfortunate result of five weeks of pokes, prods, surgeries and shots). So, changing her clothes makes her cry, and this time was no exception. But the true lamenting didn't occur until I began wiping her face, neck and chest with a warm, wet cloth. (I had to; she smelled like sour milk and stomach bile.)

Despite her protesting with what I call her propeller arms and piston legs, I finally got a clean shirt back on and wrapped her in a fresh blanket to warm her up. At this point I was not in her favor. No sooner did I get her calmed down did she make a calculated statement about how she felt about me. She looked right at me with a sort of infant defiance, and calmly vomited again, in a controlled and measured manner. It was as if she was saying, "Take this dad. This is for rubbing me with that awful wet rag."

So I had to go through the whole ordeal of changing and cleaning her again. She protested and gasped, and lathered herself up in a furious little mood. That is the thanks I get for maintaining a standard of cleanliness.

She's going to hear all about this when she is older.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

The Forsaken Jesus: What does he mean when asking God why?

At the moment before Jesus' death he asks a troubling question: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46, Mark 15:34). When Jesus makes a peculiar statement like this, he just might be saying much more than we first realize.

Did God forsake Jesus? Or is Jesus calling our attention to Psalm 22? His Jewish contemporaries would likely have had it memorized:


Thursday, October 1, 2009

The Enemy: Parable or Personal?


Is Satan real, or only a fable?

In some Christian circles people will argue Satan is a fable, or merely an abstract force of evil personified in the imaginations of people who need someone to blame (other than God).

Some people reject the idea of Satan because the way he’s been caricatured in the West. Believing in a red-tailed, hoofed and horned boogieman, such as Gary Larson, portrays Satan as, is beneath most adults. And for good reason. But dismissing the caricature should not lead to dismissing the real thing.

Since Satan makes very few appearances in the Old Testament, some people argue the Jews adopted the idea of Satan through Persian and Greek influences over time. They will say that by the first century the erroneous idea of Satan had snuck its way in among the Jews. But this is no sound evidence to dismiss Satan as real. There are multiple possibilities explaining his few cameos in the OT – I’ll list three: 



1) The role of Satan had little to do with the communication goal of the OT – that is the rebellion of humanity (where he is mentioned in Gen. 3), the establishment of Israel as a theocracy, the need of an established sacrificial system to shadow the mission of Jesus and Israel’s rebellion (representing Adam and all of humanity). 



2) The reality of Satan may have been gradually revealed by God to the Jews. We get a very narrow picture of Satan in Eden from Genesis 3 and not much after that in the OT. But as time went by, God could have revealed more and more through the Holy Spirit to the Jews. This wouldn’t be the only time God gradually gave the Jews more knowledge about spiritual things as centuries passed. C. S. Lewis (in his book Surprised By Joy) pointed out that God gradually introduced the idea of an afterlife and heaven to Jews. He revealed only Himself first. Until a certain time the Jews believed only in earthly existence and had an idea of retributive justice (do good, you will prosper; do evil, you will suffer). The Sadducees took this line. He may have gradually revealed Satan’s role as well.



and



3) God could have introduced an accurate idea of Satan through pagan influences and revelation. God is known in the Bible to reveal special knowledge to Gentiles too. Melchizedek, Pharaoh, the Persian king, the wise men of Matthew and Cornelius are examples.

Christians who think Jews and early Christians erroneously adopted the idea of Satan must be prepared to accuse all the authors of the New Testament (plus Jesus), of this error. They all describe (or imply) Satan as a personal being who is leading an insurrection against God. (A few examples include all accounts of Jesus temptation, Mark 3:26, Acts 26:18, Rom. 16:20, 2 Cor. 2:11, 1 Pet. 5:8, and 1 John 5:19.) If God really is omnipotent, (and Satan a fable) God would have found a way to accurately communicate the truth in His inspired Word. Plus, NT authors were closer to Jewish antiquity than any of us are and had access to better historical documents that we do. Additionally, Luke and Paul were highly educated men and they along with all NT authors were capable thinkers. To assume they got it wrong and we got it right is an example of what C. S. Lewis calls chronological snobbery; that the philosophy, ideas or worldview of an earlier time are inherently inferior when compared to that of contemporary thinkers.



Christians who accept Satan as fictitious will have a hard time accepting the Bible as the inspired word of God (verbal plenary inspiration), as it claims itself to be. If Christians suppose the authors of the Bible were wrong on this account, how can they be sure NT authors are credible in other areas? If I were to be convinced Satan himself were merely a fable, (and I was honest about it), I could no longer call myself a Christian; the Bible would be nothing more than a set of errant historical documents. 



I suggest if we take away the belief of a powerful, personal, corrupt being who rebelled against God and has an agenda to influence and deceive mankind, we are putting people in a very dangerous position. The Bible commits a moderate amount of text to warning people about Satan and his schemes. If we dismiss Satan, we are not likely to take these warnings seriously – and the warnings are there for a reason.